Wikiversity:Candidates for Custodianship/Trinity507
Trinity507[edit source]
Trinity507 (talk • email • contribs • stats • logs • global account) - I, Trinity507, have made almost 1000 edits on Wikiversity since December of 2008, contributing a significant amount both to Wikiversity and Wikibooks in that time. I have been especially active since May 2009, when I founded the School of Ethnology, and this school has been my primary area of activity since. Previous to ethnology, my focus was the organization and categorization of the School of Language and Literature and the School of History and I would like to remain active in these schools in the future, perhaps branching out even further sometime. I have had several other small projects in between as well, mostly involving the categorization and organization of Wikiversity at large. I enjoy creating learning resources but I enjoy exploring existing resources even more; that is why I work so much on the "dull and boring" work already as I'd like to help newcomers to our site find their way around better. I also specialize in Interwiki resources, such as integrating Wikiversity resources with Wikibooks textbooks and making pages more visually attractive by importing images from Commons. I am nominating myself for custodianship because I would like to have the administrative privileges that would make the work I already do much easier. :-) I am currently looking for a mentor, so if anyone would like to put their name forward it would be much appreciated. Trinity507 03:06, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
- Hi Trinity507. Great work on the ethnology, I'm looking forward to seeing that develop. Could you talk a bit more about what type of custodian work that you are interested in doing? You might also want to take a look at Wikiversity:Maintenance --mikeu talk 22:04, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
- I'd like to do mostly categorization and navigation work, and I'd also try to work a lot with categorizing and either expanding or deleting all the very frustrating stubs we have on Wikiversity. I think it turns some people off when they come here and see so many empty resources. I head over to Wikiversity:Maintenance a lot, it's one of my favorite spots here because of all the capacity for improvement! Sometime I'd like to branch out into templates, but I must confess that it's not really my area of expertise and I'll have to mess around in the sandbox a little bit first. My favorite thing to do on Wikiversity is to continue to help improve and polish the fantastic stuff that's already here, something I think custodianship would really help with. Trinity507 01:36, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
- I'd just like to suggest that I'd really like to see you getting involved in discussion more; you've made precious few edits to talk pages (of any sort), and I think communication is a critical skill for a Custodian here. This would be something in particular you may want to work on during your mentorship. The Jade Knight (d'viser) 05:27, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
- I have some free time over the next month, so I'm available. What time zone are you in? --SB_Johnny talk 16:30, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
- I'm in the central time zone. And thank you for the suggestion, Jade Knight, I agree that discussion is definitely something I have to work on! I pretty much did my own thing for my first few months and made a lot of mistakes, I could have probably avoided that period if I'd been more active in discussions, etc. I've now spent the last few months cleaning up a lot of my errors of my early Wikiversity days! I'd like to help new users avoid that, so I plan to take a look at some of the policies concerning that area and contribute to discussions there. And about the deletion policy comment: I actually would MUCH prefer to expand stubs rather than delete them, I was referring to "abandoned" and useless stubs that were probably created as sort of a sandbox by new users and, by community consensus, have been determined to have no or very little future value on the site. Sorry to not have been clearer about that, I reread my comment and realized that it didn't sound like what I meant at all! Trinity507 17:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Done This begins the custodian mentorship period. [1] Good luck with the mop! --mikeu talk 12:11, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
Mentor's recommendation for full custodian status[edit source]
Having completed the probationary period (plus a week or so, I've been a bit indisposed with work and flu), Trinity507 has had time to get to know the tools and their proper application, while otherwise keeping creatively busy on the learning and content-creation activities that are the core of our project. She has shown herself to be a trustworthy and thoughtful member of the community, and I'm happy to recommend her to the community for full custodianship.
Discussion and questions[edit source]
Question from SB_Johnny: Hi Maggie. Just curious about your response here (and apologies, sorta: I didn't actually ask you if you felt ready, I just asked if you were going to be around!). As far as I'm concerned, the only important qualifications for a custodian are knowing what the buttons do, and not using the buttons unless you're absolutely sure you're using them on the behalf of the community (and asking around when you're not sure). My observations lead me to believe that you "fit the bill" on both points. Do you think I'm entirely too laid back about this? --SB_Johnny talk 23:03, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
Question about page deletion. Do you agree that finding ways to improve Wikiversity pages is the preferred approach to dealing with pages that might otherwise be deleted? --JWSchmidt 17:09, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
- SB_Johnny: I don't think you're too laid back, I think maybe I'm a little uptight. :-) I think I've got everything down, I'd just like to run through it one more time to make sure. I'd agree that finding consensus and community discussion duties are a lot more difficult than pressing the buttons, and that's not something you can walk through in a mentorship. Hopefully I've gotten better about discussion, etc. during the mentorship period, as I think that was really what I needed to work on. Trinity507
- Well, I think the non-button-pressing part of it is an ongoing learning experience. Especially here @ Wikiversity, where the community as a whole is eternally in the process of learning what we're supposed to be doing.
- We don't have any "perfect" custodians. I'm quite imperfect myself, so there's no way I could "mentor" you to be a perfect custodian :-). --SB_Johnny talk 18:13, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
- SB_Johnny: I don't think you're too laid back, I think maybe I'm a little uptight. :-) I think I've got everything down, I'd just like to run through it one more time to make sure. I'd agree that finding consensus and community discussion duties are a lot more difficult than pressing the buttons, and that's not something you can walk through in a mentorship. Hopefully I've gotten better about discussion, etc. during the mentorship period, as I think that was really what I needed to work on. Trinity507
- JWSchmidt: Yes, I'd absolutely agree that improving pages is the preferred approach. I support deletion when you have the double whammy of a bad title and no content (pages like Lesson 2, which seems to be an orphaned page from the high school biology project) or when the page seems to cause a lot of tension without resolution between users (such as, at this time, Wikiversity:Censorship), not to mention copyright violations which of course are to be deleted. I'd like to be careful to look at arguments from all sides and be sure that I'm not accidentally censoring a valuable point of view, and that's part of the reason why I favor expansion over deletion 85% of the time. Trinity507 17:32, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
- "cause a lot of tension" <-- I think it is important that custodians take care to examine cause and effect. Please explain how allowing Wikiversity participants to write about censorship at Wikiversity:Censorship can "cause a lot of tension". The acts of censorship that have taken place, and continue to take place, at Wikiversity are the source of tension. If the community were allowed to discuss these kinds of abuses then the tension could be resolved. Please comment on the following specific examples of censorship at Wikiversity and how you, as a custodian, think they should have been handled: 1) A Wikiversity custodian tried to delete the main student portal of Wikiversity. When there was no consensus to delete the page, the frustrated custodian repeatedly removed links to the student portal page. Rather than discuss these actions, the custodian called me a troll and informed me that he would not discuss anything with me ever again. Expecting this custodian to continue his attack on the Wikiversity student portal page, I created a learning project aimed at encouraging Wikiversity participants to examine the attacks that were being mounted against the Wikiversity student portal page. My learning project about the attacks on the Wikiversity student portal page was censored. Censorship by intimidation continued when the custodian who wanted to destroy the Wikiversity student portal page published a large number of false accusations against me and then prevented me from responding on the page where he had published those false accusations. Do you agree that Wikiversity custodians have the right to call another Wikiversity participant "troll" and impose this kind of censorship? 2) A Wikiversity custodian invented a false claim about Freenode IRC policy. When I pointed out the fact that Freenode IRC policy does not say what was claimed, I was banned from the Wikiversity Freenode IRC channel. Do you think that Wikiversity custodians have the right to censor the Wikiversity Freenode IRC channel by banning chat participants who do not bleat "Two legs bad!" on command? 3) Wikiversity custodians have published a large number of false accusations against Wikiversity participants. I believe that the Wikiversity community should be free to discuss the nature of these false accusations, including the right to evaluate which these many false accusations can best be characterized as lies. However, raising this issue for discussion has been made a blockable offense at Wikiversity. Do you think that Wikiversity custodians have the right to publish false accusations against Wikiversity participants and then censor Wikiversity so as to prevent discussion of those false accusations? 4) Good faith questions have been censored from Wikiversity community discussions. Do you think that Wikiversity custodians have the right to disrupt Wikiversity community discussions by removing questions that are raised by Wikiversity participants? 5) Wikiversity scholars have sometimes posted links on their user pages to off-wiki learning resources only to have those links to learning resources censored. Do you think scholars who participate at Wikiversity should be allowed to provide links to their off-wiki scholarly resources or do Wikiversity custodians have the right to censor such links? 6) A wikipedian came to Wikiversity and created a sockpuppet account. That wikipedian immediately began terrorizing the participants of a Wikiversity learning project, calling their work "garbage" and censoring it. That wikipedian openly admitted his goal to be getting one of the participants of the learning project banned from Wikiversity, and he was successful in that goal. After causing severe disruption of Wikiversity by his acts of intimidation and censorship, this sock puppeteer from Wikipedia was made a Wikiversity custodian. Do you think that the reward for disruptive censorship of a Wikiversity learning project should be custodianship? 7) If you "favor expansion over deletion 85% of the time", then why not take this opportunity to expand Wikiversity:Censorship so as to include examples of censorship at Wikiversity and help put an end to the continuing censorship of Wikiversity? --JWSchmidt 15:38, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
- Under different circumstances I would propose expanding this page rather than deleting it. However, I do not think this policy is needed at the moment as I believe that the WV community thus far has in general been very open-minded about others' opinions and community consensus, not just custodian consensus, and so I believe that the conflict it causes is unnecessary. If at some point I see some serious censorship issues in the learning resources, I would propose restoring this page and expanding it into WV policy and/or a discussion of possible censorship, but right now, I think it needs to be removed to give everybody a bit of breathing space on the issue. If you could post a link on my talk page to the examples of censorship you mentioned, I would be happy to look at them and maybe change my stance on this issue, but either way I don't see any reason to continue discussion of that page here in the candidacy forum. Trinity507 16:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
- "cause a lot of tension" <-- I think it is important that custodians take care to examine cause and effect. Please explain how allowing Wikiversity participants to write about censorship at Wikiversity:Censorship can "cause a lot of tension". The acts of censorship that have taken place, and continue to take place, at Wikiversity are the source of tension. If the community were allowed to discuss these kinds of abuses then the tension could be resolved. Please comment on the following specific examples of censorship at Wikiversity and how you, as a custodian, think they should have been handled: 1) A Wikiversity custodian tried to delete the main student portal of Wikiversity. When there was no consensus to delete the page, the frustrated custodian repeatedly removed links to the student portal page. Rather than discuss these actions, the custodian called me a troll and informed me that he would not discuss anything with me ever again. Expecting this custodian to continue his attack on the Wikiversity student portal page, I created a learning project aimed at encouraging Wikiversity participants to examine the attacks that were being mounted against the Wikiversity student portal page. My learning project about the attacks on the Wikiversity student portal page was censored. Censorship by intimidation continued when the custodian who wanted to destroy the Wikiversity student portal page published a large number of false accusations against me and then prevented me from responding on the page where he had published those false accusations. Do you agree that Wikiversity custodians have the right to call another Wikiversity participant "troll" and impose this kind of censorship? 2) A Wikiversity custodian invented a false claim about Freenode IRC policy. When I pointed out the fact that Freenode IRC policy does not say what was claimed, I was banned from the Wikiversity Freenode IRC channel. Do you think that Wikiversity custodians have the right to censor the Wikiversity Freenode IRC channel by banning chat participants who do not bleat "Two legs bad!" on command? 3) Wikiversity custodians have published a large number of false accusations against Wikiversity participants. I believe that the Wikiversity community should be free to discuss the nature of these false accusations, including the right to evaluate which these many false accusations can best be characterized as lies. However, raising this issue for discussion has been made a blockable offense at Wikiversity. Do you think that Wikiversity custodians have the right to publish false accusations against Wikiversity participants and then censor Wikiversity so as to prevent discussion of those false accusations? 4) Good faith questions have been censored from Wikiversity community discussions. Do you think that Wikiversity custodians have the right to disrupt Wikiversity community discussions by removing questions that are raised by Wikiversity participants? 5) Wikiversity scholars have sometimes posted links on their user pages to off-wiki learning resources only to have those links to learning resources censored. Do you think scholars who participate at Wikiversity should be allowed to provide links to their off-wiki scholarly resources or do Wikiversity custodians have the right to censor such links? 6) A wikipedian came to Wikiversity and created a sockpuppet account. That wikipedian immediately began terrorizing the participants of a Wikiversity learning project, calling their work "garbage" and censoring it. That wikipedian openly admitted his goal to be getting one of the participants of the learning project banned from Wikiversity, and he was successful in that goal. After causing severe disruption of Wikiversity by his acts of intimidation and censorship, this sock puppeteer from Wikipedia was made a Wikiversity custodian. Do you think that the reward for disruptive censorship of a Wikiversity learning project should be custodianship? 7) If you "favor expansion over deletion 85% of the time", then why not take this opportunity to expand Wikiversity:Censorship so as to include examples of censorship at Wikiversity and help put an end to the continuing censorship of Wikiversity? --JWSchmidt 15:38, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
- JWSchmidt: Yes, I'd absolutely agree that improving pages is the preferred approach. I support deletion when you have the double whammy of a bad title and no content (pages like Lesson 2, which seems to be an orphaned page from the high school biology project) or when the page seems to cause a lot of tension without resolution between users (such as, at this time, Wikiversity:Censorship), not to mention copyright violations which of course are to be deleted. I'd like to be careful to look at arguments from all sides and be sure that I'm not accidentally censoring a valuable point of view, and that's part of the reason why I favor expansion over deletion 85% of the time. Trinity507 17:32, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Voting for full custodianship[edit source]
Support - Well done, Maggie! Sincerely, James. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 22:31, 8 October 2009 (UTC)- Support - No-brainer: thoughtful, trustworthy, and interested in learning/teaching/sharing. --SB_Johnny talk 23:05, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
- Support - will make a fine custodian --mikeu talk 16:52, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
- Support Anyone willing to do the "dull and boring" work will make a good custodian. Seems sensible. Adambro 18:22, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
- Support - We haven't met "personally" on VW, but after revision of you work, I give yes + a
--Gbaor 17:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Closure[edit source]
Done - The strong community support for Trinity speaks for itself. Please join me in welcoming our newest custodian, and good luck with the mop! --mikeu talk 11:21, 14 October 2009 (UTC)