TomStar81

Voice your opinion (talk page) (8/7/6); Scheduled to end 11:40, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

TomStar81 (talk · contribs) - I wish to nominate TomStar81 for admin. This user has over 11,000 edits, including over 5,000 mainspace edits. He is unfailingly helpful, civil to all users, and a thoroughly and completely decent user who deserves adminship. He won't self nominate, and it is high time someone else nominated him, so I have done so because I truly believe he should be an admin. (And I understand his refusal to self nominate, I would not either, and that is not knocking those who self nominate, you just feel that when it is your time, someone will nominate you...) old windy bear 11:40, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I humbly accept this nomination for adminship!

I am honored to be nominated for adminiship, if I should attain the rank, I will endevor to learn how to properly use the powers granted to me.

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:

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

A: To answer honestly I am not entirely sure. I know admins, endowed with the power to delete content, are expected to help with article, category, and image afd's, and I will certainly apply any delegated power to that end. I am certain that there are other responsibilities that come with a promotion like this as well, and I will mostly certainly look into how to apply such power to these other areas. Before I make any commitments I would have to do a little gumshoeing to determine what exactly admins do outside of afd and how they go about doing it.

I see that there is some suspicion among editers that I may have a lack of understanding to what a admin does. Allow me to state that I do know admins protect pages, delete articles, and conduct RC patrols (among other things), and I am more than prepared to use whatever admin tools granted to me (if so granted) to take on these roles. My above answer stems in part from my transition from anon to user: As we all recall there were new tabs with new buttons that we had not seen before, and most of us probably had to research a little do determine what exactly the new buttons were for and how the should be applied. I suspect that the leap from User to Admin will result in a similar situation: new bottons, new features, and new rules/guidelines to follow. As a former U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army brat used to change, I can say that I am more than confident in my ability to master any new powers delegated to me. If I am approved then I need to see what new powers come with the administership and practice using them to gain the experience nessicary to put them to work for the good of Wikipedia and the projects I contribute to. I don't blame the community for being critical of an honest answer, in fact, I encourage you to critical of it since we are talking about a promotion here. Lastly, I will take the opertunity to remind everyone to Assume good faith: we were all new to Wikipedia at some point or another, and we have worked long and hard on this encyclopedia to enlighten our guests, but in so doing we have also established a set of guiding principles that have allowed us to gain reputations as good contributers here. That some of us are unfimilar with the nature of the work that must be done in one specific area does not mean we are not qualified to handle the work, merely that we need familiarize ourselves with how we are expected to go about the nature of that work. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:54, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

A: I consider my best contributions to Wikipedia to be the Featured Articles I either brought up to Featured Status, or the articles that I had the pleasure of returning to FA status after the bar for FA articles was raised. In particular, the battleships USS New Jersey (BB-62) & USS Wisconsin (BB-64) were fun to work with because I had the honor of doing nearly all the work to get them to FA status, while my other featured articles (USS Missouri (BB-63) and Iowa class battleship) were initially improvements to FA class articles that were lacking ciations. My updating of Iowa class battleship also produced a new article named Armament of the Iowa class battleship which went featured roughly a month after being created due in large part to the research I had done. Researching these articles is a joy similar to the old special projects I and my class mates used to do back at El Paso Country Day School: long hours sifting through research material, taking notes and writing reports, only presentation to the class here means presenting information to the world. I love it, I wouldn't trade that for the world.

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: Unfortunetly, I have been involved in two big edit conflicts with users in the past. In both cases I feel that I was in fact in the wrong, although I am ashamed to say that being in the wrong didn't stop me from holding my ground and resisting attempts to change the articles for the better. The first was at the end of 2004 or 2005, when the main page featured article was Iowa class battleship; I had been the point man for bring the article up to FA status then and was rather proud of having done so, but I neglected to remove a POV line comparing the class to other battleships in other navies of the world, and that led to an edit war over whose ships should get mentioned. In the process of defending the line I do believe that I caused the User:MateoP to leave wikipedia, and that has at times made me feel bad. More recently, I attempted to expand Wikipedia's coverage of the PC game Command and Conquer by creating a butload of articles on and about the series and its spin offs, which led to a rather vicous altercation between me and Proto (now Neil). At the time was pissed about having the articles I worked so hard on come under the afd umbrella, and due to a combination of hurt pride and upcoming University final exams I really tore into him over the dletion of the articles. As time has passed I have come to see that Neil was only doing the right thing, and as an unintended bonus (if you want to call it that) the community as a whole has been cracking down on "gamecruft" pages here. In both cases putting some time and distance between the incedents has allowed me to mature a little, I see that I need to be more open to suggestions and more observant of Wikipedia's policies. I did eventually apologized to MateoP and Neil after backing off the computer and meditating on the points presented, and I have taken the points they offered to heart. For those of you who would like to take a closer look at the conflits I will provode the links to the pages: For the Iowa class battleship conflict and related talk page discussion(s), and the C&C article delete. Other pages are in their as well; if you go to User:Neil/gc and look for anything in red with a name including units/strucutures of the Chinese/USA/GLA/GDI/Nod, then click on it and you see the accompanying afd nom. On the afd pages you can scope out my complete (and dubious) war on policy here (the link I provided specifically is the most damning, the other not so much, so you can get a feel for the rest of the pages by checking out the linked one).

General comments

• See TomStar81's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.

• Links for TomStar81: TomStar81 (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)

Please keep criticism constructive and polite. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review Special:Contributions/TomStar81 before commenting.

Discussion

Support

1. Extremely Strong Support He long since should have been an admin, I thought he was, and am now rectifying that oversight! A humble but very hard worker who adds greatly to the project and the community. He more than deserves the mop. old windy bear 11:40, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
2. Support, assuming Tom doesn't decline the nomination, and assuming that spelling skills are not a qualification. I've seen a lot of Tom's good work for WP:SHIPS and also know he has a sense of humor (who else awards a Spelling Award to those who fix their spelling errors?), so concur with the nomination.--J Clear 13:06, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
3. Support. Tom has shown exemplary diligence and dedication in his work on Wikipedia. That he is not yet certain of where he will concentrate his usage of the tools is hardly a cause for concern; regardless of what he chooses to do with them, placing admin tools in the hands of such an outstanding editor can only be a net benefit to the project. Kirill 21:36, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
4. Support, Good edits, long dedication. I think that he was good in answering Q#1 truthfully. -Lemonflash^talk 23:51, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
5. Support Dfrg.msc 00:09, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
6. Support. A committed, hard-working, knowledgeable editor, and if there's one thing Wiki needs in new admins, it's his kindness, civility and consideration of fellow Wikipedians. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:20, 15 July 2007 (UTC) (I'm much less worried about a responsible candidate who doesn't know what he wants to do with the tools than some that do know what they want to do with them.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:23, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
7. Support He is unlikely to abuse admin tools. A great editor. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 01:42, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
8. Support per no big deal. Some users get what they want at an RfA by having an editor who writes articles, but they still oppose. ~ Wikihermit 02:55, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
9. An ideal candidate. Not one who has been seeking the "role", but will merely accept extra duties to improve the encyclopedia further. Daniel 04:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

1. Oppose Your answer to question one doesn't really show a firm grasp of what you want to do as an admin. There are numerous things an admin could do, but what do you want to do, and what will you do? Jmlk17 21:39, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

   I think that Nichalp (talk · contribs) addresses this issue pretty well in discussing his rationale for closing Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/LessHeard vanU, on its talk page: "No merit on the fact that the user does not need the tools. The user has requested access to the tools when necessary. As an editor-contributor, the tools do come in handy for tasks such as editing protected pages or speedy deletion for maintanence tasks." Gracenotes^T § 23:20, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

2. Oppose The answer to question one pretty much says that you don't know what's involved in being an admin. It sounds like you're an asset to wikipedia, but you need to be familiar with the administrators' reading list, how-to guide, and guide to requests for adminship before you can become an admin. Do some reading and get yourself nominated again in a few months. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 22:06, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
3. Oppose I am really sorry, and please feel free to answer this comment. How can you possibly allow yourself to be nominated for admin without knowing what the job entails, and indeed how can you have been here for so long without knowing this? I cannot possibly support an applicant who does not know what he is going to do with the tools. --Anthony.bradbury^"talk" 23:11, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
4. Oppose Per Anthony.bradbury. Jhfireboy Talk 00:03, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
5. Oppose. You don't seem to have the right view of adminship. Admins are, as the saying goes, "regular wikipedians witha mop and bucket". There are no powers, there is no rank. There is more responsibilities, and, per your answer to Q1, you are not ready for them. J-stan ^Talk 02:00, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
6. If you don't know what admins do, how can we know what you'll do? Great mainspace work, keep that up! Giggy _U^CP 03:20, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
7. Oppose due to answer to question 1. Also, it seems a little weird that Oldwindybear nominated you soon after you nominated him. New England 03:35, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

   Don;t read to much into it. I didn't ask him to nominate me, it came up unexpectedly when he discovered I wasn't already an admin. You can check his talk page to verifiy that, if you wish. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:55, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

   I should have made it clear that I'm not opposing because of the timing of the noms, I was just pointing it out as it is an unusual coincidence. New England 04:00, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

   I know, I kinda laughed at that myself. I figured I give it a shot, after all the worst thing that can happen is to be turned down. Its not like the world will end if i fail to make admin the first time around (although I will confess that it will make me feel sad that the community doesn't trust me enough) :/ TomStar81 (Talk) 04:40, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

1. Neutral - That old windy bear nominated is a big plus. Your long time here and obvious dedication is a big plus. Your article writing, maintenance and vandal fighting is a big plus. Your WP:AFD and image work is a big plus. Your spelling is a non issue. Your fairly poor edit summary use is a minor niggle. Your answer to Q1 is a major negative and your repeated references to power and promotion push me neutral at this time, as I see no evidence of knowledge about what adminship really means and why you need the buttons. Sorry. Pedro |  Chat  20:12, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

   That bothered me a bit, too, but I think it has more to do with him being green to the concept of adminship as it's often discussed at RFA (he's only participated in this RFA and Oldwindybear's). His honesty in expressing himself bolsters the credibility of his promises to learn about adminship and gumshoe for a bit if he becomes an administrator. For those reasons, I don't think calling it a promotion or rank is indicative of future risk. Pedro's comment, and the probable future comments of others here, will likely change Tom's conception of what an admin is.--Chaser - T 20:44, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

   TomStar81 makes references to power, but it doesn't seem that he equates technical power (which admins do have, whether we like to call it that or not) with social authority (which no one but Jimbo, ArbCom, and the community has). Which is a good thing, because adminship is no big deal. Gracenotes^T § 21:34, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

   Pedro |  Chat  HI Pedro, and thank you for the kind thought. I really think Tom's references concerning power are more a natural response to being green, as Chaser said, and I honestly believe he will do as I am doing - ask for help from established admins and other knowledgable users - rather than leap in before he knows what he is doing. Adminship carries potential for being a lot more useful to the community, and from what he has said to me in discussions, he wants to learn, and be even more of an asset than he is now. I really think he would be a great asset as an admin. Thanks again for your kind thought about me! I won't let you down!old windy bear 22:41, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

2. Neutral Your answer to question one shows that you have no clear idea about the uses to which you would choose to put the admin tools. This makes me wonder what the motivation is for this RfA. Until you offer a clear explanation as to your intentions as an admin then I can only choose to be non-committal at this time. I would suggest that you read Wikipedia:Administrators and also dedicate some of your editing time to new page/recent change patrolling; vandal reversion and the associated userpage warnings and also participation in the policy space, such as XfD discussions and Talk pages such as the RfA page and Admins noticeboard. This should give you an idea regarding the desire for and usefulness of the tools in your Wiki career. There are many other options available to you to practice being an admin, my suggestions are only the tip of the iceberg. (aeropagitica) 21:31, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
3. Neutral - There certainly are a decent number of pluses. However there are also some things that make me concerned. In your favor, you have been with wikipedia for quite a bit of time. Second, you have done a goodly share of actual encyclopedia contributing, unlike many candidates. Third you were actually nommed by someone; the fact that this is not a self nom shows that you are certainly trusted by some users. On the other hand the fact that you don't quite understand what a admin does shows some lack of real understanding of wikipedia's functionings. I know that that is only one real negative, but it is a big one. So for now, I'm going to have to !vote, neutral. --Tλε Rαnδom Eδιτor (ταlκ) 21:49, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
4. Neutral - both the s and o sections contain good points. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 02:37, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
5. Neutral for now. I'd like to see a clearer understanding of what administrator actually does. My previous interactions with this user leave me no doubt that they would be capable, but I would be more comfortable if the user could be a little clearer on what they intend to do with the tools. Carom 02:44, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
6. Neutral Sorry you look like a good user but every one has a lot of good points try again some time in the future when you done some reading. --Chris ^g 03:11, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
7. Neutral This is an editor whose heart is, without a doubt, in the right place. I think that he is going to make an extraordinary admin...but not quite yet. He seems to have a very vague idea of what he intends to do as an admin, or even what admins do at all. If he comes back well informed a month from now, I will have no problem with supporting. Trusilver 04:21, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]