Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/YechielMan

YechielMan

Voice your opinion (18/10/3); Scheduled to end 06:22, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

YechielMan (talk · contribs) - I made my first edit in November 2005, and became substantially active in January 2007. I have authored about a dozen articles on chess and Judaism, and I've cleaned up many more articles on various subjects. In the Wikipedia project space, I am most active in deletion discussions, especially articles for deletion. I've nominated about 150 articles for deletion discussions and tagged more than twice as many for proposed or speedy deletion on new pages patrol and Special:BrokenRedirects. I have also helped at editor review, dead-end pages, and here at RFA.

For those of you who care, I have 2700 edits, with the following distribution:

• 1300 mainspace
• 1100 Wikipedia: space
• 300 elsewhere

Just for fun, here's a list of random things I've done here at least once.

• I transcluded an image from Wikimedia Commons to Lavatera phoenicea.
• I created a screenshot image and uploaded it for endgame tablebase.
• I've made one nomination each for featured article, featured picture, and "Did you know?".
• I've had my user page vandalized as a response to this message. (Thanks to my friend User:DLand for noticing and fixing it.)
• I tried to resolve a content dispute.
• I used my knowledge of Hebrew to create Shaare Zedek Medical Center, and I created mutual interwiki links with the Hebrew Wikipedia article.
• I rescued Big Soda (history) from speedy deletion by adding two references within 13 minutes of its creation.
• I've forwarded material such as this to WP:BJAODN.
• I received an editor review from delldot.

If adminship is founded upon mutual trust with other members of the community, I think I have earned that trust in the various communications I've had with other users. I look forward to the ability to solve problems that, until now, I need to refer to other users. I look forward to reading your opinions and responding to any questions you ask here. YechielMan 06:22, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept. YechielMan 06:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia in this capacity. Please take the time to answer a few generic questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. What sysop chores do you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Administrative backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.

A: I have been most active in the deletion process, and will continue to be. Consequently, my main areas of administrative work will be to delete or otherwise process nominations at CAT:CSD, WP:PROD, WP:AFD and maybe other XFDs. It may not sound like much, but I'd estimate that CSD, PROD, and AFD combined receive about 800 article nominations per day, and someone's got to deal with them. In addition, I may try other secretarial tasks, such as WP:RFPP and WP:RM. Adminship, like editing in general, will require a learning process. YechielMan 06:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any with which you are particularly pleased, and why?

A: I am most proud of writing endgame tablebase, which I recently nominated for Featured Article candidacy. The article represents some 20-30 hours of research and writing, spread out over the last year or so, and is probably the best up-to-date review of the subject that is available on the web. I am also pleased with my other articles (listed on my user page), my editor reviews, my cleanup work, and my placing of categories and/or stub templates on articles that lack them. I also created Template:chess notation and inserted it into 100-150 articles, in order to resolve the ad hoc approach for introducing algebraic notation in chess articles. YechielMan 06:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

A: I've never had a conflict last for more than a half hour or so. The most difficult incident occurred with an AFD regular who questioned my right to nominate an article since I was a new user with a redlinked username. I let it pass, but when he made the comment to someone else a few months later, I engaged him in a short conversation on my talk page, and we agreed to disagree. Then there was the user who, in response to an innocent suggestion, said he didn't need any more trouble from "jewish users." Yikes! I politely asked him why he said that, and it turned out to be a misunderstanding. Overall, I'm very chilled out about my work on Wikipedia. Even though I spend a lot of time here, I view it as a pastime, where each individual edit, or even each individual article, is not worth stressing out about. The other way that I deal with conflicts is to avoid them in the first place. That's one of the reasons I don't enjoy RC patrol, and it's the main reason why I steer clear of any and all controversial articles (with the minor exception of Richard Joel). You can examine details of the aforementioned incidents on my talk page; I don't think it's appropriate to name names in this more public arena. YechielMan 06:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

General comments

• See YechielMan's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.
• I will respond here to the concerns raised by User:Vary.
  • Why did I use Wikipedia to googlebomb Richard Joel's biography page? I wrote all about it on this blog post, dated Jan. 5, 2007.
  • Why did I not disclose it in my self-nomination? I thought it wasn't necessary. I am asking my fellow users to judge me on the last three months because I don't have much of a record before then. The googlebomb incident took place in December 2005, and to my mind it was prehistorical. I make the same argument regarding my edit to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial] in November 2006 - also before I was substantially active here.
  • Am I sorry about it? Am I committed never to do something like that again? Yes. I've read virtually all of the Wikipedia policies by now, including the one that says "Don't disrupt Wikipedia to make a point." What I did was disruptive to Wikipedia, though it was not intended as an attack on Wikipedia itself. It was also on shaky ethical footing for its primary intent. Recently I have been fixing Wikipedia's problems, not creating them, and I expect to continue doing that regardless of how this RFA turns out. YechielMan 16:22, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

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Please keep criticism constructive and polite.

Discussion

Support

1. I've only seen good things. John Reaves (talk) 06:52, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
2. Support Looks like a strong candidate to me. Although YechielMan has only truly been active for the last 2-3 months, he has over 1000 edits to Wikispace, has demonstrated knowledge of policy, and shows an actual need for the tools. I see no chance for admin-abuse from this editor, who has already started to close AfDs (correctly). - auburnpilot talk 08:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
3. Support - good user, willing to learn, communicative and knowledgeable about policy. Good luck! Going to weak support per early instances of 'experimentation' and rather low user talk edits (although you communicate well in the project space). – Riana ^talk 10:03, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
4. Support while not that experienced, shows a good grasp of administrative tasks and looks highly likely to enrich and maintain the encyclopaedia. Good luck. The Rambling Man 10:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
5. Weak Support. The diffs that I had read seemed to be balanced and sensible. I have slight concerns from the diffs provided below. I like to believe that vandals can become solid-citizens, but the google bomb hints at a character flaw. I'm still on the support side, though, given that these were quite some time ago. semper fictilis 10:45, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
6. Weak support due to the fact that he has few user interactions, and has only been active for the past 2-3 months, which makes people doubt if you might burn out after a few months of adminship. But, you seem like a reasonable and mature Wikipedian, so I support you. - Anas ^talk? 11:31, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

   Support - No valid reason to oppose. PTO 13:28, 28 March 2007 (UTC) Switch to neutral per the diffs produced by Vary. PTO 14:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

7. Mild Support - quality user who could use a little bit more time before standing for RfA, but it's ok I suppose. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NYC JD (talk • contribs)
8. supportI think he make good and just admin.Records show he is a solid contributer to the wiki community and and he helps others.wikipedia needs a good admin like that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redknight26 (talk • contribs)
9. Terence 14:14, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
10. Support didnt get this far without being somewhat decent Twenty Years 14:44, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
11. Helpful and decent. 1.42 average edits per article. Not only yeah, but hell yeah. —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 15:12, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
12. Support. Good user. -Mschel 15:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
13. Support No obvious reasons not to give the bit, really. No big deal. - Denny 18:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
14. Support as per usual. Adminship is no big deal. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 19:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
15. Support. As others have indicated, there is no reason not to twiddle the bit. He seems to have learned from his past mistakes and has indicated he will not do such things again. I see no reason not to give him the mop. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 20:26, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
16. Support It seems long enough since the bad behavior to allow adminship. Captain panda In vino veritas 02:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
17. Support. I read the concerns in the oppose section, but the items there are well over a year old, and to Yechiel's credit, he decided to stick with his account instead of abandoning a tainted one for a new account, something which I think would be quite easy to do. My experience with Yechiel is that he makes thoughtful comments, and good contributions to the encyclopedia. I think he will handle the admin buttons well. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
18. Support Looking at his recent history, he's sound enough.--Londoneye 12:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Strong Opppose With no real prejudice against reapplying with a more substantial contribution history and more user interaction. 2,700 edits and three months of regular editing is kind of on the low end for an editor with a clean record, but I'd need to see a lot more than that before I'd be willing to overlook the candidate's history of vandalism and the rather meanspirited Googlebomb he set up early in his career here. [1] [2] [3] [4] I have to admit I'm not encouraged by the fact that the user didn't own up to these actions and apologize for them/reassure us that he'd changed his ways in his nomination. -- Vary | Talk 13:46, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

   This was in December 2005, though. Yechiel seems to have improved considerably since then. – Riana ^talk 14:21, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

   As I said, the candidate's contribution history would be a little skimpy for an editor with no history of questionable behavior (as other supporters unaware of the past problems have said). I'm simply saying that it takes more time to 'prove yourself' when you have a 'history' than it does if you're starting from a clean slate. And I feel strongly that the candidate should have owned up to these problems in his nomination. I'm not saying 'not ever,' just 'not now.' -- Vary | Talk 14:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

   Gotcha. I wasn't trying to influence your opinion, just pointing out the dates :) – Riana ^talk 14:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

2. Oppose The lack of disclosure about past misdeeds hurts. The final showstopper for me is his lack of time (only a few months) interacting with fellow wikipedians and/or any sort of mediation exeriance. There is a whole other side to being an admin that requires experiance within the actual community and his short activity since January doesn't cover it. NeoFreak 16:44, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
3. Questionable behavior on multiple occasions. Picaroon 16:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
4. Oppose The temptation for mischief will be greater as an admin. I'd like to see more user interactions before I support a candidate with a past. Xiner (talk, email) 17:10, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
5. Oppose give the past questionable behavior, I think the user need more time to gain experience in the customs of Wikipedia and build up the trust of the community.-- danntm ^T _C 19:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
6. Oppose per Xiner and danntm. I'd like to see more experience. Michael 19:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
7. Oppose per above. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 06:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
8. Oposse Too soon. Arfan 09:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
9. Oppose. This candidate's record of consistent, positive contributions is short - it goes back only to the beginning of January. Given this candidate's somewhat checkered history, I'd like to see longer period of consistent, positive contributions before this candidate becomes an admin. Zaxem 10:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
10. Oppose per Vary. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 10:01, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Neutral leaning to oppose on the basis of lack of user interaction, a fundamental necessity in an admin. --Dweller 11:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
2. Neutral (switch from support) Google bombing is never okay, especially on Wikipedia. If you had apologized for that in your nomination, I would not have switched. PTO 14:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
3. Neutral Just because he has not been active here for a period of 5 months. Sorry:) James, La gloria è a dio 16:07, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

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