Wikipedia:Administrator elections/December 2025/Candidates/Left guide

Nomination

Left guide (talk · contribs) – I first came across Left guide while writing notes on candidates' AfD records in the last admin election. "Huh," I thought, "that's a pretty daring WP:NAC." It was a good close, so I let it be. Then I came across another. Why the heck didn't I know this editor already? And another. And another. All of them solid closes - well-considered, correct, and not the kind of patently obvious stuff that's usually the business of NACs. I was intrigued. And over the past few months, I've watched them respond well to challenges of various kinds - willing to stand their ground and defend their reasoning, but also to change their mind when warranted and to humbly accept corrections. Of course, I wasn't the first one to have noticed. I'll let two other admins who beat me to the punch take it from here. -- asilvering (talk) 23:18, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Co-nomination statement

Anyone who spends time around XfDs already knows Left guide, by far the most prolific non-admin closer, with over 1,000 mindful AfD and several DRV closures to their name in the past four months. I was coaching LG when they took their first steps with NACs, impressed by their knowledge of policy and guidelines, their mature, even-tempered approach to dispute resolution, and most of all, by their readiness to correct and learn from their own mistakes once those are pointed out to them. Lately, though, the only mistakes being corrected were when Left guide tactfully corrected my mistakes...

While only here for a bit over two years, Left guide demonstrates the skill and P&G knowledge you rarely see even with editors who have several times LG's tenure. With several GANs to their name, the content creation side is solid. The last time I nominated someone at RfA was seventeen years ago (and they went on to become a 'crat and an Arbcom member), so it's not like I do these things willy-nilly. I can't wait for Left guide to pick up the mop and take on the admin work they aren't already doing, and hope you will join me in supporting their candidacy. Owen× ☎ 23:32, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Co-nomination statement

Left guide (hereafter, LG) and I first "met" when we were exploring a WP:UPE/WP:COI editing issue nearly two years ago in February 2024. I was surprised to realize that LG was a fairly new editor as I found their confidence and awareness of policies to be on the level of someone more experienced. In their 2+ years of editing, LG has become a well rounded and strong Wikipedia editor. This is not in a check box manner, but in seeking new areas to grow as they explored their editing interests. At AFD, they make thoughtful closes and respond well to any inquiries. This has continued through to their participation in DRV.

LG is willing to pitch in on a variety of backlogs and earlier this fall I asked them to help on a content area and while they admitted this wasn't somewhere they were experienced, LG improved the article in tandem with another editor. While Left guide is confident in their abilities as an editor, as well they should be, they do not hesitate to seek advice from fellow editors, including my fellow co-nominators. It was in these actions that I gained more familiarity with their editing interests and became one of several editors proposing adminship to them around the last elections. I appreciate their note then that they were interested but did not feel ready, a key piece of necessary awareness that is prevalent in all their editing. And now I ask all of you, if you see their edits in the same light as I do, to join me in supporting Left guide's candidacy in this election. Star Mississippi 00:08, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept, with gratitude to my nominators. Left guide (talk) 00:41, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Please disclose whether you have ever edited Wikipedia for pay: I have never edited for pay, and have no other accounts. Left guide (talk) 00:43, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

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: Becoming an administrator would allow me to do my existing set of regular administrative tasks (mainly closing AfD and RfD) more efficiently, lightening the burden on other admins and community members. This would most frequently involve closing discussions as "delete", but I've also encountered other closes where admin tools are needed, like RfD page moves requiring the technical deletion of an obstructing title that the page mover right can't accomplish, and certain types of AfD closes where protection is called for. My regular work with the deletion process has extended to DRV where I've been an active participant and also made over a dozen closes; there are a range of administrative actions I'd be both familiar with and comfortable implementing there.

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

A: Aside from the aforementioned administrative tasks and my content milestones on four articles as main prose author (three GANs, two DYKs, one ITN), I'd consider collaborative activities to be my best contributions because I enjoy these the most. I've recently taken on some coordinated article creations like Ricky Parker, Joseph Norman, and Berenice Olmedo, the latter two of which I successfully nominated for DYK. I've also been active in various WikiProjects (mainly sports-related) for a long time even before I began administrative work; in discussions, I have regularly interpreted and explained relevant policies, explored the reliability of sources, and started timely talk page RfCs to help resolve long-running, intractable content disputes. I particularly like being able to track down needed sources or information for people who post research queries on WikiProject talk pages, or at least point them in the right direction of where to find it.

One specific project I'd like to highlight is collaborating to expand what was the NBA WikiProject bibliography into a list of sources frequently found in the topic area with classifications on their reliability. All of the ones marked as questionable or unreliable (along with several others) are cited to discussions; I spent time researching archived RSN and WikiProject discussions, and then interpreting and documenting their consensus.

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: Closing discussions is often a means of resolving a conflict that other people are having, but sometimes the close itself becomes a source of conflict. A recent example was my close of the David Gillow AfD, which was brought to DRV. I closed as redirect seeing a P&G-based consensus against article retention. As usual when my closes are questioned, I remained calm and civil, and communicated the policy-based explanation for my judgment. A few challenged the close on merit, and many others opposed as a matter of process. After listening to this feedback, I realized where I had overstepped, apologized, and advocated for reverting my action which facilitated a quick, uncontested relisting.

From this experience, I learned that explaining my reasoning isn't always enough even when it's supported by policy, because context matters. P&Gs must be interpreted in the context of community norms; knowing how to read the room is a valuable skill in dispute resolution. I similarly learned that making a good choice is not only about how much I trust myself to make it, but also how much the community trusts me. I ultimately recognize that being a good administrator is about empathetically and collaboratively serving the needs of the community rather than "winning".

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. Make sure to use level-four section headers, not boldface.

Discussion

• Links for Left guide: Left guide (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Edit summary usage for Left guide

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

Please do not cast votes here. The voting phase will use SecurePoll and will occur on December 9–15 UTC.

• Notes on AfD participation: Most of Left guide's recent AfD participation is as a closer, not a !voter, so EFA voters may be interested in reviewing this instead: . Example !votes: , , . These are solid and helpful !votes; as a closer, I particularly appreciate when participants explain why one redirect target is preferable to another. -- asilvering (talk) 00:50, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

  Obvious disclosure: I nominated this candidate. -- asilvering (talk) 00:50, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

• In addition to their work at AfD, amply covered by their nominators, Left guide has also been a helpful and consistent presence at RfD, where there is more scope for NACs. They have always been thoughtful, willing to ask questions when they don't understand something, and take feedback. I offered to nominate them as well, but unfortunately I lost that privilege to several other excellent editors. I'm looking forward to them being able to take some of more thorny closes from the rest of us at RfD :) Rusalkii (talk) 02:11, 4 December 2025 (UTC)
• They somewhat regularly spot errors on the main pages and post suggested fixes to WP:ERRORS, all of which seem to have been implemented. This one Wikipedia would have especially benefited from them being an admin and being able to fix it immediately. I promoted their DYK article Statue of Dirk Nowitzki and remember being impressed with it. One thing that stuck out was in the sources that talked about the original version, they were really having a laugh at how it unintentionally looked like anal beads and their tone was honestly kind of wild with "Oh lord this Dirk statue is definitely one of a kind" and "This is a family blog, so I won’t discuss here how the balls, strung together as they are, resemble a certain type of bead that is used for non-necklace purposes. Do some Googling if you’re curious." And then Left guide very smoothly distilled that into NPOV with "A prototype revealed at Nowitzki's January 2022 jersey retirement had three interconnected balls showing the shooting trajectory, though this feature was met with sharp criticism (particularly on Twitter) and later scrapped;". It was a situation where it was extra important to not really lean into the ludicrous appearance of the prototype since Nowitzki is still alive and the prototype idea was "scrapped". Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 05:01, 4 December 2025 (UTC)
• I've only ever had positive encounters with Left Guide. My essay had some great assistance from them, and as someone who has been around for a while, I can tell when a good editor comes by. Conyo14 (talk) 05:42, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

• I have been impressed with Left guide since we first crossed paths over a year ago, I think it was at an AfD. I noticed that their “voice” and temperament was well suited to having civil, in-depth discussions even if a situation gets tense. They have a solid handle on guidelines and policies regarding notability and are able to effectively communicate “how things work around here” to new users with patience and kindness. Their recent work at AfD performing non-admin closures is well thought-through and accurately reflects the community’s input. Those are excellent qualities for an administrator to have. We have collaborated on a few projects together, a complicated clean up task, and on two DYKs (along with Star Mississippi). Their content creation is solid, having worked on three GANS, DYKs and an ITN entry. Trust, level-headedness and good communication skills are the three most important qualities for an administrator (at least in my opinion). Left guide clearly has all those qualities. Netherzone (talk) 20:26, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

• Piling on to say that Left guide has shown incredible patience and thoughtfulness in my interactions with them. These are the most important traits I hope to see in an admin, and Left guide absolutely has the right temperament. If I had to give one example, it would be this excellent advice for a newcomer they left on my talk page. Toadspike [Talk] 01:54, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

• Comment: I've struggled with communicating on Wikipedia since starting out, and have been called out for bludgeoning, despite my best efforts not to, multiple times. LG provided some excellent advice and analysis despite feeling uncomfortable (which I apologise for causing). LG does a fantastic job at AfD and on the project in general. They have my full support! 11WB (talk) 13:03, 5 December 2025 (UTC)
• I have learnt a lot about AFD closing from watching Left Guide they know a lot about it and do some really good work. Happy to see them running they have all the qualities necessarry to be an admin. GothicGolem29 (Talk) 01:23, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
• It's been amusing to see the (rare) administrator raise an issue with one of Left guide's closures, only for Left guide to ultimately be vindicated. In the meantime, they've always assumed humility and been even-tempered, in a way many would struggle with. Even with a relatively limited time onwiki, at least compared with other candidates, I'm not sure we've ever had a candidate so qualified to immediately start doing challenging closures at XfD upon taking the tools. I encourage participants to give this consideration before voting. Local Variable (talk) 06:46, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
• I'm uncomfortable with the question of User:Steel1943. To exaggerate a bit, the question seems to ask 'can you tell us why you're not a baddie'. They've been around for more than 2 years (most RfA criteria that are written down ask for 1 to 2 years), they have over 50,000 edits (with 8,000-10,000 a typical minimum). They are clearly competent. In short, none of the Tell-tale signs of hat collecting. We should encourage enthusiasm, not regard it with suspicion. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:34, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

  I don't like this question either, since hat collecting is fundamentally about intent and cannot be disproven. If there is no evidence of wrongdoing, then there is no grounds for this accusation. Further, of the four manually-granted userrights they have, only one (AWB) was granted because of a request from Left guide. The rest (RB, PM, temporary NPP) were proactively granted by admins who trusted Left guide to make good use of these tools, and have now gone on to nominate them for adminship. (RAL, not quite a userright, was granted upon a request by Utopes .) I wonder if this is enough for @Steel1943 to reconsider. Toadspike [Talk] 12:32, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

  Nope, not taking it away. I'm an RfD regular, and I find it amazing that the candidate became so gung-ho at closing discussions prior to actually participating in them. A good answer can resolve such concerns. Steel1943 (talk) 12:47, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks for the clarification. That is a more more specific and actionable concern. Toadspike [Talk] 12:52, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

  Monitor note: After discussing the question with @ThadeusOfNazereth, we have decided to keep this question as-is given @Steel1943's later clarification. However, we would like to stress that a clearer wording of the intended question might dispel these concerns, and that answering any questions beyond the first three is ultimately optional. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 15:04, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

  For the record, this is totally fair as I acknowledge the potential blunder in the way I worded my question (though I hope this discussion clarifies its purpose.) Steel1943 (talk) 18:38, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

  @Steel1943, could you perhaps provide us with your own definition of "hat collecting"? Admins don't say this kind of thing (OwenX to Star Mississippi, August) about hat collectors. They say this about people they're about to frogmarch to RFA. This is someone with need for the tools. A question like "What got you interested in closing discussions?" seems to me a completely different question, perhaps one you'd consider asking as your second, but not one all that related to the question you've asked. -- asilvering (talk) 15:00, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

  @Asilvering: I ... kind of already did when I attempted to clarify my question per my response to Toadspike. I really don't have any real way to further clarify. Maybe the following may help?: My question was not intended to be presumptuous, but rather a venue for the nominee to squash concerns that they got involved in certain administrative areas too soon during their Wikipedia tenure. Editors can tend to desire to see experience in an area before permitting further responsibility, which has already been attested to for AfD by multiple editors, and mine can be considered specific to RfD ... which as I alluded in my previous statement, was a bit of a "cart before the horse" scenario regarding participation at RfD ... something that quite frankly would probably only be noticeable by someone who frequents RfD (such as me ... 10+ years of participating in it) since it's not set up by external tools to monitor participation in it with intense scrutiny in the manner which AfD is set up. Steel1943 (talk) 18:26, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

  I'd say that the point of having participation in area before taking admin actions in it is to gain experience to avoid doing anything careless that could've been prevented with more knowledge, and Left guide's RfD closes don't the kinds of issues I'd expect from someone rushing in somewhere with insufficient experience. If the cart moves fine with the horse behind it I'm not inclined to quibble about their order. Rusalkii (talk) 19:28, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

  One, closing discussions is harder than participating in them. Two, hat collectors tend to not do cognitively intensive project work, they tend to be heavy on automated tool use and bagging out vandals on noticeboards to get them blocked. Local Variable (talk) 15:51, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

  Yep, been doing NACs for over a decade. Preaching to the choir. (Please see my response to Asilvering's comment for how this all ties in as it is related to the initial question and why I posted my question.) Steel1943 (talk) 18:31, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

• I've never had anything but positive experiences with Left guide in our occasional interactions at WP:NHL and other sports topics. I'd be ecstatic to see them as an admin. The Kip ^(contribs) 21:57, 8 December 2025 (UTC)
• Monitor note: @St4rryR6, I have removed your question as it is essentially a more accusatory version of Q10, to the point of casting aspersions. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:28, 8 December 2025 (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.