Wikipediocracy

I tried posting to RFA talk but was twice reverted a few months ago and my sock blocked.

This is my first post on Wikipediocracy. For those who don't recognize my username, I am a former WP editor with 30,000+ edits and 300+ new articles. I am indef-blocked since 2012 for vandalizing Wikipedia with sockpuppets. I gave thousands of hours to volunteer for Wikipedia in 2007-08 (because I wasn't full-time employed and wanted to help an important project). I have never been fully accepted by either the Wikipedia community (which repeatedly lied about me during my failed RFAs) or by the Wikipedia critics (who see me as an insider). I don't need your acceptance, but anyway I don't intend on seeking reinstatement at Wikipedia, given that after my last reinstatement -- which took many months of not socking and many unblock requests -- I was reblocked indefinitely for making one (1) off-topic edit summary.

I am writing here to advise those of you who may not have noticed that there have been no RFAs (Requests for Adminship) since August 24, 2014. This is three weeks of no RFAs. The number of active admins (30 edits in the last 2 months) is 611 (count it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... ors/Active ) and declining.

In the last 100 days (3+ months, 14+ weeks) we have seen three (3) successful RFAs. I predict that this is not a temporary lapse, but a permanent game-changer.

Wikipedia is dying for lack of new admins.

RfA has been crawling on the floor for years. Why would anyone want to put themselves through such a hypocritical gauntlet?

For what it's worth, we do appreciate you being a member here.

Shalom wrote:Wikipedia is dying for lack of new admins.

It'll be a slow death, but you're right, they do need to maintain a positive (or at least non-negative) churn-rate for admins.

In addition to the RfA process itself, which has always been horrible, power-user types are the most likely to have been turned off by recent WMF behavior involving software rollouts. August 24 was right around the time when Jimbo himself weighed in to say that MediaViewer-as-default (i.e., no disabling it locally) was non-negotiable, and it also wasn't long after the "superprotection" fiasco.

Shalom wrote:This is my first post on Wikipediocracy. For those who don't recognize my username, I am a former WP editor with 30,000+ edits and 300+ new articles. I am indef-blocked since 2012 for vandalizing Wikipedia with sockpuppets. I gave thousands of hours to volunteer for Wikipedia in 2007-08 (because I wasn't full-time employed and wanted to help an important project). I have never been fully accepted by either the Wikipedia community (which repeatedly lied about me during my failed RFAs) or by the Wikipedia critics (who see me as an insider). I don't need your acceptance, but anyway I don't intend on seeking reinstatement at Wikipedia, given that after my last reinstatement -- which took many months of not socking and many unblock requests -- I was reblocked indefinitely for making one (1) off-topic edit summary.

Welcome back. We haven't written your story up for our book wiki -- would you be willing to do something for it? A summary and timeline would be more than plenty.

Wikipedia is dying for lack of new admins.

We know. I updated my RFA chart recently, they can't possibly claim otherwise:

How many of the current admins are even active? That discussion from a couple years ago that resulted in desysopping people who were inactive for a year was a step in the right direction because it helps give a better idea of how many admins WP really has. Not just abandoned accounts with an admin flag.

And then there are people who come back after years of being away, get their mop back and clearly have no idea what they're doing. Or people who ARE active, and have been admins for years, but never ever use the tools.

Does anyone know who the longest-standing currently active admin is?

The Garbage Scow wrote:How many of the current admins are even active? That discussion from a couple years ago that resulted in desysopping people who were inactive for a year was a step in the right direction because it helps give a better idea of how many admins WP really has. Not just abandoned accounts with an admin flag.

And then there are people who come back after years of being away, get their mop back and clearly have no idea what they're doing. Or people who ARE active, and have been admins for years, but never ever use the tools.

Does anyone know who the longest-standing currently active admin is?

SimonP (T-C-L) is up there I believe.

EricBarbour wrote:We haven't written your story up for our book wiki -- would you be willing to do something for it? A summary and timeline would be more than plenty.

This would seriously not be in Shalom's best interests. I hope I have enough residual credibility here to be taken as sincere when I say that, including by Shalom himself. I also hope he will ask that this thread be moved to the nonpublic forum and that the moderators will agree. (I refer not to the discussion of the decline in RfA's, which is fair game and is noteworthy, but to Shalom's individual story.)

Newyorkbrad wrote:

EricBarbour wrote:We haven't written your story up for our book wiki -- would you be willing to do something for it? A summary and timeline would be more than plenty.

This would seriously not be in Shalom's best interests. I hope I have enough residual credibility here to be taken as sincere when I say that, including by Shalom himself. I also hope he will ask that this thread be moved to the nonpublic forum and that the moderators will agree. (I refer not to the discussion of the decline in RfA's, which is fair game and is noteworthy, but to Shalom's individual story.)

Shalom is here talking about RFA's. Why are you expanding this, NYB? It almost seems like blackmail.

P.S. don't forget to thump your chest in self-righteousness.

Newyorkbrad wrote:

EricBarbour wrote:We haven't written your story up for our book wiki -- would you be willing to do something for it? A summary and timeline would be more than plenty.

This would seriously not be in Shalom's best interests. I hope I have enough residual credibility here to be taken as sincere when I say that, including by Shalom himself. I also hope he will ask that this thread be moved to the nonpublic forum and that the moderators will agree. (I refer not to the discussion of the decline in RfA's, which is fair game and is noteworthy, but to Shalom's individual story.)

There's nothing about Shalom's story, as posted in this thread, that appears personally embarrassing or problematic for Shalom. This leads me to suspect that it's embarrassing to you, or to some other Wikipedia insider who has dispatched you to try to convince us that it needs hiding. Streisand effect, perhaps?

Furthermore, I remind Newyorkbrad and all other participants here that it is against policy to make public moderation requests or to complain about the moderation of this site in a public thread. Newyorkbrad, consider yourself admonished.

The Garbage Scow wrote:How many of the current admins are even active? That discussion from a couple years ago that resulted in desysopping people who were inactive for a year was a step in the right direction because it helps give a better idea of how many admins WP really has. Not just abandoned accounts with an admin flag.

And then there are people who come back after years of being away, get their mop back and clearly have no idea what they're doing. Or people who ARE active, and have been admins for years, but never ever use the tools.

Does anyone know who the longest-standing currently active admin is?

1. Everything depends on how one defines "active." The official definition is 30 edits in the last two months, and the official count is 611, see here: [link]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... nistrators[/link]

If one means TRULY active administrators, probably something like half that. The monthly wipe-outs for inactivity may be found here: [link]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... nistrators[/link]

2. Here is the chronological list of early administrators: [link]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:NoSe ... onological[/link]

I don't recognize most of those names on the list, but The Cunctator (T-C-L) made an edit on Sept. 13, 2014 and about 15 in August, so he would count as "active" in the loose sense. There are probably a few others on that first list of 2001-02 people, I'm too lazy to check.


RfB

Addenda: It looks like there are 42 removals of tools for inactivity through Sept. 1 and 10 more slated for the executioner on Oct. 1. There have been 16 who have successfully run the gauntlet through the current date — only 2 since the 4th of July. There is no doubt that the number of administrators is declining; the question is whether this fact constitutes a problem of any kind.

Newyorkbrad wrote:This would seriously not be in Shalom's best interests. I hope I have enough residual credibility here to be taken as sincere when I say that, including by Shalom himself. I also hope he will ask that this thread be moved to the nonpublic forum and that the moderators will agree. (I refer not to the discussion of the decline in RfA's, which is fair game and is noteworthy, but to Shalom's individual story.)

It's his choice, and not yours. If you've got bullshit to peddle, Ira, do it on AE where people will swallow it.

Newyorkbrad wrote:

EricBarbour wrote:We haven't written your story up for our book wiki -- would you be willing to do something for it? A summary and timeline would be more than plenty.

This would seriously not be in Shalom's best interests. I hope I have enough residual credibility here to be taken as sincere when I say that, including by Shalom himself. I also hope he will ask that this thread be moved to the nonpublic forum and that the moderators will agree. (I refer not to the discussion of the decline in RfA's, which is fair game and is noteworthy, but to Shalom's individual story.)

I'm trying to see the advantages and disadvantages here. The main difference is that the non-public areas do not appear in google searches.

Kumioko's adventures with the Arbcom were hashed out in public threads, and when I participated in the RFC that lead to his reinstatement, my previous comments here became an issue. I don't want to say too much about that particular situation, because everything is still fresh, and I'm sure the participants would welcome a low profile at this point, but in the whole, the ability to discuss the issues here was a crucial factor in their eventual resolution. Whether moving the discussion to a private area would have helped is anyone's guess.

Another participant here just left the group last week, after her repeated attempts to change her situation at WP were not moved forward by her participation here. I doubt very much whether moving her comments to a private thread would have had any effect at all on her eventual outcome at WP, which so far has not been favorable to her.

The Garbage Scow wrote:How many of the current admins are even active? That discussion from a couple years ago that resulted in desysopping people who were inactive for a year was a step in the right direction because it helps give a better idea of how many admins WP really has. Not just abandoned accounts with an admin flag.

And then there are people who come back after years of being away, get their mop back and clearly have no idea what they're doing. Or people who ARE active, and have been admins for years, but never ever use the tools.

Does anyone know who the longest-standing currently active admin is?

Your right, I really think that we need to change it a little so you have to do more than one edit a year though. If you don't do a few edits a month (preferably even a week IMO) then there is little sense in them having access to the admin toolset.

Kumioko wrote: Your right, I really think that we need to change it a little so you have to do more than one edit a year though. If you don't do a few edits a month (preferably even a week IMO) then there is little sense in them having access to the admin toolset.

Well, a week's probably a bit strong - most employers who actually pay you let you take a couple of those off every now and again.

But your point is well made that there needs to more than a token edit a year - a reasonable minimum level of editing.

Wanna hear the downside? Do that and you'll get those so inclined just making 100 pointless edits that do no real good (probably with AWB) every now and again.
And if you make them perform some admin actions, they'll just block a few IPs for 24 hours or make a few pointless "adjustments" to a protected page, etc...

Reconfirmation or fixed terms are the only sensible options in that case - you can argue till the cows come home about how you do that - and about what allowances you make for "grudge" voting and all that lovely stuff - but if you don't want admins for life then don't elect admins for life. A bad one, or an out-of-touch one will always take the minimal effort to jump through silly little "edits per year" hoops to keep the badge if he actually wants to keep it.

Anyway, I don't really prefer any of that - breaking up the stupidly big toolset and assigning permissions as needed would be my way - but they're so far down the line now I don't know how you'd ever get back there. The beast is too big. Don't forget how few invested voices it really takes to scupper this kind of change, even though there are some admins who would actually favour it.

Jim wrote: Reconfirmation or fixed terms are the only sensible options in that case...

Reconfirmation is basically DOA as possibilities go. Anyone with any kind of grudge will crawl out from under whatever rock they live under the moment they hear that one of their enemies is going under the magnifying glass again, so unless you're in "one of Wikipedia's powerful clans" (thanks Kelly) you can expect an ANI-style nightmare.

Hex wrote:

Jim wrote: Reconfirmation or fixed terms are the only sensible options in that case...

Reconfirmation is basically DOA as possibilities go. Anyone with any kind of grudge will crawl out from under whatever rock they live under the moment they hear that one of their enemies is going under the magnifying glass again.

Which also does for term limits, unless you accept most folks only get one term.
I couldn't even be bothered thinking about "reconfirmation panels" to avoid that. You end up in the same place, or worse.
We are describing a broken system.

Maybe the lunatics don't entirely run the asylum, but they can sure prevent anyone else from doing so.

EricBarbour wrote:

Newyorkbrad wrote:This would seriously not be in Shalom's best interests. I hope I have enough residual credibility here to be taken as sincere when I say that, including by Shalom himself. I also hope he will ask that this thread be moved to the nonpublic forum and that the moderators will agree. (I refer not to the discussion of the decline in RfA's, which is fair game and is noteworthy, but to Shalom's individual story.)

It's his choice, and not yours. If you've got bullshit to peddle, Ira, do it on AE where people will swallow it.

I am not interested in repeating my personal history on Wikipedia in any more detail than I presented in the first post of this thread. I already wrote up my history on Wikipedia Review.

Newyorkbrad is correct insofar as I need to keep my history and current status on Wikipedia private for personal and professional reasons in real life. If word got out that I'm persona non grata on Wikipedia it could adversely affect my employment prospects in the future. This leaves me with a substantial hole in my resume from 2007-08 when my primary activity was editing Wikipedia and I had a couple of part-time jobs totaling less than 10 hours per week. I would love to be able to tell people that I wrote 300+ articles for Wikipedia, but if I were to identify my usernames and then the reader would see the username is indef-blocked with a sockpuppet tag, that would not go over well. So I hope that my past on Wikipedia will vanish into the forgotten recesses of irrelevance.

Again, I have no intention of seeking legitimate reentry to Wikipedia at any time in the future. The possible exception would be if anyone in my family were to have the misfortune of getting a Wikipedia biography written about them, then I would want to edit it for purposes of monitoring its accuracy. If that ever happens I'll worry about it then.

Jim wrote:

Kumioko wrote: Your right, I really think that we need to change it a little so you have to do more than one edit a year though. If you don't do a few edits a month (preferably even a week IMO) then there is little sense in them having access to the admin toolset.

Well, a week's probably a bit strong - most employers who actually pay you let you take a couple of those off every now and again.

But your point is well made that there needs to more than a token edit a year - a reasonable minimum level of editing.

Wanna hear the downside? Do that and you'll get those so inclined just making 100 pointless edits that do no real good (probably with AWB) every now and again.
And if you make them perform some admin actions, they'll just block a few IPs for 24 hours or make a few pointless "adjustments" to a protected page, etc...

Reconfirmation or fixed terms are the only sensible options in that case - you can argue till the cows come home about how you do that - and about what allowances you make for "grudge" voting and all that lovely stuff - but if you don't want admins for life then don't elect admins for life. A bad one, or an out-of-touch one will always take the minimal effort to jump through silly little "edits per year" hoops to keep the badge if he actually wants to keep it.

Anyway, I don't really prefer any of that - breaking up the stupidly big toolset and assigning permissions as needed would be my way - but they're so far down the line now I don't know how you'd ever get back there. The beast is too big. Don't forget how few invested voices it really takes to scupper this kind of change, even though there are some admins who would actually favour it.

I completely agree the toolset needs to be broken up. That is long overdue.

Shalom wrote:I would love to be able to tell people that I wrote 300+ articles for Wikipedia, but if I were to identify my usernames and then the reader would see the username is indef-blocked with a sockpuppet tag, that would not go over well.

98% of prospective employers would not bother to check the authorship of the 300+ articles, and there would be no need for you to disclose the username.

thekohser wrote:

Shalom wrote:I would love to be able to tell people that I wrote 300+ articles for Wikipedia, but if I were to identify my usernames and then the reader would see the username is indef-blocked with a sockpuppet tag, that would not go over well.

98% of prospective employers would not bother to check the authorship of the 300+ articles, and there would be no need for you to disclose the username.

You could get a referee from here to say how good you were.

Poetlister wrote:

thekohser wrote:

Shalom wrote:I would love to be able to tell people that I wrote 300+ articles for Wikipedia, but if I were to identify my usernames and then the reader would see the username is indef-blocked with a sockpuppet tag, that would not go over well.

98% of prospective employers would not bother to check the authorship of the 300+ articles, and there would be no need for you to disclose the username.

You could get a referee from here to say how good you were.

Poetlister, that would go over even less well.

Greg, you're right, but I would not risk it.

Shalom wrote:

Poetlister wrote:

thekohser wrote:

Shalom wrote:I would love to be able to tell people that I wrote 300+ articles for Wikipedia, but if I were to identify my usernames and then the reader would see the username is indef-blocked with a sockpuppet tag, that would not go over well.

98% of prospective employers would not bother to check the authorship of the 300+ articles, and there would be no need for you to disclose the username.

You could get a referee from here to say how good you were.

Poetlister, that would go over even less well.

Greg, you're right, but I would not risk it.

For that period:

If public sector then "I was ill"
If private sector then "a family member was ill"

In such a way, anyone who contributes 300 articles to Wikipedia for free can honestly identify their actions in that period to a prospective employer.

Notvelty wrote:

Shalom wrote:

Poetlister wrote:

thekohser wrote:

Shalom wrote:I would love to be able to tell people that I wrote 300+ articles for Wikipedia, but if I were to identify my usernames and then the reader would see the username is indef-blocked with a sockpuppet tag, that would not go over well.

98% of prospective employers would not bother to check the authorship of the 300+ articles, and there would be no need for you to disclose the username.

You could get a referee from here to say how good you were.

Poetlister, that would go over even less well.

Greg, you're right, but I would not risk it.

For that period:

If public sector then "I was ill"
If private sector then "a family member was ill"

In such a way, anyone who contributes 300 articles to Wikipedia for free can honestly identify their actions in that period to a prospective employer.

Or just quietly e-mail one of the members of ArbCom and ask them to remove the block tag and change it to retired or just delete and change the page to a redlink. Chances are reasonably good if you stay away for a few months and ask nicely they'll do it. Or email OTRS and tell them the username is traceable to your real name and you'd like the tag changed to retired as its causing you real life difficulties.

There's no reason at all you shouldn't be able to take credit for your writing. If you get someone who isn't a complete tool they'll probably listen.

The Garbage Scow wrote:
There's no reason at all you shouldn't be able to take credit for your writing. If you get someone who isn't a complete tool they'll probably listen.

What's he going for? An entry position at "Data Entry 'r Us"?

The Garbage Scow wrote:

Notvelty wrote:

Shalom wrote:

Poetlister wrote:

thekohser wrote:

Shalom wrote:I would love to be able to tell people that I wrote 300+ articles for Wikipedia, but if I were to identify my usernames and then the reader would see the username is indef-blocked with a sockpuppet tag, that would not go over well.

98% of prospective employers would not bother to check the authorship of the 300+ articles, and there would be no need for you to disclose the username.

You could get a referee from here to say how good you were.

Poetlister, that would go over even less well.

Greg, you're right, but I would not risk it.

For that period:

If public sector then "I was ill"
If private sector then "a family member was ill"

In such a way, anyone who contributes 300 articles to Wikipedia for free can honestly identify their actions in that period to a prospective employer.

Or just quietly e-mail one of the members of ArbCom and ask them to remove the block tag and change it to retired or just delete and change the page to a redlink. Chances are reasonably good if you stay away for a few months and ask nicely they'll do it. Or email OTRS and tell them the username is traceable to your real name and you'd like the tag changed to retired as its causing you real life difficulties.

There's no reason at all you shouldn't be able to take credit for your writing. If you get someone who isn't a complete tool they'll probably listen.

I hope your right but that has not been my experience with the Arbcom, they are mostly arrogent children who have a my way or the highway mentality. If they even take any action at all, (they often just ignore requests they don't want to repond too) they will likely just defer it to the community.