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Wikidata:Requests for permissions/Oversight/Sven Manguard

< Wikidata:Requests for permissions‎ | Oversight

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

 Not done, no sufficient community support (20/0/2 | 100%). Vogone talk 03:35, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sven Manguard edit

Vote
RfP scheduled to end at 7 May 2013 03:35 (UTC)

I realize that it can't look especially good to have applied for every advanced permission that has come up thus far, however while I was not the best fit for 'crat, I think that I am an excellent fit for OS. It's worth noting that I have no intention of running for 'crat again, and would not run for CU if the community decided they wanted those. I have had OTRS access since February 2012 and am on the permissions, photosubmission, info-en, and sister-projects queues. I'm also an admin on Commons (since July 2012) and a Wikidata admin (since November 2012). I am identified to the WMF. Between my work on Commons and my work with OTRS, I have had to chase down Oversighters on both Wikipedia and Commons multiple times, and know the appropriate policies. I also have applicable off-wiki experience, having spent time in a job where I had to deal with people's financial and medical information, family status, and personally identifiable information (including Social Security numbers). I believe that I have the experience and skillset to do this job right, and hope that the community feels the same. --Sven Manguard Wha? 03:35, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Votes edit

 Regretful oppose Sven is a nice guy, and he's a fine admin, but I have qualms about his non-publicly-declared alternate account (on the English Wikipedia), as well as temperament issues that I would not like to see in a functionary. I would like to forgive him for his comments here, especially given that he has apologized, but I still don't have the feeling he has a sufficiently calm temperament for the oversight permission. Opposing users I otherwise trust is never easy for me, and I hope Sven doesn't take this too strongly.--Jasper Deng (talk) 03:41, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I knew that this vote was coming because of our discussion yesterday. I realize that the old account is something of a problem to some people. I've always been very clear that the account hasn't been used in years and that the reason that I didn't pick it back up when I came back was because of privacy concerns, but it's not something that's ever going to be easy to deal with. The community (at least on English Wikipedia) has been burned too many times, and "cleared by ArbCom" just donesn't have the cachet that it used to. As for the temperament issue, I did go after Bináris, and I regret that. I cannot think of any similar instances in recent times that rise to that level. While temperament is important in the project in general, there is nothing specific to OS that would demand a higher standard of politeness than would be expected of an admin. The key to being an Oversighter is knowing how to effectively judge what needs to be oversighted, and the ability to handle confidential information in a professional and effective manner. I have those skills. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:52, 23 April 2013 (UTC) 03:51, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Can you explain the "alternate account" issue? Is it used as described in policy. Does it have admin rights here [or on another wiki] already? πr2 (t • c) 21:15, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I just don't like it that I think he's having something to hide, even though he says he has privacy reasons for concealing it. I would like for him to at least disclose it to other identified users, particularly all stewards and functionaries.--Jasper Deng (talk) 21:42, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
w:en:Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Sven Manguard was where it was brought up. --Rschen7754 21:52, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The long and short of it is that I had another account which I edited with several years ago. I never really felt I accomplished anything significant with it, and I never found a niche that kept me on the project that first time, so I left. When I decided to give Wikipedia another go several years later, I chose to not use the old account because the username could be easily linked to my real life identity, and I didn't really want that. I've disclosed the alternate account to ArbCom and to several highly respected Wikipedians. I'd be willing to disclose it to other people, but there has to be a certain level of trust before I do; generally that requires working with someone for years or meeting them in person. Just being a functionary does not meet that level of trust for me. The only reason I brought the old account up during the first RfA is because I'm, well, ethical. Technically there was no requirement to do so, and I know of admins that have run with undeclared prior accounts. I have two years of English Wikipedia edits for you to judge me by, I am a Commons and Wikidata admin in good standing, and while I understand intellectually why some people consider my having an old account such a very big deal, the past account is so far away, and amounted to so little, that I had absolutely no issue bunting it when I came back. If you don't feel comfortable supporting me because of this, that's fine. I understand, to some degree, your reasoning. At the same time though, if you have any trust in me at all, I'd ask for you to trust that the guiding reason behind my decision not to release the account comes from a desire to retain a separation between my online and offline lives, and not for any malicious purpose. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:18, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Just curious, Sven: When is the last time you made a substantive edit from the other account? StevenJ81 (talk) 16:16, 29 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
2009. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:42, 29 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  1.  Support I trust Sven's judgement and the issue with the old account doesn't matter to me. Legoktm (talk) 04:00, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  2.  Neutral The stats provided by MF-W in this discussion do not indicate a need for local oversighters for now, in my opinion. Anyway, it is the community's decision and the candidate is well-qualified, so I'm not going to oppose here. Regards, Vogone talk 05:44, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  3.  Support I can trust him to do the job properly. Ajraddatz (Talk) 11:59, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  4.  Support --DangSunM (talk) 16:47, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  5.  Support "A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again." -- Roy H. Williams. I'm confident that Sven has learned from the mistake and thus, I'm not going to oppose him for it. -- Cheers, Riley 18:51, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  6.  Support --Alan Lorenzo (talk) 13:25, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  7.  Support -- Wagino 20100516 (talk) 13:51, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  8.  Support --Iste (D) 20:58, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  9.  Support — ΛΧΣ21 05:02, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  10.  Support Happy to support, has the right attitude towards confidential information (as demonstrated by the OTRS example given) QuiteUnusual (talk) 20:58, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  11.  Support I have no problem with keeping your old account secret, there hasn't been any other problems. Techman224Talk 02:18, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  12.  Support --Daniel749 talk (RTF) 15:46, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  13.  Support--Ymblanter (talk) 07:28, 27 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  14.  Support LlamaAl (talk) 22:12, 27 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  15.  Support --Rzuwig► 15:15, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  16.  Support Thank you for answering my question above promptly. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:19, 29 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  17.  Support Sat on the fence on this one for a while, but most oversighting is behind the scenes, and the candidate has no record of temperament concerns extending to the level of what happened with an enwiki oversighter recently. Also, I feel he gets it right more times than most. --Rschen7754 08:46, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  18.  Support. Ralgis (talk) 01:50, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  19.  Support based on OTRS work MorganKevinJ(talk) 03:14, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  20.  Neutral --Steinsplitter (talk) 15:11, 2 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  21.  Support. Érico Wouters msg 01:49, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  22.  Weak support I've gotten a better impression of Sven based on discussing with him on IRC, and I feel like I can change my mind now.--Jasper Deng (talk) 05:34, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments edit

  • ...
Questions from Rschen7754 for all candidates

1. Oversighters from a few of the larger WMF projects have faced an increased risk of harassment on and off wiki, and increased pressure to disclose more information regarding a suppressed edit, i.e. who suppressed it, what the logged reason was, etc. Is this a possibility that you have considered? In the second scenario, what would your response be?

A. I don't play games with confidential information, period. Take a look at this recent AfD as the result of an OTRS. Anyone who can see the ticket (OTRS required) will be able to see the difference between the information I was given privately and the information that I made public (with the person's permission, in order to file the deletion). If you look halfway down that page to my response to Smerdis' question, you'll see exactly how I deal with people that want more information than needs to be public, ('As for the rest of your comment, I do not talk to anyone that is not an OTRS member about the details of OTRS tickets, period. That's not a "yes", that's not a "no", that's a "this isn't a question you should be asking, and I won't engage you on the issue". I'm sorry, but I take the confidentiality of the role very seriously.'). If you swap OS for OTRS out, the response would be pretty much the same. If someone has no business knowing, I won't engage them on the issue.
Questions from Byrial for all candidates

2. Wikidata is multilingual. Which languages may be used in requests to you for oversighting? Which additional languages would you be able to oversight? What will you do if you receive a request for oversighting a text which is in a language you don't understand?

A. The only language that I speak at a level of expertise where I would be comfortable handling OS requests is English. If a request comes in to us in a language that I don't understand, I will still take a look at it. Sometimes the language of the request is irrelevant, and you can tell immediately (from looking at where a link points) that something needs to be Oversighted. With that in mind:
  • If the request is in English, I will handle it myself.
  • If the request is not in English, but I can grasp that there is a plausible need for OSing, I will revision delete the content and then fetch a speaker of that language that is a local CU (or if there is none, a steward) to confirm. The revision delete would either be upgraded to an OS, left as is, or undone depending on what that second person says.
  • If the request is not in English, I will track down someone who is OS cleared (first a local OS, if none speak the language, then a Steward), and bring it to their attention. If no local OS or Steward speaks the language, I will cross-check the list of Stewards with the list of active members of the Small Wiki Monitoring Team, which would allow me to find a Steward with experience in dealing with languages not spoken by functionaries.
I generally dislike the idea of using Google translate, because it is inaccurate form many languages and because the text that is being translated gets sent out as part of the URL when you translate, but if no one touches a request in 12 hours, I'd do it and treat it like a bullet point two (above) scenario. Sven Manguard Wha? 15:09, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Questions from John F. Lewis for all candidates

3. When is it appropriate to hide a username from the public using hideuser? Why?

A: The Oversight policy gives a list of four reasons that Oversight can be used, regardless of the circumstances. It would be difficult, considering the maximum length of usernames and the eccentricities of American fair use doctrine, to get a username that falls under "Removal of copyright violations", but the other three items on the list (non-public personal information, potentially libelous information, blatant attack names) can and (considering that Wikidata is connected to Wikipedia) probably will happen. I think that it's important to balance the need to protect users with the power of the tool. Oversight is, in many ways, contrary to the spirit of a Wiki, and so not all attack usernames are going to get the OS. There's a huge difference between User:Example_Farts, which is more childish and trivial than anything else, and User:Example_the_Rapist, which is a serious accusation and definitely in harassment territory. The trick is handling the ones between those extremes. I honestly see myself trending more on the side of oversighting than the side of not oversighting because these kinds of accounts aren't going to be making contributions of any value anyways, so there's little to no mitigating factor to OSing the name. For personally identifying information, I'd lean even heavier towards oversighting. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:30, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

4. When is it appropriate to delete log entries (deletelogentry)? Why?

A: Log entries, like usernames, aren't really long enough to get into copyvio territory, but the other three scenarios I discussed above all come into play. The field of text available for malcontents to play with is larger, but the underlying concepts are the same. Childish garbage like "Example farts a lot" isn't going to get an OS, but when we get any further than that, OS starts becoming a valid answer. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:30, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

5. When is it appropriate to hide abuse filter entires (abusefilter-hide-log)? Why?

A: I'm not afraid to say that I really like Courcelles' answer. Every OS action is a judgement call (although some are easier than others), and again, we're not going to be dealing with copyvios in abuse filters, and what I've already said about the other three scenarios stands here as well. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:30, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
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