The Interior (talk·contribs) – I am honored to nominate The Interior for adminship; indeed I am humbled. I first interacted with The Interior in March 2011; believing he was not only an administrator then, but one of the corps very best as well. I had observed his collaborations with others, becoming impressed by his competence, and respectful manner of conduct. We are both active in the DYK wikiproject and our first writing collaboration was on Ginger: The Life and Death of Albert Goodwin when it was a DYK nomination. The Interior is an excellent colleague and, I learned, a masterful writer as well. He well knows about the effort an editor expends to create encyclopedic content; demonstrated by his creation of Illecillewaet Glacier and persistence improving it to GA class. His AfD participation reflects the composite of his good qualities. His !votes are thoughtful, policy based, and without condescension and he has on occasion provided the sourced verification necessary to establish a subject's notability. He has 220 UAA reports and 79 AIV reports with exceptional accuracy on both noticeboards. And there are more attributes that reflect The Interior's qualifications, but listing them affects readability with excess verbiage. They are apparent in his contributions however, and seven days of scrutiny can only show how fortunate our community is to have The Interior volunteer more of his faithful service, for our benefit.—John Cline (talk) 01:53, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I am very delighted to co-nominate The Interior for adminship. I could write paragraphs of material expounding upon the editing skills, DYK work and AIV/AFD/UAA batting average of the candidate but I fear it may miss the point as to why I believe that The Interior is so well-suited to the administrative role. Although his editing statistics are indeed impressive, it’s the more intangible qualities that make The Interior such a fantastic candidate. He’s patient and kind. Understanding and honest. Intuitive and clueful. And he truly seems to “get” what this crazy project is all about and is able to nurture this same excitement for learning and knowledge in the editors he works with, both newbies and experienced editors alike. This combination of qualities, along with a sound understanding of policy and his willingness to roll up his sleeves and help out where needed, make The Interior a stellar candidate for the mop and bucket. --Jezebel'sPonyobons mots20:46, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It is a great pleasure to recommend The Interior for adminship. I would be hard-pressed to think of any other editor who is more balanced, trustworthy, and ideal for this position. I first came into contact with him in discussions around the Education Working Group (since, the Wiki Education Foundation). One of the few long-term Wikipedian editors in the group, The Interior's contributions to any debate were always well-informed, eminently sane, and well-reasoned. He repeatedly showed his capacity to respond and listen to the points of view expressed by others. I have also seen The Interior intervene in the midst of heated debates and controversial topics, such as a flare-up a couple of months ago at Adrian Dix. Again, he showed excellent common sense, presence of mind, and unflappability in what was otherwise (however briefly) a rather tense situation in which accusations were flying both here and in the local press. Finally, I have had the pleasure of meeting The Interior a number of times in real life and can report that off-wiki as much as on he demonstrates not only his passion for the project, but also an enviable level of dedication, thoughtfulness, openness, and even wisdom. He will be an excellent addition to the admin ranks. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 14:12, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I first met The Interior in person at the GLAM Bootcamp in April. For the first few hours, I had no idea what his name was, only that when he spoke, he made some seriously good points. I eventually spent something like fifteen minutes poring over the list of participants, trying to figure out who this guy was. Two and two eventually got together, and I realized that we had actually met before (online) when he was the driving force behind an excellent Q&A in the 18 March Signpost. The positive interactions I had with him then were bolstered after my obligatory Facebook-like stalking of his contributions—I discovered that The Interior is a fantastically helpful and productive editor. Some of the specific stats can be read above, but I've found that interactions like this or this are common. In short, his attitude and temperament demonstrated in discussions around the encyclopedia are ideally suited for the admin role. I ask that you give The Interior your support. Ed[talk][majestic titan]03:34, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. Please answer these questions to provide guidance for participants:
1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?
A: In short, I intend to help out in areas I'm familiar with. I believe I've seen enough vandalism, and how we deal with it as a community, to help respond to reports at AIV. I have a good grasp of promotional usernames and the grey areas around them to action those type of reports at UAA. I understand the philosophy and mechanics behind page protection. With almost three years of experience at DYK, I can help with requests at WP:ERRORS, hopefully decreasing the amount of problematic DYKs hitting the main page. Although not a prolific "prep-maker" on the DYK queue, I know enough to competently swap out hooks or construct decent hook sets. I'm not a heavy participant in AfD discussions, so I don't see this being a major focus of my admin work. I would, however, feel confident deleting speedy requests in the areas where I have done tagging in the past, namely {{db-spam}}, {{db-attack}}, {{db-catempty}}, {{db-album}}, {{db-song}}, {{db-vandalism}}, as well as blatant copyright violations. I would also be available to do revdel requests on our worst cases of vandalism. While I may move into other areas in the future (requested moves, categories for deletion, and histmerging all interest me), I would not do so until making significant amounts of non-admin edits in related discussions.
2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
A: "Best" is very subjective when talking about one's own work, but I'll talk about the work that has made me feel good about being a Wikipedian. I really enjoy exploring the province where I live, and working on articles like Adams River (British Columbia), Glacier National Park (Canada) and the Kitlope Heritage Conservancy enriches the experience of visiting those places. Researching these topics provides a connection with history and physical place that is impossible to describe, but very fulfilling.
I've very much enjoyed my work with various "outreach" initiatives, such as the Education Program, Wikipedia Loves Libraries, and the GLAM project. There are many energetic, optimistic and wildly smart folks working in these areas, and I'm lucky to be working with them. I believe these projects can help save Wikipedia from its own insularity, and connect it with the knowledge communities, high quality resources, and the new editors we need to keep the project going into this decade and the next. I'm proud of my contributions in these areas, both behind the scenes and through active roles like online ambassadorship.
Most of all, it is the collaboration and knowledge sharing with fellow editors that keeps me coming back. I'm very pleased when I can help bring people together to work on content. I have met some of the most interesting, intelligent, hardworking and altruistic people I know on the pages of WP. They are the reason this project has gotten to where it is, and they are its greatest resource.
3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?
A: A frank and vigorous exchange of ideas is important in any intellectual endeavour. These exchanges can cause stress, and I'm not immune. It's important to remember that stress isn't all bad; there is the concept of eustress, the "good" stress that drives you to dig deeper into the sources, compose better sentences, and explore your opponent's viewpoints. I've been in the middle of quite a few heated debates, and have learned some lessons the hard way. I've set some guidelines for myself regarding disputes, such as:
never post angry - if a comment has really gotten your goat, step back for a few hours (or days) until you can approach it at least semi-rationally.
don't personalize - avoid personal criticisms except when truly unavoidable.
forgive and forget - don't carry old disputes with colleagues into new discussions and forums.
And most importantly, always try to search for solutions to the underlying problems, rather than the total annihilation of your perceived antagonists. These are ideals - I don't always live up to them. But I like to think I try, and I will continue to try in the future. ;)
4. How would you respond if, after becoming an admin you, came across an article tagged G11, with "Company X is a sprocket manufacturer headquartered in Small Town, USA. In the last year it has received multiple industry awards for innovation in sprocket design" as its contents.
A:The wording for g11 is "exclusively promotional", and here we have a description with a location, which is a start, a proto-stub. The awards claim would have to be sourced, but it may well be true. It should be rewritten to refer to the specific awards, preferably. It's a matter of sources from there. I wouldn't delete this as a g11. If the sources are very thin, or are all related to the organization, it would be a prod/AfD candidate.
5. As one of your intentions is to work in the UFAA department, I'd like to ask you a question based on the following usernames. What administrative actions would you take on the following three cases?
User:Satellitedirect who removes the redirect from Satellite Direct and creates a promotional page.
User:BigBlackCockerel who made a single vandalism edit on Rooster
User:Bottoman who edits constructively
A:
User:Satellitedirect: This username matches the target page, and the editing is promotional. Depending on the severity of the promotion, I would either warn with {{Uw-coi-username}} or block with {{Uw-softerblock}}
User:BigBlackCockerel: Again, depending on the severity of the edits, I would either warn the user that the username is unacceptable, or block as a vandalism-only account.
User:Bottoman: Not an unambiguously offensive username. If this was reported, I'd advise the reporting editor to either ignore, or start a discussion about it if they feel strongly about it.
Addendum: Minimac has pointed out myon my talk page that User:Bottoman could be confused with a bot, which was the purpose of its inclusion in the question. My understanding of the bot situation in regards to misleading usernames is that we prohibit usernames that could be "easily misunderstood" as being bot accounts. I would consider this editor to be in the clear in this regard - the string "b-o-t" as it appears in this name would not lead users to assume it is a bot account.
A: I've had that page watchlisted for quite a while. I find it's a good spot to keep up to date on the various "hot topics" being discussed on the project. I post very rarely though. I'm not sure how much more I can elaborate on this; I read it mostly out of idle interest.
7. In your work at DYK and AfD, how have you dealt with problematic, inexperienced, or otherwise inept editors?
A: A DYK review can be an excellent opportunity for newer editors to learn the finer points of article building. There's no question that a fair amount of substandard content gets through the gates at DYK, and I wish more of our good writers would participate. All too often, the reviews are too brief, and only take a superficial glance at the content. The "carrot" of main page exposure means that the newer editor is often willing to make major adjustments, if you let them know what direction they should be going in. I try to keep recommendations for improving the article clear and concrete and encourage editors to shoot for higher quality (I sometimes go beyond the strict interpretation of the DYK rules in my requests, but people rarely call me out on it ;)). I usually avoid the fail symbol in my reviews unless the article is irredeemable - I feel it discourages further work.
With AfD it can be more difficult - the process is inherently more confrontational, especially for the article's author. The same approach as above can work on occasion - if you lay out some easily followed steps (i.e. work on more neutral language, visit your local library and talk to a librarian about better sources, rewrite this paragraph using WP:RELEVANTPOLICY as a guide, etc.), sometimes you see improvement in the editor's work. Sometimes userfying the content and letting the editor tinker at it without the pressure of a deletion discussion hanging over them is a good approach (although this often leaves a problematic article mouldering away in userspace for an indefinite period of time). You can't win them all. Sometimes people don't want help, and just leave the project. For others, unfortunately, the next stop is usually one of our more dramatic noticeboards. Avoiding these two outcomes is something I think about when participating in discussions over problem content, in those venues you mention, and anywhere else on WP.
8. Have you ever edited Wikipedia using any other user names? If so, what were these?
A: Yes, I have. User:PEarley (WMF) is me. Other than that, no. There's a handful of IP edits over the years, all the result of not noticing I was logged out.
9. This is more an open-ended philosophy question... Do you feel there are structural problems with the Mainpage-Did You Know approval process? If so, what changes would you advise?
A: There is definitely room for improvement in the DYK system. DYK is based around several somewhat arbitrary thresholds (1500 characters, 5 days old, etc.). There is potential for improving content quality by tweaking those thresholds. Personally, I would prefer a slightly higher character count (2000 or 2500) and a ten day window for submission. I feel the higher count would lessen the number of "scraped-together" submissions, and the longer window would result in better research and copyediting. I would also support a DYK rule specifically regarding sourcing, requiring the reviewer to look at reference quality before passing the article. There is a justifiable fear of "instruction creep" in the DYK community - the more complicated the submission requirements, the less accessible the project is to new/casual participants. But we should be open to trials of different configurations. Although it was opposed by some of my colleagues, I think the introduction of GA articles to the mix will be an improvement, both in terms of content quality, and participation by experienced article writers.
10. After analyzing our CSD policy, you reach the conclusion that there is a definite space for a new CSD criteria. Propose the same here, giving logical support and reasoning.
A:Okay, I'll preface this with saying that I don't really see the need for a new criteria at this time. One of my pet peeves is people, usually professionals, using their Wikipedia article as a online c.v. or resume. This cheapens our brand, and gives other professionals the wrong idea (bigwig to his assistant: "Roscoe at SystemsTech has a Wikipedia c.v., why don't I? Get on it!"). So I propose raising the "reads like a resume" template to full CSD status. Criteria could read, "article is only a listing of positions held, awards won, alma maters, and laudatory quotes. References are exclusively primary in nature. Complete rewrite would be needed to transform into an encyclopedic article." It would be a cousin to g11, designed especially for people. We'll call it g12 g13 - Misplaced Resume.
11. "Disclaimer: Although I work for the Wikimedia Foundation, contributions under this account do not necessarily represent the actions or views of the Foundation unless expressly stated otherwise. For example, edits to articles or uploads of other media are done in my individual, personal capacity unless otherwise stated." Kindly provide diffs of "unless otherwise stated" and please show how have you clarified to editors in the past that certain edits to articles by you have been official ones. Thanks for your offer to stand in for administration.
A: The vast majority of my edits with the PEarley account are user talk messages soliciting volunteer translators to work on VisualEditor's interface translation, testing for bugs on our smaller wikis, and translating the Help documents for the new editor.([1]) I believe for those edits, the nature of the requests, the signature, and the blurb on my userpage are enough to make clear that the edits are done by a WMF contractor in his professional capacity. The account also does test edits on the smaller wikis, but these don't usually get past "preview". If they are saved, they are quickly self-reverted. There is also a small number of en.wiki article edits all involving removal of bad code introduced by VE, such as the unwanted nowiki tags.([2]) (although I now see two test edits with dabs that I neglected to roll back ...) In retrospect, my edit summaries for these edits should have included some indication that they were done in a work capacity.
The boilerplate you quote above (its presence on my userpage was required by WMF legal) I believe was designed more for WMF employees who have a single account, and may make personal edits from that account on occasion. This is not the case for me, all edits by PEarley (WMF) are purely work-related, and all edits by The Interior solely represent my volunteer work.1 I will add a note to the work account's userpage blurb page to clarify this.
Q5 was edited by the questioner after the original version was answered. I think this is misleading, and have reverted to the original version of the question. --Stfg (talk) 21:28, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support - The Interior is one of the most qualified candidates for adminship I have ever had the privilege to support. Convincing him to run was a formidable task as he doesn't appear to expend much energy assessing his own value; instead, simply demanding his own best; in all matters, at all times—being satisfied for giving that of himself. Reviewing the talk page efforts to convince The Interior to run is good reading for anyone interested in knowing more about how this RfA came to be.—John Cline (talk) 04:38, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support - As a fellow Wikipedian from the same city, I've had long-term positive observations of the candidate on variety of namespace. Calm, civil and consistent, excellent work with Canadian and Vancouver-related projects. Did you know? project would also certainly benefit with an additional mop from one of the most qualified candidates that I've also had the honour to support. Alex ShihTalk05:01, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support – Candidate is quite familiar with Admin-related noticeboards (in particular UAA and AIV); has demonstrated their tenacity and maturity through the clear-cut processes they follow when dealing with conflicts; has an impeccable reputation as evident by their thought-out answers. All the best The Interior! —MelbourneStar☆talk05:13, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support - The Interior is the rare contributor who manages to do a lot of good work without causing drama or otherwise attracting attention to himself. We've interacted at DYK on-and-off and I've had his talk page watchlisted for some time now (for reasons I don't recall) and I can't recall seeing him say or do anything that would cause concern -- to tell the truth, I guess I assumed he was already an administrator. --Orlady (talk) 05:27, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support Response to the CSD question is reasonable enough, which was my only concern in light of the lack of recent CSDing. Monty84505:34, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support. It's actually easier to find reasons not to support than reasons to support if they are to be qualified with more substantial rationales than 'Why not?'. In view of the strong, and almost unprecedented number of co-noms, I looked even harder, and all I can come up with is 'Why not?' Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:51, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support - saw this page at creation and have been waiting a week for transclusion. It's about time. Absolutely no reservations whatsoever here. GoPhightins!10:28, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support I haven't encountered The Interior before, but looking around, I see a great style of communication and a lot of competence. Answers to the questions so far are excellent. I like how he responds to people who express stress by advising them to step away from the debates and edit an article. Oh, and he writes well. --Stfg (talk) 16:24, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wasn't he a former admin or something? Very rarely do I see a (thought he was an admin candidate), which basically means extremely strong support. Secretaccount16:54, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support Sweet, finally a candidate so uncontroversial that it might finally drop "you have too many co-nominators" from the list of terribly stupid oppose rationales that are still used. Sven ManguardWha?17:16, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support per having too many co-nominators. ;) Actually, if Wictionary has an entry for "having a clue", Interior's picture should be attached to it. Resolute17:26, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support Nice involvement in content contribution areas, unafraid to use Talk pages, appropriate involvement in admin areas. Friendly, helpful and clueful interactions with others. Zad6820:44, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Distribution wonderful. OK Q1-3 show knowledge and deliberation. Mentions AIV and UAA and significant number of reports in both. Looked at some AfD misses and they are not an issue. Cannot spell "barnstar", but that is not a reason to oppose. Glrx (talk) 21:07, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support: For last few months, I have been working with this editor, and that's how I am aware of his works and behavior. He is a very friendly editor and understands his responsibilities very well. I see no issue. I am confident that he'll be a great admin. --Tito☸Dutta21:50, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Answers to the question were well written with great knowledge and insight of Wikipedia. Edit history shows routinely good contributions. ///EuroCarGT01:15, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Adequate tenure and adequate edit count, with a nice mix of mainspace to other areas. Clean block log and no indications of assholery. Seems an excellent candidate for the tool box... Carrite (talk) 04:45, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support but no need for nominators to feel delighted, humbled or honoured; you haven't won an Oscar, just indicating that this editor is capable of blocking vandals. Regarding the candidate I have no concerns Jebus989✰11:11, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Fully qualified candidate. In fact, so well qualified that I think the project should hire an assistant for him, who would be referred to as the Secretary of The Interior. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:55, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The Interior is an enormous asset to our community. He's an eminently reasonable, level-headed, thoughtful guy with a fantastic personality to boot. I've met him in person and his calm and inquisitive demeanor was both reassuring and authoritative. He has a useful library sciences background, he gets policy debates, he takes a neutral stance in complex topics, and he also wants to do meaningful outreach to cultural institutions. We should empower all of his future pursuits with the bit, which I'm sure he'll use to great ends! Ocaasit | c15:03, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support I've not had anything to do with either account, so far as I know - which could be a good sign... Good answers, and comments. Looks good to me. Peridon (talk) 16:56, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Because I haven't had much interaction with The Interior, I waited this out a couple days to see if any Oppose votes seemed to click. However, it's been two days and there are still zero oppose votes, so I see no problems here. öBrambleberryofRiverClan18:26, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any problems. Good nom, good answers to questions, good content contributions, no reason to suppose he will abuse the tools. --John (talk) 22:15, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Highly impressed. I generally refrain from piling on, unless it is a vote of support and I want to shout it from the rooftops. :::virtually shouting::: I am fully confident that The Interior is now and will continue to be an asset to the project. Thanks for stepping forward! Best regards, Cindy(talk)15:40, 6 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support – My interaction with the candidate on DYK has been nothing but positive, and he has demonstrated on numerous occasions that he is capable of handling the mop. —Bloom6132 (talk) 07:20, 7 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support - per the overwhelming supports and my own assessment of the candidate. Have never encountered this editor, but appears to be ready for some of the most thankless tasks we have. My deep appreciation and best wishes in the times ahead! Jusdafax18:37, 7 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This is an easy support, and I agree with pretty much everything that has already been said. I feel like taping the answer to Q3 to my computer monitor. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:32, 7 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support The editor has created 42 articles, with good referencing in all but the earliest couple. AFD participation has apparently been in less than 100 instances, but there is a healthy mix of Keeps and Deletes, with good reasoning showing familiarity with relevant guidelines, while being articulate and civil. Thousands of edits, mostly to articles, showing good dedication to actually improving the encyclopedia. Seems a well qualified candidate for the mop. Edison (talk) 20:10, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support I know his work, and i trust it. (I do not think I agree with him about his proposed CSD criterion, because such material can be easily rewritten if worth the trouble, but the question of how much rewriting of improperly handled material we are prepared to do is a dilemma with no clear solution.) DGG ( talk ) 02:45, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support Has plenty of positive edits, good understanding of how things work, and has survived through edits/discussion related to Rob Ford and Rick Santorum???!?!? Definite support! ES&L11:49, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support Wholeheartedly support! I would not be the autoconfirmed editor I am today had it not been for The Interior! A patient instructor. A thoughtful writer. A meticulous citer. And someone who will stop the car to take pictures for articles. WP needs more of that! :) Anna KovalTalk15:52, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Collect (talk) 13:05, 3 September 2013 (UTC) per [4] wherein he dismisses WP:BLPCRIME as policy IMO. Could move to support if he makes a strong statement of support for BLP concerns (I am not posing a question as such, as they tend to get answers found to be "tried and true" in the past <g>) .[reply]
He stated there that his belief was that the "theoretical authoritative biography" of the living person should include the allegations made of criminal activity. The issue was use of a gossip site (Gawker) as a source for criminal allegations based on a video which now appears not to exist at this point. I considered such sites to not meet the strong requirements of WP:BLPCRIME while he averred that Ford was a sufficiently high public figure as he has a Wikipedia article for such allegations to be included. No police action has been taken, nor is any likely, for the alleged crime. For some odd reason, I consider allegations that a person was smoking crack cocaine to be a contentious claim about a criminal act, and suggest further that the WEIGHT given to a gossip site for such a claim should be de minimis. I note that I hold a strong view about that policy, and would like him to elucidate on why it does not apply in the case at hand, and where he would find it applicable to a person sufficiently notable to have a Wikipedia BLP. If no one with an article is "unknown" that that part of the policy is, frankly, meaningless. Collect (talk) 14:08, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If Gawker had been the sole source in that ugliness, I would have been right beside you in opposing mention of the incident. However, the involvement of the Toronto Star, and the fact that two of its reporters stood by their story that they had viewed the tape, complicates matters. I believe it was the reputation of the Star that led many other reliable sources, such as the New York Times and the Guardian, to also report on the story. When faced with those sources, it was very hard for me to support your position re: BLPCRIME. In general, I’m usually quite conservative about including these sort of allegations when the sourcing is not a strong as it was here. The Interior(Talk)20:54, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually only the Star and Gawker were sources on the day of our colloquy -- we still are at a point where we have "strong sourcing" that the allegation was made, but absolutely zero sourcing for the truth of the allegation, and strong sourcing that no charges were filed. Thus the question still remains - was Ford sufficiently notable that the mere presence of an allegation of criminal activity was sufficient for it to be placed in his BLP, based only on Gawker and the Star reporting on the Gawker story, lacking any of the later sources now used? Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:37, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not to hassle you, but just to add my 2c. on this particular incident, mostly for other readers. I have to say that, like Stfg, I don't read The Interior as dismissing WP:BLPCRIME in that comment. Not even close. In fact, he had just shown that he had read WP:BLP rather carefully. On the particular point you raise, the claims a) were initially raised not only in Gawker but also in a broadsheet that is Canada's highest-circulation daily newspaper; and then b) were reported by every other media outlet in Canada, as well as widely in the rest of the world. But not to continue that debate. More to the point, I like The Interior's approach in this instance, and I like his more informal explanatory gloss or rule of thumb on WP:BLP: "What we really should be thinking about is if the theoretical authoritative biography of this man, when all is said and done, would include this incident." This is a sane approach, and I wish more Wikipedia biographies of living persons would follow it. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:58, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Collect: thanks for explaining your position. I don't want to take sides on that discussion here, but suffice to say that it seems to be an issue of how the BLP policy applies to the case, rather than a dismissal of the policy itself. Regards, --Stfg (talk) 16:17, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Collect, I wrote BLPCRIME, and I particularly don't see Interior's analysis of the issue as being faulted. Your diligence in the issue is appreciated, and should be continued in BLPs; at the same time, perhaps the usage of Exceptional (which demands multiple exceptional sources for any exceptional claim) would have provided you a stronger basis for your debate at that time. Irrespective, I believe The Interior would and is learning from their exposure to BLP editing and should be an asset to the project. WifioneMessage19:18, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The issue here is at what point disputed allegations against a highly notable (not a borderline) individual become significant enough to be reported because the allegations themselves are influencing real world events. This is a significant and recurring BLP-laden area that requires difficult line-drawing by responsible Wikipedians, just as it does by responsible newspapers and others. (Michael Kinsley first drew this issue to my attention in an excellent article on this point, long before Wikipedia, in the context of Gary Hart and the 1984 US presidential campaign (the article is reprinted in his book Curse of the Giant Muffins)). For more examples, framed as hypotheticals but all with actual biographies as inspirations, see my essay Wikipedia:BLP examples for discussion. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:26, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above adminship discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.
