Guild Wars Wiki talk:Requests for adminship/Farlo/Archive 1

Intriguing

I think that is the best word I can find for your RFA. I'm looking forward to going through your contributions and logs tomorrow when I have more time to appreciate them, and I hope others are able to take the time as well. Thank you for putting yourself out there. G R E E N E R 06:02, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

@ TEF's note

I already had a semi-break from the maps, but I feel like I'll finish Tyria this week (except for the stupid random boss spawns), and might even have steam to continue shortly after. If I am made an admin, I'll probably keep the maps as a priority while I get used to admin duties, whatever I may be doing with them. I am quite obsessed with the maps, so rest assured I'll get them all done... eventually. ~FarloTalk 19:02, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Not sure if anyon's watching or cares, but they haven't gotten done because I've been sick since Wednesday, so I'll get back to them soon. ~FarloTalk 04:13, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

A question for the candidate

For clarification, what would you do with the admin tools that you cannot currently do as a contributor? --Ceru talk contribs 02:36, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, as stated in my statement, a lot of it would be dealing with vandalism and the general maintenance of the wiki, in an attempt to help out the current admins, as well as any other tasks that might arise where I can assist. In a few words, I feel very strongly about the GW community, especially the wiki, and am willing to offer my (bucket-loads) of free time to help it out as best I can. ~FarloTalk 02:49, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

We are planning on getting AbuseFilter installed soon here, and if that works really, really well, how would that affect what you plan on doing? --JonTheMon 12:02, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with AbuseFilter, but just from the MediaWiki page for it, I assume it will be used to automate a lot of the vandal reverting and blocking and such. Assuming it does work really, really well, then I guess a lot of the admin work required will be reduced, and maybe make my sysop-hood not as useful. If I'm still made a sysop and the extension does what it's meant to well, I'll invest time in learning to use it and try to help, along with the other admins, use it's awesome powers for the good of all Wiki-kind. ~FarloTalk 18:53, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure AbuseFilter should factor too much in this RfA. "We don't need more admins" isn't a valid reason for rejecting a candidate, whether it's because other admins already do the job or because an extension does the job. Besides, AbuseFilter will be limited in what kind of vandalism it prevents. pling 16:40, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Which is why I started this particular section asking for a concrete clarification of what Farlo would like the admin tools for. It's not that I don't believe that he'd do a good job so much as finding out what additional tools he wants access to and what he would like to do with that access. --Ceru talk contribs 03:23, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Not easy, if one doesn't know what all tools would be available. You'd get this with some whom aren't sysops or admins on other wikis and want to give this a shot. It's not completely a fair question. 72.148.31.114 16:23, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

While I haven't actually used admin tools before, (I think) I have a decent understanding of how the Wiki works and how to use the tools that will be available to me. While I don't know 100%, I'm fairly sure most of my admin duties would be general wiki maintenance (reverting/deleting vandal pages and the like). ~FarloTalk 17:48, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Usefulness

While as of now I neither support nor oppose your request for adminship, I'm actually wondering if adminship is actually something you want for yourself. I've repeatedly looked through your contributions, and what I have seen is a great contributor to the wiki, albeit focussed on the maps project right now. However what I don't really see right now, is a user who knows the wiki internals good enough to make correct use of the admin tools. Please note that I'm not saying that you would misuse the tools, but on the other hand I don't see that you would use them well either.
Pling already gave one example of that missing knowledge, I spotted another one on the admin noticeboard. While I understand very well that you want to protect those templates from being vandalized, it's just not the way we do it. We always keep everything unprotected, except to prevent further vandalism. Templates (and pages in general) are only being protected when there is already a history of vandalism, and when the protection is actually giving a clear benefit (compared to the fact that it reduces the number of possible editors of that page, it usually is not a benefit).
While one could argue that such knowledge is not required to be a good and successful administrator, I would rather have a competent administrator than one that only limits his actions to vandal-blocking. I think what our admin team needs most currently, are full admins that are also able to use their discretion to sort out things, and not just another maintenance sysop (yes, I know, I'm one of those too).
And one more thing on the topic of vandal blocking; I don't think vandal bots are currently an actual problem. Yes, they are annoying, and there are always coming more of them. But it was always like this; actually I remember times when those vandal bots were a lot more persistent and annoying. I just double checked all reported vandals on the admin noticeboard: The chance that a single vandal bot does more than one or two edits is incredibly low. Most of the blocks on those bots were applied hours later; some would argue now that our admin team is too slow (which it usually isn't at all), but what I want to say instead is that block are actually completely unneeded. If I look back, I don't really remember many vandal bots coming back, at least not with the same IP we blocked them with. Or if they do come back, they come back weeks/months later after the block has expired anyway. So what I want to say with this paragraph now, is basically that we don't need to block vandals, because after they did what they do, they disappear anyway. So all there is to do is to revert them, and otherwise ignore it. And that's something, any user can do. poke | talk 16:13, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I have to say I disagree a bit. Many vandals have hit more than one page, more than once. If we didn't have John or Greener defending us, we'd had more troubles. Messing up templates that we don't edit, because they are "fixed" is a problem that right at the moment, would be cured with a semi block for regular editors to edit as there's no sense in ips editing them anyway. We are still waiting on the answer to the tool abusefilter that would help a lot with the vandals. It's also not nice to bluntly accuse a potential sysop of possibly not using the tools, when we don't give them a try. We gave Raine a try and yes that went wrong. We are giving Greener a try and he's doing well. Sure Farlo has made a few mistakes, but they are far less than what Raine did, before her sysop. (Kaisha) 72.148.31.114 16:37, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I think (a) I'm not sure that the current policies still benefit the wiki in the way that they used to and (b) regardless of Farlo's personal views, I believe he has demonstrated clearly that he's unlikely to change how GWW policy is implemented without community support.

"We always keep everything unprotected, except to prevent further vandalism. "

It's not clear whether that policy benefits the wiki as well as it used to. Keeping things open is the right ideal, but it's not necessarily practical when it comes to oft-used/transcluded templates whose only edits over months and months are vandalistic. Case in point: Signet of Spirits — over 90% of its edits over the past year were vandalism or reversions of same, while the remaining six edits were all made by registered users. In other words, semi-protecting that page a year ago would have literally had no impact on anon edits (who would have been able to request a change on the talk page); it would, however, have saved registered users from a whole lot of hassle.

The question, therefore, shouldn't be whether Farlo has a different philosophy about this, but whether, if given admin tools, he's likely to implement blocks/bans/prots in a manner inconsistent with the consensus of the community. I think the interactive map project makes it clear that, regardless of his own views, Farlo looks to the community for guidance and is always willing to change his actions appropriately (even should his ideals conflict with the community decision). In other words, I think there's clear evidence that Farlo will implement the will of the people, even while he is hoping to lead us in a different direction eventually.

Someone also raised the issue of whether Farlo is familiar enough with basic wiki tools (e.g. move). That's a fair question, but I'm not worried about it because I see that Farlo learns very quickly: at the beginning of the map project, he wasn't familiar with complex templates (or potential copyright issues), but he picked up the necessary details quickly. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:19, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Very valid points, and I just want to reply to TEF's note: "Someone also raised the issue of whether Farlo is familiar enough with basic wiki tools (e.g. move). That's a fair question". I haven't been an admin on any other wiki, so I don't know much about the details of the tools, but I think I can pick it up given a bit of time. ~FarloTalk 19:36, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Alright, now that I don't feel like crap, perhaps I can offer more than the useless sentence I did in response. About using the tools properly, according to GWW:ADMIN and Guild Wars Wiki:Sysop guide (unless I missed something), the only tools I'll get access to are blocking users, deleting, and protecting pages. While these are hugely important tools, I don't think they require a whole lot of explanation about how to use them effectively or how I would use them.

Besides the usual vandal blocking and users/IPs that blatantly need to be blocked, I don't see myself making an executive decision regarding any situation that arises without at least some public discussion or general consensus among any admins involved or that made themselves involved, as well as the general feeling and direction of the discussion regarding said situation.

Deleting pages has a pretty thorough policy attached to it, so I don't think there's too much I could screw up there.

As for protecting, I understand the need to keep pages protected for the least amount of time possible to keep the Wiki as open as possible, but I agree with TEF's point of view on protecting some of the more important pages. Of course I wouldn't act without discussion and possibly policy review, but I feel that semi-protection of some of the widely used pages and templates can do more good than harm. In the case of the image label templates, I highly doubt any IP would have much to contribute to them, but on the other hand, if someone feels like it, they could throw slanderous messages and effectively break hundreds of pages in one fell swoop. Although it's easy to revert since it's one page being changed, the potential havoc far outweighs the right for an IP (who can request a change or simply login) to edit the page. While I can't seem to find an explicit protection policy, there are a few pages where I feel the same way. Again, like TEF stated, perhaps reworking/creating a page protection policy is something to be worked on soon? --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Farlo (talk).

Length?

I was just wondering how long these generally stayed open, or if there's been any consistency in them? The main RFA page said about a week, but some of the other RFAs have gone on quite a bit longer. Does it just depend on when a Bureaucrat gets around to it? ~FarloTalk 09:07, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

yes and no, some times the bureaucrats need to talk it over ect. to me it dose not seem like many people have seen ur rfa but what ever.- Zesbeer 09:28, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, but I doubt many more people are going to say anything, this wiki's kind of dead :P ~FarloTalk 19:36, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that many visit this wiki as much as it was last year or especially at the end of the year before. Kaisha 00:59, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Generally it's 1 week, but they've been different at different times (some bureaucrat teams were more inactive than others). I bugged a bureaucrat about this a few days ago and told him to get a move on, but he probably wanted to avoid Aiianing the results and opted to talk it over first (although this one is fairly clear-cut). -Auron 02:11, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Auron, let's hope it's sorted out one way or another. Either way the decision goes, it being not answered is making me way more anxious. ~FarloTalk 03:30, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Just a quick heads up on this: We are currently discussing this internally and will resolve it within the next few days. Due to timezone differences it's not always easy for us to coordinate, so please excuse the additional delay. poke | talk 16:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

No problem at all and I'm glad to hear some update and not just silence :D ~FarloTalk 18:50, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Woah, that almost sounded like an Anet response... :P pling 18:53, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm just training, in case I'm ever looking for a job there *cough* poke | talk 19:26, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Result

Just as a quick explanation of the result of this RfA: After the initial phase of the RfA, where most votes were cast, we wanted to give the RfA a bit more time, as we thought that there would be a few more votes coming to clear off the very neutral feeling. While that didn't happen, we talked internally of what we personally thought about it. As you can see now, we personally were rather on the oppose side. Despite our personal view, we still think that the community in overall wanted to make this RfA succeed, or at least didn't have a serious reason to oppose it (RE neutral votes). As we however neither wanted to overrule this decision with our personal opinions, nor wanted to keep our own objection reasons hidden, we decided to vote ourselves (although unusual for bureaucrats) and resolved the RfA as successful directly afterwards.
Farlo, while I personally preferred that you would get yourself more comfortable with the wiki's internals, please take this as a chance to do this directly with your administrator status. I have trust in you to use the tools for good, and I hope everyone can live with this decision. poke | talk 19:58, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the post Poke, and I have used the admin tools a couple times on a Wikia wiki I made after that topic seemed to be a major part of my RfA. It's really not that complicated, and I'll be sure to stretch my legs here when the need arises unless you guys beat me in the F5 spamming race. What's nice is that I can also do everything except hit the "confirm" button here to get acquainted with the menus. ~FarloTalk 20:15, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

One thing I didn't see on the Wikia was the "patrol" tags everywhere. Do you guys actually use those and mark things patrolled? ~FarloTalk 20:30, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

No, we rather ignore the patrol flags.. Although GWWT marks every diff I look at as patrolled... poke | talk 20:54, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

He also has sysop tools over on another wiki that I am a sysop of. 72.148.31.114 21:10, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I mainly use the "patrolled" flags to help when I navigate things such as New Pages. I believe you can change the option of auto-patrolling, though further inquiries on that will have to be on your part. G R E E N E R 01:06, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the replies, even though this somewhat solidifies my lack of admin experience >.< ~FarloTalk 01:28, 11 August 2011 (UTC)