Paine Ellsworth

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (2/4/2); Scheduled to end 19:55, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Nomination

Paine Ellsworth (talk · contribs) – I bring before the community User:Paine Ellsworth. A tireless, caring, and dedicated Wikipedian. Paine has been an editor for over 6 years now and has racked up a whopping 88,039 edits to his name! He has been trusted with Template Editor rights since 2013 and is very skilled at improving templates. I've encountered Paine many times when editing and categorizing redirects and sought his help and expertise on these matters. Paine is civil, and being a writer in RL, his grasp of English makes him an excellent communicator. His dedication to improving Wikipedia shines through on his lengthy workpage. His userboxes show varied interests including Astronomy, Electronics, Human Prehistory and Space Exploration! Paine Ellsworth is a helpful and pleasant individual. But above all else, he can be trusted with the tools, and that's what really matters. Because we need more admins, and quality, long-term, dedicated, and intelligent editors that actually WANT to be admins are hard to come by these days. Paine is all these things and more. œ^™ 14:09, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Co-nom

I had been considering Paine for a while as an excellent prospective candidate and while revisiting the matter again this morning, OlEnglish left the RfA notice on his talk page. I take that as a good sign that more than one of the admin corps have reached this decision. I find that Paine is level-headed, mature and calm which are all traits that we look for in our admins. He is a very adept editor and I feel that he will be an adept admin if given the chance. It is clear that he is dedicated to the project and will serve it well if given the mop.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 15:22, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I greatly appreciate both your supportive comments above. With highest regards I hope that I may live up to them as a project administrator!

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: I would like to start small and learn as I go; however from what I've read, starting too small might not be an option. "Backlogs" and near-backlogs will be what pretty much drives my editing. I've worked on several, am working on some now and will find others to work on for which the tools of an admin are needed. It's "behind the scenes", which defines nearly all of my edits. I've spent a lot of time with redirect categorization, so I'll learn more about closing deletion discussions, especially at RfD and other discussion pages. And I'll check for fully protected edit requests to decrease the backlog and to work to keep the numbers from climbing again.

I've learned from my supporters that there are other areas, such as PRODs and CSDs, where I could have been doing more work as a non-admin. While I am definitely for the creation of good pages/articles on Wikipedia and the deletion of the bad things, these generally are not areas in which I've made a great deal of edits. That may change as I steep myself into Twinkle and its helpful tools.

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

A: I've created articles, redirects, disambiguation pages, categories, an essay or two; the two articles I would call "best" are that for different reasons. The George Claghorn article I started from a red link in the Old Ironsides article, and very few other editors have contributed to it. On the other hand, James F. Thomson (philosopher) I began as a redirect and, through the efforts of several other editors, it has blossomed into a fine, still growing article. Some editors moan about how their improvements become squished over time by other editors. I see that in a different light: I make improvements and other editors come along and build on my work. That's the real beauty of this encyclopedia!

Just recently I completed a long-term project, of which I am way too personally proud. I updated all the redirect category (rcat) templates and their documentation, and I brought both rcat indices completely up to date. Again, this was very much out of public view, and I did appreciate the barnstar or two I received along the way.

I've used AWB to edit, and I do recognize its usefulness and that of bots under certain conditions; however, better still are those manual edits I've made. It is only while editing manually that one can be led to a sometimes long string of several articles/pages that need to be improved, pages that are missed by non-manual editing. Some of my best edits were those times when I made mistakes and was reverted by more experienced editors. I've learned a good deal about editing from the discussions that ensued. They've made me go back over my oldest contributions to make corrections based on what I know now vs. what little I knew then. I recommend that for everyone, because our contributions pages are a history of how we've evolved as editors.

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: Yes, in the course of my presence here I have several times been in conflict with other editors who felt that my edits were not improvements (or with vandals, some of whom were persistent). It is common in this environment for two or more people with only the improvement of Wikipedia in mind to disagree and lock horns. Civility rules. Since this is a form of volunteer work, and since I have grown to really like Wikipedia, I've endured little actual stress in those cases. I dealt with it by presenting my views, by listening to the views of other editors and by practicing forgiveness. At times my edits prevailed and other times they didn't, and all these instances were learning experiences in some way or another. It's the (rare) unwarranted personal attacks one must watch out for. Whatever happens one cannot take those too seriously, because most often they are just people trying to push your buttons and manipulate you. Those times when you do take button pushers seriously, then some time off is warranted and a very good idea. I feel it's important to listen carefully when others disagree with me. That's what can turn conflict and attempts at manipulation into consensus and improvement.

Additional question from Beyond My Ken

4. To what would you attribute the fact that 16 of the 51 articles you created have been deleted?

A:

Discussion

• Links for Paine Ellsworth: Paine Ellsworth (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Edit summary usage for Paine Ellsworth can be found here.

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

Support

1. Support I have worked with Paine in several areas, primarily concerning redirects, and have always found him or her courteous, sensible, willing to listen and appreciative. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:07, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
2. Easy support: helpful, trustworthy, courteous. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:52, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

1. Strong Oppose - Ellsworth has a history of incivility and racial insensitivity (calling Native Americans, "red men":[1], telling Natives that "they should realize that they are Americans first and Natives second", that "full blooded" Native Americans are "long dead" and Natives now should "[rise] above the old ways"[2], as well as joking(?) about the genocide of other users' ancestors:[3].)
   I have seen him repeatedly misrepresent policy:[4][5][6][7]. My main experience of this user was on the Ceremonial pipe article, where Ellsworth edit-warred with admins and other experienced Wikipedians to repeatedly move a page against consensus, because he "liked the ring of"[8] an antiquated, colonial, and culturally-inappropriate article name: Page moves: [9][10]. Whole discussion here. Ellsworth also disrespected talk page etiquette, inserting his comments out of order into other discussions, throwing off the chronology, and reverted other editors who reconfigured for readability. When editors experienced with Native articles attempted to discuss his edit-warring with him, he doubled-down on the racial insults, comparing his losing a content dispute to the genocide of Native Americans:[11]. I don't know if he thought this was funny or what, but those sorts of racial insults do not belong on the 'pedia, and someone who behaves that way should not be an admin. He also attempted to hide these conflicts with, and warnings by, other editors by deleting the discussions from his talk page[12] with insulting edit summaries:[13]. While current WP consensus holds that individuals can remove things from their talk pages, this was again inflammatory behaviour and trying to avoid consequences for his disruptive behaviour.
   Paine has been repeatedly warned for disruptive editing, edit-warring, and racism. He repeatedly inserted content in the encyclopedia that describes Native Americans solely in the past tense,[14][15][16] which disappears contemporary Native peoples and cultures. He has edit-warred to preserve this racially insensitive content. His edits have focused on privileging outsider, colonial terms for Natives, Native sacred objects and ceremonies, and asserting that Natives only exist in the past and are best described by non-Natives.
   Initially I assumed it was just ignorance of Native issues. Then with the "red men" incident[17] it became clear he was either trying to be inflammatory, or is so out of touch with Indian country that he should be topic-banned from any page having to do with Indigenous people. See the state of his talk page[18] before he deleted it all:[19].
   It's problematic enough when regular users behave this way. Wikipedia has a systemic bias issue, and many non-white editors do not stay after dealing with treatment like this. We have been trying to increase racial diversity on WP, and I've seen editors leave after witnessing this stuff. For Ellsworth to have the extra buttons... I believe he would wheel war, bulldoze inexperienced users, and harm the community, as well as the reputation of the community. I do not trust Ellsworth's assessment of, or representation of, policy. I've found his demeanor of insults, followed by aggressively cheerful declarations, to be condescending and insulting, especially around racial issues. Wikipedia is not only for white people. I don't like having to do this but after what I've seen of his behaviour I am horrified at the idea of him being an admin. - CorbieV^☊☼ 20:08, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   CorbieV, I am very sorry that you continue to carry the burden of these feelings. And so much so that you would bring them to this process in such a powerful manner. I tend to see what happened in a very different light: You moved the page to an unsuitable title, then I reverted the move. Another editor again moved the article to an unsuitable title, then I again reverted the move. You did the right thing at that time and opened a move request. Your suggested move was again to the unsuitable title. As a result of my challenge and the help of other editors, the page was ultimately moved to a suitable title, and I am fairly sure that all editors in the RM discussion were satisfied with the final outcome, to include myself. Yes, there were some accusations and evident bad faith expressed; however, I do not remember any experience of incivility on your part in the discussion on the article's talk page. Since our viewpoints about that discussion are so out of phase, we will both have to leave it to others who read it to make up their own minds. Again, I am sad that you feel the way you do, and if there is anything I can do to make you feel better, then please let me know. Paine  ^{(talk – contribs)}  20:42, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

2. OPPOSE - I hate vague answers on Q3. Give me substance, give specifics--who did you have disputes with? how were they resolved? what did you learn from it? how specifically did you change your behaviors or tactics that led to the dispute? If you want to give a meaningless answer to the question, like yours above, you essentially ignore the meaning of the question. Apparently, CorbieVreccan has specific issues with your conduct, and alleges you haven't changed. JackTheVicar (talk) 20:14, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   JackTheVicar, it appears that CorvieV's unfortunate bad feelings are beginning to result in the "snow oppose" I've read about. I did not want my Q3 response to become tl;dr, and I realized that I would ultimately have to answer for my past conflicts here in this section. In that particular conflict I learned that there are still other editors, to include some admins, who will put aside the sensible policies and guidelines of this project, which often leads to incivilty. I'm sure you've probably already discovered the extended discussion that was brought to my user talk page for all my friends to see. Do you not find it interesting that such behavior did not lead to any editors taking any other editors to task before the community? I did not take them to task because to me, there is little that is more important than to forgive people for calling me names and falsely accusing me of hideous behavior. I still wonder why, if the other editors involved felt and feel so strongly about how "bad" they thought I was, then why didn't I have to face a community discussion at ANI or some other venue. Why wait until now, this moment to reopen a healing wound? Paine  ^{(talk – contribs)}  21:04, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

3. Oppose Per CorbieVreccan. We should have little tolerance for racial insensitivity, especially when it comes to admins. RO^(talk) 20:29, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
4. STRONG OPPOSE Per CorbieVreccan. Paine also reverted me [20] on the same article as CorbieVreccan and I see that as part of a pattern of how Paine dealt with this particular content dispute. Later, Paine said "I took no action against the other editors" as if that were a noteworthy ethical decision[21]. I don't have any faith that he would handle the additional buttons responsibly. Cheers, Pigman☿/talk 20:31, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So sorry you feel that way, Pigman. I reverted your move in that title dispute because you had moved the page to the same unsuitable title to which CorvieV had moved it. That was proved by the ensuing move request. And you moved the page (boldly, as you said) while there was an ongoing title dispute discussion on the article's talk page. I still wonder why you did that. Why would you move a page, any page, while contention still existed? Paine  ^{(talk – contribs)}  21:12, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

1. I was looking for more concise and specific answers to the first three questions. It's not the place for vague generalities and statements about editing philosophy are tolerated in moderation. Please identify specific areas where you need the tools and specific conflicts that you've had and, hopefully, resolved. I know you have thought a lot about this RfA but you shouldn't overthink your answers which should be straight and to-the-point. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:09, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
2. Neutral. I don't really know Paine Ellsworth, but from what I have seen so far, I didn't find enough reason to support. However, as I don't really know the candidate, I will not oppose, either, unless I see something really negative. Epic Genius (talk) 21:14, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

General comments