User:JediRogue/RP affair

Auron, R. Phalange, Sysops, Bcrats and RFAs
Firstly, I would like to apologize for the delay in posting this. It has occupied my thoughts for a while and it took me some time to sort out my feelings on the matter as a whole.

Trust in Auron
Firstly, I must assure you that one of the main things that is always impressed upon me in my talking to Auron is his dedication to this wiki. He continues to be concerned about the life and well-being of our community. It is primarily because of this dedication that I am comfortable placing so much trust in his recommendations.

Knowledge of R. Phalange
Like Entropy, I at first assumed that R. Phalange’s RFA was a joke. He had only been on the wiki a short time, made few contributions, had been recently banned. So naturally I was confused when several people came to me saying that Auron was saying that he wanted to promote him despite all this.

So, Auron and I spoke privately. Auron told me who R. Phalange was. Knowing this, I was still reserved about his qualifications but as I said, I trusted Auron on this one and while my knowledge of RP wasn’t extensive it did point to his being level-headed and capable. At the same time, I was unsure about a promotion when so many in the community had expressed opposition to it. The issue was that neither Auron nor RP was upfront about his qualifications.

I pressed Auron, “Is this going to cause more problems than you hope to solve?” “How can I be sure how he will behave on this wiki?” Unfortunately I was not able to give the discussion my undivided attention at the time because I was doing something else.

There was never any conspiracy to withhold knowledge of RP’s identity from you all.

The Promotion
I suggested Auron put off the promotion for a short time to give the community a chance to get to know RP better. And to give me time to think about it. I was rather surprised and angered to know that Auron had promoted him without speaking to me again. I had considered the matter put on hold.

So I’ll state now, I don’t think Auron should have promoted him, knowing it would be a controversial appointment without further discussion with Pan and myself. I regret not putting my foot down when I spoke to Auron at first but I’ll get to why I didn’t later. While I generally trust Auron’s judgment, I do not think this was something that should have been handled unilaterally. Because of Auron’s RL commitments, I was able to speak to him only briefly beforehand regarding this and only fleetingly since then.

RP’s RFA should have stated why he would make a good sysop. Where he was qualified. Auron should have stated his feelings clearly and not made people feel like he was lording his power over people. He should have waited to make the promotion for a little longer (not a year, like a month). He shouldn’t have done it at a time when he was going to be absent from the wiki and leave it all to me (/glare). And he shouldn’t have done it without discussion with the other bureaucrats.

My Own Faults
For me personally, I was bothered by promoting someone from GWW because frankly I’m somewhat jealous of the life that GWW has. It may be selfish but I partly like Gwiki more because I am a sysop and bcrat and people know me and I don’t feel like anything I bring up has already been decided months ago. Essentially, every time I go over to GWW, I break YAV. So I don’t really like the idea of bringing their people over to us.

Additionally, I was made insecure because Entropy promoted Auron first. And I had initially been against Auron’s promotion (I have since realized that my reservations were valid but not reason to be against his promotion). Additionally, Auron was bcrat on the other wikis and perhaps more experienced than me at such things. Again, I violated YAV.

I have performed what is a violation of the true spirit of YAV. I felt that my opinion counted less and my frustration in dealing with this made me hesitant to reply at all. I was busy in real life but I wasn’t so busy that I couldn’t step in and offer my opinion right off the bat. I was and still am hesitant to say that Auron promoted RP even though I said that he shouldn’t. Because I still feel that Auron is a good bcrat and his contributions are and will be invaluable to this wiki.

Additionally, this whole thing has opened my eyes to some things about myself, my abilities as a bcrat and about the wiki in general.

Anyway, those are my thoughts regarding the promotion and my reactions to it. Now… about you guys’ concerns about your input being ignored…

Your opinions and lack of information
We--Auron, PanSola, myself, the rest of the sysops--listen to your opinions. We read your posts, consider your arguments. Listening does not mean we are always going to do what the apparent consensus says, however.

Wikis aren’t democracies. They are oligarchical meritocracies largely. GW:ADMIN and GW:RFA have always made it clear that admins have been entrusted with the power to do whatever they feel is necessary to protect the wiki. Even if it doesn’t seem like it makes sense to the community at large. The best example being the builds deletion; it was protested to no end but it was decided by the powers that be that it was for the best. And in the long run, they were correct.

The problem was the RFA and how it was handled. From an outside perspective, it seemed like Auron was flaunting his power and engaging in cronyism. He was appointing his friends for no reason and against community wishes. What people forget is that it’s our job to do what we feel is best in spite the popular opinions of others.

Current Sysops
Our current set of sysops were chosen from a small pool and promoted during a time of attrition. We promoted people because we needed people. These people are members of the “background community” of GuildWiki. Many of those promoted were so-called “Entroopers” who hung out on talk pages in the user spaces, notably Entropy’s. These users were friendly, well-known, familiar with the wiki. However, for the most part, they were… I don’t want to say that they weren’t qualified but in my mind, many of them lacked a little extra something that makes a person sysop material.

This is something which runs contrary to the opinions of several who feel that a sysop’s job is merely to prot/del/ban and that a bcrat’s job is merely to promote and demote sysops. I feel that the level of trust placed in such users and the strength of their judgment in using their powers is something that requires a special devotion to the integrity of the wiki. Someone who I can trust completely to make the right call. Banning a vandal, deleting junk, etc. But making larger decisions, dealing with changing skins, site notices, how we get information to our users, how we provide something that makes people want to use GuildWiki, it requires something extra.

This doesn't mean that I don’t trust and like our current sysops. I merely feel that they are stagnating with the rest of the community. This is a time when we need change.

RFAs are designed to allow bcrats to gain perspective on potential sysop candidates who they might otherwise be less familiar with. On a larger wiki, where RC is hopping and there are tons of active users, it can be useful. However, the current contributor-base on GuildWiki is small and intimate at the moment. Which means that the bcrats are already familiar with a candidate and don’t need to learn about them.

In their current state of affairs, our RFA system is failing us. Auron’s points about it providing us with very little insight is correct. On the other hand, promoting someone who the community knows nothing about without providing them valid reasoning (which we shouldn’t have to ask for) is not the correct way to handle things.

I urge you all to understand where Auron is coming from. I share his concerns that this wiki has become stagnant. We need changes. We need sysops with a new perspective and who aren’t so pally with the users that they feel that they can’t step in and say, “stop spamming RC with mindless spam and make some useful contributions to mainspace.” We need to reevaluate our policies and reconsider the content that in the past we shied from: guilds, users, prices, etc in mainspace. We need to give us something to make us stand out and provide something that people need.

Conclusions
I promise that I will endeavor for myself and for the other admins on GuildWiki to make sure that we try to address concerns and express our opinions on things openly. I urge my fellow admins to remember to weigh our actions and not presume to act unilaterally. We should not disregard the opinions of users who are less informed but rather seek to enlighten and encourage informed discussions.

Please post comments directed towards me on this talk.

Links

 * User_talk:Xasxas256
 * User_talk:Auron_of_Neon
 * from my talk page
 * Requests_for_adminship/R.Phalange