D&D Wiki talk:Requests for Adminship

Question

I was just wondering why, on each individual RfA page, the person's name is linked in such an odd way? For example:

Valentine the Rogue's Nomination.

In the above, like on every page, the person with the RfA's main name only links to the page you're already viewing when seeing it, while the "'s" links to their user page. I would think that having the name link to the user page would be easier for people trying to learn about the individual up for Adminship. I was just curious, as I always noticed and didn't know if there was some coding reason for this.   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   21:38, 23 August 2009 (MDT)

Oh, it's just an idea I had which was tried out on the UA material earlier (and I am thinking would be good to add to CS's). For example Marvel Universe (DnD Campaign Setting)/Races]] --Green Dragon 22:09, 23 August 2009 (MDT)

Ah, okay. Yeah the same has been done on some of the really long pages before, and worked out well.   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   06:16, 24 August 2009 (MDT)

Categories

I noted that some of the older pages used Category:Admin Request while the newer pages have Category:Requests for Adminship, with some of the most recent having both. Then, some of the ones in the middle had no category whatsoever. I wasn't sure why the seemingly duplicate categories, but I did go ahead and make all the RfAs have both so that they are universal until it is decided if only one - and as such, which one - may be necessary.   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   11:21, 10 September 2009 (MDT)

Single Purpose / New Accounts

This was brought up on another page so I'm bringing it up here. The discussion seems relevant given recent events. Wikipedia, the site we've modeled many of our existing policies after, has a few relevant policies and guidelines they use in their RfA process. Firstly, they outright state that users being nomineed that have a low edit count are less likely to make it. Never do they say they can't attempt to, but it seems like anything less than 1,000 edits never gets through. Should we have a "minimum edit" count? Next, administrators monitor active RfAs and any new editors who vote are watched closely. Basically, most new-to-wiki editors don't have enough of an understanding of wiki code and practices to be already involved in RfA voting in just one or two edits (or 100, for that matter it seems). Most of the times these are single-purpose accounts that can skew the data of a valid RfA one way or the other for that user's personal reasons. I believe that we should require a set length of active time and/or minimum number of edits for a user's RfA vote to be counted. This isn't to be exclusive, but just to prevent wiki-crusades. Defining exactly how we plan on doing this will be great in the coming years.   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   14:26, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

(Precursor: I might be biased because any reasonable edit limit would probably exclude me!) Meh, I'm not sure how much help a minimum edit count would be in limiting RfA votes for this particular wiki. It's not large enough for someone to rack up a lot of edits through busywork, and it's not inclusive enough to rack up edits on new pages unless you are really creative. On Wikipedia you can create an article on almost anything, but here you are limited to new campaign material. That means that if you aren't currently running a D&D (or d20 Modern) campaign or aren't good with creating new classes, etc, you are reduced to just busywork.

Secondly, there are people who have had thousands of wiki edits, just not on this site. If you only look at my record on this site, you might be surprised at what I understand about a wiki's function (technically, socially, and politically). But I've made over 8,000 edits spanning 2+ years... on other wikis.

It might, however, be useful to create a minimum age for an account, though. My 8,000 edits elsewhere don't mean diddly squat for understanding the kinds of contributions a user has made here without combing through their edits (though I bet that the majority of people voting on WP RfA's don't know the user by name either, so maybe I'm wrong here). I choose not to vote for this reason, but other users may not choose this route. How long are RfA's, two weeks? It might not be a bad idea to set a policy that no user younger than two weeks can vote in an RfA. This way nobody can sign up for the sole purpose of voting for or against someone, and it almost completely eliminates sock- and meatpuppetry without a long, preplanned campaign. (And in the case of the latter, good luck creating a minimum edit or time policy that eliminates these users anyway). JazzMan 14:54, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

There is quite a bit more busywork here than many realize. God, just the double redirects alone can drive a man insane.   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   15:00, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps, but that's the sort of thing that really should be done by a bot. And it's also not something that adds any real familiarity with the project, so I'd argue that someone who reached a minimum edit count can't count menial tasks like fixing double redirects. What I'm talking about is hitting Random Page (erm, which I see isn't in the sidebar) and finding things that need fixing. So much of the content on this wiki is subject to an individuals preferences, so unless you are writing new material you are reduced to grammar and formatting. And really, this site's pretty good at those two things (for the most part). I've been trolling the recent changes the last couple of weeks and I've maybe brought my edit count up from 20 to 38 (including this one). I'm not saying that it can't be done, as obviously some people have no problem with it. I'm just saying that unless it is uselessly low, any edit count minimum will exclude people who shouldn't be, and there's no guarantee it's excluding the people that should be excluded. JazzMan 23:10, 20 February 2010 (UTC) <-- *goes to hit the random page button a couple more times :)

Yeah, I've got a Random Pages link on my user page that I love, and wish it was available on our main navigation. But even an edit count of 50 or 100 would kill the problem for most accounts.   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   23:21, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Question

Why are there so many "Past Admins" here? Are they removed for inactivity or resigned or what?Zau 14:46, 22 February 2012 (MST)

Varying reasons. Some quit, some were voted out, some disappeared. Take a look at the secondary nominations to see the reason for each person. JazzMan 15:36, 22 February 2012 (MST)

I see. Thanks! Zau 17:58, 22 February 2012 (MST)

Help

Should this be made into a part of the help portal? If not, there should be some other way to navigate to this page, rather than having it buried in a list of a dozen other unrelated things. --Kydo (talk) 05:59, 22 September 2016 (MDT)

Yeah, I'd personally incorporate it in the help portal. It's not necessarily directly pertinent to all users, but it's an important, core mechanic of this wiki. It grants a greater understanding of the community, too, should a user wish to read it. --SgtLion (talk)

Category

Perhaps each RfA should include a category stating whether it has succeeded, failed, or is ongoing, perhaps also including another category stating whether the user in question has admin rights or not (probably pointless on RfAs that never succeeded in the first place, but more relevant for the RfAs of admins that no longer have their admin rights). SirSprinkles (talk) 10:00, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

There should be a DPL on the page listing current RfAs. There should be a template applied to past RfAs declaring their success or failure and applying a category stating as such. There should be a separate DPL for passed and failed RfAs. It is simple but time consuming. I am surprised nobody has done it yet. It's on my January to-do list. --Kydo (talk) 17:21, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Admin Responsibilities?

I just created an account, so obviously I'm not going to try and become an admin, but I was just wondering if only admins could make new pages? Maybe to share their own home brews? Also, for further reference, what other responsibilities might an admin have?

One responsibility is the one I'm exercising now: to help new folk like you :) Others include deleting pages (including moving without redirect), blocking users, protecting/unprotecting pages, and editing protected pages. But more importantly, we strive to cultivate a positive environment for D&D homebrew, which means being friendly and helpful, getting rid of vandalism and spam, maintaining standards of quality around the wiki. It's important to have a motivation to improve the wiki as a whole with every step you take, to keep a clear and level head for avoiding and solving edit conflicts, and to have a clear understanding of (some of) the rules systems supported on the wiki.

And to answer your first question, anyone (including unregistered users) can create new pages! Are you having any issues doing so or do you need some help?--GamerAim (talk) 20:47, 24 June 2017 (MDT)

Namespace

Should this and its subpages be moved to the D&D Wiki namespace? I don't feel like it belongs in the mainspace. — Geodude671 (talk | contribs | email)‎‎ . . 00:30, 25 April 2018 (MDT)

Yes, that seems right. --Green Dragon (talk) 06:17, 25 April 2018 (MDT)

New Accounts

So, what actually constitutes a "very new account"? Rorix the White (talk) 18:07, 21 January 2019 (MST)

You know it when you see it, basically. There's no hard rule; the intent of that rule is to stop illegitimate attempts to sway the vote via eg sockpuppeting or meatpuppeting. If you're asking for yourself, I would say that you've definitely been around enough to have your vote mean something. — Geodude (talk | contribs | email)‎‎ . . 18:11, 21 January 2019 (MST)

An account which looks like it was just created in order to make an illegitimate vote, basically. Quincy (talk) 18:13, 21 January 2019 (MST)

Ok, thanks, just wondering (not sure I will vote, but nice to know I can). Any time I see something vague like that in a set of rules I always like to get clarification. Rorix the White (talk) 18:17, 21 January 2019 (MST)

Restoration of Adminship

How would people feel about adopting Wikipedia's policy on restoring the admin permissions of former administrators upon request? I get that our RfA policy is somewhat different from Wikipedia's, but after reading that section, I don't see why it couldn't apply to us if we wanted it to. — Geodude (talk | contribs | email)‎‎ . . 10:51, 20 March 2019 (MDT)

Do we have any particular reason to adopt this policy or why a prior admin would not just work through the normal channel with their previous RfA serving as a good starting base? —ConcealedLight (talk) 09:50, 21 March 2019 (MDT)

The idea here is to streamline the process of reinstating a former admin. Since it's virtually guaranteed that any admin who resigned will pass RfA unless they were "under a cloud" when they resigned, I don't really see a need to make them go through RfA again. Forcing someone like (for example) Jwguy to RfA even though the only reason he was removed was that he asked for it seems unnecessarily bureaucratic, and I believe we shouldn't follow policy for its own sake. — Geodude (talk | contribs | email)‎‎ . . 14:01, 21 March 2019 (MDT)

I think it makes sense to adopt that policy, but only in the case of admins who resigned. Rorix the White (talk) 15:22, 21 March 2019 (MDT)

Agreed Varkarrus (talk) 18:39, 21 March 2019 (MDT)

I disagree with implementing this policy. I have seen multiple admins resign for all sorts of reasons, and I would expect to be able to reevaluate their adminship after their decision to resign. This is also obvious for admins who resign instead of completing an RfA which would have failed without a doubt. --Green Dragon (talk) 22:36, 21 March 2019 (MDT)

Resigning during an RfA which will surely fail falls under the first disqualifying provision, "Adminship was resigned while 'under a cloud.'" Since in this case there would have clearly been serious doubts as to the appropriateness of the former admin's position as sysop, this would clearly be a case where the user should go through RfA. — Geodude (talk | contribs | email)‎‎ . . 11:54, 22 March 2019 (MDT)

I also disagree with adopting Wikipedia's policy, on the grounds that a RfA is a fair tool to re-evaluate the "fitness" of former admins who wish to resume their prior duties. Based Quincy (talk) 22:48, 21 March 2019 (MDT)

What about for ones that didn't resign but were removed simply for not contributing in a year? For instance an admin deploys, and rather than worry about logging in at least once during the year to maintain sysops they focus on their mission. Or situations like we've seen where someone took care of family members with health issues so they just didn't log on. Those cases I would support and like to see a change. Even if the policy isn't amended for these situations, hopefully circumstances can be considered. I also understand users that resigned going through the process again because they resigned for a reason; can we have a reason to support giving sysops back? (that is rhetorical to be clear). Perhaps others think that those reasons should be in the RfA and would speak reason enough to give sysops back. ~ BigShotFancyMan ^{talk contributions} 11:42, 22 March 2019 (MDT)

The policy is that an admin gets demoted if they do not edit for 1 year. Even an edit on their userpage which states that they are currently not active for another year would not qualify them for demotion. I do not consider this difficult to do, but like you said serious issues are obviously more important. On this point I lean either way, and if we decide to reinstate adminship for admins in this situation I would change my opinion on this point.

I want to reply to the second point that you wrote, but it does not make any sense. Can you explain what you are proposing? --Green Dragon (talk) 03:15, 23 March 2019 (MDT)

I believe my second point is that if someone resigned for their reasons, then personally I would expect reasons to be an admin again. It supports the idea of that users that once were admins need to go through the RfA process again. In general, I think there may be room for certain situations to allow exceptions, and that a black and white policy for it may not be 100% helpful. ~ BigShotFancyMan 06:26, 25 March 2019 (MDT)

If a user can convince a bureaucrat about a certain situation that has not enabled them to edit, then I would be okay with reinstating their admin rights. RfA is a community process, and for the most part it's very important to let the community decide who should be an admin and who should not be one. --Green Dragon (talk) 07:54, 23 May 2019 (MDT)