User talk:Semicolon/Requests for Adminship Proposal

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A "hiring policy" and the ramifications associated with it have never been my primary concern at this wiki, but I should point out that enforcing one wherein the "RfAs never close" and wherein the winner is decided by a tally of votes, regardless of where they come from and how they are substantiated by the voter, is essentially dooming the wiki to hire every person who wants adminship and has friends to vote for them until the end of time. Under these rules, we'd already have four or five new sysops, including GalaxiaD. And wouldn't that be a party. --RJM Talk 20:57, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

That's why the sysops have editorial input, because no nomination can be open without the sponsorship of a current admin. Semicolon (talk) 21:03, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

What are you talking about? That's just the way it works around here. Besides, GalaxiaD can't become a sysop, thanks to you banning him. He's automatically ruled out. Now, if I may ask, how did you become a sysop, Randall? Didn't you become through this process as well? MarioGalaxy {talk} 21:01, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your attitude problem is with me, MarioGalaxy. I don't really know anything about you, but I have to assume that you've been introduced to this wiki through Galaxia and his buddies and they have the tendency to villify me, so I'm not surprised. But try to understand that I'm really not so bad; I'm just interested in using this wiki as a authoritative source of smash-related information instead of a personal playground for users who don't contribute to actual content. This website is not a message board. It's not free webspace; it exists for a reason. I don't know why that's so hard to understand.
But to answer your question, this is how I became a sysop: SmashWiki:Requests_for_adminship/Randall00 and no, it wasn't under this process, because this is only a proposal. Back then, SmashWiki was a very different place and it needed fixing, which is why I became a sysop. Then we merged into Wikia and instead of fixing things, I've more or less been picking up trash ever since. It's frustrating. I used to put a lot of time, effort and pride into this project and it's been reduced to a bunch of teenagers yelling at me as though I'm just on some crazy power trip and the only reason I have adminship is to ban people for no reason. I do have better things to do with my time. Please try to understand my point of view here. --RJM Talk 21:23, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Randall, you are so off that it isn't even funny. I didn't know GalaxiaD when I joined Wikia. I started at Wikitroid. First of all, you've banned 5 Users in a short period of time, half of them from the Cult of Personality. I wasn't a part of the original SmashWiki, I'm from the Wikia side of this website. What's sad about you, no insult/offense intended, is that you're banning members of a crew who's former leader is 14 years old. You're 24 years old! The Users you banned probably don't even know that (they're confused about your real name, so I don't think they've read your Smasher page). Before SmashWiki merged with Smash Wikia, it wasn't that chaotic around here. Users weren't banned, not many people really hated each other, etc. Now, thanks to you banning everybody, several admins are coming out of hiatus and arguing against regular Users. You said that keeping the bans permanent would stop this. The permanent bans STARTED this. If you could, you'd probably ban everyone who doesn't like you. To end this, I'd just like to say this: No insults/offense intended. If you have anything to say, go ahead. MarioGalaxy {talk} 21:35, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, don't respond. Our conversation is driving away from the point of this section of Semicolon's talk page. MarioGalaxy {talk} 21:38, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
It's cool, the conversation is over--all I gotta do is point out that permanent bans don't happen for no reason, therefore they can't possibly be the "start" of anything. Then there's nothing else to say. --RJM Talk 21:54, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Some other stuff

multi-edit conflict A quote I rather like:

Voting – A poll to summarize opinion is okay. A vote that decides... anything! ... is not. Votes are about as unwiki as one can get, as they give everyone an equal voice regardless of their qualifications or knowledge. Discussion gives those with insight more of a say, which is how things ought to be.

Vote tallies are just asking for users to

  1. gather all their wikifriends and get them to vote support and then, if needed
  2. get all their RL friends to register and vote support, or if they're really desperate
  3. register sockpuppets

and when the 'crats don't promote them they cry "omgwtf y u not promote me policy says so!!1!one!" Other than that: paragraph 1 looks fine. But a week seems a bit short when the sysops are complaining of lack of time. Why set a definitive timetable anyway? What does it accomplish? And I don't understand the line about RFAs never close. --Shadowcrest 21:11, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

RfA's are already a vote process, except it's even worse because it's decided on a whim. This change sthat. All the wiki friends are already mobilized to support each other, but just because that is doesn't disqualify their opinions. The sysops already have their input. If they sponsor a candidate, they recognize that a candidate has the understanding, dedication and capability. If the community disagrees, this is overruled. Sleeper accounts and unestablished users are disqualified. That should be an amendment. And the timetable is to ensure the process doesn't drag on, that the community decides, and that is the way Wikipedia does it. If a nomination drags on forever, then there is so much clutter and useless time and effort and space wasted on it. A week keeps it concise and to the point. As far as RfA's never closing, under this system, they don't need to. If sysops are needed, a sponsorships will be conferred to decide the best candidate. As far as people whining about not getting sponsorships, that is easily ignored or taken care of, by the motivation that if whining is necessary, a sponsorship shouldn't be conferred in the first place. And as far as the sysops not having time, then perhaps more sysops are needed. But, since the current sysops keep saying that there aren't, I'd say that isn't good justification. Semicolon (talk) 21:20, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
They shouldn't be a vote tally, period. Quote time: "When people think a vote count matters, they stop trying to provide reasoning. At that point, RfA's become pretty useless as a tool." Why in the world should "+1 --User:Example" count for as much as a well-thought-out and soundly-reasoned walloftext, paragraph, or even a sentence or two as to why User:ABC should/n't become a sysop? "Their [RfAs] purpose is to give Bureaucrats community feedback on the candidates. If the community feedback is nothing more than stuff bureaucrats can tell in two seconds anyway (we can check special:editcount too, you know), then the process isn't worth it. They aren't worth a damn if all they are is a vote count. If I wanted a poll, I'd use that wikia poll maker doohicky; a 'yes/no' box is much easier than reading an entire page of people restating opinions and giving unsupported arguments." Polls don't create any reasoning at all. A vote is basically just whether the candidate has enough friends to get them all to say "S/he's a nice guy, they make lots of contribs, s/he's good at brawl [...]" until the vote swings 5:2. This attempts to be addressed by the "needs sysop backing" clause, which is a good attempt but the entire process (both current and proposed) is flawed anyway. If it's a truly terribad candidate, then no sysop would back them. But what about if you have a biased sysop? What if that sysop can't see past that User:ABC is their friend and that their perspective is horribly skewed and that in reality that person shouldn't be promoted at all? What about if the person is a mehable contributor? They do ok as an editor, but they wouldn't make a great or even good sysop? Mr. Mehable Contributor might be able to find a sysop to back him, and Mr. Mehable Contributor might just have a lot of friends. What then? Then you're stuck with an on-par sysop at best, and if even one of those votes was biased you might be stuck with a horribly sub-par admin and these can cause serious problems. After all, "the margin of victory could easily be less than the number of random people who didn't really care rounded up to vote one way or the other." What this community needs- besides additional policies, but those are needed for a different reason- is an intelligent active bureaucrat that the community knows and trusts- and more importantly, this person needs to not be afraid to make unpopular decisions. I'm not saying that they will become the ruler of the universe- but you guys desperately need someone who will be able to accurately judge someone's character and whether or not they will perform well as a sysop, regardless of what the "vote count" says.
Now, on to the timetable and other things.
  • "All the wiki friends are already mobilized to support each other, but just because that is doesn't disqualify their opinions." You're right- it doesn't. At least, not by default. If the only reason User:ABC's friend User:DEF has to vote support is "He's a nice guy you should promote," then unfortunately User:DEF's opinion is largely unimportant, and contributes nothing towards the subject of whether or not User:ABC would make a good sysop or not. It should be noted that voting only makes it easier for User:ABC's friends to do exactly that- swing the nomination because they're ABC's friend.
  • "Sleeper accounts and unestablished users are disqualified." Good, but that's subjective. Needs specifics. For example, users that haven't contributed in X amount of time or that have less than Y edits outside User/Smasher namespaces. However, if RfAs are steered away from polls and towards intelligent discussion (+1), this becomes unnecessary.
  • "And the timetable is to ensure the process doesn't drag on (1), that the community decides (2), and that is the way Wikipedia does it (3)."
    1. What is the matter with the process dragging on? If anything, it promotes thought and reduces the strain on people to determine whether or not User:ABC would make a good sysop. Pressure causes skewed judgment. As for wasted time, I'd like to think that time spent determing whether you trust User:ABC to be fair/just/logical/etc. and whether or not you trust him to allow him to ban users at his own discretion to be time well spent, don't you think? You see presidential campaign commercials running half a year before the election for a reason.
    2. In an ideal wiki, people should be able to trust their bureaucrat's judgment as to whether or not User:ABC will make a good sysop and RfAs wouldn't be needed at all. Unfortunately, it would be unreasonable to ask everyone to just go with what the bureaucrat says because they say it. As such, RfAs are necessary for the community, but RfAs should be to help give insight to the bureaucrat(s), not obligate them to promote User:ABC because he's popular.
    3. ...so? We're not Wikipedia (this is actually a policy on guildwiki); we don't share their huge userbase, we don't share their gigantic sysop pool, and we barely share any content. While we do (should) share many of their policies because they're universal to all wikis regardless of size, the RfA process depends dramatically on userbase size, and thus should not be just straight-up copied from Wikipedia.
  • I still don't understand the bit about nominations not closing. Why would a failed RfA not close? Why would a successful RfA stay open?
Also, since I don't know how harsh this sounds, please don't take this personally. I'm not directing this at anyone personally, I'm just arguing for the sake of the wiki. --Shadowcrest 02:42, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

header to separate sidebar convos

Then why do we even have a Poll Template? MarioGalaxy {talk} 21:13, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Reread the first line of the quote. And then, I assume it was added when you merged to wikia, whether you wanted it or not. --Shadowcrest 21:15, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm not gonna make a debate here, so talk to Randall. I was asking him a question, he didn't answer it, so you talk to him. MarioGalaxy {talk} 21:19, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

You gave me 18 minutes to respond, dude. :^) I don't live here. --RJM Talk 21:24, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Um not that I fully understand the current system (or the new one Semicolon is trying to put in for that matter) but why no tmake this like the presidential voting process? We treat the smashwiki community like the public vote and the sysops like the electoral college. Just a small and not very thought out suggestion.--Oxico (talk) 22:38, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

minimum number of votes

You have taken the trouble to write a legalistic procedure. I'm not sure that is smart, but we'll see. However, you missed to ensure that the vote ratio is based on a significant number of votes: a 1:0 tally would exceed 5:2, but I wouldn't promote anybody based on that. I'd go with a simple two-thirds majority (4:2) and a minimum of 6 votes. If a candidate doesn't get more than those, too many people don't know him or her for him/her to be a trusted admin. --◄mendel► (talk) 00:36, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

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