Wikipedia:Administrator elections/July 2025/Candidates/Kj cheetham

The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a successful administrator election candidacy. Please do not modify it.

Final (350/127/64) (S/A/O); See official results (non-admin closure) – DreamRimmer ■ 12:17, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Nomination

Kj cheetham (talk · contribs) – It's my pleasure to nominate Kj cheetham for adminship. They are very active at NPP (almost 8,000 patrols), with a nearly perfect CSD log since 2022. In addition, their 800+ contributions at AfD demonstrate a clear understanding of a wide array of notability criteria. What else do you need? At UAA, a sample of the almost 500 edits showed that requests are honoured in most cases. Their seven good articles show good understanding of content work too, as do their thorough GA reviews (example). Helpful and thoughtful in their communication, they received an Editor of the Week award for their AfD contributions, advice to newer editors, gnoming and content work in 2023. In summary, Kj cheetham would be an great addition to the admin corps. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:18, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

Co-nomination statement

I first noticed Kj cheetham when I myself became a New Page Reviewer in 2022. Since then, I've noticed a level of competency, decency, helpfulness, and willingness to accept criticism that I cannot help but respect. Kj is a knowledgeable individual, with a respectable amount of content experience (demonstrated by their NPP work and 7 good articles), but what I love most about them is their drive to continue to grow and evolve as an editor. An administrator is not always right, as much as we try to be, and someone who's willing to gracefully accept criticism and grow from it, as well as know when to stand their ground and explain why they're doing that, while also possessing a wealth of knowledge, is an absolute asset and someone we should want to add to the admin corps. They have the right temperament, knowledge, and recognition of their own personal limitations for the tools, and I cannot say how happy I am to be given the opportunity to nominate them for adminship. I hope you will join me in supporting them and giving Kj the chance to show you just how great they can be if the tools are handed to them. Hey man im josh (talk) 20:38, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept. -Kj cheetham (talk) 18:55, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Please disclose whether you have ever edited Wikipedia for pay: I have never edited for pay and have no other accounts. -Kj cheetham (talk) 18:55, 14 July 2025 (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'm interested in becoming an admin to initially help out in areas like WP:CSD, some straightforward WP:AfD closures, WP:UAA, and possibly WP:PERM and WP:AIV. These are areas where I'm already active or familiar, and I believe the admin tools would allow me to contribute more effectively.

I expect to begin with tasks I'm comfortable with and expand gradually as I gain confidence and experience with the toolset, including learning from how others handle complex cases such as discussion closures. I may also find it useful to move protected pages when appropriate, such as when requested at WP:RMTR. I aim to approach admin work calmly, fairly, and collaboratively, and I believe I have good judgement in applying the tools. Adminship, to me, is simply a way to be more effective in helping the project, particularly building on my background in WP:NPP.

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

A: I'm most proud of my contributions in three main areas:

Scottish castles, such as Sundrum Castle, Maybole Castle, Elcho Castle, and others, where I've worked on content creation and improvement. These have led to a mix of Good Article status and Did You Know? entries. I value the collaborative aspect of this work; for example, Sundrum Castle benefited from productive engagement with other editors.
Participation in WP:WikiProject Women scientists, where I've created various new articles and done WP:GNOME-style work such as tagging and categorisation. While my contributions here are often behind the scenes, they help improve visibility and make it easier for editors monitoring in the area.
Ongoing work with WP:NPP, especially during the October 2022 backlog drive, where we succeeded in reducing the backlog to zero. I’ve continued to be active in NPP since then, doing what I can to help address problematic pages and maintain quality, primarily in the area of biographies and science.

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: I've made various minor mistakes over the years, and I try to learn from them when they happen. I've mostly stayed out of WP:ANI, and I aim to approach editing and disputes in a calm, constructive way. I don't know everything and sometimes need to refer to guidelines when it's not something I'm involved with every week. I know what I don’t know, but I'm always keen to learn or defer to someone else with more experience as appropriate.

I'm generally able to stay level-headed even when under a bit of pressure or facing incivility - I try to keep in mind that Wikipedia can be a WP:STRESSFUL environment at times and that it's not about WP:WINNING. If a situation becomes heated, I’m comfortable stepping away from the keyboard or dropping the stick, as needed (for example here). That said, I do recognise the importance of accountability for administrators and know that walking away isn’t always the right response once the tools are involved. However, sometimes a brief break to regain composure and return with a clearer mind can lead to a better response, or realising that I was in the wrong and need to apologise to the user, always starting from an assumption of good faith.

You may ask optional questions below. There is a limit of two questions per editor. Multi-part questions are disallowed, but you are allowed to ask follow-up questions related to previous questions. Make sure to use level 4 section headers, not bold face. (4 equal signs)

Optional question from Ganesha811

4. Are there any areas of adminship you do not plan to participate in, due to unfamiliarity or lack of technical knowledge? If you later decided you wanted to help in these areas, what would be your plan to become an effective admin in those areas?

A: Areas such as WP:SPI clerking (I’m familiar enough to open cases at least), WP:EDITFILTER, WP:BRFA, closing and implementing outcomes at WP:ANI, WP:CP, etc. There are probably also various areas I’m not even aware exist! For any area I’m less familiar with, my first point of call would be reading the relevant policy/guidance, observing how things are done by others, then in my head trying to decide how I would handle a particular activity and waiting to see how it’s done in practice, perhaps even asking someone more experienced before I took an action if I was less confident, and asking people queries, either on-wiki or on Discord for instance. When in doubt, I wouldn’t be afraid to defer, rather than potentially cause damage by being overly bold. For SPI as an example, I’d start with reviewing WP:SPI/C and becoming a trainee clerk and building up some experience before even considering any kind of admin action.

Optional question from Fade258

5. As a part of NPP, On what circumstances do you guide creators rather than tagging articles for deletion?

A: I rarely tag articles for deletion in practice, especially as part of NPP when working on the backlog. In some cases, they have already gone through AfC to do some quality control. If there were issues, I would more typically add specific tags with the aim of highlighting what the current issues were, or a talk page comment, and make any small fixes myself. If an editor had any further queries, I would happily engage with them to discuss and provide further information. My overall goal is helping improve Wikipedia.

Optional question from SunDawn

6. As one of the contributors of NPP, what do you think should be improved in the NPP process?

A: Since I started at NPP, there have already been quite a few software improvements which help with the workflow, especially around 2022 after WP:NPPWMF. Having a large backlog is an almost constant issue. Recent work to align the backlog drives with other backlog WP:DRIVES (e.g. with AfC and GAN) so they don’t clash as much is a good thing. WMF is also working on things like mw:Edit check/Tone Check/Wikipedia:Edit check/Tone Check, though I've not given much thought to how helpful that’ll be in practice. AI tools may help, but a human is needed in the loop. There may be scope for further back-end automation, but I couldn't say where offhand. Relying on a small number of prolific NPPs isn't the answer either. I'd also be cautious about reducing the level of quality control required as part of NPP. Various ideas also pop up on WP:PCSI, but my focus with NPP has been more on doing the reviews rather than coordination and taking a step back to think of further improvements.

My only real suggestion at the moment is to encourage more people to get involved with it though, as every little helps! And perhaps increase the profile of WP:NPRSCHOOL somehow.

Optional questions from BusterD

7. Thank you for putting yourself forward as an administrator candidate. In what situations, if any, do you believe an administrator should invoke ignore all rules when justifying the use of advanced permissions?

A: Thinking generally rather than what I would do, given I’d be very hesitant to IAR, it would need to be something where the community wouldn’t have any reason to object and it was urgent and exceptional, perhaps to unblock a stuck process. Rules can be changed. Consensus and civility is important. (I did note there are various essays on the topic at WP:IARESSAYS.)

8. Since the last admin election, the community has authorized and established a recall process. How has the addition of the recall petition affected your choices when choosing to run for the mop?

A: It hasn’t really had any impact. I support the recall process in principle, and would have quite likely said I was open to recall (WP:AOR) had that process not been authorised. This is in addition to other processes to hold admins to account, as outlined at WP:ADMIN. In any case, I would step down if I didn’t feel I had the trust of the wider community.

Optional question from CosXZ

9. How would you address a good faith editor who made a honest mistake?

A: It depends on the issue. Sometimes I’d just fix it quietly with an appropriate edit summary, or if it was something bigger or repeated, a polite message on their talk page explaining why. If it was a common issue and a newer editor, I may use one of the standard templates in Twinkle, linking to the page in question, perhaps with an additional custom message. I’d hope people do the same when I next make an honest mistake. 😊

Optional question from Carrite

10. What is your perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to Wikipedia?

A: I'm taking this to mean generative AI and LLM, rather than use of AI for things like vandalism detection or rating articles, which I touched on in my answer to question #6. Overall, it does give me some reason for concern. I am also ~~cautious~~concerned about related WMF initiatives, like using LLMs for generating short summaries of articles. I can see some value as an editor to ask it to perhaps reword a complex sentence, or perhaps basic grammar suggestions before a final proof-read, or as an advanced search engine/guide, but not for creating articles.

We do thankfully have WP:LLM and WP:AICLEAN, and people working on WP:AFC no doubt have to sift through an increasing amount of AI slop and hallucinations. I probably should try and improve my own awareness of WP:AISIGNS as part of my NPP work, but incorporating AI-spotting into NPP formally would put further burden on that team.

Ideally, I see Wikipedia as an input to LLMs, not an output. Prompt engineering won't fix everything, though may make it appear less bad. (I also saw User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#An_AI-related_idea and was aware of WP:AIB but didn't follow it or get involved. There's only so much I can keep up with.)

P.S. I'm glad things are being discussed at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)/Archive_10#RfC:_Adopting_a_community_position_on_WMF_AI_development, though I don't intend to dig into that myself.

Optional question from Let'srun

11. How would you handle a situation where a user accused you in good faith of being WP:INVOLVED?

A: The first thing I’d to is investigate if I am actually involved or if there’s been some kind of misunderstanding. If I didn’t believe I was, I’d explain why. If I was unsure, I’d take a step back and seek clarification. If I was actually involved, I would absolutely take a step back, disclosure/clarify my involvement at whatever venue the situation was, apologise, and potentially also undo my recent actions. Depending on the situation, WP:AARV is also an option. I would thank the user for bringing it to my attention in any case.

Discussion

Links for Kj cheetham: Kj cheetham (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
Edit summary usage for Kj cheetham

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

Please do not cast votes or issue any declarations of support/opposition here. This section is for neutral discussion. Voting will take place using SecurePoll from 23 July.

WP:AFD notes: n=789; not much in the last year, but loads of earlier participation. Balanced between keep and delete (given that most AfDs end in delete), doesn't frequently advocate for ATDs. Mostly works on WP:NPROF articles; this is one of our trickier WP:SNGs. Extremely high match rate, owing to both their accurate nominations and their willingness to treat AfD as a discussion rather than a series of unconnected votes. Samples: [1], [2], [3], [4]. These are somewhat stale but demonstrate patience, collaboration, and helpfulness. This is an excellent AfD record that reflects particularly well on this candidate. -- asilvering (talk) 03:23, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
As another editor who contributes to NPROF AfD discussions, I value the contributions there of the candidate highly! Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:32, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
Happy to vouch for Kj cheetham's prodigious work (1900 edits!) at WP:RM/TR, and it sounds like he's also excelled in both quality and quantity in many other areas (NPP, UAA, AfD). But probably the thing I'm most impressed by is how seriously he took the feedback he was given at ORCP three years ago: to take one example, rather than just writing a GA or two to check the content-creation box, he found a topic that interested him and wrote a whole swath of high-quality content about it, including but not limited to 6 GAs. Frankly I think he would have passed RfA back then, but now it should be a no-brainer. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 05:09, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

The above adminship discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.