Fr33kman
 | There are very few active editors on the Simple English Wikipedia, but there is a huge amount of work to be done to bring the encyclopedia up to scratch! There are pages to edit and create, improper edits such as vandalism to be dealt with, good articles to be created, and many more tasks. It's a small, friendly community of editors (most of whom are admins) working together as a team. If you would like to help out, head on over, or contact me for more information! |
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Welcome message
Hello and welcome to my userpage on Metawiki! My name is fr33kman and I'm an a former administrator on this project and a former steward & former global sysop for the WMF community globally. I was also an administrator, bureaucrat, check user, and an oversighter on the simplewiki. If you need any help or advice please do not hesitate to contact me on my talk page or email me if you would prefer privacy.
My methodology
Basically I feel the following, of course there are always exceptions to the rule. I will strive to treat everyone I have dealings with in a respectful and polite manner. Whilst I may engage in wiki-combat with vandals and sockpuppeteers, I also chat quite friendly to some of them in IRC. My belief is that at the end of every keyboard is a real person. That having been said, I also expect the same in return. Be rude and I'll ignore you. I don't understand vandals and I probably never will. Why any one would decide to vandalize such a great cultural and educational resource such as the Wikimedia Foundation wikis is frankly beyond me.
Admining
I believe that once you get elected an administrator then as long as you remain decently active you should remain one. An admin who has 10 edits in two years, probably is not a good candidate to retain the mop; it's not a medal, it's a job. As for xwiki administration tasks, my attitude is that if there is something that needs done then it doesn't matter who does it, so long as it gets done. I fully agree that non-urgent things can wait and be brought to the local communities attention, but if something is time sensitive, illegal, libellous, etc., then I'm going to act. This may mean I do an emergency admin task on even a large wiki. If you do not wish me to act in this manner simply tell me so and I'll stop.
Discretion
Each bit that we get over time includes the concept of discretion. The holder has the right to either exercise or not their privileges under that flag. As such I may choose to exercise discretion in the use of any of my flags.
Emergency removal of rights
There have been occasions where individuals have had to have their administrative or other rights taken away forcibly. This should be the very last thing used to prevent harm to a project or to prevent the repeated use of oversight or other steward/global sysop/sysop actions. In such cases I believe that a steward can remove the rights of the abuser and then call for a communities input on the action. I have done this twice so far and I hope never to do it again.
Cabals
I belong to one, and only one, "cabal", that being the English Wikipedia MEDCAB (Mediation Cabal)(please note enwiki is not my home wiki). Other than that I'd like to say to the people who believe there are secret cabals that I've never seen any evidence whatsoever that they exist. I've got lots of flags all over the place and my ideas get shot down regually. If I were in a cabal, that wouldn't happen.
IRC
I take part in many IRC channels and always use the nick fr33kman (along with the usual |away, |zzZZ, |dogwalk & variations etcetera). People can just feel free to PM me and I'll talk with vandals, editors or anyone. If you see me in a "WMF" channel then I'm speaking as a steward, if you see me in a non-"WMF" channel I'm speaking solely as an individual. For those who think that secret goings on happen on IRC, they do not. For the most part the channels are public and you can feel free to join them. The private channels are there to ensure the enforcement of and compliance with the privacy policy, and for the most part go unused for hours on end.
Can the leopard change his shorts?
I'd like to think that long-term vandals would someday be allowed to edit again. I don't believe that a person can never change. I'm middle aged and I can assure you that people change a great deal over the years. As such, I'm personally willing to discuss unblocks/unlocks etcetera as long as I am 100% sure the request is genuine. I would usually have to discuss anything of this nature with others.
Blogs
I have a blog but it is nothing to do with WMF and I will not discuss WMF matters there. The only place I will discuss WMF matters is on IRC, via email or onwiki. There are no exceptions to this rule.
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