D&D Wiki:Requests for Adminship/Geodude671 (3)

Geodude671

Geodude671's Nomination. Failed.

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[1] (4/4/0) 50% Approval; Ended 22:42, 2018 March 12‎ (UTC)

Candidates Prelude

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve D&D Wiki in this capacity. Please take the time to answer a few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:

1. What sysop chores do you anticipate helping with? Please read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list on Wikipedia before answering.

2. Of your articles or contributions to D&D Wiki, are there any with which you are particularly pleased, and why?

3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

General comments

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Discussion

• Egh. This is a tough situation, and probably feels rather out the blue for Geodude671. I'll reserve my vote for a couple more days yet. I'll make clear that I don't imagine anybody would dispute Geodude's good intentions, nor his conscientiousness, nor his desire to improve the wiki. Geodude671 is a cool guy.

To speculate for a minute, my feeling is that the underlying issue behind all the problems encountered, including those GamerAim cited, is Geodude671's tendency to be bold - which, in itself is fine - But when deleting content, well, it's a lot easier to be bold and delete stuff, than it is to be bold and restore it all again; And it seems Geodude671's usual response to someone making a disliked edit or edit warring a 'bold' edit, is not always trying to start discussion, but instead protecting the article or even blocking the user. The consequence of this enforcement is that we become a wiki that values destruction of 'bad' or 'unacceptable' content (about which I'm still upset we have no policy we can apparently agree on), over creating 'good' content.

Curation itself is fine, but if we want to be a welcoming, collaborative community, we've got to discuss issues, list out problems with maintenance templates, give detailed feedback, be polite, and handle users with kid gloves (an approach I've seen Marasmusine maturely take like 100-fold more often than saying "I don't like it. fix it." which I'd argue he has only said on 'no-effort' and 'snowball' articles). We should not be pissing off users, including those active in our own community, in a blind followance of being BOLD - we used to pretty much always discuss things before taking meaningful action, like deleting content, and that was good. Geodude671 often shoots first and asks questions later, if ever; and over the past couple months, I've been less and less interested in contributing to this kind of inhospitable environment.

Anyway, I've speculated enough. These issues are not solely in Geodude671's court, but it is an attitude he very commonly takes. By being an admin, it makes this approach effectively 'official', while having the authority to implement some upsetting changes without discussing them. As far as I'm concerned, discussion and collaboration should be our #1 priority, not deletion and silencing users. I think this RfA touches on a bigger issue, also: That this feels like an increasingly unfriendly and destructive community, centred around Geodude671's spearheaded approach to curation.

Rant over, sorry~ If anyone disagrees, I can make effort to provide evidence. Whatever the case, love y'all. --SgtLion (talk) 01:49, 6 March 2018 (MST)

• Real life decided to kick into high gear when my 2018 started and when I have a bit of down time to come back, this is one of those things I see come back. I also can't rely on Discord, as that thing makes the laptop die a little faster, so I am a bit out of the loop, and subsequently feel less qualified to chime in. I looked over this page up and down so I can at least look at both sides of the argument. I would hope that there was a civil discussion on the Discord before this was placed up so my addition is in the hopes that that's what happened. I had my reservations the last time something like this went up, and the "Oppose" section has confirmed some of those reservations. Alongside my own real group issues the whole situation's really turning me off from any form of Table-top games because of that strict mentality of "The game has to to be a certain way, or you're playing wrong!" and on both fronts, I want to stop playing D&D. It's a bit tiring when the same exact issues crops up both in real life and on the internet and the fact that things are apparently getting worse. But that could just be my (un)fortunate luck kicking in. Just can't catch a 8reak. It's nice that improvements are being made but if those improvements are going to come alongside the cost of authority forcibly changing or removing my stuff before I can finish them, I'd rather leave.Nightmares are dreams too... (talk) 23:00, 6 March 2018 (MST)

Support

• Geodude671 has been doing good work so far. I don't see the merit in the opposing claims. --Green Dragon (talk) 22:53, 5 March 2018 (MST)

• After seeing Green Dragon's comments, I've changed my mind. Since my time here on D&D Wiki, I've seen firsthand that Geodude's top priority behind everything that he does is always to improve the site. I check out the Recent Changes page and he's consistently one of the most active admins I see, deleting posts that were requested for deletion and cleaning up the website as a whole. Keep up the good work, Geodude! Don't let this get you down! :) --EpicBoss99 (talk) 23:12, 5 March 2018 (MST)

My problem with Geodude (as an admin, not as a person) is that his idea of "improving the site" involves changing it into something it didn't used to be (if in spirit rather than policy), and that his activity has a habit of rubbing users the wrong way and then not addressing the issues those users have in the future, and deleting pages in spite of page deletion policy. Geodude has many good qualities, I just don't think he applies them in a way that benefits the vision of D&D Wiki.--GamerAim (talk) 06:34, 6 March 2018 (MST)

I totally understand your concerns, but I feel like a good one-on-one talk between Green Dragon and Geodude could fix those problems. If Geodude happens to break those rules again after the talk, then maybe he would have to step down. I just feel like immediately asking for his demotion is a little harsh, especially since he has so much passion for making this site greater than it already is. --EpicBoss99 (talk) 10:46, 6 March 2018 (MST)

• I don't believe Geodude671's position should be in question. He is prompt, active and readily willing to learn and adapt to what is expected of him as an admin. Revoking of such a privilege should not be the first step here and I believe if spoken to about concerns had with his behaviour given his position he will work to improve his behaviour. --ConcealedLight (talk) 08:45, 6 March 2018 (MST)

• Geodude is a very responsible, active user and I really fail to see why his status as admin should have ever been brought into question (Varkarrus (talk) 12:48, 9 March 2018 (MST))

Oppose

• I supported the nomination of my good pal Geodude671, with whom I feel I've developed a sort of working relationship or even friendship with over the past year, for adminship during the last nomination in the belief that he deserved a chance to prove my reservations wrong, but it is with mixed feelings that I am here now to support why I believe Geodude671 should be demoted from adminship.

Before becoming an admin, Geodude671 exhibited behavioral problems¹ resulting from a good-natured overzealousness to improve the overall quality of D&D Wiki (at least in his opinion).

Additionally, I feel that he lacks an understanding of the core collaborative spirit^{2 3} of D&D Wiki, as evidenced by his attempts to block IP page creations⁴.

This was also in response to Geodude671's actions of hindering the collaborative spirit of D&D Wiki through aggressive and illegal⁵ maintenance template usage.

He has also exhibited abuse or negligence of his adminship powers, first just before his original RfA when he abused his temporary adminship rights to perform an act of administration he was not authorized to perform, as well as recently when he removed the corollin race image and sparked much debate⁶. While I agree with his action, it took him much time and prodding for him to respond to the discussion, while I attempted damage control to justify an action he took himself on a whim. He has also been known to delete pages in spite of our existing deletion policy, which in the past has been grounds for demotion⁷. Multiple acts he attempts to perform are based on Discord chat, which is not a valid form of D&D Wiki communication⁸. Based on past proceedings, abuse of adminship is also grounds for demotion⁹.

This is just a smattering of the issues I and others have had with Geodude671, as well as precedence for his demotion, in the past year alone. Repeatedly, without change and without apparent understanding of what others have against his behaviors. I like Geodude, and don't think he did any one thing wrong that made me question (or now refute) his ability to be a good admin, but an unfortunate pattern of behaviors that I feel misrepresents D&D Wiki and which make me uncomfortable having him as our "Face." Please feel free to discuss, support or refute my claims and why you think Geodude671 should or shouldn't be an admin <3 --GamerAim (talk) 15:42, 5 March 2018 (MST)

I don't find your references to be valid.

Discussing an idea should never be grounds to dictate a user's behavior. This is the reason for talk pages.

I have seen Geodude671 collaborate well within his position as an admin, fulfilling various tasks for users who have signaled for his assistance.

Give me a good reference for his "aggressive and illegal" use of maintenance templates, and I am certain that we can find a number of users (e.g. Marasmusine) who have repeatedly used the wrong template or just put in something like "I don't like it, fix it".

This nomination is about his current position as an admin, and we should not hold him accountable for any previous positions he may have held.

Surgo specifically worked against concensus, and acted from his position of power to break and neglect concensus. This can been seen in his use of maintenance work against concensus. Geodude671 has willingly listened to concensus, made his contributions, and worked with the outcome. Like in the corollin image example. There are no similarities here.

Lord Dhazriel was just deleting any and all pages he wanted to. There is no way you can use such a reference when Geodude671 is working within the maintenance template structure.

I'm just not seeing these reasons to be valid, and they seem like a targeted approach to shoehorn logic onto Geodude671's adminship role when it doesn't hold its value. --Green Dragon (talk) 22:53, 5 March 2018 (MST)

Just treat SgtLion's discussion above as my response here.

If D&D Wiki is going to become a place where forceful curation is more important than friendly collaboration and communication (which is how I, SgtLion, and other users who I will let speak for themselves feel), then that's fine. That's your choice and I'll support it like I support all of your decisions. I'm not here to cause strife or divide the community.

But I want it on record here, on D&D Wiki, for all our users to see, that this is where we stand. That this is the kind of behavior we support. That this is community we want now.

And that all starts with me pointing out that I think Geodude671 is unfit for (what I think are the past standards for) adminship, because I think his current and continued behavior and attitude have violated policies and the spirit of D&D Wiki. I have put as much effort as it is worth into collecting points supporting my claim, and I have said my piece. If the consensus is that I am wrong, then I will continue to support whatever you and the community demand of me, as I have supported the homebrew banner, the Musicus Meter and the on-demand page protections.

Thank you for responding <3 --GamerAim (talk) 06:34, 6 March 2018 (MST)

I don't see this forceful curating, and without an example its hard to put it in its place. I'm not saying what policy fits with page standards (maintenance templates), rather I am voting on an person's adminship position. I disagreed with your references, but I did not give any form of manifest. Saying that this form of community is how we want it, and then saying that I am supporting forceful curation is a fallacy. When I said that we can find examples of misused templates, I literally meant the template's- not their resulting discussions. I am not of the opinion that Marasmusine has not answered discussions adequately, rather that by putting a maintenance template on a page saying, as a generalization "Lots of problems here. Please contact me" is also not really correct.

In my opinion forceful curation is mostly compounded by adding {{delete}} and {{abandoned}} onto pages that have had a maintenance template on them for some time. Personally, I am putting up with this concensus. Based on the amount of time and effort some of these pages have gone through, makes my heart feel a pulse of forceful curating.

I really want a few direct examples of what you are talking about with Geodude671's RfA, because I cannot see what you are referring to. --Green Dragon (talk) 09:14, 6 March 2018 (MST)

Another rant incoming, but enclosed are what I see to be direct examples of the issues I have - of unfriendly, unhelpful, and sometimes policy-breaching behaviour. Though, this case is moreso an accumulation of many small issues, than a few big ones, but allow me to try.

Couple cases I've personal history, one is the obvious Corollin image, removed without discussion, stayed removed after dispute, and when it was even more disputed, the entire explanation came down to two sentences; Not an issue alone, but hardly collaborative discussion. Another incident was a recent page, outright deleted mid-creation, despite multiple warnings given previously about the behaviour.

Perhaps I'm missing context (and if so, I'd love to be filled in), but take a cursory glance through the first half of the first page of Geodude671's logs, a tiny sample, and all I find is more of this behaviour (actually worse than I'd thought). More and more and more pages deleted less than 2 hours after creation, no discussion, and all the users blocked without warning. For what? Trying to contribute an entire article, that they definitely simply don't realise doesn't meet standards? It's already been made clear to Geodude671 that this behaviour isn't right. Even with IPs, discussion is easy, and we explicitly agreed after another debacle caused by Geodude671's brash approach that articles should not be interfered with mid-creation. Because how the hell do you know how good an article is before it's even created?

Here, one of the main contributors to an article is confused about why they're getting IRR templates. Does Geodude671 say something on the talk page before locking the page and blocking the user? Do they try to make discussion via the IP's talk page? Or the article's talk page? Or place a note to the user on the IRR template? Did they even make try suggest discussion in the edit summaries? Nope. Article protected, User blocked, done and dusted. Blocked without so much as a sentence explaining why. Same thing here, even happened to a registered user here. In fairness, the last example user's contribution was not meaningful, but a message on their talk page would've been an easy courtesy before blocking.

Is the picture coming through, yet? Or is it policy to rebuff users earnestly trying to contribute without trying to talk to them? I submit that it's fine to revert edits, to block IPs who solely want to change +1 Strength to +100 Strength and insist on it, or to forcefully protect an article from constant vandalism. And we've all probably prematurely blocked a user or two, that we knew was going to be problematic anyway. But what we see here is a consistent, policy-breaching, uncollaborative attitude, the 'strong arm' I was explicitly afraid of from the start, that I and others have told Geodude671 off for before, and yet it is continued.

Without a word of warning, Users are getting blocked, their articles deleted moments after creation, the articles they majorly contributed to locked out of their control, all for trying (and unknowingly failing) to meet Dandwiki standards, and instead of talking to them like human beings, they're tossed out and ignored. Never mind collaborative spirit, it's just bullying, and wasting peoples' time. I know dealing with new/ignorant users can be a hassle, but we were all those users once, and blocking them for trying to contribute real value, without any discussion, is not how you make a community, and not how you make a fun wiki. It's this consistent attitude that I have a problem with. --SgtLion (talk) 15:20, 6 March 2018 (MST)

Also, ilu Geodude671, really. I can't reiterate enough that this isn't personal, it's issues I have with some of the work being done as an admin. --SgtLion (talk) 15:20, 6 March 2018 (MST)

• This doesn't come easy, but I feel support or going neutral wouldn't be right and that maybe I should have listened to my reservations previously. I think improvements were made but my opinion is the shortcomings still exist. A major thing that I saw hurt Geodude671 was discussion with/towards other users. He corrected this but the attitude and demeanor didn't seem to go away; rather it manifested in brash decision making with page locks or "banhammer" threats. I do not think Geodude671's RfA is the reason for what I feel is change on the wiki, but the timing of it is mighty coincidental. As stated, when an admin behaves a certain way, other users may feel it is okay to act in the same manner. Discord does not help this either. It's been a great tool for certain things, but I don't think it helps with new users or users who aren't really on there.
  

Not all is bad though. Geodude671 had made those attempts to create discussion right after his RfA but as time went on, I think he lost focus on this approach of mediation. Maybe admin reminder from admin would suffice, but here we are. He cleans up a lot of pages and is online darn near all the time. In regards to IP creation, he would have never brought it up without support from others including myself and GD's & GA's comments were very helpful understanding THIS wiki's need for IP page creation. Despite this though, what I said before and the comments from Sarge and GA are why I am on this side of the fence.

With an endorsement from GreenDragon, I don't think Geodude671 has anything to worry about with this RfA. I think enough people from Discord will vouch for him and I hope Geodude671 doesn't let these things discourage him; and like others I will support the communities decision. BigShotFancyMan (talk) 08:30, 6 March 2018 (MST)

• I apologize, I was feeling really stressed when I made my last post, and it did show in my wording a bit. I'm level headed now, so I shouldn't devolve into that mess again. And a different view is always nice.

The first detail in question is: This page was created, and exists. I can't help but think that if someone comes along and requests a decision that was made some time ago to be reversed, that something's gone wrong. Especially if it's an admin of all people requesting this. Green Dragon goes and says "They're doing good work!" and there is clean-up being done. But then Sgt. Lion shows examples of situations where the work that was exhibited going against what the site stands for. I stressed it in Geo's last RfA and I'm bringing it up here again: Zeal. Looking at Lion's and Aim's links as their evidence, it does show that overzealousness showing. I'm FAAAAAAAAR from the ideal person who is qualified to be an admin anywhere, and the behavior I've seen from Geo isn't inspiring me to want to continue contribution here. Yes, there's the cleanups of changing the 25ft. Fly Speed to 75 ft. Fly Speed (I can agree that stuff like that would probably warrant nerfs), but then there's the points that Aim's brings to light. If Geo's done this in the past, there might be nothing to stop them from continuing this behavior in the future. Of course now we're seeing a "Calm" period because everything's in jeopardy but if this passes over and things stay the same, this could become a recurring pattern. Doing a quick peek at the History tab, of course the person on the spotlight is on would refuse their powers being taken away. While I shouldn't base my choice on the whole "The Bad outweighs the Good" ideology, if, in three months, I see a RfA for someone again vying for their removal of adminship, I think that person screwed up. I had my reservations last time, and here we are. I can't see some of the pages that only Admins can see, but from what I can tell there is some merit to the points that Lion and Aim have made. And as someone who is pretty much on the bottom rung of this ladder, I can say I don't want to stick around if this is what the site's going to become.

But hey, what do I know? Nightmares are dreams too... (talk) 02:24, 9 March 2018 (MST)

Thanks for coming back and clarifying that Umbra, I was worried about your well being when I read the first comment. Hopefully, things are better now or get better. --ConcealedLight (talk) 02:57, 9 March 2018 (MST)

I did forget non-admins can't see deletion/block logs, sorry. But I suppose it was mainly a showing to GD. Cheers for elaborating on the previous points, hope you're doin' well. --SgtLion (talk) 07:38, 9 March 2018 (MST)

• Sigh, I miss Marasmusine's wise council. I'm not happy about this, but I'm still open to changing my mind on this RfA - Alas, no further discussion seems to be happening. As per my comments above, I think a meaningful portion of the admin work done by Geodude671 does not reflect Dandwiki's policy, nor its spirit. I do think all the work done by Geodude671 reflects high-quality, constructive, and admirable intentions; I sincerely hope he wants to stay an important part of this community, he has a lot to offer. As EpicBoss99 previously stated, I hope we can all come to a good resolution. --SgtLion (talk) 07:38, 9 March 2018 (MST)

Neutral

• I don't follow what everyone does well enough to vote for this. I'm too focused on my own pages. Nevertheless, I hope whatever happens all parties (including Geodude) come to a good compromise and are happy after this whole thing. This is a game after all, and we should all have fun playing this game together! :) --EpicBoss99 (talk) 15:58, 5 March 2018 (MST)