http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Req...hip/MZMcBride_4

Mr. McBride has a super-majority of 100 voters opposing him after only 24 hours. I realize this is probably non-salvageable but I hope he keeps it open and sets a new record.


Oh, is that really all it takes? I submitted a patch once myself but it was rejected because it contained IE-unfriendly CSS.

In all seriousness the toolserver folks were the only ones in a position to sanction him. As such he should not have resigned.

We must be looking at different Wikipedias. I'm seeing "26/77/12" and in my book, 77 opposes is a lot less than 100. No doubt he'll run up 100 eventually, but WR:ISNOT a crystal ball.

Those opposing him form a super-majority of the ~100 voters in question, so kindly stop being a douche, Mikey.

What's wrong with a little hygiene?

Po' Skinnybones is getting deep fried by his peers.

But some folks like him:

He has my support.

Also, for the CU/OS elections, I recommend only MuZemike, Tiptoety, Bastique, and MBisanz.

Now, my minions, go make my five pics so.

Mwah ha ha ha ha ha.

Ah ha ha ha ha ha.

Ha ha.

Ha.



I'm afraid McBride might pass my oppose total (but I should keep that record for neutrals if some of those weasels hop into a real decision).

look at his answers to people who are asking about previous desysoppings:










someone should vote "Oppose I'm not sure I understand this RfA. Can you be a bit more specific?" or "Oppose Experience and understanding come with time. Give it about ten years."

Still hasn't withdrawn RfA even though his odds are impossible and he just looks like a fool by now. This is so typical of him - stubborn, arrogant and clueless.

A bureaucrat closed MzM's RfA early, so MZM re-opened it himself, leading to a predictable long follow-up discussion.

Nihonjoe should have his Cratship removed for such a stunt.

Crats are supposed to be completely removed from such politics and also are limited to specific guidelines. He violated every single aspect of the policy (except for the whole Bot and Renaming part) in just this instance, and has a year long track record of screwing up (perhaps to cause drama and lulz, because he seems rather desperate for attention lately).

Where are all the Arbs about removing him? Why haven't you people gotten off your lazy butts and done it already. Instead, you bother with petty stuff and ban good users and let that troll walk around? Pathetic.

I pointed out the stupidity of having him here and people failed. You'd think when the community says "hell no" three times that chances are the guy has too many problems to be truly objective.



By the way, lets see if any current admin has the guts to do what is right and block Nihonjoe for abuse of process, WP:POINT, and just being a complete incivil douche.

For closing an RFA? That's what bureaucrats do, Ottava.


Diffs? Evidence? Anything at all?


Urm...


That would be actual abuse. Good thing you didn't become an admin, you'd have been worse than MZMcBride!


Just like you apparently.

I assume (correct me if I'm wrong) that Ottava has this in mind.

Ahh. I think it was pretty stupid of Postlethwaite to publicly label Tyciol, whether it was true or not, and should have left it to Arbcom. Nevertheless Nihonjoe shouldn't have made such a fuss about it.

Interesting that you left out the 350-word answer to the follow-up. What does that say about you?

You say that as though it would be funnier or more pithy than the current set of opposes. Account creation is free; go wild.

Well, better to look like a fool than be one. Or something.

Welcome to the Review, bluejayfan.

Baloney. That was your initial response to the questions. Zero attempt to explain at all. It took an awfully long time for you to respond at all. The tally stood at (38/93/13) when you finally did.

What does that say about you?

Consider this my oppose based on not even bothering to go into the whole thing, which is what people care about when someone is trying to get back the tools.

The smart move would have been to cut it off at the pass by making a statement at the beginning. But no, you couldn't be bothered. Then several people ask about various things related to the desysoppings, and instead of giving an explanation you knew people wanted, you chose to stall with "be more specific", when the questions were perfectly plain.

Then when pressed, you finally gave some kind of acknowledgment of the issues. Terrific. If you want plaudits for that, I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere.

That he has a low tolerance for bullshit? That's just a guess...

Two of the person(s) asking the question(s) about his "previous admin incarnations" (wtf kind of word-choice is that?) characterized the incident that led to his last "desysopping" as "helping a banned user vandalize unwatched BLPs." That, right there, shows just how utterly clueless, sheep-like, and insular the WP Faithful really are, at least as far as BLP issues are concerned.

Having said that, I can sort of see why they wouldn't want him to be an admin again, based strictly on his ability to "play nice," which has clearly decreased over time. (No offense, MZM - it's actually supposed to be a kind of back-handed compliment, in fact. Btw, does anybody remember if he played nice early on? I don't have time to research that question at the moment.)

Malleus, for one, would consider that a compliment.

I don't think it's necessarily a positive or a negative trait. It's just something that's necessary at times.

Since his primary objective here is not actually to pass the RfA, I guess playing nice isn't necessary at all.

Twat maintenence may be necessary, but is best not done in public. I think this should be a WP sixth pillar.

And as for the above discussion, WP:SNO should be better known.

Why does a developer like MZM need administrator tools, anyhow? What does he need them for? To my knowledge, he was never a big blocker or XFD closer or the like.

He deleted a lot.

MZM loves his deletions.

Were they good deletions?

dunno, do you want to look through 800,000+ deletions, most of which were automated?

Yep, that's him. The dorks don't like him because he's a deletionist. Ooohhh. Bad boy.

Were there any prominent deletions that raised the ire of many Wikipedians?

Otherwise, I see no reason for him not to be an administrator.

Sounds like a good start.

Heck, he shouldn't just be an administrator, he should be their Chief Technology Officer...

don't know, but it wasn't the deletions that people primarily took issue with.

Because he deleted a lot of stuff and most of it was insignificant cleanup, that means there's no reason for him not to be an admin? For me, I can set aside all the stuff he did, but not the way he's behaved during this RfA. Anyone with that history who seriously wanted to become an admin again, would not have to have the history dragged out of him, bit by bit, and would show at least some contrition, rather than taking a completely confrontational approach.

Rightly or wrongly, that won't work and he ought know better.

The only major charges I can recall about MZM was his use of unauthorized bots (which he now gets permission to use), his giving sockpuppeting tips on this forum (which, IIRC, wasn't already known to most people anyhow and sophisticated puppeteers were already aware of. ), and his offer to help Greg find unwatched BLP articles (which resulted in an overreaction and proved regardless of Greg's involvement that Wikipedia cannot watch and maintain the large number of BLP articles anyway).

It shouldn't matter what the "Community" (i.e. a small dozen of socially elite editors and their kiddie sycophantic followers with colorful signatures and weak self-esteem with no ability to judge for themselves whether a person is capable to build and maintain a genuine encyclopedia.) wants, but whether MZM's skills can build an encyclopedia (which is what you guys want to build, right?). Yes, social and diplomatic skills are a plus, yet no one can overlook his technical expertise and MediaWiki experience. If Wikipedians were wise, they would take advantage of MZM's technical skills and have him help them create better bots, make sockpuppeting harder, and solve the BLP problem. Think of the opportunity wasted by holding on to past transgressions and keeping MZM from the tools!

What positives could MZM bring to Wikipedia with his administrator tools and would they outweigh the negatives, past and present? Think about it carefully and considerately.

Trust comes first and foremost. People are not willing to vote for someone who they can't trust. RfA voters want to feel that he won't repeat the things he did in the past, and from what he's said, it sounds like he's not interested in changing anything. People can forgive, but not when the candidate violates trust again and again without even admitting to doing anything wrong.

Now I will of course not argue that all administrators are trustworthy; indeed, some have proven themselves not worthy of the trust placed in them, but that doesn't change anything about this specific instance.

In response to your question, I don't think the positives outweigh the negatives from Wikipedia's perspective.

I agree.

I'm being more of a devil's advocate than anything. There used to be a time that developers were given administrator tools without an RFA. I believe that a developer once ran for RFA a few years and received opposes for wasting the Community's time when he/she could have just asked for the tools and not gone through RFA. Now if a 'crat gave MZM the tools to aid in his capacity as a developer, the drama would be explosive and many resignations along with an ArbCom case would follow.

Strange that MZM did not provide a reason for wanting the tools in the first place, except stating that he was a long time editor and developer. Had he provided some good reasons for having the tools, perhaps he would have had more supports.

I'm thinking this is more of a social experiment.



Oh, yes, definitely.

No question. I think one of the opposes stated as much.



I agree, as I was saying earlier in the thread.

As RfA train wrecks go, this is pretty impressive.

When is Ironholds going back for another grab at the tools?

I still have 3 more opposes, 2 more neutrals, and 13 more supports than what McBride does now, but I have a feeling that my record may be crushed.

That's like Lyndon LaRouche and Bat Buchanan arguing over who ran a better presidential campaign.

I hope I'm Buchanan in that analogy (I assume you mean Pat?).

Hmm, too bad Kurt seems to be retired. I'd like to hear his opinion on all this.

I can't work out if MZM sought pain, attention, drama or all three, as this result was predictable. It's like a boo'd off comedian returning to the stage just to collect more rotten fruit.


Durova ?

Get Steve Crossin, Wisdom89 and Ten Pound Hammer to throw their hats into the RfA ring again, and we can have a John Henry-worthy train wreck!

I would like to see Malleus go for adminship -- I'd put money down that he would pass (narrowly, perhaps, but he'd make the grade).

I'd take that bet.

Great! If you win, I'll give you NuclearWarfare to be your free housekeeper/cook/valet for the next month. If I win, I'll get NW as free housekeeper/cook/valet for the next month. Deal?

It's more a measure of how much more important to them it is that "banned means banned" than it is to ensure that Wikipedia isn't used as a defamation engine. Only a subset of Wikipedians are in favor of using Wikipedia as a defamation engine; most of the rest simply don't care.

It isn't that they don't care, it is just that they struggle to tell Wikipedia's virtual world from reality.

Thus unfairness towards [[User:Mynameisninja]], the danger of biting him, or inferring a lack of trust in some pseudonym with 50edits, is actually weighted against the risks of defaming or distressing someone out there. Since it is always easier to be sympathetic to "people you know", than people you don't, the balance again tends to favour the rights of [[User:Mynameisninja]] over the BLP subject. It isn't that the BLPs subject's interests don't count, it is just that there are being weighed against something that ought to be a feather against an elephant.

And the excuse if often what the implied reader "needs" or "is entitled to".

Except McBride did nothing wrong.

I'll agree that "trust" is important when it comes to elections, but you neglect to mention just what the electorate is "trusting" the candidate to do.

In this case, it is clear that the electorate is not trusting McBride to not make absolute and total fools of them. Once again.

As per other comments here, as far as I can tell, McBride should indeed be installed as CTO. I'll go on and say that about 2/3rd of the admins should be released from duty (aka "fired"). You can begin with all the "oppose" voters here, and follow on with their friends and such.

Now that's a matter of opinion. Many would disagree with you.

Was what I did to those 4 or 5 BLPs really "vandalism"? If inserting incorrect information on a temporary basis as a testing measure is a crime, then Jimmy Wales himself needs to be desysopped.

Messing with an infobox style is hardly the same as inserting falsehoods into a BLP.

Very strange to see opposes based on his allegedly abusing the tools last time. What tools did he abuse? The problem was the provision of information he got from toolserver. Did he need admin access on WP to get that information? I thought not, but maybe I'm wrong.

Strange? Well, not really. Lots of WP discussion and voting is of this quality.

Sounds terrible, doesn't it? But ... depends on the "falsehood." Also depends on whether or not it's a BLP, actually.

It was a test of how quickly false information would be found, it ran for a very short time, compared to how long false information frequently stands up. The overall effect was positive, in fact, or neutral, and if there was any real damage (highly unlikely that even one single person was "deceived,") it was nothing compared to the flood of crap coming in every day.

But we hear this mantra over and over. "Inserted falsehoods in BLPs." Actually, he didn't. And anyone who thinks he did is completely nuts and didn't pay attention to what actually happened.

The same testing could have been done but less efficiently and less accurately, without his participation. His participation guaranteed that any possible damage was highly transient. In other words, he improved the situation, he didn't make it worse.

But Wikipedia has long been overwhelmed by Must Follow The Rules types, even when there are no rules. (MZM did not break rules, apparently, but only "expectations." I.e., "He should have known better." Which is a catch-all for "I and my friends don't like it." But, of course, lots of people didn't like it, based on wildly inaccurate descriptions of what happened that circulated in the usual places, where nothing is ever examined closely, unless if someone does, in which case that person gets dinged for writing a tome. Nobody likes to read these complicated descriptions of actual reality. It's much easier to just scream "How horrible! Inserted false information into BLPs!"

Like, biography of woman who was active, was it around 1930?, then an addition of a link to her recently winning a beauty contest or something like that. Person with same name, of course.

This kind of crap gets inserted all the time, except it isn't so obvious. And that's what was being shown, the effect of a lack of any serious review process, with sensible fact-checking, and only dependence on RCP, which is lousy at this kind of thing. An RCPer would look at that diff and say, hey, sourced, harmless at worst, and give it a pass. And no responsibility. Nobody keeps track of what was looked at, and what wasn't. And what was actually checked and what was merely glanced at.