User:TheRealLurlock/RfA

This is an archive of past UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page, except for maintenance such as updating links.

Requests for Adminship

With Aristeo's announcement that he plans to focus his attention to a new website, I believe it is important for UESP to add at least one more active administrator.

For anyone wondering how the nomination process works, it's based upon Wikipedia. A candidate is nominated, accepts the nomination, and then answers questions asked by the community. Any editor with an account is invited to participate in the process, by asking the nominee questions, expressing an opinion, or placing a vote. After a week or so, Daveh makes the final decision based upon the community's consensus.

TheRealLurlock

Discussions a couple months ago suggested that having three active administrators would be best for the site. Even if one administrator is on travel or otherwise unavailable for a week or two, then there would still be two active administrators available to share the tasks. And a third administrator would be able to cast a tie-breaking vote if there was a situation where the other two admins had different opinions about an issue. Therefore, I'd like to make one more nomination for adminship (this nomination was delayed for a few weeks, instead of happening at the same time as Ratwar's, because of travel and schedules).

TheRealLurlock has been active on UESP since May 2006 (he actually first joined the site, as Lurlock, in September 2005). He is #1 on the list of active users, so his commitment to the site is incontestable. His contributions include creating a huge fraction of the Oblivion pages (including vast amounts of tedious data entry from the construction set) and the creation of countless maps. He already does many of the tasks expected of admins (patrolling recent edits, catching vandals, contributing to site decisions; he is the only non-admin to be a cartographer). We've worked together on several projects and, although we may have had different opinions at times, Lurlock has helped to find ways to resolve those differences. Above all, I know that Lurlock is dedicated to improving UESP and ensuring that UESP maintains high quality articles that provide the most accurate possible information. I think he is an obvious candidate for adminship.

Questions

Q1: What goals do you hope to accomplish as an administrator?

A: Well, mainly I don't see my role changing all that much. I would still continue to do what I do best, getting as much info onto the site in as concise and readable a format as possible. Adminship would mainly just be for the sake of having another dedicated editor around when there's a need for it. Since I'm on the site on such a regular basis, I usually am in the know about what's going on most of the time, so if something needs attention, I'm there to help with it, whether it be vandalism, or site maintenance such as deleting outdated pages and unused files, etc. As Aristeo once put it, it's just like being an editor with a few more buttons.

Q2: What do you foresee as being challenges or issues that UESP may face in the near future? Are there are any changes that you think need to be implemented?

A: I mainly agree with Ratwar, that an increase in traffic (both from the PS3 release as well as the upcoming Shivering Isles expansion) is likely to result in an increase in the need for administrative action. I think a more solid policy on dealing with vandalism needs to be drawn up. Most of the recent controversy on this site has been because nobody is really sure what actions to take when somebody is vandalizing the site. In short, I think a simple 3-step plan would make the most sense - 1st Offense: Warning, 2nd Offense: Temporary Block, 3rd Offense: Permanent Block, with an option to skip the Warning phase in the case of more severe attacks. Maybe a few steps in between 2 and 3, involving blocks of increasing duration for repeat offenders. This is of course all open for discussion, but the fact is it needs to be discussed and agreed upon, because right now all we have is a judgement call from the Admin that spots the problem, with no official policy to quote when people ask, which inevitably leads to disagreements between those involved, as people are always likely to have differing opinions, particularly when there is no fixed policy in place.

--TheRealLurlock ^Talk 11:01, 29 January 2007 (EST)

Q3: Whether we like it or not, administrators hold a serious authority here and we are, for the most part, autonomous when it comes to enforcing the rules on the site. This can be a good thing at times as it allows us to resolve issues quickly, but it can also be a bad thing when one of us feels strongly about an issue because the people who oppose us may feel slightly intimidated. (Especially newcomers.) When you strongly oppose something, how do you plan to express your feelings while remaining as open as possible? --Aristeo | Talk 21:10, 30 January 2007 (EST)

A: I have always had a way of looking at multiple sides of an argument, sometimes even advocating a position I disagree with just for the sake of discussion. I am not typically one-minded about anything, and always open to new ideas and respectful of other people's views. Certainly I have disagreed with people in the past and made my feelings known, but I have always made an attempt to do so in as diplomatic a manner as possible. The one point on which I may occasionally lapse on this is when dealing with serious vandals and trolls whose sole purpose is to cause harm to the community, but I'll cover that issue down on Q5.

Q4: Let's say that you created an excellent article on the site and no other user has made any additional revisions to your work. Obviously, you have legal ownership over your work, but do you feel that you should have more control over the article than other editors or do you feel that everyone's opinion should have equal weight, regardless? --Aristeo | Talk 21:10, 30 January 2007 (EST)

A: That's an interesting question, and I'm not sure why you asked, because I can't think of any instance where I've objected to another user's changes to pages I'd created, unless they were just plain incorrect or irrelevant, which I'd object to on any page, as I believe anyone would. I do have a standard of quality I like to keep to, and if I feel another editor's changes to "my" article do not meet that standard, I will certainly clean them up if I feel that the edit is valid. But that doesn't mean I feel that anyone else has more right than me to edit the article. (In fact, I'd welcome people to fill in some of the missing data on the articles I've started, as some of it is quite tedious to research, so I'll take whatever help I get.)

Q5: Do you feel that vandals should expect the same level of civility and etiquette that other users expect? What about other types of unpleasant users, such as trolls, newcomers, or misguided editors? --Aristeo | Talk 21:10, 30 January 2007 (EST)

A: This may be the one area where I think you and I disagree the most, so this will be the longest of these answers. I have had a great deal of experience on all manner of internet forums, and I don't believe I have ever once seen a "vandal" or "troll" change their ways and become a productive member of the community. I believe that people who come to this site do so for one of three reasons. Either to find the answers to their questions, which is probably the largest group, or to answer questions for other people, (even if they haven't been asked - that would include us editors), or else they come to cause trouble. They have a grudge against the game or against the site or against wikis in general, or they just have a mischievous streak, who knows. For the most part, these editors are relatively harmless. A warning, if necessary followed by a temporary block is usually sufficient to convince them to move on and go mess up somebody else's site or whatever. Occasionally, these people will persistently return to wreak more havoc on the site, regardless of how many times they are warned or blocked. I don't believe that we need to pander to people who have proven again and again that their sole purpose for visiting the site is to cause disruptions. Thus I have rather little tolerance for serious vandals, trolls, and spammers. Now keep in mind, I'm talking about repeat offenders - those who continue to cause damage even after being warned, and especially those who return after a temporary block to cause more damage. Also, I do NOT count newcomers or misguided editors in this group. Obviously, some people may take a little coaching to learn the proper way to edit or to behave on a wiki. Usually a mild suggestion that their edits are not up to the standard of the site, along with tips as to how to make them better, this is sufficient for such people. Rarely have I seen an editor who consistently posted bad edits even after being advised that their work was not up to quality. I'm more than willing to help newcomers with their problems and help them to become good and productive contributors to the site. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 21:44, 30 January 2007 (EST)

Q5-A: I agree with your position on what our threshold should be when blocks need to be considered, but you didn't answer my question. Should vandals be treated with civility and courtesy, or do vandals give up these rights once their intentions are clear? Also, should warning and block notices be constructed professionally? --Aristeo | Talk 22:23, 30 January 2007 (EST)

A: I think this comes down to what you consider to be civil. Certainly, I would not consider personal attacks or other harsh language to be acceptable in any case, but still, I think that the use of somewhat sterner language when dealing with such attacks is wholly justified. If it's a first warning for a single offense, you can just give a friendly warning. But if it's clearly an attack aimed at disrupting the site, I don't think there's any need to use soft words. If someone is clearly deliberately and repeatedly causing harm to the site, I think you need to let them know that we're serious. Otherwise, a block warning just looks like an empty threat. Also, certain actions are severe enough to warrant a strong response in any case. By this I mean personal attacks, deliberately impersonating another editor (particularly an Admin), posting spam links to unrelated sites (particularly sites with objectionable content), deliberate damage to a large volume of pages in a short time, etc. I don't think we need to mince words with these people - such actions will simply not be tolerated. Now thankfully, this sort of situation has been rare enough that it's not been a serious issue. As for having standard warning and block notices, I think it does lend an air of officialism to the warning. A personalized friendly warning may be fine for minor offenses, but for serious violations, a big ol' yellow exclamation point in a triangle or a hand on a stop sign with a nice colored background and a border sure helps make it clear we mean business, and I think that a troublemaker is more likely to respond to such a warning without forcing us to resort to blocking them. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 22:49, 30 January 2007 (EST)

Votes and Comments

Vote Support, Oppose, or Neutral; comments are also welcome.

• Support (as nominator) --Nephele 11:17, 29 January 2007 (EST)
• Oppose. Lurlock is undoubtedly a tremendous editor who had dedicated a lot of time to the content of this site, but I do not feel that Lurlock is best suited for the role of administrator. --Aristeo | Talk 01:44, 30 January 2007 (EST) Changed vote, see below --23:13, 30 January 2007 (EST)
  • Do you have any specific constructive criticism, that would allow for some type of response? Do you feel that there are any other candidates who are better qualified to be admins? Or do you no longer think that the site would benefit from having three active admins? --Nephele 02:22, 30 January 2007 (EST)
    • I have been talking with various people, including Lurlock himself, about the potential for Lurlock to become an administrator candidate on the site for several months. The majority of the people that I discussed this with have been in general agreement that Lurlock is a wonderful editor who engages others with common courtesy and has made huge improvements to the site since he first came here, but should not be an administrator. In fairness to Lurlock, I will ask him some questions that address some of the concerns some people have and then give a more tangible vote once the questions are answered. --Aristeo | Talk 08:52, 30 January 2007 (EST)
    • Addendum: Oops, I forgot to answer your last two questions! I do still think that we would benefit from having three active administrators, but I do not believe it is a crucial issue. As for a recommended candidate, I would like to nominate DrPhoton, but he's been doing such a good job at keeping a low profile on the site that I haven't had the privilege of getting to know him. --Aristeo | Talk 09:01, 30 January 2007 (EST)
• Support I think the amount of work Lurlock has done here speaks for itself, and in addition he comes across as friendly and easy going individual. In short ideal for adminship. Jadrax 04:22, 30 January 2007 (EST)
• Support – I guess I just needed some more information about what Lurlock's views are before I gave my support. Sometimes it's difficult to tell when Lurlock is advocating a view he disagrees with or not. I'm glad that I asked because now I know for sure. --Aristeo | Talk 23:13, 30 January 2007 (EST)
• Support --Wrye 00:36, 31 January 2007 (EST)
• Support – I believe he has done a great job for the Wiki so far and he knows the polices well enough to enforce them. BTW, thanks Aristeo for nominating me, although at the moment I don't think I have enough time to become an admin. We could discuss this in more detail on my talk page if you wish. --DrPhoton 03:33, 31 January 2007 (EST)
• Support I don't think there is an good reason why he shouldn't be one, and there's a lot of good reasons he should be one. --Ratwar 02:26, 8 February 2007 (EST)
• Support. He's very aware of what's happening around here, not just what he's doing. That's a needed skill for admins. Somercy 13:24, 15 February 2007 (EST)
• Support — I've known, though not too well, Lurlock since I've been on the site, and I know how he's greatly contributed to the site's content. He is active everywhere I can think of on UESP, and I believe he deserves the promotion. --Werdnanoslen^Talk 10:51, 17 February 2007 (EST)