User:Aristeo/RfB

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Request for Bureaucratship

Aristeo (talk · contribs · email)

Proposal

I would like to become a bureaucrat for the community of the wiki.

The technical role of a bureaucrat is to manage the permissions of the editors of this wiki, which includes adminship and bot status, and rename users upon their request. It has also been proposed on IRC that recent changes patrol permissions be separated from adminship, and if this were to come into effect then only a bureaucrat would be able to assign and revoke these permissions.

Although I don't see myself needing to use these permissions often, I feel that becoming a bureaucrat would benefit the community for two reasons: The first reason is that it would narrow down the "only Daveh can...." task list that seems to be added to every now and then. This would allow him to contribute more to the content of the wiki, which I'm sure he wants to do more than flip switches that no one else can reach. The second reason why I want to become a bureaucrat is because of the social role that it implies. I predict that we will have a small handful of new administrators in the near future, and this social role will allow me to organize and mentor the new admins more efficiently.

For those of you who do not know me, my name is Chris Sorrells, but I go under the alias "Aristeo" when online. I joined the wiki during the traffic peak in April 2006, and have been an active editor ever since. Two months later, I received administrative privileges upon request, and JigglesTheFett promoted me to operator around the time my request was made. Since then, I feel that I have fulfilled the promises I made when I was given the privileges, and I look forward to continuing to aid the community to the best of my ability regardless of whether or not this request is fulfilled. --Aristeo | Talk 00:38, 16 November 2006 (EST)

Questions

This is where everyone should ask me questions about my proposal. Adopted from Wikipedia's request for adminship procedure, people should ask me meaningful questions about why I would like to be a bureaucrat. I gave an example of a rephrased question from Wikipedia below, as well as my answer.

1. Bureaucrats are expected to adhere to a high level of fairness as well as show the ability to engage with other members of the community. Why you feel you meet these qualifications? --Aristeo | Talk 00:38, 16 November 2006 (EST)

Because the feedback that I receive from my fellow editors has been positive. I try to think about what the community wants when making decisions, whether those decisions are on an administrative level or on an editorial level and whether I agree with them 100% or not. I often think "How will I make this a win-win situation?" and "I should ask everyone before I do this." and "How can I make this better for everyone?". In the decision-making process, I refuse to allow my administrative status influence the opinions of others. As for my ability to be friendly with my fellow editors, I think one must show a good diplomatic skill in order to be effective in any administrative role whether it be on a wiki or in real life. I will be the first to admit that I have made mistakes, but I learn from these mistakes and improve as a person in the long run. I adhere to the "golden rule" when talking to people, and I try not to allow myself to become emotional when editing. --Aristeo | Talk 00:38, 16 November 2006 (EST)

2. As UESP receives increasing activity as one of the premiere sources of information on TES games, the site will need an increased number of administrators to maintain the same level of quality that is has now. What role do you see the "bureaucrat" playing, and why do you think you can fill that role? --Hoggwild5 00:48, 16 November 2006 (EST)

As I briefly explained in the proposal, I feel there are two aspects of being a bureaucrat. The technical role and the social role.

The technical role that I would have would be to manage each permission group by ultimately acting upon what the community agrees that I should do. As an editor in good standing, I would retain the ability to recommend to the community what my thoughts are on a given subject and to help determine a consensus. However, it would be up to me to enforce the consensus even if I opposed it.

The social role is a bit more complicated. These new administrators will most likely be inexperienced in wiki adminship and possibly in adminship altogether, and I would use my experience and my knowledge to help mentor these admins – the same way that administrators help new editors learn by their experience. Once they become more experienced, my social role would be to focus more on organization by matching the skills and abilities of each admin with duties that they would be most successful in performing. Another social role of a bureaucrat would be as a role model, and my behavior would play a major role in what others view to be acceptable. --Aristeo | Talk 01:28, 16 November 2006 (EST)

Discussion

This is where you give your "support" or "oppose" vote.

• Whole-hearted yea vote from me. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 00:39, 16 November 2006 (EST)
• I vote yes. Aristeo has demonstrated a remarkable level of maturity, respect and responsibility in his role as administrator on UESP since I started participating as an editor in August 2006. He welcomes new members, serves as a mentor and coach to welcome them into the community and helps guide them into becoming valuable contributors. He's technically competent, and balances his technical competence with a remarkable social aspect to his role. He keeps the community and the wiki first and foremost in his decision process, and exercises his authority role without haste, with careful deliberation and the utmost diligence to balance what's best for all involved. He strives to resolve conflict in a thoughtful, constructive manner and seeks to maintain harmony within the community without sacrificing the integrity of the wiki. --Hoggwild5 01:38, 16 November 2006 (EST)
  • Thank you Hoggwild :) --Aristeo | Talk 13:30, 16 November 2006 (EST)
• I concur. I vote yes. --GrayBear 01:45, 16 November 2006 (EST)
• Yes for Aristeo. --DrPhoton 03:45, 16 November 2006 (EST)

• Oppose. This has not been an easy decision to reach, nor is it one that I have taken lightly. Furthermore, it is not based on any lack of confidence in Aristeo's abilities as administrator: he has always excelled in performing administrative duties and has shown a remarkable commitment to building a strong UESP community.

As with the decision to give administrative status to an editor, the decision to give bureaucratic status should not be an automatic entitlement given to the best adminstrator, or even to an exceptional administrator. The decision should focus on the current needs of the wiki and the requirements of the bureaucratic position.

The role of bureaucrat is fundamentally different from that of administrator. Bureaucratic decisions, such as changing user permissions, are not decisions that need to be made rapidly. There are no negative consequences to waiting a couple extra days before reaching a final decision. There is no current backlog of such requests. In other words, urgency and ability to respond rapidly do not need to be factors in deciding whether there needs to be another bureaucrat.

I think the current UESP system with Daveh being the final arbiter for these types of bureaucratic decisions actually works well. Because Daveh is not involved in the day-to-day minutiae of the wiki, he is more insulated from any short-term influences. His different perspective on UESP affairs provides an effective balance to the decision making process and adds an extra guarantee of impartiality. I think adding another bureaucrat who is more caught up in all the wiki details and is less able step back from the daily decisions will upset this balance.

Aristeo also states that becoming a bureaucrat will be useful for the implied social role. I do not see how the abilities adding by becoming a bureaucrat are necessary to be able to organize or mentor new administrators. Aristeo's seniority and experience as an administrator will automatically ensure that any new administrators will turn to him for guidance. And the level of personal interaction required to mentor people is in some ways at odds with the greater impartiality required of a good bureaucrat.

The apparent urgency of this request also makes me uncomfortable. The decision-making process for a new bureaucrat should be as careful and as deliberate (if not more so) than the decision to add a new adminstrator. This proposal was made within hours of other proposals that the administrative privileges of all other UESP admins be revoked. I do not think that a decision this important should be made when the status of so many administrators is in doubt, nor should it made under circumstances where the impartiality of any adminstrator's vote is more likely to be questioned.

Finally, there has been an implication that this proposal needs to be approved before other wiki improvements can be undertaken, in particular that the creation of a new patrol permission status is contigent upon this nomination. However, there is no such requirement: the patrol permissions could be implemented already by Daveh. And there will not be a future need to be able to rapidly implement changes to the list of editors with patrol permissions. The two proposals should each be judged separately upon their own merits instead of being combined into a single package deal.

--Nephele 19:20, 18 November 2006 (EST)

Thank you, Nephele, for taking the time to voice your opinion on my request. I also wish to thank you for opposing my request, because the reasoning behind your opposal is of great use to me as well as the rest of the wiki. I have been thinking about withdrawing this request for some of the reasons you mentioned, but I did not want to with unanimous support. I do, however, disagree with some of the points that you have made and wish to counter them in my defense.

1. I did not wish to gain bureaucrat privileges because of the delay that it takes to give administrators their privileges. In fact, I'd probably give the same delay or close to it if I were to become bureaucrat, just to be safe.
2. I think the current system works well too. I simply based my request upon what people have told me in IRC.
3. I agree with you on your point about the social role.
4. I did not intentionally create a sense of urgency in this request. If you interpreted it that way, then I assure you that I don't want this to be rushed.
5. There was a few informal discussions in IRC about changing the administration system around for various reasons, none of which gained acceptance. Promoting someone to bureaucrat level was part of one of these discussions, and this eventually gained unanimous approval among the members. There was no discussion about removing all administrators except for me.
6. I'm not sure about how the patrol system would be set up. That's something to talk about.

I'm not going to withdraw yet until I talk with some of the others who supported the bureaucrat idea, since they're still in majority. But thank you for giving me your take on things. --Aristeo | Talk 01:31, 19 November 2006 (EST)

• Oppose I've carefully thought about this whole thing for the last couple of days. There is a lot of truth to what Nephele has to say about the duties of a bureaucrat not needing to be carried out quickly. In fact, allowing for a little extra time for such decisions to be made probably benefits the process. I just don't see the need for a new bureaucrat at the current time. I don't see why Aristeo needs to be a bureaucrat for the new patrol permission status. Of course, this is not a vote based about his administrative duties.--Ratwar 19:37, 18 November 2006 (EST)

I would have preferred if you told me that you had reservations about the proposal before I made the request. You have the right to change your mind about things upon meditating about them, but it would have saved me a lot of time in this case. In any case, thank you for your thoughts. --Aristeo | Talk 01:31, 19 November 2006 (EST)