Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Requests for adminship/Greener

Greener (for the role of bureaucrat)

Greener (talk • contribs • logs • block log)

Started 08:27, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Status

Successful; promoted to bureaucrat 20:55, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Candidate statement

Hi folks. Many of you will know me from this wiki, some will know me from the forums, and a few of you may know me from in-game. If you’re reading this, you already have my thanks for taking an interest in the wiki and one of the ways in which it functions.

To give a brief personal history, I began contributing to the Guild Wars 1 Wiki in early 2010, and became a sysop there a year later. After taking a personal break, I continued on as a sysop for the GW1W and have been helping out on this wiki since 2014. Over the years, I’ve worked to promote the wiki and to encourage its contributors to keep doing all of the great work that they do. I've done my best to help out in various areas, though my coding skills have held me back.

So what should you expect from me as a bureaucrat? More of the same, but with some caveats. Many of you may be aware of my recent activism, be it on the talk page of another RfA or while trying to encourage the wiki to address its need for more admins. I want to be very clear: I pushed the envelope in both cases with full knowledge of what I was doing; I used the platform of Doodleplex’s RfA as a means of sending out what I believed was an important message; and I was able to do this because I had and still have the utmost trust and respect for our current admin team. Only with my faith in them and their judgment was I willing to raise such noise, as my worst fear was going too far.

I believe it is the role of the bureaucrats to keep this boat stable, not to rock it, and I intend to stand by those words if this community allows me to take on the role.

I’m bringing this up now because I cannot think of more excuses not to. I had intended to put this off until the community was able to cultivate more sysops to help out, but I’ve learned that some may be waiting for me to take on that role first. I’ve been a sysop before; this wiki needs new blood, and if me stepping out of the way encourages others to step forward then I’ll happily do so. I have no illusions about the tough decisions bureaucrats have to make, and how unpopular the results may be. Tanetris and Poke have watched over this wiki for many years, and I am offering to share the load.

Please leave questions, comments, or concerns that you may have on the talk page. Your thoughts and opinions matter to me, and I would love to respond to any that you have.

Thank you,

- Kevin

Discussion

• Explanation of why the candidate should or should not retain rights/be given additional rights.
• Greener is a terrible editor and should never get rights, in fact we should ban him. Seriously though, I have nothing against Greener being an admin. Back when I joined the wiki I already believed he was an admin through his behavior, and he has continued to display such behavior over time. I vote yes. -Darqam 13:36, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
• Voting yes — the candidate has my full support. The following will be formulated in a way that should be accessible and perchance of use to less involved editors and users.

Greener is already a well-respected, influential, and approachable colleague and an invaluable asset to the wiki. He would make a useful addition to the current admin team, not only because of the experience he already has thanks to his sysophood on the GWW, but because he is an outstanding, active, level-headed, and very accessible individual. In my eyes he already is a bureaucrat — just without the gimmicks.

He has proven time and again that he is capable of working with a variety of people — admins (he already is very much in touch with the current admin team, as an aside for the ones that are unfamiliar with the behind-the-scenes of the wiki), regulars, new and sporadically-editing editors, and non-editing users; capable of working towards a goal together with others; and capable to work for the good of the wiki. If not the most invested person on this wiki concerning maintaining its well-being and wishing for its growth, he is a leading figure in this group of people.

I have yet to see a case where his conduct was inappropriate and to be frank; I find myself wondering whether he is capable of acting out of line and if anger is an emotion he possesses. Further, he has that air of authority I believe an admin should have — and the effect of this is enhanced by his charismatic demeanour.

People listen to him.

Not only because he has the authority, no, because he has something to say. He does so in a reasonable, polite, eloquent way, his rhetoric being on point. He doesn't talk people into submission, but considers and respects their opinions and positions. Greener invites others to re-evaluate points that might be controversial and generally encourages further thoughts (i.e. the questions he posed during Doodleplex's RFAs; link in the candidate statement). In addition, his stance is usually very neutral. He demonstrates his prowess and worthiness by trying to understand the wiki and its contributors, by approaching and solving conflicts (i.e. 1), and by tirelessly helping and encouraging as well as thanking others (seriously, there's too much to list; just check out his recent contributions).

Greener will grant the bureaucrat team a fresh set of eyes — not only in terms of him being new to this specific role, but because his views and aspirations are innovative and he is not yet affected by the kind of "working blindness" one might be afflicted by after a prolonged time in a certain office and the possible numbness one might carry away from that. Not to question or belittle the work of our current bureaucrats, but Greener should, as he mentioned in his candidate statement, bring some relief, and maybe even lead us onto greener pastures. This is already a step into the hopefully right direction and I know there is more to come. Once again, a yes from me. talk 17:02, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

• A yes from me too. I'm still new to the wiki and its community, so there's a lot of aspects to this request that I feel I can't really judge; but I can speak from my perspective, which is that as a new and intimidated new contributor who didn't know anyone (and maybe anything) yet, Greener and Doodleplex were the two to make me feel most welcome. That comment might seem like a simple thing, but it really motivated me to keep going, and I believe that ability to make others feel good about their work and to extend a hand to new users would be an asset to the admin team. --Faelys 18:39, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
• Greener is an excellent user and always strives for the diplomatic approach to any conversation or decision. He is always level headed and seems to have an immense amount of patience. Greener is often the first to welcome new users - positive reinforcement is a very strong tool to retain users with. Additionally, he has previous experience of being an administrator (on GWW) and is highly trusted the by the longstanding adminstrator team. -Chieftain Alex 17:00, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
• I honestly have nothing but positive thoughts to say about Greener. The commitment and passion he has shown towards this wiki and its users is admirable, and he continues to be one of the most kind contributors I've had the pleasure of interacting with. A full-fledged yes. —Ventriloquist 17:54, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
• ... i dont care. be grateful there is someone thats willing to spend the time updatign the damn thing. also voting yes —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 73.72.28.17 (talk).
• Call me unobservant, but I thought he was an admin already. He just seems the sort (and I mean that in a good way). --Idris (talk) 05:07, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

• I, too, thought for some time that Greener was an Admin. He has always been kind, courteous, and helpful. He, and Alex, have been the ones to try to help me with my editing skills, lacking though they may be. Greener has my full endorsement; if this is a position he seeks, my vote is a resounding yes! Thank you for your time and gracious demeanor. Inculpatus cedo (talk) 05:55, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
• It's about darn time lol. I'm not one for long soliloquies, so basically I trust his judgement and it's yes from me. - Do_odleplex 06:35, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
• Yes. I remember this guy back from GW1 Wiki. Given he's still active, I think he deserves a shot. - J.P.Talk 21:46, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
• Neutral, considering the nature of the request. Given Greener's history as a sysop on the official Guild Wars Wiki, his level of activity here, and his general affability, I'm certain that we can trust him with an admin role. However, I personally don't find his reasons for requesting bureaucracy to be particularly compelling. Unlike sysops, who can act more or less independently, bureaucrats are expected (at least by me) to confer with each other before exercising their unique privileges, and so I think ultimately our existing bureaucrats' opinions need to carry more weight on this decision. Either way, Greener needs to be prepared to communicate more frequently with the admin team if this RfA succeeds. - Felix Omni 06:40, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
• I'm glad you raised your voice about RfAs, because that is an aspect of the wiki the community must re-engage. Even some of the comments here makes it clear that more work needs to be done to train and educate the community on what each position entails. Some of your message seems a bit incongruous, though; you think bcrats shouldn't rock the boat, but you rocked the boat with your RfA discussions. Then you also want to open the door for an unknown number of potential sysops that are... waiting for you to become bcrat before they run? Sounds like some boat-rocking is in store. Lastly, we've traditionally made bureaucrats sysops by default because they sometimes need the tools to investigate deleted pages or, in the days of arbcom, to lay down the hammer at the end of deliberation. It seems like you're trying to get one without the other, which is unusual to say the least. I'd be more comfortable if you served a while as sysop and contributed that way before taking on the responsibility of managing the sysop team. Right now I'm pretty neutral to your request for bcrat. -Auron 04:05, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

• Revised opinion based on Greener's (collective) posts and genuine attitude. He seems like he'd be a positive force for the wiki whichever way he chooses to serve it. -Auron 07:46, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

• Yes. Steve1 (talk) 20:02, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
• ...
• I support this. Since GWW I have found Greener to be one of the more conscious members of the GW wiki community, one of the few regulars who understands the importance of the irregular, casual editor contributions that should help form the foundation of such a large collaborative editing project. Too many other admins seem to be interested only in enforcing their own view of what the wiki should be rather than taking on a moderation role to keep all editors engaged. We need more admins who take an active interest in the operational health of the wiki if there is to be any chance of rectifying the way that the current/past admins and regulars have pushed the rest of the community away from editing. 76.253.2.43 20:20, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
• With a record like this, obvious support. --Dav 10:03, 25 June 2017 (UTC)