Wikiversity:Candidates for Custodianship/Mike.lifeguard (full custodian)

Mike.lifeguard (talk • email • contribs • stats • logs • global account)

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Mentor's recommendation for full custodianship

Sorry to all - I'm a few days late with this (thanks for the reminder, JWS), but I would like to report that Mike.lifeguard has served his one month probationary period with ~150-200 edits in this time. From where I sit, this appears to have been relatively uneventful, straightforward probationary period, with ML mostly involved in administrative and MediaWiki (MW) technical edits, including blocking of vandals and some IP ranges. Clearly, I think, ML's knowledge of the MediaWiki sysop tools, the technical workings of MW, and the broader family of WMF projects and its policies, has been of demonstrated value. ML has also taken initiative in addressing issues, contributed toward improving policy, and perhaps most importantly, participated in WV community dialogue, on the Colloquium and on user talk pages, and demonstrated respect for the views of others as well as putting his knowledge and viewpoints forward. ML's activity in the mainspace has been relatively minimal. I see ML as a particularly valuable custodian and as arguably our most cross-WMF wiki active/knowledgeable user - e.g., I jumped on mediawiki IRC the other day to ask a technical question and ML was there! Hence, I would like to nominate Mike.lifeguard for full custodianship, with a 5-day voting/discussion period (11 - 15 November, 2008). -- Jtneill - Talk - c 07:54, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Voting for full custodianship

Please enter vote and a brief comment here.

• Support Mike is friendly, helpful and knowledgable and has my full support--Jolie 13:28, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

• Support Mike has been doing a great job and brings skills which are of benefit to wikiversity. Full support. --mikeu ^talk 13:50, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
• Support, fully. Cormaggio ^talk 14:04, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
• Support - he knows how to use a mop. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:55, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
• Support As member of the Ruling Party, Onward Comrades! Geoff Plourde 06:50, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
• Support with reservations; the first interaction I've noticed of yours was over a userpage which I considered fairly inoccuous—I disagreed with your action and reasoning there. Since then, however, you have been a constructive contributor to Wikiversity, and based on what I've seen and my trust of others here, I am supporting your full custodianship, though I would have preferred having you around longer before voting here. The Jade Knight ^(d'viser) 10:04, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
• Support. User is great contributor to m:Spam blacklist, if he is trusted enough there, he should get access here. No reason to oppose this user, seems to be helpful enough and always ready to be useful when needed. AC. --Sunstar NW XP 17:15, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
• Support -- Mike can be a bit terse and stubborn at times, but he also strongly believes in consensus. He's an active cross-project worker, but also respects the independence and uniqueness of each project (even though he can be stubborn and terse at first). A dedicated wikimedian who can only bring us benefit. --SB_Johnny ^talk 17:27, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
• Support Based on Mike's excellent work at Wikibooks, I have no reservations. --Jomegat 13:30, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
• Support Mike is friendly, helpful and shows an ability to deal with frustrated people and situations in a professional and appropriate manner. Trödel 17:46, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose The candidate's violations of Wikiversity policy and unwillingness to discuss them are deeply troubling and for me and indicate that the candidate cannot be trusted with custodianship. It is even more disturbing that trusted Wikiversity custodians and bureaucrats would nominate and support a violator of Wikiversity policy as a candidate for custodianship. Further, this community discussion has been repeatedly censored so as to remove questions for the candidate. Even more disturbing for me is that the candidate claims to be concerned about Wikiversity as a welcoming environment, yet has shown poor judgment about deleting user page content and how to deal with the problem of uploaded images that lack source and licensing information. The candidate's proven unwillingness to work with other members of the community on these problems indicates that the candidate cannot be trusted to work towards making Wikiversity a welcoming environment. Given the policy violations, the candidate's refusal to discuss them and the candidate's over-all approach to interacting with other editors at Wikiversity I must oppose this nomination for full custodianship. --JWSchmidt 21:49, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

  Thanks for your comments. I think I addressed adequately my stance regarding the incident with Jon Awbrey, and my bot. I would also like to point out that characterising "If anyone (including JWSchmidt) would like to pick out some worthwhile questions and restate them more civilly and without the misleading preconceptions, I'll be happy to answer them." as "unwillingness to discuss" is again misleading. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 22:26, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

  "my bot has not run any tasks here since the date of unblock" <-- 06:47, 15 February 2008 SB Johnny unblocked Mike's bot account, since then your bot has made many edits on several dates. In your previous inaccurate comments on the matter of your bot you said, "It appears there was no policy under which to block the bot" and you claimed it had done no harm. That is clearly false. The Wikiversity policy on bots clearly states that bots must do no harm. I blocked the bot mainly because it was leaving very unwelcoming messages with a dead link that users were supposed to make use of in order to comply with the wishes of the bot. In addition, the policy says that bots can only make 4 edits per minute, but your bot had exceeded that limit on multiple occasions. "my bot has not run any tasks" <-- Are you saying that the edits by your bot account on August 6 were not automated, that you performed those edits manually and hid your action by using the bot account? I stand by my description of your behavior as an unwillingness to discuss many important questions about your participation at Wikiversity. Further, your insinuation that my questions were not civil is gaming the system in an attempt to avoid answering my questions. It is perfectly appropriate to ask a candidate for custodianship about their past behavior, including their past violations of policy. I do not understand your position with respect to deleting user page content. If anyone's actions were hostile it was your deletion of content from a Wikiversity user's page. Are you trying to characterize as "hostile" my defense of the Wikiversity project as a wiki that welcomes learners and scholars? --JWSchmidt 00:21, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

  Sorry, I made that statement from memory. I should have checked myself, particularly as it was made in a rather important forum. That's entirely my mistake. As you'll recall, I'm sure, I completed that bot task (including changing links which were temporarily dead) by hand, which flooded RC and took significantly longer to do. Instead of preventing further harm to the project, your block exacerbated it (along with wasting my time). As I've already stated, my attitude at the time was really unhelpful, and I accept responsibility for that. It's not easy to admit I was wrong, even in part, yet I've done so. I invite you to make a similar statement. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:08, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

  "make a similar statement" <-- I'm not sure what you are looking for in such a statement, but I am willing to repeat here what I have said on other pages. I appreciate your willingness to help deal with the problem of uploaded files that lack source and licensing information. My concern is that we find a good way to deal with that problem, a way that is well-suited for Wikiversity. It might be the case that my ideas for how to do that are not workable, but I do not believe that Wikiversity has to automatically deal with this problem in the way other wikis have tried to deal with it. We have had abortive discussions of this before, but I hope we can find a way to move ahead and solve this problem with creativity and care. I'm willing to take "my share of the blame" for failing to find a constructive way to work with you to help Wikiversity find a solution to the file licensing problem. The kind of "outside the box" thinking we can strive for is similar to what allowed Wikiversity to create a system of "probationary custodianship". In any case, my largest concern about your bot account is the edits that were made on 6 August 2008. Using a bot account for such an unauthorized purpose makes it impossible for me to trust you with a bot account, custodial tools or any special position of trust related to Wikiversity, particularly since it is not just an isolated violation of the bot policy, but rather, is behavior that fits into a pattern with other aspects of your Wikiversity participation (for example) that I find quite objectionable and very detrimental to the Wikiversity project. --JWSchmidt 18:44, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose as per others. Emesee 21:10, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Removed Questions

Unfortunately some questions for the candidate have been repeatedly removed from this page. The removed questions can be seen at this page. previous version

Discussion and questions

Questions to and discussion of the candidate.

Mike, It is clear that your technical experience is useful to Wikiversity. Now, what is your vision for Wikiversity and in which learning projects have you participated most? Hillgentleman | //\\ |Talk 08:58, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Your user page says that you have "strong views on rights" and that only active and trusted users should have them. Is it your intention to impose your personal views on Wikiversity, for example, by trying to impose an arbitrary measure of inactivity that would trigger removal of custodial rights? How did you learn of the existence of Wikiversity and why did you start editing at Wikiversity? How many user accounts do you have at Wikiversity? Why should Wikiversity participants trust you to support the mission of Wikiversity rather than impose your personal views or the mandates/procedure of some other wiki? Do you know what the mission of Wikiversity is? Do you support that mission? Your user page says that you give warnings to vandals. If a vandal deserves a warning then does a non-vandal deserve a warning or it is your intention to block anyone at any time with no warning and no discussion? How do you define "vandal"? Would you ever ban a non-vandal from #wikiversity-en? If you banned a non-vandal from #wikiversity-en would you give a warning? Do the people who are blocked and bannned deserve to be told why they have been blocked or banned? What are the valid reasons for imposing blocks and bans? You say that a vandal who you block or ban might get a warning, but is there anything else people should get when you block of ban them? Should a person you block or ban have a chance to question the basis upon which you imposed a block or ban, particularly when you never gave them a reason for the block or ban? When you impose a block for "Abusing multiple accounts" what do you mean? Do you have checkuser information to support your claim? Where does the checkuser information come from? How can Wikiversity participants confirm your claim that an IP address has been using multiple accounts? Is it your intention to have checkuser rights at Wikiversity? "I don't think the management of Wikiversity is so different from other wikis" <-- Have you received any mentoring about the unique nature of Wikiversity? Have you ever read the Wikiversity policies? Do you intend to follow Wikiversity policy or ignore it like the person who nominated you for custodianship and talked you into accepting his nomination of you for custodianship? How often have you violated Wikiversity policy by using an unauthorized bot at Wikiversity? How often have your violated Wikiversity policy by using a bot for an unauthorized purpose at Wikiversity? Do you intend to continue making the decisions for Wikiversity about which websites can be linked to by Wikiversity participants? Do you think a custodian should set a good example for use of edit summaries and decisions about when to mark an edit as a minor edit? Do you intend to follow Wikiversity policy for page deletion or do you intend to continue to delete any page you do not like? How do you decide that you do not like a page before you delete it? You have a large number of user talk page edits at Wikiversity: please describe the nature of those edits, particularly the ones like this. --JWSchmidt 14:48, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Instead of replying to these misleading questions, I'll simply state that you're free to oppose my candidacy for any reason or reasons you like (including none at all); the bureaucrat assessing the discussion will make a final determination.

I'll also note that this sort of tirade is what makes people feel very unwelcome here. Being involved in small wikis generally, I believe it is detrimental to be so unwelcoming. Many projects a shortage of users, and I worry about what will happen if we cannot attract new contributors. I'm afraid your comments are counterproductive on those grounds. Thus my response to Hillgentleman's question is that Wikiversity should be a welcoming, drama-free workspace for the process of learning/teaching and the product as well.

If anyone (including JWSchmidt) would like to pick out some worthwhile questions and restate them more civilly and without the misleading preconceptions, I'll be happy to answer them. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 19:19, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Mike, You have participated in this little tussle on the usepage User:Jon Awbrey, and also on betawikiversity:user:Jon Awbrey where you insisted removing all the external links which form Jon's Curriculum Vitae, even links to PlanetMath, a well-known mathematics GFDL-resource to which Wikipedia owes many of its articles, citing "Meta consensus" ([1]) and refused ([2]) to discuss the matter in a local perspective, and threatened to use the spam blacklist. Customarily, Meta-wiki deals with cross-wiki issues and discussions there cannot over-rule local discussions. It should not be surprising that some links inappropriate for elsewhere are appropriate for a user page on English wikiversity. How do you reconcile those actions of yours with your vision of a welcoming Wikiversity? Hillgentleman | //\\ |Talk 16:28, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, Meta is a wiki for the coordination of Wikimedia Foundation projects. As such, we blacklist links which are being pushed inappropriately on many wikis. Characterizing my edit as a threat is misleading, as I was relaying fact -- it is a fact that at the time there was a consensus among the global spam blacklist team that blacklisting the links would have a negative impact on the projects, but that doing so may be necessary if Jon persisted in the same vein as he had been doing for some time. As I stated on numerous occasions at the time, there may well be legitimate use of those links on Wikiversity, and I invited several users to find some. You may wish to review the discussions if you do not remember that. You may also note that we gave Jon far more in the way of second chances than other users with similar patterns of behaviour on the grounds that I just stated. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 16:59, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Mike, First thing first, I am not going to discuss the definition of a threat; you may find some relevant discussions and idea in Thomas Schelling's book "Strategies of Conflicts"; let me just say that what you did fits exactly Schelling's description of a threat. And, Mike, I am not aware of and would be glad if you could point out in what ways you had tried to incorporate Jon Awbrey's links meaningfully into Wikiversity learning resources. All I could see was you deleting and deleting, here and on betawikiversity:. Facility in communication is a basic quality of a regular custodian and, from what I can see, you hadn't communicated your position very well in the matter, making yourself appear to be a Meta-wikimedian trying to impose a result from a cross-wiki discussion. Hillgentleman | //\\ |Talk 17:41, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

If that's the case, then I must not be making myself very clear right now. In the current discussion, I deliberately used words and phrasing which were identical or near-identical to what I said at the time. I could do some research to prove this if necessary. I did so specifically for the purpose of being consistent in my position. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 22:33, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Mike, it seems that several of us are disappointed about how you handled the Jon Awbrey issue here at Wikiversity. Do you think your perspective has changed on that matter? The Jade Knight ^(d'viser) 09:01, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think my perspective on the facts of the matter have changed - the facts are what they are. What has changed, I think, is my awareness of how actions are perceived. If you review the discussion at the time, it took about 3 weeks, during which time Jon continued his problematic behaviour. That's far more rope than most are given, yet nobody except the blacklist team notices that fact. So, in the future, I would make greater effort to encourage participation in such discussions. Aside from being beneficial in and of itself, that would, I hope, bring a broader perspective to the participants. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:01, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll give a shot at trying to ask questions which will hopefully satisfy JWS. Custodians typically play a certain role on Wikiversity and have some idea of what they intend to focus on when they use the tools. What is your intended role as Custodian going to be and what do you intend to mainly focus on when you use the tools? Some Wikiversity participants feel strongly that vandals and other people who might appear disruptive can become productive contributors to the project. What do you intend to do to help encourage and aid people who you feel are disrupting Wikiversity become productive participants so that you can avoid using the tools? --darklama 16:14, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, reform of vandals is always preferable; blocking is to be used as a preventative measure only. Interested users can review my block logs - I think they'll find I'm rather less block-happy than some (c.f. Commons in particular). Most users who are disruptive can change their ways, and I'm happy to help them along that path. Most of my blocking across several projects is dealing with so-called "hardcore" or "pattern" vandals. These are generally one person (often with copycats) who persistently commit severe acts of vandalism across many wikis. For cases outside that set, communication is preferable. I have certainly done so in the past both on-wiki, in IRC and by email, and would continue to do so here. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 16:59, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Can you provide some examples of what you consider to be "severe acts of vandalism" and how you have handled cases of severe acts of vandalism on Wikiversity? Can you provide some examples of how you have or intend to help users become productive? Can you provide some examples of how you have or will handle situations in which you are not sure about? I believe examples are more what was wanted so that anyone reading this who may not know what to look for has an idea of how you intend to handle situations. --darklama 17:15, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Sure - you might take a look at (no joke) the most recent edit I made. I've been working with this user for a while; unfortunately it seems I've failed and they will be leaving the Commons community. I'm also currently helping grad student find their way around Wikibooks. I recently did some image manipulation by request. I recently helped two Wikiversity contributors with their project on Wikibooks. Last week, I helped someone from the UN with a permissions issue on OTRS. And on the list goes.

As for vandalism, you might take a look at recent vandalism which I've handled on Wikibooks, a ton of wikis, or here. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 17:33, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I talked to you recently about Revert-Block-Ignore. Do you believe that RBI always solves trolling? Geoff Plourde 19:21, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Of course there is no panacea, however I think RBI is a good start. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 21:07, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Some addition comments/questions can also be found on JWS's blog. This a bit of a long read. --darklama 17:22, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Mike, you've said that in the future you would try to encourage more participation in discussions on Meta on issues. What will you do differently in the future if despite efforts to encourage more participation, the Wikiversity community still does not agree with some decision discussed at Meta? Do you think all decisions at Meta override consensus of a local community? If not, what decisions do you think a local community can override, and what decisions do you think made at Meta are enforceable despite objections by a local community? --darklama 14:15, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

There's almost no decision that can be made at Meta which cannot be overridden by local consensus. Cases I can come up with where that's not true are things like the Foundation privacy policy or the CheckUser policy. The best solution is engagement, rather than insularly saying "We don't care what you think, this wiki does whatever it wants." That sort of reactionary mentality is counterproductive in the long run, I think. Take the global sysop proposal as an example. It failed miserably - in large part because the people who had input in crafting it were not the same people who voted on it. As there was a massive amount of misunderstanding of the issues and the policy (recall, this took months of work and the entire discussion would probably take a day to read - you can guess how many bothered to do so) the policy was shot down. The solution to that problem is not what happened (people from several wikis "defending" themselves against Meta imperialism or some bogus thing like that) but instead to have those people be a part of crafting the policy from the beginning. The same can be said of everything that happens at Meta. The whole point of the wiki is coordination of projects; it's difficult to do that without input, involvement or participation from those projects. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 16:24, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

The reason may or may not be reactionary. Like the reasons could be the result of feeling that a decision should be decided by each community independently rather than be a Wikimedia-wide decision. Would it be fair to say you feel the reasons for disagreeing with a decision made at Meta matters to you in your decision to either ignore or accept a local community's decision? If so how would you determine what is an appropriate or an inappropriate reaction? How was this community's reaction to your removal of links that they felt were useful an inappropriate reaction? How would you resolve a conflict between what Meta wants and what the local community wants, regardless of the reasons or motives for why the conflict exists? --darklama 16:47, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

I should point out for those who aren't familiar with the culture at Meta, that we all come from "local" wikis. So when someone proposes something that should be decided on a wiki-by-wiki basis, there are always a bunch of people who will stand up and say so - it's rare that something gets decided at Meta that should instead be decided on each wiki individually.

The reasons always matter. If someone says "No." and offers no explanation, we usually regard that as carrying little weight; similarly for silly reasons, irrelevant reasons etc. In the case of my link removals, the misunderstanding could be easily solved by engagement. It's easy to miss cross-wiki issues unless one looks for them. If someone adds a single link to a wiki, that doesn't seem very harmful to most. And unless you're looking, you'll easily miss that they've also added the link to 20 other wikis. Or that they're using an entire range of IPs to add links to multiple domains owned by the same person. In the case in question, I wasn't concerned at the time with this wiki, but rather a bunch of wikis where the links were being pushed inappropriately. I'm not surprised people missed that fact, but I am surprised that "censorship!" and "attack!" were the immediate reactions. If something similar happened again, I'd hope people would be more open to the idea that there are some things which affect more than a single wiki, and I'd certainly try to engender that understanding. And again, Meta's community is composed of people who all come from "local" wikis -- that means we're generally conservative about making decisions for other people (as should be glaringly obvious in the case you mention, to anyone who has reviewed the discussion). – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 17:03, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Would you do anything different if this happened again? Would you attempt to discuss the issue with the Wikiversity community so that they know what's up and wait for the Wikiversity community to make a decision before acting, or would you make the same assumptions again and act on what you feel the community would want if only they knew about what was going on elsewhere? Do you think you could of done anything different to have avoided the reactions you got? --darklama 17:22, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, changing attitudes is exactly the idea - whether it's the community as a whole or individual editors. I didn't make enough of an effort at the time. As I'm more involved here now, I would make a better effort. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:01, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

What kind of efforts would you make? Would you attempt to inform the Wikiversity community about issues that you see here that have also been happening elsewhere? Would you wait for the Wikiversity community to make a decide before acting? Can you provide examples of what efforts you would make on Wikiversity to try to improve attitudes and reduce reactions? --darklama 18:09, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Anyone who wants further information can add User:WikimediaNotifier/notifications to their watchlist. However it's simply not feasible to notify every wiki about every thing we do. For example, I just blacklisted over 200 domains of a notorious Russian spammer - is that something I need to clear with the English Wikiversity community? Every one of the other 730+ communities? No, that's silly. However when there is something of particular importance to English Wikiversity happening, I'll gladly bring it up here and encourage participation. Beyond that, it's up to others to get interested and involved. I can't force people to do that. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:23, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

I think you've misunderstood. To clarify my questions: Can you provide examples of what efforts you would make on Wikiversity to try to improve attitudes and reduce reactions, when the Wikiversity community or a Wikiversity participant disagrees with your decision? For instance how would you respond next time, someone reverts your removal of links from a user page because they consider that an appropriate use of the user page on Wikiversity? Would you bring it up for discussion and wait for the Wikiversity community to make a decide before acting any further or do something else? --darklama 18:33, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Discussion is all I can do. If you have better suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:37, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

It's not easy to admit I was wrong, even in part, yet I've done so.

Mike, A while ago you said "It's not easy to admit I was wrong, even in part, yet I've done so." I would like you to clarify: in general, how willing are you to admit it and apologise if somebody makes it clear to you that you have done something wrong? And would you thank that person for that or not? Thank you very much. Best, Hillgentleman | //\\ |Talk 21:12, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever not admitted mistakes when I've made them. I'm unsure why that would be surprising. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 22:00, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Mike, this is not the first time you have replied to simple direct questions with answers to rather different questions. Though it is within your rights, your skills and willingness to communication are disappointing. Hillgentleman | //\\ |Talk 10:48, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I think my statement is quite clear. It means that I cannot think of a case currently in which I made a mistake, and did not admit that I had done so. Furthermore, the second sentence is a reference to WV:AGF - apologies if you missed that. If that doesn't answer the question you asked, you'll have to be clearer with the question. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 20:47, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Status granted

Y Done, with near-unanimous support, Mike.lifeguard is a full custodian. mikeu ^talk 18:58, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Closure re-added, but discussion can of course continue, and we'll archive after that. --SB_Johnny ^talk 22:28, 16 November 2008 (UTC)