User talk:Pestolence/001

Just some thoughts:

• A problem with a "review" policy is that it disadvantages the more "janitorial" sysops that aren't active around A/VB, or A/M (where they get "noticed,") but still empty out the request list at A/MR, A/SD, etc. To be honest, it won't disadvantage them that much, but users might vote "never see 'em" when they are still doing important tasks.
• Likewise, "controversial" sysops could find it hard to get a fair review, especially if there was a bout of drama that involved them days before. People having that fresh in their mind could make an honest review impossible.
• The "will of the community" is a hard thing to define, best shown by J3D's bid. What about where we have a situation were a lot of lurking/semi active users vote "no" and a lot of active users vote "yes." The final decision resting with the 'crats fixes this to an extent.

At the end of the day though, I personally think that having irrelevant/excess sysops isn't really a bad thing. It helps to get rid of the "sysop elitism" stigma, and having a backlog is useful for when sysops go inactive. Most sysops do their job, and putting this up (as Karek said,) leads to factionalism, and politicization of sysops. Sadly, we have taken steps in that direction already, but sysops shouldn't have to appeal to the masses to get there job done, and this could even just cause sysops to appeal to the masses-not a good thing. Anyway, sorry if this is rambling a bit. Linkthewindow  Talk  11:08, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I recognized less than half of the names that vouched for him, many of whom appear to have been inactive for months. This is not a valid reason to demand a review of a sysop. Just because you don't know these people it doesn't make the contributions of a sysop any less valid. Do you know what Karek and I have been contributing to the wiki since our promotions? Don't you think that the actual work we have done should matter more than if we are "popular" or the users that supported us are still around? What about Swiers? What sysop functions does he perform? None involving A/VB or A/M if any at all. And yet, he still gets Crat votes every election before he withdraws. Is that fair?

Also, where did this whole "faith from the community" bullshit come from? The sysop is a janitor. They are the ones that volunteer their time to do all the stupid menial tasks that other users don't. The only "faith" they need is that they won't go insane and ban users without cause or delete tons of pages. That's the only "trust" that sysops need.

Can you tell me any of the last 3 major projects or contributions Karek or I have made to the wiki? If not, do you still think you are in a position to really judge us?

My point is you can't review someone just based on popularity. If I can find it I will link Grim's "Which Sysops do you trust page?" That right there is a perfect example of why leaving a sysop review solely to the community is a bad idea.

J3D's bid is a perfect example, Link. The "community" wanted him and then he goes and shows how getting a "little" power proved to be too much of a temptation for him. The majority was wrong. Instead of a sysop review policy you really need a sysop demotion policy. But one that isn't relying on a popular vote so that it is actually fair to the sysops. --– Nubis ^NWO 14:13, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Fairly new to the wiki lawyerisms, but the sysops having the votes over A/VB, A/M, and what have you makes them more than just "janitors." As being the decision makers on important questions like "What is vandalism?" makes it important that they are representative of the views of the community that would make the effort in noticing said vandalism (hence adding to the definition of vandalism by way of examples). A popularity contest isn't a great way of doing things, but it IS the most democratic and allows the community to have some further say in the wiki. Will you get people abusing their powers? Of course you will. Thankfully, the misconduct system is an already existing check on those who might abuse said powers. Would it suck to potentially add more volume to the page? Probably, but is that too much to ask for the community to have further input? If there were an alternative to a popular vote, what would it be? A vote from just the sysops? That's just as bad and further adds to the stigma of elitism. Just my 2 cents anyways. --Johnny Bass 18:11, 16 January 2009 (UTC)