Chinese 'Pedia Admin, the Lack of - Wikipedia-l

13 Jun 2003

Since the Chinese Wikipedia began over half a year ago, we have lacked any 
sort of administrator. Brion VIBBER has been kindly helping us with 
programming problems, but since he can't read Chinese characters, he is 
unable to help us do the dirty work of cleaning up after vandalistic acts.

As we currently only have just over 200 articles, there is not much to 
vandal on yet, but occasionally, repetitive vandals (mostly Anons, some 
registered) grace us with annoying visits. Moreover, 2 or 3 bothersome 
nonsensical (purposeful or experimental) "articles" occur daily, usually as 
new articles, or worse, as additions or total replacements.

As the number of the articles increase (and it is swiftly), among other 
things, more unpleasantness -- some of which we have experienced -- will 
surely arrive, unfortunately. We would like to be ready for that approaching 
time whose front. Discussions between existing contributors led to the 
recommendation of the following five candidates, who, based on their past 
actions and communications, are all deemed responsible, objective, and 
therefore qualified to be Wikipedia administrators:

* Formulax of Shanghai and Singapore (966 edits since November 2002): 
Biographies, philosophy, art history, international relations, etc.
* Lorenzarius of Hong Kong (569 ed. since February 2002): Mainlander 
administrations (especially provincial-level), meta-documents, etc.
* Menchi of Canada and Taiwan (472 ed. since February 2002): North American 
societies, overseas Chinese, Korean studies, etc.

And two impressively gung ho newbies:

* Samuel of Canton (656 ed. since May 2002): language, education, zoology, 
pathology, geography, mathematics, European societies, etc.
* Shizhao of Beijing (831 ed. since May 2002): mineralogy, classical 
literature, pre-modern technology, chemistry, etc.

Together, the five above made about 60% of all existing edits on the Chinese 
Wikipedia.

The potential administrators represent a variety of interest, and not the 
bias of a particular ideology or region or ancestry:

* Two of the above contributors use traditional Chinese, three simplified.
* Two overseas, three "internal".
* Two are raised in Cantonese environment, two Mandarin, one Wu.
* Four are bilingual in English, one Russian. Tertiary languages include 
French, Spanish and German.
* Several have been active in the English Wikipedia, such as Menchi, the 
63rd most active contributor there.

The last two contributors are admittedly new, but their extensive work 
should show their ability and personality.

None of us know each other personally, so these nominations were based 
purely on professional understanding. There are additional good writers, but 
they have not yet demonstrated an overwhelming enthusiasm or a desire to 
maintain the program and protect it from vandal destruction, so they were 
not included in the final list above.

We would like to improve this young project and help it grow. In order to do 
that, we should be able to serve the cause of Wikipedia easier and faster. 
And we believe that administratorship can allow us to achieve that goal.

-- Menchi

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