RationalWiki talk:Moderator elections/Nominations/Archive2

Eligibility

Did we ever work out eligibility criteria for the office of moderator? Are users who joined the Wiki four minutes prior to nomination and have no edits eligible? ListenerX^TalkerX 03:41, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, there are no eligibility requirements. I don't think we need any. Does "Cretinous Incompetent" really stand a chance? Blue (is useful) 03:44, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Let it alone. It's probably Nutty's sock and he's just nominated it to troll people. --User:Brxbrx/sig 04:31, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

If Nutty makes seven socks, I and my ten or so sysop socks will support all of them for mod. --67.159.5.242 (talk) 04:39, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

You must have been busy to have ten accounts that all meet the voter eligibility requirements. Blue (is useful) 04:43, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Just saw this. Brx bringing up my name yet again to attack me. He must be pretty impotent to have to stroke himself off this frequently. Once again, please knock of your months long vendetta against me and your other enemies. Also. it's not my sockpuppet but I know whose it is and view it as an appropriate protest candidate. 14:28, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm confused

I've probably missed a meeting, but how many moderators are we voting for? Isn't Blue already a mod? And didn't Ace resign? Please fill me in - I've been too busy having a life to keep up. --PsyGremlinZungumza! 14:57, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Nutty complained about the inconsistency (we didn't have an election when PFoster resigned and just promoted Blue because the vote was close), so Blue resigned -- Nx / talk 15:00, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Alright, so what is the future protocol going to be for replacing mods? Is it going to be new election every time, or are we going to have one alternate and an election if a second vacancy appears? Blue replacing P-foster should be a done deal, as the majority of mods agreed and no one in the greater community seemed to voice any objection, but if she actively wants to resign and run again I guess that's her prerogative. Actually, the majority of mods agreed to a general promote-the-next-runner-up policy, and this election is only going on because a handful of people wanted it and instigated it. That's alright by me (though I do have a stake in the matter), but I don't think this ad hoc approach is the way to go in the future. Can we get some sort of official policy in place for filling vacancies that will work across the board? A policy for removing mods would be a good idea too, should that become necessary, and it is very preferable to have such a policy in place before it becomes an issue. DickTurpis (talk) 18:47, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Why is this more ad hoc than arbitrarily deciding who from the prior field would have been seated under exactly the same stated criteria as Blue was? It's certainly a lot more fair to the community than letting a few mods decide. Blue replacing PFoster should not have been a done deal at all. It smacked of a fundamental unfairness that I'm sort of shocked identifying gets called complaining. This election is being held because you either run a whole new election to fill these seats or you have a fair policy in place for seating remaining replacements from the prior field. Ideally people here would deal with the succession issue at the same time as having an election so there could be a good policy in place when this happens again. And it will. There was hardly anything all that sensible or transparent about a few people (who cares if they were mods if they were grossly overstepping their authority) arbitrarily deciding a post hoc cutoff point. And please knock off this business about moderators being able to decide this kind of stuff. Are you really that attracted to the idea of someone else deciding stuff for you that it would have been unthinkable anyone but the whole community would decide up until recently? If so, respectfully, you are abdicating your own moral authority and right to self determination and you're entitled to more than trusting this kind of shit to people who were not elected to lead. I've grown to distrust severals people's judgment and ability to do this job fairly and there's no way I'm letting them decide this stuff for me if i can help it. The mods can't do what you suggest, And if you continue to believe they can please show me where that is in the job description. Please also explain why you would even want that.

I really regret these screeds come off as angry, and in a sense they are. There's a lot a stake at this tender point in the site's development of a more mature self awareness. I essentially ran for mod as the anti-authoritarian on the platform that the mod position is completely unnecessary to deal with the few problems with the guidelines that got us in trouble; if we are going to have a special class of user, which I find an odious proposition, I'm going to do the least amount possible to adequately discharge my duty. I may even decide to do less. My anger stems from people throwing their hands up in frustration and welcoming a state of affairs that would have been fucking offensive to suggest even a year ago; I'm offended by the few who would so readily jump into a position of power that's not supported by the job description and is inconstant with any of our interests in self determination. We don't need more rules. We don't need leaders. And we sure a shit don't need to be moderated. We need to get as close to where we were before this period of doctrinaire anti democratic bullshit started and use good judgment to solve problems as they arise. As a community. 13:11, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, would you repeal the moderator system and go back to the way it was before, if you could?

Also out of curiosity, what do you think moderators should be doing? Specifically, I mean. From what I can see, the job description from the start until now entails jumping in on edit wars, warning or freezing or promoting to curtail them and to curtail HCM, and filling in the blanks between rules as necessary. I think I fully understand your ideology here, but since you appear to think all of those things are abuses of moderator powers - what should a moderator do?

I hope this doesn't seem like an attack - I just want to know your interpretation.--^talk 13:30, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Start over without that strawman. You seem to have a problem being doctrinaire over employing prudence. The rules are what they are. I disapprove of some of them. Others are fine. Enforcing them is not an abuse of moderator authority, but may evidence bad judgment. If you think I believe doing the job expressly identified in Trent's job description is an abuse of authority you're either not paying attention or I've been unclear about what I think the role actually is. I hope I've just been unclear because I intend to say a lot more about it. 14:05, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I understand this wrong but, are you really saying that you are only a moderator so that the moderator system fails? --★uːʤɱ digital native 14:11, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I truly didn't mean to prop up a strawman - I thought you had expressed that view elsewhere, that those actions I mentioned are not what a mod should do.

But I'll start over, very simply, because now I'm even more curious: what concrete actions do you think a mod should engage in? Could you give some examples of an appropriate use of mod powers?--^talk 14:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

@UHM: No, I'm not saying that. It's hard to credit that as a good faith question honestly. The moderator system is an unnecessary insult to our right to self-determination and it's going to be a complete failure. You people will not grant mods the moral authority to do anything more than push paper precisely because it's so ingrained in this website's history to be a highly successful collectivist anarchy. But if we're going to have moderators I'm going to follow the job description, which includes doing the least necessary to solve a problem, and wait for you all to recognize this isn't remotely the kind of effective democracy we had back in the day and that we failed to look carefully at the reasons we ended up with all that trouble back in May. "Light touch" and all. And I'm going to use prudence in deciding whether even touching a situation will cause more harm than good. @AD: Where have you seen me say the mods can't do what the job description requires? I've complained that you're overstepping by conflating mods with leadership and I've privately observed that you've defended weird judgment. I'll give you a few examples of some concrete actions, though an open ended question like that is difficult to answer very fully. 1. Lock a page to moderator for an hour instead of blocking several users, removing their rights, installing an extension to the MediaWiki software without permission (in such a manner that would be impermissible under the description of a pending job offer), and having several bullshit chicken coops. 2(a). Revert and lock a talk page to moderator for an hour to see if that will stop people from doing whatever you think is destructive; 2(b). Reconsider whether it's more destructive to mindlessly enforce a rule for the sake of enforcing a rule (that's exactly what you've said you were doing). And yes, the alternative to that would be anarchy. It worked for four years. 14:25, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for answering me. One thing you didn't answer was my question about whether you would repeal the mod system if you could - if there was a vote to keep the system, would you vote to return things to the way they were?--^talk 14:43, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh. Sorry. I talk to much and sometimes forget to address things. Yes, I would repeal the mod system if it was within my power, but since it's not I will endeavor to fulfill my role consistent with my duty. Now I wouldn't return to the system exactly as it was. Bureaucrats, while they were not a separate class of user in any meaningful sense, were ultimately viewed as such by a few loudmouths trying to buck years of custom and practice. Having crats makes no sense at this point, which is fine with me. The community functioned perfectly well for years essentially as a collectivist anarchy and without having the least bit of formal leadership. It was democracy on an individual level, not through desperately wanting mods to fill a leadership role. In May we ran into very simple problems that may not actually even had anything to do with populationg scaling on the site except to the extent we had a minor influx of users agitating for what I viewed extreme changes to the status quo. Those problems could have and should have been addressed individually with specific fixes calculated to surgically remedy a specific problem instead of implementing a grand scheme with its own bigger and more divisive problems. 14:57, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Anyway, I'm not running in this election and may not run in the next. Candidates are obviously free to adopt or reject any position I've stated here but I'd suggest we take this discussion elsewhere. It sort of took on a life of its own when the only issue I really wanted to address was fairness. 15:00, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I knew when I wrote it that this good faith question would came off in a bad way, but that wasn't my intetention. I assumed something wrong (Not doing anything→No change→system doesn't work), but I'm glad to read that you will commit to the minimum of mandate. Just one more thing "It worked for four years" is IMHO not a good argument, one could say the same thing for communism and monarchy and blame somebody to have fucked it up. For me, it's a fact that RW changes. Mainly in size and bigger communities need more guideline than if everybody knew each other. You are of a different opinion, of course. --★uːʤɱ pirate 15:08, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Respectfully, speaking of change when you're one of the people advocating it yet you showed up only shortly before things went southis your prerogative, but I suspect a good number of users who have been here substantially longer than that and aren't vocal about their positions disagree or you wouldn't see the first mod election going the way it did. 15:12, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, people's opinions and even the opinion of the majority aren't linked to the truth. Even more unfortunately, elections aren't either. --★uːʤɱ soviet 15:35, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

RW isn't all that much bigger than it was a couple years ago, if I look at the "active editors in the last seven days" graph here correctly. If something changed that we now require more active micromanagement, it's because of the users, not the size of the wiki. And Nutty's right, it did work much better about 2 years ago. sterile^talk 18:48, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Things worked better before because everyone basically got along, and disputes were generally minimal and/or uncommon. That isn't the case anymore. It sucks, but that's the way it goes. We didn't need to lock our doors until people started robbing each other, but the locks are not the problem. Anarchy's only ever worked in small groups of people who agree and get along well. That used to sort of describe Rationalwiki, but it doesn't anymore. DickTurpis (talk) 19:19, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

You've said similar things without justifying them. In fact, I've never seen anyone address why fixing a few holes in our prior guidelines and custom and practice wouldn't have obviated the need for all this doctrinaire bullshit. 19:27, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

What exactly needs justifying? The assertion that there are more disagreements and disputes than there were a while back? I don't exactly know how to collect statistics on such things, but I've been here quite some time, and while I admit I could be seeing the past through rose-colored glasses, I'm relatively certain there has been a significant growth in both the frequency and the intensity of disputes of late. If you can find some examples of anarchy ever being effective on any real scale, please tell me what they are, but I don't really see it working here. As for fixing holes in our prior guidelines, yeah, that could have worked, I guess, though I don't recall seeing any great ideas being kicked around at the time. HCM was becoming too damn common for things to continue as they were. DickTurpis (talk) 19:53, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

If we don't justify these assertions, how are the proceedings actionable? If the disputed doctrine is effective, why not legislate from the bench? A consensus on the matter is imperative. What we need to focus our intentions on is the clear and concise enumeration of those intentions. It's that simple. If the election does not suffice to meet these requirements, we will require arbitration of the particulars. That's that.Occasionaluse (talk) 19:59, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

How does RW define Consensus? 4/5th's majority? nobs^{abandon hope all ye who enter here.} 21:03, 13 September 2011 (UTC)