Stewards/elections 2009/Questions

2009 steward elections (Questions)

English: Eligible voters (see application guidelines) can ask questions to all candidates on this page. Please post no more than 2 relevant questions per candidate, and keep them as short as possible. Candidates, please answer as briefly and simply as possible.

العربية: المصوتون المؤهلون (انظر إرشادات التقدم) يمكنهم توجيه أسئلة لكل المرشحون على هذه الصفحة. من فضلك لا توجه أكثر من سؤالين متعلقين لكل مرشح، واجعلهما أقصر ما يمكن. المرشحون، من فضلك أجب باختصار وبساطة.

עברית: מצביעים העומדים בתנאים (ראו הנחיות) יכולים להציג שאלות לכל המועמדים בדף זה. בבקשה, הציגו עד שתי שאלות קצרות לכל מועמד. מועמדים, בבקשה ענו בקצרה ובפשטות.

Italiano: Gli aventi diritto al voto (vedi application guidelines/it) possono porre su questa pagina delle domande ai candidati. Per cortesia non fate più di due domande per ciascun candidato, cercando per quanto possibile di mantenerle brevi. L'invito ai candidati è di rispondere altrettanto brevemente.

日本語： 投票権のある方 (参加ガイドをご覧ください) はこのページでどの候補者にも質問することができます。候補者1人につき1つ、端的に質問をするよう心がけてください。候補者のみなさんは、できるだけ簡潔に回答してください。

Русский: Имеющие право голоса (см. application guidelines/ru) могут задавать вопросы всем кандидатам на этой странице. Пожалуйста, пишите не более двух уместных вопросов каждому кандидату и формулируйте их по возможности кратко. Кандидаты, пожалуйста отвечайте по возможности быстро и просто.

中文： 合資格投票者(見申請指引)可於此頁向任何一位候選人發問問題，但請勿向任何一位候選人發問多於兩條問題，亦請維持問題的簡潔度。候選人，則請您簡潔且扼要地回應這些問題。

中文（简体）： 合资格投票者(见申请指引)可于此页向任何一位候选人发问问题，但请勿向任何一位候选人发问多于两条问题，亦请维持问题的简洁度。候选人，则请您简洁且扼要地回应这些问题。

中文（繁體）: 合資格投票者(見申請指引)可於此頁向任何一位候選人發問問題，但請勿向任何一位候選人發問多於兩條問題，亦請維持問題的簡潔度。候選人，則請您簡潔且扼要地回應這些問題。

Al Lemos

1. (Spanish) Te preocupa la creación de títeres en ptwiki, y como steward quieres fungir como checkuser. ¿Qué opinas del hecho de que como steward NO podrás fungir como checkuser en ptwiki (porque los stewards no deben actuar donde existan las posiciones correspondientes de forma local?

   No hay problema. Estoy seguro de que el problema es global y sin duda, otras Wikis van a sufrir con ese tipo de acción. La Wikipedia debe estar atenta para ayudar a aquellos que realmente están aquí para crear y editar artículos, no para aquellos astutos que sólo quieren inflar votacións artificialmente. Por otra parte, como uno de los checkusers de la Wikipedia lusófona está presentándose para Steward, no veo por qué yo, que soy sólo un editor, debería restringir mí participación en esta elección.- Al Lemos 13:39, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

   (English) You say that as steward you want to help with checkuser. What do you think about the fact that you won't be able to act as checkuser for ptwiki (since steward policies establish that stwds don't act on wikis where local checkusers exist)? es:Drini 21:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

   There's no problem. I am sure that the problem is global and undoubtedly, other Wikis are suffering with this type of action. The Wikipedia has to be attentive to help those that really are here to create and to edit articles, not for the cunning ones that only want to inflate polls artificially. On the other hand, as one of the checkusers of the Lusophone Wikipedia is introducing himself for Steward, I don't see why I should, as a common editor, restrict myself to participate in this election. - Al Lemos 13:39, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

2. I happy to see that your main concern is "to create, translate and develop articles", but this isn't a steward task; I see also that you're not sysop anywhere, rather you said: "I withdrew the last nomination"; how could you help small projects without a basic experience regarding sysop tools? --Nick1915 - ^{all you want} 16:40, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

   Hi! I think I have answered this above :) As a steward, my goal is checkusering. And, in fact, I never wanted to be a sysop, but people who are elected for this function for the first time don't need previous experience. So, why not to try? - Al Lemos 17:22, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

3. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:00, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   Thanks a lot for your questions! 1) I have no previous sysop experience; 2) but I'm an experienced editor (more than 23,000 live edits only in Portuguese Wikipedia); 3) from time to time, supporters of Nazism appear in the Lusophone Wikipedia: I proposed (and was approved) a banning policy whose main goal is just keep this kind of people away from sensitive issues without recourse to blocks; 4) You have answered this: stewards "don't decide". - Al Lemos 20:41, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

4. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:35, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   Hi! My main goal is to work with checkusering, but I can help too with policies translation, from English Wikipedia to others. - Al Lemos 10:53, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

5. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:35, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   During more or less one year, I have uncovered six sockpuppets of just one user of the Portuguese Wikipedia. But the fellow wasn't banned till now... (sigh). - Al Lemos 10:53, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

6. You wrote here "you certainly are not a man: you are a urchin". Can a steward write that?

   Presenting LyonB: I am LyonB, just a user trying to work !!!!!!!!!!!! Bolivia: a land of valued people! Evo Morales: a superhero! I will not write anything more here, because only after ask for respect to newcomers, my page was deleted twice. It's a gag rule! - Al Lemos 18:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

1. Here, you wrote to a user openly bisexual: "You make the style 'I´m very masculine' ". Is this civility?

   Openly bisexual? My! - Al Lemos 18:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

1. You wrote here: "Good faith is assumed with who edit with good faith. Another interpretation is speech of libertarian, anarchist, or worst." Don´t you agree with en:Wikipedia:Assume good faith ?

   Respect to be respected. - Al Lemos 18:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

2. Here you wrote (to a pt-wiki sysop who has over 100,000 edits): "I edited yes. But I did not commit ridicule to ask for voting. Howler has limit." Should a steward use this words?

   You said today: [no more bosses, why more people to delete all here? I know that you love all sysops and the people with more than 100,000 edits... - Al Lemos 18:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

1. You many times ([1], [2], [3]) manifest your desire about don´t make news articles in pt-wikipedia. Do you mantain this position? Why?

   But I'm still creating new articles... in Portuguese and in others languages too; I just slow down myself a little... ;) - Al Lemos 18:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

2. Do you agree that your relationship with a great part of users who you interact in pt-wikipedia is bad? Do you imagine that you can be a sysop in pt-wikipedia? LyonB 13:49, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

   I acknowledge that I have a bad relationship with sockpuppets and meatpuppets. What is it with the initials JP? - Al Lemos 18:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

1. Another Driniquestion. I see the above questions from LyonB. Particularly:

6. You wrote here "you certainly are not a man: you are a urchin". Can a steward write that?

Presenting LyonB: I am LyonB, just a user trying to work !!!!!!!!!!!! Bolivia: a land of valued people! Evo Morales: a superhero! I will not write anything more here, because only after ask for respect to newcomers, my page was deleted twice. It's a gag rule! - Al Lemos

Do you usually answer questions taking a shot at the asker instead of actually answering the question? es:Drini 20:20, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

1. Question by GoEThe. Here you say, when there is a discussion about making Wikipedia:Comportamento desestabilizador an official policy or not that I will be able to make my opinion heard when there is a vote. Is this your idea of building consensus and is this how a steward should view consensus? Thanks for your answer. GoEThe 09:55, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
2. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:09, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Alexanderps

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:24, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   Hi, Lar. Thanks for your question. I have experience as sysop, bureaucrat and checkuser, as say above. One situation as bureaucrat, on pt:wp, happened after a resolution, discussed by all others bureaucrats, wich we don't granted a sysop status a user, after him don't have 75% (usual, but don't write rule) votes yes. All bureaucrats in these case was atacked, but we don't change our point of view. This was very exhausting for us. If I was a steward (and if it wasn't my home wiki and don't have a local bureaucrat), I verify the discussion around the candidate, percentual votes keep him and grant (or not) your status (read what the local comunity says), after request in Steward requests/Permissions. This is a stewards' action. As checkuser, I don't have any case. But, related with this, we have a recently case for desysop after discovery your sockpuppet (more than 4 years editing, both accounts), we have only confirm (using the tool, after request) this. Thanks for your time. Alex Pereira ^falaê 11:29, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

2. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   Hi, Millosh, thanks for your questions. My main contribution to Wikimedia comunity is work with my experience as checkuser (cross check in small wikis, where don't have a local status; find cross-vandals and sockpuppets) and bureaucrat (permissions and SUL, specialy). Also I'll fight cross vandal in small wikis, as sysop's works. Alex Pereira ^falaê 11:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

3. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   Well, as says above, to Lar, as bureaucrat on pt:wp, we have a problem with a election for one user as sysop. After a big discussion, we (bureaucrats) had our point of view (one user is elect if have keep more than 75% as consensus), but a part of local comunity don't agree this. In summary, the user agree with our opinion (he have 66%, and many opinions don't keep him), but part of all don't agree and don't believe in us. Part of the work, not everyone agrees with you. :) Thanks for your time. Alex Pereira ^falaê 11:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

4. Did you lost the reelection, in November 2008, for bureaucrat in pt-wikipedia. At this moment, You placed eighth among 11 candidates for ArbCom in pt-wiki. Why do you have so little support there?

   I don't think have a little support in pt:wp project. I lost that election because our project have better users to using this status. In ArbCom election, same case. But, one thing should be considered, pt:wp be divided in basic two groups. Thanks. Alex Pereira ^falaê 11:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

5. As Checkuser in pt-wiki, you wrote here: "at my previous files, it will be fun doing this." Should act as a steward? LyonB 14:25, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

   Yes, why not? My salary isn't so good... And, I wrote this because this, when I had verify one user wich have a sockpuppet, but this account isn't the target this RfCU. So, my sentence make reference to others two users. Thanks. Alex Pereira ^falaê 11:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

6. Complementing LyonB question, in a checkuser request involving my user, when there was no support for that checkuser since the arguments were to vague you said "The Checkusers (well, I think that's gonna be me) will check the users. From my previous files, it will be fun to do this...". And then lots of users started supporting the checkuser saying that was because of you "asked". And you even offered a user to check another user he wanted, but wasn't included in the original request, if he votes pro. You end up (yourself) doing that checkuser with negative results except for a user who had been already checked. Do you think that behavior is appropriate for a steward?--Pediboi 23:52, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

   Responded above. And, of course, I'll make this verification, was the only CheckUser active at that time (others two checkuser was in vacation). Thanks. Alex Pereira ^falaê 11:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

7. You, plus all the other two candidates, were elected for the 3 checkuser positions of pt-wikipedia on what should be an election where the community should give consensus approval (since we don't have ArbCom yet). However opposing votes were [forbidden on that election] who says "Only favorable votes are allowed" ("Só serão permitidos votos a favor)".

   One of the other two now CheckUsers could barely stand as administrator and the other is getting impressive rejection for the local Arbcom election. Do you think that was a valid consensus based election?--Pediboi 00:04, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   Yes, this is our policy. As bureaucrat election, too. If you don't agree with this, request a change in pt:wp. The Stewards don't decide. Thanks. Alex Pereira ^falaê 11:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

   So, as Stweard, you would accept such kind of consult (where opposing votes are forbidden) as a genuine consensus decision?--Pediboi 15:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

   Sorry, Pediboi, but as says later, "The stewards don't decide". As Steward, I don't agree or oppose anything. This is a local policy, and stewards don't change or decide about it. Thanks. Alex Pereira ^falaê 15:16, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

   I see, but I'm not asking about cases of local policies that may overcome meta's, but specifically those from meta like the CheckUser policy. You, as a Steward of meta, would perform a CheckUser or give someone CheckUser access, taking as "community consensus" (a requisite for such action), an election where "opposing votes were not allowed"?--Pediboi 23:07, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

   Well, first, the Stewards give a tool after request in Steward requests/Permissions, when have a link to votes. If the local policy says wich "opposing votes were not allowed", any steward will give the tool (as make today). Thanks. Alex Pereira ^falaê 10:44, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

8. In a recent CheckUser you said to have checked a user against data from a previous checkuser since his edits were too old to check. Do you keep users private information with yourself (in "your previous files") or is that a feature of the tool?--Pediboi 00:42, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   All checkusers have your logs, archivied in the tool. Thanks. Alex Pereira ^falaê 11:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC) Remake my response, after talk with Avraham: All checkusers have your logs, archived based in the tools, in a file, observing the policies for privacy. Alex Pereira ^falaê 16:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

   I see, you mean in a local file? In your machine? How you ensure that information will remain secure and access will be restricted. Like from hackers that target you (like through email or other private message) after you checked someone they want data from? Or a friend/family member? Or your employer, since at least one checkuser seem to have been performed during work time?

   Do you keep access logs? How can be verified you're not checking against users not requested in a specific checkuser but of whom you possess logs and may personally interested to check against, like in my case mentioned above?

   How do you ensure that the policy is being followed when it says IP private data is stored only temporaly? Doesn't that behavior contradicts the policy by preserving the data after the set period?--Pediboi 01:43, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

   This isn't a bit exaggerated? My files are at home, where I have antivirus and firewall and possibly charge on my Pendrive. From what I see, you don't know much about the Checkuser tools. P.e., often, we do verification of open proxies without the need for a request, by mailing list. Furthermore, the status of Checkuser is given to people with the confidence of the community. Because you do not trust any sysop, it is normal that you play with words and to understand that the checkuser can prosecute someone. And so it is not that you're here, asking me (and only to me) without having their data available. How imagine is being pursued is to give yourself too much importance. At most, in the pt:wp, you may be disruptive, but nothing more. Thanks. Alex Pereira ^falaê 10:40, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

   I think Pédiboi is exaggerating too. But you know nowadays people in Wiki-pt is discrediting even more. And this is not Pédiboi's fault. But sysops fault. Wiki-pt is the only place where an stalker admin is not desysoped automatically and have support of his friends twice [4], [5] and blockade are made only for people who aren't adm on their friends and articles or templates are protected on the admin version if any edition they don't like is made. This isn't funny!Mizunoryu 大熊猫❤小熊猫 14:00, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

9. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:09, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Apteva

1. Considering that you don't have global account, what would you do with global rights? Thank you in advance, Avjoska 05:27, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
2. I strongly suggest you to complete SUL before February 1st. --Nick1915 - ^{all you want} 16:47, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

   The account was created before global accounts existed, globalizing the account is trivial. Good suggestion. Apteva 16:51, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

   But not so trivial for a steward nomination, I'd say... it's binding, I'm sorry!--Nick1915 - ^{all you want} 17:00, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

   Exactly. Done. Only took 3 minutes. Less than a minute, actually. It could have become a nightmare if someone deliberately created some conflicting Apteva accounts. Apteva 17:30, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

   Thank you--Nick1915 - ^{all you want} 19:50, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

3. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   None on WP. My view of Wikipedia is that it is a smoothly running clock, with many integral parts. As I see it the role of the steward is not to wind the clock, but to implement adjustments that have been agreed to by the WP community. I do that a lot on en:WP:RM in moving ill-formed requests, and interpreting and closing requests that do not require pagemoves (I do so as an IP user). Occasionally someone prefers that it be closed by an admin, and I back off and let that occur. To my knowledge no admin has ever disagreed with my proposed close. I fastidiously avoid closing any RM's that I have participated in myself. Occasionally I rattle around WP looking for other things that need to be fixed, and fix them, or participate in discussions and proposals. That is what attracted me to apply for the position of steward. I am certain that I am well qualified for the position, and would be able to do it studiously. As to other languages, I can read French to some extent, having taken both French and Russian in school. I plan on learning additional languages in the near future. As I see it, much of the need for stewards is on languages that no steward understands. It turns out that the very first edit I ever made on Wikipedia in mid to late 2006 was in a language I had no knowledge of and was simply correcting a time or date in that Wikipedia (the edit tab is easy to find in any language by looking at the status window of the browser for a tab that displays action=edit, or =edit). Being a steward would not change what I do, it would only change how I do it - serve the community. Apteva 22:07, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

4. Can you read and write other language?--Kwj2772 07:08, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

   Un petite en Français, mais j'ai l'intention d'apprendre d'autres langues. (A little in French currently.) I studied French about three years in school. Apteva 19:01, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

5. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   As you may detect, I do not see being a steward either an honor nor a "big deal", but more a clerical function, fixing things that need to be fixed, which is what attracted me to assist with the project in the beginning. Prior to 2006 I regarded WP as a novelty, "not a reliable source", and "not to be used in schools". After that I saw that mostly because almost everything shows up first in searches on WP, it actually is used by the World, and as such, I had better fix any erroneous information, lest it get propagated. So, in a nutshell, whatever needs to be done. Apteva 20:21, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

6. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   One of the issues I worked on in the fall of 2007 was sorting out the renaming of the en:Київ article, something that was first proposed in 2003 and has now occupied over a megabyte of discussion. To put that into perspective, that is two words for every uk:Ukrainian article. My goal was not to affect the outcome, but to facilitate the discussion, setting up and organizing the archives, etc. My guess is that the scales will gradually tilt toward resolution, leading to renaming, in part because the new World edition of Monopoly uses Kyiv as one the locations. I certainly have no preference, and am simply an impartial observer, with my sole goal the improvement of the encyclopedia. Another issue that comes up occasionally, is why do I do most of my edits as an IP user? That stems mostly from my belief that arguments should stand on their own merit, and not because who said them. I enjoy finding the limits and limitations of editing as an IP user, mostly because the vast majority of all edits (and vandalism) are done by IP users, although that is rapidly shrinking. With now 1 Billion Internet users, I would personally prefer anyone who makes only one edit to do that as an IP user instead of trying to come up with an unused username (all the good names are gone is a common complaint). My first edit was as a registered user because I had the mistaken impression that to edit you had to have a username (like on many Internet forums). I also prefer to segment my edits, and even as a registered user would make most of my contributions as a non-steward account. Apteva 20:21, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

7. Question by Smihael, when voting: are you joking? --Smihael 11:33, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   No. I am completely serious and well aware that it will help to learn another language (not one of the 40 or so that Google translates). I am also completely aware that WP (or WM, for the semanticists) includes about a dozen projects and any subset of the worlds thousands of languages, and that due to the large number of stewards, and bureaucrats on en:WP, I would likely never take any action on my home project, using this account only for en:WP:RCP and editing. Bear in mind that having a reviewable, accountable record is very important, and switching accounts during a discussion is totally forbidden, as it gives the appearance of a separate person. In other words it would be impossible to seek or to become an admin, steward, etc. if I did not use this account for something else. Because as a steward I could take action on any other WP, I expect to use this account for editing in the other 265 plus language WPs, to build up a reviewable edit record. The last thing anyone wants is someone who is not familiar, yet was in fact familiar under a different name. From November 4, 2008 until yesterday I was rather busy in real life, but am now able to get back to working on WP. Apteva 15:16, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

8. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:09, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

   In every situation, a keen view of perspective comes first. As a steward, that responsibility comes first, but does not mean that all other responsibilities for normal editing do not go away. Anyone can edit, only a few of us are stewards, so what needs to be done as a steward takes precedence over other tasks. If a reversion is viewed as a local user as vandalism, for example, when I reverted the deletion of an expletive that appeared, it does not make me a vandal, even though someone may view me as a vandal, until they understand the situation. First, make an attempt to explain the situation, on the talk page or users talk page, Second, back off and let others handle the situation, Third, there are always other stewards, if my participation is questioned, go work on other wikis and let another steward fix the emergency on that wiki. Is this a test to see how late you can ask a question and still have it answered? At this stage most of the voting is cast in stone. Apteva 14:51, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

avjoska

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   Thanks for this question for every candidate. Avjoska 17:23, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

   I am a sysop in et.wikipedia since April 2007.

   I had temporary sysop rights in et.wikiquote for 2 months in 2007.

   I have editor rights in de.wikipedia since December 2008. Avjoska 17:21, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

2. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   Thanks for questions, Millosh! I would help the community with things I have done so far (i.e blocking user "I pwn all the jewish admins" and deleting rubbish and empty articles). Also I would try to learn new things to do. Avjoska 17:21, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

3. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   When there has been an argumentation about deleting an article, I prefer moving it to my user's subpage instead of deleting it. Avjoska 17:21, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

4. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:10, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Avraham

1. Do you know why you were sent the message under discussion here? [6] Tombomp 11:17, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

   Not specifically. My guess is that he sent it to people who he saw edited that article, and as I at the time had, and still now (18:29, January 26, 2009) have, the most edits of anyone on that article, it stands to reason I would be interested in any changes. Why he chose to use e-mail instead of a talk page or wikiproject note is something only he knows, and something with which I have indicated previously I personally would not have done. -- Avi 22:24, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

2. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:01, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   As mentioned above, I am a sysop on multiple projects (EnWiki and Commons), I am a checkuser on EnWiki, I have been involved in EnWiki oversight (Ask Nick, Alison, or Fred about my e-mails 8-) {<-- ASCII for Lar}), and I am part of the OTRS volunteer group with full access to info-en, so I have experience in both the technical areas in which stewards act, as well as the discretion necessary for dealing with private and restricted information. I am active on the cross-wiki checkuser-l list, which helps with checkuser expertise outside of EnWiki.

   For a particularly challenging scenario, I have been involved in sockpuppetry investigations of highly visible and active user(s), and handle it through contacting as small a group as possible of necessary people (be it other checkuser(s) and/or arbcom member(s)) so as to minimize the possibility of leakage while simultaneously ensuring that as much certainty as possible is obtained before making any statements. Another example is through OTRS, on EnWiki, I've been involved with PR firms complaining about article content, one of which I basically single-handedly brought to GA status while crafting a neutral and accurate presentation of a politically charged situation (see en:Abbey Mills Mosque). -- Avi 20:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

3. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   My main contribution to the Wikimedia community as a steward would be to assist in checkuser issues for projects without current checkusers and to help in combating the cross-wiki vandalism that now exists even on wikis with checkusers. I am involved in these issues already on EnWiki, and I believe it is a natural next step to help out the other projects affected by these vandals. Thank you. -- Avi 17:04, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

4. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   Can you please elaborate? I am uncertain as to what you mean by "issues". Have I ever been blocked, censured, lost privileges, had an RfC, brought an RfC, been party to one, ditto for RfAR, locked horns with other editors? Some and some; with over 30,000 edits across wikimedia space, there is bound to be some issues. If you clarify the focus of your question, I will be more able to answer it effectively. Thank you. -- Avi 17:04, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   You may say something about one or more issues which you treat as the most problematic ones. --Millosh 05:11, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

   I described a difficult checkuser I was party to above under Lar's question, if that helps. I have never been the subject of an RfC or an RfAR, although I have commented on others'. I have been involved in two articles on EnWiki which required a full-blown RfMed, but both ended with consensus, so I think that is a good thing. When it comes to my OTRS and Commons work, and most EnWiki CU work, I really do not think I have had major issues, as I do my best to remain civil and cordial while trying to follow the appropriate policies and guidelines. Thank you for the clarification. -- Avi 02:41, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

5. If elected, what will be at the top of your agenda for 2009? In other words, in your opinion, can you give to Meta (and/or affiliated programs)? Thanks. Kushal one 11:43, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

   I do not have any specific "agenda" or "platform"; my intent in running was not to address a perceived problem or to implement a needed change to the system. My intent is to be helpful in all means possible. Perhaps this question is better answered as such, in that if elected, I can immediately begin to help out in the checkuser areas, both for smaller projects without CUs of their own, and to help shoulder some of the load that birdy, Lar, etc. now handle when dealing with cross-wiki vandalism, especially between EnWiki, DeWiki, Commons, and Meta. I can, and if elected intend to, step into assuming the responsibilities of the other steward roles in very short order as well. -- Avi 15:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

   Thank you, Avraham! :D Kushal one 18:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

6. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:10, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

   Do my best to explain my action, hopefully getting the help of a more fluent speaker of the language to translate less mechanically and more idiomatically. In emergency situations, one sometimes has to act first and quickly, but post action explanations are always necessary, to the extent that they do not japordize the project or the security of users. -- Avi 00:04, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Cometstyles

The following discussion is closed: Candidate withdrew.

---

1. You are a very hard worker, putting lots of time into helping out with things. You are also fun to talk to in IRC. But steward work is pretty consultative/collaborative, we ask each other what to do or what to think of what was stated a fair bit, and is often something that requires good communication skills... the folk we are dealing with may not speak any languages in common with us to a really great degree. Do you think you have the patience, calm demeanor, and communication skills needed to execute this job? ++Lar: t/c 20:26, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   Well I have been actively involved with meta and cross-wiki work for over 20 months and I hope to continue for another 20 months :). Within that time i have edited over 200+ different language wikis, mainly reverting vandalism but generally what i have seen is that admins on those wikis actually appreciated the work done by the cross-wiki team/SWMT which makes me really happy. As i have mentioned in my statement, I have had temporary sysop rights on these smaller wikis to deal with some of these cross-wiki vandals which were harder to stop in those days but because now we have CentralAuth, they can be stopped with just a click of a button. Whenever I saw vandalism in progress, I would firstly consult with a steward and would ask him/her to deal with it, and if that person is busy, I would look for another steward on IRC to deal with it because mainly some of those vandalism were creating nonsense pages or page moves which was impossible for a normal editor to deal with. If the next steward was busy, i would ask for temporary rights to deal with it myself which I believe is something the stewards always appreciated. I speak and/or understand many languages and some of these are not spoken by any stewards I know. I have come across some languages which i never though existed before I joined wikimedia and though I don't have the mental capability to learn most of these, I hope to learn a few of these in time and hopefully use that knowledge when dealing with editors from these wikis. I'm also a very calm, cheerful and composed editor and that's why I have managed to stay around for so long.--Cometstyles 23:01, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

2. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:26, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   Well I have been a sysop on mediawiki.org since November 2007, an admin on simple wikipedia since December 2007 and a admin on Meta since January 2008. I was promoted to crat on meta on April and bureaucrat on mediawiki.org in June 2008. Since I have been an crat on meta, the most challenging situation I faced was the abuse by a well-known vandal. When CentralAuth became a reality in March of last year, a few months later a new feature allowed meta crats to globally lock and/or hide global accounts which gave me a lot of experience as it allowed me to lock several of these vandal accounts before they had the chance to unify to another wiki and cause more damage. This troll would create global accounts which attacked mostly enwikipedia editors and thus with Special:CentralAuth, I managed to catch most of these and lock them before they caused anymore damage. This was my highest point as an admin or crat alike and after the feature was removed from crats for reasons Ii yet don't know, I felt like there was more I could have done if given time. Stewards, as you mentioned don't really decide. They follow and abide by the policies of each individual wiki. To answer your question, I don't really think as a steward I can actually get rid of this vandal single-handedly but with collaboration from local wiki admins, we could atleast slow him down or catch a few of his socks before they can do more damage..--Cometstyles 12:05, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

3. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   I would definitely be focusing my attention on cross-wiki work such as fighting vandals and general cross-wiki cleanups but from time to time, I would also be helping out with Steward requests if there is an urgent need and if other more experienced stewards are not available..--Cometstyles 12:05, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

4. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   I'm not sure what to say here, but as matter of fact, I never had any issues with any wikimedian because I generally tend not to get involved in any issues which doesn't really involve me as i believe that its better to do work then get involved in "drama"..--Cometstyles 12:05, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

5. Can you clarify what MZMBride reffered to in his oppose, where he stated "The abuse of trust perpetrated by this user with regard to private information (specifically OTRS-related names) leads me to make a rare exception. He absolutely should not have access to some of Wikimedia's most sensitive information (oversight and CheckUser logs) with a history of abuse"? NuclearWarfare 03:06, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   Well I'm sorry but I can't actually answer that question without giving out private information which I really won't do and as such can't actually reply to it but what i can tell you is that whatever MzMCBride wrote is a bit exaggerated as what he is actually referring to never actually happened but is more of a misunderstanding ..--Cometstyles 03:13, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   Although I'm not the user in question, here is my summary of the events as I know them. I didn't want to be the one to publicise it, but as Cometstyles seems to want to avoid the issue, I felt I had no choice. Daniel (talk) 09:33, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   No, if anyone wants to know what happened, e-mail me because looking at that diff I can tell you that everything there is misinterpreted and my quotes forged which i do no appreciate and am disgusted with...--Cometstyles 10:47, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   You wanted the truth, here it is. I did not want to do this but my reputation was being tarnished by this lie. The diff above is falsified because the words he used to quote me, I never ever said those words. here is what i said (WaRpAtH is me on IRC):

   • <WaRpAtH> uhm no one uses real names on OTRS
   • <WaRpAtH> i made a mistake of doing so sadly

   the second line was that i made the error of using my real name on OTRS while everyone else used a pseudonym

   • <Comets> i do that to everyone that joins IRC
   • <Comets> i even used to keep a notepad of everyones info i find on IRC just so that they do not sock in the future

   that was a reference to my IRC logs where i daily check for through since i'm not online for the new users that join IRC and if they aren't cloaked, i write down their ip somewhere so that they do not sock on wiki or disrupt the channel. I have done that since i joined IRC since it made it easier for me to find banned sockpuppets and i would pass on the information to the CU list for enwiki or simple wiki and this i managed to catch multiple socks of vandals like Bugman94, flameviper, grawp, Molag Bal and quite recently, Chris19910 and this is how it was fabricated from the logs of Rjd0060.

   "Cometstyles' two lines of justification for his actions were "No-one uses their real names as their OTRS 'real names' anyways", and "It was only for fun and wasn't meant to be serious stalking - I do this for many OTRS volunteers".". what i actually said was "<Comets> i do that to everyone that joins IRC" and which he changed to I do this for many OTRS volunteers". I'm sorry to say this but i'm really tired of baseless allegations that have been thrown at me and to make matters worse, an OTRS admin actually swore at me on IRC and called me a "fucking wanker" and just to tell that admin, I rarely even use OTRS because I'm afraid i might mess something up and in relation to OTRS-wiki, i haven't touched that wiki since September because i really don't have time to edit there..--Cometstyles 11:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   At least 2 people used their real names on OTRS: you per your second quoted IRC line, and I still use my real name on OTRS. -- Jeandré, 2009-02-01t11:59z

   Yes, its a sad thing because of the poetlister incident where he managed to get one of his socks on OTRS, I feel its no longer safe to use your real name. I wish i was told of this in detail..--Cometstyles 12:06, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   No opinion on the wider issue, but I know *plenty* of OTRS volunteers who use their real name, including many for whom those details are not widely known elsewhere. Orderinchaos 14:29, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   Um, I use my real name for OTRS and I do not use it anywhere else on Wikipedia. Has my privacy been invaded also? Spartaz 15:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   "Forged quotes"? Really? Why don't you go ahead and post the logs from the entire conversation that I had with you when I asked you about this issue a couple of weeks ago? Posting it in its entirety (including the parts at the end where you called me "a pot calling a kettle black" and then accused me of "trying to get rid off [you]") might clear some things up. I'd like to hear what you claim has been "forged" though. - Rjd0060 15:51, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   Yes, forged !!, you replaced IRC with OTRS to make me look bad. I will NEVER EVER ABUSE MY OTRS PRIVILEGES for anything. I might be funny of IRC and thats because I had a funny bone and now thanks to your lies and your friends supporting you and swearing at me on IRC, I no longer want to be part of this.

   <Rjd0060> No, not at all. I don't want you to become a steward though.

   <Rjd0060> You aren't trustworthy

   <Comets> heh, that brilliant coming from you

   <Rjd0060> OK :)

   <Comets> a pot calling a kettle black is not really a smart move

1. and if that is what you are referring to then i stand by my word. You have managed to cook up some lies and made me look bad and gave it to your friend Daniel to do rather than facing it up to yourself...--Cometstyles 21:01, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Where did I forge your comments. Please provide a diff. Thanks. - Rjd0060 21:45, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

"I do this for many OTRS volunteers'." I never ever said that and you made that up and what i said was I do that to everyone that joins IRC and that was a reference to their Ips which i always used to hunt trolls like Molag Bal, bugman94, grawp, chris19910, whose multiple socks i caught by just going through their ips and finding if they have socked and not to mention Daniel Brandt's log bot which logged everyone's ip and messages and not to mention that Christian something website which logged everything said on #wikipedia to its website, (Live). I caught all of those through their ips and websites and I never used anyone's OTRS information or did anything with it. Its sad that people who opposed me based on daniel and MzMcbrides deductions, didn't have the decency to read my replies to the allegations before blindly vote stacking. I don't know how many times i have to repeat myself. I'm trying to shed the truth to light and all i'm getting is a cold shoulder..--Cometstyles 01:58, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I did not claim that you said that, and you have not provided a diff showing me saying this. - Rjd0060 02:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

This is the diff of the information you provided to Daniel..--Cometstyles 02:14, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Ah - I see. Nope, that was just Daniel mixing things up slightly. Not my error, clearly. I'll agree with you though, in that you did not say "I do this for many OTRS volunteers" but you did say "i did a similar thing with grawp, bugman, chris19910, Molag Bal and many others". I personally don't think this matters though. You still abused your access. I'm not going to debate this here with you anymore as I tried to talk to you about it two weeks ago and you decided you did not want to discuss things civilly. But, just keep in mind that I am not the one who mixed up that part that you're complaining about. - Rjd0060 02:18, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Well all the oppose flowed in because of that so-called "error" by Daniel and its something I cannot fix. I haven't abused my access on anything. As you might know, I hardly use OTRS. i might have made just 3 0r 4 OTRS request since September and I don't even edit the wiki because to me its like any other wikimedia wiki, where i just add my name and links to other wikis i'm active on ...--Cometstyles 02:28, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

(<--remove indent) Well all the oppose flowed in because of that so-called "error" - No. The opposes flowed in because you clearly abused your access with my information on otrs-wiki. It does not matter if you did not do the same thing with other peoples information. You may have only done this once, with my info, and with nobody else, but that does not matter. There's no three-strikes rule with regard to confidential information, IMO. Abuse it once, and that's too many times. Again, it doesn't matter if you only did what you did one time. - Rjd0060 02:31, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

No, I agree that i use IPs on IRC to find socks and believe nearly every op on IRC does it to catch socks or trolls but i completely disagree with the assumption that I had abused my OTRS access, which is a utterly and complete lie. Thought i act funny or cool on IRC and sometimes people mistake it for immaturity, but I'm not immature. I know about every decision i make. What I'm on IRC is a completely different person than i'm on wiki. I look like someone who knows nothing and only jokes a lot on IRC but thats not true. IRC is my means of clearing my head and to avoid burn-out. I'm sorry that i have a sense of humour but playing on that card and saying that i cannot be trusted with anything is completely and utterly rubbish. Like I joked on IRC calling you Essjay, that was always a joke because I knew you weren't him and i also joke with other people calling them socks of grawp etc and they know it doesn't mean anything. All this that has happened has really made me lose trust in people who i always thought to be the perfect wikipedians and please stop saying that i violated confidential information because saying it over and over again doesn't actually make it true. I didn't violate anything, it was just a misunderstanding which would have been solved amicably if you would have just talked to me about this from the beginning rather than making it a big issue. The conversation we had on IRC was one where you were pushing your allegations on me which I didn't know about and i was desperately trying to defend myself. I have nothing else to say about this because I believe i have made myself clear..--Cometstyles 02:52, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

"I have nothing else to say about this because I believe i have made myself clear" — Likewise. - Rjd0060 03:07, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

1. Do you recognize the change to rivals?--Yusuf 1907 17:26, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Dorgan

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 21:01, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   As mentioned above, I am a sysop and bureaucrat for a quite a long time now. I became better known in our Wikipedia and people turn to me with several requests/complaints on a weekly basis. I always try my best to solve these things and generally, I do administration work. I never really had a fight with anyone in any project. Usually, I can keep my cool. I experienced a lot and I learnt that people always change and you can always forget and forgive. But most importantly, no matter what happens (good or bad) you always need to be responsible for your actions. That's the most challenging part of having flags. Meeting with non-cooperative members, I always try to take actions in a sober, deliberate way. The last time we really had an issue was a year ago. A group of Nazi supporters threated the adminsitrators for weeks, then upon a community decision some editors were banned for good. I think above a certain level we must not accept certain attitudes. There are rules to be followed and obeyed. (Certainly, there are exceptions.) :) I wanted to be a bureaucrat because we only had a few but the work was so much! Currently, there are only 5. If I was a steward, and in a risky situation where action needs to be taken, I would discuss the matter with my fellows first and then would make a decision. I know I could adapt to stewardship, but I know I need get adjusted first. Dorgan 11:23, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

   What do you mean under risky situation? Did the dealing with those Nazi supporters require actions by a steward? Do you have a specific idea on with who and on which channel would you discuss such a situation? - Xbspiro 10:45, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

   When a case needs to be discussed with more people and when a certain case is not crystal clear. When something strongly divides viewpoints. When Nazi supporters attack a Wikipedia and threatens administartors publically a global block might be considerable. Freedom of speech has limits. As I said, with my fellow stewards on IRC channel or Skype. Whichever. - Dorgan 20:23, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

   That case (the presence of those guys) disturbed me strongly. However that group (as I remember) showed activity on Hungarian Wikipedia only. (I mean that they were not present on any other wikis.) Do you think that global blocks would have been a better solution than local ones in that case? - Xbspiro 10:42, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

   Only in case if they try to do the same in other wikis .... - Dorgan 22:23, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

2. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   Generally, we don't have admins in related Wikipedia projects, so I think if I was elected I could do more administration work in those project and that would make our Wikipedia run much smoothly. Or I could encourage more Hungarian-speaking people in those projects and help them with technical difficultis. Dorgan 11:23, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

   Please name those projects. What kind of administration work emerged in them until now? How could your stewardship help you to encourage their users? Isn't your restricted access allows you the same? - Xbspiro 10:45, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

   The Sango, Zhuan, Gikuyu, Shona, Kirundi, Tumbuka, Kinyarwanda and other Wikipedias lack administrators and/or bureaucrats. Or to give you a more accurate example, the Hungarian Wikinews doesn’t have any administartor or bureaucrat. In these mentioned projects the steward’s primary task is to grant rights. In case of multiple Wiki vandalism to give global blocks. A Hungarian steward would make the communications easier between HuWiki and related projects (e.g. Meta). If you are a steward you get a much deeper insight into what’s going on Meta and between the Chapters, I think. - Dorgan 20:23, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

   I probably misunderstood you at one particular point: as you used the words we and our I thought that you speak on the behalf of Hungarian Wikipedia and will name Hungarian projects. It is true that the Hungarian WikiNews doesn't have any bureaucrats, however it has 3 administrators (sysops). One of them is you since June 2008. - Xbspiro 10:42, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

   One question remains: why do you need to be a steward to encourage users (or help them with technical difficulties)? - Xbspiro 10:42, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

   I do know I’m an admin there, it was late yesterday, sorry… Quoting Millosh (serbian steward) „You will be much better introduced in many Wikimedian aspects if you have a steward in your community.” - Dorgan 22:23, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

3. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   In the fall I had to delete thousands of pictures from HuWiki because of the law and some people come up to me angry, but that wasn't really an issue. I think people don't like sharp, big changes generally, and accept the fact that all Wikipedias must obey the Foundation's decisions. In this case, I had to explain why we had to do this. But I didn't take these comments personally, of course. Dorgan 11:23, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

4. Could you explain if you thought it appropriate for any candidate in any election to make corrections to their own vote count,[7] rather than noting them in a central location and letting someone unaffected making the correction? Apteva 19:49, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

   Why don’t you mention those cases when I personally removed support votes from my page? [8] And as I can see, not all the corrections are listed on the page that you mention above. When I put back Rosiestep’s vote I wrote a note with a link why it was valid! - Dorgan 20:23, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

5. What is your opinion about that one of the templates of HuWiki highlights your username as the Hungarian candidate of steward elections? - Xbspiro 14:49, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

   Most of the users switch off the site notice so usually they don’t get updated with what’s new on Wikimedia. The fact that a template was created and put on our Village pump shows that my election is very important to the Community. I think it’s very flattering and such a big honor for me. But as a matter of fact, I did not create the template, eighter did I ask anyone to create it! - Dorgan 20:23, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

   I know that it wasn't you who created it. However you actively took part in keeping it up to date. Don't you think that the template featuring your name (and only yours) is some kind of advertisement (which benefits you over the rest of the candidates)? (It doesn't link to the statistics or contain any other candidate's name.) - Xbspiro 10:42, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

   I have to correct myself at one point: the template does link to the statistical page. - Xbspiro 23:19, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

   Sorry but what wrong with this??? I don’t see your point! At least 4 people (who I didn’t ask) kept this template updated! Take it as you want to but for me, it means that it was very important for them! I have not much to do with this… I think it’s been enough said. Thanx for all the questions! - Dorgan 22:23, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

6. What kind of experience could the voters who oppose you lack actually? Did you ask them about it? - Xbspiro 14:49, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

   No. I think I will be capable of handling steward obligations. I feel experienced enough as an active bureaucrat and administrator. If my introduction or my answers above didn’t convince some people then I’m sorry. I can’t do anything with those who did not comment why they opposed my election. 136 people so far trust my abilities… - Dorgan 20:23, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

7. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:10, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

   Yes, I have previous experience with emergency-handling situations. At first, I would get in touch with the user to discuss the situation. If that doesn't work, I would write on the local village pumps, or administrators’ noticeboard where I would explain what happened. Then I would get in touch with the local admins via IRC/MSN/Skype and ask them to make the user/community understand the situation. But I hope I won’t need to do this very often. Dorgan 20:07, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Erwin

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:28, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   I have sysop experience at the Dutch Wikipedia, Meta, the Dutch Wikibooks and the Dutch Low Saxon Wikipedia and I have bureaucrat experience at the Dutch Wikipedia. In my opinion the most challenging situations are disputes, controversies, AfD's etc. that involve long-time contributors or where the community seems to be divided into two camps. I don't have an example off the top of my head, but in those cases I simply try to make a decision as best as possible and when carrying out that decision to explain the reasons behind it. These situations are mostly relevant at your home wiki as a user or perhaps a sysop, but not as a steward. The reason being that you indeed don't decide. I therefore expect the role of steward to be a lot more straightforward than that of a bureaucrat or sysop. --Erwin(85) 21:37, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

2. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   In the first few weeks my cross-wiki contributions will probably still be mostly related to fighting spam and vandalism and I plan on helping out with requests similar to a bureaucrat's tasks. So those are mostly things I'm familiar with. During that time I want to familiarize myself with other steward tasks, like checkuser requests. As a long-term project I want to check pages nominated for speedy deletion on wiki's without sysops. --Erwin(85) 19:22, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

3. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   Depends on what you mean with issues. Of course, there have been times when I disagreed with people, but I don't think you can call that issues. So what do you mean? I don't think I've ever had what you could call an issue related to Wikimedia though. --Erwin(85) 19:22, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   You may say something about one or more issues which you treat as the most problematic ones. --Millosh 05:12, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

   One example is the deletion of a page related to a Dutch blog. The blog didn't really appreciate that and its users started trolling. After a while they found a new target and moved on. That's about the closest experience to a problematic issue I can think of. I've never had content disputes, dealings with the arbitration committee, except in coordinating elections and acting upon their resolutions, or edit or wheel wars. Of course, that doesn't mean that I've never disagreed with other Wikipedians, but we just solved it without making a big issue out of it. --Erwin(85) 10:55, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

4. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:11, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

   Try to explain my edit to the local user. If that won't work, either because he doesn't get my point of view or because we don't have a common language I'll seek the help of other local users and/or stewards. This could very well happen, but I don't expect it to really be an issue. Most policies are very similar and as a steward you should have a good reason for all your actions in that role. I can't remember where, but this has already happened to me as part of SWMT work. I was supposedly spamming and got warned for that. It turned out to simply be a matter of confusion as I was removing cross-wiki spam. --Erwin(85) 14:33, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

EVula

1. EVula, can you read or write in any other languages?--Chaser away 05:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

   As far as languages that I can communicate in, just English. But when it comes to editing, I can make my way around pretty much any Roman script (French, Spanish, German, Norwegian, etc). This is what I meant by "I am extremely comfortable editing in numerous languages" in my opening statement. EVula // talk // ☯ // 07:24, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

   (Spanish) EVula, ¿puedes leer o escribir en algún otro idioma?--Chaser away 05:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

2. Could you list the languages (at "Languages:" above) and your level for each (-1, -2, etc.). Also, could you please provide a link to your user page (on en:Wikipedia?). Apteva 21:55, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

   I believe I answered this (after you asked) when answering the question above; if you'd like a list of the languages I'm most comfortable editing in (or the foreign language wikis that I have a significant number of edits on), I can provide it.
   My en.wikipedia userpage is w:en:User:EVula; for a quick list of all the projects I'm an administrator or bureaucrat on, see User:EVula#Mini-matrix. EVula // talk // ☯ // 07:24, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

3. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, but modified for you) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? (**I** know but perhaps other voters do not) How does that experience on en:wp translate? That is, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? Please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:29, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   I am a bureaucrat on Meta, Wikispecies, and my home wiki, the English Wikipedia (and by the time the steward elections start, I'll likely be a bureaucrat on the English Wikiquote); I'm an administrator on Commons, the English Wikiquote, and the English Wikisource. I do not currently have CheckUser rights on any project (as I rarely deal with sockpuppets directly), and my Oversight experience is limited to reporting editor privacy violations on the English Wikipedia. My various experiences on my home projects have made me very, very comfortable navigating the MediaWiki system, easily and effectively blocking vandals. As this relates to being a steward, I'm comfortable with complex editing (jumping between projects, keeping different sets of information separate).

   The most challenging situation I've had as a bureaucrat would definitely be my closing of Enigmaman's 2nd RfA on Wikipedia. CheckUser information had been exposed in the midst of the RfA by a fellow bureaucrat, who put the RfA on hold for 20 hours; I was the one that reopened it and attempted to bring it back down to normal once it resumed. I was also the bureaucrat that closed it, which required a very lengthy explanation for my closing (which was very well received by the community). If I had been handling that as a steward and not as a bureaucrat, I would have closed it as no consensus as well, though I wouldn't have gone into as much detail; I was using my bureaucrat discretion to properly assess the pre- and post-CU comments, and as a steward, I would do no such thing. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:34, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

4. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   I would like to help with speedy deletions on small wikis and perform username changes (and handle SUL requests) on projects that don't have local bureaucrats; given my experiences as an administrator and bureaucrat, I think I would be very effective and efficient at these tasks. I would, of course, do whatever is needed (such as removing flags when the person asks, etc), but those are the two areas I definitely see myself working in. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:00, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

5. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
   To be more precise: What do you treat as your most problematic part of work (or event) during your Wikimedian work. --Millosh 05:15, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

   I don't consider much of my Wikimedian work to be problematic. Plotting a full interwiki map (which even bots often miss) can be time consuming, but is enjoyable and worthwhile (to me, at least). My administrative work on the English Wikipedia has gotten me a lot of insults, but I consider those to be far more amusing than they are problematic. ;) EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

6. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:11, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Fabexplosive

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:39, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   In wikimedia project, I've a previous sysop experience in lmo.wiki project. Offwiki (but mediawiki project also) I've tryed many flags (such as checkuser, oversight and stw) - (for example Botwiki where I'm an admin now [9] ). For question number 2 I don't have an example now to explain to you, but in this cases I hope that I will make the best decision. For Q3: If I have doubt I always ask other stewards for having a secure response. --Fabexplosive The archive man 10:55, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

2. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   SrP queue and Xwiki vandalism principally. --Fabexplosive The archive man 10:55, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

3. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   In my home wiki, I haven't very big issues, in lmo.wiki a mass meatpuppets attacking some votations for change results, I've asked a steward for helping me and finally, I've blocked all meatpuppets. --Fabexplosive The archive man 10:55, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

4. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:12, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Fadesga

1. Thank you. Besides your experiences of english wikipedia, what experience you have on the rest of wikimedia projects and languages? What are your qualifications relating to the steward tasks? es:Drini 21:57, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Previous experience with restricted access: (Elaborating on what Drini asks) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:40, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
3. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
4. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   Thanks a lot for your questions! I have no previous experience with restricted access at Wikipedia (although I do have lots of experience with restricted access activities as a Moderator at ProZ.com); but I'm an experienced editor, especially in Spanish Wikipedia; and my experience as Moderator at ProZ.com has proved to be a wonderful way to put into practice what I firmly believe: enforce rules, be objective, respect what others say. If you let me explain: there are always thousands of people who know a lot about a given topic or matter; more often than not, they know much more than I do; so "being there", in order to ensure that they can fully show all they know, and helping them share different point of views, is fundamental. "Stewards don't decide" - I really like that!--Fadesga 19:36, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

5. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:12, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to all the persons that happened to look at my candidacy and cared for voting. Be it "yes", "no" or "neutral", all have helped me feel valued for what I am. See ya around!--Fadesga 21:28, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Gutza

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:43, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
2. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
3. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
4. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:12, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Jredmond

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:44, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
2. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
3. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I have to apologize for the delayed response; I was sick over the weekend and would not have been able to answer coherently.

I have had the sysop flag on the English Wikipedia since July 2005, OTRS access since February 2006, and OTRS administrative access since February 2007. As an enwiki admin, I have been in the middle of several challenging biographical situations, including w:en:Solomon Trujillo (where I consistently removed strong libel, protected the page, and sought oversight) and the initial burst of editing to w:en:Sarah Palin (where I rolled back vandalism then fully protected the article for several hours on the day her nomination was announced). Since stewards are not decision-makers, as a steward I would always act in compliance with the consensus of the relevant communities; in the Trujillo situation I would have done the same things, but in the Palin situation I would not have protected the page (that was a controversial move for an administrator).

Much of my work as an OTRS administrator involves management of volunteers - keeping the mail flowing, helping write common responses to common questions, and helping coordinate responses among the different language queues. I feel that this experience translates well into a steward's work, and as a result I feel that it would be my main contribution as a steward. - jredmond 18:24, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

What non-English/cross-wiki work have you done? The main examples I can see are tr:Özel:Katkılar/Jredmond and es:Especial:Contribuciones/Jredmond. John Vandenberg 17:38, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

In addition to vandal clean-up work, I have also done several cross-Wikipedia biographical accuracy runs. These have included date fixes on Li Ka-Shing (dewiki fiwiki frwiki idwiki itwiki jawiki nlwiki nowiki svwiki viwiki zhwiki) and name and date fixes on articles connected to Bianca Jagger (I can't find them all, but highlights include uzwiki, srwiki, ruwiki, ptwiki, plwiki, nowiki, iswiki, and fiwiki).

Those are just highlights, of course; the toolserver has a more complete list of my global contributions. According to that list, my cross-wiki work (outside userspaces) has been heaviest in Wikipedias. This is because the Wikipedias are the largest and most numerous WMF projects, and therefore tend to provoke the most vandalism and the most e-mail. However, as steward, I would be willing to work wherever necessary or wherever my attention is drawn.

Finally, while I can't go into detail about specific situations, I've helped vet quite a few potential OTRS workers. Most of this involves puzzling through the relevant contribs, user talk pages, and village pump/lounge/"café" pages as best we can, but there has also been direct e-mail and IRC contact with other volunteers from the user's home wiki(s). (We do this so that we know we can trust OTRS volunteers; it isn't foolproof, but overall it's very effective at spotting those who are not suited for OTRS work.)

I hope this answers your question. - jredmond 20:00, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

1. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:13, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

On OTRS, everything is an "emergency" to someone... global disruptions and mass exposure of personal info would be nothing new. (The Foundation's privacy policy prevents me from discussing specific cases, though.)

In the situation you described, it's best to explain the global situation to the local user, in as patient a manner possible, with links wherever possible. Generally, policies on the different wikis are meant to be flexible, not carved in stone, and properly-applied steward actions can improve the wiki and reinforce the larger principle behind the policy even if they conflict with the policy's minor details. - jredmond 14:08, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Kylu

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   I currently have sysop and bureaucrat flags on a number of Wikimedia Foundation projects, and have used other permissions (including oversight, checkuser, and interwiki userrights) on non-WMF projects (CVN wiki, editthis.info and other public wikifarms, and a developer's centralauth-enabled test wikifarm).

   While I haven't had to deal with any challenging situations while using an account with the checkuser flags, I have assisted individual checkusers on WMF projects with searching user contributions for potential socks and finding TOR nodes and proxies. As far as handling situations differently, I don't see any need to do so: I'm mostly interested in handling workloads that require nothing but time and basic competence. I'll leave the more difficult situations to you more senior stewards, if you don't mind. :) Kylu 05:49, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

2. If you're elected, are you still going to do shedfuls of helpful clerical work like you do now, or will all the neat and tidy pages start to get disorderly :) ? ++Lar: t/c 20:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   My clerk duties take up rather little time, actually. I have my goal as a freshman steward to handle fairly dull, but quickly performed tasks in addition to my clerking, that way the other stewards have more time to manage the more in-depth issues. Kylu 05:49, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

3. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:39, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   If you mean as a Steward, then absolutely nothing. Stewards are selected to react to requests: A user decides when they want a rename, or a community determines if someone needs to be promoted or removed. Stewards simply implement the decisions of others. Now, as a user I have plenty of ideas for ways to improve how we do things, but I have no intention of mixing up my role as a steward with my role as just another user.

   Other than rigid adherence to steward policy, I'd respond that the requests I'd actually prefer to work with the most would be renames (both SUL and non-SUL related) and permissions. Kylu 03:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

4. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:39, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   Nothing especially annoying, really. I've had some minor mixups, of course, but I've managed to stay away from arbitration cases, mediation (except as a mediator, of course), conduct requests, and similar situations. I suspect that it results from my focus on the bureaucratic back-end of the projects rather than content issues where most of the disputes originate. Kylu 03:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

5. If you become a steward, Will you use machine translation such as Google language tool or Babelfish? Or will you ask to native translators to communicate with other wikis' users?--Kwj2772 05:36, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   I haven't used them in quite a while, other than in trying to learn a language that I'm unfamiliar with. I'd note also that steward work is (for better or worse) mostly done in English, though I'd still like to see more representation from other languages. Kylu 08:56, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

6. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:08, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Laaknor

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:44, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   I'm currently a sysop on nowiki and nowikiquote. My sysopwork here is mainly patrolling/vandalism-fighting and gadget-programing (so pretty basic). I feel that the most challenging situations I come into is when I get phonecalls from people because of something I've done onwiki (pushed against a wall, waiting for a reply on "Why did you delete my article on my neighbour? He really is gay, do you want a picture of him as proof?", how am I suppose to react to that?). I'm pretty sure I've been in more challenging situations than this, but I tend to do as best I can, and forget about it afterwards :P.

   Unless I'm a direct part in a situation, I try to take a step back, and think about what to say, and if what I say will help the situation. Laaknor 14:20, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

2. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:39, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   Hard to say what I will be working with 6 months from now, but what I think right now, is granting botrights and global bot-rights, and trying to get new wikis enable global bots. Laaknor 10:34, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

3. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:39, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   Not sure what you mean with "issues"... Laaknor 10:34, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   To be more precise: What do you treat as your most problematic part of work (or event) during your Wikimedian work. --Millosh 05:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

   I'd have to say a closure of an RfD of an article about a BitTorrent-tracker as keep, when the administrators of that site didn't want attention, and asked everyone with an account to vote delete. Right after it was kept, the torrent-tracker died for several weeks because of a denial of service-attack, and I was blamed for taking it down by the Norwegian file-sharing community (including many of my friends). Laaknor 08:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

4. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:13, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Leinad

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:49, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   As mentioned above, I am sysop and bureaucrat on pl.wiki. As an administrator I don't have any particularly challenging, I am most active in patrolling recent changes, where I fight with vandals. Sysop tools are also useful in temporary fixing broken MediaWiki messages. The most challenging situation I faced as a bureaucrat was connected with rename process, when account divided in two parts (part of contribution stay on old username). Problem has been resolved when I reported problem with rename process on Bugzilla. I am also active with SUL issues. Since SUL has been enabled on Wikimedia projects, I am up to date with this system and I am helping other crats resolving various doubts. Being a steward I could faster and more effectively deal with described situations. For example in case of cross-wiki vandals I would block on all wikis or in SUL case I would have access to Special:CentralAuth. Leinad 02:04, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

2. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:39, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   If I were steward I would focus mainly on requests connected with SUL and requests for rights. And as I mentioned above, steward tools also be helpful to fighting vandals. Leinad 23:32, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

3. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:39, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
4. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:13, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Loco085

The following discussion is closed: Candidate withdrew.

---

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
2. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:39, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
3. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:39, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi all, sorry for the delay. I was really thinking about this candidacy, and I arrive at the conclusion that this year I will very bussy with the organization of Wikimania. I think that I will not have time for the Steward job. So I will withdraw my candidacy. My apologies.

Loco085 20:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Mardetanha

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   i have been sysop and bureaucrat on some project and i had CU and OS flag on some non-WMF wikis , moreover i have been kind of people who consult before making major decisions.so i really think being consultative is a very important part of stewardship so if community trusts me i will keep doing this consulting with senior steward and any experienced users.and i do think it is not steward to job to make decisions as policy clearly declare steward are supposed pay large attention to community consensus not their own thinking.so i really hope my language knowledge specially about Turkic languages and Iranian languages could help stewards to better collaboration with more wikis.--Mardetanha ^talk 15:58, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

2. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:39, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   As i stated above i will do my best to be active on all steward-related issues more i will continue my editing job in home wikis which is very important for me.i will daily check requests in meta pages like SRP and SRUC and i will try to exapand my working as a vandal fighter , i really think this tools would come in handy more and i do believe my language knowdelge would help other steward perfomarming their task in languages that i speak or understand.--Mardetanha ^talk 16:05, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

3. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:39, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   to be honest i always did my best to be away from wiki-dramas but being active admin brings some tough days.specially recently a group of well dressed troll attacked fawiki and i did my best to stop and i am sure you will see them around sooner or later.Actually i always on all projects that I've been active i tried to my best to represent true iranian/azeri culture which is full of love and peace.--Mardetanha ^talk 19:45, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

   Some opposers arose some concern about my stewardship please read my recusal --Mardetanha ^talk 14:29, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

4. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:14, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

   First of all while monitoring team i would just revert fully clear-cut vandalism , if i would have a simple doubt i would consult with others or try to find native speaker of that language (there are several ways to find them) , and at the end if i make a mistake i will do my best to re revert my edits and apology the community , But my motto in wiki always is "When you are in doubt , consult consult --Mardetanha ^talk 21:22, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Meno25

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   Thanks, Lar, for your question. As stated above, I have previous experience with sysop, bureaucrat and checkuser tools on many wikis (my flags on all wikis). I was an oversight only on a non-WMF wiki. However, since I have commit access to Wikimedia SVN, I have a good idea about how CU and oversight tools work. One of the situations I remember on ar WP was that a checkuser breached the privacy of a certain user (probably because he misinterpreted the CheckUser policy). I had to explain why his actions violated CU policy and after a quick discussion within the community, he resigned as CU. As a steward, I can't act as a checkuser on wikis with local CUs nor on wikis where I am active (home wikis), so, my role would be limited to answering questions and giving advice to local users. If I was unsure about the issue, then I would simply ask more experienced checkusers and stewards for advice via mailing lists: checkuser-l and stewards-l (which I believe are a great environment for collaboration between CUs/stewards). Another possibility would be forwarding the issue to the Ombudsman commission which is concerned with investigating complaints about violations of the privacy policy. --Meno25 13:02, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

2. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   My primary motivation to run the elections was that there is currently no Arabic-speaking steward despite the fact that Arabic is the fourth language by total number of speakers. In January 2008, I came through a revision that should be oversighted in ar WP. I believe that an Arabic-speaking steward was needed then to handle this issue. If I were elected as a steward, I intend to focus mainly on various request pages like SRP and SRUC but I am open to help whereever my help is needed. I hope I will benefit Wikimedia community with my work. --Meno25 13:02, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

3. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   To be more precise: What do you treat as your most problematic part of work (or event) during your Wikimedian work. --Millosh 05:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

   Well, having made more than 70 thousand edits in Wikimedia wikis, I think it is quite natural for me to engage in a few disputes. These disputes are mainly about a page I deleted that another user thinks should be restored or an account I blocked and someone else thinks it should be unblocked i.e. the usual disputes that any admin engages in. There is nothing in particular I can mention here. I always try to stick with policies in such cases and discuss it with other admins to solve the dispute as quickly as possible. --Meno25 22:42, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

4. in case of disputed desysopping, will you say "if anyone objects the issue can be discussed locally where [sysop name] may be resysopped by another bureaucrat"? Санта Клаус 23:07, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

   Desysopping is usually highly controversial. Every wiki has its own policy regarding desysopping. On some wikis, desysopping is done via local Arbitration Committee rulings while on others desysopping is done via a vote. The rule of bureaucrats in such a case would be to determine whether there is enough community conscious to desysop. (The definition of "community conscious" varies greatly from one wiki to another. It should be defined in the local desysop policy.) If local crats disagree about the outcome of the vote, they should discuss the results (i.e. start a beaurcrat chat, see an example here). Then a bureaucrat should report the final decision on SRP. Stewards role in this case is limited to acting according to the result, even if they disagree. I hope I have stated my view on how to handle disputed desysopping clearly. --Meno25 23:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

5. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:08, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

   Not at all. Your questions are welcome any time. The first thing I would do is to ask the local user why did he consider my reversion as vandalism, for example, is there a local policy that I am not aware of which is applicable to that situation? I will explain to him the nature of stewards small wiki monitoring work. After that I will try to discuss the issue with one or more local admins to try to reach to an agreement. If all this didn't work, I will ask other more experienced stewards for advice and invite them to discuss the issue with the local community. --Meno25 13:22, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Mike.lifeguard

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   I am a sysop on 3 wikis, a CheckUser on 2, and bureaucrat on 1. I was also an oversighter for Meta for a brief time.

   I think the most challenging situations I've come across have been in my role as a contributor, not as someone with extra tools. Two exceptions to that would be some CheckUser work (on Commons in particular) and with linguistic limitations in dealing with spam.

   When faced with technical data I can't interpret, I sometimes research the issue myself (which is among the better ways of learning). I'm lucky to have a set of users (in the case of CheckUser work, the mailing list - but in other matters there are other people) I can approach for help. This second resource comes up often in my anti-spam work: I can't read all the languages of the world, so I often approach others who can read specific languages when I need a website in a foreign language evaluated.

   I don't expect either of those approaches will change at all were I to be given access to the steward tools. I'd simply have more research to do with CheckUser matters (for example, performing CU requests on wikis I'm not familiar with), or another set of users to ask for help (via the steward mailing list).

    — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 23:28, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

2. I've worked with you on quite a few matters and like your approach. However there are others who feel you are somewhat "rules driven". Do you agree? If policy conflicted with "doing the right thing" what would you do, and why? Give an example or two to illustrate. ++Lar: t/c 20:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   I think I can agree that I'm primarily rules-driven, however I don't think that results in a conflict between following the rules on one hand and doing the right thing on the other - that's a false dichotomy. The rules should lead one to do the right thing - if that's not the case then the rule probably needs to be changed or ignored as the case may be. If that's true (and I think it is) then the second part of your question arises from false premises.

   An relevant example might be when I added Privatemusings to the flickrreviewer list unilaterally. I did this so he could upload and review images with a bot. I was helping him in realtime with commonist (forget whether it was Skype or IRC), and we didn't want to have the bot which verifies that those who are adding the "reviewed" template are on The List second-guessing things and making more work for either of us. While that was totally against the rules (and I got called on it by a few people), I think it was the right thing to do. It helped me, Privatemusings, and the project.

    — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 03:31, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

3. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   I've already done so in my statement. If there's something more precise you'd like, feel free to ask.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 20:30, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

4. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   I'm not sure what you mean by "issues" - I think more detail would allow me to give a more helpful answer.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 20:30, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   What do you treat as your most problematic part of work (or event) during your Wikimedian work. --Millosh 05:17, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

   I think the lack of focus on cultivating a healthy community is the biggest obstacle for my first home wiki (English Wikibooks). I've written about this a few times (1, 2), but I'm not sure if the situation has improved. I have some not-very-specific ideas for lowering the bar to entry (User:Whiteknight has blogged about some ideas we were kicking around, and User:Mike.lifeguard/Screencasts lists one project I hope to keep working on in the future).  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 23:13, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

5. Do you run away, if you see the problem and you dont know, how to solve it? --Juan de Vojníkov 17:00, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   There have certainly been problems which I don't know how to solve. In those cases, I'm rather more likely to find someone to help. In my answer to question 1 above, I mentioned my typical course of action regarding CheckUser data I can't interpret. I'll either do the research myself, or consult with someone else. However, that's an example where running away isn't really possible. A situation where running away is a possibility that I rejected might be what I mentioned in my answer to number 4. It would be possible to ignore the problems English Wikibooks is having with strengthening it's community. In fact it's easy to do that, because then you don't even have to admit there is a problem, which is a comfortable position to be in - most people want to believe their project is doing well, even if it's not. However, I've admitted there is a problem, and I'm trying in various ways to solve that problem.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:26, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   And was there any problem on English Wikiversity?--Juan de Vojníkov 09:17, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

   Every wiki has problems. The challenge lies in accepting that, identifying them and working together to correct them. I don't think I have any special insight into Wikiversity's problems.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 21:28, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

6. Why do you bother those with emals who voted against you? I consider this more than embarassing, to me its a kind of impact and dubious. --EvaK 23:31, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

   Several people provided no rationale or an incorrect rationale. While the steward elections are technically votes, I firmly believe that the reasons for placing a particular vote are important. I'd be happy to address voters' concerns here, but I can't respond to questions which don't get asked.

   So, instead of calling them out publicly which could embarrass them, I contacted some voters by email. That those private actions are seemingly no longer private is an interesting and related fact that has implications I won't bother drawing.

   However, as an example, User:Proofreader77 did want to take me up on my offer to discuss their concerns. In particular, they were concerned about some statements on my userpage. Through some private discussion we were able to come to a mutual understanding of each others' position, and Proofreader77 was able to change their vote to one of support.

   User:Enbéká's vote is another example: it was ostensibly due to me being a job collector. However, if one looks at the facts, that's rather clearly false, and the user struck their vote out.

   I don't expect anyone to change their vote simply because I challenge it (in fact that would be quite a bad thing - ask me about that if you're interested), but I would like to know why this group of people are placing these votes, and I'd like to discuss those issues if the voters are interested in doing so. Unfortunately, it seems some are more interested in forming a voting bloc than forming justified opinions about my candidacy. Alas, such is the weakness of voting. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 00:05, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

7. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:15, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

   This sort of thing has happened to me already, in the course of removing link additions. As always, communication is highly important. In the specific cases I mentioned, I'd point to the evidence that the link addition was inappropriate and explain my actions to the community. If they still believe I was incorrect, they can reinstate the link (or in your example, revert my revert). As with Erwin, when reverting spammers, I've sometimes reinstated links which the spammer removed - this is sometimes seen as spamming on my part until the situation is explained in full.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 15:58, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Mywood

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   Hi Lar, Thanks for your question. As stated above, I am a sysop and bureaucrat of zh Wikipedia. I am quite familiar with administrative tools such as renameuser, robot approval and so on. I believe that my carefulness and patient will help me to be a qualified steward. I am so sorry that I can not find out a challenging situation yet. If I am a steward and it is not a home wiki, I will try to find out related wiki policies and guidelines. And the basic rule is Stewards "don't decide".--Mywood 15:13, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

2. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   Thank you, Millosh. I would like to check request pages (like permissions, bot, rename and so on). And I am also glad to do other things if short of hands.--Mywood 15:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

3. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
4. 请问你在中文维基百科的签名是什么？在我的印象中我见到你的次数比较少--Liangent 11:00, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
5. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:15, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Orderinchaos

The following discussion is closed: Candidate withdrew.

---

I should make two points before responding:

• Sorry for the delay. A mixture of the sort of usual priorities for January-February - sorting out work, studies and so on whilst also dealing with a heatwave - have seen me rather busy for the past week or two. I'm now back, though.
• Apologies if my answers below, relating to my en.wikipedia experience, suggest an en.wikipedia bias. As a steward, if elected, my duties would be to all projects, and *especially* the smaller ones - I'd like to see all projects prosper and see my role as assisting that to occur in whatever way I can. Orderinchaos 09:00, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

---

1. Do you speak any other languages other than English? I would like to see people who want to become stewards to have some speaking ability in more than one language so as to more easily facilitate discussion about their involvement in other languages. Razorflame 19:57, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
   1. I speak very limited amounts of German and Serbian, and have picked up bits along the way (I used to work in a back-room media role where I was required to verify passages in French, Italian and other languages to print quality). Orderinchaos 09:00, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
2. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 20:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
   1. I am an administrator at en.wikipedia and have held that role since 11 March 2007, and have had OTRS access since June 2008. I have never held, nor do I hold presently, any other technical or trusted roles within WM projects. Most of my actions as an administrator have been purely housekeeping - actions which need to be taken, are utterly uncontroversial, and assist editors to maintain content. Probably my best case I can put forward, though, was my handling of the Brahma Kumaris conflict almost exactly a year ago. This was over an article on a New Religious Movement which I encountered on the Requests for Arbitration review page - it had already been through arbitration, and there was a lot of gaming with the result to try and get rival parties blocked. I recognised that the situation needed at times a strong hand and at others a delicate one, and as a genuinely neutral party to the issue at hand I felt I could offer something. We had violations of every policy imaginable and there would have been grounds to block a fair few people, and as an administrator I had the technical power to do so (and an ArbCom decision to justify doing so) but I thought this would, in an already tense situation, simply escalate the situation. If it came down to it, I could, but I'd see what I could achieve first - the parties in this case mostly appeared to be working in good faith although with a very poor view of "the other side". Eventually through working on the talk page, and even going to the extent of looking up reference sources people were using to support their views, I was able to get one person from each side to work with me, and they in turn positively influenced others of similar views. It was not always successful but, working with the people, I got it from a situation of total warfare to one where only disruptive minorities were a problem and, although there was still great disagreement, some of the more contentious areas of conflict were compromised upon and resolved. I could probably have cited a number of situations where I took tough and decisive (and necessary) action to resolve a situation, but this one stands out more in my memory. Orderinchaos 09:00, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
3. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
   1. I think my biggest effort would be to try and assist the smaller Wikipedias. On the larger project in which I work, things sort of happen seemingly automatically and nobody really thinks about the process needed to bring it about. On the smaller projects, however, not having those processes internally can hold up vital work needed to maintain the project. I would anticipate my role as fairly non-interventionist and mainly handling requests for specific actions from those communities. On occasion, some conflict resolution will be needed - as a person working in the education sector as a trainer, and having worked for 6 years in telephone and email customer service, I have a long history in constructive negotiations with parties in conflict (together with my informal work in mediating conflicts within my home Wikipedia on contentious topics, such as the Brahma Kumaris case where I managed to get two hostile and opposing parties on side) and I will do what I can to achieve good faith resolutions which will allow the work on smaller projects to continue without impediment. Orderinchaos 09:00, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
4. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
   1. I think anybody that ever works in content or takes controversial decisions, even with the direct backing of policy, is going to have issues - that's pretty much a given. People who do not feel they have benefitted from a decision or action, or who for philosophical reasons disagree with the type of action one has chosen to take, may well raise complaint, and if consensus backs them, then I will (and have) take(n) that on the chin and back(ed) down. However, I have not gone out of my way to be controversial, and very few of the actions I have taken have been overturned or significantly opposed. Orderinchaos 09:00, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Pasquale

1. (en) You list a large number of languages, including some that few or no existing stewards speak. But you have never even been an administrator. Stewardship requires knowledge of administrative and other tools, as on smaller wikis you may be called on to do any of the admin things like block, delete, revert (in a pinch) or rename users, flag bots, run checks of users, oversight, etc. While there is some on the job training opportunity to be sure, do you think you will be at all handicapped by never having been an administrator on any project? (for reference when I was elected, I was an admin, 'crat or CU on several projects as well as having OTRS access) Can you give us some examples of things you've done that demonstrate your abilities? ++Lar: t/c 02:54, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Furthermore, if you can use so many languages, why don't you edit WP projects in those languages? Avjoska 05:31, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
3. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, although I already touched on some of it already in my first question) I asked others: "What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have?" Your answer, presumably, is "none", so why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some elsewhere in life, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 21:07, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
4. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
5. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
6. In your statement you "pledge to protect the Wikipedia from hacks, POV-peddlers, and propagandists". However being a steward has nothign to do with POV warriors nor they act as arbiters on content disputes. How would being a steward have a relation with your pledge?. Also, you speak a lot about protecting Wikipedia, but as you probably know, Steward isn't a Wikipedia position, so it has to serve many other projects where the Wikipedia rules don't apply (for instance, Wikiquote has quotes that would be considered POV). What do you know about other projects philosophies? es:Drini 20:25, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
7. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:15, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

PhiLiP

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 21:02, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   Hi, Lar, thanks for your questions. As stated above, I am an administrator of Chinese Wikipedia. Moreover, I have been temporal administrators of Chinese Wikinews(check) and Chinese Wiktionary(check) for anti-vandalism reasons. As an administrator, I thought I should use my sysop tools carefully, especially there is someone argue against with me. Here is a situation I have handled: Someone has editwar with others, and someone has violated the 3RR rule. What I need to do, is to block the one who violate 3RR, and to revert the article to the point when the editwar didn't happen. And I would leave a message on talk page gently, to appeal a deep conversation between both sides of the editwar. As a mediator, using appropriate authority is necessary, and I will ensure that not being biased against either side. If I face a issue which is not my home wiki, I think I just need more carefulness. I should review the situation of the issue. Related policies and guidelines reading could have some positive effects. I need to remember this: "I am not a decider, I am just a executant."--PhiLiP 18:05, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

2. Hello. I'd like to ask if you can read Hanja (韓國式漢字) or Kanji (日本式漢字). Which Chinese script do you use mainly, simplified script(簡體字) or traditional script(正體字)?--Kwj2772 07:16, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

   Hi, kwj2772. I can read most of Hanja and Kanji, but I may not understand all of them. Generally, I use simplified script. But it is not difficult for me to read or use traditional script at all.--PhiLiP 18:05, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

3. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   Hello, Millosh. As stated above, I can fight cross-wiki vandalisms better, and I can help with the Checkuser work at other wikis (I will recuse myself for Chinese Wikipedia). Otherwise, stewards status can also give me some of convenience to assist the Chinese translation works at Commons and Meta.--PhiLiP 18:05, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

4. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
5. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:16, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

putnik

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 21:02, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   As I wrote there I have a sysop rights on Russian Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. Also I have sysop and bureaucrat rights on Wikia (Russian Central and some others), Rodovid and Letopisi.ru (this is a national level wikiproject for schoolchildren). Also I have a sysop rights on OpenStreetMap wiki. And I work there regularely.

   But if there was a "situation" I woudn't have handled it differently if I had steward rights. I think that checkuser or bureaucrat in any Wikimedia project works using the same principle of "don't decide". When the steward acts as a sysop he is not as restricted as in his/her other actions. If the action is required it must be done. ~ putnik 11:31, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

2. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:42, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   Firstly, I'm planing to work with SUL and usurpation problems and requests for rights from Russian and Eastern Slavic languages. I will not forget about reverting of cross-wiki vandalism and spam. ~ putnik 11:31, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

3. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:42, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   What kind of issues do you mean? It's hard to answer a very generic question like that. Can you be a little bit more specific? ~ putnik 11:31, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   One or more of them which you treat as the most problematic. --Millosh 17:13, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

4. В русской википедии людей преследуют по политическим мотивам; Например СашаТ, Ретоктобер, Стопарь. Вы считаете это нормально? Будете ли с этим что либо делать?--Jaro.p 15:55, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

   Я не готов столь однозначно оценивать ситуацию в приведённых вами примерах. Но, если считать, что в какой-то ситуации это действительно так, то это не нормально. И всё же я не собираюсь с этим ничего делать. Как админ ру-вики я занимаюсь другими вещами, а в случае, если получу флаг стюарда, то как стюард не буду иметь права на использование полномочий в ру-вики. ~ putnik 16:06, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

   Вы как админ ру-вики занимаетесь другими вещами. А другие амины занимаются этими вещями. Довольно печальная ситуация но она типична для русского тоталитаризма. Я думаю русской википедии вообще не нужны стюарты они будут толъко мешать работать.--Jaro.p 16:20, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

   Вероятно, вы не знаете сферу деятельности стюардов. В ру-вики и прочих крупных разделах действия стюардов сводятся к снятию флагов по собственному запросу или запросу АК. В целом же стюарды занимаются борьбой с кросс-вики вандализмом и спамом а также выдачей флагов в виках, где нет собственных бюрократов. ~ putnik 20:36, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

5. I do not participate in ru.wikipedia.org (with an exception of a few cases of donating my IP to the checkusers), but I closely monitor it out of curiosity and because the checkusers (most recently, Kv75 and DR) falsely attribute some accounts to me (without matching IPs, pretty bold falsifications, you know). So, the most recent interesting episode that I noticed was the ГСБ-Lvova scandal. It was discovered that the administrator Lvova lives together with a famous vandal ГСБ. Checkuser Wulfson immediately blocked Lvova for having a joint account with ГСБ. However, this is quite common that people share the same computer. I am wondering if you could give some comments on Wulfson's actions. How would you respond if quite different users worked from the same IP, for example 1 cross-wiki vandal (the subject of your future job) and 1 good user? SA ru 14:52, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
6. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:16, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

SpeedyGonsales

1. Previous experience with restricted access: (This is a question for every candidate, feel free to copy and answer if I missed anyone) What previous sysop, checkuser, oversight, or bureaucrat experience, if any, do you have? If your answer is none, why do you think you're especially well suited to be a steward? If you have some, please tell us about a particularly challenging real situation (omitting any private information) and how you handled it? If you have none, feel free to discuss a hypothetical situation instead. Given that stewards "don't decide", how would you have handled it differently if you were a steward, and it was not a home wiki? ++Lar: t/c 21:02, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

   Community, people are the difference between dead projects without purpose and alive and striving projects. My checkuser experience is standard, fighting against ill-willed users making sock-puppets. Sysop & bureaucrat experience is a different one, I spent a lot of time in personal communication with users (often new), because for new users Wikipedia is sometimes intimidating, with all that rules and templates either posted at new users talk pages by bots or by sysops sometimes overwhelmed by job (patrolling recent changes), so I tried to make hr Wikimedia projects as human as is it can be. Of course, you do not need to be sysop or bureaucrat to answer questions of newbies, but working in such way you can never forget why you become sysop (or bureacrat). Namely, to make wiki project you work on human place, where nobody could game the system because s/he is long time on wiki, but where every human being should be treated as equal. Most challenging situation (maybe for every wiki) is practicing Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, which happened twice. I handled it with regret that we lost two users, and I see one of them working correctly on another project. Also short answer on hypotetical situation: basic guidelines for all wiki projects are 5 pillars, but every wiki also has some additional rules which suites its culture or size (number of users/speakers). Given my experience both on en, de & hr wiki (number of my edits on en & de wiki is not high, but please don't make mistake and tie number of edits with knowledge of system), I know that every community has different rules, and in most cases you can not automatically translate/accept rules of some big wiki on other wikis if you want good and just set of rules. As steward, I could answer questions of users of all wikiprojects who came to some obstacle, that there is no unique way how to handle it on all wikis, but if you follow 5 pillars and know that community make content, you can't make wrong decision. SpeedyGonsales 10:52, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

2. (generic question) By your opinion, what would be your main contribution (or contributions) to Wikimedia community if you become a steward? --Millosh 06:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   I can not be sure. But I know that stewards doesn't only promote/demote users, I know that they answer questions, they work on opening new wiki's or closing defunct etc. As I wrote in my statement, I will work a lot in our new chapter and on meta, and I see that as a oportunity to help Wikimedia any way I can. SpeedyGonsales 10:52, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

3. (generic question) If you had one or more issues during your Wikimedian work, please describe it. --Millosh 06:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

   Answered above to Lar, namely practicing Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. SpeedyGonsales 10:52, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

4. ru-1 - это насколько хорошее понимание русского? Понятно ли, о чём я говорю? Поможет ли это знание в работе? Lvova 00:03, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   I can answer you in Russian in cyrillic if you want, but I prefer English. As sysop I met with users who tend to present their language skills via Bables templates better then it is, I think opposite is better choice. So you asked me how good is my knowledge of Russian, do I understand what you write, and do that knowledge help me in work? Well, I sometimes check some things on ru wiki (so my knowledge of Russian helps me). SpeedyGonsales 10:52, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

5. Да, пожалуйста, то же самое по-русски. Вы не должны предполагать, что человек знает хоть одно слово на любом другом языке.--Mstislavl 11:39, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   Вика, то же самое по-русски в моём представлении уже не ru-1 :) Так что позвольте считать Ваш вопрос отдельным от моего. Lvova 17:21, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

   Я могу отвечат по-русский, но меня то не легкое, я писать в X-chat и copy/paste в Фирефох. Я понйел вопрос, не часто, только когда у меня время посмотрим ru wiki и мойе книги я купил в Харькове. Привет! SpeedyGonsales 01:05, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

   Very good! If I were eligible to vote I would definitely vote for you. Unfortunately I do not have enough edits. SA ru 15:13, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

6. Could you please read this statement and tell us what you understood from it? Do you think Wulfson insulted Lvova in this episode? SA ru 15:17, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

   First I have to write disclaimer: from what I have read and understood I can not say anything about Lvova, was she blocked with good reason or not (and fortunately that was not the question), but I can say that user Wulfson uses style (Ах, какая прелесть! - Oh, what joy! or злого Арбкома - evil Arbcomm) which is not appropriate for an administrator or checkuser. If any user breaks Wikipedia rules he should take consequences, but admins should not boast and be judges of people, they should only judge work and writing of other users, and either promote good will and cooperation on Wikipedia, or if needed they have right and obligation to warn users if they break rules and execute penalties for crossing the rules, but without showing that they have personal satisfaction in such work. Maybe that remarks are copy-pasted from some previous conversation, however, they sound ugly to me. SpeedyGonsales 19:13, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

   Actually Wulfson explains in this speech why he blocked Lvova. It was discovered that Lvova'a boyfriend is a vandal at ru.wikipedia.org. They shared the same computer and the same IP. Lvova never did anything wrong, but Wulfson accused her of having a shared account with the boyfriend (no evidence of that). According to Wulfson's statement, when two people leave together, they start to have very common interests and influence each other. Therefore, as a preventive measure, the person who leaves together with a vandal should be blocked. This, however, is just a smoke screen. The real reason for repressions against Lvova is envy. She became a very popular person in ru.wikipedia.org, and she was interviewed several times on the radio. This made a bunch of administrators hate her, and they were looking for a moment to punish her. One of the administrators deleted a page of a blocked user (presumably Lvova's boyfriend's, but may be not) which had many pages linked to it. Lvova restored the page. Then she was accused of a wheel war. That was an excuse. Her sysop flag was taken away, and then appeared Wulfson who blocked her indefinitely. The situation in ru.wikipeia.org is just terrible. I was blocked there a year ago for criticizing too much. Then, to my amazement, their checkusers (:ru:User:Wulfson, :ru:User:Kv75, :ru:User:DR) started to craft falsifications against me: They accused me of having sockpuppets. Of course, none of those intersected with my IP address (and they know my IP address), but they still insisted that they recognized my style (the edits by these sockpuppets were actually completely idiotic). My friend :ru:User:Sereb was banned absolutely for no reasons; he never violated any rules. Then :ru:User:DR investigated his wiki-mail usage and published in Wikipedia the number of letters he sent and the number of correspondents. Can you believe this? Something needs to be done about ru.wikipedia.org. So, please tell you colleagues that they need to study Russian. Otherwise they will be easily fooled by ru.wiki "authorities" regarding the real state of things. SA ru 22:57, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

   What to say? I saw almost all things you write about on other wikipedias, some successfully solved such issues, some not. Problem is that steward is not a judge (although I'm not steward, just a candidate) and never will be, because in that way too much power would be in his/her hands. You and other good willing users have to persevere, because community is always highest authority. Stewards with knowledge of Russian can help observing the situation and taking care that basic principles are not crossed, but actual work is in hands of ru.wikipedia community and it's admins. Wiki system of admins, checkusers, stewards etc is actually oligarchy, good oligarchy is blessing, bad oligarchy is a curse. I am personally going at great lengths to explain new admins importance of not alienating new users, importance of human touch in communication, but people are people. Some users are hard workers, but are simply not capable to handle interpersonal relations smoothly, they are really not eligible to be admins. I will rephrase what somebody wrote in explanation of his vote against me "adminship should not be reward", and sometimes lot of us forget that. Adminship is hard and responsible task, it is not just making new templates, translating messages on Betawiki or putting welcome messages to new user talk pages with bot, it is work with people and only people who are up to this should become admins. Regards SpeedyGonsales 15:56, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

   I agree with you that wiki systems tend to form oligarchies, but I disagree that oligarchies can be good. Why go back to oligarchy when democracy already proved to be a better system? Also, I am not sure that I agree with your statement "Community is always highest authority". What if this is, say, a criminal community? The situation in ru.wiki is pretty bad and it is getting worse, and I doubt that that community alone can resolve all the problems. They did form an oligarchy out of a close circle of people who know each other in person. Nobody can become a sysop or an arbitration committee member unless approved by the oligarchs. All the checkusers are very close friends. These people decide on key issues using off-Wikipedia channels (telephone, e-mail, ICQ, IRC). There is no separation of powers. Typically, the same oligarch is an admin, checkuser and arbiter. There is no control. All critics are immediately blocked. On the positive side, many authors do not care about these power games and simply edit the articles. So, the oligarchy does not really control the accumulation of information or its content. They are mostly concerned of their political games. The most prominent oligarchs do not edit articles at all (10-15% of edits in Wikipedia articles). Remove them all -- nothing will happen. So, it is complicated, but the system works somehow. SA ru 20:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

   We haven't defined community - community comprises of all users of some wikiproject who are eligible for voting - so if voting outcome is let's say over 80% for some decision, that means consensus is reached, and that is democracy. Small community can be criminal, but communities of top maybe 50 Wikipedias can not be criminal simply because they are too big (but that is more philosophical issue :-). Every type of organization needs some kind of ruling, and Wikimedia project has a combination of oligarchy and democracy - admins and other oligarchs are elected from community using best democratic practices, oligarchs rule themselves on small matters (vandals etc), bigger matters solves Arbcomms, and for really big issues whole community is asked to say its opinion (or at least such is my experience). And you got it right, Wikimodel is a resilient one, even bad oligarchy can not totally disrupt system, but can seriously hinder it. And now we come to big issues: what kind of work admins should do, or how to recognize good admin (bureaucrat, checkuser)? I partly answered that above by counting side tasks of admin and saying that admins should work with people, but that is not whole answer. Admin should also from time to time contribute to main namespace (write or edit articles, not +1 byte or -2 bytes, but e.g. +1.000 bytes), and reason is simple - to not lose the touch with users, with community. And what to do if some oligarch is firmly rooted in system and he is corrupting it? Be persistent, write about it on your homewiki, on meta (if you are blocked without reason). If you have right, soon others will align with you, if you are wrong, nobody will listen and you will give up. I am not saying it is easy (dealing with people, especially when they have more power than you is hard), but Wikimedia model of free content enables everybody to say his/hers opinion (at least on talk pages/Village pump), so truth can not be hidden/erased if you are persistent enough. All best! SpeedyGonsales 13:50, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

   Wow! I agree with you 100%. SA ru 14:25, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

7. As a practice in Russian, I highly recommend reading this collective attack letter. By the way, your rival Putnik signed it. And I have another question which is actually relevant to stewardship. Your rival Putnik is a co-founder of a semi-commercial (non-profit, but with salaries to its participants) fund "Wikimedia RU". I am wondering if there is a conflict of interests here. Can a member of a commercial venture that gains revenue from Wikipedia be a steward? Just recently it was discovered that the famous vandal of ru.wiki, ГСБ, actively participated in this venture and organized meetings of the fund co-founders in his apartment. SA ru 14:30, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

   I have read your question two days ago, and I couldn't answer it at once because it is not tightly related to Wikimedia, but to relation between Wikimedia and Wikimedia chapters (where I have not so much experience), but as I'm elected to be the first President of Croatian Chapter 3 weeks ago I feel obliged to say what I think is right here (Putnik is not my rival but one of candidates as we all could be elected for stewards if we all gain enough votes).

   Wikimedia chapters are NGO&NPO (non-government and non-profit organizations), but they have to abide bylaws of Chapter and to laws of country they are founded in. So basically, if founders and members of any chapter abide laws and bylaws, they can manipulate with money as they find fit. Now, you ask for conflict of interest (or morality of it all). Wikipedia can take you only an hour a day, but sometimes (for somebody) it took more than 10 hours a day. Some wikipedians are pupils or students (their parents pay their costs), some are retired, but what of wikipedians in their "best years"? Second, German Chapter made whole farm of servers, I presume you heard of toolservers for statistics etc. That farm cost real money. Are people who put that service available to Wikipedians worldwide entitled to some fee, some recompense for their work (be it of writing letters for getting funds or just system administration of all that computers?)

   I will answer simply: if somebody is providing money for Wikimedia projects, he/she is entitled to recompense, as is written in law of most countries worldwide. But, if somebody is doing something covert, against the law of some country, you can sue him/them.

   But (and this is most important but in this whole answer): in spirit of Wiki good faith and be bold policy: anybody can found its own NGO fund, and although it is ridiculous to have 2 or more opposing Wikichapters in some country, I trust that immoral one (if such exist, which I do not want to judge) will eventualy fail. So except writing on Wikipedia & meta, if you feel compelled enough that something have to be done, you are free to do more for Wiki, as I am doing more in my country. I know that I haven't exactly answered all you have asked for, but commenting above letter is a bit out of scope of questions for candidates for stewards. That talk we could continue on yours or mine talk page, or some other page on meta if you wish. Regards. SpeedyGonsales 21:27, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

   I certainly wish you good luck with Croatian Chapter, and good luck in this election, as well. However, for the future I recommend that you give serious consideration to the issue of the conflict of interest. To give you an example from ru.wikipedia.org, :ru:User:Udacha tried exactly what you suggested: she criticized Russian Wikimedia and wanted to start and alternative foundation. As a retaliation, the other guys (and they are both Chapter owners and Wikipedia sysops) indefinitely blocked her from editing Wikipedia. Isn't that a conflict of interest? SA ru 20:16, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

8. (Generic) I hope I am not late. I would like to know if you have emergency-handling situation. If you become a steward, you have to watch emergency situation such as global disrupt or mass-personal information exposure. If you participate Small Wiki Monitoring task, when reverting specific revision, your reversion may be considered as vandalism by local user. If some users got angry with your steward tasks and you got warned, What will you do first?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:16, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

   It's too late to change outcome of this voting :-), but on Wikimedia projects never is too late to ask. My reaction would depend on my knowledge of language of that wiki/knowledge of languages of user who complains. If we could understand each other, I would try to explain my doing (my work) personally, if not, I would ask relevant person who knows language (local admin or another stewart) for help. Guideline assume good faith over years of my work on Wiki proved to be so basic, words and actions of everybody can be in so many times twisted, and Wiki would become forum/place of constant warring should we lose that guideline from sight. Everybody has right to ask questions, everybody sometimes get tense, but no good admin (bureaucrat/steward) should be unkind on first ball. SpeedyGonsales 09:09, 22 February 2009 (UTC)