Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Candidates/MarcGarver

Nomination

MarcGarver (talk · contribs · he/him) – I am MarcGarver and I made my first Wikipedia edit (as QuiteUnusual) on 2 August 2006. In the subsequent 18 years I've kept myself out of trouble with no real conflicts. I have a previous, failed, RfA from 12 years ago which mainly turned on close paraphrasing concerns which I feel I've long addressed. I spend most of my time on WP:AFC, and dealing with low level spam, paid contributions and vandalism. As an administrator I would undoubtedly focus on the areas I know best - promotional content and spam, undisclosed paid editing, and the extensive copyright violation that turns up at AFC and NPP. I will also say that I have been a Steward for ten years which requires a community reconfirmation every year. This doesn't qualify me to be an admin here as the expectations are very different but I hope it provides some reassurance that I can be trusted to be sensible! I can confirm I have never been paid to edit Wikipedia. I have a second account, User:QuiteUnusualPublic, which I used to use occasionally on public computers MarcGarver (talk) 09:00, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. Please answer these questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. Why are you interested in becoming an administrator?

A: I spend a lot of time here - I'm usually active every working day - and I have a lot of technical experience of the admin toolset from other projects. I feel relatively comfortable with my knowledge of the main policies so feel that I can help out by dealing with the graft work. This is a genuine "I'm happy to help out" self-nomination. I have no burning desire to be an admin, and won't get upset by a "no" from the community.

2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?

A: I am not a big content creator, but have made material contributions to some articles. Two things are most typical of my larger contributions: expanding stubs, especially where they are poorly cited (e.g., Annie Warren Gill (diff) and tidying up abandoned larger articles like MS Norman Atlantic (diff). I am pleased with this work. I also think I make good contributions to cleaning up unsupported claims in BLPs, either by finding citations or removing the content if that seems wise. I'm the kind of person who when I am drawn to an article by one problem, I try and not just revert the problem, but leave it a bit better. A good example is here when I needed to fix a problem edit, but stayed to improve a poorly cited BLP before I left. Finally I should mention Control self-assessment. I think I've done a good job on this article which I started from scratch, but I'm also mentioning it because it was the cause of the close paraphrasing concern 12 years ago so I thought I'd make it easy for people who wanted to check back on it.

3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

A: The only conflict was long ago (and very minor). I am generally very accepting of feedback and adjust my work as required. It doesn't cause me stress. I should also mention other projects. I've been a Steward for 10 years (which is why I have some deletions in the Wikipedia log despite never being an admin) and a CheckUser on Wikibooks for longer. In these roles, some low level conflict is inevitable but I think I've dealt with it in the same way: listen, adjust if appropriate, move forward. Perhaps the best example is how I responded to my failed RfA. I recognised the problem and, after the RfA had ended, went back and checked every piece of my work to ensure I cleaned up every problem I had created. You can see the history of this on my user page, created at the time - User:MarcGarver/WIP.

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Discussion

• Links for MarcGarver: MarcGarver (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Edit summary usage for MarcGarver can be found here.

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Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review his contributions before commenting.