Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Gwernol

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


Gwernol[edit]

Final (89/0/0) ended 14:42, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Gwernol (talk · contribs) – There was several comments on EWS23's RFA along the lines of "More like this candidate, please!", so here you are: Gwernol, another highly civil Wikipedian with plenty of experience across many parts of Wikipedia, who could do with a few extra tools to be able to help out the community further. Again I did a thorough contributions review to see if there was any good reason why this RFA shouldn't appear. Short answer, no- in case you hadn't already guessed that ;-). Here's what I found:

  • Edit count - Can't imagine anyone complaining it's too low...
  • Time around - First contribution 13 May 2005, plenty early enough. At least three months of heavily active editing should also be ok (note that edits before then were not exactly non-existent).
  • Civil? No person attacks? - Yes, no problems in this area :)
  • Edit summaries - Used, and accurate. No problems.
  • Mistakes - Only very minor ones found, all corrected.
  • Email enabled? - Yes.
  • Controversial userpage? - No.
  • Any edit warring/blocks? - No.

Gwernol has also managed to find his way around every namespace open to his editing, with the exception of 'help talk'. Here is an overview (nb:some of diffs cover more than one edit):

  • Article - Lots of vandal reversions, but still plenty of playing around with trains [1] [2] [3] and computers [4] [5] [6].
  • Article talk - understands what they are for, and uses them when needed [7] [8] [9] [10].
  • User - fine [11] [12].
  • User talk interactions - Very friendly and polite [13] [14] [15] (in response to [16]) [17], but also firm when needed [18] [19].
  • Wikipedia- Very good use of WP:AIV. I reviewed a lot of Gwernol's posts there, and they almost always resulted in a block (the one that didn't was because of a backlog that he could have helped clear with the block button). This is a really good sign that he knows when it is/not time to block for vandalism. Good comments to WP:RFA [20] [21] [22] [23], WP:AFD [24] [25] [26] and WP:AN [27] [28].
  • Wikipedia talk: More good contributions, showing a good understanding of Wikipedia [29] [30] [31] [32].
  • Image: Upload log shows a range of original contributions.
  • Others: Vandal fighting gets everywhere [33] [34] [35] [36] [37]!

Hopefully I haven't missed anything major out, if I have I'm sure someone will point it out... Petros471 14:25, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept; thanks for giving me this chance to help Wikipedia. Gwernol 14:33, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support

  1. {{RfA-cliche1}} support per nom. Sensible + knows policy + good Q1 answer = give him the mop. Kimchi.sg 14:38, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support, wasn't he one already? --Terence Ong 14:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  3. (edit conflict x2) When are you going to let me give my nominator support... Petros471 14:40, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Our secret plan was to edit-conflict you 7 times.</joke> :P Kimchi.sg 14:42, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Easy support - and very well-written nomination. Just zis Guy you know? 14:57, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support a unique RFA using a list method, found some recent comments that shown the user can handle agressive users well. Been here for quite a while too.--Andeh 15:05, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Support for a very well-written RfA and a good record as listed therein. You'll be a great admin! --Guinnog 15:41, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Support Naconkantari 16:10, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Nice Portal Talk edit! — GT 16:15, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Support Very nicely detailed nomination. Mr. Lefty Talk to me! 16:16, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Cleared for Adminship Good canidate. Well done. --Pilot|guy (roger that) 16:36, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Support why the hell not? Computerjoe's talk 16:45, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Support - Very good contributor, and I really appreciated this detailed nomination. Afonso Silva 16:59, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Support Kilo-Lima|(talk) 17:05, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Strong oppose. No help talk edits. Snoutwood (talk) 17:36, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    NB: This is actually a support. See [38] [39]. Petros471 18:08, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    And [40]. Oh, and this edit, of course. Snoutwood (talk) 18:11, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Please fix this typo to avoid confusion.--Andeh 18:26, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not a typo. And seeing as this joke has been spelt out to the point of not being funny anymore, I doubt much confusion will arise. Snoutwood (talk) 18:28, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Fixed.--Andeh 22:46, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    (resetting indent) Reverted, because the original voter intends it to be that way. Besides, it has been excruciatingly explained in the following lines that it's not a real oppose. Why can't we have a little humo(u)r on RfA sometimes? Kimchi.sg 23:15, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Cleared for landing on Adminship 49S per Pilotguy and nom -- Tawker 17:45, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Strong Support Well written RFA. ForestH2 11:06, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Very Strong Support--digital_me(TalkˑContribs) 18:40, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Support No problems here. --Siva1979Talk to me 19:03, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Strong Support per nom. —Khoikhoi 19:14, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  20. Support. Good editor, deserving of the promotion. DVD+ R/W 19:16, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  21. Support with a nod to the strongest nomination I have ever seen. Ifnord 19:40, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  22. Support and might I add Excellent example links in nomination speech. No reason to oppose this adminship. --Firsfron of Ronchester 19:54, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Support, sure. --Tone 19:56, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  24. {{Rfa cliche1}} --Rory096 20:29, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  25. Hayeupp. Grutness...wha? 23:50, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  26. Support Highway Rainbow Sneakers 23:54, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  27. Strong Support. Great editor and very civil user. I was involved in a discussion to try to stop a PROD tag being put back on by another user on a de-prodded article, and this user was very helpful: [41], [42]. DarthVader 00:23, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  28. Support Full support. Master of Puppets Giant Enemy Crab! 00:54, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  29. Support per nom Anger22 01:08, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  30. Support Excellent editor, will be great admin. --FloNight talk 01:19, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  31. Support - blue520 03:00, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  32. Supoort - per nom - not much more to say as the nomination is superb - Peripitus (Talk) 03:03, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  33. Support excellent credentials, nomination says it all! -- Samir धर्म 04:07, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  34. Strong Support I have found him very civil & willing to work problems out when I interacted with him. Nom says the rest. Will make a fine admin. --Srikeit (Talk | Email) 04:51, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  35. Merovingian {T C @} 04:56, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  36. Support Seems like the ideal candidate hoopydinkConas tá tú? 05:29, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  37. Support per nom - makes it easy! - CrazyRussian talk/contribs/email 05:49, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  38. Support. The nominator really doesn't leave me with much more to say. -Splash - tk 08:11, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  39. Support, great editor, unlikely to abuse admin tools--☆TBC☆ (aka Tree Biting Conspiracy) 09:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  40. Support diffs provided indicate no potiential problems.--MONGO 10:19, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  41. Support - everything seems to have been covered by nom and the questions. Should make a good admin. --Scott 10:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  42. Support - looks very good abakharev 13:13, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  43. Support --Jay(Reply) 17:55, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  44. Support - I can't find anything to oppose, and I like that. —Argentino (talk/cont.) 18:25, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  45. Support per epic nomination and thoughtful answers to questions. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 18:28, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  46. Support - name association is Good Chimes Shenme 19:23, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  47. Support - really happy with this nom - Glen Stollery 20:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)\[reply]
  48. Support. The very model of a modern wikipedian. 21:42, 11 June 2006 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bucketsofg (talk • contribs)
  49. Support Great user. --Shizane 23:05, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  50. Support - excellent member, I also like the nomination style. Kalani [talk] 00:38, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  51. Pile-on Support. Great user, no problems. Great work on the list of railways. Also, congrats to the nominator for (a) picking such a great user and (b) writing up a nice nomination. -zappa.jake (talk) 01:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  52. Support Great editor, and it's nice to see some heavy evidence presented in the nom itself. Staxringold talkcontribs 01:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  53. Jaranda wat's sup 01:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  54. Support. A strong, experienced candidate. Zaxem 02:04, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  55. Support. I've seen Gwernol around from time to time and have always enjoyed my experience. Lbbzman 04:16, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  56. Support — The King of Kings 04:41, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  57. Strong support, no question, I have seen this user around a lot and seen great interactions. Let me also remark that that was an impressive bit of work on the nominator's part. -- Deville (Talk) 04:59, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  58. Support, I'm familiar with his contributions and feel he will make a fine admin. Accolates to the nominator for a well researched and referenced nom. Accurizer 13:46, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  59. Support, no objections.--Dakota ~ 17:38, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  60. Support. Nevermind2 18:59, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  61. Strong Support - a wise nomination statement for a wise candidate.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 00:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  62. Support - the nomination is impeccable. I can't improve on it. - Richardcavell 01:03, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  63. Support, a fantastic user, and the great evidence and great answers to questions make it a very easy and enthusiastic support. -- Natalya 01:40, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  64. Support per nom. Elkman (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) 13:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  65. Support as above. Sarah Ewart (Talk) 14:49, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  66. Support. Passes the year test. Mackensen (talk) 15:58, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  67. Support per nom. Roy A.A. 16:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  68. Strong support.--Kungfu Adam (talk) 20:08, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  69. Support Joe I 20:14, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  70. Support. SushiGeek 01:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  71. Support. Looks like we're getting a great batch of admins coming in. αγδεε (ε τ c) 07:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  72. Support. Impresive histroy. Great nomination. -MrFizyx 07:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  73. Support, sorry I'm late to join the bandwagon - I was so sure I had already voted, G! Phædriel ♥ tell me - 14:46, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  74. Support good answer to Q1, lots of house keeping work, and good answer to Q2, I am a great fan of that sort of good reliable contribution.Dolive21 15:05, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  75. Absolutely. --Cyde↔Weys 15:09, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  76. Support Polite & efficient - a good candidate for Adminship.  (aeropagitica)  (talk)  17:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  77. Support Extremely good contributor. With 9,000 + valuable edits under his belt, I am sure he will make a good admin. In fact he should have , in my opinion, been am admin long back. Jordy 19:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  78. Support Great contributions; support without hesitation. OhNoitsJamieTalk 22:04, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  79. Support in a spirit of 'What, you weren't an admin already?' Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 22:39, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  80. Support--Jusjih 00:26, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  81. Support, but would prefer the free photos were uploaded to Commons rather than here. Thryduulf 10:13, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  82. Support as per nom, seen this editor around before and does great work. Thought he was an admin. --Strothra 13:59, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  83. Support - the ideal admin.--Aldux 15:28, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  84. Support From what I've seen, a very polite, very civil individual. Also exceeds my requirements. "More like this candidate, please!" — Nathan (talk) 19:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  85. Support; giving this editor adminship will help them continue their excellent work. Aquilina 11:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  86. Support. Looks like he's reasonable and does good work. Jayjg (talk) 16:12, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  87. Support. I rarely participate in RfA, but I recently had the most uncontentious AfD discussion with Gwernol. One might argue that he was just being courteous due to his ongoing RfA, but the multitude of other supporting comments in this discussion refutes that completely. TheProject 01:10, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  88. Support. How can we not support this with an extensive nomination like this. I hope it becomes the norm -- it certainly saved me some time. Ted 03:09, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  89. Support just so I can get my name on this list... But really, per nom. Very extensive contributions, active, civil, very detailed and transparent answers to questions, no problems here... One of the better RfA candidates I've seen in a while. Grandmasterka 04:10, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Neutral

Comments User's last 5000.Voice-of-All 16:58, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply] 

--Viewing contribution data for user Gwernol (over the 5000 edit(s) shown on this page)--  (FAQ)
Time range: 76 approximate day(s) of edits on this page
Most recent edit on: 16hr (UTC) -- 10, Jun, 2006 || Oldest edit on: 0hr (UTC) -- 26, March, 2006
Overall edit summary use (last 1000 edits): Major edits: 99.89% Minor edits: 100%
Average edits per day: 29.34 (for last 500 edit(s))
Article edit summary use (last 409 edits) : Major article edits: 100% Minor article edits: 100%
Analysis of edits (out of all 5000 edits shown of this page):
Notable article edits (creation/expansion/rewrites/sourcing): 0.12% (6)
Minor article edits (small content/info/reference additions): 1.78% (89)
Superficial article edits (grammar/spelling/wikify/links/tagging): 4.78% (239)
Minor article edits marked as minor: 50.96%
Breakdown of all edits:
Unique pages edited: 3322 | Average edits per page: 1.51 | Edits on top: 17.08%
Edits marked as major (non-minor/reverts): 36.86% (1843 edit(s))
Edits marked as minor (non-reverts): 13.38% (669 edit(s))
Marked reverts (reversions/text removal): 49.52% (2476 edit(s))
Unmarked edits: 0.24% (12 edit(s))
Edits by Wikipedia namespace:
Article: 45.56% (2278) | Article talk: 2.38% (119)
User: 2.78% (139) | User talk: 32.74% (1637)
Wikipedia: 14.32% (716) | Wikipedia talk: 0.62% (31)
Image: 0.5% (25)
Template: 0.48% (24)
Category: 0.36% (18)
Portal: 0.1% (5)
Help: 0.02% (1)
MediaWiki: 0% (0)
Other talk pages: 0.14% (7)
  • Suprised the user hasn't requested for adminship earlier.--Andeh 16:48, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Just a quick note on this. I support the notion that adminship should not be a big deal. However I wanted to make sure I was ready before I applied. I had originally considered it earlier in the year at the time I passed 2500 edits, but I saw opinions from several admins (on other RfAs) that more time would help in understanding the policies. I'm glad I waited. Its certainly true that over time you gain a breadth of experience that helps you understand the purpose and applicability of policy and guidelines and how best to deal with other editors. Gwernol 21:44, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • See Gwernol's edit summary usage with Mathbot's tool.
  • Gwernol's edit statistics with Interiot's tool 2: - Kimchi.sg 14:51, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Username Gwernol
Total edits 9141
Distinct pages edited 5930
Average edits/page 1.541
First edit 2005-05-13 13:50:55
 
(main) 5329
Talk 199
User 199
User talk 2332
Image 42
Image talk 9
Template 36
Template talk 2
Help 1
Category 23
Category talk 3
Wikipedia 920
Wikipedia talk 36
Portal 9
Portal talk 1

Questions for the candidate
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia in this capacity. Please take the time to answer a few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:

1. What sysop chores, if any, would you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Wikipedia backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.
A: My starting point will be the everyday janitorial work I've been helping to create as an editor: working on backlogs at WP:AIV and CAT:CSD; helping out at WP:AN and WP:AN/I. I'll also continue RC and New Pages patrolling so there will be occasions when I'll block particularly virulent vandals. I have seen occasions where short-term semi-protection of pages has been productive and I anticipate doing that occasionally. My general philosophy of blocks and (s)protection is to use them sparingly when other avenues (test notices and direct collaboration with the editors concerned) have failed to curb serious vandalism.
I've been doing more work on AfDs recently, and I will start to close those out as I gain experience. I'd like to get more involved with WP:DRV, I've read through discussions there but often can't contribute because I can't see the article being discussed. I think I can help with these cases. As I learn the janitorial ropes I'd like to get into other areas such as other XfDs but I'll start with those I'm already familiar with and proceed with caution.
2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
A: I started out on Wikipedia working on List of British Narrow Gauge Railways and its cousin British industrial narrow gauge railways. The subject matter is somewhat obscure, but these are probably the most comprehensive catalogs of British narrow gauge railways in existence, certainly on the web. They need more work, but they are useful articles. I was particularly pleased with the improvements I was able to make to Ontology (computer science); when I started the article looked like this which I found hard to understand, and I work with ontologies professionally. I think its a lot better now partly through my work and mainly as a result of collaboration by other editors. While its not a FA (sorry Mailer Diablo) I believe its much better. Finally I'm oddly happy with my minor work on subjects I knew nothing about before, such as Free Wales Army or Skateboarding.
3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?
A: Yes I have. I don't think its possible to make major changes to articles without some level of disgreement with others, and vandal fighting certainly provokes its share of conflict. I try to work through conflicts by discussing the issue with the other editor(s) involved, on article and user talk pages. I find that compromise is possible in most cases and where it isn't, then WP's policies and guidelines are good guides to creating better quality articles.
I've had my usual share of vandalism to my user and talk pages. These I deal with by a revert and appropriate warnings to the vandal. A couple have been dealt with through WP:AIV. I expect these and don't have a problem dealing with them. Honestly I find Wikipedia a good stress relief mechanism: its a nice break from the stress of my real-world job.
The only occasion that caused me any noticeable stress was the "disagreement" with User:Jimmy Jones back in March, when I was still learning a lot. You'll need to look at the talk page history for the full details, also my summary to WP:AN here. He turned out to be a troll. Having gone through that, I now recognize the signs of this sort of trolling and I was much better able to deal with similar situations that arose later.
Admins are generally higher profile than the majority of editors (though I've been taken for one on several occasions), so are bound to be involved in conflict more frequently. I usually handle these situations well and know when to walk away for a while when tempers get too heated.

DriniQuestion

Do you think admins performing actions (deletions, blocks) for reasons not covered on policy should be sanctioned? If so, how? -- Drini 20:57, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the question. In general the answer is "yes", admins must work within the framework of policy and should be sanctioned if they use admin tools outside of policy. However there are exceptions. Admins are the first line of policy enforcement. Any rule system that has enforcement needs to allow some discretion to the enforcers, because no set of rules can perfectly predict every eventuality. This is particularly the case for Wikipedia where the rules are undergoing constant scrutiny and revision. This is a great strength of the system.
However to grant discretion, the community must trust that the enforcers won't abuse their position. It is essential that admin actions are transparent and accountable. Admins should be held to a higher standard than ordinary editors because they have the power to deprive others of the ability to edit.
As for sanctions for editors who block outside of policy? This depends on the severity of the case. A minor overstepping that is genuinely accidental would probably be best served with an apology from the admin and an immediate reversal of the action. For more serious infractions I fully support more serious actions including desysopping and (in extreme cases) long-term or indef blocks.
I have come across cases where admins have displayed a pattern of constant low-level abuse of their powers. Just crossing the line out of policy but doing so persistently and without changing their behavior when challenged. This is perhaps the hardest sort of abuse to deal with because no individual incident is particularly serious but the long term pattern is harmful to Wikipedia. I do believe there should be some mechanism to deal with this, but I don't know what the right solution is (take a look at Wikipedia_talk:Adminship_renewal where I discussed one proposal, but after thinking about the opposition some more, I don't believe this is the right solution). I would emphasize that these are extremely isolated incidents and that that overwhelming majority of admins I have worked with have been extremely fair and trustworthy.
Note: I chose my words with care when I referred to admins as the first line of policy "enforcement". The power to block an editor is a significant sanction to apply. However I believe that all editors should be encouraged to help keep Wikipedia within the policies the community has agreed. Its better to have a thousand ordinary editors using the power of persuassion to stop vandalism than one admin wielding the block. Most times an appropriate {{test}} template or personal message is the most effective tool.


Cyde↔Weys Questions

How do you feel about the relative (a) importance, (b) purpose, and (c) punishments for violations of Wikipedia's: (1) policies, (2) process, (3) guidelines, and (4) goals?
A: A subtle question, thanks Cyde.
For importance and purpose:
  1. goals - we are creating an Enyclopedia, everything else flows from this
  2. policies - the agreed core rules that decide what an enyclopedia is and how we create it
  3. guidelines - guide what an encyclopedia is and how we create it, but are either not yet agreed upon or covering less widereaching topics
  4. process - the common methods that admins use to apply the policies and guidelines to achieve the goals
Punishment is a little different. Here the most severe punishment should be for violation of policies, since these are the most important and hopefully most stable. Less severe punishment should be used for guidelines breaches. Process should rarely be formally punished - problems should usually be handled through debate. Oddly there shouldn't be direct punishment for violation of the goals, since the policies and guidelines express the goals and lay out the sanctions to be used if someone breaches them. The goals are the high-level vision for the project; policies and guidelines are the specific instantiation of them.
What are the most important long-term issues you think Wikipedia faces?
A I'm very interested in scale and change. Wikipedia is in the middle of a major growth spurt in the number of articles, editors and readers. Every measure of its size is expanding rapidly. It is hard to grow any organization, particularly at the rate Wikipedia is growing. The rules that work well when you are five people working together won't work well when there are 50 of you and will be a disaster when there are 500. As an example, in a small group you can have relatively informal methods of dispute resolution because everyone knows everyone else. For larger groups you have to codify some rules because you lose the personal connections.
Of course, its very hard to have a mutually agreed rulebook amongst 935 admins, let alone 1.6 million editors. That's why continued growth is such a challenge. Wikipedia's community must adapt as it grows and understand that more is better but its also different.
The flip side to this is that at some point the growth will slow dramatically. Human knowledge continues to grow but we are currently in a phase of catching up on the last several thousand years. At some point we'll only be adding the new stuff not covering existing ground. There will be fewer new articles to write and fewer (and different sorts of) changes to make. How will we as a community cope with that change? Will Wikipedia wither on the vine or find new energy?
I don't have answers to these questions. That's why they're issues, right?
Do you agree or disagree with the statement "No quarter for trolls"? Please explain.
A I don't agree. I understand and at times feel the anger that drives this sentiment. I've had a few days when I wouldn't mind quartering a troll or two :-) But its important to remember that trolls are people too. There are some who won't stop and who ultimately need to be long-term/indef banned. But there are also a lot who can become productive editors. I've seen people change from troll to excellent editor. Sometimes the best way is to talk with them, try to find out what is annoying them and fix it if you can - as long as the fix is consistent with goals, policies and guidelines. Sometimes the best way is to just ignore them: some of them go away. For some really persistent trolls who won't stop disrupting Wikipedia then I fully support tough action, and will apply if I become as an admin. But that's the last resort, not the first.


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.
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