The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a successful request for adminship. Please do not modify it.

Kudpung[edit]

Final (108/21/8). Closed as successful by WJBscribe @ 10:05, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Nomination[edit]

Kudpung (talk · contribs) – Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honour to present you Kudpung, whose username is derived from a Thai village, and who has tempted me to interrupt my break from the project space! Kudpung is an experienced editor (almost 27k edits, but quality not quantity!) who is largely involved in gnome-ish activities, where he often finds himself having to bug an admin. However, his activity doesn't stop there. He has been a significant contributor to five GAs (Malvern College, Malvern, Worcestershire, Malvern water, Milford Haven, Wellingborough), has spent time largely running Wikipedia:WikiProject School, has founded Wikipedia:WikiProject Worcestershire (the county, not the sauce!) and played a large part in establishing and implementing the WP:BLPPROD process, as well as loitering at WP:EAR to offer assistance to newbies. All things considered, I think Kudpung is a calm, rational and uncontroversial editor, three qualities that would be of great benefit to the admin corps. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:58, 22 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Co-nomination[edit]

For my third ever nomination, I present Kudpung. A member of Wikipedia for five years now, but only active since mid-2009, he's a well-rounded editor with interests in content and deletion. Kudpung has contributed to five good articles, dealt with translation (taking on the formidable Brontë family article), and, as HJ mentions above, began the Worcestershire WikiProject. A much more detailed list of his contributions to the project can be found on his userpage in the "Contribs and Userboxen" section.

Though some of Kudpung's views differ from mine, I cannot help but admire him. It seems that he puts care into every edit he makes and that's a desirable quality in an administrator. He's also got a backbone, and he's not afraid to share his opinion. But he's mature and knows when to contain himself.

Kudpung's comments always seem insightful and he seems to have quite a lot of clue. I usually find them to be well-backed and knowledgeable.

Having some 27,000 edits, Kudpung clearly has the experience to take on the job. He has diversity within that experience, with a large percent of his edits to article space and a decent amount to talk, showing an interest in content while being able to discuss problems and suggestions. With more than 100 edits to three of his good articles, it's obvious that he is dedicated and here for the better of the encyclopedia.

It's undeniable that Kudpung's a strong, well-rounded editor. So it seems only logical to me that he'll be the same as an administrator. ceranthor 20:02, 22 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I thank you both for your kind words and I'm happy to accept.Kudpung (talk) 07:28, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Questions for the candidate[edit]

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. Please answer these questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?

A: I work a lot on BLP and NPP backlogs, and school articles - all areas that have a lot of vandalism, poor or no sourcing, self-promotion, and CSD candidates. I also work regularly at a help desk where many enquiries lead to a use of the tools. I therefore come across many instances where uncontroversial use of the tools is needed. I take an interest in COI and SPI but not being able to view previously deleted pages and users’ deletions, I don’t spend a lot of time in these areas yet. I !vote regularly on AfD for schools, BLP, and music, and would close some of the less controversial issues and DRV, and look into some of the chronic backlog areas, but my Wiki editing time is so full I don’t know which ones yet. Most of the areas I work in are concerned with cleaning up articles and other procedural interventions that need the tools rather than policing the authors who create them, or going on witch hunts for vandals and 3rr, etc. I would of course keep an eye on any filters that ring alarm bells, and chip in on some backlogs such as, for example, MfD etc, that don’t get so much attention. However, I wouldn’t be going out of my way to discover new niche areas where I can wield the mop - the number of daily occasions I come across where the tools could be used among my 50 – 100 daily; mostly manual edits is already enough to keep me very busy, and I work in a time zone where most of the English speaking world is asleep, which would enable me to reduce the nightly or hourly backlog of attack and other CSD pages.

2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?

A: I have a weakness for being talked into helping out on all sorts of projects and backlogs. Very few of my edits are minor or automated, and until I realized that GA is no big personal deal (but definitely a criterion of quality), I used to think it was the Malvern GA; it’s a long article and I didn't create the short stub, but I wrote most of it and took many of the photos for it, and with a lot of help, I got it to GA. Then I thought perhaps it was creating the WP:WORCS project and getting it going. Then I thought it was the translation I was asked to do of the huge French Brontë article (200 kB, 9,000 words). I like to think that I create or expand articles within the guidelines, so most of them (I think) are fairly clean. On policy and meta stuff, I was able to play a significant part in getting the WP:BLPPROD moved forward to operation, and I once worked like a maniac to clear three days of NPP backlog almost single-handed, but it was done to help demonstrate some issues at WP:NPP and BLP. As a result I came up with a new NPP feature that with the help of a bot programmer is now up and running. I’m also trying to revive the huge WP:WPSCHOOLS project and I‘m currently working on ironing out ambiguities in the notability GL for schools. I know it sounds a bit cliché, but probably my best contribution is the sum total of all my contributions.

3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

A: Stress? No. There have been some awkward moments, because anyone who works on quasi-administrative stuff is going to make some enemies among the people who refuse to abide by policy and try to win arguments by gaming the system. I just generally leave a deadpan message with a few links to policy, and walk away without taking too much of the bait. I've never taken anyone to a notice board for anything they have done to me - in fact I don't think I've ever reported anyone except perhaps sockpuppetry, because I’m usually able to resolve such issues before they need to be taken that far and I like to think I can handle any disputes I'm involved in without screwing up editor and admin time. Of course if I had the tools, I would certainly get more involved, as a neutral 3rd party, in cases where only admin judgment is allowed, but as a lay editor, I just try to steer clear of the conflict zones.

I dislike system gaming intensely and I’m very quick to recognise clear cases of it. It is cunning and disingenuous. In my opinion, once their art is blatantly obvious, maintaining a pretense of assuming good faith in such situations is also hypocritical. The only times I was taken to ANI was a long time ago by a very young, former sysop, whom I had templated for what I thought (and still believe) was a serious abuse of the edit summary system. I didn’t handle it too well when he complained and I was threatened with a punitive, cool-off block (by an admin who has since disappeared from Wikipedia after a very short time in office) unless I apologised for what I supposed was a very veiled and mild form of PA. Otherwise, my tp is totally free of warnings of any kind, and I’ve never deleted any. I’ve probably archived a total of two very rude and unwarranted PA messages to stop myself seeing them until I do my monthly archive. Everyone has their own threshold for what they consider breaches of civility and PA - some look between the lines for insults that are not there; it's one of the problems of written conversation that has no intonation to qualify the semantics. I found this meta essay really useful: m:Rule of diminishing replies. Detractors will be smug in the belief they've won, and it might look bad for me on my talk page, but as one editor put it once: as long as the project's integrity is preserved, it's probably OK to let the other party have the last word.

Completely optional additional question from Strikerforce

4. In the course of your usual travels around the project, is there any particular standing Wikipedia policy that you find to be particularly troublesome or a "roadblock" to content creation, more often than it is useful? If yes, which policy? Why do you find it to be troublesome? In brief, in what way would you suggest that policy be modified so that the core rule is still maintained, but it is less of an issue?

A. No, I don't actually find any policies that are a roadblock to content creations. Quite to the contrary however, I find a lot that I consider are open to a too liberal interpretation that allows too many of the wrong kind of articles to be let in or to escape deletion. (See these opinions of mine, Nos. 16 & 19), especially those that are AfD closed as 'no consensus' and hence default to 'keep' simply because not enough people expressed their opinion, even after a relisting, or are closed as 'keep' because a great majority of clueless !voters, or sheer dogged inclusionists, or SPA argue for 'keep' in ignorance (or simulated ignorance) of the policies. However, I am not a deletionist per se, and I'll often !vote keep if the nomination is erroneous, but I do find that on the whole, most articles that face PROD or AfD are there because they should be. Nevertheless, the articles I rescue from even getting as far as a deletion process, far outnumber those I send to AfD or !vote 'delete' on. Policy does not need to be modified, it needs to be expressed more clearly - very often, the words that are wasted at AfD appear to me to be on the interpretation and validity of policy rather than applying it to the notability of the defendant article.

Additional optional question from Ebe123

5. Write a convincing oppose position and then do a rebuttal for your candidacy.

A: Oppose: Kudpung is not really clueful at all about about creations. One of his articles, Klingon Language Suite, was deleted last week. He doesn't really know much about policy does he? We can't have admins who write articles that get red linked.

Reply: It was the only article of mine that has ever been deleted and it was one of my earliest creations, and it was, if I remember, a two-line stub. It must have been two years old, and suddenly last week it came up as a red link in the contribs list on my user page. It wasn't on my watch list because it was probably created before I even knew what a watchlist is. I know it's optional, but I do think the PRODer could have had the decency to template me about it - not that I would have bothered defending it because it was about a competitor's product! I'm satisfied with the number of creations I have already, and any recent ones such as Rose Garrard are most unlikely to face deletion. I intend now to concentrate more on meta stuff and cleaning up and rescuing other people's creations.

Additional optional question from Townlake

6. I've noticed you maintain a lengthy trophy case of barnstars at the top of your user talk page. What is the purpose of your user talk page, and how does this list of barnstars advance that purpose?

A: Lengthy? For the number of edits I've made and the time I've been around there aren't nearly enough! Most admins could fill six pages with their barnstars and some do ;) Actually I don't set store at all by barnstars, althought I'm very grateful to the kind people who have given them to me. I was absolutely top of the class in languages and creative writing at school but all the prizes went to pupils who were less clever than me. I suppose the teachers decided I was good enough already and the others needed more encouragement. Since then, and for the rest of my life I've always declined awards wherever I could, and I feel most uncomfortable when I can't see my way out of having to receive one. I didn't go to any graduation ceremonies at college either - I let them send me my degree certificates by post. The barnstars are on my talk page because I don't want them on my user page, and out of respect for the people who gave them to me, I won't delete them so they've got to go somewhere. My user page is the place for anyone to go who wants to know anything about me, and the barnstars are there too, but very discrete. Perhaps when I have got a dozen more I will make a special page for them, but for the moment, when people give them to me, they arrive on my talk page and that's where they'll stay for a while. The purpose? To make people ask me about them on my RfA ;) But on a more serious note, if you mean to ask what is the purpose of the talk page, then the best answer on Wikipedia is here: User:Kudpung/Don't lose the thread

Additional optional question by NuclearWarfare: 7. HJ Mitchell mentions your activities in getting WP:BLPPROD established. As anyone who followed that discussion is aware, that was a long and messy process. Could you please detail your what exactly you did in that discussion and your opinion of what could have been improved, if anything, with both the process and the end result? NW (Talk) 17:25, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

A: Yes, it was a messy process. There had been around 400 commentators on Phase 1, but I did not join in until Phase 2. I did not - and I want this to be quite clear - contribute a great deal to the crafting of the actual policy itself. I was however largely responsible (I think) for steering the process towards a conclusion - any conclusion. People had been creating sub RfCs, threads were being collapsed, and even other pages were being created. Adding to the confusion were the talk pages of the RfC, (the Wkipedia phenomenon of talk of talk) so all conversations were fragmented over a number of locations. I finally managed to pull some of the elements together into one place so that a kind of consensus could be reached to go ahead with the BLPPROD in principle, and then I created a workshop page to develop the actual templates, scripts, and bots. I do remember personally rushing the consensus through to get the number of days duration of the PROD set at 10 days, but I did this by taking a mean average of all the suggestions that had been made because there was no consensus for any single number of days that had been suggested, and there was tacit agreement to go ahead on this. So you can all blame me for the ten-day thing if it turns out in the future that it was not such a good idea. I also seem to recall having fiddled around with the wording of the template at one stage, and the wording of the notification template for the creator talk page. My involvement was essentially that which we would call Project Manager in RL - keeping out of the individual discussions that are left to the experts, but keeping the wheels turning, through to coordinating the programmers to make the scripts for the templates that had been designed.

I think many of us learned a lot through that process that our method of insisting on consensus by everyone for every little detail makes a process extremely long, and drawn out. Some editors actually resigned from Wikipedia from fatigue on that project. I believe that for site-wide operations like this, we ought to lend more confidence in sub-comittees or work groups with defined members who can reach their own consensus and report back to a steering committee. I am not suggesting that we overturn or modify the Wikipedia fundamental philosophy of consensus, but a show of hands occasionally would get things done faster. One of the main problems with the BLPPROD programme was that new people would come in on it at very late stages and make some very aggressive demands for things to be reviewed all over again, and this began to be quite a problem.

I did not take part in the very last discussion that established what or how many sources would be allowed or disallowed.

The end result was the BLPPROD we know it today. Now that it has been in use for nearly a year, it's time to take its performance under review and gather some statistics. I don't know how to use tools here to extrapolate such data, but there are some specifics that we need to know now, the details of which I won't go into here. I do feel that some changes need to be made, especially on the issues of what sources can be allowed to avoid a BLPPROD, and what sources are permissible to be added to remove a BLPPROD. We are not yet getting the full benefit of the sticky prod principle that we launched, it's a good idea, but it now needs streamlining and made easier for new page patrollers to understand and apply, and the policy regarding the sources need to be reworked.I hope I will be part of that process, and if I am, this time round I will be able to offer my own empirical experience that comes from much work on NPP and deletions.

See the talk page of this RfA for the breakdown of participants in some of the BLPPROD discussions. Kudpung (talk) 19:46, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Additional optional question by Hobit

8. Say a subject meets our general notability guidelines but doesn't meet the relevant subject-specific guideline. Is that a reason to delete or merge the article?

A: I try to interpret and uphold Wikipedia policies, guidelines, the right way - even if I privately don't agree with them. Whether a subject meets our general notability guidelines but doesn't meet the relevant subject-specific guideline is one of the aspects of Wikipedia that is the most confusing, and that I admit that, does not mean that I do not understand those policies or guidelines. I think generally, the main philosophy of Wikipedia is towards inclusionism in so far that if a pretty awful article or a very poorly sourced article is submitted, we do first try to see what can be salvaged by removing the parts that can't be kept, and finding WP:RS for the rest. Two areas where we are ultra strict are BLP and Files, but schools for example has a precedent of its own procedures for which no formal policy exists. Within Wikipedia's philosophy towards inclusionism, we allow schools that would otherwise be deleted, to be merged and redirected, but many SPA - and school articles are practically all written by SPA - fail to appreciate this special immunity from deletion, and by insisting on GNG trumping this recommendation (currently a subject-specific guideline of essay status only) they may be inviting exactly the opposite result of consensus at AfD from the one they were hoping to achieve. If a subject meets our general notability guidelines but doesn't meet the relevant subject-specific guideline, it will be kept, and if it doesn't it won't be deleted either, but will be redirected. The subject specific guideline, at least for schools, is an added protection against complete deletion. Merging/redirecting is uncontroversial and can always easily be undone.

'Followup Atre you prepared to follow the apparent consensus of the community that secondary schools are always considered to be notable, until you succeed in getting it changed? DGG ( talk ) 01:20, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

A:The the apparent consensus by precedent for 'outcomes' is based on on a statement by Jimbo Wales and were being observed a long before I got involved in them, and because those precedents are in favour of keeping or merging, and not for deletion I generally follow them. The consensus broadly accredited to WP:OUTCOMES#Education cannot be accorded any hard proof because it has not yet been subject to recent audit. I don't want the policy or its guidelines changed, I just want more clarity in them regarding the use of the supposed consensus for the 'outcomes', because it will shorten the AfD debates considerably , and dispel some of the acrimony in them. If and and when we get to RfC on it, I/we will not be making a proposal statement that would suggest accepting one opinion over another, and I would be quite happy to accept and implement whatever conclusion is reached by consensus. Essays and guidelines cannot, of course, trump WP:ORG policy, but on AfD I will continue to offer 'outcomes' essays, and guidelines to be taken into consideration, and in this respect I believe that Wikipedia:ONLYESSAY, which ironically is also only an essay, sums up the way I believe I contribute to AfD.

the uniform result at AfD without any exception for the past 2 or 3 years is a pretty good recent audit. DGG ( talk ) 22:34, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I agree wholeheartedly, and there may be thousands of them. However, according to the differences in the weight of policy, guideline, and essay, not all editors agree that it is an admissible argument. Hence I would like to see the policy modified by formal consensus to pronounce either that it is accorded official recognition as policy (or at least be given Guideline status), or on the other hand, a clear understanding that it is not legitimate. Schools represent a significant part of the encyclopedia and I feel that any policy specifically regarding them should be not be left in limbo. Kudpung (talk) 07:18, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Additional optional questions from Hydroxonium

9. In your opinion, what role do new users play in the project?

A:Every one of us here was a 'new user' once, and many joined Wikipedia because we either believed in its philosophy or wanted to correct some imperfections we came across in the articles we were looking up. Others join for reasons of wanting to promote themselves, their band or their business, but all, except the vandals, join with the intention of adding to Wikipedia as a knowledge base.

10. What is your position on WP:AOR?

A: I was hoping this question would come up, that's why I have not mentioned it previously. I welcome the AOR initiative in the absence of any easier way to remove sysop rights. Should this RfA succeed, one of the very first edits I would be making would be to add myself to Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall.

Additional optional question from Lambanog

11. All five of your GAs are about England yet it seems that your screen name is Thai-related, you currently reside in Thailand, and have even helped to translate Thai on occasion. Why haven't you created more higher quality Thai-related content? From what I can tell Thai coverage is lower than it probably should be while there are many talented English users covering English topics. Wouldn't your particular experience and skill set be more valuable to Wikipedia covering Thai topics? Does your Wikipedia philosophy impede or prevent you from contributing Thai-related articles? Have there been times where you have applied that philosophy to others? but

A: I have lived in Thailand for the last 12 years but actually I'm English. My user name was chosen on the spur of the moment when I was registering at Wikipedia, I live at the entrance to the village, and I looked out of the window and happend to see the 'Kudpung' road sign. I didn't start contributing seriously until May 2009 after retiring from my work in Bangkok and moving 800 Km (14 hrs by road) northeast to a remote spot in the jungle. Apart from the Internet, there are next to no resources here, no libraries, no proper records or documentation centres. We can't even get the two English language newspapers, and most Thai newspapers are tabloids. I write about what I know, and where I can comply with Wikipedia's requirement for WP:RS. Nevertheless I have indeed contributed significantly to Education in Thailand, but as you will see, it's a bit thin on sources. I've also contributed heavily to [Isan] and with the same associated difficulties. By contrast, I go to Europe twice a year for a month each time, where I have excellent resources and can travel easily to places that have the sources I need. My next plans are to write about settlements in the south of France, and Lower Saxony in Germany, countries where I have also lived for a very long time. I think my contributions are actually quite diversified - I've also contributed heavily to French wines and written a couple of biographies. I believe we are all entitled to choose what we want to write about. The whole thing that makes Wikipedia work is that we allow people the freedom to write about whatever topic they prefer. It would never cross my mind to tell people what they have to write about.Kudpung (talk) 14:26, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Optional question from Geometry guy

12 You mention above (A5) creating an article on a competitor's product. What is your attitude to conflicts of interest, and how do you handle this, both in relation to editing articles where you have an interest, and in relation to conflicts of interest you notice in other editors? 15:46, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

A: Wikipedia is not a directory web site for promoting one's self, one's work, company, product, or band. Although I only have a fleeting interest COI, I have on several occasions helped SPA/COI authors to completely rewrite their articles for neutrality - but this does not mean that I have a personal interest in the article's subject. It's more that I think the subject is notable and can be sourced as such. These were generally BLP articles that I came across in editor problems at WP:EAR. With other cases of COI that I come across when working through the NPP backlog, after doing some research, I usually apply the required templates to the article and its author's talk page, and move on.Kudpung (talk) 05:27, 27 February 2011 (UTC) I'll just add that the link in Support#44 (Manning) may illustrate how I handle cases of highly suspected COI in the course of a talk page discussion and the subsequent AfD. It clearly shows that I assume GF, at least until I see that the SPA is attempting to game the system. No longer assuming good faith does not mean becoming impolite or uncivil, or making personal attacks. Kudpung (talk) 05:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

General comments[edit]

Links for Kudpung: Kudpung (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
Edit summary usage for Kudpung can be found here.
I think I just ought to point out that my time zone is UK + 7, and anything up to America + 12 or more, so there may be a lag in response time. Thank you for your understanding. --Kudpung (talk) 10:19, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review their contributions before commenting.

Discussion[edit]

v t e RfA/RfB toolbox
Counters	XTools Edit summary usage
Analysis	Articles created Non-automated edits BLP edits AfD votes AfD closes CSD log PROD log
Cross-wiki	CentralAuth Global contributions User rights

Edit stats are on the talk page for those who can't or don't wish to load X!'s tool. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:54, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Support[edit]

Support I was thinking of nominating this editor at some point too, but both co-nominators stole my thunder. Minima c (talk) 10:02, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support I've seen Kudpung around a few times and always felt he was a good editor. Reading over his recent edits, I'm impressed with his temperment and clear way of talking. I would have no problem supporting this candidate. Worm^TT 10:10, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Another no-brainer. Long time coming. Str Pby (talk) 10:23, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support I think Kudpung can be trusted with the tools. We have disagreed on some specific points but I am not going to make some childish grudge-oppose over a disagreement on an AfD months ago. Having seen Kudpung around a lot, I'm sure there's a good understanding of policy and lots of hard work for the benefit of wikipedia. bobrayner (talk) 10:26, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. An easy one. Kudpung has plenty of experience and knowledge of Wikipedia's policies, and has very insightful judgment into policy issues. And he's pretty calm and mellow too, which is what we want. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:26, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
And just an additional thought based on comments below - Kudpung does a lot of good work trying to help newcomers, especially difficult ones. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:44, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support With a single exception (which I am not even gonna raise) this editor has always shown to have a clue when I met him in an AFD, which is all that is required for a good administrator. Yoenit (talk) 10:34, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support I am happy what this user has to say. Plenty of experience. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:07, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support - I see plenty of clue here, and have for a while. There is no real need to go searching through his contributions for it. Reaper Eternal (talk) 11:33, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support A very good editor. I thought you were already an Admin Kudpung =O – Novice7 (talk) 12:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Super Support It's about time. I'm not worried at all over the oppose based on one diff. Kudpung tried hard to resolve the disupte and turn the editor around with no luck. It's hard to deal with very young people like Gobbles, as I also tried. Kudpung has helped write many GA's, and has shown much dedication to the project. He's the type of person Wikipedia needs as admins, helpful, dedicated, cool-headed, and intelligent. Good Luck Kudpung, you'll do fine. Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 13:38, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support I have frequently come across Kudpung, and I have always found him to be a thoughtful and constructive editor. He has a very good grasp of policies, and an intelligent understanding of how to apply them in particular cases. He frequently goes to some effort to explain things to inexperienced users, rather than just throwing a boilerplate warning at them, and looking through his editing history I have found that he regularly patiently explains things in a courteous and constructive way to editors who have created problems. These are characteristics which are of great importance in an administrator. Is he perfect? No, of course not, and Kudpung himself admits in referring to the ANI case he mentions above that he "didn’t handle it too well". However, we all make mistakes sometimes, and the fact that he is able and willing to acknowledge his mistake is a strong point in his favour. That incident was a year ago, and I have not found anything similar more recently. The ability to learn and improve is good. In any case, he merely "didn’t handle it too well", rather than "completely mishandled it". There are people with far worse incidents in their history who have gone on to become excellent administrators. Do I always agree with Kudpung? No, there have been times when I have disagreed quite strongly with him. However, that is no bar to supporting: there is room for administrators with a wide range of points of view. Kudpung is perfectly right in believing that the admin tools would be helpful to him in the course of the sort of work he regularly does. To be able to deal with an issue and move on to other work, rather than to have to seek an admin's help and wait, will help his time working on Wikipedia to be even more productive than it already is. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:42, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support I've been watching the candidate for some time, and I'm impressed at the dedication and cluefulness. This nomination is overdue.--SPhilbrick T 13:52, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Weak support He seems to be good at adminship but he already has lots of groups so he could do enough. ~~Awsome EBE123~~(talk | Contribs) 13:55, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support No reason to expect the tools would be abused. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:58, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support No issues seen, positive interaction history. No reason to believe the tools will be abused. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 14:00, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. Non-controversial nomination, experienced, demonstrated civil interactions, no apparent psychoses. --Quartermaster (talk) 14:14, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
As nom. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:21, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The diff given by the lone oppose sums up my impression at the moment ... Kudpung has worked very hard, he knows a lot, and his his heart is in the right place, but occasionally he says things that offend people. That's an observation, not a reservation ... he'll make a very good admin. - Dank (push to talk) 14:32, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support well respected and trustworthy. Nomination statement is factual and well repreasenative. Ottawa4ever (talk) 14:41, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. Intelligent, civil, trustworthy. Ideal candidate. -- œ ^™ 14:57, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support Another great candidate – integrity, trustworthiness, experience, temperamentally well suited for adminship are all concepts that come to mind when evaluating this candidate--Hokeman (talk) 15:11, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support Easy! --Perseus8235 16:16, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support I run into this user a good amount while gallivanting about Wikipedia. As other people have said, Kudpung clearly knows what's going on in terms of policy, judgement, and civility (and I maintain that the user is generally civil even after reviewing the diff provided in the oppose section). Most of the time I think this user has more of a clue than I do. Seems like an obvious support to me. – GorillaWarfare ^{talk • contribs} 16:54, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Strong support. Extremely well-qualified candidate, good answers to questions. The opposers' concerns are completely unpersuasive. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:09, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support as per a review of contributions and a very positive experience I had with the candidate, who helped slog through some seemingly-intractable sourcing of unreferenced Thai footballers. --j⚛e decker ^{talk to me} 17:11, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support - per Keepscases (and Kudpung is an excellent contributor). Eagles 24/7 (C) 18:36, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support Kudpung is the kind of Wikipedian I hope to grow up to be. I have absolutely no reservations about giving him the mop. --Danger (talk) 19:30, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I think from past observations (eg the BLPPROD development and having deleted quite a few of his CSD-tagged articles) he'll do an excellent job in the deletion-related areas he's nominated. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:33, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. A very dedicated Wikipedian, full of ideas for ways to improve the project. 28bytes (talk) 19:38, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. Kudpung seems to me to have the levelheadedness needed for the mop. His interactions are polite, thoughtful and considerate, particularly with less-experienced editors. --CharlieDelta (talk) 19:48, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. :P -FASTILY ^(TALK) 20:13, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support Civil, trustworthy, and a good article writer. I don't see any issues. Alpha Quadrant ^talk 20:48, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support Kudpung and I have had some 'vigorous' discussion in the past, but I'm please we managed to resolve the situation amicably (I believe so any way...). He also meets my other criteria; therefore, I have no hesitation in supporting his candidacy, I believe he will make a fine and clueful admin. Pol430 talk to me 20:50, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Vigorous but objective, and resolved perfectly amicably. Your project has taken new dimensions in importance since the article in this week's Signpost on uw templates, and you are always most welcome to continue to come to my talk page for feedback, as you have been doing regularly and recently. --Kudpung (talk) 08:48, 2 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. Impressive candidate; will make an excellent admin. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 22:39, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support I've collaborated with Kudpung in several areas, and whilst we don't always agree I greatly respect him. He's done good work in referencing unreferenced BLPs re his own WikiProject and has been helpful both in uBLPs and death anomalies, especially where Thai is needed. Now if we could just get him to learn Chinese.... Ϣere SpielChequers 22:51, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Strong Support - It's about time, I thought you were :P Mlpearc powwow 23:20, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support Helped me out when I needed it, seems to demonstrate a strong understanding of the rules and workings of the encyclopedia. Without pointing to anyone in particular and with all due good faith, it seems a fair few of the delete votes seem to just be based on disagreements in AfDs. I'm also quite frankly somewhat surprised by how incredibly nitpicky !voters are being. Sure, admins should be held to the highest standard, but the idea that because he could have once worded something better or a layout was bad or humor was used in a potentially controversial way are not good reasons to oppose. Hell, there are quite a few admins who have behavior that could be considered downright objectionable, but they still wield the mop well. If any single controversial decision or move was a criterion for opposing admin status, no AfD would ever be closed, no block would ever be made, and no bold edits would ever occur.--Yaksar (let's chat) 23:59, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support - great user. Opposes are fairly unconvincing. Orphan Wiki 01:25, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Looks good. Inka ⁸⁸⁸ 01:43, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. Tiderolls 02:27, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I feel compelled to elaborate after reading some of the opposes. I have experienced instances with Kudpung in which I would've handled things differently. We are different people so I would expect that we would, by definition, approach situations uniquely. Even considering our differences, I trust Kudpung's dedication and their integrity. Tiderolls 06:04, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I was pleasantly surprised to see this up :). Kudpung is a fantastic editor who will do well as an admin and I offer my complete support. Airplaneman ✈ 03:07, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Clueful user. /ƒETCH COMMS / 03:41, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support Yes, Kudpung may be quite a pain for some who can't handle the never-say-give-up discussion orientation Kudpung brings forth :) Ably trustworthy, knowledgeably competent, and humanly err-worthy, Kudpung will be quite a magnanimous and positive addition to the project. Wifione _.......^{Leave a message} 06:18, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support - I've bumped into Kudpung a couple of times, most recently with a particularly virulent SPA at Alex Gregory. He's been cool, calm, displays a thorough knowledge of policy and a has a good head for applying it. Will be good with the mop. Manning (talk) 10:56, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support - User is a reliable and trustworthy editor can be trusted with the sysop tools. ► Wireless Keyboard ◄ 13:36, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support I've had good experiences interacting with this editor. I have checked the details of the oppose votes, and saw nothing of concern. Chzz ► 16:42, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 18:07, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support I was kind of leaning neutral, and I really don't remember having any contact with you, but almost the entirety of my own personal list of "editors I most respect and/or trust the opinions of" have come to your support, often on the basis of personal experience with you. In the absence of any troubling votes in the oppose column, that's enough for me. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:08, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Don't agree with him on everything, but he will probably be fine as an admin :) NW (Talk) 18:57, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support Lovetinkle (talk) 19:12, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Opposes seem to be grasping at straws. Juliancolton (talk) 19:47, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support Kudpung appears to me to be both reliable and clueful with the best interests of Wikipedia at heart. --Jezebel'sPonyo ^{bons mots} 20:05, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support: Kudpung seems to do an enormous amount of good work and will do far more good than harm as an administrator. My support is however qualified by some worries about his approach to any questioning of the rightness of his actions. I have had three direct interactions with him and all I have found to be a little problematic. All three problems were due, I think, to his work on New Page Patrol, his failure to follow the sensible advice given to patrollers: Tagging anything other than attack pages, copyvio, vandalism or complete nonsense only a few minutes after creation is not likely to be constructive and may only serve to annoy the page author. and at least the first two to my own excessive sensitivity to having articles tagged with ugly labels.
The first problem was his tagging of an article I was working on. The article on an obscure 19th century french political magazine, L'Organisateur, was tagged refimporve 1 min after an edit, 9 mins after the start of the article. This led to an acrimonous exchange:[1] and [2]

This was followed by a similar experience on another new article on Raymond Lister where one minute after an edit and three after the start of the article - he again added a tag. This again led to an unpleasant interchange: User_talk:Kudpung/Archive_Oct_2010#Reminder_about_new_page_patrolling and User_talk:Msrasnw#NPP. More worryingly this was followed by whole series of edits (20:32 - 21:08 15 Oct 2010) where he just added stub tags to twenty little articles I had created.

My final interaction was via an Afd for another article where I saw his name on an education deletion listed article. The article was Queensland School for Travelling Show Children. This article was started at [3] 02:25, 16 October 2010 and then there were four more edits before this user tagged it for deletion at 02:36, 16 October 2010 only 9 minutes after the article was started 3 mins after an edit. The thing I find even more worrying than this is that the user then claimed to have done substantial work checking the article first. Pre-deletion request research for this article took over an hour. [[4]].

To summarise: support given the vast amount of good work done. But I have some worries that this user's responses to others querying his edits, tagging and the like are not what I would hope for from an administrator but I further hope that after becoming an administrator his approach to these kind of issues might improve. (Msrasnw (talk) 21:02, 24 February 2011 (UTC))Reply[reply]
Support - I have worked closely with Kudpung recently, and he is clearly here to improve the encyclopedia first and foremost. He's already had a large influence on the course of Wikipedia, and I would hope we can give him the opportunity to have a larger impact as an admin. SnottyWong ^gossip 21:34, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Just because he made enemies with some of the inclusionist crowd doesn't indicate that he would abuse the tools, calm and reasonable in AFD Secret ^account 22:45, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support His level of involvement in Wikipedia, cluefulness, and willingness to discuss shows that he'll make a good admin. First Light (talk) 23:54, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support No issues here. WayneSlam 02:01, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Nominator support. ceranthor 02:10, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. Clueful. --JN 466 02:26, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support - Sufficient experience to use the tools with a minimum of mistakes, a clear reason for needing the tools, no reason to believe Kudpung would deliberately misuse the tools, and no evidence that Kudpung would not be open to review and constructive criticism of his use of the tools. - DustFormsWords (talk) 03:09, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support A clueful, intelligent editor who would be an asset as an admin. Good temperament for the work required. BLPPROD has been a real game changer for the wiki, in a good way -- and I say this as someone who was probably not in favour of it, at first. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 03:53, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
This editor is good people and has a compelling use for the tools. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 04:58, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. Opposed by all the right editors, for all the right reasons. Badger Drink (talk) 05:05, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
How constructive. Are the identities and opinions of the opposers your sole basis for supporting this candidate? Townlake (talk) 14:42, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Badger, comments like that are what bring down Wikipedia. Poor show. Swarm ^X 21:54, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support NPP is a rather thankless job, and having someone who's been in the trenches as an admin will greatly help. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:15, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support We need more admins and you're competent and trustworthy enough. Swarm ^X 07:16, 25 February 2011 (UTC) (moved to oppose)Reply[reply]
Support. Looking at editcount, user history and contributions, I see no reason not to trust this user with the mop. DARTH SIDIOUS 2 ^(Contact) 08:48, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support - A clueful editor who has made and will continue to make an overall positive impact here. I hope you use the tools with humility. P. D. Cook ^{Talk to me!} 15:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support -- Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 17:41, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. Lord Roem (talk) 18:08, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support I see no reasons why not to at this point in time. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:14, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support absolutely. Plutonium27 (talk) 21:04, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support Eusebeus (talk) 22:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. Well qualified in pretty much every department. Some of the opposes are reasonable but not enough to push me out of this column. Alzarian16 (talk) 00:09, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Step hen 01:05, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support Why not? --John (talk) 07:43, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support Good worker who respects policies. Should be sufficiently sensible to avoid problems with undue school deletions. I think talk pages should be for discussion only and was not happy with answer to Q6 but it is a very good sign that Kudpung seems to have taken the suggestion and removed the barnstars (diff). Johnuniq (talk) 09:05, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support I !voted opposite to Kudpung in the Eagle County Charter Academy deletion debate. However, his position there is mainstream and I see nothing wrong with it, other than (of course!) that I think he's wrong. He seems qualified otherwise from a hasty look at the summaries here (I will admit to not having looked in depth). I will not oppose an admin candidate for taking a position opposite to mine. Support.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:50, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
A few of the opposing rationales are slightly concerning, as good temperament and attitude are certainly important qualities for an admin. However, in my personal experience I haven't encountered any problems with Kudpung and not seen much to suggest that they won't use the mop wisely. BigDom talk 19:01, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I agree that some of the opposes bring up valid points and I hope Kupdung will take that criticism on board . However there are also some very poorly rationalized illogical opposes that can and should be ignored. I believe Kupdung will respect consensus even when he does not happen to agree with it. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:08, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. I've gotten a good feel for the candidate's demeanor from WT:RFA (although, come to think of it, maybe commenting there should be an automatic disqualification (joke)), and there's no question in my mind that this is a, well, grown-up person, with a mature and thoughtful mind. What many of the opposers say does not, at all, strike me as without merit. Indeed, much of it rings true. But I balance that against how I've seen the candidate express concern about ways that users can be inconsiderate of one another (for example, the list of bad RfA questions), and I really do not see someone who is bitey. Like others who have commented, I encourage Kudpung to take seriously the criticism that has been made. And I am pleased by the answer about being open to recall. Taking this together, I see a net positive. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:35, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support no reason to think that this user will abuse the tools --rogerd (talk) 02:08, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support Skinwalker (talk) 13:50, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support Yes. ResMar 18:16, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Suppport I've seen his good judgment in action many times in AfD debates about schools, and have learned a lot from what he's said there and in other places. Cullen328 (talk) 20:31, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support A few of the deletion-related points brought up by oppose comments are concerning, but I think Kudpung will do fine on the whole, so this is an AGF !vote. Steven Walling 21:03, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. Generally good contributions. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:22, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support I believe our paths have crossed in the path, and I have no issues supporting. – SMasters (talk) 09:36, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support, no reason not to. Matty (talk) 12:10, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support changing from neutral, I think on balance that he will probably learn quickly enough. He's kept calm here under a barrage of rather hostile questioning, which is a very good sign. DGG ( talk ) 17:32, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. I worked with Kudpung on the sticky prods. He is attentive; he was reasoned and reasonable; he fostered communication and compromise. NOTE: I haven't been editing in about a year. I had told Kudpung that I would support him if he went for adminship, and that's why I'm back here today. Maurreen (talk) 18:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support A well experienced editor, time to give home the mop. Ronhjones ^(Talk) 22:12, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. I believe a lot of the oppose votes make some very good points, and I assume you'll take them on board. I also note a number speak of their opposes being "regretful" or similiarly worded. What I haven't seen is a clear demonstration in opposition as to why you might abuse or misuse the added toolset. I also agree with DGG's sentiments above concerning your calm responses in this RFA. Thus a net positive in my view. Pedro : Chat 22:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support - Kudpung has been around, and been helpful and active - I was unaware of his conflict with Kwami, who I also respect as a Wikipedian, but it does not seem to be a pattern, and Adminship is "no big deal". Rich Farmbrough, 22:32, 28 February 2011 (UTC).Reply[reply]
Support: See below. - Ret.Prof (talk) 22:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support with a dash of Neutral aka an excuse to ramble in discussion with those neutral and opposing :)
I have only interacted with Kudpung recently, after I was invited by another editor to look at some of the referencing in Malvern, Worcestershire, a GA. From this experience, and from looking into his contributions, I consider Kudpung to be an experienced, well-intentioned, and dedicated Wikipedian, whose mature and sensible outlook is an asset to the project. Consequently, he should make a good admin. Yet, despite very much wanting to support his candidacy, I have been hesitating (and considering voting neutral with much the same commentary) because some of the opposes raise concerns that cannot immediately be dismissed, and ring bells with my experience. Some diffs illustrating the last are: appeal to fellow editors not to jeopardize GA status, confident speculation, questioning motives, writing before reading. These are all insubstantial - almost all editors make posts like these sometimes - but may chime with some opposers' concerns.

My impression is that Kudpung has been, or can be, sometimes a little too ready to commit to an opinion or position (e.g. "I dislike system gaming intensely and I’m very quick to recognise clear cases of it."). I think early commitment rather than inflexibility underlies the perception that Kudpung does not often back down or admit he is wrong. My experience, not only of this RfA, but of Kudpung in general, is that he does listen and respond, and that he has taken on board criticism made here. I therefore encourage editors focusing on perceived flaws not to miss the bigger picture: no one is perfect, but we need more admins with such a strong interest in the good of the project. Geometry guy 23:09, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support, DGG said it well, there are some concerns but overall, I think a net postive - especially the calm and even-tempered handling of this RFA. Dreadstar ☥ 23:22, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support - This user ~~doesn't meet~~ meets my RfA Criteria :P Kudpung is a very experienced, knowledgeable and trustworthy user. It goes without say he'd do us good in taking up the mop and bucket. —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 11:44am • 00:44, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support - Kudpung and I have disagreed once or twice, and as Wifione says, perhaps Kudpung has his rough edges (my paraphrase); on balance, though, I believe he will be diligent in making consistent and positive contributions as an admin. Frank | talk 01:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support - the opposes raise some valid concerns, however overall I'm sure you'll be ok. PhilKnight (talk) 01:59, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support - Absolutely. Monterey Bay (talk) 04:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support - I think he can keep it together...Modernist (talk) 04:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. I run into Kudpung often enough, and I have no problem supporting them. I think they're doing a pretty good job at this RfA, and I don't mind being a follower if it's DGG I'm following. Disclaimer: Kudpung left me a nice note, which served as a reminder that I hadn't yet weighed in here. Voila. Drmies (talk) 05:21, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support - No reason not to. Ronk01 talk 17:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support - I knew this RfA was coming, but I held off from commenting until now. If I'm honest, I wasn't expecting it to be as controversial as it has been. I have known Kudpung for a while from WikiProject Schools, and there can be no doubt he has been of great service to this project. I have read through the opposes carefully, as a lot of issues have been raised. On the issue of age, I understand Kudpung has been quite frank on age related issues, but I don't think that means he is always hostile to younger editors, I myself being youngish. I'm not sure I'm in complete agreement with Kudpung on school notability, but as long as he is willing to listen, which I think he is, then that is again not a problem. On reflection, I conclude that he passes my RfA criteria. CT Cooper · talk 22:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I've been thinking about this candidacy and reviewing it ever since it's been up, and I've decided to support Kudpung. I have been aware of some of the concerns listed in the oppose section, but in the end I think I can support: Kudpung is clearly experienced, but looking here and judging from past observations he appears to be communicative and responsive to concerns as well as an overall friendly editor, and providing he remains this way as an admin, then I think he'll do fine and will not be a problem. I also don't believe he'd want to let people down; so based on all of this, I can support. Acalamari 22:40, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support - Like Acalamari, I hung back, waiting to see if the opposers could convince me. They had some concerns about deletions and temperment, but after review I give a wholehearted thumbs-up to Kudpung. My best wishes and thanks for your service to Wikipedia. Jus da fax 05:22, 2 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Weak support I kept thinking the opposers might come up with something to sway me... and there's minor problems, and Sonia's opinion definitely concerns me. Young people and newcomers are the necessary ingredients to ensure Wikipedia remains a viable project, not only for 2015 but for 2055. Courcelles 06:34, 2 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support. A fully qualified candidate who is helpful with new editors and willing to work on backlogs. A review of his CSD tagging turned up (as I knew it would) no problems. I have found the arguments made in the sections below unconvincing. -- Lear's Fool 08:27, 2 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Weak support We have a drastic difference of opinion on the inclusion of school related articles and I am generally hesitant to support editors who place such a high priority on subject-specific Wikiproject guidelines, but your answers to the questions, particularly where you discuss the difference between essays and policy, display good judgement as well as an experienced view on policy. I would suggest avoiding contested school deletion closures, which I'm pretty sure you would do given your participatioin with the project your desire to participate directly in the discussions. Them From Space 08:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thanks TfS, your advice is bang on. As one of the janitors of WP:WPSCH, and as a creator and editor of many school articles, I would avoid any kind of COI by attempting to close any school AfD that are contoversial and that do not have a clear consensus that I can easily recognise. Kudpung (talk) 09:28, 2 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Oppose[edit]

Oppose per diff[5] provided by the first neutral comment below. While it appears that the interaction may have been with a rather difficult editor to converse with, I believe that it was bad judgement for Kudpung to have gotten involved when he did. I also have a problem with the interaction that the candidate chose to provide in one of his answers above. I will investigate further, but my first instinct is to oppose based on communication issues. Strikerforce (talk) 11:39, 23 February 2011 (UTC) Switching to neutralReply[reply]

I really couldn't disagree more, for the reason I have outlined below in the "neutral" section. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:52, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Oppose Keepscases (talk) 14:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Struck per below by Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 03:12, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Unstruck by 28bytes (talk). 04:42, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Can I ask you why? I hope you know that without reason your oppose carries very little wieght. Well, let me throw out a guess. It's because Kudpung does not agree with the questions you ask on RFA isn't it? Your behaviour continues to frustrate me.....Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 14:58, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Time for an RFA ban? Keepscases has made only about 1500 edits in nearly four years, but the vast majority have been to RFAs - usually asking ridiculous questions. That he can't even be bothered to explain his opposition for those who don't know the backstory doesn't help his case either. AD 15:03, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Unfortunately Keepscases has not provided a reason for their opposition, so we can only speculate. Since Kudpung doesn't have an atheist userbox, this isn't like the more memorable Keepscases opposes, so the most likely explanation is that Kudpung has repeatedly commented on the RfA gauntlet - and, specifically, the questions that get asked at RfA; it appears Keepscases is opposing a candidate who thinks that too many bad questions are asked at RfA. bobrayner (talk) 17:47, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wot? No question? Keepscases, you've ruined my day. The only reason I agreed to run for office was for an opportunity to answer one of your questions :) Kudpung (talk) 15:25, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Should we indent this? Swarm ^X 07:12, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I don't see a need. 'Crats have a great deal of sense. Chzz ► 17:11, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Indenting opposes is usually done as a sign invalidation - not because 'crats are easily confused. Swarm ^X 00:39, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Boldly indented per above. If I am wrong to do so, please revert me. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 01:11, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Boldly unindented. I disagree with Keepscases but he's got a right to his view. 28bytes (talk) 04:42, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
And I have no qualms with being reverted. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 05:00, 1 March 2011 (UTC) Reply[reply]
I agree with the oppose but Keepscases didn't share a view. Opposing with no comment is unhelpful at best, disruptive at worst. Reconsider? Swarm ^X 22:27, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
No disruption caused here that I can see. There's no rule against being unhelpful. Danger (talk) 22:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
And I take it there's no rule against voting either? See my comments on my talk page. Swarm ^X 04:42, 2 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

~~Oppose~~- Moved to Neutral - I look to an administrator as a representative of Wikipedia. Their actions (administrators), in my personal standards, reflect the thoughts and opinions of the organization as a whole. Not just the attitude of one individual. I also look to administrators, to show a maturity and a bearing that does not lower their words or actions to pander to a group or to sartorially comment on any individual editor opinions too come across as witty, as done above to Keepscases. Though you may not agree with their opinion, to belittle an opinion of another editor in this forum and in that way leaves me to wonder how you may respond when faced with a situation that requires tact and decorum to further Wikipedia's missions and goals when representing Wikipedia as an administrator. ShoesssS ^Talk —Preceding undated comment added 19:36, 23 February 2011 (UTC).Reply[reply]

Oh come on, we're allowed to have a sense of humor here. What exactly would have been a better way to handle this (IMO rather awkward) situation? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:18, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Kudpung, ought to have commented on Keepscases snappy dressing. Danger (talk) 19:19, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Comment - You are right, we all have a sense of humor, and sometimes we forget that something said in jest is done with tongue in cheek. However, some people get what we are talking about, and some people don't. Sometimes the majority of our audience sees a situation funny, and others see a slur. And that is the problem. As an administrator, I look to the individual to see all sides. Not just his/her's or their friends or individuals in their circle of trust, but all sides. If I saw a potential for a problem (and took the time to express a written opinion), how many others saw it to? ShoesssS ^Talk 19:28, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I guess I don't really see what problem you're getting at here, but I don't want to badger you. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:10, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
A warning to everyone on Wikipedia. HOMOUR IS BANNED. Especially if you wish to be an admin. No more jokes or witty comments or you'll be blocked indefinately. Orphan Wiki 01:22, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
You may find this little bit rather amusing, then. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:18, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Oppose per the diff provided above. I might be willing to overlook it if it were less recent, but I expect a high level of civility from administrators. Kansan (talk) 16:27, 23 February 2011 (UTC) Reply[reply]
I've changed my mind after reading through it again. Kansan (talk) 17:27, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Based on the TLDR answer to Q6, and your genuine surprise at Sandy's reaction to it, it doesn't seem you sufficiently value the time of project volunteers who aren't operating on your wavelength. Townlake (talk) 20:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Oppose Seems to operate on his own personal ideas of notability and personal essays like WP:Run-of-the-mill rather than following the guideline's objective principles. For example, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Avenues: The World School or Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eagle County Charter Academy. Determining that a topic is special or unusual in some way is not our policy as we usually aim to cover all members of a class for which there are reasonable sources. Colonel Warden (talk) 23:45, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Oppose I don't trust this editor to be neutral and to properly weigh in what everyone says in an AFD. Dream Focus 23:58, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Do you have any diffs to support ignoring of consensus? (Oh, and don't try to use the AfDs provided by Col. Warden; these deal with policy interpretation, not consensus building.) ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 00:53, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I too am confused by this oppose; what exactly makes you believe that Kudpung will not be neutral / take things into account properly? ceranthor 19:47, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
~~weak~~ oppose I'm having problems with "As a school however, it cannot possibly be notable - it doesn't exist ad will not for nearly two years. It will still not meet notability for schools until 2016 when it starts offering Grade 12 classes" [6]. The (apparent) opinion that an essay on notability for schools trumps the GNG seems not only odd (and frankly mistaken), that whole discussion seemed off to me. I can live with the notion that he didn't find the sources in the AfD in question strong enough, but that (very recent) quote really bothers me. His answer to my question didn't really clarify anything for me. That said, I'm seeing a highly active and helpful editor who does a lot of great things. I'm just not sure I trust them with the delete button at this time. Hobit (talk) 13:58, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I understand your rationale Hobit, but you are not highlighting the fact that the article is not in fact about a school at all, and I was just evoking an hypothesis with that sentence. My error was in referring to it as a school in my opening gambit. A global project that is concerned with the eventual building of a group of schools worldwide, cannot have notability as a school even if the page has the word school in its name. If we are to question my trust for using the delete button, (where this is the kind of controversial close that I do not intend to do anyway if the consensus is not clear - ~~the~~ other admins have made contentious closes their speciality), then please base your lack of trust on my AfD nomination in which I stated: Article is about a school and/or a group of schools that does not exist yet, and which may not exist for a long time. As such, the subject cannot have accumulated any notability: WP:CRYSTAL, WP:GNG, and WP:ORG. ~~That AfD had support from~~

Jimbo Wales has more or less inferred that High schools ('as long as we don't create tons of stubs') are practically de facto notable; our tacit understanding, borne by precedent of thousands of kept High school articles however poorly sourced, has little in fact to do with WP:WPSCH/AG which is an essay only and merely reports Mr Wales' opinion. Furthermore, even the primary schools that are still required to defend their notability per GNG and ORG, are offered the exceptional privilege of being redirected rather than deleted, if they can't. There is absolutely no question that an essay can trump a policy, and nowhere have I ever inferred that it can.

The key question in that rather unusual AfD which was closed as no consensus, was not so much one of notability but 'when is a school not a school?' - should the article be kept as a notable project, or deleted as a school or schools that does/do not exist? With all due respect therefore, I cannot see much of a risk of me being quick on the delete button in the case of any school. Kudpung (talk) 15:17, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Humm, my issue is with your statement that a school can't be notable until and unless it offers 12th grade classes. The GNG pretty clearly says otherwise. I'm suspecting you meant something else, but you seem to keep coming back to that notion in the AfD. Further, just because something doesn't exist yet, doesn't mean that it can't have notability; WP:CRYSTAL is darn clear on that issue. If you simply think that WP:CRYSTAL/WP:GNG/WP:ORG should say that non-existent things shouldn't be notable, I don't see an admin problem. But instead I'm seeing you claim that they say that now. That's a worry. Finally, though I suspect it's a language issue, I'm seeing indications you are treating the deletion process as a game where your job is to delete things. "opening gambit" here in particular, but also parts of you response to Q8. Again, I'm seeing what looks like a good editor who does a lot of great things around here and I suspect you'll be a net positive. But the above issues are worrying enough that I feel I need to continue to oppose. Hobit (talk) 15:51, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
struck "weak" on the basis issues with bitey issues raised below by decltype and Sonia. Between that and the inherent non-notability thing I've got serious worries. Hobit (talk) 16:07, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Candidate will probably be a good sysop, and looks likely to pass anyway, but I'm compelled to sit in this section because his attitude against younger editors alarms me. A lot of his commentary at WT:RFA is age-related (and while it's a commonly discussed topic, I've seen Kudpung bring it up where it is not otherwise relevant a few times), and rather negative. I've always held the view that we can't restrict young people from editing unless we rescind being a free-as-in-speech encyclopedia, and alienating them is doing an injustice to those of our younger sysops/crats/editors who do a remarkable job. Count this as a "moral oppose", if you like, because it's meant in the same way as the moral supports that seem to come up-- best of luck, but do bear this in mind if/when you pass. sonia♫ 00:14, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Ooh, thanks for reminding me. Gotta have a talk with that boy. - Dank (push to talk) 03:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Sonia, have you read this? It may surprise you to learn that I agree with it entirely. With the greatest of respect, I do think perhaps that the points you are referring to may be probably more concerned with maturity issues, and not ones of physical age. Discussions at WT:RfA have generally been about how to discourage obviously young and unqualified editors from running at AfD without offending them or discouraging them from continuing to contribute to the encyclopedia. If I'm wrong, do please provide the diffs so that I can work on it.Kudpung (talk) 07:15, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. No, I hadn't read that page, but it is indeed very accurate. As for diffs- it was more of a feeling (which from reading through your contribs I can see may have been misinterpreted), but [7] [8] [9] are examples which explicitly refer to age as an assessment of users in discussions not already about children. I suspect my general impression of your attitude came from comments more like this one where "newbs and minors" are grouped together on one breath. I understand that may not be how you intend to come across, but you put forth a rather judgemental persona at times. sonia♫ 08:50, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Oppose ...escape deletion...clueless !voters...sheer dogged inclusionists...Not at all the atitude I want admins to have. RxS (talk) 00:26, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Maybe I'm missing an in-reference... but that doesn't make much sense to me unfortunately. Could you please elaborate? Thanks. Juliancolton (talk) 03:42, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
See question 4. RxS (talk) 04:30, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

~~Oppose~~ Move to neutral This is, essentially, a single-issue !vote related to the opinions and attitudes (about wiki-notability, himself, and others) that Kudpung has expressed in discussions of school articles. Kudpung has many good qualities, has made many excellent contributions, and seems to be seeking adminship for the right reasons -- so that he can contribute even more. All those good qualities notwithstanding, I must oppose him due to his insistence on what I will describe as a "Doctrine of Inherent Non-Notability" for certain topics, specifically pre-secondary schools. Additionally, I'm concerned about a pattern of expressing of contempt and condescension for various other contributors and a habit of congratulating himself as some sort of a hero because he has merged and redirected school articles that he considered to be non-notable. I first encountered these views/behaviors of his only quite recently, but I have seen them repeatedly. At Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/St. Andrew's Episcopal School (Amarillo, Texas), Kudpung asserted that sources are insufficient to establish notability, criticized the teenaged newbie article creator for "claim[ing] to be a member of the Schools Project but isn't and didn't read the guidelines before writing their first article]," disparaged the AfD nominator for starting the AfD, saying the article "could have been merged and redirected uncontentiously with a friendly note to the creator to explain why," and then (in effect) congratulated himself, saying "I've saved hundreds of schools from deletion this way." This diff is another expression of the view that presecondary schools are inherently nonnotable, a conclusion that in this case was apparently based not so much on Wikipedia policy as on Kudpung's own (self-declared) vast knowledge of the world. Additional examples of Kudpung expressing that Doctrine of Inherent Non-Notabiity or otherwise being heavy-handed on the topic of notability for schools are in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eagle County Charter Academy and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Avenues: The World School, which have already been cited and discussed by others. I should note that in an exchange on my talk page (series of diffs) he objected to my allegation that he considers all elementary and middle schools to be non-notable, but his denial was not awfully convincing because he endorsed the idea as a good one (and chastised me for failing to recognize that he was joking). This diff is another example of gratuitous disparagement of another user. Finally, in this diff from yet another school AfD, I was taken aback by Kudpung's assertion that an article about a defunct school need not be merged and redirected -- am I to understand that things past are not relevant to Wikipedia?
I fully expect that Kudpung will be handed the mop at the end of this process, but I want this RfA to induce him to (1) discard his theories of "Inherent Non-Notability" (yes, I fully agree that the vast majority of elementary schools are non-notable, but that doesn't mean there is any such thing as inherent non-notability) and (2) recognize and renounce the arrogance he sometimes expresses in interactions here. --Orlady (talk) 04:25, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm interested in this concept of "inherent non-notability", because I can't distinguish it from rhetoric. There are some topics on Wikipedia which have been declared to be "inherently notable". Examples include high schools, human settlements, geological features, etc. These things are assumed to be notable unless evidence is presented to the contrary. Could we not describe everything that is not inherently notable to be "inherently non-notable", such that they are presumed to be non-notable unless evidence is presented to the contrary (i.e. if they can be shown to pass GNG)? Is there a difference between subjects which are "inherently non-notable" and those that are "not inherently notable"? We seem to be mincing words here. I've looked through the diffs you provide, and I find no evidence that Kudpung believes that secondary schools are inherently non-notable, in the sense that they can never be considered notable. I get the sense that he assumes secondary schools to be non-notable unless there is something unique or extraordinary about the school which sets it apart from the rest, and I honestly don't see the problem with that perspective. I also don't see any evidence of the contempt, condescension, or self-congratulation that you describe; this appears to be a negative slant that you are artificially applying to the situation. —SW— ^verbalize 05:04, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Kudpung has not said that secondary schools are inherently non-notable; he treats those as inherently notable. It's pre-secondary schools that he seems to consider to be inherently non-notable. At this AfD, he stated crisply that "the school has not demonstrated sufficient notability for its own Wikipedia page" at a time when the article cited 12 reliable sources independent of the article topic, including several from far outside the local area, mostly telling about the school's record of repeated success in a U.S. national academic competition. After I pointed out the sourced information and asked him to explain his reasoning, he provided a longer exposition on the non-notability of pre-secondary schools (and other topics). It was from those comments that I concluded that Kudpung subscribes to a Doctrine of Inherent Non-notability that trumps the general notability guideline and that his doctrine holds that it is essentially impossible for any pre-secondary school ever to be notable. --Orlady (talk) 17:36, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes, sorry I meant pre-secondary schools. Ok, so you had a disagreement with him on a few pre-secondary school AfD's. I'm not sure that's really enough evidence to pigeon-hole Kudpung and make accusations that he subscribes to a "Doctrine of Inherent Non-notability" (which, of course, is non-existent and the capital letters are a bit obnoxious in my opinion). It's one thing to disagree about the notability of a subject with someone, and a whole other thing to assume that they will apply that same rationale to every AfD in which they participate. I think your assumption is a bit premature and not supported by the evidence I've seen. —SW— ^talk 20:22, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I did not see these as isolated disagreements on a couple of AfDs. The exchange regarding St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Amarillo was just one of several AfDs, but there also was some user-talk-page discussion on broad principles, particularly this diff and this diff in which he pleasantly but firmly informed me that I do not understand the guidelines on notability of schools, but disagreements with people like me are not going to deter him from making sure that his (i.e., the correct) interpretation of the notability guidelines and precedents is followed. --Orlady (talk) 01:02, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think my answer to the Follow Up question by DGG to question No.8 may eventually help to clarify at least some of all this. Kudpung (talk) 06:02, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Actually, I cannot figure out from the response just where you stand, or what you propose to do. I'll judge by you actual guideline proposal, but this tends to confirm the views of some here that you discuss things at considerable length without fully clarifying your position. I need to check what advice you actually do give new users, which is the basic role of any admin.. DGG ( talk ) 23:51, 25 February 2011 (UTC) .Reply[reply]
Oppose One of the most unpleasant and seemingly purposefully obtuse long-standing editors I've ever dealt with. I'm sure he'll say the same of me, but we do not need admins who are inflexible, uncooperative, superior, contemptuous, and incapable of admitting error. I mean, refusing to provide any evidence for a claim over the course of months, specifically saying that he is not required to provide any evidence for his claims, but that we need to change our MOS immediately on his say-so or else. Really, one of the worst people I've met on WP. (It's a bit late to dig up diffs right now, though he kept a complaint page on me, and even that shows him in a bad light.) — kwami (talk) 07:06, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Oppose. While my own interactions with Kudpung has been positive, I have no choice but to land here, having investigated Kwami's somewhat vague oppose directly above. I was very disappointed by Kudpung's demeanor on Wikipedia talk:IPA for English, and the long-standing dispute with Kwami. A comment like (...)it just goes to demonstrate yet again (sigh) that the IPA and pronunciation articles are dominated by a bunch of semi-intelectual clowns pretending to be linguists. What have they been smoking this time? (though this outburst seems to be the exception rather than the rule), is not something I would expect from someone who has expressed their disapproval of drama-mongering at RfA. Having banned Kwami from his talkpage (I have asked you now several times to keep off my talk page. Any furthjer incursions here are clear attempts at a flame war), Kudpung goes to Kwami's to inform them that (...)I may feel that my only recourse will be to escalate to an area where your constant personal attacks and abuse may require some explanation, and where your knowledge of linguistics will not help you. Seems like ~~textbook drama-mongering~~a rather unconstructive comment to me. Not saying that Kwami has no fault in the situation, but they are not the one standing for adminship here. Thus, oppose for now. decltype (talk) 08:56, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
(edit conflict)I never said any those things, never even vaguely stating that "that we need to change our MOS immediately on his say-so or else ", and I can still provide the diffs for every conversation we ever had, including the 58 comments I offered to Wikipedia talk:IPA for English in December 2009 and January 2010, and everything from the user talk pages. The 'complaints' page was a draft RfC with its components for editing it, about unilateral changes that were being made across the board without consensus to the IPA for British place names, and against which numerous editors had complained and who were monitoring and commenting on the development of the RfC draft in my user space. There were links on the draft to various comments you and I and others had made. I knew very little about admin authority in those days and I was intimidated by it, so although I questioned your authority to make those changes, I do not recall ever having been discourteous. After a long exchange of exceptionally cordial emails with one user who strongly supported your IPA changes who was prepared to discuss the problems, I decided to move on and the draft RfC was deleted. The matter remained unresolved, and new complaints and/or queries about those rhotic edits still continue to arrive at Wikipedia, but other than acknowledge them, I haven't pursued them.Kudpung (talk) 09:04, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Decaltype, those issues were a year ago, and they partly expressed my sincere disappointment in the behaviour of an admin. It was one of the episodes that motivated me to participate in RfA !voting and in WT:RfA to better understand the criteria we apply to choosing our admins. I note that you have not included the diffs for the direct persona attacks that were made by Kwami. I may feel that my only recourse will be to escalate to an area where your constant personal attacks and abuse may require some explanation, and where your knowledge of linguistics will not help you was made when I was considering what the options were for complaining about admins. Suggesting to an admin that I may have to escalate his personal attacks, is not, in my opinion, discourteous.Kudpung (talk) 09:14, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thanks for providing some perspective. When the comments forming the dispute is scattered across many different pages/archives from a while back it is difficult to see the whole picture. But despite repeated accusations by you of incivility and personal attacks, I were unable to locate any gross violations. In any case, I don't think your RfA is the proper venue for examining Kwami's conduct. FWIW, In light of your reply, I have amended my wording above slightly. decltype (talk) 09:37, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I find it entirely possible that Kudpung behaved the way he did because he was intimidated by me being an admin. And I can hardly hold my own behaviour up as a model of rectitude. It's also quite possible that he's changed in the past year (the exchange at Worcester, though frustrating, was better than earlier ones, even though by that point we were both primed to react negatively to each other), or that our personalities simply clashed, but he was also quite rude to several other editors. (I really should back up my allegations with diffs, but frankly dealing with Kudpung was so unpleasant that I would rather not revisit it.) The truly frustrating thing, however, was that he insisted, again and again, that he needn't answer any questions or provide any evidence for his demands because he was acting on the behalf of others, who he refused to name. For instance, it took several months to get him to answer the simple question of whether he believed Received Pronunciation has linking R, which was relevant to whether we were on the same page theoretically when debating if there's an /r/ at the end of names like Worcester. (The British Library says there is one, many pronunciation guides say there isn't, Wells says he has an /r/ at the ends of words after some vowels, but not in a name like Worcester, etc.)

Kudpung is obviously intelligent and well qualified to edit the many articles he works on. His overall contribution on WP, my frustration aside, is overwhelmingly positive. If I'm wrong, WP will be better for his presence, but I'm dubious about his emotional fit to being an admin. — kwami (talk) 09:46, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Unfortunately per Sonia. I'll quote from my talk page: "While I often agree with what you have to say, around RFAs and such, your name does ring a bell in a less positive way. I think it's usually around discussions of teenage admins/editors, and your general negative opinion of them. While I can see where you're coming from, I think it unfair to consider all teens as a stereotype. This is especially true when we have some perfectly decent admins who are teenagers, who have never caused any problems, and at the same time we have some horrendously immature adults. I know that many people are of the same opinion as you, but like with RFA questions, I feel that you have sometimes become a bit of a broken record at RFA talk, not normally adding anything new, except another attack at teenagers with no real purpose. We are usually short of good admin candidates, and discussion about how teenagers are all emotional, immature and incapable aren't exactly welcoming for good teenage candidates (which there almost certainly are out there)." Sonia additionally points out you have brought up younger editors and attacked them for no apparent reason at all, in a completely unrelated discussion. It just leaves a bad impression. Like it or not, teen and child editors are our future. AD 13:34, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Oppose on the basis of temperament, especially his defensiveness in acknowledging his own mistakes. As an example, 7 months ago, having told a new contributor that "articles about English subjects are best illustrated with original English images", rather than responding to community disquiet on the article's talk page or apologising to the editor he'd misled, Kudpung attempted to stifle debate and then posted an odd, self-justifying conspiracy theory that laid fault at everyone's door but his own. As well as expertise and an outstanding history of contributions - as Kudpung has - admins need the self confidence to admit it when they're wrong. Alistair Stevenson (talk) 14:26, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yeah, for those who remember User:NYScholar, I see here a candidate who operates in much the same way. Specifically, I'm noticing the candidate frequently writes unnecessarily lengthy screeds, seemingly under the philosophy of "Why use 5 words when 500 will do?", apparently in hopes of winning disagreements through his opponent's fatigue and boredom. Townlake (talk) 14:50, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Oppose A bit regretfully though. I have great respect for anyone who does as much good work as Kudpung does. However, as emphasized above, the candidate has a number of problems that each would make me reconsider supporting and combined they are enough to sway me in this way. I share Sonia's concerns that based on the candidate's edits, there is a real possibility that Kudpung would apply different standards to users based on their age. I also find Alistair's comment above disturbing. Telling a new user that their contribution was incorrect because it was not an English image is puzzling to say the least and the fact that he was not able to acknowledge his mistake is disturbing. Last but not least, it's hard to ignore Hobit's and decltype's comments above. I think Kudpung is a valuable asset to the project but I feel that (at least at this time) he is not admin material. I also was confused (on a side note) by SD taggings such as this and this. Regards So Why 15:31, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Oppose. My knowledge of the candidate is from the debate over how to indicate the pronunciation for Worcester, in which he was an obtuse jerk. He's obviously intelligent and articulate, but he seemed to be playing dumb for the purpose of driving the editor he was debating mad. I can't read Talk:Worcester/Archive_3#Pronunciation_3 and come away thinking that a person with so smarmy yet stubborn a temperament should be given the privileges and powers of adminship. --Atemperman (talk) 20:55, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
While I respect your opinion, that argument took place nearly a year ago. Are you unconvinced that Kudpung has changed? Could you please clarify your opinion on his temperament, perhaps? ceranthor 23:09, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Atemperman, your opinion is quite rancid - addressing an editor as an obtuse jerk in itself is contempt worthy, leave alone the fact that the apparent argument occurred quite a while ago. If you wish your future RfA comments to be viewed worth their weight in logic, you should temper your comments judiciously. Regards. Wifione _.......^{Leave a message} 08:37, 2 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Reluctant oppose. There are many reasons why Kudpung would make an ideal sysop. Experience, clue, tenacity, insightful discussion in many instances, helpful to many new editors. However, there is a temperament issue that gives me pause. I've been mildly rubbed the wrong way by a few of his remarks that I've seen in the past year or two (not oriented at me personally), and the interactions described in opposes 11,13,15 and support 53 really give me pause. These are situations that could have been handled with greater tact, equal benefit to the encyclopedia, and truly minimal extra effort, leading to fewer ruffled feathers. I realize these situations are several months to a year old, and I know there are many other instances where his tone is exactly right. And the principle he outlines on how he would *like* to handle stressful situations in his answer to question 3 is excellent. On balance, I think we'll be better served if Kudpung waits a few months and comes back with a longer track record of ruffled-feather-free interactions. Martinp (talk) 01:00, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Oppose I do believe Kudpung to be a very intelligent individual; however, there are issues with the way the user handles dispute resolution that I find troubling enough to place me here. First, the joke with keepscases. I don't agree with the questions the user usually posts, but I find the lack of tack of taking a jab on your RFA of all places for humors sake (flaming the situation) is not what I would expect from a admin candidate. Second, the passive-aggressive like commentary, as is seen on WP:RFA that has been slightly mentioned above, where on many occasions the editor has singled out individuals whom he does not agree with on issues (questions posed, drama mongering, etc), by refusing to address the editor directly, and instead attempts to call them out with generalized innuendos etiquette. With these and the concerns addressed above by others, and as the editor has stated they plan on working as an administrator mostly within the meta portion of the encyclopedia, I don't feel comfortable supporting at this time. Calmer Waters 02:33, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I asked this above; what exactly was wrong with his response to Keepscases? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 05:26, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
As far as the problem with the joke, I believe it lays with the opinion that I believe that the editor has enough clue as to have known (from his prior experiences in regards to the !voter) that it wouldn't have been regarded as just a joke to them. Humor is fine, I actual enjoy reading cleaver rebuttals, but I just don't believe it to be beneficial when directed negatively towards someone whom they disagree with. I however would not have based an oppose on this one indiscretion alone, if It wasn't for the other temperament issues I have observed in the recent past, as I addressed above. I do believe that if Kudpung takes some of the concerns addressed in this section to heart and not as an attack on his character or his ability to act in the best interest of the encyclopedia, then I too believe he has the ability to be a great admin. I do hope and encourage that he proves these concerns in the future as wrong. Kindly Calmer Waters 08:00, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Whilst a lot of humour is expressed at Keepscases' involvement in RfA, I do believe in hindsight that it was an indiscretion for me to make, what I genuinely thought to be a harmless, and humorous comment on my RfA. Nevertheless, I did not rebuke his !vote, because I am well aware that our guidelines do not state that it is mandatory to elucidate a vote of any kind , and I accord his !vote, with or without a supporting statement, the same weight and respect as any other. Much earlier today I have left a comment on his talk page on an entirely different matter, which I hope he will accept as not only an expression of my good faith, but also as a genuine compliment to his own. Kudpung (talk) 09:39, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

~~Oppose~~ per Orlady and Hobit. There is no such thing as inherent non-notability. Jclemens (talk) 08:21, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Striking my oppose. Jclemens (talk) 19:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Oppose I think Sandy is right on the money despite backing off her own statement. I'm concerned that the comments she quotes demonstrate an eagerness to be awarded and then the candidate insisting they dont want awards even skipping their own graduation seems to be some deep inner thing against recognition that is hiding a need for recognition. I am trying not to make this a personal attack, the candidate seems like a great editor and I have nothing against him personally. I simply feel there is something below the surface that Sandy may have scratched at. I feel slightly deceived by the candidate for these reasons which is why I am forced to oppose. I dont expect the candidate to come out and say "You're right, I really love awards" but the candidates actions of posting those awards at the top of his talk page seem to contradict his words. They appear to say "Hey, look at these before disagreeing with me. I've received all these awards." I'm not against award pages at all or keeping barnstars, I keep three on my own userpage. I am only concerned that they were placed at the top of his talk page. Sorry to Kudpung if my words were hurtful, I only wanted to explain my rationale.--v/r - T P 15:03, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Oppose - doesn't seem to have the right attitude to be an administrator, as seen by some of the links provided elsewhere in this section. In particular, he seems to have issues with civility and WP:AGF, both attributes which are pretty essential to admins. I'm also not too impressed by speedy deletion nominations like [10] - we all make mistakes with CSD, and I know I've misused ((db-attack)) at least once myself, but if you're an admin you really have to get it right first time. (User talk:Kudpung#Sasodei contains another example, of a misused WP:A7 this time.) Robofish (talk) 16:17, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
NPP is an absolutely brutal job to take on. To your first example, I agree that it was a mistake but I can see how it happened. As to the second one; I can't see deleted content, but the article was in fact deleted, albeit under a different criteria, so I'm not sure what the major concern is. The idea behind WP:SNOW exists for a reason. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:10, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If we only allowed people to be admins if they always got it right first time - we would have none. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 21:19, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Oppose For reasons of biteyness and concerns over the theory of inherent non-notability. Attacking other editors directly because of supposed immaturity is a great way to drive off younger editors, who may very well mature into good ones. Given our declining long-term editor base, this is a serious concern. Ray^Talk 19:31, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The immaturity thing is a valid concern, but I don't think Kudpung actually bases maturity on age. This is quite informative on the topic. Alzarian16 (talk) 21:53, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
See Sonia's comment above. AD 14:16, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Oppose per the concerns with temperament raised above. Swarm ^X 21:45, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Regretfully Oppose - The candidate is a very productive editor and is valuable to the project. Unfortunately, several highly respected members of our community have raised issues that are valid concerns. Our community does have a dwindling user base of regulars and at some point that will be our top priority if it isn't already. We must be mindful that our Administrators' conduct in this area greatly influences others — regardless of whether it should or not. Regretfully, I must oppose at this time. - Hydroxonium (H₃O⁺) 01:20, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
We should also be mindful that our comments and conduct at RfA also affect the supply of "regulars" and good admins. I am not picking on you in particular when making this comment. Geometry guy 02:30, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Oppose. No doubt Kudpung is a great contributor; however, he seems to be a delete happy editor. Some of his recent BLPPRODs ([11], [12]), though technically correct, don’t instill confidence in me. He could have as well added a few sources and help the new users who created the article. I expect such a considerate attitude from an administrator. Also concur with what Robofish stated above. Salih (talk) 16:38, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I hate to jump in here, but you're aware that unreferenced BLPs must be deleted according to the policies of the encyclopedia, right? Yes, in this case these were eventually saved, and that's the exact point of a BLP PROD; it notifies the creator and others that this article needs to be sourced or it will be deleted. Yes, in an ideal world every single tagger would have time to do ample research into every single article, but that's never been and will never be the case. It's not like he speedy deleted them; he did the equivalent of saying "hey, you should source this or it will get deleted by an admin." And hell, new page patrollers have a hard time as it is; the burden needs to be at least somewhat on the creator and contributor. I know plenty of admins who have tagged articles for deletion that certainly deserved it at the time but later grew into real solid articles; I hold nothing against those admins, they did exactly what they were supposed to.--Yaksar (let's chat) 18:10, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I think you missed my point. I have no doubt that unreferenced BLPs should be deleted as per the policies of Wikipedia. My concern was Kudpung was mainly interested only in PRODing articles without trying the smallest of effort to improve the article by himself (please show some recent diffs if I am wrong). As an editor one can concentrate the tagging-only work or any other work of his choice. But, from an Admin candidate I expect, at least sometimes, providing sources for unreferenced BLPs. In the absence of this I get a feeling that the candidate is delete-happy editor. For instance, consider [this case. Kudpung BLPPRODDED this article, but admin David Eppstein promptly added a few sources and saved the article. My concern is that if an editor tagged an article for BLPPROD, and an Admin who has Kudpung’s mindset would have deleted the article for the simple reason that it is a violation of Wikipedia policies to keep unreferenced BLP articles. Salih (talk) 07:38, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That's the result of New Page Patrolling being done by a very few users. Those of us who are doing it have to really fight to keep it from becoming flooded, and that means we sometimes have to sacrifice researching an obscure politician in order to deal with everything else. There are far fewer of us than, say, vandal fighters, so if we aren't moving as absolutely fast as we can we'll be stuck with a gigantic backlog (I'm talking 20,000+ pages), which will only allow more unreferenced BLPs to sneak through, which turns into a vicious cycle. I understand what you're saying, but it's pretty much unavoidable that we have to BLPPROD some things without doing more than a quick glance to try to find something. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:44, 2 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Salih, at least with respect to the BLP prod issue, I am reproducing a few lines from our BLP Prod policy: "A nomination may be used to involve the article creator or to ensure that a problematic entry is being attended to more swiftly than by tagging it with BLP unsourced. If, considering all this, you want to use this deletion process, you should:" In other words, combined with the note that it is the responsibility of the original editor to provide references, I have to say that Kudpung's haste in putting the BLP Prods is quite welcome by policy. Wifione _.......^{Leave a message} 08:28, 2 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

~~Oppose:~~The "character" and "trust" issues raised above have given me pause. - Ret.Prof (talk) 18:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC) Changed based on Boring's comment - Ret.Prof (talk) 22:38, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

~~Oppose~~ Partly per Sonia. I think that Kudpung is generally a fantastic editor but there are a few red flags IMHO. Think of it what you will but I do not think highly of Kudpung's views in regards to "children" editing on Wikipedia (being one myself). While this in-of-itself would not cause me to oppose an RFA, Martinp's comments in regards to temperament (among other issues) sums up the rest of my position in this RFA. I'm sorry, perhaps next time around, I'll be in the support column.--White Shadows ^{Stuck in square one} 03:28, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi WhiteShadows, I think you'll find that most of Sonia's examples date from August and the only recent one is from October. I rather suspect that since last summer Kudpung has come to realise that childish behaviour correlates less well with youthfulness than he had thought. Kudpung may have less tolerance for childish behaviour than some of us, but that doesn't mean he gets on badly with younger editors, after-all he accepted a co-nomination from Ceranthor. Ϣere SpielChequers 16:05, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
In addition to that, Kudpung has done a lot to help young editors - including showing far more understanding and patience than most people would -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
So it appears. I've removed my oppose !vote based on what you two said ;) Sorry for making accusations based on "old" evidence :)--White Shadows ^{Stuck in square one} 22:26, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Neutral[edit]

It should be said that Kudpung has always gone out of (his/her?) way to give a well-reasoned argument for opposing, rather than going off of the basis of one question or diff. This is a neutral, but if there is to be opposition I would expect opposers to extend that same courtesy. Nonetheless, I feel uneasy about supporting an admin so soon after what appears to be sticking the knife in [13]. I accept that Gobbleswoggler was an extremely frustrating editor, and was a good example of why we shouldn't blindly assume good faith. But in that instance the issue was resolved, and it was bad judgement to wade back in. —W F C— 10:53, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm not contesting your 'neutral' !vote, but perhaps you'd like to go back 6 months and list the dozens diffs where I tried really hard as a kindly uncle to coax him into seeing reason and avoid him being given the chop. I actually rather liked that kid and felt sorry for him; his personal problems go much deeper than Wikipedia where he sought to escape the frustrations of RL. He was actually editing in totally good faith - albeit disruptive, unlike, for example, this one, and if I had got my knife in a couple of days earlier, he might still have been with us. See my comment about reading too much negative stuff into written messages ;) --Kudpung (talk) 11:55, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Point taken, and I'll mull it over. Perhaps "knife" was in turn too strong a word, but I nonetheless think that it was a questionable decision to return there, and that it would have looked worse were you ever a blocking administrator in similar circumstances. Although as I said before, I think it would be absurd to oppose you on the basis of one diff, unless there were further evidence that this was part of a pattern rather than a lapse in judgement. Regards, —W F C— 13:15, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
In fact the analogy I was making was that I might not have blocked Gobbles for another couple of days, whereas I would have given Crouch the big orange banner a lot sooner than the other admins did. No complaints meant to the sysops however, whose decisions I wholly respect. All of us concerned in both cases did our very best. Kudpung (talk) 14:23, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Actually I thought that Kudpung was making an attempt to be helpful to the person in question. He seemed to me to be trying to help the user to keep the block in proportion, and to encourage them to move on and put it behind them, rather than getting upset about it. He also mentions that he had drafted a "welcome back" message, but that circumstances had led him to drop it. I really don't see how all that can be called "sticking the knife in". Perhaps the message might have been phrased better in a few details, for example "Doesn't that tell you anything?" was perhaps not ideal, but still very mild in the circumstances. Substantially the message reads to me as constructive, and I would regard it as evidence in favour of Kudpung, not against. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:51, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That's exactly how I read it too. A combination of exasperation with the editor and himself may have shown the edit as a little over the top but I felt it was more of a constructive edit than a "sticking the knife in". Worm^TT 14:00, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
You may both be right, although I'm still finding it difficult to see it in that light (beyond reiterating that my choice of phrase was too strong). I'm going to stay here. The opposes are not baseless, but on the other hand I'm not concerned enough to join them. The fact that I'm not opposing should be taken as an overall endorsement, given how different my attitude to notability appears to be to your own. —W F C— 07:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

~~Neutral for now.~~ The diff listed in the Oppose section is troubling, but what concerns me equally is the attitude of the candidate displayed with "For the number of edits I've made and the time I've been around there aren't nearly enough!" And "I was absolutely top of the class in languages and creative writing at school but all the prizes went to pupils who were less clever than me. I suppose the teachers decided I was good enough already and the others needed more encouragement." Sorry, but arrogance and award-seeking behaviors in an admin are not a good start. I'll be watching how this RFA unfolds to see if other issues of concern are raised. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:41, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sandy, I'm sorry that you didn't see the total irony in that statement. I'm very surprised that you would even have thought for a moment that I would be so arrogant and really mean it. I am the complete antithesis of an award seeker as I have clearly explained. There is a difference, a very great difference, between arrogance and a genuine, even on an RfA, perfectly permissible light-hearted response that conveys no offense whatsoever. Kudpung (talk) 16:55, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm relieved to know that, but you might want to lessen the irony while at RFA-- some folks may be even dumber than I am :) And I do suggest moving the barnstars out of your talk space, as reading around them and trying to post to a talk page can be a challenge for newcomers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:04, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Indeed, sometimes that sort of thing can be difficult to interpret. I do agree that the barnstars belong elsewhere - perhaps in a collapsed box on your userpage - as we have to scroll down quite a bit before we get to the actual messages. AD 17:08, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Done - as they were never there for ostentation and miniature ones have been in a modest collapse box on my user page already for a very long time. It really never crossed my mind that they might be a hazard to traffic, but you're probably right. Kudpung (talk) 18:18, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No longer concerned, since it appears I am humor-deprived today. If Kudpung will remind me on talk here where we've crossed paths, I may consider support, but I typically must know a candidate very well before I support. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:14, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
We've run into each other here with you at 133 comments and me at 126 comments throughout 2010 and even answered each other directly and uncontroversially. We have also shared a thread here also on the same topic, and if my memory serves me right we also shared similar opinions on the various RFC pages to get the BLPPROD done (but where those pages are now I have no idea). Your name is one of the most familiar of all to me on Wikipedia. You are among the busiest of editors and you can be forgiven therefore if my name does not ring a bell. Not to worry, not everyone works in the same areas all the time, and there are a lot of people around here. Kudpung (talk) 17:50, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Well, no, I'm not to be forgiven, and will wear my "I'm a dork" t-shirt all day for pennance. My sincere apologies for my irresponsibility here, and I will catch up and come back when I'm not humor-deprived :) Thanks for being so gracious in the face of my faux pas, and my sincere apologies for adding to the agida of RFA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:00, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Still have some concerns in regard to style of interaction that the candidate sometimes slips into, but his answer to my question above and a bit more research lands me here. If this run is successful, my only request of Kudpung is that he be a bit more careful with how he interacts with troublesome editors, as tough as I know that can be, on occasion. Strikerforce (talk) 19:53, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Neutral for now pending further discussion. We expect more than just "civility" from administrators; I want to better understand Kudpung's level of "collegiality". In the meantime, with regards to concerns expressed above about Kudpungs views on deletions, this may be useful: Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Kudpung#AfD nominations, last 12 months. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:44, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Given some of the issues raised in the oppose section, I was expecting that list of AfDs to be far more controversial, but on clicking a bunch at random, they almost all seemed to be fairly agreeable discussions that resulted in delete, merge, or redirect. Thanks for making the list, it gave some good insight.--Yaksar (let's chat) 00:49, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thanks for the comment, Yaksar. I had no particular point of view in generating that list (it took a while to do); I just thought it would shed light one way or another on some of the issues raised above.--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 01:33, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Neutral. Kudpung's contribution record should be enough for me to give an easy support, but I'd feel tepid giving it. The criticisms directed towards his civility or lack thereof don't seem to be particularly strong. Concerns over deletionism give me more pause, but a look through the list by A.B. didn't turn up anything I'd think of as egregious. Nonetheless, the overall impression I get from Kudpung is that he brings a more static mindset to the project that is contrary to the ethos that has made Wikipedia successful. His situation in Thailand but writing about England indicates to me that he'll have a tendency to uphold systemic bias; his push for what he deems relevant questions at RfA on the surface seems commendable enough but it preempts serendipity and necessitates a presumption of knowing what is relevant and what is not and questioning the judgment of another editor. Sometimes a little slack is required in a situation to give it room to sort itself out, I'm not sure Kudpung takes advantage of that as an option. I don't think the foregoing is enough to oppose and it would be a little unfair to Kudpung given his strengths but neutral sounds about right. Lambanog (talk) 04:17, 26 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Nobody has addressed this neutral !vote, so because a majority of comments on this RfA concern my 'philosophy', I hope you'll not mind when I reply to this myself. You are clearly stating that your neutral !vote is based on concerns of 'systemic bias' and a 'static mindset' because I live in Thailand but do not write articles about it. With all due respect, you have not noted the significant contributions I have already made to Thailand articles, and I fail to see the negative connection between my performance and preferences as a content contributor, and the philosophy of Wikipedia. The ethos - as I have understood it - that has made Wikipedia successful, is that anyone can edit, irrespective of age, race, creed, mother tongue, or residence, so long as they remain neutral and do not vandalise the project. Kudpung (talk) 04:41, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Kudpung, are you capable of writing competently about Thai subjects? If yes, why don't you write more? If not, what's stopping you? From your previous comment it would seem your reason is that you don't have access to reliable sources despite living in Thailand which brings up issues related to systemic bias. The question I then find myself asking is "Who is capable of writing such articles?" If you don't have confidence in your own ability to write such articles despite living there for over a decade and having a high facility with the English language I don't see how you can find confidence in many others to do so. Please note that I'm not currently opposing. Lambanog (talk) 16:05, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Neutral. A solid amount of contributions and plenty of clue, but has some civility issues that would not bode well for an administrator. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 12:36, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Neutral I think the complaints about bias , and possibly over-deletionist views, are quite misplaced. A few decisions have been wrong, but that's inevitable if one does a lot of work--perhaps in this case, it's been a little too much work. Similarly, the occasional impatience is due, I think, to trying to take on too much at a time. That's why I have some degree of doubt here. Some admins after their rfa seem to do very little, but at least that does no harm .Someone who is likely to move too fast and attempt too much, can be much more of a problem, even with well developed Wikipedia and writing skills and excellent intentions. As with most new admins, I certainly did some incorrect admin actions in my first few months, and if I had started in faster, i would have done more. I have some doubts about the likelihood of the candidate's going about it slowly enough to learn properly--and perhaps about the candidate's being realistic enough to cut back on some other areas here once he gets thoroughly involved with the new tools. I fell a little odd about not enthusiastically supporting someone I know to do excellent work, but I think this is the clearest way to express my concern. As he will clearly pass, and deserves to pass, I hope he takes this and the other opposes and neutrals as cautions. DGG ( talk ) 05:35, 28 February 2011 (UTC) I've decided to say support; thinking about the existing admins, he'll probably be in the better half & perhaps that's the most pragmatic criterion. DGG ( talk ) 17:38, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thank you for the kind words DGG. There is a lot good advice in there and I'll be taking it. I'll just mention that some of the errors in my NPP tagging were during a campaign to gather some statistics to be able to launch the project to keep tracks on the pages that fall, unpatrolled, off the 30-day list into the Wikipeda. The bot and the category are now up and running and when a few small snags have been ironed out, it will be made more public so that others can work in that area. It is not my intention to work on NPP as intensely again, though I will occasionally help out at the bottom of the backlog from time to time. The work was painstaking because I took time to add cats, stub templates, project banners, and to move misspelled titles. There were errors of course, but nevertheless, I believe the rate not to have been more than 1% among the hundreds I patrolled. Kudpung (talk) 15:14, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Changed from oppose to neutral. I'm changing my !vote, because it is apparent that Kudpung is taking to heart the various concerns that have been discussed in this RfA. I haven't deleted the comments I made under "Oppose" (above). --Orlady (talk) 15:56, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Neutral – My original opinion of Oppose was too harsh of an assessment. Clearly an editor that is experienced, technically proficient and an admirable contributor. However concerns with temperament hold me back from supporting at this time. ShoesssS ^Talk 16:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Neutral. Kudpung clearly does a lot of good work here, but is too readily inclined to deletion for me to be completely happy to support. In several recent AFDs, Kudpung has quickly decided that an article should be deleted when sources to demonstrate notability have been readily available.--Michig (talk) 06:43, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I've long felt that how one !votes at AFD is an unreliable metric to determine how one will act as an administrator. Participating in an AFD and actually deleting an article are not the same thing. For example an AFD I closed is at DRV right now. I happen to agree that it probably should have been deleted or merged, but consensus favored keeping it, so I closed it as keep. The question you should be asking is not "is Kupdung a deletionist?" but rather "will Kupdung respect consensus whether he agrees with it or not?" Beeblebrox (talk) 19:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

AFD's, PRODs and CSDs are all we really have to go on when looking at prospective admins with regard to article deletion, which is one of the main areas where using the tools inappropriately can damage the project. I would have to say that unfortunately several admins come to mind whose failure to judge a topic appropriately in AFDs is matched by a failure to judge them appropriately when hitting the delete button (often without consensus being a consideration), though I'm sure there are exceptions. It's not a question of "is X a deletionist?", that certainly isn't the question I asked here, and I wouldn't oppose someone becoming an admin because they tended towards deletion. There are many good arguments for erring on the side of deletion, just as there are for erring towards keeping articles, it is possible to be in either camp and still demonstrate a willingness and ability to search for sources, evaluate them objectively, and consider the good of the project as an overriding consideration. Unfortunately the only way we can be sure how well an editor will use the delete button is to make them an admin, by which time it is generally too late to take it off them. --Michig (talk) 19:38, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The above adminship discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.