Wikinews:Requests for permissions/Administrator/Van der Hoorn

The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a successful request for adminship. Please do not modify it.

Van der Hoorn (talk · contribs)

I am nominating Van der Hoorn for adminship. He hasn't yet reached the two-month minimum recommended for an admin, but I think he already understands local policy well enough to be a sysop. Plus, he frequently works on editprotected requests and speedy deletes, which would be much easier if he had the bits. ♪ Tempo divalse ♪ 23:33, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Questions

Do you accept the nomination? ♪ Tempo divalse ♪ 23:33, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I do. :) I have been working primarily on copy-editing and cleaning up issues from the maintenance reports on the Special:SpecialPages (especially Templates and Categories, because those are often not fully protected). There is still a lot of work to be done and being able to change fully protected pages would really increase productivity. I also noticed older articles are often missing appropriate internal links (to countries, etc.) and broken source links (often just moved on the original source site), which would be something I aim for in fixing. Cheers, Van der Hoorn (talk) 23:40, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Considering the area of work you are interested in, are you familiar with Wikinews:Archive conventions? (I'm asking because some people have concerns if you are familiar or not with our policies, and that is probably one of the most relevant policy to you, if you are copyediting stuff, especially older articles) Bawolff ☺☻ 05:28, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for this late response; I previously overlooked your question. :) I am aware that the content of articles should not be edited, although typo fixes + some punctuation changes are allowed. Sources should only be changed if the original source has moved (i.e. a different URL), but otherwise not. The "general idea" of the policy is of course that the article was news 'then' and thus should reflect the information that was available at that time, although there may be more insights now. Also, other news sources may have based their articles on ours. In other words: Wikinews is not an encyclopedia. I hope this answers your question?

One question about this policy though: is it allowed to add a link to Wikipedia on the same subject? Often Wikipedia has also an article on the same news subject (and those articles often get written later than we publish the news article).

Cheers, Van der Hoorn (talk) 17:41, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Adding {{wikipediapar}} links to Wikipedia is generally permitted, as far as I know -- anything that doesn't alter the content of the page should be okay. tempo divalse 18:00, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Comment Maybe it's not wise to respond to some of the criticisms written below at the Votes section, but I cannot help myself. :)
- My experience is indeed not in writing and reviewing articles, I fully agree and I can already tell you that this will probably not change. I found out I'm not a very good writer and reviewing articles is not what I'm interested in. This may be disappointing to some, but I think you have to do what you're good at. I would like to do some interviews on the next European elections, but then the content is written by or spoken by the person who is interviewed, thus not much creativity needed there (except for the questions, of course).
- I'm not sure what falls under copy-editing, but I try to walk through every article that makes it to the front page and fix what I see (typos, lacking categories, often missing links or links that link to Wikipedia instead of Wikinews, punctuation, adding Category:Conversion templates, etc.). Unfortunately, most older articles are fully protected, so often copy-editing is impossible. I cannot add appropriate categories, fix typos and add links, thus the best I can do is to add the stuff to the talk page, but it takes quite some time to write a heading + {{editprotected}} + typo + typofix + explain sometimes why, which is quite frustrating. I have also copy-edited many typos in templates, but I often just say "Added a category" in the Summary box; it really takes too much time mentioning all the details of the edit.
- I am seriously wondering what policies and/or procedures I am not familiar with. I went through quite some Help pages fixing typos and links and often read parts of the pages that seemed interesting and different from Wikipedia. If someone could point me to some policies and/or procedures that they find (very) important and think I missed, that would be really appreciated.
- I'm currently going through all the maintenance reports on Special:SpecialPages, but alas I can only edit the Categories, Files and Templates. I also created some templates to help editors do their job, e.g. copied and modified the Category:Conversion templates from Wikipedia and created Template:Translated quote. I also rediscovered Template:Sic, which seems a really nice way in improving the inconsistencies currently used in articles in using sic. (I have seen: [sic], [sic], [sic], (sic), [SIC]). Unfortunately, older articles are fully protected and thus not editable.
- So finally, I'm not expecting anyone to change their vote. I respect everyone's decision and opinion, but I just wanted to let you know mine. I'm good at fixing and sorting things, but not so much at writing things. :) If there would be a way to edit fully protected pages without becoming an admin, then I would have no problem going for that option, but I am not aware of one. If someone does, please do tell. Thanks for all your comments. Cheers, Van der Hoorn (talk) 00:14, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with him. The length of time one has been on the project is not always a reflection of the amount of knowledge of policy one has. Some users have been on the project for many months, and still don't fully understand the policy. I can tell that Van der Hoorn knows policy well due to his many commentaries in different discussions project-wide, which also demonstrate that he is civil and has good judgement. Also, nothing done by an admin is irreversible, and any mistakes he might make as a sysop can easily be undone. I would be glad to coach him in some of the administrative areas he is less experienced in, such as blocking/vandalism removal. The most important things when considering an RfA, in my mind, are trust and civility, and that is certainly not an issue here. I would also like to add, in response to some of the neutrals/opposes, that some of our best administrators rarely, if ever, write or review articles. That is certainly a plus for an admin candidate, but it is by no means a prerequisite. ♪ Tempo divalse ♪ 00:29, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - It has been well over 7 days since this RfA started. Cirt (talk) 22:32, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I left notes on the talk pages of three bureaucrats that are 1) semi-sorta-active, and 2) have not commented in this RfA. Cirt (talk) 22:37, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Votes

Support as nom. ♪ Tempo divalse ♪ 23:33, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Been on the project less than a month and a half - first edit was 20 February 2009. So far as I can tell, no significant experience writing articles, nor reviewing articles - and also doesn't seem to have done much copyediting either. Edits are helpful - but I am sorry I think a bit more experience is needed in areas integral to the project. Would be a good step to consider writing and reviewing articles. Cirt (talk) 03:20, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral - I can't oppose the RfA as the user has been extremely helpful to the project in the month and a half he has been here, but I can't help but shake the feeling that he doesn't have enough experience of our policies and procedures. Article writing isn't everyone's thing, and that shouldn't be a necessity for adminship, but keep up the current work and get involved wherever you can, and I see adminship coming your way sooner rather than later. --Skenmy ^talk 10:43, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - user will be able to use the tools effectively to do the jobs that they wish to do - whether or not that be article writing. --Skenmy ^talk 07:04, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral You have been a great help here, but you do need some more understanding of policy through more experience. red-thunder. 11:51, 5 April 2009 (UTC) Support per Tempo. red-thunder. 00:38, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
torn between Neutral and Support. User is a good contributor who is working diligently, and generally trying to improve the project. However, has not been seriously involved in content generation/validation. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:03, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support user has a demonstrated need for the "bits". However, if others are concerned about the level of content contributions, then perhaps it can be granted without Wikinews:Editor status. This is unusual, of course, as traditionally Admins are also Editors. --SVTCobra 00:42, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. As per Skenmy. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 19:49, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - has been doing good things. Bawolff ☺☻ 22:20, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - After reading all of the above and taking some time to think it over, and as per Skenmy. Cirt (talk) 03:16, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support — As I said in Tempo's RfA, this will cut down on the number of {{editprotected}} requests, so it's a good thing. Since he needs to make a lot of edits to achieved articles (fixing spelling errors and such), I'd say this is warrented. Gopher65_talk 04:30, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of the Admin's page or the talk page of the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.