Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Requests for adminship/Doodleplex/Archive 1

Questions

The questions that I have are more for the community than to the candidate, though Doodleplex can definitely respond:

1. What sort of admin does this wiki currently need?
   • Could we do with having another person around to manage the clean-up?
   • Considering the times when we have admin around (two active EU and one active NA), could the wiki do with having another admin present to handle issues?
2. And more to the point of the candidate, do we feel that Doodleplex is able to fulfill the role(s) that we expect out of an admin?

G R E E N E R 03:07, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't quite expecting to be the next person to respond here, but I did bury this page in the RC. My thoughts:

1. What we may need:
   • GW2W:DEL is getting rather long. This isn't a comment on the current admin, as I know how much of a pain it is to go through.
   • The need for an active admin in the disciplinary sense has long since gone, especially now that the abuse filter exists.
2. I see the admin role as more of a guiding role than a disciplinary one. I see Doodleplex active on the Admin board, but do note how the current admin have chosen to handle many of the issues: Communicating rather than banning.
   • I'm looking for a response from Doodleplex on such administrative actions.
   • For all of the faults of the GW1W, it always seemed to have rules which could be fallen back on, for better or for worse. I'll gladly stress the "worse". The GW2W marches to be beat of a different drum, and I would like to see examples showing Doodleplex's understanding of the more fluid/dynamic guidelines.
   • Having conflicts with other contributors is something that happens on wikis, but when you're also an admin, the water gets a bit muddied. I'd like to hear Doodleplex's thoughts on how such situations should be handled.
   • Finally, along the same vein, there's a learning curve to being an admin. We all make mistakes when we first become one, but I want to know that Doodleplex would be quick to learn, and actively seek advice from others.

tl;dr: I want to be comforted in the fact that Doodleplex is actively learning from and working with the wiki community, and is aiming to do so if she becomes an admin. G R E E N E R 07:02, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Quoting Felix’ comment from the discussion section, “her eventual answers to the questions”; I think he raises a good point there. To get some more momentum on this RfA, I think it would be very critical to get some more input on Greener’s question above. poke | talk 18:57, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I wanted to ponder these for a bit before answering(and then got unexpectedly yanked out of town), so I'll answer now:

• I have been taking note of how the admins do things, and I realize I was too hasty at the start. Banning and protecting pages from anons(well for the most part) really doesn't help anyone, as the anon, who more often than not, are just trying to help, and usually if it gets explained to them the "why" and the "why not", there isn't a further issue. I try to go "If I was in the shoes of this anon, and I didn't know better, what answer might help me understand what's going on?" in order to figure out how to find a way to explain it to them and find out why they did what they did.
• When it comes to dealing with vandals, I feel it's more of a case by case basis. By "vandal", I don't mean confused anons, I mean those who are clearly up to mischief such as adding inappropriate content or adding in pure gibberish(like apoiujrtwpa or something along those lines in random places). Some require nothing more than to revert their edit and move on because they do their one bit of mischief and then wander off, and most just seem to need a small ban of a day or 3 as that's usually enough to discourage them from future vandalism as they don't come back. If they come back and repeat to cause vandalism, a longer ban with a warning on their talk page to stop before the ban becomes permanent.
• I think this "case by case basis" also applies to conflicts here on the wiki. People will butt heads over things, it's unavoidable. Sometimes a small "time out" of a day or so helps to calm things down so that people act with their heads and not their emotions, but that should only happen if dialogue between the two parties isn't resolving the issue in any way shape or form and asking the conflicting parties to find a peaceful resolution has no effect. If this small amount of time does not help, sometimes a longer "timeout"/ban, along with explaining why such actions were taken, is needed, because it feels to me like a wake up call to find a way to resolve things peacefully.
• To quote from one of my mom's favorite movies: "And thirdly, the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules". This wiki is relaxed and editor friendly, and we have guidelines in place to help users edit easily. These guidelines are not rules set in stone, they're really templates, which can be changed. I think this is more of a concern in regards to people who came from the previous wiki where I've heard it was a bit more strict, but regardless, keeping an open mind to changes is the ideal thing I think for this.
• In regards to avoiding muddy waters, I ask others for advice if I myself am not sure of the right course of action or if I feel that I might be wrong, because I know I'm not always right. If I feel I'm getting to emotional or if my continuing to say anything will have no effect, I step back so I can come back to the issue with a clear head to find a good way to resolve whatever the issue was, or if I was in the wrong, say as much and move on. To note on something Felix mentioned, it's true, the most recent conflict did involve me, but not as willing participant. I don't like causing a conflict or any sort of fuss, and I made attempts to resolve it peacefully so that it wouldn't be a conflict. However, when it seemed that these attempts to do so were having no effect, I stepped back and asked for help.
• I'm always looking to learn new things and improve. I want to know more code to fix stuff if it breaks, I've learned how to do a DPL search, and I wish I always knew about Null Edits. So yes, if I became an admin, I would definitely continue to ask for help from both the community and those already in administrative positions to learn more.

I hope these help to answer questions that people may have had, which in short are yes, I'm willing to learn and I am always willing to seek advice from those wiser than I am. - Do_odleplex 22:39, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

---

Thank you for responding to my previous questions, and I added a separator here not to end the above conversation, but to start a slightly newer one, and one that is very important to me.

I've been asked by a few people why I haven't asked to be an admin here, and I have never given a full answer. I put a lot of weight behind trust and impartiality. When I look at the admin team on the GW1 wiki, I trust them completely. I trust them to ban me from the wiki if ever I fucked up hard enough, and to give me no more leeway than any other contributor. And that trust is vitally important because it keeps everyone in check and at the same time gives them the freedom to work, knowing that no one person lords over everything.

I have the same trust in the GW2 wiki admin team; I do not have that trust in myself. I spent many years actively avoiding getting to know people over on the other wiki, because I was once aptly described as "what you get when you paste a teletubby onto a My Little Pony". Now that I know many wiki contributors in a manner that's outside of the wiki, I do not see myself as being capable of impartiality.

So, Doodleplex, do you believe you are able to weigh me in the same light as any other contributor if I were to get into a conflict with one? Would you ban me with no more thought than you would give to an anon IP? G R E E N E R 06:24, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Well yes, but not without asking what's going on to see if a resolution could be come to first. If no resolution was possible, then I'd do what was needed. Same applies for anybody else whether well known user, a guild mate or a random IP. (Unrelated, I have no idea what you mean by putting a teletubby on a MLP toy since I missed the projected age range for both of those, the closest I can figure is you mean really innocent?) - Do_odleplex 07:54, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

I'll apologize for asking a seemingly simple question to an important topic, though I did lead with a large preamble trying to stress the weight behind it.

I did not know what type of response you would give, since I'm sure everyone has a different view. Maybe they'd object to the ideal of impartiality; maybe they'd discuss the importance of asking others to step in; maybe they'd say my question misses the point of adminship in some key way; or maybe they'd show an appreciation of the struggles that admins do face. I was not expecting a "yes, but not without asking what's going on to see if a resolution could be come to first." which I would consider a given. G R E E N E R 19:45, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

@ Inc

"do not really need another admin right now — particularly not for "janitorial" purposes only" - why is two admins who delete things enough? --Chieftain Alex 17:47, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Last time I checked, there were more than two admins. Perhaps this is something you might want to address internally, since it appears to me as an organisational matter? Also, to quote myself, and I apologise for mentioning this only at the very end of my wall of text: "Regarding the point of "cleaning", the current state of the deletion log is temporary; at some point in the future there will not be much left that needs to be deleted". To elaborate: there seems to be an influx of files that are tagged for deletion due to the nature of the shared model project. Once it reaches its final preparatory stages, the number of files that need to be deleted will most likely decrease. Further, judging from the current contents of the deletion log, there are some leftovers from a good while back (July, to be precise). The count (78 flagged for speedy deletion, 11 for deletion) does look rather manageable to me, particularly for only two people. Since most of the files are shared model image remnants (15 are normal pages; among them mostly move remnants), I am assuming (and please do tell me if this is not the case) double-checking these should not take up that much time, so I am not quite sure why you would need more persons to handle these.

If there are any more questions, I am at your service. talk 18:27, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

The RFA process is the one by which we get more admins to do stuff with. By definition it is an organizational process.

Let's look at the current admin list:

• Chieftain Alex (talk • contribs • logs • block log) - active
• Ventriloquist (talk • contribs • logs • block log) - active
• Felix Omni (talk • contribs • logs • block log) - sometimes active
• JonTheMon (talk • contribs • logs • block log) - no edits in a year
• Auron (talk • contribs • logs • block log) - basically inactive but reachable
• Dr ishmael (talk • contribs • logs • block log) - declared inactive
• Gares Redstorm (talk • contribs • logs • block log) - declared inactive
• Infinite (talk • contribs • logs • block log) - declared inactive
• Poke (talk • contribs • logs • block log) - less active than felix but reachable
• Tanetris (talk • contribs • logs • block log) - less active than felix but reachable

that doesn't look great. -Chieftain Alex 19:28, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Hey, I look fabulous. - Tanetris (talk) 20:12, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Seconded. Tanetris certainly looks fabulous. poke | talk 21:43, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Get active scrubs - Felix Omni 21:56, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Resolution

So the long and short of it is... We don't do janitorial sysops. It simply isn't practical or worthwhile to try to maintain two 'classes' of sysops where some are janitorial and some are discretionary. A sysop is a sysop, and needs to have the discretion (and the general trust in that discretion) to use and refrain from using the sysop tools as appropriate. To just blatantly steal my resolution to Aquadrizzt's old RFA: "While I don't think anyone would suspect [Doodle] of purposely abusing such tools, well-intentioned poor use is potentially just as damaging. Sysophood is surprisingly nuanced work ... Even stuff that looks easy on the surface, like warning users having a dispute, banning vandalbots, deleting pages: sometimes you need to take a larger view at it to make sure that you aren't getting heated and involved, that it's not just a clueless user, that the page doesn't need to sit awhile to be discussed/turn into a redirect/get What Links Here cleared up/etc."

I think it's clear to everyone that Doodle wants to help, and that's fantastic. It's great to see someone with a real enthusiasm for making the wiki better. But the flipside of enthusiasm is getting ahead of oneself. It seems like one of her primary reasons for wanting sysop tools is to be able to delete things that need deleting rather than have to tag them and wait for/rely on one of the existing admins to do the deletion. Makes sense from a saving overall time/effort perspective, but it also removes that little sanity-check of a second set of (generally more experienced) eyes taking a quick glanceover that yup that's a speedy-delete, yup everything's in order, click click boom. Even I often prefer to delete-tag things and let another admin pull the trigger on it if it's not already delete-tagged unless I'm absolutely sure, and I'm as experienced of a GW2W editor as you're gonna find.

As may be obvious both from the preceding two paragraphs and the earlier edit to the RFA itself, I'm resolving this unsuccessful. Of course, an unsuccessful RFA now doesn't mean no forever. I assume this won't be your last RFA, so let me offer some advice for next time/in the meantime. The most obvious is, of course, to simply be the best user you can be. Don't be in a hurry to prove yourself; just edit well, delete tag things that need deleting, be calm, courteous, and friendly in your interactions with other editors. Don't get discouraged that you didn't 'achieve' adminship; remember that some of our longest and most valuable editors have never become admins and probably never will. Demonstrate your level-headedness and ability to problem-solve along with other users even if you disagree. Think about what you can provide as a member of the admin team that isn't just saving someone else a few clicks, and if/when you feel the time is right for another RFA in the future make sure to clearly outline what that is and be able to provide specific examples demonstrating your capability. Show us that you have more than just a broad-strokes understanding of what adminship entails and why you specifically are right for it. Also make sure that the time is right for another RFA and not just an arbitrary amount of time that seems long enough; if you just wait X months and toss up another one to see if it sticks even though nothing's really changed, people are going to notice and it's going to reflect poorly on your judgment. - Tanetris (talk) 21:41, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Fair enough. =) I'm not discouraged at all from this or from possibly trying again in the future, if anything it's helped me see stuff I need to work on. So thank you and thanks to everyone who commented, as it was very helpful. - Do_odleplex 22:45, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Well said Tanetris! And thank you Doodleplex for not being discouraged by this. I think you are a very valuable editor on here, and while you still have things to learn, you are doing a good job at what you do. I’m looking forward to your future :) poke | talk 05:55, 20 October 2016 (UTC)