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Wikipedia:Administrator elections/July 2025/Candidates/Darth Stabro

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The following discussion is preserved as an archive of an administrator election candidacy that did not succeed. Please do not modify it.

Final (167/169/205) (S/A/O); See official results (non-admin closure) – DreamRimmer ■ 12:29, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Nomination

Darth Stabro (talk · contribs) – Darth Stabro has been on the project for over 15 years but his current active period extends over the last two. I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with DS since the beginning of his recent active period and, most recently, meeting him in person. Since his return to active participation, he has rapidly acquired an adeptness for the content and technical sides of the project. This includes the creation of over three dozen successful articles in the last year (including a handful of GAs), positive application of AutoWikiBrowser, and participation in all levels of the DYK process. Other editors and I have repeatedly discussed nominating him for adminship, and he has graciously accepted this nomination for election.

Darth Stabro has a good record of positive interaction with fellow editors. His recent collaboration on high-stress articles like Pope Leo XIV and 2025 conclave are a mark in his favor. He has also become familiar with AIV and RPP through filings. While he was briefly blocked 15 years ago, I think that this event is probably more informative for him about how disruption manifests on the project rather than reflecting any current character flaw.

If elected, I have no doubt this editor would productively wield the mop for the project with anti-vandalism and tool work (particularly in the DYK space). ~ Pbritti (talk) 14:57, 10 July 2025 (UTC)


Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept; thank you for the nomination, Pbritti. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 15:01, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

Please disclose whether you have ever edited Wikipedia for pay: I have never edited Wikipedia for pay. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 15:01, 10 July 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: As some background, when I was but a young teenage Wikipedian I submitted an RFA and received a very gentle and correct WP:NOTNOW given my only recent addition of rollbacking privileges and low number of edits – with one kind moral support from Armbrust. At the time, I was primarily engaging in anti-vandalism efforts. I edited on and off over the years after that, and in recent years have returned to the project, focusing on content creation – creating new pages and expanding stubs, and have found great enjoyment in submitting my work to WP:DYK and assisting in other ways with that project. I also prowl at Special:RecentChanges and my watchlist looking for vandalism.
With that said, I am interested in becoming an administrator to help in more in-depth ways with those main interests; helping promote DYK Preps to Queue, and fighting vandalism. Given the meta of fewer and fewer qualified people standing for administrator, sometimes getting a recurring vandal blocked can take some time and I'd be looking to get involved at WP:AIV and WP:RPP. My philosophy to administrating would be to begin in those areas in which I am most competent, and then begin break out into other areas after observing and participating in the mode of a regular user for some time. I want to be careful and not overstep or go out of my depth. As an example of this, one might notice that I have ten Good Articles but have yet to review one myself. This is an area I'm also planning on diving into; perhaps by the time elections are over, I'll have started. I have wanted to make sure I fully understand the process before I begin to step into a larger participation. This was my philosophy with promoting hooks at DYK as well; careful observation before beginning to get involved in more in-depth ways.
I'll admit, it may not be the most flashy resume to be submitted for adminship; but given the ever-increasing traffic of Wikipedia, its importance as a source of reliable information in an increasingly-LLM world, and the general decline of administrator numbers and applications, I would like to humbly submit myself for the honor of helping out more extensively in the project to help lighten the load, increase reliability and responsiveness, and keep Wikipedia as a great source of information for years to come. Wielding the mop would be a great privilege that I believe I would handle well.
2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
A: I'm very proud of all the articles I've written or expanded, especially Francis L. Sampson (which I've recently submitted for peer review prior to submitting as a FAC), Nazareth Hall Preparatory Seminary (on which I collaborated extensively with another user) and On Eagle's Wings. I have a particular interested in the history of the Catholic Church in Minnesota, leading me to write or expand the Good Articles Saint Peter's Church (Mendota, Minnesota), First Cathedral of Saint Paul (Minnesota), Second Cathedral of Saint Paul (Minnesota), as well as just history in general; I love diving into Newspapers.com to look for sources for historic sources, for infrastructure like Coon Rapids Dam, Hennepin Avenue Bridge (1855), or Hennepin Avenue Bridge (1888), or people like James M. Goodhue, Patrick J. Ryan (chaplain), or Francis W. Kelly. As Pbritti mentioned, I also helped in the crazy days in April and May surrounding the Pope Leo XIV and 2025 conclave articles, helping people to reach consensus, removing unreliable sources, reporting copyrighted images, and keeping the quality of the articles high.
Wikipedia is a great compilation of human knowledge, and I want to make sure that if people want to know something about a place or person that they can find what they need on Wikipedia. Telling the stories of these persons or places is important, and nothing has made me happier than seeing article view counts skyrocket after a good DYK feature, helping people come to know more about what makes humanity so wonderful. Creating reliable, well-sourced articles that can help preserve human knowledge for posterity is a noble service that I'm honored to participate in.
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: I am generally a very level-headed person; it takes a lot to make me lose my cool. As such, I'm able to consistently act in a professional and calm way when interacting with others, even when there is conflict. As an example, last year an editor threatened to contact my employer after I tagged a number of his uploads as copyright violations with improper licenses. I took this to WP:ANI, clearly explained the situation, and awaited a resolution. (cf. ANI thread). After the user was warned (which he did not acknowledge), I have recused myself from interacting with him for the most part to avoid further conflict, and brought further concerns about subsequent uploads to WP:CCI rather than directly tagging them myself.
The nature of my employers requires of me the highest levels of professionalism; and while my identity is not a particular secret, the possibility of being outed is always on my mind. As such, I always strive to maintain the highest levels of calmness and professionalism – following proper procedure and graciously accepting correction when it comes.
It'd also be good to disclose that when I was brand new to Wikipedia as a teenager, I received blocks for some vandalism to political pages and IP sockpuppetting. I appealed and fairly quickly turned my editing around, within a few months gaining rollback and pending changes permissions. Obviously, I regret those actions of vandalism and no longer hold the views that I had some 15 years ago that led me to those actions. The ability to turn one's philosophy of participation around and receive a second chance is something that helps me always try to see the good in other people, even if that good is not manifesting, perhaps, in the moment.

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 4 section headers, not bold face. (4 equal signs)

Optional question from ViridianPenguin

4. Your content creation work far exceeds the standard generally expected of RfA candidates, but what factors do you believe have kept you from reviewing any Good Article nominees? User:Ritchie333/Why admins should create content is a great argument for being familiar with both sides of quality articles, so clarity on what shortcomings you hope to improve upon would be helpful.
A: Thanks for your question ViridianPenguin! I wanted to make sure that I had the confidence and familiarity to be able to do a job well-done, as I've seen some not-great GA reviews. I'd rather not waste another editor's time be having it dragged back to a review. That being said, I do feel good about my abilities and I did recently complete my first GA review, over at Talk:Barbenheimer/GA1. I planned on starting a bit sooner but my June was exceptionally busy. By the end of July into August I'm hoping to get a few more under my belt and help whittle away at the backlog. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 15:30, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from HistoryTheorist

5. Hi Darth Stabro. I mostly know you as a person who makes good articles and am less familiar with your antivandalism efforts. Could you further elaborate on your work at AIV and RfPP and/or identify your best contributions there?
A: Thanks for your question and your words about my articles, HistoryTheorist! As a non-admin, my contributions at AIV and RfPP have simply been gnomishly making reports. I have an extensive watchlist of pages tangential to my interests, and watch Recent Changes with some regularity. If I see a user engaging in unrepentant vandalism I report it to AIV; if it seems to be persistent across accounts or with other people, to RfPP. I actually rather enjoy playing whack-a-mole. It does bring me back to my "old days" where I was on the other side of the reverts and bans, and so I do always have it in the back of my mind that in every vandal is someone that could be a good contributor one day, if the situation is handled correctly. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 15:52, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from BusterD

6. Thank you for putting yourself forward as an administrator candidate. In what situations, if any, do you believe an administrator should invoke ignore all rules when justifying the use of advanced permissions?
A: Thanks BusterD, good question. I suppose there could be some emergency edge situation relating to user privacy/vandalism/etc requiring swift action without seeking consensus, but for the most part Wiki's policies are fairly robust. It's nice to have WP:IAR there if there is some edge case emergency, but it should be used sparingly. If I did find myself in such a situation, I think I'd voluntarily self-report the action at WP:AARV to submit it for review. If I did receive the mop (or even if I didn't, I suppose!), I'd be curious to see situations like this from the past and how they played out. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 15:42, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
7. Since the last admin election, the community has authorized and established a recall process. How has the addition of the recall petition affected your choices when choosing to run for the mop?
A: While being an administrator is certainly a great responsibility, it's still WP:NOBIGDEAL. If the community trusts me with the mop, it only makes sense that if they lost that confidence they should be able to take it away. If the recall process hadn't been established as a policy, I would have included in my nomination acceptance that I am open to recall. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 15:34, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Fade258

8. Why you choose adminship via election rather than normal RfA?
A: Hi Fade258, thanks for the question. Pbritti asked me a few weeks ago off-wiki whether I was considering standing. I hadn't given it much thought, but decided this seemed like a good opportunity. I have no strong preference about either process, both have their positive and negatives. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 15:26, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from CosXZ

9. How would you address a good faith editor who made a honest mistake?
A: Hello CosXZ; Good-faith edits require an all-the-more good-faith correction, usually more personal than a response to an intentional rule violation or person editing in bad-faith. I'd probably avoid one of the standard warning templates, but approach with a more individualized message on the appropriate talk page. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 17:56, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Ahecht

10. Given the nomination's mention of your work on articles documenting current events, how do you balance WP:NOTNEWS, WP:DEADLINE, and WP:RECENT with the desires of both editors and readers to have up-to-date information? How do you think the potential shuttering of Wikinews would affect this balance?
A: Good question, Ahecht. For me, it's about the WP:10YEARTEST. As an encyclopedia aggregating and preserving knowledge for future generations, we need to have in mind that Wikipedia exists for the long term, not the short term. What will someone, five, ten, twenty years down the road want to read about? Some "up-to-date" details meet that, some don't. In the examples given in my nomination, Pope Leo XIV and 2025 conclave, I focused on adding content that met that criteria and removing content that didn't, and attempting to find proper consensus when the appropriateness seemed to be debated. I've also taken the 10 year test into account for notability for biographies as well — will this person still be of note ten years from now, or are they a WP:BLP1E? Etc. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 17:46, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Hey man im josh

11. Do you believe 50 edits to WP:AIV and 17 edits WP:RPP/I to be enough demonstrated experience? That's what xtools says you have, and I'm a bit bothered that those are the areas you want to work in and that that's what I found. Looking into it a bit more, 25 of those 50 edits were made in October of 2024, and you've only made 11 edits to AIV this year.
A: Howdy Hey man im josh, good question and fair point. Those haven't been my main areas of focus, but are areas I'd like to get more involved in that I believe I'd be competent and professional at. I had pneumonia in October and so those were times I was able to sit down for a bit for simple work, but couldn't do content creation quite as easily with the brain fog. My life is slowing down a bit and I'm going to have more time for an anti-vandalism focus now. I don't think one particularly needs much a terribly large body of experience in recognizing the type of blatant vandalism that shows up there; it's more about knowing the policies for issuing warnings vs. bans and the technical side of IP ranges if necessarily, which is fairly simple. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 17:52, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
To be clear, and I hate to feel like a jerk doing this, but I want to reiterate and ask whether you believe that's enough demonstrated experience? It's fine to say you want to work there, which is great, but typically I'd expect this to be a WP:TOOSOON based on the lack of actual work there, despite good intentions and doing well and showing competence in unrelated areas (content work). Additionally, you may think AIV is easy work to process, but there are so many instances where it's not black and white, and those instances are what help to evaluate a potential candidate. At the moment I think your body of work is lacking, which is why I'm asking about the demonstrated experience and your thoughts on it. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:30, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
Hey man im josh, no worries, you're not being a jerk. They're certainly smaller numbers than anywhere else I've contributed, but I'd plan on taking the very careful approach I've had with other areas: only act on things I'm fairly confident on, and seek guidance or review precedent for those edge cases I'm not sure about. While they're smaller numbers, I'd think that this is one of those circumstances where using the tools (conservatively to start with) is really one of the only ways to get good practice. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 18:14, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from ChildrenWillListen

12. Assume you stumble across a DYK nom. There appears to be a strong consensus to promote, but you think the hook is extremely offensive and should not be on the main page. What would you do?
A: Howdy, ChildrenWillListen. Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED, but it is also not WP:GRATUITOUS, and featuring such content also may go against the WP:DYKHOOK polices around avoiding sensational content, remaining neutral, and contentious topics. I'd bring up my concerns, attempt to substantiate why it may be experienced as offensive and if possible bring in someone from that group (if I'm not a direct party to it) to help explain why it is offensive. I also may propose a hook that may be more universally supported. If strong consensus is to continue as is, I'd sit back and recuse myself.
I did participate in the opposite side of such a discussion at Template:Did you know nominations/Alien Mus. The nominator was someone from the culture in question and a concern was brought up that it might be offensive by a couple editors. I initially was sensitive to this and worried about my role in reviewing it, but several editors from the culture/country in question stated they did not find it offensive, and I ended up supported their position. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 18:26, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Carrite

13. What is your perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to Wikipedia?
A: Howdy, Carrite. I'm personally opposed to the usage of LLM-generated text being used in any capacity on the project, whether in articles, in discussions on talk pages, etc. I would like to see the Wikipedia policies on the subject be beefed up a bit stronger. I'd hope the recent pushback the WMF received on introducing AI-generated summaries would give some momentum to finding some further consensus. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 18:07, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Let'srun

14. How would you handle a situation where a user accused you in good faith of being WP:INVOLVED?
A: Hello Let'srun! I'd recuse myself from the situation and then try to loop in an impartial, trusted WP:THIRD party to see if there was any basis for the accusation, and go from there. I'd of course be open to it being brought to WP:AN or WP:AARV. I'm pretty scrupulous about not promoting a DYK hook that I may have suggested even a slight tweak to, so I'd like to think I I have a good track record at staying clear from this type of activity thus far. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 18:11, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Femke

15. Of your 16 requests for increased page protection, 5 instead led to a block (all others were honoured), especially the older ones: . What have you learned from those? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:04, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
A: Hi Femke, I should have been on my game about the IPv4 range in the Benevacantism case, and I must confess I don't have the most knowledge on IPv6 address range calculations. Making sure a range block isn't the most appropriate route is certainly now on my checklist; I just read up on them a bit to propose a range IPv6 partial block for Ally Louks at this entry on AIV. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 16:48, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Czarking0

16. Wikipedia tries to follow reliable secondary sources. However there are topics where many sources that are often seen as reliable tend to push a POV. As one example coverage of billionaires from reliable sources often looks like this. How do you think editors should handle such situations?
A: Hello Czarking0; To start, consulting WP:RSP is often helpful. Some generally-reliable sources listed as green on the chart may have some light restrictions or warnings about certain topics, such as WP:SCMP. Additionally, the article you pose as an example, while not explicitly an WP:INTERVIEW, can probably be treated as such. When different sources present things from a different angle or may even have different facts, taking the more conservative route and then bringing it to the article talk page seeking consensus may be helpful, if the fact even needs to be included in the article at all. WP:PROPORTION is important here, as well as following the WP:BESTSOURCES for the subject. WP:ACCORDINGTO may also be appropriate. In short: there are a number of different things an editor should take into account, and consensus should be sought if there is any difference of thought on the matter, relying on the policies in WP:NPOV and WP:RS, which do cover this scenario from a few angles. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 14:57, 22 July 2025 (UTC)


Discussion

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

  • WP:AFD notes: n=109, plenty of recent participation. Here's a clear and valid nom: . Here's a nom that clearly shows a WP:BEFORE, and was gracefully withdrawn when more sources turned up: . Here's a stubborn relist after an earlier speedy keep, which doesn't make any sense to me: . Here's one that makes very little sense when compared to the !votes: . Frequently votes "per nom" or similarly, and does so even when the nomination statement isn't particularly helpful and/or there are already lots of other !votes: , , . This is the strangest "per nom" I've ever seen (if you agree "per nom", shouldn't you tag as G7?): . But also some more helpful !votes: . I don't know how to describe this AfD record other than "uneven". -- asilvering (talk) 02:24, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
    Hello asilvering, thanks for your analysis. The speedy-keep was procedural as the article happened to be on the front page at the time; as my concerns about notability were still present afterwards I continued with the nomination, though it did not end up reaching a consensus for deletion. As for the G7 situation, I may have made the vote without realizing the article creator was the nominator for deletion; he didn't mention this. I also had been in the past offered a correction for trying to switch a to a different deletion method while another one was underway, and I probably saw no reason that a speedy deletion was needed - it wasn't blatant vandalism or BLP, etc. I hope that can offer some clarity. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 15:22, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
  • It is very nice to see the turn-around an editor has had over their time on Wikipedia. Obviously starting on Wikipedia is always going to come with rules that we are not familiar with. It is certainly pleasant to see someone go from an immature socker to a mature experienced editor. The neutrality within your discussions, especially across the Pope Leo XIV articles, are also favorable. Conyo14 (talk) 03:38, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
    Thank you! ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 15:22, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
  • I know Darth Stabro from my experience of reviewing a couple of his good article nominations. He has struck me as somebody who is very collaborative and has even offered to email me copies of sources that were behind a paywall. While I share concerns that he is light on conduct-related experience, I think that he has the right temperament to become an admin. If he doesn't get the mop this election, I think he should focus on gaining more AIV experience and then reapply in May 2026. ❤HistoryTheorist❤ 21:58, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
  • Darth and I have overlapped on numerous AfDs, mostly Christianity-related, and we generally agree about the preferred outcome. I agree with Asilvering that there could be more rationale on some of them than "per nom". I searched our interaction history to see if there was anything of note and recalled this interaction over the closure of this AfD. Darth accepted my feedback graciously and I haven't seen anything similar, which is a good sign on responsiveness and openness to learning. Dclemens1971 (talk) 04:07, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
  • Interestingly, if this nominee passes, it will be setting a precedent that very much lowers the community requirement of demonstrated work in admin areas. This would open up opportunities for other content focused editors who don't work in admin areas to run for election with little to no demonstrated work on the premise that they've shown competence in other areas. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:51, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
    • It's not that little, right? I imagine my RfA set a more extreme precedent, for instance. We've got 52 AIV reports (0 for me), 367 pages patrolled (0 for me), 17 edits to RFPP (0 for me), 17 CSD entries (4 for me), 100 AfD !votes (~50 for me, but looked like less because a rename). DS's work meets my minimum 'tenure' requirements for AIV and AfD. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:02, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
      I don't think I ever touched AIV or RFPP prior to RFA either. But I think josh's concerns probably come from the fact that DS mentioned AIV and RFPP in their Q1. -- asilvering (talk) 16:14, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
      That's exactly it. The intended areas of focus have very little demonstrated experience. Anti-vandal nominees, of which I considered myself one and consider Darth to be standing as one, are often expected to have a larger body of demonstrated work in that area. Looking at @Femke's RfA, I don't see them having announced intentions of working in those areas. Had they have, I might have questioned their experience, but Femke clearly noted different areas which I believe they're excellent at. Hey man im josh (talk) 16:39, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
  • Before anyone jumps in with an "admins need to understand IP addresses" in response to Q15, I'll just point out that I'm pretty sure most of us pick this stuff up on the job. I sure did, anyway, and I know lots of admins who aren't comfortable with rangeblocks (so they just avoid them or ask for help). In my opinion, it's temperament and general cluefulness that matter for adminship - everything else you can pick up as you go. So if you're a voter wondering whether you should support a candidate who doesn't have a long track record of experience in any particular area, my advice would be that you consider whether the candidate demonstrates competence and cluefulness elsewhere. If you're confident that they do, you can be pretty secure in your support. -- asilvering (talk) 16:22, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
    And as the admin that changed the first listed request to a range block, I'll be the first to admit that most admins probably would've just gone with page protection. --Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE    )     18:18, 22 July 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.

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