The Interior

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (35/0/1); Scheduled to end 04:35, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Nomination

The Interior (talk · contribs) – I am honored to nominate The Interior for adminship; indeed I am humbled. I first interacted with The Interior in March 2011; believing he was not only an administrator then, but one of the corps very best as well. I had observed his collaborations with others, becoming impressed by his competence, and respectful manner of conduct. We are both active in the DYK wikiproject and our first writing collaboration was on Ginger: The Life and Death of Albert Goodwin when it was a DYK nomination. The Interior is an excellent colleague and, I learned, a masterful writer as well. He well knows about the effort an editor expends to create encyclopedic content; demonstrated by his creation of Illecillewaet Glacier and persistence improving it to GA class. His AfD participation reflects the composite of his good qualities. His !votes are thoughtful, policy based, and without condescension and he has on occasion provided the sourced verification necessary to establish a subject's notability. He has 220 UAA reports and 79 AIV reports with exceptional accuracy on both noticeboards. And there are more attributes that reflect The Interior's qualifications, but listing them affects readability with excess verbiage. They are apparent in his contributions however, and seven days of scrutiny can only show how fortunate our community is to have The Interior volunteer more of his faithful service, for our benefit.—John Cline (talk) 01:53, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Co-nomination

I am very delighted to co-nominate The Interior for adminship. I could write paragraphs of material expounding upon the editing skills, DYK work and AIV/AFD/UAA batting average of the candidate but I fear it may miss the point as to why I believe that The Interior is so well-suited to the administrative role. Although his editing statistics are indeed impressive, it’s the more intangible qualities that make The Interior such a fantastic candidate. He’s patient and kind. Understanding and honest. Intuitive and clueful. And he truly seems to “get” what this crazy project is all about and is able to nurture this same excitement for learning and knowledge in the editors he works with, both newbies and experienced editors alike. This combination of qualities, along with a sound understanding of policy and his willingness to roll up his sleeves and help out where needed, make The Interior a stellar candidate for the mop and bucket. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 20:46, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Co-nomination

It is a great pleasure to recommend The Interior for adminship. I would be hard-pressed to think of any other editor who is more balanced, trustworthy, and ideal for this position. I first came into contact with him in discussions around the Education Working Group (since, the Wiki Education Foundation). One of the few long-term Wikipedian editors in the group, The Interior's contributions to any debate were always well-informed, eminently sane, and well-reasoned. He repeatedly showed his capacity to respond and listen to the points of view expressed by others. I have also seen The Interior intervene in the midst of heated debates and controversial topics, such as a flare-up a couple of months ago at Adrian Dix. Again, he showed excellent common sense, presence of mind, and unflappability in what was otherwise (however briefly) a rather tense situation in which accusations were flying both here and in the local press. Finally, I have had the pleasure of meeting The Interior a number of times in real life and can report that off-wiki as much as on he demonstrates not only his passion for the project, but also an enviable level of dedication, thoughtfulness, openness, and even wisdom. He will be an excellent addition to the admin ranks. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 14:12, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Co-nomination

I first met The Interior in person at the GLAM Bootcamp in April. For the first few hours, I had no idea of his name, only that when he spoke, he made some seriously good points. I eventually spent something like fifteen minutes poring over the list of participants, trying to figure out who this guy was. Two and two eventually got together, and I realized that we had actually met before (online) when he was the driving force behind an excellent Q&A in the 18 March Signpost. The positive interactions I had with him then were bolstered after my obligatory Facebook-like stalking of his contributions—I discovered that The Interior is a fantastically helpful and productive editor. Some of the specific stats can be read above, but I've found that interactions like this or this are common. In short, his attitude and temperament demonstrated in his interactions around the encyclopedia are ideally suited for the admin role. I ask that you give The Interior your support. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 03:34, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: Thanks for the kind words, folks. I accept the nomination. The Interior (Talk) 04:16, 3 September 2013 (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: In short, I intend to help out in areas I'm familiar with. I believe I've seen enough vandalism, and how we deal with it as a community, to help respond to reports at AIV. I have a good grasp of promotional usernames and the grey areas around them to action those type of reports at UAA. I understand the philosophy and mechanics behind page protection. With almost three years of experience at DYK, I can help with requests at WP:ERRORS, hopefully decreasing the amount of problematic DYKs hitting the main page. Although not a prolific "prep-maker" on the DYK queue, I know enough to competently swap out hooks or construct decent hook sets. I'm not a heavy participant in AfD discussions, so I don't see this being a major focus of my admin work. I would, however, feel confident deleting speedy requests in the areas where I have done tagging in the past, namely {{db-spam}}, {{db-attack}}, {{db-catempty}}, {{db-album}}, {{db-song}}, {{db-vandalism}}, as well as blatant copyright violations. I would also be available to do revdel requests on our worst cases of vandalism. While I may move into other areas in the future (requested moves, categories for deletion, and histmerging all interest me), I would not do so until making significant amounts of non-admin edits in related discussions.

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

A: "Best" is very subjective when talking about one's own work, but I'll talk about the work that has made me feel good about being a Wikipedian. I really enjoy exploring the province where I live, and working on articles like Adams River (British Columbia), Glacier National Park (Canada) and the Kitlope Heritage Conservancy enriches the experience of visiting those places. Researching these topics provides a connection with history and physical place that is impossible to describe, but very fulfilling.

I've very much enjoyed my work with various "outreach" initiatives, such as the Education Program, Wikipedia Loves Libraries, and the GLAM project. There are many energetic, optimistic and wildly smart folks working in these areas, and I'm lucky to be working with them. I believe these projects can help save Wikipedia from its own insularity, and connect it with the knowledge communities, high quality resources, and the new editors we need to keep the project going into this decade and the next. I'm proud of my contributions in these areas, both behind the scenes and through active roles like online ambassadorship.

Most of all, it is the collaboration and knowledge sharing with fellow editors that keeps me coming back. I'm very pleased when I can help bring people together to work on content. I have met some of the most interesting, intelligent, hardworking and altruistic people I know on the pages of WP. They are the reason this project has gotten to where it is, and they are its greatest resource.

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: A frank and vigorous exchange of ideas is important in any intellectual endeavour. These exchanges can cause stress, and I'm not immune. It's important to remember that stress isn't all bad; there is the concept of eustress, the "good" stress that drives you to dig deeper into the sources, compose better sentences, and explore your opponent's viewpoints. I've been in the middle of quite a few heated debates, and have learned some lessons the hard way. I've set some guidelines for myself regarding disputes, such as:

• never post angry - if a comment has really gotten your goat, step back for a few hours (or days) until you can approach it at least semi-rationally.
• don't personalize - avoid personal criticisms except when truly unavoidable.
• forgive and forget - don't carry old disputes with colleagues into new discussions and forums.

And most importantly, always try to search for solutions to the underlying problems, rather than the total annihilation of your perceived antagonists. These are ideals - I don't always live up to them. But I like to think I try, and I will continue to try in the future. ;)

Additional question from Monty845

4. How would you respond if, after becoming an admin you, came across an article tagged G11, with "Company X is a sprocket manufacturer headquartered in Small Town, USA. In the last year it has received multiple industry awards for innovation in sprocket design" as its contents.

A:The wording for g11 is "exclusively promotional", and here we have a description with a location, which is a start, a proto-stub. The awards claim would have to be sourced, but it may well be true. It should be rewritten to refer to the specific awards, preferably. It's a matter of sources from there. I wouldn't delete this as a g11. If the sources are very thin, or are all related to the organization, it would be a prod/AfD candidate.

Additional question from Minimac

5. As one of your intentions is to work in the UFAA department, I'd like to ask you a question based on the following usernames. What administrative actions would you take on the following three cases?

• User:Satellitedirect who removes the redirect from Satellite Direct and creates a promotional page.
• User:BigBlackCockerel who made a single vandalism edit on Rooster
• User:Bottoman who edits constructively

A:

• User:Satellitedirect: This username matches the target page, and the editing is promotional. Depending on the severity of the promotion, I would either warn with {{Uw-coi-username}} or block with {{Uw-softerblock}}
• User:BigBlackCockerel: Again, depending on the severity of the edits, I would either warn the user that the username is unacceptable, or block as a vandalism-only account.
• User:Bottoman: Not an unambiguously offensive username. If this was reported, I'd advise the reporting editor to either ignore, or start a discussion about it if they feel strongly about it.

Additional question from Ottawahitech

6. Do you follow/participate in User talk:Jimbo Wales – please elaborate. Thanks.

A: I've had that page watchlisted for quite a while. I find it's a good spot to keep up to date on the various "hot topics" being discussed on the project. I post very rarely though. I'm not sure how much more I can elaborate on this; I read it mostly out of idle interest.

Additional question from Theonesean

7. In your work at DYK and AfD, how have you dealt with problematic, inexperienced, or otherwise inept editors?

A:I'll get this when I'm home from work this evening

General comments

• Links for The Interior: The Interior (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Edit summary usage for The Interior can be found here.
• Editing statistics are posted on the talk page.—John Cline (talk) 04:44, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

Discussion

• Holy nominations, batman!--v/r - TP 14:00, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Q5 was edited by the questioner after the original version was answered. I think this is misleading, and have reverted to the original version of the question. --Stfg (talk) 21:28, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support

1. Per my co-nomination. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 04:36, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
2. Support - The Interior is one of the most qualified candidates for adminship I have ever had the privilege to support. Convincing him to run was a formidable task as he doesn't appear to expend much energy assessing his own value; instead, simply demanding his own best; in all matters, at all times—being satisfied for giving that of himself. Reviewing the talk page efforts to convince The Interior to run is good reading for anyone interested in knowing more about how this RfA came to be.—John Cline (talk) 04:38, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
3. Support - As a fellow Wikipedian from the same city, I've had long-term positive observations of the candidate on variety of namespace. Calm, civil and consistent, excellent work with Canadian and Vancouver-related projects. Did you know? project would also certainly benefit with an additional mop from one of the most qualified candidates that I've also had the honour to support. Alex Shih^Talk 05:01, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
4. Support – Candidate is quite familiar with Admin-related noticeboards (in particular UAA and AIV); has demonstrated their tenacity and maturity through the clear-cut processes they follow when dealing with conflicts; has an impeccable reputation as evident by their thought-out answers. All the best The Interior! —MelbourneStar☆^talk 05:13, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
5. Support, an exemplary editor, in word and action. –Quiddity (talk) 05:22, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
6. Support - The Interior is the rare contributor who manages to do a lot of good work without causing drama or otherwise attracting attention to himself. We've interacted at DYK on-and-off and I've had his talk page watchlisted for some time now (for reasons I don't recall) and I can't recall seeing him say or do anything that would cause concern -- to tell the truth, I guess I assumed he was already an administrator. --Orlady (talk) 05:27, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
7. This is such a no-brainer that I can't even come up with an adequate support rationale to do him justice. So I'll just link to some examples of gorgeous interior design! My favourite so far has to be this one. :-) Kurtis ^(talk) 05:29, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
8. Support I haven't run across them before, but they seem like an excellent candidate to me. Good luck! ~Adjwilley (talk) 05:31, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
9. Support Response to the CSD question is reasonable enough, which was my only concern in light of the lack of recent CSDing. Monty₈₄₅ 05:34, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
10. Support no issues. --Rschen7754 05:36, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
11. Support - Has the temperament, judgment, and knowledge of policy to be an awesome admin. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 05:51, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
12. Support per noms, a thoughtful, clueful candidate. Graham87 05:53, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
13. Support. It's actually easier to find reasons not to support than reasons to support if they are to be qualified with more substantial rationales than 'Why not?'. In view of the strong, and almost unprecedented number of co-noms, I looked even harder, and all I can come up with is 'Why not?' Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:51, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
14. Support because I see no reason not to. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:59, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
15. Support per the number of nominations. No issues and all the best towards your passing. Jianhui67 Talk 08:59, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
16. Support - saw this page at creation and have been waiting a week for transclusion. It's about time. Absolutely no reservations whatsoever here. Go Phightins! 10:28, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
17. Support - net positive most likely Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:52, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
18. Support Great contributor, see no reason not to. buffbills7701 11:21, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
19. Support - I see no issues here. Deb (talk) 11:49, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
20. Support as no issues, Good luck :) -→Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 13:42, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
21. Support No concerns from me, and highly unlikely to break the wiki. Tazerdadog (talk) 14:10, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
22. Support per noms. 78.26 (I'm no IP, talk to me!) 15:08, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
23. Support I haven't encountered The Interior before, but looking around, I see a great style of communication and a lot of competence. Answers to the questions so far are excellent. I like how he responds to people who express stress by advising them to step away from the debates and edit an article. Oh, and he writes well. --Stfg (talk) 16:24, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
24. Support A host of nominations and no opposes... difficult choice. Rcsprinter (deliver) @ 16:43, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
25. Support per my co-nomination statement.--Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 16:51, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
26. Wasn't he a former admin or something? Very rarely do I see a (thought he was an admin candidate), which basically means extremely strong support. Secret ^account 16:54, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
27. + Keegan (talk) 17:08, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
28. Support Sweet, finally a candidate so uncontroversial that it might finally drop "you have too many co-nominators" from the list of terribly stupid oppose rationales that are still used. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:16, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
29. Support per having too many co-nominators. ;) Actually, if Wictionary has an entry for "having a clue", Interior's picture should be attached to it. Resolute 17:26, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    What are you waiting for? ;) --Stfg (talk) 17:52, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

30. Support. Too well qualified. 069952497a (U-T-C-E) 17:29, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
31. Support All looks fine to me. Widr (talk) 19:45, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
32. Support Well-qualified, experienced in both administrative areas and content creation, and civil editor. Full support. theonesean 20:29, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
33. Support Nice involvement in content contribution areas, unafraid to use Talk pages, appropriate involvement in admin areas. Friendly, helpful and clueful interactions with others. Zad68 20:44, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
34. Support. Distribution wonderful. OK Q1-3 show knowledge and deliberation. Mentions AIV and UAA and significant number of reports in both. Looked at some AfD misses and they are not an issue. Cannot spell "barnstar", but that is not a reason to oppose. Glrx (talk) 21:07, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
35. Support: For last few months, I have been working with this editor, and that's how I am aware of his works and behavior. He is a very friendly editor and understands his responsibilities very well. I see no issue. I am confident that he'll be a great admin. --Tito☸Dutta 21:50, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Neutral

1. Collect (talk) 13:05, 3 September 2013 (UTC) per [1] wherein he dismisses WP:BLPCRIME as policy IMO. Could move to support if he makes a strong statement of support for BLP concerns (I am not posing a question as such, as they tend to get answers found to be "tried and true" in the past <g>) .[reply]

   @Collect: please could you explain how that diff "dismisses WP:BLPCRIME as policy"? It's hard to see the mayor of Toronto as "relatively unknown". Thanks. --Stfg (talk) 13:43, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

   He stated there that his belief was that the "theoretical authoritative biography" of the living person should include the allegations made of criminal activity. The issue was use of a gossip site (Gawker) as a source for criminal allegations based on a video which now appears not to exist at this point. I considered such sites to not meet the strong requirements of WP:BLPCRIME while he averred that Ford was a sufficiently high public figure as he has a Wikipedia article for such allegations to be included. No police action has been taken, nor is any likely, for the alleged crime. For some odd reason, I consider allegations that a person was smoking crack cocaine to be a contentious claim about a criminal act, and suggest further that the WEIGHT given to a gossip site for such a claim should be de minimis. I note that I hold a strong view about that policy, and would like him to elucidate on why it does not apply in the case at hand, and where he would find it applicable to a person sufficiently notable to have a Wikipedia BLP. If no one with an article is "unknown" that that part of the policy is, frankly, meaningless. Collect (talk) 14:08, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

   If Gawker had been the sole source in that ugliness, I would have been right beside you in opposing mention of the incident. However, the involvement of the Toronto Star, and the fact that two of its reporters stood by their story that they had viewed the tape, complicates matters. I believe it was the reputation of the Star that led many other reliable sources, such as the New York Times and the Guardian, to also report on the story. When faced with those sources, it was very hard for me to support your position re: BLPCRIME. In general, I’m usually quite conservative about including these sort of allegations when the sourcing is not a strong as it was here. The Interior (Talk) 20:54, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

   Actually only the Star and Gawker were sources on the day of our colloquy -- we still are at a point where we have "strong sourcing" that the allegation was made, but absolutely zero sourcing for the truth of the allegation, and strong sourcing that no charges were filed. Thus the question still remains - was Ford sufficiently notable that the mere presence of an allegation of criminal activity was sufficient for it to be placed in his BLP, based only on Gawker and the Star reporting on the Gawker story, lacking any of the later sources now used? Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:37, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

   Not to hassle you, but just to add my 2c. on this particular incident, mostly for other readers. I have to say that, like Stfg, I don't read The Interior as dismissing WP:BLPCRIME in that comment. Not even close. In fact, he had just shown that he had read WP:BLP rather carefully. On the particular point you raise, the claims a) were initially raised not only in Gawker but also in a broadsheet that is Canada's highest-circulation daily newspaper; and then b) were reported by every other media outlet in Canada, as well as widely in the rest of the world. But not to continue that debate. More to the point, I like The Interior's approach in this instance, and I like his more informal explanatory gloss or rule of thumb on WP:BLP: "What we really should be thinking about is if the theoretical authoritative biography of this man, when all is said and done, would include this incident." This is a sane approach, and I wish more Wikipedia biographies of living persons would follow it. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:58, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

   @Collect: thanks for explaining your position. I don't want to take sides on that discussion here, but suffice to say that it seems to be an issue of how the BLP policy applies to the case, rather than a dismissal of the policy itself. Regards, --Stfg (talk) 16:17, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]