Riana's RfB a referendum on Kelly Martin?

See: Wikipedia:Requests for bureaucratship/Riana, closure currently pending a closed but public "Bureaucrat discussion" -- the sort we see when a single crat isn't willing to close a discussion alone.

There are apparently two major points of contention, as described by WJBScribe in the bcrat chat:

• The fact that Riana's decision to nominate Kelly Martin for adminship calls into question her judgment (emphasis mine)
• Issues of temperament - with diffs cited of a couple of incidents involved the use of profanity/incivility

I won't speak to the second. In my mind, that's a legitimate reason to oppose, regardless of whether I agree.

The first, however, I have to take strong issue with. Since when did a single RfA nomination become a defining moment in anybody's Wikipedia career? Are we so bitter with ourselves, so divided into petty factions, that we deny a widely trusted and long-active user access on such a flimsy basis? Apparently some of us are so far gone that even the mere spectre of Kelly Martin becomes a deciding factor in bureaucrat discussion.

Sound nuts? Not everyone thinks so. After FeloniousMonk's oppose first linked Martin's second RfA from October 2007, several others including Guettarda, SlimVirgin, Jossi, Secret, OrangeMarlin, KillerChihuahua, B, and even Mailer Diablo stated the KM nomination as the primary or even sole reason for their opposition. Others, including MONGO and Ral315, later withdrew similar opposition.

Riana's been a Wikipedian for two years, now, and an administrator for about half that (see her hugely successful RfA). According to ST47's ADMINSTATS, she's logged over 17,000 admin actions. One failed RfA nom overrides all of that? We're not even discussing two years of dedication, here, because of one thought the community happened to reject.

There's one thing several in opposition seem to have missed: Riana is not Kelly Martin. If you want to oppose KM, fine and go ahead, but that's not the topic under discussion. The impression I get is that it's not what you do for the wiki that counts, but who you happen to bring forward for consideration by the community.

Mailer's comment about the "full gravity and consequence" of the nomination was rightly quipped down by Dorftroffel: "The full consequence was that Kelly was (of course) not promoted." Isn't that how we're supposed to look at these things? If "adminship isn't a big deal," as the saying goes, why is the mere nomination given center stage?

Personally, I don't keep track of who nominated whom. I don't consider it important, and definitely not in the long run. Doing anything else will only breed an atmosphere of political infighting and careful cabalism.

All I ask the community and the bureaucrats is this: show some sense of fair play and let Riana stand or fall on her own merits. It would be a damned shame to judge her on any other basis.

An email mole

The other day, I got an email from User:Wikigender:

Dear User of Wikipedia,

You have created or modified an article related to gender. We would like to inform you that the OECD Development Centre (www.oecd.org/dev) has recently introduced a new wiki-based Internet platform exclusively focused on gender equality, called Wikigender (www.wikigender.org).

If you are interested in joining this initiative and sharing your knowledge with other experts of gender equality, please contact us at [email removed].

Please be advised that you will need a password to enter the site prior to its official launch on March 8 (International Women's Day), which we are happy to provide upon request.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely, The OECD Wikigender Team

Perhaps I'm being naive, but I don't think I've run across any similar use of Special:Emailuser previously. Register an account without any/much editing, confirm an email, and wait silently for anyone to edit a relevant article... once they do, send them your email pitch. So long as there's no significant on-wiki activity or complaint, you can probably continue this behavior indefinitely. For lack of a better term, I guess I'll call it an "email mole."

I appreciate that this is at least significantly better targeted and tailored than everyday spam, but I can't help being a bit uncomfortable with what seems a possible misuse of account priviledges and resources. They won't have direct access to my email address unless I reply, but they can continue to make use of Special:Emailuser unless their access to it is revoked.

One more example of how marketers and politicians are gradually moving into narrowcasting, I suppose.

What do others think? Is this an acceptable thing to do? What happens if this sort of thing occurs on a large scale? Or has it, already, and I just haven't run into it, yet?

Metapedian, 2008-02-06

A recently created "Wikia is not Wikipedia" template intended for use atop articles relating to Wikia is up for deletion. The template was created in response to possible reader and media confusion regarding the relationship between Wikia and Wikimedia. Use of the template, including related administrative actions, has been controversial.

Extensive and widespread discussion continues regarding the use of images in Wikipedia's Muhammad article which depict the prophet himself. Numerous readers are upset by the inclusion of the images, citing religious taboos. The debate itself is not new, but is getting renewed attention. The article's talk page and wikiEN-l in particular are active forums. The article has recently been covered by the New York Times.

Following the deletion of Wikipedia's "Adult-child sex" article, numerous copies have appeared in userspace. A miscellany for deletion discussion regarding the subpage recreations is ongoing.

Membership of the recently founded Working group on ethnic and cultural edit wars has been announced.

Crazycomputers announced on wikiEN-l the creation of a tool to help search for active rangeblocks. At least one other similar tool exists, as is mentioned in the linked thread, but some users apparently have had trouble using it.

East718 and Betacommand worked together to add a large number of revisions to en.wikipedia's Main Page, which would prevent it from being deleted after the recent implementation of measures to prevent regular deletion of pages with several thousand edits. The action became controversial, including blocking and calls for other sanctions, with some editors preferring more discussion or a better technical solution. Tim Starling quickly altered some settings which will render it more difficult to delete any Wikimedia wiki's front page. Discussion is split between wikitech-l and wikiEN-l.

Current adminship candidacies: Remember the dot (2nd), Barneca (2nd), Master of Puppets (2nd), Aitis, TheDJ.

Metapedian, 2008-01-22

Following the closure of the recent arbitration regarding articles related to Palestine-Israel disputes, a new working group on ethnic and cultural edit wars has started.

The English Wikipedia has a new checkuser: Thatcher. Apparently responding to the appointment, Majorly created a proposal for granting checkusership (see original version) which would be driven by community, rather than by the Arbitration Committee. The original proposal has been withdrawn, but discussion continues on its talk page regarding some possible reforms. A list of current checkusers can be found here.

Seems it was a busy day for Meta's requests for permissions page. Aside from Thatcher's appointment, Newyorkbrad has also been approved for oversight access by the Arbitration Commitee, and Majorly requested removal of his bureaucratship on Meta.

New adminship candidates: Stormtracker94 (3rd), Smalljim, Jamesontai, Rodhullandemu, Wisdom89 (2nd), EncMstr, Lquilter.

Arbitration update... newly opened: Episodes and characters 2. Dismissed: Kingofmann.

Metapedian, 2008-01-20

In a post to wikien-l, Phoenix wiki cites several recent controversies over userbox and userpage content, and proposes wider discussion as to the acceptable limits therein. First post links several recent or ongoing discussions, currently has 23 replies. See also, on-wiki request for comment.

Possible landmark AfD: Adult-child sex (2nd nomination).

Ongoing discussion regarding a possible essay and/or policy supplement: Silence and consensus.

New adminship candidates: WeBuriedOurSecretsInTheGarden, Gwen Gale, DDima, Jauerback, Gonzo fan2007, MONGO (2nd), Malinaccier, Zeibura, John 254 (2nd), Urban Rose.

Arbitration update... moved into the voting phase: Bluemarine. Suspended by motion: Matthew Hoffman. Motion to close: Kingofmann. Closed: Palestine-Israel.

Metapedian, 2008-01-18

Bit late to cover the rollback dispute. This week's Signpost includes a story about that, and another on the end of Wikimania 2009 bidding.

Continued disputes over redirection of articles of TV shows has led to ongoing discussions at admin noticeboards, as well as a large centralized discussion and request for comment.

Following extensive discussion focused on blocking policy as it relates to Tor nodes, a new proposal aims to allow approved users to circumvent blocks on open proxies.

Tim Starling has announced that work on the new MediaWiki parser is nearing completion. Esoteric templates may need to be updated. New ParserFunctions will include #tag (allowing users to dynamically create pseudotags like <ref>, <gallery>, or <imagemap> on the fly) and #iferror (useful for detecting errors in some other functions).

Current adminship candidates: RC-0722, MBK004, Alexf, NASCAR Fan24, Triwbe, Esanchez7587, Wikidudeman (2nd), Victuallers, Islander (2nd), BritandBeyonce.

Arbitration cases in the evidence phase: Kingofmann, Waterboarding, Bluemarine, Highways 2. Voting phase: IRC, Matthew Hoffman. Motion to close: Palestine-Israel. Recently closed: R. fiend, Dbachmann, Zeraeph.

NSA editing 9/11 article?

After a brief edit war over en.wikipedia's 9/11 Truth Movement article, an anonymous editor posted on the article's talk page that the article will be retitled to "9/11 denialism," citing NPOV concerns. I'd just been observing things, but the plot thickened a bit when another user claimed this IP address was associated with the National Security Agency.

Difficult to quickly assess the validity of that claim, of course, but the anon's reaction wasn't what I expected: they immediately removed the claim, first citing Wikipedia's harassment guidelines and then national security concerns.

I'm really not sure what to make of that, but it seems to be worth an arched eyebrow.