Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ArnoldReinhold

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

ArnoldReinhold

Final (22/0/0); Closed as successful by WjBscribe at 21:26, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

ArnoldReinhold (talk · contribs) - ArnoldReinhold has been editing Wikipedia for nearly 3½ years, amassing around 10,000 edits. His main area of focus is improving articles within the scope of WikiProject Cryptography and WikiProject Mathematics. His suitability for adminship is demonstrated by his numerous knowledgable and civil contributions to XfDs, and to a range of policy and guideline discussions. ArnoldReinhold is a mature, experienced user who would not abuse the tools. Epbr123 02:00, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

I accept the nomination and appreciate the expression of confidence it implies.

I've been involved with the Internet since its earliest days and I am quite passionate about Wikipedia being one of the most important fruits of this technology. Though I've been an editor since 2004, I never applied before because I have not found that the lack of admin status has hampered my ability to contribute effectively to Wikipedia, but I think it would give me additional opportunities to serve.

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. It is recommended that you answer these optional questions to provide guidance for participants:

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

A: One area that concerns me is vandalism. I've encountered a number of cases where vandalism has gone undetected for months. I have a large watch list and am pretty good at spotting vandalism, but better tools would help. I realize there is a fair amount of scut work that admins must do to keep the project running., e.g. Category:Candidates for speedy deletion. I think I have good sense of which articles deserve further considerations and which are an easy call for deletion.

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

A: Among the work I'm most proud of is in trying to make highly technical math articles more understandable to non-specialists. One example is Homotopy groups of spheres, particularly the section Low dimensional examples. I've also done a lot to add to and organize the Cryptography category. I get the most satisfaction in projects that take on a life of their own. One example is Classified information, which was a hodge-podge of rumor and speculation. I did a major edit based on mostly U.S. government documents, and it has since grown substantially, with editors in other countries adding material about local practices and the U.S. section spun off. I'd also done a lot on computer history, see e.g. Early IBM disk storage which has also attracted additional contributions. I also enjoy adding illustrations to articles, either material I have found on Commons, or photos I've taken myself. A particularly ambitious example was Simple:Basic English picture wordlist [1], where I found or took a large number of photos to complete the list.

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: I've been involved in many edit conflicts. I try to conduct them on the issues, based on sources and Wikipedia policy and avoid personal attacks. While I don't think I've ever been a flamer, I've certainly learned a lot over the past years about how to do this. Outside of blatant vandals, who are easy to deal with, I don't think I've encountered an editor I consider malicious. One particularly difficult situation I remember was at Talk:St. Petersburg paradox#Subsection on expected number of tosses. An editor from Japan, with poor English skills, kept adding an incorrect analysis. I tried very hard to explain the situation, as did some other editors, but to no avail. The person simply insisted on making the same edits. Eventually I had to get an admin involved, who decided to block the person.

Another situation that went much better, was at Talk:USS Liberty incident#Why are undisputed facts not listed in the Introduction?. A new editor with a strong POV demanded the article be changed. I was able to engage in a dialog with him, explaining why his suggested edits were inappropriate. I also discovered that he had a valid point about the intro not properly including the controversy on the topic and tried to fix it. I believe he left satisfied.

Optional 4-part question by Carlossuarez46:

4. you indicate that you want to work on CSD, but you have virtually no edits in that arena that I can detect, and very few in XFD's where the deletion policy is also in play. I would like to ask you a few questions about deletion philosophy:

4A. what are the responsibilities of an admin in reviewing an article that has been tagged for speedy deletion, vis-a-vis research or notifications?

Maybe there's a policy on this, but my instinct it to use common sense and due diligence. Here are two examples of my approach. I just took a look at the CSD listings and found two articles. One, consisted of 'so-and-so is an ordinary YouTube user...' -- a no-brainer. The other was Ende International Airport, a quite elaborate article, which was being proposed for speedy deletion because a number of editors decided it was a hoax. It seemed like a lot of work for a hoax. So I did a Google search and found three references to the airport, including one that gave many details that matched the article. I also checked the Indonesian Wikipedia and found there is a city called Ende. I noted this on the article's talk page and the deletion discussion. This all maybe took five minutes. (I've since concluded that this is indeed a hoax/vandalism, but suggested a redirect would be all that is needed.)

4B. are speedy candidate articles assessed as they are, as they were, or as they may become?

I think it depends on the reason for deletion. If it's an attack article or a copyright violation, it's what's there now. If it's something like notability, it's more of a judgement area. Is there a reasonable chance notability could be established?

4C. is your view that WP:CSD#A7 is an exclusive list of article subjects that are covered or just a representative sample, even if that means deleting a person and not his dog, or a band but not their song.

Wow, if the subtext of this question is a real problem, WP:CSD needs to be clarified with an "etc." and someone needs to be called on the carpet for Wikilawyering.

4D. should articles by experienced editors be assessed differently than those by newbies?

Again it depends on the reason, as in 4B. But if the reason is a judgement call, I would answer by saying that any "speedy" process should be for something that almost no experienced editor would question. So if an experienced editor in good standing had created the article in the first place, that would suggest extra caution.

Carlossuarez46 (talk) 22:29, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Optional questions by Takenages (talk) 20:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

How did you find RFA so quickly?--Sandahl 21:12, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

5. If your adminship is granted, would you agree to be open to recall?

A.While open to recall seems like a creative solution to the somewhat cumbersome processes at Wikipedia, I am concerned that recall is based solely on the number of editors who request a recall and is not balanced by statements of support. In a situation where a controversial action gains wide publicity, any threshold that would be reasonable in other circumstances is almost certain to be met. I will continue to give open to recall serious consideration, but I'd like my candidacy to be judged on what I have done for the past 3-1/2 years.

6. If your adminship is granted, would you agree to never participate in "back channel" block discussion (e.g. irc channels, de facto secret mailing lists, etc.) and agree to keep all discussions regarding user blocks and bans to be made transparently on wiki?

A.I have been open in everything I do on Wikipedia. Outside of a few IP edits when I was logged out without realizing the fact, I have done everything under a single user name. And, while I support the right of editors to remain anonymous, I have not done so myself. The name I use here is my real name and I am easy to find. That in itself is a strong check on what I do here. But I am not willing to give up my right to have a private conversation in the rare case I feel that is appropriate.

General comments

• See ArnoldReinhold's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.

• Links for ArnoldReinhold: ArnoldReinhold (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)

---

Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review Special:Contributions/ArnoldReinhold before commenting.

Discussion

Support

1. Support as nom. Epbr123 20:47, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
2. Support - quite a promising user. From the contributions and answers to questions, he obviously has a comprehensive understanding of Wikipedia policy. — Rudget _{contributions} 21:10, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
3. Support His answer to question 3 was pretty good. Im impressed. RuneWiki⁷⁷⁷ 21:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
4. Support Never heard of you but on a skim through your history you look fine. — iridescent 22:17, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
5. Support Good stuff by the look of things. GDonato (talk) 22:47, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
6. Support Strong set of contributions, seems like a good candidate. --TeaDrinker (talk) 22:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
7. Support. Won't abuse the tools, and will help the community greatly. Malinaccier (talk • contribs) 23:03, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
8. Support - I can't see how not Supporting would be a good idea. PookeyMaster (talk) 23:16, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
9. Support Good history, understands policy.--Sandahl 01:53, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
10. Support Understands policy well. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 12:13, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
11. I'm Mailer Diablo (talk) and I approve this message! - 15:23, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
12. Support - professional user, absolutely fine by me --MoRsE (talk) 20:01, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
13. Strong Support I thought this user was already a sysop. NHRHS2010 talk 22:47, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
14. Support Strong showing. No doubt in my mind you'll do fine! Icestorm815 (talk) 22:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
15. Support. I see nothing here to suggest the user would not use the tools correctly. Everything looks good to me. SorryGuy 03:38, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
16. Support - trustworthy editor. Addhoc (talk) 21:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
17. Support -- although I don't really understand portions of his answer to Question 2. By the way, is it just me or does seem like this is WikiProject Cryptography week on RfA? Doesn't that violate WP:CABAL or something? --A. B. ^(talk) 00:19, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
18. Support - Very good user. He's well deserving of this position.^Mitch32^contribs 15:22, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
19. Support Shows excellent conflict management skills as per Q3. --^Writer _Listener 18:50, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
20. Support Very patient and mature editor. Master of Puppets ^{Care to share?} 03:35, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
21. Support Experienced and professional user. Harland1 ^t/_c 17:55, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
22. Support - a source of common sense, a scarce and valuable commodity. - Jehochman ^Talk 18:45, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

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.