Stewards/Elections 2016/Questions

These steward elections are finished. No further votes will be accepted.

English: Eligible voters (see application guidelines) can ask questions to all candidates on this page. Please keep questions as concise and relevant as possible. Candidates, please answer as briefly and simply as possible.

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For all candidates

Question from Rschen7754 (1)

Per the m:Stewards policy, stewards are required to avoid "changing rights on home wikis (wikis where they are active community members), except for clearcut cases (such as self-requested removal or emergencies)." If elected, how would you practice this? What would you consider to be your homewikis? --Rs chen 7754 19:08, 16 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Rschen7754, thanks for the question. I consider the Portuguese Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons as my home wikis. The stewards policy says that conflicts of interest should be avoided. In respect of this, I would not act like steward on these projects above mentioned. So I will not use the stewards tools (oversight and checkuser, for example) and would answer only self-requests removal. Érico (talk) 22:21, 16 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Rs. I consider my home wiki Spanish Wikipedia. I think that, to participate in SRP, only attend those cases not related to my home wiki. A way to avoid changing rights, I will focused on SRG and SRCU, and participating only in maintenance in my homw wiki (such as fast delete, improve articles, add some references and any other activity which does not require any changing of rights). Also, be steward need more attention in meta insted of my home wiki, so my interests are to support fully to meta. Thanks for your time to ask questions.- 我叫 BlackBeast Do you need something? 你问问什么？ 19:02, 18 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the question. I consider those as my home wikis where I've advance rights or/and actively participate in the community discussion from time to time that includes bnwp, commons and meta as well as enwp (as I registered there and technically that's my home wiki). I would not use my steward tools on those wikis. In case of emergencies, I'll first try to find another steward and help them with language if necessary. I will only act if it's an "End of the world" kind of thing. As for self-requested removal, I'd also prefer not to act, if other stewards around. Besides, If elected, I will not act outside of Stewards policy as I've already mentioned it in my statement. Regards, ~ Nahid ^Talk 20:39, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My homewiki is pl.wikipedia. I would consider changing (removing) rights there only in emergency cases. That is when there is high possibility the account has been compromised and making mess on wiki (deleting articles, blocking non-vandal users). tufor (talk) 21:23, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I currently consider the Spanish Wikipedia & Meta-Wiki as my home wikis. I'd abstain from using the Stewards tools on both wikis, even on self-request, since I think there are enough Stewards to handle those requests. Since both of those wikis have local CheckUsers, Oversighters & Bureaucrats, they can handle most of local requests. I would only use the Steward tools if there's an emergency and I find no Steward (or a local user with the needed rights) at that moment. Matiia (talk) 02:51, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My home wiki is the English Wikipedia, so I plan to perform no steward actions there at all (other than the "administrator" and "oversighter" roles which I have already been granted locally on enwiki, and which I would continue to use there as appropriate). — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 03:48, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the highly relevant question.I feel the Wikis as where I've advance rights or/and actively participate in the community discussion from time to time. These include Urwiki, Hiwiki, Commons and Meta as well as Enwp. I would prefer not using my steward tools on those wikis. Here I will look for some other steward and, if needed help people with language. --Muzammil (talk) 08:45, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Rschen7754, my home wikis are Catalan Wikinews, Spanish Wikibooks and Meta. If elected I would try not to use steward acces never at my home wikis, I would use the steward tools only in emergency cases as vandalic behavior from a sysop, block war between sysops or another similar exotic situation not being other stewards available.--Syum90 (talk) 09:48, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I consider as home wikis the projects where I hold local adminship or regularly participate in community processes. At this time they are the Portuguese Wiktionary and Wikiquote and this Meta-Wiki. I won't act as a steward on these projects, unless it's an emergency and I definitely find no other available steward (and no local user with the required rights). Defender (talk) 20:54, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I deem ml.wikipedia and ml.wiktionary as my home wikis where I am already a sysop. I clearly understand the stipulation that a Global steward should not normally involve with the steward-related affairs within his/her home wikis or such other Wikimedia projects where there could be even a trace of perceived CoI. Should there arise any such scenario, my strategy will be to contact and hand over the case to any local stewards to take care of the situation without forwarding any of my personal biases along. In exceptional and emergency situations, I will ensure that I have first gone through and / or reviewed all pertaining norms and practices adaptable to that particular case, consult with peer global stewards and only then initiate any use of my own steward privileges and tools observing full compliance with them. --ViswaPrabhaവിശ്വപ്രഭ^talk 21:28, 28 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I consider to these are Japanese projects, meta, and wikidata. When emergency occurred at my home wikis, and need to change an user rights for that measures, I'll request it to another stewards in first. if another stewards were not available, I'll talk it to local bureaucrats or sysops. Then these were not available or if they are agreed to that, I'll do it. --rxy (talk) 12:08, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Rs, thanks for the question. I consider the Azerbaijani Wikipedia as my home wiki. According to the rules: such situations should be left to neutral stewards; stewards should use their judgment to avoid conflicts of interest, situations where they are not impartial to the decision. --►Cekli 829 18:27, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
For me clearly Polish Wikipedia is the home. As the rules have been implemented to avoid possible conflicts of interests I will, of course, not use the Stewards tools except for the urgent cases required to protect the project. Of course I will use the tools which the polish Wikipedia community elected me to use. masti <dyskusja> 17:47, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Rschen7754 (2)

What important personal qualities do you believe that stewards should have? --Rs chen 7754 22:26, 16 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your question. Patience is key, because much of the steward's work involves communicating with less experienced users. I also consider the honesty important, as well a good judgement. I think that with these three qualities, the chances of becoming a good steward increase - a lot. Érico (talk) 01:11, 18 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think humility is the most important quality that any stewards need. Also need ability to learn and understand user's needs anytime. More important is to pay attention, do a good investigation and understand what the user want it means with his request. Need to do all of this before take any decision and solve request. Also, sometimes patience is significant. Thanks for your time to ask your question.- 我叫 BlackBeast Do you need something? 你问问什么？ 19:13, 18 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for this question as well. As steward tools come with a lot of liabilities, it requires complete trustworthiness which stewards should have. Stewards should be honest with their work and to the community. They should be helpful to people by delivering proper guidance. Other than those, they should be capable of judging consensus neutrally, have a better communication skills and understanding of diverse Wikimedia movement. Nevertheless, they should be committed to the project by their activity and collaboration with other stewards. Regards, ~ Nahid ^Talk 20:41, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That's one tricky question, really made me think ;) Well, I would mainly consider wikiqualities when voting for or against a steward (their experience, activity, knowledge of projects, etc.). But of course they should be complemented with these personal qualities you mentioned. So, on the personal side, I would say that stewards overall should be... nice ;) They should have patience and be understanding when answering requests and dealing with other users. Also with great power comes great responsibility, so they should be careful with the tools. Ability to work together as a team is also important in my eyes. I'd say some assertiveness and ability to thrive under the pressure is more than welcome. Also I generally agree with opinions of other candidates above ;) Greets, tufor (talk) 22:28, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Patience, since they deal with different kind of users, both more and less experienced and some of them will take more time to understand somethings, self-reflection, honesty, they should also think very well before doing something and keeping calm, not let trolls affecting them with their behavior. Matiia (talk) 05:08, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Patience and good communication skills — especially when dealing with requests/complaints from users whose native language is different from that of the steward. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 04:10, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I believe being honest, ready to help, patience and most importantly, adopting a non-egoistic style of working are most important for any steward. --Muzammil (talk) 08:51, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think there are many qualities that a steward should have, as good knowledge of global policies and of differences between projects, good counter vandalism/spam experience, good cross-wiki experience, patience (as expressed by my fellows), etc., but I think that the most important are honesty and common sense. I also think that a good steward should be kindly with other users and should assume good faith, when possible.--Syum90 (talk) 09:51, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Self-Integrity and an ever-sustaining neutral point of view should be the prime qualities for a steward. Ability to comprehend a situation in its thorough and systematic background, awareness of both short-term and long term repercussions of one's action as a steward, maturity in judgement of a case even when it may involve a different culture and language should all add up to his/her credentials as a valuable long term asset to the Wikimedia mission. ViswaPrabhaവിശ്വപ്രഭ^talk 21:41, 28 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Patience, honesty, humilty, willingness to apologise and step back when making a mistake, common sense and good communication skills are the qualities I would emphasize. Defender (talk) 20:28, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think these are accountability and common sense. For accountability: When using steward rights, they abide by each policies, and that must be able to explain the policy that became the basis of the action. That is relevant to transparency. If not given a reason when using rights, That might seem suspicious. Common sense is important. because it greatly affects the urgent action. I agree also to other candidates.--rxy (talk) 12:08, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Patience, honesty, humilty, justice, justice, justice and justice... According to the rules: steward should always be neutral; Their task is to implement valid community consensus within the bounds of the Foundation's goals... --►Cekli 829 18:32, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
ability to have a look from the neutral point of view, not beeing hot-tempered are the most important ones for me. The other one are communication skills and ability to have a global overview of the situaton, ability to join the fact happening in different places which is important for cross wiki vandalism fighting. Knowing the rules is an absolute must. masti <dyskusja> 17:52, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Teles

In which areas of contribution you believe a steward should be experienced, but you didn't have the opportunity or interest to work on it? Why?—Teles «Talk to me ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 20:49, 28 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Teles, thanks for your question. Stewards should be experienced in many different areas and all of them are linked to the tools/rights they have. I am vandalism-fighting type of user, so locking/gblocking would not be a problem – I have broad experience. Stewards have access to CU and OS tools on many small wikis, so they should know how they work. I haven't held any of these advanced rights on any Wikimedia project, because on my home wiki (pl.wikipedia) we have a group of active CUs and OS' and there was no need for any additional user to help with the backlog. When I asked our oversighters or checkusers to check a user/hide a content I never had to wait too long. However I had the opportunity to see how these tools look like on a private testwiki; that way I co-created a small tool for oversighters (it worked on that testwiki and I heard it worked on plwiki as well). I also know the policies (privacy, checkuser, oversight). Also, stewards are responsible for granting or removing rights where local bureaucrats are either nonexistent or inactive (or they technically cannot grant/remove rights, like OS/CU ;) I cannot have any experience with that - but I know the rules regarding that issue. Also, one of main duties is renaming users and I do not have experience with that either. I have never applied to become a global renamer, again because I haven't felt like my hand would be much of use; however back in April 2015 I was, along with pl steward Einsbor, informing and helping plwiki users with the process. Also, there is this need of global experience: well, statistically I may not look as good as some of the other candidates, but I have some experience with smaller wikis as I was a global rollbacker and an active member of swmt team. I hope I answered your question fully - if not, don't hesitate to ask for details :-) Greets, tufor (talk) 22:50, 28 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the question. Though Steward candidates should have the prior experience in many areas and the ability to execute them with consciousness, I believe all stewards don’t necessarily need to have the interest or ability to work on all areas they have access to. That is why we have a lot of them and each of them have their own expertise and interest to work on the fields they are interested. For example, occasionally stewards need to write global policies and all of them don't necessarily need to have the ability of writing those policies. As for myself, I'm not much of a policy maker so direct involvement to that work in that particular area will be hard for me. Although I am fully capable of expressing my opinion and review the details. As I actively contributed to cross-wiki vandal and spam fighting, and monitored small projects as global sysop, so I’m much interested to continue that work further. To do so properly, I also need to be familiarized with the CU and OS tools which I don’t have any idea with. But I am aware of the CU and and related policies and have actively participated in processing several of those requests before. Regards, ~ Nahid ^Talk 06:15, 31 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Teles, there are mainly three areas in my case regarding your question: renaming, checkuser and oversight.

I've never been a global renamer so I haven't had the opportunity to rename users, but I know the relevant policy and I've studied also Help:Renaming users and Help:Unified login ; in addition to this I've followed some cases on SRUC. If elected as steward I would study again the policy and help pages and I would start managing simple cases at Spanish and Catalan wikipedias and Steward requests/Username changes#Simple rename requests; then, I would manage gradually more complex cases at SRUC#Requests involving merges, usurps or other complications. Anyway, if in doubt I would request help from experienced stewards or global renamers.
I've never used checkuser tools because there are no local CU's on two of my three home wikis, Catalan Wikinews and Spanish Wikibooks, and on the third, Meta, there is an excellent group of CU's, all of them much more experienced administrators than me. I know the relevant policies (Privacy policy , checkuser policy , access to nonpublic information policy ) and I've studied several tutorials as Help:CheckUser or mw:Extension:CheckUser. If elected as steward I would study again the involved policies and tutorials and I would start managing non controversial cases as per example spambot checkings, requesting second opinion from experienced stewards; and then I would manage gradually more complex cases, always requesting second opinion if in doubt.
Same case with oversight tools as with CU. I know the relevant policies (Oversight policy , privacy policy, access to nonpublic information policy) and I think I could learn using the tools soon. Anyway, if in doubt I would request help from experienced stewards. Regards. Syum90 (talk) 10:05, 1 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've profound interest to work as a steward but lacked the opportunity for the same. Yes, the actual usage of the tools could be as much new to me as to other contenders, but I am sure I will grasp the nitty-gritty soon just as my adminship has been free from user complaints. --Muzammil (talk) 19:22, 1 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As you may have noted elsewhere at the bottom of this page, I am intending to progress as a steward step-by-step, catering to different degrees of requests appropriate to my previous experiences. In my homewiki, much deliberations were taken place before we appointed two designated CUs. I was part of the deliberations and discussions before we set our long term policy on CU. This has given me some significant background on the need, scope and responsibility of CU tools. I also used to be superadmin of a few small private Wikis as well as the internal and open wikis of WMIN. These positions have yielded me moderate exposure to most of the jobs a steward has to tend to. Nevertheless, I am conscious of the fact that I will need to reinforce my understanding and skills on each of these tools as the occasions arrive. With patience and adaptability, I am sure, within a short time, I can come up at par with a seasoned steward. Besides the above, amicably interacting with hitherto unfamiliar language communities and cultures could be an area where I might need to garner more experience. ViswaPrabhaവിശ്വപ്രഭ^talk 20:46, 1 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there are so many areas. However, knowing how it works each project it would be helpful when a steward use their tools. I think a steward need the experience to fight vandalism and how to do crosswiki edits. I never have the opportunity to use oversight tools, although I want it to, because this is an important area wich any steward need to have some knowledge. Work in maintenance in each project also is important, but is no esential. Thanks for your question.- 我叫 BlackBeast Do you need something? 你问问什么？ 17:27, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your questions. If there have an experience of local CheckUser, I think that is helpful for handling SRCU. I didn't have an opportunity to become a local CheckUser because I did not yet reached the age of majority until a year ago (During this time, I was taking a wikibreak until this month). If who use a CU tools, they should be understand about computer network system in order to not be fooled by clever attackers. And that is useful for calculating a CIDR ranges. For example to anti CU, attackers can be spoofing an User Agent or a remote-hostname (attacker having the delegated IP address and manages reverse DNS server). I have an experience of using steward tools at own wiki. For this, I already understand what effect by steward rights, and how to use those.--rxy (talk) 12:08, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As a current Oversighter on enwiki, I already have experience with the Oversight and Undelete tools. I also have limited CheckUser experience, due to my having been on the enwiki Audit Subcommittee. Areas where I know I will need to gain experience as a steward would include dealing with permissions, username changes, and bots. And, again, I expect I won't be performing any steward actions on enwiki (my home wiki), except in emergency situations. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 06:25, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

On the road according to the rules. As much as possible in all areas.--►Cekli 829 18:12, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Having experience with most of the tools on Polish Wikipedia I would like to expand my experience to crosswiki vandalism fight. This is the aera which requires fast reaction and ability to correlate actions happenig in deifferent places. Other tools, like right changes, do not require such rapid actions. masti <dyskusja> 17:59, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Teles, olá, obrigado por tua pergunta. I do not think stewards should act and be interested in all areas. I do not intend to work with the granting of bot rights, because I believe that I have limited experience in this area and I can contribute more adequately in others (cross wiki spam/vandalism fight, for example). Throughout my time as wikimedian, I had the pleasure to work in various areas related with the steward's work. As local sysop of a big wiki (the ptwiki), I've dealt with many conflicts between users, as well helping in various other activities, such blocks requests and user rights managment. As a bureaucrat, I gained a lot of experience with the renaming process, which subsequently I started to do as global renamer. I also had the honor to receive the trust of my homewiki to act as checkuser. With these right, I learned to cope better with the privacy policy and with the tool itself. Globally, I approached of small wikis and learned a lot about their problems, needs and qualities. Whenever I can, I help these wikis. However, I never was oversight, but I did some requests that were done. Furthermore, I know and agree to abide by the policy related to this rights. Érico (talk) 23:23, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Ganímedes

Hi, as there was any answer from Mattia, I ask all candidates, if you don´t mind. I see that among the functions of Stewards are oversight and checkuser. Concerning to these points, I would like to ask you:

What do you think about the possibility of keep private information over 90 days in the wiki only for CU?
For how long do you think this info should be kept?
In your opinion, how and in what circumstances can a user request the deletion of his data from this CU wiki?

Thanks a lot. Regards. --Ganímedes (talk) 11:41, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Same as on #Matiia. Matiia (talk) 17:42, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hola Ganímedes. I am in favor of open information. But with respect to security issues, I think it is imperative to remain confidential for a certain period. --►Cekli 829 18:08, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but this info, get with WMF tools from WMF users, is safe in a wiki outside WMF, for long more than the 90 days WMF says. And, even when these users could be dangerous, their data are still protected by law in several countries. So, do you still think the end justifies the means? Thanks. --Ganímedes (talk) 23:38, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ganímedes. Well, let me answer your questions:

To me it's ok. It is necessary to maintain at least for a while this kind of info.
It depends of what kind of use the user does have with it. For example, SPAM, vandalism, etc. But, no more that the necessary time.
Well, any user any time can do that request. However, if an user have some history with vandalism or SPAM, it has to be analyzed before proceed with the request.

Thanks for your questions.- 我叫 BlackBeast Do you need something? 你问问什么？ 00:54, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

First two questions have nothing to do with these elections - I rather see it as taking local discussion on the global waters. And indeed before the proposed change is applied, a global discussion is needed (AFAIK local wikis cannot change these 90 days to any other number themselves, can they?). But this discussion shouldn't commence here, on steward elections questions page; I'd rather see a RfC on that matter. I'd also like to point that stewards do not create/change policies themselves – only community by reaching consensus can do that. And yes, stewards are (entrusted with advanced rights) part of this community, so they can freely express their view just like everyone else. And yes, they are often asked to close RfCs but for that occasion they must get rid of their own views and remain neutral – they cannot force their will with the force they wield: they must obey certain rules and policies. Therefore as it isn't related to this particular event I'm participating in (steward elections) I am not going to answer first two questions. I can see that third question may contain bits of steward work, but I am afraid I can't answer it properly. I have never been CU myself, I've never seen CU wiki. I'm not sure how non-CU might know that there is their file there. Also, as it is a wiki, anyone who has an access to view the contents can see what is posted and, unless that wiki is monitored by WMF staff that has an account there with oversight rights and uses it in some cases, can see anything and nothing can be truly deleted. But if someone knew that their name is on that checkuserwiki (and the content there is deletable/hideable) they must provide good reasons to delete/hide it. If they suspect some abusive use of checkuser rights they can report it to the Ombudsman commission. Well... there's much guessing in my answer to your question. As I mentioned earlier I do not have any experience with that tool so I cannot answer properly. Sorry :) Greets, tufor (talk) 01:40, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ganimedes, the Checkuser Wiki (checkuser.wikimedia.org) is under the control of the Wikimedia Foundation (not "in a wiki outside WMF"). I'm not violating security by disclosing its location, BTW; it is password-protected, and the only active accounts are for people with a current need to access it — all of whom, of course, must identify themselves to the WMF. I used to have access to the Checkuser Wiki when I was a member of the enwiki Audit Subcommittee, but my account was disabled after my term on that committee was up (I tried logging in just now, just to see if I could, but I couldn't). The data in the CU wiki is very helpful when CU's are investigating long-term abuse by people who continue to disrupt Wikipedia (via sockpuppet accounts or while logged out) long after they have been indefinitely blocked. I am not an expert in EU privacy legislation, and I will defer to the WMF's legal department for any decisions on whether or how often the CU wiki should be periodically pruned; I don't believe this question is germane to the steward election process. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 07:06, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ganímedes, I never had access to CU interface, so I don’t have the idea on how the informations are stored there and how we can actually access and analyze them. I plan to learn that during my term as a newly appointed ombudsman and also if I get elected, as a steward as well. But for the moment I will try to answer your questions per my understanding so far.

I don’t understand a thing from the discussion link you mentioned (as it is in Spanish which I don’t know) but I believe it is okay to store private informations for 90 days. More is not really necessary in most cases.
I believe it depends on the individual case. For a user who has a long history of cross-wiki vandalism and spamming, it might be useful for the CU to see their history for more than 90 days but more or less it shouldn’t ring a bell to me as we mostly focus on the recent activities of a bad-faith user. Also if you store the private information for a long time, that increases the risk of being abused by a CU (just in case).
I believe it depends on the user and his or her reasoning. Regards, ~ Nahid ^Talk 14:05, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Sorry but what the privacy policy covers (or not), I think is clearly described here and here (mind that the maximum retention time of Personal information is escribed in there in the following way: "After at most 90 days, it will be deleted, aggregated, or anonymized"). If special rules apply to some "unknown and secret wikis", I think it would make sense to mention them there and specify that ("After 90 days, checkuser decides, with no accountability and no rules which personal information is kept and for how long"). You see that the privacy policy and associated data retention guidelines do not mention any "secret wikis" at all). Moreover, I have never agreed on my private data being stored in a "secret wiki" which can be acessed by 190 persons and whose working rules I do not know. In fact, what I've explictly agreed and acknowledged is to let my personal data be available for 90 days. Beyond that, my personal data MUST be deleted, aggregated or anonymized. We, contributors to the Wikimedia projects, do accept to edit here under written rules, not under "secret" rules. Mar del Sur (talk) 14:48, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question: : In any case, if there is a "misunderstanding", I think Ganimedes' question suggests the issue of how you may tell a person whether data on him/her are handled in this wiki or not, and, according to the law, how precisely a user can request their deletion if the user does not agree. My understanding is that such storage is directly illegal under European legislation and possibly also under the US jurisdiction, as the WMF is telling one thing (privacy policy and data retention guidelines) and doing just the opposite (setting up a wifi for third parties to "secretly" the personal information the WMF committed to erase. Mind that checkusers are given such information by the WMF and all of them are identified by the WMF. The discussion exceeds the frame of this election (a RfC would be possibly needed), but more plainly, what is your opinion on this topic? I guess, if someone is a candidate for Steward, he or she will have thought about these issues. His/her view on data privacy and respect of the European law on the protection of private data is very important for me in defining my vote. The secret checkuser's wiki is only an example, but a very good example to evaluate your position regarding privacy in general. Mar del Sur (talk) 14:48, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ganímedes, I feel views for your questions are similar to Mar--Muzammil (talk) 16:36, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

it is always a balance between privacy and ability to protect Wikimedia projects from vandalism. As CheckUser I would like to keep this data longer but as a citizen shorter. So I think current 90 days is a good balance. One can tell the data is kept in the logs from the Data retention guidelines. But to request removal You have to proof that this is Your data which can be difficult as we do not work with real names which can be easily checked. masti <talk> 20:13, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ganímedes, in my opinion it can be useful keeping this kind of information in cases of vandalism, spamming or abuse of multiple accounts, but always respecting policies and legality, off course. It can be useful not only for checkusers in order to investigate possible abuses but also to permit the involved users to prove their innocency in the future. In this sense there is an exemption that allows keeping this kind of information for more than 90 days not being aggregated or anonymized as described at Data_retention_guidelines#Exceptions_to_these_guidelines. In my opinion all private information from users that are not being investigated or have been declared guilty on checkuser investigations should be deleted, aggregated or anonymized automatically after 90 days so it should not be necessary for any user to request its deletion. For users involved on checkuser investigations I'm not sure for how long this information should be stored, but, as I've mentioned before, this information could be useful also for the involved users in order to demonstrate their innocency in the future; obviously this amount of time should not exceed that permitted legally. Thanks and regards. Syum90 (talk) 10:34, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ganímedes, hola, gracias por preguntar. Your concerns are valid and consistent, which I also share. As local checkuser, I have access to checkuser wiki, which proves to be exceptionally important to the work of the checkusers team. The Wikimedia says that the private data of non-problematic users are stored for a maximum of 90 days and this is true. However, the Wikimedia authorizes the storage of private data from users with disruptive behavior - creating various illicit socks or spamming, for example. So it is important to say that private data from normal editors are not kept for more than 90 days (they are not even collected to the checkuser wiki). Érico (talk) 23:45, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Requests from PokestarFan or ThePokeWikipedian

If there was a major edit war going on in multiple wikis with multiple users per wiki, how would you react and what would you do? PokestarFan (talk) 16:18, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Good example: conflict resolution between two sysops of two different Wikipedias.--Muzammil (talk) 16:46, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Answer this question: Who and why are they fighting? Solution: talk. --►Cekli 829 06:58, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Mabelina

A question from Mabelina: Is it good use of Admin power to block a contributor (i.e. User:Mabelina) on account of allegedly "wasting the community's time" whilst in the middle of an MOS discussion? -- Mabelina (talk) 00:32, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As a general rule, blocking users while discussions are still in progress is not a good practice. --Muzammil (talk) 04:46, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I assume we're referring to this discussion on the enwiki administrators' incident noticeboard. I interpret "wasting the community's time" as basically equivalent to "exhausting the community's patience" — a concept which is recognized in enwiki's "Disruptive Editing" guideline and "Don't Call Editors Trolls" essay, and which was also mentioned in the 2009 enwiki "Fringe Science" arbitration case. While the phrase is certainly open to misuse, in this particular situation it appears to be a reasonable response to a long-lasting pattern of disruptive editing; a "stubborn and troubling refusal ... to accept concepts like consensus"; and accusing those who have attempted to offer constructive criticism of being abusive, threatening, or libellous. So I see nothing wrong with the administrator's action in this situation. In any case, I'm not convinced this question is in scope for stewards (much less for the steward elections). — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 05:35, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Rich wales : yours is a thoughtful answer for which many thanks. I raise this matter from personal experience, which is a somewhat laboriously uninspiring stream of exchanges to encounter, involving WP:DISRUPT and perhaps WP:TROLL? although this is the first I have heard of the latter. In a nutshell, how would you resolve the differences in English given that all its various forms, including American, Canadian, Australian, etc.. fall under one banner? M Mabelina (talk) 08:21, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question (2) for all candidates from Mabelina

How to reconcile the differences between various idioms of the English language? Which is paramount & when? M Mabelina (talk) 08:32, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Stewards candidates are for sure not the right body to define the meaning of words. masti <talk> 12:35, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with masti, but would like to add that in any online exchange of communication across Wikis there is ample scope for clearing any inadvertent misunderstanding which might crop up at any time, in a polite and friendly manner. --Muzammil (talk) 12:54, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Mabelina: Please do not post irrelevant questions --Shanmugamp7 ^(talk) 19:38, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question for all candidates from 6AND5

As a steward, what will You offer in this situation - User talk:Taketa#Request (2)--6AND5 (talk) 20:03, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

looking into the link provided and block/unblock history on hy.wiki one can offer mediation but the conflict itself has to be sorted within community. masti <talk> 22:25, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with masti. --Muzammil (talk) 05:54, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I opened page the page here - Armenian users who want to have removed the indefinite block with the user:6AND5 in the Armenian Wikipedia--6AND5 (talk) 11:06, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. As stated in the Taketa's talk page, stewards are no arbitrators and this is a local matter. So, it is necessary that the community decides on your unblock. Obviously stewards may interfere in wikis without community or with temporary sysops, but this is not the case. Kind regards. Érico (talk) 18:58, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Dear 6AND5, Looking into the discussion above I'm certainly agree with Taketa that this is something within the local community and should be addressed locally. In Wikimedia projects, we practice that if most of the community members support/oppose something, so be it (even if someone disagree with the outcome). With that said, you should start the discussion page on local Wikipedia first, not in here because I don't believe most of the local members of the armenian Wikipedia is aware of your sub-page discussion here in meta. So it won't do any good IMHO. Simple solution is (ask someone) to start that discussion in the local project where you're blocked. Best, ~ Nahid ^Talk 21:44, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Dear User:NahidSultan, very interesting, when start hitting on a woman sysop - Lilitik22 (when she offered to remove my block (November, 2015), one of the user began the attacks against her, another user began to discuss her life. When one of the user said that it is impossible with such a tone to speak with her, started to attack him, and so on), when in armenian Wikipedia does not work the laws, what to say? who said that the majority is opposed, why on meta (Armenian users who want to have removed the indefinite block with the user:6AND5 in the Armenian Wikipedia) to vote for withdrawal, and on Wikipedia no. You can ask Facebook to Susanna Mkrtchyan what she wants from me, why the sysop, who blocked me everywhere screaming her name. Why one of the users in this sysop said that he, as a warrior should not leave the battlefield?
This sysop still writes insults and slander to my address on armenian Wikipedia and no one says nothing, because there are people there that are above all wiki laws... Why should I go the headquarters of the organization Wikimedia Armenia, to have removed my block?--6AND5 (talk) 23:05, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand why it is so hard to start a discussion locally even if someone disagree. If you discuss locally, the matter will be settled with the fair statement from both sides. The outcome might be in favor of you or against you. You'll then have a fair judgement to know whether or not the block is being supported by the community. Wouldn’t that make a lot more sense to start the same discussion locally? Since you started the discussion on Taketa's talkpage and EE2016 question section in here, 6 different users (including me) have suggested that it should be discussed within the local community and I'm sorry that you're disappointed regarding my above response and changed your vote into "NO", yet I still believe this is not something steward can interfere. And for Wikimedia Armenia, local chapters are independent associations with no legal control of or responsibility for the websites of the Wikimedia Foundation and vice versa. Regards, ~ Nahid ^Talk 02:27, 20 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse me, I have the impression that You can't hear me. For example masti suggested mediation (that is the difference). Takеta acknowledged that the sysop who blocked not properly done, as was in discussions with me. And therefore I voted for, and not against--6AND5 (talk) 10:59, 20 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
First, I need to say that I haven't been able to study this particular dispute in detail, since I know absolutely no Armenian at all. In general, I agree that there probably ought to be some forum, somewhere, which can investigate claims that the local admins on some wiki have (allegedly) gone rogue and are (allegedly) disrespecting the fundamental core principles which all Wikimedia projects are expected to follow. But, in practice, no such body exists. I suppose you could go all the way to the top and try to convince the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees to look into your grievances, but I really, really doubt they would be willing to do anything at all unless they felt the situation was truly, outrageously egregious (and probably not even then). In any case, though, stewards definitely do not have the authority to intervene in the goings-on of a wiki as big as the Armenian Wikipedia, which currently has almost 200,000 articles and (I assume) plenty of local admins. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 01:38, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Richwales:, armenian Wikipedia for its owner now has 9 sysops. 5 of them do not say what they think about blocking. 2 against a permanent block, 2 support the permanent block. Real Armenian Wikipedia is not large, there are all the issues solved some people. Yes has about 200000 article, but this figure (numeral) is only.--6AND5 (talk) 11:28, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Questions to all candidates from Roxyuru

What would you do in these hypothetical situations? / Would you describe these situations as Wikihounding and/or Harassment? / What would you do in these situations?

1. A Wikipedia user often receives messages from five users that support one another, including an administrator (bibliotecario) overcriticizing the articles he/she has translated. They delete the articles and they tell this user not to create new articles in Wikipedia anymore.

2. A Wikipedia user, who is a professor, is part of an Education Program. He/she is systematically criticized by certain users for the quality of the articles his/her students are creating, and state in his/her user discussion page that he/she does not know how to teach. They follow every single edition he/she and his/her students make, and question the relevance of each article in which they edit, including those created by other users, assuming that they belong to the Education program. Most of the articles are deleted.

3. A Wikipedia user decides to take wikivacations in one Wikipedia (the Spanish Wikipedia). He/she is criticized over his/her decision and gets a message from a user in the Spanish Wikipedia stating that he/she is not actually on Wikivacations since he/she is editing or answering messages in the English Wikipedia.

4. A Wikipedia administrator (bibliotecario) or a user accuses another Wikipedia user of Conflict of Interest and he/she adds a picture trying to reveal the user identity, falsely, in this accused user discussion page. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Roxyuru (talk)

All of this situations could be treated as harassment depending on details which are not stated in question. First WikiLove principles should be applied. They should be discussed on wiki were they take place. But, once again, this is not the case for Stewards. They should be solved locally by community or ArbCom if one exist. As long as there is no cross-wiki Arbitration Committee which could deal with situations of action happening in different projects. Case #4 should be treated by an Oversighter if there is one on that wiki. masti <talk> 19:42, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Per candidate

Aursani

Question from Rschen7754:

What do you plan to do with the steward tools? --Rs chen 7754 17:56, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

BlackBeast

Question from Steinsplitter:

Under which circumstances it is allowed to emergency desysop a user? --Steinsplitter (talk) 10:17, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Steinsplitter. I think it depends of some cirscumstances. For example: user's attitude, local ambient and why is necessary that request.

If the user abuse the privilege, attacking, charging or doing some damage against other users, we must act before it causes more damage. Otherwise, it could create a bad ambient where other users feel uncomfortable to edit or share in the community with Wikipedians.
When in any Wikipedia a tense atmosphere is created, the sysop must act to calm the situation. However, when a sysop rather than calm, helps keep the bad atmosphere, it's important to analyze whether the desysop is necessary. The analysis will help to know how feasible it is the emergency desysop.
Sometimes one or more users request that to desysop an user. It may be users with intentions of revenge, that when solving some situations, they may not like how or what he did. Those applications have to study the situation well. It may even be a bad attitude, or a set of situations that lead to the emergency desysop.
Of course, there are some decisions based on feedback by the community. Of course, when a community makes decisions of this kind, it is allowed to desysop request.

Thanks for your time to ask your question.- 我叫 BlackBeast Do you need something? 你问问什么？ 03:53, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Jianhui67:

Hi BlackBeast! Thank you for your application! Consider the following hypothetical situation. Please describe and detail how you would handle this if you were elected as a steward, and try to answer it without asking somebody for more information. Please note that these scenarios are not taken from real-life situations but are purely fictional stories.

There is a massive vandalism and spam attack at Hebrew Wikivoyage and a user there informs you by email in emergency that he would require administrator tools to clean up the mess and for the future in case the vandal strikes again under another IP.

Thank you in advance for your answer! Jianhui67^{talk★contribs} 17:20, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Jianhui67. A very analytical question. I promise I didn't ask anyone to answer you. Well, I believe that there are several ways to solve such situations. I can encourage to the user to make that request in SRP, where other stewards can help him resolve the situation. It is also good to see if the user needs to have the tool permanently, because probably may only need to resolve that situation. However, sometimes there are few users on these projects, making it necessary to give this tool to maintain order. Although is needed, it does not mean we can give all users of small projects that tool. A local request in the village pump (or equivalent) is necessary to granting a right, also it's important to consider the user, his attitude, his experience, his motivation. Give the tool to someone inexperienced, with just the emotion of having it, can make the user acting on inexperience and we end up solving what he did wrong. So, the way I handle this situation will be:

Look activity of massive vandalism Hebrew Wikivoyage to see how bad is the situation or if it is still in process.
Look global contributions to know what kind of user is, age (I consider it important, age is maturity), experience, other user's rights.
Confirm if there is no other user with that tool in Hebrew Wikivoyage.
If no other user with the tool, ask if he do a local request in Hebrew Wikivoyage's village pump. If he did not, encourage to do it before request the tool.
Analyze his contributions or activity in Hebrew Wikivoyage.
If local request in Hebrew Wikivoyage's village pump is accepted, I proceed to give the tool.
If there are any user who answer the request, but have rights on another projects, I proceed to give the tool. Have expierence and it's trusted by the community.
If the user does not complete the requirements I mentioned above or you may request by emotion, I do not proceed to give the tool.
If I don't have a clear decision, I will ask to other stewards with more experience to help me solve the situation.
If it is permanent or not to keep the tool depends on how severe the situation is and if is needed to maintain constant surveillance activities.

Hope to answer your question. I like it, because help me to think clearly and well thought. Thanks for your time.- 我叫 BlackBeast Do you need something? 你问问什么？ 03:53, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Rschen7754:

Serving as a steward often leads to dealing with unpleasant issues, including but not limited to helping those dealing with doxing and real-world harassment and communicating with WMF about legal issues. Is this something that you are prepared to handle if elected? --Rs chen 7754 19:32, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Rs, thanks for your question. I am aware of what is involved, especially for what might happen if I am elected. Doxing, real-world harassment and legal issues, for sure are the most delicate manners to attack a person. However, I am prepared to assume this responsibility (despite possible attacks angainst me) to solve those "unpleasant issues" and deal with it. To be prepared to deal with those issues is something hard to do, but there are so many experimented users, who can help me to have that experience what I need to have. Thanks for your time.- 我叫 BlackBeast Do you need something? 你问问什么？ 23:09, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Maragm:

I see that when you responded to Steinsplitter’s question, you said that if a sysop does damage, action must be taken to prevent further damage. You also said that sysops must act to calm the situation. Going over your votes in two desysop cases at es.wiki, you voted in favor of keeping the sysops and in those two processes, there were sufficient votes against and both were desysoped. The first case involved the dissemination of private personal data obtained as a checkuser coupled with doxing (disclosing private data, including the Facebook page of a user at the local village pump).In the second case, a clear example of conflict of interests, the sysop, using an undeclared sockpuppet account argued with another user and then, putting on the sysop hat, blocked the same user and used his oversight tools to erase the incriminating evidence. In both cases, there was flagrant misuse of the sysop, checkuser, and oversight tools yet by voting in favor of their keeping their tools, you seemed to approve such behavior. As a steward, would you condone such actions? Did you vote in favor of the two sysops because you considered no harm had been done and/or that they had not misused their tools? Needless to say, I am not criticizing those who voted in favor, but given the responsibilities of a steward, particularly because of access to private data, I want to be certain that you will not approve these practices should you be elected.--Maragm (talk) 07:54, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Maragm. I think you have a confusion. Approve the actions of a user or vote for a user to continues to perform a task, it does not mean I'm going to act the same. I do not approve "these practices" you mentioned. I do vote in favor to they to keep their sysop tools, because I consider that they did a good work as sysop. However, a dissemination of private personal information was did it against one of those users. But is not the point here, although I do not approve those actions, I do not consider that voting in favor means that I will act like they did. When you said that I "seemed to approve such behavior", looks like you already take a decision. So, you can be certain that I will not approve these practices, and I will keep doing my work as I been doing with my sysop tools. Thanks for your questions.- 我叫 BlackBeast Do you need something? 你问问什么？ 00:39, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Winterysteppe (EnWiki):

Imagine you are the user Hawkeye7 on EnWiki. What would you do if you came across a situation like the Civility Enforcement action that happened in the EnWiki? Winterysteppe (talk) 17:35, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair to the candidate, this question has nothing to do with stewards. --MF-W 17:46, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from The Average Wikipedian (enwiki, zhwiki, etc.):

In what situations would you consider ignoring some (or all) rules, and refer to a past case where, if you were a steward, would have chosen not to follow usual procedures if possible. The Average Wikipedian (talk) 15:47, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cekli829

Question from Steinsplitter:

Your candidature wasn't successful in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. What do you believe has changed since the last five candidatures? --Steinsplitter (talk) 16:02, 29 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Respecting tradition, I stand as a candidate again this time because the current rules allow me to become a candidate. Actually to be a candidate for the previous 6 elections was a great experience for me. Thus, further the elections has an important role in the improvement of my activity, forming as a professional wiki... --►Cekli 829 08:49, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So, you are a candidate only because rules allow you so and "tradition"? Can you explain the joke for people like me who is not getting it?
Do you understand that you actually didn't answer what was asked to you?—Teles «Talk to me ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 16:21, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiness is my lifestyle. I think, diversity within stewards is very important. I will be happy if I'll be able to serve as a steward and help to current stewards and everyone from our different procejcts. --►Cekli 829 18:19, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Actually six: 2011-2. --Rs chen 7754 18:00, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Very true! :)--►Cekli 829 08:49, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The problem at hywiki is not easily solvable. 6AND5 even says his neutral vote on last year's election even leads to a block.--GZWDer (talk) 13:46, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think that 6AND5's actions are completely irrelevant here as he was not blocked after voting but blocked himself. While Armenian/Azerbaijani problem is indeed not easily solvable, Steinsplitter asked a valid question and Cekli829's answer would be appreciated — NickK (talk) 01:16, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say that I got the block for a neutral voice. I only said that one of the causes of my problems in the Armenian Wikipedia was a neutral voice. All my blocks, including the self-blocking, is a separate series of one story. And the main reason for the block that there are not working laws.--6AND5 (talk) 19:39, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Whoever blocked me, I in February 2015 was deleted from my page all of his gifts, and he after it for about years can't rest. This is also one of the reasons...--6AND5 (talk) 19:53, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is impossible to solve the problem. It's too early. --►Cekli 829 08:54, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from ԱշոտՏՆՂ

Hi dear Cekli jan. How are you? You are an admin in azwiki. Last year you blocked me for five edits ([1][2][3][4][5]): why?. User Wertuose unblocked me next day. On 4 June user Araz Yaquboglu again blocked me for the same type of edits (for 3 days). On 7 June user Baskervill blocked me for one year. User Sefer azeri said that Baskervill blocked me because of national problems between us.[6] I pinged you many times, I asked you for your help[7] but I am blocked still now for fixing duplicate arguments. So I think you have national problems in wikimedia projects, or you are not so strong to fight against nationalism in a wiki where you are an sysop. Am I right?--ԱշոտՏՆՂ (talk) 21:02, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi ԱշոտՏՆՂ. I have the same problem in a slightly different form Hywiki lived. Ես կարծում եմ, որ դա հարմար է ձեզ համար է հասկանալ, որ հայերին իրենց մայրենի լեզվով, որպեսզի դիմել ձեզ. Եթե դուք ունեք որեւէ սխալ, ես ցավում եմ. Այն լարված հարաբերությունները երկու ժողովուրդների համար երկար տարիներ, որոշ կառավարիչները ի որոշումների, որոնք կարծես ազդում. Հետեւաբար, դուք պետք է զգույշ լինել եւ հրատարակել, որքան հնարավոր է, մինչեւ որեւէ էական փոփոխություն անպայման խորհուրդ ենք տալիս խորհուրդ մյուս օգտվողներին. Uğurlar! --►Cekli 829 06:50, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cekli jan, first of all, the difference is not "slightly". As I know (I have registered on 2014) you have blocked because of vandalism and anti-Armenian nationalistic attitude, as I see[8] you have 13 deleted and 6 live edits. I only have done minor edits. BTW, do you work with "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" principle? if yes, will you continue to work with the same principle as a steward?. Why you copied Sefer azeri's post?[9]--ԱշոտՏՆՂ (talk) 10:06, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ԱշոտՏՆՂ, Sefer azeri has given you the right answer. Also it is noted that, Baskervill was right. Because: Vikipediya:Bloklama qaydaları → Bloklanma səbəbləri → 7. İstifadəçi saxtakarlıqla məşğul olaraq, Vikipediyadanın normal işini pozarsa. Not: Bloklama müddəti idarəçi tərəfindən sərbəst olaraq təyin edilir. --►Cekli 829 11:04, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Sefer azeri said that Baskervill blocked me because of political problems

. [10] Fraud? where? show me links. By the way, why you didn't answer my questions?. --ԱշոտՏՆՂ (talk) 11:45, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sefer azeri also telling the truth. Baskervil made the right move. Because of this behavior - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 - Vikipediyadanın normal işini pozmusunuz. --►Cekli 829 12:09, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your answers, dear Cekli829. Probably you didn't notice this. Thanks, now I can vote--ԱշոտՏՆՂ (talk) 12:41, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ԱշոտՏՆՂ, thanks for the vote! I you "no" was expecting. :) --►Cekli 829 13:38, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ashot, if the laws don't work in armenian Wikipedia (look my blocks), why do you think they should work in azerbaijani Wikipedia? If you have 60-70 edits in azWiki, I have 15000 edits in armWiki, I do a lot, even at night worked on armWikipedia, and now indefinitely blocked, because of this someone receives pleasure...--6AND5 (talk) 12:27, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Bravo 6AND5! You're right! --►Cekli 829 13:38, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  - Unfortunately, my decision was right: our candidate thinks that if laws don't work in A wiki they should not work in B wiki .--ԱշոտՏՆՂ (talk) 14:41, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Aydinsalis:

Wikipedia in the Azerbaijani language, in poor condition. Many complaints had not been dealt with. Meta also does not address our complaints ([11], [12] ). Disgrace, how long will it last? --Idin Mammadof 21:43, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Defender

Question from Rschen7754:

Your edit count is a bit low compared to that of the other candidates; is there any particular reason for this? --Rs chen 7754 19:59, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Rschen7754. On big projects like, for example, the Portuguese Wikipedia, we can make up to 50 edits a day or more by just reverting vandalism and performing maintenance tasks, which doesn't happen for most small wikis, where I've been always more active. Regarding content work, I used to spend more time on major edits where I actually added more content or significantly improved an existing article and less time on minor edits like [13], [14], [15] and [16], which would surely get me a higher editcount. It was just an old custom I had. There were occasions where I edited while logged out on public computers for security reasons, something I don't do anymore. I've also been busy in the past years, so I couldn't contribute as much as I'd like to. These may be the reasons why my editcount is a bit low. Thank you for the question. Defender (talk) 01:57, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from The Average Wikipedian (enwiki, zhwiki, etc.):

Referring to the above question, you said "we" can make up to 50 edits a day... which reads quite weird (though I assume you are referring to Wikipedians in general). Anyway, your statement doesn't seem to highlight how you would become a useful asset to Wikimedia projects by becoming a steward. What do you think makes you special and "vote-worthy", given that your proposed tasks are quite trivial for a steward and you don't appear very free to work? The Average Wikipedian (talk) 15:57, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Érico

Question from Natuur12:

You ran for checkuser at Wikimedia Commons a couple of days ago. Could you please address the concerns raised during this election? Especially the concerns raised by Hulbert and myself. The timeline provided in your statement doesn't explain why you only started using your admintools at Commons shortly before you ran for CU for example and doesn't explain why you became inactive shortly after a huge peak of activity just before you became an admin at Wikimedia Commons and it also doesn't explain why you never did any real admin work at Wikimedia Commons until recent. Natuur12 (talk) 18:48, 17 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, thank you for your question. I opened a RFCU after seeing that the Wikimedia Commons had a small number of checkusers (in my opinion). After somes hours, I decided to withdrawn the request. I decided to do this so that the community didn't lose their time in an request with little chance to being approved due my activity and other reasons unrelated to my conduct. About your argument that "[...] you never did any real admin work at Wikimedia Commons until recent", I strongly disagree and I don't consider this an honest review. In four years, I did over 8,500 administrative actions on Commons (2,611 in 2012, 4,400 in 2013, 805 in 2014 and 760 in 2015). Obviously I'm not the most active sysop / user on Commons, but I use the tools since I was approved. In the other comments, none user questioned my experience, trust, competence or capacity. So, beyond my activity, I don't see anything that requires an explanation. Érico (talk) 01:11, 18 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

They did question your competence. (Too young for the job for example.) And honestly, the number of admin actions you mention. Really not much at a project like Commons. Your logic regarding my review about your admin work contains a flaw. I never mentioned absolute numbers for a reason plus you made most of those actions in a brief timespan. Natuur12 (talk) 01:36, 18 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How they questioned my competence if not presented any questions about my actions? I'm not a fan of numbers, but I need to show them because you shocked me when wrote that I "never did any real admin work at Wikimedia Commons until recent." About my age, I don't consider this an solid argument, since no one showed evidence of immaturity. For those unaware, I became sysop on Portuguese Wikipedia at 14 years, bureaucrat and global sysop at 15 and checkuser at 18 years, 0 months and 1 day. The community of Portuguese Wikipedia (and the global community too, I think) always knew my age and in my RFCU some users wished a "happy birthday". Since I became a checkuser there, none user or other CU questioned my competence for the job or concerns related to immaturity. Érico (talk) 02:43, 18 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Steinsplitter:

At commons:Commons:Checkusers/Requests/Érico Hubertl wrote "(...) Piling up functions - and being proud of it - is always a bit fishy for me." What is piling up functions in your eyes? If you become a Steward: You plan to become moor active on commons or do you plan to resign because lack of time? --Steinsplitter (talk) 12:03, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In my view, "piling up functions" is when you have many rights and not use them. Regarding to the Wikimedia Commons, I don't intend to change my activity (as user and sysop), and this will not change if I become a steward. Thanks for asking. Érico (talk) 00:10, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from vfrickey

Please describe possible reasons for emergency desysopping and the steps recommended prior to taking that step. loupgarous (talk) 03:44, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Vfrickey, hi, thanks for the question. Taking into account that the stewards are not a "global Arbitration Committee", I only would make emergencial removals of sysop rights in extreme cases: compromissed acounts and, in some cases, when a local sysop of a wiki without community commits several errors clearly in bad faith (delete the main page/vital pages and various invalid blocks, for example). In the first case, I would try to contact the sysop and some experienced user of the same wiki of that sysop. If the suspicions and bad faith actions continues, I would remove the tools, except if one 'crat is available in that moment. If I find a bureaucrat of that wiki, and if the wiki in question allows bureaucrats to remove sysop rights locally, I leave to this bureaucrat deciding to remove or not. If none of this is possible, I would remove the tools and warns the local community of these action. Obviously I just remove the tools in the second case if there isn't a community to decide about a desysop process. I hope I answered your question. If questions remain, please let me know. Érico (talk) 02:24, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hindustanilanguage

Hi Muzammil, thank you for your interest to serve as a steward. I have the following questions for you.

Could you please explain why do you still have confirmed and rollbacker rights on Urdu Wikipedia when you are already an administrator there?
I have taken a look at the incidents you mentioned in your statement as collaboration with stewards in regard of cross-wiki spam and counter-vandalism. In my opinion they are more local than global (as they both occurred on wikis that are your home wikis). As a steward you will frequently deal with cross-wiki vandalism and spamming which are far more global (for example in projects that are probably completely unknown to you) than the cases you mentioned. Do you have any other experiences in cross-wiki spam/vandal fighting? I am particularly interested to know if you have done similar work on wikis that are not your home wikis, preferably in regular basis.
You have expressed your interest to help processing SRCU requests if you become a steward. Do you have any prior experience about using this tool? Did you ever file requests to a Checkuser or contribute processing a Checkuser request?

Thank you for your answers in advance. — T. 08:02, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Tanvir, thanks for these thoughtful questions. I fully agree with you that holding "rollbacker" or any other such right is insignificant because I am a Sysop there in any case. I guess it was more of a way things moved. I was granted "rollbacker" status and later became Sysop. You can probably find a similar case in the context some of my colleagues on this Wikipedia such as Obaid Raza.
If you read carefully, in one of the two cases,the incident is wide-spread, i.e. it spread to 30 Wikis as can be seen in this particular section of the archived discussion.
Yes, I had filed one such request.--Muzammil (talk) 09:18, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Muzammil, thanks for showing interest to serve as a steward. I have the following questions for you.

can you place here the link of research work /blogs created on Punjabi (including western Punjabi). I shall be obliged pl.Regards.--Harvinder Chandigarh (talk) 19:01, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Harvinder ji, here is the community interview blog on Punjabi Wikipedia. Also, here is my interview of late Khalid Mahmood (in Urdu) who was instrumental in the launch of Western Punjabi Wikipedia. Thank you.--Muzammil (talk) 19:13, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanx Muzammil ji your efforts are appreciable.--Harvinder Chandigarh (talk) 20:31, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question: Hello,

one of the pages created by you was this one, about an erotic website. Have you been paid for the creation of that article? --Mathmensch (talk) 09:56, 13 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Mathmensch: Thanks for the very important question you've asked. As mentioned in my statement, I wrote extensively on HIV and AIDS control agencies in India. I also wrote about family and other related issued, besides this, I also wrote about some leading websites and other stuff. If you see the content on this article, it is dismally low and a mere mention of a site. If I had to promote this site, I would've written extensively and not restrict to one or two sentences. Compare the content here and that on Sun Yao Ting, the last royal eunuch from China. I hope it will be explicitly clear to you that I had no ulterior motive in writing as I could have written a full-length multi-section article instead of a one-liner or two-liner. Please feel free to revert if you would like to ask any more question. --Muzammil (talk) 12:05, 13 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I do not see the argument that every short article can not be promotional. I can very well imagine somebody writing a short article just in order to place the link for SEO. This would explicitly imply that the content is dismally low and contains a mere mention of a site. This is not to say that you did so. --Mathmensch (talk) 18:39, 13 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was never part of SEO activities, so cannot comment on it. However, I welcome your understanding of my edit as you mentioned in the last part of your comment. --Muzammil (talk) 19:15, 13 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I did not mention anything about my understanding of your edit whatsoever. --Mathmensch (talk) 07:42, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Part of your comment: "This is not to say that you did so". Thanks. --Muzammil (talk) 08:41, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is a part of my comment. And it gives no indication whatsoever regarding my understanding of your edit. If you think it does, your reasoning is very severely flawed indeed, and perhaps you would be well advised to study logic in more depth than you did so far. --Mathmensch (talk) 18:52, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I further want to make clear that I will not continue this discussion. I do not have the time to explain everything to all people. Do me a favor and never get elected steward (or anything else of importance). --Mathmensch (talk) 18:57, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Mathmensch: For your statement: Do me a favor and never get elected steward (or anything else of importance), I never asked your permission for putting up my candidature here or elsewhere and I don't feel any such necessity in future. With regard to your previous statement questioning my logic and rational abilities, I request you to please share the information as to why German Wikipedians indeffed you, especially in the light of the fact that you want to shoo me away from all Wikimedia projects.--Muzammil (talk) 19:08, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Masti

Question from Savh

What do you intent to do as a steward? Sa vh ^ñ 23:08, 17 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank You for the first question :) I would like to be active in Steward requests especially in renames when I am already active as a Global renamer. But the more important thing is cross-wiki vandalism and Long Term Abusers fight having the experience in such actions on pl.wiki and pl.wikimedia. As I understand most of eastern European languages and active in Central and Eastern Europe community I can help small wikis in those languages where there are not enough admins or no CheckUsers. masti <talk> 22:01, 18 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Question from kusurija

Cs.wikipedia is not so small community, but, what is Your opinion about regulating/handling smaller sub-projects as e.g. cs.wikisource, cs.wikiquote, incubator/cs.wikivoyage, sk.wictionary, if there occurs local 'crats abuse of function (e.g. indef. block, other 'crats action against user without special rights). Thanks in advance and sorry for so late asked. --Kusurija (talk) 17:33, 20 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As we can see from various questions asked during this elections smaller projects seem to be more vulnerable to rights abuse or having users feel that their rights have been abused. This is due to the fact that the bigger the community the easier it is to discuss and find consensus when problems arise. But it has to be remembered that Stewards are no supersyosps in a way that they have rights to overrule local elected community members. The role is to help implement community consensus if there are no (or no active) local users with required rights. So local discussion has to be held in all such situations. Stewards can help with mediation if asked having usually experience in dealing with different problems and solutions. masti <talk> 22:18, 20 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
First of all thanks for your volunteering. I am concerned about CENSORSHIP in all its forms on Wikipedia. I would like to know what (if any anything) you concretely plan to do if elected? 47.17.27.189 00: 09, 27 February 2016 (UTC); There is no place for censorship on Wikipedia. There are, of course, edits that should not be visible, but only because they are vulgar or defamatory. There are strict rules for hiding article versions. Encyclopaedic information based on published sources should be available to everyone. If there are contradictory information they all should be published with sources stating various points of view. I do not have anything special in my mind what to do but this is the way I see it. masti <talk> 20:05, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Matiia

Question from Ganímedes: Hi, thanks for your nomination. I've got a couple of questions, if you don´t mind. I see that among the functions of Stewards are oversight and checkuser. Concerning to these points, I would like to ask you:

What do you think about the possibility of keep private information over 90 days in the wiki only for CU?
For how long do you think this info should be kept?
In your opinion, how and in what circumstances can a user request the deletion of his data from this CU wiki?

Thanks a lot. Regards. --Ganímedes (talk) 19:00, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hola.

I think it's okay, only if kept information is about users who have caused various problem with multiple accounts, as a checkuser may need information about them to find new accounts.
I think that should be kept until users stop this kind of behavior and we can ensure they won't continue doing this kind of things, although... as it's a wiki, information will be always available, so if they need them again, they may get them (I have no idea what they do when the information is no longer needed, so I can't speak much about it).
If possible, user should send an email to the oversight mailing list of the local wiki(s), if the wiki(s) do(es)n't have one, then the user should contact one of the local checkuser and explaining why they think that their information should be deleted from checkuserwiki, so that the checkuser talks other checkusers about it. Once all problems with a user has been resolved and the user has shown that they have changed, the user may request their information be deleted from checkuserwiki, and checkusers will discuss about it. If the user doesn't agree with keeping their information on checkserwiki, as they think it violates their privacy or something, they will have to talk with local checkusers, so that it can be evaluated case by case. Matiia (talk) 17:40, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, see here. Respect to your last answer, If I understand right, you're saying is user's responsability to be deleted to this CU where was signed by a CU. But... how can he knows he is in this wiki ifis not public? And more, Is it inform somewhere, somehow this list exist and how to be unsuscribed? Again, do you think the end justifies the means? Thanks. --Ganímedes (talk) 23:43, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Respect to your last answer, If I understand right, you're saying is user's responsability to be deleted to this CU where was signed by a CU.

No, that is the circumstance where I think that a user can request the deletion of his data from this CU wiki and an answer about the thread on eswiki, about the fact of keeping information on checkuserwiki which they think it violates their privacy. This is obviously responsibility of the checkusers and they delete information when they think it's appropriate. I don't know if there is a policy about it on checkuserwiki.

But... how can he knows he is in this wiki ifis not public?

Well, they would have to ask some checkuser/Steward, and if the Steward/checkuser thinks it's appropriate to tell them, they will do it. Although if a user has caused a few problems using multiple accounts, It's normal can find information about them on checkuserwiki.

And more, Is it inform somewhere, somehow this list exist and how to be unsuscribed?

As far as I know, no.

but this info, get with WMF tools from WMF users, is safe in a wiki outside WMF, for long more than the 90 days WMF says

Checkuserwiki is a WMF wiki, but with limited access to most of users. Keeping information for more than 90 days is allowed per CheckUser policy#Release: Policy on Release of Data, but as I don't have access to checkuserwiki, I don't know if there is a policy for how long the information is allowed to be kept there about. Matiia (talk) 06:27, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And, even when these users could be dangerous, their data are still protected by law in several countrie, So, do you still think the end justifies the means?

I prefer not to answer this for now, as I'm completely not sure about it. Matiia (talk) 06:27, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Sorry but what the privacy policy covers (or not), I think is clearly described here and here (mind that the maximum retention time of Personal information is escribed in there in the following way: "After at most 90 days, it will be deleted, aggregated, or anonymized"). If special rules apply to some "unknown and secret wikis", I think it would make sense to mention them there and specify that ("After 90 days, checkuser decides, with no accountability and no rules which personal information is kept and for how long"). You see that the privacy policy and associated data retention guidelines do not mention any "secret wikis" at all). Moreover, I have never agreed on my private data being stored in a "secret wiki" which can be acessed by 190 persons and whose working rules I do not know. In fact, what I've explictly agreed and acknowledged is to let my personal data be available for 90 days. Beyond that, my personal data MUST be deleted, aggregated or anonymized. We, contributors to the Wikimedia projects, do accept to edit here under written rules, not under "secret" rules. Mar del Sur (talk) 14:41, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question: In any case, if there is a "misunderstanding", I think Ganimedes' question suggests the issue of how you may tell a person whether data on him/her are handled in this wiki or not, and, according to the law, how precisely a user can request their deletion if the user does not agree. My understanding is that such storage is directly illegal under European legislation and possibly also under the US jurisdiction, as the WMF is telling one thing (privacy policy and data retention guidelines) and doing just the opposite (setting up a wifi for third parties to "secretly" the personal information the WMF committed to erase. Mind that checkusers are given such information by the WMF and all of them are identified by the WMF. The discussion exceeds the frame of this election (a RfC would be possibly needed), but more plainly, what is your opinion on this topic? I guess, if someone is a candidate for Steward, he or she will have thought about these issues. His/her view on data privacy and respect of the European law on the protection of private data is very important for me in defining my vote. The secret checkuser's wiki is only an example, but a very good example to evaluate your position regarding privacy in general. Mar del Sur (talk) 14:41, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, well, I agree with you that something about it should be mentioned there, but this is not anything that we should discuss here. :)

Checkuserwiki is a Wikimedia wiki, so I think to keep information on that wiki is okay, it's not illegal, although I understand that you disagree with me. About the European law, I can't talk much about it, as I don't know what information they keep there, I guess that they keep information of European users. I'm not as experienced as other users about laws, so I can't answer this correctly, sorry. Matiia (talk) 03:24, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

From Data retention guidelines: "After at most 90 days, it will be deleted, aggregated, or anonymized". On checkuser wiki data are mostly aggregated. Personally I guess if you're interested in this issue, you should demand policies about prohibition of exposing personal data on user pages, for sample. If you identify yourself on your user page in some way, you provide info which can be possibly very sensitive and remain public for an undefined time at present, aren't they? (I'm CU on it.wiki)--Shivanarayana (talk) 14:28, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, thanks for the information. Matiia (talk) 19:49, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Winterysteppe (EnWiki):

What do you plan on doing with the tools? Winterysteppe (talk) 17:35, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I would like to help out performing global (b)locks, but I'll try to help out adding/removing userights, changing username, continue handling requests on SRM and other things requested on IRC. Matiia (talk) 03:24, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Man77 (dewiki):

Rschen7754 criticized in his vote that you "are not an administrator on a content wiki". How big a deficit do you think this is and is there some kind of content related experience which makes you confident to make good content related decisions as a steward? → «« Man77 »» ^[de] 13:07, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I'm sorry for the delay, I just saw this.

How big a deficit do you think this is

I don't think it's very big. Although I'm not an admin on a content wiki, I've gotten a lot of experience and I've learned to dealing with a lot of situations, so I don't think not to be an admin on a content wiki is really important.

is there some kind of content related experience which makes you confident to make good content related decisions as a steward?

I don't understand how this is related to steward work. Matiia (talk) 00:02, 17 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

MIKHEIL

Could you briefly summarize what happened that led to the removal of approximately half the admins on ka.wiki in 2014 after only a week of discussion, and your involvement in the process? [17] (Also, the other two admin resignations from that wiki in weeks prior: [18] --Rs chen 7754 17:55, 31 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This was in accordance with local adminship policy. According to the local policy, if admin is inactive during 3 months and hasn't 500 general and 50 administrative edits, he/she loses administrator rights. --Mikheil ^Talk 20:03, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@MIKHEIL: Yes, but I'm asking how a policy that removed half of your admins came to be, with only a week of discussion. --Rs chen 7754 01:15, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For this time, Georgian Wikipedia was smaller than now is and such discussions continued about a week. Especially this admins were inactives for a long time. --Mikheil ^Talk 14:47, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that, when the guidelines are as clear as they have been described here, more than a week of discussions would have contributed anything to the quality of the decisions taken to remove adminship. This comment is made without prejudice to the candidacy in question. loupgarous (talk) 04:07, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose is to give the users who may lose adminship time to comment. --Rs chen 7754 15:45, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Winterysteppe (EnWiki):

What do you plan on doing with the tools? Winterysteppe (talk) 17:35, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from The Average Wikipedian (enwiki, zhwiki, etc.)

How would you avoid acting in a way that would lead to the numerous disadvantages of Wikibureaucracy? The Average Wikipedian (talk) 16:00, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

NahidSultan

As an Ombudsman commission member for the next year, do you think you will have a conflict of interests and why? Thanks — NickK (talk) 23:41, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the question NickK. Should there be any COI, I’ll always exclude myself from the incident and any of the related discissons whether it’s related to OC-steward or not. In case a situation arises where steward(s) may involve (which is rare IMO), I will not participate in that OC case either. As I’m not alone in this condition, whenever doubt, I believe, I will get advice on best practices from my fellow OC members who are more capable of dealing controversial cases and can always restrict my activities on CU/OS related controversial cases. Once I heard, “Whenever there is any doubt and If you don't know what to do with the paper piled on your desk, pass them along.” I’m planning to do that by all means :-) The thing is, I believe I still can and have time & enthusiasm to do plenty of steward stuff without conflict with the OC role. There is a lot to do other than that I am sure you are aware about. I hope I have clarified your concern, please ask me back if it is not. Regards. ~ Nahid ^Talk 20:05, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I enjoyed your cross-wiki copyright violations cleanup. With your steward flag, do you plan to act on some deletions which are required by the wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy? Nemo 19:18, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the question Nemo. I have seen you tagging those left copyvios too :) As I have done so as a global sysop and stewards are able to do global sysop actions as well, so If elected, I plan to continue with that job whenever the time and scope allow me to do so. Regards, ~ Nahid ^Talk 14:03, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Richwales

Question from Steinsplitter:

Under which circumstances it is allowed to lock a global account or block a ip address globally? --Steinsplitter (talk) 08:04, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In general, these steward tools should be used to stop cross-wiki disruption, when less extreme measures (such as page protection or local blocks) would not work or would be inefficient. Global locking can also be used to disable accounts with offensive or abusive names. See m:Global blocks and m:Global locks for more details.

A global IP address block prevents an IP address or range from editing anywhere. A global account lock prevents an account from logging in anywhere. Global blocks or locks do not apply to the Meta project, in order to allow appeals.

Since a global lock doesn't show the account holder any specialized error message, it would theoretically be better if accounts could be blocked (rather than locked). However, at present, a global account block mechanism does not exist. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 03:25, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Natuur12:

You told us a lot regarding your experience at the English Wikipedia. However, could you please tell us something regarding your global experience? Do you have experience with other projects than the English Wikipedia for example? If so, what kind of experience? Natuur12 (talk) 18:35, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Although the overwhelming bulk of my involvement has been on the English Wikipedia, I have also made 100 contributions to Wikimedia Commons. Additionally, I spent time in 2007 rewriting an article about the LDS (Mormon) church on the Romanian Wikipedia (Biserica lui Isus Hristos a Sfinților din Zilele din Urmă). I have also made modest contributions to the French Wikipedia — mostly to clean up interwiki link issues where an English Wikipedia problem had propagated to the French project — as well as a handful of edits on the Georgian Wikipedia. I do not currently have, never have had, and (until now) have never sought any sort of advanced rights on any project other than the English Wikipedia. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 18:20, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In this edit your edit summary said, "yet another attempt to NPOV , some Mormons would object to the phrase 'based on the teachings of Joseph Smith'" but the article had originally said "based on teachings of Jesus Christ". What are your thoughts on this edit? Was the translation incorrect that I used? Banaticus (talk) 17:49, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This was a situation where (in my opinion) it was necessary, for the sake of NPOV, to use wording that did not favour either Mormons or anti-Mormons. Saying the LDS (Mormon) Church is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ would be agreeable to Mormons, but not to anti-Mormons (who would consider such wording to be biased in favour of the Mormon faith). And conversely, saying the LDS Church is based on the teachings of Joseph Smith is objectionable to many Mormons because, to them, this would imply that Joseph Smith made up his teachings by himself instead of having them divinely revealed to him. So I felt (and still feel) that the best approach here was to avoid both of these phrasings and use something else that both Mormons and anti-Mormons would be comfortable with. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 05:01, 13 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Winterysteppe (EnWiki):

Imagine you are the user Hawkeye7 on EnWiki. What would you do if you came across a situation like the Civility Enforcement action that happened in the EnWiki? Winterysteppe (talk) 17:35, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just so I'm sure I understand exactly what you are asking me here, are you asking if I (in Hawkeye7's situation) would have done something different than re-block Malleus after his original indefinite block was reverted — and if so, what would I have done differently that presumably might not have led to my being desysopped? Or are you asking me to analyse / criticize the enwiki ArbCom's decision in this case? — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 19:42, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Rxy

Question from Liuxinyu970226: How do you think if some actions made by you will affect political issues? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 12:07, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your question. I can't assume it, but I'll abide by each policies when I use a restricted rights. if I got that support from wikimedia community, I don't particularly care. --rxy (talk) 12:08, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Rschen7754:

You resigned all of your rights somewhat recently, I'm sure I can find it in the logs, but I'm lazy... anyway, do you think this will affect your candidacy? --Rs chen 7754 17:34, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Logs: 1,2
Thanks for your questions. I think it does not affects this candidacy.--rxy (talk) 12:08, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from The Average Wikipedian (enwiki, zhwiki, etc.) How would you strike a balance between ignore all rules and Wikibureaucracy? The Average Wikipedian (talk) 16:05, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Syum90

Question from MF-Warburg: Why do you not consider eswiki, the wiki where you have the most edits, to be one of your home wikis in the answer to Rschen7754's question (1) for all users? --MF-W 13:46, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi MF-W, I don't consider es.wp as one of my home wikis because, as you can see on my contribs, I'm not active there since much time ago, and I don't plan to be active again in the future. Thanks and regards.--Syum90 (talk) 13:55, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please re-question if you want any other aclaration.--Syum90 (talk) 14:02, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Tufor

Question from Rschen7754: As you mentioned in your statement, you had your global rollbacker rights voluntarily removed about half a year ago due to not being active enough globally. Do you think that during your term if elected, you would be able to remain active globally? --Rs chen 7754 18:05, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That depends on what you mean by words "globally" and "active" ;-) Global rollback rights are useful for reverting changes when patrolling smaller wikis (like on cvn channels). Due to various on- and off-wiki reasons my smaller-wiki activity dropped significantly and one can say that tufor is not active "globally" anymore. But I still keep up with stuff that may be considered global – I'm still reporting vandals and spammers, still hang around global maintainance IRC channels. If elected I plan to mainatain my current activity level which would allow me to make these, I guess, 30-50-100 (?) steward actions per month. I don't know if you consider this as being "globally active" :-) Greets, tufor (talk) 21:19, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Varg

Question from Alexmar983:

Are you sure you are en-3? Your statement sounds "not perfect", as already pointed out in this summary (please proofread your nomination statement). Are you maybe an en-2 user?--Alexmar983 (talk) 20:07, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Steinsplitter:

Which are stewards duties and which steward actions you plan to perform? --Steinsplitter (talk) 09:48, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Viswaprabha

Question from Rschen7754:

What do you plan to do with the steward tools? --Rs chen 7754 17:41, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Over the years, I have had quite some experience in overseeing the general administration and management (of users, policies, discussions, consensus and vandalism), in a very typically local but rather well-performing Wikimedia project set. I am confident of making use of these skills, both technical and social, at a wider scale, especially with my exposure to a multitude of cultures. However, despite my confidence, I would take a step-by-step gradual approach of progressing on my degree and level of activities by learning more from the peer stewards. For eg. I do not intend to use the check user or global rights or blocks in the very beginning. I would like to start with tending requests on Local deletions and mature myself through Account renaming, Local bot rights, Local rights, Global blocks & locks, Global rights and CheckUser in that order.

However, a steward should not hesitate in running into the hot water if needed. So, beyond a short learning period, I see no reason to stay away from the main actions stewards do in a routine basis - blocks, rights and CU. My outlook will be "I am human (Homo wikiens to be phylogenetically more precise), willing to learn and not afraid to take actions as needed, while adapting and correcting self based on the worthy feedbacks from the companions!".

Thank you! ViswaPrabhaവിശ്വപ്രഭ^talk 21:29, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Horst Emscher (talk) 17:39, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

U state: "Here, everyone is equal. We all work together, and no one has a reason to stand out above the rest. And even though I started editing and contributing to Wikipedia in 2001 — almost at the beginning of Wikipedia — this is the first time anyone can see who I am.
Here, no one cares about your skin color, or your hairstyle, or how much money you make. …"
Is this a contrast to your daily life? Or did U formulate wishes? By the way, steward is a part of a hierarchy. How do U address the intrinsic inequality? Horst Emscher (talk) 17:39, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The passage quoted there was part of a longer interview, in which I was asked what makes Wikipedia different from other internet collaboration opportunities. The answer itself was not quoted in full length there. However, even within this much context, I believe I was( am) correct. I still believe it is the one unique characteristic Wikipedia holds in contrast with most -if not all- other collaboration projects in the real world as well as in the online virtual world. Whether this is in contrast with my life is a truly philosophical question for me. The idea of 'being equal' has changed the direction of my very own personal life and career in the last several years. How, I would rather politely restrain from boasting or disclosing here. (Those who are closer to me, would know better).

I do not believe that being a steward (or not being one) does not set one Wikipedian above or below another or make him not equal to someone else as a Wikipedian. I have always reckoned that a Wikimedia sysop, bureaucrat or steward is more like a concierge (in its original French meaning) who keeps all the keys of palace but does not own them, rather than a 'big somebody'. But still, when the situation calls for, (s/)he knows how to take charge and use the right key or wield the right weapon judiciously and just as appropriate. [My colleagues within my community can vouch for how I practice and make limited use of my own privileges in our home wiki. More than often executing my sysop powers, I let, mentor and train many others (freshers with less experience) to grow up and become THE 'force'. But when affairs get critical or serious, certainly I intervene and lead.]

Thank you. ViswaPrabhaവിശ്വപ്രഭ^talk 23:44, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]