Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Requests for adminship/Tanetris

Regarding Edits

Not sure that mainspace edits are necessarily the measuring bar for a bcrat, but for the record, Special:Contributions/76.117.44.127 is me. Sometimes I edit in my other browser that isn't logged in. Anyway, I'll put up a proper Candidate Response probably later tonight. - Tanetris (talk) 19:10, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Also for the record, it wasn't specifically about the mainspace edits, I just used that in mirror to F. Prince's statements on the other two new RfAs. The primary reason I opened this RfA is because by what I've been told and what I've seen, your contributions are primarily backstage discussions with other admins, and that there's little to no interaction between you and the wiki community outside of such. And, personal opinion, someone who deals almost exclusively in backstage discussions isn't someone I trust having the community's best interest. Given that adminship on GWW and GW2W has, ultimately, been decided by community's trust, I felt an RfA was appropriate since we're doing a "spring cleaning" on admins. I look forward to seeing your candidate response, but will leave this up. Hopefully we'll get more than just admins chiming in on which other admins to keep - that would be a very biased poll. Konig (talk) 19:28, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

(non-final) comments from Greener and poke

The role of a bureaucrat on this wiki has never focused on janitorial clean-up, and neither had the role of an admin been based on the number of edits that they make. Tanetris' role is that of watching over the admin team and ensuring they are working effectively with the wiki's best interest in mind. He's been the team's even-keel, encouraging them when needed, and telling them (myself most definitely included) to smarten up as necessary. His continued use of wisdom learned over five years as a sysop and seven years as a bcrat are one of the greatest individual assets this wiki community has. Greener (talk) 17:45, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Tanetris has shown often enough in the past that he is not inactive but instead lurks all over the community just to be there when it needs him. I can also generally confirm that there is enough activity off-wiki for stuff that happens on the wiki that shows that he is always ahead of what’s going on. Since that’s exactly his role as a bureaucrat, I don’t see any reason why we should change this. Tanetris’ experience of over a decade is very valuable and he is always there when needed.
I want to point out that the support of both me and Greener is to be understood as that of a user. Our comments have no direct impact on the outcome of this RfR and will be weighted and handled in the same way as any other comment. My comment in particular was to give other members of the community some insight of what’s going on outside of recorded contributions. poke | talk 22:45, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

A question for the admin team.

I've already voted, but if I may, I'd like to start a discussion regarding something I touched upon in my reasoning — how the admins as a team are currently handling the community. When I stepped away from community interaction late last year, I wasn't feeling terribly impressed by the admin team's ability to manage user conflict. They weren't bad, by any means, but I feel there was definite room for improvement. I'm unsure how things have improved, if at all, since then.
While I've always viewed all the individual admins as very friendly, approachable, and open, I don't feel like there's been much transparency from the team as a whole. The schism in votes for Tanetris makes this clear — fellow admins are generally in support due to his influence amongst the team, whereas many regular users seem to be feeling rather in the dark as to what he contributes. I'd like to take this opportunity to ask the admins how they approach problem solving as a team, how they feel things are going right now, what changes have been made in the past six months, and what their plans are for the future. —Idris 21:31, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

You have a fair point, the lack of on-wiki edits makes the contribution invisible and not tangible to every user.

On the whole we agree on things related to the wiki, but conversely things are a bit pants in terms of a coherent response to off-wiki topics, particularly with respect to "discord" between users. -Chieftain Alex 22:00, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

There's no need to speak in code — discord is a very different format to the wiki, so it's not too surprising that admins who were chosen primarily for their wiki skills might be struggling to moderate a chatroom.

I'll be frank, part of me is rather suspicious about the timing of this RfA; I've heard there was an incident of some sort on discord recently that resulted in bans, and now there just so happen to be "spring cleaning" RfAs cropping up? I don't know any details beyond that, but it seems that something is going on. I hope I'm just misreading the situation and everyone is currently friends and this truly is just a bit of spring cleaning; but either way, I feel like a report from the admins on how they approach issues like this and what help they need from the community would be helpful. —Idris 21:02, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Idris, you're old enough now to know that your mommies and daddies have had a fight, but we still love each other and have your best interests at heart, and Greener prefers sleeping on the couch anyway so it all works out. - Felix Omni 23:39, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Lol, ok ok. On the whole you guys have been doing a good job. I just think it's good to update the community every so often on how you all feel about the direction things are going, what niches in the team could stand to be be filled or emptied, what the community can do to make your jobs easier, etc. A round of RfAs just feels like a good time for that. Thanks for your honest response below, and for my part I recogonise I'm still not really well enough to start meddling with wiki politics again, so apologies if I was just seeing faces in clouds. :p —Idris 00:58, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

As someone who opened the pandora box: yes. I brought this matter on Discord as well and a lengthy discussion happened there as well. (Yes, I'm late, i know) ❄The F. Prince❄ (talk) 21:20, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who's been around the wikis a long time, there has been a gradual shift over the years when it comes to admins discussing and resolving user conflicts. When compared to GuildWiki or GWW, or even just earlier in GW2W's life, we're more likely now to discuss these matters in private in advance of any public decision being made, vs the old system of "act first and wall-of-text the opposition into submission." While this has the advantage of enabling the admin team to provide more unified messaging and discourages publicly throwing each other under the bus, I now recognize that it comes at the cost of giving community members a chance to offer input before decisions are made and to appeal decisions afterward. After all, what odds does an individual user think they have of getting a decision overturned if it appears to come from the entire admin team? The way I see it, we've gotten several very clear messages lately that the community doesn't just want to be given the party line, and this RFA is one of those messages. - Felix Omni 00:02, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Felix. I think we are dealing with two distinct channels here: the Wiki itself and Discord. The former is where you would expect all the important discussion, arguments, and formalities. The latter is where part of the discussions take place, and due to its quick and informal nature it seems to bring out different behavior in people. I am not opposed to Discord, but it would be good to have some sort of record of decisions (on the wiki) as to how, why, and by whom decisions were made. In my opinion, as we are a community and all strive to the same goals—with some of us having extra rights in terms of administration—it is important that everyone is at least informed of decisions and share in the responsibility of making this a healthy environment for every member. ~ Sanna 11:37, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

"[D]ue to its quick and informal nature [discord] seems to bring out different behavior in people". It really does — which is a real shame. Discord was meant as a place to interact with other wiki editors, to make friends and be social. Over the years it has turned into a place to discuss wiki matters... and subsequently it became the source of discord and uncharacteristic vents. Sadly, telling people to take matters to the wiki, where they belong, often does not work out well.

I'm really beginning to regret that we ever started shifting communications over to discord. Leaving the channel, I now realise what kind of toll it has taken on us as community. I also noticed that I've become part of a problem we had for the longest time on the wiki, one which I have been pleading for a lot in the past: transparency. Since conversations have moved over to discord, transparency has been lacking more than ever — as you already pointed out. For that I am truly sorry.

While the timing is indeed suspicious, this "crusade" (or "spring cleaning" if you will) might be just what the wiki needs — or what shall drive it to ruin (that is, if we cut loose most admins without nominating new ones).

Regarding the current trend of voting and Idris' notion that "fellow admins are generally in support due to [Tanetris'] influence amongst the team", I think it's slowly becoming apparent that this isn't the case. It will be very interesting indeed to see how all of this plays out in the end. talk 12:54, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I would say on a personal point here... as a sysop over on the GWW, when my reconfirmation arose I attempted to engage with it on the wiki, in a clear and transparent manner; chat however died down quickly on the page and I was left not knowing what was happening. So I logged into the discord (which is something Im personally not super interested in) and was confronted with chats directly relating to me as a person and to the RFA. Needless to say I was deeply unimpressed, as frankly if we as a community raise something on the wiki and want to discuss it, we should be discussing it on the wiki itself. Not give rise to discord debates, where the affected party may be completely unaware of the debate thats happening and unable to respond(and thats if we ignore the snide comments). I choose to engage with the debate on the discord, at that point, as thats apparently where people wanted to engage with it; but I frankly still feel things of that nature, debing debated on the discord rather than the wiki itself, is not a good look.

It felt like I was being discussed behind my back and not being given a clear and transparent forum to debate the issue; both by certain contributors and admins, who should have known better and directed the chat back to the wiki immediately.

Clearly the role of discord as a tool for debate about the wiki itself, needs addressed. As its ability to fracture debate, the change in communication style and the lack of transparancy isn't good. -- Salome 13:34, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Reasoning by Incarnazeus

This was originally posted as the voting comment by User:Incarnazeus but has been moved to the talk page for formatting and readability reasons.

Oppose. Let me begin by pointing out that this is not the first time the activity level and engagement of our administrators was questioned. In 2017, the outcome of this discussion was to remove two incredibly inactive administrators without further ceremony. There was no further attempt to improve the state of the wiki otherwise, and I did not witness any particularly positive changes in activity or community interaction. As such, I am glad the topic was brought up again – even though the motivation behind doing so as well as the timing and the methods employed are slightly dubious. While I have no hope of making any difference by participating in this reconfirmation, I will still attempt to outline why I do not think that the candidate should retain his place as an admin. To do that adequately, I shall present you with my view of how the ideal individual for a bureaucrat position should be and compare this to the candidate in question. Additionally, the candidate's statement will be more closely examined.

The Ideal Bureaucrat

To me, the ideal bureaucrat is someone who not only watches over the community; they also engage and interact with it, and actively participate in the day-to-day business of the wiki. A bureaucrat is an editor and administrator in one and thus should behave like one. They need to be role models and representatives for the community, displaying level-headedness, civility, and respectfulness. In their capacity as administrators, they should step in before discussions may escalate and reach out to people when clashes could not be prevented. It does not suffice to be a watcher, completely detached from the community, and only available if there is no other choice but to intervene. Proactivity is key. An on-demand administrator has no real merit and lacks the insights of an actively involved one.

The Candidate's Activity

In my opinion, the candidate lacks in most of these areas. He is not an active contributor to this wiki, with only 1485 (plus 11 contributions while not logged in) edits in roughly 13 years, which signalises that he is not really engaging or interacting with the current community. (see attached data of all edits excluding explicit use of admin tools like deletion or moving of pages; last updated on June 11th, 2020) Although an edit count is insignificant in itself, it is a good indicator of a user's general activity. As you can see in the graph, there was a spike in 2012 and consecutively a decline. After 2017, contributions dwindled to an all-time low. The election of Greener as a bureaucrat during that year can easily explain this. Anything remotely bureaucracy-related was subsequently mainly handled by him. When we elected Greener, the aim was to relieve the then bureaucrats of some work. Instead, as far as I have seen, until recently, Greener has become the primary handler for user conflicts, while the other admins hid behind him. Can you imagine what kind of pressure this puts on an individual? I am honestly disappointed and angry about this because Greener is the best bureaucrat we could ever have wished for, and he does not deserve this. As for the candidate’s choice to not be an active user on this wiki, I believe him to be enitrely out of touch with the present community because of it. The voting up until now emphasises this further. Look at all the neutral votes and then have a glance at the votes in favour. Many of the individuals lauding the candidate's prowess have never been actively involved with the Guild Wars 2 wiki or lost interest in it shortly after launch. It is great that the candidate seems to be still very much loved by the community and his friends of the original Guild Wars, and their opinions certainly speak for his abilities in the past, but can we rely on these claims? Many years have passed since then and the present wiki community is very different now. Due to this lack of community presence of the candidate, I find myself asking whether he really wants to be a part of this. Does the community matter to him? Last year we had an incredibly successful and important AMA over on reddit. A lot of editors and all the sysops participated, yet the only bureaucrat involved was Greener. I expected more engagement, particularly considering that the AMA ran for longer than a day.

Availability

Another facet of activity, specifically proactivity, is availability. While the candidate can be reached, it seems that he does not always feel like responding (see Sanna's comment, Steve1's talk page on the GWW as well as a statement of him on another page; "I had an issue with a sysop and used the email links on the Admin Noticeboard to contact you, Tanetris and the sysop. Neither you nor Tanetris ever bothered to reply"). Furthermore, the candidate does also not reach out to users involved in conflicts as far as I have personally experienced. Back when I opposed Doodle's first RFA and I struggled a bit with the repercussions, it was Greener who reached out to me. Before that, when I opposed Mora's ban, it was also Greener who approached me. You might be able to guess who talked to me after the Horrible event on discord went down. However, I must admit: the other day, the candidate asked Alex and me whether we were "doing okay" in-game. That was after I possibly hinted at the fact that I would oppose his RFA on the talk page. It honestly did not feel very sincere. Similarly, the candidate might appear to be responding and engaging more with the community at present, but who knows if this will not subside once this RFA is over. If I saw my position "endangered," I would probably also try to counter that by doing more. The result of abstaining from actively communicating with the community is that we know nothing of the candidate. How can we let him in if we do not know anything about him? Building trust and loyalty takes effort from all parties involved. To me, he feels rather cold and unapproachable, which is not something I am looking for in an admin.

Decision-Making

Apart from this, I want to address the candidate's role in making decisions. From what I have seen behind the scenes, I was not really impressed. It was usually others who discussed things and if he weighed in, I found his arguments to be not very compelling. In the discussion leading to Horrible's discord ban, the candidate showed reluctance to perform the ban, ignoring our argumentation and the worries of users that reached out to us – all this because he was uncomfortable to ban Horrible over political issues, when that was not even part of the equation. We (Alex, Doodle, and I) were solely arguing for the removal of Horrible due to his inadequate behaviour. To not ban Horrible over this would have stood in extreme contrast to our previous actions of banning Smiley and Konig. It would not have been just. Justice is something that I feel the candidate has often neglected in past judgments (i.e. Mora's two-month ban). I seem not to be the only one who was frustrated with the candidate's decisions in the past either (see his talk pages on the GWW or GW2W; there are not many comments to go through).

Candidate Statement

Last but not least, let us examine the candidate statement. Having read this one and all the past statements and RFAs on both wikis, I am not convinced by what I see. It does not explain the candidate's motivations, nor what the wiki gains from having him in an admin position. He states that "the only times a bcrat is strictly needed are for user rights change matters, user merges, or if the sysops need smacking" and that "Greener's been pretty on top of them, and they aren't exactly called for often, so [his] last use of bcrat tools in that sense was June 2019", so where does that put him? What is his purpose? Do we really need the candidate as an admin, seeing how he lets Greener handle most of the tasks occurring? Furthermore, he feels that "[he doesn't] feel [he] failed in [his] duties nor abused [his] power", which is of course correct. You cannot really fail your duties if you do not lift a finger. The candidate once said that "we lose nothing by letting inactive admins keep their rights", but in the same manner, we do not gain anything from it either. The way I see it, inactive admins hinder us from growing. They take up space with their opinions that lack insight of how things are currently. The day-old argument that particularly bureaucrats do not have to be actively involved in wiki business is a rather shallow and convenient excuse to justify staying in power.

Team Effort

Lastly, I have been told that while the precedent was set that we admins act in a team, this is not the case. We are supposed to operate individually and independently. Following this notion, does that not make bureaucrats and sysops like the candidate entirely redundant? If I can act on my own, I do not need the help or input of the other admins. If I need advice, I will ask the community or an admin I trust and respect. Thus, in all honesty, I cannot see why the candidate needs to retain his seat as a bureaucrat. Why cling to a position if you lack the time and interest to put your effort into it? Why stick to the shadows instead? I really am not comfortable having a random lurker in such a position. I expect a little more enthusiasm and involvement. talk 13:35, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Addendum: I am in favour of removing the candidate's rights both as sysop and bureaucrat.talk 06:44, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

What's the deal with all the inactive voters?

This RFA has been going on for a while (why don't these things have closing dates?) and it started out with a lot of support from a bunch of people from the start, including a debatable neutral point of view from the other sysops; located above on this page.

Once the opposition votes started, I noticed (and Almdudler refers to this in his vote as well) a wave of new support votes from accounts that have not been making contributions on the wiki for at least a year. One of the most favorable votes was even written by someone who had not made any contributions at all over the last three years.

There also seems to be some increase in both wiki and social contributions from candidate and fellow admins recently. I sincerely hope I am wrong here and that it doesn't take an RFA and staunch opinions to increase people's activity.

Salome does bring up a good point saying that we should not just change the rules while we're playing the game (meant this as a saying, not literally), but it's also clear to me that nothing much has changed over the years anyway in the highest ranks of the wiki administration. This excludes the fact that candidate, for example, has become less active.

Some wisdom from my student union board back in the day: leadership is always best in the second year. The first year they are learning, the second year they are on a roll, and the third year they'll get less active. That is the point where you make space for new people to take over the lead, and the "veterans" become support staff. The wiki may operate slightly differently as our admin periods can easily succeed over three years - which is perfectly reasonable and convenient - but some fresh blood is not a bad thing.

Alm already mentioned in his vote that even without admin rights the veterans can still bring their guidance to newer leads, and I agree with him. There is nothing wrong with taking a step back because your life is different now than it was a couple of years ago; there will always be a place to come back to once you want to become more active (which is something I recently did too).

Coming back to my original question in the heading: what is the deal with these inactive voters? What is their reasoning for voting after all these years of being away? These are high praise support votes though, are they voting based on current events, or based on past events? ~ Sanna 18:32, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if its intentional or not, but your comments can be seen as a personal attack on me and wandering traveler - without naming names. While I and others have not been active for some time - it should not distract that any user on a wiki has a say at the matter on hand. Active or not. And to say that I or any other inactive user being less than a active user is troubling. Dragonsawareness (talk) 19:14, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

This was not an attack on your personally. This post has been in my head for a while, since before you even placed your vote. I also don't think it matters who exactly did the votes; I noticed a lot of names I'd not seen in a while, looked up their contributions, and noticed a pattern (which is related to what I do for a living, so does come naturally). ~ Sanna 19:35, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I trust Greener and poke's ability to weigh the votes from inactive users appropriately. —Idris 19:30, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I also find it strange that inactive users are coming out of the woodworks too, and this isn't an attack or anything in the least. The entire point of these recent RfAs were about the activity, visibility, and communication of admins - mainly, those that lack such. The lack of visibility calls into question whether they're doing anything, and for users casting a vote, calls into question if they're aware of current situations or going off of outdated knowledge (how can someone who's not been around for a few years know if someone is currently worth adminship?). Personally, I'd even argue that a certain level of visible activity should be a requirement for both being an admin (either sysop or b-crat) as well as voting, though I do not see this RfA as the appropriate place to have that depth of discussion and have been tabling the viewpoint for the time being. Konig (talk) 19:50, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

It's important to note that RFAs on GW2W don't function on an up-down vote system. (In fact, I believe in an earlier phase we did away with the idea of "support/oppose" at all and just made it an open discussion, but people kind of organically shifted back to prefixing their statement so they wouldn't be misunderstood.) While community support is something to take into consideration, people's viewpoints are primarily meant to offer insight to the bureaucrats who are ultimately making the decision. As such the opinion of someone who's been inactive for 10 years and makes a good point would be weighted more than that of someone who, for instance, makes 100 edits a day but just says "I like/don't like them."

To Sanna's other point about an increase in contributions from other admins lately, I will freely admit that I'm editing more again because a lot of community members right now are telling us they want admins to be more visible and more active. I like being an admin and I want to meet those expectations. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. - Felix Omni 20:03, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

"I will freely admit that I'm editing more again because a lot of community members right now are telling us they want admins to be more visible and more active"... ah cool!

Thanks for clarifying on the Support/Neutral/Oppose system. The HTML comment in the RFA page does explicitly state you start with your stance as the first word, so it does look official when you place your vote (I suppose that's the matter for another discussion though). ~ Sanna 20:11, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, the currently open RFAs must have been copied from older ones. If you create an RFA page using the form at Guild_Wars 2 Wiki:Requests for adminship#Starting an RfA, it only has a "Discussion" section. - Felix Omni 20:30, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Nah, I used the idea that Alex threw on discord in #gw1w. ❄The F. Prince❄ (talk) 21:12, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I just want to point out a few things: First of all, RFAs don’t have a specific run time. They have always been open for as long as it was deemed useful. There are still new comments coming in regularly which shows that there are still people around who want to give their feedback. I am willing to give them the chance even if that means that it will take a bit longer.

It should also be obvious that this being an RFA for a member that has been around a very long time, spending the majority of that time in an adminship position, and the RFA itself being about a bureaucrat position, this makes the case a bit more complex than other RFAs we had in the past. And if you look at the mixed directions the comments go, this certainly isn’t the easiest RFA one could imagine. – What I am trying to say is that a good judgment is needed here, and in order to weigh all comments appropriately, I am asking you to allow us a bit more time. We don’t want to rush this.

In that context, I want to clarify that all comments are welcome, regardless of how active the author is. I actually do consider a perspective from “the outside” useful, even if not every comment will be weighted equally. As for the timing, you should remember that we put up a site notice on June 6th. That should explain why most feedback only came in afterwards. Not everyone watches RC or has the RFA page on their watchlist, and there may also be more people actively watching the wiki than they might appear just judging by their contributions (like Tanetris himself).

Regarding the comment contents, I’m personally having a bit trouble blindly accepting comments on activity especially since there was never any agreement on required activity. At the same time, I do understand that the community has moved into a direction that definitely prefers activity from administrators even if that wasn’t originally mentioned in the role description. I do want to point out however that administrators are explicitly not leaders of the wiki. The wiki acts on behalf of the community. And administrators shouldn’t have to “make space” in order to allow other members to be entrusted admin tools by the community. If you think someone has that trust and should be an admin, then go start an RFA for them now and don’t wait for other administrators to go (for whatever reason). poke | talk 00:00, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm also going to add something here... I'm seeing a disturbing trend of the recently active wiki community starting to take the slight stance that its oppinion should take precendence, despite the abundance of work and contributions invested by older and maybe less active users. For example Konig above states a reason for the RFA is primarily due to inactivity and that he feels this should be extrapolated out to also be a debate about user's current engagement with the wiki and if their voices should even be heard (he says he was benching that, but he still stated the concept rather than keeping it to himself; so to say its "benched" after raising it, still makes the concept worth rebutting.)... the simple truth however is that this is a simply an oppinion on what a BC should be; however that was never really the roles intention. I'm unhappy with the idea of using RFA's to bring about fundamental changes in how we consider things like activity. Utilising an RFA as a proxy for a changing viewpoint in expectations of activity for BC's, Sysop's and now even voters , to be considered even able to have a voice on the wiki; is getting a tone of being somewhat exclusionary on a nebulous concept of "activity" that no one is really defining, but everyone seems in some way up in arms about. Without really having a proper debate about it.

If people want to have a debate over general levels of current expected activity before someone is now even allowed a voice in a vote, for a user that has been part of the wiki admin team for 15 years and that many people have worked with, then fine... you're more than welcome to do so; but in the meantime we shouldnt be questioning if users should be allowed to voice their oppinions at all on the actual RFA itself.

A wiki is not reddit... its primary purpose is to document the game it represents. The element of "wiki community" is seconary to this primary role, so on a personal level I'm confused by this "finger on the pulse of the community" stance that many are taking. Frankly wiki's aren't great for fostering hugely meshed communities in the first place, their pupose primarily is for people to produce an encycloedia utilising shared knowledge... community is something that grows up around this shared aim, but its not the fundamental aim of the wiki itself.

Being a sysop or a BC isnt primarily about community bonds and constant inmeshed engagement with the community or even ongoing active editing. It's about users who have shown that they will happily take on the burden of general admin and also mediate between contributors, when disagreements/issues arise, or for BC's that they will happily mediate with sysops, when first level admin goes awry.Theyre not community reps and nor are they the public face of the wiki; they are simply fellow users who have shown through past behaviour, that they can be trusted to act objectively and reasonably and help mediate coniflicts and handle issues the wiki may run into.

That isnt to say that I don't recognise that their are very valid concerns with transparency and people feeling disconnected from the admin team. I'm not dismissing those factors in the slightest, but i do think we need to refocus at the moment on what the roles were actually understood to be and then deal with them on those standings. If people feel the expectations of those roles need changed, then thats a cool converstaion to have... but frankly its not particularly great to be using RFA's to do so and then also trying to discredit past users from having a voice. Especially when on the "oppose" side in the current RFA, we have users like "Lonelyquaggan" who from what i can see, has zero contributions on the account he posted with. So as we're not querying those kind of voices; it seems odd to query people who have contribution histories, but just havent been particularly active over recent years.

Also lets be honest here... many people find the timing of these RFA's somewhat interesting, considering recent drama both on and off the wiki; however we're assuming good faith on all counts and engaging with everyone having a right to an oppinion and a voice. So i'm just going to ask that we all take that same stance going forward and assume good faith and accept the validity of people to have a say, without trying to dismiss or belittle it in anyway.

I want to end by saying this isnt an attack on any one here. I can honestly say I have a great deal of time for nearly everyone posting here... so nothing I've said is meant as an attack; but it is meant as a plea to re-engage with assuming good faith in all those posting and not attempt to invalidate other peoples right to a voice. -- Salome 01:42, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

You state that "the simple truth however is that this is a simply an oppinion on what a BC should be", yet go on with saying: "Being a sysop or a BC isnt primarily about community bonds and constant inmeshed engagement with the community or even ongoing active editing. It's about users who have shown that they will happily take on the burden of general admin and also mediate between contributors, when disagreements/issues arise, or for BC's that they will happily mediate with sysops, when first level admin goes awry.Theyre not community reps and nor are they the public face of the wiki; they are simply fellow users who have shown through past behaviour, that they can be trusted to act objectively and reasonably and help mediate coniflicts and handle issues the wiki may run into." Isn't this basically an opinion, too? talk 21:38, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

"For example Konig above states a reason for the RFA is primarily due to inactivity and that he feels this should be extrapolated out to also be a debate about user's current engagement with the wiki and if their voices should even be heard" Either I'm misunderstanding your paraphrasing, or you misunderstood what my opinion is (which wouldn't be surprising since I was as brief as I could be), because that isn't what I was trying to state. "I'm unhappy with the idea of using RFA's to bring about fundamental changes in how we consider things like activity." And this is why I was going to wait for the RfAs, but they began while I was distancing myself due to that drama you mention. "Also lets be honest here... many people find the timing of these RFA's somewhat interesting, considering recent drama both on and off the wiki" It's rather insulting that multiple people would indirectly but plainly accuse me of bringing up an RfA due to a grudge or something. If I was starting RfAs due to a grudge over the events on the discord wiki, I'd be putting them up for those whom I have issue with, and not the one who simply is not visible to the community. The RfA situation on both wikis began prior to, and continued concurrently to, the discord drama that everyone is apparently so indirectly accusing me of abusing RfAs because of. So, kindly, please stop. It is tiresome and insulting, even if it isn't intended as an attack. Konig (talk) 08:15, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

“but they began” – with “they” are you referring to the RFAs? Since you created this particular RFA, are you referring to Jon’s RFA or the RFAs on GWW which should be totally unrelated? I originally understood your message above with that you would like to bring up a potential activity requirement later, first waiting for the two RFAs here to be resolved. And I think that is a fine statement to make albeit I would argue that since you realize that there isn’t such a requirement yet, arguments about activity maybe shouldn’t count as much at this time. poke | talk 08:27, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I would agree with poke on this. Also as ive said retroactive change, with no opportunity to adapt... is fundamentally unjust. You cant move the goalposts and then instantly tell someone theyve lost the game because of it.

I would say that maybe I wasn't clear about the inactivity comments and my paraphrashing may have been a bit rought. My point was that it seems that you're musing upon the idea of is BC's, Sysops and now standard users who wish to vote in RFA's should need to pass some "mimimum recent activity" threshold... which I find to a degree exclusionary and not really representative of how Wiki's are set up to operate. However If I misunderstood your point, my apologies.

Also Konig I think you slightly misunderstood what i meant with my statement about "timing of the RFA's", my point was that we can all see coincidences in events, if we look for them; be it previously lapsed editors returning or coincidental times of RFAs arising... my point is that we should only be assuming good faith on each other's parts, so terms like "out of the woodwork" is something we should be avoiding. Also on a personal level Konig, I know its been awhile since you and I chatted, but you should know me better than to think I was trying to be low key sly and shady with you. You knew me long enough on GW1 to know that wasn't my style and that on a personal level, you and I were always able to communicate bluntly and freely with one another. I can only speak for myself, but I still very much consider you a friend from my active GW1 wiki days and if I had something to say to you, I would just come out and call you on it. I get that people change over time, but please be assured that hasnt changed for me. I for one, am very happy to see that you're still an active contributor. Anyway nice to see you again Konig. -- Salome 08:44, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Re:Poke I did some digging on Konig's behalf since he doesn't currently have access to the Discord. I believe (and he can correct me if I'm wrong) "The RfA situation on both wikis began prior to, and continued concurrently to, the discord drama" is referring to https://i.imgur.com/0fyxFbN.jpg which... Well, you can make some arguments on when exactly counts as the start point for discord drama, but regardless shows a consistent opinion regarding me prior to the ban and such. - Tanetris (talk) 17:06, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Lots of comments above, sadly too many to all respond to (I did read everything). One of my points of worry was that the supporting side was filled with "zombie" accounts, and that feeling has not changed. I'll admit that is not very AGF of me, chalk it up as a flaw. As Greener and Poke have reaffirmed that they will weigh each comment and not purely look at the vote count, I trust and expect them to do this with an open mind.

One of the reasons for this RFA is that candidate appears to be inactive to people, which is a point raised in every one of the three voting categories. However, individual stories of people tell how candidate is still very much helping out in the background. This makes me believe that with more transparency this RFA could have been prevented. Whatever the outcome, I think we should strive to have a more visible administration team (there's a whole section on this above, so not diving into that further here). I'd also like to see candidate himself respond to some of the many posts made on this page. That might clear up some assumptions.

In regards to this point: "A wiki is not reddit... its primary purpose is to document the game it represents. The element of "wiki community" is seconary to this primary role, so on a personal level I'm confused by this "finger on the pulse of the community" stance that many are taking. Frankly wiki's aren't great for fostering hugely meshed communities in the first place, their pupose primarily is for people to produce an encycloedia utilising shared knowledge... community is something that grows up around this shared aim, but its not the fundamental aim of the wiki itself." While the point itself is valid in theory, I think this is not how it works in practice. Yes we are here to document the game, but we're also a large group of people working towards one goal. Over the years we have started to know each other, and there have been opinions and conflicts as there is everywhere a group of people comes together. You simply cannot put people together and expect them to solely work together on a formal basis of documenting the game. If we were to drop the community aspect, we would not need even need RFAs unless there is a reason to belief that administrative powers were abused. Without community aspect, we would also have way plainer votes involving only the quality of the admin's actions and think of how much shorter some talk pages would be. So if the majority of the current voters mention inactivity, then we should not just disregard that.

Was the RFA the best place to start this and the other discussions? I honestly don't know. But either way is has made clear that there is a desire for more communication, possibly even policies. ~ Sanna 10:54, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

"I'd also like to see candidate himself respond to some of the many posts made on this page."

I'll be working on a post when I get time, probably this evening - Tanetris (talk) 13:37, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Looking forward to that, Tanetris. Hope you find the time! Not having you respond on your own RFA would leave a bad impression, after all.

Also, regarding these statements:

"Also as ive said retroactive change, with no opportunity to adapt... is fundamentally unjust."

"arguments about activity maybe shouldn’t count as much at this time"

It's not like the community's wish for more activity from the admins of the old order comes out of nowhere. You might not have been around, but activity was always something the community was unhappy about (see the discussion I linked in my vote). So much that it's gotten kind of a running gag to equate "inactivity" with "bureaucrats". There's been plenty of time to change this, but nothing has happened in three years. There's nothing unjust about this coming up again. talk 21:38, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I read what you linked inc, I would say that shows a discourse but far from a consensus being reached. I didnt say it's unjust for the subject to come up again. I'm saying your last converstaion ultimatly went no where, as you didnt really attain consensus. If you had, then what is expected from beuarocrats officially would have been clearly stated and people would know where they stand, but as you didnt... then it is unjust to arbitarily decide that the thing you didn't get consesnus for; should now be grounds for an RFA, just because you personally have raised it before. oppinions dont constitute consensus by themselves.

I'm not saying you have no right to have the expectations you personally have, but the process is: put forward your idea, gain concensus, act on the concensus reached and allow people time to adapt, implement consensus for those who dont adapt... by the looks of it you never got past the second step, but you've jumped right to the end step regardless. It's massively against prima facie justice and it really can't stand by its own merits. Raising that you and a group of users, have had an issue with this for awhile, is valid grounds to re-engage with the debate; its not valid grounds to say "you didnt do what we wanted you to do, despite no concensus being reached.... but you still should have done what I wanted. You haven't, so get out."; which is in effect whats happening here. -- Salome 23:24, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Please read what I wrote again. I never once claimed that we reached consensus back there (I'm fully aware we didn't!), but that's beside the point. What I'm referring to is that the activity of admins was brought up multiple times, even joked about, but in three years no one individually started to edit or engage more (in fact, participation dwindled). So once again, the community's wish for more activity isn't coming out of nowhere. I hope this makes it clearer. talk 06:42, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

No I totally understood the point you were making. I'm just saying that without consensus being reached you cant use terms such as "the community's wish"... as thats what concensus indicates. The fact you didnt get it... means the closest you can say is "I and some others wish". Which is kinda my point; what you and some others wish, isnt concensus. Your jumping from saying something akin to "we brought this up before" (which then didnt gain consensus), right over to "the community's wish", which you cant say because you didnt get the concensus in the first place. In fact if anything, the thing you linked shows that the community is actually quite divided on this issue. Also to then make something you couldnt gain concensus on, a grounding for an RFA.... is fundamentally unfair and feels to me like usurping the process of debate and concent that is the cornerstone of the wiki community and process. I hope I've been able to clarify my point. -- Salome 12:17, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I think you're both raising good points. The fact that these discussions have happened, both now and in the past, are a clear indication that the status quo could use a shaking-up, even if the community hasn't reached consensus on exactly how that should be accomplished. On the other hand, it does seem unfair that we're discussing this now rather than before the RfA (I was not expecting the conversation to turn out like this when I raised the topic of transparency... in the short term I was just expecting for a report from the admins so voters feeling in the dark about what Tanetris brings to the table could have something to judge, but what's done is done.) I think the question we should be asking now is: which do we want to resolve first, this RfA, or this conversation about adminship? It might be worthwhile to withdraw this RfA for the time being, and resubmit it once we have a more solid understanding of what the community currently expects from its admins. On the other hand, the candidate himself has indicated in his second statement below that he's ok with his adminship being at the whim of the community. —Idris 13:05, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Response to Dragonsawareness

"Hes not as inactive as other admins have been." Speaking as a fairly active user, this doesn't ring true to me; the only current admin I'd describe as less active than Tanetris is Jon, and he has an RfA up too. Are you aware that this RfA only applies to the GW2 wiki, not both? I'm not criticizing you for voting as an inactive user, nor for having a different opinion than me—you're most welcome to drop in and give your honest thoughts—but I think it might be helpful if you clarified your statement. —Idris 12:36, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Its for GW2, on GW2 wiki, I don't see the correlation or relation to GW1 in my comment. Dragonsawareness (talk) 19:10, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

You mentioned being more active on GWW than GW2W, and GWW has had a large number of extremely inactive admins up until very recently, so I wondered if perhaps your perception of Tanetris's relative inactivity was coming from that. Apologies for assuming. I'll admit that I still don't understand who you're alluding to in the quoted comment, though: which admins have been less active than Tanetris, in your opinion? —Idris 19:23, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Jon. Dragonsawareness (talk) 19:25, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough, thank you. Your use of plural "admins" threw me! —Idris 19:27, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Im sure there is others who are inactive as well, but also didn't feel like I need to name names. Dragonsawareness (talk) 19:28, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Tanetris is (or at least, was prior to the RfA) the second most visibly-inactive admin on GW2W, which is why the RfA was put up. Konig (talk) 19:45, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

The intention of this discussion was to remove the ambiguity from Dragonsawareness' comment, which I feel has been accomplished. It's not appropriate to criticize their opinion. —Idris 19:53, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

(Reset indent) No one's criticising anyone's opinion here. Konig's stating a fact. talk 19:57, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Ok, fair point. Sorry Konig. —Idris 20:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

"Tanetris is (or at least, was prior to the RfA) the second most visibly-inactive admin on GW2W, which is why the RfA was put up." Thank you for that insight Konig. I mean that in the sense, that I am that out of the loop. Dragonsawareness (talk) 20:14, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Candidate Statement 2: Repliance

So let me start by reminding everyone that there are 3 potential outcomes for this reconfirmation:

1. I lose access to both bcrat tools (user rights management and user merges) and sysop tools (blocking/unblocking, deleting/undeleting, page protection, editing protected pages, checkuser, etc).
2. I lose bcrat tools but retain sysop tools.
3. I retain both bcrat tools and sysop tools.

I would certainly encourage everyone who's voted and who yet plans to vote to take a moment to consider which of these three outcomes you believe will be for the best for your vision of the wiki going forward, and perhaps make it explicit one way or the other in your vote. It seems like a lot of the votes have more to do with a shakeup of the status quo of the adminship of the wiki rather than anything specifically to do with my access to the adminly tools, edging into a more political sort of tone than I'd quite like, and in that regard I have to ask: why aren't people putting forward new RFAs? There is purposely neither a minimum nor a maximum of bcrats or sysops.

A bit of history: once upon a time we had 5 bcrats (me, Pling, Poke, Ab.er.rant, and Xeeron) (at the time we also had 20 sysops). In the first big round of reconfirmations back in the day, Ab.er.rant and Xeeron's wound up unsuccessful and Poke's only partially successful demoting from bcrat but staying a sysop. About a year later Pling wound up retiring, and I was the sole bcrat for awhile. I put out a call for new bcrat RFAs and the only one who did so is Poke (which was successful). Changes to the admin list since then have been few and far between. Alex became a sysop in 2013 and Vent in 2014 (both nominated by Auron), Doodle in 2017 on her second try (nominated by Greener after a self-nomination about half a year before), and also in 2017 Greener kinda got browbeat into running for bcrat after his RFA engagement project. Inc became a sysop in 2019 (Idris was also nominated but wound up withdrawing). And that's the entire history of new RFAs over the past 7 years. (Okay, yes, technically there was also Northern, whose first edit was to make an RFA and only subsequent edits were to tell people to vote for them, but I'm really not gonna count that)

I can assure you that me continuing as bcrat does not prevent qualified new sysops and bcrats from being promoted, and I have my doubts that demoting me is going to make a bunch of users suddenly volunteer for adminship (Am I wrong in that regard? Is there anyone out there thinking that if only Tanetris wasn't bcrat they'd RFA in a heartbeat? Let me know, because that seems important). But my point is that I am not taking up a spot that would otherwise go to someone else, nor am I opposed to new admins. I would happily welcome a 4th bcrat, or even a 5th. I'd like to think I've been supportive of Greener as he's grown into the bcrat role over the past few years, but of course he's free to weigh in on that himself. While Poke and I are the 'old hands' of the bcrat team, Poke in particular being skilled with the technical side of things, Greener has certainly replaced me as the main face. And I think that's fantastic. I'm proud of him. Does that make me redundant? In the strictest sense you could say so, but I don't feel it's a bad sort of redundancy.

I've noticed a few indirect questions of my motives, to which I will respond directly: My only goal as a bcrat, as a sysop, as a user, is helping make the wiki better. It's my belief that for what I am presently able to do for the wiki in that regard, being a bcrat is how I can best help with that. Of course that is ultimately a community decision, and that is why I have made a conscious effort to try not to throw my weight around on this RFA, to make sure people felt free to oppose without fear that I would 'come down on them' or such (for the record, no, I did not ask anyone to come vote for me, did not ask anyone to come vote at all, did not bring up the existence of the reconfirmation to anyone who didn't bring it up to me first). I said in my initial candidate statement and repeat again here "I certainly admit that for the past year in particular I've been less active due to some RL matters I won't get into here. But I will say I've never dropped the wiki and do not plan to in the foreseeable future." That goes whether as a bcrat, a sysop, or a plain ordinary user.

More specifically on the motives front, Inc, I can assure you my question whether you and Alex were doing okay was sincere. I did not feel you would take it well if I came tracking you down considering I was a source (possibly the primary source) of your frustration, but when I saw you and Alex on guild chat, I felt it was reasonably unobtrusive to ask after you. I consider you a valuable part of the admin team and you have my respect, whether you feel the same regarding me or not. You're free to dismiss this as just trying to butter up someone with a thorough, strong oppose vote, but it's true nonetheless.

One other point on motives that Sanna brought up, "There also seems to be some increase in both wiki and social contributions from candidate and fellow admins recently. I sincerely hope I am wrong here and that it doesn't take an RFA and staunch opinions to increase people's activity." My own uptick in activity was actually prompted largely by Discord drama before the reconfirmation actually happened. While only other admins would be able to confirm me chattering in the admin channel, and of course me poking around my watchlist and recentchanges is invisible to everyone but me, anyone on discord can do a check to see me poking my nose into the gw1w channel on the 23rd (a week before this reconfirmation), in wiki-discussion and then discord-administration on the 25th regarding Konig and Smiley's discord bans, and in wiki-discussion on the 29th for some idle chatter about a template. I think some of my chatter on the 30th was before the reconfirmation went up too, but I'm not going to dig that deep into timestamps.

And yes, I have been purposely trying to maintain a little more social presence since because, well A: I've missed it, but also B: one of the big points the community was bringing up there was wanting more visibility from the admins. But then at the same time I'm trying to be self-aware that I'm not being performatively active because, obviously, this reconfirmation has since come up in the middle of that. Which is awkward, but hey, that's life.

While I'm going around picking at people's points, let me just note to Salome: I get your sense of fair play regarding 'changing the rules after the fact', but do remember that the rule that is always in play is that admins serve at the pleasure of the community based on their trust in how we will use the tools. Particularly in terms of my bcrat role, if some users feel I have grown so out of touch that I would be unable to adequately evaluate an RFA and resolve it in the manner of the community's best interest, for example, that is an extremely relevant factor to how they would want to vote. You are free to disagree with their conclusion, of course, but it's a valid reasoning.

This is already part of my initial candidate statement, but I am restating it here because I stand by every word: "All in all, I don't feel I've failed in my duties nor abused my powers. I am less directly in touch with the wiki community than I have been at some points in the past, but I don't feel I've fallen completely out of touch either. If the community feels differently, or feels that isn't enough to retain my bcratship and/or sysophood, well this is the place to express that, so we'll see! Happy discussing"

Whichever of the three potential results comes of this reconfirmation, I think it's being useful. If I stay as a bcrat, I have some quite useful feedback to refer to going forward. If I wind up a sysop, the same will also be true although it will apply differently, and similarly if I wind up a non-admin it will apply differently still. Trying to think of a pithy closing point, but this has been quite the WoT already. Let me know if you have questions. - Tanetris (talk) 03:14, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

"My own uptick in activity was actually prompted largely by Discord drama before the reconfirmation actually happened" As an user, I would like to point out that it is not true for the wiki space. Your only contributions this year are still RFAs and 2 comments on talk pages (I am talking about Wiki-wiki, not Discord-wiki as this was the reason RFA was started). ❄The F. Prince❄ (talk) 09:07, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

With all due respect Tane, if that was the arguments being put forward overwhelmingly by those citing activity... I could engage with it more. If the argument was "tane doesn't know anyone here and would be unable to work out whats going on", there would be a debate to be had; one i would disagree with, but thats beside the point. Instead at the moment alot of the votes seem to only cite inactivity because of a misplaced belief that admins are "in charge" and are community leaders; when its frankly not the case. I don't really think it's up to me to make other peoples points for them. If people wish to present more accurate issues, about why they fear inactivity renders you unable to carry out your role as a BC, im happy to engage with that. If it continues to be "you've not done any mainspace edits since X", I will continue to believe that argument lacks objective merit; due to their being no requirement of continual activity. Especially when its clear that you've been continually present over the past decade.

Furthermore theirs also no hard limitm on admin roles, so why people aren't just utilising that process to become admins themselves... is somewhat beyond me. -- Salome 12:25, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

The fact that so many contributors point out lack of activity makes it a valid issue regardless of you claiming "that argument lacks objective merit". I would also like to point out that the Wiki community changes constantly so that expectations that users have of bcrats/sysops may also change. Especially that many users have indicated in the past that the inactivity is concerning (as stated in one of the comments on the talk page). ❄The F. Prince❄ (talk) 13:36, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Regarding the lack of new admin nominees: this is something that's been on my mind for a while now... since 2019, in fact, when I nominated myself in the hopes of demonstrating to the community that adminship needn't be intimidating. In retrospect, that was naive, and not just because I ended up withdrawing -- it turns out that the prospect of adminship on this wiki is intimidating as hell, because the community has very high standards, and it certainly feels like they do regard admins as leaders instead of fellow users who happen to be entrusted with extra tools. I'm still open to the idea of adminship, but there are several conversations that need to take place first: admin transparency, the role of discord, and consensus on how much/what sort of activity the community currently expects from its admins. —Idris 13:45, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes Prince and what you said gives good grounds for you trying to gain consensus on community expectation on admin roles... not jumping the shark to RFAs and citing expectations that arent agreed upon in any meaningful way. The fact that communities change and evolve, is exactly why we have the process of gaining concensus in the first place; so that the wiki can adapt and grow and reflect a joint step forward. Jumping that step and using an RFA as a proxy for a stance that wasnt given consensus before... is IMHO a bad take.

I agree with Idris though, their is alot to discuss but this RFA is very much putting the cart before the horse. -- Salome 13:50, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Just gonna sneak a small reply to F.Prince here: "it is not true for the wiki space" Not provably true, I agree. You can only take my word (and circumstantial evidence like discord activity) (or not) that I was on my watchlist and Recentchanges multiple times each day in the week prior to this reconfirmation, and further it is up to you whether that matters to you or not. Please bear in mind I am replying to a large number of highly divergent opinions (e.g. you insisted on a sitenotice for the reconfirmations, others question the validity of (some of) the votes garnered by the wider reach of the sitenotice). This specifically was in reply to a question about whether the reconfirmation directly caused my activity "in both wiki and social contributions" which I take to include Discord. - Tanetris (talk) 14:33, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

On Adminship and High Standards

← moved to Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Practices and processes#On_Adminship_and_High_Standards

On above talks and more

Given that the above wiki talks are not about the current RFA and rather more general discussion concerning adminship and the process required to become one, how come not a single sysop or bcrat has redirected this discussion to an appropriate page? As far as I understand that this issue arose from this RFA, it is not its integral part, therefore this wiki talk should happen in a more appropriate spot. ❄The F. Prince❄ (talk) 17:23, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Also I see as this sounds rather pretentious, so I would like to ask everyone involved to continue this discussion in Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Practices and processes. ❄The F. Prince❄ (talk) 17:25, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Sysops primary function is to moderate users, not content. With specific response to the discussion above, it's relevant to the topic at hand. It might be worth moving somewhere when it's wrapped up as it'll be relevant to any further RFA's we choose to have. -Chieftain Alex 17:46, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

my very own wall of text

I'd like to start off by echoing my original statement: "[...] Tanetris has been a good bureaucrat, and has absolutely improved the wiki during his time as a sysop/bcrat. That said, there's always been a distinct lack of communication outside of direct requests [...] I feel that it's an important enough aspect to deserve more effort than it has been given." This still holds true, but this isn't an issue solely with Tanetris. When I originally left my neutral statement, I was assuming that the RFA would always end with a success. I wanted to use the opportunity to push for the entire admin team to be more engaged (an effort that appears to have been well received, and seems to be successful so far). I see now that my assumption of the direction of this RFA was false, and have had to reconsider my statement and stance accordingly.

Tanetris has in the past excelled at something I feel the current admin team is otherwise short on - being able to view disputes in an objective manner. Tanetris has, for the better part of a decade, been a moderating voice in heated disputes more times than I can count, and has been the moderating voice between administrators who action without thinking, and administrators who generally prefer to take no action. If Tanetris were to depart without a suitable (and capable) replacement, the end result will be actions taken by the former group going uncontested by the latter. Quite frankly, this would be extremely destructive to the health and stability to the wiki and its community.

Whenever I've needed to contact a bureaucrat (both here and on GWW), Tanetris has historically been the first (and often only) one to respond. Obviously this is anecdotal, but so are the vast majority of statements here.

Tanetris is a good bureaucrat. One who, as the response to this RFA shows, is open to critique. The ideal bureaucrat isn't one who does everything correctly the first time, or always agrees with this user; the ideal bureaucrat is one who is willing to continually improve and change as demanded by the community. Removing Tanetris at this point would be a huge misstep. horrible | contribs 17:51, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Resolution

In deciding the outcome of this Request for Reconfirmation (RfR), it is prudent to first look at its foundations. The initial request came with no claims of misuse of administrative tools, which are the only distinguishing attribute of a wiki-bureaucrat. There were no claims of abuse or inappropriate actions taken as a wiki-editor, which could have led to a possible ban from the wiki and could have been a justification for removing the aforementioned tools. Instead, the complaint was based on the bureaucrat being the second least-active administrator, having not edited the wiki in a year, and was in the spirit of the current “spring cleaning” of administrators.

Why a line was drawn at the second least-active administrator and did not include the third or forth least-active, or why it went beyond just the least-active administrator is not explained. Additionally, it is not made clear why a year without edits is enough of a threshold to warrant the removal of administrative tools. The seemingly arbitrariness of these lines can hardly be said to form a prima facie case; but this is no court of law, and so we shall continue.

Much of the feedback and criticisms revolve around the need for administrators – or to put a finer point on it, the bureaucrats – to interact with the community more often. How can we claim to have the pulse of the community when we appear to be absent from it? How is the community to know we are here to support them when they may not know we exist? These concerns are absolutely valid and in need of addressing, but they are a failing of all three bureaucrats, and yet only one of us has their head on the chopping block. Historically, bureaucrats have been less active than other administrators. I, Greener, chose to be a bureaucrat rather than a sysop because I knew my real life was going to make me be less active on this wiki, and I felt that as a bureaucrat I could continue to help others in building this great community resource given my limited time. The feedback in this RfR has brought into sharp relief my own waning levels of activity, for which I apologize, but for which I am not absolved. If the community does not know who we are or what we do, it should not fall on one person to take all of the blame.

Returning to the matter at hand, while Tanetris had not made edits to the wiki in a year's time, he was not strictly absent for that period. Could he have made himself more prominent in that time? Yes. Could his presence have allowed more people to reach out to him when needed? Yes. Would this have been to the benefit of all? Yes. But I could have replaced Tanetris' name with poke's or my own, and answered in the same fashion. We have been present, but we have hardly shown it. The inconsistency of applying a standard to one bureaucrat and not to the others calls into question the validity of the standard.

Leadership and representation is another topic which has been brought up in this RfR, and has been spoken about more eloquently by others than I believe I could do here, but I will address it. Let me be clear, it is the community that leads this wiki, not the administrators. In the past, we have joked about the wiki-administrators being nothing more than glorified janitors. We have access to tools which allow for us to maintain the wiki; tools which could be misused to unfortunate ends. It is only natural that those we see as leaders are those whom we trust, and additionally, those that we trust may be entrusted with administrative tools. The direction does not go the other way: Those we trust are not necessarily those we see as leaders. The administrative roles have always been plagued by this misconception, but I would like to discuss a slightly different, yet important, angle on this topic.

The wiki-administrators are a diverse group of people who have different perspectives on issues and varied approaches in addressing them. This diversity is a good thing as it allows the administrators to better reflect the diversity of our community. It also means that we do not always agree on how to handle situations; sometimes we strongly disagree with what another administrator has done. I have had my actions vehemently opposed, and a lot of feedback given to me as a result. It should come as no surprise that Tanetris has taken actions which other administrators have challenged. As I mentioned in the preamble, the initial complaint brought no mention of misuse of tools or abuse of power, but Tanetris' role as a leader and decision maker was brought up later by Inc in a well-written and thorough evaluation. It is here that I believe we have a rubbing point.

While the wiki-administrators are not inherently leaders, one unstated role of a bureaucrat has been that we watch over the sysops. If a bureaucrat has lost the confidence of one or more of the sysops, is that enough to warrant the removal of the bureaucrat's tools? I have thought a lot about this, and while I have settled on an answer of it not being enough to warrant the removal, I believe that there are issues which need to be addressed. Either the administrators can work together to re-evaluate the relationship that we have between the roles, or Tanetris can work to rebuild trust between himself and other administrators. The onus of the former is on us as a group, while the latter is on him as an individual. As I said, I do not believe this particular situation crosses the threshold of deciding against Tanetris in this RfR.

If you have read this far, you have my thanks. I have done my best to cover the prominent issues brought up, and if I have been verbose, it is because I have wanted to show my respect to those who have given such honest feedback. I would like to cover a couple of side topics which hold less weight in this RfR, but have been brought up by the community and deserve to be addressed in their own right.

I am not Tanetris, nor is he me. That statement should come as no surprise, but I say it to hearken back to the topic of diversity. When I asked to become a bureaucrat, I did so to be a supplement to the administrators, not to be a replacement. I have a particular skill set that I hope I can use to help the wiki community, and so too does Tanetris have his own set of skills. We also have our failings, but as a group we do our best to help out one another when those arise. Of course, all of us need to be more present in the community to use said skills on your behalf.

Lastly, some aspects of being a wiki-administrator are simple and straightforward, while others are admittedly ephemeral. How this wiki is run and structured is in the hands of the community as a whole. Years of moulding and tempering starting from the old Guild Wars 1 wiki have brought us the Practices and Processes which we have today, but they are not set in stone. The question of activity level being a requisite to having administrative powers is something that can only be answered by you as a whole. If change is something the community finds consensus on, and activity level becomes inherent to the role, I feel confident that each administrator will be able to measure themselves to that standard outside of an RfR. The power for change is really and truly in the hands of those with power – all of you.

To conclude, the role of a bureaucrat is one that is laid out by the community. Waning presence is a justified cause for concern, but it is something that can be easily be brought up outside of an RfR, and only failing that should be a potential cause for an RfR. If the wiki community wishes to change the requirements of maintaining access to administrative tools, I encourage you to discuss these requirements further on the Practices and Processes talk page. I see no true distrust from the community in Tanetris' ability to use the bureaucratic tools appropriately. For those who have not looked, the tools are merging accounts, renaming accounts, and editing the rights of accounts. The question of Tanetris' role as a leader is for the most part moot. Those in the community are our leaders, and the topic of Tanetris as a leader among the administrators is one which is better handled by those affected, the administrators. Lack of leadership, as opposed to poor leadership, is not currently a failing of a bureaucrat given they are not inherently leaders, and is therefore not enough to warrant the removal of administrative tools. Given the above, poke and I have agreed that Tanetris should retain his rights as a bureaucrat, and have resolved this reconfirmation as successful. Greener (talk) 22:50, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

While I'm pleased that the concerns of the community haven't fallen on deaf ears, I'm afraid this statement only acknowledges the concerns; it does not address them. I'm hoping that's simply because this is just a resolution to an RFA (albeit a very unusual one). Can we expect a statement that does address the concerns in the future?

Also, the description of a bureaucrat's responsibilities you've used may be accurate on a technical level, but it does not cover the role of a bureaucrat as a community administrator; that is, the role a sysop (and a bureaucrat, to a much greater extent) in determining what is acceptable within the community, and moderating what parties are allowed in the discussion. I am concerned that leaving this part out of a bureaucrat downplays the importance of the trust that the community places in the users who occupy that role. While the community shapes the future of the wiki through discussion, sysops and bureaucrats determine who can participate in that discussion.

I am of course not a neutral party in any discussion regarding the latter point (for anyone unaware, I have gotten myself banned from the community discord regarding the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests), but I do not feel it is right to gloss over the community-defining administrative powers granted as a part of any administrative role. horrible | contribs 23:32, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

"Why a line was drawn at the second least-active administrator and did not include the third or forth least-active, or why it went beyond just the least-active administrator is not explained." Correction: Tanetris was the third least-active administrator. You seem to forget about Dr Ishmael. ❄The F. Prince❄ (talk) 08:28, 22 June 2020 (UTC)