Meta:Requests for adminship/AGK

AGK

Hello, Meta folks. I'd like to request temporary adminship, primarily for cleanup purposes: there's a tonne of system messages needing cleaned up (a lot are sitting in the state they come in with a default MediaWiki download, which is obviously not ideal with regards to new users). I'd also be glad to close deletion discussions (I've dabbled there in the past on meta, when flying through between other projects, and I close large volumes of discussions extra-Meta). I mainly base my request on a desire to assist at the spam blacklist.

I am acquainted with the Meta administrator policy, as well as the restrictions on temporary adminship (with regards to limiting oneself to areas of activity). Additionally, I am highly experience in the field of administrator duties, being an experienced administrator on the english wikipedia (where I also function as an arbitration clerk, member of the mediation committee, and observer on the cultural edit warring work group, amongst other roles).

In short, I'm experienced and (dare I blow my own trumpet?) trusted on other wikis, and I'd like to help out :) Anthøny 16:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• General comment I strongly disagree to grant sysopship to some points referred on the above, including closing votes and Spam blacklist. They are not technical issues which we accept temporal sysops. --Aphaia 17:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• With regards to your first concern (closing votes), I have removed that: I did not realise there would be an opposition to a temp. sysop doing that. With regards to your second concern: I was under the impression from this that you did? Anthøny 16:36, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

• Week oppose: I reviewed your edits on English Wikipedia. Your edits in MediaWiki namespaces are less than 20 from the beginning. Also your reasons, specially temp admin for closing votes, don't convince me. I am not sure if you really need it for emergency and things you only can manage well, which is basically we grant temporal sysop access to people who need it. Also you don't show how long you need this temp access. --Aphaia 17:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• • P.S. This vote was withdrawn and recast because of the clarification and discussion on the below. --09:31, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
• Apologies, I forgot to clarify this. One month, is the boundary of my request. Anthøny 17:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree with Aphaia, in that only regular admins should be closing deletion requests. I suggest you follow Werdna's recent promotion and stick with the spam blacklist. Majorly (talk) 21:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• Comment I notice that a large part of your edits are to your user space as such your knowledge of Meta is likely to be limited. In practice I would love to see more helpers on the spam blacklist however those saying that they are going to help are tending to outweigh those who actually do help these days sadly --Herby ^{talk thyme} 17:32, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• If it helps, I give my oath to chip in :) Anthøny 17:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• I appreciate your thoughts. Help there would be very welcome - given the number of sysops Meta has it is not the most popular place to work. However I would echo Hillgentleman's & Kylu's comments - plenty can be done on that page without sysop status & that experience would be useful to you & the community - thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:22, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: You don't need to be a sysop to help out in the Spamblacklist. You can simply verify the requests and give your comments. That alone will greatly speed up the process. Much appreciated, Hillgentleman 20:24, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
•  Support Per this. Majorly (talk) 21:30, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

  Majorly, The key point here is whether this candidate is capable and trusted to deal with the issues that he proposed to do. I haven't checked his contributions on wikipedia, but from what he said on this page: 1. system messages - probably; 2.spam blacklist - perhaps; 3. closing deletion requests - I don't think so. Hillgentleman 23:53, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

  Perhaps it is. We'll wait and see what AGK says. Perhaps limiting his adminship more would help. Majorly (talk) 23:55, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

  I have dropped the deletion discussions section, per the above comments. If it helps, I maintain a number of mediawiki projects, and have bucketloads of experience with system messages; my edit count on enwiki in the MediaWiki:- space is as low as it is, solely because: 1/ I'm so busy with other things there; and 2/ the messages there are already, by-and-large, fine. Anthøny 13:44, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

• Comment I'd have to agree with Aphaia. Temporary adminships are typically given to users who want to work on one specific project on Meta, such as the SBL/TBL, projects/committee work, and portal editing. If you'd like to add in more edits, I think you'd be ideal to help out on my pet project also. Personally, I'd suggest helping verify SBL/TBL requests and make a large to-do list of items you'd like to change in the mw namespace and use the opportunity to explore Meta a bit, then just request regular adminship. Temporary admins aren't "admin trainees", they're "specialty" admins confined to working only on specific pages. Even though they have the technical ability to, for instance, delete pages on WM:RFD, they shouldn't, as it's outside the scope of their position. Let me know if you'd like to know where to help out, though? ~Kylu (u|t) 05:34, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

• reset

Thanks for feedback. So now your reasonings for temp sysop are two on the below (and only):

• MediaWiki message update
• Help on Spam blacklist

Right? --Aphaia 17:17, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

And adding to Aphaia's comment - from a BL perspective you have just three contribs to the en wp list with none to the requests page which gives me some cause for concern in terms of experience in that field. Please feel free to help out on the page here, it would be appreciated. However there is plenty there to do without sysop rights being needed. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 17:38, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

We have just promoted Werdna to admin to help in this area. He has a total of 0 edits on the enwp blacklist, and had no edits to the spam blacklist talk page here. Why not AGK? Majorly (talk) 19:58, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Fortunately all work on wikis is voluntary however in terms of help feel free to look at Werdna's contribution to the BL pages since his adminship. I stress this is no criticism however things need doing not talking about for those who are willing --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:20, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Reply for Aphaia: you have it correct, yes. Anthøny 17:49, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Support for MediaWiki update, Oppose for Blacklist as principle. As said by the others, helping BL can be done without adminship as clerks can help arbitration process without arbitratorship imo. --Aphaia 09:31, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose; I believe AGK is extraordinarily power-hungry and invariably asks for almost every power that he thinks he can achieve. Ral315 (talk) 01:28, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

  That's a rather strong accusation. Any backup to the claim? Furthermore, as I've had that same claim lobbied at myself, can you show how his power-hunger has been abused (or, at the very least, a net-loss for a project)? EVula // talk // ☯ // 01:56, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

  Indeed. I'd like some evidence, particularly showing how he's abused his so-called "power". Majorly (talk) 02:08, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Apologies for the length of this (feel free to move it to the talk page if necessary), and apologies if some of it sounds choppy. Parts of this summary were cobbled together from other pages and discussions. Below is a list of most of the requests that AGK's made over the course of his time on Wikipedia; I'm sure I've missed a couple (and if I missed any requests where he was granted a right/position, I apologize):

• December 27, 2006: adds himself to the standby list for CheckUser clerks. At the time, not granted.
• December 29, 2006: requests to join the mediation committee. Denied.
• December 31, 2006: requests OTRS access. Not granted.
• January 9, 2007: requests CheckUser access. Denied.
• January 16, 2007: attempts to gain access to the Bot Approvals Group. Denied.
• February 9, 2007: requests adminship on the English Wikipedia. Not granted.
• March 3, 2007: requests to join the Mediation Committee again. Denied.
• March 6, 2007: requests to become an administrator at the Simple English Wikipedia. Denied, and he leaves that wiki soon afterward, indicating that he was editing there for the sole purpose of gaining adminship (though has since made some edits under his current username, AGK).
• March 9, 2007: Adds self as CheckUser clerk, shortly after the process is made more open (previously, checkusers -- primarily Essjay -- added users themselves). I recall a conversation with Essjay before he left the site in which he told me that he did not wish for Anthony to become a clerk; this is of course hearsay, and Essjay can't back this up. However, Essjay privately, and to a lesser extent publicly, complained that many of the positions that Anthony/AGK applied for were positions that Essjay held, or positions under Essjay (i.e. CheckUser clerk), and that the requests seemed to him as a form of stalking.
• April 4, 2007: requests OTRS access again; request withdrawn.
• April 19, 2007: requests to become a coordinator of the Mediation Cabal via e-mail. Not granted.
• April 27, 2007: requests adminship on the English Wikipedia for a second time. Granted this time; I voted Neutral.
• May 18, 2007: requests to join the Mediation Committee for a third time. Granted; I was unable to register my opinion on his nomination before it closed.
• May 23, 2007: becomes a VandalProof moderator.
• May 24, 2007: Just a day later, removed as moderator by AmiDaniel, "due to complaints from a variety of sources".
• July 24, 2007: requests OTRS access for a third time. Denied.
• December 27, 2007: Named an Arbitration Committee Clerk (at the time, a trainee; since then he's been named a full clerk)
• February 6, 2008: Named as an observer to the Working Group on ethnic and cultural edit wars.
• February 11, 2008: requests OTRS access for a fourth time. Denied.
• March 8, 2008: requests an account on the Foundation wiki. Request not yet acted upon.

AGK even admitted on March 5, 2007 that "I appeared power-hungry, and to an extent I was. Might I here point out that I have since eliminated all nominations from my mind - Adminship, etc.. - to concentrate on being permitted to formally mediate cases alongside a group of Wikipedians who I each hold in the highest respect, for one reason or another." The request to join MedCom was declined just hours later; he applied for adminship on the Simple English Wikipedia just a day afterward. I believe this speaks to AGK's hunger for power.

In response to Majorly and EVula, I have to admit that AGK has not abused these powers, though I feel that in some cases he's made poor judgments. As a fellow mediator (and a fairly unsuccess I don't feel comfortable judging his Mediation Committee actions, as a mediator emeritus, but I think AGK's handled some things rather poorly. For example, he was involved in a minor edit war with Daniel and I, regarding text on his userpage that was unquestionably copyrighted. He took offense that Daniel and I were involved, due to prior disputes we've had with him, and attacked us for that while acknowledging that we were right regarding the copyright status of the text. Moreover, he noted that he didn't have that great a grip on copyright issues, and "[had] not offered [himself] to OTRS for copyright queues". This is absolutely false; in July 2007, AGK's third OTRS request specifically notes that, at least initially "'I only wish to start helping out with permissions".

I feel that while he's a great contributor, he lacks the sensitivity to others to realize that some of his behavior can be extremely irritating, and in some cases can be interpreted as "wikistalking". Throughout Anthony/AGK's time on Wikipedia, he's seemed to follow in the footsteps of Essjay and Daniel. Both Essjay and Daniel have noted that AGK/Anthony has borrowed from their userpage design significantly; while it doesn't seem like the biggest concern, I can see where they could be concerned about confusion, and also how it could "weird them out".

More concerning, as noted above, is that many of the positions he's applied for were originally held by Essjay or Daniel. For example, in one of many coincidences, AGK first inquires about becoming a VandalProof moderator, just two days after Daniel becomes one. In early 2007, his requests to join the Mediation Committee, OTRS, CheckUser group, CheckUser clerk, and Bot Approvals Group were all presumably motivated by the fact that Essjay held each right. I wouldn't be worried about this, since it happened last year, except that it's still happening. Anthony asks for temporary Meta adminship less than four weeks after Daniel receives it for a different purpose -- another coincidence?

I guess to me, it's not a concern that AGK will do it wrong -- though he's had his troubles, I expect temporary adminship, to focus on MediaWiki messages only, is a task that is purely janitorial, and he should run into no trouble there. However, I find it troubling that it seems he treats these positions like trophies. I don't feel that encouraging this would be good for Wikimedia or for AGK, and I don't think that, given these concerns, the task he wishes to accomplish is that important that denying him adminship would adversely affect the Wikimedia mission. Ral315 (talk) 08:31, 14 April 2008 (UTC)