Humus_sapiens (
talk·contribs) – Humus has been a wiki editor since November of 2003. I have run accross him on numerous occasions on VFDs, articles relating to Judaism and military history, and the occasional RC patrol. I happened to be looking at
Wikipedia:List_of_non-admins_with_high_edit_counts, and noticed Humus on the list with 11,000+ edits. I know it's almost cliche at this point, but the first thing I said was wow - I can't believe he's not an administrator already. Humus has contributed to all aspects of the wikipedia space, contributing text, pictures, and level headed discourse when necesarry. I have always found Humus to be accomodating, honest, and a supporter of Wikipedia's policies and procedures. Humus has been proven time and time again as a good vandal fighter, VFD contributor, and editor. Let's give him a mop (and a bucket if he so desires), and let him continue. --
Bachrach4421:24, 17 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: Thank you for considering me for the nomination. I accept, being aware that more power entails more responsibilities. ←
Humus sapiensну?01:21, 18 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Support: excellent combination of strong editorial skills, good community involvement, and even-handed user interactions. --
MarcoTolo23:46, 18 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Support Currently, there is only one admin to every ~1,220 articles and ~1434 users. I.E., they number at just ~0.07% of the total population on Wikipedia. I'd say that is too few. At least 0.1% would be adequate. An idea you should apply if deemed necessary- Watch any new admin's actions closely for the first thirty days to make sure they are fit for the job. --
Shultz IV03:44, 19 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Many of those users are non-active or are banned sockpuppets and/or vandal accounts. It also isn't at all obvious to me that anything is intrinsically wrong with the above numbers. Pointing to backlog is one thing. Pointing to numbers that look bad from a naive perspective is different. Your comment about 30 days is essentially a policy proposal and so should be discussed on the general RfA talk page, not here.
JoshuaZ04:05, 19 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Tempted to oppose out of sheer cliche hatred. But instead I'll cast my scorn upon the perpetrators, support', and admit to my own surprise.
Derex02:04, 20 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Support. Basically like a clone of me, only smarter, more patient and religious. Would I trust myself to be an admin? Of course! --
Chodorkovskiy06:20, 20 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Support, and hope rollbacks will be accompanied with a message on the vandal's talk page. —
Quarl(
talk)2006-04-20 08:24Z
Support - 11,000 edits is a huge number compared to the average person who requests adminship, the answers to the questions seemed quite suitable too. I see no problem.--
Andeee17:36, 20 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Strong support. As should be expected with the candidate's roughly fifty million edits, I've seen this guy around. I have little doubt that he would better the project.
Matt Yeager♫(
Talk?)04:50, 21 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Support - Just one comment; it shouldn't be the case that the comment 'he has 11,000 edits' should be followed by the though 'I can't believe he's not an editor already'. Admin status is not an edit count trophy. -
Richardcavell11:51, 21 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Support, as eminently qualified. Handling of additional 'questions' was good, too. Mild amusement at the nominator's observation that "he's not an editor already". -
Splashtalk12:48, 21 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Support Nobody is perfect, but the aprpoach demonstrated to difficult topics is better than many and cooperative.
Midgley09:50, 24 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Despite his having been locked in a stasis tube for 30+ years, and the fact that each use of his powers leads to the death of a random human somewhere on the planet, I vote support.
DS16:08, 25 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Oppose based on the answer to question number 4. In the dispute as to whether administrators should have more say over the content of an article than their subordinates, I side with the administrators. I support candidates that subscribe and openly espouse this position. --
American Saga 02:46, 21 April 2006 (UTC) Sockpuppet of banned
User:Zephram Stark.
SlimVirgin(talk)08:14, 21 April 2006 (UTC)reply
WP:ADMIN has, in the second paragraph, the following:
"From early on, it has been pointed out that administrators should never develop into a special subgroup of the community, but should be a part of the community like anyone else only equipped with a few more tools to do some chores that would potentially be harmful if everyone was entrusted them."
In light of this guideline, I'm not sure your statement "administrators should have more say over the content of an article than their subordinates" has much place. Admins are editors-with-tools, equals-with-tools, if you will. But not editors-more-equal-than-others (to paraphrase Mr. Orwell). --
MarcoTolo02:57, 21 April 2006 (UTC)reply
I've read
WP:ADMIN, and it is a good piece of marketing, but reality comes from the organization of a community, not from words on a page. Reality is that admins get promoted from below, but demoted from above. For that reason, one has to keep an entirely different set of people happy to remain an administrator as to gain admin status. Immediately one has to shift gears from being a representative of the people to a loyal member of the good ole boys club. As a result, there is an extreme disconnect between expectations that editors have of their administrators and the reality of the situation. It isn't likely that Wikipedia will develop a method of voting an administrator out of office any time soon, so the only solution is to openly espouse the truth: that administrators have the final say over the content of articles. When we promise people one thing, and deliver another, we're going to get vandals, and by God, we have a lot of them. --
American Saga03:18, 21 April 2006 (UTC)reply
I would also like to point out the Humus did not explicitly say he would "side" with anyone - he said that valuable edits would be welcome, regardless of the source, and essentially that he would move to a compromise. This is, IMHO, the right answer. --
Bachrach4403:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)reply
If I understand American Saga's position, "a member of the arbitration committee" is always right, to the point that other opinions should be purged. I disagree. ←
Humus sapiensну?05:16, 21 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Weakest possible Oppose It does not appear that mine will be the deciding vote. Therefore, I’m reserving for myself the distinction of being the only editor to oppose the nomination by a ratio of over 100:1. I do so because as the vote shows, he’s everyone’s friend, including mine! If Wikipedia were a social club, I’d nominate him for President. Admittedly, I’ve only observed his behavior on a limited number of topics for a fairly short period of time. Yet, I’ve noticed what in my judgment is a pattern of compromising quality when there’s a risk to his “Political” standing in the community. In addition to his numerous and outstanding contributions to Wikipedia, I believe this partly explains why he will be (almost) universally confirmed for adminship.
Doright23:35, 23 April 2006 (UTC)reply
It may be useful for you to know that your above comments carry zero weight with me because you haven't provided a single diff as evidence to support your interpretation of events. Seriously, I take a very dim view of people who make charges impugning the reputation of others while not providing evidence. If we were in court, the judge might say, put up or shut up. ;) However, I take an even dimmer view of the fact that you have deprived me of my single claim to Wikipedia fame by opposing this nomination.
Doright01:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)reply
I'll try. The main issue was that Moshe insisted that the lead of this article contain the claim that the organization was just an "anti-Israel website" or an "anti-Zionist website" but he didn't have any sources to back this up and there were many that showed otherwise. Here are the various additions of this claim into the lead and two of my moves of this claim further down with a "citation needed" tag: Moshe:
[1], Moshe:
[2], Moshe:
[3], Pecher:
[4], I added it with a citation needed to it:
[5], Moshe didn't like my tentativeness:
[6], Moshe:
[7], Pecher:
[8], I tried to put a citation needed on it:
[9], Moshe didn't like my tentativeness:
[10], Moshe:
[11], Moshe:
[12]. Throughout this "battle" Humus sapiens was passive with regards to Moshe's behavior although HS did make a number of supportive comments on the talk page. Early on HS said that "I find IRMEP's claims of neutrality pathetic. We should not legitimize this (or any, for that matter) organization based on unreliable sources." -see diff
[13]. I then put together a RfC with lots of reputable support here [Talk:Institute_for_Research:_Middle_Eastern_Policy#RfC_Summary] - see diff
[14]. Later Humus sapiens continued to passively supported Moshe's continued readdition of this claim such as this response of his when I complainted to him about Moshe's behavior being inappropriate: "I don't see how Moshe is more disruptive or is engaging in vandalism than you are." - see diff
[15]. I felt that Humus sapiens passively supported Moshe's unsourced addition and bullying because they shared the same ideological view -- Wikipedia rules be damned. --
LuckyLittleGrasshopper02:17, 24 April 2006 (UTC)reply
I should add, just because this can be a touchy subject with a potential for misunderstanding, I have no problems if it is discovered that this organization is just plain anti-Semitic, anti-Israel or anti-Zionist but to make such a strong claim one needs to have a
WP:RS not just a strong personal convinction based upon
WP:OR. --
LuckyLittleGrasshopper03:24, 24 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Neutral
Undecided based upon shifting standards. This good editor writes in a narrow range of articles and is supported by those who oppose CTSWyneken's nomination "because he writes in a narrow range of articles." Why does that disqualify one, but not the other? --
StanZegel (talk)04:28, 20 April 2006 (UTC)reply
A few points: First, it is fallacious for you to support or oppose due to other individuals lack of consistency. Second, Humus has many more edits than CTSWyneken (by a factor of about 5) and so narrow focus matters less simply by general spill-over. Third, I suspect that for some editors(certainly me) in the case of CTSW, the narrow focus was the final straw of a problematic candidate.
JoshuaZ04:41, 20 April 2006 (UTC)reply
One of the differences between the two editors is that Humus has an edits/page average of 4.6 whereas CTSWyneken is 9.6, so the latter clearly has a very narrow focus, which is one of the reasons he's being opposed and Humus is being supported (only one of many reasons).
SlimVirgin(talk)14:05, 20 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Let me add that I have just voted for Humus because he is a very fine editor and I believe his ability to broker comprimises will be enhanced by adminship. It does not matter to me at all that his edit range is narrow. To me, it means he's a careful scholar. Also, it is irrelevant to me if different standards are applied to me and to him, even if that is so. --
CTSWyneken16:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Althogh Humus has his areas of greater knowledge (which we all do), I don't think you can accuse him of narrowness at all. He had put in countless hours and edits for the cause of vandal fighting, VFDs, and other more "general" activities. A quick check of interiot's tool will reveal that there is almost no area of the wiki-space he has not contributed to heavily. --
Bachrach4403:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Neutral. Appears to be a bit of a topic specialist, 4.6 edits per page being rather high. The guy has been here for 2 and a half years, which is good, but I see a 3RR block only two months ago, which is bad. If I had more information on the actual circumstances (block summary doesn't specify which page, even), I might be inclined to change my vote. — Apr. 20, '06 [09:16] <
freakofnurxture|talk>
Hi Fon, not trying to change your mind, but I just wanted to comment that a 4.6 average isn't high at all; in fact, it's about perfect in my view. Too much lower may indicate an editor who hasn't made a substantial contribution to any article(s); too much higher could be an editor who edits within too narrow a range. I always think 5 is just about right.
SlimVirgin(talk)12:42, 20 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Thanks for the link. Looking at the full history of
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, it appears he reverted five times in two days. Reverts 2, 3, 4, and 5 occurred within 25 hours, 33 minutes of each other, which is close enough as far as I'm concerned (letter vs. spirit). He reverted two more times a couple days later, then left it alone until last week, when he almost broke the 3RR again. I don't feel quite comfortable supporting at this time. I realize it's just a lame edit war over one piece of information, but it's not a good habit to get into, and can lead to
improper use of admin tools if not kept in check. I'd encourage the candidate to take a break from topics that he would otherwise feel the need to edit war on. — Apr. 20, '06 [17:12] <
freakofnurxture|talk>
Yes, in my 2.5 years here I've been blocked once. The admin who's done it (
User:Sceptre) admitted that he was wrong:
[16]. FoN, thank you for the advice. I think we all agree that Wikipedia should not be used to disseminate hatred and lies. In some cases I had to choose what I considered the lesser evil. AFAIK, I kept within the limits of the rules, including 3RR. ←
Humus sapiensну?20:43, 20 April 2006 (UTC)reply
A small footnote is that same administrator that erroneously blocked Humus also did the same to me and then apoligized. I would contend that this shows they weren't just questionable blocks but the product of inattentiveness on the part of sceptre.-
Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg |
Talk08:34, 23 April 2006 (UTC)reply
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 voters:
A: Upkeeping our policies and standards. I hope to be able to handle anything thrown at me (real life permitting). I would like to assist other editors in our common job: to improve WP. I imagine that would include continued dealing with vandalism. Also, protections, deletions, merges and other maintenance issues. ←
Humus sapiensну?09:32, 18 April 2006 (UTC)reply
2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?
A: I am not shying away from controversial topics. Sure, sometimes it leads to edit conflicts, but I try not to make it personal/assume good faith and hash out arguments at talk. Let me shamelessly quote my own user page: "I believe that converting the heat of raw emotions into the light of encyclopedic knowledge may alleviate animosity, if done within the framework of
Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines based on
Wikipedia:Five pillars." I cherish our community here and believe that most edit conflicts can get resolved through discussion: bring reputable sources, seek reasonable compromises, build consensus and negotiate wording. Humor goes long ways, but if nothing else works, there is
WP:DR. How do I avoid stress? Switch to unrelated article. ←
Humus sapiensну?09:32, 18 April 2006 (UTC)reply
4. How would you resolve the following conflict: A new user edits an article which leads to a revert war with a member of the arbitration committee. You think that the new user's edit improves the article. Neither party will yield or compromise. Do you side with the new user or with the member of the arbitration committee? — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
American Saga (
talk •
contribs)
A: This seems like another permutation of Masssiveego's 1st question: editor A vs. editor B. I don't see why we should exclude conflicting opinions: we can always say that authority X said this but authority Y said that, given that their
sources are reputable and
verifiable. ←
Humus sapiensну?01:23, 21 April 2006 (UTC)reply
If you were admin, an angel, a prophet, and a priest all claiming that you must do something on Wikipedia behalf of your deity. One the page you was to work on they all contradict each other, the angel say save, the prophet say delete, the priest says rewrite a page. Who do you believe, and obey?
Definitely, I want to know if he will make a good admin. I expect humus sapiens to either risk answering, or choose to accept that I will vote oppose for not answering.
Masssiveego01:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Ok, multiple problems with this. First, an RfA is not a
game theory problem where the candidates need to make risk assesments. When candidates need to star thinking about pay-off matrices something is seriously wrong. Furthermore, your first question is borderline incoherent but among other issues seems to assume that everyone worships exactly 1 deity. Or am I to understand that if a candidate doesn't that you would then oppose them? Frankly, the question reads like a badly formed riddle. Is the next RfA going to have a question where the candidate needs to deal with a city of liars and a city of truth tellers or will it be even more obscure?
JoshuaZ03:14, 20 April 2006 (UTC)reply
I generally test them on their actions.
The Admin canidate will demonstrate in my questions characteristics of what I believe is a good admin, or be opposed. I will be developing a battery of vandal tests in the future to see if they can detect the vandalism if that is your question.
Masssiveego05:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)reply
And you think that a question involving angels and prophets somehow helps you determine whether they will make a good admin? (and no my second comment had nothing to do with vandalism, it was a reference to various
logic puzzles which your question bears superficial resemblance, I suggest that further discussion of this matter occur on my talk page).
JoshuaZ05:10, 20 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Pardon me, but have you (Massiveego) ever supported anyone? Humus sapiens has answered these questions admirably, but from your previous activities on Rfa apparently no-one meets your criteria. If you have actually supported someone, please tell me who, because I for one must have missed it if you ever did.
KillerChihuahua?!?12:30, 20 April 2006 (UTC)reply
Massiveego has supported at least one RfA, and from my recollection the number is ~several (Petros471, Circaeus, and Hoary from the recent set). That being said, I think the demand for ~24 turnaround is overly harsh and pushes the bounds of civility.
Syrthiss15:28, 20 April 2006 (UTC)reply
This is not the place to discuss Masssiveego's voting patterns. Please continue the discussion on the RfA talk page or contact him directly. ~
MDD469616:12, 20 April 2006 (UTC)reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either
this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.