Pbsouthwood (talk·contribs) – Pbsouthwood edits Wikipedia mainly as a content creator, but does some maintenance work, is moderately active in policy discussions, and is a member of a few WikiProjects which are relevant to his primary subject interests in underwater diving and citizen science. He is a member of the recently reformed Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals, where a major drive to improve the system of portals on the encyclopedia is under way. This work is expected to include the deletion of something in the order of 150 000 subpages. which is a significant amount of work. Pbsouthwood, as a member of the project, is willing to take on some of this work, but to delete pages, the admin bit is required, hence this RfA. Pbsouthwood is an admin on other WMF projects, and has not yet recieved complaints of inappropriate admin actions or uncivil interpersonal behaviour. He would be quite happy to get just the necessary subset of admin permissions to do this job for the duration, but that is not currently an option. This RfA is in response to a specific and current need, hence the self-nom. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 06:28, 29 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Questions for the candidate
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: For some time I expect to be busy with subpage deletion for Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals as mentioned above. The amount of work is expected to keep me busy for some time. I am primarly a content creator and contributor to policy discussions, but would be willing to consider other admin work on request, providing that I feel that my involvement would be appropriate and not too far outside my comfort zone.
2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
A: My work on Wikipedia:WikiProject Scuba diving, including one FA and a few GAs, a moderate number of articles brought to B-class or created from scratch, and a fair amount of re-organising of the related content by way of merges and splits. I enjoy collaborative work, but too often there are not enough collaborators where I am busy.
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: Sure, who hasn't? I try to be patient and assume good faith until proven wrong, and to remain civil and discuss problems using logic, reasoning and evidence. Also listening to people and trying to make sure I understand what they are trying to communicate. It usually works. I can change my opinion when sufficient reason is provided. I tend to edit in mostly uncontroversial areas, so it has not been much of a problem for me. Bold-revert-discuss almost always works for me, particularly the discuss part. I have no immediate plans to change.
You may ask optional questions below. There is a limit of two questions per editor. Multi-part questions disguised as one question, with the intention of evading the limit, are disallowed. Follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked are allowed.
4. Administrators are expected to be good at communicating their actions to avoid misunderstandings and bad blood. Usage of edit summaries is, IMHO, crucial to achieve this. You have not been using them consistently, especially on minor edits or removal of content. Why is that and do you plan to change this?
A: I often work on the same article for several consecutive edits, When I go through my work after saving, I often find trivial errors, which I often correct without providing an edit summary. On other occasions I just don't consider the edit worth describing, and sometimes I just plain forget. It is hardly ever a problem. On the rare occasions that I get someone reverting or otherwise disagreeing with my edits, there is no noticeable distinction in frequency between whether I have left an edit summary or not. In summary, I try to remember to leave a summary where I consider it likely that anyone will want to know why I have made an edit, If they want to know what the edit was, they can look at the diff, which is what I do myself. When someone disagrees with an edit or reverts it I discuss it the matter before continuing. I do not plan to change this significantly, as it works for me. If at some stage it appears that changing will make a significant difference, I will change.· · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 10:23, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
5.Per the AfD tool, the "total number of unique AfD pages edited" by you is 12. Yet, you have mentioned using your tools to help with the "deletion of something in the order of 150 000 subpages." 150, 000 pages is a lot of pages, particularly if some of those page deletions are (even somewhat) controversial. Even though you may have been trusted with sysop tools and appropriately performed deletion work on other Wikimedia projects, the English Wikipedia arguably has a more specific set of principles and policies (than other smaller wikis, that is). If not through AfD, how have you demonstrated your knowledge of principles and policies related to deletion work?
A: The 150 000 pages that are expected to be deleted will not be controversial cases. This is a cleanup drive, they will need a little personal attention to make sure there are no frivolous requests, but mostly it will be pretty boring and repetitious work, and someone will have to do it. My thoughts are that it will be convenient for all if there is someone in the associated project who can do this. If there are some cases which need to be undeleted, this can be done on request. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 10:23, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
6. You write that after the deletion work is done you "would be willing to consider other admin work on request". Does that mean that if nobody requests anything, your mop will just gather dust?
A: More accurately, I will be willing to consider other admin work on request during the cleanup drive. It is somewhat premature to speculate how things may change by the time the work is done. If I do not have any use for the mop afterwards, and if anyone wants me to hand it in due to lack of use, they may request its return, and if there is sufficient reasonable consensus that this would be a good thing, I will cheerfully hand it back. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 10:23, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
7. How would being an administrator (specifically being able to use the delete button, but also in general) assist you with your content creation work?
A: Not much at all. I need the deletion button mainly for the WikiProject Portals upgrade project, which will be mainly maintenance. It would be occasionally useful for my content creation work, as I have occasionally needed to request deletion, as when a page has been misnamed due to a typo. I have found this facility useful on the other Wikimedia project where I do a lot of content creation, but it is not important. I am generally available to help people with any tools I have access to when requested, as long as I am within my comfort zone. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 10:23, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
8. Please shed more light on those "specific and current need[s]..." which you said are impetus to this RfA.
A:There is a drive to clean up Portal space by rewriting portals so that they are largely self-maintaining. This is expected to result in a very large number of redundant subpages in Portal namespace. As far as I am aware, there are currently no admins who are members of WikiProject Portals, so these pages must go up for deletion through the usual channels, and will be extra work for the usual admins working on page deletion. I am willing to take on some of this work because I am a member of the project and support its goals, but cannot do it without the delete permission. As a member of the project I watch the project talk page and will see when a new batch is due for deletion, so will be able to clear up the backlog, so that other admins can concentrate on other work. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 10:23, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
9. Several thousand of your recent edits have the summary Revert redundant short description template as now included in disambiguation template or similar. Can you please explain what this is and how you have been doing and if you have been using a script for this. Thanks. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:24, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A:WikiProject Short descriptions is another project I support. The requirement for short descriptions on Wikipedia articles is also a large task, and I started adding them to disambiguation pages using AWB. and to other article pages manually. When some editors with template coding skills are showed that it is more convenient to add simple short descriptions through the disambiguation template, I stopped adding them with AWB, and started deleting those I had added to dab pages. As the AWB edits had made other improvements, and there were other occasional benefits to reverting manually, I chose to take a brief look at each page before removing the redundant short description, and check that the dab templates were appropriate at the same time. This was done manually, so took a little longer, and may not have been worth the extra effort, but it was done. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 10:23, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
10. You say you plan to assist in deleting portal pages, which is a CSD G6 matter. Would you consider finding and deleting unused pages by your own initiative, or would you limit deletions only to those already tagged or listed?
A: I have no desire to hunt down and delete other unused pages, It is not a fun job. If I run into some and it is sufficiently clear that deleting them would be useful in some way I might tag them for deletion, but I would prefer not to delete pages I have found and tagged myself unless they are also pages I created myself, or are part of a project in which I am sufficiently active to be well aware of their lack of value. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 10:23, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
11. This is sort of a follow-up question to #1. In your answer there, you said you would be primarily working on wikiproject portals, answering requests, and "not outside the comfort zones". Would you please be a little precise regarding the areas that you would work in administrative capacity? Like, which requests you would comply to, and what are the areas where you feel you are comfortable/knowledgeable enough to use the tools? Thanks :) —usernamekiran(talk) 08:46, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A: It is difficult to answer this question with specifics, as there are potentially a very large range of tasks where I would not be comfortable with the tools. I would have to judge each case on its merits. For borderline cases I would take advice from another admin known to be active in that area, until I develop sufficient experience and confidence. There is no need to rush in. I expect the portal namespace deletions to occupy enough of my time in the near future, and I do not intend to seriously cut back on content creation.· · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 10:36, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A: If or when the need arises, I would start by refreshing my understanding of the policy by reading it, then proceed with caution. Some of these are outside my experience, so I would be reluctant to take action without discussion, others are more straightforward. I would not delete an article if I was involved in the deletion discussion. Discussions closed as delete by another person I would check if I agree with the closure, and delete if I agree. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 11:44, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
13. Hello Peter, this ties in with Q9. Apart from your portal work you have also been among the prime movers of WikiProject Short descriptions, a project to add a short description to every article, independent of Wikidata. Please explain what steps you have taken to ensure community consensus for this undertaking. Do you consider those steps to have been adequate up to now?
WMF started using article descriptions from Wikidata as disambiguators for Wikipedia article titles returned by searches. In principle, not a bad idea, as it is potentially useful to the reader, but
Some of these descriptions were seriously inappropriate, so some Wikipedians objected, started an RfC, and WMF gave the impression they would stop, but didn't.
There was another RfC to try to sort out the problem. Wikipedians came to the consensus that this was unacceptable and must stop. WMF said they would provide a magic word, and when Wikipedia has 2 million short descriptions of articles they would stop drawing them from Wikidata.
As the consensus of the RfC was that the descriptions from Wikidata must stop, and the way WMF decided to handle it was by providing a software tool (the magic word) without any further consultation with Wikipedia, we are stuck the only practicable method of stopping WMF from using Wikidata being adding short descriptions. It is a highly unsatisfactory imposition to many Wikipedians who took part in the RfC.
I consider that the consensus of that RfC combined with the lack of any practicable alternative is sufficient community consensus to add short descriptions to all articles. If anyone wants to start another RfC to confirm this interpretation, that is an option, but as I don't see any practical result other than what we are already doing, or reversing the decision not to allow Wikidata descriptions, which are not required to comply with Wikipedia policy, notably for NPOV, RS and in particular, BLP, I don't see much point. This view is presumably shared by the other members of the WikiProject. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 13:45, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
14. It seems that, if it weren't for the portal system, you wouldn't have filed this request. Why do you think this case requires its own sysop given that these will not be controversial cases? Put another way, can you expand on your answer to question 8 by explaining what you specifically bring to the table aside from watch[ing] the project talk page?
A: I don't think the project needs its own sysop. I think it is going to create a lot of work for sysops as a by-product of its activity, and as a supporter of the project I am volunteering to deal with as much of that extra work as I feel I can handle. If there is no need for this assistance, it is no problem to me. If there is other work I can do that is useful and within my skills, I can do some of that too. I am not here to be an admin, but if by being an admin I can make enough of a difference to be worth the hassle, I feel morally obliged to make the offer. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 12:36, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Supportprecious! I trust that you won't block (if at all) without talking to a user first. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:15, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Gerda, If it is possible to get the user to respond I will try to communicate first. Sometimes it may happen that they don't respond and a block may be urgent. I am not fond of blocking in principle, and would be quite happy if the need never arises, but this is Wikipedia, and I expect the need to come up occasionally. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 10:48, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I'll stick my neck out even though I haven't come into direct contact with this user. I don't see anything to give me concerns. And well done for having the courage to self-nominate in the present climate. Deb (talk) 07:17, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Great and experienced editor. Very active since 2016. Make sure to use more edit summaries. Abelmoschus Esculentus (talk to me) 07:24, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support There will definitely opposes and complaints on self-nom etc, and lack of experience in deletion; but what matters more than that is whether they have a use and whether they'd do well with the tools. They communicate well in my experience and know their policy. I think in areas where they don't have experience they'd stay away, and they'll respond well to concerns if they make mistakes, and thus I expect mainly/solely positives from them having the tools. Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:29, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict × 2) Support I am not well acquainted with this user, but I have found nothing to be concerned about. They have virtually no participation on the drama boards, which is good. Their AfD record is sparse but contains nothing to be concerned about. Their article contributions seem very solid, and the GA and FA reviews of their work (and their review of others' work) show them to be collegial and polite. I see no reason why they would be unable to use the tools well in the area they wish to work in, and I think they are clueful enough to avoid areas where they do not have enough experience. Vanamonde (talk) 07:32, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support While I have slight trepidation with their desire to be a single-issue admin involved in deleting things when they've only cast 10 AFD !votes in 10 years and have a 71% match rate and no CSD log, the specific task of deleting portals seems more clerical than adjudicative. Their overall content creation credentials look good (more than 100 articles, seeing several through to GA), there is a clean block log, and established tenure. Chetsford (talk) 08:10, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I trust hat e will stay within his area of competence nd be a net positive within it. It's worth noting that portal subpage deletion is utterly uncontroversial, and the easiest G6 imaginable. Tazerdadog (talk) 08:25, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Deleting redundant portal components is something that numerous people are doing by the truckload with all the portal cleanup going on and needed. I personally think Peter comes over well in discussions and knows what's going on. He seems to be an existing admin on Wikivoyage and Wikimania which is probably a good indication of something. Update: Very pleased with the response to my question, showing that Peter intends to only make clear-cut deletions tagged by other people unless it's blindingly obvious.JLJ001 (talk) 08:35, 30 May 2018 (UTC) 10:30, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Impressive work in mainspace area. The user already has adminship experience on other WMF. Nothing negative found. Pratyush (talk) 09:06, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support, what I've seen of their work was good and gives confidence that they won't abuse the tools. Fram (talk) 09:22, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I have reviewed some of the work submitted by this editor for GA & FA promotion, and was pleasantly surprised by his patience, editing skills, attitude as a collaborator, openness to criticism, and focus on the article and task at hand; all of which I find to be desirable traits in an admin. He pays attention to detail, and takes the time necessary to do the research and I believe he will apply those same positive characteristics as an admin. Atsme📞📧 10:35, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Was a little concerned about the single-issue side of things, hence my Q6, but since you indicated in your answer you'd be open to recall, I see no problems. Self noms and edit summaries don't bother me. Good luck. Yintan 11:52, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support: (edit conflict) I didnt have any concerns before commenting in the comments section, nor during the time when I asked the question. As Amory pointed out, lack of visibility to other editors is understandable. Peter's contrib history clearly shows patience, and civility. Wikiproject portals will certainly take a lot of time, and as Tony has pointed out in the comment section below, G6 deletion isn't sexy, but it is frequently needed and having someone who is actually interested in doing it so that someone who doesn't care can spend their time elsewhere is a great benefit to the project. In the meantime, Peter would certainly learn about the toolset. This RfA is not a lot similar, but a little similar to Cobi's RfA. A little similar because Cobi required purely to be a "sys-op", not an "administrator"; whereas Peter needs the toolbox for a primary reason, during and after which he would mutate into an admin. I cant imagine any misuse from his side, and he would be a net-positive as an admin. So no reasons to oppose. —usernamekiran(talk) 12:01, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Looking to do a thankless job and definitely has the insight to do it. Would be a huge positive for Wikipedia. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:18, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support WikiProjectPortals needs someone to do this job and Peter's the right guy for it. He'll be great and only use his power for good. Unqualified support. Ganesha811 (talk) 12:23, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Only minor concern is the edit summary usage, which isn't really enough to consider oppose. He'll make a fine admin. JTP(talk • contribs) 12:54, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Featured vital article automatically passes content creation (I hope you enjoyed writing it), good work on short descriptions and participation at portal discussions. Thoroughly inconsistent use of edit summaries is the only concern. wumbolo^^^ 13:10, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support, I do have some issues with the candidate, but I believe they are net positive and can become a good administrator.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:20, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support - demonstrated need for the tools, communicates well (outside of edit summaries), collaborative, good answers to questions, demonstrates CLUE in areas outside the Portals, adminship highly likely to be of benefit to Wikipedia. 78.26(spin me / revolutions) 13:30, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support - a sensible editor and a sensible requirement for the tools. Hchc2009 (talk) 13:41, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support, while I am not sure that deletion is necessary for many of the old portal pages, I do believe the candidate should be made an administrator. Make sure to leave summaries even for trivial admin actions, though -- unlike regular edits these can't be checked by everyone. —Kusma (t·c) 13:49, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Quite familiar with Pete's excellent work, so I am surprised to see this. My RfA criteria are as low as the next person's, but I'd like to see an actual need. This RfA is, as Pbsouthwood has admitted frequently above, solely to deal with portalspace cleanup. We do not give the sysop bit to humans for one-off projects or cleanup drives. I am unconvinced that the need is sire — as Pbsouthwood has admitted, these will not be controversial cases — and we have plenty of sysops (myself included) who are happy to slog through boring, uncontroversial deletions (just ask Plastikspork). I admire the gung-ho attitude, but I see no evidence that the project needs Pbsouthwood to delete those pages. Since January 2016, Pete has made over 28,000 edits. In that time period, he has made exactly 0 reports to AIV, 0 reports to RFPP, 1 report to SPI, 1 report to UAA, and participated in: 5 AfDs (1, 2, 3, 4, 5); 1 RfA (Harrias reconfirmation (although he tried to participate after-the-fact for Cordless Larry); one MfD; and three TfDs (1, 2, 3). In that time period, there have been only two succesful PRODs (sorry, sysops only) (1 and 2); as for CSDs, I see only four (in addition to yesterday's portal taggings) (sorry, sysops only): a G11 userpage, a malformed page name, a Self-created typo, and a self-G7. Pete's content contributions are excellent and he has clearly spent a lot of time helping projects where his interests lie, but I see not a single thread of evidence before this RfA that he has any experience or interest in sysop work. There is some evidence Pbsouthwood as at least thought about the concept of adminship before (see here and here), however there is nothing but nothing to show any experience, understanding, or even interest in any sysop-related work. I am surprised at nearly all of the supports — adminship is no big deal, but it has to require at least something to show ability and interest. ~ Amory(u • t • c) 13:44, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral
Placeholder comment while waiting for answers to Questions 5 to 8. Iffy★Chat -- 08:39, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I was going to move to support following the answers to questions 5 to 8, but this part of the answer to question 12 Discussions closed as delete by another person I would check if I agree with the closure, and delete if I agree shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how deletion discussions work. Cannot move to support given the primary reason for requesting adminship is to use the delete button (but as AFD is not their focus, not going to move to oppose either). I hope that if this RFA passes, then they re-read the deletion policies before venturing in to AFD. Iffy★Chat -- 13:35, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I could be wrong, but I was reading that not as "I disagree, therefore it shouldn't be deleted" as much as "I don't agree, another mop can do the deed". I'm not sure anyone should be forced to take an action they disagree with when there are lots of others who can also push the button. ((u|zchrykng)) {T|C} 13:47, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. I'm leaning support, but the "Oppose" comment from Amorymeltzer has me sitting here, and at the present time, I'm unsure if that is going to change. Steel1943 (talk) 13:51, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
General comments
Hmm, edit count, content creation, maintenance and all is impressive. The users been here for nearly 10 years and that's good. The only problem is the usage of edit summaries is less tan 50% (49.9%) that's the only concern otherwise I'm supporting. Bingobro(Chat) 06:45, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
on the edit summary thing, I have to say that I think seeing how they actually communicate (my impression is good) is more important than whether they put "+" or "add" when adding a sentence or two content Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:03, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I may be mistaken or missing somthing, but X-tools appears to show a different figure. See talk page. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:42, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, don't know where Bingobro got that figure. Anyhow, my comment in general still stands; also they do indeed seem to miss leaving edit summaries quite a bit (except for semi-automated stuff) Galobtter (pingó mió) 08:47, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The 94% ES is for general edits, all namespaces inclusive. While the 49.9% one is for main namespace only, and that's actually where it is important and hence what people care about –Ammarpad (talk) 08:55, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I didn't know about that section of Xtools Galobtter (pingó mió) 08:56, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
[ec] Galobtter, Ammarpad, I think that there may be a difference in the way the tools assess the presence of an edit summary, but I am only guessing. My guess is that the global one counts section headings saved as part of the edit summary, which would give an inflated value, and the other one only counts what I have actually added to the summary box which would be in line with my own estimate that roughly 50% is close to the mark. I do often forget, and feel it a bit of a waste of time when I have an under construction notice up and do a couple of dozen consecutive edits, many of them typo corrections or similarly trivial edits, to write an edit summary which may be an order of magnitude longer than the actual edit. If someone is going to look at those diffs they are likely to look at them all at once. I am actually less likely to use an edit summary outside of mainspace as I don't see the point. Taking that over 75% of my edits are in mainspace, the global edit summary count should be slightly less if different at all.· · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 11:17, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
the editor has been here only for ten years, not sure if thats long enough. Jokes apart, I havent seen the editor much; need some time before putting the vote in. —usernamekiran(talk) 08:28, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Likely related to lack of projectspace participation — 90% of their edits are to Main/Talk/User, so it's not odd for folks to have limited interaction. ~ Amory(u • t • c) 10:44, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Usernamekiran, I do contribute to RfCs and policy discussions when I feel that I have something useful to say. Your username is familiar. Perhaps we have not disagreed enough for you to have noticed me. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 11:24, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Pbsouthwood: Maybe I should start disagreeing with editors more often lol. I am familiar with your name, but not much :) —usernamekiran(talk) 12:05, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't place this in my support, which I like keeping succinct because I think my incredibly low standard for RfA support is important to maintain, as advanced twinkle really isn't that big a deal. This is a self-nom, which is going to get more scrutiny, as I think it should, but I also think this is a case for when being more open about handing out adminship is beneficial to the project: G6 deletion isn't sexy, but it is frequently needed and having someone who is actually interested in doing it so that someone who doesn't care can spend their time elsewhere is a great benefit to the project. It helps preserve one of our most precious resources, volunteer time. I have no problem granting adminship for this reason. TonyBallioni (talk) 11:13, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]