UDWiki talk:Administration/Policy Discussion/PerformanceReview

General Discussion

I'm all for some sort of evaluations system, but I'm not a fan of the way this one is worded. It makes it sound like a business meetings where you "fire" people who aren't performing well. I also don't feel that mods should always be worried about getting "re-elected", meaning that they'd just play it safe and not make any decision that might possibly be disagreed with. I'm not saying accountability is bad, but sysops shouldn't constantly have to weigh up how this might affect them next time they are reviewed and make "calculated" decisions based on their popularity.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 23:21, 12 May 2007 (BST)

Well, if you like the idea but don't like the way I've done it then suggest an alternative. Don't just say "well I like the idea, but not this idea. Help fix it.--Gage 23:27, 12 May 2007 (BST)

He. I remember when i tried to pass something like this before. BobHammero even did a checkuser on me thinking i had handed over my account to amazing and co. because it was something he and friends would try to pass. Anyway, a performance review would be a good thing for this wiki. I'd say something that it wouldnt earn a demotion right away, but something on the lines if you fail too many times, you lose. So. Performance Reviews should be something active all the time, and in the end of the last day of every even month all PR should be archived and evaluated. If any sysop happens to fail 3 times in a row, he is demoted and cant submit himself for sysop until another round of PR is over (this means he wouldnt be able to submit himself for mod for 2 months).

The problem with PRs is that inactive or mostly inactive moderators, like zar, grim, myself, conn and others, would lose their powers once they meet the criteria for it. Vista wouldnt be a sysop now if such a system was active a few months ago, and look what a wonderful job he is doing now. While i suggested a better system above, i would like to see a PR system, but one which wouldnt demote people. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 23:49, 12 May 2007 (BST)

Oh, Hammero was a fun lad.--Thari ^{TжFedCom is BFI!} 23:56, 12 May 2007 (BST)

Actually I wouldn't have minded being demoted, but I agree 3 months is too little time. 6 months seems more like a reasonable time. I'm actually a pit peeved at gage for putting this up. I was working on my own version. It was the whole point of me going to promotions again.--Vista ⁺¹ 20:08, 13 May 2007 (BST)

For all thats good and holy no. This could only ever serve to complicate things. Being a mod here is already a sort of twisted popularity contest. --Zaruthustra^Mod 23:24, 12 May 2007 (BST)

Your very right. It would turn out to be like the American Presidential Race every four years, with Bureaucrats not wanting to look bad and Sysops not wanting to piss each other off and get demoted. Under this circumstance, you would end up with Bureaucrats automatically giving bad performance reviews for Sysops they don't like. (No offense) Take for example Hubrid Nox. He does great work on the wiki, yet pisses some of the Sysops off. Do you think he would still be on the wiki staff if this policy where in place? --User:Axe27/Sig 23:53, 12 May 2007 (BST)

That's exactly my point, but written in a better way.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 00:01, 13 May 2007 (BST)

Abuse by Bureaucrats is extremely unlikely, If you look at 50+? cases gone through the promotion page, you'll be hard to find instances where a bureaucrats turned people down unjustifiable. The only time a bureaucrat fouled up when he promoted somebody everybody (including the bureaucrat) didn't like, just to shut that user up. The reverse of the "clique" alligation.

Back then nobody could do anything about it, so we had to call in kevan. With the new system, abuse is even less likely. The users have every oppertunity to make sure that a trustworthy person is promoted to bureaucrat and they also have the ability to remove him as well. Everybody has the vote And the regular users outnumber the sysops by far. Only people the users trust get promoted to sysop, And then out of that group, only the sysop that has the most trust of all becomes Bureaucrat. Which bureaucrat could get promoted if he was like that? and how would he remain bureaucrat?

As for the sysops and Cyberbob, your assertion that he was getting a bum deal from the sysops is made inspite of the facts. If you look at his evalution, from the five against only one comes from an administrator, and only one out of the five abstains as well. from the ten vouches three were from sysops. The aministration team was more positive in it's judgement to cyberbob then the regular users. And that include sysops he fought regurarly with and sometimes accused of vandalism without proof. Sysops aren't an unified block, nor do we have the power to sway promotions like you seem to think we do.

Your whole point is simply unsupported by the facts and history.--Vista ⁺¹ 20:00, 13 May 2007 (BST)

It's the part saying "Your very right. It would turn out to be like the American Presidential Race every four years, with Bureaucrats not wanting to look bad and Sysops not wanting to piss each other off and get demoted." That I agree with.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 20:04, 13 May 2007 (BST)

My point is that bureaucrats who have problems with not wanting to look bad they'd wouldn't become bureaucrats in the first place. Xoid got promoted while he was as urgumentative as they come, he'd have no problems getting re-promoted at all. And I doubt he would have changed his way in any way shape or form. And I can't think of anyother bureaucrat who could look bad if he tried. Sysops will always piss eachother off wether they mean to or not. At most they'll think twice about pissing a regular user off. That's actually not a bad thing. But I'm not worried about presidental races, with a good bureaucrat, you know where you stand and presidental races won't nessersary. that said I'll put up my own thoughts here about this in a while.--Vista ⁺¹ 20:16, 13 May 2007 (BST)

Vista, whilst I admire your faith in the system, I must argue against you. The Sysop team has always made the best decisions (See Amazing). And the fact that most of Cyberbob's against come from the people, who vote for 'crats. Yes, the sysops are influenced by the people, (See here Amazing actually had a very minor infraction, however, because he was widely hated, what should have been a slap on the wrist became a de-modding.--User:Axe27/Sig 20:27, 13 May 2007 (BST)

Ehm, no. Amazing got demoted because the real problem was that amazing wasn't promoted correctly to begin with. Odd was so tired of his complaining that he promoted him while having a wiki meltdown. Kevan removed his bureaucrat status for not following the system. --Vista ⁺¹ 20:42, 13 May 2007 (BST)

It is common sense, but it still should be written that Kevan and his alt/sockpuppet/whatever Urbandead will not be up for evaluation. --^T 00:57, 13 May 2007 (BST)

Don't think we have to worry about that. I mean, owner rights and all. So even if someone put them up for promotions/demotion, Kevan would lay the smack-down on public opinion, and override the vote. --User:Axe27/Sig 18:39, 13 May 2007 (BST)

Yes, but it was put in the article with b'crat promotions to make it absolutely clear. Anyway its only another sentence or two. --^T 20:51, 13 May 2007 (BST)

Sounds like a plan. --User:Axe27/Sig 22:36, 13 May 2007 (BST)

Flavour change

Rather than saying every 3 months sysops have a performance review where they can be demoted, I'd like to see this rephrased to say sysop powers only last 3 months, and that sysops can be re-elected after that time. it would work exactly the same, but it's less unpleasant for those not re-elected. It's the difference between 'you're fired' and 'your contract expired.' --Toejam 14:22, 14 May 2007 (BST)

thats an absolute no-no-no mister. Having PR is a complete different thing from expiring periods. While this is a needed feature for beaurecrats since there is only two of them in the whole wiki, the more sysops we have the better... and having to elect the whole crew every 3 months would be madness! (and this is not sparta) --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 16:43, 14 May 2007 (BST)

the aim?

I think this was an ill concieved policy, aimed at individuals. This needs to be considered, not with a specific admin in mind, but for the good of the wiki. I agree that sysops should put themselves up for reelection periodically, but to make the term too short is to cheapen the act of promoting sysops. Make the terms at least a year (preferably more), with the requrement that the sysop remains active (a formal definition of active is required). Perhaps formalising a clause for removing rouge sysops for major or repeated misconduct -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 17:12, 14 May 2007 (BST)

I kind of like this idea, I think 6 months is better than a year. --Darth Sensitive ^W! 23:07, 14 May 2007 (BST)

How about a sort of 'vacation mode' for sysops who know they'll be away, at which point in time, they'll be put up for review every year, instead of 6 months. In order to prevent abuse, a sysop who's made more than 50 edits (past his time he declared vacation) would no logner be in vacation mode. --User:Axe27/Sig 00:35, 15 May 2007 (BST)

But why?

I still can't see why we would want to do this. Whether somebody is fit to be a sysop doesn't blow with the wind. They're either enforcing the rules and should stay or they're breaking the rules and should be desysop'd. Any sort of election cycle would just create all the things we don't want attached to mods. The aggrandizement of sysops through public spectacle, an endless drama well of he said she said bullshit, and people being more concerned about who likes them than what the rules are. Theres just no point to election cycles that couldn't be solved through consistent application of our existing rules. --Zaruthustra^Mod 05:36, 15 May 2007 (BST)

One of the good things about an election is that it deals with the loopholes that rules inevitably have. It also discourages admins from skirting around the rules, obeying the letter of the law but not the spirit of it. The other thing is that the vote can clear the air a bit. Voters get a chance to express any grievances they may have and have them taken into account. --Toejam 17:35, 15 May 2007 (BST)

Plus it gets rid of the older inactive sysops who are not contributing to the wiki. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 11:41, 18 May 2007 (BST)

Right. But, something tells me this policy is aimed at Individuals, and not for the good of the community. Petty means can only produce petty results. --User:Axe27/Sig 23:14, 18 May 2007 (BST)

New version

Every 6 months Sysops will go trough a performance review. This performance review will be mandatory for a Sysop only if at the moment of the review:

• The Sysop has held his/her Sysop status for 3 months or more.
• The Sysop doesn't hold the title of Bureaucrat.

This performance review will start February 1^st and August 1^st of every year, and will be scheduled to end two weeks after the first vote have been casted. The process will take place on a new page, UDWiki:Administration/Performance Reviews, so to avoid cluttering the UDWiki:Administration/Promotions page every Sysop review's season. Every user that wishes to will be able to cast one vote for each Sysop, limited to For, Against or Abstain votes, and thus will be able to voice his/her opinion. At the end of the process Bureaucrats will review the community input on every Sysop and allow them to keep their status or demote him/her according to each Sysop's perceived performance by the community. The final result of who was able to keep his status and who didn't make it will be clearly stated at the end of the review, and then archived.

Demoted users are left with the choice of starting another promotion bid to regain Sysop status whenever they want, if they want to, and if at the moment of being demoted they where in a bid to obtain Bureaucrat status, they are automatically disqualified.

--Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 06:57, 15 May 2007 (BST)

Discussion

I think this is the best option. I settled with 6 months as it seems the best option with people wanting for 3 months to more than a year, and I hav been on the wiki for little more than a year and a lot happens in that time, so a year would be excessive. The set date for all Sysops is to avoid stupid speculation ad discussions about when should the next elections for each Sysop start. I made it start February 1^st as my first option was January 1^st but at that date most are busy with the new year festivities and holidays. The other date was chosen because it's (obviously) 6 months later.

Inactive users aren't excluded in any way, as:

1. It will be difficult to come up with a good definition of what an inactive user is.
2. There's no reason to leave a safeway out of a performance review by just becoming idle for X time.
3. Performance reviews are about everything you have done while you kept your post, INCLUDING ausentism right?

Bureaucrats are altogether excluded, as if they have made it to Bureaucrat status 3 months or less before the review begins, they clearly have community's support. The same goes for recently elected Sysops.

Well, now I'll wait for feedback. If it's possitive and Gage takes too long to include it on the text of the policy, I'll start another policy discussion in order to have this voted as soon as I can. --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 06:57, 15 May 2007 (BST)

I don't have a problem changing it to 6 months, but I don't see how being a bureaucrat means that you can't have lost the support of the community. Bush was elected twice and now has a 30% approval rating. I also think the first performance review should start the moment the policy has passed.--Gage 07:42, 15 May 2007 (BST)

The bureaucrat thing doesn't necessarily mean that, but if you have been trough an election 3 months or less before the review begins, it's strange to make you go trough a community discussion yet again when all the other Sysops just have to do it every 6 months. It makes the Bureaucrats have to face yet another test in order to keep their positions, and it's quite an unnecessary one.

About when the first performance review goes trough, I think a set date that is configured to be the most convenient one in order to maintain order would be the most appropriate. To make the review start after the policy goes trough brings a level of uncertainty as all elections would fall 6 months after the previous one, and it will make them start and end at an uncertain time, if not a quite weird one (4 AM in the morning? When is the 31^st of February people?). I choosed the 1^st of any month to be the simpliest day to start the review, and then thought this: June would be impossible, as it's starting really soon and this would pass voting so fast. July would be ankward as the next election would have to start in New Year's eve. Then I choosed August. Of course, this can be changed to some, more complex system (like the first review begins right after this is approved and the next ones will follow a better schedule) but it just complicates thing for little revenue (it's not like we are in immediate need to demote anyone). --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 07:59, 15 May 2007 (BST)

So bureaucrats do have to go through performance reviews? I'm confused a little to be honest.--Gage 08:09, 15 May 2007 (BST)

UDWiki:Administration/Policy_Discussion/Automatic_Bureaucrat_Cycling. They get replaced every 3 months now, so... --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 08:38, 15 May 2007 (BST)

Not replaced per se, it's possible to elect the same bureaucrat time and time again. But every six months the bureaucrat faces a competition about his performance. And seeing that the bureaucrat not only has to have the trust of the users to become a sysop but also the most trust out of all sysops to become bureaucrat it would be strange to reward that with double the tests he'd normally face.--Vista ⁺¹ 08:53, 15 May 2007 (BST)

Alright, we've established when and where the performance reviews will take place. But, what exactly would be noted as "good" performance. Is it: Staying out of A/M?Banning Vandals? Good overall edits? What will be noted in these reviews? --User:Axe27/Sig 15:24, 15 May 2007 (BST)

I'm not sure we've established anything yet, I'm just philosophizing wildy at the moment. and there is only one yardstick for sysops as well for bureaucrats. Trust of the community.--Vista ⁺¹ 16:09, 15 May 2007 (BST)

As Vista said, the only thing that we can measure with a certain level of security is trust of the community. As it's up for Bureaucrats to review a bid for promotion and judge if the community proves favorable to certain user or not, the same would be true with performance reviews. --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 19:13, 15 May 2007 (BST)

Well guys, do you (or most of you) agree with the above text for the policy? Gage, are you around and after the latest explanation want to add the changes? I don't like stagnant projects, and this is becoming one if we don't send it to voting. --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 23:30, 18 May 2007 (BST)

I certainly do. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 11:52, 19 May 2007 (BST)

I started my re-conformation bid so I would be able to start a policy discussion in good faith. But I will vote against this. It's a ill-thought out, and has no or too little justification, it doesn't even touch the most important part of idled out sysops. The whole reason why I hardly participated was so it would become stagnant. And that I could start up a new discussion with an active proposer. And if nobody would object I'll rather start that discussion up.--Vista ⁺¹ 14:08, 19 May 2007 (BST)

Vista, your motivations were kinda obvious since you started your review, and the only reason I'm discussing the policy here is because I think there's a valid purpose to the policy proposed. It doesn't take a genius to note that Gage made the first draft when he was pissed off, and probably with other intentions instead of those that aim to help the community. He wanted Cyberbob demoted or something like that, but I DO NOT CARE about his intentions, but what I can do with the policy at hand. Of course, as I have stated above, if Gage proved to be too stubborn or too inactive I would have started my own policy discussion, but I fail to realize how this discussion is any different of one that you or me or anyone could start, as long as there's an actual discussion and the final draft is the same. If I didn't know you at all, I would be talking of conceit here. I thought better of you back in the old days...

That said, about my draft of the policy, it's designed as to include inactive Sysops in the reviews. Not only me but yourself said that the only yardstick for Sysops and Bureaucrats alike is trust from the community, and in the other hand we know that demoting old Sysops just for innactivity is at least debatable, not mentioning the difficulty of reaching a good deffinition of "inactivity" that we all can agree to. This way each individual case will be reviewed by the community and after that a Bureaucrat will be able to act accordingly. When you say that my draft doesn't even touch the "most important" (maybe for Zaru and Grim that don't want to lose their status, mind you) part of idled out sysops, it includes the issue as a whole, not discriminating them of other Sysops alike.

Now, if you want to start another policy discussion, go ahead, I'll participate of it and I hope you don't call my contributions "ill tought" and my concerns "of little justification". But, as I have said, it's the same for me as long as we reach the same conclussions. There's no more validity in a policy started by you, me, Gage, the worst or the greatest user of this wiki, as long as the person that made it agrees to change the text of the policy according to people's concerns and consensus on the talk page. Boycotting a discussion where people is in good faith trying to reach a good consensus is. just. wrong. --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 15:04, 19 May 2007 (BST)

Matthew, please be less defensive, I didn't attack your integrity or any thing like it. I was talking about the entire process not just your contribution. Gage started this with good intentions but he also started off on the wrong foot. you tried your best to improve it but it's difficult once the tone has been set to change it. And for lack of justification, Why should it be modelled after a performance review? I used that term loosely to explain what I meant. Why should it be used? Why all at once? a fast majority of all sysop will have been promoted within that half year. Why each half year? you gave no reason then other then an allusion to authority. Why not have a different system for timed out sysops? either going one way or the other? etc.--Vista ⁺¹ 15:31, 19 May 2007 (BST)

Twisted Popularity Contest

Forget who mentioned it above, but yeah, becoming a sysop is a twisted popularity contest. The problem is you have people who are popular becoming sysops for the power, and to prove their popularity to the masses. When I went up for sysop, people told me no, because "we [had] to many already." Funny that you would elect someone to a position of authority who doesn't want the job, and won't do the job in the position,.... and turn down someone like me who does and will. Sad and pathetic really,.... --Poodle of doom 02:12, 23 May 2007 (BST)

That depends. Sometimes, it's not, and on other times it is. Normally, it isn't. But, Poodle, your not really a well known user. --User:Axe27/Sig 04:45, 24 May 2007 (BST)

I don't believe that we've ever promoted someone who doesn't want the job. I do agree, however, that this policy would bring it ever closer to being a popularity contest. It is not possible to do our jobs if we have to constantly worry about how popular we are. It would mean that popular users would be able to get away with breaking the rules, as the sysops would be afraid of being demoted if they do anything about a popular member. You'd also probably see sysops being a lot tougher on the rules at the start of their "term" than at the end. We don't want that.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 14:01, 24 May 2007 (BST)

That is true General. It's not that I'm not popular. Its that my works have recieved little credit. Check out A Beginners Guide to Urban Dead for example. --Poodle of doom 20:37, 2 June 2007 (BST)

I'd ask whether or not this would really improve the quality of the wiki. I mean, could this lead to mods afraid to place bans due to the loss of popularity? Could this cause a decline in quality overall? --Tolthalan 22:07, 18 June 2007 (BST)

Someone take this over

Pulease. Do something with it. I don't really care who does it.--Gage 06:45, 17 June 2007 (BST)