Forum:Bureaucrats

Short story: I would like to appoint two new bureaucrats for GuildWiki.

Long story: Since we moved to Curse, mendel resigned his position as bureaucrat, JediRogue vanished as quickly as she returned, and while I constantly patrol RC and the like, I have not been as active a bureaucrat in discussions and initiatives as GuildWiki deserves. I think a lack of nominal leadership is one of the factors contributing to the slow-down of GuildWiki as of late, and maybe appointing a couple of bureaucrats would help on that front. Of course, normal users and sysops can be and have been leaders as well.

I think the ideal number of active bureaucrats is three. If you consider any issue to be linear, with the endpoints being two extremes, then by default three people will always establish two opposing viewpoints and one moderator, as it were. This helps drive discussion and provides for multiple viewpoints to be represented. Of course it's a highly simplified model, but I think in practice it holds up.

Plato suggests in his Republic that the ideal ruler is one who has no interest in ruling. That might have worked in ancient Greece where people carried spears everywhere, but on a wiki, there's no way to force someone who isn't interested to contribute. Therefore, the most important factor for a bureaucrat is be that he or she must want to be a bureaucrat. With that in mind, I ask users who would like to be bureaucrats and want to see GuildWiki flourish to say so somewhere here. Keep in mind that this isn't a vote. I will be choosing appointees based on discussion and discretion. Users do not have to be sysops already to be considered. 17:41, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I really like the long story. My short q. is Who would you pick? My long q is. Who would you pick out of the actives and why?

Not that many are active here... I wish there were more, but that's not the case. :-( Ariyen 17:51, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd nominate myself, just because I'm always here, troughout the week. But on the other hand, I hardly edit, exept for userspace. And my written English is horribad. But short q a: Ish, for sure. No one else really comes to mind. Long q a: Ish, cause he's leet. Arnout aka The Emperors Angel 18:42, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Neither of those were questions, Arnout.--Łô√ë [[Image:Gigathrash_sig_G.jpg]]îğá†ħŕášħ 18:47, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * My initial thought was: Not me. I don't think many users would think of me, but just clarifying: I'm more of a lurker, and hitting me with the beercrate won't do any good. As for people I do think should get bureacrat status, I'd say The Doctor, definitely. If we're going for a triumvirate and need another, I'd go for viper. --[[Image:El Nazgir sig.png|Talkpage]]El_Nazgir 19:00, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Shut up. You know I don't want it. --Vipermagi 22:40, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Site notice? --◄mendel► 23:50, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Nomination: Jink
I would prefer to have Jink be bureaucrat over Dr ishmael being one. If Dr Ishmael is going to remain active as a sysop, having a b'crat once removed yet close helps add another viewpoint when 'crat-worthy conflicts arise; yet one would think it would give Dr Ishmael good support "from the management" for his initiatives not obstruct Dr Ishmael as much as I did, if Jink was in charge. She's long been a Guild Leader in GW, still actively plays, shows enough of an interest in the wiki to know which way we roll, and she's mature enough for me to trust her. --◄mendel► 23:49, 1 February 2011 (UTC) (edited 18:56, 4 February 2011 (UTC))
 * O_O Wow, I'm both surprised and elated to be nominated for bureaucrat for the wiki. If chosen, I'll do the best job I can.  Jink  17:23, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't know about the insinuations mendel is making here (I don't need "support from the management" to get stuff done) and of course I'm going to sound biased, but I think Jink would indeed make a good bureaucrat. &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 16:56, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I didn't intend to insinuate that you need support, and I've clarified my wording above to make my meaning more clear (hopefully). --◄mendel► 18:56, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Intriguing. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 19:03, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Nomination: TEF
__NEWSECTIONLINK__ Tennessee Ernie Ford thinks about wikis the way bureaucrats ought to think about them; I am certain he would make a fine bureaucrat, but the difficulty is going to be in convincing him to take the job. If you need to hear more "pro" arguments, I can provide, but at this point think it's obvious. --◄mendel► 23:55, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. The ones that would do the best - usually would be ones to reject. Ariyen 01:46, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Clash of the Gods
I would like to see mendel and Ish use beercraticy to get over their...coding cold war. With felix serving as the Swiss (ultra-neutral party) amind the destruction. &mdash; Scythe   1:12, 2 Feb 2011 (UTC)
 * Would changing the forum of a clash affect the outcome? I doubt it.  Not knowing anything of their clashes (and I'd prefer nobody elaborate -- this is may not be the venue to do so) unless they've brought the world to a grinding halt due to their conflicts, I'd think the clash hardly merits 'clash of gods' rating.  Yamagawa 01:24, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Nominees?
The following is a culled list of Special:ActiveUsers. I removed: bots and contributors with less than ~50 edits unless (a) they are/have been a past admin/b'crat, (b) they made special/important contribs to GWiki at Wikia, or (c) they have been mentioned in some other context as a potential candidate.

Some caveats:
 * No doubt I missed someone, so double check the link.
 * The edit count isn't limited to meaningful edits:
 * Someone who doesn't proofread or use Preview will be over-represented.
 * Someone who likes to respond to everything will be over-represented.
 * Someone with a particular pet issue will be over-represented.
 * Humans with bot-like abilities to edit 100s of pages will be over-represented.
 * Those who tend to post rarely, but almost always post something of great value will be under-represented.

— Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 03:15, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * You missed me, but I'm not interested in the position so that's all right. Also, Dr Ishmael seems to have lost rollback rights somewhere along the line (he has it with administrator rights, but still). Cress Arvein [[Image:Cress sig.JPG]] 08:39, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * How can you say that? You are on the list! (well, belatedly — not sure how I missed that; I certainly remembered thinking that you were exempt from the minimum # requirement. My apologies.) — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 09:51, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * You missed Yamagawa, too; I'd also have added Wolfie, a longtime editor; and we don't actually want 30 bureaucrats, but 3, and wiki activity is but one factor. Which of those would you support, if you had to choose only two? --◄mendel► 12:09, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Dangnammit! I thought I specifically made sure that Yamagawa was there. Wolfie, I am sorry to say, I overlooked (soz, Wolfie!) Sigh. (Well, as I said on your page, you have my permission to fiddle with the list below in the spirit it was created.)


 * And, of course, we don't want 30 b'crats, but I thought it useful to see everyone who is currently active on the wiki...so that anyone (including you lurkers out there) might find it easier to chime in. Which two would I choose? (a) I'm still pondering and (b) this section isn't for nominations (as noted). — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 12:33, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

~30+ potential candidates

 * 39 edits - ***EAGLEMUT*** (contribs)
 * 55 edits - **The Falling One** (contribs)
 * 150 edits - Ariyen (contribs)
 * 116 edits - Arnout aka The Emperors Angel (contribs)
 * 226 edits - Balistic (contribs)
 * 44 edits - Bikeboy854 (contribs)
 * 100 edits - BladeHanover2 (contribs)
 * 564 edits - Cleo (contribs)
 * 44 edits - Cress Arvein (contribs)
 * 1655 edits - Dr ishmael (contribs)
 * 192 edits - El Nazgir (contribs)
 * 164 edits - Ermath (contribs)
 * 297 edits - Felix Omni (contribs)
 * 61 edits - Fezi (contribs)
 * 89 edits - Flexi (contribs)
 * 67 edits - Flowenol (contribs)
 * 440 edits - Gigathrash (contribs)
 * 50 edits - Himm Taeguk (contribs)
 * 28 edits - Isk8 (contribs)
 * 32 edits - Jimbo321 (contribs)
 * 14 edits - Jink (contribs)
 * 45 edits - JonTheMon (contribs)
 * 112 edits - Kirbman (contribs)
 * 94 edits - Konig Des Todes (contribs)
 * 66 edits - Kyrasantae (contribs)
 * 53 edits - PanSola (contribs)
 * 16 edits - Qelsi710 (contribs)
 * 4 edits - Quizzical (contribs)
 * 123 edits - Randomtime (contribs)
 * 633 edits - Rose Of Kali (contribs)
 * 217 edits - Scythe (contribs)
 * 44 edits - Sotaknuck (contribs)
 * 256 edits - Tennessee Ernie Ford (contribs)
 * 109 edits - Vipermagi (contribs)
 * 121 edits - Vlad Tsepesh (contribs)
 * 44 edits - Wolfie (contribs)
 * 229 edits - Yamagawa (contribs) Declined by Yamagawa 01:09, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

re: 34 Canidates

 * Konig Des Todes is not likely to accept, as he is a GWWer and is only here to correct and clean up the lore areas of articles, I've had the discussion with him on his talk page.
 * The same goes for cleo, as they are from the german gwiki and are primarily adding interwiki links here.
 * I swear Balistic was a bcat at one point, same with viper, they'd both probably take it back up again (probably). &mdash; Scythe   12:31, 2 Feb 2011 (UTC)


 * I guess my point got lost. I'm not nominating anyone (at least, not yet). I'm just pointing out that we have 30 or so individuals who have been active in the last 91 days...and a handful of others that were active enough last year to be worth considering.


 * Incidentally, I wouldn't dismiss Cleo or Konig as candidates because they have had a narrow focus here. — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 12:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * To clarify, we have over 250 people who "have been active here in the last 91 days", and that does not even include editors who don't have an account: we have a lot of them, at least a dozen with total edits numbering well over 1000, and some editors who have accounts make contributions while logged out that are not reflected here either. The people you listed are just the ones that meet your arbitrary threshold of activity. --◄mendel► 16:31, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't be opposed to being considered, but quite frankly, I just don't get to spend the time on the wiki that I wish I could. If I hadn't seen Mendel make an edit here on RC when I loaded firefox, I probably wouldn't have known this article existed.  I mainly am limited to just scanning RC with my new job taking up quite a bit of my time, as well as having a baby on the way.  But the time I do get on the computer I try to put forth towards still helping and maintaining the wiki.  -- [[Image:Isk8.png]]   Isk8   (T/C) 16:54, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * ^Just have to lol at the 666 characters in the prior edit :P -- [[Image:Isk8.png]]  Isk8   (T/C) 16:56, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)
 * Sorry, Mendel, just because the wiki code automatically creates a list called, Active Users and purports to measure activity doesn't make that list (a) any less arbitrary or (b) accurate. [(a) It has an arbitrary cutoff of 91 days. (Why not 90? 92? 45? 135?) (b) It arbitrarily and misleadingly equates any activity with active.]


 * Let's try not to nitpick over terminology so that we lose sight of my intent, which (again) is to present a list of people who others might have reason to consider for nomination. (Not everyone sees everyone else's contributions, especially if they don't have overlapping areas of interest.) Presenting everyone who has ever contributed to the wiki is hopelessly confusing and provides no useful information, so there has to be a cutoff. Similarly, presenting any data about anonymous edits also distracts from the goal, since any potential candidate for b'crat will, almost by definition, login for at least some of their contributions.


 * So, necessarily, the cutoff is going to be arbitrary, but so what? Changing the cutoff to 40 edits or 60 isn't going to be more/less helpful in presenting people with a sense of which contributors have passion for Guild Wiki. Converting voluminous data into information that can be used to make decisions requires selective presentation (we do it all the time on the wiki).


 * I found it very helpful to see this list of 30+ contributors to get a better sense of who might have enough passion for Guild Wiki to be interested in serving it in a new way (e.g. Bureaucrat). And, to be clear, I don't mean for the list to measure anything else: vibrancy, size of the actual community (which, of course, includes anons), or health of the wiki. — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 17:21, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Not quite was I was getting at, but that's ok. --◄mendel► 18:19, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Finding this page?
I stumbled upon this page by accident (while reviewing recent chats). Shouldn't we make it easier for people to find it? e.g. site notice, prominent link from Community Portal and Main Page, etc? — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 12:36, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Those things would be good. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 01:30, 3 February 2011 (UTC)


 * So why didn't you do it? Lazy jerk. :P  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 16:59, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I had an extremely good reason at the time, probably. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 19:27, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Nomination: Rose of Kali
Special:Contributions/Rose Of Kali

Rose is one of the people most passionate about this wiki and its special place in the universe. I also think that Rose always looks at what's best for the wiki, when arbitrating issues between others. She has also demonstrated an ability to change her mind after hearing other points of view, seeing additional evidence. — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 18:26, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Nomination: Konig des Todes
Special:Contributions/Konig Des Todes

Konig is always respectful of other people's opinions, always takes the time to explain his point of view, and always attempts to see things from a what's best for the wiki perspective. He is extremely passionate about the game and about ensuring that wikis present the most useful information for people. Although he is heavily invested in GWW, I can easily see him coming up with an idea of how GWiki could evolve into filling voids left by the official wiki rather than attempting to compete feature-for-feature. (Note: Konig and I often disagree over certain types of issues, but I always feel that the conversation is productive and helps the wiki get to a better, consensus-driven place.) — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 18:27, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * [ This] and [ this] suggests to me that der König is not interested in administrative matters on this wiki; to me, that is a bad starting position for becoming a bureaucrat. Depending on what he does on gww, I can see suggesting him for adminship as a more fruitful possibility. --◄mendel► 23:32, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Let people know

 * I appreciate the effort you're putting into these nominations, TEF, but you should probably let the people you're nominating know too. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 20:39, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * All I know about this process is that you have said that you will be making the selection; the stated criteria seems limited to, "he or she must want to be a bureaucrat." I would argue that you cannot meet that requirement unless you are reading this page.


 * Otherwise, I'm following the pattern established at the top, since I could not find anything that fits the situation at Category:Policies and certainly not at GW:BCRAT. And, as it turns out, KdT and RoK have slightly more notice than did User:Jink or I (since there was no site announcement up when our names were added).


 * If you would like us to do something else, it would be helpful to know what you have in mind. — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 21:34, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Go to their talk pages and say "Whaddayaknow, people actually think you should be a bcrat! Imagine that." and link to the header :> Well, that's what I'd do. --Vipermagi 21:37, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Originally I was hoping that people would come forward and say "I'd like to be a bureaucrat," but the nominations started instantly. However, the nomination statements tend to offer valuable input and if the nominee sees it and responds enthusiastically, so much the better. There's no real precedent here, so playing it by ear is fine. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 22:07, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Questions to readers
How dedicated are you to this wiki? Is it important to you who gets to run it in the future? Have you thought about becoming a bureaucrat yourself? Why did you decide against it? Who do you think would do it best? If you cannot decide, what is it that you need to know? Why is it difficult?

If this wiki is important to you, then ask yourself these questions and post some answers, please! --◄mendel► 23:55, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I love this wiki for its community, but as it stands now, nothing is gained at all from me being a bureaucrat. I don't invest much time in the wiki itself, being more of a lurker than an active editor, and generally dwell in userspace too much. Despite my intentions at the start of my adminship, I found myself to be unwilling to invest the emotional energy to intervene in conflicts, and have kept too much to cleaning imo. I don't see that changing with getting bureaucracy. I personally see Ishmael as one of the primary candidates for Bureaucracy. --[[Image:El Nazgir sig.png|Talkpage]]El_Nazgir  00:07, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm fairly active on the wiki, I'd say. I have sleep from like 9PM local to 6AM local (GMT-5) and then school from 6AM to like 3:30ish, with some exceptions.  Once I get home, though I check my watchlist and RC, check up on the day's happenings, and then start checking RC every 5-30minutes.  Imo, the massive gap in the times I'm checking RC are kind of an issue in a reverting/banning perspective, though nothing much seems to happen on the wiki until I get home :\
 * As most of us know, I can be the target/cause/escalator of drama, be it here or elsewere. I sometimes/often am unable to draw the line of will this comment be helpful? and can lose my temper if provoked (read: it's pretty easy).  Although, I often at least try to apply euphemism to heated/escalating/possibly drama-causing discussions (see the clash of the gods section above).
 * See, I find I rarely lose my temper or escalate discussion when I'm not personally involved or bias. If, say, mendel and Ish, for lack of a better example, were going at it, I'd be significantly less likely to lose my cool then that time where Emmett reverted mendel's I DO NOT FEAR SECTION LIMITS edit, because I felt targeted and / or attacked them.  But if it was just another case of raw coding power head-to-head I'd probably be absolutely fine.  But then again, don't most people react in a volatile manner when they feel attacked or targeted, isn't that just part of being human?
 * As for fixing MediaWiki namespace related things, I'm fairly proficient with things like that, and you can always search what you don't know. I've also pretty much mastered html+css, as well, and would have little, if any trouble fixing things and generally aiding users having difficulties.
 * Overall, do I think I'm the best candidate? No.  I'd much rather see Ish/Rose/Jink/Viper/Giga have the position, because I feel they'd do a better job at it than I would. They're either more active, more stable/level-headed, or more omniscient than I am. That being said, if no one else wishes to take the position, or people do feel I'd be the best option, I'd take the responsibility with honor.
 * tl;dr Yeah, I'll take it if you want me to, but I think there are better options at hand. &mdash; Scythe   1:27, 8 Feb 2011 (UTC)
 * I have been a long time contributor, and a longer time lurker and have been here longer then a lot of people, and from that experience I know just how badly needed a strong bureaucrat leadership is needed. GWiki doesn't have owners, and we don't have presidents.  We have den mothers and gods.  We have unwilling leaders and people who are dropped into the position of power.  I have never supported people who have RFAed themselves because the want of power is the first sign of intended misuse of power.  I'm not saying that the people who will nominate themselves are going to go on a tyrannical binge and ban half the people and need to be reverted.  I'm saying that we are used to rallying around one individual and the ones that don't agree are ostracized and feel that they can't make any headway in any topics that they and the current defacto leader disagree on.  We have never had multiple pillars of the community, the closest being when mendel and ish got in a tiff about something or other that tended to divide the whole community.  If we are going to have multiple beauracrats they are going to need to understand that they aren't just accepting a position of power, they are accepting a position of leadership, and all that entails.--Łô√ë [[Image:Gigathrash_sig_G.jpg]]îğá†ħŕášħ  04:40, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. I know that many are like nominate yourself, but that can be a worse disaster than as we're doing. Which is making suggestions of a few people that we feel comfortable having as Bureaucrats. I'm not stepping forward as I almost did on gww, but I do know the importance of getting people to participate. It's not an easy task either. It's not so much as tools as they're just additional maintenance type commands that allows a bit more access as it is dealing with the community. To me, you'd have to be the final say in a disagreement with two other b-crats and that's just one example out of many. I will say that while this may be a "call" for one to nominate themselves... Honestly, I think Tef and Konig could handle the job... If neither, then my original questions remain. Ariyen 09:26, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I thoroughly agree with Giga. My personal favourites, in no particular order, are Giga, Ish, Viper (but he doesn't want) and TEF. I think I've listed my "favourites" several times now, and different each time, but as I seem more discussion, I get reminded of more people that deserve this role. --[[Image:El Nazgir sig.png|Talkpage]]El_Nazgir 12:06, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I have always been more concerned with the wiki itself, rather than the meta-wiki (policy, arbitration, external relations, wiki philosophy, etc.). Outside of the user management tools, the bureaucrat position &mdash; as it has developed on GuildWiki &mdash; is almost exclusively concerned with the meta-wiki.  As such, I neither feel qualified to be a bureaucrat, nor do I feel that the exact person(s) filling that role will significantly affect what I do on the wiki.  So that's why I've been sitting out this discussion.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 20:37, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Dedicated: No other wiki for me. The official has the problem of being official (which is a problem to me).  The Wikia has other problems I won't mention here, which leave me with This Wiki.  Who runs it is only as important as how good or bad they are.  Very good?  Great/  Very bad... death of a wiki.  Anywhere in the middle should be fine, but after the split we may want to push for 'great'.  Have I thought about being a beaurocrat?  Only long enough to hate the idea.  I hate politics.  Won't see me touching the stuff with a 50-foot pole, and I can't find any poles that are longer. YOU don't want me in the spot because I'd screw up the politics of it fast and hard.  Who would I like to see there?  Mendel, if he can get out of the 'conflict of interest' situation with Wikia.  Some of the other names are probably as good, but I don't have near as good a read on them.  What I'd need to know is 'Are these people jerks?  Pompous asses?  Or are they people who will do a job that needs doing?  Or will they dedicate themselves to making this a better place?  Talk is cheap, I ignore that.  I'd like to know what their action is.  Or rather has been, because talk of the future is just that.  Talk.  (Cheap too).  This is difficult because you are asking us to judge people when many of us see this as an information repository and not as a social site.  I don't socialize with the dictionary, but if I did I'd probably have a better idea who to nominate. Yamagawa 05:57, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Quick correction: I see no "'conflict of interest' situation with Wikia". Since Wikia won't shut their Guild Wars wiki down no matter what, I'm attempting to make the wiki there as different from this one as I reasonably can. I am working on the premise that this course of action most benefits both the Wikia community and us here. If you feel differently on this issue, I invite your opinion. --◄mendel► 11:43, 9 February 2011 (UTC)