Stewards/Elections 2014/Questions

The following discussion is closed: This election is closed and these pages are an archive of that event.

←2014 Elections

2014 Steward Elections (Questions)

English: Eligible voters (see application guidelines) can ask questions to all candidates on this page. Please keep questions as concise and relevant as possible. Candidates, please answer as briefly and simply as possible.

For all candidates

Question from Billinghurst

Question: In twelve months time, if you were elected, how would you consider that you have had a successful year, what would be your measure?  — billinghurst sDrewth 14:43, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

• I would name it successful if I have had a year in which I did not create any conflicts and in which I have been active for most of the time. Also, doing the tasks without any problems is also a pro. — TBloemink _talk 17:29, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
• I would consider my first year to be successful two ways, first through my own examination of my actions and second through the comments at my confirmation. For self-examination, I would want to ensure that I had put a sufficient amount of time into steward work to warrant keeping the rights. I would also objectively look over my work of the past year to ensure that they were all done in accordance to the steward, CU/OS, and privacy policies (though I would constantly do this during the year as well). Most importantly, I would make sure that my contribution to Wikimedia as a steward was a positive one; I see myself as here to help a fantastic cause, so I want my time here to be spent making it even better. The primary area I will be active in is global counter-vandalism, so an example of an overall positive contribution would be doing as much as I can to help prevent global spam, which is something I can't do as a global sysop. If I passed these three criteria in my own mind, only then would I stand for confirmation, and would consider my year to be successful if the community echoed my own conclusions of a proper time commitment, following the relevant policies and making a positive contribution. Ajraddatz (Talk) 17:56, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
• Well, the standard "at least moderately active, retains the trust of the community, didn't make any serious mistakes" would be a prerequisite in any case. And I would evaluate how well I performed the tasks of a steward, and what I would improve in my work over the next year. But in any role that I take on, I aim to leave things better than when I found them. Now, I know that stewards are not GovCom or even ArbCom, and stewards cannot make wide-ranging decisions unilaterally, nor should they be able to. But generally, rather than settling, I believe that we should continue to innovate. If elected, I would certainly look for ways to improve how the steward team functions, as well as communicating with each other, with WMF, and with members of the community, and make these suggestions as appropriate. So in short, I would look to such improvements as well, when evaluating my work as a steward. --Rschen7754 01:01, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
• Much like my colleagues, I'd consider the retention of community trust and reasonable level of activity with no major errors and overall low error rate to be a good sign of success, at least on a general level. More personally, I would expect to have learned at least two new skills and to be able to use them successfully; and to having established successful collaborative relationships with many of my new peers. Risker (talk) 21:22, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
• I would consider (for myself) that being generally helpful while performing steward actions and being active (in at least a moderate way). Generally I'll feel pretty confident in my role as a steward if I perform these actions well for the community. Techman224^Talk 23:53, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

• I would consider that I have had a successful year if: 1-I retained a decent level of activity of at least a several hours per week on wiki and on IRC. 2-The comments in my confirmation page were positive, this means that the commenting users believe that I followed global and local steward-related policies as well as checkuser/oversight, etc policies correctly. 3-The messages I received in my talk page throughout the year were positive i.e. I didn't make major mistakes and there aren't complains about my work, etc. I would also value the opinion of other stewards and what they think about my work throughout the year. --Meno25 (talk) 23:39, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

• I have worked as a professional and I gained more professionalism. I have been active for most of the time. For example, I am busy on wiki projects from 6 to 10 hours in a day. My contributions will be increased further. --►Cekli829 06:51, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

• I would consider it as successful if I am able to consistently active all the months in the areas which i mentioned in my nomination statement.--Shanmugamp7 ^(talk) 17:11, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

• My intention for this coming year is to be active and with a constant presence within the steward scope. I would like to have been helpful in these tasks, and I would like all my actions to be accurate and correct, while any conflicts or mistakes that could surge from any of my actions resolved efficiently and fairly. Though I intend to start with the tasks in which I have experience (Global countervandalism, user renames, right changes), I would also like to end the year as another useful steward for the Wikimedia community. Savh^ñ 08:47, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
• [Sorry for my delay. For me, January/February are months of winter exams.] It's not about perfect, permanent activity 24/7 and it's obvious. Nobody has to edit. It's not about mistakes, too, because you don't make ones only if you do nothing. It's about doing well what now I just think I'll do well. It's about trust, predictability (hard to measure) and no serious mistakes as well. And after a year, the confirmation and the decision of our multilingual community will be the measure. Tar Lócesilion|queta! 12:20, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
• I would consider it successful if I have handled a number of steward requests, helped out users when needed and acted when cross-wiki vandalism occurred, while obeying the policies, performing my actions well and not having created any conflicts. Ultimately I care about helping others, maintaining our wikis and doing the right thing. SPQRobin (talk) 21:22, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Question from Mathonius

Some of the candidates have already answered similar questions, but I think this is a question any prospective steward should be able to answer: please describe in your own words the role of stewards within the Wikimedia community. And, in short, how do you think you will fulfill this role? What are your expectations? Thanks, Mathonius (talk) 17:48, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

• Stewards are trusted users chosen by the community which act as members of permission groups that do not exist on certain wiki's to perform tasks like oversighting libelous information and performing checkusers. Also, they add/remove rights when there are no local bureaucrats to do so and/or they do not have power to assign/remove permissions. They also help out in global anti-vandalism work, by fighting it or locking accounts/global blocking IP-addresses. I Hope I gave a satisfactory answer. — TBloemink _talk 18:16, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
• The role of a steward is very clearly defined on the stewards page, but there are two key points which I put special emphasis on when considering my potential scope of action as a steward. First, stewards implement, not define, consensus. It is not the job of a steward to push a discussion one way or the other, or to use their tools to implement a different result than what was voted on by the community. Stewards can of course vote and comment, as any editor can, but they should not be presenting one side as the only one which will be implemented. Secondly, stewards can fill user groups which are not filled on a project; i.e., if a project has no local bureaucrats, then that is the role of a steward on that project. The corollary that I make to this is that stewards shouldn't be acting in a local role when that role is filled. If a project has local and active admins, stewards shouldn't be deleting non-urgent pages, something which I appreciate in my current role as a global sysop. Stewards have a very large toolset on all wikis, so it is important that those rights are only used when needed, and not to replace a local user when possible. Ajraddatz (Talk) 21:59, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
• In short, implementing community consensus within the context of global policies. They serve as admins/crats/CUs/oversighters on wikis without them, as well as global permissions. They handle global blocks and locks in cases of bad faith such as spam or vandalism. They can take emergency actions to protect the interests of Wikimedia, but they are generally subject to review by WMF and/or the local communities as appropriate. --Rschen7754 04:32, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

• Stewards are users who have some extra buttons (i) to execute the community's decision without any conflicts of interest.(ii) to protect all Wikimedia wikis from spam, vandalism or abuse (Global locks/blocks). (ii) to act as a sysop, bureaucrat, CheckUser, Oversighter where the respective users are not available on the local community. As I said in my nomination statement, I will be focusing on global counter vandalism/spam work which fulfills the second and third point. I would like to focus on user right changes as well which fulfills the first point. I would expect the stewards to be neutral and consistently active where/when ever needed --Shanmugamp7 ^(talk) 16:26, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

• Stewards are trusted Wikimedia users tasked with the mission of implementing consciousness of Wikimedia projects communities with two important rules: 1-They can't override community consciousness. 2-They should always avoid conflict of interest for example: avoid handling requests on wikis where they are active editors. It is better that an uninvolved steward handles those requests. A part of stewards' work (along with global sysops and global rollbackers) is to fight vandalism on small wikis that don't have a big enough community to fight vandalism. Also, I believe that another part of stewards' work is help other users with advanced permissions (like bureaucrat and checkuser) if they needed help for example about how to use their tools. Thus, a steward should preferably have a basic technical understanding of how MediaWiki works. Stewards are preferred to be multilingual to be able to work with as many communities as possible. I believe I will fulfill this role by being active in various permission requests pages and on IRC. I will also do my best to learn from older stewards who have more experience with steward tools than myself. --Meno25 (talk) 23:25, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

• As I see it, a steward's role is to handle requests on wikis where no such user exist to perform it (or all of the users are inactive). That means for example they can act as bureaucrats on wikis with no (or inactive) bureaucrats, or administrators where there are none (along with global sysops of course). Stewards must perform their actions under community consensus, they can not override it even if they don't like it. They also must not use their tools when there is a local user to perform them, unless it's an emergency. They must also prevent conflicts of interests by avoiding the use of the tools on wikis where they are active editors (unless of course it is emergency, like an admin account on the English Wikipedia is compromised and/or using their tools to compromise the integrity of the site). Stewards also act on global issues, which include global blocking and account locking, managing access to global groups, and now handling global abuse filters among other things. In general, a steward is supposed to serve the community. Techman224^Talk 00:34, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

• Rules, rules, rules. That's the important thing. The most important expectation, however, will have to take more responsibility. Furthermore, in this respect I am also agree other candidate friends. --►Cekli829 07:10, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

• Well, now that my colleagues have already said what I was thinking, I don't know that there is much to add here. The key function of a steward is to act at the request of a project in whatever roles that project has not already filled; that could be administrator, bureaucrat, checkuser or oversighter. Stewards are also responsible for enabling tools for users of other projects (implementing community consensus), and for the granting of global permissions and WMF staff permissions. They will also assist projects to address vandalism and spam, particularly cross-wiki problems, and will set global locks as appropriate. There is some call now for assisting users in setting up their global SUL; this workflow will increase significantly if and when all accounts move to SUL. They are responsible for implementing modifications to user groups on a global basis. Finally, in my experience, stewards are often good resource people for just about anyone in any role, although that's not something that's written into the "job description". Risker (talk) 03:59, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

• Stewards are part of the Wikimedia community, being allowed to vote and give their opinion, though their votes and opinions are in no way superior to that of the rest of the community. The role of a steward is purely technical, directed on assisting with certain aspects of maintenance of the WMF wikis. Stewards are not an authority, and not above any reached consensus. Stewards are responsible for acting on consensus and should implement it when this regards certain aspects of these projects, which mainly come down to user rights. One of the complex aspects is, however, determining consensus, possibly reached in a foreign language, possibly unclear, ... Despite this, there should always be an attempt to get consensus, even considering that some wikis will not have any community members commenting on an RfA.

Stewards are also entrusted with global account handling, such as username changes, and (b)locking globally abusive accounts and IPs, for example spambots. They are not, however, a global ArbCom and should not globally ban users without global community consensus, though even then it's preferable to block a user on the wiki's on which he is disruptive.

I am willing to help within the steward tasks, by implementing the necessary actions based on the obtained consensus. I am also willing to do steward tasks in the global countervandalism scope, and non-controversial actions when there are no local users able to perform these tasks, such as user renames. Just as global sysops, stewards should avoid using any of their tools on wikis where local users are available to fulfill these tasks, unless otherwise approved by the community (for instance, renames on jawiki). Savh^ñ 08:47, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

• It has been already written: stewards implement consensus, not define/override it. The permission is purely technical (btw, I hope nobody argues otherwise after a few years of stewards' presence). They have nothing to do with solving local conflicts, changing communities' mind, no role of super-AC. As I wrote in my own section, the role of steward is to be calm and humble and that's why I'll focus on serving local communities, especially small wikis. Tar Lócesilion|queta! 12:20, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
• Most of the candidates above have provided good explanations of the role of steward. As I see it, stewards are trusted members of the community who are given the technical power to implement changes requested by community consensus. They need to be aware of global policies and they can generally provide help to community members. In addition, they can combat cross-wiki vandalism and other emergencies. I will cooperate with other stewards and learn from them how to best handle the role of steward. SPQRobin (talk) 21:22, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Questions from Gryllida

• What do you think of these three related concepts? --Gryllida 03:23, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
  • As far as the first one: we are here to write content, not to collect points; while we may be motivated by them, if we focus on just getting points, we have missed the forest for the trees. As far as the other two, they seem to be a problem specific to English Wikipedia, but feel free to correct me if I'm missing something. --Rschen7754 03:37, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
  • As for the first one; I totally agree that we should be here for writing and improving content. Stuff like edit count, number of barnstarns and such should not be important. The only thing that I find a little important is the amount of good and featured articles someone has written, because it deflects the quality of the writing of the user. Now I am using the word quality, always place quality over quantity. As for the second pages; I totally agree on the second page. Enable anonymous page creations. Anonymous users are more worth than you think. They can write great articles. And also don't warn them with icons and fancy texts, but be nice to them. You might just have gotten another active editor and future admin. — TBloemink _talk 08:27, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
  • As far as the first one is concerned the points/barnstars can be used to motivate the contributors but it should not become an objective for them. If they are working to get points/barnstars the quality will not be there. For second and third i partially agree with your proposal but we should consider the practical difficulties in amending them in the large wikis like English wikipedia. I am afraid this is not the right place to discuss about this. if you want we can discuss this on some other appropriate place. --Shanmugamp7 ^(talk) 11:29, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Once upon a time, it was almost mandatory that enwiki candidates for administrator had to have featured content under their belt. In order to reach that objective, many made up "featured portals", which could fairly easily be done by using a proven content format for a topic. Once they got their adminship, most of the candidates did not maintain the portals. The project was not improved by the existence of poorly maintained "featured" content; one could argue that the project was worse off for having them.

    Many of the issues you highlight in your essay show how communities can develop practices that seem to solve certain problems, but then become so entrenched that the communities have great difficulty to change them when circumstances change, or when following a specific rule is not to the benefit of the project. The examples you provide are specific to enwiki, but similar examples can be found on many projects. I'd like to see more of the flexible thinking that got all of our projects off the ground, both at a local level and a global one. Risker (talk) 17:07, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

  • Regarding the first one, I believe that users should focus mainly on improving/writing content not on collecting barnstars or points although receiving a barnstar might be a motivation for some users to contribute to Wikipedia more. I agree that the number of FAs/GAs the user has contributed to is an important measure of the usefulness of the user to Wikipedia. I agree partially with the second essay. Regarding the third essay, I fully agree that sending personalized messages to users is better than sending the standard templated messages and that this will make the users pay more attention to the personalized messages sent to their talk pages and generally promote wikilove. --Meno25 (talk) 20:57, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
  • For the first one, I think that some systems of rewards which result in good content contribution can be good - I've worked on many small projects on Wikia, where something like an editing contest is one way to expand interest in contributing. This is something that is hard to get right, and it would be best if everyone was editing out of the good of their hearts rather than for rewards. However, in my (potential) capacity as a steward, this is irrelevant; my scope involves enacting consensus, not using my technical abilities to push my ideas. For the second, that might be worth trying, though it is very large-wiki centric and thus not as relevant to work as a steward. I definitely agree with the third, and would love to see a revamp of the warning templates on enwiki, which I hear a WMF team is working on. For myself, I try to leave personalized warnings where possible. Ajraddatz (Talk) 23:33, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

• What do you think of the process of giving out rollback right at Wikipedia? Do you think it should require prior vandalism fighting work, or is it only required to know what is good, what is bad, and how to communicate with contributors regarding their contributions? --Gryllida 03:23, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

  I don't see how this relates to steward elections, since stewards don't decide about giving rollback to people. --MF-W 22:06, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

  • Well, all of those things are good for a rollbacker to have... but the general standard for rollback varies widely. English Wikipedia requires a large amount of countervandalism, German Wikipedia gives it automatically to everyone after a certain amount of edits, and some wikis give it automatically if you are a rollbacker or above at other wikis. Global rollback has a 50% success rate, because of the number of people who don't realize that it requires experience reverting across the language barrier. So my answer would vary depending on the user and depending on the wiki. --Rschen7754 03:20, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Each project sets their own standard for granting rollback, and it is based on the needs and philosophy of the individual project. Not all projects grant rollbacker permissions; of those who do, some establish specific participation requirements, while others look at quality and quantity of work. Global rollbacker is a special case; generally speaking, the global community tends to look for multi-project anti-vandalism experience and the appropriate use of the tool on one or more local projects. Risker (talk) 03:42, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
  • As Rschen7754 and Risker rightly said, Each Wikimedia wiki has different policies and standards for granting rollback. Some wikis do not have rollback permission at all. If you ask my personal opinion, the user should demonstrate use of rollback button but ofcourse based on the particular wiki's standard/policy it can be given by local sysop/bureaucrat. For Global rollbacker, users must be demonstrably active in cross-wiki countervandalism or anti-spam activities. so i would expect the same.--Shanmugamp7 ^(talk) 04:58, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
  • As my colleagues already said, every project has set its own standards regarding the grant of the rollback right. Personally, I believe the user must show that he is engaged in counter-vandalism work and that he understands main project policies. Also, the user must be able to communicate with other users in a friendly manner and to withstand criticism from other users with the bar being higher than that for the global rollback right since the user will have to deal now with vandalism in languages that he might not understand. --Meno25 (talk) 06:41, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
  • I think rollback should not be given out like cookies. But I do think you do not need to set any strict barriers for people willing to help out. Showing that you are trusted with the tool (some reverts, communicating with others about possible mistakes) are imo enough to grant someone rollback. It's not that big of a deal and can be removed as easy as it was given, so why not give someone a chance? — TBloemink _talk 08:27, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
  • When I read it, I was a bit surprised. Rollback right, you tell me. It's obvious that every projects defines its own rules (except 5P, ofc) and I can only write what's my "im-v.v.-ho". In fact, my surprise had more technical nature. On some Wikipedias there's no separate Rollbacker right, simply, for ex. on pl.wikipedia, where we have reviewers only. Secondly, it's not stewards' business to define who and why should gain rights that aren't granted by stewards. In sum, I think nothing of the process of giving out rollback right at any of Wikipedias and as a steward in spe I don't have to fill this knowledge gap ;) Tar Lócesilion|queta! 00:13, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

    What does "5P" mean? PiRSquared17 (talk) 23:35, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

    w:wp:5P, "Five pillars", the most basic / fundamental principles of Wikipedia? :) Tar Lócesilion|queta! 01:11, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

  • Local rollback rights are not dealt with by stewards, but I would generally want to see some history of counter-vandalism experience and the ability to communicate well with other editors, as I do when voting in global rollback nominations. Ajraddatz (Talk) 23:33, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Per candidate

Ajraddatz

• From your statement it seems you would mostly like to do requests. What would you mainly use the tools for? Rights changes, blocks/locks, CU/OS, GS-like actions (deletions on small wikis), Meta blacklists, ...? PiRSquared17 (talk) 06:06, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

  I'm OK with doing pretty much everything but bot requests, since I don't have much experience in that area. My main activities as a steward would be global locks and blocks, or GS actions if you include them, particularly local deletions. Answering requests on meta would happen as they occur and I'm available. Thanks for the question, and let me know if my answer is insufficient. Ajraddatz (Talk) 06:11, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Question from Quentinv57

• Hi. The following question only aims at knowing how you would react in a specific situation. This story is purely hypothetical and is not taken from real events. Please imagine that you just performed a CU on a wiki looking for cross-wiki abuse. While doing it, you find that a local sysop is using multiple accounts. What will be your reaction ? Regards, -- Quentinv57 ^(talk) 17:56, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

That situation isn't very hypothetical for me; twice on Wikia I've dealt with situations in which an established user was using other accounts to be disruptive, in my role as a local checkuser and on the VSTF team. This case is tricky to get right, because the motivation for such action is usually the entertainment of the sockmaster, so bringing too much attention and drama to it only plays into their hand. A major assumption I make on answering this question is that I am doing the checkuser because this admin is using one or more of his socks to vandalize xwiki and there is some pattern of behaviour or other evidence which would warrant a checkuser.

First of all, I would do what needed to be done to prevent the immediate disruption. I would lock the disruptive accounts and temporarily globally block the IP if more were being made. From my past experience, there is no real urgency here since the sockmaster is looking for drama and not causing much damage.

The second thing I would do is confirm my results. I would ensure that the IP isn't public, and that the various accounts had the same XFF data. I would also examine the pattern of edits and style of writing used by the accounts to rule out multiple people as best I could. From there, I would call in the opinions of other stewards. These cases are very complex, and I could easily be missing something at this point, making intersubjectivity very desirable.

At this point, the immediate disruption has stopped. Unless other stewards wanted to deal with the situation differently, I would privately inform one of the other local admins or bureaucrats and let them proceed how they wished. At this point, it is no longer in my scope to take local actions when there are local admins around. Unfortunately, the local resolution of the problem would inevitably cause some of the drama that the sockmaster wanted, but the solution of stewards taking unilateral action is more undesirable to me.

Thanks for the thoughtful question :-) Ajraddatz (Talk) 22:30, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

And thanks for your precise answer. -- Quentinv57 ^(talk) 23:07, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Question from Brateevsky

• Hi. "en-ca-N" meens "English Canadian", not "en-N and ca-N (catalan)"? --Brateevsky (talk) 18:14, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

  Yes, it means Canadian English. Ajraddatz (Talk) 18:15, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Cekli829

• Would you please explain why you are blocked on hy.wiki? Google translate suggests that it is related to your behavior there and also to vandalism. As a steward you're technically able to unblock yourself on any wiki, so it seems important to know why exactly you are blocked on hy.wiki. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Barras (talk) 15:49, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

  Note: this question was also asked last year, in 2012, in SE2011, and in SE2011-2. PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:00, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

  @PiRSquared17, thank you for your note. @Barras, this is a problematic block (Armenia and Azerbaijan are in conflict). As well at that time my experience was less. --►Cekli829 20:20, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

  Do you think this cultural conflict you are speaking about will have any influence on your steward work? If yes, how? Vogone talk 20:24, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

  This is a political problem. If my work according to the rules, would be no problem. I am now more experienced. --►Cekli829 20:37, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

• Do you think your English skills have improved since the first time you ran for election? In general, what has changed since you ran in 2011 for the first time? Since 2013? PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:10, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

  @PiRSquared17, my English is very advanced compared to previous years. But I do not find enough yet. --►Cekli829 20:28, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

  @Cekli829: You didn't answer the second part of the question. I want to know specifically how you have improved other than en-1 -> en-2. Do you have more experience on your homewikis? Have you done a lot of SWMT work since last time? Have you done anything else that would show you are interested in global Wikimedia-wide work? PiRSquared17 (talk) 17:03, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

  Yes, en-2; the reason for this was the English Wikipedia & translation programs. My work is spread over many projects: I have made more than 100000 edits on 1 wiki (homewiki) and more than 20000 edits on 3 wikis and more than 1000 edits on 14 wikis and more than 100 edits on 42 wikis and etc. In global Wikimedia-wide work: wikimania2014.wikimedia.org, wikidata.org, commons.wikimedia.org and etc. --►Cekli829 07:04, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

• What is "english domination on WP"? Does it primarily refer to language use, or maybe to the perceived influence of some communities (on what then?) as opposed to the influence of others, ...? --MF-W 17:17, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

  Yes, I'm opposed to english domination on WP. Here there is a good question: People who don't speak english are exclude from stewardship? For example, I can work with Turkic languages projects and etc. --►Cekli829 20:55, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

  English is a merely practical need since we constantly need to communicate among ourselves. --Vituzzu (talk) 23:59, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

  Yes. I understand it. But only English. But other languages? --►Cekli829 07:45, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

  Can you find an effective replacement? --Vituzzu (talk) 14:33, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

  This is a research topic. In my opinion test-steward needed (one year after granting the rights); for people which do not know in English... For example, test-steward for AzWP or test-steward for TrWP or etc. Also, I think the key is that the translation of the Wikimedia Foundation, system data, and procedures to attract more attention. This is very important. --►Cekli829 05:56, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

  Imho you didn't even understand what a steward is: there are no steward for azwp nor for enwp nor for any other wiki, stewards are for the whole Wikimedia's community. Furthermore I told you about the need to communicate *among* stewards and translations of pages, etc are not related at all. I mean: if me and you need to communicate how can we avoid using English? --Vituzzu (talk) 11:22, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

  I wrote: test-steward. Translation programs are developed. Also, I'm developing my knowledge of the language. Now I'm not the steward. But then only the first months can be difficult for me. --►Cekli829 12:24, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

  Honestly I'm not able to get your reply, though it seems you definitely didn't understand stewards' role. --Vituzzu (talk) 00:14, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

  About here category stewards' role: Category:Stewards. Do I have to repeat it? I think not. --►Cekli829 13:57, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

• You have run for stewardship in all elections since 2011, in most of these elections, you have chosen not to answer significant questions posted to you by the community. I found that during my time as a steward, it was very important to be open and ready to answer questions when questioned, so in that light I'd like to go thru the history of your candidatures, and ask you for comments at the end, to see what has changed now that, in your mind, makes you suitable for stewardship. In 2011, you declined to answer the first question posted to you and seem to be very laconic and dismissive towards the concerns raised about you, dismissing almost all concerns with one liners. In the second election in 2011, you refused to answer questions posted by Ruslik0 and other stewards, answered others in azeri which is sadly not widely understood enough for any translation to be provided and persisted in dismissing the concerns about your hywiki block - questions were also raised about your unsoliticed contacting of users to try and get their votes, that is, canvassing. In 2012, you refused to questions at all (the only answer provided showed you didn't understand the question) and were disqualified for trying to influence the vote thru a canvassing campaign. In 2013 you answered questions in a highly patronizing manner and didn't actually address any of the issues you were questioned about. You have not addresses these issues in your statement as I would have expected and I'd like to use this question to remind you of what comes to mind to us voters when we see your name. I'd love if you can reply to this question explaining why you acted like this in the past and what has changed about you that makes you suited for the role this year :) Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 19:11, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

  @Snowolf, you've analyzed the candidate in previous elections, is very nice. Thanks. I agree with you on many issues. My English was very poor, especially in the previous election. Also at that time there was very little of my experience. Past experience has been good to me. I can honestly say: Elections beautiful means to increase my experience :) --►Cekli829 06:48, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

  You gain no relevant experience by simply standing as a candidate in these elections. You are once again failing to actually answer the question.--Jasper Deng (talk) 06:58, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

  For example, do you expect me to answer how? I think if you look at my contributions, you will find the answers without questions. In the past I may have made a mistake and this is very normal. --►Cekli829 07:24, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

  I think Snowolf is quite clear in what he desires (and his questions cannot be answered just by looking at your contributions, as they are personal).--Jasper Deng (talk) 07:26, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

  May be possible in some subjects. --►Cekli829 07:37, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

• Given that you have run repeatedly for stewardship without success (per Snowolf, above), why do you believe you will be successful this time? In other words, what has changed since last time? Please give more than something along the lines of "I got more experience", because that is a given.--Jasper Deng (talk) 20:34, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

  I no longer make those mistakes that I used to do. I am able to distinquish right from wrong. --►Cekli829 07:12, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

  That's not the reason why I'm asking this question. You're simply not answering any of the other questions in a satisfactory way.--Jasper Deng (talk) 07:26, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

  OK. According to you, maybe. --►Cekli829 06:01, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

  It's not just me. It's virtually all of the people who have asked questions here. Please be less vague (if needed, the questions can be translated into Russian by Russian-speakers, and you can answer in Russian (just an example of how you can surmount the language barrier). I guarantee that you will not be elected this year, next year, nor 2016, unless you satisfy the concerns of everyone here.--Jasper Deng (talk) 07:02, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

  I can live with the same problem in Russian. Azeri or Turkish languages would be more effective. Then I could give you answers to your questions better. --►Cekli829 07:15, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

• Being a steward is about helping the community, and you have stated on your statement page that you are opposed to the English domination of Wikipedia. May I ask, how will you be using your steward tools to promote your Wikipedia and its language? Is there any special bit about being a steward that would help in reducing the domination of the English Language that you can't actually achieve now without the steward rights? --Hydriz (talk) 07:45, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

  Many users tend to vote against me by giving importance to English. But the project must be multilingual. English speakers should be included in this project. Also those who do not know English must be included in this project. I think wiki projects are the great common human worth. I want to be more helpful in this sphere. That is why I would like to serve as a WP steward. --►Cekli829 22:59, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

  Thank you for your answer. Can I ask the question again: What makes being a steward so special in helping you "include" people who do not speak English into Wikipedia and its sister projects? --Hydriz (talk) 15:39, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

  It is a beautiful question. My answer is such: By adhering to the rules. Thank you for your questions. --►Cekli829 18:14, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

  No, thank you for your answers. I would prefer that you provide a detailed plan of how you are going to use your steward tools to promote your language, but since it is not required as part of the elections process, I will not request it. I am done asking, thank you for your time. --Hydriz (talk) 16:57, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

• Please consider the following hypothetical situation. Please describe in detail how you would handle this if you were elected as a steward, and try to answer it without asking someone for more information. Please note that these scenarios are not taken from real-life situations but are purely fictional stories.

  A user from azwiki, who was blocked after a checkuser request on enwiki revealed that he abused multiple accounts, contacts you, claiming that the results were faked by the checkuserer. He asks you to double-check it and unblock him. What do you do? --MF-W 17:15, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

  CheckUser not ordinary user; so I trust them. A matter should be investigated. If the situation is like this, then the problem is solved immediately. --►Cekli829 20:35, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

• Можете мне выяснить, почему в русской Википедии отвечаете по азербайджански, когда говорите по русски?--Toma646 (talk) 22:15, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

  Я написал ru-2. Если вы будете искать, есть ответы на русском языке. --►Cekli829 09:06, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Так по этом, что вы показали в своей дискуссии в ру вики бы я вас не не хотел ни как администратора, тем более стюарда. --Toma646 (talk) 09:54, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Обратил внимание, что на азербайджанском Вы отвечали на сообщения с критикой (если вообще отвечали на них). Уровня "intermediate" вполне хватает, чтобы худо-бедно писать на языке. Полагаю, что стОит отвечать либо на английском, либо на языке отправителя, иначе это как-то неуважительно выглядит, не так ли? Если Вас изберут стюардом, я очень надеюсь, что Вы будете немного более доброжелательны к собеседникам. Желаю успеха. (I can duplicate this message in English if needed.) --Midnight Gambler (talk) 15:11, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Hoo man

• Really nice to see you as candidate here, however, there is something I'd like to know. Candidates had two weeks to create their statement and candidate pages, you decided to post your candidacy on the last evening. However, with that you only created the necessary subpages but without any statement and explanation why you run etc, which is what I would actually except. Now my really serious question: Were the two weeks to nominate oneself with a proper statement not enough to decide whether one should run for stewardship or not and then take the necessary steps to have a statement on the pages and everything? I'd like to know that, as that could mean we need to re-adjust the time frame used for the election process. Also, as you are surely very well informed about the process and time frame etc for stewardelections, why did you not create everything earlier or prepare the statement earlier, so you could've posted it when creating the pages/indicating that you are going to run? Did you really just decide to run the evening you created the subpage? I generally appreciate it when the pages and statements are created fairly early, so the translators have enough time to translate the statements, to ensure everything is ready when the actual vote starts, however, I also understand those who don't want to be among the first people creating their candidature. (Don't be too worried about the question, it is really meant to be serious, because I'd like to know if we need to discuss a change for the election process.) -Barras talk 15:00, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

There were several factors which kept me from creating my steward statement right away. First of all I indeed wasn't sure about it in the early phase of the nomination process (that changed maybe a few days after the nomination process started). But more importantly I was in San Francisco for the Architecture Summit 2014 (and a few more days), so that I simply forgot that the deadline was so close ahead. Sadly the past week also was a busy one for me, so that I didn't find the time to get everything done right away. After all I think that the current process is quite ok and that there is enough time to create and polish a statement. - Hoo man (talk) 01:55, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

• Can you, please, give some examples on how being a steward will change your work here? There is some work that candidates are usually expected to do before applying for stewardship. While it looks like you do a great job on your area, your interest seems to be a little different from vandalism-related task and granting permissions. Your participation on these areas are not seen from your contributions here. Will you also help on these areas?.—Teles «Talk to me ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 20:35, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

As noted in my statement my main interest is and will be abuse handling (global vandalism, spam bots, cross wiki longer term abuse). I agree that not much of that is visible on meta, as most of these actions happen outside of meta, and I've been almost solely reporting to stewards on IRC and not on meta. For a better overview of that, you might want to have a look at Special:CentralAuth/Hoo man.

I also will stand by on IRC (as I already do) and will be watching the relevant steward requests pages, so that I can help out whenever action is needed. Cheers, Hoo man (talk) 00:26, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Meno25

• I looked at your public logs (gblblock, globalauth, gblrights and rights) and those showed me that you weren't very active as steward in 2009/10. As you're also not active in the SWMT, I wonder what you would like to do with the buttons. There is enough work to do, but we need active stewards if you know what I mean... Trijnstel_talk 21:08, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

  For reference, graph of Meno25's steward actions. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 21:49, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I understand your concern and yes, I admit that I wasn't very active as steward due to real life issues. That's why I resigned in the first place. However, if elected this time, I promise to be more active. Generally, I was active on Meta from 2007-2009 then took a wikibreak and became active again in 2012. Thank you for your question. --Meno25 (talk) 04:25, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Actually, this doesn't answer my question at all. You say I promise to be more active, but that was not my question. In other words my question was: what do you want to do with the buttons? I could easily give you some examples of the work stewards do, but I would like to hear it from you. ;-) What will you do if elected? Trijnstel_talk 10:28, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

My main area of interest would be handling requests for permissions at SRP and SRB, handling deletions at SRM and user renames at SRUC. All these pages are on my watchlist. When I was a steward, I was active on IRC and, if elected, I plan to become active again on IRC channels. (specifically #wikimedia-stewards^connect and #wikimedia-tech^connect. My IRC nick is meno25wiki and I live in UTC+2 timezone. I am generally available from 15:00 UTC to 20:00 UTC on week days and all day on Fridays.) So, I would be available if needed in an emergency. I hope this answers your question. If you need further clarification, please elaborate. --Meno25 (talk) 14:07, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

• My question is a bit similar to Trijnstel's but looking at a different angle. I'm interested to know more into why you seek the steward tools, rather than what for. The way I look at it, you were active as a steward for two months out of your term, resigned only before confirmations and have not been active in the SWMT, Meta RfCs or steward-related areas in the past couple of years, as far as I can see, so I'm curious into what made you decide to run for them out of the blue. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 18:23, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

My primary motivation is that I want to get more involved in Meta-Wiki affairs. (With more than 7K edits here, I consider Meta-Wiki one of my home wikis.) After I resigned, I realized that Wikimedia ia a part of me and that I want to get back to being part of it. It is true that I haven't been active in SWMT. You have a valid point. But I have been active in other areas in Wikimedia such as OTRS and even as a normal editor here on Meta translating pages to Arabic and such. So, here I am presenting myself to the community as a candidate and let's see if the Wikimedia community will accept me. Thank you. --Meno25 (talk) 07:58, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• This certainly isn't as 'relevant' as the concerns above, but I'm still curious: specifically, how are meeting those three people and getting a T-shirt relevant to steward issues? :-P (Don't worry too much about my question...) -- Mentifisto 12:44, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

My nomination statement presents an overview of my various activities within Wikimedia over the years. The first paragraph about me being elected on many wikis is related to steward issues. (Since I am trusted by so many communities then I could be trusted to be a steward. In fact, I was never desysoped for misuse of tools. My resignation was purely voluntarily.) --Meno25 (talk) 12:53, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• If you don't mind me asking, what time zone are you in? UTC+2? PiRSquared17 (talk) 18:28, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes. --Meno25 (talk) 18:29, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

• What languages do you speak? Gryllida 02:32, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

  @Gryllida: According to the statement, ar-N, en-4, fr-1 ... PiRSquared17 (talk) 12:10, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

  True. I am a native Arabic speaker and I studied English for 11 years in school. Also, the teaching language in college was English. For French, I studied it for 7 years in school but since I didn't study it in college, I forgot most of what I was taught in school. So, I am listing myself as fr-1. --Meno25 (talk) 20:36, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Rschen7754

• I will ask the obvious question, if someone else doesn't do it. Last summer you applied for CU on the English Wikipedia, but you weren't chosen. I don't know all the background, but I've read comments like "can't be trusted to judge calmly whether to use CU tools or no", "misuse of admin tools" and "privacy breaching". Thus I wonder, does this affect your steward candidature, yes or no? What is true from the accusations? And what can we expect from you as a steward? Thanks in advance for your answer. Trijnstel_talk 23:06, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Directly, I failed my CU candidacy because out of the 11 arbitrators voting on the candidacies, I did not get the required support of 9 arbitrators. I do not know the exact vote count, or which arbitrators supported or opposed (besides the ones who have told me personally), or the exact reasoning or composition of either the votes themselves or the comments that were sent in private to ArbCom, besides the brief summaries given by ArbCom as a whole. That is why selecting CU and OS on the English is considered to be an appointment process, not an election: while community comments are a factor, even people with 100% public support have not been appointed; furthermore, there is much that is kept secret even years after the elections.

At this appointment process, I had the public support of several stewards, other holders of global rights, and local CheckUsers, oversighters, and administrators. The objections came from people that I have had disputes with in the past, generally when I have spoken out about their poor behavior. I have edited the English Wikipedia for almost nine years, and been an admin for over eight, and the longer one edits Wikimedia, the more likely that they have gotten into quite a few disagreements over time, or run into some users that do not behave in a collaborative manner.

In the end, the concerns all amounted to speculation about how I could possibly misuse private information, that was not backed up by solid evidence, and had little to do with the use of the CU tool itself. The official response from ArbCom did not give much more, except that some arbitrators were concerned over the number of controversies that I had been in, which in my mind is typical for any content editor and administrator who has edited for almost nine years. Considering what some of the dissenting arbitrators have told me, and the supportive comments that I have received in private from several editors since the election, I believe that I would have had a very good chance of success if community elections had been held, rather than a vote of just 11 people with very little room for error, and highly dependent on who those 11 people are.

I handle private information on a regular basis, in my roles on OTRS, and as an oversighter on Wikidata, including real names of editors, IP addresses, concerns about libel, home addresses, and phone numbers. I have never had any complaints about any of these roles; in fact, I was the only successful candidate in the first round of oversight elections on Wikidata by a wide margin (d:Wikidata:Requests for permissions/RfOversight/May 2013). In addition to this, elected stewards have been rejected for OS both by the enwiki community, in the era of community elections (DerHexer in 2009), and for CU by ArbCom (Mentifisto in 2011). Finally, since then, I have become a global sysop (with 93% support), and an Arbitraton Committee clerk trainee, and remain in good standing at both places, as well as on OTRS, as a Wikidata oversighter, and on the four major wikis where I am an admin (English Wikipedia, Meta, Wikidata, and the English Wikivoyage).

While I have made my share of mistakes, especially in my early days when I was a teenager, I believe that I have shown maturity and good judgment in recent years. I remain confident in my ability to retain the community's trust, if granted, and to carry out the role of a steward, if elected.

@Trijnstel: In response to your specific question, yes, I did nominate an English Wikipedia process for deletion, but that has nothing to do with the administrative toolkit. And as a steward, I would definitely express my opinions. However, I would never move forward with implementing these opinions without the proper levels of support, certainly not with tools. While I certainly have had quite a few opportunities to breach the privacy of people I have had negative interactions with the past, I have not done so, and have on one occasion, taken steps to protect their privacy. I fundamentally believe in due process, and that we cannot just ban someone because we do not like them, and that even banned trolls have a right to privacy. Other than what I have noted, the vast majority of the opposes amounted to "he said something I didn't like, and he should not have CU because of this", and are blown out of proportion; I'm reluctant to go through and comment on specific opposes when my response is already tl;dr, but I would on request. --Rschen7754 23:25, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I will comment on one category of the opposes: While there were certainly issues at DRN, the process that I nominated for deletion on the English Wikipedia, my nominating it for deletion in March was a poor way to resolve the issues. Other less drastic steps could have been tried, and while I had concerns that they would have failed, they should have been at least given a chance to succeed. While overall I believe that I have acted professionally in my various roles, there are times when I have not, but as to that all I can say is that I am still learning, just as we all are. If elected, I of course would be extra careful when speaking as a steward, just as I do with my Arbitration Clerk role on en.wikipedia. --Rschen7754 03:30, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't see how that answers Trijnstel's question at all. You were found unfit to hold CU rights on English Wikipedia, and its community apparently doesn't trust you to have access to IPs, but you are now attempting to gain access to IPs again by becoming a steward here. Giving excuses and trying to shift blame as to why your self-nomination failed doesn't address this problem. ~ DanielTom (talk) 12:09, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

No, it's the wiki's ArbCom which doesn't trust him to have access to IPs, not the community. Furthermore, it seems like not even all of the arbitrators were against promoting him. This has to do with the, in my personal opinion, unfair process which gives a tiny fraction of the community the entire power, rather than with the community itself. Vogone talk 13:51, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

• Could you please elaborate why you think it is easier to get stewardship than adminship on enwiki? Savh^ñ 13:50, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

While the experience bar for running for steward is quite a bit higher, I think it's fairly more predictable than running for adminship on enwiki; as long as you're active, have okay language skills, have good judgment, and have the right experience, and very little baggage, the results are fairly predictable. (Note that I'm not saying anything about any of the current candidates with that statement). Whereas on enwiki, if you've annoyed the wrong set of people, you can rack up a lot of opposes. You're somehow expected to have both article writing skill as well as experience in admin-related areas, which are two entirely different things that are hard to come by, and harder for people to be interested in doing both; the former usually means at least a Good Article, if not a Featured Article, and the latter is somewhat awkward to come by, as the tools really are needed to do a lot of good in admin-related areas - you have to do awkward non-admin closes or keep a log of all your proposed deletions and speedy deletion taggings and hope the admins agree with you. There's repeated discussions at w:en:WT:RFA about how the process is reportedly broken, but there's never consensus to do anything about it. From what I have heard, dewiki's RFA may be harder, but I don't know much about it.

With that being said, this has only been true in recent years; when I ran in 2005, the process was much easier. --Rschen7754 18:19, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

• Please explain your rationale for determining how long someone should be blocked/banned for childish vandalism? When is an infinite block acceptable to be placed by a steward?
  • As long as other constraints do not apply (recurring vandal, open proxy, etc.) I have typically blocked IP vandals for 24-31 hours, which is the standard on the wikis that I am an admin on. In my opinion, 2 hours is too short for a vandal to wait out, as they will come right back; 31 hours means that they cannot return at the same time every day to vandalize. Accounts created only to vandalize should get blocked indefinitely, after being given enough warning that they will be blocked if they continue. With that being said, different wikis handle more juvenile vandalism different ways. English Wikipedia will still block indefinitely for it and makes little distinction, whereas the English Wikivoyage makes an explicit distinction between that and malicious vandalism, and local policy there says to only give a short-term block, and then longer and longer blocks if the disruption continues. We have to balance the chances that a vandal could reform (one of the editors I work with on a regular basis does fall into the category of someone who vandalized 2-3 times, but then came back to produce serious content) with potential disruption to the site(s). As for me, I prefer giving 2-3 warnings before blocking indefinitely, but then most of my vandal blocks where I am an admin are for the obviously malicious vandal who hits as many pages as possible.
  • But this changes quite a bit with the steward hat on. As far as local blocks, they should only be done in cases where there are no local admins around to respond to a vandal that is causing a significant amount of disruption. This generally happens on global sysop wikis, though occasionally it does happen on some of the smallest non-GS wikis, where the bar for disruption is even higher. Shorter duration blocks are preferred, though malicious vandals causing a lot of disruption can still be blocked indefinitely; such blocks can still be reviewed by the local community, if one exists. There is no such thing as a global block of a named account. Global locks should be done with care, as while appealing the lock is not impossible, it is extremely difficult. This is generally done with proven bad-faith accounts blocked indefinitely on multiple wikis. However, in very rare instances, global locks may have to be done in cases where the editor is acting in good faith, but where the damage they are causing cannot be resolved by any other means (example: Special:CentralAuth/TheSitcomLover, who uploaded copyrighted images of Michael Jackson to Commons and then replaced images on over 100 wikis with references to the copyrighted images). It is unfortunate when this happens, but at some point we do have to respect our volunteers' time and not expect them to have to clean up after such widespread damage. --Rschen7754 10:42, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
• What role does a steward have, in a leadership sense, in accepting difference and educating users in the role that they can play? What role do you see that steward's have in setting a standard, and which part of the spectrum do you see that a steward belongs?  — billinghurst sDrewth 10:01, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
  • On paper, stewards are not the rulers of Wikimedia, nor should they be. But because they are among some of the most experienced users on Wikimedia, as other candidates have said, their opinions are sometimes given quite a bit of weight. Whether or not that should always be the case, it frequently happens, and thus stewards should be careful in what they say.
  • Each Wikimedia wiki is operated separately from all the other wikis. However, I don't think that a lot of people realize that before they head over to other wikis, expect things to work like they do at their home wiki, and then cause drama when they find out that things don't work that way at X wiki. Even administrators have fallen into this trap. I've certainly said my piece about this at my essay w:en:User:Rschen7754/You represent the English Wikipedia!, but the English Wikipedia certainly is not alone in this. As an administrator on several Wikimedia sites, and as a crosswiki editor, I've certainly encouraged people to respect the local policies of the wiki that they edit, and most importantly, to not be afraid to edit other Wikimedia sites. I certainly believe that stewards should be encouraging people to follow local policies and respect local communities as well, not only with misfiled steward requests, but in general.
  • Unfortunately, local policies are not always perfect. There are some policies on some rather large wikis that are controversial, and opposed by a large portion of the global editorship. However, I believe that the solution is not to canvass a bunch of editors from your homewiki and try and win the vote in the discussion, but to become engaged with that local community first. Such issues should remain local and be solved by local editors, not with global editors dropping by and then never editing that wiki again, and certainly not by stewards (although their input can sometimes be insightful). I believe this should be done even if it is believed that the eventual decision is not the best one; sometimes, letting wikis learn from their own mistakes is key in their growth and development.
  • To a point, that is. Sometimes wikis do things that are incredibly hostile towards other wikis (one example that comes to mind is a wiki that shall go unnamed that blocked a global user for creating a userpage). But even there, it is not the job of the stewards to overrule a local community, although they can certainly encourage a community to play more nicely with others.
  • But then we come to the scenario where it is obvious that the situation cannot be handled locally, and that further steps need to be taken. Sometimes it is a clear-cut violation of Wikimedia global policies and values, and the solution is fairly straightforward and falls in the stewards' remit: for example, Requests for comment/Userrights on Hindi Wikipedia. Sometimes the solution is not that obvious, and falls outside the stewards' remit, as seen in a few recent cases. What to do in situations like that is difficult to determine. But I don't think that in such situations, that stewards should try and wash their hands of the matter as "out of remit", but ideally, work with the local community to resolve matters, in their capacity as individual editors if need be, and come up with a solution to bring stability back to the wiki.
  • So in short, stewards should respect local and global policies, and encourage others to do the same. --Rschen7754 11:40, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

• My question. You state, above, "I'm reluctant to go through and comment on specific opposes when my response is already tl;dr, but I would on request." So, could you please address Ihardlythinkso's oppose?—

Convinced me was intentionally passive-aggressive & obtuse in a good-faith request for help to understand summary conclusion re an SPI case. [2]

I should perhaps remind you that you tagged my account "Daniel Tomé" (my real name), a public rename, which redirected to my "DanielTom" account, as a sock. [3] Q. Do you know the difference between a public rename and a sock? Could you explain to me who I could fool using my real name, a name so close to "DanielTom"? Am I right, that you were only trying to attack my real name? Finally, and this is important, do you plan on being "intentionally passive-aggressive & obtuse" as a steward, and refuse to explain your actions, and be so deliberately unhelpful as you evidently were in that discussion the opposer linked to? Thanks. ~ DanielTom (talk) 13:11, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that 1) you made another edit with that account after the rename, on both en.wikipedia and en.wikiquote (Special:CentralAuth/Daniel Tomé), and 2) you used another account, Special:CentralAuth/Diogotome, that you claimed was your "brother" who suddenly appeared and had the same anti-admin viewpoint that you did, making their first edits to w:en:WP:AN: [4][5]. I won't dignify the rest of your questions with a response. --Rschen7754 19:52, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Wrong. You say my brother (or I) "suddenly appeared", but this is incorrect. His account "Diogotome" (his real name) was created in 2009. (Apparently older than some stewards.) You can see he created this article with it, in 2012. Your attempt to justify the sock label on "Daniel Tomé" also fails. The 1 (obviously accidental) edit you mention was corrected a minute later [6], with its signature replaced by mine (not that it was needed, "Daniel Tomé" already redirected to my account). Where is the deceit? Even if it had 100 edits, and not just 1 accidental edit, it would still be obviously improper to call it a sock. (Who could it fool?) Your misunderstanding of this is, I think, deliberate (and very worrisome). [Its 1 edit at Wikiquote, accidental as well, was also immediately corrected and replaced by my signature [7] – not sure if you know this, and are just being misleading, or if you were too lazy to check.] Finally, your refusal to answer the critical question, re you being "deliberately unhelpful", speaks for itself and is of course your choice... ~ DanielTom (talk) 20:11, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

• What do you think of the process of giving out rollback right at Wikipedia? Do you think it should require prior vandalism fighting work, or is it only required to know what is good, what is bad, and how to communicate with contributors regarding their contributions? --Gryllida 02:32, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Moving my answer to the beginning. --Rschen7754 03:25, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
• What languages do you speak? Gryllida 02:32, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
  • English. I can read Spanish fairly well, and can make myself understood in Spanish, but cannot write in it at a level necessary for content contributions. --Rschen7754 03:48, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

    I'm concerned about your limited language skills. I think it's deceiving to evaluate yourself "es-2", which should mean you can "contribute with an intermediate level of Spanish", when you don't actually seem to be able to write in Spanish. [I also think of myself as "es-2", but I can actually write in Spanish.] I looked at your global contributions, and you have almost no edits whatsoever in Spanish (no article edits on es.wikis, only reversions, and when in need of help you seem to prefer writing in English), but in the very rare occasions in which you do write in Spanish, your comprehension of the language doesn't look "intermediate" to me. Example: here you tag a discussion page for deletion, which was embarrassing in itself, and I see you reverted yourself quickly. [This is a rather recent edit, and I find it alarming, if as a global sysop or a steward you could delete such pages.] But take your rationale for deletion, just to evaluate your Spanish: "Cross-wiki spam or abuse / cross-wiki spam ó uso indebido". That is a good effort, but not an actual translation, and your use of "ó" is incorrect – it's a very basic word, but you get the accent wrong many times, in all the edits you use it. To be honest, this doesn't show me an even basic ("es-1") level of Spanish, and I'm actually pretty sure that even automatic bot translations can do better than this. I can also use bot translators, but I don't pretend that I can contribute with an "intermediate" level of, say, Arabic. I think you added Spanish to your repertoire because you feared (correctly) that only knowing English would be deadly in steward elections. Are my concerns justified? (If you don't mind, would you please reply to me in Spanish, without asking friends for help or consulting bots?) Thanks ~ DanielTom (talk) 23:13, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Savh

• Given that you have repeatedly asked other candidates about activity, and the fact that you have been yourself rather inactive (in terms of global sysop and other cross-wiki work) over the summer months (according to your global contributions), how would you answer your own questions? --Jasper Deng (talk) 22:47, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

  Thank you for your question, JD. As stated on my statement, I did have some real life commitments this summer, moving from one country to another, holidays and on top there were a few weeks in which I did not have a decent internet connection, other than my phone or public computers, which left over very little time for the wiki's, though I have since become active again, as things have settled. I personally have the impression I have recuperated my normal activity level, and I expect to remain so at least during the current year.

  As a general answer regarding inactivity with the candidates, past inactivity should not be an issue, IMO, when it has a specific reason which is unlikely to repeat itself. However, I do expect Stewards to be available on a regular basis, considering it is a position of trust, but I understand they might have other temporary obligations.

  I feel I dedicate enough time to Wikimedia currently, but I do have a busy real life, as most (if not all) of the stewards/global sysops/global rollbackers, managing to combine both most of the time. I also feel my three years experience, throughout which I have generally been active, in cross-wiki countervandalism should guarantee the unlikeliness of me turning inactive. Please let me know if I have left any question unanswered, or if you still have any doubts/concerns. Savh^ñ 14:29, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

  In the summer we, Latin people, are not supposed to be around, except if we dislocate an ankle. --Vituzzu (talk) 22:57, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Question from Quentinv57

• Hi. The following question only aims at knowing how you would react in a specific situation. This story is purely hypothetical and is not taken from real events. Please imagine that a local checkuser on the dutch Wikipedia contacts you because he lacks data to answer one of his requests for check. The first user was blocked six months ago, and then moved to other wikis and contributed there recently. The second one has been created in recent days but has obviously the same behaviour. What will be your reaction ? Regards, -- Quentinv57 ^(talk) 17:56, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

  If the behaviour is identical, and this behaviour led to his previous block, CU might not be necessary per the DUCK-test. However, in case a confirmation is required (for instance, if it's not obvious from the behaviour that they really are the same user), a check on a different project could be done, but keeping in mind that using multiple accounts on itself is not forbidden. Obviously, as this is not an emergency, this should be handled by local CU's, if possible, on the wikis to which the user moved. If there are no local Checkusers and if the conclusion of the previous part was that a check was necessary to confirm the suspected relation, I would proceed to check and inform the nlwiki CU of the results privately. I don't think any further action is necessary, either on the project to which the user had moved (and on which I'd have performed the check) or at a global scale, though this is best evaluated on a case by case basis depending on the level of disruption of the user on other projects.

  However, as noted in my statement, I currently have very limited experience with the checkuser toolset, and I will certainly ask for some kind of guidance before using the tool, if I am elected.

  I hope I have answered your question satisfactorily, but please let me know if any part of my answer is unclear. Thank you for your question, Savh^ñ 01:01, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

• What languages do you speak? Gryllida 02:32, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

  I am bilingual Dutch/Spanish, and speak both languages at a native level. I can speak English well, being able to understand and make myself clear in most cases. I also speak some French, being able to read it well, though I have more difficulties with writing. I am able to understand the basics of latin languages closely related to Spanish, such as Italian, Portuguese and some of the regional Spanish languages. I can also understand some Germanic languages related to Dutch, whilst having a rather limited knowledge of German grammar. Thank you for the question, Savh^ñ 11:43, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Shanmugamp7

Question from Savh

• What were the reasons for your limited activity both locally and globally between March 2013 and November 2013? Note that I am obviously not interested in private information, but whether this is likely to happen again. Savh^ñ 22:07, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

During April to October, I was in the training period of my job and I moved to new city, so my activity was limited. I hope my activity will not be limited at least for the next few years but of course we are all volunteers, we can't predict what will happen in future. Unless there is any unexpected real life issues I will be active in steward duties if elected. ----Shanmugamp7 ^(talk) 11:33, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

• What languages do you speak? Gryllida 02:32, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

As mentioned in my nomination statement, I am a native speaker of Tamil and I can speak advanced level (en-3) of English.--Shanmugamp7 ^(talk) 03:46, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

SPQRobin

• Really nice to see you as candidate here, however, there is something I'd like to know. Candidates had two weeks to create their statement and candidate pages, you decided to post your candidacy on the last evening. However, with that you only created the necessary subpages but without any statement and explanation why you run etc, which is what I would actually except. Now my really serious question: Were the two weeks to nominate oneself with a proper statement not enough to decide whether one should run for stewardship or not and then take the necessary steps to have a statement on the pages and everything? I'd like to know that, as that could mean we need to re-adjust the time frame used for the election process. Also, as you are surely very well informed about the process and time frame etc for stewardelections, why did you not create everything earlier or prepare the statement earlier, so you could've posted it when creating the pages/indicating that you are going to run? Did you really just decide to run the evening you created the subpage? I generally appreciate it when the pages and statements are created fairly early, so the translators have enough time to translate the statements, to ensure everything is ready when the actual vote starts, however, I also understand those who don't want to be among the first people creating their candidature. (Don't be too worried about the question, it is really meant to be serious, because I'd like to know if we need to discuss a change for the election process.) -Barras talk 15:00, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

  Thanks for your questions. I have just now published my statement, where I mention the reason for my late candidacy: I was reluctant to submit my candidacy because I have not been as active as I would like to be, but other Wikimedians convinced me to run. I have just finished January exams at University so I did not have time earlier to seriously consider my candidacy or follow steward election preparations. I have now more time and a change in the election schedule is not needed for me, but it could perhaps be considered if others feel a need for it (for translations, questions, ...). I do understand it would have been better to submit my candidacy and statement earlier though. SPQRobin (talk) 00:29, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

• What languages do you speak? Gryllida 02:32, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

  As mentioned in my statement and on my userpage, apart from my native language Dutch (Flemish), I speak (in order of ability) English, French and German. I can also understand other written Germanic and Romance languages to varying extents. And thanks to my experience on especially Incubator, I am familiar with the different language families, writing systems, ... SPQRobin (talk) 12:43, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Tar Lócesilion

Question from Quentinv57

• Hi. What do you plan to do if you are elected as a steward ? On which areas will you focus and why ? Thanks by advance for your answer -- Quentinv57 ^(talk) 18:11, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Hi. I think it'll be handling requests on IRC, changing user rights/usernames, performing local deletions etc. I'll focus on serving local communities, especially small wikis, because for me, the role of steward is to be calm and humble (to act instead of sb, for ex. inactive bureaucrats) rather than to be an additional power, a global "moderator" who performs global blocks, follows cross-wiki vandals etc. I know, it is necessary and sometimes somebody just has to do it (Wpedzich said I would be pretty good in it and next time it was me who should block Wikinger ;) but it certainly won't be the core of my steward actions. Tar Lócesilion|queta! 02:25, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
    • Among the huge box full of words such as 'buttons', 'fighting', 'inactivity', it's an exceptionally lively, interactive, promising answer. Thanks! Good luck. --Gryllida 03:41, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Pytanie od Toma646

• Dzien dobry, ja nie moge znac wszytko co stalo sie w drugich wikypedijach, tak muse sie ciebie zpytac, czy ty polaczil tych 450000 IP adresow zablokowac lub nie.--Toma646 (talk) 08:46, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Nie wiem, czy dobrze Cię zrozumiałem. Co to znaczy "polaczić"? Niestety nie znam rosyjskiego, byłoby łatwiej. Teraz spróbuję odpowiedzieć i pisać prosto. Nie mówiłem, czy blokować, czy nie. Wiedziałem, że blokada jest potrzebna i że ma wady. Ja nie byłem stewardem, ostatecznie decydował Wpedzich. Powiedziałem, że jeżeli chcemy zablokować, musimy to dobrze wytłumaczyć ludziom, mediom. I tłumaczyłem. Tar Lócesilion|queta! 12:03, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
    • 450000 zablokowanych IP adresów dużo mnogo za jednego ch**a. Lepsze by było tego Wikingera znajdować i przez sąd jego zkarać, jeśli w Wikipediji robie tak tak wiele szkod. Możliwo to jest proti zasadam Wikipedije, ale v takom przypadku nieuniknione, bo niemoże 450000 ludziej cierpieć za jednego.--Toma646 (talk) 12:30, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
      • Dużo, dużo. Ale z sądem są problemy: ludzkie i prawne. Ktoś musi pójść do sądu, przedstawić dowody, być na rozprawach, wydać kasę na adwokata itp. To nie takie proste. Być może kiedyś ktoś pójdzie do sądu. Tar Lócesilion|queta! 13:23, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Question from Einsbor

• Hi Tar! We know each other from different actions on pl wiki. I know you as reasonable and responsible person. You've written in your statement that you serve as sysop on pl wiki, and also on pl.wikimedia. But, as steward, you will be asked to perform CU or Oversight actions. How can you describe your knowledge about IPs'? How will you recognize that some account is just sockpuppetry? Einsbor (talk) 07:32, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
  • At the beginning, I'll focus on actions that I've enumerated in my statement and in reply to Quentinv57 above. If I happen to be asked to perform OS, I'll know what to do, because I've already asked our plwiki OS about it (notabene it was me, with odder, Wpedzich and Teukros, who introduced the idea of OS to our pl community: 1 and 2). If it comes to CU, I'm not as familiar with it as with OS. Ofc I'm aware of the role and restrictions of CU rights. When I am asked to perform a CU check, at the beginning, I'll perform the first few checks with the assistance of a friendly steward. Btw, we all know that during elections/RfA, candidates are asked about various activities related to the rights they apply even if there's but a slight possibility they may have anything to do with many of these activities (for ex. recently on plwiki, a candidate has been asked about Polish government license problems despite the fact he edits sport articles and his knowledge of complex Polish law is about its average level). What differs me from that candidate is my experience. I don't promise "I'll surely perform anything I am asked" but when it's needed, I'll just do it. Tar Lócesilion|queta! 21:44, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

TBloemink

• You are an admin on three projects, the Dutch Wikipedia, MediaWiki and Wikidata, but I'm not so sure about your activity on either project. As you're also a global sysop, I won't count mw.org as another project (it falls under the GS wikis). So I wonder, what can we expect from you? How active will you be? Just handling requests on IRC, or will you also help continuously on other areas? I'm sure you'll give the political correct answer (I probably would too if I were a candidate), but try to convince me please. Trijnstel_talk 12:45, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I agree with you that you cannot count my local adminship on MediaWiki (I have doubted to have them removed but never did, I don't know why). Even though I don't edit that much, I am on IRC a lot so I can help out with requests there. I am starting to become more active crosswiki, as I have a lot more free time than in the past so I'm sure I will help out with permission requests, checkuser requests and other stuff when I have the time. Even though I have my inactive periods, I won't become inactive completely, because I'll still be available to handle IRC requests when I am not able to edit at a certain moment (i.e. school). — TBloemink _talk 12:57, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
• Hi TBloemink. If you are a steward, will you do in the begin (like the first week you're a steward) all kind of requests, or do you first want to do simple things? (like only assigning permissions, perform checkusers, global locking of spambots etc.) And last but not least; I wish you lots of success. Southparkfan 14:59, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your question. Of course I'd need to "explore" the toolset at first, getting to know where buttons and such are, but in the beginning I'd certainly like to start easy, making my way to the more difficult things. The last thing being with help from a more experienced steward. But yes, I'd like to start easy, but I don't really expect that to be longer than 1 week (I expect it to be shorter even). Let me know if I let a question unanswered. Best regards, — TBloemink _talk 15:17, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
• Dear mr. Bloemink, you tend to revert valid edits of which I've been a victim not so long ago. You didn't even discuss with me. Will you keep ignoring the AGF-policy we're all supposed to follow especially if you have more rights than the average user? Anyways, good luck!  Klaas|Z4␟V:  11:20, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
  • My apologies for the delayed answer. I will not ignore the AGF-policy in case it was a controversial page move which needed consensus before being done (which it was). If I, anyhow, showed the impression that I did not assume good faith, my sincere apologies. — TBloemink _talk 16:37, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
    • Apologies accepted, but I'm still insulted by the fact you did not visit my TalkPage to ask for a reason to make a small change to the title, because the current one is ambiguous. You are the second who did not see the ambiguity and being arrogant on top of it... Harteli‌jke groeten,  Klaas|Z4␟V:  10:48, 16 February 2014 (UTC)