Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/TedPavlic

The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a request for adminship that did not succeed. Please do not modify it.

TedPavlic

Final (6/12/2); ended 08:36, 11 July 2011 (UTC) per WP:SNOW Worm^TT · (talk) 08:36, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Nomination

TedPavlic (talk · contribs) – Since I registered with Wikipedia in 2006, I have a made 3200 edits on pages ranging over the sciences, liberal arts, and Wikipedia templates, and I was recently granted reviewer status. I check my watchlist daily, and I frequently make edits to undo vandalism or make WP:MOS corrections to new content added by other contributors; however, I have also made significant contributions to Wikipedia myself that I continue to maintain. Outside of Wikipedia, I have editorial experience as a lecturer, published researcher, peer reviewer, and conference session editor. Additionally, I have installed and maintained my own Wikimedia servers for personal and professional projects. I feel qualified for elevated rights on Wikipedia, and I think my editing record so far supports that claim. —TedPavlic (talk/contrib/@) 18:08, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. Please answer these questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?

A: In particular, I would like to assist in the administration and maintenance of protected pages, including both templates and Wikipedia content pages. I think I have a record of making undisputed and level-headed changes, and so I would appreciate being able to participate at this more delicate level.

2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?

A: Most recently, I have been told my significant content contributions to Backstepping, Sliding mode control, Minimum phase, Price equation, and Sallen–Key filter have been valued by other Wikipedia users. I have added significant amounts of content to those pages, including references, and have helped answer questions and address concerns on the respective talk pages. However, I am also very proud of my work on Operational amplifier and Bipolar junction transistor and other related electronics pages; in those relatively long pages, I reorganized and augmented content to be complete and consistent. Otherwise, a great deal of my editorial time is fixing small issues (e.g., dash errors, inserting non-breaking spaces, adding or cleaning up citations, etc.).

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: Two things come to mind:

• Recently I noticed that anonymous users were adding preprint references to Physarum polycephalum repeatedly, even after prior editorial intervention, and some additional information gave me the impression that these edits were coming from the laboratory that self-published those preprints. In this case, I cleaned up the page significantly, replaced preprints with journal references where possible, and documented the repeated attempts at self promotion in the talk page. I felt like this was a measured response to circumstantial evidence, and I felt like the amount of legitimate references I added prevented the opportunity for further self promotion.
• In general, although I am frequently initially WP:BOLD, I value interaction on the talk pages and will typically direct (by way of edit summary) cycles of edits to further continue on the talk page until a consensus can be found.

Additional question by User:Kiefer.Wolfowitz

4. Please briefly review the pages Dan La Botz and Socialist Party of Ohio, and tell me (on the talk pages) what I should do to bring them into compliance with WP policies. (This will give you a chance to demonstrate communication and cooperation, and talk page skills.)

A:

Additional question by User:5 albert square

5. In your own words, what's the difference between a block and a ban?

A:

General comments

• Links for TedPavlic: TedPavlic (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Edit summary usage for TedPavlic can be found here.

---

Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review his contributions before commenting.

Discussion

• Edit stats posted on the talk page. --The Σ ^talk_contribs 21:04, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
• Another useful edit counter here since TedPavlic has not opted in. Ryan Vesey (talk) 21:38, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

• Now opted in. Thanks. —TedPavlic (talk/contrib/@) 22:19, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

• Stats on talk page updated. —DoRD (talk) 22:30, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Support

1. Support. The candidate seems to have made very valuable contributions to several apparently good articles in control theory and mathematics. He has helped with cleaning up others' articles in an efficient and generally correct manner. My expectation is that you would be (like User:Geometry_guy) continuing to make valuable contributions to content, and use the administrative tools infrequently but intelligently: This has worked very well for other writers of quality technical articles. My concern is about about what may be, at first glance, a relative shortage of discussions and collaborations, so that it is hard to judge how you would interact with other editors. Interaction at Q factor shows calm, clear, cooperative personality. This candidate's being an administrator could be very valuable to the Systems and Mathematics projects, imho.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:53, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
2. Support. The candidate would add diversity to the admin pool, which seems to be evolving towards a specific type of Wikipedian. I'm not all about looking at edit counters and edits in particular namespaces. The candidate has made quality edits to Wikipedia and Wikipedia desperately needs admins who are also good editors. It is apparent that he is not applying because he is obsessed over Wikipedia nor having Wikipedia administration rights, but simply wants expanded capabilities and tools to interact with the Wikipedia community. --TimL (talk) 23:20, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   The reason people look for "edits in particular namespaces" is to predict how the candidate will interact with the Wikipedia community. If TedPavlic hasn't been active around any of the tasks admins typically do, why should we assume those aspects of Wikipedia interest him enough to make him a good admin? - Pointillist (talk) 23:41, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

3. I support morally, 5 years experiance but only 3200+ edits. The editors opposing suggest you should participate in areas like Articles for deletion, Vandalism intervention more. If they see more edits to those areas in your contributions, then they'll be more inclined to support you next time. –BuickCenturyDriver 00:14, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
4. Protest Support - if 5 years and 3200 edits is not enough for adminship, then our standards have become far too restrictive. But I really do think you need more demonstrated knowledge of our policies and procedures, even though you are qualified on the basis of your technical expertise. Wikipedia's policies and procedures are often counter-intuitive and just knowing how to edit a wiki doesn't give you all of the knowledge you need. I do think, though, that the total time in service and total number of edits should be more than enough, hence my protest !vote. --B (talk) 01:10, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
5. Support - Why not? James500 (talk) 02:19, 11 July 2011 (UTC) (This candidate has expressed a desire specifically to edit protected pages, not to participate in CSD, XfD, AfD or AIV. Relevance questionable.)James500 (talk) 02:57, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
6. Trustworthy user inconvenienced by protection on some pages. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 05:38, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I'm really sorry to be the first one to oppose your request, because you're a valuable Wikipedian, however, your lack of experience in admin-related areas makes it impossible for me to be able to support at this time. Again, I'm sorry. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 21:41, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   This guy is smarter than all of us put together, quite probably, so please think about how much time he really needs to understand policy.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:30, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   It isn't just about understanding policy. The question is how will the candidate behave as an admin. AFAICS TedPavlic has never patrolled a new page, voted at an AfD or made a report at AIV, so we can't use those as starting points. TedPavlic's talk page interactions seem to be very logical and direct, and I wonder how he would handle more ambiguous or emotionally-clouded discussions as an admin. I know it was over two years ago, but his reference to bikeshedding (here) struck me as a tad edgy for someone who wants the mop. - Pointillist (talk) 22:58, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   If I may, mathematicians/engineers are very direct in their speech, because they deal with facts, and so the ego is less involved. (I earlier mentioned Q factor, where you can see him immediately acknowledge a correction by DickLyon.) I think that "Bikeshedding" was a lay way to say ("only a meager set" or "only a null set" or something similar); in several senses, one can say that for most curves, no problem arises with the simpler formulation.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:32, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   I take your point—personally I rather enjoy that sort of direct interaction and I respect people who are smart enough to abandon ineffective arguments immediately. But admins have to be a bit more rounded, and I haven't seen enough evidence of that in this case, so I haven't !voted yet. - Pointillist (talk) 23:52, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

2. No experience in Xfds, too less edits and thus experienced and in the last year only ~100 edits. mabdul 21:54, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
3. User has no experience with AFD's and has been relatively inactive since August of 2009. Ryan Vesey (talk) 22:00, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   That's strange. I just recently added comments to the discussion about {{ndash}} deletion. —TedPavlic (talk/contrib/@) 22:22, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   I was specifically referring to AFD's not XFD's. The fact that you didn't notice the difference worries me more. Ryan Vesey (talk) 23:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   In addition, while I am not a huge stickler for edit count, I do like to see a moderately high level of activity. For the last 3 months you have been averaging less than 2 edits/day. In the previous year you had between 0 and 6 edits per month. Ryan Vesey (talk) 23:37, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

4. The user does not meet all the criteria here. I like to see at least 300 edits to the project namespace. Currently, there's only 71. I'd like a candidate to have 5,000+ edits under his/her belt. Currently, the user has 3,242. As for being versed in policies and the areas that he/she wants to in, the user has little to no experience with AfD, and doesn't have a history of sustained and active editing in the past 8 months. I'm sorry. MJ94 (talk) 22:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
5. With all respect to you and your work, I think even the most brilliant person needs sufficient experience to be a good admin. It is not merely comprehending the policies, but understanding how the contradictions between them are resolved in practice (not necessarily the most logical way!) and how consensus is formed, neither of which are actually written out anywhere. I sincerely support your work on the 'pedia and hope that you continue to be an excellent asset to the community. --Danger (talk) 22:41, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
6. Oppose for the very little activity over the past months (less than 300 edits in the last 19 months), almost no experience in admin-related areas: TedPavlic has only participated in one XfD discussion (there) and only one report to AIV ([1]). He has also created only 3 articles (except the 1 dab page and the two redirects, which were latter turned into an article by others). These articles are poorly sourced, and rely only on 1-2 sources. Sir Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 23:49, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   I'm a little confused about these status. For example, I created Variable structure system, which is not a redirect nor dab. Moreover, I've created MANY more redirects and dab pages than just 3. So where do these stats come from? —TedPavlic (talk/contrib/@) 00:00, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

   Yep, I checked the tool here and Ted has created 6 pages not including redirects. Including redirects he has created 228 pages. Personally, I do not think pages created is a good indicator of admin qualities anyways. Ryan Vesey (talk) 00:04, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

   The three articles are: Variable structure system, Variable structure control and Strict-feedback form. And by the way I said articles, and redirects aren't articles. Sir Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 00:08, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

   (edit conflict)Minor correction: He created 6 pages: 1 of them is a disamb. page and 2 of them WERE redirects (which turned to articles later by some other editors) --> only 3 articles created. But as you said: not a good indication for an admin/admin work. mabdul 00:15, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

7. Oppose Concerns with recent inactivity, experience, and breadth of exposure. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 01:06, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
8. Oppose Unfortunately too little activity, especially in key housekeeping areas to apply any metrics for assessment, and my criteria in particular. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:39, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
9. Low content and not much recently.. You are a sharp guy and a grownup. I looked at several of the articles you cited and what you had done there and when. Yes, you have a few articles with some paragraphs of text added. And I respect you for knowing how to do equation formatting and all. I did check over several of the articles and it seems that most contributions were over a year ago and not much since. And 3000 is a light total regardless. Stay around, write some more articles, do some reviews, etc. (and not just in amplifiers). Hone your skills at that. Besides content editors are better than admins.TCO (reviews needed) 03:24, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
10. Oppose, concerns about experience and activity levels. — Cirt (talk) 07:19, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
11. Oppose. Recognize the valuable contributions and the high level of clue, but for someone who's been here since 2006 I'm looking for a bit more experience in terms of edit count and in more diverse areas, also wider community involvement. I often evaluate candidates by reading their talk page archives and I didn't get much of what I was expecting from your single archive. I don't distrust you or think you have bad judgment, but I do question your dedication to the project and especially its administrative aspects. -- œ^™ 08:19, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
12. Oppose per the low-level of editing activity and Wikispace experience - there simply isn't enough there to base an opinion on the candidate's experience in the admin-related areas.   ArcAngel   (talk) ) 08:25, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Moral support - I respect your work, but this is unlikely to succeed. Reaper Eternal (talk) 21:22, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
2. non-pileon Moral Support. But yes, I'd rather see a bit more recent activity before supporting. — Ched :  ?  00:58, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

The above adminship 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.