User:Moneytrees/My RFA

(This was originally posted at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship, the revision taken from can be seen here)

(Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Money emoji/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Money emoji/Bureaucrat chat) I had one of the closest successful RFAs and have been sitting on my thoughts for a while. I think doing a reflection on it is a good idea, and I hope talking about my awful experience will fix something or make someone reconsider how they act. I have been wanting to get this all off my chest, so here's my whole story with RFA:

I only really started getting the idea to run near the end of 2019, because I couldn't see deleted stuff at CCI and I was constantly removing copyright violations and would sometimes have to wait weeks for them to be revdeled. I barely knew anything about the community and didn't read much, only once and a while making some dumb comment at AN or asking an admin for help with something. The only people I regularly interacted with were the handful of other users who edited in the copyright area, and the majority of the work I did involved looking through article's histories, removing/rewording copyright violations, analyzing provided diffs (what sources the user I was investigating liked citing, whether or not that source could be found easily, whether it was reliable, if the content was even encyclopedic, could it be kept and re worded if it was, etc.), and sometimes explaining to a user why I reverted their edit/ removed all the content. When I submitted my request to become an arbclerk and filed my ORCP at the very end of 2019 I was not planning on running for admin within the next two months. In fact I thought I still had a year or so to go if I was serious about it. But then I got accepted as a trainee clerk, people at the ORCP told me that I could run now and pass, and then I got an email about adminship from Ritchie333 on January 14 2020, where it was suggested that TonyBallioni might also be interested in nominating me. At the time I politely declined, saying I wanted to get some stuff done before I ran, ... My afd needs work, there’s an article I’m working on that I want to fix up first, and I want to get a few thousand more edits..., and backed away.

But then I started reading stuff over and I started thinking that I really could pass with no real issues. After all, I was told in my ORCP that ...there will be things you can improve on, etc. but you'd easily pass... by Tony, I just became an arb clerk, the Dr. Blofeld CCI cleanup ended up going well, and people know we need copyright admins, right? Being a stupid 17 year old also probably played into it too. So I went back to the noms and picked February 11th as the start date, since the next week's Monday and Tuesday were off and that could give me more time to focus on the run. So the page gets created, I answer the first three questions, I'm even confident to transclude my own request. I accept the nomination and then the RFA opens.

Before a neutral the first 37 votes are supports. Of those voters I had truly only interacted with ~5 of them. I get asked a question about whether I had a previous account, I really should've just said I edited as some ips for a bit instead of the rambling explanation I give. In wanting to be honest I way overshared, and I think that ended up reflecting poorly on the run in the bigger picture. I get asked about my bad AFDs nominations and I admit I tried to stop nominating things because I was afraid I would miss something. I chalk one particularly stupid one to me being tired at the time. That was true, but I should've expanded that I also wanted the article deleted as I thought it was a copyright violation. Maybe if I had said that in the AFD statement or just listed the article at copyright problems things would have gone differently but I hadn't.

That is one of the first lessons I learned as a result of the RFA: communicating your thought process in full will usually make things easier.

Then things start getting difficult. Near the end of the first day my phone is destroyed, and it had been the only way I was able to talk to my nominators through email for the majority of the day. I could only talk to them for brief periods of time, and I started making some dumb choices. I responded to not just one, but three opposes, which is a massive no-no... about three different people emailed me after saying not to do that! Another lesson: read about RFA before you go through it.

Now there were a few opposes, and the main issues being raised were about an apparent lack of content creation, low edit count (under 10000), and low tenure (I had started this account in March 2018. I made my first edit from an ip in July 2015). Someone asked me what I thought my weakest area was, and I said ...I also wish I could be a more consistent content creator; I've had fun writing the articles that I have, but my work at copyright often intrudes on it and I'm not able to write as much as I'd like to.

There's the implication that I didn't know anything about article space or about what it's like to work "in the trenches" because I didn't have that much creation, but that wasn't true, because content was massively important to all of my work at CCI. Out of the thousand or so edits I had made to CCI at the time, each one had been made after I spent time looking at the context of the edit and the article's history. From that and all the removal and rewordings I did, I knew how to cite, how to tell if a source was reliable, how pesky the google books algorithm could be, how close something could be phrased to a source, and whether something was too poorly written to be included, whether the text could be simply ignored because some things are too plainly stated to be a violation of copyright- all important things to writing that I knew, but I never brought up in my RFA! And why didn't I? Because I was afraid and I thought that everyone who opposed me over it was right, and that I had no idea about anything content related.

I could have brought up the work I put into Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, and how I put it up for a GA nomination and then I took it down because I was too discouraged with Wikipedia at the time to keep the nom up. I didn't talk about how when I started editing I just wanted to do some anti vandalism and write, and how if you look at my earliest contributions that's very clear. I could have brought up how I was too sad to go to my next door neighbor's funeral and instead spent a few hours trying cleanup at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Halo: Combat Evolved/archive1, but that it didn't matter and was demoted anyways. I did bring up the time that I actually put in some work some into promoting a GA, but then I had to stop editing at the time because my grandfather was going to die from cancer and I had to fly out to see him one last time. About a month later the GA had failed and he had died. And I was 16 when this all happened! I know the pain of failure and feeling like no one cares about what you do as well as anyone could. I know what its like to spend all your time writing something, only for it to not be acknowledged in any way. So why would I want to even edit when no one cares about me and it's not fun?

Which leads to the then 18 month old retirement message I put up, which I had actually completely forgotten about when I had run. Having something that deeply embarrassing pulled up for hundreds to see truly hurts, and it hurts even more when it didn't matter what I said- it was still held against me. Maybe, if I had provided examples of how I had moved past that and saw Wikipedia in such a much more positive light, then the incoming dump of opposes citing the retirement message wouldn't have happened. Maybe that would've prevented some users from switching their supports to opposes, maybe that would've prevented the seemingly endless speculation that I was not "mature" enough for adminship. I don't think a single person in that RFA read my response to Barkeep49 about the opposes here, even though I felt like it would make people understand how I had changed for sure. There were a lot of opposes now, even one of my noms said that they didn't think it would pass.

Then, I'm not going to say any names, because I don't want to get back into issues with people who I hope have changed their mind on me (and I know there are those who have and I am so thankful you have), but people started saying all sorts of things, like maybe I was some sort of sock, or that I was just running as an ego boost and had no actual accomplishments, or that I was a liar. And I kept seeing the Pizzagate GA brought up over and over again, because Ritchie mentioned it in his nomination statement as an example of content creation from me despite me not creating it or having added much text to it. It's kind of funny, because I fucking hate that article now. All I did was copyedit it, wait on it for a few months to be reviewed, addressed the review, and then added that little green circle to the top of my userage. I did that with another article too, John B. Magruder, which had been nominated for GA by another user who was then blocked, and I help keep the nomination going for them. Of course I didn't know anything about community standards on what "Counts" as a GA so when I see it mentioned in the nomination statement... well Ritchie thought it was good enough, so it must be, right?

But that's not fair. I don't want the situation to ever be seen as "Ritchie messes up... again". I should have had the foresight to say "hey I didn't actually write very much on that, could you mention something else?" And of course I can't say this all because at this point in the RFA it's heading to a crat chat, and no one would have believed me. If they didn't believe having three people close to you die would fuck you up a little, then why would they believe that? Again, I'm not going to say any names here, but it got to this point where there was this one person who was saying I lied, and I thought we were on good terms and I didn't want it to look like I was ignoring people saying I lied, so I emailed them right around when the crat chat opened because I was still idealistic and stupid enough to think that I could just talk the whole situation though and that they would understand. Here's the text of the email, minus me addressing who I sent it to:

I just want to clear some things up about the mention of the Pizzagate GA in the nom statement. The result of it being mentioned is less of a malicious intent to puff my record up and more the result of my naiveté.

I remember seeing the article mentioned in Ritchie's nomination statement and thinking "Hmm, I mostly just fixed some minor issues on that and wrote little of the actual content on it, but if he thinks that it's an example of content, whatever." He must have AGF'd and just went off of the topicon on my user page, and thought that I did more work on it then I actually did. Which makes sense, since we had quite a few positive interactions before hand.

I think I'm more at fault for just going along with it. I should have acted on my feelings of "Are you sure you want to say that?" I'm telling you this in email because I feel like saying this publicly would be like throwing Ritchie under the bus. He's a good guy and gets more crap then he deserves. I won't put the blame on others when I deserve it.

I signed that shit with my real name too! Now for any RFA hopefuls, don't do this because it's very stupid, especially if you don't tell your nominators. It didn't even matter in this case anyways, since I found out back in February 2021 that they continued to believe that I had lied in the RFA, even though they gave a response to my email indicating that they "understood" the situation I was in. I don't know if this person will see this, if they do they know who they are, and I don't want to be enemies or whatever with them, the last thing I want to do is start shit with people who I know care about processes, I just wish they hadn't told me one thing and then said another thing not long after.

The RFA was about over now, and it was in Crat Chat territory. At that point I was so exhausted and unhappy with the process that I wanted them to quickly close it as no consensus. I was convinced there was no hope for it now. And at first, with two no consensus votes, it looked like I would get that wish... but then Worm That Turned comes in and says consensus... Just about. When I saw that I knew what was going to happen after and I wanted to withdraw. I could barely take the suspense anymore. I had to painstakingly wait for the crats to slowly vote, with them totally divided and the vote a back and forth. When people switch from support to oppose and the nonchalant opposes start rolling in, it feels like your stomach is in perpetual somersault. But when the crats take half a week to read everything over and vote and people won't stop constantly talking about YOU on the talk then thats when you start sweating when you look at your watchlist.

Eventually, the "promote" side prevailed and I was promoted after a 107 hour long crat chat. It was the longest successful RFA, and of course I was happy to finally make it through. Were the 275 hours worth it? I guess. Even though my close RFA has been used against me as a negative point ...Some advice: Your RFA was close. Don't blow it by doing things you shouldn't be doing. I don't care. I survived. The fact that I made it through should be enough evidence that I was ready for the tools. You may notice this is called Money emoji's Rfa, not "Moneytrees' Rfa". That is because I have evolved past how I was as Money emoji and am a much better person and more responsible as Moneytrees. The stigma of the Rfa doesn't haunt me.

If you are considering voting, think about some things before you do so. Do you need to clarify your vote was a "weak support"? Do you need to talk about completely unrelated things and project your view of the "maintainers vs. writers dispute" on to the candidate? Do you need to crack unrelated jokes despite opposing the candidate? Do you need to push your criteria so much? Do you need to incessantly nit pick over personal preference?

And will it really matter? Because for all those opposes and all the drama and pushback, I think it is fair to say that I am a good and well respected admin. It was all unfounded, wasn't it? What does that say about the legitimacy of so many RFA opposes?

If you are considering running, do not let my horror story deter you. There is no way yours can fuck up as badly as mine did. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt and defend yourself, but admit when you've made a mistake in the past. Avoid the mistakes I made in the rfa, and communicate to your nominators. That's the thing most important to being an admin, communication. If you're able to concisely explain your actions and look at them objectively, then you will be a good admin. There are a lot of advantages to being an admin and we need more users from varied backgrounds running. Everyday we are getting more and more editors from different backgrounds, who aren't entrenched in the old internet values so many admins believe in, and they are/will becom(ing) great admins. Don't let some bullshit prevent you from running, because if you're a serious candidate you're better than you think.

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Ritchie and Tony, if you have read this far, I am so sorry. Ritchie, I truly feel like I failed you and you've had to say things that don't align with your beliefs to defend me. It's really no ones fault, and I hope that you don't feel like I lied to you in some way, I would never do that. The same for you Tony, because you stuck up for me for so long and had my back during the RFA, and I feel like we're not friends any more or something after ACE2020 and that makes me want to cry. I can't describe how much I appreciate how you guys stuck up for me when things got so rough and how much I love this place and how much of a better person I've become. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 03:03, 2 June 2021 (UTC)