Commons:Administrators/Requests

Requests for adminship

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• Please read Commons:Administrators before voting here. Any logged in user may vote, although those who have few or no previous edits may not be fully counted.

SarahStierch

Vote

SarahStierch (talk · contributions · deleted user contributions · recent activity · logs · block log · global contribs · SULinfo)

Scheduled to end: 17:21, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I would like to present to the community User:SarahStierch. Sarah is known to many in the community; whilst I don't know her personally, I am familiar with her work and believe she would be a great candidate for Commons adminship. Sarah is an old-timer at GLAM-Wiki activities; she facilitated the massive donation by Commons:Walters Art Museum; she was Wikipedian in Residence of the Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art and Smithsonian Institution Archives (both of whom have shared images with Commons). She also co-founded en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Public Art (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wsavespublicart/). So she is well qualified in terms of contributions to this project. In future Sarah will be participating in WLM US 2013 and is a trusted user with Upload Wizard rights.

Sarah is also an active OTRS member, and would definitely find the tools useful for OTRS work; with our semi-permanent backlogs she currently has to call upon other admins for undeletions and the like. She also holds image reviewer, OTRS member, file mover, rollbacker rights. I have no doubt that both Sarah and this community would benefit from her having the admin tools. russavia (talk) 16:18, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Statement by SarahStierch

Hi everyone. This is flattering, thanks Russavia for assuming good faith in my work and trusting me with this opportunity. I accept this nomination and I hope that the community will as well. I totally agree that this would be a *big* relief for me for my OTRS work, which is where I often am doing things Commons related - permissions, photo submissions, etc. It would be awesome to be able to have the mop so I could work quietly and efficently without having to beg people to undelete content (or wait for someone to handle a ticket with a note stating that I need help with that). I also have interest in helping with deletion. We have so many nominations, and so many that need to be swiftly and efficently handled. I'd be really happy to be involved in that. And I'd get to engage in a mission I care so deeply for - free knowledge and free open data - in an even more in depth way. Thanks for your consideration every one. Sarah (talk) 17:21, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

<Ratinghistory-table-votes>

•  Support as nominator russavia (talk) 16:18, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support this OTRS member, trusted user, no worries, -- Cirt (talk) 16:29, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support - it's strange, some days ago two RfA were unsuccessfull, because "for OTRS you don't need Admintools/it's better not also have Admintools". Yes for her GLAM work. But please without gender politics here. Marcus Cyron (talk) 16:34, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support Sure thing. I believe Sarah has clearly shown her dedication to Wikimedia Commons, and that she can be trusted with the extra-buttons. Jean-Fred (talk) 16:40, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support Sarah makes a net positive contribution to every project she works on. She's sensible, reasonable and will use the tools to benefit Commons. —Tom Morris (talk) 17:28, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support per nom. INeverCry 17:38, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support welcome. --Túrelio (talk) 18:00, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support, excellent candidate. Trijnstel_talk 19:04, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support I like the "I don't know, I know less now" answers. Hopefully after being an admin for a bit, Sarah will become even more unsure. I'm voting as one of those "male Commonsists", but a massively gay one; if that makes any difference (perhaps waiving the gay card enough times might make it a non-issue ). As for the deleted Flickr account problem, I agree that is a problem - we should probably make more non-Admins licence reviewers, and be more open to staying sympathetic for cases of licence remorse. --Fæ (talk) 19:21, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support Yes, of course. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:41, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support; delighted to see the name on the watchlist. Tom Morris says exactly what I would have done. Andrew Gray (talk) 21:07, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support a×p_de^Hello! 21:17, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support --Alan ^(talk) 21:36, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support I enjoy working with Sarah, and find she brings a strong work ethic, informed and interesting opinions, and a willingness to work things out. All of which are good qualities in an administrator. -Pete F (talk) 22:53, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support Very qualified. MBisanz ^talk 23:11, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• Can you guys please wait with casting more votes until Sarah agrees for this nomination? Thanks. odder (talk) 16:42, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Question On April 29, you wrote an e-mail to the gendergap mailing list, in which you wrote the following:

I basically had to stop doing the painful nomination and arguing about nudity and women's images on Commons. Part of this was because it was so demoralizing and depressing, and the other was the repeated "You'll never be an admin on Commons if you keep doing this," and I always wanted to be an admin on Commons. The fact that I let this argument – being made by male Commonists – trigger me to not participate in the conversations is an entirely different psychological issue in itself! Oy vey.

• Do you mind explaining the background of this e–mail and those arguments being made by male Commonists? (As a sidenote, does the gender of editors who wrote that really make any difference?) Links to some exemplary DR nominations for those nudity and women's images would be appreciated. odder (talk) 17:57, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi there. I haven't looked at any DR's related that type of content in a year at least now. It was a while ago. There were a few (presumed male) editors who really seemed to be triggered by me having interest in curating sexual content on Commons. It was something I went pretty crazy about a while back, so I don't even know what DR's triggered that conversation - and emotion wise I'd rather not revisit them. I've curbed that habit, that's for sure (now I just nominate things as I stumble across them, generally, and I'm not on witch hunts).

There is actually some psychological complexities to having men explain to a woman that she might not be able to "get a job" due to her behavior, so it was quite a hard experience for me to go through, and remains something I haven't forgotten. It has nothing to do with Commons, again, it's a psychological issuse that generally women have to deal with - having male colleagues or freinds tell you "you are too aggressive and vulgar, so you better be more well mannered or you'll never get hired," is something extremely painful to be told. It was really depressing for me. So yes, gender does make a difference. I know we'd like to think we live in a genderless world, but, we don't at this time. I thought I was doing important work, and shining light on something, and it turned out that people weren't happy with it. Again, anyone can look at my contributions for the past year or so. My contributions and interests have changed quite a lot (though I am a staunch advocate for certain policy change, I don't really have the interest in leading said changes at thist time). This is the reason I've been extremely nervous about going through adminship :( Sarah (talk) 18:15, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and just a side note: a lot of the conversations that took place about my "possible role as an admin," never happened on wiki. Sarah (talk) 18:31, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

•  Question What are the policy changes that you'd advocate for? (This question is partially related to the discussion ongoing on the said mailing list, which to me seems to be something less than the general Commons-bashing that is so popular among some circles.) odder (talk) 18:20, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to see better policies - or more spelled out policies (and perhaps this has more to do with the Board in some ways) in regards to identifiable persons in private versus public. And again, this is where the board and the perhaps WMF legal can come in. It's a lot to unpack, and my feelings about things can evolve (i.e. my feelings have changed about an image filter - which I used to support, and I may still support a gadget, but not a permanent installation of one...the whole "Obama and gay marriage," thing :) ). I'm also pretty concerned about content being uploaded from Flickr where the Flickr accounts end up getting deleted. That is worrisome for me. That is all I can really think of right now. Sarah (talk) 18:35, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Jcb (rights restoration)

Vote

Jcb (talk · contributions · deleted user contributions · recent activity · logs · block log · global contribs · SULinfo)

Scheduled to end: 21:48, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Jcb should be an admin again. They've been busy OTRSing and I want them to stop pestering me to undelete stuff! They lost adminship in November 2011 following issues regarding closing DRs without comment. I feel the tools would be useful to them, and that given the last fracas there are unlikely to be any more DR issues. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:48, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

See also Commons:Administrators/Requests/Jcb.

See also Commons:Administrators/Requests/Jcb_(de-adminship 2) for de-adminship request. odder (talk) 21:50, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Jcb

If the community decides they want to accept me as an admin again, I would be happy to receive the tools. It's true they would be useful for me at the moment, especially while processing OTRS tickets.

I think the main cause for what happened in 2011 is that I tried to do way more work than I could reasonably handle. That caused me to deliver bad quality on DR closures (mainly lack of explanation where needed) and made it difficult to receive critism. I'm sorry for that and I will do what I can to avoid making those mistakes again.

If you have any feedback/critism/question/whatever about something I did, please feel free to leave a comment at my talk page. I always read everything posted there. Jcb (talk) 22:03, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

<Ratinghistory-table-votes>

•  Support (as nominator). -mattbuck (Talk) 21:48, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support - I believe in Jcb. --Sreejith K (talk) 22:17, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support I will miss Could somebody restore these files... We received permission. --Alan ^(talk) 22:18, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support I think Jcb's statement above addresses the key issues that caused his de-adminship. --99of9 (talk) 22:20, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support --Steinsplitter (talk) 22:34, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support From everything I've read above, this sounds like a model example of how to respond when de-sysopped. OTRS is a great place to develop skills in handling requests in a sensible and communicative manner. (I don't think I have any direct experience to go on.) -Pete F (talk) 23:10, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support. Érico Wouters ^msg 23:20, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support. Agree with assessment, above. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 00:51, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support Deserves another chance. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:00, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support I hope you'll return to DR work. INeverCry 03:03, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Oppose -- Jcb, the behaviour that triggered your de-adminship went far beyond what you acknowledged above, and since you don't seem to have fully acknowledged your disruptive behaviour, I think it is very likely you never really understood what you were doing wrong. Geo Swan (talk) 03:13, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support Why not? -FASTILY 04:20, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support. It's been one and a half years, and Jcb's statement goes a long way addressing the concerns that led to the desysopping. Jafeluv (talk) 06:21, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support. Geagea (talk) 08:59, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support as per King of Hearts. --A.Savin 09:10, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Neutral I'm all for giving a second chance, so I am not opposing, but I can't quite convince myself to support resysopping as the current re-nom statement does not do a good job on recognizing past problems, or explain why these will not re-occur. My example DRs below were slippery, so I will not judge Jcb to harshly for not picking up on the deeper policy issues. Hopefully no admin would close DRs this difficult without more serious thought and a better explanation of policy, rather than being overly swayed with the votes (which in both these cases were extensively canvassed off-wiki and I would prefer this to be noted in any closure). In my view, Jcb's statement "a clear consensus in favour of deletion, so that will be the only possible conclusion" is incorrect and shows a lack of understanding of the responsibility to implement policy when reviewing a complex DR. I'll consider changing my vote before closure if the re-nom statement is revised, though this may not be necessary for the outcome that Jcb is hoping for. --Fæ (talk) 10:51, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
  • You can't be serious, Fae. With such an overwhelming support for deletion, and especially due to lack of consent, the only possible closure of that particular DR is to delete those pictures. This is what I'm intending to do after the week passes. odder (talk) 11:17, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
    • I'm not suggesting anything for the particular DR, the principle however, is that admins have a duty to implement policy. There may be a DR where 10 votes all say to keep and just 1 to delete, but if this would lead to Commons hosting a copyvio, the correct closure would be to delete. When there is a visible record of off-wiki canvassing (or possibly off-wiki harassment that may put members of our community in fear of off-wiki retribution for even openly expressing a counter-view) admins should take particular care in considering policy, rather than an apparent "consensus". No, I'm not joking as you well know. --Fæ (talk) 11:36, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
      • And yet, whatever happens off-wiki should not have any influence on decisions that are being made on the basis of project policies; when there is no evidence of consent for pictures taken in a private environment — especially in case of nude pictures — the policy dictates their deletion. odder (talk) 12:00, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
        • If you carefully read my last statement, you will find us in agreement. The problem is understanding the meaning of "a clear consensus" when this has been manipulated by off-wiki canvassing. I fully agree that off-wiki material should not influence on-wiki decisions; when a apparent consensus has evidence of manipulation, this principle should apply and an admin closing a DR must take the responsibility to implement this principle. I suggest a longer discussion, if you want it, is held somewhere like AN rather than taking this request on a tangent. --Fæ (talk) 12:10, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
          • I think Jcb just meant to say, "this DR is obvious," and didn't really intend to make a blanket statement. I don't think we need to worry about Jcb not using his judgment; in fact, his desysoping was due to overuse of that. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:54, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support. For having the guts to say sorry. And for all (good) hard work he did; I bet he could do much more. Plus, for such a long-time volunteer, it is very unlikely that he would do any harm intentionally. Rehman 15:06, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support Given his commitment below, I can support this. russavia (talk) 15:20, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Russavia, sorry, but I think your short list of Jcb's lapses is seriously incomplete. I suggest Jcb routinely behaved in a highly misleading manner in 2011, and, as I commented below I suggest Jcb is being misleading here, in this current discussion today. If he can't or won't be candid here, where he is claiming he has turned over a new leaf, what confidence can any ordinary contributor who was at the receiving end of his counter-policy use of administrator authority have that he won't continue to abuse his authority, as if nothing had changed? Geo Swan (talk) 18:17, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
    • We are all entitled to our opinions. I don't think I commented at the de-adminship, but I was actually in favour of it -- even now we see some remnants of problems. However, I am taking Jcb at their word with their responses to my questions, and if there are serious relapses I would expect the community to be swift in action, and I think he would be expecting that too. russavia (talk) 22:45, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support. --Túrelio (talk) 16:22, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Neutral Do not want to vote down, but still very bad memories.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:21, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support off course Ezarateesteban 18:41, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support, very active and helpful user. Trijnstel_talk 19:02, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Support per above. Ajraddatz (talk) 23:41, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
•  Oppose I have seen cleanup of bad DR closings long after Jcb made them (example) and they were not the result of bad communication but lack of understanding. How do we know more difficult cases would be handled better now? I can't judge from inaccessible OTRS handlings. I have not read of Jcb's commitment to go through all of his/her past closings to fix errors - which should come before new DR closings. Hekerui (talk) 23:43, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• Hi Jcb. I refreshed my memory of what happened in 2011 and I voted for a de-sysop back then, as I was concerned that you had demonstrated some problems with making personal comments about other editors in DRs, and I thought you might have a particular issue with dealing with sexual content on Commons in an impartial way. Two years is a long time, and the examples I picked up on were unlikely to be your everyday behaviour, so I'm happy to think of those discussions as tucked away in the archives. Could you demonstrate where you have more recently dealt better with conflict but were still passionate about the issues? In addition, I would appreciate your thoughts on how you would summarise and close these two quite different and difficult DRs on sexual content:
  1. Commons:Deletion requests/Files of Austin photoguy50
  2. Commons:Deletion requests/Template:The Hot sex barnstar

  --Fæ (talk) 22:37, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

  • It's difficult to show a recent conflict situation, because most regarding Wiki are in OTRS (so confidential). Last weeks I responded to several angry emails and I have been able to achieve understanding by most of the mailers, staying calm and polite while explaining the situation. (e.g. people who saw their article nominated for deletion). In real life I've had to deal with a lot of conflicts in the past two years. Most of the time I wasn't one of the opponents, but I was helping to calm down the situation. Being the leader of a development aid organization, I spend every summer in a poor country with a group of young people to help building necessary buildings like schools. If you put a group together for 3 weeks, 24 hours a day, in an uncomfortable environment while working hard, it's inevitable that you will have conflicts in the team from time to time. But it's very important to resolve them as soon as possible, because there is no way to separate the opponents for the rest of the summer and an ongoing conflict will endanger the mission.
  • About the DRs you mentioned: The first one has a clear consensus in favour of deletion, so that will be the only possible conclusion. Lack of consent by the depicted women is the main issue here. I strongly agree with that concern. Another, weaker but still valid, issue is that they are out of scope. I also agree with that deletion reason. None of the files seems to be useful for any educational purpose within a Wikimedia project. The second DR seems to have a big majority in favour of keeping. Personnally I really don't care whether such a template exists or not. Nobody in the DR mentions any urgent reason for deletion (e.g. copyvio), so I would follow the majority and keep-close the DR, because the majority of the responders like to keep it and there is no forcing reason to delete. Jcb (talk) 23:39, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Just a note that the barnstar discussion has a number of improbable conditionals, plenty of sarcasm, proponents of the deterioration of Commons, etc. Non-native English speakers may want to be cautious about closure. --99of9 (talk) 06:23, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

      Indeed, a brave admin might find policy reasons to want to close either of these "difficult" DRs as the reverse of the apparent consensus. --Fæ (talk) 09:07, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• Jcb, you invited interested parties to leave their questions on your talk page -- not here. But, don't you have a long history of erasing questions your don't want to address from your talk page, so they are not recorded in your talk page archive? [1], [2], [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] During your deadminship discussion you pointed to your talk page archive, claiming it showed you did not have a long history of ingoring good faith questions -- when you had misleadingly manually removed civil, good faith questions so they wouldn't be present in your archive? So I will ask my questions and make my comments here.

• Jcb, weren't you an unforgiveable bully to regular contrinbutors, when you were an administrator? Isn't this one of the serious problems with your administratorship you have not acknowledged here?
  • To interject re: the line above -- the use of the word "unforgivable" makes this a pretty unhelpful comment. A central task of a nomination like this is to determine whether or not something can/should be forgiven; presupposing an answer one way or the other makes the question impossible to answer in a fruitful way. -Pete F (talk) 14:03, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• Jcb, didn't you engage in deceptive, misleading practices, that give the strong appearance you did not want to be held accountable for your actions? Since you haven't acknowledged these deceptive, misleading practices, aren't you still giving the strong appearance you can't or won't be held accountable for your actions?

• In the previous discussion I described the problems posed by supervolunteers -- and how supervolunteers can be crippling for a project, because a large fraction of them start to act like their extraordinary commitment of time entitles them to act as if the regular rules no longer apply to them. Commons:Administrators/Requests/Jcb (de-adminship)#The dangers of volunteers who want to_do more than their share I feel very strongly that Jcb proved himself to be a super-volunteer, and this this is the root explanation of his deeply troubling use of his administrator authority to retaliate against good faith contributors.

• Towards the end of the deadminship discussion I wrote:

In my opinion we remain accountable for our actions, essentially forever. In my opinion, we can expect good faith contributors to extend to us an amnesty for past mistakes -- when we have fully demonstrated we recognize those past mistakes. This crucial demonstration that you understand the concerns expressed about your behavior is largely absent here. I don't think we can assume you do understand those elements of your problematic behavior you have not addressed. Since you haven't made an effort to show you understood our concerns I think we really have no choice but to assume you will continue in all the problematic behaviors you have not acknowledged were mistakes, if you are allowed to retain full or partial administrator authority. No one expects you, or any other contributor here, to be perfect, to never make mistakes. But, a corollary of our policies and conventions on civil and collegial communication, is that we have to tell our fellow contributors when we realize we have made a mistake. When we don't they have to assume we haven't clued in, and that we will continue to repeat the same mistakes, over and over again. Even though your talk page bears a promise that you will consider the possibility you may have made a mistake your record shows you an ongoing failure to acknowledge mistakes.

You still haven't made a meaningful effort to acknowledge the problematic behaviours you engaged in -- not even close. So I suggest none of us should trust you won't engage in exactly the same problematic behaviour all over again. Geo Swan (talk) 06:41, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• Is there any reason why everyone who voiced an opinion in the original deadminship discussuion should have a neutral heads-up about this discussion left on their talk page? Geo Swan (talk) 06:44, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

A few comments on your list of talkpage reverts:

• The list looks longer than it is, because you double-posted three of them, so in fact you provided 13 diffs instead of 16.
• In this revert I removed an automated notification, but you forgot to mention that ten minutes earlier Marac reverted the action that caused the notification.
• In one of the cases a complete discussion was moved to my talkpage and I moved it back, leaving a link to the original location.
• this revert (and I saw one other example of this issue in your list) was done because the comment had landed at the wrong place. I should have moved it to the bottom of the page instead, which I will do in future cases.

I disagree with your point of view about the danger of what you call a 'super-volunteer'. I know quite a lot of valuable small organizations that simply wouldn't be able to exist without one or to people really going for it. Jcb (talk) 10:43, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Jcb, could you please mention some of the principles you consider (or will consider) when making a decision about whether or not to delete a message from your user talk page? In what cases do you feel it is justified, and in what cases should the temptation be resisted? -Pete F (talk) 14:03, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Deletions at my talk page have been exceptional. I think Geo Swan found most of them, compared to over 600kb stored in my archive. If I receive an automated notification because one of my uploads got tagged by mistake (like placing {no license} where a valid license was present), I may remove that notification after dealing with the tag. But in general comments will stay. Reverts like this won't happen again, I will move the comment to the bottom of the page instead. Jcb (talk) 15:33, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. I think there are plenty of circumstances where removing unwelcome comments is perfectly reasonable. It might be necessary for somebody in a position of trust to exercise more discretion in that kind of deletion, but I'm surprised that you would commit to preserving comments in nearly all cases. Anyway, thanks for the answer. -Pete F (talk) 15:45, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Jcb, I apologize to you and other participants here for including three duplicates in the list of 16 misleading exisions to your talk page. I overstruck the duplicates above. However I am extremely disturbed by how you misleadingly characterized the remaining exisions, as if they were routine.

I seems to me that in characterizing the remainder as routine you have been highly misleading. It seems to me you are showing that basically nothing has changed since 2011, and that you are prepared to be highly misleading in your attempts to evade responsibility for your actions.

Several of the comments you excised were from User:Saibo -- someone I don't know: [17], [18], [19], [20], [21]. But even if, for the sake of argument, Saibo was considered a troll by some, his or her comments here were civil, and correct. You acknowledged above that you were wrong to close DRs without explanation, so his or her civil reminders that you were doing so was not "spam" and it was not "trolling". He or she was in the right to remind you or your responsibilities, and you were wrong to characterize them as trolling or spam back in 2011, and it is highly misleading of you to imply their excision was the routine kind of excision anyone would do. Rather it was an early and civil heads-up of one of the main issues that cost you your administratorship.

Three of the comments are similar civil and policy based concerns that did not merit excision: [22], [23], [24].

Three of the comments you excised were from me: [25], [26], [27], I too was addressing valid policy based concerns, and I believe my comments merited a civil and substantive reply. Your excision of them in 2011 strongly suggested to me that you were unwilling or unable to take responsibility for the actions you took as an administrator. I am afraid you still don't seem prepared to acknowledge that you gave the strong appearance of misusing your administrator authority to delete material I needed for work I was doing not out of a policy based concern but instead solely because my civil good faith question and concerns had pissed you off.

I don't think anything has really changed. Here we are, at your attempt to get your administratorship restored, and it seems to me you are still prepared to try to mislead people over the nature of these excisions. Geo Swan (talk) 18:02, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

 Question Jcb, one of the main concerns that people had was the lack of quality in your closes and a lack of communication with editors who had questions in relation to those closes. With a simple yes or no answer, do you acknowledge that they were amongst the issues that led to your de-adminship? I asked you this question on IRC and you acknowledged in the affirmitive, and mentioned you basically stated as such in your request. Given this, do you commit yourself to the following: 1) not to attend to DRs in a "robo-admin" way; 2) providing clear rationales for all closes (even if "as per nom" for simple, obvious DRs) to demonstrate that the DR has been read entirely; and 3) respond to all queries from editors whom query any closes (in a COM:MELLOW way). If you can commit to that here, I would both support you and hold you to it. russavia (talk) 11:47, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree that this was an important issue in 2011. I see the importance of your three points and I commit to it. Jcb (talk) 11:55, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• Russavia, sorry, I think your list Jcb's lapses was incomplete. Over and above failing to leave closing explanations in DRs, over and above not answering good faith queries, Jcb engaged in misleading behaviour. As I noted above removing civil good faith comments from his talk page was highly misleading. As I noted above, trying to tell those participating in this discussion that his previous obfuscation of good faith policy based concern as routine maintenance strongly suggest to me at least, that he doesn't understand what is wrong with decpetively trying to evade responsibility for his actions.

Jcb used to disrespectfully fail to provide substantive answers to good faith contributors who had questions about his DRs on his talk page. And then, when discussions were initiated as to whether those files should be restored, he would sometimes weigh in -- but in a way that seemed to me to be misleading and indicative of a woeful unwillingness to be held responsible for his actions. He would weigh in to these discussions as if he were an uninvolved third party. He would leave these rather vague comments as if he was supporting the decision of the closing administrator. These vague supportive comments from an uninvolved third party fell far short of the specific, substantive comments the closing administrator should make. Some closing administrators don't weigh in during the undeletion discussions, trusting that the closing comments they left at the DR, and the explanation they supplied at their talk page, after the DR, were sufficient. But for closing administrators like Jcb, who didn't explain at the DR, or at their talk page, it seems to me that comments that look like he was trying to masquerade as an uninvolved third party while not as bad as employing sockpuppets were misleading in the same way as employing sockpuppets.

Rightly or wrongly Jcb lost the general community's trust that he was closing DRs related to human sexuality in an neutral, objective manner. He should have realized, months before his de-adminship discussion, that the could no longer close DRs related to human sexuality, and should confine himself to weighing in those discussions with a substantive policy based comment. Continuing to close these DRs, when his closures were so often challenged and so often reverted, showed bad judgement and disrespect for the community.

Jcb went beyond merely not measuring up to WP:MELLOW, he mocked newbies. That is terrible because it was abusive, and it was terrible because we need experienced contributors to set an example. We particularly need administrators to set a good example as newbies deserve to be able to trust that the example they should follow.

In my particular case he went beyond failing to respond in a civil, substantive way to my civil, good faith concerns. About a week or ten days after our first interaction he chose to delete material I was relying on in a DR with a pitifully flimsy justification for deletion. It was extremely inconvenient for me. It was extremely inconvenient for me over the course of 150 hours of my volunteer time. It was extremely inconvenient for me almost two months. I gave him several opportunities to quietly revert his actions. He blew me off and acted like I was a vandal.

Some of Jcb's supporters implied I was making a mountain out of a molehill to be so concerned over a single DR. But it was a DR that caused me to grit my teeth in frustration over his intransigence over 150 hours I worked on uploading the files related to that DR. I was reminded of his instransigence almost every day for almost two months. I have acknowledged that there may be some other reason for his maddening unwillingness to either explain his deletion, or to revert his deletion. But the longer he was instransigent the harder it has been to resist concluding the sole explanation for the deletion was malice, that he never imagine he had a valid justification for this deletion, but he thought he could get away deleting material I was relying on to retaliate against me for asking him tough questions he couldn't answer. I believe my questions and comments in 2011 were all substantive, and were all civil, and any resentment he felt was wildly misplaced.

Note, you won't find even an iota of acknowledgment on Jcb's part that he never had any justification for the delete conclusion of that DR.

All participants on the WMF projects are supposed to be civil and collegial at all times. I am used to encountering fellow contributors who fall short of that standard. The best thing to do is to try one's best and not respond in kind to uncivil contributors. I do my best to remain civil when other contributors aren't civil. But there is a level playing field there. I think it is essential that the community in general, and the corp of administrators, close ranks and rein in administrators who give the appearance of bullying. At this point I don't really care if Jcb has an explanation that would convince people he didn't close that DR as delete out of malice. His two years of unwillingness to explain the closure or acknowledge it was a mistake, made it look like he was acting out of malice. Geo Swan (talk) 19:27, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Geo Swan, if you have a genuine point to make, I think you have failed by making your own badgering the dominant theme here. I have no history with this user, but the only person who gives the appearance of badly needing to work on their collaborative skills on this RFA is…you. -Pete F (talk) 19:53, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• I think my record of interaction with Jcb, while he was an administrator, was a model of how to voice a policy based concern, and I think if you think I am "badgering" him now you might consider bearing in mind the possibility you don't understand how he has behaved in the past. Other administrators may see him as a generally cooperative team member, while ordinary contributors, who were at the receiving end of his behaviours can have a completely opposite impression. Geo Swan (talk) 20:56, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Is there any reason why all the contributors who participated in the de-admin discussions shouldn't receive a neutral heads-up of this discussion?

I repeat, is there any reason why all the contributors who participated in the de-admin discussions shouldn't receive a neutral heads-up of this discussion? Geo Swan (talk) 18:06, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

No. If you want to do so, and might phrase something neutral, then knock yourself out with posting heads-ups. At the moment there have been reasonable and direct questions pitched about concerns, so there should be no last minute surprises. --Fæ (talk) 18:13, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I propose a message like the following:

In 2011 you participated in Commons:Administrators/Requests/Jcb_(de-adminship 2). That discussion ended with User:Jcb losing his administrator privileges. I think you are entitled to be informed that it has been proposed that his administrator privileges be restored. While there were various suggestions at the de-admin discussion that he be allowed conditional access to administrator privileges, the proposal at Commons:Administrators/Requests/Jcb (readmin) is for Jcb to have unconditional access to the administrator privileges restored. Cheers Geo Swan (talk) 21:33, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

At a first attempt 61 people weighted in -- User:Cecil User:Jcb User:Saibo User:Mattbuck User:Geo Swan User:AzaToth User:Hekerui User:ANGELUS User:Léna User:Wsiegmund User:Trijnstel User:Blue Marble User:Fæ User:Blue Marble User:Herbythyme User:Ymblanter User:S Larctia User:Rd232 User:Pieter Kuiper User:Pill User:Beria User:AFBorchert User:CT Cooper User:Ajraddatz User:Fry1989 User:Geagea User:ABF User:Lymantria User:Yikrazuul User:Ezarate User:Neozoon User:A.Savin User:VR-Land User:Yann User:Jafeluv User:Olivier Bommel User:Kaldari User:Missvain User:Dcoetzee User:Amada44 User:Courcelles User:Niabot User:WizardOfOz User:Nevit User:Fastily User:TwoWings User:Wknight94 User:Pymouss User:SarekOfVulcan User:WJBscribe -User:Schwäbin User:PierreSelim User:Jastrow User:NVO User:Adrignola User:MoiraMoira User:Túrelio User:Skeezix1000 User:Jameslwoodward User:EugeneZelenko

Ten people who voiced an opinion here also voiced an opinion at the de-admin discussion.

Cheers Geo Swan (talk) 21:20, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• The "various suggestions" sentence is unnecessary and selectively chosen to support your agenda, please leave it out. I also think that replacing "I think you are entitled to be informed" by "This note is to inform" will make it more neutral. --99of9 (talk) 21:49, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

OK, how about:

In 2011 you participated in Commons:Administrators/Requests/Jcb_(de-adminship 2). That discussion ended with User:Jcb losing his administrator privileges. This note is to inform you that User:Odder proposed Jcb have unconconditional access to administrator privileges restored. Commons:Administrators/Requests/Jcb (readmin) is scheduled to close on May 20th. Cheers Geo Swan (talk) 22:26, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

 Done