UDWiki:Administration/Policy Discussion/Sysop Promotion Guidelines Overhaul

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Sysop Promotion Guidelines Overhaul

Recent Discussion has made clear there is a general concensus the current promotion guidelines are a little out-of-date and in need for an overhaul.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 1,000, 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 6 months - So it seems appropriate to assume that a longer stay than 6 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 1,000. 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.

Another part of the addition of a Q&A process is letting the average users of 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 one question per candidate (to prevent clutter), 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. As seen here, 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 trust 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 3 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 : Blah blah. --Example User 19:01, 25 July 2006 (BST)

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

A : No way! --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? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

A : Yes! --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. Why is this, since you say you have so many edits? --Some user 19:01, 25 July 2006 (BST)

• 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'd like to know how you got so many edits in a short time. --Some other user 19:01, 25 July 2006 (BST)

• 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)

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

---

In essence, this revision should increase the transparency of the promotions process, while preventing premature candidate submissions. 06:42, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Voting Section

Voting Rules

Votes must be numbered, signed, and timestamped. They can take one of two forms: # comments ~~~~ or # ~~~~ Votes that do not conform to the above will be struck by a sysop.

The only valid voting sections are For and Against. If you wish to abstain from voting, do not vote.

For

1. Co-Author. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 07:09, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
2. looks ok to me.--'BP^Tmz 07:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
3. I have trouble believing that fool Engel wrote half of this. Perhaps he worked on the punctuation. Anyway, this looks pretty decent, especially since I remember when relatively new people were nominating themselves left and right.--Lachryma^☭ 07:35, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
4. --Cyberbob ^{DORIS CGR U!} 07:35, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
5. Heh. I think SA wrote some of it! Anyways... Yes, I like it a lot. I was rather againgst the 3 questions when SA and Dux where drawing this all up, but looking at the previous promotions bid, if people don't awnser those questions in their little intro, they usualy wind up having to awnser them later, so I guess it makes sense. As for the rest I like it. Makes the contributions limit more reasonable without totaly discouraging people.--Seventythree^Talk 08:42, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
6. looks good to me. Only problem will be if the "junior sysop" thing also gets voted into policy. --Honestmistake 11:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

   Well this policy is based on the current climate and situation; if it were to change, than this would be revised as needed. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 11:34, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

7. More Co-Author than Dux is.-- dǝǝɥs oʇ ɯɐds: sʎɐʍ1ɐ! 11:44, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
8. I'm for it. Conndraka^{mod TDHPD CFT} 13:06, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
9. For --Midianian|T|T:S|C:RCS| 14:12, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
10. For - Because of stuff like this, and to reduce false-promotion bids in the future - if anything. If you don't like the numbers (if you think they are too low), they can always be bumped up in a later policy. --Ryiis 14:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
11. For - --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 18:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
12. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 21:15, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
13. --The Grimch ^{U! E! WAT!} 16:28, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
14. --Ive been thinking about this for a while. If people need a vote and want to answer other questions, theres always the talk pages. Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 19:36, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Against

1. --Karek^maps?! 13:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

   I disagree with the limit of one question per voter - let the voters ask as much as they want. Just because certain sysops have banned regular users from certain locations in this wiki (although, they still get to comment, of course, even where it's fuck all to do with them), it doesn't mean it's a good or fair idea to limit the input of regular users. I disagree with the bit that says a sysop vouch is preferred but not required. So, loads of people would then vote kill if there wasn't a sysop vouch, on the basis of it being preferred. Either include it, or don't. My preference would be to drop it. Sysops should not hold sway over who joins them. Normally, I wouldn't be so picky, but this policy is pushing things as it is, making all these new barriers to being a sysop, when it's supposed to be just a glorified janitorial position. Oh, and I nearly spat out my tea at the link that says "The community sees 500 edits as being too low these days". I count five users taking part in that short debate - so one can hardly claim that it's the will of the community. Please. Finally, I far prefer the proposals that hagnat is drawing up, to these. Hagnat's is all about inclusion in the process, and this is all about exclusion. Having said all of that, I did have to think about it - and I wanted to vote For because of all the hard work and compromise that went into it. Couldn't, though. --Funt Solo ^QT 16:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC) I withdraw my vote. --Funt Solo ^QT 20:13, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

2. I want to vote keep on the other policy, so I can't really support this as well Jonny12 ^talk 22:17, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

   I'd just like to point out that because you voted on another policy, it does not mean that you cannot vote on one similar - one, both or neither may come through. So I'd take them as they are, and not compared to any other policy also under voting. But hey, that's just my opinion. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 07:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

   I know, but I think it would be slightly hypocritical to say "yeah let's make being a sysop harder and increase the eliteness aspect in it" and then also to go "yeah let's have a breakdown of power and try to involve the wider community more" Jonny12 ^talk 16:12, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

   Again, I don't really think so. Besides, the other policy has been withdrawn anyways. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 10:45, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

   Looks like it's still under discussion, to me - there was another one withdrawn - has someone deleted the wrong one from the list on the Policy page? --Funt Solo ^QT 19:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

   Nope, it's at the bottom of the withdrawn policy list. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 00:10, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

3. --/~Rakuen~\^Talk I Still Love Grim 18:03, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
4. --Memoman 04:15, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

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Voting closed. Policy fails: 14 For to 4 Against, (78% in favour), did not meet minimum 20 vote requirement. --Funt Solo ^QT 14:50, 31 January 2008 (UTC)