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)

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)

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)