Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-12-24/Opinion

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Very thoughtful, thank you! Valereee (talk) 00:16, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I missed your re-admin vote, which I would have surely voted for, not that it would have made a difference. --rogerd (talk) 01:19, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I admire the author's thoughtful perspective on their experience. Not many people would admit to their own faults. Brave also to link to the Wikipediocracy forum topic, which gets sort of rough as it progresses.→StaniStani 10:55, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with above this was very thoughtful, and agree with Graham that copyediting should come right out of the Newcomer tasks given the issues it raises and how poorly targeted it is. CMD (talk) 11:06, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. When I'm training new editors, I caution them to not fix spelling mistakes because what looks like a spelling mistake to a newcomer is often another region's variety of English. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:05, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Graham has set out the reasons he came to be de-sysopped. Like Graham, I'm local to Western Australia and have met with him many times in person and I have always been impressed with his contributions. The admin recall process is a no win situation as its always easy to find 25 people who are upset enough with an admins decision put their name to the recall process. On en.Wikpedia pile-on signitures are equally easy to gather its normal for disgruntled contributors to come out of the woodwork whenever an Admin is being scrutinised regardless of their interaction with that Admin. In a project where getting 1000 people to respond is common, where RFA's regularly had 500 support votes over the years, just 25 appears to be way too disproportionate perhaps it needs to be similar in number to the support recieved in their original RFA. This process ran while there was testing of a new Admin Elections attracting many more people wanting to be seen on the right side rather than sticking up for each other. I honestly dont think the way this developed was anything but a Kangaroo court I glad I resigned my admin bit a few years ago when my editting whaned and I couldnt be bothered with the continual private emails asking me to: do something about user:foo. Where ever people think the Admin process should go, please remember that revenge isnt the way, neither is ancharcy, being kind, and recognising that no admin hasnt upset someone.
I remember back when Wikipedia didnt have 1000 rules or policies where editors were encourage to defend each other not pile on. Its also the time when RFA was not a 1000 question maze but rather where as long as person was sound they got approved. Perhaps we have over regulated, and put so many hurdles in place that we have forgotten that we here to write an encyclopaedia not to create cage fights. Gnan garra 13:41, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is interesting to read this from Graham's point of view. I was the editor who disagreed with Graham's 25 August block of Hocikre. Before I took it to Administration Action Review I, very tentatively, pushed back on Hocikre's Talk Page. It felt terribly stressful to me because I did not yet know anything about Graham, the admin that backed up his decision to indefinitely block Hocikre, the review process, or very much on the admin side of Wikipedia other than what I see at RfAs. I was afraid that I was about to get myself involved in internal politics when what I really wanted to be doing was looking at books and rewriting stubs. I felt good after the review, I thought, "Well, that was not so bad. A bad decision and then a correction. The system works." And I was wrong.
I did not know about the recall petition until it had already gotten twenty-five signatures and gone to an attempt to retain through RfA. And my thought on seeing his user name was, "Oh shit, this again. He didn't change." Even then I was thinking, "Well maybe, he did promise to step back from blocking." And decided to come back later after more thought. Meanwhile it was pointed out in the opposes that he'd done the same kind of block while the recall petition was running. And that made me feel really foolish. I'd been ready to give yet another chance even though I had seen the same thing happening over and over. Graham was being given all the chances to change that he didn't give to other editors. The system did work in this case, but it is as Graham has pointed out himself a case of someone being hoist with his own petard. Though also because he was being enabled by another Admin who did him no favors by backing him up. I'm not sure what system might work better and be less stressful for the people involved.
I'm still partly sympathetic. I also watch a lot of quiet pages and get annoyed with editors who've not read the Manual of Style doing lots of little edits, but because I don't have the "phenomenal cosmic powers" of an Admin there is a limit on what I can do. I've always got to follow the process of Warn1, Warn2, etc. It slows things down, but that is a good thing. There has been many a time that just one warning, one more or less friendly comment, corrects a new editor and they stop the bad thing and never come back or change their behavior and keep going. I hope I am not being foolish, but I'd be willing to support Graham as an Admin if he got back into correcting the newbies and other characters for two years or so. But I would want to see actual evidence of change rather than just a promise to do better. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 20:13, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Although I signed the petition for the recall and pushed you to withdraw the RRFA, and stand behind those positions, I have also been impressed with your calm demeanor and your eventual honest and forthright evaluation of your own errors. You seem to be more able than most not to take things too personally. El Beeblerino ^{if you're not into the whole brevity thing} 23:03, 28 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A really interesting introspective essay. The analogy made between blocking and alcoholism was particularly striking. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that chemical charges can be generated by internet activity and that such things are addictive — that has been one of the longstanding criticisms of hardcore Wikipedians by those who are not, actually, that we are in some way physically addicted to editing. I can't say that's necessarily wrong, but I also won't say that's harmful. Quite the contrary. Good luck with your continued positive work at WP. Carrite (talk) 18:56, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The negative mindset towards new users is what surprised me, because it was Graham87 who welcomed me to Wikipedia all these years ago, and helped me out greatly as a new user (well, one who had done a bit of editing for a few years, but never got a welcome or an introduction, so still largely unfamiliar with Wikipedia's processes). His constructive and helpful advice was what helped get me up to speed with recent changes patrolling, and then ultimately to where I'm at now. It really shows that treatment of newcomers can often make-or-break their entire wiki editing career... I don't think I would still be here if my first impression of Wikipedia, after trying to contribute positively, was an immediate block. I'm still surprised this came from the person that welcomed me. What can I say... I'm sad—and disappointed—that it came to this. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 15:07, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@K6ka: I remember you! I've replied more fully at your talk page. I don't know if noting that here is brave or stupid or both, but it felt like the right thing to do ... I was going to comment here but thought my message would be better where I ended up putting it. Graham87 (talk) 16:02, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

brave or stupid or both. You have to be brave and stupid to edit here!

What are we all doing here, writing an online encyclopedia for free?! —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 21:40, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Graham87: I'm quite late, but I just read the part about how used rollback. Would User:Nardog/Consecudiff suit your needs? Aaron Liu (talk) 12:40, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the suggestion. I did try it ... but it's not quite what I'm looking for, because (a) it's more than just top edits and (b) it's different in other ways that are hard to articulate (like it looking at the edits right on the page you're on, etc). It was worth a try though. I think I'm getting more used to the way things are now as time goes on. Graham87 (talk) 14:43, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Graham87: A word of concern and I am going to point it out in WP:Recall annd RfA: You should not close the vote. This is a case of the judge making the decision of himself, no matter the result, even it is a Snowball fail. SYSS Mouse (talk) 23:19, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What did Graham close, besides his withdrawal, which is perfectly within his rights? Aaron Liu (talk) 23:25, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

He made the edit to close the RRfA vote. While he can obviously state that he is withdrawing the vote and handing in the mop, I consider that it is inappropriate of him closing the discussion about himself, especially the discussion is about his conduct and his suitability of continuing as an admin. SYSS Mouse (talk) 23:34, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think so. It's completely fine to withdraw and thus close a mooted discussion: since he's effectively resigning, there's no purpose or real benefit in discussing his conduct. If anything's worthy of action, it can continue at ANI. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:37, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think this way: the closure requires access change, namely revoking admin privilege. Therefore it would be better for a bureaucrat to close the discussion so that the said bureaucrat will then remove the admin privilege. SYSS Mouse (talk) 22:35, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why do we need bureaucracy for the access change? There's no harm in a judge pronouncing themself guilty. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:54, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. At the time of writing we only have ten bureaucrats and they're not necessarily available in a timely manner due to time zones and the voluntary nature of this project. Graham87 (talk) 03:12, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I respectfully disagree with you two. The issue at hand is physically granting and removing admin privilege on Wikipedia server and therefore demands a higher security clearance than regular administrator. Bureaucrats and system stewards primarily serves that purpose. SYSS Mouse (talk) 15:32, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why should resigning admin privileges require clearance? And only bureaucrats and above can do the actual reassignment anyways. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:38, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Actually we do need clearance technically. An admin wishing to resign needs to head to bureaucrats noticeboard to send in a notice, even voluntarily. SYSS Mouse (talk) 04:23, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawing from a RRfA sends exactly the same notice. CMD (talk) 05:18, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Neither Withdrawing a re-RFA nor then closing it as withdrawn do not require any higher privilege than does resigning ones adminship in any way. There is no consensus to judge - anybody is perfectly entitled to withdraw their (re-)RFA when it's 500 support and 0 oppose if they want to - and the only thing we need to be sure of is that the admin actually wants to resign. As far as I can see there are only three possibilities here

The admin does actually want to resign - this will be the case well over 99% of times the situation arises.
The admin's account has been compromised and the person in control is impersonating the admin. Having gained unauthorised access to an admin account it would be very bizarre to then resign adminship. And in any case compromised admin accounts are desysopped as soon as someone who can do it becomes aware of the fact (iirc this is one of the cases where stewards are authorised to act on en.wp if there are no 'crats immediately available).
The admin is being coerced. In this case it is almost certainly best for both the admin and the project if they are desysopped, so they are not coerced into making admin actions.

Closing a (re-)RFA discussion once it has been withdrawn is also the kindest for the subject, especially if it is bad tempered or there are lots of pile-on opposition, etc. So ultimately I fail to see any benefit to Wikipedia, or the admin, from disallowing them to close the discussion once they have withdrawn it. Thryduulf (talk) 05:59, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your link is wrong, we have 15 'crats at current. Primefac (talk) 06:58, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Aha, thanks, that's how it's done. Graham87 (talk) 11:07, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're the first person to bring this concern up after probabbly one of the most closely watched and analysed RFA's of 2024, at the very least, indicating that your concern isn't held by many people. The relevant section of the guide to requests for adminship says that an admin can close their own RFA and even gives instructions to them for doing so. Graham87 (talk) 00:41, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The original poster of this thread made a post on the admins' noticeboard about it. Graham87 (talk) 06:10, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Someone closing their own RFA after withdrawing is harmless and not a judicial action in any way. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 06:26, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]