Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Requests for adminship/Poke

Poke (for bureaucrat role)

Poke (talk • contribs • logs • block log)

Started 20:27, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Status

Successful; promoted to bureaucrat 07:22, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Candidate statement

Hiya,

recently I have been thinking about this quite a lot. And with Tanetris now explicitely asking, I’m going to give it a try. I’m hereby requesting for my sysop role to be extended to the bureaucrat role.

With the recent parting of Pling as our second bureaucrat, and the final parting of Infinite as sysop, our admin list is down to five sysops and one bureaucrat. While me moving from sysop to bcrat would obviously not change the total number, I sincerely believe that a wiki of our size should not have only a single bureaucrat. Furthermore I hope that starting one RfA will further remind people that there is such a thing so maybe we will see some more RfAs soon to make that list a bit longer.

I have been a grandfathered bureaucrat on this wiki before and the community decided that I should only retain my sysop status. So, what has changed since then?

First of all, I’m back for good. In my previous candidate statement I had to admit that I wasn’t really around much, but also promised that I would become more active again. Well, promise fulfilled. While I’m not as crazy active as I was in the early GWW days (nobody wants that ;P), I am at an activity level that I’m personally quite happy with.

The other thing I believe that has changed is that the bureaucrat role has stabilized. Originally on GWW it was the only role that could apply discretion and also prevented bureaucrats from doing a “normal” sysop job; and even later when that was changed to be more flexible, people still had difficulties with this. The base idea was somewhat taken over to this wiki although the community decided rather early that this is not how we should proceed. So instead, the practices and processes state that “bureaucrats are sysops with additional tools”. Not really more. Of course the bureaucrat role still means a bit more in administrative discussions or might stick out a bit more, but in the end, there is not much difference. And I think the community has “accepted” (for the lack of a better word) this by now. I don’t remember a single situation where Tanetris or Pling had to act as a bureaucrat since becoming one—if anything they were acting as an administrator, just like all sysops do too. There is no arbitration committee; administrative discretion is not limited to bureaucrats; and bureaucrats are allowed and expected to perform “normal” sysop duties as well. As such there simple is not much of a difference between sysops and bureaucrats; bureaucrats are just “sysops with additional tools”. So by making a sysop a bureaucrat, you will now certainly not lose that person as a sysop.

The most difficult thing that results from those additional tools are RfAs, like this one now. But RfAs are ultimately decided by the community with a discussion about the capabilities of the user, and all the bureaucrats are supposed to do is to paint the general picture of every voice and see if the community as a whole is supporting the user or not. Yes, there are sometimes difficult situations, but it’s never a single bureaucrat deciding it alone (at least there should not be a single bureaucrat). And ultimately no decision is ever permanent. If the community has problems with a certain administrator, it can speak up and start a discussion to change this. This is how it works for content, and also for the administrators.

I have been with the GWW and GW2W community since the very early beginning, have been part of the admin team for nearly all this time. I have seen the community change multiple times in different ways, and I am ready to be here to help this awesome community evolve even further. The Guild Wars 2 community is a great community, and the GW2W community definitely combines some of the best parts of it. As such I am very happy to be a part of it. And that’s regardless of if I do that as a sysop or as a bureaucrat. If this RfA fails, I will just continue being a sysop, and try to further learn from it. If it succeeds, I’ll join Tanetris to keep this community stable for whatever lies ahead.

poke | talk

Discussion

• Explanation of why the candidate should or should not retain rights/be given additional rights.
• I could write a long-winded article in support of Poke, but I don't need to. He intervenes when he has to, with thoughtfulness, tact and with lack lack of favoritism. He does not seem to stir up controversy and his judgements seems good. I would feel happy with him as a bureaucrat. --Claret (talk) 09:20, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
• Didn't contribute to GWW and I could care less about past discussion. My impression has been he is one of the glorious leaders of the wiki who doesn't involve himself too much in discussion or editing; similar to Auron, someone I am more familiar with. My impression for rfas on guildwarswiki was that it is serious stuff that required structured responses and political speak. So there's that feeling all the contributors from the first wiki will support him for this already and discussion involves fancy words and mandatory examples. He's taken responsibility for the wiki post on Reddit, stuff about Twitter, organized code on the APIs, bothered to poke me about being mean and being too nice about it, been involved with the major issues on the wiki, on the IRC, and so on. He also receives friendly responses from anons on the wiki and reddit, which more of a task then most people are up to. Maybe I'm not clear on what is considered bureaucrat material, but I'd say he's acting as a wiki bureaucrat already. If you asked me if Tanetris should be or remain bureaucrat, I would have no idea what to tell you.--Relyk ~ talk < 10:13, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
• Poke would serve the wiki well as a bureaucrat. His technical expertise and history of high quality contributions will be invaluable tools going forward. His usually sunny personality and vast knowledge of wiki practices make him a great candidate to help represent the wiki project. -Auron 12:22, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
• I'll keep this short. I believe that the wiki would benefit from having more than one bureaucrat. Poke is probably the best candidate to fill the massive void left by Pling. I share Relyk's sentiment about glorious leaders who don't edit but I believe that Poke has finally become an active and high quality editor. I agree with much of what Relyk has said. Poke's promotion to bureaucrat has my full support. Aqua (talk) 02:32, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
• I've known and worked with Poke for some time now, both on the wiki and on other projects. He is knowledgeable and congenial; there's really no way anyone can speak poorly of his character or his skills. Though our positions on user mediation and administration don't always mesh perfectly, I have full confidence in Poke's capability to be an effective bureaucrat. He also looks like Spiderman. 15:29, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
• Poke is evidently a very experienced wiki editor, and partially as a result, a trusted user. It has been said that becoming an admin is like giving a user a toolbox from the infinite toolbox store... being a bureaucrat is just a guy with a super toolbox that we occasionally give to well trusted users. I don't see why poke shouldn't be a decent bcrat again, especially if someone needs to promote users into the new api space etc ;) -Chieftain Alex 22:59, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
• I'm not sure if IP's are allowed to vote, but if not, I hope my opinion helps others. I know Poke as a very experienced wiki-er who has many experience on many fronts. For this role there are three things I check for myself. The first is technical knowledge. I have seen more then enough to know you know what you are doing before pressing a button or flipping a switch. The second thing is being impartial. So far in the moments I have seen you, you have been fair. We never have been in a situation where we differ greatly on opinion so its hard to give that a test, it is however a virtue to be able to stay out of conflicts. so +2 so far. The third thing is being a good model to the community. someone to look up to and beyond any doubt the person to be trusted with power. You have shown you can take that burden as well. So you are positive on all my points and so you got my vote.195.240.63.18 20:43, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
• Poke is by far probably the best candidate for the bureaucrat role. He has proven in the past that he has been able to handle this sort of task, and his knowledge and expertise are a valuable asset to the team. -- Lacky 03:14, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
• I Can not think of a better person to give this to at this time. (it would be nice if we got some fresh blood ie newer users to try and spark a new Community interest)- Zesbeer 00:56, 1 August 2013 (UTC)