Wikidata:Requests for permissions/Oversight/John F. Lewis

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Withdrawn. John F. Lewis (talk) 16:24, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

John F. Lewis[edit]

Vote
RfP scheduled to end at 30 August 2014 14:23 (UTC)

Hi guys, I want to nominate User:John F. Lewis for oversighter on Wikidata. John has been an administrator on the project since May 2013. He is trustworthy user and knows the Wikidata and Wikimedia policies very well.

Reasons why I want to nominate John for oversighter is, that we currently have 2 oversighters here, and both of them are from the North America, so they are mostly not available in the European time. John is active and often available on IRC and via mail.

I (Stryn) am a former oversighter on Wikidata. I resigned after June 2014, and we now have a need for an European oversighter. John covers European/Asian/African timezones and he understands the Welsh language in addition of English.

Outside of Wikidata, John F. Lewis is also an administrator on the account creator interface on the English Wikipedia. He has also worked as an admin on the Welsh Wikiquote. He has access to info-en and Wikidata OTRS queues. He is a channel operator on IRC for #Wikidata and also a listadmin for Wikidata mailing list. John also has signed an NDA with Wikimedia Foundation. --Stryn (talk) 14:23, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Co-nomination

I would like to co-nominate him: We have a need for an oversighter covering African/Asian/European timezones and John covers these zones. He has done his role as an administrator very well so I do not see any problem with him in a role as an Oversighter. He is already identified to the WMF. — by Revicomplaint? at 14:34, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate Acceptance: Well, from the above - I accept both of their kind nominations :) I think Stryn covered the basics of what the community would want to know (my roles; OTRS etc.) but feel free to ask me questions in the comments section and I will ensure to respond promptly. John F. Lewis (talk) 14:37, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Votes[edit]

  1.  Support as nominator. --Stryn (talk) 14:37, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  2.  Support as co-nominator. — by Revicomplaint? at 14:38, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  3.  Support Of course! Jianhui67 talk★contribs 14:39, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  4.  Support Nice to have the new OS--DangSunM (talk) 14:55, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  5.  Support He is trusted user.--Konggaru (talk) 14:57, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  6.  Support --ValterVB (talk) 15:08, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  7.  Support For three reasons I'll support him. Those are
    • I can trust him with this tool.
    • I can trust him with this tool. and
    • I can trust him with this tool .
    Anyway all his contributions, behavior looks interesting to me, so Good Luck with the tool in advance. --Pratyya (Hello!) 15:13, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  8.  Support Having only 2 oversighters is not enough, especially given that we need European coverage.--Jasper Deng (talk) 15:18, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  9.  Support In regards to Vogone's question, my availability is not quite what it was. OS activity is unpredictable: some months there's nothing, and other months there's quite a few requests. As far as the user, I trust that he understands the policy. --Rschen7754 16:02, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  10.  Support --Paperoastro (talk) 16:13, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  11.  Oppose I'd prefer oversighters to be less involved in the controversy/drama side of the project (e.g. Docu, Петър Петров, Tamawashi), and would also like to branch out a bit further than English in terms of language coverage. There are only 431,000 Welsh-speakers in the world, and none that don't also speak English to the best of my research. Another oversighter wouldn't hurt, but I don't think that John F. Lewis is a good choice for the rights. Ajraddatz (talk) 16:22, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  12.  Oppose per Ajraddatz. --Steinsplitter (talk) 16:52, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  13.  Support I don't necessarily think there is a strong need for more oversighters at the moment, but John is one of the most trustworthy users on Wikidata IMO. What would it hurt? :) --AmaryllisGardener talk 17:00, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  14.  Neutral I don't have a strong opinion on this as I don't see a need for an additional OS, but as Ajraddatz I would also prefer somebody with a broader knowledge of languages and less involvement in community disputes. Vogone (talk) 17:06, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  15.  Oppose as per Ajraddatz. I've looked over the drama briefly, and John isn't the right person to entrust with these tools. Russavia (talk) 17:08, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  16.  Support for an extra checkbox. No big deal to a trusted user. TBloemink talk 20:22, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  17.  Oppose Not many information about him. I know him only from Commons and what I saw is not that much trust for this very trustful rights. -- Perhelion (talk) 21:10, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    What have you seen at commons? I have rarely contributed there apart from POTY voting and a few votes to elections + the weekly summaries which pop up on peoples user talks. John F. Lewis (talk) 21:15, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @Perhelion: What does his lack of work at Commons have to do with being trusted here? I mean, unless you had a problem with his behavior there (not his absence), your rationale is irrelevant. This isn't Commons. Please explain. --AmaryllisGardener talk 00:36, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  18.  Support A highly capable admin and has the added bonus of being in a European time zone. (We should also see if there are any good candidates in a far-east time zone) --Jakob (talk) 23:11, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  19.  Oppose. I can't discern any complaints about candidate's sysop role on his talk page. On the other side, I the talk page has low activity. I'm currently opposing on the following grounds:
    1. The candidate replied to some of the oppose comments, and didn't skip the one which relates to his past drama involvement, but the reply is not to the point.
    I need answers to the questions asked to make a proper judgment. I may change the vote basing on those; I have no strong feelings at the moment. --Gryllida 00:10, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Considering the 5 questions that you asked (which have little relevance to the role of oversighter BTW), it seems like you do have strong feelings... --Rschen7754 00:13, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Which may be coming from elsewhere given that she only has 17 Wikidata contributions, including six to this page.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:53, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  20.  Oppose Per Ajraddatz and relatively recent drama I've seen from this user elsewhere. Oversight is one of the most dangerous tools, it can damage transparency, hiding content even from administrators. --Abd (talk) 13:53, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  21.  Oppose The hypocrisy of, and appeal to the common sense fallacy in, his comments at [1] shortly after his offer at [2] makes him unsuited as an admin, never mind oversighter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:33, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Please explain. I do not see an issue with the links you gave. In the first one, I quoted a policy of the community which reflected the situation. If you have been warned multiple times regarding a matter, complaining still and ignoring the warnings is completely inappropriate. And regarding the second one - again no issue there. I said is something was deleted against policy, I would be willing to undelete it. John F. Lewis (talk) 15:52, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    QED. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:13, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

  • @Stryn: Hm, is an additional OS really needed? Wikidata:Oversight/Statistics gives the impression there was nothing to do in your timezone. Vogone (talk) 15:13, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @Vogone: As I said in my statement, we currently have 2 OS's, and both of them are in North America, so yes, we really need an oversighter to cover some more timezones. Many times I/we got OS requests at European times, when they were not available, but I was. --Stryn (talk) 15:19, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @Stryn: Is there something wrong with the stats page then or why doesn't it reflect your statement? Vogone (talk) 15:20, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    It constitutes a significant fraction of the requests shown there...--Jasper Deng (talk) 15:27, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would like to provide a general comment on the drama as provided by Ajr and used in subsequent opposes by Steinsplitter and Russavia. I don't exactly see how these cases are problematic in a role as an oversighter? The Docu case was the case of a user who was being disruptive through wikilawyering, the 'stick' issues and poking a dead horse. My original action here was done per a discussion in #wikidata-admin which at the time had a consensus that Docu was being disruptive and was worth a block, of which I did to implement a consensus of the administrators on IRC. Docu was then later blocked by Rschen for the same behaviour. The middle case cited by Ajr I will admit was a mistake on my behalf and was not appropriate conduct one would expect from an administrator. I believe this matter was properly resolved later at this RfC. The Tamawashi case I am really not understanding how people are calling this 'bad' on my behalf? Tamawashi was blocked based on a consensus at Wikidata:AN (which for the record; is listed in the supposed policy we have). The user was not being constructive by refusing to acknowledge peoples comments, questions and warnings and based on the consensus by users and administrators as well as a result via IRC; I decided to act as appropriate which was blocking the user. As you can see with the last tp revoke by Jasper and the later blocks by Sannita with the tp revoke and the user's decision to personally attack three administrators on their talk page - this was a clearly disruptive case which was handled within reason. John F. Lewis (talk) 17:21, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I think that misses the point. OS should be able to handle sticky situations quietly and discreetly, and the people opposing don't believe you can (I assume) do that given your history of getting tangled up in drama, whether justified or not. Legoktm (talk) 20:07, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Just my 2 cents: I think I was a fairly controversial candidate, and I've never had a problem with that affecting my being a Wikidata oversighter. Granted, most of the controversies were on enwiki. --Rschen7754 20:25, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Apologies for not responding yesterday, John. My concern isn't really how you handled any of the cases (save the one which you address in your response) - it's that you seem to be involved in all of them. Whenever there is drama, you seem to pop up there. It might just be my impression, but I would prefer an oversighter to be less involved in that side of the project and remain more neutral, if for no other reason than to appear approachable to most of the people on the project who will be bringing requests to you. Your position also seems to frequently extend the use of rights past what others are willing to do - some of the blocks that you have done are examples of that, but also actions like your request for a global ban of DanielTom which was completely outside of policy. That becomes a concern when applying for oversight rights, because there is less leeway for judgement than with admin rights. Since Rschen and I are able to give pretty good coverage at the moment, I think we can be a bit selective when choosing another oversighter, so my inclination would be to pick someone with both timezone coverage and a variety of language skills. Either way, thanks for running. Ajraddatz (talk) 14:51, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Question What have you contributed to Wikidata? How do you think the project is changing thanks to your contributions? Gryllida 00:05, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Mostly within Wikidata I have contributed the usual way users do which is through editing the knowledge base adding more data and references to the already expansive database. Although I am not the most active edit who pretty much makes a thousand edits a day or so but over the past year and a half (almost), I have mostly been active with editing the data, creating and managing properties (not so much lately) and generally being available to help new edits and retain them. John F. Lewis (talk) 00:57, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Question What technical knowledge do you have which you'd like to mention in this nomination? Gryllida 00:05, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh technical knowledge. I am not too sure on what you mean by technical knowledge necessarily within this role but with MediaWiki I guess I can say I am experienced with the basics of revision deletion and oversight (I serve the role in a non-Wikimedia project type thing). In addition I am reasonably knowledgeable about the basics of Wikibase and I do help explain Wikibase's technical backend to people when necessary although I can not call myself a 'master' I know the basics for the work I do. If you want me to be more specific or more broad, please say so. John F. Lewis (talk) 00:57, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Question Please show an example of on-wiki discussion where someone else pointed out your mistake. What was your reaction? Gryllida 00:05, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The best example I can think of right now is this RfC and the users talk page. Ajr pointed out I made an error in judgement on the decision to block the user for 24 hours, upon reading Ajr's comment I carefully consider the situation and decided to reverse the block. As the user began an RfC I held off a discussion on their user talk and instead put my thoughts into the RfC. My reaction as you can see was calm and accepting that I made a mistake and had resolved it and made an apology. Since this incident, nothing of the same sort has happened. John F. Lewis (talk) 00:57, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Question Please show an example of on-wiki collaboration with another contributor. Gryllida 00:05, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    With regards to content collaboration, I rarely have any detailed content discussions on-wiki, these mostly occur on IRC. On-wiki I have however collaborated with users numerous times regarding policy changes, guidelines changes etc. most of which can be found in my talk page archives mostly. I'll take a look around for links outside of my userspace tomorrow. John F. Lewis (talk) 00:57, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Question Please comment on the drama involvement concerns mentioned above. Gryllida 00:05, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    This was already done right above. Vogone (talk) 00:09, 17 August 2014 (UTC) P.S.: Your signature lacks a talk page link, please fix that. :)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
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