Talk: Administrate users, not content

The K Clause

I heartily endorse this product and/or service. And I suggest that we subst: it into Karlos' signature. ;) --  Bishop [rap|con] 17:52, 5 August 2006 (CDT)

Ah yes, the "Karlos clause" of wiki policy. :) --Karlos 19:55, 5 August 2006 (CDT)

Lol :) <LordBiro>/<Talk> 05:54, 6 August 2006 (CDT)

If Karlos is not going to be subject to this policy, then it is manifestly a sham. Everyone who cares knows what I'm referring to. 14:34, 6 August 2006 (CDT)

To the best of my knowledge, Karlos has always attempted to follow this policy. If you have wish to refute this, and you'd like me to investigate, take it to my talk page. Otherwise, please don't pollute random talk pages with dissent about a well-respected admin of the GuildWiki. —Tanaric 14:51, 6 August 2006 (CDT)

Well-respected isn't the term I would use. Coddled, perhaps. Or tolerated. I of course don't have too high an opinion of you either, but your fault is more being oblivious than in abusing your authority. But, if wearing that arbitrator hat gives you so much joy, who am I to complain? Feel free to remove my comments from this page. Hint: you can delete this page and selectively restore versions, obliterating the "pollution" even from the history of this page. Engaging you in any debate is foolish, so I shall instead wander away. 15:10, 6 August 2006 (CDT)

I think that's unfair, but I won't get into an argument. Have a nice wander :) <LordBiro>/<Talk> 15:27, 6 August 2006 (CDT)

I would be more than happy to never engage in another interuser dispute again. Thankfully, administrative intervention has only been requested (of me) twice. I volunteer for the job so that the other admins can do what they like without worrying about it.

I'm too busy to spend all day reading the wiki. My opinion is respected around here because I have been consistant and straightforward for the last 15 months. Somewhat curiously, this has resulted in people pulling me in to issues because they want my opinion. I'm honored that this sort of respect is conveyed upon me, and I try to remain worthy of it as best I can.

In short, I agree with you. I am pretty oblivious, because quite honestly I don't need to know most of the drama that goes on around here. I see my role as making sure the GuildWiki remains self-sustainable. Sometimes, that means I need to get in the middle of things—I'm doing that quite a bit right now. More often, it means I can sit back and watch and answer emails and not have to get directly involved.

I'm also longwinded, I never preview my edits, and I'm never willing to let a comment go without responding to it. Feel free to list any more of my faults, if you like. I'll probably agree. :) —Tanaric 09:38, 7 August 2006 (CDT)

Interesting. Go ahead, find me one edit dispute in which I said my edit should "stand" because it was "my" edit or that the other person's edit should be disregarded because he is "less senior than I" or any such wording. I have never and will never demand that an edit dispute be resolved based on which user has more "seniority." I do believe that user seniority plays a role, something others wish to believe is not true or does not exist.

A simple example is that, if I saw Skuld's next to 30 minor edits in the recent changes list. What I would do is check a few at the beginning to get an idea what he's doing, then, if I have no problem with that, I would not check the remaining 20+ edits. I am pretty sure (though I could be mistaken) that is how most others editors do it. On the flip side. If I saw an anonymous IP editing 20 pages, I will check each and every one of them.

Bishop also reiterated that I believe in some kind of value for established editor's edits over non-established ones. The key difference between my belief and the claim you guys are making is that, I believe in a level of trust of establsihed editors, not a level of inherent value for established editors' edits. I believe that if Barek edited Kuunavang's article to say she is immune to bleeding, that he, like any anonymous user, would have to provide proof. And if asked in a talk page to provide proof and he does not, I'd probably go cause bleeding on her myself and then RV his edit, then place a picture proving the bleeding on the talk page. On more subtle things like, someone rewords a paragraph I wrote in a mission walkthrough and I don't like it; I would argue why my wording is better, not why my edits are holy. Anyways, in my culture we say, burden of proof is upon the one who makes the claim, so go ahead. --Karlos 03:35, 7 August 2006 (CDT)

Personal attacks are not okay, and you're being unfair. Karlos' opinion may differ from yours, but calling him abusive is way over the top. --  Bishop [rap|con] 03:58, 7 August 2006 (CDT)

I propose adding the following line: "Any decision made by administrators in these contexts will be clearly marked as administrative, to help users identify that there is something they need to abide to. Users are not expected to remember, or to know off the top of their head, who the administrators are. Nor should they need to second-guess whether a certain statement/action from a user-who-happens-to-be-an-admin is that user's decision as administrator, or just as another user." Without this specific clause, I don't think Karlos need to change any of his behaviorial patterns to stay on good terms with this policy d-: -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 11:04, 7 August 2006 (CDT)

*Runs into this discussion, looks around* Seems to me whatever is best for the wiki and it's continued success is what everyone should be concerned about and I believe that to be true. To show my less than elegant side, "Opinions are like buttholes, everyone has one." As long as the information on the wiki is correct and this place falling apart, who cares about petty differences or opinions? I know I wouldn't be here if it wasn't fun for me. -Gares 12:25, 7 August 2006 (CDT)

I agree with PanSola, this would at least make it clear for users as well as illustrate if an admin is throwing his weight around just to have his way. --Karlos 01:05, 8 August 2006 (CDT)

edit without discussion

→ moved from Template_talk:Policy

Taking away the mediator role from admins when we're just now discussing that very issue isn't all that "minor". It may turn out to be the right thing to have done, but still that makes this template be as wrong as that was. --◄mendel► 23:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC) What's wrong here is that I express my displeasure with Auron's edit indirectly, by editing in a faraway place, instead where the discussion should be taking place, namely, Auron's talkpage. In that I am following Auron's lead, who with his edit weighs in on the debate going on at Warwick's RfA without actually posting there. Please don't construe that as intentional bending of rules or customs to make a point, I've just now realized that this is what I am doing. --◄mendel► 23:29, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect, AUNC is an old and forgotten (and somewhat obsolete) policy that I doubt anyone but you remembers, so I hardly think it will have any effect on the RfA, except that now you brought it up. (T/C) 02:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this ole' maid that is cited in nearly every power debate is definitely never remembered by anyone. 02:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The only recent example I can remember of this being explicitly brought up is Warwick's RfA. (T/C) 02:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

24 hits on talkpages. And luckily it doesn't come up all that often, it'd be bad if it did. --◄mendel► 06:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Like I said on IRC, the point of this policy is to prevent admins from using sysop tools to "win" a content debate, not to make admins mediate cases. If I were mediating a case, I would be doing it as a user, not as a sysop. Mediation is the job of the community. Arbitration, if needed, can be the job of sysops, because they can lay down the law (i.e., you follow the rules or get banned), but because mediation requires no sysop action to complete, it should not be seen as a sysop duty.

Regardless, my edit to the article was not a major one, nor did it alter in any way the actual purpose of the policy. Please stop making mountains out of molehills. -Auron 09:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with Entropy that it's obsolete, though it may have been forgotten because the process of the creation of this policy was sufficient to get the admins at that time to comply with it and we hadn't had a need to use it on anybody since. But I would argue it is still a relevant policy today as much as it was back when it was created.

Mendel, the spirit of the policy was the thing I bolded (for "proof", see the ancient discussion that brought the policy to its pre-Auron version). Auron's edits affect some "background info" that does not the main spirit of the policy. If you care about the actual letters of the policy as if they are sanctified, then the pre-Auron version never said mediation is something exclusive to admins, and the post-Auron version does not forbid admins from mediating, so I would argue that Auron's edits still doesn't change this policy in any major way. -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 21:14, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The title of the policy has two parts, and the part that contains the prohibition is the one important for disciplinary action: not content; I agree that for bureaucrats who may be concerned with sysop discipline, it may be the most important part of the policy.

The first part is proscriptive, and it may be that either all admins have been following it, or it hasn't been enforced as much, but it exhorts sysops to administrate users. The whole first paragraph's sole purpose is to explain what that means. And suddenly it means less. I think it's a fairly major change. I have more thoughts saved up on the mediator role, but I lack the time and collectedness of mind to write them down now. --◄mendel► 23:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Er... no, sorry, you completely missed the point of the that part of the policy. It does not detail what admins should do, it is a lead-in to what they should not to. As Pan said, it is background information, not a binding description of administrator duty. If something is the duty of a sysop, it belongs where all of their other duties are - right here. We're not GWW, and we don't have a billion pages all dealing with what the admin job is (we don't have a speedy delete policy, a "guideline" for how long to ban users, nor a discretion log to list all the occasions when sysops use their discretion to do anything).

If you still somehow feel that mediation is a sysop task (as opposed to the job of the community), then feel free to bring it up on the GW:ADMIN page, where the information belongs. This policy's purpose I've already stated, and you seem to have ignored - it exists to stop sysops from winning content disputes via sysop tools. Nothing else. It was created in response to someone thinking Karlos was going to start banning people that disagreed with him - and while that never happened, the policy is still here.

It did its job well. No sysops have won content disputes via sysop tools, as far as I'm aware. However, ascribing more importance to this policy than belongs is a mistake. Don't lose sight of the spirit of a policy while trying to wikilawyer specific words to mean more than they do. -Auron 23:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)