Wikipedia:Administrator elections/July 2025/Discussion phase

Co-nomination statement

I second Sohom Datta on all counts. This is a candidate who spots a backlog, rolls up her sleeves, and digs in, and we need as many of those people to be admins as possible. Check out her whopping 352 reviews and 138 re-reviews in last month's AfC backlog drive. And these aren't just any reviews: CoconutOctopus works at the very front of the AfC queue, the bleeding edge of "good grief, what is that" out of which all the obvious declines are weeded, and she does it accurately and with a smile. I can say from experience that admin tools are very useful for this task. She's polite and clear when challenged on interpretations of consensus (eg ). She's volunteering to help with the chronically understaffed unblocks queue. Let's give her the mop and bucket and let her get to work. -- asilvering (talk) 02:26, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept CoconutOctopus talk 08:03, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

Please disclose whether you have ever edited Wikipedia for pay: I have never edited for pay and never will.

Optional questions from Cremastra

4. How would you reassure editors that you have enough hands-experience to be an administrator? I note that you only have 9–10 full months' experience and a relatively low edit count, and a large majority of your edits are semi-automated.

A: Thank you for the questions! I completely appreciate your concerns here; but I would not be standing if I did not genuinely believe I possess the experience and know-how to make an effective admin. Whilst it is true I have only been majorly active over the past year or so, I have been around since 2018 and since practically day 1 have been working on-and-off in areas such as page patrolling and antivandalism - areas where I plan to work as an admin. I believe I do have a very solid understanding of our policies and guidelines, especially in the maintenance-focused areas I want to work, such as clearing backlogs that require admin tools. Even in the months I've made less edits, I've still always kept one eye on the wiki and any ongoing changes and major discussions, and I strongly believe the work I do at AFC and RM, among others, show I do have the experience required. As far as automated tools go, I'd say this is because of the areas I do like to work in - anti-vandalism is made far easier with the assistance of tools like Twinkle (which I use), and AfC patrolling is far easier using the AfC helper tool. Simply because these edits are semi-automated does not mean the exact same amount of thought needed doesn't go into them as it does manual edits - you can't automate the reading of sources, or the measuring of consensus, which are where the truly important measures of editing are, in my eyes. In my work on content I don't use automated tools, nor do I use them when participating in discussions. In my eyes there's a big difference between thousands of edits using AWB to change hyphens, and edits using Twinkle to carry out tasks that would be tedious to do manually but do still require thoughtful input on behalf of the editor. CoconutOctopus talk 10:04, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

5. If an XfD discusion has been relisted twice and there is no clear consensus at all, and only two comments, do you think it is better to relist or to close as no consensus?

A: Standard guidelines are that deletion discussions shouldn't be relisted more than twice, but like all things it is going to depend on the discussion itself. If there's no clear consensus, then it can be closed that way and that's likely the best course of action for most cases you describe; however, there are some exceptions - if all votes are for delete and there's never been previous failed attempts at deletion it can be treated like a PROD and 'soft deleted' (although this is likely to happen earlier in the process!). If the comments have been made recently, and perhaps link a number of high-quality sources that require review, then it may be best relisting a third time with an explanation of why. CoconutOctopus talk 09:47, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from ChildrenWillListen

6. How do you, as an administrator, plan to tackle the growing problem of editors inserting AI-generated content into articles?

A: (A note that I am talking about generative AI slop here, not other uses of the term). To answer this question, I would have to say "not alone"! Growing use of AI to create low-quality articles and drafts is a problem I'm very familiar with through my work in AFC more and more of the drafts we review are purely AI-generated garbage. Recently a number of edit filters have been created to log these and are currently undergoing testing; I previously helped with the creation of the "AI" decline option for AFC too. I'd want to continue along these lines, partaking in discussions about AI and what best do to prevent it. As an admin, I'd be able to, where needed, delete the (many) drafts that are created with AI that also happen to fall under G11, and would be able to block in the cases users are using AI to such a degree it's disrupting the project and are unwilling to engage in communication over this. I'd also like to get involved with Wikiproject AI cleanup - not something that requires me to be an admin, but something I've been meaning to do for a while and simply have not gotten around to yet, so regardless of the outcome of this election I plan on jumping over there to help out. CoconutOctopus talk 14:54, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Fade258

7. Can you please elaborate in short, How will you guide user in broaderline draft rather than decline it?

A: Thank you for your question! As a fellow AfC reviewer I'm sure you're already familiar with how AfC works, so I won't have to explain to you that a lot of the drafts I deal with as someone who focuses on the front of the queue are very much in need of a total and complete rewrite if they're even relevant at all. For those where there is hope for improvement, it can be very helpful to advise editors to perform a proper search for sources (and advise them exactly what we mean by "reliable secondary sources", as we have to be aware new users may not be as familiar with Wikipedia jargon as we are. Depending on the content of the draft it can be useful to point them in the direction of areas such as relevant Wikiprojects who may be able to assist. Most important of all is to remain patient and polite and not scare people who are trying their best to contribute away. CoconutOctopus talk 15:57, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from BusterD

8. 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: Only in the most serious cases, where an admin has zero doubt the community would agree with their action, and there are good reasons not to await consensus, should IAR apply to unilateral administrative action. I can also see a rare usecase when the community has decided by consensus that an admin should perform an action that falls under IAR, such as in the rare XfD debates where this occurs. If I were to perform any such actions I would ensure to consult with the community or other admins where appropriate in the aftermath. CoconutOctopus talk 15:00, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

9. 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: It has not. Adminship is a privilege, not a right, and if given a mop it's because the community trusts me with it. If I were to do anything to seriously breach that trust then I'd expect and even encourage action, whether that be through recall or not. Admins should remain accountable to the community they serve; they are not there to rule over it but there to carry out actions that we cannot necessarily trust every single user to perform correctly. CoconutOctopus talk 15:00, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from CosXZ

10. How would you address a good faith editor who made a honest mistake?

A: If it's a very minor mistake a simple edit summary will probably suffice. For a larger mistake where it's important they're aware so they can avoid it in future, if the user is new perhaps a level 1 warning template if applicable (or an otherwise gentle note on their talk page) along with a link to the Teahouse would be helpful. For an experienced user a gentle reminder on their talk page would be more than enough - we all make mistakes sometimes, and that's fine! CoconutOctopus talk 08:12, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from The Squirrel Conspiracy

11. What is your perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to Wikipedia?

A: I think it is important we are clear what we mean when we say "AI" - artificial intelligence has become a bit of a bogeyman recently, but there is a distinction between most forms of AI and large language models such as ChatGPT or Gemini. For the former, there are many usecases, such as the incredible ClueBot who catches what feels like a majority of the vandalism on Wikipedia. For LLMs I am against their use on Wikipedia at present, because they simply cannot understand what it is they are actually doing - they merely give an impression they do. When used to write an article, chatbots will simply make what they believe a Wikipedia article should look like, and include broken formatting, imaginary references, and factual inaccuracies. Fundamentally they are unable to analyse the merit of sources which is arguably the most important aspect of article creation. Furthermore, the same errors occur when using them to comment - we see many unblock requests or requests for approval of drafts made through ChatGPT that claim to be based on policies and yet completely miss the actual point of the policies they quote. CoconutOctopus talk 07:27, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Ganesha811

4. Are there any areas of adminship you do not plan to participate in, due to unfamiliarity or lack of technical knowledge? If you later decided you wanted to help in these areas, what would be your plan to become an effective admin in those areas?

A: I do not intend on participating in technical areas, I simply don't have much technical knowledge or interest to work in an area like WP:EF or WP:BRFA. I've noticed most areas have subpages or sections for admin instructions (for example, Wikipedia:Proposed deletion#Procedure for administrators and WP:ITN/A); I would read these instructions as well as any associated policy pages thoroughly before I begin taking admin actions in an area, even ones I am familiar with. Additionally, before doing any admin action in an area I am currently unfamiliar with, such as WP:CFD, I would first participate in the process for some time to gain that familiarity; I think an effective admin should know how an area works first before taking any admin action in it. Curbon7 (talk) 04:06, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Fade258

5. Since you're a content creator, You have done a substantial work in content creation, which is a good part of building an encyclopedia. Can you please elaborate on how would you plan to balance your experience as a content creator considering the neutrality and enforcement abilities of an admin?

A: As someone who has written a lot of articles, I am certainly WP:INVOLVED in a lot of topic areas I care little about. For example, I've written over a dozen articles on German politicians; I am not German, have no ties to the country, nor do I care about their internal politics, but I recognize that I am nonetheless involved in that topic area. I suppose the list of articles I've created doubles as a (non-exhaustive) list of topics I am involved in, and thus topic areas I would not take administrative action in. It is of the upmost important to keep these boundaries, and many Arbcom cases have been about admins who skirted INVOLVED for a reason. Curbon7 (talk) 11:02, 19 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: In my opinion, IAR should practically never be invoked in an administrative capacity outside of a couple exceptions, namely invocations of WP:NOTBURO (such as WP:SNOW closures, and early closure of community ban discussions after a minimum of 24 hours instead of the typical 72 hours) and in cases where IAR is needed as a stopgap measure because something in the process went wrong (conflicting policies, an urgent block such as for a malfunctioning bot, etc.). Otherwise, I think it is essential for admin actions to be rooted in policies and guidelines, the most important of which is consensus. Curbon7 (talk) 12:15, 19 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: It did not affect my decision. I am glad there is a formal recall process, though in my opinion it needs some improvements. Curbon7 (talk) 12:15, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from ChildrenWillListen

8. How do you, as an administrator, plan to tackle the growing problem of editors inserting AI-generated content into articles?

A: AI-generated content is one of those things I think we just can't move an inch on, because its inclusion is an existential threat to the credibility of Wikipedia. For this question, I ran an experiment with Claude AI and asked it to create a Wikipedia-style article for the company a friend's father works for and to include citations. Some but not all references were hallucinated, but importantly for us many paragraphs were detected as "not AI" by GPTZero. A little worrisome, but we are still in the infancy period as evidenced by this NPR article I read last week. My view on AI-generated content in mainspace is very similar to WP:Large language models#Handling suspected LLM-generated content: it should almost always be removed (always in the case of BLPs), though an option for new articles is draftification citing WP:DRAFTREASON#2. Good-faith editors adding LLM-generated content who are "just trying to help" should be informed of our AI policies (for example, through the {{Uw-ai1}} series or a personal message), and if they still don't get it then they may just not have the competency required. Otherwise, our existing processes related to promotional editing and hoaxes, for example, are also applicable to bad-faith AI use. Curbon7 (talk) 04:40, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from CosXZ

9. How would you address a good faith editor who made a honest mistake?

A: A link I have had on my userpage for a long time is User:Ritchie333/How newbies see templates, and I think it really forms one of the cores of my Wikipedia philosophy. It is always important to put yourself – admin or non-admin – into the other editor's shoes, particularly with newer editors. For example, the first article I ever created had quite a few flaws (), but the late great DGG sent me an encouraging message; in another early article, Cabayi gave me advice about MOS that I had not known. If they were more aggressive, I may not have continued editing. They put themselves in my shoes, understood I was a good-faith editor making some common pitfalls, they didn't patronize me or treat me like an idiot, and helped me through it. This is something that I carry through all areas of Wikipedia: is my comment helpful or is it useless?; should this article be Twinkle tagged or can I just fix the errors myself?; is this editor a UPE or not?; etc. Curbon7 (talk) 10:53, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Ahecht

10. Since you appear to have a lot of experience at WP:ITN (1,500+ edits by my count), what are your feelings on the recent efforts to reform or even eliminate ITN?

A: I think ITN could certainly use some reform. A number of good ideas were floated in these two discussions (1 2), particularly clearer guidance on how event significance is defined. This discussion from earlier this month is a good sign that the ship has been steadying particularly in regards to civility. I would also add that the RD section – which as I mentioned in Q1 is where I am more focused on when it comes to ITN – functions quite smoothly, besides frequent backlogging. I see the value in a section like ITN as a way to highlight quality topical articles, and also note it is a way to engage new editors as mentioned here. It certainly has its flaws and things that need fixing, but is an overall net-positive. Curbon7 (talk) 10:18, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from The Squirrel Conspiracy

11. What is your perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to Wikipedia?

A: As I mentioned in more detail in Q8, I think LLMs have no place in mainspace. I am not informed enough about the specifics of AI (I reckon I made a fool of myself in this VPWMF AI discussion!) to know what potential benefits we can derive from it. I think the WMF's AI summary plan and this musing by Jimbo are both quite bad ideas; I think if we were to utilize AI, it should be on the backend rather than anything involving readers/new editors and thus impacting our credibility. Now again I am not a computer whiz so I do not purport to understand how this all works, but we have algorithms like SuggestBot; maybe AI could be used to create similar – but more advanced – programs and editor tools? I am not sure, and these will certainly have to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Curbon7 (talk) 13:20, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

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 Stabro^{Talk • 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 Stabro^{Talk • 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 Stabro^{Talk • 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 Stabro^{Talk • 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 Stabro^{Talk • 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 Stabro^{Talk • 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 Stabro^{Talk • 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 Stabro^{Talk • 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 Stabro^{Talk • 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 Stabro^{Talk • 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 Stabro^{Talk • 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 Stabro^{Talk • 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 Stabro^{Talk • 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 Stabro^{Talk • Contribs} 14:57, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Ganesha811

4. Are there any areas of adminship you do not plan to participate in, due to unfamiliarity or lack of technical knowledge? If you later decided you wanted to help in these areas, what would be your plan to become an effective admin in those areas?

A: I don't plan on participating in unblock requests or block-related areas (such as SPI), at least not at first. As a brand new admin, I wouldn't be comfortable immediately swinging the hammer at other editors. If I do decide to help out in those areas in the future, I'd start by slowly working on non-controversial cases, asking more established regulars for advice whenever needed, until I can be considered an effective admin by the community and my own standards.

Optional question from Rjjiii

5. What are some kinds of content that would need to be pulled from the main page? Many editors create the material at TFA, ITN, DYK, OTD, TFL, and TFP that eventually appears on Wikipedia's main page. Only admins can alter or remove it. Non-admin editors who are "promoting hooks at WP:DYK" create content that eventually appears on the main page. From that experience, could you give any examples of material that was unsuitable?

A: Out of the processes you named, I only have experience at DYK, so I cannot comment on the pulling criteria for the others. For DYK, the content that gets pulled usually has problems that can't be easily fixed, such as being wholly or predominantly nonfactual, not being verifiable by citations in the article, and not following external content policies in general, such as WP:NPOV, WP:CLOP, WP:BLP, etc. I'm not active at WP:ERRORS, so I can't recall any examples off the top of my head, sorry.

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: I believe admins should rarely, if ever, invoke IAR. Wikipedia's policies are very solid, and an administrator should be expected to follow them as closely as possible. However, we're also not bureaucrats, and some common sense is useful in moderation to prevent unnecessary waste of editor time, say, when a discussion has a consensus for a good change, but is being bogged down by minute details. That's the situation where I think IAR should be invoked: when red tape and strict adherence to the rules would distract us from improving the encyclopedia.

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: It hasn't affected my choices at all. I've been wanting to apply for adminship ever since the first elections, I just needed to find the right time for it. That being said, having a recall process is great for transparency, and I'd gladly run for RRfA if the community ever needs to hold me accountable for my actions.

Optional question from CosXZ

8. How would you address a good faith editor who made a honest mistake?

A: I'd try to quickly fix the mistake and civilly explain the reasoning for the change in the edit summary. If they were a newcomer, I'd drop a message in their talk page to notify them that they committed a mistake, explain why whatever they did could be considered a mistake, and advise them on how not to commit the same mistake in the future.

Optional question from Carrite

9. What is your perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to Wikipedia?

A: While I don't believe AI will ever be the Wikipedia-killer (be it through slop-ifying all of our articles or stealing our traffic) that was proposed back in 2022/23, when WP:LLM was still in its infancy. I strongly believe that the AI bubble will pop sooner rather than later. That being said, AI usage, at least pertaining to content generation, should still be strongly, strongly discouraged on Wikipedia. It's a waste of editor time and energy having to check edits for biased, deficient, or simply hallucinated slop. With that said, I think models like the ones served by LiftWing, which perform tasks that don't face the average reader and serve only to speed up maintenance or provide useful information, are a good way to incorporate AI into Wikipedia without causing more harm than good.

Optional question from Guerillero

10. You never mention it, but you do you have any interest in working as a DYK admin or at ERRORS? Those areas just intersect with where you have previously worked.

A: As a DYK admin, probably not. I've tried promoting prep sets to queues before as a regular template editor, and I've found the whole verification process and its required checks to be very exhausting. Working at ERRORS, though? Sure, why not!

Optional question from usernamekiran

11. Just out of curiosity, are you related to Hilda Hist? Please feel free to decline to answer if you want to maintain privacy. —usernamekiran (talk) 00:59, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

A: I'm not, actually! I was very interested in her works back in late 2023, and just thought her surname that would make for a better username than the one I had at that time.

Optional question from Ganesha811

4. Are there any areas of adminship you do not plan to participate in, due to unfamiliarity or lack of technical knowledge? If you later decided you wanted to help in these areas, what would be your plan to become an effective admin in those areas?

A: I mean, I expect my participation would be pretty focused, even within the areas I do have experience in. If given the tool set, the game plan would be to spend this year doing the same kind of janitorial work I'm already doing, but without filing hundreds of notices at Requests for undeletion; taking that time learning how to clean up any problems that might come up along the way; and then once we have the annual January 1 file backlogs to get through, working through those while learning to coordinate that with the other admins and editors who tend to pop in during that time.

Areas where I would not expect to contribute specifically for lack of technical knowledge would be things like history merges (so complex!), abuse filters (so much code!), or template editing (very risky, lots of sandboxing!), but I think the most salient ones are the lack of expertise with enforcement actions like blocks and page protections. I haven't wandered into high-conflict areas much but I have had to go through these processes before, and I'm pretty familiar with the policies on the different levels of protection or like when an indef may be warranted. Still, these are areas where admins use more discretion and tacit knowledge, where action is more time-sensitive, and where poor judgment can do more damage. I would want to preemptively find another admin with involvement in those areas who's willing to consult, to make sure if I ever ended up needing to use those permissions at some point down the line, I don't end up making misguided decisions for lack of experience or oversight. hinnk (talk) 04:24, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from BusterD

5. 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: IAR is a policy that helps us ensure that the rules serve to benefit the community and not the other way around, but because of the effort required to review and undo admin actions, admins should not be using IAR as a justification unless the community would indisputably have found consensus to support an action and waiting for consensus would have been detrimental to the project in some way. A recent-ish example where I encouraged an IAR was the Luigi Mangione AfD, where the closest criteria used by many editors was CSK#2 (disruptive nomination) and I additionally supported the suggestion to close more along the lines of CSK#4 (block evasion by the nominator). It arguably maybe didn't meet the exact letter of either speedy keep criterion, but the closing admin was still making a textbook early snow close, because it wouldn't have served anyone's interest to spend time conducting a sockpuppet investigation, or evaluating whether the original nomination was frivolous or just misguided, or debating whether the one delete comment from an IP editor prevents a speedy keep from happening. hinnk (talk) 01:47, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

6. 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: I haven't participated in the discussions around creating the process or the recalls that have happened, but the existence of a recall process did indirectly make me more willing to run. Having a formal recall process means candidates aren't designing their own non-binding processes on a per-user basis, and I wonder if some of the behavior that the admin election process was designed to address came out of the increased pressure of not getting it wrong. Plus, if however long from now I do something that damages the community's trust, I imagine it would be much healthier to learn that from the community instead of being in a protracted dispute until it works its way up to the Arbitration Committee. Anyway, I hope the community will continue to review and refine the new process to suit its needs. hinnk (talk) 20:27, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from CosXZ

7. How would you address a good faith editor who made a honest mistake?

A: I'm going to assume we're talking about the kind of mistake that needs addressing by talking to the editor and not a small revert with an edit summary or something. If it's an inexperienced editor making the kind of errors that commonly happen while becoming familiar with our policies and guidelines, then a simple level 1 warning to non-judgmentally explain the problem and how to approach it in the future may suffice. A more experienced editor will require more specific feedback that considers how familiar they are with the relevant policies and guidelines or the topic area in question.

As it pertains to the kind of filespace work I do, being able to work through mistakes is a pretty important skill for editors of all experience levels. Contributing productively may require wading through U.S. copyright law, any number of other countries' copyright laws, their international agreements, provenance research specific to individual works, the policies and guidelines of Wikimedia projects, or changes in consensus around how to apply those. It can be a lot, and even editors with way more experience than me continue to pick up things they didn't know, or things they didn't know they didn't know. I've benefited greatly from other editors being informative or patient with me at some point, and I think approaching issues with a shared interest in finding answers and an openness to learn from other editors makes dealing with potentially frustrating situations much easier. hinnk (talk) 02:13, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

You have assumed correctly. Cos ^{(X + Z)} 14:03, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from ChildrenWillListen

8. Do you feel that copyright takes too long to expire?

A: The Mickey Mouse Protection Act type of stuff does strike me as kind of wild. Or sometimes it's just socially weird to end up in a discussion where you have to basically say, "Yes, this dates back to the nineteenth century but the person who made it lived a long life so we can't really keep this on Commons." (Once somebody uploaded a screenshot of one such comment I made, as a form of...targeted critique?, which I found funny more than anything.) Mostly though, it's not a question I dwell on. I'm not in a position to change copyright law, but I can help people who reuse Wikimedia-hosted content better understand what rights and restrictions exist around it, and we can definitely put Wikimedia projects in a position to advocate legal change from a place of strength. hinnk (talk) 02:33, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

9. If you stumble across a plot summary that was clearly generated using an LLM, what would you do to it, if anything?

A: Well, the most clear signs I've seen in non-compliant LLM-generated articles are fictitious sources, "referenced" information that doesn't match the given source, or unusual, ill-suited article structures. A plot summary on its own might be a little harder to spot, since it has a simple structure and tends not to include citations. Working backward from the premise, I imagine the signs would be a lack of detail or clear inaccuracies that don't match verifiable information about the plot or cast. If that's the case, then we'd need to deal with the fabricated content by removing it with an edit summary identifying the issue, checking the article history to see if there's something usable there, and notifying whoever added it, in a context-appropriate manner, so that the editor understands the firm expectations around verifying/fixing LLM output and so other editors are equipped to respond to any continued disruption. hinnk (talk) 07:14, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Carrite

10. What is your perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to Wikipedia?

A: As it currently stands, a lot of disruption is happening when editors attempt to use AI to contribute beyond their own capabilities or as a substitute for using their own skills, and LLM-generated text misrepresents its source material so regularly that editors need to be super on top of it if they're gonna use it. I expect there may be viable uses for AI, perhaps around tools or automated tasks, but I'd like to see the community establish extremely clear boundaries around all content that readers expect to have been created by people.

I'll speak a bit to what we're seeing in filespace, since that's most relevant to my contributions. AI does get used by editors on Wikimedia projects, and it's also showing up now in off-wiki sources. Because images often come from external user-edited sites like Flickr, IMDb, or other databases, we're dependent on editors to exercise good judgment in reviewing these before uploading, but that doesn't always work. It's potentially exacerbated by the relationship between individual projects and Wikimedia Commons, where editors delegate responsibility to another project and let things fall through the cracks. Internally, AI gets used to efficiently upscale, colorize, or otherwise "enhance" images and video. The thing is, historical images in particular perform an indexical function, and adding speculative color choices or inadvertently removing grain or brushwork patterns can interfere with our ability to provide a historical record and may remove the visual cues that readers use to understand the origin and history of an image. Plus, some just look a mess. I've had to request a couple of undeletions where F8 had been used to delete images that had been replaced with inferior AI upscaled copies on Commons, which I think is a good reminder to keep an eye out when using that criterion on images that aren't 100% exact matches. hinnk (talk) 20:33, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Let'srun

11. How would you handle a situation where a user accused you in good faith of being WP:INVOLVED?

A: I'd take a look at the claim, and if there's any plausible reason to think I may have be involved in the dispute, I'd step back and ask at a relevant noticeboard that another admin step in. It's much easier to have one uninvolved admin review a dispute than to expand the dispute and make a bunch of people deal with it at a noticeboard like ANI. And whether I think I can overcome my own bias to adjudicate an issue is less important than whether other editors are likely to think there was an apparent conflict of interest, because failure to properly recuse sends a message to the involved parties and to the broader community that they can't expect their good faith efforts to be treated fairly. hinnk (talk) 23:43, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Femke

12. Not a biggy, but I noticed your user page is quite empty. Would you be willing to expand it, to make it more welcoming to shy new editors to ask you a question?

A: Totally! I tried sandboxing something more personalized a while back but couldn't get the markup right. I'll have to take another crack at it. hinnk (talk) 23:55, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Co-nomination

jlwoodwa has been active for about three years, in which time she has amassed immense experience in the maintenance areas of Wikipedia. In addition to the areas asilvering alludes to she has developed a nose for socks: her reports at SPI are concise and well-evidenced, and even if she does nothing more than make duck blocks it would help ease the perennial backlog there. Her other areas of activity include UAA, which could also use a helping hand. She's also invested time in gnomish cleanup, including sourcing fixes, in a variety of topics (she has tens of thousands of manual mainspace contributions), showing that she understands the work of building an encyclopedia. Her talk page shows her being helpful to newbies but equally able to have civil discussions with experienced editors. In sum she will be able to make productive use of the tools and I hope you join me in supporting her. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:44, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: Thank you for the nomination; I accept.

Please disclose whether you have ever edited Wikipedia for pay: I have never edited for pay.

Optional question from Ganesha811

4. Are there any areas of adminship you do not plan to participate in, due to unfamiliarity or lack of technical knowledge? If you later decided you wanted to help in these areas, what would be your plan to become an effective admin in those areas?

A: I don't have much experience dealing with complex or ambiguous cases of disruption, so I don't plan to participate in AE or close long ANI threads any time soon. If I wanted to help there, though, I would start with what I'm already familiar with (straightforward disruption) and focus on observing and handling reports on the edge of that familiarity. That way, I'd be working with smaller gaps in my understanding, and I'd have a better sense for what to double-check or get help with. I don't think it's possible to learn without making some mistakes, but going gradually and carefully can make the difference between "occasional minor mistakes" and "frequent major mistakes". jlwoodwa (talk) 08:16, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Fade258

5. Most of your activity appears to be focused on reporting usernames to WP:UAA. Can you describe how you determine whether a username violates username policy or not, particularly in the cases that are not clear-cut?

A: I patrol for promotional usernames, which are usually straightforward to identify: if a username identifies an organization (or product, department, role, etc.) rather than an individual, and they've edited about that organization, that's a username violation. There are some ambiguous cases though, like "OrgNamePR" (does that stand for Public Relations or Pat Richards?), or a musical project which used to comprise multiple people but now is only one person. In those cases, I sometimes look for more information (like whether OrgNamePR mentions the PR department or speaks in the first person plural), but if it's not clear-cut I issue a {{uw-coi-username}} warning instead of reporting them. I don't report usernames unless I'm confident they're violations, out of respect for both the editors in question and the admins taking time to review UAA reports. jlwoodwa (talk) 22:31, 19 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: I can think of a few good reasons for an admin to IAR:

1. When something is clearly and uncontroversially correct, and determining how the rules apply would be a pointless exercise. (This can never apply to blocking an editor or closing a non-unanimous discussion, for instance.)
2. When rules contradict each other, and it is impossible to follow all of them simultaneously.
3. When a new, unusual situation occurs, and it is better to evaluate it on its own merits than to shoehorn it into an existing rule.

In the first case, it's sufficient to just describe why the action is correct. Otherwise, it's worth mentioning IAR, since "what would best improve or maintain Wikipedia?" should be the guiding question.

On the other hand, IAR is not a good justification for acting against consensus; if there is a disagreement over what would improve or maintain Wikipedia, invoking IAR doesn't resolve that disagreement. jlwoodwa (talk) 07:53, 22 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: I'm glad the community has better recourse against misuse of the admin tools. I don't think it's had any effect on my decisions, or any other candidate for that matter. If someone would be scared off by the thought of having to re-apply for adminship, why would they be running in the first place? jlwoodwa (talk) 07:53, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from CosXZ

8. How would you address a good faith editor who made a honest mistake?

A: Once the immediate problem was fixed, I would see if the editor needed help understanding their mistake and how to avoid making it again. Not every mistake is based on a simple misunderstanding, so a single discussion might not resolve everything; in that case, there's often a way to balance patience with preventing disruption, like saying "if you're ever unsure whether something would be a copyright violation, feel free to ask me". In a few circumstances, I would take administrative action, like if an editor kept unintentionally but repeatedly violating copyright, and didn't accept help or change their approach. I see this as a last resort, though, and good-faith editors usually shouldn't get to that point. jlwoodwa (talk) 03:16, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from ChildrenWillListen

9. Do you have a personal criteria or checklist when it comes to article draftification?

A: I consider draftifying an article if it is unsourced or entirely AI-generated, it has neither clear potential nor the clear absence of potential, and it meets all the other standard requirements (like nobody having objected to its draftification). If an article clearly has potential but its current state is very problematic, then I think it's better to stubify it; if it clearly has no potential, then it's better to delete it than to have someone work on it in draftspace. jlwoodwa (talk) 04:57, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

10. How would you use your tools and the authority that comes with adminship to help tackle LLM-generated content?

A: So far I've been declining AI-generated content at AfC, draftifying it at NPP, reverting its addition to existing articles, tagging it with {{AI-generated}}, and trying to help people understand why AI output shouldn't be directly pasted into Wikipedia. None of this directly requires the admin tools (although I suppose people might listen more to an admin). But occasionally editors will disregard all explanations and warnings about the misuse of AI, in which case I've reported them to ANI for persistent disruption, and if I had the admin tools I'd watch ANI for reports like that. The majority of AI content on Wikipedia isn't coming from these "repeat offenders", so blocking them is only a small part of the solution, but it still helps. jlwoodwa (talk) 04:57, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Carrite

11. What is your perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to Wikipedia?

A: While I'm not fundamentally opposed to AI, my experience with large language models on Wikipedia has been overwhelmingly negative. If it were just that AI was prone to hallucinations, Wikipedia's existing anti-hoax defenses might have sufficed, but it bypasses those defenses by combining apparent good faith and competence with the kinds of errors that competent good-faith human editors would never make. On talk pages, it allows people to drown out discussions with an otherwise-infeasible volume of arguments that appear reasonable at first glance but are usually based on misunderstandings of how Wikipedia works. And perhaps the worst part is that, unlike any competent good-faith human editor, it is absolutely impossible to teach it or change its mind about anything. Even if it claims to have learned something from a discussion, LLMs have no long-term memory, so it won't behave any differently next time. If ChatGPT were an individual editor, I'm sure it would be considered an LTA.

In the last year or so I've seen a surge of people using AI to generate new articles (especially at AfC), and most of them haven't made an adequate or even cursory review of the AI's output (as shown by, e.g., broken Markdown formatting). While new practices (like AfC's "llm" decline reason and the addition of "the output of a large language model" to WP:DRAFTREASON) have helped us spend less time on each AI-generated article, in the long run I'm worried that AI will outpace any human process. I'm not sure how to prevent this without posing unacceptable barriers to human editors, but I hope we can figure it out. jlwoodwa (talk) 23:37, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from Swatjester

12. I've seen and greatly appreciate your work at UAA, and am curious what about that noticeboard drew your attention and interest in the first place? Basically of all the areas that you could choose to participate in on WP, why has that one stuck with you?

A: I've found it to be compatible with me for a few reasons:

• Identifying promotional usernames is mostly straightforward, so it doesn't take much out of me, but it's not so simple that it's mindless or automatable.
• It requires a low time investment, so I can do it when I only have a few minutes to spare.
• There are relatively few people working in the area, so my individual attention feels like it makes more of a difference.

And it seems worthwhile, since it's an efficient way to prevent promotion: it quickly filters out a subset of COI/paid editors who are either unaware or uncaring of Wikipedia's expectations for them, and puts the burden on them to show (in an unblock request) that they're here to build an encyclopedia. jlwoodwa (talk) 23:16, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

13. As an administrator with the access to the tools to just fix some problems yourself, how would you plan to balance maintaining attention to noticeboard reports vs proactively seeking them out via other methods (watchlists, filters, tools like Ultraviolet/RedWarn/Huggle, etc.) of identifying and fixing those issues?

A: Human reports vary in their reliability much more than automatic filters and reports do, but they're far broader and less rigid in what they catch. Also, in my experience with making reports, having them sit for too long without review (especially while disruption is ongoing) can feel frustrating or discouraging, so there are indirect benefits to handling those reports more quickly. But on the other hand, I expect that as an admin, reviewing too many erroneous reports would also feel frustrating or discouraging. Additionally, looking through watchlists and other broad samples of Wikipedia helps to keep one's perspective from narrowing to its worst parts. So I plan to prioritize noticeboard reports, but not exclusively. jlwoodwa (talk) 23:16, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Co-nomination statement

I first noticed Kj cheetham when I myself became a New Page Reviewer in 2022. Since then, I've noticed a level of competency, decency, helpfulness, and willingness to accept criticism that I cannot help but respect. Kj is a knowledgeable individual, with a respectable amount of content experience (demonstrated by their NPP work and 7 good articles), but what I love most about them is their drive to continue to grow and evolve as an editor. An administrator is not always right, as much as we try to be, and someone who's willing to gracefully accept criticism and grow from it, as well as know when to stand their ground and explain why they're doing that, while also possessing a wealth of knowledge, is an absolute asset and someone we should want to add to the admin corps. They have the right temperament, knowledge, and recognition of their own personal limitations for the tools, and I cannot say how happy I am to be given the opportunity to nominate them for adminship. I hope you will join me in supporting them and giving Kj the chance to show you just how great they can be if the tools are handed to them. Hey man im josh (talk) 20:38, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept. -Kj cheetham (talk) 18:55, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Please disclose whether you have ever edited Wikipedia for pay: I have never edited for pay and have no other accounts. -Kj cheetham (talk) 18:55, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Ganesha811

4. Are there any areas of adminship you do not plan to participate in, due to unfamiliarity or lack of technical knowledge? If you later decided you wanted to help in these areas, what would be your plan to become an effective admin in those areas?

A: Areas such as WP:SPI clerking (I’m familiar enough to open cases at least), WP:EDITFILTER, WP:BRFA, closing and implementing outcomes at WP:ANI, WP:CP, etc. There are probably also various areas I’m not even aware exist! For any area I’m less familiar with, my first point of call would be reading the relevant policy/guidance, observing how things are done by others, then in my head trying to decide how I would handle a particular activity and waiting to see how it’s done in practice, perhaps even asking someone more experienced before I took an action if I was less confident, and asking people queries, either on-wiki or on Discord for instance. When in doubt, I wouldn’t be afraid to defer, rather than potentially cause damage by being overly bold. For SPI as an example, I’d start with reviewing WP:SPI/C and becoming a trainee clerk and building up some experience before even considering any kind of admin action.

Optional question from Fade258

5. As a part of NPP, On what circumstances do you guide creators rather than tagging articles for deletion?

A: I rarely tag articles for deletion in practice, especially as part of NPP when working on the backlog. In some cases, they have already gone through AfC to do some quality control. If there were issues, I would more typically add specific tags with the aim of highlighting what the current issues were, or a talk page comment, and make any small fixes myself. If an editor had any further queries, I would happily engage with them to discuss and provide further information. My overall goal is helping improve Wikipedia.

Optional question from SunDawn

6. As one of the contributors of NPP, what do you think should be improved in the NPP process?

A: Since I started at NPP, there have already been quite a few software improvements which help with the workflow, especially around 2022 after WP:NPPWMF. Having a large backlog is an almost constant issue. Recent work to align the backlog drives with other backlog WP:DRIVES (e.g. with AfC and GAN) so they don’t clash as much is a good thing. WMF is also working on things like mw:Edit check/Tone Check/Wikipedia:Edit check/Tone Check, though I've not given much thought to how helpful that’ll be in practice. AI tools may help, but a human is needed in the loop. There may be scope for further back-end automation, but I couldn't say where offhand. Relying on a small number of prolific NPPs isn't the answer either. I'd also be cautious about reducing the level of quality control required as part of NPP. Various ideas also pop up on WP:PCSI, but my focus with NPP has been more on doing the reviews rather than coordination and taking a step back to think of further improvements.

My only real suggestion at the moment is to encourage more people to get involved with it though, as every little helps! And perhaps increase the profile of WP:NPRSCHOOL somehow.

Optional questions from BusterD

7. 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: Thinking generally rather than what I would do, given I’d be very hesitant to IAR, it would need to be something where the community wouldn’t have any reason to object and it was urgent and exceptional, perhaps to unblock a stuck process. Rules can be changed. Consensus and civility is important. (I did note there are various essays on the topic at WP:IARESSAYS.)

8. 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: It hasn’t really had any impact. I support the recall process in principle, and would have quite likely said I was open to recall (WP:AOR) had that process not been authorised. This is in addition to other processes to hold admins to account, as outlined at WP:ADMIN. In any case, I would step down if I didn’t feel I had the trust of the wider community.

Optional question from CosXZ

9. How would you address a good faith editor who made a honest mistake?

A: It depends on the issue. Sometimes I’d just fix it quietly with an appropriate edit summary, or if it was something bigger or repeated, a polite message on their talk page explaining why. If it was a common issue and a newer editor, I may use one of the standard templates in Twinkle, linking to the page in question, perhaps with an additional custom message. I’d hope people do the same when I next make an honest mistake. 😊

Optional question from Carrite

10. What is your perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to Wikipedia?

A: I'm taking this to mean generative AI and LLM, rather than use of AI for things like vandalism detection or rating articles, which I touched on in my answer to question #6. Overall, it does give me some reason for concern. I am also cautiousconcerned about related WMF initiatives, like using LLMs for generating short summaries of articles. I can see some value as an editor to ask it to perhaps reword a complex sentence, or perhaps basic grammar suggestions before a final proof-read, or as an advanced search engine/guide, but not for creating articles.

We do thankfully have WP:LLM and WP:AICLEAN, and people working on WP:AFC no doubt have to sift through an increasing amount of AI slop and hallucinations. I probably should try and improve my own awareness of WP:AISIGNS as part of my NPP work, but incorporating AI-spotting into NPP formally would put further burden on that team.

Ideally, I see Wikipedia as an input to LLMs, not an output. Prompt engineering won't fix everything, though may make it appear less bad. (I also saw User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#An_AI-related_idea and was aware of WP:AIB but didn't follow it or get involved. There's only so much I can keep up with.)

P.S. I'm glad things are being discussed at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)/Archive_10#RfC:_Adopting_a_community_position_on_WMF_AI_development, though I don't intend to dig into that myself.

Optional question from Let'srun

11. How would you handle a situation where a user accused you in good faith of being WP:INVOLVED?

A: The first thing I’d to is investigate if I am actually involved or if there’s been some kind of misunderstanding. If I didn’t believe I was, I’d explain why. If I was unsure, I’d take a step back and seek clarification. If I was actually involved, I would absolutely take a step back, disclosure/clarify my involvement at whatever venue the situation was, apologise, and potentially also undo my recent actions. Depending on the situation, WP:AARV is also an option. I would thank the user for bringing it to my attention in any case.

Co-nomination

Thanks josh, I know I sure will! I'm glad that KylieTastic was game to run this time, because it was my plan to bother them every admin election from now until they finally gave in. Kylie has been an AfC stalwart since long before I started editing, and the admin toolset is hugely useful for maintenance tasks in this space. AfC reviewers working at the front of the queue are in a good place to notice sockpuppets and spammers, and any admin actions they handle are actions they don't need to pass on to the rest of us. I'll be honest: "but even Kylie isn't an admin, so it's not like I have any need for the tools" kept me from running for adminship myself for a while. I've since found some 6000 opportunities to use them. Kylie will too. -- asilvering (talk) 19:00, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept KylieTastic (talk) 19:11, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Please disclose whether you have ever edited Wikipedia for pay: I have never and will never edit for pay. I have never had any other accounts, and only made a few accidental edits while logged out (mostly on wikidata)

Optional question from Ganesha811

4. Are there any areas of adminship you do not plan to participate in, due to unfamiliarity or lack of technical knowledge? If you later decided you wanted to help in these areas, what would be your plan to become an effective admin in those areas?

A: Firstly I have no plans to jump into areas I do not already work in, so I doubt I will be getting involved much in WP:AN, WP:ANI, WP:AN3, or jumping into doing the various discussion closures. I have never been involved with the main page so that is another area I would stay away from. I would be open to volunteer to help at WP:SPI, at some-point later. Even the areas I know, I feel I should re-review the relevant WP:P&G before dipping the mop in the bucket.

As for expanding into areas in the future, that would be a case of observing and being involved as a non-admin first; reviewing the P&Gs and asking other admins questions for advice when appropriate. There is no need for any new admin to rush into things, so for all admin actions it will be a case of start slowly and respond to any feedback, positive or negative, as required.

Optional question from Fade258

5. What is your viewpoint regarding the speedy delete criteria?

A: They are generally a good starting point but the fact that we have to have explanatory essays such as WP:NOTU5 and WP:NOTG6 shows they could do with some clarity being added. There is clearly a fairly wide range of interpretations on some and some WP:IAR approaches. I have been frustrated in the past with some admins saying not to do something and others saying you should have done the same thing.

G11 in draft is one that has widely differing approaches: I'm inclined to lean to AGF in draft especially for initial attempts as I have seen editors change a first attempt that looks just like company marketing into a reasonable article after some advice. Many take the TNT approach, but a quick deletion can be extremely BITEY and put off new editors. However repeated submission of promotional spam should earn a G11. G5 is also one that I know has strong opposing opinions, but as with most things I do not think either extreme is the optimal approach. While I do not like to see socks get rewarded for block avoidance, I also hate to see good content get deleted. I'm very happy to see articles expanded quickly and thus saved as "substantially edited by others". A possible policy change would be for plausible drafts to not be eligible for G5 but tagged to say created in violation and they should not be moved to main-space without substantive edits by others.

It's an area I think admins need to keep an eye on feedback and any changing consensus and ideally the criteria will get updated to reduce the areas of interpretation.

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: I have always understood the purpose of Ignore all rules to inject some flexibility and to stop improvement grinding to a halt under bureaucracy. Editors and admins should be able to use common sense, and not feel they need to know all the rules before trying to make improvements. If rules contradict or have edge cases that probably were not intended to be caught by a rule, some flexibility is needed. If admin action is needed but contradicting rules apply the admin would need to ignore at least some part of a rule. I'm not aware on any other particular situations and consider it something to be used rarely and I don't believe I have ever intentional invoked it. It's good to have but I treat it like it's in a box marked "In case of emergency - break glass".

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: I didn't even cross my mind that it would affect anyone's decision to run.

Optional question from CosXZ

8. How would you address a good faith editor who made a honest mistake?

A: This is something I have done many times over the last 11 years. Many simple mistakes will just get reverted with a suitable edit summary and a welcome and additional message on their talk if new. If it looked like vandalism and they got warned but they responded in a way to indicate an honest mistake I would respond that it was no problem, we all make mistakes, and revert/remove the warning when appropriate. Anyone willing to stand up and honestly say "sorry I made a mistake" will get a good response from me. Assume good faith is a key policy for me, it's important to remember these are people behind the edits, sometimes very young or vulnerable people.

Optional question from Carrite

9. What is your perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to Wikipedia?

A: At first I was very impressed with AI research and while the technological improvements continue to impress the current use of it by the general populous is deeply worrying. The output of LLMs is getting better at 'looking good', but the hallucination are still horrendous. The amount of pure "LLM slop" with fictitious claims and invalid sources submitted to AfC is worrying and growing. What is of most concern is the number of people who just trust it and clearly do not read the text they post or look at the sources. I have had submitters say I was wrong to decline as they asked the AIs again who said they were notable and sources were strong. Others post AI generated responses so you end up talking to a LLM via a human proxy.

So at the moment I see LLMs as a detriment to the quality of the content and the use of them is using up a lot of volunteer hours that could be put to better use. Maybe properly trained AIs could be used as tools to help augment some tasks but caution in needed. Used wisely with care and scepticism they can be a help, but they are a long way from being able to embody Wikipedia's standards.

Optional question from Robert McClenon

10. Your contribution history shows that you have made more than 517,000 edits in nineteen years, which is high even for experienced editors. Are you simply a prolific and frequent editor, or have you been using some sort of automated or semi-automated facility such as AWB, and, if so, what and how?

A. Hey Robert, thanks for the question. I have done far too much AfC reviewing for over 10 years and currently for each review the AFCH tool edits at least the submission page, my AfC log and the users talk page. On top of that I make a point to welcome any new editors, and accepts typically take many more edits. I also do use standard clean up scripts and reference filling tools to improve most submissions as I review adding to yet more edits. So each review does generate 3+ edits probably averaging 4-5 edits per review.

I do use AWB but not a huge amount, I don't do the massive runs that I know some do (important work just not my bag). I know the automated edit count tool does not work for my complete history but it works if you break the active period in two: I ran Jan 1, 2013 to Jan 1, 2020 and Jan 1, 2020 to Jan 1, 2026. This shows ~1.6% edits were AWB. I was not as involved in the latest backlog drive as previous but I used AWB to make sure accepted articles had some important basic tagging and cleanup while I did basic 'quality' checks on accepts. Historically Twinkle is my most used "automatic" edit tool which really does does take the drudge out of many basic tasks.

So my edit count in my 11+ year history (It was many years from creating an account until my first edit) has been increased by using scripts, AFCH and essential tools such as Twinkle, but is mostly just simply spending too much time editing, not bulk editing with AWB or similar.

Optional question from Swatjester

11. There are many Kylies. Which are your top 3?

A: Finally, the serious questions :) There is only one Kylie, the others must have been LLM hallucinations!

Optional question from ViridianPenguin

4. Having 500+ edits on an article talk page can demonstrate competence at brokering consensus but possessing this distinction for seven articles is surprising. What has drawn you to being the top editor of Talk:Libertarianism over 2140 edits across 13 years while only a minor author (#21) of the underlying content? This is not an accusation but rather than open-ended opportunity to discuss what you have gained from that experience negotiating the wording of a high-profile article.

A: Thanks. I take it as a compliment and an opportunity rather than anything else. In general I do enjoy facilitating progress at articles that are having conflicts where it appears that such is possible. (I added that last qualifier to leave out hopeless situations where the article is a venue for an unsolved tussle out in the real world - which are the articles classified by Wikipedia as contentious) There were several unique aspects of the Libertarianism topic and article which made an unusually large amount of work on the talk page both interesting and useful. One was the scope and complexity difficulty of learning the topic. Many different variants, many different meanings of terminology. Another is long term involvement ....heavy involvement starting 15 years ago and still lighter involvement/work more recently. There were huge battles back then but it turned out that the main fuel was a "Tower of Babel" situation rather than a fundamental conflict. This made it very promising (albeit complex) to solve the conflicts. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 04:31, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Ganesha811

5. Are there any areas of adminship you do not plan to participate in, due to unfamiliarity or lack of technical knowledge? If you later decided you wanted to help in these areas, what would be your plan to become an effective admin in those areas?

A: I think I'd divide my answer into three sections. The first section is technical use of admin tools that don't exist under any of my current permissions. Each one of these is new to me and I'd learn it carefully and sufficiently before using it. I'm a technical person and would expect that that process would happen without much difficulty, but that aptitude means recognizing The second section would be potentially staying away from the area due to unfamiliarity with aspects other than tools. I have a lot of experience and understanding in Wikipedia, with much gained with 89K manual edits in diverse areas and trying to be a learning sponge all of the time, which is also how I roll in real life. Also I sort of relish rather than avoid the most complex areas. So, I don't anticipate avoiding due to areas covered under this second section. The third section would be areas that I would tend to avoid anyway. For me this would be dealing with behavorial issues of established editors. This is an area which I prefer to avoid. If I did start to inch into it, I'd start by looking for case where I could also provide some guidance / assistance in getting the individual back on track. And if some day I would get deep in that area, I would want to to it after having visibly established that I approach it while being immensely careful, thorough, objective, expert and kind (but tough when needed) in those activities. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:27, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from Conyo14

6. About the company you run, if it has a Wikipedia article (or is even mentioned) have you ever edited it or made mention to it?

A:It does not have a Wikipedia article and I never will make one. It does not meet wp:notability and even if it did for many reasons I would not want to make an article on it. I've never mentioned the name in Wikipedia and just did a search and it is not in Wikipedia. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:40, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

7. Could you speak about your TBan please?

A: I put my main answer under the question from TarnishedPath. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:13, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from TarnishedPath

8. Following on from question 7 by Conyo14, could you speak about your previous socking and site-ban please?

A:I’ve been an editor starting in 2009. Since then, I had a topic ban 12 years ago an a block/ban combined with some topic bans 11 years ago and then none of either since.

First, I’m going to give a one paragraph summary which many would want more details on to be credible. After that a medium length summary and an offer to develop a very large detailed summary

One paragraph summary: I’m not going to be disingenuous. I never did anything that merited even a one day block much less a longer-term broader ban/block. I was so disgusted by what happened that at first I decided to never come back but then I changed my mind. I’ve wiki-learned and wiki-evolved immensely as a result and have had no tbans or blocks since. It was also very informative to all of my wiki work, including trying to keep wrong or overly harsh things from happening to other people.

Medium length summary: First, some “background” type info. I don’t think that “truly unbiased” can even be defined for an article much achieved and I make no attempt at that. A core principle of mine is that articles should be informative, not misleading, and on matters of fact, accurate. When bias is so strong that it makes it misleading, uninformative or inaccurate, I do try to help. This degree of effort has varied. Prior to the case 12 years ago, this effort was both on the article page and it’s talk page. After the Tea Party Movement case 12 years ago, I confined any strong efforts to the talk page but that was not enough to avoid getting whacked in the case 11 years ago. After I came back after that, on wiki-contentious articles, even on the talk page I only lightly participate.

Next is a point which under any good editing is irrelevant but many will otherwise assume wrong things about. Out in the real world I have self-developed opinions about each individual topic/ area / aspect. This is not affected by, driven by or summarize-able by being on any “side”. And I make even those individual opinions irrelevant to my editing to Wikipedia. My brain works by learning, remembering and applying the “gist” of things. It’s not a tape recorder of the details that led to that. My description here is based on the “gist” of the events 11 and 12 years ago from memory, not reviewing the hundreds of thousands of words of 11–12-year-old details. I am a very strong believer and supporter of Arbcom as institution. The severe mis-fire in the case 11 years ago not-withstanding. Description Per my criteria described above, I saw what was happening at the Tea Party Movement article to be severe enough to do harm towards making the article uninformative, misleading, and outright factually wrong in one area. I actively worked to resolve those issues (both on the article page and it’s talk page). Even though it was basically a content dispute (not a behavioral issue) somebody took it to Arbcom. They basically gave all of the active involved editors (from both “sides”) a rest on the article via “no harm no foul” topic bans. This was probably a good pragmatic solution. After this I decided to play it doubly safe and confine any big activity on such articles to the talk page. I saw some issues which IMO met the above criteria at the Gun control article and the was a content dispute. I confined my activity in the contentious areas to the talk page. I MADE ONLY ONE DISPUTED EDIT TO THE ARTICLE, and that was reverting deletion of a large amount of sourced material (I believe longer-standing) on historical gun control. While there might have been some edge case behavioral issues, it was basically a content dispute but one editor mistakenly took it to Arbcom. I’m not going to be disingenuous, the sequence of events (starting with the acceptance phase) after that is the most astounding misfire I’ve ever seen at Arbcom. And, again, I’m a very strong believer and supporter of Arbcom as an institution. I saw this as the result of a combination of many factors including (in roughly decreasing order of importance)

• A very large amount of wiki-clever work by “editor X”
• Some bias on the involved topics and the totally unrelated topics that editor X was able to bring in.
• A content dispute mistakenly brought to and accepted by Arbcom. And once that happens, Arbcom has nothing for content disputes, and only a hammer (for the “nail” of behavioral issues) so the only choice is to discuss nails.
• A challenge at Arbcom is when there is a large number of editors involved, it’s not possible to give each individual the depth of research and analysis that is needed.
• A Wiki-savvy person can manipulate Wikipedia drama areas. There a zillion things involved in this skill. For example, by misusing the diff process.

In my opinion. Editor “X” was POV warrior, very Wiki-savvy, intelligent and wiki-clever, and a part of what they did was to pursue deprecation of editors which they have disputes with by mis-using Wikipedia systems. They were also very willing and able to spend a large amount of time on such efforts.

I made my first edit in 2009. At that time I made lots of newbie errors. In any area where wiki-rules are different that just good normal non-wiki behavior, in those first few months of 2009I made lots of those errors. One of those was occasionally accidentally editing while logged out, where it was very obvious that it was me editing. My internet provider was my local phone company so it was dynamic IP addresses shared by at least thousands of users. Editor X looked years back at those early times and saw the IP address(es). Then they looked back at the history of those IP addresses from before I was even an editor and saw that they had had and been blocked for some types of activity on some contentious political or culture war type articles. Some of those were in areas where I had done some editing after I became an editor but which were not the subject of the Arbcom case. Editor X put a huge, clever misleading construction together (of course with mis-use of diffs) between my work and whatever those IP editors were doing. Again, these were dynamic IP addresses of a major carrier shared by thousands of people. And they were in areas that were totally outside of the area of the Arbcom case. Astoundingly Arbcom not only let them do it but bought it. So, it was for mis-use of editing while logged out during a time period which was years before the case and prior to what was clearly when I started editing, and left the impression that that ancient behavior by other before I was even an editor was my behavior. They gave me topic bans in those areas unrelated to the case, plus the area related to the case and also a total/ban/ block. I was so disgusted with what happened that at the time I decided to never come back to Wikipedia. I thin changed my mind and was able to come back and then after that get the topic bans lifted. Despite what I described above, I wiki-learned and wiki-evolved from this immensely, and changed how I operate in many wiki areas. I gave an overview of many of these in my answer to the standard questions above. I also try to make sure that unfair stuff doesn’t happen to other editors. Between this, and being an advocate for carefulness, thoroughness, expertise and good analysis if you watch wp:ani and wp:an you may have seen me do this many times. I think that this is a big plus for an admin. Several have asked whether not bringing this up in Q3 was unresponsive (IMO it was not for that specific question) or that I should have pro-actively brought it up. Regarding the latter, for a bunch of reasons I decided to wait and the response if someone asked. One was degree of relevance. The newest block or topic ban was 11 years /about 70,000 edits ago. Also most would view the short version I gave above with some skepticism which would necessitate creating this very long medium length version which is a lot of material about 11-12 year old events. I had some time limitations …off the grid for 3 days during the nomination process and then the three days which ended this morning are the ~3 days each two years that I can see my grandkids who live overseas. So, until today I just handled shorter questions. Finally, this inevitably forces me into a a lot of difficult discussion regarding editor X which would have been better avoided if possible. IMO the above experience and evolution has for me emphasized carefulness, thoroughness, and expert review an analysis, particularly when involving an editors, all important qualities for an admin. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:11, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Mox Eden

9. By "new areas", do you mean areas that you haven't explored or areas that were created recently?

A: Thanks for my easiest question! I meant areas that I do not currently work in due to not being an admin. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:17, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from BusterD

10. 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: I'm a strong supporter of WP:IAR's influence and have been active on it's talk page. Taken literally, the wording of WP:IAR includes scenarios of ignoring something that a clear cut policy clearly stipulates that is clearly applicable. IMO in practice, IAR is not used for that for even editing much less meeting the higher bar for use of admin tools. So my answer for those is "Never". IMO its common actual use is in influencing (sometimes silently or when only briefly mentioned) edge case decisions as a counterweight to wikilawyering and gaming. In those cases it is a secondary factor and would not be the a basis for meeting the higher bar of using admin tools. North8000 (talk) 00:42, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

11. 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: No it has not influenced my decision at all. On a completely separate note, I have participated in discussions regarding the recall process. both during it's formation and also recently. I've said that IMO it needs some tweaks. North8000 (talk) 00:49, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from CosXZ

12. How would you address a good faith editor who made a honest mistake?

A: That covers a zillion possibilities. So to narrow it down, let's say that it's one where I've made sure that it was certainly a mistake and it's a simple edit in article space that clearly should be reversed. I'd probably simply revert it and provide an edit summary like this "Thanks but..... (and explain) and make an offer to discuss it further. I've done this many times. For a second case, I like informally mentoring newbies (and have done that many times) including ones that have run into trouble while thinking that what they were doing is Wiki-OK. Usually it's because they don't understand the alternate universe of the Wikipedia ecosystem, policies and guidelines. With these I enter into more complex helpful engagements to explain the wiki-area(s) involved and what they did wrong with respect to that and try to help them resolve their issue. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:04, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Ahecht

13. You seem to have spent a lot of time discussing notability guidelines and our verifiability policy. How do you see the interaction between SNGs, WP:GNG, and WP:V, and, in an ideal world, what changes would you like to see in how Wikipedia determines article inclusion?

A: Thanks for the question on some of my favorite topics. Where I could spend a year writing a whole book with the responses. Regarding close relationships between top level policies and guidelines wp:ver and wp:nor have a large amount of relationships and overlap between them, and I'd put WP:Notability (I said it that way rather then WP:GNG, the SNG's and WP:Not in a separate interaction group, with a lot of interaction between them.

Regarding WP:Ver, IMO it would be better if emphasis and wording were shifted to follow the actual practice at WP:RSN regarding individual content questions. Including it's emphasis that everything is context-specific. More specifically to highlight that:

• More controversial, and incredulous and questioned statements require stronger sourcing and vice versa
• The metrics for strength of a source is it's established objectivity and expertise with respect to the text which cited it.so it is context specific, and a matter of degree.

Regarding WP:Notability (the topic, not just the page) IMO I think I've figured out the grand unification view of how it actually works. The explicit official interaction statements (between the main policies and guidelines) are in the top half of the Wp:notability guideline. it includes Wikipedia's meta statement of the main criteria for existence as a separate article which includes compliance with WP:Not and meeting either GNG (the bottom half of that page) or an official SNG. Regarding how the Wikipedia notability ecosystem works, I believe that I have described it at Wikipedia:How Wikipedia notability works. One of the main tenets there is that the degree of enclyclopedicnes weighs in on notability decisions. Wikipedia Notability works pretty well, albeit few can fully understand it or clearly explain it or acknowledge it. Which in turn, prevents progress in the few areas where it doesn't work well. So I would not like to see fundamental changes but rather acknowledgement, knowledge. and communications of how it actually works. Step 1 would be to create a new class of pages. Right now the main ones are just policies, guidelines, or being one of a zillion essays. We need a new class which is a small amount of highly vetted information pages. These would be couches as observational rather than dictating anything. And I would make the abov3e linked page one of them. This knowledge and acknowledgement would enable / lead to numerous smaller changes and evolutions in the SNG's to help on currently unsolved problems. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 03:43, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from Rutebega

14. One thing I've noticed in a number of your comments and edit summaries is a request for "strong sourcing." I'm hoping you can explain what this term means to you and how you might apply the concept as a closing admin. For example, are statements like these ( ) questionable based on "weak sourcing" as you understand it, or did you object on other grounds, like WP:NPOV?

A: There are many things in policies and guidelines that relate to this, some some them interpret-able in opposite directions for a given situation. The main principle which I had in mind in the example that you gave (and others like it) is that the more extraordinary and controversial/ questionable a statement in Wikipedia is, the stronger the required sourcing. And doubly so for a BLP. And vice versa. These are my comments trying to help as an editor, usually when summoned by a bot. As a closing admin (which implies an RFC) I would not be applying those principles.....that would be a supervote. I would be closing based on the responses to the RFC. North8000 (talk) 01:15, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

15. You have expressed skepticism of sources that you characterize as "political opponents" of a person or organization (see ). I'm wondering how you conceive the proper role for these kinds of sources. Is an "unbiased" source always required for establishing the relevance/notability of a fact or allegation? Or is there another test you would use to decide when it is acceptable to include information from a source not aligned politically with the subject?

A: Thanks for that question. If I may start by separating out two items, and then move on to what I think in the main question. One is to clarify that wp:notability relates to existence of a separate article on a topic and then there the sourcing requirements vary with the topic (via the various SNG's) with Wp:GNG being the the gold standard. For most of them independence (from the article subject) is required in the wp:notability-establishing sources but not being unbiased. The other meaning or real-world "notability" is wp:weight related and is covered in my following answer to your main question. The third small item is that while I'm an advocate of including degree of relevance in content inclusion decisions (I created WP:Relevance out of a redirect), there is unfortunately no specific relevance requirement that needs to be met.

Going from there, on to which I believe is your main question. While admin actions really don't involve interpreting whether sources meet those criteria, let's say that I was informing somebody on what the policies and guidlines have to say about that. My answer would be that they do not require unbiased sources and that biased sources are explicitly permitted to establish meeting those criteria.

As an editor helping make editorial inclusion/exclusion decisions at an article, I advocate that the strength of a source is measured by the established objectivity and expertise with respect to the text which cited it. And extraordinary, incredulous and controversial claims should get stronger sourcing to be included and vice versa. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:03, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Just one point of clarification if you don't mind, are you saying that your contributions "as an editor" are not reflective of how you will behave as an admin? —Rutebega (talk) 15:19, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Happy to. To try to use a bit of a metaphor, the policies and guidelines are like the guardrails and driving withing within those guardrails is editors discretion operating to create quality informative articles. So discussing and administering the guardrails (my admin answer) is a completely different task than driving a car within the guardrails (my "as an editor" answer). The guardrails do not require an unbiased source but a driver might prefer sources with less bias as a way to create more informative article content. Happy to answer further if that would be helpful. North8000 (talk) 23:42, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from Grorp

16. How might you deal with editors who are causing disruption due to advocacy/ownership behaviors?

A: First, if I were an admin just landing there or was approached with the above description, the first step would be to thoroughly learn and evaluate the situation. Lets say that after that it proved to be the situation and significant. Although ownership is a description of the overall situation and a driver for other improper actions, that actual "offenses" in situations like would be other things....disruption as you noted, and probably some other things such as edit warring, failure to discuss etc.. If all of the above was the case, I'd start out with a discussion with the person. If it persisted, then a warning, and then if it persisted further gradual escalation after that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:16, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

17. How might you deal with editors with fixed ideas who refuse to conform to established consensus?

A:That would be a brief general description of the situation. It could describe anything from some very benign things on the talk page to severe policy violations. I were an admin just landing there or was approached with the above description, the first step would be to thoroughly learn and evaluate the situation. Plus to ask the initiator who gave that description for more specifics. Lets presume that the specifics turned out to include some significant policy violation. For example, editing clearly against the results of a recent RFC. I'd start out with a discussion with the person. If it persisted, then a warning, and then if it persisted further gradual escalation after that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:28, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Carrite

18. What is your perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to Wikipedia?

A:I think that it has the potential to do both harm and good for Wikipedia. Right now my list of "harm" is bigger than my list of "good" but I don't yet have an overall opinion. It's pretty safe to say that disclosure of AI use would help the overall situation. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:49, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Let'srun

19. How would you handle a situation where a user accused you in good faith of being WP:INVOLVED?

A:If they haven't already given the specifics of their basis for saying that I would ask them to do so. I would then read that, ponder it and then respond. If it appeared to be totally without basis, I would tell them my opinion in a friendly was and invite them to take it to Administrative Action Review if they felt otherwise. For such an important rule I don't think that I would ever make a blatant violation. But I've seen edge case and accidental edge case situation. For example, closing an RFC where a few years back they weighed in on that topic. For those situations I would either reverse my action and leave it for another admin to handle or ask for my own action to be reviewed at Administrative Action Review. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 03:02, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from Robert McClenon

20. Your history includes a one-year site ban, which was successfully appealed. Can you explain what factors of temperament contributed to that ban, and how your learning from the experience has contributed to your qualification to be an administrator?

A.I put my main answer to this (which was asked in several places) underneath TarnishedPath's question. Let me know if you'd like further information or clarification.Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:06, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

21. Your discussion of previous conflicts over editing in Q3 does not include the conflict that led to the site ban. Is there a reason why you have chosen not to include that in your response to Q3?

A.For this one too I put my main answer underneath TarnishedPath's question. Let me know if you'd like further information or clarification. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:06, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Aaron Liu

22. You mentioned WP:FramBan in your Q3 response, and unfortunately I didn't understand the following sentences well. Could you clarify how you dealt with this situation involving conflicts with other editors?

A:I intended it as being an illustrative example in my answer to "cause me stress" and not under "conflicts with other editors." I saw the move (from a process view) as a major threat to Wikipedia and that caused me stress even though I had no involvement and no conflict with other editors. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:44, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

23. Hot topic: Below, multiple participants express concern over the characterization of your past sanctions as the products of "weaponization". Would you like to clarify what you meant by that?

Several have asked regarding that particular case..to cover it somewhat in depth and avoid repetition, I put the overall answer as a response to TarnishedPath's question. On my general intended meaning for the term, I see "weaponization" as mis-use of Wikipedia systems to "get" other editors to serve purposes rather than to solve the ostensible problem. North8000 (talk) 03:53, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Gamaliel

24. In 2012, a now-inactive administrator considered topic banning you and another user (now inactive after being topic banned from US politics by ArbCom) for battleground behavior and personal attacks in a charged conflict over a then-current US political topic. Your pointy response was to propose desysoping this administrator. Now 2012 is a long time ago, and we've all changed and grown since then. What is your current reflection on your behavior in those editing conflicts and interactions with this administrator? How have you changed as an editor since then and how does that make you qualified to be an administrator? What would you do now if you were that administrator you proposed desysoping and were faced today with that behavior you exhibited then?

A:I wanted to answer this one quickly because respectfully the wording of the question leaves a couple of wrong impressions. My post that you linked was a response to a group of 9 topic ban proposals,with mine being 7 proposals back within that group and so my response was not specifically to the proposal regarding me. I did not support any of the 9; even for the 2 editors who I felt had the most issues I just said to issue a warning instead. I thought that with my "As long as we're getting crazy, this is not any wilder than the other stuff proposed" I had self-identified my proposal as absurd or absurd overkill (and so not serious) and as a being a way to shift the conversation and make a statement about many of the 9 proposals were in that same category.

Regarding the editing conflicts, I will address this situation in more detail in my answer to the big question. The same where I'll expand on a different approach already described in my answer to Q3. I short, I no longer get that deep in on trying to fix articles with that type of issues/situation which I was trying to work on with the TPM. The first step in this transition happened 12 years ago when I confined any big activity on those to the talk page. Now I don't get that deep in on these even on the talk page. So now, the subject conversation regarding me would have never happened. Now for a answer to the rest of your question. There are many many things in the 12 year old exchange that I would not do now:

• Regarding that admin, I never had any acrimonious interaction. They are a nice person. I think that they handled several things badly and that it was probably and edge case regarding being involved. Even more edge case because their role was really using the admin imprimatur rather than the tools. I think that they made a good faith effort to handle this. Now I would have had a better understanding of all of these things vs. being a semi-newbie under attack at the time. Now I would have opened up a friendly dialog with them to both work through this and have the fun of developing another wiki-friend.
• I would not use such a hyperbolic conversational tactic in any serious discussion.
• I would not use such a strong proposal (even if self declared as being absurd) that had an individual as it's subject unless it was rock-solid serious and justified.
• I would never be as conversationally wild in any discussion on any serious matter.
• I'm able to see things structurally, can write structurally, and often rely on people doing the same to interpret what I write (as I did in this case). This is poor communication on my part, an issue I'm still working on. I've improved on that but am still working on it. And example is my Wikipedia:How Wikipedia notability works which started out as an abstract structural analysis and now been evolving it to better explain / communicate.
• My arguments would have been much more detailed. Probably starting with asking for a specific justification for the proposed actions.

Now for your "if I were in their shoes" question; I (as that admin) would have suspected that it was not a serious proposal and then asked me to clarify whether or not is was a serious proposal. If my (North's) answer was "no" (which it would have been, and I would have added an apology) I would have asked me to explicitly state that and after I did that, I'd consider that to be settled. North8000 (talk) 20:07, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Huggums537

25. How has your past experience and growth from the previously discussed past restrictions which you've personally overcome given you a uniquely qualified perspective on restrictive policies considering your tendency to help others avoid being treated overly critically, harshly, or unfairly and what role, if any, do you plan to play in the molding of future restrictive policies and/or blocking decisions? Huggums^{537_voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk)} 18:04, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

A:

Optional question from Dclemens1971

26. National Beach Soccer League appears to consist almost entirely of LLM-generated text, was produced by an editor who has racked up numerous warnings for creating pages using LLMs, includes close paraphrasing from the subject's own website, and has precisely zero independent sources. Can you describe your thought process in marking the page as reviewed with a comment "nice work"? Dclemens1971 (talk) 20:13, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks and happy to. In some cases I need to include the "rationale for the rationale" and so this will be a bit long and I'll probably answer it in stages with multiple posts. I'll sign the overall post when done. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:23, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

I've done several thousand NPP reviews and don't remember this one specifically but answering as if first saw it today I think is a good description of what I would have done/ did then.

First I'd like to give the rationale for three other rationales. Restating the obvious in a different way, Wikipedia has a process which reviews screens new articles to decide whether or not an article on that topic is allowed to exist in Wikipedia. New Page Patrol's core mission is to keep that process functional and in place by doing reviews for that criteria. Without this Wikipedia would be flooded into uselessness by billions of advertisements, resume/CV's and other unsuitable articles and "articles". Keeping this process functioning is the ONE job that only NPP can do. There is a danger of that process going away/collapsing. NPP's current backlog (not counting redirects) is at over 14,000 articles and rising. Every other article problem is NOT unique to new articles, and something that the other zillion editors can also handle. There are practical time constraints that are a necessary part of this effort. NPP is dependent on it's short list of then-active reviewers to each get many article per day reviewed is their available Wiki-minutes. So when I'm in active NPP mode, I strive to do my part in that. The three rationales that derive from this rationale are:

• I do review only for "whether or not an article on that topic is allowed to exist in Wikipedia" and not some of the other issues which you listed. And in this case that main question is wp:notability
• There are time constraints on my review process. I take plenty of time to review what is actually in the article. In this case time constraints come into play regarding in-depth review of sources I find in my search for other sources not included in the article. Instead I'd make a quick assessment against community norms for this type of article.
• Both for time constraints and also relevancy, I would not look into the background of the page creator for things like warnings which you describe. I do see and look at what is shown in the curation software which would include current blocks.

(ec with followup question) A quick assessment leads to seeing that wp:notability in the main question in this case. And for a sports article, the current prima facie standard for this is GNG. I always try to learn and follow the community norms. Since I'd guess that ~95% of sports articles don't meet a strict application of GNG if you include only sources present in the article (and I'd guess that that drops to ~80% if you include non-present sources) this process is a necessity. I've written an observation of the structure of this at Wikipedia:How Wikipedia notability works and also note that at AFD, for a multitude of reasons, and as I have learned the hard way, the de-facto application standard for sports articles is even lower. After doing a look at the included sources, and since the GNG standard is the existence of suitable sources, not the presence of them, I do a search for other sources and a general assessment of the attributes, scope and visibility of the topic. I find some sources which appear likely to meet the community interpretation. I also see that it is an organization which has been in existence for 6 years and is widely referred to in it's field. And that it is an inherently broader topic. Whether an edge case or over the bar, I mark it as reviewed. Since Wikipedia can be a rough place for creators, on this I like to leak a quick positive note for them (which also gets to their talk page). Some common ones might be "thanks for your work", "nice work" or "good start". The latter is intended as just one of these and not an assessment of the article. In hindsight I probably would have been more likely to use "good start" because the article needs a lot of work (including addition of sources). Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:15, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Followup question: Since the sources in the article are not independent, what sources did you rely on to determine that the subject met an appropriate notability guideline? Dclemens1971 (talk) 13:58, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

There was an edit conflict; your followup question came before I completed my response to the question. The completion of my response describes my process. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:19, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for providing the full response! Dclemens1971 (talk) 16:30, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Ganesha811

4. Are there any areas of adminship you do not plan to participate in, due to unfamiliarity or lack of technical knowledge? If you later decided you wanted to help in these areas, what would be your plan to become an effective admin in those areas?

A: Thank you Ganesha811 for your question! As things currently stand, I do not plan on working within requests for permissions. However, if I were to change my mind on this, I would take the time to read the admin instructions for granting each individual permission, and only participate when I am ready and have fully understood the criteria and the process. As I mentioned in Q1, I do believe it is likely in the future that I will use the tools in places I have not mentioned within my RFA; I would be cautious within my approach to doing this, and would only ever commit to doing do so after rereading all the relevant policies and guidelines to ensure I am following them in a precise and accurate manner. Where any policies and guidelines are not very clear to me or something is vague, I will ask another admin on-wiki, or have a look at the archives in the Wikipedia namespace to see if there is any established precedent for how a situation may be dealt with. Patient Zero^talk 17:43, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Extraordinary Writ

5. I was a bit surprised, especially since you list G11/U5 as a major area of interest, to see your edits last week at User:YenaKim371/sandbox, where you made what I would consider a questionable U5 tagging and then reverted (contrary to WP:CSD) an uninvolved editor's attempt to contest it. How would you reässure someone concerned that you might use the delete button too aggressively?

A: Hello Extraordinary Writ, and thank you for your question! Firstly, I realised fairly soon after doing this that I had made a mistake. Asilvering explained to me when I incorrectly filed an SPI on the two accounts involved in creating the identical sandboxes (User:YenaKim371/sandbox and User:710082982 Psychology/sandbox), that these were more than likely two separate individuals working on a project. As for why I tagged the pages as U5s: I was incorrectly under the impression that the sandboxes were essentially essays, ie. writings that weren’t related to Wikipedia’s goals, but I had misinterpreted this - they were just articles written in a very essay-like way that could be cleaned up to meet Wikipedia’s standards. Also, I certainly won’t revert someone challenging my tagging again - I will admit that was a poor judgement, caused by a poor choice on my part to edit later at night than I am used to. I’m grateful to the individuals who took the time to explain matters to me, and have learned from the experience to be more careful. If I were to be granted the tools, I would commit to being careful and thorough in any admin areas I work in, too. I hope that provides you, and the community, with some reassurance. Patient Zero^talk 11:47, 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: Thank you for your questions, BusterD! My personal view on IAR is that it should be used as a last resort, in cases where a rule in place on Wikipedia is inhibiting someone from making a constructive decision that benefits the encyclopaedia and/or the rest of the community. I cannot recall any instances where I have personally used IAR, as I consider myself to be quite a rule-driven person, however I do recognise the policy’s place in preventing unnecessary bureaucracy. Patient Zero^talk 11:38, 19 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: The addition of recall petitions has not influenced my decision on whether to run as an administrator. To paraphrase WP:ADMIN, I believe administrators should lead by example and perform their duties to the very best of their abilities. I do not think admins should be perfect by any means, and it is a human trait to make mistakes. However, serious or repeated mistakes will naturally lead to the community losing faith and trust in an individual. As such, I am more than happy to be open to recall myself. Patient Zero^talk 11:38, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from CosXZ

8. How would you address a good faith editor who made a honest mistake?

A: Thank you for your question, CosXZ! It would depend on the situation, but I’ll give you an example relating to the area I tend to the most on Wikipedia. On Huggle, I often come across edits that are mistakes, but not vandalism. I will open the diff in my regular browser, and use Twinkle’s “rollback [AGF]” feature so that I can write a detailed edit summary explaining the relevant policy or guideline, or why something was a mistake (eg. someone changing British English spellings to American ones on an article with a strong national tie to the UK). When communicating with the editor on their talk page, I am always friendly, approachable, and courteous - also, instead of just writing, for example, “read WP:NPOV” I’ll take the time to say “we have a policy that articles must adhere to a neutral point of view”. Yes, that takes much longer to type - but it’s worth it to ensure that people don’t feel overwhelmed by all the acronyms when they first start out here. Patient Zero^talk 11:43, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Carrite

9. What is your perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to Wikipedia?

A: Thanks Carrite for your question! My personal view on AI in relation to Wikipedia is that it has proven to be useful in some one-off cases - for example, ClueBot NG uses AI in order to identify vandalism and quickly revert it. However, given that AI chatbots and large language models (LLMs) can produce at best original research and at worst complete fabrications which could prove detrimental to Wikipedia, I am against their usage here. Also, more recently I have noticed people using LLMs to communicate where English is not their first language, and due to them not necessarily understanding what they are saying and it leading to misinterpretation of important policies and guidelines, these individuals tend to end up with WP:CIR/WP:ENGAGE blocks. Patient Zero^talk 18:29, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Let'srun

10. How would you handle a situation where a user accused you in good faith of being WP:INVOLVED?

A: Thank you Let'srun for your question! If I were suspected of being involved, especially where this suggestion has been made in good faith, I would take a step back and analyse the matter to try and understand how I may be considered involved, as it is more than likely that the accusation would have some basis, even if the connection seems to only be a small one. I would then ask for another, uninvolved administrator’s opinion on the matter. If I were to have already carried out an admin action and I were deemed to have been involved, I would either undo it myself, or not object to another admin undoing it. I would also be willing to have my actions reviewed and analysed at WP:AARV if necessary. Patient Zero^talk 11:45, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from CommunityNotesContributor

11. Apologies for late question. As a follow up to Q2, I was surprised to see - NUS1 - a stub/start class created last month (disclosure: I rated it as stub per template, arguably it's a start class) referenced under best contributions to WP, alongside your admirable anti-vandalism work. Do you have examples of where you have contributed considerably to improve an article? Beyond the dozen edits to Ayrton Senna to clarify.

A: Hi, CommunityNotesContributor! Thank you for your question, and for your kind words regarding my anti-vandalism work! I think it’s definitely fair to say I am more of a WikiGnome, but I can provide you with another example of some content work: I have made 51 edits in total to List of mental disorders, including a fair few in 2020. I would say I am quite proud of these, as they involved changing some outdated terms or removing ones which were not included in the DSM or the ICD. I hope this answers your question. Patient Zero^talk 20:30, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Ganesha811

4. Are there any areas of adminship you do not plan to participate in, due to unfamiliarity or lack of technical knowledge? If you later decided you wanted to help in these areas, what would be your plan to become an effective admin in those areas?

A: Through Wikipedia's markup code, I know just enough about HTML to get myself into trouble. I don't plan on creating any gadgets or tools, nor would I ever pursue the knowledge to do so—it's just not for me. I am not technically adept regarding templates (I won't be modifying Template:Cite work any time soon). I can imagine that, in a year or so, I might feel more comfortable in that space should I work with experts with that knowledge. Thanks for the question! ~ Pbritti (talk) 01:07, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from SunDawn

6. A lot of your edits on projectspace are on ANI, way more than your AIV. Could you explain why?

A: For those wondering, ANI and AIV are my most-edited pages in the Wikipedia namespace, at 223 and 84 edits respectively. As a general rule, AIV reports rarely require follow-up. On rare occasion, you might be asked to add some details or add a link to the page where disruption is occurring, but usually a single edit addresses the issue. Since I'm currently not an admin, the initial report is generally the only time I contribute to that page. ANI is for more complicated cases where follow-up and community discussion are essentially mandatory. Whereas AIV is for clear disruption that requires little introduction, I've dealt with a variety of issues through ANI, ranging from personal attacks against myself to prolonged POV disruption. I've also offered my opinion on cases that I'm unrelated to in hopes that my voice might assist in building a community consensus. ~ Pbritti (talk) 13:28, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Fade258

7. How will you tackle the growing problem of using AI in content creation?

A: No single administrator is ever going to make a dent in the vast pile of AI/LLM issues. As a high school teacher, it has seemed like an unending uphill battle against AI. Regarding content creation, addressing the issue in a manner akin to copyright violations seems a bit more practical. Just as we celebrate well-cited articles, we also celebrate well-written ones. If an editor is using AI to assist in the creation of GA-quality work, I have no business interfering with their work. However, just like how referencing can turn into close paraphrasing or outright plagiarism, AI use often produces hallucinations and factual issues. Responding rapidly to new editors adding significant quantities of LLM-assisted content and recognizing when AI has invented a news article are both things I've already done without the mop. With the tools, I would be able to assist other editors when they observe these issues persisting past the third warning. ~ Pbritti (talk) 13:44, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from BusterD

8. 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: As a general statement, no. If any admin action is necessary, it'll almost always be justified by preexisting community consensuses in policies, guidelines, or some other specific SOPs. That said, I would be willing to look at another admin's IAR actions in the light of possible exigent circumstances, but only in the most narrow sense and still expect it to have broader retroactive community support. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:03, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

9. 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: Not directly. However, seeing what led to the recalls of other admins has certainly informed how I plan to approach adminship. I am glad that the recall process has given us such a formalized procedure to address community calls for desysoping and look forward to participating in discussions on revising those procedures. ~ Pbritti (talk) 14:48, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from CosXZ

10. How would you address a good faith editor who made a honest mistake?

A: It depends on the mistake! The occasional lightly worded talk page message (preferably not a template if they're a regular) is a good way to address things. RoySmith did exactly that to me not too long ago about an issue with page histories on my newer articles. Candor leads to cooperation and resolution. ~ Pbritti (talk) 16:22, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from SnowFire

11. WP:BRD. An editor makes an edit you disagree with. You revert them. The other editor replies on the talk page on the merits and doesn't put the edit back into mainspace, waiting on your reply. How would you handle a situation like this?

A: It depends on the circumstance. Ideally, I'll see the talk page comment and respond there. On a few occasions, I've self-revved after seeing a convincing talk page message or a suggestion regarding how a slight modification would address my concerns. Twinkle's automatic watchlisting of reversions is handy for that kind of thing. Acting as an admin, embodying best practices like BRD whenever possible is the expectation. Not part of the question, but I would be in favor of BRD (or something functionally similar) becoming a guideline. ~ Pbritti (talk) 14:59, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

12. WP:TEXTWALL. What do you consider a 'wall of text'? How long are we talking to qualify? When does it become problematic? How would you handle a dispute where a user is advocating for admin intervention but doing so more long-windedly than you'd like?

A: It's variable. For a message to ANI accusing an established editor of a disruptive editing, four paragraphs might make sense. Conversely, you probably only need up to two sentences to file a requested increase to page protection. I was involved in the blocking of ShirtNShoesPls via ANI in February 2024. There, I had assisted the filer in shortening their initial comment after an earlier longer filing against the same editor failed to address the disruption. Brevity is the soul of wit, but sometimes evidence needs explaining. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:06, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Carrite

13. What is your perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to Wikipedia?

A: I see it like Google: you can use it if you understand how to. For a couple articles on plants, I was struggling to locate additional journal articles to verify even basic attributes of the plants. I asked ChatGPT to identify some sources and it did. I then read those sources and wrote content based on those sources. If someone skips straight to prompting ChatGPT "write me an article", then we're looking at some of the issues I mentioned responding to #7 above. ~ Pbritti (talk) 12:51, 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: Good faith accusations of INVOLVED are rarely baseless so I would have to review what the basis for the assertion was. For example, if I were to close an AfD having forgotten that I had contributed to the article several years ago, I would bring the matter to DRV (if not already there). Since this is a hypothetical, I can't say much for certain about how I would handle other circumstances, but asking another administrator to look at my actions would almost certainly be a first step. ~ Pbritti (talk) 14:40, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Extraordinary Writ

15. Looking back at the two discussions I linked below, is there anything you would do differently today (or any other reflections you'd like to share)?

A: Thanks for asking here (and thank you, Risker, for the clarifying comment on procedure). Regarding the the AfD, I think Asilvering's summary is the thrust of it: an aspersion was cast against me and I responded to it. That discussion was a frustrating one, and I'm very glad that the other editor and I came to a polite resolution in the thread without any real escalation. If I could change only one thing in this discussion, I would have avoided citing an essay back at them, which definitely comes across as tit-for-tat. Regarding the talk page discussion, I should have waited and thought of a more patient reply that addressed the POV/undue issue in a more impersonal way, especially since such concerns can easily escalate. As a collaborative project, Wikipedia occasionally requires butting heads with people you otherwise respect, and I hope that the way I disagree with people leaves them feeling I still respect them and their work. ~ Pbritti (talk) 12:23, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from GreenLipstickLesbian

16.Say you come across a situation as an admin where somebody is editing an article about their employer, without disclosing their COI. Another user insists that it's paid editing, but the editor insists that it's not because they weren't technically paid to make the edits. How would you deal with that?

A: I'm assuming this circumstance describes someone disclosing their COI retroactively or improperly. A good first step would be citing the policy, which indicates payment in exchange for editing is not necessary for a problematic COI to exist. If the edits are substantial, discussion about potential pitfalls of COI editing and a review of what was changed would probably have to follow. If the edits are strictly promotional, that's moving things into a new territory that's addressed somewhat differently. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:41, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

17.SPI isn't an area you seem interested in, but it does come up when dealing with deletion discussions, vandalism patrolling, and unblock. With that in mind, last December an editor used two accounts, not realizing they had to declare that on their userpage, and when you asked them about it, they were open about the fact they controlled both accounts. (Looking at their edits, while it's not great that they were editing the same articles without disclosing, they're just making normal expansions and gnomey edits on otherwise pretty deserted articles). In response, you told them that they needed to agree to have one of the accounts blocked (no?) and filed an SPI. Similarly, and this is a lot less relevant than it was last year, in 2023 there was this SPI . Could you talk a little bit about these?

A. Since this is a bit of a multi-part question, I'd encourage you to rephrase the second portion as a follow-up question so that I can answer a bit more clearly. Regarding the first incident in question, the sockpuppetry policy indicates that "[e]ditors may not use more than one account to contribute to the same page or discussion in a way that suggests they are multiple people". While permitting "clearly linked" accounts, the editor in question was editing a page with two accounts that had no indication they were linked. This violated the policy, which indicates such breaches typically correspond with a block. Since it was clearly an accident, this didn't seem to require anything further. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:33, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

17.5(Follow up) Well, I suppose to rephrase to what I was really getting that- there's a lot of grey area in the socking policy (and more broadly, in nearly very every PAG, I suppose) , and a lot of room for people to make good-faith mistakes that (nonetheless) go against community consensus. As an admin, when would you block first versus when would you warn/help a plausibly good faith editor(s) follow a policy they misunderstood? Feel free to discuss in as much or as little depth as you'd like. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 18:56, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

A: Thanks for the follow-up! I think that incident indicates my preferred approach: directly confront a suspected socker, indicate the community-approved remedies, and—should they indicate that they only acted in error and make a good-faith effort to conform to the policy—leave it at that. In the aforementioned case, I got the same impression you had of their edits: mostly innocuous, but still problematic. Seeing as the the accidental sockmaster continues to make much-appreciated contributions 18 months later (rather than being caught later when the hole had been dug deeper), I think my approach helped us retain a valuable newbie. ~ Pbritti (talk) 19:52, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Co-nomination statement

I'm happy to nominate Ser! for adminship. Ser! has stood out to me for quite a while as someone with the temperament, knowledge of our policies and guidelines, and decision-making suited to the role. His page protection requests at RFPP are consistently accepted, he's a solid contributor at AIV, and he makes good use of edit summaries to clearly explain his actions. Overall, he contributes thoughtfully across many areas of Wikipedia where additional administrators are needed while engaging with others respectfully. I'm confident he will make a calm, capable, and constructive administrator from day one. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 01:36, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Co-nomination statement

SPI is not where ser! spends his most edits on, but it is also an area where making positive contributions requires many qualities we expect of admins. And I am very happy to say that the contributions to SPI ser! has made are of exemplary quality. ser! makes an effort to pick out the most important evidence required for us to determine whether a connection between multiple accounts/IPs is plausible, and post them concisely for easy review.

My review of the SPI contributions ser! has made in the past two years reveal a level of consistency, thoughtfulness, and effective communication we see from admins. I'm in particular impressed by ser!'s work on Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Buzzards-Watch Me Work/Archive, in which he has consistently written good reports from 2022 to this day. I believe the quality of SPI contributions are a clear sign that he will make a great administrator, and I'm sure giving him tools will be beneficial to SPI as well as many other areas. dbeef [talk] 06:10, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I'm thrilled to accept the nomination. ser! ^{(chat to me - see my edits)} 10:43, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Please disclose whether you have ever edited Wikipedia for pay: I have never edited for pay. ser! ^{(chat to me - see my edits)} 10:43, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Ganesha811

4. Are there any areas of adminship you do not plan to participate in, due to unfamiliarity or lack of technical knowledge? If you later decided you wanted to help in these areas, what would be your plan to become an effective admin in those areas?

A: Yes, there are a few. In particular, I do not plan to get involved in anything related to edit filters, due to both unfamiliarity and technical knowledge. I am also largely unsure of the guidelines or rules for undeleting articles, so I am not planning to participate at requests for undeletion, nor do I intend on getting involved in requested moves for similar reasons. I'm acutely aware of the mushroom effect and would plan to continue editing largely in the same way I have before, albeit with the bonus facets of protecting pages and blocking vandals. If I ever decide that I'd like to get involved elsewhere, I will follow two key steps: firstly, I will read over the relevant section of the Administrators' reading list and familiarise myself thoroughly. Secondly, I'll spend a period of time watching either a relevant noticeboard and/or the actions of an admin involved in this area, in order to make myself familiar with common outcomes and cases. Only after I am sure I am well-acquainted with what needs to be done would I then decide to participate in these areas.

Optional question from Fade258

5. As an administrator, Can you please elaborate, How will you ensure that your actions reflect community values rather than personal preference?

A: Of course. At the moment as an editor without the toolset, I've always strived to ensure my actions are in line with the core values of Wikipedia, and this will not change regardless of the outcome of this election. With regards to the two areas I am most likely to be involved; at RfPP I am very much aware of WP:INVOLVED, and would ensure I do not use my tools to reinstate my own preferred version amidst a content dispute. I would refrain from protecting any page I have substantively edited, aside from where there are BLP issues (particularly unsourced rumour content) or blatant vandalism. In terms of blocking vandals, I would ensure that any blocks I make would be in line with what's expected from the community in terms of only blocking where it's absolutely necessary to prevent disruption (i.e. giving good faith editors a chance and helpful guidance rather than going straight to a block), blocking for a suitable length of time, and again not blocking where I am WP:INVOLVED with the exception of severe and blatant vandalism. I have familiarised myself with Wikipedia:Administrators' guide/Blocking and have it pinned to my dashboard for whenever I may need it.

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: Even as a regular editor I don't think I've ever invoked IAR, and having given it some thought I can only think of one particular circumstance where I might use it; that being if I was at AIV and somebody reported a block evading obvious vandal with relevant diffs, and I was certain beyond a doubt that this was the same user, I may choose to take action there and then rather than declining and advising the reporting user to go to SPI. I say this partially because SPI is expensive, but mainly sometimes there are incredibly obvious cases of chronic vandalism and block evasion that don't quite veer into LTA territory (for example, without giving too much detail I have frequently reported one particular user for addition of false birthdates; this is almost always from IPs from the same country and nearly always on the exact same range) which could be handled there and then, saving community time. Even at this I'm not sure if this is truly an IAR case, but if it is, it's the one exception to the rules I would make.

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: To be honest, it hasn't impacted my decisions at all. Hypothetically if I had run before now I would have been open to recall as is, and I think the formal adoption of a procedure is good for accountability.

Optional question from CosXZ

8. How would you address a good faith editor who made a honest mistake?

A: That would of course depend on the mistake, but as a rule of thumb, I'd always do so proactively and with a positive attitude, as I have strived to do as a non-admin editor. If it's something as simple as a spelling error or similar mistake, I'd fix it and note it in the edit summary. If it's a newer user or someone who may need some help with some facets of editing, I'd drop them a friendly talk page message informing them of the mistake, letting them know how to do whatever they wanted to do correctly, and linking any relevant help pages that may be of assistance to them.

Optional question from Carrite

9. What is your perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to Wikipedia?

A: In a word, grim. I firmly believe the dawn of ChatGPT and similar artificial intelligence LLMs have been a net negative for the site. It's become so much easier for folks to, instead of researching sources and referencing what's in them, just type into ChatGPT "Write a Wikipedia article about my company" and directly copy-paste it over here, which has led to an increase in content either at AfC or in mainspace which frequently contains either information that is completely untrue or sources that flat-out don't exist (I believe these are called "hallucinations"). Possibly even worse is where existing articles, to which edits frequently slip under the radar, have ChatGPT generated content added to them with these exact same pitfalls; for example, recently somebody added a claim to a footballer's article about them being considered "one of the best midfielders of all time" (a particular MOS:PUFFERY bugbear of mine) with four very plausible looking links to reliable sources, only for these linked articles to... not exist. Between this and the amount of time that's wasted on dealing with AI-generated AfD arguments/unblock requests/whatever else, I really think it's made things worse rather than better.

I'm sure some good editors use LLMs for things such as copy-editing or fixing typos; though I personally don't and won't ever use them when editing, I won't criticise anyone for it. However, I believe these tools are not something we should ever embrace as part of the platform. When the introduction of AI-generated summaries was announced at the village pump, I spoke in opposition to it; as I said there, I've heard it said frequently that on an internet which has undergone enshittification and is is increasingly full of AI slop that Wikipedia is one of the last remaining bastions of reliability. For Wikipedia to work hand-in-hand with AI as a platform would be to take that reputation and volley it into the bin.

Co-nomination statement

It's my pleasure to co-nominate Smasongarrison for adminship. In addition to her category work described above, she's done important work making medical content more accurate and neutral. For instance, no longer describing people who use wheelchairs as 'wheelchair bound', which was inaccurate (many users do not require their wheelchair all the time), and not neutral (wheelchairs are tools for independence, not of restriction). With 15 new articles created, she is clearly not limited to gnoming. She first came to my attention in discussions where she was thoughtful, kind and to-the-point. Giving her the tools would be a massive benefit to CfD in particular. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:44, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

Co-nomination statement

I first met Smasongarrison during a disagreement, one which I felt quite sure that I was on the right side of. During that discussion they took the time that was necessary to point me to the relevant policies and explain the logic behind the position they were taking, and I ultimately realized that they had the correct position. I grew from the discussion and I'm very grateful for interactions such as those. In similar discussions, I've explained my position and found they came around based on other arguments made, showing a willingness to be flexible and grow based on new information and perspective, while also knowing when to state they respectfully disagree and leave the discussion at that. I believe, based on the overall body of work referenced above, they've demonstrated that they have the right patience, temperament, and knowledge that Wikipedia looks for in folks to work in the areas they want to work in. In addition to that, they have the thing I personally value most of all, a recognition of their personal limitations and a willingness to ask others for help. I do not expect them to go beyond what they are capable of without first asking the right questions, a skill in of itself. So, with all of that in mind, I hope you will join me in supporting someone I expect would make an excellent administrator. Hey man im josh (talk) 22:52, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept the nomination. ^SMason_Garrison 20:15, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

Please disclose whether you have ever edited Wikipedia for pay: I have never edited for pay, and I have only edited from this account. ^SMason_Garrison 20:15, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Ganesha811

4. Are there any areas of adminship you do not plan to participate in, due to unfamiliarity or lack of technical knowledge? If you later decided you wanted to help in these areas, what would be your plan to become an effective admin in those areas?

A:There are definitely areas I don't plan to jump into right away, particularly high-stakes spaces like blocking, WP:UTRS, or WP:SPI, where the cost of getting something wrong is high. I don't typically participate in dispute resolution venues like WP:ANI or WP:DRN, for similar reasons, unless it overlaps with infrastructure work I'm already doing (e.g., a category conflict stemming from WP:CfD). I also haven’t been particularly active in WP:AfD; it feels too much like peer reviewing, which is already part of my job as an academic. I'd rather start from domains where I already have experience (but don't feel like an extension of my job), like categorization, templates, redirects, and tools, and grow from there.

If I did decide to expand into new areas (perhaps edit filters, merge histories?), I'd approach it the way I always do when learning anything new: by reviewing the relevant policies, Category:Administrator instructions, looking at past examples, and starting out by participating as a user, not as an admin. You have to walk before you can run. I'd ask questions where I'm unsure how/why a rule/policy was applied, and only take on responsibility, once I had a solid understanding of how it operates in practice.

Optional question from Fade258

5. How would you approach on determining whether a category should be deleted, merged or renamed, particularly where policy based guidance is not explicit?

A: Good question! If there's not clear policy guidance, I usually do three things. First, I try to recall what precedents exist for similar categories. I look at how similar cases have been handled in the past. Second, I ask if this category is capturing a defining feature of the pages. Third, I ask whether the category helps users navigate between pages. These last two are effectively the lodestars for categorization (WP:MOSCAT). If it's not helping with navigation, meaning it doesn't make it easier to navigate from one bucket of related pages to another, then I look at how that could be improved. If the pages still need to be grouped in some way, that might mean renaming the category to better reflect its contents or clarify its purpose to users. If the pages fit better into existing categories, then a merge could be the best option. And if the category isn't serving any navigable purpose and isn't defining for the pages inside, then deletion might be appropriate.

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: You're welcome! WP:IAR exists to support Wikipedia's core mission: building a high-quality encyclopedia. The purpose of "rules" is to help us do that, not to prevent it. Hence pillar WP:Five_pillars#Wikipedia has no firm rules. However, using admin tools under the justification of IAR should be rare, because most admin actions are governed by well-established policies, consensus processes, and general community norms.

If IAR ever did apply, it would likely be in low-risk, process-stalled situations that are clearly in line with consensus. For example, restoring a page that was clearly deleted in error during cleanup, or renaming a obviously misspelled category. In those cases, I would document the action clearly, explain the rationale, and welcome feedback. IAR is not about working outside the system, it's about serving the encyclopedia when the system lags behind its own intent.

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: It hasn't changed my decision to run, but I think it's a useful addition. Adminship is based on trust, and recall formalizes what should already be true: trust is earned, and can be withdrawn if someone is no longer serving the project well. I've always tried to be transparent in how I edit and explain my reasoning, and the recall process reinforces the importance of that. It also fits with the way I already think about accountability. I edit under my real name. I've found that it helps me stay, well, accountable. I believe it's easier to stay thoughtful and responsive when your edits are tied to your offline persona. I think it's also easier to remember that there's a person on the other side of that screen. I suspect some of the more hostile exchanges we see on the platform would look different if more people edited that way.

I don't expect to please everyone, and I’m sure there will be cases where someone disagrees with how I interpret a policy or close a discussion. But I try to be accountable in how I act, explain my reasoning, and respond to feedback. If a recall petition ever did arise, I'd treat it as a serious signal and try to engage with the concerns being raised. (Obviously, I'd hope to never get to that point!)

Optional question from CosXZ

8. How would you address a good faith editor who made a honest mistake?

A: I try to meet people where they are. Mistakes happen. If I see an honest mistake, I'd start with a talk page message that assumes good faith, explains what went wrong, and links to relevant guidance or tools. I try to frame the feedback in terms of how to improve; what might be helpful to look at next, what patterns to watch for, etc. I've made plenty of mistakes myself, and the editors I respect most are the ones who used those moments to teach rather than to shame. If someone's operating in good faith, the best outcome is helping them learn. We're all volunteers here. So if someone wants to help, let me try to channel that interest into something that benefits that project. I'd rather help someone grow than drive them away over a misstep.

Optional question from Carrite

9. What is your perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to Wikipedia?

A: I have a lot of thoughts on AI! My view of AI on Wikipedia is mixed. Large language models (LLM) were trained on our articles, so every edit we make now can echo through future tools, which is remarkable. The trouble comes when users use those models to generate unvetted prose: drafts rarely include the inline, independent sources that WP:V needs, and vetting that text already strains volunteers (see WP:WikiProject AI Cleanup).

I think of an LLM like a very sophisticated set of "Mad Libs," not an-knowing-search engine. (I think the Slavic idiom, Trust, but verify, captures my healthy skepticism on it best). Editors are still responsible for the edits they made. In fact, I wish we approached AI use the same way we handle AutoWikiBrowser, where advanced permissions are granted only to people who demonstrate technical understanding and care. That level of gatekeeping is probably impractical at scale, but the mindset is helpful. That being said, AI still has potential: it could flag unsourced statements, suggest category fixes, or surface possible copy-vios. Still, those tasks are useful only when a human is responsible for the output before anything reaches mainspace.

Optional questions from Robert McClenon

10. - Your history is that you have made 799,000 edits in thirteen years. That is an extremely high rate of activity even for an experienced editor. Are you simply a very active and prolific editor, or have you been using semi-automated or automated tools such as AWB, and, if so, how?

A: Yes. It's a lot of edits. About 90 % of my edits are supervised maintenance with AWB and Cat-a-lot. I use them to benchmark existing RegExTypoFix rules and roll out new ones, tagging talk pages, update template parameters, diffusing categories (or undiffusing), and implementing category renames after a CfD close. When a category move affects hundreds of pages, I have to make the changes myself, since only admins can request the bot that handles bulk moves. If I had to guess, the single biggest contributor to that headline number would be... undiffusing the contents of categories. In addition to the classic tools, I also wrote a few userscripts (e.g., ) to help me point people to the right policy (WP:ALLINCLUDED).

11. Since much of your experience has been in the esoteric area of categories, do you have plans for how to use the administrator toolkit to facilitate the maintenance of categories?

A: My first thought was "nothing exciting yet." I don't have a grand plan beyond picking up the mop and working wherever the category backlog sits. I'll close more discussions, and with admin rights I can file bot requests for bulk moves. I'll keep an eye on follow-through, and work through the history of Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/Manual to spot tasks we can template or automate. Before pitching bigger ideas, I want to see how the toolkit functions on a day-to-day.

Looking ahead, I'd like to make CfD less intimidating and make the learning curve less steep. The venue can feel arcane (esoteric is a good word for it): policy shortcuts, template syntax, and follow-through steps aren't obvious from the outside. Having more people active would be the biggest boon to category maintenance. I don't have an exciting, concrete plan yet. But I've been thinking about it. (So stay tuned!)

Optional question from Daniel Case

12. I have appreciated your work in the past making reports to WP:ANEW and WP:RFPP. Are you hoping/planning to contribute in those areas as an administrator?

A: Thanks for the compliment! I hadn't planned on contributing to WP:ANEW or WP:RFPP, but I've filed requests here and there when something came up during category work. I *could* see myself getting more involved in page protection, and growing into related page handling topics more generally.

Edit warring is one of the higher-stakes areas, and I'd be pretty hesitant to jump into it right away. It seems straightforward, at least, for WP:3RR, but slow edit warring cases are tricky. I'd want to look more closely at how those cases are handled before stepping in directly. In either case, if I did want to move into those areas, I'd start by participating more as a user, just to make sure I understand how it works outside of categorization.

Optional question from RadioKAOS

13. How is it healthy to the project as a whole when much of what occurs at CFD is "consensus in name only" involving the same two or three editors over and over again?

A:. WP:CFD doesn't get the same volume of participation as WP:AfD, but it's more than just two or three people. Like the other smaller XfDs (WP:TfD, WP:MfD, WP:RfD, WP:FfD), a decent-sized group of editors do comment regularly. Most of the time the discussions are well-reasoned. When participation really is too low to gauge consensus, the discussion gets relisted. But the community norm is too avoid WP:SNOW by not restating points that already reflect your view. So even short threads typically represent a broader consensus. You'll see this play out when a discussion will balloon quickly. Often this happens when there isn't a clear established norm and there's a lot of points of view. As I mentioned in Q11, I think there's a lot of room for growth on how we can make CFD more welcoming to encourage people to participate. The learning curve is steep, but more voices are always welcome.

Optional question from Ganesha811

4. Are there any areas of adminship you do not plan to participate in, due to unfamiliarity or lack of technical knowledge? If you later decided you wanted to help in these areas, what would be your plan to become an effective admin in those areas?

A: The main one would be the "disciplinary" side, particularly ANI -- honestly, at this point, handing out blocks and bans simply isn't in my area of interest, but more importantly I don't feel like I have a good grasp of the norms and expectations around them beyond the letter of policy. Similarly, while I can see myself pitching in to help with SPIs in the distant future, at the moment I simply don't know much about how they are conducted, and it would be a very bad thing for an admin without the right expertise to be crashing in where decisions are made that could end someone's participation in the encyclopaedia. If I did decide that I wanted to help with an area in which I need more experience -- which covers a lot! -- I would first look to read and understand the relevant PAGs, then to review previous discussions and cases in that area to get a sense of how they run and what the usual issues are, and then to participate as much as possible in non-admin tasks, such as voting in discussions without closing them. From there, I'd aim to gain experience in the more straightforward tasks first (e.g. closures with a clear outcome) first, and consult with more experienced admins in the area when coming across more tricky cases. Finally, I'd be ready to accept that I'm likely to make mistakes, and hear out anyone who thought as much. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 06:58, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Fade258

5. You have done a substantial work in content creation, which is a good part of building an encyclopedia. Can you please elaborate on how would you plan to balance your experience as a content creator considering the neutrality and enforcement abilities of an admin?

A: I think experience of content creation helps with being an admin -- after all, everything else about this place ultimately traces back to the aim of building a good encyclopaedia. Certainly, when handling contentious matters to do with people and their work, it's helpful to have the experience and empathy that comes with being on the other side. If you're talking about finding time to do both, I don't think adminning has to take away from content work: in the areas where I would hope to work early on, it'll be more a matter of changing the manner of my interactions rather than adding substantially to them (for example, correcting main page errors rather than typing a long report to the effect of "there's a typo in this DYK hook"), and my general pattern with writing is that it ebbs and flows as certain projects catch hold and die down. Obviously, WP:INVOLVED is a key policy, and I would not look to use admin permissions around articles or areas where I had been editing, barring the exceptions made in the policy. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 16:55, 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: My general view of IAR is that it's an acknowledgement that the rules can never cover everything, so we should avoid allowing "smaller" rules to crowd out "bigger" ones. It's rarely good when used as a complete sentence, particularly for administrators, since admins' actions and rationales need to be transparent, even if they may be procedurally correct. Hence I can't see myself writing "Blocked/Unblocked/Deleted/Kept -- IAR" -- I think that would be rightly criticised as appearing arbitrary and limiting the possibility for scrutiny. However, IAR can be the start of a sentence when there's a bigger principle in question, though usually that means not ignoring all rules, but rather putting a "higher" one first. For example, in an AfD, a closing admin may well reject a "consensus" that a certain article was so interesting that it doesn't matter that there are no reliable sources written about the topic -- we could call that IAR, but it's really applying the higher rule that consensus is not a vote and that a small group of editors can't overrule site-wide consensus. To date, most of my use of IAR has been on grammatical/formatting questions where the MoS doesn't fully cover a situation, and again there it's usually an appeal to the higher principle that Wikipedia articles should be grammatical and comprehensible. I don't want to say there are no situations where an admin should act in a way that can't be justified by any rules, but I'm struggling to think of any, and would in any case hope that any such action would be fully explained with references to the aims, norms and pillars of the site. I'm happy to work through a specific scenario if that would help? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 16:55, 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: Honestly, I don't think it has. I think the idea of admin recall is generally a good thing -- it's reasonable that giving people additional trust should come with some means to hold them to account if they misuse it. I haven't participated enough in the process to have a strong opinion on it beyond that. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 16:55, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from Sohom Datta

8. Reflecting on the Baeddel and baedling situation, is there anything that you could have/would have done differently ?

A: The FAR on that article is still open, so I’m not sure it’s quite right to be discussing it in the past tense yet, but I think everyone involved would probably agree that it’s an example where we weren’t able to solve things through the usual consensus-building mechanisms. The model I adopted (alongside others) very early in the discussion was WP:BRD – bold edits were made; I reverted some of those with my best effort at a clear edit summary as to why the first framing was better. In theory, the next step was for the bold editor(s) to discuss and build consensus on Talk: threads were opened there, but it proved difficult to get the discussions down to concrete objections and proposals. What soon became clear was that there wasn’t likely to be consensus for the proposed wholesale rewrite, and perhaps I could have been quicker off the mark in trying to break down the different strands of disagreement, as eventually became my approach at FAR, and helping to see if we could get consensus on Talk towards any of them – for instance, it proved pretty uncontroversial to add Anatoly Libermann’s blog posts from OUP, and I was able to reword a contentious reference to the Oxford English Dictionary in a manner that so far seems satisfactory to all. I think it’s important to be OK with discussions not ending in everyone’s agreement – we have processes for that, and there are almost always at least two good answers to a question. The big “missed step” in the escalation of the whole discussion was DRN, and perhaps I could have seen where things were going and suggested or started a thread there beforehand. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:37, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

9. Imagine you were an uninvolved admin who had just stumbled upon a page where a "expert" is clashing with the existing community about his additions/removals, as an admin, what would you do to de-escalate the situation?

A: I think about this cartoon a lot. I am always impressed and humbled by the sheer level of expertise of some of the people who edit here -- and have been lucky to work with plenty of editors who are serious experts in their field -- but at the end of the day, decisions have to be made by persuasion and consensus, not credentials. I can sympathise: I've written articles in areas where I'm qualified and consider myself to know my stuff, and then had to revert and discuss edits made on the grounds of misreadings or common misconceptions. Normally, I've found that a civil conversation works -- I've worked with a few editors who have tried to add their ongoing, unpublished research to articles, and it's usually enough to go through WP:OR and try to find some published sources together -- if we can't find them, most people accept that the material will have to wait until something comes into print. This discussion is an example. Where that fails, I'd hope to show them that they're not simply being stonewalled, ideally by showing them the paths available -- for instance, giving them advice on how they might generate consensus on the Talk page, or pointing them towards a more appropriate forum if discussion there has failed to arrive at consensus. From talking to academics in the real world who have tried to edit Wikipedia, they often come away frustrated and with the impression that Wikipedia cares more about rules and processes than getting things right: I don't think that's the case, but can see where it comes from, so explaining what our PAGs mean in plain English and why they're important might help there. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:37, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from CosXZ

10. How would you address a good faith editor who made a honest mistake?

A: Usually, if it's a simply mistaken edit, fix or revert with a detailed edit summary. If it's more complicated, I tend to leave an explanation on Talk, or occasionally on their user page -- the latter particularly if it's happened across multiple pages. Personally, I tend to avoid templates in favour of hand-written explanations, and (particularly with new users) to explain rather than use acronyms -- so I would be more likely to write something like "We can't use this citation here because it's only found in an ancient source, which means we can't use it for analysis or interpretation". I think that helps to head off the preception of opaque bureaucracy (see one of my answers above) that you might get with "I've reverted your edit: please see WP:PRIMARY, WP:V and WP:RS", and generally comes off far less brusque. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 11:21, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Carrite

11. What is your perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to Wikipedia?

A: From a content point of view, it's probably got valid use cases -- off Wikipedia, I've used to check for typos in important emails, for example. However, it opens up a lot of temptation to use it for things that would be a very bad idea. I'm a teacher in the "real world", where students often use generative AI as a first port of call for research -- this creates problems when writing a Wikipedia article, since the LLM may well find real sources, but has no concept of making sure that the balance of ideas matches the balance of scholarly opinion. I've also been involved in a couple of AfDs and other reviews where there has been a suspicion of AI use, and it creates massive verification problems -- see this one, for example, where an article that had lots of good qualities (plenty of detail, clearly notable topic, generally comprehensible) had to be WP:TNT'd because it was clear that there was no reliable link between the article's content and the cited sources, probably because of AI use, and as a result we would have needed to verify every single citation both for integrity and for WP:COPYVIO. So, in general, I'm pretty cautious about it: I think people generally go to Wikipedia because they want something written by human beings, and because they consider (how things have changed!) the way we do things to be more trustworthy than AI-generated summaries. I'm sure there are other useful areas where it can be brought in on the administrative side -- I know there are plenty of AI-based tools to detect vandalism, for example -- and used effectively with proper human oversight and accountability, but I'm really not an expert in that area. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 13:34, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from ImaginesTigers

12. With regards to the Sengkang LRT line FAC, do you think Wikipedia's sourcing requirements may reinforce structural biases? Do you think these might prevent or limit participation – for example in Asia / the global south?

A: On the first part -- the question came up during that discussion as to whether there's a subject that can never have a Featured Article written about it, and the answer (in my view) is almost certainly yes. There are definitely sources which might pass the bar for WP:RS but not WP:HQRS -- that is, they're reliable enough that an article based only on them shouldn't be deleted, but they're not scholarly or solid enough to build a Featured Article from. As you allude, one major category there is going to be subjects that are entirely written about in the state/state-aligned media of countries with limited press freedom, and Singapore is far from the only or the strongest example. I'm very happy to be persuaded on this point, but I think holding the line on reliability and neutrality is the right thing -- at the end of the day, WP:NPOV is a pillar and absolutely fundamental to what we do, whereas the desire for completeness is comparatively a nice-to-have. If you look at the community reaction to (for example) bot-created machine-translated articles, to say nothing of the whole institution of AfD, I think there's a broad agreement that we'd rather have fewer articles if getting more meant compromising notability or reliability. The question was asked during those discussions as to whether sourcing requirements should be relaxed if no "good" sources exist, and as I read it the conclusion there was fairly clearly that they shouldn't.

More generally, I think our requirement for sources to be independent and reliable is an important minimum -- I think we're very much in a "lesser of two evils" situation, where the alternative is allowing articles which, in the extreme case, promote the agendas of authoritarian states in Wikipedia's voice. Given everything that's going on in the world right now, that would be a very bad thing. As for limiting participation -- again, yes, but that goes far more for our notability guidelines, which turn off a great many editors who think it's ridiculous that their school/company/friend etc shouldn't have an article -- again, it's a shame, but keeping all of those articles would create a bigger problem. On the flipside, I'm not sure I would go so far as to say that this particular requirement is a major bar to participation -- less than 0.1% of Wikipedia articles are FAs, only a tiny minority of editors ever touch the FAC process, and there are so many subject areas in which to participate where the reliability of state-controlled media isn't a factor at all. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 20:16, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

13. On that FAC, you didn't respond to the nominator addressing your concerns; or to an FAC coordinator's follow-up query; or the resulting WT:FAC discussion. I think your source review concerns were reasonable but, being honest, I was frustrated by the outcome – FAC reviewers and contributors are already vanishingly few, and we lost that one. This genuinely saddened me. Listen, I think your contributions are excellent: you conduct yourself professionally, handled the b&b stuff well, and valiantly defend good content. But this was all a bit depressing. I feel like the human element has been neglected here. What's your take on all this?

A: There's a bit (a lot) of bad timing involved here -- I was travelling for most of the critical period earlier this month (I answered my nomination questions for this in my Notes app!), so didn't see most of the comments you cite here. I did take part in the discussion on RSN, where the nominator went on to explain their point of view at greater length (if I understood it correctly, that the sources in question were the best available, and it would be impossible to write the article without using them), but my take on that discussion was that we ended up simply disagreeing on the fundamentals, so there wasn't really anything to bring back to the FAC discussion. I did manage to get to a couple of things via the mobile app, but I didn't see ZKang123's final comment to me on 10 July, Gog's ping on the 12th, or the discussion on FAC Talk. I hope that explains the lack of responses there -- and perhaps it's a lesson to me to put an "out of office" on my talk page.

Generally, I agree with you that it's really sad that a good contributor has decided that FAC is no longer for them, and I think you've done a very good thing in trying to find ways to tweak the process to avoid a similar situation in the future. With that said (and without wishing to speak for them), I think ZKang123's issue was primarily in the outcome of the discussion -- that reviewers, myself included (but not alone), felt that the sources used in the article did not meet the rather high bar for a Featured Article, and so that the article was not promoted, although their previous contributions had been promoted with similar sourcing. On a human level, I absolutely understand feeling upset and frustrated at that, especially when you've put so many other articles through previously and not received the same feedback. It would be nice if the FAC process could be consistent, but that's an impossible goal when different people review different nominations (we see similar frustrations in GA/DYK/ITN, and no doubt elsewhere). With that said, there clearly isn't consensus in that FAC that the sourcing meets requirements, even if you take my comments out, so promoting the article as it currently stands wouldn't have been possible or right. I'll be following the discussions on FAC Talk with interest, and chipping in where I can. FAC is an inherently stressful and sometimes disappointing process, because it's all about judging people's work to very high standards and sometimes giving them an outcome they don't want, but anything we can do to make that easier on the people involved is a good thing. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 20:16, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from ViridianPenguin

4. KiranBOT’s removal of AMP tracking is quite useful and being the top author of Parbhani shows your content writing competency. However, why do you believe that with fewer than 1000 edits for this year, now is a good time to take on additional responsibilities?

A: Hello. This is an insightful question. As mentioned in the nomination, I have always been passively around on enwiki almost on a daily basis. Around an year ago, my daily schedule changed a little, and I'm getting free time which I can use for contributing here. Personally speaking, for me, reviewing a page takes time, and so does creating well sourced content. But from my experience, I can help with speedy deletions, intervention against vandalism (blocking users, or protecting a page), and problematic usernames. While these activities require judgement, and a little background check, it is less time consuming than page reviewing, and content creation. Given my understanding of the relevant guidelines/policies, and available time, I think my admin actions would be a tad little below average in the beginning. What I'm trying to say is, my recent activity is depleted, but I'm still in touch with the guidelines, and community spirit — that combined with the available free time would make this a good time to accept more responsibilities. —usernamekiran (talk) 01:42, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Ganesha811

5. Are there any areas of adminship you do not plan to participate in, due to unfamiliarity or lack of technical knowledge? If you later decided you wanted to help in these areas, what would be your plan to become an effective admin in those areas?

A: At the top my head, it would be WP:ANEW, WP:COIN, Wikipedia:Copyright problems, and WP:CCI. In case I later decide to be active there (or some other venue), for first few days I will simply observe the workflow, then participate in non-admin capacity, and once I gain enough confidence, I will start working in admin capacity. For sure, there will be times when I will not be sure/confident about something — at that time I will consult experienced editors/discussion page of that particular field. I have been doing that since the early days the most recent example being this question to Qwerfjkl. —usernamekiran (talk) 02:13, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Sohom Datta

6. Do you plan to help out in technical areas such as with protected templates, edit filters, admin bots, or in interface administrator land? (Asking this since ou mention that your technical work as one of your biggest strengths/contributions yet, but completely omit it from the list of things you want to work on after being a admin)

A: yes, I'm comfortable with all these, and I will enjoy working there. I have created a couple of templates including Template:NPR invite. I will be helping out wherever I can, but I don't know about interface administrator. I mean, it requires a dedicated perm, and I've never come across a "need" to make relevant edits to that. But if the situation calls for it, I will contribute there. Same goes for admin bot, but in case something pops up at WP:BOTREQ, or somewhere else, I will be glad to help out. It's just, I'm interested in lots of activities to do, but the question from the older days "what administrative work do you intend to take part in?" has been updated to "why are you interested", so it felt a little odd to include many areas. —usernamekiran (talk) 07:43, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Extraordinary Writ

7. Skimming through your recent talk-page archives, I was struck by the number of questions from new editors (via the mentorship program) that went unanswered. Obviously it's normal for activity to wax and wane, but when you've voluntarily chosen to take on a responsibility, I think it's important not to leave other people in the lurch. How would you respond to people concerned about whether you're ready to take on the responsibility for prompt communication that comes with adminship?

A: Yes, I agree with WP:ADMINACCT, and I always try to respond to queries intended for me. Regarding the unanswered questions on my talkpage — a lot of the times I prefer to respond on their talkpage. So while the discussion on my talkpage may look unresponsive, the queries are generally resolved. There are some questions/ discussions though, where I make mental note to respond later, but sometimes I forget. I am working on not leaving the questions unanswered. —usernamekiran (talk) 07:23, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Fade258

8. Since you're active in AIV, UAA and New Page Patrol roles that include quick judgement and policy enforcement, often in high volume or sensitive situations. As an administrator, How would you ensure that your actions remain fair, measured and supportive for editor retention?

A: Hello. To achieve that, it is necessary to avoid rushing judgments. If I become an administrator, I will continue to prioritise understanding context over acting too quickly. I will be careful to distinguish between honest mistakes, and deliberate disruption. Even when taking necessary administrative action, I would try to communicate clearly, and avoid actions that could unnecessarily alienate newer users. I have observed users respond more positively if the messages dont sound too bureaucratic/templated/impersonal. Clear communication, and understanding the context of the situation (and explaining it to the editor), would keep the actions fair, as well as supportive for editor/retention. —usernamekiran (talk) 17:08, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional questions from BusterD

9. 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: The thing we have to understand is building the encyclopaedia is our first goal with highest priority. Everything else comes later. The policy/guidelines were created to maintain/achieve that goal. I have always felt (not just with Wikipedia, but with almost everything) that instead of following any rule/policy/protocol to the letter, it is necessary to understand the spirit of it, and why it was created in the first place. If following policy/guideline to the letter would actively deteriorate the situation, and no better alternative exists, then IAR might be appropriate. But invoking it as an administrator, especially when using advanced tools, requires extra caution. —usernamekiran (talk) 17:49, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

10. 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: No, not really. The recall process gives the community a meaningful mechanism for accountability. But it has not made any changes/affected my decision when I was thinking about running. Even if it wasn't introduced, I would have added myself to Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall with some simple process. —usernamekiran (talk) 17:49, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from ChildrenWillListen

11. How do you, as an administrator with technical skills, plan to tackle the growing problem of editors inserting AI-generated content into articles?

A: Hello ChildrenWillListen, thanks for the question. To be honest, I want to work in that area, but I havent worked yet. It has often been discussed at WT:NPPR. As I dont have any experience as of now, I cant say how would I use my technical skills to tackle the problem. But I am interested in getting involved there, and I will try my best to contribute in any way I can. —usernamekiran (talk) 17:49, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from CosXZ

12. How would you address a good faith editor who made a honest mistake?

A: By communicating in non-bureaucratic, yet clear and polite way. Similar to the method outlined in the answer to Q8 by Fade258. This often happens with new editors, and in past I have had a positive feedback/response if these editors are communicated to in non-templated/non-impersonal way. In case the mistake is sever, the editor should be warned accordingly. —usernamekiran (talk) 17:49, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Carrite

13. What is your perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to Wikipedia?

A: Hello. AI generated content is bad for Wikipedia. LLMs, and other models are prone to hallucinating (Hallucination (artificial intelligence)), and are also known for making up non-existent references/URLs. I think using AI/chatbots for minor copy-editing is fine, as long as the resulting text is carefully checked by the editor. The legality (copyrights) is another issue. But other than that, I believe the use of AI should be completely avoided related to content creation. It might be feasible to use AI to find AI generated content. That being said, we have meta:Strategy/Multigenerational/Artificial intelligence for editors. Although I do not have a crystal ball, given the AI fad that is going on everywhere, there is a possibility Wikimedia might start using it (for non-content purposes) substantially in the future, maybe in a couple of years, or 5+ years, or maybe after a decade. I cant be sure "when", but we cant deny the possibility either. —usernamekiran (talk) 15:36, 22 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: If an editor raised a concern that I might be WP:INVOLVED, I would take it seriously, and reassess my involvement in the matter. I would explain my involvement or lack thereof in the subject matter. Sometimes, editors get confused between prior neutral activity, and "wp:involved". Sometimes, it can make you a little biased, and that can be considered as being "involved" as well. In such case, it would be better to ask an uninvolved editor/admin to review the situation. —usernamekiran (talk) 23:44, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Mz7

15. Hey, Usernamekiran. Thanks for volunteering. Could you expand on those two incidents that you mentioned in Q3? What happened and what did you learn from it?

A: Hello Mz7! Without going into much specifics, the initial incident unfolded over several days due to a content dispute/differing opinions. During that time, the other editor called me troll, incompetent in English, and sort of made mean comments. Later they took me to WP:ANEW over it. The dispute still wasnt resolved though. Somewhere else, another editor commented about my editing pattern. I think that editor is from US. At that time, because of cultural differences, I mistakenly interpreted their comment as offensive, and I requested — more of demanded to prove their allegations. My persistence led to warnings from other editors, I was on the brink of getting blocked for harassment. The overall experience of these two incidents left me irritated, and I decided to leave Wikipedia. After a few days, I decided to come back though. Just after a couple of months, I realised the second editor had not meant any offence, and it was my faulty interpretation (irrelevant example: in American English, "revert" means "undo"; but in India, and some other countries, "revert" is synonyms to "reply". Similarly, some phrases have big difference). This experience taught me a couple of things. The first one is to avoid editing when you are not calm/under stress for any reason. Second one is to not interpret the text at its face value. Emotions are not always conveyed perfectly through text. I have also learnt the same thing from my cross project activity — things can be get lost in translation, and sometimes people even use machine translators. In short, keep calm, assume good faith, there maybe another meaning to that text. —usernamekiran (talk) 23:29, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Optional question from Ganesha811

4. Are there any areas of adminship you do not plan to participate in, due to unfamiliarity or lack of technical knowledge? If you later decided you wanted to help in these areas, what would be your plan to become an effective admin in those areas?

A: I plan to start working on RPPI, RMT, NPP, and some sectors of CSD and XFDs as well as closing RMs, PMs etc. Same plan for every other part of adminship areas: when I start working on them, I'll observe current requests and archives to see how other experienced admins handle similar situations, and learn from them. If I have any questions or doubts, I'll ask out experienced admins for advice.

Optional question from Fade258

5. In your viewpoint, Is it necessary to add edit summary for every edits that you or we made?

A: I would say that when making continuous edits to the same page, just the section header would be enough. Eg, if I put working on the page to get it to GA in an edit summary, that's what the next edits to the page is going to be, so just /* [section name] */ would be enough. I also think that during copy-edits, minor edits, and reverting obvious vandals wouldn't need a detailed edit summary. Otherwise, an explanation should always be given. PS: the edit summary gadget for whatever reasons seems to mark edits with only the section header as empty edit summaries.

Optional question from ChildrenWillListen

6. Can you elaborate more on why paid editing makes [Wikipedia] less authentic?

A: Based on my encounters with paid editors thus far, when someone edits for pay their priority is to add the content they want regardless of whether it's supported by RS or if it's NPOV, which are two important things in editing and part of WP:5P2 of Wikipedia:Five pillars. Which is why I think without those two it would be less authentic compared to other good faith editors.

Optional questions from BusterD

7. 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: IAR is usually if a rule stands in the way of improving the encyclopedia, for regular editors. But, I don't think there's any reason for an admin to IAR, no matter how dire the situation might be.

8. 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: I don't think it had any impact on my choice. It's like redoing RfA for traditional admins, while for elected admins going through an RfA either way.

Optional question from CosXZ

9. How would you address a good faith editor who made a honest mistake?

A: If they've realised their mistake and corrected their wrong-doings they should be forgiven as long as they don't make the same mistake again.

Optional question from AirshipJungleman29

10. What are your thoughts on the progression of the ongoing discussion at Talk:2024 Men's T20 World Cup#Merge proposal, in which we have both opined? Can you provide a few sentences on what you see as the pros and cons of the opposing viewpoints? Thanks,

A: As for what I said there last, I don't think "bloat" might be the correct way to describe the situation, but I'm not sure how to describe it; so, I'm working on a draft for how the post-merge page would look. Which, I believe it affects the quality of the page as it's already a GA. Maybe I could be wrong.

Optional question from Carrite

11. What is your perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to Wikipedia?

A: While there are bots and stuff that use AI-related tools to identify problematic edits which I'm okay with, I'm against the usage of LLMs for editing or discussions. LLMs 1) use existing sources to generate content which if copied to Wikipedia would be copyvios; 2) or generates results based on what's on Wikipedia, so there's no way fact-check it (other than manually looking for it) as there are many IPs adding false content from time to time, pages could contain wrong information during the time of search; 3) or creates non-existent stuffs using imaginary tools. On the other hand, LLMs doesn't seem to understand Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines based on the LLM-generated edit requests I came across and there are editors posting LLM-generated content without even understanding it completely, which doesn't help in a constructive discussion.