Guild Wars Wiki talk:Adminship/A2

Sysop resignation

There's no real policy for this that I can find; but per GWW:ADMIN#Sysops, "Sysops are appointed for life, but may voluntarily resign."

As many of you may be aware, my contribution level to the wiki has been low for several months now. I still read the Guild Wars Wiki several times a week, monitoring and watching the happenings on the wiki; but given the notice on my talk page, and my time commitment for that, I seriously doubt that my availability to actively participate will improve anytime soon. I had seriously considered resigning when my grandfathered sysop status came up for reconfirmation - but chose to remain for a mix of reasons, including the newness of several sysops who were yet to be tested at that point. Now that I've watched several of the newer sysops in action, I can say with confidence that I feel the wiki is in good hands.

If my availability does increase, I may re-nominate myself at some point once I build a fresher contribution history (assuming no one else re-nominates me at that point). But for now, I feel it's best for the wiki and myself to resign my sysop status. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 03:23, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Its a shame to see you go, I guess there has rarely been a "less problematic" sysop. Thanks for all the work around here and on the old wiki. One thing I cant help but mention though: Being busy because of planning your wedding one year before it happens? Somehow I miss the times when having a wedding was simply about getting married lol. --Xeeron 09:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the vote of confidence - it does mean a lot to me!

I was wondering if anyone would notice that it's still a ways out.  :-) The prior two months were full of wedding activities (the two of us driving around to see wedding venues, talking to caterers, officiants, photographers, etc) - so now, much of the early wedding work is actually out of the way ... but I'm still using it as an excuse because now everything we were putting off is booking our calendars for at least the next two months, then come the holidays with family visits. I think the earliest that I could be very active again would be the first of the year, but then the planning will pick up again not long after that as the actual event gets closer, taking me out of wiki again. sigh. We joked about eloping ... would've been easier in so many ways. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 14:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Making GWW functional

Restructuring of power and its effects

I'll just quote (with some minor grammatical corrections) what I said from IRC since I'm not in the mood to retype it: Tbh, it wouldn't take much to fix GWW. Just give the admins power, demote the ones that suck, and institute some basic policies like Assume Good Faith while removing the stupid ones and all stupid flame-bait proposals like "No Profanity" or "No Trolling" and GWW would vastly improve. The fact of the matter is, admins on GWW can't make decisive actions at all. Its quite pitiful. The burden then falls on the community, which creates wikidrama, which creates stress, which creates disunity, which creates stress, which creates wikidrama, etc."
Aiine responded with "no offense, but burdens on admins creates plenty of drama as well".
My reply was: "Then promote sysops who can handle it. And demote the ones that can't. Being a sysop isn't a joyride, it's a responsibility. Let's face it, you don't promote people (or at least shouldn't) once a person reaches X amount of contributions. That's a stupid thing to do. You RFA/promote people based on how qualified they are for the job."

One of Aiine's concerns were the weighing the positives and negatives of such a system, one where admins have the power to make their own decisions and really use the power that the users of this wiki have entrusted these select few with. The following is what I see as the positives and negatives of both systems:

Power to the People (now)

• Positive: Everyone has an equal say
• Negative: The people with experience have an equal say
• Negative: Conflicts take forever to be mediated
• Positive: Everyone sees how the conflict plays out (through hundred of kilobytes of bureaucracy on arbitration pages)
• Negative: Stresses the community out

Power to the People the People elect (the proposal)

• Positive: Everyone has a say
• Positive: The people with experience have a greater say
• Positive: Conflicts are mediated far quicker
• Negative: Conflicts are mediated usually by just one person

• Positive: That person is usually experienced and is always elected by the people
• Negative: That person may have been elected by the people, but may not be qualified for the job of sysop

Why this would work

While a lot of you may know me someone who has trolled in the past, I would really like to see this place become a workable environment post wikia move on GWiki. Such a plan would end arguments far faster, put less stress on the community as a whole, and put the wiki's problems in the hands of a select few who are elected to deal with them and any users that might want to embroil themselves in these problems. As it stands now, however, everyone gets embroiled in wikidrama and it's just not healthy for a community of any type. The problem of sysops can be easily remedied: there are roughly 16,520 users on this wiki as of about 16:00 EST. I'm sure some of these users are at least qualified to be sysops that can deal with these problems and make Guild Wars Wiki a better, more placid place for contributors to work in.

Summation

Make admins into something other than a useless staff of janitors and give them the ability to mediate arguments and do the job they were elected for. Give them the power that the community entrusted them with.

Thanks for reading this proposal and have a good day. —ǥrɩɳsɧƿoɲ 02:37, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Discuss

I personally dont believe that style of adminship is appropriate for this community. - BeX 02:49, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Care to elaborate? —ǥrɩɳsɧƿoɲ 02:52, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Bureaucrats already have all the powers you want sysops to have. I don't see any point in blurring the line between the two roles. I think the solution is to get more bureaucrats, clarify the "final arbiters of user conduct" role and add some rough user conduct guidelines. -- Gordon Ecker 03:10, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

iawtc - BeX 03:16, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

The bureaucratic process (ArbComm) is the "Negative: Conflicts take forever to be mediated."

The community here is pretty much the same one from GWiki; Guild Wars players. The community didn't magically change around February.

It's pretty obvious that the current system sucks greatly - crippling our own admins past the point where they can't act for the betterment of the wiki (based on personal discretion, of course) is a huge mistake. Any idiot sysop can ban via following policies word-for-word, but as soon as you get a troll with half a brain, the wiki suddenly becomes unable to deal with it. Big mistake.

User:Tanaric mentioned the idea of adding a new position... one suited to deal with disruptive forces that aren't exactly policy violations. These "moderators" (we could find a better word, but that works pretty well for now) have the authority to perform blocks based on personal discresion; sure, it requires having a brain, so don't promote anyone without one and no problems will arise. Simple.

Moderator and Sysop would not be mutually exclusive - this generally entails that the Moderator status alone would lack the ability to delete and protect pages. However, if the Moderator was also a sysop (via RfA, naturally), he would be able to delete/protect/block for blatant vios and block for wiki disruption (i.e., trolls and anyone else with a case of the ass for the wiki or another user in particular).

The only snag I can see in this is appointing moderators. The general userbase is clueless (see also; every RfA this wiki's ever had), so making a vote like that would defeat the point and most likely put brainless moderators into power. Thus... I suggest making moderators be bureaucrat-appointed.

Yes, moderator duties seem to overlap with Bureaucratic duties; but moderators are more of a fast-acting solution to a given problem (first trolling post - warning, second trolling post, moderator block, third trolling post, ArbComm). Moderators are also not mediators - ArbComm would still deal with all mediation cases. -166.122.31.2 03:59, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Since this is the path this discussion is taking, I've previously suggested that bureaucrats should have the task of dealing with disruptive behaviour individually (not as part of a committee). They'd basically be sysops, with the extra right to deal with those who are just being disruptive for the sake of being disruptive. To balance this, the ArbComm would be dedicated to reviewing the decisions of the sysops and bureaucrats upon request, serving as control mechanism for the community to keep the admins flying straight. This would shift the committee-caused delays from the day to day wiki issues, to the (hopefully more rare) cases of when an admin isn't doing his job right.

Note that I myself am not (yet) supporting this suggestion, as I'd still like to give the current system a bit more time to see what it's capable of (as soon as we become more familiar with how an ArbComm process should work, maybe we can work with less hesitation). It's still an alternative, though. --Dirigible 04:19, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

The system you present Dirigible does have some good sides in it. Sysops can act quickly if required, but the ArbComm still makes sure that no sysop decision is against the interests of the wiki community. But I do agree with Dir that we should wait and see how the current system works now that we have the ArbComm working. -- (gem / talk) 07:25, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Dir suggested that bureaucrats do the "quick response" as an individual, not the sysops. With regards to giving the current system a try, I've also made a suggestion to speed things up (on the blocking policy talk). This is in line with increasing the number of bureaucrats slightly. Make the accept/reject of an arbitration request not requiring all of them to respond. If there are 5 bureaucrats, and say 3 have already responded with an accept, arbitration can proceed. This may help mitigate the concern that arbitration is slow. -- ab.er.rant 07:30, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Woops, misread it as I just woke up. I think it's even better with bcrats being the quick response team instead of the sysops. -- (gem / talk) 07:32, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent)

I fail to see why sysops can't be the ones doing the mediating. Don't you have at least an iota of faith in your elected administrators? To make b-crats do everything is putting undue pressure on them and forces them to sacrifice too much. There's a life outside of this wiki you know. —ǥrɩɳsɧƿoɲ 12:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

No, I do not have an iota of faith given the current RfA process. -Auron 12:23, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Even though Auron fails to present his cause diplomatically, I agree. the current RfA system is based on the fact that sysops don't have power like that and some people (not all) are voting according to that too. Ofcourse it wouldn't be so bad if the ArbComm goes through all this decisions afterwards, but still. -- (gem / talk) 12:31, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Love you too gem :p -Auron 12:33, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Really, the way I invision this change is that you have users who go about their daily lives, then sysops who do what users do and also fix all problems except for one (b-crat job), and b-crats, who are in charge of monitoring sysops. Basically, the sysops are given autonomy to do what is best of the wiki: e.g. warn trolls, ban them, etc. If they step out of bounds, a b-crat does something about it or it can be brought to a b-crat's attention through some type of sub-page of GWW:ADMIN or GWW:NOTICE. If the community didn't elect sysops based on that roll, have a re-vote. It's only a few kilobytes of server space tops and such a policy shift can be rolled out in basically a month. Any bad sysops will be weeded out very quickly by the excellent bureaucrat force here. This way, you can have faster response times to user requests and faster banning of disruptive people. —ǥrɩɳsɧƿoɲ 14:22, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

How many real problems have there been? A handful in a year? ... I don't think things are as bad as some people make them out to be. A couple people get (too) upset by pixels on talk/user pages, and suddenly it's a catastrophe that requires jack-booted sysops smiting down everyone with their ban-sticks. I don't think so. While policies and processes no doubt could be refined, the foundation that's in place is stronger and more sensible than the one over at GuildWiki.

The only real reason why GuildWiki is more popular is inertia ... it had more content to begin with, and so continued to be used. A used wiki is updated. This will flip come GW2, if not sooner due to the whole Wikia drama-bomb, or maybe tighter integration with the in-game client.--Drekmonger 12:57, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree with Drekmonger. --Xeeron 14:58, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

The whole reasons bcrats currently lack sysop tools is so that they can intercede as ArbComm in user vs. sysop concerns with some degree of inpartiality. If bcrats are in the field doing the work, there's no reasonable checks and balances on that authority. "ArbComm's running amok! I'll go fill out an ArbComm request so they'll tell themselves to stop!" Create an additional role if you want to separate the authority in that way -- that's why I suggested the moderator position. If you don't, you either have to 1) fire and reelect all sysops, because they were elected for the wrong job, or 2) fire and reelect all bureaucrats, because they were elected for the wrong job. —Tanaric 16:13, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

While faster conflict resolution is nice and all, puting it up as the guiding light for the fundamental structure of a wiki seems to be somewhat out of perspective. Backsword 16:19, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

For a more focused and centralized discussion of this approach, I've put up a draft at Guild Wars Wiki:Executive sysops. --Rezyk 20:40, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

This policy is broken because: "[Sysops] can block accounts and IP addresses according to the rules of the Guild Wars Wiki policy." BUT "Sysops are granted reasonable discretion, but they are expected to apply policy rigorously and respect consensus." Therefore, sysops are being administrated by users = fail. Sysops discretion is not respected by (some) users as much as users consensus is respected by Sysops. Their discretion is seriously crippled as a way of taking their decisions. Without the discretion criterion, sysops become the so called "glorified janitors", their work and position is taken lightly, and Adminship becomes a popularity contest: in order to keep their position (because they want to help the wiki) they end up trying to please everyone. So, in order to keep doing their job, they have to turn to policies, because policies are well-limited, previously reached community consensus, and GWW:SYSOP states so. Acting by the book, following policies to the letter, becomes sysops way of avoiding attacks on their position and themselves (stress, drama, etc). This way, the need for more and clearer policies arises (including more discussions for consensus, stress, drama, etc), since the wiki is actually being run by policies instead of admins. Request for Adminship is empty because Proposed Policies is full.reanor 14:37, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Again, the same discussion that is happening in at least two other places. Two policy drafts are "full"? The current model, with sysops actually being administrated by the community, is much better than one in which the community is administered by sysops - which one do you think is more important, which one do you think build the wiki, the community or sysops? Are we going back to a system of absolutist monarchy now? Erasculio 16:00, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

You're just exagerating to highlight your point. The current system is broken and is failing. Castrated admins and loose vandals are the sign. Stop denying it, this wiki needs a change.reanor 16:23, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Which loose vandals would that be? Backsword 16:50, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Any disruptor smart enough to make his actions out of policy jurisdiction. That's all it takes.reanor 16:58, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Disruptor!=vandal. Vandalism is covered by policy, except talk pages, which is easily fixable. Backsword 17:03, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

The irony of following "You're just exagerating to highlight your point" with "Castrated admins and loose vandals are the sign" is staggering. This wiki has tools to deal with the kind of disruptor you mentioned; the fact we have not used them is a sign of how rare that kind of disruption is, and of how the "castrated" admins are perfectly capable of telling a disruptor to behave or leave. There is no point in trying to change the current system into a dictatorship just because GuildWiki, PvX wiki or whatever suffers such system. Here the community runs the wiki, not sysops run the wiki - and that's how it should be, IMO. Erasculio 17:58, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

The irony of you pointing out that example, and mentioning that the community runs the wiki, is also staggering. The sysops are too weak to deal with such disruptions quickly and efficiently, largely due to this policy. How long did it take to get BahamutKaiser a ban? How long was that ban? It took forever, and he got a one day ban. A one day ban isn't a ban; it's a minor slap in the face. I laugh when I'm banned from things for a day, because I can easily afford to follow that ban. Three days is the minimum required to get a message across, and it also appears to be the minimum length of time ANet bans people for. On a similar note, why isn't Raptors perma-banned yet? Because sysops have to follow every policy to the letter.

Also, wikis are not democracies; they're dictatorships. That's their nature. The vast majority of people don't know what's best for the wiki; that's why you elect sysops that do. Armond 00:19, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll just go ahead and kill your favorite argument, Erasculio. Ask any user from this wiki, I'm pretty sure none of us can remember more than 15 user names, wich of course can be recognized as "the most active users", and many of them will very likely be admins. That's your so called community, a small group of users who happen to be the ones involved in most discussions, specially policies. That group may not be cohesive, they may not always agree, but the truth is, they are the ones dictating. 5% of the whole community is discussing/approving/rejecting policies wich affect them and the other 95%, whose visions we don't hear much about. I'm pretty sure, more powerful (or at least less powerless) sysops, with a GWW:SYSOP policy that really allows them to use their discretion, and a community principle about respecting that discretion, is the real way of having more freedom in this wiki. A small group dictating policies for everyone, just because is the only effective way of getting sysops to act, is far from a free wiki, or at least a functional one.reanor 01:49, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Wait, your argument is that since only "5%" of the community currently bothers to discuss policies, we should just make it so the sysops (as in 0.1%) are the only ones responsible for deciding how the wiki runs? Please. The community today has as much freedom to decide how the wiki runs as it wants to have; limiting that for no good reason other than to follow some other wiki is a joke.

And Armond, if you haven't realized, the ban to BahamutKaiser was enough to make he leave the wiki. I don't really want trigger-happy sysops who think they have to ban someone forever the first time he breaches a policy - BK was banned when it was time for him to be banned, and the result of the ban was that he completely stopped his policy breaches. Erasculio 03:21, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Pff, my argument is that since only 5% of the community currently bothers to discuss policies, that 5% and their policies have no right to limit everyone's sysops to the point their position becomes a joke. We are all responsible for how the wiki runs, nothing can change that, but sysops are given more responsabilties because of what their job is supposed to be. Parafrasing and twisting Uncle Ben's quote: with more responsability, should come more power. And btw, may be BahamutKaiser didn't left because he was banned, may be he left because he didn't like what he saw here.reanor 03:38, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Read better. He left his ragequit post before the ban post was made. Armond 08:46, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The reason why only "5%" (despite that being a number that came from nowhere) discuss policies is because those are all the ones who want to; but everyone, 100% of the community, is free to step in and interject if they want. Under the assumption that those 5% have "no right" to limit everyone, sysops (what, 0.1%?) have no right to impose what they think is better for the wiki. And BK posted his ragequit message right after he was blocked for the first time - he makes it very clear. Erasculio 12:00, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Failure - and a chance to succeed

A system of powerful sysops has no drawbacks. None. The only arguments I've seen against it are strawman (and fly in the face of 2+ years of empirical evidence to the opposite). A system of weak sysops that can only act as policy on paper lets them, however, has countless flaws; not the least of which are letting trolls flame for days on end with no punishment (and when punishment comes, it is not enough).
Our current system is stupid. There's no other word for it. A mass of unneeded policy (which all this bullshit is) detracts from an effective wiki.
ANet liked GWiki's sysop system and style of management so much that they asked those sysops to help run their wiki. Those sysops and many active users came over here, but allowed some major failures right off; the Guild policies were fucked up to no end, Userspace policies were an epic failure until somewhat recently... but neither of those compare to the biggest failure on this wiki to date; the weak sysop system.
For whatever reason, be it paranoia or general ignorance, people saw fit to weaken the sysops to a point where they're a joke. I don't really care what stupidity led to that decision, but I would like to see it rectified. Abolish the restricted sysops bullshit, keep the sysop guide a guide, and the wiki will be leagues better. -Auron 02:05, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and before you even think of the whole "omfg sysops r tryin' 2 taek over LOL!" retardedness, I'm not a sysop, so I can't possibly be pushing for some super-elite group of dictator admins. -Auron 02:41, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

They can also think you're secretly working for them for some reason (i.e. they have dirty pics of you), and you said that just to cover your tracks lol.reanor 02:48, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Sysops have five powers: blocking, unblocking, deleting, undeleting and viewing deleted pages. I haven't heard any complaints that sysops don't have enough unblocking, deletion, undeletion or deleted page viewing power. This is about blocking. I am personally hesitant to block in ambiguous situations, and I suspect that many sysops share this attitude. I believe that the most practical way to deal with this attitude is to reduce the ambiguity. If people think the personal attack policy is too weak, they can write up and propose a tougher revision of it. -- Gordon Ecker 02:50, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Complaints are about that hesitation. Sysops only real power, is their power to sit and wait for the rest to tell them when and how to block, unblock, delete, undelete, etc. Those telling them what to do are the ones with powers, and the current GWW:SYSOP is letting this happen. So, here we are, proposing a tougher version.reanor 03:03, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

(to Gordon) That's going back to relying on the policy on paper, which is dumb and slows everything down. GWiki got along fine (and by that, I mean they excelled) with a by-sysop blocking method; certain sysops only felt confident blocking for vandalism, some only felt confident blocking for clear NPA violations; but some were equally confident blocking trolls, flamers and generally disruptive asshats. The current policies prevent that kind of sysop action, thus it weakens our wiki as a whole. EDIT: Naturally, I'm not suggesting to re-word the policy, write it up in a draft, wait 3 months for comment, then deem it unworthy of implementation. I mean rewriting the entire policy if not deleting it outright to make way for the severe change that needs to take place.
And Gordon, this is not just about blocks; deletions, too, are a major point of contention, and are equally successful under a per-sysop deletion method. And before anyone pretends that method would be chaotic, go look on GWiki and kindly shut the hell up; I'm tired of goddamn stupid logic from people that can't think. -Auron 03:05, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Right. "People that can't think". Tell me, can you think of how "successful" was the selling of GuildWiki to Wikia? Because that's a perfect (and "excellent", even) example of someone who has control over the wiki exercising said control without having to consider the community before acting. Do you need any other example to see how a system of powerful sysops has way, waaaay too many drawbacks? Do you realize that you are assuming we all are 5 years old children unable to make their own decisions, needing the help of someone who's theorically better, but in the end is just more arrogant? This wiki is running fine without empowering zealots who have the audacity of assuming they know better than the community; the worst e-drama we have here is the one that comes from those few users who are asking for more powerful sysops and disrupt the workings of the wiki by repeating the same thing over and over again. Erasculio 03:28, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Why is waiting 3 days for deletion so horrible? When has the 3 day deletion timer ever caused problems? As for relying on the policy as written, I don't see why this behaviour should be considered unreasonable, or why adding a guideline with a broad definition of something such as trolling would automatically slow things down. Also, your arguements are drifting pretty close to personal attacks. -- Gordon Ecker 03:40, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Do you realise that you just proved your point that at heart, you are 5 year old children that are unable to make your own decisions because the average IQ of this place is well below even borderline retarded? Gravewit was the OWNER of the site. The OWNER of this site is ANet. As long as Gravewit did nothing, everything ran absolutely perfectly. GW:ADMIN was roughly, give or take, light years ahead of this system, as their content and community is. Obviously, you vote who you want for administrator positions. Because people that get voted into "office" so to speak are well known, abuses of power simply don't happen. If anything does, you can go cry to a b-crat like LordBiro, who is probably the most intelligent person on this god-forsaken clusterfuck of a hellhole. In the end, sysops are sysops because they're the most intelligent. What it boils down to is this: Guild Wiki's model for policies and administrators is just infinitely better than here for every reason described above in this gargantuan monster of a talk page and if you can't see the clear advantages to having intelligent sysops with power and having retards without power, then you will hopefully never be the former provided RFA works as it should (which it usually does). —ǥrɩɳsɧƿoɲ 03:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Of course. Let's ignore how Gravewit was one person in position of power who used said power against the well being of the community - after all, that's not relevant at all in a discussion about giving sysops power beyond what anyone else has here. The impact of Gravewit's decision are still being felt on GuildWiki (despite some blind claims that it has not changed anything). I'm sure that the majority of this community is better than "retarded"; and so far the "clear" advantages mentioned by those who want better sysops are nothing more than pointless, baseless e-drama. Erasculio 11:54, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Gordon, I agree with you, in fact it's not that bad, but the reasons behind it and what they produce are concerning. Some sysops are indeed afraid of retaliation, especially if they use their discretion. As I said before, more policy is not a good solution, because new policies are created and supported by few, but still affect everyone. This tendency can get out of hand, and aware of this, some users have realized the root of this problem is the sysop system. And well, you know the rest.reanor 03:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

@Gordon; Waiting any specific amount of time isn't the issue. It couldn't matter less if the wait time was three days or two weeks; the fact that admins can't speedy delete things without it being on a list is a weakness in the system. Granted, the deletion issue is less of a concern than blocking, but because deleting a page speedily doesn't hurt or help any more than letting it stand for 3 days, you're just wasting time.

Keep this in mind; the vast majority of pages deleted pages (on GWiki, as well as here) were tagged by non-sysops. If the delete tag was obviously unjust, either a sysop or another user would remove it. If the delete wasn't easy to discern, discussion would start on the talk page concerning deletion (discussion that even sysops would get involved in); if nobody contested deletion, it got deleted. That's sort of the basis of this system, except we've added unneeded bureaucracy here (taken a good thing and made it worse, basically).

I know I got close to NPA, but honestly, it's worse for someone to bring an overused, paranoid and fallacious strawman argument into a debate than it is for me to call them on it. Those people should be your target, not me. -Auron 09:05, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

What I hope people can understand is that we're not trying to copy a system from another wiki just because that other wiki has it, or force down the vast majority of people because we can, we're doing it because that improves the wiki. Doing so is the smart move; not doing so is not. The truth is, 95% of people on wiki don't know what they're talking about (and I'll include myself in that). I'm not trying for NPA here, I'm trying to point out the truth. Armond 09:08, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Hah. So the better example of "failure" in this wiki is how it takes 3 days (oh noes, entire 3 days!) for one page to be deleted? I'm sorry, but that just reeks of the "people on wiki don't know what they're talking about" above. I don't know where this need for someone to hold's people hands came from, but the fact is that this wiki is thriving, not failing - as is made obvious by how the main goal of this wiki, creating and updating articles about GW, is evolving fine. Blowing a few so-called "problems" out of proportion based on a supposed ignorance by "95%" of the community, without any kind of evidence supporting said ignorance, is just a bunch of strawman that is not going to lead anywhere. This isn't kindergarten - the community does not need babysitters, despite what a few users, too confident in their ability to judge the wiki, may think. Erasculio 11:54, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Admins don't need babysitting, either. The unneeded policies being pushed are not about content, because content isn't everything, we're still a community, and just because "our job" is doing fine we can't leave matters like these unattended. Denying the very existence of this problems is far worse. Admins are acting erraticly, instead of applying their discretion, and, if necessary, ask for ArbComm supervision on the matter later, they're waiting for supervision before acting on discretion. It's slow, and most ppl, the ignorant 95%, gets the feeling they can tell admins how to admin, as if their election, contribution and respect from others didn't count. Admins aren't newbie users (or at least shouldn't be), and shouldn't be treated as such.reanor 12:22, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, the "election". Tell me, do you see anything else on this wiki being decided through voting? No? Guess why? That's the worse way of making a decision available here. There is little to no substance on voting - it's more a popularity contest than anything else. Yet so far it's working - and that's because, as important as the sysops are here, their power is so limited that even a major screw up would do little to hurt the wiki. If you assume that 95% of the community is "ignorant", how can you ask those ignorant people to choose who is going to be the sysops? Either we're all stupid (and I'm very curious to see where that assumption came from, other than a feeling of spite toward the community) and we can't vote, or we're smart enough to choose good sysops, and therefore smart enough to tell those sysops how to act. Which one is it? Erasculio 12:30, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't get why you bother, Auron. A false dichotomy is not going to convince anyone, nor calims that the wiki is failing. You've made it clear that you think the opinions of the masses are stupid and that you want a circle of Leaders to run things on many occasions.

But it would have to be the same stupid masses that would have to vote themself out of power. Do you really see that happening? Backsword 12:26, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

To those opposing: If you were an admin, would you abuse your power? would you like your work being overcriticized? would you like acting slow? Where's the danger then?reanor 12:29, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

If you were a dictator on your country, would you abuse your power? Would you like acting slow? Where's the danger then, let's replace democracy with dictatorship! After all, if 95% of this community is stupid (I'm still waiting for a reply about why we're that stupid), surely the world can't be much better! Erasculio 12:33, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Did you just compare admins intentions with those of a dictator? Enough said.reanor 15:05, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Dictators are not called dictators because of their evil intentions (check the "benevolent dictator"), but because of the concentration of power in their hands, making his comparison a very valid one. It makes me concerned that you seem not to see that the inherent problem of a dictatorship is not that every dictator has evil intentions, but that in a dictatorship the outcome is much worse (than in a democracy) should the leader have bad intentions (or simply be incompetent or misunderstand the situation). --Xeeron 15:49, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Still, (I'll reformulate) is admins intention to concentrate power? Of course not, it's ridiculous. And even if they do, how bad can it get?reanor 16:04, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

2+ years of empirical evidence from GuildWiki may say that this is the way to go. About 6 years, and millions of users worth of empirical evidence from Wikipedia says that the other system works. This may not be Wikipedia, but nor is it GuildWiki. A system where you can get a different punishment depending on who blocks you should not exist - and is the reason I refuse to contribute on GuildWiki. Obviously that in itself is no big deal - it's only me - but that's really beside the point. Ale_Jrb (talk) 16:52, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

How bad can it get when you make someone all powerful? Very bad, when you have unilateral action ignoring the well being of the community and thus leading to valued contributors leaving the wiki.

What do you think hurts the wiki? Vandalism? Please, almost all vandalism is undone and forgotten in less than a day. Having to wait three days in order to delete an article? A list? What really hurts the wiki is the loss of contributors, especially experienced ones. Having someone with too much power in his hands can and has lead to such loss - this is not made up, this is not hypothetically, this is a fact that has already happened. Losing contributors this way is far worse (and much more of a "failure") than any problem this wiki has.

This entire proposal is paradoxal. If 95% of the community is stupid and only sysops know better, what merit is there in a proposal like this one, that is deffended only by common members of the community and not a single sysop? Unless the ones proposing this are assuming that they are among the few blessed with the lack of stupidity the community supposedly has, and therefore better than 95% of us; if that's the case, such behavior has a name. Erasculio 17:17, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Why do you keep coming up with the wikia move? The owner of the site did it. Admin or not, it was the action of the owner, not the action of an overpowered sysop. It has nothing to do with this, mud-slinging over admins actions does, it hurts the wiki, it hurts contributors (yeah, admins are contributors too), and it pushes users away. Anyway, if the Wikia move is your argument against the whole GuildWiki system and it's adminship style...I just don't understand you, they're not very related. Also, stop it with the "some say 95% of this wiki is stupid" thing. It's degenerating my very valid argument about the power being in the hands of a minority. Auron said something similar because, well, he's like that, it wasn't his argument against the policy, he was rather talking about those who refuse to deal with what he (and me, too) thinks is fact. Sysops should know better, thinking they are just "janitors" cleaning around has cheapen their performance and election.reanor 18:54, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The wikia move is exactly what you are proposing - giving power with absolutely no control of the community (who would be "stupid") beyond choosing who would earn said power (despite, now, being "stupid"). Now tell me, who has been pushed away because of the way this wiki is run? Who, among the valued contributors (sorry, but I'm not going to miss BK and alikes), has left because of that?

The problem with the "95% is stupid" argument is that it is your entire argument. The only reason stated as why the community itself would not be able to run the wiki is the assumption that the community is idiot - as assumption that came from nowhere, and only helps to highlight how bad the arguments for this change are. "Cheapen their performance and election" without mentioning any problem thanks to how sysops are isn't a good argument, sorry, neither is "It's slow" or "Our current system is stupid" or talking about a "failure" that does not exist.

(Oh, and please clarify - when you said that 95% of the community is ignorant, you were talking specifically about those who don't agree with you? Because if that's so, your little comment goes from being a baseless statement into being a direct insult, and I would love to tell the "castrated" sysops about that.) Erasculio 20:22, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Karlos left, you didn't liked him but some, me included, did. I'm not very happy here either, but I believe in this wiki and support it because of the closer relation with Anet and the Game Integration system, among other reasons (yeah, Wikia too). Anyway, are you even reading what I say?reanor 20:27, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I am reading. I noticed how yours "the ignorant 95%" suddenly became "something similar" said by Aaron. I noticed the lack of arguments about why the community needs to be run by sysops instead of being run by itself. I also noticed very few arguments about why this wiki is a "failure" (and please, saying that the need to wait 3 days in order to delete some things is a sign of failure really does not cut it, as far as good arguments go). May I remind you that the ArbComm decision still binds me, otherwise I would have said much, much more than what I already have. Erasculio 20:36, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

"The vast majority of people don't know what's best for the wiki; that's why you elect sysops that do." --Armond 00:19, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

"5% of the whole community is discussing/approving/rejecting policies wich affect them and the other 95%, whose visions we don't hear much about." --Ereanor 01:49, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

"I'm tired of goddamn stupid logic from people that can't think."--Auron 03:05, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

"The truth is, 95% of people on wiki don't know what they're talking about (and I'll include myself in that)."--Armond 09:08, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

"Blowing a few so-called "problems" out of proportion based on a supposed ignorance by "95%" of the community, without any kind of evidence supporting said ignorance, is just a bunch of strawman that is not going to lead anywhere."--Erasculio 11:54, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

"most ppl, the ignorant 95%, gets the feeling they can tell admins how to admin, as if their election, contribution and respect from others didn't count." --Ereanor 12:22, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

May be in this last quote I should've said ["the ignorant 95%"] instead of [the ignorant 95%], but the fact is, I used that because you started calling them like that based on Armond posts, and mixing it with my previous comment (hence my "you're degenerating my commment" reply). No one ever said "95% of this wiki is stupid". You're twisting things.reanor 21:01, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Mgrinshpon broke GWW:NPA to say things worse than that. And the point stands - your own quote above is paradoxal, when you stated how only 5% of the community is discussing policies, and many of those (your "none of us can remember more than 15 user names, wich of course can be recognized as 'the most active users', and many of them will very likely be admins" quote) already are sysops. Under the assumption that those who "tell admins how to admin" are the "ignorant", like you said, what does it means the fact that many of those who do so happen to be sysops themselves? Are those sysops ignorant, too, and therefore inapt to admin?

The idea that sysops are better than the community does not work, thanks to all those paradoxes (my favourite one still being how the ignorant community is supposed to become wise enough to choose who will be a sysop). And if sysops are not better than the community...There is no point in the community using that middle man instead of running itself. Erasculio 21:15, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Erasculio: Why are you "acting ignorantly"? Because for one you're flying in the face of two years of empirical evidence, for another you continually bring up a topic which has been debunked, and for a third you're assuming votes actually matter in sysop elections. They don't; it's completely up to the bureaucrats who to promote and demote. Armond 21:27, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

*cough*Wikipedia uses this sysop system*cough* 'Empirical evidence' just doesn't cut it. Ale_Jrb (talk) 21:29, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me? You're blatantly ignoring empirical evidence and supporting this system just because Wikipedia uses it? Must I remind you of how much fail wikipedia's sysops and systems are, as a whole? Armond 21:32, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Please, remind us. In details. While you're at it, try to give some arguments about how, exactly, does this wiki "fail", as well. And also remind us of how well did the "perfect" GuildWiki handle the trolling at the builds' talk page, how it had to resort to deleting the entire section, and how much of a failure that was. You may finish by letting we know how Gravewit's actions were not of someone powerful without the need to answer to the community (sounds familiar? I bet) acting against the betterment of the wiki (oh, I forgot, please add a comment about how this doesn't exist as well). Erasculio 21:39, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

With regards to the wikia move, its the same as if a-net suddenly decides to make a major decision without consulting other wiki users. Whether sysops are powerful or not would be irrelevant in that situation. Lord of all tyria 21:43, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Yet Arena Net has chosen to not make such radical decisions and instead ask the community about things they want to change. In other words, they could have chosen a system in which they are "all powerful" and above the community (like Gravewit did, and we know how much successful that was), but rather went with one in which they do not act without consulting the community first. Guess what kind of sysop system is just like that? The one in GuildWiki (where sysops are "all powerful" and above the community), or the one here? Erasculio 21:46, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

And yet, a-net could still pull a gravewit very easily, regardless of any discussion on sysops. Gravewit is pretty much irrelevant to any discussion about the day to day running of a wiki. Lord of all tyria 21:48, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. I think he's a perfect example of what happens when you have too much power and too little accountability together. Erasculio 21:51, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me? You're blatantly ignoring empirical evidence and supporting this system just because Wikipedia uses it? - calm yourself: I have no real argument with you here, so you can cut down on the defensiveness. ;) As for blatantly ignoring it, I'm afraid that about 6 years of a team of over a thousand sysops managing hundreds of thousands of unique editors a month trumps anything that GuildWiki can put together. I'm not supporting it because Wikipedia uses it - I'm supporting it because it works. :) Ale_Jrb (talk) 22:12, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

(Please don't TL;DR this)Wow, thanks for cooling down, Erasculio. I actually get you now. I'm not trying to use "ignorant" as an insult, it's not my intention. Ignorance means not knowing, and most users of this community do not know that key matters about the wiki are being discussed. This discussion is a good example, despite the fact that I added it to Request for comment and Hot discussions (not too long ago, but still), only a few are participating. Of course, there might be some users who came by, looked at it, and for some reason thought they had nothing to say. I hope those are few, too. So, I guess I agree with Armond in a way, but I'll put it this way: "95% of this community does not know about or doesn't bother to discuss important wiki-related matters, such as policies." You can go check Policy discussions and watch the names repeating, they are not many. Anyway, may be some admin is on vacation, or without internet connection, or something else is preventing him/her from knowing about what's going on in the wiki. Or may be (I hope not) some admins are part of those who passed by and said nothing. I don't know why, but there may be admins who are part of the "95%" (understanding it as a just explained). So yeah, you might say there are "ignorant" sysops, but that doesn't make them bad sysops, neither makes them useless or unnecesary, and I'm not trying to insult them or anyone else in the "95%". If anyone with a registered account could ban and delete...I don't need to tell you about that. So I guess now I really understand the janitor idea: "sysops are users with cleanup tasks and tools (...) discretion, but follow policy, etc". Now I finally got to see your view, thanks for your passionate help. With that spirit, I'll show you mine more clearly, since I recently found a good example: User talk:J.Kougar#GWW:NPA block. Sysops shouldn't get that kind of treatment, we need them, we don't want them to resign because of such things. Alright, don't give them more power, but give them respect, please. That's why User talk:Anja Astor/Adminship started. I admit it, this community decided admins should have less discretionary power, GuildWiki chose otherwise, it worked there, good for GuildWiki. At some point, some users here thought giving more powers to sysops will get them more respect, by fear may be. More discretionary power proposals are quickly taken down (It happened here), so this tendency went looking for another source of power for admins. Policies were the answer. Having a few strong policies limits sysops actions, keeping them janitorial. Too many weaker policies give them more freedom and power, hence the "Admin power creep" issue in Guild Wars Wiki talk:Harassment. Too many strong policies overlimit sysops. I'm afraid of having too many strong policies, and I'm pretty sure weaker policies might have grown stronger while ppl worked on them. I guess that's the whole Policies issue.

Bottom line, who takes care of the caretakers? In GuildWiki the answer is themselves. Here, some say users, some say ArbComm, some say themselves (GWiki style), some say something else. I don't know what's best, but we need an answer.reanor 22:17, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for cooling down, Ereanor; while you said that I was the one who had cooled down, you were just being polite given how I usually let my temper flare more than I should. I apologize for the unnecessary hostility in my replies to you above.

My main concern with the idea of powerful sysops is how I believe it caters to arrogant users. To make my point clear: I'm not saying, insinuating or anything along those lines that you are arrogant, far from it. But when we state that a sysop is better than most of the community, I think we atract those who are too arrogant and too sure of themselves for such position.

That is one of the things I believe hurt the wiki the most. A zealot who believes he's right, who's willing to disregard a discussion by the community because he "knows better", who's willing to breach policies to make a point (because he's more important than policies), who assumes he's the voice of the silent majority, who's willing to bully those who don't agree with him (including those who would vote against him in a RfA), who uses administrative punishment as a weapon, and who supports all those with the extra status given by being a powerful sysop. The damage done by this kind of individual is not like vandalism, something easy to see and easy to revert; rather something that slowly erodes the wiki, making the community weaker and weaker as one sysop becomes stronger and stronger, although in subtle ways.

Not only that, but a system with powerful sysops also makes the community weaker by removing its need and its ability to settle things among itself. I believe running to an admin for help should be a last resort - that conflicts should be solved by users among users, using the policies as guidelines. Hence the need for very clear policies - not only so an admin knows exactly what he's allowed to do, but also to give any common user the ability to point to someone when that person has breached a policy, and try to work it out without the need to call for a sysop. That is truly the community running itself, as opposed to being run by sysops.

And then there's the problem of incosistency. Like mentioned above, a system in which what decides how long someone is going to be blocked is mostly who is going to block him, well, is not fair. That's not justice - the same infraction done by two very similar users could result in different punishments depending of who decided to block each of them. Very specific policies also help here, by letting an user know exactly what the community has decided to be the punishment for the most common infractions.

Between all those problems, and others (like how flawed voting is), I don't think running powerful sysops is a good idea. Would it work? I doubt the wiki would suddenly implode, just as GuildWiki would not suddenly be deleted if it changed to weaker sysops like we have today. "Failure" is being used too much in this discussion without having any real meaning. Would it be better for this wiki than the current system? I don't think so. Erasculio 22:49, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a new user, but I am a new account holder (a week old or so). I had no idea about this stuff until hitting an edit disagreement, tracking down fomat guidelines, searching for what to do in edit disputes, reading about ArbComm, and finally getting curius in day-to-day maintenance and patrolling the Recent changes board. Yes, I would say that even a smaller number than 5% actually know that this conversation is taking place, but that's how it should be. The wiki is not about policy, it is about GW. A handful that are interested should know, the majority couldn't care less. They just want info on the game. As it stands, I don't see a convincing argument for granting more power to the sysops, BUT I don't see a convincing argument not to either. What would it hurt? I think people are simply afraid of the word "power", but how much power can a sysop actually have? Hardly enough to do serious damage without being noticed by ANet or other sysops. Sysops are just managers, and they even manage for free. If they are managing improperly, they can be removed, right? If they are scaring away good contributors by power abuse, will the other sysops just let it happen? Will the users? I would hope not. It's just hard to imagine a sysop wielding that much power. Honestly, I think the lack of input in this matter comes from its irrelevance more than its lack of exposure. Regardless of the outcome, this wiki will continue to run and the majority of the users will never be the wiser. Mohnzh 22:30, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

You just described how GuildWiki admins work. It's irrelevant there because it works there. It's relevant here because it works differently and admins are getting new, different problems from the way this wiki works. As in, less powerful sysops having less respect. My main concern is the respect issue, I've realized that now.reanor 22:35, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

All people should be respected (regardless even of whether or not they are respectable, but that is another topic for another board), but in particular those who freely volunteer their time to help a larger community (such as our sysops). Mohnzh 22:38, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

1. 95% of the wiki is ignorant because, as you are demonstrating, they are ignoring facts and intelligence by bringing up the same example over and over after it's been refuted repeatedly. That's just one point, but I think it's enough. I'll argue that it's not NPA because I was asked to give a specific example, but I won't push it.
2. This wiki fails because it cannot deal with trolls, vandals, and so forth in an orderly and timely manner. Wikipedia has the same problems. (Ale, time matters not; actions do. It may be six years, but it's six years of failure; GuildWiki was far less years, but they were successful.) Were any other site that I know of vandalized, regardless of where the vandalism were, the vandalism would be reverted and an IP ban placed against the vandal. Here, it first needs to be approved against any of many policies, and checked to make sure it doesn't violate any other. If anything actually happens to a vandal, it takes forever to do so. See User talk:Raptors and User talk:BahamutKaiser for more evidence. The same thing happens with deletions - see User talk:Auron#GWW:DELETE for more evidence.
3. Where exactly did the word "perfect" ever pertain to GuildWiki in this discussion? I never said GuildWiki was perfect; I said it worked. The builds section was not deleted because of trolling users; it was deleted because, as a whole, it was a failed section. See here and here for more evidence. Deleting the section was not the failure; hosting it was.
4. Gravewits actions have been discussed three times before any edit conflicts I get posting this. Refer to point number one.
5. GWW:RFA is an opiate. The bureaucrats have the final say in everything on that page, and if they decide not to promote someone, they don't, simply because they always see more of the situation than most any voter. They get the other sysops' opinions on the candidate, they know how they as bureaucrats feel about it, they look into how well the candidate will fit in with the rest of the team - and that's all before looking at the number of contributions the candidate has, the quality of said contributions, the location of said contributions, their willingness to continue contributing, how well they could make use of administrative tools, and how likely they are to abuse their power. Compare this to the large number of "o hai i liek dis gai maek him sysop plz" votes in your average RfA.
6. To counter the fallacy of "you're only pointing to things you and Auron said" and so on and so forth... where else can I find quality discussions in support of my arguments? Shall I blame you for pointing out things that support your arguments? Believe me, if you can find better evidence in support of my points, I will gladly link to it.

Armond 22:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

1. So disagreeing with you is a sign of ignorance? I see. That suddenly makes this discussion much clearer.
2. Yet you won't see trolls running around hurting the articles, which are the main goal of this page. What you are describing is not only more powerful sysops - it's more powerful and trigger happy sysops who are willing to act first and think later.
3. If you haven't noticed, this wiki is working nicely, thank you - more and more content about the game is added daily, vandals and trolls are being banned, the wiki is kept working.
4. Gravewit is, as I have said three times, a perfect example of what happens when you give someone too much power with little accountability. The similarities with the current proposal are enough to make the comparison an obvious one, even if some choose to not see it.
5. GWW:RFA is a policy, and bureaucrats are asked to follow policies like anyone else. Not to mention how much of a fallacy this is - saying that the community does not matter, because it's the bureaucrats who choose the sysops (which isn't true, but anyway), is forgetting the little fact that it's the community who chooses the bureaucrats in the first place. So, is the community wise enough to choose the bureaucrats (and therefore choose the sysops, and decide how the wiki has to be run), or is it ignorant?
6. What? o.O Erasculio 22:57, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Cont. (we needed it)

Number 6 meant to say: "You are saying my comments are based on other's comments, and you ask for evidence for them. Let me know if you find such evidence so I can use evidence like you do." I think...reanor 23:10, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Erasculio, you need to drop the Gravewit thing. You've conveniently ignored (as trolls are wont to do) Armond's earlier post equating Gravewit to ArenaNet - that is pretty accurate. No matter how weak or strong sysops are, ArenaNet could decide one day to say "mmk, fuck this wiki, we're selling it to Wikia" and nothing anyone does will make a difference. That isn't a sysop abuse of power or a product of powerful sysops. That is the site owner selling the site. Is there something about that you can't understand? -Auron 23:23, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please explain to me how that was not someone with a lot of power being allowed to act while ignoring the community, just as this suggestion wants sysops to be. Arena Net has chosen to deal with this wiki as if it were one of our current sysops - not by acting first and asking later, rather its opposite. Erasculio 23:26, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I also do not see the similarities between Gravewits actions and sysop powers. Those are totally different levels. sysops are managers, and will never have the power to sell or destroy or anything like that. There is no possible way to give sysops the same abilities that Gravewit had. He was an owner, not a manager. Mohnzh 23:31, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Too much power => arrogance => arrogant decisions ignoring the community => arrogant actions screwing the wiki, as in the Wikia move. It makes sense if you don't try to see it as "Gravewit=Sysops".reanor 23:32, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Ereanor, now I <3 you. Erasculio 23:34, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, it wouldn't have been a problem if you had used words like "arrogance" and "actions ignoring the community" instead of "Gravewit" and "Wikia move" in the first place. I'm glad I helped.reanor 23:36, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

LOL @ you two. Get a room. :P -elviondale (tahlk) 23:41, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Of course, but what I mean is that I don't see how we could ever give sysops enough power to screw the wiki before something is done to stop them. Let me reitterate that I am not an advocate for granting more power, I just don't think that the amount of power that is under discussion is by any stretch of the imagination a large amount, and definitely not large enough to grant, for lack of a better phrase, screwing power. An owner inherently has that large amount of power and does not need it bestowed. bestowed power can never match inherent power. Mohnzh 23:39, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Arrogance had nothing to do with Gravewit's actions. Please be less ignorant of the situation before posting, thanks. -Auron 23:40, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Mind enlightening us then? -elviondale (tahlk) 23:43, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I already did. He sold GWiki to make money. Arrogance has nothing to do with his wanting money, nor did it have anything to do with him selling what was his (he was, after all, the site owner). If ArenaNet decided to sell GWW to wikia, how the fuck would you start pretending it was arrogance? -Auron 23:45, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Woah, chill out man. To a certain degree selling out could be an example of arrogance, like the fact that he felt no responsibility to the people who made the site what it was -elviondale (tahlk) 23:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

"To a certain degree selling out could be an example of arrogance" <- Sure, if we wanted to start pretending. He was not a sysop; he was not even a contributor. It wasn't arrogance as much as apathy that drove his decision. He simply didn't care about the wiki; which, as I just said, isn't arrogance. ArenaNet would have to be equally apathetic before selling this wiki to Wikia.

And, of course (because it's responding to Erasculio's trolling), this has nothing to do with the actual point. Empowering sysops does not change what ArenaNet is allowed (or inclined) to do with a site they own. -Auron 23:57, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not arguing that apathy was a part of it, however in regards to: "Please be less ignorant of the situation before posting, thanks", don't accuse Erasculio with something you do yourself without realizing that you're practicing a bit of hypocrisy. -elviondale (tahlk) 00:14, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

See here. Mohnzh 23:47, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

That point is valid too. Sysops will never screw it that big, nor that way.reanor 23:46, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Erasculio. Read before you post. You are certainly not giving that impression.

The Gravewit discussion is completely irrelevant. Ignoring the fact that it's a far larger scale than any sysop could ever do, sysops can have their actions undone. Gravewit couldn't.

"95% of the wiki is ignorant because, as you are demonstrating, they are ignoring facts and intelligence by bringing up the same example over and over after it's been refuted repeatedly." <-- Anything in there about disagreeing?

RfA is an opiate. There is nothing forcing the bureaucrats to actually follow it. They were elected by the people, yes - which is also stupid.

"If you haven't noticed, this wiki is working nicely, thank you - more and more content about the game is added daily, vandals and trolls are being banned, the wiki is kept working." How quickly? How efficiently? I could care less about the content being added, that'll work whether or not we have sysops.

"Yet you won't see trolls running around hurting the articles, which are the main goal of this page. What you are describing is not only more powerful sysops - it's more powerful and trigger happy sysops who are willing to act first and think later." EMPIRICAL. FUCKING. EVIDENCE. You have no idea how much rage this is causing me.

Over and over you are proving that you are not informed enough about the things you talk about to discuss them here.

Armond 23:58, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Armond, please try using arguments instead of vague and meaningless claims like "EMPIRICAL. FUCKING. EVIDENCE" (with absolutely no statement about why the other wiki is "better" than this one - if you really think having to wait 3 days to delete something makes the other wiki better, I don't think I'm the one "not informed enough" here). The main goal of this wiki is to have content added - and exactly as you mentioned, that works with or without sysops, therefore they are not really needed, much less do they need to be as trigger happy as you want them to be. If you can't have a discussion without "raging" against arguments, I would suggest you to just leave the discussion alone. Erasculio 13:28, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

If you don't know what empirical evidence is, that's not my problem. And as per my user page, that is exactly what I plan to do. Armond 20:36, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Middle Ground

Just my opinion, for what it's worth. Having been a sysop on both GuildWiki and the GuildWarsWiki, and now being a regular contributor on both (by voluntary resignation in both cases), I've been able to see this from all sides - well, all sides other than that of bureaucrat.

I disagree with the proposal at the top of the page, although I do feel that further refinement to grant sysops further discretionary rights in some situations is acceptable and even beneficial. To me, the balancing point will be found someplace in-between where we are now and where GuildWiki resides.

On GuildWiki, I agree that sysops had too much power. Some sysops were highly controversial, and most were accused of abuse of power at least once. The biggest weakness of the GuildWiki system was that the only group policing the sysops were other sysops - if you had a problem with a sysop, you had to request another sysop to arbitrate - if you distrusted all sysops, you were out of luck. While the system worked for the most part, it had clear potential for abuse. The credit for it working as well as it did should not be given to the system, but instead to Tanaric, Lord Biro, and Fyren (yes, I know there is some discpute on if it always worked - but for the most part I feel that it did). This wiki sensibly placed a safety-net to prevent abuse by making the bureaucrat position mutually exclusive to the rights granted to sysops, and giving the bureaucrats the responsibility of arbitration committee which, among other things, gave a new layer of control to the community to police the sysops.

This community also made the sensible decision to reign in the powers of sysops. But in my opinion, they went too far in restricting them. When I resigned my adminship due to time constraints brought on by real-life, my opinion was that GWW sysops had become little more than bots. That's still a somewhat accurate description, although things are slowly improving. They still have far more restrictions here than were in GuildWiki, but as policies are refined and evolve, the community has been granting them slightly more discretion to make decisions quicker or on their own. In my opinion, there's still a ways to go, but it's slowly getting better - and I would rather see that evolutionary process continue rather than the community making the revolutionary change of granting the same full spectrum of power that they had on GuildWiki.

Oh, and incidentally, I also agree that comparisons between strong sysops and Gravewit are unfounded. No sysop, no matter how much control is granted, would be able to do even a fraction of what Gravewit pulled. That requires a level of influence that not even bureaucrats have - only ArenaNet would be in a comparable position to manage something like that. Any comparison between strong sysops and Gravewit are major exagerations. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:02, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Well said Barek. The most valuable and reasoned comments on this entire page. All the extremism is going to give some people here aneurysms. - BeX 00:26, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

It's hard, but necessary. All comments were valuable for me, some more reasoned than others, but all valuable. I can't believe you, being an admin, read all that, and only said this.reanor 00:32, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I did not say that the other comments had no value. And by extremism I meant people fighting (and raging) for two opposite extremes. It is better to find a balance and compromise because this is like a neverending tug of war. Everyone will just end up straining a muscle. - BeX 00:52, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

We are slowly getting closer to consensus. I wouldn't meta-discuss yet. Anyway, I'd be happy to have a nervious break-down for the sake of the wiki! *subliminal*(Vote Ereanor for admin)*/subliminal*.reanor 01:01, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Armond, in response to point 2, the wiki can deal with vandals in an orderly and timely manner. In response to point 5, I'm not aware of a single incident in which the bureaucrats failed to abide by a successful RFA. Yes, the only things that can keep rogue bureaucrats in check are other bureaucrats and the people running the server (in this case, ArenaNet), but that's an inherent limitation of the MediaWiki software. Like any other rule, RFA is dependant upon the integrity of the people who are supposed to uphold it, de jure rules remain de facto rules as long as they're upheld. If the bureaucrats shouldn't be elected, how do you suggest that we choose them? -- Gordon Ecker 03:05, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Use people we already know are good - in this case, those from GuildWiki. Armond 05:39, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't see it. Is it a spit among users, but wider than suggested, or a functional split? Either hybrid would seem worse than both the current system and the one that the PvX gang wants. Backsword 17:01, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Question

Hopefully switching gears a bit here, I have a question about how the suggested "powerful sysops" system would work. Specifically, suppose that under that system, sysop A performs some non-abusive block or deletion, and some other users (possibly including other sysops) disagree with the action and want it reversed. But sysop A's honest and reasonable opinion is that it should be upheld.

How would you deal with that kind of situation?

1. Immediately unblock/undelete, and put the onus on sysop A to get enough support before re-doing.
2. Follow sysop A's opinion if the dissenters are all non-sysops. For the case with dissenting sysops, the situation is pre-mitigated by avoiding promotion of strong-willed users who may tend to have serious disagreements with existing sysops.
3. Leave the decision up to a "higher power" group/user.
4. Something else.

Please note that I am not claiming anything to be good or bad here; it's just a question about what mechanics people have in mind. --Rezyk 02:34, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Good question, I just have a problem with Number 2. What's the pre-mitigating thing? Powerful or not, there should be all sorts of sysops, not a group of ppl who share one brain. Sysops diversity is the reason sysops overseeing sysops in GuildWiki doesn't get out of hand (much).reanor 02:47, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

For that one, I didn't mean that they all have to be of "one brain" or non-diverse. It'd be something like...wherever they disagree at least, you can be generally sure that they can quickly work out a compromise, or one side will "give up", so that the conflict is never significant. --Rezyk 02:55, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Let's reformulate. The following are the possible factions involved in the matter:

• All Sysops (including A)
• All Sysops except A; creating: Sysop A (these groups positions are mutually exclusive)
• Most Sysops, including A; creating: Few Sysops, without A (these groups positions are mutually exclusive)
• Few Sysops, including A; creating: Most Sysops, without A (these groups positions are mutually exclusive)
• A big group of users
• A small group of users
• A higher power (ArbComm probably)

These are all the possible factions if, and only if the only possible positions on the matter are: In favor and Oppose, because they are mutually exclusive. If there were more options (as in, middle grounds), we couldn't talk about this (too many factions), so let's keep it simple. Now, to the answer. The way this wiki works right now, the most likely thing to happen is a big fat discussion with "In favor" fighting "Oppose", wich may or may not take a long time. Long or not, we'll battle until consensus is reached, mayority (as in, most factions agreeing) isn't good enough. In GuildWiki, there's no higher power faction, all users groups (bigs and smalls) wouldn't be able to say or to do much, and it would get solved between sysops, cutting down the possible factions to the ones with sysops in them. Fewer and more similar factions probably means faster consensus, and faster actions are taken. According to this, the pre-mitigating thing won't do much in GWW since this discussions are not limited to sysops. I'm confusing myself right now, so I'll stop here. All i got 'till now is, Sysop-only is faster.reanor 03:16, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Imo, it should be that what a sysop says, goes. That includes a sysop revising another sysop's decision. Armond 03:47, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

2 is ideal, the community selects the sysops for the job which should endorse their decisions and ability to act on behalf of the community. This should provide some immunity from each decision they make being vetted by the community. The current policy proposal for blocks allows for other sysops to revise another sysops decision with good justification. This is fair. --Aspectacle 04:01, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

But this is not a whole country, it's a rather small internet community. Having someone acting on behalf of the community is unnecessary since the community can easily express their opinions, thus having that someone to act according to community consensus, instead of what that someone thinks the community thinks, just because they elected him/her. It's slower, but it's doable. The question is, what do you value more? Consensus or speed?

Presidents don't ask for the whole country to vote on every decision they make before making a move, because "They already elected me to decide for them". That's why elections are so important, and why presidents can act fast. That's the idea behind the GuildWiki style. The GWW community looks at this and says: "hey, we actually can ask for everyone to say something before acting", so they do that. They wait for consensus, and then, the "janitor" executes the order. So, you want it fast, or you want it agreed?reanor 04:20, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I like the president analogy. :)

You reached consensus to elect the sysop and consensus on the policies which roughly guide their behaviour - so have given them the ability to act (more or less) without it. I think that sysops are distilled consensus. I don't think you loose consensus, the wants and needs of the community by using the sysop to make speedy decisions. Consensus can evaluate the sysop later if they're shown to be unable to do their job. Just let them do the job, consensus is far far too slow to achieve. -Aspectacle 04:35, 14 November 2007 (UTC)-

What if we just tell them our consensus on whether or not to block, ahead of time? --Rezyk 04:58, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

You mean the blocking guidelines? That is fine, however I don't think that you can capture every case into policy, which is why some room for discretion (which means there has to be community belief that the sysops can wield that discretion appropriately on our behalf) should be left in all policy. There needs to be that discretion and general rather than specific policies so the wiki can function over the bumps and one off cases which aren't (and needn't be, imo) covered by policy. --Aspectacle 05:18, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

We could add each case (with some of that discretion) as we come across it. --Rezyk 05:22, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Even so, you will not create a policy which covers all outcomes unless in a general sense. Fair judgment cannot be removed from the sysop roll.
As an aside (I like asides. :D), as a regular wiki lurker it seems to me the only evidence of wiki malfunction at the moment is plentiful supply of policy discussion (mostly trying to dictate user behaviour rather than sysop) and the resistance against it. Personally, I don't like having rules for rules sake as it tends to breed more rules and people who like to throw the rule book at other users. --Aspectacle 06:09, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I like the discussion above (finally, progress), but I have one question: isn't that how the current system works? Right now, a sysop either has a policy telling him what to do, or he does not have such policy and is thus allowed to use his own discretion about what to do. One example is blocking - the sysops have been blocking users long before the blocking policy reached its last drafts; the policy still has not been accepted, and so the sysops continue to use their discretion, as opposed to following exact policies, when deciding how long to block users. The fact the discussion about the blocking policy has been taking months is in no way slowering how the sysops make blocks - as a sign that consensus does not need to slow down the admins, as long as they are allowed to use their own discretion until the consensus materializes as a policy, instead of having to wait for it. Erasculio 13:34, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, crazy idea time: right now one of the problems is that sysops do have to wait for consensus and policies before doing some things. How about we switch it up? Instead of saying "Sysops are not allowed to do anything other than what is stated in policies", we could say, "Sysops are allowed to do anything, unless there's a policy telling them otherwise". We would end with something like the blocking policy - while it's not there sysops can do whatever, and the community has a way to chime in by making a policy about any kind of sysop behavior it thinks needs to be controled. Erasculio 14:06, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Isn't that already the case? The practice of blocking vandals is only backed up by the "reasonable discretion" clause and the absence of any policy which permits vandalism or restricts the blocking of vandals. -- Gordon Ecker 03:32, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

That's arguable actually, due to the "rigorous" adherence to policy. I believe my draft makes that clearer. -- ab.er.rant 03:43, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

And GWW:ADMIN. And GWW:CONTENT. Backsword 13:29, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread that section of the current Admin policy. However, if that's how sysops are expected to work, is there really a problem that needs a change on the policy? I like Aberrant's draft and I think it could replace the current policy, but I don't see how the admin policy itself would be the cause of the problems mentioned above (like admins being considered as to be acting slowly). Erasculio 16:30, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

"At some point, the community here decided that admins who exercise less discretion are a good thing"--Karlos on "The Glorified Janitors".

The reasons behind that decision have been very well put by Erasculio in this discussion. Now, kind of updating the quote, I'd say that, at some point, part of this community decided to attack admins when they exercise discretion. The now infamous "R word" and similar statements in the current policy were meant to apply the decision Karlos was talking about, but the policy and the spirit of that decision were misinterpretated, and admins grew very dependant on policies and consensus, hoping for their work to become as little discretionary as possible. When treating with matters that required discretion, such as banning active users and other rather sensible things, admins prefer to wait (as in, acting slowly). Blocking gibber bots and intentional vandals, are of course easier and faster, cause they don't require much discretion. In other words, the current policy, wich was meant to say "Sysops are allowed to do anything, unless there's a policy telling them otherwise" was interpretated as "Sysops are not allowed to do anything other than what is stated in policies". It'd be great if we could just change the way the current policy is interpretated, but is faster and more effective to trigger that change by changing the source of the interpretation, so, we change the policy. I think that summarizes it, hope I cleared your mind.reanor 04:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

No, that is what the policy both says and is intended to say. (Really the same thing.) It has not been changed due to Karlos. Backsword 14:10, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

What?reanor 14:44, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, it does answer my question : ) I agree with that reasoning, too. Backsword, I don't think Ereanor meant to say that the policy has been changed; just that the current policies have always had a harsh wording, and proposed revisions (suh as the one linked a bit above) try to remove some of that harshness (like the "rigorously") in order to change the current common interpretation from "sysops can't do anything without permission first" to "Sysops can do anything, unless there's a policy telling them otherwise". That sounds good to me. Erasculio 15:34, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

What is power?

Rezyk is moving in the correct direction with his question but it's still quite arbitrary and detached. Going through this long talk page after just 3 days of inactivity was a headache. All that talk resulted in nothing substantial. The very first thing to do when attempting to revise any policy is to be specific on exactly what change is warranted. It's difficult to get more opinions on this if there's no clarity on what change is being requested.

The summary at the top says "Give them the power that the community entrusted them with." Define "power". Sysops already have the power that MediaWiki can technically give, so it's the discretionary powers then.Saying "give them more power" is just going to confuse people. Look at the discussions above. Everyone involved has a different idea of what was being talked about. To make a revision discussion more substantial requires laying out the specifics. Exactly how should this take place? Propose wording changes, propose downgrading/loosening/removal of certain policies, propose guidelines. Take it step by step and work on one facet at a time. -- ab.er.rant 04:23, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Alright, here's my (very refined at this point) idea. Following "Rezyk's question", if Sysop A acts fast and by discretion, he gets criticized because part of this community doesn't like the (so called) "trigger happy" style, and the question's scenario takes place. Paradoxically, if Sysop A waits for previous consensus before acting, he gets criticized because part of this community doesn't like the slow janitorial style. Conclusion: "This page is an official policy on the Guild Wars Wiki. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow." = False. Therefore, we need a policy that ends with the attacks on sysops and that is really "wide accepted among editors". I currently don't know how to achieve that, but I see the need for a consensus.reanor 04:41, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Ereanor. I think it's important to have a policy in such way that sysops don't have to worry about being attacked by users just because they're doing their jobs, but at the same time in which any common user may discuss (not attack, discuss) with a sysop one behavior the user did not agree with or understood. I have the feeling the sysops will always face the risk of being attacked by those who they punish (like here), but that we could find a way to prevent other kinds of hostility over minor disagreements. Erasculio 13:42, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that is one of the advantages with the current system. Induvidual SysOps do not get attacked. Instead people who don't get their way attacks the system. There will always be someone who is unhappy with the outcome. But having them blame the system should be less stressful for SysOps. Backsword 18:07, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Umm... not really. They don't say "this sysop system is stupid!", instead they usually say "you sysops are stupid!" :) In any case, my questions in this section has initiated my writing of the change proposal below, as a first step towards rectifying this issue once and attempt resolve all the long-ongoing contentions this. -- ab.er.rant 14:20, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

And the hilarious part of that is the people calling the sysops stupid want to take sysops from the gwiki pool because they "aren't stupid" - which 90% of our sysop base is. - BeX 02:12, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

A proposal

I've rewritten a big portion of the section on sysops. I attempted to take the issues raised in the sections above with regards to giving more discretionary power to sysops and perhaps to trigger a change in how sysops are viewed. As noted, what we probably need is something in between what we have now and what was in GuildWiki. I just like to see something written down specifically before attempting to discuss it. Take a look and we argue about a revised sysop role there: Guild Wars Wiki:Adminship/Draft 2007-11-14 -- ab.er.rant 06:41, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

"expected to adhere rigorously to policies" <-- remove that R word, please. The bit about content is slightly ambiguous/confusing; is this about stuff like protecting an article to save your version of it? Finally, I think it should be said that bureaucrats are the ones with authority to promote new sysops, and users may make a petition for a sysop at GWW:RFA. Other than that, looks good. Armond 10:06, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

There is absolutely no reason to state that bureaucrats are the ones with authority to promote new sysops. Not only the community (and not the bureaucrats) has chosen all the sysops we currently have, but also the claim that that sysops are chosen by bureaucrats came as a very fallacious reply to the argument about how the "ignorant" and "uninformed" community would be unable to chose sysops; and that ignores how the "ignorant" community is still chosing the bureaucrats. Basing sections of a policy on fallacies isn't exactly a good idea.

I like thr rewritten policy as it is now. Erasculio 13:23, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I like it, too. But as I explained in it's talkpage, I agree with Armond: I don't like the R word.reanor 14:18, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

So, Erasculio, you have the power to promote anyone to sysop right now? =\ The bureaucrats do. Let's make that clear. Armond 17:38, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

B-crats do the janitorial part of that action, and respect the consensus reached in the election. Users choose, B-crats obey the order. If they don't, users attack B-crats, and someone's ass gets fired.reanor 17:59, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

That's exactly what we're dealing with in the above giganormous discussion. If we want it to apply to sysops, it should apply to bureaucrats, too. Armond 18:06, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

That would be consistent. But the talk now is about a hybrid system, the details of which are unclear. Backsword 18:10, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

B-crats are not being mistreated like Sysops are. Also, they are much more carefully elected. They're different. No one in the above giganormous discussion said B-crats had problems.reanor 18:09, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Er, yeah, actually, I did. The fact that they're being elected by the community and forced to follow that community's decisions is the problem (ignoring the problems that arise from assuming the community stays the same throughout all this). =\ Armond 18:14, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

And how do you expect to elect the bureaucrats, then? Don't tell me you plan to have the sysops to elect them. Oh, and I'm still waiting for an explanation about what is so wrong with the community that would prevent it from being able to choose bureaucrats, choose sysops and run itself. Erasculio 19:07, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

You pick people that have already proven themselves to be good, as I said above - in this case, people from GuildWiki. And I believe I have said, multiple times, that the vast majority of people fail at realizing what is good for the wiki as a whole and not their own interests. Not that I'm the only one. Armond 19:56, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I thought you were kidding with your suggestion above. Wow. When you said "The truth is, 95% of people on wiki don't know what they're talking about (and I'll include myself in that)", I should have listened. So now I finally get this discussion:

1. This community is stupid. Why? Because we don't do things exactly the way Armond (& a couple others) wants them to be done (no other reason has been given.)
2. This wiki is a failure. Why? Because we don't do things exactly the way Armond (& a couple others) wants them to be done (no other reason has been given). Same for Wikipedia.
3. GuildWiki, is other hand, is a huge success. Why? Because they do everything like Armond wants them to (no other reason has been given).
4. GuildWiki's community is also so good that its bureaucrats should control (and completely control) both wikis. After all, we are just going to ignore what happened on this wiki months ago. All that matters is that those bureaucrats do things the way Armond wants them to be done.

Could someone please remind me why are we having this discussion? Has there been a single half decent argument saying why the community is not more than enough to judge who the sysops should be, and to control the wiki itself? So far all I have seen are baseless claims, from the beginning of the sections above ("Failure - and a chance to succeed" - yet no description of what, exactly, is failing here) to this last section ("The fact that they're being elected by the community and forced to follow that community's decisions is the problem" - why? Still the assumption that the community is stupid?).

I have asked countless times the very simple question: why would be community be stupid, ignorant, or whatever? No one has been able to give a real answer. Either the question is ignored, or it's just repeated as a statement ("And I believe I have said, multiple times, that the vast majority of people fail at realizing what is good for the wiki as a whole and not their own interests" - wow, thanks, Sherlock), or I get some insult being throw in my direction. Yet that baseless, meaningless claim is the entire argument why the community should not be more important than sysops, and able to control who they are and what they do. Erasculio 20:20, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

You are in violation of Guild Wars Wiki:No Sarcasm. You are hereby banned for eternity -elviondale (tahlk) 20:35, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

;_; I never get any loving around here Erasculio 20:37, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I <3 you? -- (gem / talk) 22:09, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

You are in violation of Guild Wars Wiki:No Sarcasm. You are hereby banned for eternity I lolled. :D Ale_Jrb (talk) 22:18, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

(RI) Yay, thanks Gem : D Just to clarify, though - I'm not saying a discussion to improve the sysop system is pointless, or that the current system could not be better. What I'm questioning is the assumption that the community is weak and therefore should have as little impact as possible on how the wiki is run. A way to make sysops more powerful, while still keeping the community as the main focus of power, would not bother me the least. Erasculio 22:24, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

If a discussion is open to a community, and the community willingly participates in the discussion (which is to say, no one is forced to discuss something they're at a disadvantage to), then everyone will flock to the discussion, and 95% of the people discussing the topic will not fully comprehend the discussion, the pros and cons of each solution, or even the reasoning behind of the arguments (not necessarily all three, though). That said, I hope you understand why I ask you to try not to use my name when referring to an opinion shared by others and not spearheaded by myself; those who simply glance at the page (as many will; the vast majority of people won't bother to read the wall of text) will get the wrong idea. (I'm perfectly fine with you refuting my points; I'd just like to minimize the number of people that hate me and/or spam my talk.) Armond 06:11, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so let's see - again (I have lost count already) I ask why the assumption that the community is stupid is even being considered. The reply? Again, the question is repeated as a statement - "95% of the people discussing the topic will not fully comprehend the discussion, the pros and cons of each solution, or even the reasoning behind of the arguments (not necessarily all three, though)". That's not a reply - you are not stating where the opinion that those 95% won't understand what they're talking about comes from. Worse, your statement is simply wrong - to say that "everyone will flock to the discussion" is to go against the evidence we have right in front of your face: is "everyone" contributing to this discussion? Is "everyone" discussing the Harasment policy? Is "everyone" discussion any of the formatting policies? Even worse, like was mentioned above, many of the most active contributors to most discussions here (which don't involve too many people in the first place) happen to be sysops themselves - do you also think they are ignorant? If so, your idea that sysops are better fails. And what about those supporting your proposal to make sysops more powerful? Unless you think they're 5% of the ones in this discussion, we would have to assume than they, as well (including yourself) don't really understand what they're talking about, and so if that's the reason why we won't listen to the community about other subjects, we have no reason to listen to you now.

This idea - that the community is ignorant - simply cannot stand. The simple fact that this wiki is growing, that formatting guidelines have been passed, that so many problems have been taken care of, and even that we are having this discussion, shows that the community has to be heard. With the idea that the community is dumb and should be ignored, this very discussion becomes part of what we would not listen to. Erasculio 11:21, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Having just read what I considered your current record of idiocity on Izzy's talk page, I don't think I can reply to this new record without breaking NPA. Armond 13:08, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

You already did break NPA. Please refrain from replying if you really can't avoid violating NPA. -- ab.er.rant 01:36, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm with Erasculio on this one, just because they are admins doesn't mean they are better or worth more than someone else." Positive: Everyone has a say. Positive: The people with experience have a greater say". I've seen before admins are janitors, clean up tasks, they are not worth more than other users, and they don't hold any sway or influence over other users. This proposal seems to be exactly the opposite of what people have frequently been told. I don't beleive arbitration is stressful to the community, just the ones involved. I am only aware of two arbitration cases and I only read about either of them AFTER they had been resolved. I even saw a beurocrat get pissed with someone for claiming someone wasn't worth as much as someone else. 58.106.236.144 16:55, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Bumpity bump. Just to remind people that we still have Guild Wars Wiki talk:Adminship/Draft 2007-11-14 pending discussion :) or I'm going to either bulldoze it through or mark it inactive. -- ab.er.rant 03:45, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Can you sum it up in one word? :P — ク Eloc 貢 00:57, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Resignation

Can someone please remove my sysop rights? Many thanks! (I know it's for life, but it's no use letting me keep it.) --  (CoRrRan / talk) 01:51, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Wait, what? Why?reanor 01:58, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

See his user page. -- ab.er.rant 02:09, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I see the decision, but not the reason. I guess he just didn't wanted to say it.reanor 02:14, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

It's in the history log. He's not playing the game anymore. I guess it's only to be expected then, tho' it one of the contributer here I least like to see go. Backsword 02:16, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

"Sysops are granted reasonable discretion,"

Why is this clause seemingly ignored by so many users? On RfA's and talk pages and even in ArbComm requests, one sees people saying that sysops are acting against or in violation of policy by using their sysop powers based on their own personal judgment(personal judgment = discretion). --Edru/QQ 17:46, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Read above.reanor 18:32, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't consider policy violations to be within the limits of reasonable discretion. -- Gordon Ecker 23:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

What in the world are you talking about? — Edru/QQ 01:53, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm saying that reasonable discretion should not allow sysops to violate policy, and that if a sysop violated policy, it would be a serious issue, the adminship policy explicitly states "Sysops are granted reasonable discretion, but they are expected to apply policy rigorously and respect consensus.". However blocking trolls or vandals is not a policy violation, and I would consider an unfounded allegation of policy violation to be a serious personal attacks. -- Gordon Ecker 02:53, 31 December 2007 (UTC)