Stewards/Elections 2019/Questions

The 2019 steward elections are finished. No further votes will be accepted.

←2019 elections

2019 Steward Elections (Questions)

Eligible voters (see application guidelines) can ask questions to all candidates on this page. Please post no more than 2 relevant questions per candidate (in total; ie. all questions a candidate needs to answer are counted), and keep them as concise and relevant as possible. Candidates, please answer as briefly and simply as possible.

For all candidates

Home wikis

• Per the m:Stewards policy, stewards are required to avoid "changing rights on home wikis (wikis where they are active community members), except for clearcut cases (such as self-requested removal or emergencies)." If elected, how would you practice this? What would you consider to be your homewikis? --Rschen7754 01:22, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Thanks Rschen. My internal rule were (and will be) to not perform any steward action on my home wiki, even in clear-cut cases. On home wiki I got some local permissions and I use them, but nothing more. I can surely help other stewards in understanding local policies, etc. For similar question in 2015 I answered In my case, home wikis are plwiki, plwikinews, plwikisource, simplewiki and plwikimedia, but now my understanding is different, I agree with Stryn's answer from then: my homewiki is where my admin buttons are, so in my case plwiki and plwikimedia. I changed this opinion because on simplewiki I did only some vandalism rollback some time ago, plwikinews & wikisources I only knew some users, but didn't participate in that project. einsbor _talk 10:42, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
  • The only time I would modify rights on my homewikis would be if there was a clear case of either an account hijacking or another need for an emergency de-sysop (Daphne Lantier immediately comes to mind). I would not touch self-requested removals as those could be handled by another steward, however in emergency cases I will change rights as needed to protect the integrity of the project against abuse of an administrator account. I consider enwiki and commonswiki to be my home wikis. Jon Kolbert (talk) 22:40, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
  • in it.wiktionary I have a bureaucrat's right and i can use this for promote, for the removal if it isn't an emergency there isn't hurry, like i maded in 13 years, i request it on meta and i wait :) --Wim b 04:12, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I consider German Wikipedia as my homewiki. If an admin wants his rights to be removed, he should go to Steward requests/Permissions. But in my experience, many admins don't know about this (or they don't care) and simply ask a steward from the German community. If they would ask me, I would remove the rights (after the usual 24 hours). If somebody asks for another person's rights to be removed, I would send them to Steward requests/Permissions instead of doing it myself. But of course, in case of an emergency (obviously hijacked account), I would act immediately because a hijacked admin (CU/OS) account could do serious damage (example: they have "noratelimits" and could perform hundreds of reverts/deletions/… in a second). Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 11:03, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Currently, I see all Ukrainian projects, Meta, and Outreachwiki as primary wikis where I will not act. I would still act on Russian Wikipedia and Commons, as I am not tightly involved in the communities, but it would depend on the case at hand. This list not set in stone, for instance I plan to increase my participation on Commons and English Wikisource, and as I do, I will exclude them from my Stewardship green light list. That being said, I might involve myself providing translations or comments where needed, and I would still act in case of emergency. --Base (talk) 16:02, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
  • English Wikipedia is obviously my home wiki and there's enough people to do the occasional emergency work should clear cut cases ever occur. Alex Shih (talk) 12:20, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Like Alex, English Wikipedia is my home wiki and as I expressed in previous questions, I think that enwiki is more than sufficiently able to take care of itself in terms of Steward involvement and I can think of almost no reasons where I could or would reasonably be the only steward able to intervene. This answer also extends to most large projects and not just my "home" wiki. Praxidicae (talk) 18:52, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Personal attacks and harassment

• As a steward, you will be party to the dark side of Wikimedia, including to but not limited to personal attacks. Fortunately those users haven't stopped contributing merely because of this, but not every user will have the strength to do so. What would you do to try to stem such attacks and ensure that users, as far as possible, can edit freely without risking harassment? Leaderboard (talk) 06:06, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
  • That's true, the part of steward's work is connected with the dark side. And it is also true that some people stops to edit after such harassment. To be honest, stewards' possibilities of action are limited. They can (and should) hide the private data so the abuser can't get their private data, they can lock the abuser account, IP, or range of IPs. Basically, stewards can protect the user, can work very fast, they also transfer the fact of abuse to WMF Legal. But stewards are not magicians, they cannot be everywhere and always (but they're trying!). So also, crucial thing is to protect oneself data. I really admire people who are editing under their real name, but personally I'd never do this. I just know, I can manage with people acting like this with my nickname. But I don't want them to know my real name, because the harassment might become real as well. einsbor _talk 11:34, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
  • en:Wikipedia:Revert, block, ignore just about sums up how I address harassment. I would (b)lock the account/IP responsible for the harassment, revert the user and suppress revisions as necessary. Following that, I would take steps to prevent the abuse from happening again (whether it be through abusefilters, rangeblocks etc.) and move on. It is important that we address harassment proactively to maintain a healthy sense of community and retain our contributors. Jon Kolbert (talk) 23:14, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I have been insulted in all ways on *wiki, from registered an user "Wim b son of a b***h" (without the "***") until "I will rape your newborn daughter to death". At 15 years old you can get angry, when you grow up you can take action without responding to provocations. --Wim b 04:12, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Harassment (or more generally: personal attacks) is probably one of our biggest problems. People leave us or don't even come aboard because of this. Mostly, harassment is confined to one single wiki and is therefore to be dealt with by local admins/local community. In case of cross-wiki harassment stewards have to act. I would try to give victims as much support as I could. Stewards have some nice tools like global (b)locks, range blocks etc., but as Einsbor said, they are no magicians :-(
    Ordinary trolls shouldn't be pampered with too much attention, as Jon said: RBI.
    Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 11:24, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Over my time in Wikimedia movement I am used to personal attacks, insults, and even threats directed at me. It does distress me, but I am here, and I have no intention to go. What I will do would depend on where that would happen. If it is on another wiki then I will let the local community manage it, I might notify administrators if I deem possible, and Support and Safety team in case things look especially unpleasant. If it is an event on Meta and directed at someone else, I will act under my local admin hat, and I would ask colleagues to intervene via RFH or off wiki if I am the target. --Base (talk) 16:10, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
  • I have dealt extensively with harassment, stalking and abuse of myself and other editors both on my homewiki and a dozen or more other projects, ranging from garden variety trolls to highly abusive LTAs who have outed me, threatened my life and continue to do so. I consider it an unfortunate and predictable part of editorship and part of my goal with Stewardship will be to work with the Wikimedia Foundation and all communities to help combat and develop new tools and methods of dealing with this very thing. I have also worked with WMF, functionaries and law enforcement in a few particularly nasty cases of abuse, which for obvious reasons I cannot detail more than this but I hope to be able to assist further should the community grant me these rights. Praxidicae (talk) 18:42, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Oversight

• When would you oversight rather than merely revision-delete some content? What, in your opinion, constitutes content which is of a level which even administrators cannot be trusted to take care of? (You may ignore technical considerations, like hiding users, in your answer) Leaderboard (talk) 06:06, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I think it is not a matter of trust for admins. Usage of oversight tool is specified quite strictly in oversight policy and it can be used only in these cases. In uncertain cases oversighters/stewards consult each other, to be sure not to violate the rules. It must be stressed that the tool has been developed to hide private data, that is the clue of usage. Stewards are aware of possible consequences of such reveal, so they know hide is important and useful. On the other hand, the control of usage is limited, we can see in meta logs granting the permission, so we know that something was hidden. Only a few people can view it, that's why trust for people who carry the flag is crucial. einsbor _talk 13:16, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
  • The oversight policy is very explicit in describing which situations the tool is to be used. As an administrator I have used revdel and subsequently contacted oversight for suppression of sensitive content. I find that it is less about the trust level of administrators, but rather about the sensitivity of the private information that is deemed suppressible. As access is limited, it is important that this tool be used within its limited scope and if in doubt I will confer with other stewards to decide on the appropriate action. Jon Kolbert (talk) 23:22, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I will not say anything new here. OS policy regulates this very well and it is not whether I personally think that admins may see some content or not, but whether the policy allows that or not. There might be edge cases, such as which nickname might be personally identifiable, I will use the best of my judgement for those. --Base (talk) 01:49, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
  • We have a policy for this. I'd say that #1 is the most important reason to oversight something. When it comes to private data, even admins should not be able to see it, there are (often) too many of them. If private information is leaked to the web, it's sometimes very difficult to get all of it deleted. And especially for LTAs found private data is a kind of a birthday present which could be used for years and years. Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 22:07, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Oversight is not really a matter of local trust in this context, but of policy. Outing, non-public personally identifiable information, threats of violence and obscene or grossly degrading personal attacks are all content which could require oversight. I would, of course, prefer to defer to local functionaries where available unless it would otherwise require me to act. Praxidicae (talk) 19:10, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Denying recognition

• To what extent do you believe en:WP:DENY should be observed in steward actions? Vermont (talk) 10:54, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I think that do not feed the trolls is a universal rule for all Wikimedians, especially for admins. After some time dealing with trolls and vandalism not feeding become a habit. Huge part of steward work is dealing with such activity, so they should always keep this rule in mind. On the other hand, stewards are cool-headed and don't act under emotions, so it's easier not to be drawn into an unnecessary discussion with trolls. The most important thing is to keep distance and remember to not discuss with trolls. einsbor _talk 15:00, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Similar to the above question about harassment, the approach I would take is to address the immediate issue, take steps to prevent it from happening again and then simply move on. Jon Kolbert (talk) 23:29, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
  • like above: I can take action without responding to provocations. A troll as only goal has to disturb, a first time I try to talk with he, but if I realize that it is a troll, it becomes useless to do it--Wim b 04:12, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I would be careful with this one. I agree with the general notion, it is best to deal with vandalism without creating infamy for individuals. Some LTAs already have infamy and we should not nourish it. But as it goes, Stewards might have to deal with someone already dubbed a troll by someone, for example Wikipedians can characterise a sister project admin candidate as one. Branding someone a troll is a way to silence, and then remove out of further collaboration by argumentum ad hominem. I will try to use my own judgement rather than one presented me on golden platter wherever I can. This does not mean I would tolerate genuine lack of good faith. --Base (talk) 02:01, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Do not feed trolls is indeed a universal rule. Sometimes it's necessary to collect account names, IP (ranges) or their habits so that somebody who is not familiar with them has some advice how to recognise them/deal with them. But generally, we should give them as less attention as possible and as much as needed. Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 22:15, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Deny applies to serial abusers and garden variety trolls (think 12 year olds who think "poop" is funny and blanking articles is comedic gold) I don't think there are any real exceptions to that on-wikimedia projects nor any reason not to ignore, stop and clean up the disruption. If it is an issue which would require T&S or Emergency involvement, I would handle that privately while still denying them publicly. If we're talking a somewhat well meaning but misguided editor who is lacking the forethought or understanding of the scope of Wikimedia projects, I would attempt to explain to them what the issues are and how they should be addressed. Praxidicae (talk) 19:15, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Checkuser on zhwiki

• Since 1 Apr 2018, WMF had via Office Action removed Checkuser Access from Chinese Wikipedia, subsequently, all requests are handled at SRCU. If you just take a look at the archives of SRCU from Apr 18, there are a lot of requests and some existing stewards are reportedly burned out by handling it. Going forward, given that T&S is unlikely to complete the investigation soon, what can be improved on handling of CU requests from the Chinese Community to ensure prompt, efficient replies are given in a manageable and sustainable manner. Thanks for willingness to serve. --Cohaf (talk) 02:44, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Thank you for this question. This is indeed a difficult situation for both sides: zhwiki and stewards. Zhwiki editors have to ask on meta for CU and wait; stewards have to verify if CU is needed and allowed by the policy and if the reason for the request is valid. It's getting more complicated since none of the stewards speak the local language (neither do I) and it costs time. It's a lot of work to do and it might be aggravating when done very often. What I saw in logs, checks have been made about 80 times since April 2018. What could improve this process? Well, the optimal solution is to increase the number of people able to perform CU there, but we cannot grant the flag now. In that case a thing that I call soft CU becomes more more important: observing users behaviour, edits pattern, etc. To be honest, both ways (soft CU and actual using of CU tool) can be tricked if a person knows how to do it. But but back to the question, WMF was aware of possible consequences and I think that stewards are doing their best in handing this requests. It's also impossible to grant temporary CU access, so it seems that current situation persist. einsbor _talk 11:04, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Zhwiki checkuser requests have made up a significant portion of the requests seen at Steward requests/Checkuser. As noted in the question, it does not appear that the investigation is going to be complete soon so stewards will handle the requests for the foreseeable future. In order to have requests handled in a timely and sustainable manner, I think it is important to do what we can to prevent burnout of stewards; personally I put a lot of importance of self-care to be able to manage stress and prevent fatigue. Through respecting one's own limits and continuous collaboration with the zhwiki community, I will be able to handle my share of the workload to help serve the needs of the community. Jon Kolbert (talk) 12:32, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I promise help, but I do not promise a relief, unfortunately. As my level of command of Mandarin is mildly speaking poor, it would be challenging to evaluate the requests against the Checkuser Policy. But as it is the case for everyone I am prepared for my share of requests to manage. --Base (talk) 01:40, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Unfortunately I do not have a good answer for this, though I wish I did. The language is one that is very difficult with a high error rate in translation for people like me who have no ability to understand it and for that reason I would not involve myself with this matter. Praxidicae (talk) 19:25, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
  • I don't know the reasons about the removal of CU access @zhWP and especially why new Checkuser permissions will not be granted soon (but surely there are serious reasons). I never had CU access anywhere, this tool would be completely new for me. But I do not act precipitately and jump headlong in uncharted waters, hence, I won't make any promises. But I would try to take a share at SRCU. Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 22:45, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Unlocking an abuser

• Let's say, a globally locked (he was locked with the reason "cross-wiki abuse".) user asks to be unlocked. They say they will behave if their account is unlocked. You have no detailed information about the lock itself, and the lock was performed by former steward who is no longer around Wikimedia at all. What would you do in this case? — regards, Revi 12:35, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I'd look for information. "cross-wiki abuse" means that on some wikis should be any trace of they activity, maybe there is something on steward wiki or CU wiki? I can always ask other stewards on mailing list about that case or their opinion. After such research I think I got enough informations to make decision. einsbor _talk 13:24, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I would advise them to contact the stewards through Special:Contact/Stewards. Following that I would help out my colleagues by investigating a bit to see what I can find out about the situation. The first step would be to see if there were any edits or records in the abuse log. It may also be useful to check if locks from that similar time period could be relevant to explain why the account was locked (and if they were possibly related). Lastly, I would relay the information to the other stewards and they could also add what they know to the discussion before we come to a decision. Jon Kolbert (talk) 12:40, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
  • When I patrol on wiki, i always have IRC open, in case of doubt I talk with other Wikimedians, if the "ex-steward" is no longer around Wikimedia, maybe an other user know the past behavior of "cross-wiki abuser" , otherwise I will ask those with more experience. --Wim b 04:12, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
  • If the reason for the lock isn't obvious, I'd ask people ((former) stewards/(former) local admins/…) for some input. A lock does not happen all of a sudden, there must be traces and hints. Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 22:40, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Nothing on the internet is every really deleted really applies here. I would ask other Stewards or administrators who originally blocked the account, prior to the lock, for more information and then assess it based on that and the input of my colleagues. Praxidicae (talk) 19:34, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
  • It depends on many circumstances. The problem implies the lock is an old one. I will look into this closer, normally some traces of the abusive actions remain visible, besides there might be notes on private wikis. Fellow stewards from that time also might supply useful background information. I will try to compare what was going on with what motives user will voice now. I do not believe locks are necessary to be life long, people mature, get lifegoals changed and such. If I feel like it might be a good idea to lift the lock, I am most likely to present the case to other stewards to verify my judgement. Of course, if it was a global ban, then I will open an RfC as per the policy. --Base (talk) 02:38, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Criticism of Wikipedia

• I saw this question in en.wiki's Arbcom election this year, and I think it is an excellent question for that position as well as this one, so I'm stealing it. There are a number of off-wiki venues for criticism of Wikipedia content, policy, processes, and participants. Sites such as Wikipediocracy, Reddit, and others. Do you read content or participate by writing at any of these venues? If so, which? Do you feel that such sites have positive value in identifying and correcting such problems and abuses that emerge at Wikipedia or do you feel that such sites are wholly negative in essence, without redeeming value? If you feel comfortable, would you mind sharing your username? SQL^{Query me!} 00:55, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Interesting question, indeed. I know the Wikipedia is widely critisized, sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly. But I do not read such things. I have never written any off-wiki critisism, since I think it would be just a waste of my time that I can spend more efficiently by improving the Wiki-content quality. I also think, that one cannot easly say that off-wiki critique is just positive or just negative. If one person after reading the critique goes to Wiki to help - this is a positive input. But there is also negative side: after posting some vandalism on facebook or other social media, many people want to do the same thing, just to see if they can. The other thing is that we shouldn't care about everything that is written in Internet, there will always be some critique. Generally, I am aware of the phenomenon, but will read it only when I get informations that there might be some harassment or privacy violations. einsbor _talk 08:23, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
  • While I am aware of these sites and forums, I have not read or participated at them. I am sure there are many valid criticisms and also many that are not well supported. I find the issue arises when a small subset of users or former users are the only ones participating in the conversation, in contrast to a more open and visible dialogue to amend policy and practices as needed on the project. Having not visited the sites specifically, I would say that in general, having external sites or groups to help keep an organization or project accountable can be beneficial if done in a way that does not threaten or otherwise endanger/intimidate users. Jon Kolbert (talk) 18:29, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I know there are these types of sites but i do not read them because they do not interest me. Can they be useful to improve the things? maybe, but I think that those who want to improve things can to do it "here" (step by step: local administrator, steward, WMF), if he prefers search that sites and go immediately to complain in a monothematic site full of rancorous people , probably he just want criticize, and this don't improve anything. --Wim b 04:12, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I used to read a bit of Wikireality (Викиреальность), a Russian wiki of the sorts focused on ruwiki issues mostly with some content about ukwiki as well, but I do not anymore. As to English Wikipedia centred venues, I do not follow any. For this reason, I would abstain from commenting how I feel about them, because it requires getting acquainted with them closer and seeing in what tone they present the things. --Base (talk) 01:50, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I don't know any of the mentioned websites except Reddit, and I read none of these. Maybe they could be (sometimes) worthwhile to read, but since a day consists of 24 hours only … Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 22:48, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
  • I find a lot of these criticism forums good as a reference point. I don't find them useful in terms of identifying or correcting problems, rather than affirming problems that people are already aware of. Alex Shih (talk) 12:20, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
  • I've read a few of the forums but I'm not a habitual reader and I'm sure there is some valid criticism but I just am generally not interested in participating or reading those websites. Praxidicae (talk) 19:34, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Availability

• My last question, I know my limit is up. What are the timezones you are available typically. Thanks.--Cohaf (talk) 03:27, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I am generally in UTC-05:00 in Canada. My on-wiki activity varies based on my off-wiki commitments which can vary significantly week by week. Jon Kolbert (talk) 03:39, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I live in Italy (UTC+1), but I don't have a set time: for exemple, now in Italy are the ~5:40 AM, yesterday morning I edited at ~11:30 AM and 28 january I edited from ~15:00 to ~23:59 --Wim b 04:38, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I edit from Poland (UTC+1), I'm available most of the day. einsbor _talk 07:20, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I edit from Ukraine (UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer). On weekdays, I am at work at business hours, though ofttimes I check my watchlist once an hour or so. On the other hand, as evident from me writing this at 3:45 AM, I am a night owl, and I am usually free on weekends throughout the whole day. --Base (talk) 01:50, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
  • My time zone is UTC+1. Usually I'm online between 16:00 and 24:00. Here is a time card for my contribs @deWP. Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 22:59, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Here is my time card. I'm usually most active on-wiki between UTC 10:00 - 22:00 but I am connect to IRC 24/7 and am usually responsive to pings. Praxidicae (talk) 19:42, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Compromised accounts

• You will probably be aware of a number of high-profile vandalism attacks on principal wikis, which required immediate attention from stewards. Are you able to quickly and easily identify when it is of paramount importance to take action against an account, no matter how good standing it is in and how many privileges it may hold? Ritchie333 (talk) 17:43, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
  • To be honest, one cannot say precisely how will s/he behave in some situation prior to that situation actually occurring. It won't be a problem for me to grant myself OS permission on (for example) Commons in an emergency situation when no local oversighter is available and I will for sure inform the local OS team about this action, but I would probably consider longer emergency desysop. I think I would rather glock that account, especially when it is holding some flags on a few projects. einsbor _talk 20:31, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
  • The reputation of a user becomes irrelevant the moment their account is compromised - no one is immune. Unauthorized access to an account (particularly one with elevated privileges) poses a significant risk to the integrity of the project and should be promptly addressed by the available steward(s) by a global lock and potentially additional measures if multiple accounts are affected. It is essential for stewards to be able to identify and interpret evidence which may indicate an account has been compromised. A global lock can easily be removed once Trust and Safety has helped secure access back to the correct individual. Jon Kolbert (talk) 01:51, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
  • I'm not impressed by edit counts or large collections of user rights. If an account seems to be compromised, it has to be stopped. A basic feature of MediaWiki is, that almost everything is reversible. Even a lock. Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 23:19, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
  • I am. Motives of hackers make the edits stand out too much, and I can always consult colleagues when in doubt. --Base (talk) 03:05, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
  • if an account does “strange things”, it must be stopped, compromised or not. If was compromised when the problems are fixed, is possible revert at the previous state and, in my opinion, independently to the account’s privileges. Some cases will easy, other will must be discuss with a expert user(s). --Wim b 05:01, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
  • A compromised account is a compromised account and the good faith contributions of it's original owner are irrelevant and accounts with advanced permissions that are compromised are even more problematic. A lock is reversible and while it may not look great when looking at someone's centralAuth, it is necessary to prevent damage to the project. A compromised account doesn't say anything about the original user other than perhaps they need to reconsider the security of their password. Praxidicae (talk) 14:13, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Undisclosed Paid Editing

Case study

• You receive a wiki-email from an user (whom you have not personally communicated with earlier but seems to be in longstanding in a major wiki) about some sysop (User:AbradaCabra), indulging in UPE (Undiclosed Paid Editing) practices, over a Wikipedia project. The sysop has not outed himself and there's nothing on wiki associating him with any RL persona. The email evidence consists of a bunch of links to external sites, (all of which feature a part. client Mr. XYZ accepting jobs about polishing up a random Wikipedia article/removing criticism/creating them) and soon after the adverts are accepted, those articles get magically edited by User:AbradaCabra. The mailer thus synthesizes to claim that thus, User AbradaCabra == Mr XYZ and he is indulging in UPE.
• Additional facts:--(1) A certain User:UPEISBAD had raised concerns over AbradaCabra's t/p about his editing months back, but he had rejected such accusations. The same happened days back with User:Abradacabra, raising issues with him. (2) There has been no community-discussion on the issue, till now and User:AbradaCabra has claimed an inability to do so, courtesy language-problems. (3) There does not exist any local arbcom.

Questions

• Describe you entire workflow and how will you proceed, after receiving the email.
• How willing are you, to deal with these type of TOU-violations?
• Do you believe that violation of TOU (for a long span of time) is incompatible with advanced permissions over any project? Shall they merit a global ban; if found to be intentionally violated?

Thanks for you time:-)Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 07:59, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

• • Thank you for this question. I probably will not be original in my answer, but this case is not for one person. So the first thing would be to forward the mail to stewards' mailing list and starting a discussion there. Probably at some point of the discussion WMF stuff will be informed. What kind of action will be taken? I don't know, it will be a common decision. It could be a global ban, it could be desysoping (as Office Action). According to your more general question: Global bans policy says it supports banning users violating either the terms themselves. I think that violating TOU is incompatible with not only advanced permissions, but also with the most important one: edit. Am I willing to deal with it? As mentioned, I don't think it should be one person decisions, but I am willing to participate in discussion and enforce the consensus. einsbor _talk 10:14, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
    • Thank you for your reply. In light of your reply, the last 3 of my questions (to you specifically):- (1) Does anybody working over any Wikimedia project needs to disclose PE? (2) If you deem the reply to the previous question in negative, can you list a situation where no disclosure is warranted and (2) what actions would you advocate for in the steward-discussions?Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 11:44, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
      • Ad 1. According to ToU: you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation - what for me means that every single person that is paid for edits is to inform about that. In ToU there are also three possible ways to do so. As said there (click) each project can adopt own policy. We've got also a help page for PE (here). And it says If you wish to avoid the disclosure requirement of this provision, you should abstain from receiving compensation for your edits.

Ad2. N/A

Ad3. I would say that this is not a matter for stewards, but for WMF. Stewards are not a kind of global ArbCom, they got some global rights to act as advanced rights holders in projects without such users. What's more, stewards cannot just desysop User:AbraCadabra if there is not local decision to do so. Without community decision, desysop might be performed only in emergency (and it's not our case), or by WMF by Office Action. Since in you question you marked an assumption: "User:AbraCadabra = Mr.XYZ" probably Ombudsman commission might be involved as well, but it's above stewards' discussion. einsbor _talk 12:19, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your time. The question does not assume the two to be same (as a given fact) but rather the hypothetical emailer assumes so.Best of luck, Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 12:33, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

• • I'm going to apologize ahead of time for not answering the multiple questions here as it's just far too long to do so while remaining concise. The long story short is that while this is a TOU violation, I don't believe this is a matter in general for Stewards as it's primarily a content type dispute and I believe each community needs to assess the situation and determine the outcome based on their own policies and consensus. Praxidicae (talk) 14:04, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Nothing to apologize for, at any case. TOU violation but content dispute; interesting perspective. Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 14:51, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

I also meant to add that the lack of an arbcom in any community is irrelevant to Stewards as they cannot act as a global arbitration committee. Praxidicae (talk) 14:17, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

If this en/de; you would have have (probably) just asked the emailer to forward the evidence to the ArbCom and/or functionaries.Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 14:51, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Part of your statement/question specifically said There does not exist any local arbcom. which is what prompted the second half of my response above. Praxidicae (talk) 15:05, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

• As a currently steward, I would like to note that this question is totally incomprehensible to me in its wordings. I had to guess what this mystical abbreviation "UPE" might mean. Having done so, I say that dealing with such "UPE" stuff is totally out of scope for stewards. Also, it's rather impolite to ask three questions under the guise of one, when the top of this page asks that everyone won't ask more than 2 relevant questions per candidate. --MF-W 14:13, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

• You opinions are noted.Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 14:51, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

@Winged Blades of Godric: Would you be able to clarify a few details about the scenario?

1. Is the original complainant from the same wiki as the alleged UPE edits from "AbradaCabra" are originating?
2. UPEISBAD accused AbradaCabra of paid editing and vice-versa. Is this correct? Is UPEISBAD the original complainant or a different user?
3. "There has been no community-discussion on the issue, till now" is there a separate community discussion going on other than the talk page messages? Are other parties participating? Where is this happening, on meta or with the local community?

Thank you for the question, and with these clarifications I look forward to answering. Regards, Jon Kolbert (talk) 21:43, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Absolutely and apologies for being hazy or unclear. (1) No, the emailer and the accused are from a different wiki. Additionally, he understands the language of the accused's wiki at an intermediate to good level but writing in it is a tough task for him. (2) Yes, it is correct. UPEISBAD is a different user; who belonged to the same wiki of the accused but is very sparingly active (and, (if relevant), is not any admin/bcrat or any elevated user, as such over there). (3) No, the small community of active editors seem to be unaware of the issue, as inferred from the lack of any public discussion. Further, the emailer believes that he might be accused of flagrantly violating outing policies, if he chooses to make them aware by a public post over some venue like their village pump/AN. He does not have a clue about whether the other editors of that wiki might have ever discussed the accused in any off-wiki form. Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 13:16, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

As this situation deals with the potential identity of an editor who has not even so much as eluded to their real-life identity, the proper handling is critical to protect our editors. I would inform the other stewards of the situation and claims and start a conversation on a possible course of action. A public discussion carries a high-risk of outing and could be a violation of the Terms of Use in itself.

My personal suggestion to the team would be to reach out to WMF to see if there is anything they can do from their end. A community-imposed global ban would be inappropriate as per the personal information involved and as stewards cannot unilaterally impose a ban the outcome could be whether WMF decides to implement a WMF-Global ban based on the investigation.

I am very willing to address these types of concerns and other potential Terms of Use violations. Long-term or repeated violations of the Terms of Use are incompatible with editing, period. If an editor is intentionally violating the Terms of Use, a global ban may indeed be very well-warranted.

Thanks again for the question. Jon Kolbert (talk) 13:55, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

• Is this steward's business? Not sure about this. Is it a cross-wiki issue because the complainant is from Wiki A and the accused user from Wiki B? I don't think so … Should somebody have admin rights who has done undisclosed paid editing? No. Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 22:09, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

When, if ever, may a steward reverse a decision that was made by a local admin?

In your opinion, is it ever permissible for a steward to reverse a decision that was made by a local admin, and if yes then what criteria should be required for a steward to reverse the decision of a local admin? Please explain how you reached your opinion and please provide examples of decisions by local admins that you think that stewards are allowed to reverse. --Pine^✉ 06:12, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Stewards generally should not be reversing actions made by local admins. The only exception that comes to my mind is in the case of a compromised account, admin-turned vandal or other emergency that requires immediate intervention. @Pine: (apologies for the delay, I just noticed the additional questions in "All candidates") Jon Kolbert (talk) 23:33, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

• • As I already said: stewards are not a kind of global ArbCom. So it is not a stewards scope of responsibility to proofread decisions made by local admin. The problem begins if an local admin beahaves as owner of the project (danger on small projects). They can block users whose only crime was disagreeing with the admin. In such a situation I would still not act (unblock the user), I'd rather begin an RfC on Meta so all interested users can voice their opinion. I'd rollback admins' actions in case of compromised account. einsbor _talk 09:15, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

• Aside from the mentioned emergency cases I could not imagine a situation where a steward should override a local admin's decision. Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 15:13, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

When, if ever, may a steward reverse a decision that was made by a local consensus?

In your opinion, is it ever permissible for a steward to reverse a decision that was made by a local consensus, and if yes then what criteria should be required for a steward to reverse the decision that was made by a local consensus? Please explain how you reached your opinion and please provide examples of decisions by local consensus that you think that stewards are allowed to reverse. --Pine^✉ 06:12, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

It is never acceptable for a steward to veto community consensus. Stewards are responsible for implementing consensus; actions taken by stewards should reflect the will of the community. Jon Kolbert (talk) 23:33, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

• • According to Stewards policy: Stewards should not override consensus. I can imagine one situation in which stewards will not implement local community consensus: if there is a contradiction between the consensus and the global policy. Example? a local community elects only one CU and asks for permission for them. The local community might be completelly coherent, but the flag will not be granted due to CU global policy. This is also connected with mentioned stewards policy, which says: . Their task is to implement valid community consensus within the bounds of the Foundation's goals. If there are any doubts as to whether or not an action should be performed, stewards should not act (...) einsbor _talk 09:15, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

• A violation of a global ban that is tolerated by local consensus came to my mind. But: A steward would not block the account locally, instead he would lock it globally. Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 15:13, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Per candidate

Alex Shih

This user has withdrawn his candidature.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
You were elected to the enwiki ArbCom in 2018, but left after 8 months. Can you explain why? Natureium (talk) 23:13, 27 January 2019 (UTC) I would love to explain in detail but I am not sure if I am allowed to. It comes down down to personal reasons and incompatibility with the bureaucratic structure. When I ran for the committee, I did mention that if I cannot initiate some sort of reform, there would be no point to stay. In the context of stewardship, little of that will be applicable here I think. Alex Shih (talk) 07:24, 4 February 2019 (UTC) In 2018, you made some comments about a enwiki CU/OS candidate that some could say were casting aspersions: [1] Subsequently, a current steward wrote about you at this discussion: [2] You lorded it over us when you got elected to ArbCom, and now you're attempting to continue - I don't like that, and I dare say a majority of the community would agree. I rarely lose my cool on this bloody website, and the number of editors who get under my skin fits on one hand - those who crash around causing drama for the sake of it are at the top of my list. Do you think that these comments were valid, or would you disagree with them? --Rschen7754 23:53, 27 January 2019 (UTC) Context is crucial, and I don't think I have much to elaborate without them, other than the validity of this comment speaks for itself. As you know, TNT later made a reflection at a post I made in which you have commented. Alex Shih (talk) 07:24, 4 February 2019 (UTC) I have written about my experiences as a steward, including my views on collaboration among stewards, here. Do you agree or disagree with these views? How would you practice such collaboration with other stewards and Wikimedia functionaries - including with TonyBalioni as an enwiki CU, or There'sNoTime should they choose to run for confirmation (which they have not, as of this writing) and are subsequently confirmed? --Rschen7754 23:53, 27 January 2019 (UTC) I generally agree with your views. I have had positive collaboration with several stewards and functionaries from different language projects (mostly zhwiki and jawiki to deal with cross wiki abuse), and it always involve keeping things simple, being respectful and try to achieve the fair outcome instead of what you think needs to be done. I don't think I will have much overlap with these two editors that you mentioned, but I have had positive working experience with both of them in the past using the same approach I described, even though I disagreed with many of their views, so that should answer the question. Alex Shih (talk) 07:24, 4 February 2019 (UTC) @Rschen7754:TNT has choosen to run for confirmation, you might wish to update your question. Regards, --Cohaf (talk) 16:23, 3 February 2019 (UTC) It doesn't really matter to the question since they decided to run. @Alex Shih: --Rschen7754 19:31, 3 February 2019 (UTC) True. I've been dealing with some personal issues, I will take some time now to answer the questions. Alex Shih (talk) 06:46, 4 February 2019 (UTC) You don't appear to have a particularly large amount of cross-wiki work. Is there anything in particular that may compensate for that? Hiàn (talk) 04:01, 28 January 2019 (UTC) That's a fair question, Hiàn. I don't think I have much to compensate other than being specialised in dealing with cross wiki abuse that spans from zhwiki to enwiki and jawiki as I speak both Chinese and Japanese. There aren't many stewards other than revi and rxy that frequently deals with this area, so this is something that I can see myself being useful at. Alex Shih (talk) 07:24, 4 February 2019 (UTC) Your behaviour at [3] raised significant concerns (not just with myself, but several others) and can charitably be described as unduly hostile to There'sNoTime and several others. Do you think you can work as part of a team sufficiently well to work effectively as a Steward, and do you think your temperament is suited to this role - if so, why ? Nick (talk) 15:30, 28 January 2019 (UTC) Since you have already suggested an answer, I will let both the entirety of that arbitration request and my personal record to speak for itself. Thanks, Alex Shih (talk) 07:24, 4 February 2019 (UTC) This is a wholly unsatisfactory non-response, in fact, my question is rendered considerably more important in light of your claim that you left the Arbitration Committee because of an "incompatibility with the bureaucratic structure" which makes it vital you fully explain why you think you can work as part of a team sufficiently well to work effectively as a Steward, and why you think your temperament is suited to this role. Nick (talk) 10:02, 4 February 2019 (UTC) Nick, you have already answered your own question about "my temperament" here ([4]), a comment that has been struck out and a comment in which you have received warning for ([5]). So there is no point for me to answer something in which you have already made up your mind. For the record, I have always responded positively when people that I disagree with reach out in good faith ([6]), an example of dialogue rather than personalising of disputes or pursuing/assumption of vendettas. Cheers, Alex Shih (talk) 11:55, 4 February 2019 (UTC) Thank you for your willingness to put forward your candidacy. I am glad to have a Chinese Speaking Steward. Can I know more of your understanding of the Chinese Community given that till date you only have 227 edits on Chinese Wikipedia and no edits on other projects. Can you briefly summarize what are the key challenges facing the Chinese Wikipedia community now and can you response to my queries here and reply here. Thanks a lot and appreciate your desire to help the Chinese Community. Regards,--Cohaf (talk) 16:59, 29 January 2019 (UTC) Thanks Cohaf, it's always nice working with you. I do have some edits in the Commons and Japanese Wikipedia, although that is irrelevant to your question. The main challenge that the Chinese Wikipedia is facing as I understand is how politicized the community is. Similar to other large language projects like the English and German Wikipedia, editors are quick to form their own groups and disputes are quick to escalate into open hostilities. Out of the 76 administrators, it appears that only a few of them are dedicated to the tedious task of tracking down LTA, and most of the work are done by ordinary but active and advanced users like yourself. A lot of the factual errors, promotional or politicised edits introduced by these LTA often go unnoticed, and they are difficult to stop given the current situation. I think this partially answers your first query; to finish the rest of my thought, recently I have commented over at zhwiki that unblock requests that does not even attempt to address the blocking reason should be declined, which is the common practice for enwiki. I think this is a reasonable first step to reduce the number of SRCU requests given the current situation of having no CUs in zhwiki. As for your second query, I am not sure what to say other than that I may have the English Wikipedia mindset which tends to block accounts that are not here to contribute to the encyclopedia and accounts that seem to be using Wikipedia as a web hosting service. I notice that in zhwiki WT:HTBAE is not a policy nor guideline, and WP:NOT is not as aggressively enforced as in enwiki, so I think this answers the question. Alex Shih (talk) 08:03, 4 February 2019 (UTC) Thanks Alex Shih for the lengthy answer. Yes, it's good working with you mostly from what I recall. I'll give my thoughts on your replies when voting starts, as I don't think this is the appropriate forum for discussion. Anyway, appreciate your response, and I note that it is in length, and thanks for the willingness to serve. Note: I am still thinking about my vote, the above is neither an endorsement nor opposition to Alex Candidacy. Cohaf (talk) 08:11, 4 February 2019 (UTC) caveat added on 11:41, 4 February 2019 (UTC) Following on from Cohaf's question, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on and your understanding of the existing zh.wp checkuser situation and how you would handle zh.wp checkuser requests in line with the zh.wp checkuser issue. Nick (talk) 18:36, 29 January 2019 (UTC) @Nick:, this reply is not on behalf of the current running user or whatever, but just an opinion of a user who is somehow active at zh.wp and en.wp who oversees (or whatever you call) and help process current zh local requests before bringing it into SRCU. The existing zhwp checkuser situation is not a direct result of one or some checkers but an intention for the foundation to exert its rights on the current (at that time, Mar 30 2018) situation within the community. There were unintended leak of cuwiki information which, directly points that the leak is from zhwp checkers. This breach of Confidentiality Agreement and events thereafter have forced the foundation to take action to remove the rights of zhwp original checkuser. At the same time, the foundation have also foundation blocked two users at the zhwp (check here for the list). These actions does not only signifies local issues, but also shows that one simple problem you see is actually a tip of the iceberg of the current problems within zhwp.--1233 | Questions?| This message is left by him at 01:20, 30 January 2019 (UTC) "not your average steward candidate": Justify that statement. Leaderboard (talk) 00:38, 2 February 2019 (UTC) As Hiàn noted above, I don't have a large amount of cross wiki work in terms of volume. I would note that what I can offer (Chinese speaking, first hand experience dealing with cross wiki abuse originating from zhwiki) is something that the steward team currently lacks, which is the main reason why I am running. I also do have experience as a former functionary in enwiki and former OTRS agent (having helped both Chinese and Japanese users in Commons as well in their language), so I am happy to answer about my understanding of potential situations involving the project as I don't have much actual cross wiki work to reflect them. Alex Shih (talk) 08:03, 4 February 2019 (UTC) Can you elaborate on your "incompatibility with the bureaucratic structure" of the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee? Nihlus 20:01, 4 February 2019 (UTC) Since I'm the one who submitted the relevant Ombudsman Commission report prior to Alex resigning from the Arbitration Committee, I am not bound by the confidentiality agreement regarding discussing its existence or some of its contents, to the extent the information did not come to me through private lists or my use of the CheckUser log. As such, I'm happy to free Alex up to talk about it, since the access to nonpublic information policy allows anyone to talk about information disclosed through no violation of their own. I suppose I should do that in the form of questions? Could you comment on the Ombudsman Commission report submitted about your conduct as a CheckUser and arbitrator prior to your resignation, which detailed five instances of apparent misuse of CheckUser and/or inappropriate disclosure of non-public information? Specifically, how does this relate to your seeking another role with access to sensitive user data, including CheckUser data? There is one instance on the report I can go into specifics on, since it is publicly logged. Do you still consider it appropriate to check a new editor based primarily on their oppose of an RfA that you nominated and vigorously defended, as you did when you CU blocked en:User:Nobody's Keeper (discovered to be en:User:TheGracefulSlick, later banned)? If so, how does this comply with the global CU policy, which prohibits using the tool "to exert political or social control", and enwiki's policy on administrative involvement at en:WP:INVOLVED? To add a bit more information for the community, this Ombudsman Commission report was signed by four separate enwiki functionaries. I made the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee aware of it after it had been sent in August 2018. Please understand that I cannot comment publicly on specifics of the other instances laid out in the report, because the rest of the information in the report came to me by way of private lists and would necessarily include private user data. If anyone with access to CheckUser on any project wishes to know more, I can disclose additional information privately. I also cannot comment on internal Committee discussions related to the Ombudsman Commission report. I am disclosing absolutely everything that I am able to, based on my reading of the access to nonpublic information policy. I appreciate your understanding of the limits imposed on me by my signed confidentiality agreement. ~ Rob13Talk 16:36, 5 February 2019 (UTC) Your homewiki editors decided to unblock an account which is idenfied as a sock of locally blocked and globally locked as a sophisticated LTA who has been around too long and smart enough to know how to bypass CU. They subsequently requested unlock on SRG. What would you do? — regards, Revi 17:21, 6 February 2019 (UTC) Now that the Arbitration Committee has given an explanation for what happened surrounding your resignation, is there anything you would like to add to this? Natureium (talk) 00:00, 7 February 2019 (UTC) A very late question, could you promise not to actively use CU/OS tools if elected (I.e. no starting of any checks without consulting another steward) given lots of concerns raised above. I think a solution may well be letting other stewards start the running the checks and you analysing the data pulled. Is there any other areas of steward work that you maybe interested in helping out? And why is the English ARBCOM statement of your resignation differs in the reason from the one you given above? I look forward to your answers.--Cohaf (talk) 06:41, 7 February 2019 (UTC) What a ridiculous question is that? You might as well ask if he would promise to not grant rights, but only to give other stewards recommendations to grant rights O.o --MF-W 13:26, 7 February 2019 (UTC) This is just based on CU matters, I would hope he'll be going into other areas such as rights and etc. It might be a compromise, but anyway, it's indeed weird, striking. --Cohaf (talk) 13:31, 7 February 2019 (UTC) Q1: Concerning the recent revelations over at en.wiki of the real reason for your departure from Arbcom, why did you 1) lie about the reason at the time, and then, 2) lie about it here on this page by saying it was "down to personal reasons and incompatibility with the bureaucratic structure" (unless, of course, you refer to an incompatibility between yourself and following core en.wiki policies)? Q2: Given the apparent breach of trust that brought your en.wiki Arbcom involvement to such an abrupt end, coupled with your evasiveness here, why should we trust you with Steward tools? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:58, 7 February 2019 (UTC) You may be aware of this incident which led to a steward and a global sysop losing their status. Now assume that you are (a) the offender and (b) the victim. How would you react? If you are an uninvolved steward, what action would you suggest against them? Leaderboard (talk) 13:46, 8 February 2019 (UTC) At Alex_Shih:_Statement_from_the_Arbitration_Committee, you are described as someone who broke repeatedly the confidentiality rules to the point of being forced to resign from wp:en Arbitration Committee and checkuser position. This is in frontal contradiction with your own assertions. Do you have some more comments to add ? Pldx1 (talk) 14:56, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Base

• Some of the "unwritten" responsibilities of being a steward can include discussions with admins on other wikis who have performed controversial actions, users who are currently the target of cross-wiki harassment (and may be asking you to take actions outside your remit), and sometimes WMF (example). How would you approach these difficult situations? --Rschen7754 02:43, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

  Those are different situations, so the approaches I would take are different.

  • In case of abusive admins, it will depend on how urgent the matter is and whether it is caused by some event or is a constant problem. In case of an urgent matter, I will perform a quick action to limit possible harm done, it might escalate to emergency desysop if needed, I will try to get second opinion via IRC if time would allow. In case of disruptiveness coming from some event (admin was annoyed by something, etc), I will assess what the potential harm is and if possible would give admin some time to sleep with the problem in hope to see them calmed down (basically an extrapolation of SRP practice of preventing rage quits by holding the request for a day). In case of persistent abuse, I would definitely involve other stewards in. Normally, the latter should be fixed by the local community, but in small wikis it might be that the abusive admin is the only contributor, so it would probably result in a steward action in the end.
  • In case of harassment victims, in general I would only help them by hinting them to the local means of solving the conflict if possible, and to Support and Safety team otherwise (I might contact them directly in some cases such as victim's poor English). While I would want to protect the victim, policies are absolute for me, and while in some projects regular contributors can step out of those by WP:IAR, it is not a benefit stewards can enjoy.
  • As to WMF, there is little a Steward can do as a Steward per se, but indeed a Steward might be a good option to present community position on some issue to the Foundation (because of them being elected by many community members and because they hold almost as much technical rights as staff do for once, if I have to name some reasons). And now this is a complex one. I think learning from the past the best we can do is an RfC, possibly in form of an open letter. WMF is a complex organisation, but I think it would also be a good idea to gather opinions of BoT members, the executive director, head of the respective department and of random WMF staff, this will help to gauge if it is an integral WMF position, or a position of an individual team or even an individual employee. What I have listed are just some items of a possible action list for a makeshift working group from the community. That is what I see that an individual Steward can do to help to solve the problem: form such group from other Stewards and if possible anyone who is there to help and then it would depend on some concrete steps relevant to a real situation. Whether it is something I would step forward to do would depend on whether I will have enough extra time available at the time something like this happens.

   --Base (talk) 01:42, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

• On your statement, you give your opinion about stewards, saying that a person contributing to a single wiki or two wouldn't be a good steward. If you vote on SE, would this influence on your vote despite a candidate has many other good qualities? If so, why? Esteban16 (talk) 23:53, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

  In German Wikipedia, there is a practice to import original history of translated articles. When you go to the respective request page in English Wikipedia, Requests for page importation, you can see that it is used almost exclusively for translations from German Wikipedia. English Wikipedia does not get articles translated only from German, does it? I see this as a good example of how practices of your home wiki can influence your actions in other wikis. Stewards have to act in all sort of different projects. Big Wikipedias with innumerable policies, medium Wikipedias where everybody relies on expertise of a few long term editors, smallest Wikipedias which move forward by one or two enthusiasts and occasional random contributors, sister projects, which are each very unique in what they are. Other projects do not necessary have rules you are used to, or might have ones you are absolutely unfamiliar with. Small things like {{delete}} being about speedy deletion in one wikis, but about an RfD in other. The easiest way to broaden the perspective is to gain cross-wiki editing experience, CVN work is what immediately comes into mind when thinking about this, but there are other ways too. That being said one can have an extensive knowledge about other projects via offline Wikimedia activity, such as through attending a Wikimania and talking to lots of different people, or by some passive observation of other projects which would not make your edit counter there go up. If there is an evidence that the latter is the case it would compensate for the lack of the former to me, but in general case, yes, it would influence my vote, this is Steward election, rather than election of a functionary for the wiki the user is active in. --Base (talk) 05:18, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

• I noticed on your statement you included "as a botmaster myself I think I would be the right person to manage those." Why do you think that a bot-operating steward is the right person handling SRB requests, are non-bot operating steward hampered in any manner? Thanks for your willingness to serve and I appreciate the statement which is very informative. --Cohaf (talk) 14:35, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

  Thank you. I see, it might be that the wording did not reflect what I wanted to say exactly. I did not mean that non-bot operators are hampered. Most bureaucrats in Wikimedia projects are not bot operators themselves, yet they manage the requests just okay. That being said, first-hand experience with bots helps you understand possible pitfalls or things like the fact that bot flag helps not only with mass editing, but also with tasks that result in few or no edits at all (if the data goes elsewhere) but which require a lot of API calls (apihighlimits right implication), few people seem to pay notice to this. Furthermore, there might be inexperienced bot operators applying for their first bot flag in a small wiki, a bot operator can make a cursory code review or ask technical questions to make sure the operator knows what they are doing. --Base (talk) 05:43, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

• This can be disguised as 1 question to cheat the quota but I am honest, so this is the 2nd question. "I will also do SRCU, I am familiar with the policy as well as the tool for what it is worth, but I do not see myself as an LTA war vanguard fighter. I have experience in SWMT from quite a while ago, but I will not have time and energy to chase after vandals all the time." First, I didn't see you hold CU permission in any of the Wikis, can you clarify is that an expired advance permission? I can't see how can you be familiar with the tools. In addition, isn't stewards supposed to do LTA work like in SRG where loginwiki CU maybe well needed? Can I take this statement to mean that you aren't particularly into locking LTAs? Your SRG section seems you are working on unblock. So this is why I am asking. Thanks once more and I know my quota is up here. --Cohaf (talk) 14:41, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

  You see it right, I do not and I did not hold CU access on Wikimedia projects. The familiarity with the tool I mention comes from the CU policy itself, the documentation, as well as from a local MediaWiki instance where I had CheckUser extension installed. I am also aware that the tool is complemented with the CU wiki records in case of real Wikimedia projects. Stewardship is indeed a lot about using CU both for finding LTA accounts to lock and for random cross-wiki spammers and vandals likewise. I do intend to do it, but what I mean is that I won't be on watch for a report (let alone proactively browse CVN channels) all the time as some of the activemost stewards do. I am not reluctant to lock LTAs or cross-wiki check vandals, I just cannot make a commitment to focus on this. --Base (talk) 06:04, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

• I must ask if you still maintain your refusal to have 2FA enabled on your account given that it is a legal and security requirement to have 2FA enabled to be part of the stewards group as mandated by the WMF. Thanks. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 15:16, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

  My refusal is not a position of principle, but that of convenience. Normally, I prefer to have free access to my account in all sorts of situations. As I said in my statement, Steward is probably that one flag that is a big deal, thus I am ready to take extra measures when dealing with it. I am running conscious of the requirement and I will comply with it. --Base (talk) 15:38, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

• You recently removed a notice from your user page saying that you were "trying to make a break ... [and] also trying not to make new commitments" along with a comment "I will keep minimum activity required to keep my admin flag". What has changed since you first added that statement? Thank you. Jon Kolbert (talk) 04:14, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

  I flew too high and I singed my wings. At some point before that template was placed, I was close to burning out as the result of too many responsibilities taken, which I failed to fulfil in the end. It took me time to realise that, to drop some of them, most importantly this goes for some Wikimedia Ukraine related responsibilities, such as Audit Committee membership, and being a co-organiser of some of its article and photography contests. I also needed to improve my stance in real life. That I did. Currently my Wikimedia activity is waxing once again, and I feel more considerate concerning new responsibilities. Just as the template was placed too late, it was removed too late. --Base (talk) 04:52, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

• Besides the desysop incident in 2012, you were blocked a few other times in 2014: [7] I don't think I've seen an explanation about that before. Could you explain what happened? --Rschen7754 08:00, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

  It was a long time ago, I have to rely on public records to tell what has happened. What you see are two blocks. In the earlier situation, an admin marked the Sock puppetry policy as an official policy basing on a 2011 discussion. I removed the template explaining that if it were made a policy the template would've been placed too, besides the state of the page is not satisfactory. Another admin repeated first admin's argument; I repeated my action too. Yet another admin cancelled my edit with a diff of the 2011 decision made. As I saw previously unnoticed ambiguity in the decision, I pointed at it and removed the template. The third admin responded that that decision is enough and restored the template. The second admin blocked me for 3 days. The latter was mentioned on my Meta RfA, it concerned me wishing arbiters to explicitly mention when they are voting pro, it went along similar lines and I was blocked for 6 days for it. As both blocks were made by the same admin whom I am in a long conflict with (with roots in my desysop) and as the matters were quite trifle the block durations were lessened when other admins were involved. Those are textbook edit wars, even though I did provide my reasoning in edit summaries, I should have just raised my concern on talk pages. That's how I do it now: d:Talk:Q312484. --Base (talk) 01:54, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

• Someone is mad at you (and publicly stating that) for assigning temporary adminship on SRP. What would you do? — regards, Revi 17:22, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

  I will explain them that we do not usually grant permanent permissions for wikis without active community. I will also explain them that if they remain active and prolong their adminship the new term would likely be longer, and that as they manage to involve more people and community grows they would be able to get permanent adminship eventually. I will either disregard the tone of their statement or ask them to calm down. If they persist with it, I will ask a fellow Meta-Wiki admin to address the issue. --Base (talk) 02:26, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

• You may be aware of this incident which led to a steward and a global sysop losing their status. Now assume that you are (a) the offender and (b) the victim. How would you react? If you are an uninvolved steward, what action would you suggest against them? Leaderboard (talk) 13:46, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

  I am. I would leave the matter to OC and Support and Safety to handle. If there is evidence that users might continue using CU for inferior reasons then I will consider emergency deflagging after consultation with other stewards. --Base (talk) 16:58, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

• Stewards have to often face bizarre situations to handle. Now assume that a user tries to convince you that 1+1=3. How would you react? [I'm not evaluating you on your mathematical skills] Leaderboard (talk) 13:46, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

  It depends. Is what they try to convince me of relevant? Do they do that in good faith? Does their PoV have a ground? I will withdraw from discussion in case of blatant idiocy or trolling, but if I have a reason to believe that I might be missing something I will ask for a second opinion. There are difficult to understand, yet acting in good faith users. --Base (talk) 17:28, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

• Have you taken any precautions against fighting Russian vandalism? How will you protect yourself against vandals? Finally, how will you react if threats are made against you directly? Thank you for you time. ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-^☖ 19:57, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

  I do not see how Russian vandalism is different. I know Russian, so I will see what is vandalism in not transparent cases, but that is it. Some Russian language vandals might live in the same city I do, but it is not likely I will be made a target in real life. You never know though, I can always contact Support and Safety and call the police. --Base (talk) 16:59, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

• As a botmaster, what are you planning to develop? Are you open to suggestions? ImmortalWizard (talk) 19:51, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

  I have my plans, but if we focus on stewardship at the moment I do not have anything specific on my mind yet, except for what I have already mentioned with regards to SRM. I want to use the existing tools first, and see what can be improved with a bot or a tool. I am open to suggestions. --Base (talk) 17:02, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

• Hi @Base:, it's nice to see you here. I have difficulty to read all the abbreviations you provided in your statement, I wonder could you provide a link or give some explanation in the statement text so people like me, who are not familiar with the process and English abbreviations, could benefit from the modification? Thank you. --Liang(WMTW) (talk) 05:55, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Einsbor

• What do you have to offer that you believe is most convincing an argument to vote for you? Also, what do you think your main area of work would be as a steward? Thanks, Vermont (talk) 23:17, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Thank you for this question. My belief is based on my experience as steward. As I said in the statement, I was member of the team for 3 years and, as far as I know, my decisions and actions were neither a source of problems nor objections. I worked as scrutineer in three ArbCom elections (enwiki 2015, 2016; fawiki 2017) and, again afaik, this cooperations were also received positively. I got also quite long (since November 2014) experience as oversighter, so already handled private related actions with both people (CU access) and content (OS). As I said in the statement, I want to do everyday work, permissions, CU, OS, spam and LTA figthing. I probably won't be very active in renaming and bots. einsbor _talk 10:15, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
• Briefly summarise your last steward run. What did you do well, and what do you hope to improve/work in (if any) if you are elected this time? Leaderboard (talk) 06:38, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Generally, as steward I took a part on rather incontroversial issues, as permissions, CU, etc. and I want to do if elected this time. What I want to improve is internal communication. I didn't participated in majority of stewards discussions. I read all mails from the stewards and CUs mailing lists, but hardly said anything there. I probably won't take a part in all debates, but I will do my best to give some input into some part of them. Thank you for this question, Leaderboard. einsbor _talk 12:39, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
• What do you think are the biggest challenges that stewards are facing today, and how would you propose to solve them? --Rschen7754 05:16, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
  • There are a few areas that I can point out as, imo, most challenging for the stewards' team: fighting spam and cross-wikiwandalism, already mentioned zhwiki CU requests, long-term abusers. Concerning zh wiki I already answered, I don't think stewards can do much more than now about cross-wiki issues: there are some tools under development (as global CU, blocking of global account). I hope I'm wrong, but I am afraid of political usage of Wikimedia. I mean, it is observed that some socialmedia are used by politically motivated trolls to manipulate the public opinion. I know ofc that Wikimedia are not socialmedia, I know the difference in mechanisms etc, but still, I can imagine the attempts of misuse Wikimedias' impact on people in different countries. That's why I'm looking forward development of the mentioned global tools and increasing number of stewards as well. einsbor _talk 09:59, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
• You may be aware of this incident which led to a steward and a global sysop losing their status. Now assume that you are (a) the offender and (b) the victim. How would you react? If you are an uninvolved steward, what action would you suggest against them? Leaderboard (talk) 13:46, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
  • I know about this incident and I think that steps that have been taken are correct. As uninvolved steward I would do nothing since privacy violations are not in the stewards' scope, but for Ombudsman comission. So if they are informed I can do nothing more. How would I behave as victim? I don't know. Probably I won't leave the project, but I'm pretty sure I would leave this nick (and deflag ofc) and be back with the other account. I really appreciate my privacy and I don't want the number of people who can combine my nick and real name exceed 10. I ask your apologizes, but I won't answer the question: what would I do as offender. I will not be offender. I got access to private data of users as OS and OTRS (and I had such as steward). I am not interested in violating privacy. Here, in Wikimedia we are nicknames and I am not interested who is behind the nick. einsbor _talk 14:43, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Jon Kolbert

• Hi, what is your experience with private information?, would you work with CU/OS tools? Regards. —AlvaroMolina (✉ - ✔) 03:51, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

  I have experience handling non-public information with OTRS and the English Wikipedia Account Creation Team. At en:WP:ACC we deal with data similar to that you would find using a Checkuser (like this). As it is sensitive information, we are bound to the access to non-public data policy as Checkusers/Oversighters. As Checkuser and Oversight are very useful to deal with vandalism and spam I do anticipate working with the tools, as with any new tool it will take a little while to get acquainted to but I will reach out to more experienced colleagues for their expertise. Jon Kolbert (talk) 04:50, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

  Thanks for answering. Regards. —AlvaroMolina (✉ - ✔) 05:02, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

• What criteria would you use to determine if a global lock, a community-imposed global ban, and/or a WMF-imposed global ban is the appropriate course of action regarding the account of an established user? How would you respond to appeals of these three possible actions that were directed to you? --Rschen7754 05:11, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

A global lock would be the appropriate course of action if the account of the established user was compromised, was conducting cross-wiki abuse or has been discovered to be a sockpuppet of an already-banned user. Community-imposed global bans are for when the behaviour of an established user has been identified as a clear threat to all Wikimedia projects and the implementation allows for stewards to globally lock any proven sockpuppets of the globally-banned user. WMF-imposed bans are a last resort for the most serious misconduct and could involve threats, harassment, compromising the safety of users or of Wikimedia infrastructure, and/or Terms of Use violations such as hosting illegal content on the site.

If I was directly contacted for appeals of any of these, here is how I would respond : A global lock appeal would go to Special:Contact/Stewards so stewards can discuss and determine the outcome. Community-imposed global bans must have community consensus to be removed and must be appealed through a Requests for comment. WMF-imposed global bans are not appealable. Jon Kolbert (talk) 18:57, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

• On en.wiki, you have a bunch of rights that collectively approach that of an administrator, yet you are not an admin there. Why is that? Leaderboard (talk) 22:14, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Like other projects, I contribute to areas where I have an interest or that I have particular knowledge of. I have been able to the enwiki project in a variety of ways without requiring the use of sysop tools and continue to do so. Jon Kolbert (talk) 19:37, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

• You seemingly have little xwiki experience. Most of the edits to other wikis are file renames or https corrections. Can you explain why you believe you are suitable for this role given the lack of experience? Nihlus 22:23, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

  While a glance at my crosswiki contributions would reveal similar findings to the ones you observed, my experience extends further than on-wiki actions. Relating to my work in the anti-spam and anti-vandal/LTA domains, I have collaborated with stewards and global sysop/rollbacks to actively mitigate and target those responsible. During Wikipedia Zero's lifetime, before the program was discontinued, I worked alongside other users to combat the abuse that stemmed from some the program's users. My work in tagging spam/vandalism pages for deletion would not show up they have been deleted, and for cases of mass-vandalism I would usually ping a global rollback as the undo tool simply cannot compete. I believe I am suitable for this role based off of my varied experience working in conjunction with functionaries and users from many different areas in the project to achieve the common goal of protecting the integrity of the project from LTAs, vandals and spammers. Jon Kolbert (talk) 00:55, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

• You may be aware of this incident which led to a steward and a global sysop losing their status. Now assume that you are (a) the offender and (b) the victim. How would you react? If you are an uninvolved steward, what action would you suggest against them? Leaderboard (talk) 13:46, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

  If I were the offender, I would have asked the victim if they were comfortable discussing the issue. If so, I would have apologized for the series of poor decision-making and would have asked them if there was anything they would like me to do to help make amends. Resigning was the right decision, being a steward puts us in a position of trust and that trust was lost through the actions taken.

If I were the victim, I would have been properly upset. Volunteering in this role already comes with its fair share of targeted abuse from LTAs. To find out your privacy was violated at the hands of colleagues, which you have frequently collaborated with, is especially troublesome. I would have done what was in my power to ensure that this could not happen to any other users.

As an uninvolved steward, I would have immediately submitted what evidence I had to the Ombudsman Commission. I would have been in contact with the victim and asked what course of action they would have been most comfortable taking and worked to resolve this while ensuring that the privacy of the victim be respected to the best possible extent. Jon Kolbert (talk) 14:59, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

• Do you speak any languages other than English? --Gryllida 08:44, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Pcastellina

This user has withdrawn his candidature.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Your statement does not mention anything on what you plan to do if elected. Could you elaborate a bit on that? Thanks in advance. Leaderboard (talk) 20:22, 28 January 2019 (UTC) Can you provide a summary of any work you have done with cross-wiki vandalism and long-term abuse? Hiàn (talk) 21:23, 28 January 2019 (UTC) With your temporary adminship, you have never used the block tool. What is your understanding of when accounts should be blocked on local wikis? What about when they should be globally locked? --Rschen7754 01:55, 29 January 2019 (UTC) @Pcastellina: --Rschen7754 19:31, 3 February 2019 (UTC) In wich areas that Stewards habitually works would you work if you're elected? Do you have experience or knowledge about that and how to work? --Stïnger （会話） 03:03, 29 January 2019 (UTC). Hi, do you understand the responsibilities that being steward entails?, do you know what are the limits under which they can act? Regards. —AlvaroMolina (✉ - ✔) 03:58, 29 January 2019 (UTC) As I can see, you're not involved in areas related to xwiki/stewards work. Why do you think you would be able to perform stewards duties properly? Esteban16 (talk) 00:12, 30 January 2019 (UTC) Because of my objective lack of experience in this field and possibly of time in working in it, I renounce to the opportunity of being elected in this, hoping to find another role in this laudable common enterprise. Thank you for your patience. Regards. --Pcastellina (talk) 21:59, 3 February 2019 (UTC) @Pcastellina: Does this imply that you're withdrawing from the steward elections? Leaderboard (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Praxidicae

• In November 2018, you were involved in a bit of a dustup with an en.wikipedia administrator about comments such as this, which eventually led to a steward (acting in their admin capacity) to propose an interaction ban (that failed). While I do not believe the other admin conducted themselves particularly well, is there anything that you would have done differently? --Rschen7754 18:33, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

FWIW, the other admin was going through a thoroughly unpleasant marital separation, and fully recognises that they came across as very blunt and snippy to many people at the time. I will recuse from casting a vote against this candidate. Ritchie333 (talk) 17:36, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Very sorry to hear that, and I will keep that in mind. @Praxidicae: --Rschen7754 19:32, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

• • I'm not sure based on the wording that I read part of this right but I want to clarify that I am not an administrator on enwp (not that it changes the answer.) I'll also note that I don't believe There'sNoTime was proposing the interaction ban in their role as an administrator, but as an editor. Having said that, Ritchie and I can have very polarizing views and personalities which, in the past, resulted in conflict. I do not think that this disqualifies me from running as a Steward, nor any other type of permission. Looking back, I'd try to avoid situations where conflict may arise between us as I currently do and going forward, I plan to continue this approach should there be an issue with this user or any others. Praxidicae (talk) 00:42, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

I recently came across en:Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Lisa_Lang, where you described an article as "utter garbage", "this reads like a massive PR piece" and "the article is rife with bio spam". Do you understand what problems this approach may have when, say, coming across a persistent cross-wiki vandal? Ritchie333 (talk) 11:52, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

I generally take a different approach to everything cross-wiki and my comments at the AFD were commenting on the content, not the contributor. I do my best to deny recognition to cross-wiki abuse but I am sure I've probably made an off-hand comment in the past and I'm bound to make mistakes but I fully believe in reverting, ignoring and stopping the disruption without much fanfare. Praxidicae (talk) 18:12, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

• You have a bunch of rights on en.wiki which aren't far off from that of an administrator, but you have never had an RfA (correct me if I am wrong) at your 'home wiki'. Why is that? Leaderboard (talk) 18:45, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
  • You are correct, I have not RFA'd on enwiki. There was a time where I thought I may want to but as I grew into my own as an editor I realized that my focus was better suited elsewhere and much more useful on a global scale. I also think that enwiki has plenty of active administrators and patrollers in the areas that I tend to work in but I also frankly do not have the desire to be an administrator on the English Wikipedia at this point in time. My more recent projects have included actively seeking out covert spam (linkspam) and spambots which are a much larger problem outside of just enwiki. Also my apologies for a delay in response, I had some unfortunately tragic real life responsibilities pop up which limited my ability to respond in the manner I felt would be adequate for addressing these questions. Praxidicae (talk) 00:42, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
• How would address concerns that you have never held sysop rights on a major wiki and have only been a global sysop for three months and are now looking to become a steward? While I understand your hesitance to become a sysop on enwiki, there is something to be said for those that have that experience and how it would translate to stewardship. Nihlus 01:11, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
  • I would say I have a great track record in the areas that Stewards work most in and that a lengthy tenure having sysop doesn't necessarily indicate suitability for a Steward role and that the things we look for in Stewards are not exclusive to holding sysop rights. Praxidicae (talk) 18:45, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
• You locked an account with a reason "spambot", and later someone else suggests it might not actually be a spambot. How would you respond? — regards, Revi 17:25, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
  • I would seek advice from my colleagues and compare it with available technical data after letting the person know that I would be investigating it and seeking help from other Stewards. Spambots are probably the least controversial steward activity resulting in locks and almost always follow obvious, known patterns. Praxidicae (talk) 17:49, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
• You may be aware of this incident which led to a steward and a global sysop losing their status. Now assume that you are (a) the offender and (b) the victim. How would you react? If you are an uninvolved steward, what action would you suggest against them? Leaderboard (talk) 13:46, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

• Does editing in knowing violation of the TOU a conduct or a content dispute.? You said that Undeclared paid editing is primarily a content dispute. Does that also apply to "Engaging in harassment, threats, stalking, spamming, or vandalism;"? or to "Intentionally or knowingly posting content that constitutes libel or defamation;" Howdo you differentiate those WMF policies you are willing or not willing to enforce? DGG (talk) 00:40, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Schniggendiller

• From interacting with several editors from German Wikipedia, I've gathered the impression that they are very reluctant to use the CheckUser tool, at least way more so than, say, English Wikipedia. What do you think about this? If elected as a steward, how would this affect your performing in the role of CheckUser for wikis without locally elected CUs, in cross-wiki cases, and/or in emergencies? --Rschen7754 00:56, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes, deWP has very strict rules reagding CheckUser. I'm not always happy about this, but these rules are community consensus, hence, we're bounded to them. If there aren't any local checkusers, there's CheckUser policy here at Meta. Emergencies like "I will kill XYZ" are to be handled especially serious. We can't afford to wait for long. Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 10:47, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Note: that kind of emergency you mentioned is deferred to Wikimedia Foundation. (Threats of harm) — regards, Revi 18:22, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

• Hi, by chance, what is your experience with cross-wiki vandalism/spam or long-term abusers? Regards. —AlvaroMolina (✉ - ✔) 03:14, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi, the problem with long-term abusers is the long-term ;-) (Never understood why adult people behave like this …) I've seen many of them, and usually they're easy to detect. As stated in my … well … statement, if I think that it's possible that some account/IP could have global contribs (a hint could be an edit summary in a foreign language), I check it and report it. So yes, I've got somy experience with LTAs and cross-wiki vandalism. (It's probably an important field of work for me for almost 10 years now.) Regards--Schniggendiller (talk) 10:47, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

• When would you hide a global account rather than oversight it? Leaderboard (talk) 00:31, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, I'm ill.

As stated in the OS policy, in particular names that contains severe attacks, libel and non-public personal information. I don't want to offer examples here (our LTAs don't need new ideas). Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 23:02, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

@Schniggendiller: That does not explain why you wouldn't hide such an account then (note the subtilty between the two terms described). Leaderboard (talk) 23:17, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Oh, I would hide such an account. But oversight as the strongest possible reaction is meant for the really severe cases. Libel could do more harm than an attacking username, not to mention a disclosure of private data. Libel because some people might belive it, and personal data because trolls will use it for years (also on websites outside of steward's/WMF's jurisdiction). Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 19:22, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

• Hallo. I was reading your reply at Rschen7754's question in the section "For all candidates" ---> "Home wikis" but for me, some parts weren't very clear. Would you use your Steward rights in your homewiki if you're elected? Grüße. --Stïnger （会話） 20:16, 2 February 2019 (UTC).

FYI, I see this reply about your homewiki: "If they are asking me, I would remove the rights". The Stewards policy means that stewards can't act in their homewikis, so can you explain this? --Stïnger （会話） 20:22, 2 February 2019 (UTC).

Comment That’s not forbidden. The stewards policy literally says (words made in bold by me): “changing rights on home wikis (wikis where they are active community members), except for clearcut cases (such as self-requested removal or emergencies).” Trijnstel_talk 00:00, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Ok. I was confused by his answer, and that was the reason why I asked him. --Stïnger （会話） 00:51, 4 February 2019 (UTC).

Sorry for the delay, I'm ill.

Thanks Trijnstel, that would be my answer, too. Btw: Rschen7754 mentioned the exception to the rule in his initial question ;-) Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 23:02, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

• You may be aware of this incident which led to a steward and a global sysop losing their status. Now assume that you are (a) the offender and (b) the victim. How would you react? If you are an uninvolved steward, what action would you suggest against them? Leaderboard (talk) 13:46, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Generally, I can't imagine to be the offender in this case. But if I would be the victim … hmm … probably I would contact the Ombudsman commission. Here, it was discussed publicly as a RfC. But this could worsen the problem (some tiny details more in the RfC, and it would be much easier for uninvolved people to find out what train station could be meant etc.).

If I would be an uninvolved steward I would contact the victim (especially if I assume the victim doesn't already know about this) and recommend him/her to contact the Ombudsman commission because – as I said – a public discussion about this could worsen the problem.

Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 20:24, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Misread the question, sorry. What action would I suggest against them? The removal of rights, no doubt. Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 20:28, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

• Hi. Looking at your contribution on meta I noticed that prior to this year you have never participated in the Stewards Election procedure: you neither voted to any candidate nor participated in Stewards Confirmation. Can you explain why? Ankry (talk) 11:07, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

My first thought was: "Never? No, at least sometimes." But to my surprise, you are right. How comes? Silly reason: Due to lack of time. Of course I know that the number of stewards is not limited. All candidates could be elected, or none of them. It's not like elections for arbitration comittees, where you have 5 posts to be filled = the best 5 candidates get the posts. Nevertheless, I have the claim to myself, that I give a vote for or against every candidate. And with – this year – 9 new candidates plus 33 confirmations it's very time consuming. And because of the workload at work and some private reasons, in the past I had not the amount of time available for Wikipedia etc. that I needed and wanted. But fortunately, my situation improved at lot in the last weeks and months (otherwise I won't candidate myself). Regarding this 2019 election: I'm a bit hesitant since I'm a candidate myelf now. Weird, I know … Regards --Schniggendiller (talk) 01:36, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Vit Koz

• Hi Vit Koz, what would you like to do if you will be elected as a steward? Also, what is your experience with handling private information? --Martin Urbanec (talk) 11:24, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Hello! In the process of working on Wikipedia I had a need for rename global accounts and local unattached accounts. I have no experience with handling private information yet. Vit Koz (talk) 06:25, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
    • Hello, thanks for your willingness to serve but to rename users, you can apply to be a Global Renamer rather than a Stewards. Thanks.--Cohaf (talk) 06:30, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
      • Perhaps you `re right. Vit Koz (talk) 07:34, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
        • Thanks for reply.--Cohaf (talk) 15:07, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
    • Thanks for your answer. In that case, maybe it would be better for you to firstly apply for global renamer rights? This permission allows you to perform most of the global rename duty. Unattached accounts are rare and I'm inclined not to accept (read as "vote for") a candidate who talks about unattached accounts as the only one steward-only task they want to perform. Best, --Martin Urbanec (talk) 06:38, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
• Serving as a steward often leads to dealing with unpleasant issues, including but not limited to helping those dealing with doxing and real-world harassment and communicating with WMF about legal issues. Is this something that you are prepared to handle if elected? --Rschen7754 07:07, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
  • In any case, I will try to fulfill my obligations. Vit Koz (talk) 10:09, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
• Hi, in his statement he doesn't mention practically anything about his story on the Wikimedia projects apart from the tasks he performs on some wikis (bewiki, bewikiquote (where he is temporary administrator) and ruwiki). Can you tell us more about what you have done in the Wikimedia projects these years, for those who do not know you? If you were elected, would you be prudent in doing this work, would you ask advice from other more experienced colleagues before doing something you don't know for sure? —AlvaroMolina (✉ - ✔) 16:56, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Hello! Unfortunately, I do not have much experience in administrative work. My main activity was focused on writing articles, developing rules, conducting discussions and technical work (deleting, renaming, loading). Of course, if elected, I will coordinate my work with experienced participants. Vit Koz (talk) 11:45, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
    • Thanks for answering. Regards. —AlvaroMolina (✉ - ✔) 14:31, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
• Hello. Two questions. Do you have any experience with fighting cross-wiki vandalism? If you're elected, how would you take care about LTA (long-term abuse) cases? --Stïnger （会話） 12:27, 26 January 2019 (UTC).
  • Hi! My experience with fighting cross-wiki vandalism is unfortunately only theoretical. Vit; talk 14:56, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
• In your own words, can you explain what stewards do and why you have the experience needed to fulfill those roles? Nihlus 01:16, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Stewards assign the rights of administrators, bureaucrats and bots in wikiprojects in accordance with the rules adopted by community consensus. They can vote in elections, realize the outcome of the elections. Stay neutral. And I want to develop as a participant in wikiprojects. Vit; talk 10:02, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
• You got an email saying "Hey! admin on $%#& wiki unfairly blocked me! Please punish him by removing his sysop bit!". What would you respond? — regards, Revi 17:31, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
  • In such matters, I will first of all ask for advice from existing stewards. Vit; talk 05:46, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
• Have you taken any precautions against fighting Russian vandalism? How will you protect yourself against vandals? Finally, how will you react if threats are made against use? Thank you for you time. ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-^☖ 02:44, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
  • In such matters, I will first of all ask for advice from existing stewards. Vit; talk 05:46, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Wim b

• Hi, what is your experience with private information?, would you work with CU/OS tools? Regards. —AlvaroMolina (✉ - ✔) 04:03, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi. No, I have always preferred to contribute in small wikis, in which there has never been a need for local CU/OS. --Wim b 05:40, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for answering. Regards. —AlvaroMolina (✉ - ✔) 06:00, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

[out of crono] @AlvaroMolina: sorry, the "no" was referenced to the question "what is your experience with private information?", but if elected I would have no problem using CU/OS when necessary. Sorry for the initial misunderstanding, I had misread the first time. —Wim b 11:23, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

[out of crono pt.2]: @AlvaroMolina: I worked often with Whois, IP range and similar tools, if this is was that you want know. My previous answer was related to internal tools in MediaWiki. --Wim b 12:08, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Can I seek a clarification, are you meaning that in small wikis, no CU/OS need to be carried out or no local team needs to be present? Thanks.--Cohaf (talk) 17:01, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

I mean that in "my" small wikis (italian small wiki), CU / OS it was never necessary. In my experience, only once i requested a CU for it.wikibooks in ~2009, i think. In a small wiki a CU/OS it may be necessary if once a day (or more than 2-3 times at week) need this user's right, otherwise metawiki in my opinion works well the same . --Wim b 03:18, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your clarification, appreciate it. I'll think is hard for small wikis to meet requirement for local CU/OS as 25 votes is hard to achieve so we often tend to visit SRCU to make request. I did one for my homewiki just recently, a small wiki with only 4 months of existence. Regards, --Cohaf (talk) 03:25, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

• Your global sysop rights were removed for inactivity, and only restored in September 2018. Do you believe that you will be active enough in the next year to be an effective steward? (i.e. doing more than the minimum number of actions to be confirmed in 2020) How much time do you foresee being able to spend doing steward tasks during the next year? --Rschen7754 05:22, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

When the rights were revoked, I was busy in real life, too busy, patrolling but having little time I did not take action, at most some revert. Now those commitments are over and at least once a day I enter the channel of vandalism in IRC. In the next year I think (and I hope) to be able to access with this frequency.--Wim b 05:40, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

• How familiar are you with (a) the abuse filter (including regex), (b) CSS or JavaScript and (c) editing the MediaWiki interface (excluding those which require interface-admin)? If yes, briefly explain how/where you've used them. Do you plan to use any of them if you're a steward? Leaderboard (talk) 00:34, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

In it.wikt, it.books i've wrote (and keep) some filters, the most part of that with regex, on it.news I've helped the local admins with 3 filters; I've know basic JS and CSS from autodidact, i've wrote JS script for it.wiktionary, for exemple a script for write italian flex form, and many scripts for my global.js and i've fixed (and improved) many times JS and CSS. In 12 years to admin i've modified many times the interface, often for clarify alert or help messages. If I will steward, if is necessary, i don't see any reason i should not do it. --Wim b 09:35, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

• You may be aware of this incident which led to a steward and a global sysop losing their status. Now assume that you are (a) the offender and (b) the victim. How would you react? If you are an uninvolved steward, what action would you suggest against them? Leaderboard (talk) 13:46, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

  sorry Leaderboard, I had not seen the question before this diff. In my opinion every user must be free to divulge just what he wants and if this specific user didn't divulge the real name, phone number and address, no one is authorized to use that information. However, the action taken seems to me to be the most reasonable if MoiraMoira didn't feel safe in her own home. Honestly I do not have the curiosity to go to the home of all wikimedians, if I knew to go near another user's house (who told me to live in that area) and I had the pleasure to know him, I would ask if we can meet, for example, at the train station, but I would never have gone to his home if he does not invite me, especially without saying anything and I would never have used personal information. --Wim b 00:56, 28 February 2019 (UTC)