Who has what powers?

[Poetlister]

Could someone please clarify who has what powers on here? I see that Zoloft has just locked a thread. I agree that it should have been locked, but I thought trustees had no specific powers. Is this just a hangover from when he was an admin, and do any other former admins or mods still have any powers? Also, who can see the IPs of posts?

[Dysklyver]

Could someone please clarify who has what powers on here? I see that Zoloft has just locked a thread. I agree that it should have been locked, but I thought trustees had no specific powers. Is this just a hangover from when he was an admin, and do any other former admins or mods still have any powers? Also, who can see the IPs of posts?

I'm pretty sure Trustees have all the powerz.

[Poetlister]

Could someone please clarify who has what powers on here? I see that Zoloft has just locked a thread. I agree that it should have been locked, but I thought trustees had no specific powers. Is this just a hangover from when he was an admin, and do any other former admins or mods still have any powers? Also, who can see the IPs of posts?

I'm pretty sure Trustees have all the powerz.

I don't recall any other trustee or former trustee performing mod actions.

[Dysklyver]

Could someone please clarify who has what powers on here? I see that Zoloft has just locked a thread. I agree that it should have been locked, but I thought trustees had no specific powers. Is this just a hangover from when he was an admin, and do any other former admins or mods still have any powers? Also, who can see the IPs of posts?

I'm pretty sure Trustees have all the powerz.

I don't recall any other trustee or former trustee performing mod actions.

Isn't that because Zoloft is just pretty inactive?

[Kumioko]

All the trustees are pretty much inactive and they don't have very many active mods either from what I can tell.

[Poetlister]

Aha. According to this page, the admins are "admin" (I assume this is a shared account), Zoloft and Mr. Midsize. Additionally, tarantino is a global moderator. The trustees are Zoloft and Mr. Midsize.

[Zoloft]

To assuage your concerns about IP addresses of members here, only admins can see them.

[Poetlister]

To assuage your concerns about IP addresses of members here, only admins can see them.

Thanks.

[casualdejekyll]

This thread is how I learned that there are technically four members of the WPO moderation team, not three.

Out of curiosity, has anyone compiled a list of past/retired trustees/moderators/admins? I know that there was a significantly larger team when the blog was a lot more active, but I didn't join this site until multiple years into the J/T/Z era and can't seem to find any centralized list of their various predecessors.

(Sorry for the necropost, but this seemed like the most appropriate thread to ask in.)

[Midsize Jake]

This thread is how I learned that there are technically four members of the WPO moderation team, not three.

You mean the "admin" account? I assume Mr. Zoloft has the password for that, but we've never used it, AFAIK, except for the first five minutes or so after phpBB was initially installed.

Out of curiosity, has anyone compiled a list of past/retired trustees/moderators/admins?

I don't think so — we mostly just rely on our increasingly faulty memories for that. But if you're really asking who has ever been able to see IP addresses here over the years, I think it's just me, Mr. Zoloft, and Mr. Greybeard. Possibly Mr. Dogbiscuit too, but he retired as an admin around 2015, I think...? He's still around, though — maybe his memory isn't completely shot yet.

[casualdejekyll]

This thread is how I learned that there are technically four members of the WPO moderation team, not three.

You mean the "admin" account? I assume Mr. Zoloft has the password for that, but we've never used it, AFAIK, except for the first five minutes or so after phpBB was initially installed.

Nope. phpBB tells me that Greybeard is still a Trustee, despite his being only a lurker nowadays. (I don't think this should be changed - it is of course quite obvious that his opinion as a Trustee on various matters would be extremely valued, were he to give it.)

[tarantino]

All--you know my level of engagement here on Wikipediocracy. I'm just a participant & have agreed to let you reprint my stuff in the blogs. I'd appreciate it if you could somehow see to it that my name is not put front and center--that's just ridiculous.

Also, I never agreed to be a so-called "trustee," I don't think. I am pretty sure that all I agreed to do was to receive "trustee level permissions" in the forum, but that didn't give me control or responsibility for the site; you could have called them "Smurf level permissions" and that wouldn't have made me a Smurf.

Well, we appreciate your presence here, and certainly you bear no responsibility for day-to-day operations. I can remove your Trustee title and just hand-assign your forum permissions. As far as the Wikipedia page mention, well, asylum, inmates, you know...

Larry hasn't logged in since 2019, so we've got that going for us.

[Midsize Jake]

Nope. phpBB tells me that Greybeard is still a Trustee, despite his being only a lurker nowadays. (I don't think this should be changed - it is of course quite obvious that his opinion as a Trustee on various matters would be extremely valued, were he to give it.)

Right — "Trustee" status is really more of a title-only sort of thing, it doesn't confer the power to move posts, split threads, etc. We do have a private Trustees-only subforum, but it hasn't been used since Mr. Greybeard retired as an admin, which was shortly after Trump was elected. I think it was mostly used in the early days, when the site's organizers still had to worry about things that were happening on Wikipedia Review (most of which was bad, at that time).

In fact, I think it could be argued that "Trustee" status here was really just a means of keeping Greg Kohs and myself "in the loop" on whatever decision-making was going on (which, in itself, mostly involved who should be invited to become moderators). Mr. Kohs decided from the outset that he didn't want any administrator or moderator powers/privileges at all, even though he'd provided at least half of the setup money and most of what few media connections we had. I myself didn't take on any such access rights until Mr. Greybeard retired (i.e., Trump was elected) — the reason for that was that in addition to the fact that I suck at it, I was still technically an admin at Wikipedia Review, and I foolishly thought I could talk some sense into Selina (the WR site owner, having obtained the necessary passwords from Blissyu2) and convince her to run that site in a way that didn't involve banning most of the existing membership while also disabling new registrations. I gave up on that effort after about 2-3 months, but during that time I had to limit my participation here so that she wouldn't immediately brand me as a "traitor" (which she eventually did, of course).

So in a sense, I basically "replaced" Mr. Greybeard in 2016-17, for all intents and purposes — except that he clearly was (and presumably still is) a much better organizer than I am.

[Ron Lybonly]

I thought trustees run errands for the warden and guards.

[Midsize Jake]

I thought trustees run errands for the warden and guards.

You're thinking about "trusties," with an "i." We don't hire prison-security staff here unless they're willing to run their own errands.

[Zoloft]

I thought trustees run errands for the warden and guards.

That's 'trusties' - they are better paid than Trustees here, as they get some loose cigarettes.

[casualdejekyll]

So in a sense, I basically "replaced" Mr. Greybeard in 2016-17, for all intents and purposes — except that he clearly was (and presumably still is) a much better organizer than I am.

That particular reshuffle is pretty much the only easily visible piece of WPO history, being pinned to this subforum. (I do find the future Wikipediocracy that was envisioned during that reshuffle to be quite admirable, even though it clearly has not come to fruition. Did you guys ever find somebody to run the Twitter?- it sure doesn't look like it.)

Basically anything regarding pre-2017 Wikipediocracy is pretty hard to find, but I'm relatively sure I understand the history now, between my knowledge from my year or so on this forum and what I learned from the new posts in this thread, so thank you for that.

[Midsize Jake]

Did you guys ever find somebody to run the Twitter?- it sure doesn't look like it.

Naah. I could insert a joke here about how we were worried we'd be blamed for what we knew would eventually happen to Twitter, but what actually happened there is that the WPO founders forgot to grab the Twitter handle in advance, Selina got it, and we all just washed our hands of the whole business.

About a year ago, just before Elon took over, I had an appeal all written up to send to them, since Selina is clearly usurping the handle and hasn't posted a single tweet from it since she originally grabbed it. But I never did send it to them... They'd probably want my phone number or something heinous like that.

[rnu]

since Mr. Greybeard retired as an admin, which was shortly after Trump was elected.
[...]
until Mr. Greybeard retired (i.e., Trump was elected)

What are you implying?

[casualdejekyll]

since Mr. Greybeard retired as an admin, which was shortly after Trump was elected.
[...]
until Mr. Greybeard retired (i.e., Trump was elected)

What are you implying?

Probably just that 2016 saw large shifts in American culture and is therefore an easy to remember date.

(I highly doubt Donald Trump was a Wikipediocracy admin.)

[Midsize Jake]

What are you implying?

Well... At the risk of upsetting our more conservative readers, several of our regulars left around that time because they felt that while Wikipedia did still pose a threat to civilization, or at least the socio-cultural aspects of it, the threat posed by Trump et al was much more pressing, and that they might be in a position to help. But unlike, say, me, they had limited amounts of free time.

And at the risk of seeming more pro-Wikipedia than I actually am, the fact is the WP folks have done a fairly good job over the past 7-8 years on keeping the Trumpist mis/disinformation relatively under control, unlike several other social media platforms. (Other forms of mis/disinfo, maybe not so much.) And while I don't believe Wikipedia is anywhere near as "left-leaning" as the right-wing folks would like us all to think it is, I do think it's fair to say that most Wikipedians are clearly not "right-leaning," at least relative to the general US population.

[casualdejekyll]

And while I don't believe Wikipedia is anywhere near as "left-leaning" as the right-wing folks would like us all to think it is, I do think it's fair to say that most Wikipedians are clearly not "right-leaning," at least relative to the general US population.

Reality has a well known liberal bias (T-H-L)

[greybeard]

This thread is how I learned that there are technically four members of the WPO moderation team, not three.

You mean the "admin" account? I assume Mr. Zoloft has the password for that, but we've never used it, AFAIK, except for the first five minutes or so after phpBB was initially installed.

Nope. phpBB tells me that Greybeard is still a Trustee, despite his being only a lurker nowadays. (I don't think this should be changed - it is of course quite obvious that his opinion as a Trustee on various matters would be extremely valued, were he to give it.)

I have some powers conferred by a "Founder" status that I do not use. I check this site perhaps once every month or two, and have no input into its day-to-day operation. In subsequent commentary, Jake notes that my departure more or less coincides with a big change in US politics. I don't know if I said it publicly, but my interest in co-founding this site was very much about disinformation (on Wikipedia, here).

It turns out that disinformation became a much larger issue than Wikipedia, and thus I focused my attentions elsewhere, and also to let a new generation take control here without my meddling. I am old now, and despite or because of my history in "this business", as the years go by I have less and less to offer that's of relevance or value.

I turned over the passwords to the hosting accounts and everything else when I left. I used to pay for hosting, but I don't anymore -- I really have no power here, except as granted by the current admins due to my historical status, and I have no intention to use any of that either. I hope this settles that.

(Sorry, but edit to add an in-joke for Jake and some others: "I'm not gonna pull a Selina on ya!")

[eppur si muove]

Did you guys ever find somebody to run the Twitter?- it sure doesn't look like it.

I am informed that there was a Twitter account. Or even three of them and they were pretty active for a while until TIppi Hadron and the 'ocracy went their separate ways. The Twitter account is even visible at Wikipediocracy.com even though the rotating tweet all seem to be about a year old.

[thekohser]

Did you guys ever find somebody to run the Twitter?- it sure doesn't look like it.

I am informed that there was a Twitter account. Or even three of them and they were pretty active for a while until TIppi Hadron and the 'ocracy went their separate ways. The Twitter account is even visible at Wikipediocracy.com even though the rotating tweet all seem to be about a year old.

At one time, the password to "Wikipedia_Forum" on Twitter was entrusted to me. I just tried to sign in with that, but Elon wants me to "Check your email", which is going to what appears to be a wikipediocracy.com email address that does not forward to me.

If any admin here has access to: tw*****@w*************.***, and you get the "confirmation code", if you want to send it to me, you can. If not, I don't really care.

[Zoloft]

Did you guys ever find somebody to run the Twitter?- it sure doesn't look like it.

I am informed that there was a Twitter account. Or even three of them and they were pretty active for a while until TIppi Hadron and the 'ocracy went their separate ways. The Twitter account is even visible at Wikipediocracy.com even though the rotating tweet all seem to be about a year old.

At one time, the password to "Wikipedia_Forum" on Twitter was entrusted to me. I just tried to sign in with that, but Elon wants me to "Check your email", which is going to what appears to be a wikipediocracy.com email address that does not forward to me.

If any admin here has access to: tw*****@w*************.***, and you get the "confirmation code", if you want to send it to me, you can. If not, I don't really care.

Okay, show of hands. Is Twiter dead enough now not to care? I moved my stuff to bluesky. Probably going to put my writing stuff on Threads as an experiment.

[Ron Lybonly]

Did you guys ever find somebody to run the Twitter?- it sure doesn't look like it.

I am informed that there was a Twitter account. Or even three of them and they were pretty active for a while until TIppi Hadron and the 'ocracy went their separate ways. The Twitter account is even visible at Wikipediocracy.com even though the rotating tweet all seem to be about a year old.

At one time, the password to "Wikipedia_Forum" on Twitter was entrusted to me. I just tried to sign in with that, but Elon wants me to "Check your email", which is going to what appears to be a wikipediocracy.com email address that does not forward to me.

If any admin here has access to: tw*****@w*************.***, and you get the "confirmation code", if you want to send it to me, you can. If not, I don't really care.

Okay, show of hands. Is Twiter dead enough now not to care? I moved my stuff to bluesky. Probably going to put my writing stuff on Threads as an experiment.

Think about what ads might run next to your tweets (Xs?)

[Vigilant]

Okay, show of hands. Is Twiter dead enough now not to care? I moved my stuff to bluesky. Probably going to put my writing stuff on Threads as an experiment.

Xhitter is a hypoxic zone for the foreseeable future.

Only us anaerobes live and fight there now.

[Mojito]

Okay, show of hands. Is Twiter dead enough now not to care? I moved my stuff to bluesky. Probably going to put my writing stuff on Threads as an experiment.

Twitter probably still gets enough eyeballs to be worth caring about.

But it's a cesspit run by a scumbag, and I beg you to please not feed the monster by giving it content.

[Vigilant]

https://twitter.com/home/NAFO_WPO

is available.

[Zoloft]

By me, I'm gonna let our connection to Twitter die.

The other admins/mods can do differently if they choose, but I'm done with the place.

[ltbdl]

By me, I'm gonna let our connection to Twitter die.

The other admins/mods can do differently if they choose, but I'm done with the place.

ya might want to remove the "rotating tweets" thing from the blog.

[Zoloft]

By me, I'm gonna let our connection to Twitter die.

The other admins/mods can do differently if they choose, but I'm done with the place.

ya might want to remove the "rotating tweets" thing from the blog.

Want to check with Midsize Jake first...

[Midsize Jake]

ya might want to remove the "rotating tweets" thing from the blog.

Want to check with Midsize Jake first...

Well... I actually think we should remove it, but at the same time, I did reset the password for the e-mail account Greg was using for two-factor authentication over there. (Or maybe it's three-factor, since I think they want a phone number too, and they're actually a bit hard-assed about that, I might add. Of course, if we were Nazis they'd probably let us do whatever we wanted.)

So, I guess what I'm saying is Greg (or whoever wants to do it, if he doesn't) would still be helping us out by occasionally checking for DMs and posting blog updates over there, but ideally, at least in my personal opinion, he (or whoever it is) should only "engage" with the Twitterati folks when it's really necessary. And let's face it, it won't be necessary very often. Disabling the blog plugin is more of a "statement" and not a reflection on him.

[Zoloft]

Deactivated 'Rotating Tweets' for now. Maybe Yahoo will buy Twitter after Elon Musk loses his shirt.

[Mojito]

Deactivated 'Rotating Tweets' for now.

Thank you

[thekohser]

By me, I'm gonna let our connection to Twitter die.

The other admins/mods can do differently if they choose, but I'm done with the place.

This is my shared view, as well.

[The Joy]

So in a sense, I basically "replaced" Mr. Greybeard in 2016-17, for all intents and purposes — except that he clearly was (and presumably still is) a much better organizer than I am.

That particular reshuffle is pretty much the only easily visible piece of WPO history, being pinned to this subforum. (I do find the future Wikipediocracy that was envisioned during that reshuffle to be quite admirable, even though it clearly has not come to fruition. Did you guys ever find somebody to run the Twitter?- it sure doesn't look like it.)

Basically anything regarding pre-2017 Wikipediocracy is pretty hard to find, but I'm relatively sure I understand the history now, between my knowledge from my year or so on this forum and what I learned from the new posts in this thread, so thank you for that.

I was made a Trustee not long after this site was set up and I worked very briefly worked on maintaining the blog. We had a large pool of Trustees when this site started, though that dwindled over time. Trustees had no admin or mod powers, though we worked to establish the rules and norms of the site. Eventually, I resigned and decided to do other things not related to Wikipedia. While my memory of those early years are patchy, I do remember being involved in choosing the forum's color. We kept it grey. Now, it's... Pink Panther Pink?