Wikiversity:Candidates for Custodianship/Terra (full custodian)

Terra

Terra (talk • email • contribs • stats • logs • global account)

Original nomination and early discussion

User:Imperial I've been contacted here on my Wikipedia talkpage, about possible mentorship for being a custodian, I have been involved in helping out with maintenance work on wikiversity, however though I'm starting to become active on wikiversity, I'll help out with maintenance work and Custodian work as well if possible, I have however placed a request for my Imperial name to be changed to Terra on Changing Username page, so that users on Wikipedia will find it easy to contact me and know that I have a user here. Terra ^{What do you want?} 19:08, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

• I would be honored to mentor Terra. Bureaucrats: please change the name first (Imperial --> Terra). Terra has an excellent record of service both here and on Wikipedia, and we will certainly benefit from having him/her as a custodian. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 20:23, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, oh and by the way I'm Male just so that you know. Terra ^{What do you want?} 20:48, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

My username has been officially changed, I accept the mentorship for custodianship, just so that you know I'm occasionally semi-active on most wiki-sites. Terra ^{What do you want?} 21:41, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

No problem. I'll be away from the keyboard until tomorrow, but if you want to "get to work" and have questions, there's plenty of help to be found on #wikiversity-en, our IRC channel :). --SB_Johnny | ^talk 23:10, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

• Hi Terra. I like people who work hard on maintenance and vandal-fighting, and I see a lot of skilled and hard-working edits at WP in your name. However I also see you've only been using the name Terra since January of this year (am I correct) and you don't seem to have admin status on WP (I was surprised). I assume you have a number of accounts for your editing, as you look like a seasoned editor. It would be good if you could use your request for custodianship to introduce yourself more thoroughly to us, as many of us don't know you yet. Thank you! --McCormack 05:45, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

On WP, I originally began editing via my alternate user Yun-Yuuzhan. However though for some reason I couldn't log onto the username or hadn't specified an e-mail address which I've thought I had done, and had to request to be merged with the username which became known as Yun-Yuuzhan (lost password) ever since then I decided to be renamed to Terra, at first I become good with maintenance work on WP by fixing minor error's just so I know what to do with the site, then after that I became involved with Vandal Fighting and removed vandalism and warning the user not to do it again, with me being a Vandal Fighter it became my area of expertise. Up until recently I've begun exploring other things on WP, and have begun adding missing information on articles like infoboxes and adding certain information which was mentioned in the article, also I've been exploring new pages being uploaded and marking them as being patrolled or placing the deletion tag if it doesn't meet the criteria, however though if the page itself had writing on which sounds like it meets the criteria I would leave the article alone, if allowed I'll accept the mentorship and hope I can help out here a lot, as I helped on WP. Terra ^{What do you want?} 08:48, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

As of this time I do not support Terra as a custodian. Mostly because I think section 56 can be accomplished other ways and "what do you want". --Remi 19:35, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

If that's troubling you then I'll change the signature, and have Section 56 erased if that's what you want me to do or you can freely change that subpage I won't mind any changes you make on section 56 any changes are welcome. Terra ^{talk page} 19:59, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello Terra, I have added some comments on Section 56's talk page. Perhaps you could have a look ? ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 11:50, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm also having a bit of a hard time fully supporting this candidacy at this particular point in the users history on Wikiversity. I've always thought that continual emphasis on fighting vandalism is the wrong approach to take and that candidacy needs be about more than just this. In my brief time as a Custodian i've seen very little vandalism round here and have in fact myself reverted very little and blocked nobody. Custodianship, from my perspective, has been much more about being dedicated to familiarizing and reflecting on what Wikiversity is and might be about so that new users can be welcomed and guided in the right directions, projects can be slotted/renamed into more appropriate categories/sections and that people might approach custodians if they need advice or to ask specific questions about policy or direction. So from my perspective custodianship is not just about the tools at all and i think I argued this as much on my own candidacy. At this point I'm not sure that Terra has enough experience around here to participate fully in the kind of discussions that custodians need to wade into but he should keep at it and enter into the community a bit more before making the request. Countrymike 22:52, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

To be honest part of me doesn't want to be an Admin yet, mainly because I'm still new to this site, however though I'll leave the custodianship request for now until I know more about this site, as with vandalism before I logged on to write this. A comment was made via here which was vandalism, and also I don't want any problems with user's so I'll wait until I gain more experience and hope I'll gain the editor's trust on this site. Terra ^{Welcome to my talkpage} 07:49, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm beginning to really strongly support this candidacy, because one of the good things about a candidate custodian is that they shouldn't want the status too badly and should be show signs of willingness to step down if criticised. Anyway, at the current point of time I believe the mentorship thing has already been decided and is going ahead just as fast as Terra's group status can be modified. Terra: please feel warmly encouraged. --McCormack 09:42, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Reminder and reality check

One of the main reasons we use mentorship rather than elections here is to shelter applicants from the biting and unneccessary confrontations of the sort seen above. He has accepted me as a mentor, and I have accepted him as a "mentee" (if that's a word). Unless someone sees any evidence that I may have missed indicating that this user would do harm to the project with the sysop tools, it's really no-one's business at this point except his, mine, and anyone else who wants to co-mentor and help me show him the ropes. There will be ample opportunity a month from now to discuss his candidacy for "full custodianship" after the probationary period comes to an end (and assuming I recommend him for this at the end of that period). I have requested that his usergroup be changed: please just let the mentorship process proceed as it should, and hold your critiques for later (when we have a record to critique). --SB_Johnny | ^talk 10:15, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Y Done sebmol ^? 10:45, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

SB: I withdraw what looked like a vote on whether this candidate is worthy or not at this point; people deserve the full mentorship experience before questions should begin. This is part of the process that we seem to have forgotten lately. So Terra please continue your mentorship and I hope to see you around; don't forget us on IRC (#wikiversity-en) as well - its a good place to talk things over. Countrymike 20:24, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I did not mean to betray the spirit of the custodianship process. Hopefully, this will not discourage boldness. --Remi 06:43, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Winding up probationary custodianship

User:Terra - non-mentor's report by McCormack Background: User:Terra was nominated for probationary custodianship somewhat hurriedly (although he nominated himself, this was in response to prompting by his mentor, if I am correct); he was still new to Wikimedia projects and was very little known, which created some consternation among older WV participants. During the first 30 days his inexperience showed; his probationary period was extended by 2 months to give him more time to find his feet; it is generally felt (including by Terra himself) that this has given him adequate time to allow a judgement to be made. Mentorship: his mentor was User:SB_Johnny, who does not wish to nominate him for full custodianship and who opposes his custodianship. I have talked to SBJ a lot on IRC, and we agreed that I would write up a report about Terra for him. Editing record: the Wikipedia record is included below the Wikiversity one, as it shows additional skills relevant to custodianship. Wikiversity: 2486 edits; reg. since 21st Feb 2008 Transwikied IB History Review Guide from Wikibooks (a 13-page study guide with about 300 revisions); tidied it up a little; also a couple of other minor transwikis. Has moved pages to correct casing issues (less than 50) About 1530 edits are in the Category namespace; mostly created categories by going through Special:WantedCategories, but also a lot of inserting/adding categories to other categories. Main contributor to the new Help:Contents page. Has about 100 template edits; mostly nothing exciting, but knows how to use templates. Has practiced with monobooks.js and archiving. Deleted user contributions shows a lot of deleted categories which were recreated again later; all in the Bloom Clock Project. So far as I know, all of these were categories which he created and then deleted himself. Has practiced blocking himself. Has used the delete tool about 250-300 times, mostly for clearing up Bloom Clock categories; also for deleting image copyright violations (frequently) and responding to author deletion requests (frequently). There are several hundred edits marking pages as patrolled (is this useful?) Page protection: about 15 protection and 5 unprotection actions, about half of which were in his own userspace; he knows how to use this tool. Anti-vandalism: I did not find any AV actions, but in the last few months, vandal activity has been low and vandals have normally been zapped fast by experienced custodians. NB: he has done a lot of AV work on Wikipedia - see below. Communication and interaction A fair number of edits on the Colloquium; uses Talk pages a little but not much - mainly a doer rather than a talker. In the conflict with his mentor, I examined all published edits I could find, and found that Terra had always replied civilly and cooperatively. Response to user requests: he has used both the delete and protection tools to respond to user requests and appears to have properly followed policy. Misbehaviour: I was unable to find any evidence of misbehaviour. There was evidence of making mistakes with category creation; the deletion log suggests he attempted to clean up any mess he made and made a considerable effort in this respect. Content contributions: negligible. Wikipedia: 3918 edits; reg. since 18th Jan 2008 Has marked about 900 edits as patrolled. About 1400 mainspace edits Mostly anti-vandalism work against anonymous IP users A very large number of spelling corrections. Some categorisation and stub creation work. Talk pages: has used these a lot more on Wikipedia, mainly for anti-vandalism work (e.g. warnings to anonymous vandals) Had a brief stint on Special:WantedCategories in May (300 or so edits); seems to have made some mistakes which ended up with the exchanges listed at [1]; it seems the admins regarded him as helpful, but he had some learning to do. Content contributions: negligible. Some accounts on other projects; not a lot of activity.

Comments and questions for the candidate

Please note: voting is in the section beneath.

Questions

Why did you leave Wikipedia?

• This question would also interest me. Seems you are going away from Wikipedia (temporarily) ? ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 08:51, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I think this is a relevant question in part because the #Original nomination and early discussion seems to include that Terra was keen to work across both Wikipedia and Wikiversity. What has happened, Terra? -- Jtneill - Talk 12:44, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
    • I noted this anomaly, which perhaps Terra might explain: On 15 March 2008 Terra wrote that "I've been registered on WP since late last year from Yun-Yuuzhan (lost password)" (and seemed to imply this was the reason for changing to w:User:Terra?; (talk archive)) but Yun-Yuuzhan Wikipedia contributions were made until 19 March, 2008, including editing of the w:User:Terra page. There was also w:User:Dust Rider although the account is basically unused, and here there was the unused User:Imperial account. I'm trying to understand this trail of accounts? -- Jtneill - Talk 14:25, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
      • It seems there was also w:User:Yun-Harla, according to [[2]] (22 January 2008). This is also the day of Terra's first contributions to Wikiversity. Maybe none of this matters here, but I'm mentioning because we're trying to get a clear picture of Terra's activity. -- Jtneill - Talk 14:37, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Dust Rider was an alternate user which I used to use as a secondary account - which I had changed to Terra, I no-longer use that account, but however though I've had, had problems with the Yun-Yuuzhan (lost password) account which I had to re-format my hard-drive but lost the password along with it, in order for me to regain my old account I needed to create a new one and request for permission to use that account which I had lost, I'm sorry for causing problems on this site - but as with the rest of the comments which you've mentioned I was very busy in real life at that time and am busy at this time of year - so I might have wrote a comment down fast and had to log-out without re--reading the comment - and also I wasn't thinking strait back then since I was concerned about my real-life activity due to me being busy. Terra 14:40, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Good/Harm

• to all: I wonder that another user who proposes the closure of beta Wikiversity can be custodian (1). I didn't see Terra do something that hurt the project deeply. What do you think ? ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 09:26, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Thanks especially to McCormack's report, I get the impression of many good, helpful acts. I personally perhaps most appreciate Terra's work on the new Help:Contents page. IMHO, that was a notable, practical, valuable contribution. I also get the impression (especially thanks to SB_Johnny's comments) that Terra created some several issues in the use and creation of category pages here and on Wikipedia ([3]). There is no evidence of malintent, but there is a pattern of editing behaviour that leads to some preventable conflicts and problems. -- Jtneill - Talk 13:09, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Openness of history

Terra, I would like to understand more about how you "operate" with respect to openness and accessibility of editing history / records. For example, on this page there are some red/broken links. Why do you think this is - and do you think this is a good wiki way? Perhaps more importantly, I am finding it harder than normal to review your edit history and talk page histories here (partly because of the very fast auto-archiving and the protection/semi-protection desire) and on Wikipedia (mainly because of the blanking and request for deletion). Could you help me to understand why you operate this way? -- Jtneill - Talk 12:54, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Your future on WV

I am neutral in your case so far, so I have few questions that can convince me to give you positive vote.

• What is your future plans on WV?
• How long will you be here with us?
• What will you do in case your candidacy is rejected?

--Gbaor 11:12, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Why do you want to be a custodian here?

Thats my question to you.--Juan 16:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• About transwiki: Since it was Terra's first import, there were - of course - problems (see here, 1 (it cost me quite some time to finalize the imports, but hey, I asked for the probationary custodians to use this as learning experience)). But it all helped that we created more info here: Wikiversity:Import#Notes_for_Custodians. Using this future custodians can import better surely. Thx for your help again Terra. ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 08:49, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
• I am wondering what would have happened if Terra would have used more the offered chat ? We can not force someone to use chat of course but right at begin some of the problems which appeared could have easily be avoided. ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 08:49, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
• About "About 1530 edits are in the Category namespace; mostly created categories by going through Special:WantedCategories": I think 2 or 3 times I really had the urge to write a comment on Terra's talk page about that :-) I personally would have seen it more useful when Terra would have spend the time for other activities. These can be done anytime (with a bot), but e.g. taking care of newcomers or investing time to review/create learning resources might be more useful. ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 09:01, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Voting

This section is for voting on whether or not User:Terra should become a full custodian at Wikiversity. The period will be at least 5 days, with perhaps up to 10 days if more time is needed for a clear consensus to emerge.

• Neutral. I'm kicking off the voting with a provisional neutral vote to emphasize that this is a genuinely open vote where anyone can vote whichever way they wish. I'll probably change my vote later after looking at additional user comment about Terra. My lengthy report above shouldn't be taken to indicate support - I just want to see fair and open treatment. --McCormack 07:19, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose, strongly. Terra is a well-meaning guy, and likes to do a lot of work, but he doesn't communicate before acting. As mentioned above, most of his edits are in the category namespace, but at least a good percentage of these are just "checklist creations" running off of Special:WantedCategories, but the categories he creates are often themselves put into improper categories (see, e.g., Category:WMGDS/Sexual preference is not genetic, which he put into Category:Wikiversity, meaning that someone who really wanted to use Special:WantedCategories to effectively organize pages no longer has that list to work from, and it's left to someone just happening to notice an improper tree configuration later to figure this out. I tried to talk to him about how to find the proper categories (i.e., either by using Special:PrefixIndex or just asking someone who would know what the categories are for), but by the time I could get back to him, the conversation had been archived somewhere or another, and someone else seemed to be discussing categories with him. He apparently got into similar difficulties on Wikipedia, and ended up apparently leaving the project [4] rather than trying to discuss it and learn how to do better.
  In general, a reluctance to communicate is a major issue for Terra, in that he has not made much effort at understanding the project. This to me is a major no-no for a permanent custodian. How will he know what is and is not appropriate content? If a new user wants to know how a resource should be linked in, categorized, and developed, will he be able to provide assistance? He says he wants to use the import tool, but will he know what's really worth importing? And will he know what to do with imported materials once it's here? Can he really judge the difference between a silly vandal and a vandal really intending to do harm? Will he take the time to ask for advice about these things before just wading in? I'm afraid I would answer all of these questions with "no".
  Our mentorship system is, IMO, far better than the RFA system (though it still needs to be ironed out a bit... Terra is in a strange bind between myself and McCormack right now, which should probably be avoided in the future so that any "dressing down" (such as this very posting) can be one privately and quietly in a discussion between the mentor and the mentored). However, we shouldn't be afraid to admit that probationary candidates may, on occaision, fail to make the cut. I'm still happy to have given him the chance, and I'm happy that he's learned how the tools work. I just don't think he's ready at this point to know when to use the tools, and that rules him out for me.
  I don't see any reason why he can't have another chance if he finds another mentor, but he's not at all ready to be mentorless as a custodian. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 11:39, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. I am pretty new at this myself, so would encourage whoever collates views and makes a decision to weigh more experienced custodians' votes more highly. Also, my view is not a strong one - I voted in my mind for a long time until now for "neutral". On one hand, Terra has been diligent, courteous, has successfully used custodian tools (i.e., done good, not harm), made valuable custodial-type edits e.g., with recent anti-vandalism, and also custodianship should be "no big deal". On the other hand, I am concerned that Terra seems to only have a short and somewhat "limited" (in terms of scope) editing career here and at wikiversity (starting ~Jan 2008 from what I can tell), is self-seeking nomination (nothing wrong with that, but by his own admission Terra doesn't like to talk much so its harder to work out what the motivations are - e.g., if Terra wants to fight vandalism, why not do it on Wikipedia where there's far more work to be done?). I am also concerned about the seemingly continual shifting use of usernames especially on WP without clear explanation, and particularly with the habits of blanking of his talk pages for unused accounts, not providing links between talk pages of histories of the talk on the different accounts, fast auto-archiving of talk pages, and desire towards protecting editing of his past talk archives. IMHO, greater transparency/usability of access to a person's editing history and archives would be preferable, particularly during a training/evaluation period. Terra's mentor cites communication as a problem, and I think this also needs to be taken into account. My preference I think would be to support Terra to become a stronger editor first (e.g, with categories there is much good work needed) and then consider re-applying. -- Jtneill - Talk 05:03, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose (with a strong encouragement to learn). My first experience with Terra's custodian inexperience was when he deleted a page without checking that a) it had a talk page, and b) several pages linked to it. He did, however, indicate a willingness to learn - and I don't think he's done the same thing again. It's very clear that Terra wants to do good work (and has already done so), but I think he should be more prepared to observe how other people work, to double check his own work, and to ask questions when unsure. I'd be happy to recommend a further period of mentorship, if Terra would like, but I'm not fully confident of full custodianship at this stage. Cormaggio ^talk 10:13, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
• Neutral I am fairly neutral on the matter, and if anything, leaning towards support. I would like to voice a great deal of appreciation towards Terra and the work that he has done, and I certainly think an extension would not hurt as long as he is OK with it. --Emesee 23:27, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
• Neutral i'm afraid that I don't know a lot about the candidate or his edit history (have been quite busy lately with new baby girl) so going by the above comments I'll stay neutral on this one although originally I was leaning towards opposing based on lack of experience or supposed commitment to WV I no longer feel as if I have enough info (or time now) to vote fairly. Countrymike 01:44, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

The period for voting and commenting has finished with following results: 3 oppose + 3 neutral votes. Custodian flag was removed with request at meta.
Terra: if you'd like to reapply for custodianship please do so (also as you proposed under a new WV user name) and try to find a mentor please. It would be a waste to lose you(r experience so far) since you have gained knowledge about WV and its many facettes. I'd be willing to mentor you when you would be using chat. What do you say ? ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 16:44, 3 July 2008 (UTC)