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Sherurcij

2007-08 admin

The following discussion is closed:

Appointed


I figured I might as well throw myself up for adminship.

The "Good"
I've been here for more than two years (my first major text was Zodiac Killer letters), and have ~7000 edits, comprising almost entirely text additions. IRL I am a journalist (which leads to being an accredited reporter on Wikinews...not that that is worth anything...*grin*), and currently work full-time for the Internet Archive (from whose computer I am currently typing...), which has uploaded 250,000 texts from libraries around the world. If any of you have been living under a rock and I haven't annoyed you to join yet, I started Wikisource:Collaboration of the Week, a number of the Wikisource:Works index pages, and Author:Leo Tolstoy has been my pet project for over a year (including obtaining rare copies of original manuscripts from the Hague where they were held, to transcribe and put online where no online records even existed of such works!). I've welcomed roughly 100 newcomers to WS whenever I see them registering, and try to foster and encourage them to become active members, while routinely keeping an eye on the "Recent Changes" tab for anonymous vandalism. I also speak passable French, and have done up WS translations for works by De Gaulle, De Sade and Napoleon -and am currently studying Arabic. I've illustrated (uploaded illustrations, anyways) for a number of texts that weren't my own, and my most recent contribution has been A Voyage Towards the South pole and Around the World over the past few days. In short, I am a god. Worship me now.

The "Bad"
It's a simple fact of life (and some blame my homeschooling...*grin again*) that while I am unerringly polite and kind to newcomers and strangers, once I get to know you...I stop caring what you think about me and discard all notions of "etiquette" in a somewhat House-esque manner - this has led to "frosty exchanges" with a couple users (Okay, only newmanbe and Psychim) - I make an excellent Diplomat...but a terrible Human Resources manager. :)

The Ugly
I believe that copyright paranoia is harmful to the cause of Access to Knowledge, and can often be found arguing in favour of keeping things like public speeches or works where it can be "safely assumed" that the original author had no intentions of a de facto copyright on their work, and it's only the ignorance of legislative bodies confronted by Sonny Bono, that de jure protect Adolf Hitler's grocery list. Of course, this shouldn't really impact my adminship in any way since I mostly just want it so I can take care of clear-cut vandalism and such myself - I just figured I'd mention it.

Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Captain Cook 20:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment I don't believe anyone can fail to see that you are truly dedicated to en.WS. And by that I mean that you have a long, consistent history of commitment to the long-term, big picture success of this project and not simply to contributing things you enjoy. I don't have even have to take off both shoes to count the people I can say that about. I do have concerns about the bad and the ugly above, but if you can address my concerns you will have my support.
    • In the past I have noticed that you struggle to disengage from disputes and have occasionally made appeals to alternate authority immediately after an issue is settled against your opinion. How do you plan on resisting the temptation of becoming your own alternate authority and contining disputes past the decision issued by another admin?
    • Some of the duties of administrators, particularly dispute resolution, can turn really nasty if the administrator involved fails in the etiquette department. Do you plan on avoiding certain things that you believe are not best suited for your personality or do you have another strategy to prevent your difficulties with etiquette from worsening these sorts of situations?
    • What I am looking for: I want to see that have thought about these situations and have made some decisions about how you would like to act as an administrator before you are actually "under fire" so to speak. I am not expecting you to make some kind of hard rule against your future actions, but rather want to see what you expect of yourself on a perfect day where you make all the right decisions.
    --BirgitteSB 22:02, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
      1. While I would point out that you are referring to disputes about legal statuses of works, and thus "consensus" is not an actual "answer" and thus I am justified in seeking recourse...the simple answer is that I believe I was vocally critical of an earlier nomination in which the now-admin claimed he wanted to be an administrator "just so he could use the "Import" feature"...and then using his new-found "weight" to try and sway arguments and taking somewhat "unilateral" actions to delete texts that didn't meet his vision of WS. I may be a pain in the ass at times, but I'm not a hypocrite - and I'm not going to let myself become what I don't respect. I have no intentions of going "I'm an admin, thus my word counts for more than it used to!", quite the opposite I'm making it clear that I know where my strengths are in the project, and where my weaknesses are. I have absolutely no intention of trying to thrust my weaknesses into the forefront by pushing them in everybody's face ;) If somebody wrongly deletes a text because of their arm-chair legalese, I'm not going to get into an edit war over restoring it...I'm still going to come whinging to you, Danny, Z or whoever else seems to have a reasonable opinion on the subject.
      2. Similar answer, I have no real intentions of getting involved in trying to mediate "dispute resolution". I don't enjoy conflict and would much rather see things settled by referring to actual legal opinions, than both sides just jumping around with their personal armchair theories seeing who can yell loud enough to convince the other. So again, if I want User:X to stop claiming that IEEPA sanctions don't apply to copyrights and we should thus delete all al-Qaeda works, I'd rather go talk to any number of other WS members (admin or not) and see if they can convince him of the fallacy of his ways, since I know it's not my strong point. Again, adminship isn't about trying to get the upper hand in any arguments, it's just about trying to keep vandalism in check, move pages that normal users cannot, edit/wikify protected articles without waiting a week for them to be unprotected, etc.
      3. A perfect day would be that which sees WS collectively agree that we are working under the WMF banner, and thus our mantra should be about providing access to the sum of published human knowledge throughout the ages, while using common sense to avoid any legal liability...not about collecting texts that film producers can turn into working screenplays or eBay retailers can resell on CD. THat it's about educating people and slaking their thist for knowledge, not about providing lower costs for their small businesses. But my adminship will in no way affect my lobbying on that front, anymore than it does on ending world hunger, I promise...and expect 'you' (the collective WS) to hold me to that.
      Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Captain Cook 22:55, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Support Although I acknowledge your weaknesses are not something to sought after in an admin, I cannot see how the project would be better off with you as an editor and not an admin. Whatever your contributions are to any problems around here, I do not believe they will be amplified simply because you are an admin. On the other hand, there are many good contributions you will undoubtedly make if given adminship. Not only are there tasks that need to be done in there own right, but the burden of the mundane on existing admins needs to lessened to prevent the burn-out of those currently most active. Overall I believe you would be a net benefit as an admin, and I hope if you are given the flag the added responsibility encourage you think more carefully about how your words are perceived.--BirgitteSB 14:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Oppose. I think you're a valuable contributor to Wikisource, and would not oppose you for adminship were it not for some problems that I see. I believe your disregard of our copyright policy—for example, uploading terrorists' documents because of the unlikelihood of lawsuit—is a drawback in an administrator in an organization whose overriding goal is "encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content". Were you only an advocate of such disregard, I would have no problem with your adminship, but you repeatedly moved beyond advocation to uploading despite repeated controversy, prohibition by policy, and successful nominations for deletion (for example, the debacles over orphaned works and suicide notes).

    Your occasional flares of temper and 'frostiness' also raise red flags for me; administrators should be unfailingly professional and polite, even in the face of criticism or immature vandals, let alone good-faith editors politely debating their points of view. Your slanted attack on newmanbe above (accusing him of hypocrisy, unilateralism, "arm-chair legalese", and using adminship to gain advantage in disputes) is a different aspects of this lack that I see.

    It is my long-held opinion that administrators should be role models for all editors, and embody the best qualities thereof. Perhaps others have less severe standards, and you will become an administrators despite my misgivings. In that case, I wish you all the best and hope you consider my above comments as constructive criticism. —{admin} Pathoschild 15:17:13, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

    1. I'll simply sigh and point to the current list of people whose copyright in invalid in the United States and ....hey look, there's al-Qaeda!
    2. I assumed that you, Psychim and newmanbe would all oppose - it's to be expected, but you're the one with the most common sense of the three, so I do wish to make a point "c"
    3. I accept that I am a poor role model to teach your children how to act, we would like as few newbies to "grow up in WS" and adopt my tone...on the other hand, I think I'm a better role model than most when it comes to actual contributions on the project. (It's not unlike the "family values" debate, do we judge based on opposition to gay marriage, or free childcare? Could go either way) I'm not sure what percentage of the projects is "mine" since I've been here,but I'm pretty sure we're dealing in whole numbers. Look at User:Skunkmaster IV to politicise a newbie...he joins, then eMailed me a few dozen times to help him format things, figure out how to add subpages, to check the copyright status of his works, to ask for help in every conceivable way...and (since he's a newbie...) I was nice and helped him...and now WS has 6 full-length books due to his efforts. If you can get newbies to adopt that trait of mine, I'd say we're looking at a much better project in the future.
    People who tidy things up and peer down their glasses are great...but useless without those who actually do the grunt work of bringing in the texts. I'd sipmly ask you to reconsider, based on the fact that perhaps one day WS can afford the luxury of "only having "nice" admins", but at this point in our development I think having "committed" admins is much more important. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Wikisource:Ancient Egypt 16:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

    We have discussed the International Emergency Economic Powers Act previously, but the primary drawbacks are that it is inapplicable outside the US and does not remove copyright (it only makes them inapplicable for the near future; see past subjects of IEEPA sanctions). When the sanctions are removed copyright is restored, we must delete it from Wikisource, and anyone who used the text in our repository during that time must go back in time and unuse it.

    You have every right to disagree with me and advocate your opinion as much as you'd like. It is policy violation that is problematic in a candidate for administrator access, and not something that should be encouraged. I am thinking in particular of Wikipedia, which has many disruptive and highly unprofessional administrators because they were given access on the assumption that only the editing aspect really matters, with the standards deteriorating over time to numeric metrics of grunt work. The result is a community that is hostile to new users and honest mistakes and questions, while routinely ignoring inconvenient policies and constantly sparking angry disputes.

    It is my opinion that administrators are more than glorified editors, and so should be held to standards above their base editorial abilities. —{admin} Pathoschild 18:17:40, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

    I haven't re-added any deleted texts, even if I argued (rightly) that they were legally without copyright (whether temporarily or permenantly, depending on the work). So I'm curious which "policy violations" I've committed. If the community has deleted a text, I have left it deleted while advocating to bring it back. That's not a policy violation. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Wikisource:Ancient Egypt 18:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
    I apologize for my mistake. I just reread some discussions, and your violations of the copyright policy do not seem to have been deliberate. However, my other concerns still stand. —{admin} Pathoschild 21:08:37, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
    Not a problem, I've made factual errors myself...I once argued I didn't create a template that it turned out I did (still have no memory of it, though it was a damned useful template!) - just to denigrate wildly here, your opposition now stands on "We have contradictory legal opinions and he's not polite". I can accept that, just pointing out ;) Anyways, appreciate the constructive criticism nonetheless Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Wikisource:Ancient Egypt 01:46, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
    Maybe I'll oppose your next confirmation, or maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. For now, I'll abstain. —{admin} Pathoschild 17:31:48, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Mild support. Sherurcij has made absolutely wonderful (not to mention, extremely interesting) contributions to WS since he's been here and is, overall, a great collaborator here at WS. My concern, though, comes from his lack of following standard formatting for some of his contributions--notably for novels; WS is trying to standardize its pages (and spent almost a full year doing it when the infrastructure project kickstarted), but number of his contributions are without headers and have nonstandard page naming conventions. Ultimately, this means other editors have to do more work to standardize WS on top of the already existing tasks. I think for an administrator, such formatting is a requisite and cannot be overlooked, especially if we are to expect other editors to follow our style guidelines. However, the few he does that are not standardized I do not think outweigh the merits of his other works nor should keep him from acquiring sysop rights.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 21:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
For the record, I gave in and now include headers on all my texts for the past six months or so...I'm admittedly still using some "non-standard subpage naming conventions" though. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Wikisource:Ancient Egypt 22:23, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. I am relatively new here so Sherurcij has been helpful and polite to me. He seems to have a lot to offer, and I think his long commitment and substantial contributions outweigh any controversy. - Epousesquecido 22:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support with one condition> The sysops right primarily exists to fight vandals and perform maintenance; more hands are needed on those decks and Sherurcij can be trusted to do both, and is around often enough to be a useful addition to the vandal fighting effort. He is quite vocal, which indicates he is unlikely to sidestep process by not gathering community opinion so it is safe to assume that the tools will not be used against the will of the community. It is worth noting that "votes of confidence" and the yearly admin renewal process greatly reduces the risk of promoting admins. OTOH, Zhaladshar's concerns about standards compliance are valid. Specifically, I would like to know that you will not be uploading new media to Wikisource excepting in the rare circumstance where it is desirable to do so under the local image policy. Bonus points for moving one or two of your own uploads to the commons, just for practice! John Vandenberg 23:27, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Deal, in fact I've been doing that for a while now anyways - and yeah, if one day WS becomes as central or well-known as Gutenberg or Internet Archive, I'll gladly step aside so we can have a team of "friendly" admins...but let me just get us to that level ;) Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Wikisource:Ancient Egypt 00:50, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Tentative support. I haven't had many dealings with you and base my vote mostly on very recent investigations of your edit history triggered by comments of others above. I believe you are a sane person and that, after nearly two years, you are aware of what adminship entails. Nevertheless, some concerns raised above seem quite valid to me. Just don't let your temper get the better of you. Good luck!--GrafZahl (talk) 09:16, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose due to a combination of your self stated position on copyright and your self-noted tendency to "discard all notions of "etiquette" in a somewhat House-esque manner". The use of admin tools related to copyright issues are best handled by users with a calm demeanor as these tend to be the most confusing, controversial, and contentious actions done by an admin. Despite your stated interest in mostly reverting vandalism, I think your stated interest in the copyright issue will draw you in to doing admin actions related to this topic. I have no problem giving admin tools to a nom with views at either extreme of the copyright debate as long as they are not likely to cause disruption. I'm not confident that is true in your case. FloNight 14:29, 31 August 2007 (UTC) Strike. See vote below.
    • No problem, just curious because I can't think of any examples where I haven't been "calm", I'm not aware of ever doing anything rash, or even acting autonomously and "replacing a deleted text" or anything of the sort (even though it can easily be done without admin tools) - I guess I'm just trying to understand your fear of "disruption"...I'm pretty sure I can do that equally well with or without admin tools :Þ Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Wikisource:Ancient Egypt 14:50, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Hi, Sherurcij. Thanks for the response. It is indeed calm, just the type of response I like to see from admins that are questioned about the use of their tools. I changed my vote to support. I think you will do well with the tools. FloNight 17:12, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support: Let's face it. He does good work. Danny 14:56, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I am not a heavy user here, with only 160ish edits. but I have more than some other commenters here, to be sure, and some of the edits go back a while. I think the opposers are a bit overblown here. I've interacted with the candidate on Commons, and it is true there is some bite but he's a helpful positive contributor in my view. I also am concerned about the copyright aspects of things, that is extremely important to be safe about, but I take his word to abide by consensus and legal requirements. As BirgitteSB said, on balance, would WikiSource be better off with Sherurcij as an admin? I think yes. I also think Sherurcij will take the feedback he is receiving here on board. Finally, the yearly renewal process allows for a check that many other wikis don't have so it's safer to "grant someone a chance". Per BirgitteSB, Zhaladshar, John Vandenberg, and GrafZahl... and especially per Epousesquecido :), I Support ++Lar: t/c 15:24, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support per nom's calm reply to my oppose. Also as noted he has broad participation in other Foundation projects where copyright is an issue. That he has not caused disruption is reassuring. :) And the the yearly review process gives me confidence that issues can be addressed if they occur. FloNight 17:02, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

2008-09 confirmation

status administrator since September 2007
activity active (contributions, logs)
discussions
{{citation needed}}. Except for Pathosimpalement. It is the law.--Shanel 03:08, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Support - Was helpful in my early days at the project! Suicidalhamster (talk) 21:37, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Yep, no problems there. Hesperian 05:05, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
    • Changed to Oppose; this is a very big problem in my opinion. Hesperian 02:52, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
      • It is an enormous problem. So is my opinion of the uselessness of Wikibooks, and my frequently calling certain Wikinews administrators retarded jackalopes. However neither are related to my work on Wikisource. But c'est la vie, I'll simply order a third pike for my gates ;) Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Charles Spurgeon 03:04, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
        • You think your willingness to inject a hoax into the main page of Wikipedia is irrelevant to whether we can trust you with administrative tools over here? There's still only one Sherurcij, right? Hesperian 04:57, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
          • I do, in fact. My hoax on Wikipedia had absolutely zero to do with administrative tools, on WP or WS. It's completely irrelevant, I'm as capable of inserting nonsense with or without administrative tools, and have never used them to do so. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Charles Spurgeon 06:06, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
            • That argument is analogous to "the fact that I menaced you with a knife is irrelevant to whether or not I should be granted a gun license. After all, I'm capable of menacing you with or without a gun." Hesperian 15:03, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
          • Sherurcij said there that he intended to have the thing removed and deleted if it actually made the Main Page; it was merely a test to see if it could get that far. I personally believe his explanation. It's perfectly justifiable not to, and I'm not going to throw AGF and "you're the big bad wolf" at you if you don't, but it is something to think about. In my opinion, the test wasn't that bad an idea if controlled properly (and I believe it was). —Giggy 06:13, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
            • And if every user decided to do this type of experiment where would we be? Many many moons ago, WP-en decided not to tolerate these type of experiments. I assume that most wikis include this in their unwritten rule book. Unwritten because writing it down gives ideas to uncreative thinking vandals that like to copycat. FloNight 22:18, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
              • Heh. If every user tried to do this, we'd be in a very interesting place, and probably not a good one at that. Yes, it's an unwritten law (rightly) that gives good advice that people generally follow (rightly) because usually making hoaxes isn't the best idea. But I think doing it now for the reasons given was justifiable. Not necessarily right, wrong, good bad or evil, but justifiable for testing something important in the DYK process. And the test worked. The result is positive. Sherurcij will never do this again, and we move on. IMO —Giggy 23:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Suppport Is a popular attraction at Sea World and takes care of stuff around dis wikihouse.--Shanel 03:08, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Oh my!! Do you understand that Hesperian certainly has the right to be unconvinced that you will make good use of the tools based on those diffs about the incident on WP's DYK. I'm not going to oppose since this is an isolated incident and you do loads of good work here, but please be respectful of users that chose to oppose. Making Hesperian feel uncomfortable about voicing his opinion is not good. FloNight 22:05, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
    • I doubt he's uncomfortable, I'm not saying "You're a cockup, everybody else is voting for me, fool", I'm making reference to my playful animosity with those who think my deviance from the norm is out of line, methinks you're just upset because I've already announced my intentions to put your head atop a pole on my castlewall. I doubt any really feel "uncomfortable" because I address their concerns; in fact it would seem more wrongful to not address his concerns. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Charles Spurgeon 22:33, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
      • If that is what you think, then you're wrong. Seriously. I think that your responses to Hesperian are off the mark and it make me more worried about you having the tools than your foolish experiment. Your reply came across to me as dismissive when he expressed a genuine concern. FloNight 22:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
        • If it came across to you as dismissive, then either I failed in my response or you failed in your reading. He asked specific questions, I answered specific questions. I don't see "dismissal" - his question was "Don't you think your actions at WP affect your actions at WS?" and my response was "No, not anymore than I think my actions at WN do". Like WP, WN has several severe flaws, and I do work to try and find solutions to them to make the community stronger, and like WP, that often means running up against tough-nosed security-guard-wannabes who feel the need to strut their power and toss you down a flight of stairs. WS doesn't suffer from the same sorts of problems as WN and WP, though I think I have demonstrated that I am worried about ensuring that texts remain consistent, and if I abandon WS, my 10,000 works don't get vandalised without anybody noticing. The question comes down to "Do you trust Sherurcij to not abuse his admin tools to ban people without merit (check my history of bannings, I'm a firm believer in warnings), delete valid texts, etc", and if you really don't think I can be trusted with admin tools to improve the project, I suggest you need to rethink your criteria of which actions harm and which help a project. The shit-storm raised by my "stunt" in fact does help WP, it's forced the issue of the need for close factchecking of offline sources specifically on DYK articles into the spotlight; I got a 24-hour ban for it, which I'm not disputing (though several others I've noticed are), in short, it did exactly as intended, and was worth the price. It was a textbook case of official WP policy as summarised in w:Wikipedia:Ignore all rules and w:Wikipedia:Exceptions should leave the rule intact. History Will Absolve Me, Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Charles Spurgeon 02:03, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't think I want to support or oppose. I've read the thread at Wikipedia noticeboard, and certainly feel uncomfortable about the incident. If this were a regular user, wanting to become an admin for the first time, I'd be tempted to oppose. However, I think removing the tools is more drastic than not granting them in the first place, and I respect the people who say that Sherurcij does good work here, and appreciate that they are more familiar with him than I am. I agree with FloNight, however, that Hesperian's concerns should not be dismissed. Abstain. Stratford490 23:27, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per "Currently, Wikisource grants administrator access to those member who have are known in the community and whose edits and contributions have proved to be trustworthy", Wikipedia and Wikisource are part of the same community, this user appears to be (should be) a trusted contributor w:User talk:Sherurcij/DYK to DYK. The user knowingly created a false article using a profile that has shown a habit of making only trusted edits. The user created w:User:Minnehaha Mouse, in violation of w:Wikipedia:Sock puppetry to get the article published. That sock profile is now blocked indefinitely on Wikipedia. The user did good work at DYK until a couple days ago when we see this "I rely on the old "omg it was a social experiment!" defense, as I'd been asked how likely it was that false information could be propagated through Wiki.", which is not an excuse when the answer is right here w:Wikipedia:Hoax#Do_not_create_hoaxes "Please do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. Please do not attempt to put misinformation into Wikipedia to test our ability to detect and remove it. This has been done before, with varying results." This editor has proven their trust worthiness, shown the community what they will do with trust when given, and their familiarity with the system. It takes little effort to see habit of working to gain trust (w:User:Minnehaha Mouse) then abusing that trust. Jeepday (talk) 01:02, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
      • Support While I still don't condone the deed or the approach above, I have noted that Sherurcij, is a dedicated volunteer, who does what they believe is right and generally follows community expectations. I can beleive that they believed they acted appropriately in the incident at Wikipedia and with good cause. We don't expect anyone to know everything or do everything right, so it is wrong of me to assume that the user was familiar w:Wikipedia:Hoax#Do_not_create_hoaxes. Sherurcij's is an asset to WS and I beleive this user will continue to work to support the project. Jeepday (talk) 00:13, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
    • I don't mind the vote, but your basis is somewhat incorrect. I did not "create a false article using a profile that has shown a habit of making only trusted edits", I used my own username because as already explained it would make little sense to see if an article created by an anonymous IP survived, we know they don't survive; such articles are typically deleted on-sight. Likewise, I did not ignore WP:Sockpuppet, but if I had listed the DYK under my own name than it would have "poisoned the pool" so to speak, since as mentioned I'm a trusted and known name in the DYK circle with a dozen perfectly legitimate and well-founded articles. The irony is that if I weren't honest about my experiment, and had just created the article with an IP, and not listed it at DYK, it would have survived for years in its fashion, and even if it were discovered, no fuss would have been raised. Surely if I were "creating a hoax" or "vandalising" that would have better suited my purpose of ruining WP's credibility? I purposely put it in the limelight to get a fuss raised over it, to see how the process handled such a case; because there have been none in the past and no likely chance that if I wait a week a similar circumstance will arise.
    • In summary, you may or may not be right to say I was wrong to do what I did, but you are definitely wrong to state that the fact I created it under my own name makes things worse, or the fact I purposely threw it in front of factcheckers. If I put "please remove me" in this month's Collaboration for Proofreading", is that a bannable offence that should see me stripped of my admin tools? Or was it a one-time thing to see whether we need to revise how we handle collaborative proofreading? Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Charles Spurgeon 01:46, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
      As an aside, I would like to point out that some proofreading projects purposely introduce errors in a controlled manner in order to review whether the proofreading did in fact remove them. This is not part of the wiki culture, and is deemed inappropriate on English Wikipedia, but I hope we consider this type of quality control on its merits, rather than by putting our heads in the sand, and following English Wikipedia. The vandals already create hoaxes with gay abandon on English Wikipedia, and they have done the same here (such as Clair de Salino). Also, newspaper reporters and scholars regularly create hoaxes to see whether the system can cope. btw, I'm not suggesting that BJAODN is a good idea.
      That said, this English Wikipedia experiment was an error in judgement - it should have been discussed privately prior to being done. As it was an obvious hoax (a Colbert hoax even), and Sherurcij used his own name to do it, it is quite clear he didnt intended to dodge responsibility for his actions when it came to light. He clearly misread how unpleased people would be about this. My trust in Sherurcij is not altered by this. I'm hoping he will take this English Wikipedia block as a warning shot, and be a better wiki-editor for it. John Vandenberg (chat) 02:35, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
    • My trust in Sherurcij is not altered by this. John, if somebody were to ask Shururjic how the Wikisource community would react if a trusted administrator were to delete the main page, how do you trust that he would respond? If his response was to conduct a well-intentioned experiment, would that be a breach of your trust? Hesperian 03:20, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
      • I'm intrigued and fascinated by this discussion. How does exposing flaws in a system compare with deliberately (or perhaps undeliberately, if it were an accident) deleting something essential? Jude (talk) 04:14, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
        • You've imputed a motive and outcome on only one side of your comparison. You should rephrase as either "How does investigating the community's handling of a DYK hoax compare with investigating the community's handling of deletion of the main page" or "How does exposing flaws in the DYK checking system compare with exposing flaws in main page persistence". Either way, once you treat both sides of the equation equally, thereby removing the answer you're looking for from the question you're asking, your argument appears to vanish. Hesperian 04:45, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
      • Wikipedia admin East718 did recently experiment, foolishly deleting the main page when he could have asked someone or reviewed the source code[1], which is much more dumb than doing it to determine what would happen on the social side of things, as the latter cant be predicted. I was appalled at how silly it was, but he is still an admin because it was silly but not malicious. I would view a similar experiment by Sherurcij in the same way. In addition, Sherurcij is not an admin on Wikipedia, so he is not as responsible there, and hasnt been charged by the community with the task of protecting it.
        But we are talking about a Wikisource action, and at this time I am 100% sure he would tell them to sod off, unless there was an extremely good reason for the experiment. He is much more protective of Wikisource than he is of Wikipedia, and he can probably correctly guess the outcome of any Wikisource experiment he or others might dream up, because the team here is small and mostly predictable. In contrast, the experiment he conducted on Wikipedia is not easily predicted anymore, and he put himself on the line to find an answer to something that concerned him; please bear in mind that DYK is a part of Wikipedia that he has regularly contributed to for a long time, so perceived degradation of quality is something he would "feel" more than the rest of us.
        I dont expect anyone to change their opinion here; I would almost be disappointed if Sherurcij received 100% support. I dont completely trust him when it comes to crystal clean copyright, but he will be the first to say that he is a little avant-garde in regards to the public domain, and he also does his fair share of research into WS:COPYVIO cases in order to try to keep works where possible. John Vandenberg (chat) 07:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

  • Support Without reading the archives to change my impressions of Sherurcij's initial nomination I would like to share what I remember thinking at the time. I thought it was questionable if he would be supported as admin because he always seems to find a way to make his opinion and himself more unpopular than I feel is really necessary to get his point across. I think I am rather adept at predicting how much stridency is necessary to make my point and when too much will actually hurt my position. Given positions of equal merit, I find Sherurcij to be much less adept at communicating with others in a way that will gain their support for him and his opinions. This thread here is good example of such stumbling. However as I believe I said in his initial nomination, no one can doubt Sherurcij's dedication to Wikisource. He has maintained a high level of involvement here over a long time period and is a very consistent contributor. My only concerns during his initial nomination were that he might as he had done on occasion, push issues too far for my taste. That he might cause social distress to the community. But my logic at the time was that he can do that just as well as an established member as he could as an admin. (He did not attempt to become an admin until he probably had a longer history of contributions than half the admins.) So I thought that what I was concerned about was an equal concern whether he was an admin or not and that his dedication and long history here would mean he could be a great benefit as an admin. I don't remember how candid I was with these thoughts at the time, but I supported him and shared some reservations in a way that I thought would help him gain adminship overall.

    Now a year later, I find that with adminship Sherurcij has been much more cautious than I imagined he ever could be. For whatever reason it seems that the mantle of adminship has resulted in a more conservative version of Sherurcij. No one has the ability to shine in every aspect of adminship. Sherurcij is patient guide to newcomers and has worked consistently to help drive the contribution of new texts to Wikisource. Also he has shown this past year that he mature enough to recognize the areas where he does not shine and steer clear not only in his capacity as an admin but also in any way that can be seen as the authority from being an admin. Sherurcij has actually been one of more vocal critics Wikisource has had of inappropriateness by admins. And while I don't always agree with his all his accusations, I imagine the admins with the memories of this are more careful in their actions knowing that he is willing to draw attention to anything that appears questionable. Over the past year, he has chosen to attempt to be a model of "uninvolved adminship" rather than to act as an equal opponent to those he has criticized prior to becoming an admin. And I say that he chose to do this because with the high spirits that he has shown over his time contributing here, I am confident that it had to be a conscious effort.

    It is a shame that the timing of this all focuses so much attention on unfortunate results that can come from his high spirits rather than how well he has managed that strong self-confidence and boldness which can often lead him to cross the funny little lines which make collaborative projects work smoothly. This confirmation should have been a chance for Sherurcij to hear how proud the people who originally supported him are of how well he listened to our concerns and took on the responsibility of adminship. But knowing Sherurcij, it does not surprise me that he managed to make it more difficult for himself than I would have predicted it to have been. Those with only a little aquaintance with Sherurcij have good reason to have concerns about his adminship, but I think knowing him better leads to more than enough evidence to overcome such concerns. So I encourage people who doubt him to take the time to look into his intial nomination and read through his talk archives and whatever discussions those notes may lead to and see if you still disagree with me.--BirgitteSB 15:56, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

  • Support.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:50, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Support. You do seem more reasonable as an admin, and you've managed not to implode the wiki so far. ;) —{admin} Pathoschild 19:58:11, 06 September 2008 (UTC)
    Nah, no false credit, I'm only more reasonable because Newmanbe is inactive. :) As for imploding the Wiki, I knew I forgot something on my 2008 to-do list. Have updated accordingly. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Charles Spurgeon 00:42, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
    Great, looking forward to opposing in 2009. —{admin} Pathoschild 04:43:46, 07 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Support. I would be loath to attach too much importance to the minor incident on Wikipedia. This is a different community from Wikipedia, and hopefully not as much on a hair-trigger about such matters. I've had strong disagreements with Shirurcij, but strong and honest disagreements do not equate to a lack of fitness for adminship. Eclecticology (talk) 06:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Support — I've held off on opining here as there was a lot to review; lots of comments here and at en:wp. I believe I understand the gist of the en:dyk bit and understand how it could be a concern. I don't pay en:wp much mind lately, and never paid dyk any. Could that en:issue have been better handled? Probably. But it is far from the many major issues en is rich with; and it was over there. This is a smaller community, Sherurcij does seem to do reasonable things here and having a fair dose of passion about projects is a good thing. Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:42, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Support. He is a rebel with a cause. - Epousesquecido (talk) 14:53, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Support - the oppose doesn't concern me. —Anonymous DissidentTalk 07:16, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Support He and I don't see eye to eye on the Poetlister "situation", but that doesn't detract from the fact that he's a fine admin. The DYK thing... I don't consider that as gross a violation of trust as the aforementioned situation, and while I don't condone it, it doesn't give me much pause when thinking about his executing admin duties here. EVula // talk // 19:30, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Support --Zyephyrus (talk) 00:06, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment, I believe I set the record for "most number of votes on a nomination", as well as "only nomination to pass with "no" votes" - and it appears the Confirmation is the exact same. I may need to crown myself an attention whore if I'm not more careful in the future. Anyways, I do appreciate some of the longer comments; both the good and bad - they do help me understand how I'm portraying myself, coming off to others and such. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Albert Schweitzer 20:10, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Confirmed. —{admin} Pathoschild 16:08:35, 03 October 2008 (UTC)

2009-10 confirmation

The following discussion is closed:

confirmed


Administrator since August 2007 by consensus (see previous discussions), currently active (contributions · logs · count · crossactivity). Sherurcij will be reconfirmed automatically unless at least three established users oppose, which will trigger a vote of confidence with decision by simple majority.
  • Support. Jude (talk) 02:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC) Strong support. A clarification of my earlier vote: while Sherurcij and I have had minor disagreements, I've yet to see anything about his administrative actions that would make me think that he is not well suited for this role. Jude (talk) 02:40, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose - Sherurcij (talk • contribs) is extremely unfit to be an administrator. As administrator he exhibits conduct unbecoming this role, assumes bad faith, incivility, edit-warring to push his POV and ownership of Template:New texts. Example of language directed at me when I was an inexperienced user on this project: would appreciate if you would listen and absorb, instead of being a snarky 15-year old kid going "Oh yeah, sez who?!". I'm not your mother, I don't give a shit whether or not you sass me. When queried about this inappropriate comment, Sherurcij chose to reply with: Please stop being a troll.. This inappropriate behavior was criticized by admin John Vandenberg (talk • contribs), who posted to Sherurcij's talk page (among other comments about his inappropriate behavior): Calling him a troll isnt appropriate. Simultaneously, Sherurcij nominated a page I added to the project for deletion, and chose to make inappropriate use of the deletion discussion as a personal forum to attack me: This particular user, was responsible for example for the WN articles... Note: I did not create any of the example Wikinews articles given in that comment by Sherurcij. In any event at the time I was an arbitrator and administrator on Wikinews, and it was an extremely inappropriate use of the deletion discussion for an attack on me, the text of which was not related to the discussion of whether or not to keep the page I had added to Wikisource. Cirt (talk) 03:26, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

    I haven't edited {{New texts}} since March (seven months ago) when I chided Cirt for adding multiple anti-Scientology texts to our front page to give them prominence - and pointed out that he is indeed somebody who has been quite visible in trying to hijack WMF projects to be "omg, we're Anonymous, we wear V for Vendetta masks and protest Tom Cruise" anti-scientology. And while he claims "I didn't really write any of the articles", you will notice he is the majority editor with 44 edits to the first article I named, 12 edits to the second article I named, six edits to the third article, five edits to the next anti-Scientology tirade, and 13 edits to the one after that...and he now comes here and shouts "Sherurcij falsely accused me of writing anti-Scientology texts to promulgate around WMF!".

    Although it may not be "Assume Good Faith", I stand by the assertion and characterization - and point to my reasonable edit message when I did edit the template in March this cannot just be a place to force people to read anti-Scientology texts. Do not hijack the front page - once in a while is acceptable, constancy is not. How I have displayed "ownership" issues simply by saying one user cannot use the template simply to showcase texts he adds that are critical of Islam/Scientology/Iran/anythingElse is beyond me.

    I also feel quoted out of context in the example you give, since the same edit clearly shows my response explaining to you that "As a small community, we operate on a series of largely uncodified agreed-upon standards, such as "no one user can monopolise the front page of the library to spread their own views". There is no official policy against it, because WS has very few "official policies" because common sense is typically enough. I am going out of my way to try and politely explain this to you" and ended, appropriately enough with the advice "don't disrupt the project, and learn to take criticism". Finally, since four other administrators agreed with me that the "Youtube Video about Scientology" deserved to be deleted...I don't think it's fair to really characterise it as a bad-faith nomination. It ultimately closed as "No consensus", but it was hardly malicious of me (and four other admins) to suggest it was neither peer-reviewed nor appropriate for our scope. ::Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Carl Linnaeus. 03:50, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

    The above response by Sherurcij (talk • contribs) exemplifies why he is unfit to be an administrator. He chooses to attack me (e.g. wording such as above he is indeed somebody who has been quite visible in trying to hijack WMF projects) — and also defend himself for doing so. And regarding Sherurcij's "explanation" to me, that he cited above, John Vandenberg (talk • contribs) noted laying down the uncodified law is not helpful. Cirt (talk) 07:03, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
    There is clearly a lot of bad blood in this situation. I think both sides could be considered "in the wrong" under the circumstance: yes, Sherurcij's response was not necessarily the best nor exemplary of the ideal administrator attitude, but in the circumstances, I do not disagree with his initial concerns. As it stands, the situation was seven months ago, and there appears to be no other negative interactions since then, apart from the above. Also, I don't see any evidence of the linked (I haven't looked at all of them, I don't have the time at the minute) deletion discussion containing any evidence of attacks directed at you. Jude (talk) 09:54, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
    First you say "This exemplifies why he shouldn't be an admin", then you say "His response to me exemplifies it!", I must admit I'm a little suspicious that if I adopted a baby kitten, you would say it exemplified why I make a bad admin. As others have said, you and I had a spat, we both still believe we were justified and the other person was not -- I did not abuse my admin powers (I do not believe I ever even mentioned the fact I was an administrator in dealing with you...). Per your second point, jayvdb and I had a number of conversations on IRC about our differing approach to the "codification" of WS policy - and whether we should 'maintain common sense' as I argued, or 'write down clear rules' as he argued. Again, it was a reasonable debate to have, and one that has pushed WS to improve (in both areas). Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Carl Linnaeus. 10:23, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
    Opinion the nasty exchange reflects poorly on both participants. You are entitled to express your opinion with a comment, however, the continuing of the exchange is little unseemly. If you want to stand toe-to-toe, please do it on your own talk pages. Thx -- billinghurst (talk) 10:32, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Support. We all have good days and bad days. If the diffs above show Sherurcij at his worst in over two years as administrator, then I don't think we have too much to worry about. A few angry words were exchanged; that is all. Hesperian 04:59, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
I respectfully disagree, I have not spoken with Cirt about the matter since March when we "dropped it". If I had continued to push the matter when it was clear it was making one or both of us antagonistic, it would have been bad judgement on my part. However, I do not believe he or I can be faulted for letting an unproductive dispute die out for seven months Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Carl Linnaeus. 10:12, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
And how good does that judgement look now? Where there is no formal dispute resolution, the onus is on individuals to do more to resolve differences, not less. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:09, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
I disagree; common sense is frequently knowing that some differences aren't going to be resolved and knowing when to just let it drop.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:46, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
The discussion has become more thoughtful; but my view remains that the supposed "common sense" of letting the matter drop should be read as a poor alternative to admitting fault. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:39, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Strong Support Sherurcij has been key in keeping the Collaboration of the Week going each week. He contributes to the project as well as encourages others to do the same as well. Also, Sherurcij is the only other admin besides myself to join the Popular Science Monthly WikiProject. As matter of fact, Sherurcj is the only other the only other participant besides myself. These are just a few reasons why I support Sherurcij for admin.--Mattwj2002 (talk) 00:34, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Weak Support. I've got to agree with Cirt here that the whole Scientology thing was handled inappropriately. But it was dropped, and I count that for Sherurcij. I don't see it, unfortunately, as out of character for Sherurcij, but I do see it as an extreme point. And while Sherurcij is not one of our strongest users of the admin tools, when he has used them, I see little to object to, and he has been involved in admin things frequently and diligently.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:40, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment: I never saw the dispute in question with Cirt, but I can tell you Sherurcij's treatment of Cirt's anti-Scientologist and Scientology-critical material promulgation did not occur in a vacuum. There had been an earlier set of instances, these involving a fellow with a foreign accent placing multiple critical tracts in the new texts template and crowding out the other works. He made a case to the fellow that it wasn't appropriate, and the guy pretty much ignored Sherurcij and did it again. The guy said there was no rule against it, but Sherurcij said it was an unwritten rule and just common sense. The guy was unresponsive to Sherurcij's points again, and Sherurcij got a little angry and used some angry words about the situation. John Vandenberg suggested that he cool it and come up with some sort of written rule.

    About nine months later, the guy started to post some critical tracts on New Texts again, and Sherurcij re-rehearsed his arguments, but without losing his cool. The guy let Sherurcij know he didn't care what he thought. As far as I know Sherurcij didn't reply. In short Sherurcij was trying to deal with a real problem, but the guy took his angry words personally and dug in his heels. The guy never added as many texts as he did the first time, but enough to bring up memories of the problem.

    I think Sherurcij was within his rights as admin to have patrolled these incidents, and his behavior with Cirt should be seen in light of them. ResScholar (talk) 04:52, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

  • Weak support – I thought the Cirt matter was handled poorly, but Sherurcij has otherwise done a fine job and performed well as an administrator from what I've seen. —Anonymous DissidentTalk 07:53, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Question: a simple one, and not I believe an impolite one given the evasive answers and stunts that arose during a previous reconfirmation. Is the account name Sherurcij the unique - meaning single and only - login for this user at all wikimedia sites? Cygnis insignis (talk) 01:21, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
    Could you explain the relevance? There are many legitimate reasons to operate multiple accounts, if he does. —Pathoschild 08:09:03, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
    Is it possible this query is in reference to this: Commons:Requests for checkuser/Case/Geo Swan? Cirt (talk) 09:56, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
    Cirt, I find this communication by you unnecessary at best, malignant at worst. The person is mature and capable enough to paste if they had wanted to. I am see unbecoming behaviour, and it is not from Sherurcij at this point in time. -- billinghurst (talk) 10:57, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
    If it is, then I don't see its relevance. I don't see any evidence provided that Sherurcij is using multiple accounts for abusive purposes here on Wikisource. Indeed, there aren't (m)any (that I can think of) contributors who have a similar area of contribution as Sherurcij on this project. Jude (talk) 11:02, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
    I don't see the relevance of showing a negative CU as something against Sherurcij Phe (talk) 12:05, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
For the record, I supported the CU and there was a similar one on WP again with Geo_Swan; he and I are from the same city and share similar views on the War on Terror - views that make opponents immediately consider us sockpuppets. But I can promise you it ain't me, he's about twice my age for starters :) I wwas also surprised to see the CU request state we both started editing en.wp in October 2006; I checked the dates and Geo started in October 2006, I started in October 2004...and my first edit was to Star Wars *geek* Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:David Livingstone. 13:11, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
@Billinghurst (talk • contribs), it's public information at Commons, and I simply was not sure if that was what Cygnis insignis (talk • contribs) was referring to. Apologies if that created further confusion. Cirt (talk) 17:07, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
No, I was unaware of that business. Apologies that I was unable to clarify that sooner. I wanted a response before I gave my view, to help a consensus emerge. Cygnis insignis (talk) 18:07, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Support, for the so called negative part of Sherurcij, I see only a bit of roughness against user showing the same behavior. Phe (talk) 12:05, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Weak belated support per Prosfilaes. I didnt initially jump on board the routine support votes because of the unnecessary conflict with Cirt. Cirt has consistently added interesting new pages, here and on other projects, and they are of a high quality and a broad range of topics. Cirt has a particular bent, however most contributors have a particular topical area which motivates us to contribute. How many of Cirts contributions should appear on the front page can be moderated without descending into personal attacks. I do not like this issue being framed as about simply common sense vs clear rules. Sherurcij's contention that Cirt has been dominating {{new texts}} with anti-Scientology/anti-Muslim/anti-etc works doesn't gel with the wide array of texts which Cirt was adding to the front page.
    Cirt's objection is grounded in personal experience of being treated rather poorly, and Sherurcij's response that Cirt is hijacking WMF is not helpful. However, as far as I know, Sherurcij has never done this to another contributor, and he has backed away from this dispute over {{new texts}}. As a result, this is not a systemic problem with Sherurcij's administrative role in this project. I doubt that they will be friends, however I hope that they can both find ways to work on this project peacefully; if necessary, they need to defer to others when they get into intractable disagreement. John Vandenberg (chat) 01:07, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Support both for Sherurcij's continued adminship and for everything John Vandenberg just said. Angr 08:48, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Closed.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:54, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

2010-11 confirmation (failed)

The following discussion is closed:

Not confirmed


administrator since 2007-08 (see previous discussions), currently active (contributions · logs · count · crossactivity). Sherurcij will be reconfirmed automatically unless at least three established users oppose, which will trigger a vote of confidence with decision by simple majority.
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