UDWiki:Administration/Policy Discussion/Sysop Promotion Guidelines Overhaul 0.2

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Sysop Promotion Guidelines Overhaul 0.2

note: this policy is being submitted a second time with slight adjustments due to lack of voting previously

Recent Discussion has made clear there is a general concensus the current promotion guidelines are a little out-of-date and in need of an overhaul. These are some of the main areas that need to be changed:

1. Significant time within the community (2 months)
2. Significant activity within the community (500 edits)
3. Indication of trust in the candidate (min 3 users (pref users with 200 edits & one SysOp)

Several of the proposed changes are the following:

1. Increasing the minimum required time active on the UD Wiki to be 3 months, from 2 months
2. Increasing the minimum number of edits to 1000, from 500
3. 3 required questions that should be answered, plus optional questions from the community
4. Increase the number of minimum edits of the first 3 users vouching to 500 each

Minimum Time

Because of the growth of the UD Wiki, a longer minimum time is now seen to be needed to guarantee a commitment. 2 months is seen to be too short, so an increase to 3 months has been proposed. The average time a user spends on the UD Wiki also happens to be roughly 3 months - So it seems appropriate to assume that a longer stay than 3 months is a sign of commitment.

Minimum Number of Edits

An increase of the minimum edits in accordance to the growth of the UD Wiki community is also seen as a necessary step needed to overhaul the promotion process. also, seeing as how a SysOp is supposed to do their work in accordance to the communities will, the minimum number of edits accumulated by a user should be high enough to not only show that they have a good understanding of the way the wiki works, but also to show they are fairly in with the community, and grasp what it wants and needs. So, a proposed change is to raise the minimum number of edits from 500 to 1000. The community sees 500 edits as being too low these days, and this has caused too many inexperienced users to request promotion to sysop status.

Introduction of Q&A section

As seen on Wikipedia's promotion process ([1] [2] [3] [4]), introducing a Question and Answer section to the Promotion process would give more insight to a candidate. The process would allow the community to see easily what a candidates reasons for wanting to be a SysOp, the major work they would be taking part in, their most important contribution (it would be the candidate's own opinion of course), and any of their major conflicts with other users, and how those conflicts panned out. Although some of these topics may be answered in the candidates request for promotion, the required questions would still be asked and answered.

The required questions would be the same for every candidate.

1) What admin work do you intend to take part in?

2) What are your best contributions to the wiki, and why?

3) Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? If so, how have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

Another part of the addition of a Q&A process is letting the community ask their own questions. Common sense should be taken into consideration to prevent silly or inappropriate questions from arising. Each user would be allowed several questions for the candidate (within reason), but a question is not required of the user.

Indication of Trust in a Candidate

Being that a System Operator is expected to follow the will of the community, it'd be expected that a candidate has firm support from the community. Some users are concerned with the minimum requirements of the initial vouchers. Being that a candidate needs vouches from at least three members of the community to go under discussion, it'd be expected that those vouchers are well experienced in the wiki and the community.

The proposed changes would be that instead of three vouchers (with one of the users being a System Operator) and at least 200 edits each, the requirements would be 3 vouchers, with at least 500 edits each, with one user preferably being a System Operator. The System Operator vouch is not required, but it would help prove the candidate's worthiness.

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A typical promotion bid or template would look like this, which includes the three compulsory questions:

Example User

I've been around 4 months, and I've made to date 1250 edits. As you can see here and here, I've been in the leadership role attempting to create a new format for this page. I'd very much like to become a System Operator, as the extra tools would help me a great deal.

Questions for the Candidate

1) What admin work do you intend to take part in?

A : Lots of stuff, particularly deletions and protections.--Example User 19:01, 25 July 2006 (BST)

2) What are your best contributions to the wiki, and why?

A : All of them! --Example User 19:01, 25 July 2006 (BST)

3) Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? If so, how have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

A : Yes, I had a conflict with Bad person over the content on this page. I took it to arbitration and the conflict was resolved.--Example User 19:01, 25 July 2006 (BST)

Comments

• Vouch - I am willing to vouch for this user. -- Voucher 03:41, 23 Jan 2006 (GMT)
• Against - Example User, I haven't seen any evidence of your work on the wiki. --Some user 19:01, 25 July 2006 (BST)

• Q: Why is this, since you say you have so many edits?

• A: I decline to answer this question. --Example User 19:01, 25 July 2006 (BST)

• Vouch - Example User is the most active guy here. --Another user 19:01, 25 July 2006 (BST)
• Abstain - I'm just not sure, but I don't want to say why for some reason. I do have a few questions to help me make a decision. --Some other user 19:01, 25 July 2006 (BST)

• Q: I'd like to know how you got so many edits in a short time.

• A: Well, by cycling pages and consistantly archiving this page, I have gained that number of edits. --Example User 19:01, 25 July 2006 (BST)

• Q: What is your current attitude to the Sysops, as a group?

• A: Most do great work but there are one or two Sysops that I don't always agree with. --Example User 19:01, 25 July 2006 (BST)

• Vouch - Example User is great, he's helped me out plenty of times. --Yet Another user 19:01, 25 July 2006 (BST)

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In essence, this revision should increase the transparency of the promotions process, while preventing premature candidate submissions. 03:28, 4 May 2008 (BST)