Board Thread:Community Discussions/@comment-26237829-20150413220042

User_blog:Eagleeyedan/"Hate_me_if_you_want_to,_Love_me_if_you_can"

>This was much easier back then as chat was not yet a feature of wikia, and chat legally is only for users over the age of 13, which is around the age when most LMBers retire.

You must be at least 13 to legally to even edit or have an account on Wikia, not just chat. That also only applies to users in America, to be a legal issue.

>We also originally had a system where only the admin team could decide who would be on the admin team and we would add admins as needed. This was done to make sure that only qualified users would be in the position. Soon, however, the community wished to be allowed to vote on the admins which we allowed, though not unanimously.

Why wouldn't we change to this system? That way we would know what users are wanted by the community to be admin, and which aren't. The judgement of forty or fifty is greater, as opposed to the judgement of four or five users.

>Chat mods are promoted to keep the chat clean, but there have been many incidents where if they kick someone who, after due warning, still persisted in trolling, are barraged with anger from others on chat and told to stand down as if they are abusing their rights rather than protecting the image of the wiki.

I have seen many instances in my short time on this site where many moderators have abused their tools.

>In general, the chatmods that I speak with feel afraid to do what they are elected to do for fear of an outcry from the community.

I have never witnessed a moderator refrain from kicking anyone.

> Just because something is misused over a long period of time does not mean it should be repurposed for that new use.

Misused? I don't think any policies or anything were misused.

>Next topic, the job of an administrator. The comment has been made now that administrators do not run this place, that we are not in charge, and that we have no more rights than any other user. To this I say poppycock. What does the word "administrator" mean? According to my New Webster dictionary,

"1:    Someone who manages and has talent to manage 2:     A person appointed by the court to take charge of an estate 3:  I) A person who manages and supports a computer system or network II) A person who manages an Internet Discussion Board or website"

Tell me, what part of that says "is not in charge"? Every single definition means an administrator manages. Synonyms for manage? To be in charge of, to run, to support, to command, to call the shots, to direct,... etc. You see my point. While a wiki is intended to be run by the users, there are user rights for a purpose. Not anyone is respectable enough to be a chatmod, not everyone can be a patroller, not everyone is qualified to be an administrator, few are ever ready to be a bureaucrat (let alone be able to spell it Joking). Case in point, I have never been nor probably will ever be a bureaucrat. My brother is, but I am not even though I have been here much longer than he. Someday when you get a job, try and tell your computer system admin that he doesn't have control of your account and see how far that gets you. Companies have system admins for their own safety; to prevent their employees from doing certain things on company time and to make sure they aren't performing corporate fraud. While obviously none of those reasons apply here, we admins are here still for a reason.

It's universally accepted and proven that on large wikias (w:c:rs for example, and even ) that admins are just users with extra maintenance tools. Wikias with "oligarchies" really do tend to not do as well. I mean, look at that site, Brickimedia even. The site is doing fine with just its admins and patrollers. Site administration was really defined on Wikipedia. If this didn't work, how would all these wikis get so large? How have they not fallen inactive or failed?

>With the new policies being suggested and I fear passed, the ability of the admins to protect the safety of this wiki is being drastically compromised. There is absolutely 100% a need to allow the admin team, I emphasize team here since it is only by a decision of the entire admin team that we can veto anything, to be allowed to veto community votes. One admin, no, but if the entire admin team says no, then that should be the end of it. The admin team is made up of seasoned users who should know right from wrong and sometimes, what's wrong can seem right. I am a bit of (okay more than a bit of) a history nut. I've almost inputted several examples from history, but the one I will now talk about is especially poignant to make my point.

What? That idea is absolutely ludicrous. Why would we entrust what we want and don't want to five users? Admin vetos? It seems that anything that would be entrusted to an extremely small group in which one member is named "Eagleeyedan" would cause more harm and more users leaving than anything else. I don't see how anyone can "run" a site with almost every user despising them.

>What is that idea? A revote. I won't delve into details here as it wasn't proposed by me in the first place and I'm sure it will come up for a community vote soon enough, but basically how I see it as working, now that the admin veto has been canceled, would be like this. If the community votes on something, and the admin team is wary of it and thinks the community might not be informed as to why it could be a harmful policy, a formal write up of the admin's concerns and reasons behind the revote would be posted along with a revote thread. Not sure how it should all work out beyond that right now, as I said it wasn't my idea in the first place and has not been written up as a true proposal yet therefore the details still need to be worked out.

That is almost hypocritical. You are going to use the system that you do not agree with to bring back the old system? Those are my opinions on this, anyone else with views (differing or not), please share (or share once again, below.) 