User talk:Aichon

Aichon:Talk

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Aichon

ˈīˌkän :Talk

Announcement: I'm no longer active. My talk page is still your best bet to get in touch. —Aichon— 04:39, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Please be aware of the following guidelines before posting here.

• New conversations should be started at the bottom using a level two header (e.g. ==Header==).
• I like to keep conversations wherever they start, but if a conversation ends up here, I will keep it here.
• I will format comments for stylistic reasons, delete comments for whatever reason, and generally do anything else within reason.

Thanks. —Aichon—

Archives: 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | To do

Question

You know when you got all demoted and stuff? Do you think you did more useful wiki stuff without buttons? --Rosslessness 19:37, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Honestly, no, but I'd say that was more a factor of my inactivity and lack of interest than my lack of buttons, especially so since my inactivity and lack of interest were the reasons I requested a demotion in the first place. We should also consider my contributions in 2012 both before and after I was re-promoted, but whether I had the buttons or not, I'm hard-pressed to come up with much useful wiki stuff that I've actually done. I chip in on discussions here or there, but I don't feel like I can point to anything and say, "I was a major part in making that happen." If anything, I feel like I've been getting in the way of actual progress in a few different places by some of the newcomers, which is not something I want to be doing.

I will say that I think it's easier to keep yourself occupied with busywork if you have the buttons, just because there are a few extra jobs available to you. Whether that means cleaning up bots or sorting out stuff on A/VD, there's always something to do as a sysop. That said, very little of it is actually necessary on a day-to-day basis. Most of the day-to-day tasks we have can be accomplished in under 2 minutes by just one member of the team. —Aichon— 21:04, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, busy work is the issue I think. The thing is I feel it is a responsibility of the badge. Damn. There's so much I want to get on with here. --Rosslessness 22:17, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Its like Aichon said, there's not much going on that require buttons. You could pretty much ignore all of whatever comes up and just go on with projects you would rather be doing. Grunt work will still get done. Just use the buttons when they are needed. That's pretty much how I handled things prior to my demotion. The demotion itself didn't really do much to motivate me. Whatever motivation I had for doing things came on its own and was actually rather short lived. I worked on Project Timeline but as you can see, its a long way from complete. ~ _{23:57, 15 January 2013 (UTC)}

The hurry the fuck up and finish it >:I --SA 13:29, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

3 days to go! As a confirmation I won't seek re-election. --Rosslessness 22:58, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. like bummer man.--User:Sexualharrison23:57, 18 January 2013

Why do you hate me...? :( --Shortround }.{ My Contributions 00:13, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh, lol. Consider yourself lucky. I copy/pasted that entire list from the A/M archives. It was never intended to be comprehensive. Your lack of a presence there is a very good thing for you. :P —Aichon— 00:30, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

2013 SA section

—Aichon— 22:16, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

la boule courte

The community review looks clear-cut. The large activity gap in October/November is something to be wary of, but I'd still be in favour of chaining him for 8 more months. -- Spiderzed█ 17:56, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Make it so. —Aichon— 18:07, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

my own damn section!

hey aich, i'm about to move to another city and will be with out of interwebs for a bit. do you know of any good "away from wiki" templates?--User:Sexualharrison18:44, 7 February 2013

Afraid I'm not aware of any. Hey, all of you WikiJaguars, you guys got anything? —Aichon— 19:06, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I know only of this one: Template:LessActive. There are also Template:Inactive and Template:SysopHiatus, but they are of any use for ops only. -- Spiderzed█ 19:18, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I knew about the sysop ones, but I did not know about {{LessActive}}. Good call. —Aichon— 19:27, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

There are other templates you can find on Project Sleep. --Labla 20:02, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Hah

Now there you are, concerned about I might not disagree enough with you on administrative stuff -- Spiderzed█ 18:50, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Sure, we disagree on some things as regular users, such as how we should vote on policies, but when we're acting as sysops, such as in the A/VB and A/M cases, we were in total agreement. Only Karek suggested some disagreement in the A/VB case. ;) —Aichon— 19:05, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

UDWiki:Administration/Sysop_Archives/Vista/2006-07-01_Bureaucrat_Promotion

Lots of strikethrough? --Rosslessness 22:56, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, it was there to begin with. I thought about trying to figure out where it was supposed to end, but then I got fed up and decided that I'll just leave it archived as it is. —Aichon— 22:57, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Speaking of archives, you gonna dive in with this stuff at some point? —Aichon— 23:04, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Once I work it out. Think ive fixed it. --Rosslessness 23:11, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Mmm...I don't think so. Both of those first two comments are by Cyberbob, and he did strikeouts and different signatures on his other Vouches/Againsts as well. Reverting for now since I'm fairly confident he didn't vote twice under one heading. As for the A/M cases you linked, that looks right. You just need to move the existing pages to those locations and add the breadcrumb template at the top (see other examples of A/M cases I've done already), and in the case of the 2010 one, split it into two pages, one for each case. —Aichon— 02:13, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

The Herd

Thanks for giving me the chance to fix my recruitment advert. Does it look better now?--BeatMyAces 21:26, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Yup, looks good! I went ahead and moved TheHerd/Recruit to The Herd/Recruit so that it's underneath your main The Herd page. And you're very welcome. :) —Aichon— 21:30, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Link underline color

You may have noticed that I recently created a recruitment ad for my group, the MTT. I've figured out (thanks to some spying on other group ads, including the SoC) how to do most things, but I was wondering if there was a way to change the underline color on hovered links, which appear blue, or purple for visited pages, whatever the color of the linked text. I'm trying to get my whole ad to be black and white, but the little purple lines appear, so I decided to come to you as one of the more code-savvy wikizens. Thanks so much! Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 06:00, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Quickfix: Just underline the links, as I did on the Cobra page. The underline in the default link color depending on browser settings won't appear then. -- Spiderzed█ 06:15, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh, yeah, Spider's way is better and way more obvious. I must be tired. —Aichon— 06:30, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Hmm...there's not exactly a great way to do it, but in putzing around a bit, it looks like setting a span to have a display property of inline-block with a border on the bottom seems to do the trick, at least inasmuch as it hides the usual underline and allows you to specify your own, though the line is always visible and is offset a bit further than the usual one is. —Aichon— 06:28, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you! I'll try underlining and see if that satisfies me ;) Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 10:08, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Demo14

that`s one nice table you got there...

it would be a shame if something...

happened...

to it :3 --hagnat 00:38, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Eh, it was like an hour and a half's work, only a third of which was spent making the table itself, since I was using a text editor and a lot of copy/paste + find/replace. Makes the work go quickly. Also, if you know anything about those early 'ops, I'd love to hear anything you have, since tracking down the sysops that were promoted before A/PM was in place is a task I don't know how to handle. —Aichon— 01:24, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

You should be able to check their individual user rights logs, if I'm not mistaken (purges may have made that a pipe dream though, fucking Stalin Kevan). Checking the old moderator pages should throw up enough names to work with. 01:28, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

In most cases the user rights logs seem to work and are intact all the way back to 2005, but at least with Katthew, it's showing a promotion, but no later demotion, yet her rights are clearly set to that of a regular user. Also, I suspect I'm simply unaware of many of the early sysops, which means I can't check for them since I don't know who I'd be checking for. For instance, I'd have never thought to look for Katthew if I hadn't heard mention of her being a sysop at one point. —Aichon— 01:33, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Add a star in every month i got a misconbitration :D --hagnat 02:02, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Log files don't get purged, Kevan intentionally leaves them. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 04:31, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it looks like some must've been purged, since there's no record of Katthew being demoted in the user rights logs. —Aichon— 06:07, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I made a fairly comprehensive list for the Grimmies a couple of years ago. I think you're only missing LeakyBocks, though I didn't do a thorough comparison.

Your table starts in Aug '05 but the wiki didn't go live until that September. Is that because there are logs predating September 7th? BTW, LeakyBocks was apparently the first promoted user, before even Kevan or Urbandead. It was suggested he was tech support and probably Kevan's friend that help him set up the wiki. No idea when he was demoted. Probably when that Truly Inactive Sysops policy passed. ~ _{05:54, 15 March 2013 (UTC)}

Honestly, I just copy/pasted a few cells for 2005 and didn't count them until later, so it was laziness on my part that it starts in August. As for LeakyBlocks, his promotion was on the 6th of September, so that pushes things a day ahead of where you thought, and he was promoted by Urbandead about 2 hours before Kevan was. He was demoted in May 2008 by Kevan, presumably because everyone else had forgotten about him and he didn't need his powers any longer. —Aichon— 06:07, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

You might find some discussion about katthe promotion in the talk:Main Page history from the earlier days of the wiki... good luck on the dig hunt :) --hagnat 01:10, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Also, since I'm guessing Gnome is lurking, thanks for pointing out the error. After staring at numbers for so long, they all kinda run together sometimes. —Aichon— 06:08, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

IRC

I saw your edit summary. I actually don't know how IRC works - whenever I try to go to the website everyone mentions (irc.nexuswar.com) I only see a black screen with a jagged green circle on it. Can you explain it to me? Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 15:19, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Sure. To start from the very beginning, you need an IRC client if you want to connect to an IRC server. There's a browser-based client called Mibbit that's rather popular around here. If you want a native client for Mac or Windows, I can strongly recommend Colloquy for Mac, and I can halfheartedly recommend IceChat for Windows.

Once you're logged onto the server, you'll need to join a channel (i.e. basically a chat room) on that server by either typing in "/join #channelname" or using your client to join it some other way. Wiki stuff is in the #udwiki channel these days (though historically #urbandeadwiki was the "official" channel for awhile), and you should be able to find channels for pretty much any major group in the game (e.g. #soc, #mob, #rrf, #philosophe, etc., though #philosophe is password protected).

When you're in a channel, you should be able to see everyone else who has also joined that channel and is currently in it. Unfortunately, at least with UD, it's likely that many of them will not be at their computers at that time, since most of us leave our clients logged in 24/7, even when we're away. As a result, the channels aren't exactly hotbeds of conversation where people are talking all the time. Instead, people tend to just sit in there until a conversation starts, at which point they'll join in.

If you need to talk to someone, you can either PM them via IRC (usually just click, double-click, or right-click on their name, depending on your client) to engage in a one-on-one discussion with them, or you can simply say their name in a channel they're in. Saying someone's screenname will "ping" that person, generally by either flashing the window or making a sound on their end. As such, it's common courtesy to only ping them once then to stay online for a few hours to give them a chance to respond. Leaving a small message so that they know what it's related to is also a nice thing to do.

Now, with all of that out of the way, if you want to keep things super simple, the easy way to get you started is to have you simply follow this link to Mibbit, choose a username, and log in (that link will automatically log you onto the nexuswar server in the #udwiki channel). BAM! Done. —Aichon— 16:14, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm on IRC via Mibbit, but I'm not sure how to change my profile info? You can answer here or there if you're on. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 17:22, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I tend to be on in the evening to late evening for U.S. Central, unless someone says something here that prompts me to get on during the workday (or if there's some drama exploding, in which case I'll hop on to get real-time updates and coordinate with others to handle it). As for profile info, if you're using Mibbit, I'm not sure that you can change it, but it shouldn't be important anyway, so long as folks know who you are based on your screen name. Most of the regulars on there also register their screen names so that they're locked to them, though I don't remember the syntax of the commands for doing so off the top of my head (I believe the relevant commands are "register" and "identify" when you're talking with the Nickserv user, though you can PM Nickserv and type "help" to get more info on the commands). —Aichon— 17:27, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Ok cool. I will try to be online for as much of today/this evening as I can. Thanks! Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 17:45, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Regarding 'crats and nominations

So, folks on IRC mentioned that it looks bad for a 'crat to nominate someone, and it's something I've been mulling over for a few hours now (after being a teaching assistant for three semesters on a senior-level engineering ethics class that had 650+ students a semester, these sorts of questions get stuck in my head). And because it's a topic that's worth discussing with others and is relevant to stuff happening here, I'd like to go through my after-the-fact thoughts and see if anyone has something to add.

To start with the necessary context, the choice I'm questioning was whether or not I should have posted the nomination for Bob. Clearly, I chose to do so, and I think the main complaints against what I did are as follows:

1. It's a conflict of interest for me to process a nomination that I created.
2. It's bad for appearances if I undermine my facade of impartiality by stating my opinion.

I think we can all understand those easily enough, and I also think we can likely agree that they're true. Yes, it is a conflict of interest, and yes, I did destroy any chance I had at appearing impartial in this matter. From there, the main questions I see are "what's expected of me?", "will I be able to fulfill it?", and "assuming my choice was morally right, was it the best choice?". Put differently, "did I act ethically?" and "did I make the best choice?"

As a 'crat, I have a responsibility to rule fairly on each nomination, but clearly no 'crat is entirely devoid of thought or opinion (despite signs to the contrary :P), and the community is aware of this fact. What we, the community, do is choose the people who we think are most capable of putting aside their personal opinions and judging fairly when the time comes. As such, the measure of impartiality is not that I am devoid of opinion, but rather that I am capable of separating myself from my opinions to the degree expected of me when the time comes. The danger that conflicts of interest pose is that they can make it more difficult to find that separation.

Related to that, one of the first things they'll teach you in any ethics class is that conflicts of interest, in and of themselves, are not unethical. What makes them a problem is a failure to disclose them to the people in charge, particularly when you stand to gain something. But when we look at this case, we can see that I stand to gain absolutely nothing from having posted the nomination myself. As such, I'm under no pressure to judge any differently than I would have if someone else had posted the nomination, nor should it make it any more difficult for me to separate myself from my personal opinions later, which was the concern voiced in the last paragraph.

That said, we still have the issue of disclosing my conflict of interest to a person in charge. The reason that's important is because other people may perceive deceit or wrongdoing where none exists if full disclosure does not take place, and so a person in charge needs to have a chance to relieve you of duty in cases where the conflict is problematic. While I effectively engaged in full disclosure when I signed the nomination, we don't have anyone in a position of authority over the 'crats, other than the community itself (which is incapable of taking immediate and effective action), which means that it can still taste a bit like something is wrong. Even so, the fact that my judgment is not being impacted renders that point mostly moot, though clearly it would be better if there were someone higher up who could choose to either relieve me of duty or leave me on as a result of my having posted the nomination.

In some ways, it's ironic that while both being open or remaining silent will not impact a 'crat's judgment, being open about their opinions would create an appearance of wrongdoing, where remaining silent on the matter would not.

Anyway, in this case, I think it's safe to say that my judgment will not be impacted by my having posted the nomination, nor will have I have any problems meeting the expectations that have been set before me as a result of posting it. As such, I think we can say that it was an ethically permissible choice that I made. Of course, that doesn't mean it was the best choice, which was the last of those questions above.

But that's a whole other essay (no, really, it is...I had some of it typed up, but this was already ridiculous enough). —Aichon— 05:53, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

If a crat nominates someone, it's down to the other crat to make the call. Simple, tidy and not-a-brick-of-words. 05:56, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Not a good idea. Sysop nominations work with vetoes. By removing me, you're eliminating one of the vetoes, which throws things pretty far in Bob's favor. That's definitely not a fair way to handle things. —Aichon— 07:38, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

The way I see it, if one crat nominates someone they're throwing the ball to the other crat to say "I'm in favour, either veto this or don't", which is basically how it works already, only this way the intention of one crat is known that little bit sooner. It's really not a new issue that needs explaining. 21:25, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with that, though the question is whether or not the public nature of throwing the ball to the other 'crat changes things at all. It's an appearances issue, basically. —Aichon— 21:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Which is why the wiki needed 3 crats, to break ties and avoid conflicts of interest with one member. But it doesn't really matter now since only 20 people care about the wiki and half of them are running it.--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 08:57, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

If anything, a third 'crat would make things worse without solving a single problem you've cited. Again, 'crats function with vetoes, not votes, so as long as a single 'crat objects, the promotion doesn't take place. As such, there's no such thing as a tie, and if one 'crat has a conflict of interest that causes him to favor a candidate, the other 'crat is still just as capable as ever of vetoing the promotion. Similarly, if a 'crat has a grudge against a candidate, adding a third 'crat won't help avoid that problem in the slightest. All that adding a third 'crat does is add more delay since more people would need to be consulted. —Aichon— 15:27, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I think if a third 'crat were added, it would have to go with a provision that two 'crats can overrule the third, moving it from a veto to a vote system. (I personally don't support that, as I think the sysop team as a whole is the one which should be concerned with voting situations.) Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 15:39, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Dude, you're never going to veto somebody you nominated anyway, so it's completely irrelevant. All you nominating somebody does is say that you're content that they're a good enough candidate and aren't going to veto them. If you change your mind in the process of the bid then the fact that you originally nominated them is completely irrelevant. If you were never going to change your mind anyway then it doesn't matter because you wouldn't have vetoed anyway. This is in no way a big deal and crats should feel free to do whatever they want.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 20:43, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm with you on the irrelevancy topic, which was more or less what I concluded in the wall of text above. The followup topic is whether or not nominating is the best choice to take. I.e. Is the fact that it's known by many to be irrelevant sufficient to outweigh the concerns that the 'crat will appear more partial by having stated their opinion so publicly? —Aichon— 21:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm still processing most of that, but I think I'm of the belief that full disclosure occurred when you posted the nomination, because that indicated that you had a biased stance. To take a counterpoint example, in Peralta's bid last year, you revealed after the bid had been withdrawn that you were in favor of Peralta's elevation to sysophood (in the post "The Good, The Bad, The Ugly"). While I don't doubt that your personal opinion in that case had no bearing on how you would have processed it had the nomination not been withdrawn, I think it could be argued that by not revealing your personal preference you were not giving the community full disclosure. So I guess I'm saying that I think you did the right thing in nominating me, because if you hadn't, your strong bias would have gone undiscovered until the end (or not at all). I don't know; it's really late at night.

That aside, I do think I would prefer if SZ processed the bid, to avoid a kerfuffle among the community. I would still expect you to add your input, as I think you can still make a good judgement call about which way the community is pointing, if not necessarily about how you yourself are pointing. I guess that's what I vote for when I vote for a bureaucrat; someone who can be a successful barometer of the community, while minimizing the influences of his own biases. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 06:58, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, disclosure was unnecessary there since there was no reason for there to be a perception of wrongdoing on my part (i.e. no conflicts of interest). Unless you want to make an argument that transparency is always necessary, disclosure for its own sake is not always desirable. Besides which, even if you do think that disclosure is good for its own sake, I could have done it in a different way that didn't lead to a conflict of interest, such as by letting someone else nominate you and then merely vouch for you afterwards. That would have meant no conflict of interest while still having full disclosure. Would that have been a better way to handle things? I think so, though I don't (yet) regret having done what I did. —Aichon— 07:38, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Mayhaps. I am the kind of person who thinks transparency is pretty much always necessary. That's because I think that everyone is always biased, and it's better if everyone knows everyone's biases to the best extent possible, unless there's a specific reason to conceal them. Maybe creating an atmosphere of impartiality around the bureaucrats is worth that, I don't know. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 07:43, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

And that's exactly the question I was getting at. I don't share your belief that transparency is always necessary, particularly when it comes to personal opinions, but I am a regular user who wants to be able to express his opinions freely. It may be selfish of me to seek to do so if it comes at the cost of maintaining the appropriate atmosphere around the 'crats, but that's precisely what I wanted to explore as a topic. —Aichon— 15:27, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

And second to my first comment, you get more transparency when crats can propose them, because either: (1) The crat is willing to change their mind based on community opinion in which case it doesn't matter because they'll go against their initial support if the candidate is bad or (2) The crat isn't. If this is the case then it's much better to know that (i.e. you get more transparency) than if somebody else nominates the candidate, the crat is secretly biased, was always going to support them and you just never find that out. More transparency if crats can do more. Simples.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 20:45, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Quite true. I suppose that begs the question of whether or not the transparency is worth sacrificing the appearance of impartiality. —Aichon— 21:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

shut the fuck up it's fine. only morons and trolls would question your intentions.--User:Sexualharrison21:13, 19 March 2013

lol, this wasn't a defense. This was me thinking through the moral ramifications of my choice and then suggesting that it may not have been the best choice to make. —Aichon— 21:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Right. To throw in my thoughts, I generally agree with Aichon, but on a personal level I never would nominate as a sitting crat. I'd go to their talk page and discuss the idea and try and steer opinion, but I prefer self nomination. That's why I love Thad. --Rosslessness 21:22, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

You're the only one I know who prefers self-nomination. Everyone else either doesn't care or prefers that others nominate. And I definitely can respect choosing to not nominate as a personal choice. —Aichon— 21:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

For me it shows two things; firstly that you're thick skinned enough to put yourself to public vote, and secondly that you've got a real desire to do the job. Also, without self nomination we would never have had xela's bid. It's my favourite by miles. --Rosslessness 21:39, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, regarding Bob, you'll be happy to know that he planned to self-nominate, and only didn't because I asked if I could do it instead. :P —Aichon— 21:55, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

As a quick note to everyone, this was simply a thought experiment that I thought was worth some discussion. I'm not trying to offer a defense for what I did, nor am I attempting to justify it. I'm simply attempting to work through what it means, and have invited all of you along for roller coaster in my brain. :P —Aichon— 21:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)