Commons:Bureaucrats/Requests/PatríciaR

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PatríciaR (rfb)

 Support = depends on how you count given some changes but I get 30 or so :) ;  Oppose = 1;  Neutral = 0 - 97% more or less. I think consensus is pretty clear here. I considered not closing this one given my support but the consensus is so overwhelming I don't see that as an issue. I'm looking forward to a suggested reorg of how we approve bots, to remove the confusion you allude to. All best wishes for success. Of course, ask if you have any questions, PatríciaR! Promoted. ++Lar: t/c 12:24, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Links for PatríciaR: PatríciaR (talk · contributions · deleted user contributions · recent activity · logs · block log · global contribs · CentralAuth)

Hello everybody, this is a self-nomination to become a bureaucrat on Commons. I've been a sysop here since July 2007. I have realized lately that we don't have many active bureacrats, and I know that it can get to be a bit tiring to do these tasks after a while, so I figured some fresh blood was needed. It's not like there are huge backlogs on renames and RfAs and bot requests everyday, but they are frequent, they do take time and patience and most of us aren't dedicated solely to Commons, but rather spread our work around in other wikis. That's also my case: I'm a sysop and checkuser on pt.wikipedia, but I consider Commons as much my home wiki as Wikipedia. I haven't been a bureaucrat anywhere, so I don't have that particular experience, but I am interested in knowing the people that work for Commons and in bot tasks (I run a bot account on Wikipedia). Thanks for your input, whichever that may be, and I'll be available to answer any queries you may have. Patrícia msg 11:12, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Per request, here's a list of RfAs I've been through:
Patrícia msg 11:29, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Votes

  •  Neutral I know we need more 'crates and I also know Patricia is a high-trusted user, but I am sometimes a bit confused about her actions and I do not know her very well. Ergo: Neutral. Regards, abf /talk to me/ 11:56, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose I highly respect Patricia's work, but I think the current bureaucrats (particularly Eugene and Lar) do an excellent job already. This is a timing issue more than anything. Majorly (talk) 12:08, 11 February 2008 (UTC) Support On second thoughts, there is sometimes a backlog and a new face would be nice. Good luck! Majorly (talk) 22:45, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support and strongly. This user is extremely competent as a Commons admin. In addition she has considerable experience on wikis as well, equally OTRS experience. Numerically Commons has plenty of 'crats however only two are effectively active. Commons does have plenty of RfAs (& bot requests) that need dealing with. A further 'crat of Patrícia's experience & standing would be very welcome indeed. Thanks for being prepared to help --Herby talk thyme 12:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Two crats are plenty... I don't see any backlog? What's the point of another? Majorly (talk) 12:32, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support I'm pleased that PatríciaR is volunteering to help. PatríciaR is one of the users that I had in mind when I recently said that I felt Commons had several highly qualified admin that could move into trusted positions on Commons. In order to keep the quality of the 'crat work high, I think Commons needs to continue to promote trusted and enthusiastic users to this and other leadership position. FloNight♥♥♥ 14:03, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Uh... leadership??? That is not what bureaucrats are. Majorly (talk) 14:19, 11 February 2008 (UTC
Of course, bureaucrats are leaders in this Community. We expect them to be role models for decorum. We expect them to help sort out issues related to their assigned tasks in a manner that best serves the interest of the Community. We expect them to understand policy and make suggestions about ways that it needs to be be changed as they have unique views because of the responsibilities of the work they perform. I think that PatríciaR will do an excellent job as a 'crat and will be a good role model for other admins as they perform their work on Commons. FloNight♥♥♥ 14:55, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

 Support Cowardly Lion 21:35, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

I'd like to ask ABF what type of actions seem to be confusing from my side... I had no idea anyone thought so, so I am eager to improve whatever may not seem clear. Patrícia msg 12:05, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I have not got the diff-links, I only can remember it was one statement in a RfA and two in deletion requests. I am really tending to a support, but I have not got a real oppinion, sorry. abf /talk to me/ 12:39, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'm sorry too, thanks for your input anyway. Patrícia msg 14:02, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment and questions - To my view what matters in a crat is not whether the tasks are being kept up with already. That is irrelevant. (If they are, great, but that's no reason to oppose a new one, if they aren't, that's bad, but that's no reason to appoint a 'crat not otherwise suited to the task) It's not even a matter of "do we have enough crats now?". That is also (but not quite as) irrelevant. What matters is, does the candidate have the trust of the community to do the job, and the ability to work with other crats, already in the role, effectively. While it is not accurate to say that there is a hierarchy of permissions, ('crats are not the boss of admins :)), it is accurate to say there is a hierarchy of trust generally:

  • Adminship is "no big deal" and should be granted to anyone who turns up, seems to know where their towel is, and has familiarity with the community and our ways, and who is likely to work well with others and not "blow up the wiki"... And so, Commons has 250ish admins. That's a good thing. There is a lot of work to do at the admin level and having many hands for it is goodness. More is better.
  • 'cratship on the other hand is a bit higher trust level... it has a bit more potential to do things that might damage the wiki. Not so much technically, but by doing things that might rip the fabric of our community. I've closed a few fairly contentious adminship requests! (CU, Oversight... those are at the next level of trust, and steward at the next beyond that, in this hierarchy)

But in addition to trust, which is for the community to decide, there's also the "work together" part. So that brings me to some questions, because we have certain ways of doing things. Patricia, what do you think? Are you willing to work with your fellow 'crats if promoted? Do you like them? Find them approachable? Do you generally agree and understand with the processes and procedures that we use here? The way we close adminships? (I refer to the way we evaluate consensus, yes, but also the way that they get closed, tagged, the tasks like adding to lists, welcoming, archiving and the like...) The way we rename users? (I refer to asking for crosslinks and bonafides, to recreating the old name and giving the user access, to documenting everything that was done on the COM:CHU page, and not accepting requests elsewhere and th e like...) The way we handle bot requests? And so on? Please comment in detail. What do you think of the statements "there is no rush" versus "it is important to handle every request as fast as possible"? These are rather open ended questions. I'm more interested for starters, in your thoughts than in exact right answers, because there are no such exact right answers. In part I ask these questions because I think you DO get it and you ARE compatible but your nom doesn't really draw that out very well. We don't select crats here very often, (the last successful nom was me, in July 2007) let's do it right. ++Lar: t/c 22:33, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lar, thank you for your questions. I'll go through what you have commented/asked, please be patient with my long answer...
  • I agree that there is a hierarchy of trust; I wouldn't use the terme "leadership" as FloNight did, but "role model" seems to fit a bit better, in the sense that people having sensitive tools must have a good dose of ponderation. I like to think that adminship is No Big Deal, but in fact admins do a lot of sensitive work: closing contentious un/deletion requests, dealing with user problems, and in general making sure that things run smoothly. The more, the merrier, but one has to know who to trust tools, whichever level of "user trust" they may be.
  • Then comes the fact that it's going to be the bureaucrats deciding in the end to give or not to give admin tools. And those decisions can be hard, but I think a 'crat must ask him/herself: Is there consensus? Is the majority of the Commons community comfortable with this person? Are there strong arguments against? I like the way consensus has been evaluated throughout Commons in a general way, and RfAs are no exception; I don't think there have been any complaints about how a RfA has been closed here (I might be wrong, of course) and how things proceed from there on (archiving, welcoming the new admin, etc). There is a 75% threshold that I believe is respected but also thought through when the final count is close to this percentage. When the debate is heated, I find it important that the closing bureaucrat will leave a short explanation on how he evaluated consensus - I have seen this happening, I like it, this increases transparency.
  • Many wikis have quite strict rules about how you can run a bot, but Commons is not so stringent. There is the basic set of rules (the bot account must state on its user page who is the user responsible for it, must describe exactly what task(s) is performing), but otherwise we let bot accounts run without flags and make tests before even requesting a flag. I'm fine with that; a bot account's purpose is to do repetitive tasks, and a bot flag will just allow to do so in a fast way without disturbing RC monitoring. One thing I was considering yesterday is that we may have some redundance between the bot approval and this page, and that it doesn't seem reasonable to put someone on stand-by to do tests with AWB just because the account hasn't been added to the AWB check page; I haven't thought through it completely, so I don't have (yet) a better/more efficient way of avoiding such redundance. Maybe it would help if there were separate archives for different granted permissions?
  • About COM:CHU... I think it's absolutely very important to ask for cross-references if someone wants to change to a new username based on the fact that they use it "elsewhere". One particular insidious type of vandalism consists of creating accounts using well-known wikimedian identities, then vandalise. It would be very embarrassing if some new account asked for renaming stating he was user X from Wiki-whatever and then started to vandalise or upload badly licensed media, only for us to later find out that he was not user X after all. Maybe I'm being a bit en:WP:BEANS here, but I am acquainted with persistent cross-wiki vandals that at least create accounts under known usernames - I've blocked some of those. Another argument is that sometimes requests are done in the heat of the moment after a fight, the user decides to "abandon the project" and thus requests renaming to something that won't identify him, or the user regrets the name change (before it happens or after [2] [3]). Besides... it's of course really nice if everybody was granted their wishes on the spot, but we are all volunteers and have other things to do (job, studies, family, etc) and it can't be realistically expected that renames will be done in five minutes. Things can happen faster if there are plenty of people to do them, which is another argument to increase the current number of bureaucrats ;) but they do eventually get done. I'm in the line of "there's no rush", although I myself feel pretty bad if I don't attend requests fast enough (but that's something I demand from myself, not from others). On the matter of accepting requests out of COM:CHU, I can only think of one good reason to do so and that has to do with the situation I described earlier, of a vandal that registers with a known wikimedian username and thus this should be usurped; if there is substantial data indicating it is an impersonating account (such as CU data), then the rename could be done on the spot, but still marked in the archive for traceability. On account recreation, I had mentioned before my confusion about some wording on the page, and then shamefully forgot to follow it up. Many times, users forget or neglect to recreate their old username, but if the person has done some editing, they really should recreate it. I find it smoother to have this task on the bureaucrat, that is, the bureaucrat recreates the account and e-mails the password to the user, if the user hasn't done so in a few days after renaming. If the user has no e-mail enabled, ask him/her to do so; if the user still doesn't, well, nothing one can do about it, but at least the account is prevented from being abused. For transparency, the account should be recreated using Special:Userlogin while the renaming bureaucrat is logged in. I'm not sure if any of this is currently done, but it could potentially avoid future headaches, like asking for self-checkuser to prove you're not a vandal, for example.
Finally... of the work I have observed from our current bureaucrats, I have nothing negative to say, by the contrary. I like to think I am in good terms with members of this community and always try to come to some middle-term in any sort of disagreement, which I haven't had with any bureaucrat (well actually, I disagreed with Fred J when he wanted to leave ;)). And I'm not only looking forward to work with the current bureaucrats, but also (and particularly) to learn from them, since I do not have this particular experience from other wikis. I expected to be whacked if I do something silly, not only now as an admin but also if I get to be a bureaucrat. I am, however, the type of person that will read documentation three times and ask before doing anything, so I hope I won't do anything utterly stupid!
So, I think I addressed most of your points. Thank you again for your good questions, that allowed me to explain more of what I think about what means being a bureaucrat. Do tell if I wasn't clear in any aspect. Patrícia msg 14:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're right about 'bots... some sort of thorough review of what we do and whether we're confusing things between AWB and bot approvals, with a look to improving and streamlining processes in that area seems highly warranted. ++Lar: t/c 16:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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