Slate on the Tamzin RFA

[ArmasRebane]

As for the other thing, well... I'm not quite to point of agreeing with the folks who say "not voting is a vote for fascism," but even so, failure to vote against fascism, just like ignorance of your culture, is not considered cool.

If there's one thing this RfA taught me about myself, it's how much I value believing in what you believe in.

I have considerably more respect for a die-hard Trump supporter who'll take the heat that comes with holding that position, than for someone who said "Trump and Hillary/Biden are basically the same, so whatever, I'll stay home."

I'm pretty far to the left.
I was disgusted by your statement.

You gave the right wing *exactly* what they want.
A perfect soundbite on a plate, to tar everyone on the left with.

You were disgusted? Really? Gosh, I totally missed that in all 70 posts you made during my RfA.

You're the true hero of the RfA, though. I'm not sure I would have made it through the final days of the fiasco without having someone to relentlessly counter-troll without consequence. If not for you, I'd have probably said another dumb thing on-wiki and tipped the balance too far. But who's ever gonna oppose over "She was a bitch on Wikipediocracy to that wannabe troll no one can stand"? Empirically, zero people, it seems.

So, I do sincerely owe you a debt of gratitude. <3

en.wp doesn't need more insane people in positions of authority.
They're fully stocked up as it is.

See, this is the thing about you, Vig, you just suck at trolling. Which is remarkable, given that you spend all your time trying to troll. But this, come on, what is this? You don't go for the "As a fellow leftist" moral-high-ground shit in one post, and then switch to blatant ableism as soon as someone makes you sad. You've gotta be consistent. There's got to be some narrative arc, y'know?

Like, a better response here might have been to frame me as a bully, or as two-faced. With the latter, you could even weave in some subtler commentary on my condition by way of concern-trolling about how this shows I'm not stable enough to be an admin. Poor Tamzin. They behave so inconsistently. Are they okay? Maybe ArbCom should be talking about a compassionate desysop...

I really should not have to be teaching you this shit, man. This is trolling 101.

If he wasn't successful in his "trolling", you wouldn't be responding to him.

[jf1970]

Giving an interview to a reporter about your RFA was funny (who called who I wonder?) but this was funnier:

I wouldn't say I'm bitter. As far I'm concerned, I walked out of that RfA with one of the strongest mandates any administrator has received, 340 in support, outnumbering opposes 3:1. That's nothing to be bitter about.

Most candidates hit 10:1 or higher. 3:1, the bare minimum, might be something to be bitter about.

[No Ledge]

This is probably a better "synopsis" link. After reading the Slate piece I felt bad about not checking in at the last minute to push Tamzin a bit farther from the borderline, but after reading Vig's analysis here I'm having second thoughts, and my curiosity has been tweaked to make me want to browse this thread which I'd ignored in real time.

[The Blue Newt]

Giving an interview to a reporter about your RFA was funny (who called who I wonder?) but this was funnier:

I wouldn't say I'm bitter. As far I'm concerned, I walked out of that RfA with one of the strongest mandates any administrator has received, 340 in support, outnumbering opposes 3:1. That's nothing to be bitter about.

Most candidates hit 10:1 or higher. 3:1, the bare minimum, might be something to be bitter about.

…and that’s assuming all the supports were bona fide; nothing says “Hasten the Day” like an unsuitable admin, and you gotta wonder whether alternate personae each get a right to vote.

[owl be it]

Can someone give me a synopsis of this thread? It just looks like a bunch of people arguing about Donald Trump.

[No Ledge]

Can someone give me a synopsis of this thread? It just looks like a bunch of people arguing about Donald Trump.

This thread is like one of those TV dramas with three or four separate plot lines that are at best tangentially related, where the discussion periodically switches from one plot line to another. Arguments about Trump are just one of the plot lines. Eventually the thread will end when all of the separate plots are settled or discussion about them peters out.

[Vigilant]

I hope you thrive as an administrator.

My biggest fear is that Wikipedia will chew you up and spit you out. Be self-protective out there.

Regardless of what I said above, I really do endorse that.

As do I.
I think en.wp is a dangerous hobby for you.

[Vigilant]

Giving an interview to a reporter about your RFA was funny (who called who I wonder?) but this was funnier:

I wouldn't say I'm bitter. As far I'm concerned, I walked out of that RfA with one of the strongest mandates any administrator has received, 340 in support, outnumbering opposes 3:1. That's nothing to be bitter about.

Most candidates hit 10:1 or higher. 3:1, the bare minimum, might be something to be bitter about.

That's quite a strange take.

They're either:
* wildly unaware of RfA history
* completely delusional
* flatly lying

So, Tamzin, which is it?

[Bezdomni]

Can someone give me a synopsis of this thread? It just looks like a bunch of people arguing about Donald Trump.

This thread is like one of those TV dramas with three or four separate plot lines that are at best tangentially related, where the discussion periodically switches from one plot line to another. Arguments about Trump are just one of the plot lines. Eventually the thread will end when all of the separate plots are settled or discussion about them peters out.

Yes, the exciting bit about the protagonist's ride in the Trump aeroplane as a teen is a fun flashback.

Though she did allude to it here, Tamzin hasn't give us the scoop on her link with the Bush family yet.

[Alalch Emis]

Obviously, the mandate bit is about the absolute numbers, not relative support.

[Vigilant]

Hmmm

I wouldn't say I'm bitter. As far I'm concerned, I walked out of that RfA with one of the strongest mandates any administrator has received, 340 in support, outnumbering opposes 3:1. That's nothing to be bitter about. If there's an enduring negative emotion, it's confusion, maybe. A significant contingent of a community I've called myself a part of for a decade told me that they view it as disqualifying from a position of trust for me to speak out against my own oppression (but that it's not disqualifying to speak in favor of said oppression). A month and a half on, yes, I'm still processing that. I think we should all be still processing that. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 02:38, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

So, as I stated in the previous thread, it wasn't dislike for Trump and his destruction of the US political system that made you post your disqualifying statement. Rather, it was your personal oppression...

Callow indeed.

@Primefac: I think that approach ignores the reality of RfA for the candidate. I think that, simply, the English Wikipedia has outgrown the old RfA atmosphere, but that atmosphere persists out of inertia. People join a relatively civil project, gain some experience, are asked to RfA, and discover that RfA is still run by 2010 standards—where if one user calls out another for remarks that would be personal attacks anywhere else (even in many CBAN threads), it's the admin doing the calling-out who's the bad guy, and where the truth quickly takes a back seat to what makes for a catchy oppose rationale. (I don't think that most people opposing me on outright factually incorrect bases [like that I want to ban all conservatives] were intentionally spreading misinformation, but rather confused by a chaotic RfA that begged to be skimmed rather than read. What's more troubling, I think, is that people were cowed from correcting these misstatements by an inexplicable stigma against asking people to justify their !votes.)

There's been consensus in several RfCs that RfX's attitude is toxic and that the 'crats have the power to clerk it. I think the problem is that the 'crats have clerked it on a standard of "What goes beyond the pale for RfA?", when that's a pretty weak limit. That's like taking a highway with a "Whatever's safe" speed limit where people routinely go 100mph and crash and kill people, asking the cops to crack down, and the cops say "Okay, we'll definitely pull over anyone who goes over 100mph" rather than "Maybe 100mph isn't safe to begin with and we should be pulling people over well before they get there".

If you ask yourself, "Why should RfXs be the most acrimonious community discussions, often more so than CBAN threads?" it's hard to come up with a good answer that doesn't rest on "Because that's how it always has been." They are part of Wikipedia. There is no consensus to enforce civility norms more weakly there, and if anything the opposite. 'crats should enforce civility at RfA, and should flag or strike votes that are hyperbolic or based on misstatements of fact or policy. It's really not so much to ask that people put together superficially valid oppose rationales. "Doesn't have enough experience in X" will basically always be there, for some value of X. Because yes, bad votes can be disregarded in the closing 'crat's analysis or the 'crat chat (although I'm not sure if, in practice, they are, aside from the most egregiously bad), but that assumes that the RfA closes above 65%. And it assumes the candidate makes it to 168 hours without burning out. Candidates are humans. There's a reason no one runs. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 20:57, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Wow.
So condescending.

These people voting at RfA don't have any idea why they're voting against little old me, so it must be because they're 'confused'.

And it's totally fine if my roommate wants to personally attack every other oppose voter and insist that some be banned for having an incorrect opinion.

Your inner Stalin is showing.

[Vigilant]

On another note, the 2014 Slate article hits Wikipedia's major civility problem squarely on the nail's head and also highlights what's generally wrong with Arbcom. Both articles are what I call excellent journalistic opinion; written a couple of years later (like mid 2018), I'm sure Auerbach would have mentioned a few more men's and ladies' names. Sad to say, if The Signpost staff were to write anything like it, they would be tarred and feathered at best by the peanut gallery, blocked and banned at worst at ANI, and the article deleted and oversighted by WP's governance obsessives. Time to put the publication on an independent server. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:55, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, Kudpung. If you'd like to accuse me or anyone else of canvassing or any other misconduct, well, you know where to find the drama boards, I'm sure. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 23:02, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Grossly belligerent too.
Nice.

[No Ledge]

Giving an interview to a reporter about your RFA was funny (who called who I wonder?) but this was funnier:

I wouldn't say I'm bitter. As far I'm concerned, I walked out of that RfA with one of the strongest mandates any administrator has received, 340 in support, outnumbering opposes 3:1. That's nothing to be bitter about.

Most candidates hit 10:1 or higher. 3:1, the bare minimum, might be something to be bitter about.

That's quite a strange take.

They're either:
* wildly unaware of RfA history
* completely delusional
* flatly lying

So, Tamzin, which is it?

Perhaps Tamzin is referring to Wikipedia:Times that 300 Wikipedians supported an RFX (T-H-L) where she is the new #1.

But that's more a measure of drama-creation abilities, and the increasing "importance" and "visibility" of RfA, rather than mandate level.

[Vigilant]

I have to say, watching your RFA did make me wonder if there was some canvassing going on, but from the other side, not from you. I'm sure nobody canvassed my support. Nobody ever brings me in on their conspiracies! How am I supposed to uphold my reputation as a corrupt and abusive admin when I don't even get the opportunity? Beeblebrox (talk) 23:23, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: I'm sure there was some amount of canvassing on both sides, as is inevitable in basically any large discussion, and probably considerably more "soft canvassing", as in "Hey, did you see what's going on at Tamzin's RfA?" But, for the same reason I don't believe in IRL conspiracy theories, I don't believe there could have been anything coördinated, on either side, involving more than 5-10 people. My more AGF explanation is that a lot of people don't participate in discussions that seem to have already settled in one way or another. In some cases, RFX200 and RFX300 may even be deterrents: You see a candidate you have a moderately favorable opinion of is running, and you see they're already at 220 support, and you ask yourself, "Sure, they should be an admin, but are they a 221-support admin?" Or in the other direction there's "I want this RfA to fail, but it's already on track to, and I don't wanna pile on". But if someone gets the watchlist-notice and sees the near-unprecedented sight on an RfA that's still being actively contested past the 200-supporter mark, then the incentives to vote or not vote are different. The normal safety valves against runaway support or opposition vanish, and each new support makes someone more likely to oppose than sit it out, and vice versa.

People justify RfA by saying it prepares you well for adminship. Well yes, I'm sure it's prepared me well for all those many times as an admin I'll be forced to sit through a week of people debating my moral character at airport novel length.[sarcasm] (Not grumbling at you there. Just. Grumbling.) -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 23:49, 16 June 2022 (UTC)Just

Bu, bu, bu, didn't you just shit all over Kudpung for saying nearly the same thing?!





You are definitely going to be a HtD asset.
Going to add your picture to the playing card deck.

[Tamzin, reluctantly]

Yes, the exciting bit about the protagonist's ride in the Trump aeroplane as a teen is a fun flashback.

Though she did allude to it here, Tamzin hasn't give us the scoop on her link with the Bush family yet.

No link to the family, just to Dubya, and just briefly. He called my mom after my dad died, and sent us all a letter—as I suppose is common decency when someone dies in a war you started—and invited us all to the White House. I asked if I could interview him for the school paper. After about a year of sorting out the details, I got about 10 minutes with him in the Oval Office. Proud to have caught him off-guard on at least one of the questions ("What's the worst thing that's happened while you were president?").

Oh, also, FWIW, I was seven for the Trump Force One thing (and eight(?) when I met Bush), not a teen. I'd say more, but y'know, apparently talking about yourself is narcissism.

[Tamzin, reluctantly]

I hope you thrive as an administrator.

My biggest fear is that Wikipedia will chew you up and spit you out. Be self-protective out there.

Regardless of what I said above, I really do endorse that.

Genuinely, thank you both for your concern. I'm not too worried, though. Some people seem to mistake openness about mental illness for fragility (which I suppose is still better than a rectally-derived "She's gonna go psycho and block everyone", but I digress). I have a lot of experience in keeping Wikipedia from chewing me up. If anything ever drives me away, it will be disillusionment, not personal affront.

[Bezdomni]

Oh, also, FWIW, I was seven for the Trump Force One thing (and eight(?) when I met Bush), not a teen. I'd say more, but y'know, apparently talking about yourself is narcissism.

Well, I did ask... Regarding "common decency when someone dies in a war you started", do you think he invited all 1300 of the soldiers' families and their kids to the White House in 2003-2004 (§)? I wonder how he had time for anything else.

[jf1970]

Perhaps Tamzin is referring to Wikipedia:Times that 300 Wikipedians supported an RFX (T-H-L) where she is the new #1.

But that's more a measure of drama-creation abilities, and the increasing "importance" and "visibility" of RfA, rather than mandate level.

Yeah, that's not exactly the most distinguished list to join. The 200 list is better company.

[Tamzin, reluctantly]

Well, I did ask... Regarding "common decency when someone dies in a war you started", do you think he invited all 1300 of the soldiers' families and their kids to the White House in 2003-2004 (§)? I wonder how he had time for anything else.

I'm not sure exactly how much attention the average soldier's family got from Bush, but, yes, I imagine it was less than a civilian who'd played a role in drumming up support for the war and who both Libby and Cheney had met with to make the case for it.

For what it's worth: Tying back to what I said earlier about believing in what you believe in, I immensely respect that my father believed in the war enough to voluntarily put himself in harm's way. I can't say I respect that that's what he believed in. But I think that, for someone who was incredibly zealous about honesty (which is where I get my pesky habit of telling the truth), if he'd lived through the invasion and seen how much the Bush Administration had lied to him and the American people, his treatment of Bush would have made his Clinton stuff look like nothing.

Or maybe that's wishful thinking. Maybe he'd've doubled down on party lines. But I don't think so, nor do most who knew him. But we'll never know for sure.

Relatedly, y'all might appreciate one of my favorite insults I've received on Wikipedia: diff. (My father was, mind you, half–Louisiana Creole and very proud of it.)

[Vigilant]

One of these days, you'll look back on who you were today and be revolted.

[Bezdomni]

C'mon Vigilant. I'm impressed with Tamzin's openness (and their writing skills).

A decent inside-baseball story.

If this were really an inside-baseball story about Wikipedia, Harrison would have linked to Saint Hillary.

Not your fault... you weren't even born yet! (I imagine he did ask whether you wanted to use your real name?)

By Lousiana créole, do you mean part of the planter (béké) class that fled Haiti after the revolution?

Again, not your fault...

[Vigilant]

C'mon Vigilant. I'm impressed with Tamzin's openness (and their writing skills).

I stand by my original assessment.

[Tamzin, reluctantly]

One of these days, you'll look back on who you were today and be revolted.

Trans? Queer? (Or, sorry, what's the dog-whistle you used? Fae-like?) Open about my mental health? Honest about my political views? Rude to you?

[The Blue Newt]

One of these days, you'll look back on who you were today and be revolted.

Trans? Queer? (Or, sorry, what's the dog-whistle you used? Fae-like?) Open about my mental health? Honest about my political views? Rude to you?

Only the dead have seen the end of this thread.

[Tamzin, reluctantly]

If this were really an inside-baseball story about Wikipedia, Harrison would have linked to Saint Hillary.

My father, according to my mother, always felt that piece was perceived as much more critical than he'd meant it. Funny enough, at the Women's March in 2017 I saw someone holding up a blown-up version of the cover, and ran after her to ask what the piece meant to her, but lost her in the crowd.

Not your fault... you weren't even born yet! (I imagine he did ask whether you wanted to use your real name?)

I actually requested it.

By Lousiana créole, do you mean part of the planter (béké) class that fled Haiti after the revolution?

Again, not your fault...

Indeed. With some Confederate soldiers mixed in. Sigh. I'd like to believe that my family's decades of efforts for social justice in D.C. make up for it, but yeah, there's a lot of evil in those roots.

The part my father was proud of, and that I'm proud of, is a damn good culinary and artistic tradition.

[Arishok]

If he wasn't successful in his "trolling", you wouldn't be responding to him.

I find myself largely agreeing with this assessment now; what is going on in this thread certainly can’t be characterized as unsuccessful trolling…

[Vigilant]

One of these days, you'll look back on who you were today and be revolted.

Trans? Queer? (Or, sorry, what's the dog-whistle you used? Fae-like?) Open about my mental health? Honest about my political views? Rude to you?

Callow, shallow and smug.

Fae-like in that you can't seem to stand to talk about any topic without bringing it around to your seeming primary personality issue. Just. Like. Fae.

"Oh, it's because I'm something you fear!" bullshit.
Fae seems to end up calling everyone who dares to disagree with him a homophobe at some point.

It's like this joke, "A vegan, crossfit enthusiast walks into a coffee shop. Which of these topics won't he shut up about first?"

You should be more than just 'trans' or 'queer', but you *define* yourself with these words and try to use them both as sword and shield, like Fae.
Your friends fed right into this at RfA as well.

Try to be something more.
Be a decent person who isn't defined *just* by these labels.

[Bezdomni]

I imagine he (Harrison) did ask whether you wanted to use your real name?

I actually requested it.

Interesting that Mr. Harrison did not oblige.

It's hard to disagree with you about LA food. (Though I admit preferring crawfish étouffée to po'boys youtube tells me you don't have to choose.)

I don't remember if I read the "Saint Hillary" piece at the time, though I'm pretty sure I did. I just reread it a couple times, and its comments on do-goodery are quite a blast from the past, knowing what we do now about mass incarceration and the king & queen of Haiti. Unintended counterfinalities to be sure.

Anyway, thanks for your direct answers to my (also pretty direct) questions, Tamzin.

[Tamzin, reluctantly]

I imagine he (Harrison) did ask whether you wanted to use your real name?

I actually requested it.

Interesting that Mr. Harrison did not oblige.

Ah, you misunderstand me (due to a production error, no doubt). I requested inclusion, not exclusion. My full name is already tied to my on-wiki persona, so I might as well get it into a piece where I have some sway over how I'll be seen.

And besides, related to what we're talking about, I've been a "public figure" to some extent since I was 14 months old. As much as I am a BLP privacy hard-liner for others, I've never had a strong sense of privacy of my own.

[Bezdomni]

It's right there in black in white... it's even nearly the first words of the article! So no, not a production error... I'm just thick. It hadn't dawned on me that you'd changed your legal name in the time you'd been a public figure. My apologies for my confusion.

[No Ledge]

Callow, shallow and smug.

Father's Wikipedia bio says

"It's not simply that Kelly was wrong, nor that he was wrong about important things. It's that he was aggressively, manipulatively, and smugly wrong."

Seems clear where Tamzin inherited their writing skills from.

I have no unusual gender family or friends, but have intimate, long-term personal exposure to mental illness among multiple friends and family. I know that mental illness comes in many flavors; each person with mental illness is unique. Some are much more functional than others. So mixed feelings about this RfA. I know mentally ill people can have trouble functioning in society and holding jobs. I appreciate that Wikipedia can be a positive outlet where people can be accepted and feel like they are productive contributors to society. I wouldn't want to deny them that opportunity.

On the other hand Wikipedia can be a cruel place and I'd like to protect those who can't handle that.

Tamzin seems somewhat self-aware. I'm content that I sat out this RfA, also content to let her have a go at administration. Please take heed of advice given in this thread.

[Giraffe Stapler]

I have no unusual gender family or friends, ...

You should contact your local branch of Friends of the Unusually Gendered (T-H-L). FUG mainly exists as a support group but it's a good way to meet and interact with unusually gendered people.

[The Blue Newt]

I have no unusual gender family or friends, ...

You should contact your local branch of Friends of the Unusually Gendered (T-H-L). FUG mainly exists as a support group but it's a good way to meet and interact with unusually gendered people.

You forgot to cover their Auxiliary, which they often hold joint meetings with. All around you probably hear people mentioning “FUG and A”.

[ScotFinnRadish]

I have no unusual gender family or friends, ...

You should contact your local branch of Friends of the Unusually Gendered (T-H-L). FUG mainly exists as a support group but it's a good way to meet and interact with unusually gendered people.

You forgot to cover their Auxiliary, which they often hold joint meetings with. All around you probably hear people mentioning “FUG and A”.

Unfortunately, I'm the only member nearby, so I normally have to FUG myself :/

[Scorpions13256]

I was not aware of that. I support gay marriage because I have yet to hear a sound argument against it. How long ago did he say this? My brother is gay btw.

I still support him because public opinion on the issue is changing fast. If Rob Portman changed his mind, so can DeWine.

Now that gay marriage is settled law (for now), most of the GOP heavies in the Midwest have changed their targets from gay people to trans people.

Right now friends of mine are waiting to find out if they will be forced to move out of Ohio. They have a transgender teenager on hormone blockers; the Ohio GOP is looking to make prescribing those a criminal act with HB 454.

I’d like to think DeWine would veto that, but we’ll see, I guess.

Sorry, it took me so long to get back to you. I forgot about your response. I typed "Mike Dewine" and "Transgender" into Google, and came to the conclusion that he would veto it.

[Tamzin, reluctantly]

On the other hand Wikipedia can be a cruel place and I'd like to protect those who can't handle that.

Tamzin seems somewhat self-aware. I'm content that I sat out this RfA, also content to let her have a go at administration. Please take heed of advice given in this thread.

Well, per the essay you linked, I disengage when needed. If you look at my contributions over time you can spot the bits where I took days or weeks off in the interest of my health... Because I mean, that's what living with mental illness is: Finding a way to cope, without letting things damage you, and without damaging others.

I am listening to what y'all have had to say; I hope you know that. It's just that when I hear a generalized statement to the effect of "Crazy people shouldn't be admins", my response is to poke fun at that idea. We've had an admin openly on the schizo spectrum for over a decade now, and AFAIK she's yet to block anyone because voices told her to. We've elected an arb/'crat/steward who openly has borderline personality disorder, which I'd say is second only to schizo-spectrum conditions in how much it's stereotypically associated with untrustworthiness; again, no disasters. And neither 340 supporters nor 112 opposers at my RfA saw it as worth mentioning (despite the page where I disclose it picking up 1,000 views during the course of the discussion). So yes, vague fearmongering about my mental health gets a laugh out of me.

That said, the reason I started coming to WPO threads about me is so people could ask me stuff, rather than speculate. I hope that I've done a good job at answering questions so far in this thread. If you or anyone else does have reasonable questions about my mental health, I'm happy to answer them.

[Jim]

My wish? That you're right and it will all work out fine.
My fear? That you're wrong, and it'll all end in tears.

My gut feeling? 30% the former, 70% the latter.

But I'm often wrong, and my guesses are based only on observation of unpredictable processes over the years - so best not to listen to me...

[Bezdomni]

If you or anyone else does have reasonable questions about my mental health, I'm happy to answer them.

If Harrison weren't a loyal WMFer, he might have written:

In her debrief essay (§) about the RfA, Tamzin noted that her difficult experience shows exactly why there’s a shortage of Wikipedia admins: a few sane people wanting to undergo that level of scrutiny.

Despite y'all's frustration with the silent spiking of the Signpost essay, would noisy spiking of its dramatis personae -- say, here at WPO, or farther afield at Sucks -- really be better?

[Vigilant]

My wish? That you're right and it will all work out fine.
My fear? That you're wrong, and it'll all end in tears.

My gut feeling? 30% the former, 70% the latter.

But I'm often wrong, and my guesses are based only on observation of unpredictable processes over the years - so best not to listen to me...

Yeah.

Only suckers buck the tiger. The odds are all with the house.

[Midsize Jake]

I am listening to what y'all have had to say; I hope you know that. It's just that when I hear a generalized statement to the effect of "Crazy people shouldn't be admins", my response is to poke fun at that idea. We've had an admin openly on the schizo spectrum for over a decade now, and AFAIK she's yet to block anyone because voices told her to. We've elected an arb/'crat/steward who openly has borderline personality disorder, which I'd say is second only to schizo-spectrum conditions in how much it's stereotypically associated with untrustworthiness; again, no disasters....

I realize that over the past 16-17 years people have surely grown tired of me constantly saying this, but when it comes to admins and vested WP users especially, the problem is narcissism, not schizophrenia or OCD, or non-narcissism-related personality disorders. What happens is, Wikipedia itself becomes the source of narcissistic supply (T-H-L), and people begin to see any threat to Wikipedia as a threat to their narcissistic supply and therefore themselves, so they fully internalize the us-vs.-them mentality, become increasingly callous and belligerent, etc., etc. And if anything, schizophrenia or borderline personality would more likely cause a person to back off, due to fear that their actions might expose weakness. Narcissists don't think in those terms.

Earlier, Mr. Vigilant described you as "smug," and I have to admit I do see a bit of that myself. Being a WP admin could conceivably beat that out of you, which is to say you won't get away with it as easily as you might have in the past, and at some point you'll get it to where it isn't noticeable anymore (assuming you haven't already). But again, if you did have strong narcissistic tendencies, that wouldn't matter — smugness would be part of the package, and being an admin would only make it worse.

I don't get the narcissist "vibe" from you though, and being anti-Trump you're likely to be familiar with what that means specifically, which is good... but unfortunately, almost everyone can have these traits to some degree. I guess my point is simply that being a WP admin might exacerbate any such tendencies you might have, so you just have to watch for them a little more closely.

[Tamzin, reluctantly]

If you or anyone else does have reasonable questions about my mental health, I'm happy to answer them.

If Harrison weren't a loyal WMFer, he might have written:

In her debrief essay (§) about the RfA, Tamzin noted that her difficult experience shows exactly why there’s a shortage of Wikipedia admins: a few sane people wanting to undergo that level of scrutiny.

Despite y'all's frustration with the silent spiking of the Signpost essay, would noisy spiking of its dramatis personae -- say, here at WPO, or farther afield at Sucks -- really be better?

I don't say anything publicly about myself that I'm not okay with having discussed publicly. Neither hilariously bad psych takes (referring more to other sites than here; "I bet Wikipedia gave her DID" made me literally LOL), nor factually correct statements like "lol trans", nor juvenile insults like misgendering, make me regret being open about who I am.

[WanderingWanda]

Well, I did ask... Regarding "common decency when someone dies in a war you started", do you think he invited all 1300 of the soldiers' families and their kids to the White House in 2003-2004 (§)? I wonder how he had time for anything else.

I'm not sure exactly how much attention the average soldier's family got from Bush, but, yes, I imagine it was less than a civilian who'd played a role in drumming up support for the war and who both Libby and Cheney had met with to make the case for it.

For what it's worth: Tying back to what I said earlier about believing in what you believe in, I immensely respect that my father believed in the war enough to voluntarily put himself in harm's way. I can't say I respect that that's what he believed in. But I think that, for someone who was incredibly zealous about honesty (which is where I get my pesky habit of telling the truth), if he'd lived through the invasion and seen how much the Bush Administration had lied to him and the American people, his treatment of Bush would have made his Clinton stuff look like nothing.

Or maybe that's wishful thinking. Maybe he'd've doubled down on party lines. But I don't think so, nor do most who knew him. But we'll never know for sure.

Relatedly, y'all might appreciate one of my favorite insults I've received on Wikipedia: diff. (My father was, mind you, half–Louisiana Creole and very proud of it.)

Huh, I didn't know he was an Iraq war cheerleader. Though who in the media wasn't in those days. That's why I laugh every time someone says that the mainstream media has a leftwing bias.