Guild Wars Wiki:Requests for adminship/Karlos

Note: This reconfirmation has been resolved. Please do not add further support/oppose opinions.

Karlos

This request is for the reconfirmation of User:Karlos (talk • contribs).
Created by: — Karlos 02:30, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Canceled by: --Karlos 10:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Candidate statement

I am bringing my adminship for reconfirmation both as part of the reconfirmation of all sysops grandfathered into this wiki by ANet and because a number of people have raised doubts about my suitability for this position.

General vision:

I generaly believe in an active sysop base. I never liked the large dormant sysop base in GuildWiki. I believe admins are not bots. I don't think a person should be made admin because they edit a lot of pages. I believe the idea of an admin being a regular user with a few more buttons is naive as they hold power and sway over discussions. As such, not only is the person's activity a factor, but also their wisdom, vision and logic should be questioned and examined.

I am also a believer in the admin's power of discretion. That in the end, you cannot write down a full job description of admins that in the end allows you to hire a bunch of bots in their spot. This seems to be a point of contention between me and some of the users in the wiki who believe admins should exercise discretion as little as possible and stick to the letter of the law as much as possible.

I tend to be blunt and straight to the point, but I also try my absolute best not to win any argument by bullying. I try to guard very carefully against that. I will push and push until I get results, but I will not try to suppress or oppress other views. I tend to be more on the PC side of things, I don't like cussing and cursing and would rather not see them on articles or talk pages. I admit to being biased in this regard (i.e. I notice my response to a person committing a violation while cussing at others tends to be more harsh than one who just commits a violation). While I tend to use dramatized arguments at times and sarcasm, I try my absolute best never to attack anyone. And even if I do not intend to offend, I will apologize if the other side takes exception. I believe it is the price of sarcasm, you take the chuckles and laughs along with objections. Can't have one and not the other.

Contrary to the most recent incident. I am a BIG time proponent and follower of the rules. I tend to like consistency and developing policy over haphazardness. I've fought many battles over on GWiki to establish what is easily accepted now as the norm. I was a big proponent of developing bestiary formatting, mission formatting and the like in GWiki (which was largely ported in here as is). I am currently involved in a stagnating effort to canonize and formalize the species classification of creatures in Guild Wars. I tend to be more involved in the PvE side of things, namely Bestiary, Lore, Quests and Missions.

Specific indcidents:

• My first significant edit to this wiki was to remove a very bad banner on the main page that told people not to add anything until policies are formulated. This is the whole thread.
• I recently got tangled with J.Kougar when he started flaming Gaile Gray. This is the whole discussion... I feel it's one of my finer admin jobs. I think it's important that people are more group-concious (aware of what the others are doing) about tackling such things. And they need to back off and not feed the troll when they recognize he is in trolling mode.
• I most recently (last couple of days) performed an act of "civil disobedience" against the wiki's User page policy. You can read all the grisly details here and here. I want to make it clear that no one tries to paint this as me thinking I am above the law. I submitted to the policy (eventually having my user page wiped and even getting a 2 hour block from Tanaric, yaaaay) and knew all along that I was doing something wrong (was made aware that my page violated policy and still did nothing about it). The story from my side, is that, yes, I did that to make a point, I made my point and got the policy changed. This is a side of me that is there for all to see and it's related to incident number one. I will act in the spirit of the law sometimes, and not the letter of the law. This includes great moves (in my opinion) like removing that "Do not edit" notice, and less than great ones, like editing Xeeron's page as a joke.

That's all I got to say... I did not want this to be a routine reconfirmation where I say a few rosy things, rely on my popularity among the former GWikians and hope to cruise to a victory. I hope the talk page for this RFA will be filled with serious discussion about my vision of adminship and all the flaws (and some positives, hopefully) that people think I bring to the table.

Oh, and Eloc... I'm an admin on two wikis too. :( --Karlos 21:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Request withdrawn

After much thought about the nature of the position I think I don't really belong in this position. I think in this reconfirmation process I was fighting a fight that was fought and won (or lost depending on the side) months ago. The vision of the Senior Janitor seems to be very prevalent here, and it's not one I really look up to. It's also apparent that few people want to resort to the "admin is a leader" type of adminship.

In short, I will be the wrong guy for the job and it will be the wrong job for me.

I want to thank everyone who voted/participated in the discussion. I think it benefitted the entire wiki that we talk about these things openly. And though I still disagree with the model of leadership set forth in this wiki, this process of reconfirmation is not the channel to challenge that.

Support

1. Support Sometimes timing is everything and Karlos' RFA couldn't have poorer timing from his point of view after the user page controversy. I totally disagree with his methodology of bringing the issue up and I would like to think that I wouldn't take that course of action myself. However I'm still supporting his RFA because I believe Karlos is made of "the right stuff." In my opinion he brings a lot to the table as a sysop and does and thinks a little differently. This is a good thing. I feel he has a natural flair for handling a position of responsibility and I find him to be trustworthy. This isn't User Pagegate, Karlos has had a wide enough positive influence on this wiki that he cannot be defined by one single event. --Xasxas256 02:52, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
2. Support. I had a hard time with this vote. I finally concluded that this one case of "civil disobedience" does not and should not outweigh what he had already accomplished before. I don't believe that all the tenseness and flaring emotions should influence this one case of bad timing. -- ab.er.rant 06:41, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
3. Support. Though I do agree with his GWW:USER views, I do not think that the protest was all that well handled by him or (a couple of) his detractors. However, this is but a distracting speck on his record of working towards wiki progress. Not only do I feel that Karlos does not deserve to lose adminship, I also feel that he would deserve to gain it had he not already been grandfathered in. -- Dashface 09:27, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
4. Support. I feel that he provides useful divergent opinions, while still being a calm-headed. I trust him with all the extra buttons. HeWhoIsPale 12:54, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
5. Karlos is a example of how a Sysop/Admin should be. ~ Kurd 21:12, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
6. my heeeeroo — Skuld 08:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose. -- Scourge 22:19, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
2. Oppose. See this talk page for more details. Erasculio 22:22, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
3. Oppose. Well, ty for telling me you're an Admin on another wiki.--§ Eloc § 02:45, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
4. Oppose. Nice guy, lots of good contribs, but often not willing to listen to other opinions -FireFox File:Firefoxav.png 04:44, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
5. Oppose His contributions to GWW can been seen, but unfortunately so can his lack of adminship. An admin should always strive to hold themselves in the highest regard, but his temper can be found throughout the wiki. One comes to mind, found here. Others have already pointed out some other issues. As Mister Pepe mentioned below, Karlos uses the admin tools scarcely at best. Everything else he contributes to the wiki can be done without the adminship. — Gares 12:44, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
6. Oppose. Karlos is a great contributor to this wiki, however, nothing more. A sysop's job isn't just to block and delete, imo, it's also to provide an example as to what other users should strive to be like, which is where Karlos, not to put too fine a point on it, fails. What really made me decide to vote against, however, was his violation of GWW:USER, an issue which I'm sure you are all aware of. Instead of trying to change the policy, he simply protested against it by making a point of ignoring the policy. What kind of message does that send out to users? That by being an admin, he is not bound by the policies and rules that everyone else is? It should be the opposite way around - admins should be required to comply with policy more strictly than "normal" users. And if he can't comply with policy, he shouldn't be an admin. Personally I think that the userpage policy is overly restrictive in its current form, however, I do not cause a huge uproar about it, because it results in this sort of mess. --Santax (talk · contribs) 15:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
7. Oppose. I do not believe a sysop position should be seen as a means to hold power/sway over other users beyond enforcement of policy. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 23:10, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
8. Oppose. I'd like to point out that my vote is only to a small extend based on the user page issue. I feel that, in general, Karlos is a very stubborn person, who will not sway from what he sees as right. That is a great ability to have - for a user. Not for an admin though. Admins, like lawenforcers everywhere need to be able to enforce policy no matter their person view of those policy, else any system of laws (policies) will fail. --Xeeron 10:13, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
9. Oppose. I agree to Xeeron and got the same impression on the old Wiki. Should rather contribute, which is his forte. His dealing with other users for sure isn't, I experienced the "stubborn" part myself. --Longasc 07:22, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

1. I would have voted for oppose due to this discussion and the candidate statement above, which clearly show that he has a very different view on admins and their rights/privilages on this wiki than I and some other users. However, some users are attacking him due to the recent user page policy incident and I'm balancing against the negative votes that the incident wil most likely cause. Also, Karlos is a temperamented user and sometimes acts against the main stream, but I see these more as a positive than a negative thing. -- (gem / talk) 22:05, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
2. I'm not convinced how admin powers benefit Karlos' active wikiing, since I don't share his view of the admin role. But that reason alone is not worth an oppose vote. And I also want to make a point that I don't think the recent "civil disobedience" case is a reason enough for removing admin powers. - anja 23:43, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
3. :/ -Auron 02:27, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
4. Anja put some of my thoughts quite nicely there. I think Karlos' view of admins is definitely at odds with his behaviour, though this behaviour was only recent, and I don't completely agree with his view of adminship, nor any actions that would stem from it. - BeX 02:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
5. Meh. While I don't really think that he should be an administrator, I've decided that I don't know him well enough to make an informed decision. MisterPepe talk 04:47, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
6. Although I don't fancy the way he has set up the "User page policy revolt", I do find certain posts of him spot on. But I think my neutral vote leans slightly more towards oppose than support. --  (CoRrRan / talk) 10:54, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
7. Neutral. I have thought long and hard about which way to vote on this RFA, and in conclusion I could not decide which way to go. I have read the discussion on the talk page and in other places, but ultimately I am going to have to step back from this one. --Lemming64 12:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
8. Neutral. While Karlos is a great asset to the wikis, the recent event is the only negative I see and does not warrant a "I approve" sign on how Karlos handed the matter but his aberrant opinions are useful while keeping his cool. My neutral vote leans slightly towards support than oppose.--Bane of Worlds (talk • contribs) 19:34, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
9. Neutral. I believe this user does a great job as a sysop, but I believe the sysop program (and thus, the wiki in general) is harmed by having such a controversial sysop at this time when so many other well-supported sysops are available. —Tanaric 22:37, 17 July 2007 (UTC)