UDWiki talk:Administration/Promotions

Archive

• Archive1 - ??? - Jan 2007
• Archive2 - Feb - Oct 2007
• Archive3 - Oct 2007 - Apr 2008
• Archive4 - Apr 2008 - May 2010

Discussion

Moved or continued from the main page. New stuff goes on the bottom.

User:Axe Hack

OK, guys...last time I checked, the nomination does not get moved under Community Discussion until the nominee accepts the bid. I have not accept the bid yet, and have been moving it back to Still Requiring Vouches as the bid has not yet been accepted. I'm not moving it back up a third time now... -_- --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 00:07, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

That's true, I completely forgot about the accepting bit. Sorry! -- ϑ^anceϑ^anceℜ^evolution 04:29, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Piss, or get off the pot -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 05:19 4 February 2011 (BST)

Jerrel

• Jerrel Yokotory (talk | contribs | UDWiki contribs | vndl data)

Jerrel Sysop Campaign Assets

№	Title	Content
00001	Logo
00002	Theme	"You Haven't Seen The Last Of Me" by Jer (born Jerrelyn Sarkisian)
09453	Personal quote	"I may not be the best formating guy, but I'm learning."
00174	Campaign Cartoon	"The Tom and Jerrel Show" Realistic depiction of Jerrel's constant conflict with the downpressing cats. All the violence in this show is based on actual A/VB and A/A drama.
00001	The Truth	In 2 weeks from now, it will be April 15. And Jerrel will be a sysop by that date.

I'm really amazed at the fact that this hasn't been put up any earlier. While there have been very good reasons to criticise Jerrel in the past, he has massively shaped up ever since.

He hasn't done a single bad edit in months - not in five months, not in six months, no, in friggin' seven months! That beats even Ross' track record, who has been put up on A/VB once during that time.

Apart of that, he is a nice guy who actively fights cussing on the wiki.

What could possibly go wrong by promoting someone like him? -- Spiderzed▋ 15:21, 1 April 2011 (BST)

• Strong Vouch - I like his campaign cartoon. -- Spiderzed▋ 15:21, 1 April 2011 (BST)

  ha! love the time stamp on this-- The preceding signed comment was added by these amazing looking

  

  bitch 15:34 1 April 2011 (UTC)

  Rather start to vouch for Jerrel and his anti-cussing campaign, you massively retarded faggot. -- Spiderzed▋ 15:36, 1 April 2011 (BST)

  how about you both go fuck yourselfs twice with thads fat head.-- The preceding signed comment was added by these amazing looking

  

  bitch 15:41 1 April 2011 (UTC)

• Against might be an even bigger tool than thad if that's at all possible -- The preceding signed comment was added by these amazing looking
  
  bitch 15:35 1 April 2011 (UTC)

weak vouch oh yer right. i am massively retarded.-- The preceding signed comment was added by these amazing looking

bitch 15:46 1 April 2011 (UTC)

• Strong Vouch - As Spider. ~ _{15:44, 1 April 2011}
• Incredible Hulkingly Strong Vouch - His sound advice and patience in our many long chats on IRC encouraged me to keep playing UD when I was at my lowest. And, he can fly. I love him. ~ Kempy “YaketyYak” | ◆◆◆ | CAPD |
   
  16:09, 1 April 2011 (BST)
• Against - way to biest for his own good --^TCAPD(╯°□°)╯ ┻━┻ 16:46, 1 April 2011 (BST)
• Who? er... MULTIPLE ORGASM VOUCH - I heard he was working on a time machine, so everything is kosher. Well, except for the time machine, I heard there was meat next to cheese. --THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 17:42, 1 April 2011 (BST)
• Questions
  1. What is different this time from the previous times you've asked for promotion?
  2. I notice on your talk page that you said that you wouldn't run again. What made you change your mind? Asheets 20:04, 1 April 2011 (BST)

     he hasn't acceptced the bid yet any way ash -- The preceding signed comment was added by these amazing looking

     

     bitch 00:31 2 April 2011 (UTC)

• With a campaign this awesome, how could he possibly steer us wrong‽ Jerrel for Mod Sysop Bureaucrat God! ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 01:23, 2 April 2011 (BST)
• Fucking Against - he "fights cussing on the wiki"? Fuck that! --  ▧  ^{: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :} 08:32, 2 April 2011 (BST)

It's no longer April fools... so that'll be quite enough of that. The user is unlikely to accept, given their last post was in August -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 09:52 2 April 2011 (BST)

Archived Discussion

I archived the stuff from 2008 to 2010, as it's all painfully out of date. --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 02:33, 8 April 2011 (BST)

I reordered everything too, so now it should make some sense. --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 01:10, 15 April 2011 (BST)

I archived all discussion here to the relevant bids. and also removed vandal bids that were moved here. -- ϑ^anceϑ^anceℜ^evolution 03:55, 17 April 2011 (BST)

The Next Sys-Op Speculation Corner

“	I'd rather have a team including historically sporadic editors, rather than just me, vapor and spiderzed. [...] As always I encourage more of you to run for sysop. We need fresh blood. Especially since Grim took all the black pudding away	”
—Rosslessness

There hasn't been a single bid since July, and of the 9 remaining ops, not all look that fresh either. Anyone having any candidates in mind? Some I would know off the top of my head:

• Chief Seagull - Regular bot reporter, knows wiki-code and wiki-procedure.
• DDR - Op of olde, still popping in all the time.
• Mazu - Highly active, has with Project:Very Funny involvement with a bigger wiki project, knows wiki-code.
• Sexualharrison - Wiki vet, regular bot reporter.
• Thad - Greatest Sys-Op Evar. (j/k)

-- Spiderzed█ 13:09, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

lolharrison. Looks like you inadvertently made more then just 1 joke.-- Thadeous Oakley Talk 16:02, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

riiiiight b/c you were such an effective and well liked sysop. what did you actually do or accomplish with the buttons again? oh right nothing! shouldn't you be off blowing yon and ddr or something? and no thank you. i am flattered but RL and my complete lack of interest in UDwiki policy, and my unhelpful nature makes me an unsuitable candidate. --User:Sexualharrison18:49, 5 February 2012 (bst)

Oi lay off I'm allowed to have my opinions and I liked Thad. All the extra curricular things me and Thad did were purely unconditional. D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 23:48, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Also, I don't really see the need for more sysops. The current crew is mostly capable enough, and it's not like your drowning in work with all the little activity. Fresh blood for the sake of fresh blood alone isn't a real issue, and it certainly shouldn't be used as for an excuse for even lower sysops requirements in case that there is no immediate ideal candidate. - Thadeous Oakley Talk 16:02, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

It's less of a current problem, more one I see occurring over the next year. I honestly can't see the next generation coming through. still better than giving it to Amazing and Hagnat to run.--Ross^lessness 16:16, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I've seen a few other like Shortround and Gordon who have taken initiative in the past couple of months and who, given time could grow into stellar candidates if they stick around. It's really all about learning policy, which seems daunting at first but isn't too overwhelming once you dive into it. Its really easy to get burned out doing this so if I had a piece of advice for any would-be sysops, its don't get drawn into every single spot of drama you run across. Vandal Banning and Misconduct is really a rather small part of what sysops do but a lot of emphasis seem to be placed there. The wiki is full of holes to be plugged and teh buttons are your thumbs needed to stick in them. ~ _{16:58, 5 February 2012 (UTC)}

We have a sysop team with smallish activity, which is fine because of the minimal workload. Personally I think you're all getting lazy and that small workload can take an embarrassingly long time to complete but it's inconsequential. UDWiki doesn't really need more ops IMO D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 23:48, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree with DDR. We don't need more Ops. We need less. Let's get rid of the ones with less than 1000 edits since the past 91 days. :P --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 00:00, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

A week and Misanthropy gets warned, sadly  : ( D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 00:04, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

There's more factors than just laziness, likely. Personally, I don't see any harm in promoting qualified users that want to help. RL and other factors will inevitably claim other sysops such as myself (one of the factors I was referring to) and everyone will be glad for it. Decide not to promote now and we'll potentially lose the oppurtunity to have enough hands on deck in times of need. Think of the children! ~ _{00:15, 19 March 2012 (UTC)}

I agree. I just think it should be the community that rises to add themselves to the sysop team, not the other way around. D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 00:23, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

As a member of the community, you have to be either a masochist or have ulterior motives to want to be a sysop. Checks on your buttons and janitorial bs hardly sounds like fun. --Kirsty _{Org XIII} ^Alts 00:31, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I can honestly say I've enjoyed being a sysop. There are times that I don't of course but the majority of the times, yes. To be honest, Urban Dead is a boring game. If it weren't for the meta game and the wiki, I doubt many people would still play. Some prefer the meta game and some prefer the wiki. It takes all types, really. We're all just making Urban Dead less boring in our own individual way. ~ _{04:28, 19 March 2012 (UTC)}

This would be true, in my case it's mostly due to the lack of things to do here meaning I'm devoting more time to places that need it on other parts of the internet. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 00:54, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Adjusting Guidelines for System Operator Requests

Seeing as I have several of the more influential wikizens here against my current promotion bid for the same reason, being that I'm a bit too new, I'd like to suggest changing the current policy. This is in no way to contest the reactions on my bid, since I completely understand this reason, but rather to prevent people from making bids like mine in the future.

Proposal:

• Significant time within the community.

We define this as at least 6 months since the candidate's first edit.

Note: looking in a User's User contributions might give false results for this criterion, as the edit history is periodically purged on this wiki.

PB&J 08:48, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Ahh, but you see, the reason these outdated systems are in place is yet another way we can determine who is right for the job, because only the people who had the experience would know that these silly restrictions weren't in any way accurate!

But in most seriousness, it could do with a refresh, although we should make it approximate to the limits of most appropriate candidates more than simply following current trends of the 'age' of successful candidates. Badly worded, but what I mean is that if it were completely accurate to past candidates it would probably be a minimum of 12 months, and I don't know if that's a good number, so 6 months is probably a better all-round number even though realistically and historically it's probably a bit too low. A ZOMBIE ANT 09:42, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Starting to wonder who set it at 2 months in the first place... Anyway, a year will eliminate most "fresh" wikizens: the numbers for UD have been going down for years, and I'm pretty sure that there only a couple thousand (if even) unique people active. Keeping them active longer than a year is a task in itself: the amount and size of groups has gone down quite a bit, taking away an important direct support line. Same goes for the wiki: you've got the veterans here and only one in a couple hundred rookies will make it to that status thanks to stagnating numbers and updates. (the main reason I unstub as much as possible is to make the wiki more "complete", which should keep players interested longer. Same goes for the status reports) PB&J 10:26, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

The 2 months rule is a remnant of earlier days when the wiki was very new I believe, when 2 months and substantial knowledge and respect in other parts of the meta-gaming community would be enough to get someone through. But now the wiki is a bit more autonomous in content and candidate selection, it might as well be updated to reflect as much A ZOMBIE ANT 10:52, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure It used to be three months,but was changed by a policy discussion. The bid template became standard after I added the vndl template to my first bid, as it seemed a useful link, before we created a specialist one. I would make it standard though. --Ross Less Ness ^{Enter Stranger...} 13:19, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

i blame hagnat--User:Sexualharrison14:37, 20 November 2012

Honestly? From not being there but knowing how the rest of the guidelines were made, I would too. A ZOMBIE ANT 15:48, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

A few points of clarification, since there are reasons for things being the way they are. First, changing the number of months to something higher has been proposed in the past and failed. The reason is simple: those guidelines are minimum qualifications, not expectations, so we don't want to exclude an exceptional candidate just because of an arbitrary time limit. If you want to read about unofficial expectations, we have a different page for that. :P

Second, when people say, "Wait a few more months," they generally don't mean that you need to pay your dues by putting in your time before you can be a sysop (though I'll admit some of them do mean that). The phrase is usually code for, "You are still making some newbie mistakes and don't seem to know how everything works yet, but you've demonstrated an ability to learn from your mistakes, so you'll be past that stage soon." Based on some of the mistakes you've made in your own nomination (e.g. not knowing from past promotion bids to use {{bid}} or update the Wiki News and not indenting properly in your responses), I suspect the latter is what most people really mean. As such, altering the promotion guidelines wouldn't actually address the problem that you're facing for future nominations. All it would do is eliminate potential candidates. —Aichon— 16:50, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I disagree, I feel such a comment is more likely to mean. "Yes your new and you seem keen, but lets see what you're really like before I give you the power to look up my IP and stuff." People create impressions over time, the bid process should reflect that. --Ross Less Ness ^{Enter Stranger...} 16:54, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'd agree that it can mean that as well. Either way, we can agree that it usually doesn't just mean, "I feel people should be here for X time before they are allowed to be sysops." It usually means that the person has an expectation that has not yet been fulfilled but likely will be with some more time and experience. —Aichon— 17:19, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I looked at the previous bid, the example and guidelines, and didn't see a single {{bid}} requirement or example, and honestly, indentation as an example? Why? :P And come on, honestly: I've made 2.000 edits, started the biggest non-bot wiki project in a very long time, took part in several discussions, helped new players and reported bots. I've been socially active here ever since the Danger Center project in August, and I can't imagine anyone being ready after two months if I'm not after nearly 4. There have been raised a few valid arguments (like not being active in A/VB), what I don't understand is people going on about small things, like the bid template or indentations. Honest to god, are those the things that really matter? PB&J 19:22, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

{{bid}} isn't a requirement, it's merely standard practice on any serious bids. The last bid we had was a joke one, so no one bothered to add the template. You probably should have consulted the one before that. And the template and indentation gaffes, by themselves, don't really matter, but people have historically used them as an indication of whether or not someone knows how things work around here (plus, making a mistake of any sort in your nomination is kinda like having a typo in the ad for your business: it doesn't reflect well on you), so while they should not matter, they kinda do to some people. As for the timing, while six months tends to be the earliest that most people get promoted, I'd say that we have plenty of examples of sysops who chose to wait 6 months but could have actually been promoted earlier, had they applied. In your case, I think it's just a matter of lack of opportunity. As Ross said, people like to have seen candidates demonstrate how they'll respond to situations. You really just haven't had a chance to do that, but had you had one, I'd think you'd have a lot more support already. —Aichon— 20:43, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorta as Ross. Yeah, minimum requirements yes, but 2 months? No user in history would get in here after existing for two months no matter what they did. Even as a simple minimum requirement it is completely unrealistic A ZOMBIE ANT 00:03, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm definitely in agreement that the requirement needs to be changed. This is especially true because it gives new users a false sense of when they can move up in the ranks. I know when I arrived, and began hunting around the Administration pages, I was quite surprised that people could become sysops in two months. It gave me the impression that the wiki is, so to speak, "loose" or poorly-governed if such new people are able to gain positions of power. I later got the impression, through watching relatively new people's bids like Shortround's first and now Johnny's, that rather than being poorly-governed, the wiki was instead being deceptive. The first line of information new users get about the wiki is the actual policy, rather than the precedent of individual actions, and thus policy should best reflect the reality of the situation.

If someone brought a proposal for change to a vote (which I would note got a majority last time, barely missing 2/3rds and 20 votes), I would be in complete support. I hope we can get some wiki reforms in this manner going, to reflect in policy the changing assumptions under which we operate here. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 00:15, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that you guys may not be thinking big enough when you're suggesting that the requirements get pushed up. Head to the talk page for the vote you linked and give it a read, since there's a lot of good discussion there. To summarize, as you increase the requirements you exclude more potential candidates since you're introducing additional bureaucratic barriers, which is the exact opposite of what we want. We actively want to encourage people to apply by removing as many barriers as possible, so we've set the requirements at the minimum point where they should not keep out any viable candidates. But we have no power to control people's expectations, nor can we quantify something that is constantly changing. And codifying high expectations would merely undermine our efforts to get more people applying.

That said, I do think that some clarification could be in order. Personally, I always thought they were clear enough (after all, most jobs come with pre-reqs, and meeting them simply entitles you to apply, not to automatically have the job), but if that's not the idea everyone else gets from them, then we need to fix that. We could point them to past promotions or current sysop activity levels for some of that, or else add some more wording to the explanation to make it clearer, but the clarity issue is separate from increasing the requirements, and should be kept separate. With any change to the requirements, you need to be analyzing what purpose it would be serving, and the purpose you're suggesting for changing them (i.e. adding clarity) can be handled in other ways and is secondary to the primary purpose of encouraging additional candidates to apply.

Also, I wanted to toss in a few quick side notes about various facts. First, that vote may look close at first glance, but it wasn't really, since the Yes side needed an additional 50% more votes than it got. Second, the 20 votes thing has since been rescinded. Third, I did a casual look through some of the old promotions, and without doing any exhaustive searching, I've already found two sysops who were promoted in two months (Xoid and Vantar), neither of which was in the earliest days of the wiki, as well as about a half-dozen more in the 3-5 month range, some not too long ago, so this idea that no one can do it is a bit off-base. I'm fine with 3 months instead of 2, but any more than that and we'd be creating barriers that undermine our bigger goals. —Aichon— 04:46, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

If you ask me, adding links to past promotions or add more explanation like you suggested is doing the exact same restrictive thing, with less chance people will notice or read the whole thing than a simple number. Especially so if the number will be there either way. A ZOMBIE ANT 05:24, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you're simply against adding that wording or are for increasing the requirements. If it's the former, I don't follow your logic. Acknowledging the existence of expectations that are outside the control of policy, which is what I'm willing to do, is not the same as officially endorsing them, which is what it sounds like you think I suggested. If it's the latter, then it sounds like you're making an argument along the lines of "the expectations are being used either way, so we may as well codify them". I'll counter that with, "Codify what and to what purpose?"

I hope we can all agree that the goal is to ensure that candidates have proven themselves. Nothing more, nothing less. We have some ideas for how people can do that and how long it generally takes. Those are our expectations. But I think we're all smart enough to acknowledge that if someone can prove themselves in less time or with less edits that there's no reason to hold them back arbitrarily, since that would be bureaucracy for its own sake. Essentially, it wouldn't serve our purpose, since our goal is that someone proves themselves, not that they spend X time doing it, even if it is our expectation based on past experience that it will take them X time for most people.

That's my issue with raising the requirements to match expectations. Just because it took me six months to go from newcomer to sysop candidate doesn't mean we should force everyone else to take six months. And just because I was averaging 660 posts per month when I first became a sysop candidate does not mean we should require that from all candidates, even though it's in line with typical sysop activity rates. We've had candidates get promoted after just two months and with a mere fraction that number of posts, so we know it can be done. The requirements are there to exclude obviously unqualified people, but once you're past that, let people prove themselves whenever and however they can. —Aichon— 07:28, 21 November 2012 (UTC)