Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Requests for adminship/Gares Redstorm

Gares Redstorm

Gares Redstorm (talk • contribs • logs • block log)

Started 03:53, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Status

Succeeded, retains sysop role. 22:50, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Candidate Statement

It's that time again in the life of a wiki...reconfirmations!

I've been a Guild Wars wiki administrator since 2006 for GuildWiki. With the recent discussions, one concern that may pop up is my recent hiatus. Please do not mistake this hiatus for a lack of dedication. I had an opportunity to switch careers, bettering myself and my family, and I took it. My leave of absence came at a time where we had a good foundation on GW2W and I trusted the admin staff to not allow the place to degenerate.

My ideals and values continue to stay consistent throughout the years. A successful wiki is one that has a helpful, active, and friendly admin staff and user base. If we can stick to that ideal, and deal with trouble with quick, decisive action when it appears, this wiki can be a major success.

Without creating a longer speech on why I should remain an administrator, below is additional information should a user find it useful in their discussions.

Guild Wars Wiki: User page • talk page • Contributions • logs

GuildWiki: User page • talk page • Contributions • logs

If you have any questions, please post them to the talk page, and they will be answered in a timely manner.

Discussion

• Please leave an elaborate comment about why, or why not, the candidate should retain his seat. Discussions are desired!
• No from me, I have been rather active on both of these wiki's and yesterday was the first time I have seen you make a edit. too inactive at this time please so please try again latter when you have shown more involvement in this wiki.- Zesbeer 12:19, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
• A hiatus being as is, Gares has only recently returned to the wiki scene (since 21 March 2012). His contributions to the other wikis show that he is capable, involved, and active when he focusses on a wiki. But here his contributions are lacking, or at least not all too many. However, if inactivity, lack of substantial edits in great quantity, and lack of involvement are the only required reasons to kick people off the sysop list, we'll end up with barely any sysops. If Gares wants to be involved and active, I want to keep Gares seated in a sysop seat. It may have taken an RfA notice to cause the return, but he did come back and he did start editting outside of his (and others') RfA. Visibly present quality and eagerness are enough for me. - Infinite - talk 13:21, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
• In my opinion it should be acceptable for an admin to take a break from managing the wiki due to personal reasons and not lose their responsible position. It might even be more stressful to get back if you feel like you're really out of time - being an admin on wiki isn't anyone's paid job. Even though Gares has been absent most of the time I have spent here, I can't find a reason I wouldn't be able to trust him with sysop tools he has been in possession of for about six years. If you can't trust somebody who is obviously willing and senseful to keep something going without crasing the whole thing, how do you actually deal with such situations in real life? Can you not get on a bus if you haven't known the driver for years? Judging by his contributions, attitude and experience on the multiple wikis, I see no reason to doubt that Gares is genuinely interested and willing to get involved with the game and its community. Mediggo 16:26, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
• I still trust Gares over most admins with the sysop tools. He is very experienced in all matters concerning the wiki and its politics, policies, conflicts, and the users that are attracted to a wiki environment. Thus he will be a very effective sysop here on GW2W and I can't think of a single reason why Gares shouldn't keep is sysop seat. So, Yes... Gares needs to keep his seat. --Lania 15:41, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
• Gares was the one who first banned me for douchey behavior on GWiki years back, and the subsequent chats I had with him really furthered my understanding of wikis and their communities. He's impartial, cool-headed, and above all, wise. Those attributes make him quite good for the sysop role, and he should retain his seat on this wiki. -Auron 10:57, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support the retention. His content contributions really doesn't reflect what he can bring to the table when it comes to handling the wiki and dealing with its community. -- ab.er.rant 11:01, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

• Yes. Do I trust Gares to be an admin or the GW2 community? Yes. Do I think it matters that he hasn't participated much for a long time? Also, yes. Communities evolve, especially this one with the game's imminent release and BWEs driving 1000s of new contributors. Most people have trouble adapting to a new community, unless they've been involved (via contributions or lurking) in that growth. However, Gares has also demonstrated his ability to adjust his actions to fit the needs of the community, and not to force old points-of-view or insist on doing things because they have always been done that way. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 19:17, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
• It's true that Gares hasn't maintained a constant level of activity throughout history, but he stands apart from the other mostly inactive sysops in that he has never disappeared completely. Gares has poked his head in on both GW2W and GWW often enough to convince me that he is still relevant to the community. I support retention. 15:23, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
• Most of the "no" replies here are basically "he's inactive". A question has to be asked: is he being inactive ever a detriment to the wiki? If we give sysop tools to someone who is inactive will the wiki burst into flames and perish overnight? Obviously not, and far from it, life still goes on. There's no harm to having GR on the admin team; but on the contrary, even if his visits are sparse and few and far between, he is still a net benefit to the wiki with his expertise and sysop tools. We definitely don't have a limit to how many sysop tools we can give out to last I checked. Therefore, competency and potential benefit is all that should count. Pika Fan 15:39, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

• There's only one "no" reply here. 15:41, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

• A "yes" with so many veiled reasons for "no" is basically a no. I could be stating a million reasons why A would make an awful sysop and suddenly end with a "yes", it's really still a "no".Pika Fan 15:46, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I think a better interpretation of such a reply would be "I want A to remain a sysop, and these are the things I think he should improve on." Remember, these RfAs are to gauge community support as much as to collect rationale. 15:48, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Except it's not really asking him to improve, it's asking him to put in more time, which he has plenty of valid reasons not to. Points still stand. Addressing community concerns is hardly snuffling the survey of the views of the community, Pika Fan 15:52, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

That's something of a moot point since it's Gares' intention to become more active anyway. 16:10, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Is it wrong for a new community to want to see more proof of capability over *here* (instead of on all the other wikis)? I already stated I want Gares to remain seated, so I'm just asking in general. - Infinite - talk 16:22, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

How, in what way is it doubtful or irrelevant to say he has valid reasons not to be more active on wiki, then making a supporting point to say that there is little substance behind an intention to prevent his RFA simply because he may or may not be inactive?Pika Fan 16:41, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

You are not wanting to see proof of capability. You just want to see him around. Those are two entirely different things. Pika Fan 16:41, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

He said he had reasons to take a break. He's back now. Whether or not past activity should affect an RfA is irrelevant, because there's no point in granting sysop tools to someone who won't be around going forward. 16:45, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

No, I get that he was inactive and that that alone shouldn't be grounds to take away his tools. The question was why aren't users who don't know him as an active sysop on this wiki not allowed to ask of him to prove himself as trustworthy on GW2W (which starts with being active and making the correct decisions with his tools at hand)? Do they have to blindly trust users who are familiar with Gares, or can they form an opinion of their own? You make it appear as if active GW2W users who aren't acquainted with Gares' actions (simply because those users grew active and involved after Gares took his temporary leave) have no say in his reconfirmation. I could be wrong, though. - Infinite - talk 17:35, 1 May 2012 (UTC)