Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Requests for adminship/JonTheMon/Archive 1

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In terms of retaining sysop, this is a pretty obvious one. Unless Jon suffers a sudden psychotic break in the next few days, he's retaining sysop. The question of promotion to bcrat or not is a bit trickier. There's some support for it, but not exactly overwhelming support. Personally, my general feeling is that Jon would perform perfectly well in a bcrat role, and I definitely don't agree that Jon's "politics" (so to speak) on the roles of adminship are relevant; I've no doubt he'll abide by consensus expectations of him as an admin even if it differs from his own. That said, what Pling points out does give me pause.

For those not familiar: Jon was one of the three bcrats on GW1W who, against their own better judgment, promoted someone to admin based on a lukewarm RFA. Putting aside my personal appraisal of how that sysop turned out, that's something that should just not happen. There are times when you do have to set aside personal judgment in the face of clear and informed community consensus, but you can't just wipe your hands of it, say it's not your call, and go whatever way the wind blows. It is your call; that's why we get paid the big bucks (figuratively. We don't actually get paid).

Like Pling, I don't know how much of that situation was Jon, how much was the other two bcrats, how much was the general GW1W policy culture, how much was reading into the RfA far differently than I did... I don't know. But that example does give me pause on what I would otherwise consider a strong bcrat candidate. - Tanetris 04:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

That's definitely a fair case to bring up regarding a bcrat role. The general thought among the bcrats was that the RFA had a relatively strong support (it certainly didn't feel lukewarm), and that the community consensus was for it. We had some misgivings about the candidate, but none of them were deal breakers and we didn't want to seem like we were trampling consensus that much. I suppose the underlying thought was "the community wants this, it's not going to be bad for the wiki, and another sysop would be useful." If you were to distill it down, I suppose I'm of the opinion that sysops are not the biggest of deals, so sometimes the community can pick someone that's slightly risky, and it'll end up fine. --JonTheMon 05:20, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Which RfA was this? Auron told me. It's a mark of just how lukewarm that support was that my comment was just "Most of the sysops are dead." 07:53, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

So why are you talking about this particular case of RFA as if it was a big secret? I thought these processes should be as transparent as possible, especially considering we're talking about RFA which occured in another wiki community that some of GW2W users have never been part of. Mediggo 08:46, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Ah, sorry. [1] 08:54, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

No need to apologize. Tbh I think anyone who was was genuinely interested would just use Google and search through resolved RFAs on GW1W, and those who weren't interested would probably have little say in the matter anyways. Regardless, thank you for posting the link. Mediggo 09:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

The relevant RfA was linked in my comment too. pling 09:55, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I can see that now. Didn't really know/remember that was related to Jon at all until reading both of your posts on the two pages and getting familiar with the whole issue again, but it's definitely more clear now. Mediggo 10:37, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Two notes on the bureaucrat issue;

1. Clean slate stance. If blocks are omitted and users are given a second chance, then so should admins. What happened on a different wiki should not be held against Jon's potential here. I'll leave interpretation of this note to where it belongs.
2. It may be better to queue Jon for bureacrat elections/requests/whatever we'll do for those (I am against elections, hideous system) to at least start thinking about how we will appoint new bureaucrats. We'll have a user to test our findings.

Other than that, I feel we can close this with the result of Jon successfully retaining his sysop position. - Infinite - talk 11:54, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm probably missing something here but hasn't Farlo turn out to be a decent sysop if not overtly political and had some growing pains in the beginning? Yeah that rfa was kinda lukewarm support but there was also decent support for it as well. Jon is right, sysops and bcrats aren't that big of a deal on a wiki, and if that candidate has already shown exceptional behavior, what's the harm in promoting Jon to the bcrat seat?

There were plenty of rfas that have failed with Farlo's level of support but have succeeded in subsequent rfas. I really don't see the controversy there. If Farlo turned out to be like Raine or Wyn, then I'd understand but I don't get why farlo's rfa keeps on coming up as if it is a black mark when he hasn't turned into troll and/or an overtly agressive admin? --Lania 17:11, 03 May 2012 (UTC)

For clarification, how general are we talking about? I'm still a little unsure about your specific involvement in that RfA. Poke says you guys waited for input "as we thought that there would be a few more votes coming to clear off the very neutral feeling", but you said the impression was that there was relatively strong support (or at least a consensus solid enough to change the status quo). pling 01:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

The three of us had consulted together and ended up at that course of action. I may have been a bit more positive about the feeling than the others, but the end was agreed upon. --JonTheMon 01:42, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

The reason I think that RfA is significant enough to discuss here is that it demonstrates an important aspect of the bureaucrat role - gauging consensus, which involves weighing the merits of each argument. I'd be pushing it to say that that RfA is even in mild support; most of the supports talk about projects (which though useful to the wiki isn't a criterion for sysophood) and vandal bots (which is something most people could deal with but isn't sufficient on its own to sysop someone). Tanetris said that you'd act according to what consensus expects, but I'm unsure whether such a consensus would be determined accurately because of this example.

So we have to weigh this against the arguments in favour of your bureaucratship. The main things appear to be your involvement with the community, which is clearly something this wiki benefits from, and to extend the trust you hold as an editor and sysop to bureaucracy. But the concerns raised are based on actions you made as a bureaucrat doing bureaucratty things, which is something more tangible to base a judgement on. It's a case of something that's already happened vs. thoughts about how you would potentially fulfil the role.

There's a shade of grey in what the outcome of this RfA is, but I think it's leaning more towards the side of not passing the bureaucrat part. I'm not sure whether Tanetris has finished thinking about it, so we'll see what to make of it when he comments. pling 21:22, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I suppose I agree with Pling: What I gather from this is that this is more a question of Jon's own judgment. Putting 'politics' and 'personal discretion vs. consensus' aside, the underpinning flag being raised is that a 'consensus' was read wrong, and that's what might need to be addressed. Redshift 23:54, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Let me be clear on one point a few people have mentioned: How Farlo turned out as an admin is irrelevant to me in looking at Jon here and now. It's nothing to do with whether Jon did or didn't make the right call (not only is hindsight 20/20, but as Inf says, it's another wiki); it's how Jon (among the other bcrats at the time) made that call. A bcrat who follows strict by-the-numbers tallying, either ignoring or misinterpreting the strength of the arguments, and ignoring his own judgment of the candidate, is basically useless. Now, that's rather hyperbolic to apply to Jon over one questionable call, but when that questionable call is the only real "bureaucratly" thing we have in evidence, I hope it's understandable why this is worth pausing to consider.

Regarding Infinite's point #2 up there, my personal opinion is that bcrat "elections" can just be lumped into standard RFAs (adminship, after all, covers both sysops and bcrats), so in that sense, this is a test case for it. On the flip side, if we do want to try out other methods, that would be a good opportunity for Jon to try again.

After some careful consideration, like Pling, I think this is a no-pass on the bcrat part for now (and by "I think", I mean I'm resolving it that way as soon as I'm finished writing this). Which brings me to the question of what I'd like to see from Jon between now and a future request for bcratship... And that's a pretty tough question. Jon already looks good in theory, with the issue being in practice... Can't exactly say go decide some tricky RFAs and then come back. But we do have more reconfirmations coming down the line here, so perhaps we can see what input he has to offer on those.

To close on a brighter note, I would like to say that Jon has always been a fantastic sysop and one of the most dedicated, and I'm happy to pass his sysop reconfirmation with flying colors. - Tanetris 20:49, 5 May 2012 (UTC)