User:Amgine/Review of BrianMc contribs

I've been asked to examine recent contributions/actions by BrianMc.

Caveats: a long time ago in a galaxy far far away BrianMc was... competitive with me on en.wn. While we did not necessarily agree on some topics (I'm being very british to annoy his scotish), I may have been involved in putting him up for adminship. We have had a long and generally respectful relationship.


 * 1), , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , : All appear to be fiddling with overly-complex, difficult-to-understand templates which will further prevent non-professional contributors from working on en.wn portals, or writing documentation to thoroughly muddle them.
 * 2),  discussion re: portal crap.
 * 3),  Comments on ME drama.
 * 4), , , , , , : Appears to be presenting evidence and argument to support xyr position.
 * 5), , , , , , , : Normal admin janitorial work.
 * 6), , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , : Normal en.wn contributorness/wikignomishness.
 * 7), , , , , , , , : Owns up to CU abuse, and responds to vote comments, requests bit removed.
 * 8), , : resigning from ArbCom, and updating user page to reflect recent changes.
 * 9), , , , , , , , , : Watercooler policy discussions, whingeing, commiserating.
 * 10), , , , : Misc. category of non-mainspace or project pages.
 * 11), , , , , , , , , : Flagged revs vote and comments.
 * 12) *, : Subset that veered off into ME drama.

Logged actions over the same period of time:
 * Deletions: 12
 * Blocks (unrelated to ME Drama): 3
 * Page moves: 1
 * Privinfo: 1

Okay, after wading through a fair bit of this crap here's the synopsis.

The first thing to note is: in almost a week's worth of edits, the majority of Brian's edits are to articles, templates, and watercooler. While not in the least bit uncontroversial, the Mathew Edwards dramafest does not make up even a sizeable number of the 100 edits I examined.

Overall, Brian is not active enough as a reporter, or as a copyeditor, although he has a high average compared to most contributors. As a bureaucrat and admin he has been more involved in policy and application discussions; more than should be necessary. However a number of his edits are mentoring, both of other admins and newer contributors. Brian's tone is more abrupt, and more cryptic, than is beneficial between peers. Brian's edit summaries include impolitenesses, reflective of his personality but perhaps harmful to a collegial environment.

Based solely on the contributions I examined I would happily nominate Brian McNeil for adminship. He is conversant with Wikinews policy, journalism in general, and a reasonably dedicated wikignome. I would strongly fault him for instigating no news articles, and less than half his edits being in the main namespaces, but I'd also compliment him that only one edit was to his personal user page and none of his edits, even on talk pages, were unrelated to the project. I would also give him a severely condescending tongue-lashing about feeding the trolls, and exacerbating community disruption through confrontation, which in fact I already have done.

Here endeth the sincerely annoyed review by Amgine, with one final caveat to the community:

YOU'RE A BUNCH OF LOONS! THIS IS CHILDISHLY STUPID! GROW UP, QUIT SQUABBLING LIKE TODDLERS IN A SANDBOX!