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The following discussion is preserved as an archive of an administrator election candidacy that did not succeed. Please do not modify it.

Final (186/177/253); See official results (non-admin closure) – DreamRimmer Alt (talk) 17:20, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination

Bastun (talk · contribs · they/them) – Back in the early noughties, I noticed more and more search results pointing me at a site called Wikipedia. I added the site to my favourites, and created an account in 2005. I've been here ever since, 19 years now. I edit in a large number of areas - Ireland and Irish-related, politics, current affairs, pop culture, and... apparently I've over 4,000 pages on my watchlist now. I don't create many new articles, but do my best to improve and maintain existing ones, revert vandalism, and generally contribute where I can. Since January of this year, I've been involved in WP:NPP, an area I find very interesting, getting me out of my 'comfort zone' areas of interest.

I have a clean block log (I received one block, in error, but the logs can't be expunged). I've never edited with another account, and I have never edited Wikipedia for pay. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 20:30, 14 October 2024 (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. Why are you interested in becoming an administrator?
A: Wikipedia needs admins, and we have gone from several simultaneous RfAs, on a rolling basis, to one or two a month. And we are losing admins, too. I would like to volunteer my services. The mop, if I am successful, will mostly be used around WP:NPP-related issues, such as WP:PROD and WP:CSD, and WP:AIV. Some years ago I built my then employer's intranet using the Mediawiki platform, but I wouldn't call myself familiar with the tools. I learn quickly, though.
2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
A: As mentioned, I don't create too many new articles, but Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation and Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse are both articles I created, focusing on a murky area of Ireland's past, that are both B-class, and I'm quite proud of them. I should really revisit them to see about raising them to GA status. Back in 2009, I was heavily involved in WP:IECOLL's discussions on how to resolve the perennial question of what to name the various Ireland-related articles, which resulted in the Poll on Ireland article names. This resulted in a two-year moratorium on any move discussions and, until earlier this year, an agreed venue for all such move proposals. On a more whimsical note, on 27 August, 2024, I got to write the edit summary No Camel Case, per WP:MOS! on the article Kharai camel!
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'm an Irish editor, who edits articles concerning The Troubles, so yes, I've been involved in many disputes related to that area, in the past! Thankfully, that's an area that's become a lot quieter over the last 15 years, with hardline Republican and Loyalist editors seemingly moving away from the project. I would have had disagreements with some editors on tangentially-related issues in this area in the past (such as the Ireland-article-naming disputes), but we are now friendly, any hatchets long since buried. I have been involved in other disputes, the most significant one in recent years being a full four years ago now, and I don't think I've had cause to visit AN/I since. That last one related to Wikipedia:ARBGG and yes, it was stressful at the time. When challenged, as I was, I will absolutely defend myself, with diffs, where necessary. I've largely avoided the more contentious articles in that area since, and, largely thanks to a GA drive by some interested editors, the main articles in that area (or at least, the ones involving the dispute that I was involved in) are a lot quieter, too. If I am successful in my application, I am obviously not going to use my mop in either Troubles- or ARBGG-related areas, nor on articles where I've done any significant editing. In the future? We have some good WP:DR processes, and I am more than happy to proactively use WP:XRV while learning the ropes to check "am I doing the right thing here?"

You may ask optional questions below. There is a limit of two questions per editor. Multi-part questions are disallowed, but you are allowed to ask follow-up questions related to previous questions.

Optional question from Tryptofish

4. Thank you for indicating that you will consider yourself WP:INVOLVED for issues related to The Troubles. Looking back, after a long time, what if anything would you like to say about our interaction here? Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:50, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A: Wow, that's some ten years ago, now. For context, IIRC this was a content dispute over whether it was appropriate to class the main non-governmental participants (and one minor fringe group) in The Troubles as Christian terrorists, and/or to describe The Troubles themselves as Christian terrorism. You had many sources that described them as a conflict with a religious dimension, and a couple that called them specifically Christian terrorism. Others including me were strongly opposed to inclusion. My feelings on the subject were perhaps best summarised in this edit. Regarding our interaction, I think my frustration was clear at times, but ultimately, thanks to all of the participants, the result was a better article. I've not been back to it too much, but the structure now is much improved, imho (the sections on individual conflicts in various countries were removed and the article became more general.) And I see 'The Troubles' was removed from the 'See also' section sometime between October '21 and October '22.

Optional question from Thryduulf

5. Why did you choose to seek adminship via election rather than via a standard RFA?
A: Public humiliation is not one of my kinks :-) Joking aside, though, I believe the standard RFA process is deeply flawed, and is probably a large contributory factor in the drop-off in the number of candidates. I may or may not be elected to the position of admin, but at least it'll be a simple "you made it/didn't make it, with votes of X:Y", rather than a list of fellow editors who you work with every day, but now you know how they really feel about you :-)

Optional question from Novem Linguae

6. It looks like back in 2021, you removed a message from your user talk page and used the edit summary Like I said, fuck off. You appear to have missed the whole point of Star Trek, from Gene's days to the present.. And in 2019, you used the edit summary You should apply some butthurt cream, there, Mr Snowflake. Both messages were certainly appropriate to remove since they both contained hate speech. In general, what are your thoughts on leaving snappy edit summaries? Are there circumstances where it is appropriate?
A: If someone appears on an editor's talk page with an anti-Semitic or racist remark, or calls that editor a "libtard", then in all honesty, I don't think it's inappropriate to snap back, at least in an edit summary. Full disclosure, I've also told someone in an article's talk page edit summary to eff off with their racism. I got a mail from an admin about that, well deserved - it's not appropriate for article space. It is also not appropriate for an admin, though, at all, and if elected, I would obviously not rise to reacting to trolling, abuse, etc.

Optional question from Ganesha811

7. Are there any areas of adminship you do not plan to participate in, due to unfamiliarity or lack of technical knowledge? If you later decided you wanted to help in these areas, what would be your plan to become an effective admin in those areas?
A: As mentioned in my self-nomination above, I've worked on the back end of Mediawiki software (actually, that's over a decade ago now, so not in any way up to date!), and I learn quickly. I wouldn't rule myself out of any particular area of admin work, but obviously, working in IT and having had access to the mop on that work-wiki, I'm very aware of how much there is to learn, and that's without even considering policies and procedures here. A good example is when I responded to the call for new NPP patrollers earlier this year, and there turned out to be a lot more to it than I had first expected! So, yes, learning curves, and many of them! I will not be breaking new ground, though - we have noticeboards for all the relevant areas where I can read up, ask questions if necessary, and get guidance. (This suits my wiki-availability - it tends to be chunks of 10 to 30 minutes, through the day, rather than several hours at a time). There isn't really an area I can say I wouldn't work in, but my plan would be to take things slowly, getting competent in one or two areas at a time.

Optional question from Conlinp

8. What are your feelings on the idea of admins being recalled by the community, and would you be willing to undergo recall if the community raised concerns about your conduct as an admin?
A: Admins can mess up and make mistakes, as anyone can, but if they are continually making mistakes, or displaying conduct issues, then yes, they should be open to recall, and I would absolutely be open to recall myself.


Discussion

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

GAN & FAC notes. No activity at GAN or FAC. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:41, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

AfD record: Based on the responses above, Bastun has a clue. And since Asilvering hasn't gotten around to analyzing AfD stats here yet, I'll do it: 83.9% match rate, n of 124. 47 keep, 105 delete (plus 6 merge and 2 redir). Of their nominations, 69% were deleted, but this is skewed by 6 no consensus/other closes and 9 unclosed AfDs. These stats seem decent to me. Toadspike [Talk] 16:49, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks for providing the missing stats. As for clue, I urge all editors to take a close look at Q4, the one that I asked. I agree with the part of the answer that says that multiple editors (although I will emphasize that it was not all of them, as stated in the answer to Q4) did indeed work through to making the page much better (relatively) than it had been. I could substantiate that I played a significant (not unique) role in making that happen. But look at the discussion I linked to, and please evaluate for yourselves whether the answer here, that there was just some "frustration", is an adequate way of describing it in retrospect. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:14, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The response to your request for source verification was not at all constructive and probably shows a misunderstanding of WP:BURDEN. Thankfully, the response under "Shortening of section" was more positive. I cannot view one interaction from ten years ago as disqualifying, especially when the candidate indicated that they will consider themselves INVOLVED in this topic area, but Tryptofish is right that others have to evaluate for themselves. Toadspike [Talk] 10:21, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll add a bit more to the stats above: 40 of those are nominations, which brings their delete !vote % down even more. Some recent noms where an obvious WP:ATD isn't considered beforehand, eg [1] (imo not a huge concern, but worth a reminder that we should consider alternatives that preserve page history when possible); I'm confused by the wording of this recent nom [2], since that Guardian review wasn't hiding; but these are pretty small potatoes and I'd say their AfD participation and rationales is good overall - explains when necessary, writes shorter comments/rationales when it's not. (fwiw, I don't think it was necessary on this one [3], but you're not going to make 40 AfD noms without getting accused of a failure to WP:BEFORE at least once.) I think you'd have to be pretty picky to say this record doesn't reflect well on the candidate in general. -- asilvering (talk) 02:15, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Personal comment: Boy oh boy have I ever gone back and forth about writing this comment at all. Here's the shortest thing I can come up with: I think in a regular RFA bits and pieces of this AfD record are the kind of thing that would have people saying "come back in six months". I think that would be bs to say during an RFA, and I think it's even more bs to say now, when we're trialling an election system we may never repeat (let alone in six months) that was created in large part because people felt RFA was too much of a meatgrinder. If this nonspecific vibes comment makes you want to vote oppose on this candidate, well, I can't stop you, but I think you're missing the point and I wish you wouldn't. It's worth looking at the candidate's XTools here: for the past several years, they've had a combined user talk and project-space edit proportion of <15%. This year, so far it's at 28%. That's in large part due to getting more active in stuff like AfD and NPP. So this is what the candidate looks like when they're learning the ropes of something new - and my conclusion is that they're doing perfectly fine. If they're even marginally more careful with the admin tools, they'll continue to be fine. -- asilvering (talk) 18:37, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Declined speedies

Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:33, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • One of my highest priorities when looking at potential admins is acceptance of WP:BRINE. In my eyes, the answer to Q6 is disqualifying. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:33, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Thebiguglyalien I'll admit that I was really concerned about this myself. So I dug. A lot. And I think it's fine. Here is a recent BRIE example that came up while I was looking through AfDs. I thought it was snappy, but I don't know if everyone would agree. (Let the record state that Bastun is correct on all counts and that the comment at the bottom made me laugh.) Here is a kind of snippy edit summary. In the last four months or so, there's nothing even approaching those years-old edit summaries. What I found instead was a lot of kind and encouraging NPP comments, and evidence of graciously taking advice and correction. I'm very much willing to believe that when Bastun says they'll further moderate their behaviour as an admin, they mean it. And I really care quite a lot about BRIE and being helpful to newcomers.
    There's one exception to this, going back years: Ireland. Bastun, I'm glad to see you acknowledge that you're WP:INVOLVED when it comes to the Troubles and WP:ARBGG. If you'll take advice from me on this, I think you should scrupulously stay away from using the tools in anything related to Ireland at all, and also do whatever it takes to get your hackles to go down before you respond to anyone on the topic when you're annoyed.
    I came into this one expecting to oppose. We're not supposed to state our voting intentions, so instead I'll say this: Bastun, if you don't get elected this go around and you want to talk about RFA, you know where to find me. -- asilvering (talk) 19:12, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've edited in the Troubles topic area and I have a lot of related articles on my watchlist so Bastun's name pops up on my screen from time to time. I've found them calm and level-headed, and willing to listen to other viewpoints, even in heated discussions on emotive subjects. They've had rollback since before I joined, reviewer for about as long as it's been a thing, and I granted them rollback at the end of last year. I find it amusing that the shortcut "BRINE" is used to chastise someone for salty remarks! ;) I intend to support, though I would say from experience that it's not a good idea to feed the trolls—however tempting! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I feel like I should explain a bit more about why I raised the issue of that old discussion that touched on The Troubles. I pointed out in my question that it was from a long time ago. And my question gave the candidate an opportunity to go back and point out what, in retrospect, he might have done differently. His answer seems to me to rather conspicuously avoid doing that. In the original discussion, I pointed out (politely) misrepresentation of sources, taking a source to say one thing when it actually treated it with more nuance. A third editor came along and found additional sources that solved the problem, and that editor and I quickly agreed. But the candidate responded the way that he did, and while I can detect frustration there, I'm also seeing POV-pushing. At the time, and again in the answer on this RfA page, the candidate portrays me as trying to treat The Troubles as religious terrorism. But if you look at what I actually said at the time, that wasn't what I was doing. I simply wanted the page to reflect the source material, where the source material seemed to me, and to other editors, to be taking a more nuanced approach than all-or-nothing. I think it's good that HJ hasn't been seeing this more recently (but how did they have rollback since before you joined, while you gave them rollback last year? :) ), but I feel like this is something that editors should evaluate. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:59, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think HJ meant 'new page reviewer', rather than 'rollback' - he added me to the former group in December of last year. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 22:26, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[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 the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.
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