Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Requests for adminship/Pling

Pling

Pling (talk • contribs • logs • block log)

Started 22:56, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Status

Succeeded, retains both sysop and bureaucrat roles. 06:18, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Candidate statement

I guess there are two main questions to answer in this RfA/reconfirmation: why should or shouldn't I be a sysop, and why should or shouldn't I also be a bureaucrat? pling 22:56, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

• Pling has been a trustworthy bureaucrat (despite the low density of bureaucrat actions that were taken over time to justify that claim) and with the lack of any proposed alternatives, as well as having 3 bureacrats at all times (unless we wish to break that trend), I feel it would be a good idea to have Pling remain where he is. I figured the first RfA would be a little bit awkward, because of our small state, but in this case I see no reason to remove Pling from the bureaucrats list. - Infinite - talk 19:50, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• Way back when over half a decade ago, I thought Pling was an odd choice for admin as I believed that his approach was a bit aggressive or too forward. At the time I thought that we had enough admins with that kind of personality, but certain things changed my mind quickly. What Pling brings to the table is his ability to tackle important wiki issues that needs to be addressed and push through a consensus based conclusion before things get out of hand. It might stir the pot a bit, and it might make things uncomfortable for some people but it's something that will be vitally important as the community grows, and as such Pling should keep his seat. --Lania 22:00, 02 April 2012 (UTC)

• Pling brings something unique to the table as a bureaucrat, which is his lack of fear of action. Pling has no fear of acting when action needs to be taken, but he also demonstrates that he knows when the time for action is. While going about his administrator duties, he still manages to be quite objective in his decisions and he has generally benefited the wiki. If we were to replace pling, we would need to find someone who also possessed his ability to act while remaining unbiased, but, honestly, I don't quite see the point of replacing pling with another pling. pling should retain his bureaucrat seat. Aqua (T|C) 22:56, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• Not holding any grudges here b/c I frankly can't remember any, I'm just wondering if Pling's approach is the kind of "face" we really want to present to new wiki-ians who weren't familiar with the GW1 community? ...Anet's basically come out and TOLD us, we need to start off a lot less aggressive than we all were when GW1 first came out if we expect to maintain the friendliest face to new members possible... That's going to take a LOT of patience on behalf of whoever takes these positions. --ilr 06:45, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

If you worry about Pling perhaps not being a good representative of the GW2W community (note how we are unlike the majority of the GWW community, and some of us were never part of it), then maybe it would be wiser to wonder if Pling should maybe only lose his sysop seat? A sysop would naturally be more involved with the community, and more often seen in action by the community, thus representing it more directly. A bureaucrat would more so act to keep the wiki itself safe and orderly, representing the admin team as a whole. Just because he may not be fit for one seat, doesn't mean he should lose both, right? Just some insight I wanted to share after reading your comment. - Infinite - talk 12:54, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

You can't have a non-sysop bureaucrat. 15:06, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Not even if the role of a bureaucrat gets redefined? - Infinite - talk 15:12, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

We'd have to alter the parameters of the bureaucrat usergroup itself, or make a new group. 17:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Infinite, your proposal leans towards how bureaucrats were defined on GWW, and no one wants to see that happen here. Pling and I briefly hit on this topic recently in this thread. Bureaucrats defined as sysops with additional duties should be fine as a generalized definition of the role. I have spent a good bit of time looking through Pling's contributions both here and on GWW, and I do not see very many outstanding examples of him being more aggressive than other sysops/bureaucrats. Perhaps other users can provide examples, as I may have missed something. A great sysop/bureaucrat is a person that can read a situation, know what is needed from him/her, and act accordingly. For example, knowing if patience is the best route for a discussion or giving a push to move it along. I think Pling does that decently. — Gares 17:40, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

There is a sometimes a fine line between aggressiveness and taking initiative and I think pling leans significantly to the latter. I can't (and haven't, upon my look through his contribs) find or think of any times when I recall pling being unduly aggressive, or, hell, even kind of aggressive. Also, I'm not entirely sure I agree that bureaucrats are the face of the wiki (i.e. I've noticed that lots of new users are more familiar with Infinite and myself than many of the admins, but that's simply because we edit a lot more.) On the subject of non-sysop bureaucrats, either you can be trusted with advanced tools or you cannot, there really isn't a middle ground that excludes sysop tools. Similarly, I see no point in rendering bureaucrats into uselessness by removing their tools or just by convention. The primary use of bureaucrats on GWW (other than to waste their time in elections) seems to be presiding over arbcomm (which is a can of worms that I would like to see remain unopened). They also do user-merges and promotions/demotions, but those are kind of inherent roles. Putting bureaucrats in a position where they can't do anything other than sit there and then occasionally edit seems like a waste of perfectly good admins. Aqua (T|C) 20:21, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

There were aggressive or even hostile sysops/admins in the past. Pling is nothing like that. I, like others here, don't think the admins/bcrats are inherently the face of any wikis. In my opinion the "face" of the wiki are the day to day editors that interact with each other all the time. For GW2W, yeah I tend to think that Aqua and Infinite are more like the face of the wiki than anything else. In past wikis the "face" or "faces" of the wiki tends to be a group of highly active editors that also have a very active role in the discussion of the content of the pages. GW2W will be just like that. If aqua or infinite become sysops in the future while maintaining their day to day editing and discussions, then yeah they could fit being the "faces?" of the wiki. Big wikis also tend to not have a single "face" as different groups of editors tend to edit different types of pages, and these different "sub-communities" act differently than each other and attract different types of personalities. I do think that GW2W will have a bigger community than GWW did at its height... --Lania 21:27, 03 April 2012 (UTC)

My personal apologies for the long-ish thread this set off. I've been discussing it on my own talk page (hint hint) instead to keep this area a bit tidier. --ilr 19:39, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

• Solid sysop, caught a lot of flak on GWW for trying to do something about trolls and ended up throwing in the towel - hopefully nothing that drastic happens here. Fairly opinionated, level head on shoulders (usually), etc. I support Pling retaining both sysop and bcrat seats. -Auron 03:51, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• What has Pling actually done as a sysop here? Blocked users? Scarcely. Deleted pages marked for deletions? Very rarely. Helped to solve conflicts? We have had very little of those, so that's not something we can judge his ability in. Has he done anything as a buraucrat here at all? I honestly don't remember anything. Pling has useful ideas for dealing with problems, such as seen in the Pruning discussion in the GW1W, but there are two important facts regarding that discussion: 1) He was not an admin (either a bureaucrat or a sysop) when he started that, and 2) That was in the GW1W, not here. I can't think of a single thing that Pling has done to significantly help this community that he could not have done without being a sysop or a bureaucrat. I also believe that, after being a contributor for so long on GW1W, he's going to take some time to understand how this community is not the same as the one seen in the wiki for the original Guild Wars. I would like to remove Pling's admin status for now, and leave people from here in his place. If, eventually, his actions here make the community here decide that he would be a good admin for this wiki, with actually some need of the admin tools, then I would be glad to have him back. Otherwise... Erasculio 20:10, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

  Just to note, probably the most relevant log to "bcrat'ing" is the user rights log. There's also the user merge log. Make of those what you will. - Tanetris 20:54, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

  Also, people usually don’t make a 180° turn just because they are on a different site. Usually the overall behaviour will be very similar, so I don’t get why looking at the behaviour on GWW wouldn’t be an option if the actions on this wiki are not enough for justifications. poke | talk 22:06, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

  Different sites, different communities. A behavior that may be great in one community may not be wanted in the other, and the other way around; also, someone who spends a lot of time in one wiki but not on the other could be a great admin for the first wiki... Not for the second. It's telling that you don't see the difference, poke. Erasculio 22:10, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

  That's why you look at the behaviour you find relevant to this wiki and disregard the irrelevant behaviour. You can't disregard it all completely - otherwise you lose potentially useful information.

  I honestly don't understand why you think I'm not active here or how I don't understand this is a separate community. I spend more time here than on GWW (and have done for some time) and I argued for starting reconfirmations because this is a separate community. The practices and processes system I encouraged also considered that, because it's tailored for a community and consensus that are always changing, and it's based on what this community considers consensus, not what GWW considers or considered. pling 22:31, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) Never said anything about how one behaviour affects one or another wiki in what way. All I said is that there should be no problem to judge the behaviour from other sites. The actual interpretion in how well that fits a wiki is up to you and everyone else. Also, you are apparently implying that Pling spends more time on GWW than here. What exactly makes you so, because it is absolutely not obvious from his contributions – so, you seem to know more about it? poke | talk 22:34, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

  You know, I've rotated myself a bit around various wikis, including wikipedia and I really don't see the vast differences in "community" between the major wikis. Yeah there are major differences in policies and procedures, but all have the same old type of trolling, user conflicts, and similar types of personalities always causing fights and drama. This idea that one very capable and level headed admin from one wiki will not only be ineffective but detrimental to another wiki just hasn't been demonstrated anywhere as far as I can tell. --Lania 22:42, 04 April 2012 (UTC)

  (EC) Pling, your list of contributions using the sysop tools shows how, as a sysop, you barely do anything at all here. The best example of how your behavior was great on GW1W was also made without the need of sysop tools. I also can't help but think you see this community from the point of view of the GW1W - that the Practices idea (which was great) was a way to deal with the amount of policy problems on that wiki, for example.

  I don't think you are detrimental to this community. I think, however, that there isn't anything you do to help it that needs admin tools. I also think that keeping you in a position of power could prevent this wiki from growing naturally and keep it locked under a GW1W point of view - either to repeat what has been done there or trying to fix the mistakes seen in there. I would rather watch and see what happens here, and then deal with that.

  Lania: take a look at the Pruning article I linked above. Erasculio 22:52, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

  Eras, will you be applying the same argument to all of the current bureaucrats? And if so, how will we choose new ones? 22:57, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

  The argument that everyone is inactive as a sysop? No, not to all current bureaucrats. I also think the first batch of bureaucrats to be chosen needs a different system than the one we will use through the next batches, but this isn't the place for that kind of discussion. Erasculio 23:08, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

  It's quite odd; you say admins are basically users with extra tools, yet you're also saying if they use them "rarely", they don't deserve the tools. Why? Are admin flags limited? Am I preventing anyone else from being sysopped, such that my removal is required for them to "take my place"? I don't use the move tool much - should I be stopped from using that too? I use the block tool now and again when I see something needs blocking and no one's gotten around to it yet, but I don't seem to match your preferred quota, so you wish to remove them from me. Why, if they are only extra tools?

  I don't think you're questioning my judgement, and I've already explained how you're wrong about me not understanding there's a GW2W community. It seems, then, that your argument hinges on me being less-than-what-you-would-call-active - an argument which happens to be contradictory to the very attributes you apply to the sysop role. pling 15:03, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

  I have never been fond of the "why not?" argument when deciding if someone should or not be made an admin. Your main argument is - it doesn't matter that you have barely used the tools that make you an admin, since you were not preventing others from using them and you didn't break the wiki. That is not good enough for me. As mentioned in the discussion that began the reconfirmations, there is a mentality that "'admins aren't needed so there's no need for elections' (paraphrased)", which is preventing users of this community from become sysops. Meanwhile, you and the other grandfathered admins were never chosen by this community to be sysops here - you were picked under the idea that GW1W and GuildWiki sysops were temporarily needed, until this community could stand on its own legs. Well, now it can. And taking a look at everything you have done for this community using the sysop tools, which means very little, I don't believe there is much of a point in allowing you to keep them.

  I would have prefered if the inactive sysops (including those who are active as users but inactive as admins) had gracefully let go of their positions. Using arguments such as "why not?" to keep positions you have never truly earned here, as this community has never chosen any of you, feels a lot like people in a position of power being simply unwilling to let go. Erasculio 15:40, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

  I don't like the why not argument either, I'm just playing devil's advocate to make sense of what you're trying to say...

  By the way, there wasn't a "mentality" of no-elections-needed - it was a minority opinion, and it didn't prevent RfAs because here we are having RfAs. As for not "gracefully letting go" and therefore being power-hungry, the RfAs are about asking the community to decide. pling 15:57, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

  I know. Which is why I'm voicing my opinion now, but if it simply isn't heard (and I honestly doubt it will be), I will just accept that the community disagrees with me and let this go. Erasculio 16:10, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

• Pling is a straightforward administrator, and however I do not always agree with his decisions I see him as a valuable sysop or bureaucrat. I think it is needed to have someone who takes action, and Pling is in my opinion the right person to do that. -- Cyan 20:22, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• People who "Do" are not as popular as people who "discuss" but the rate at which progress is measured is in results. While diplomacy rarely results in progress a lot of feelings get trampled on by doer's getting the job done with a minimum of wasted breath while trying to navigate over the diplomats sitting in the way. How to ballance "Community" with functionality is part and parcel of the task of those entrusted with the Wiki. We need both Do'ers and Diplomats otherwise progress will not be made it's the diplomats job to minimize the corpses that get under the do'ers feet, and the Do'ers job not to make the diplomats work overtime. I would say keep the do'er and recruit more diplomats. Rudhraighe 16:39, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

• I would feel very comfortable with Pling as an admin, given his positive involvement on the wiki thus far.-- shew|make 20:07, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
• Pling is also probably one of the other better sysops/bureaucrats. He can get the job done with impartiality, and I fully support his retention of both positions. -- Lacky 07:56, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
• I think Pling is a good balance to the current pool of candidates imho. That he has additional unique skills will make the work for the (suggested by me;) "5 admins" a little bit lighter & is very helpfull. --Silverleaf Don't assume, Know! 09:27, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
• I trust Pling in what he has done and still does, and almost sure he'll do so in the future. Ge4ce-Talk-Contribs 11:17, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
• Pling does have something different than many of the bcrats/sysops here. It is not bad, nor is it good. It is neutral. He can be more opinionated, and sometimes have a higher drive to get something done. But even through this, he has never shown abuse in using the added tools and power that he posseses. Before doing something questionable, he will invite and appreciate the comments and opinions on the matter at hand. Just to restate, at times I feel he can be biased, he approachese the issues with logic and fair judgment, and never with a power-hungry, abusive fury. He is quite active with this community and has a good grasp on how to maintain its environment. I say keep the bcrat (and thus automagically sysop). Venom20 13:33, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
• I do not have enough knowledge of Pling to be confident in providing support for a bureaucrat's seat, and what knowledge I am gaining from this discussion makes me wary. However, from what I have seen of Pling in functional presence and maintenance, I would be comfortable with a continued sysopship as possible. Redshift 11:11, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

• Could you elaborate on exactly what is making you wary? 12:36, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

• There's a lot of talk in this RfA about whether pling is aggressive or not, taken individually or comparatively, and that aside, there's an attribution of initiative to pling's character presented as for the greater good of the wiki. As I have not known or seen enough of pling outside of the discussions here to interpret this and maybe temper it with my own evidence, I can only consider it as is. Redshift 11:41, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

• I've seen nothing but good from Pling over my time on this site. I see no reason why he should not keep his seat as a bcrat. He's interested in Guild Wars 2, this wiki, friendly with Arenanet and a general nice guy - I only hope he keeps this seat so he can continue to contribute positivity to this wiki and make it even better than it already is. --Naut 11:16, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
• Please leave an elaborate comment about why, or why not, the candidate should retain his seat. Discussions are desired!
• …