Wikipedia:Administrator elections/May 2026/Candidates/Bonadea

Optional question from Rjjiii

4. What differences have you found when writing about living people (like filmmaker Maj Wechselmann) compared to writing about historical people (like poet Alf Henrikson) within Wikipedia's policies?

A: The clearest policy related difference is that the biographies on living people policy is more strict when it comes to sourcing. Everything in a BLP should be attributable to a reliable source, especially information that might be contested. For most information, we want sources to be independent and secondary as well as reliable; that applies to all articles, but in a BLP it is particularly important. The BLP policy applies not only in articles about living people, but in all other articles, as well as other pages like talk pages and drafts: if there is a claim about a living or recently deceased person, editors have to be extra careful about using reliable sources of a high quality.

Optional question from Mesocyclonic93

5. If a user, for example, was partially-blocked from the Template: namespace for edit warring on a template past the final warning, and immediately vandalised a mainspace article right before they were p-blocked, what do you think an administrator should do about it?

A:. This is a bit context dependent: there are situations when the article vandalism would merit a block, but assuming that there is not a pattern of mainspace vandalism, they should get a warning, probably a strongly worded warning (again depending on the context) before extending the block. That they received a p-block indicates that there wasn't such a pattern. I should also mention that a block for edit warring tends to be a full rather than a partial block.

Optional questions from Robert McClenon

6. This question is about the use of artificial intelligence in Wikipedia in both articles and discussions. What do you as an administrator plan to do to limit the use of artificial intelligence?

A: As an administrator, what I would be able to do is enforce the relevant policies (and guidelines, where applicable) by deleting pages that violate them and blocking users who are clearly not prepared to follow Wikipedia’s policies and guidelines in this area. It can be harder to identify a persistent LLM user than, say, a promotion-only account, so blocking users for LLM misuse can’t be done lightly. But I very strongly feel that it is important to enforce WP:LLM and WP:AITALK.

7. This question is about unregistered editors and the temporary accounts assigned to unregistered editors. In closing discussions such as AFDs, RFCs, and ANI threads, should the arguments of unregistered editors be given the same weight as registered editors, or less weight, or should they be ignored?

A: They should be given the same weight, which is to say, arguments based on policy should carry the same weight whether the user making the argument is a TA or a registered editor. A good argument is a good argument, regardless of who makes it. There are situations where TAs are not allowed to participate in a discussion (for example if there is an extrended-confirmed restriction in place), but that is a different issue.

Optional questions from GGOTCC

8. Your user page states that you have a PhD in linguistics (congratulations!) What is your stance on users citing a formal education in a topic to justify their opinions regarding article content?

A: (thank you!) I have a lot of respect for experts who edit Wikipedia – the encyclopedia needs people who are able to evaluate sources, which to my mind is the main advantage of being a subject expert. However, we can't know for certain that someone has this expertise just because they say so, and in any case having an academic degree does not mean that somebody is familiar with Wikipedia's content guidelines. In practice, users who use their education as an argument in a content discussion often (by no means always!) use it to argue for the inclusion of content that is not appropriate, and that's of course not on. But a user taking a more big-picture stance from the POV of their area of expertise can point at important information that is missing, and base that on reliable scholarly sources, much more easily than somebody who is not an expert.

Optional questions from I2Overcome

9. Over the years, Wikipedia has endured many challenges. What do you think is the greatest challenge Wikipedia faces today, and why?

A: I think it is AI use, in particular the use of LLMs. There are many editors who, in perfectly good faith, add LLM generated prose and sources to articles because they are not aware of why it is problematic to do so. There are many people who might be aware of it but do not really care, because they have been hired to promote something and so their primary interest is in making their client happy. And it is time consuming, sometimes frustrating, and often difficult to show that some piece of text was written by an AI tool rather than by a human. It can be very frustrating to try to discuss with a user who is using an AI to write their responses. And fixing the problems introduced by such tools also takes time (for all editors who work on that, not primarily for admins).

This is very concerning not just because it takes a lot of time and resources today, but the more LLM hallucinated information written in an “AI polished” style makes it into Wikipedia, the more such information and such prose is going to be used to train the data sets, so this is a long-term worry for the future.

10. If you have not already explained elsewhere, please explain how you would approach this challenge as an administrator.

A: I did address it in my response to Q6 above, but I will add that since the Wikipedia community has decided not to allow LLM generated text, we can hopefully fill an educational function and make more people understand what the problems are. Again, that is not primarily an admin task, it is a task for all editors, admins included, but it is particularly important that admins do enforce the relevant policies and guidelines using the admin toolset (without trusting blindly to what other AI tools tell us about the likelihood of a text being AI generated.)

Optional questions from RoySmith

11. I originally came here to ask about your SPI clerkship, but I see that you've already talked about that briefly above. Still, I would like to see you explore that further. Without going into any details of your personal life that you prefer not to cover in public, could you tell us more about what has changed? As part of my clerkship recruiting spiel, I often tell prospective applicants that success at SPI clerking will be a strong indicator of their ability should they eventually run for admin. Why should (and my apologies if this sounds harsh) the converse not also be true? RoySmith (talk) 12:01, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

A: I don't think you are unduly harsh – it is a fair observation, and a reasonable question to ask. As I mentioned above, there were several things that coincided, and I suffered the after-effects for some time. It was really unfortunate, not least because I think I would have been a pretty good SPI clerk, and I do see that the whole thing does not reflect well on me. However, one thing I can say for sure is that if I'd run into events that would make it necessary for me to withdraw from active editing, I would not handle it in the same way.

Optional question from VortexPhantom

12.: This a question about your past AfD participation at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Raj Shamani, where you voted for delete giving reasoning of promotional article but result was "keep" for NBIO, didn't you check for GNG, what other factors made you believe it should be deleted since promotional content can be removed easily and paraphrase for NPOV, if subject is notable, be how will interpret you that case today?

A: First, yes, promotional text can be rewritten and promotional content can be removed, and that is actually a point I have made more than once in AfD discussions. The full rationale for my “delete” !vote in that discussion said "this is a promotional fluff piece about a person who does not appear to be notable at this point. That he has interviewed notable persons does not make him notable, since notability is not inherited." So what I was saying there was actually that the person did not seem to be notable, and the "promotional puff piece" wording was not my main argument. I admit that I don't remember this article or the discussion, which took place 6 months ago, but I always perform a WP:BEFORE search for sources showing notability. I still do not believe that the article did show notability per WP:GNG (here is a link to the article as it looked when nominated for deletion). I could review each of the sources again, but I don’t think this is the right place to rehash the deletion discussion; feel free to ask followup questions here or on my talk page.

While I disagree with some of the "keep" arguments, in the end there was a clear consensus in favour of keeping the article, so I do not disagree with the admin who closed the discussion as "keep". It's in the nature of things that consensus sometimes goes against us.

Optional question from Left guide

13. Under what circumstances would you consider it appropriate to block a user who has been reported to WP:AIV but hasn't received any warnings?

A: If the user has made egregious personal attacks or particularly nasty blp violations. Instances of rapid-fire vandalism to multiple pages can merit an instant block without a warning, because blocks are there to protect the encyclopedia. Users who make legal threats should be blocked until the threat is retracted. Blatantly obvious sockpuppets can be blocked without a warning; in most cases those should be reported at SPI rather than AIV, but there are cases where it is appropriate to block a sock who walks and quacks like a duck.

Optional questions from George Ho

14. What do you think about ArbCom's recently passed principle "Focusing on content isn't enough"?

A: I think it is a sensible principle. We are here to build an encyclopedia, a content-focused purpose, but that work becomes less efficient, and less interesting and fun for the editors, if there are no standards of conduct. I believe that most people want to be able to get along and cooperate with their fellow humans, but in a community where the participants are very diverse, and our only means of communication is text on a screen, there has to be a focus on how we do communicate, not only on the information we present.

15. What about Christophe Henner's LLM-generated usage of an LLM in his Signpost article?

A: I interpret this question to be about my attitude towards using an LLM there, rather than about what I think of the article itself; I'm afraid I am not very positive towards it. I am, frankly, not interested in reading an article where an LLM has been used to "help write and copyedit" the text. I see too many of the negative effects of that kind of usage elsewhere in Wikipedia (and outside it), and although a skilled writer can certainly use an LLM without getting the negative effects, I fail to see why a skilled writer would want and need to use it at all.

Questions from Carrite

16. How and when did you first become involved at Wikipedia?

A: For several years, I was very actively involved in the Open Directory Project (DMOZ). In 2006 there was a long stretch of time when dmoz.org was down, and after a few weeks I created a Wikipedia account so I could contribute to a similar project.

17. Have you ever edited at Wikipedia under any other account names, and if so, what is the backstory of the multiple accounts, change of name, or clean-start?

A: When I got my first smartphone I thought I might need an account to use on that, so I created User:Bonadeaphone but very soon realised that I didn't actually need it. The account is linked from my user page, but has been dormant for a long time. I haven't used any other accounts.

Optional question from BugGhost

18. Could you describe a time where you made a mistake, how you dealt with it, and what you learnt from that experience?

A: One instance from some years ago was in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sunil Subramani where I responded to a comment with an explanation of why the sources were not sufficient; unfortunately my explanation wasn’t correct because I’d confused an aspect of WP:V with an aspect of WP:NOR. Another editor kindly pointed that out to me, I admitted my mistake, and I have not mixed WP:PRIMARY and WP:SPS up since then.

Optional question from Spravato

19. If you could change any Wikipedia policy, what would you change?

A: I can't think of one. And if I were an admin it would not give me any especial authority to modify policies if I wanted to! (in fact, an admin has to be careful to use their admin tools in line with existing policies.)

Optional question from Yelps

20. If you were to become an administrator (which I truly hope so!), then what area of being an admin would you prefer to work in the most? For example, would you mostly specialize in article deletions? Or user blockings? Or try to be a general-purpose admin?

A: This is a good question! I would certainly start in the areas I feel confident within, such as handling clear instances of vandalism reported to AIV, and CSD tagged pages that obviously meet the criteria. It is hard to say whether I would come to prefer one specific area; I would like to develop into a general-purpose admin, but I don’t think I would ever be fully comfortable in all the possible areas where an admin can use their tools. Thank you for your kind words!

Questions from SaTnamZIN

21.Please don't laugh at my question. But as you are NPR for years, do you think (removed) was correct looking at their (removed) check? Do you think their understanding of Notability is competent enough?

I hope you to be an Administrator, so I am asking this so that we can get a conclusion from you as someday you will be one of the decision makers to grant and revoke rights.