Commons:Requests and votes/H-stt

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 Support = 15;  Oppose = 0;  Neutral = 0 - 100% Result = successful. EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:41, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

H-stt

Vote

Links for H-stt: H-stt (talk · contributions (views) · deleted user contributions · recent activity (talk · project · deletion requests) · logs · block log · global contribs · CentralAuth)

I am please to present H-stt for adminship. H-stt has been a steady and regular editor here since 2006 and is already an admin on the de Wikipedia. He has a good understanding of procedure, and his thoughtful and knowledgeable contributions to Deletion Requests and discussion of policy issues have impressed, the more so as he clearly has a very good grasp of copyright law. As an admin, his ability to close complex DRs knowledgeably would be a real asset. H-stt has been doing a lot of quiet work in editing and categorizing files and I am certain he would also make very good use of the new sysop-restricted ability (when re-enabled) to rename files. MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:02, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Michael, for the friendly introduction. I confirm the nomination but have to admit, that I probably won't be able to spend more time on Commons than right now. But of course I would look onto the DRs more closely if you trust me with this job. --h-stt !? 08:05, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Votes

Comments

Please help me, why would I need to "fix" my user page? And how is that connected with me being a good admin? What do you expect on the user page of a potential admin? Would flowers do? A cake? An image of my home town? Some personal statement how much I love this or maybe that? (Please make a list of your thises and thats below and we could have a strawpoll which of those are relevant for admins) Maybe a few words on what I do in my spare time? (playing Wikipedia of course) Or would it be enough if I simply put the banner on top of my user talk page on the user page as well? --h-stt !? 18:34, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is common practice among admins here not to direct visitors to other projects for contacts as the text If you wish to contact me, please use my User Talk Page at the German Wikipedia on your user page does. --AFBorchert (talk) 18:43, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, that was my fault, I should have mentioned that (unwritten) guideline beforehand.--MichaelMaggs (talk) 19:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'm sorry too for wording my vote like I did. It seemed so obvious to me that an admin at a Wikimedia-project should not ask users to contact them on a different project when requesting assistance that I assumed this was obvious to everyone, and especially in light of Rockets vote above I certainly assumed it would be clear what I meant by "fix your userpage". Furthermore, I should have made it clear that I would support you once your userpage didn't not direct users to a different project. So my apologies for making these assumptions and casting an unclear vote.
I'm am considering changing my vote to a plain oppose though based on your sarcastic reaction (and as I see it, over-reaction) to my vote. Dealing with stupid comments is something commons-admin. have to to on a daily basis, and you dealt very poorly with my comment. For now I'm clarifying my original vote, and await your response here.Finn Rindahl (talk) 20:00, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I get it, and have changed the page. Thanks for pointing me to it. But if you frown upon sarcasm, I might not be the right candidate for the job. Much of the admin job on de-WP almost requires sarcasm to maintain sanity and somehow I doubt it is that much different here. I am tempted to include an image here but of course then I would not only be sarcastic but silly as well. --h-stt !? 20:16, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sarcasm and humour is indeed necessary to maintain sanity at Commons as well. Judging where and when to use it can be even harder here than at one-language-projects though, and while using humour to bring across a serious point sometimes lightens a discussion, other times it fails pathetically (like the attempt I made when I first voted here). It is important to always remember that Commons is a multilingual and multicultural (here in the sense of Wikipedia-culture – Wikipedia in Norwegian has very different communication-culture than Wikipedia in English for example) project, and as admins we have to try to serve them all. I hope you checked my userpage and contribs before making your initial response, as I am a fairly experienced crosswiki editor who claims to be en-3 it should be expected that I could handle a sarcastic answer to a unclear (or outright stupid) oppose. I'd like to ask you though (before I change my vote (again)), would you have responded in the same way if I had been a newbie at Commons with en-1 in my babelbox)? Finn Rindahl (talk) 21:41, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting - I'm sitting quietly on the fence here but will step out momentarily.
Commons is a distinct project not merely some service for 'pedias so we expect people who are part of this project to show that on their pages & encourage communication here rather than elsewhere. Personally I tend to ignore the "please contact me somewhere else" messages - I don't have the time.
On sarcasm - I have over years had a real reputation for sarcasm in the real world. Some years ago I was quite shaken when colleagues pointed out to me that it made me a far less effective communicator when I used it in the wrong context. By & large I stopped using it. Friends probably get exposed to it (some even still like me :)) but when acting generally I try and play it completely straight.
Humour is fine (pity Commons doesn't have more of it - waaay too 'pedia at present) - sarcasm may make cross lingual communication even more fraught with danger than it is anyway.
Back on the fence watching. --Herby talk thyme 07:24, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question: How is your current position on images which were uploaded on Commons a longer time ago but where the necessary information to confirm the licence is missing? -- Cecil (talk) 07:57, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Tricky. This is probably the most difficult question of them all. I am a big fan of "assume good faith". The whole concept of using collaboration on a wiki to build something huge relys on trusting that the vast majority of people are constructive. All the projects show that this is generally true. And in the very beginning we did not even have and for quite some time we did not enforce rules on attribution, sources and the like. So we have a pretty big stock of images that do not meet today's standards. How to deal with them? In many cases it is possible to trace the uploader or the source and get a confirmation. It might take a bit of an effort though. Last August I found an Australian student, who did beautiful images while on holiday, by googling him, finding his sister and asking her to forward a message to him. He did confirm the license and we could restore a beautiful photography. Then there are a few cases where someone knows the contributor and the community decides to trust him. On de-WP we had a retired sailor who contributed tremendously to a number of topics, but that was before references and sources became standard. He died and the community of de-WP decided not to delete his articles even if it is not possible to confirm many of his contributions about "the old way" on board of German ships. On the other hand there always have been and will be honest mistakes with licenses and there are fraudulent uploads.
So it comes down to a simple matter of proportion. I am willing to give the benefit of doubt if there is some indication that inspires trust. If a number of images fit into a travel itinerary, consistent (EXIF) metadata, the like. But we should never forget that we have an obligation towards the photographers whose works might be copied illegally and we must protect legitimate reusers of our content. From what I see here, the commons community deals with this tricky issue quite well and I wish to pick up this good work. --h-stt !? 18:29, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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