Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Voorts

Voorts

The following discussion is preserved as a request for adminship that has been automatically placed on hold pending a decision as to the outcome. Please do not modify the text. The result of the discussion will be posted soon.

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (48/1/4); Scheduled to end 21:06, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Monitors: ScottishFinnishRadish

Nomination

Voorts (talk · contribs) – Voorts joined the project in 2022, but I came to know him through NPP in late 2023, and I’ve been paying closer attention ever since. I’ve been impressed with his ability to show good judgement in closes, weighing in as a third party in discussions, and in efforts towards dispute resolution. I’ve found he takes the time to ask the right probing questions, to reflect and grow if he’s challenged, and to show humility and admit when he could have done better. I’ve been thrilled to watch him grow and explore other areas since then, doing so thoughtfully, carefully, and with attention to detail.

In addition, his content work speaks for itself, having promoted 12 articles to good article and 7 to featured article status, 5 of which he received Four Awards for. His temperament, patience, and willingness to help would be an asset to the admin corps, and I hope you’ll join me in supporting him. Hey man im josh (talk) 16:39, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Co-nomination statement

Voorts came to my attention via his strong nominations at FAC on topics as varied as law, film, and a political aphorism. In addition to his content work, he has found the time to engage in necessary administrative tasks, including carefully reasoned discussion closes and new page patrol. He has the varied experience and even temperament that are the hallmarks of a successful candidate, and it is my pleasure to co-nominate him in this first-post-admin-election-RFA. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:49, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept, with thanks to Josh and Vanamonde for the kind words. I have never edited for pay and never will. I have never edited under another username, except for my sole alt account.

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. Please answer these questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. Why are you interested in becoming an administrator?

A: I have been actively contributing to Wikipedia for a bit over a year and half now. During that time, I have come to appreciate the importance of behind-the-scenes tasks that ensure the smooth functioning of the community and its machinery. I am volunteering to be an admin because I am willing and able to take on additional responsibilities to help with those tasks.

I primarily plan to use the tools in the areas of deletion and user (mis)conduct. Those areas align with my current backend interests, which are participating in AfD, patrolling with NPP and RCP, opining at AN and AN/I, providing third opinions, and closing discussions. I am potentially interested in using the tools in other areas, such as at AE and in SPIs, but I would first have to learn the ropes and feel fully comfortable with any relevant policies, guidelines, and norms.

2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?

A: My content contributions. I have created articles (and earned some 4As along the way), and brought several of them to FA, GA, and DYK. The articles that I am proudest of are Shostakovich v. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp., which I brought from an unreferenced stub to FA after an editor asked a question about the case at WP:LAW, and Costello's, a short article on a slice of old New York City.

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: Yes, I have been in conflicts. An example: In December 2023–January 2024, I was in a conflict over a discussion that I had closed. After the close, some editors came to my talk page and requested that I overturn my closure; I declined and suggested a close review at WP:AN. Thereafter, another editor overturned my closure without discussion, and things ended up at AN/I in a roundabout way. I’ll admit that at that point I probably should have just dipped out of that particular conflict, but instead I continued to post defensively at AN/I. After all was said and done, I sought a peer review of my close and have since incorporated the feedback that I received into my closing practices.

I have been in conflicts both before and since that close, and I anticipate that as an administrator who would continue to close discussions, I will face more—including when I get things wrong. I plan to deal with editing conflicts in much the same way that I currently aim to: remain civil, assume good faith, follow our dispute resolution processes, and seek advice of more experienced admins.

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You may ask optional questions below. There is a limit of two questions per editor. Multi-part questions are disallowed, but you are allowed to ask follow-up questions related to previous questions.

Optional question from AirshipJungleman29

4. From the two discussions we've had on my talk page regarding closing discussions (see #1 and #2), I seem to have formed the preconception that you are slightly bureaucratically inclined, if that makes sense from context. I'm not saying that's bad—different perspectives are generally good for any enterprise—but would you say that's a fair assessment, or am I just letting a very limited sample size bias my thoughts?

A: I wouldn't call myself bureaucratically inclined (although I am a lawyer, so sometimes I might get a mild case of lawyer brain). I think WP:NOTBURO is an important policy and I have made NOTBURO closes. When the first discussion occurred in July 2023, I don't think that I fully appreciated NOTBURO and I certainly would not have made a similar close challenge today; after re-reviewing everything, I think it was reasonable to rely on the previous discussion in evaluating that RfC's consensus. Regarding the second discussion, which we had a couple of weeks ago about a proposed merge, I do not believe that a close is required for every discussion. I agree that WP:WHENCLOSE states that when editors have reached a resolution and moved on, a close is neither necessary nor desirable. However, editors did not reach a resolution in this proposed merge discussion, and I believe that it is usually desirable to close discussions about article notability. (As an aside, I think that a no consensus close would have been within closer's discretion, and I would not have challenged such a close, but I believe that there was a consensus to merge.)

Optional question from Significa liberdade

5. What did you consider when deciding whether to run for adminship via RFA versus the recent trial election?

A: There were timing issues with myself and the nominators, we had been planning an RfA before the election dates were announced, and I did not consider running in the elections instead because I did not feel that changing plans so close to the original date of nomination was prudent.

Optional question from Chetsford

6. First, thank you very much for making yourself available. My question relates to a comment you made in September regarding Unicorn Riot at WP:RSN. I haven't looked into this source much, though I think I'm inclined to agree with what -- I believe -- your position was with respect to their RS, in that they are RS.
In any case, my question is not about the conclusion you reached but how you arrived at that conclusion. In your comment [1] you explained research you'd done into Unicorn Riot's editorial process and seemed to indicate the results of your research into their correction policy validated their reliability. Can you explain your view as to the role editor-originated primary research contributes toward determination of source reliability, versus research by RS such as WP:USEBYOTHERS? (To put it another way, is the mere presence of a Correction Policy on a source website sufficient to assure reliability or do we need to validate the correction policy is actually being applied and, if so, is that type of robust content analysis the role of editors or the role of other RS?) Thank you! Chetsford (talk) 00:23, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

A: I believe that both are important and that this question cannot be answered in the abstract. WP:USEBYOTHERS may, but will not always, provide evidence of reliability (defined by WP:REPUTABLE as “a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy"). In the Unicorn Riot discussion, editors pointed out that it has been used by other reliable sources, including in academic journals, weighing in favor of finding the source reliable. However, use by others will not always mean that a source is generally reliable. For example, The New York Times occasionally credits the reporting of the New York Post, notwithstanding that Wikipedia editors have determined that, on balance, the latter is generally unreliable.

The guideline that I was relying on in the Unicorn Riot discussion was WP:NEWSORG, which states that "the publication of corrections and disclosures of conflicts of interest" is a sign, although not a guarantee, of reliability. I found that their published corrections and independence policies were sufficient to establish reliability when combined with the fact that Unicorn Riot was founded and is staffed by experienced journalists. I also saw no indication that they do not abide by their policies, but would have reconsidered if other editors had provided evidence of unretracted falsehoods.

Optional question from North8000

7. You probably already thought about this one when deciding to run. It looks like you had a few edits starting 2 1/2 years ago and then really got started 1 1/2 years ago and then did several years' worth of work in those 1 1/2 years. Could you elaborate a bit on.....do you think you acquired the and scope of experience during that relatively short time period to do a good job in the areas that you intend to work in? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:59, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

A:

Optional question from Kingsmasher678

8. As mentioned above, you've spent a fairly short amount of time on the project, and I was wondering if that gave you some insight into the current new user experience. In light of this, do you feel that the community currently does an adequate job of on-boarding new editors? Kingsmasher678 (talk) 02:55, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

A:

Optional questions from Espresso Addict

9. Your editing pattern is quite unusual, with a lean towards "backroom" issues from the early months when you first started editing (eg May 2023: mainspace 24%; Wikipedia 26%). Would you care to explain in more detail how this arose? (Genuinely not attempting to insinuate anything here.)

A:

10. How do you respond to the mention of WP:MALVOLIO in the comments? Espresso Addict (talk) 03:03, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

A:

Optional question from Daniel Case

11. You were nominated right after our first-ever trial of administrator elections ended. What made you choose the standard RfA process instead of that? Asked and answered per Q5 above. Instead, I will pose a scenario for you to tell us how you'd handle it as an admin: A user who has edited Wikipedia for years with almost no block history reports an IP to ANEW, claiming it's harassing him by constantly reverting his edits. But, upon reviewing the relevant article history, you find that the edits being reverted—and repeatedly restored—were unsourced, which the IP noted in their edit summaries. What do you do? What do you do? Daniel Case (talk) 03:39, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

A:

Discussion

• Links for Voorts: Voorts (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Edit summary usage for Voorts can be found here.

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Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review his contributions before commenting.

Numerated (#) "votes" in the "Support", "Oppose", and "Neutral" sections may only be placed by editors with an extended confirmed account. All other comments are welcome in the "general comments" section.

Support

1. charlotte ^👸♥ 21:10, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
2. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:10, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
3. Support as nominator. Hey man im josh (talk) 21:18, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
4. I've come across voorts a few times, but we didn't have a solid interaction until they volunteered to take a GA review on my first big Supreme Court case article, Heckler v. Chaney. Why they chose to go for my 3000-word newbie monstrosity and stick it out for two months of review is a mystery, but I'm grateful they did, because they had a metric ton of invaluable feedback and they were incredibly patient as I did my best to sort through it all. Voorts is polite, methodical, reasonable, and sharp – doesn't get better than that. Easy support :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:24, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
5. (edit conflict × 2) Heck yeah. Dylan620 (he/him • talk • edits) 21:26, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
6. Support ((edit conflict × 3), well-standing editor, substantial edits. Myrealnamm (💬pros · 📜cons) 21:27, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
7. Support net positive.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 21:32, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
8. Support will be a net positive to the project. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 21:33, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
9. Support Good luck. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 21:35, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
10. Mach61 21:36, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
11. Support, no concerns. Cremastra (u — c) 21:39, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
12. Support, can't quite put my finger on where we've crossed paths before, but certainly a net positive also per noms, also per theleekycauldron — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 21:51, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
13. Support definite net positive with an impressive content creation track record. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 22:12, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
14. Support per my nomination statement. Vanamonde93 (talk) 22:18, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
15. Support Leijurv (talk) 22:21, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
16. Support Tazerdadog (talk) 22:22, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
17. (edit conflict × 1) Support Wait a- I thought he already was a mop! Like, legit, I thought he already had the bit! MM (Give me info.) ^(Victories) 22:24, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
18. Support – meets my criteria. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:32, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
19. Support Good luck! Polygnotus (talk) 22:34, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
20. Stephen 22:34, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
21. Of course! HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 22:42, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
22. It was just a few days ago that I found myself wondering when voorts was going to be an admin. Easy support! Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:48, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
23. Support for a fine candidate. Miniapolis 22:56, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
24. Support: I've regularly come across voorts's work through NPP and have never seen issues I can recall. They're easily someone I would have guessed was already an admin. :) Significa liberdade (she/her) (talk) 23:00, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
25. Support A kind, competent editor. Sincerely, Dilettante 23:11, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
26. Support. Not a difficult decision. I note in particular some good contributions to FAC including several thoughtful source reviews. Gog the Mild (talk) 23:12, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
27. Support per Tryptofish. SerialNumber54129 23:26, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
28. – robertsky (talk) 23:42, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
29. Support His closes at Phase II of admin recall was my first interaction with him. In my eyes they were good closes which got the ball rolling again on the new process. fanfanboy (block talk) 00:28, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
30. thumbs up ... sawyer * he/they * talk 00:33, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
31. Support Good candidate. Ampil ^{(Ταικ • Cοnτribυτιοns)} 01:15, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
32. I have complete trust in the noms that this is a good candidate. —Ingenuity (t • c) 01:15, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
33. Support - I got the opportunity to review a GAN for them and it was great work.--NØ 01:22, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
34. Support Have generally been impressed by what I have seen of their work - convinced by nominators and a quick spot-check that adminship would be a net positive for Wikipedia. See also my comment below under the first oppose. —Ganesha811 (talk) 01:32, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
35. Support +1 '''[[User:CanonNi]]''' (talk • contribs) 01:51, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
36. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 02:29, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
37. Support – I have always thought that this editor was very competent and helpful, and showed very good judgement in various sorts of cases requiring it. He would make a great administrator. ChrisWx ☁️ (talk - contribs) 02:44, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
38. Support, easily. I think Airship's right about his bureaucratic bent. (Sorry, voorts. That's lawyerbrain for you.) I also think that most of the times I've noticed voorts in a discussion it's because I've disagreed with him. Nevertheless I am firmly in support; he has good sense and the right temperament. I'd also like to point out a sample of his careful, detailed GA reviews from the past month: a pass and a fail. Clear understanding of WP:V very much in evidence. -- asilvering (talk) 02:54, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
39. SilverLocust 💬 03:23, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
40. Support! I've been waiting to see this for a while. I think voorts has demonstrated excellence in several areas of the project and level-headedness in making difficult decisions such as contentious RfC closes. I'm sure he'll do great work as an administrator. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 03:23, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
41. Support per nom. Have seen their work and the admin mentality is apt. The Herald (Benison) (talk) 03:24, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
42. Support I've seen their work and been impressed. Dr vulpes (Talk) 03:47, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
43. Support Looks great. Also, Blue Rider oppose looks more personal vindictiveness than anything else.--v/r - TP 04:29, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

    ​ Would you mind striking and rephrasing, @User:TParis? As stated, this sounds like a personal attack. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 08:06, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

44. Support Nothing bad, great candidate. ~/Bunnypranav:<ping> 05:24, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
45. Alpha3031 (t • c) 05:50, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
46. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:48, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
47. Just got to know about this RFA today. GrabUp - Talk 07:13, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
48. Support No red flags. Mox Eden (talk) 07:27, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

1. The candidate does not demonstrate knowledge of when to WP:GAFAIL and, more importantly, lacks understanding of one of the core principles of Wikipedia: WP:V, specifically WP:CITE as demonstrated by quick-failing Tamara (given name) mainly due to its lack of citations on a disambiguation list. The Blue Rider 00:53, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

   linking this context here (without comment), for ease of participants: User talk:Voorts/Archive 41#Tamara (given name) review ... sawyer * he/they * talk 01:02, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

   In addition, it looks like there's a significant ongoing dispute between The Blue Rider and a number of other editors at Talk:Tamara (given name). Hey man im josh (talk) 01:12, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

   What are you trying to imply? The Blue Rider 01:27, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

   That's an interesting one, I wouldn't require citations for that list of notable people named Tamara. On the other hand, like voorts, I would not have passed the article at GA, and all the other issues they pointed out were entirely correct. Unfortunately the article doesn't have much chance of passing GA at present either (lack of stability). In the end, my difference of opinion with voorts here is far from a dealbreaker when it comes to adminship. —Ganesha811 (talk) 01:31, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

   Yes, the article would definitely be quick-failed for failing criteria 5 at the moment. It was completely abandoned when I started editing it, but since then, an array of editors has become involved, leading to a lot of drama—sigh. I understand that this may not be a dealbreaker for most people, but that's my only interaction with him, and it was negative, so my vote is going to reflect that. The Blue Rider 01:39, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Neutral

1. I'm going to start here at neutral, and see what kind of badgering response my comment gets, and then use that information to move to either support or oppose. First of all, I really like the candidate's content work, and I see that as a significant positive. But, as the candidate notes, they've been doing a lot of non-administrator closes, some of which have attracted controversy. In the questions section, there's a link to this [2], where I think there's a legitimate concern about, well, WP:MALVOLIO. And I'll also note that the candidate made the closes that started us on the path to the current petition to desysop an admin, which isn't exactly working out well. Link to discussion about that: [3]. Now, I think that making difficult closes is potentially a good way to step up and help with difficult tasks. But I also think that there's a responsibility to get the consensus right, as well as to process concerns about the close in an impartial manner, and that becomes all the more important when one wants to become an administrator. Although it was good to ask for peer review of the first of those closes, there was an awful lot of feedback that was negative, and the feeling I get from the candidate's responses is just like thank you for your feedback, without really acknowledging that anything was questionable. I also get a slightly defensive feeling in how this was characterized on this RfA page. And again, at the discussion about admin recall, the candidate responded to questions, in part, by moving to being a partisan in the discussion, which undermines faith in the close. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:13, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

   I think it's fair to leave a comment in neutral before going one way or the other. My thoughts on this: first, I'd want to see evidence that this is indicative of a larger problem, which it currently does not seem to be. If he's doing "a lot" of closes, I'd be surprised if there weren't a few that prompted argument (Wikipedians love to argue, after all). I don't know if I would have closed the self-referential humor discussion that way, but while I can understand objections, voorts is on firm ground insofar as one side of the discussion arguing against P&G. I also don't think it's a point against him that he sought uninvolved opinions following a fracas where the participants had strong opinions on the close. I have to object more strongly to your characterization of voorts' admin recall closes, in that it's really unfair to retroactively attribute whatever happens with admin recall to voorts of all people. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:04, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

2. Looks like an interesting candidate and a fantastic editor! Adding a Neutral for now as a self-reminder to revisit later after they've had an opportunity to respond to more questions. Chetsford (talk) 00:35, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
3. Like Chetsford above. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:38, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
4. Gonna wait to support until my question gets answered. Kingsmasher678 (talk) 06:00, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

General comments

• Placing myself as a WP:MONITOR. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:01, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for volunteering. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:02, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

• Daniel Case, it looks like the candidate had already answered Q11 with the answer to Q5 unless I'm missing something? Perfect4th (talk) 04:52, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

  OK ... I'll come up with another question instead. Daniel Case (talk) 04:54, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

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.