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Commons:Administrators/Requests

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Requests for adminship

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Grand-Duc

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Grand-Duc (talk · contributions (views) · deleted user contributions · deleted uploads · recent activity (talk · project · deletion requests) · logs · block log · global contribs · CentralAuth)

Scheduled to end: 18:39, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

Grand-Duc first applied to be an Admin in 2011 and I commented then that he looked like a good candidate, but needed more experience. It's fourteen years and 25,000 edits later.

I have interacted with him on DRs and UnDRs and found him to be careful, knowledgeable, and easy to work with. I think he will be a significant asset as an Admin. He is a file mover and license reviewer and has uploaded some wonderful photographs on a wide variety of subjects, see User:Grand-Duc.

Therefore I nominate Grand-Duc to be an Administrator on Commons. .     Jim . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 18:39, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am really honoured by this nomination from Jim. I gladly accept it. Grand-Duc (talk) 18:45, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Votes

Comments

  • @Grand-Duc: Do you accept this nomination? --Bedivere (talk) 18:45, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Question to @Geoffroi's vote above, can you perhaps provide some links so we can save time finding out what you were referring to? Also, what does "DENY" mean exactly? (apologies for not knowing what it refers to). Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 00:07, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    User talk:Grand-Duc#Move request is the sock case and Taivo's message is at the very bottom. DENY means you don't encourage socking by doing what socks want done, such as file renaming. Grand-Duc should've considered that a few somewhat constructive rename requests here isn't worth keeping this LTA sockmaster around to cause problems here and on other wikis for a longer period of time. LTA global locks aren't put in place by stewards on Meta for small reasons. Geoffroi 00:24, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Tvpuppy, DENY refers to enwiki's advice regarding vandals: "DENY recognition" as that's what they come for. Here's the original essay. All the Best -- Chuck Talk 00:24, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I see. Thank you both for the detailed explanation. Tvpuppy (talk) 00:30, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment My basic concern is that as of 1 month ago this admin candidate had no idea how to deal with LTAs/sockmasters/vandals/etc or what they even are. Was he concerned about what this LTA did to get his global lock? Some of these guys harass and dox people, or attack them with racial slurs and vandalism. One of the rename requests that I turned down from this LTA was pure vandalism. As an admin you should be protecting Commons and its good contributors and that means blocks and protections as Taivo has done, not coddling and defending a globally locked Long Term Abuse account. Geoffroi 00:39, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not too concerned about Grand-Duc's LTA skills, as I'd rather someone AGF a sock of an LTA they didn't know exist than falsely accuse someone of sockpuppetry. We don't have public LTA pages, and we do this to DENY recognition. All the Best -- Chuck Talk 01:03, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Have you ever had an LTA harass you and email you telling you that, as a Jew, you should be killed and they were going to find you and do it? You might be "concerned" if you care about the real people behind these handles. Geoffroi 01:25, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Question @Grand-Duc: What are your thoughts on this and how will you deal with sockmasters/vandals/trolls if you become an admin? The person I link to above is the LTA extreme, but all LTAs and vandals are bad and harmful. Any sock could be a revamped sockpuppet of somebody really bad. An LTA sockmaster who seems chill here may be doing worse on one of the wikis or may even be a worse LTA disguised. You have to know about these people on Commons because they attack Commons users, they use attack images for trolling on Wikis, and because they attack their Wikipedia targets here too. Geoffroi 01:19, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Geoffroi: You gave me a link to a deletion debate on EN-WP. I am not really involved with their local customs, my home Wiki is DE-WP, so I every now and then come across guidelines, essays, social conduct advices and similar that are obviously peculiar to EN. A deletion debate over sock listings is not very weird for me, in fact, one of our (German) most prolific sock recognisers maintains a list of trolls known for abusing DE-WP (this tool carries a tongue-in-cheek title and is so well known that it has its own shortcut from the Wikipedia namespace: de:WP:LSWU). So, I do not really understand the purpose of your question, sorry. Basically, my thought was, when I read the linked page, "Ah, an illustration of a self-organising process on EN."
    About the actual GMatteotti case: there are some German sentences in the middle of the thread User talk:Grand-Duc#Move request, where I asked Achim55 about the matters, as the individual was unknown to me. After the case was made clear, I ignored the follow-up questions.
    The principle of RBI, "Revert-Block-Ignore", is sound, I endorse it.
    That said, I know for sure that I am not a good sock spotter/hunter in any capacity. So I won't be the first person jumping into dealing with LTA individuals, and if I happen to get involved with one, I will most certainly ask for advice on ANU and support by colleagues with the endorsement to deal with these matters, namely CU (I did so several times in the past already). If there's some urgent matter, like involving CSAM, personal data of minors, an announcement to inflict bodily harm one oneself or third parties, etc., then I will surely use any tool available (revdel as admin, contact to OS or emergency). In fact, such a case (personal data of a minor) I was involved in led to the inception of User:Oversight Commons per proposal at Commons:Village pump/Proposals/Archive/2025/02#Possibly easier way to contact local oversighters via Wikimail.
    For what it's worth, I can say for sure that the kind of abuse you described above ("Have you ever had an LTA harass you and email you telling you that, as a Jew, you should be killed and they were going to find you and do it?") is something intolerable and should warrant a sitewide ban on Meta. It's likely not within the sole purview of "simple" Commons admins, but I know about relevant message boards on Meta, for contacting stewards. I will try to provide any assistance I'm able to, but that may be rather limited (I lack the technical knowledge of analysing e-mail headers for instance: a fellow German Wikimedian did such a thing to authenticate Wikimails from an individual who trolled and subsequently got WMF-banned).
    But I fear I'm digressing. - I hope to become an admin to help in working in the field of deletion requests and redactional media quality assurance, that's where I think I can be the most helpful. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 03:00, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Geoffroi, as a CU, let me caution you that the question of what to do with images uploaded by LTAs is controversial. While I agree that we should not encourage them, some of our must experienced colleagues believe that if an image is a good addition to Commons that we should keep it even if it was uploaded by an LTA. It is very unfair to criticize Grand-Duc for actions that might well have been taken by very experienced Admins. .     Jim . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 12:44, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Jameslwoodward: We have an admin candidate here who has zero clue or interest about blocks and protections and states himself that his dispute resolution skills are not very good. Apparently he thinks he can do a few deletions here and there and somehow not worry about people who disagree with his deletions and show up angry and frustrated on his talkpage or people who come to him in need of help with something other than copyright questions. I don't think he would be a good admin without dispute resolution skills or the ability to help Commons users with blocks and protections if they're being harassed or a vandal/sock is active and an admin is needed. He can't just tell people to find another admin who knows what he's doing or is interested in that area of adminship. Geoffroi 22:04, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Question Could you provide some reflection on the incident that RoyZuo and Rhododendrites mention in their !votes? Sdkb talk 16:33, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Sdkb: I will try. I think that it was a clash of opinions about general file naming conventions and seemingly more strict rules for them on QIC, which started earlier than the exchanges linked by Rhododendrites above, actually. The first relevant interaction was here, followed by this ANU thread. RoyZuo linked an even later resumption of the subject "file names on QIC" which evidently didn't advance the matter. During these exchanges, I have likely mirrored the opponent's apparent unwillingness to search and reach for compromises; it ended later in me dropping that subject. There was some support for my standpoint visible, though. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 22:19, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    In my opinion, it's important for admins to have [at least] three things: a strong grasp of our policies, guidelines, and processes; a demonstrable history of effectively practicing and communicating said policies, guidelines, and processes; and the ability to engage effectively in contentious circumstances, resolving disputes and deescalating conflict. My impression is that you have the first two, but I worry about the third (and I apologize that I'm only drawing from our one interaction, which may not be representative). This reply is not reassuring, however. As I said in the discussions we've linked, I think you were correct on the merits of the dispute with Phyrexian. The problem was that you were, in my view, unnecessarily antagonistic in a way that made resolution more, rather than less difficult. Explaining this by saying you were "mirroring" effectively blames Phyrexian rather than taking responsibility. If Phyrexian runs for admin, I will be linking to the very same discussion in their RfA. — Rhododendrites talk |  23:29, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Rhododendrites, I am aware that I am not proficient as other people in mediating conflicts.
    I agreed to this admin nomination as I would like the grant of the ability to offer manpower and support in our quality assurance processes, not only by augmenting the workload of other admins by making deletion nominations (standard or speedy), but also by proceeding other people's requests to reduce said load.
    Interpersonal conflicts aren't my mettle, I would like to avoid them if possible (that shouldn't be much of an issue, the ANU and ANB boards look well-staffed). That said, an apparent total block of a common, legitimate request for likely rather selfish reasons doesn't offer much in the way of a lead to a resolution, so yes, mirroring (or en:tit for tat) does blame another party - how would you have managed the Phyrexian case? On the other hand, if the other party shows a behaviour of genuine interest or will to compromise, I am most willing to provide any information and help I can or reach for an agreement (like here), this is also always a learning opportunity for myself. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 20:05, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    how would you have managed the Phyrexian case - Hard to say. There is a phenomenon that happens here sometimes and on Wikipedia often whereby someone makes a series of mistakes and another person notices and begins correcting them. At some point, when the same person addresses the same problems in many articles (or files), the person who made the mistakes feels hounded/harassed/bullied/whatever. It is an understandable feeling, even if they're in the wrong. In such cases IMO the best recourse is to go to a noticeboard and say "I've noticed this pattern of problems, but I'm distressing the user as I try to fix them. That is not my intent, so I wonder if someone else could address the situation." Assuming others agree with your assessment of the problem, that's usually successful to get someone else to say "you really do need to stop making these mistakes". More often than not, the person making the mistakes is better able to listen to the third party -- they just couldn't let it come from the person they felt attacked by (rightly or wrongly). If they resume the behavior again in the future, you can go back to those who intervened before to flag it to them. Now, don't get me wrong, occasionally there are users who are distressed when corrected no matter what, and find conflict with anyone who tries to fix their errors, no matter what -- I don't know Phyrexian well enough to assume anything other than "it's worth a try". Was that the correct way to handle the case? I don't know. — Rhododendrites talk |  14:18, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Rhododendrites: thank you. Your handling description actually partly looks like what I did:
    1) a (swiftly reverted) file renaming;
    2) followed by a standard contact to the other party;
    3) their rebuttal (to which I answered by guideline-based facts);
    4) an ANU report, purposely titled in a way to avoid naming a party in the title,
    5) In retrospect, I should have left the case alone, then. While there was at least a slight support for my concept, it wasn't clear cut, yet. I went on to make some QIC reviews like here or here.
    6) the opposing party, Phyrexian, went on in "full personal mode" Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems/Archive 124#Hounding by Grand-Duc (by wording his complaint in a reproachful/attacking manner). There, he was told in much more detail that he's more likely in the wrong than I was.
    7) I had learned that Phyrexian wants and needs some kind of index number on his files. As long as a filemover is aware of that, that wish will get honoured. Hence, I proposed a compromise, but Phyrexian seemed too heated to see or accept it.
    8) Over that ANU thread, I didn't feel like meekly accepting some abuse (especially the concept of hounding: "This is with an apparent aim to irritate, annoy or cause distress to the other editor.", which is a complete misinterpretation of my intentions. I want to advance Commons. There's no need or fun to be had in fighting people. The nicest thing here in the project would be to share pleasure, dreams and laughs by spotting surprising, funny, weird, interesting,... imagery and feeling a sense of achievement by e.g. tracking down a species name for a biological specimen). Hence, I tried to respond in an adequate way while staying sufficiently polite. Furthermore, the notion of insufficient filenames being used on QIC was quite dominant, there.
    Can I still ask you if you have more thoughts to share? As said above: I'm perpetually learning. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 18:48, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Grand-Duc I followed Rhododendrites's rationale in my oppose !vote. I believe you mean it when you say you're perpetually learning, but I'd like to see you act on those words before I endorse your RfA. The Phyrexian incidents happened only a few weeks ago, maybe not enough time for you to point to anything concrete you have learned from it, but if there's anything, I'd really like to see it. Some reflection between then and the running for admin that indicates the retrospection you're talking about? Did you discuss the incident anywhere in your preparation for the election?
    Your point 5) is the crucial one for me. In the second QIC discussion you link, [1], another user asks that you should be called to order. A few days later, you were told by an admin [2] that you should probably stop commenting on Phyrexian's QICs. How did you react? Renerpho (talk) 01:35, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Renerpho, about "How did you react?": since August, I came to the conclusion that at least regular QIC participants apparently have a kind of unspoken agreement on file names which isn't really recorded on the relevant pages, as far as I understood them. As there are LOTS of other things to engage in, like patrolling new files (on the lookout for potential copyvios), I kept doing that. I also kept QIC on my watchlist and happened upon an interesting candidate, on which I had a fruitful exchange with its author. I'm leaving Phyrexian alone. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 21:22, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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