D&D Wiki:Requests for Adminship/GamerAim (2)
GamerAim (2)
Voice your opinion 
(10/7/1) 59% Approval (see also ruling); Ended 17:00, 15 October 2018 (MDT)
GamerAim has now, for quite some time, been overstepping boundaries with his use of power. While he does so in the name of upholding D&D Wiki policies, he has now repeatedly alienated users both old and new, and undermined his fellow admins. Quite recently, he has driven another admin Guy to leave the site after he went against the consensus of the deletion of the Stormforge setting, and he bullied ConcealedWife off the D&D Wiki Discord Server. While I can't speak much personally on it, I've also heard of [situation] involving rude behavior to ConcealedLight, another fellow admin. An admin should be upholding policies but a combination of absolutism and poor communication has created an authoritarian air that is making multitudes of users and admins uncomfortable.
- 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.
- A: Since I became an administrator, my duties have shifted depending on what needed done. I've tackled recent changes, page deletions, page protections, Tavern administration and more. Generally I keep my eye on user talk pages to see if someone needs help requiring an administrator. I've made a number of fixes to the 3.5e SRD and MSRD. I'm personally responsible for the current progress on the 3e SRD and the 3e/3.5e elements of the OGC transcription project, both of which required administrative permissions to set up. I'm not quite as "intense" as some administrators; I don't look at a spreadsheet to find out what needs fixing. I prefer to use my powers more organically, fixing bits and tids as I find them, helping users or working on a project. I think that D&D Wiki has benefited and will continue to benefit from my brand of laid-back at-the-ready style of administration.
- 2. Of your articles or contributions to D&D Wiki, are there any with which you are particularly pleased, and why?
- A: Crime and Punishment (incl. OGC:Main) and the 3e SRD (which I can't finish if I'm not an admin, FYI) are both my babies. They required a lot of time, effort and dedication. I don't do much homebrew as I focus on other aspects of D&D Wiki which receive less attention, such as policy, navigation (helped with homebrew banner and redid the sidebar), templates, DPLs, SRDs, etc. This is part of why I was nominated by GD in the first place, because he knew that my knowledge and dedication would serve D&D Wiki well. I like to think that no matter where you are on the site, my DNA is in there somewhere :) That said, my key homebrew contributions can be found here, but beware I'm not as good at homebrew as I am at other things :P
- 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?
- A: I don't really get into edit conflicts. I discuss any conflicting edits before going forward. Other users have caused me stress, but I've always kept my cool, even when defending myself from libelous accusations. Regardless of what other users think, issuing warnings to users who violate policy is not a matter of losing my head. I've always approached other users kindly and compassionately. That, I think, is one of the things GD appreciated about me. In recent months, some problematic users have forced me to exert more force than I'm normally comfortable with, but I am at my heart someone who is more than willing to compromise and talk things over rather than issue any formal sanction. And 99% of the "conflicts" I've had with users - on Wiki and Discord - have been resolved peacefully because I'm always willing to go the extra mile to prove my good intentions and reduce any negative impact I have on others. I think the only unresolved conflict I had with a user was on Discord, but sadly for reasons beyond my control I was unable to salvage that relationship. It is one of my biggest regrets here, but I am comforted in the knowledge that it's the only such instance.
Ruling
This request for nomination succeeds, even without reaching the 75% hurdle. There are a number of reasons for this decision, which make the support reach close to this hurdle.
The oppose votes that just deal with GamerAims interactions on an unofficial channel cannot be validated (mainly ConcealedWife). What he does in his free time is not my concern without a policy dealing with it.
The oppose vote from Quincy is so vague that I cannot ground its context to be avoiding the unofficial channel pitfalls.
The opposition decision of Jwguy comes after lengthening this RfA. Although I would welcome new and interesting perspectives about GamerAims continued efforts during the extension, this oppose does not do that. Instead it picks apart the discussion phrase for phrase, brings in unsourced claims, and adds nothing new to his RfA. In addition, the further opposed votes that source this decision lose this meaning. This RfA has already brought about a lot of stress, so lengthening an already stressful situation, only to add more stress on top, is not a successful approach for an RfA.
I hope that we learn from the problems in this RfA. If we fix them in another RfA, or through policy and collaborate editing, this is up to us. I hope that each user in our community can understand this ruling, and make it respond for them. I don't want to alienate any user for their thoughts and opinions about another user, and I hope that we can all continue to work together on editing, the community, policies, RfA's, and so much more. And, in the spirit of GamerAim, at least he democratically succeeded :P. --Green Dragon (talk) 09:09, 16 October 2018 (MDT)
Discussion
- Vark's assertion that I have been overstepping boundaries with use of my power is ludicrous. What use of my power? I issued one warning and restored some deleted articles. I guess I also used rollback a couple times (the effect of which could be replicated with the Undo button). I try to use my "power" as little as possible to resolve issues, preferring instead to talk with users, as I recently did with the user Dark Dragon after he was warned. The warning wasn't issued by me, but I did try to explain the warning and some possible steps to take going forward. In fact, I've been vocally opposing the use of "power" by other administrators.
- Who did I undermine? Because by my count, I was undermined by my fellow admins on at least two accounts (both of CL's warnings) recently. But I respected them and kept moving forward. Perhaps your consensus would be stronger if you gave some concrete evidence. If you really want me gone, link some. If it's there and legitimate, then perhaps I will deserve to be demoted. But your argument holds little weight as-is.
- "he has driven another admin Guy to leave the site after he went against the consensus of the deletion of the Stormforge setting, and he bullied ConcealedWife off the D&D Wiki Discord Server." O_o
- 1) No one made Guy do anything. The #1 reason people were concerned about his adminship is because he might do something like this. Nothing against him, of course; I nominated his adminship the first time and supported it the second. But saying that I'm responsible for Guy's...actions...a couple hours afterwards is ludicrous.
- 2) I went against what consensus? Are you just upset because I'm supporting a long-standing policy that you don't like? That deletion should never have gone through. Newer admins might not like our policy, but it's been that way for a long time. That policy is the reason some admins left years ago. It is old and it is part of who D&D Wiki is. There's just not many active admins left who remember that it's a policy. But somehow enforcing policy to restore articles is a bigger misuse of power than two admins violating time-honored policy to delete articles on a whim? This is just insulting and I'm tired of constantly having to defend myself to people ignorant to the responsibilities of D&D Wiki adminship. But, in the interest of transparency, I will continue
- 3) I did not bully CW. She had issues with the Discord server and left over them. This made me realize how bad it was and I took steps to fix the server. And yet, some users, including you, insist on continuing to fuel drama in there. But that's neither here nor there. I did kick her yes (with a few-hours block for her to cool down) because she was trying to start some drama. I do feel bad about how it all went down, but I did what needed to be done and she's welcome back at any time :)
- The allegations of rudeness towards CL are largely unfounded. I did make one joke with him, thinking we were still friends that could joke like that. I feel bad for offending him, but I'd not realized we weren't friendly anymore.
- I'm starting to get offended by all these allegations. To be blunt, I think it's coming from people who dislike D&D Wiki policy and/or getting sanctioned for it. If it's the former, try to change it! All policy is fluid. As you said, I try to enforce policy. Dislike that? Change the policy! I don't just enforce the policies I like; I enforce them all. Though "enforce" is a strong word. I...follow policy and try to encourage others to do the same. I won't lie: I dislike the way other admins are acting. Ways that they act authoritarian and make multitudes of users and admins uncomfortable. But what it comes down to is party politics: your side and mine. Everything you've accused me of could be applied to other admins as well, but that's overlooked because right now the majority opinion - not the consensus, as some people say - is in favor of certain others. Because GD, Mara and SgtLion are less active now. The old 3.5e and 4e users have mostly moved on. I'm the only active admin who remembers the spirit and intent of D&D Wiki. Well, maybe BSFM too <3 But my point is that I'm not wrong; I'm outnumbered. The behavior of users and admins that now runs rampant would have never been accepted before :( --GamerAim
- In response to your "issued a warning to Varkarrus in the Discord server for swearing offensively at me," why don't you share the exact message sent? In response to you unofficially warning Geodude over a joke, I said "GamerAim needs to pull that stick from their ass". You'll find that's a far cry from me telling you to "**** off" or anything, which your comment implies. It'd be best if there was an elaboration because, yes, for sure, the latter would warrant a warning. Of course, that doesn't support the narrative you want to provide, does it? Varkarrus (talk) 18:28, 1 October 2018 (MDT)
- I did not elaborate because Discord server activities cannot be sanctioned on D&D Wiki. By admins, that is. I see you avoid a workaround :) But, to answer your question, yes, what you said deserved a warning. Hence the warning I issued. You should knot better than to say something like that in #casual. Also, Geodude was sanctioned over a joke - you know, that kind of thing I said to CL which you referenced above as a reason I should not be an admin - because it was part of a pattern of disruptive behavior, as I explained.--GamerAim
- I did not elaborate because Discord server activities cannot be sanctioned on D&D Wiki. By admins, that is. I see you avoid a workaround :) But, to answer your question, yes, what you said deserved a warning. Hence the warning I issued. You should knot better than to say something like that in #casual. Also, Geodude was sanctioned over a joke - you know, that kind of thing I said to CL which you referenced above as a reason I should not be an admin - because it was part of a pattern of disruptive behavior, as I explained.--GamerAim
- I hope I am not drug through the coals for this; could you answer the questions with a more serious or sincere tone? I am trying to read this in good faith but when an answer starts with “hah” or some other verbiage is used-I feel as though this RfA comes across trivial or beneath the candidate. I took my RfA serious, as many admins did and do. I’d like to read this one with the same approach. BigShotFancyMan (talk) 22:15, 1 October 2018 (MDT)
- I think GA took those answers as a joke because the questions are phrased in such a way that they seem directed towards users who are not admins and were nominated to become admins, and aren't super applicable to users who are already admins and were proposed for demotion. I see it as an attempt to bring levity to what is otherwise a serious and sad discussion. — Geodude
- I think GA took those answers as a joke because the questions are phrased in such a way that they seem directed towards users who are not admins and were nominated to become admins, and aren't super applicable to users who are already admins and were proposed for demotion. I see it as an attempt to bring levity to what is otherwise a serious and sad discussion. — Geodude
- Geodude is right, but also this whole RfA is a joke. I try to respect all users' opinions, but it's difficult when the supposition of their arguments is "GA was naughty on social media" and "GA restored deleted articles." I won't treat it with any more seriousness than the people throwing fits because I called them out for violating policy.--GamerAim
- Geodude is right, but also this whole RfA is a joke. I try to respect all users' opinions, but it's difficult when the supposition of their arguments is "GA was naughty on social media" and "GA restored deleted articles." I won't treat it with any more seriousness than the people throwing fits because I called them out for violating policy.--GamerAim
- I greatly appreciate the answers. I understand some perceive this as a joke; but this a tool or means for non-admin users to impose some sort of justice when they feel wronged. Non-admins cannot warn and talk page discussions are....existent. Anywho, is there a place to support a RfA 'round here?? BigShotFancyMan (talk) 23:12, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- Pretty much every argument in support of GamerAim boils down to not judging him by how he acts off-site. At this point, you don't have to; simply look at his behavior on this page. Varkarrus (talk) 09:42, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- Pretty much every argument in opposition to me boils down to judging me by out-of-context screenshots of how I acted off-site (and on-site) months ago. I apologize if I somehow offended you on this page. Could you please tell me how? All that I've tried to do here is defend myself against your accusations. I understand I called them, among other things, ludicrous and baseless, but that's what they are, Vark. The only arguments against me which hold any sort of weight concern behavior that I already corrected. It is behavior that was already addressed. Behavior that was cleared with either GD or the community.
- I understand that you disagreed with me telling Geodude to knock it off with the passive-aggressiveness, but I only did that because I have witness first-hand and relatively recently that he engages in that sort of disruptive counter-productive behavior every time we butt heads. Despite allegations of me abusing my power, I took no immediate actions against him. All I did was sternly request that he cease his disruptive behavior. And, in response to that, you told me to remove the stick from my a**. That behavior was uncalled for, and by this point you know better than to say something like that outside of #adult-theme, so I warned you. I didn't ban you for insulting me, I blocked you for using offensive language at a user, especially when I did nothing to deserve it except tell Geodude to cease his pattern of passive-aggressive behavior against me.
- Despite what has happened, I do not dislike you on the whole. Like with CW, I have at times disagreed with your actions and even had to engage in administrative actions against you, but I truly hold no contempt for anyone here. As I have stated multiple times to various people, I am not the type of person to hold a grudge. If being banned really bothers you, I would support your ban being repealed if another admin thinks that it would be appropriate and that it would help to resolve any hostilities between us that may have cropped up.--GamerAim
- No thanks. I'm going the way of CW, and waiting until you're no longer an admin there. Varkarrus (talk) 15:20, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I wouldn't hold your breath, but that's fine. Just let someone know! Remember that the RfA process isn't a vote. It's a discussion on the worth of someone as an administrator.
- No thanks. I'm going the way of CW, and waiting until you're no longer an admin there. Varkarrus (talk) 15:20, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- Despite what has happened, I do not dislike you on the whole. Like with CW, I have at times disagreed with your actions and even had to engage in administrative actions against you, but I truly hold no contempt for anyone here. As I have stated multiple times to various people, I am not the type of person to hold a grudge. If being banned really bothers you, I would support your ban being repealed if another admin thinks that it would be appropriate and that it would help to resolve any hostilities between us that may have cropped up.--GamerAim
- Here's my interpretation of the RfA: Right now, three long-standing users in good standing have stated that they believe actions in Discord are irrelevant to the use of administrative tools on D&D Wiki. Cotsu, a well-respected administrator, has also come out in favor of me. However, even then, I've addressed the issues in Discord over the past few months. All the opposition arguments are founded in Discord, an erroneous view of administrative authority and matters that were already resolved. All you, CW and Geodude have managed to do is drum up outdated, irrelevant or fallacious arguments against me. I hate to be harsh, but that's the reality of your arguments against me. Kildairem disagrees with my use of administrative power, but as Mara says that's a matter of policy, not administration. And Quincy hasn't given any reasons; and those two are probably your best shot. Geodude's position counts for something, but he's facing the fact his arguments are largely invalid like I said.
- That is your interpretation of arguments, Varkarrus. My interpretation is that the arguments add up to: having a personal feud with GamerAim, and made up allegations, such as claiming we can somehow blame GamerAim for Guy leaving (protip: We can't; Guy's issue is the drama e.g. this entire RfA). Seems to me the arguments in opposition are just straight up untrue or unimportant (even if you did wrongly claim Discord is somehow relevant).
- To be honest, this whole RfA should ruled invalid for being based on little but made up allegations and personal issues. RfAs are not a tool for settling your personal feuds.
- I'd also say GamerAim has acted pretty honourably given the circumstances. If I was being incessantly pursued by *my own* community with official actions, based on no evidence of breaching policy, solely to back up a couple people's dislike of me, well I would've flipped my nut by now. None of us would do much better in that position - Nobody likes being subject to a witchhunt.
- NB. As said before, we as a site have no authority over the Discord server, whatever happens. What they do there is their prerogative, especially leaving or not. --SgtLion (talk) 01:49, 3 October 2018 (MDT)
Support
- I supported an interaction ban, but since this got shut down with concensus we should not hold GA accountable for actions relating to this any further (on Discord or here). I haven't had time to read this whole RfA (and will not for a few days), but for me his interactions are not a valid RfA reason. I don't yet know what happened between Guy, Geodude671 about G7 deletions, but I haven't used them on D&D Wiki before and its actually right to use our standard deletion process. I don't think that some actions and discussions in a matter of days are grounds for his removal from the administration. --Green Dragon (talk) 00:39, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I thank you for your support, GD. I know that we haven't always agreed, but I think that you of all people know that I always bow before consensus. Yes, I sometimes admit that it is begrudgingly, but I have always given my best to D&D Wiki even if I disagree. I contributed the background to our homebrew banner and implemented policy on our policy pages for protecting homebrew content. I also took the ConcealedWife "drama" (for lack of a better word) to heart and took numerous steps to prevent other users from feeling like she did. The overall trend is less drama in the Discord server without any hit to user engagement. Yes, Discord is unofficial and off-site and does not apply to D&D Wiki, but even then I value the community enough to make changes in my conduct there regardless. When ConcealedLight expressed a wish to not engage with me, I accepted an informal ban on communicating with him, and have not done so since unless he engaged me first. And if you decide that Guy and Geodude671 were right to delete that campaign setting, I will personally delete it again myself in accordance with our new policy. I think all these things show that this RfA is little more than a smear campaign created by a politically-charged community. However, I still think that there's room for the community to heal and bonds to be reforged :) --GamerAim
- I thank you for your support, GD. I know that we haven't always agreed, but I think that you of all people know that I always bow before consensus. Yes, I sometimes admit that it is begrudgingly, but I have always given my best to D&D Wiki even if I disagree. I contributed the background to our homebrew banner and implemented policy on our policy pages for protecting homebrew content. I also took the ConcealedWife "drama" (for lack of a better word) to heart and took numerous steps to prevent other users from feeling like she did. The overall trend is less drama in the Discord server without any hit to user engagement. Yes, Discord is unofficial and off-site and does not apply to D&D Wiki, but even then I value the community enough to make changes in my conduct there regardless. When ConcealedLight expressed a wish to not engage with me, I accepted an informal ban on communicating with him, and have not done so since unless he engaged me first. And if you decide that Guy and Geodude671 were right to delete that campaign setting, I will personally delete it again myself in accordance with our new policy. I think all these things show that this RfA is little more than a smear campaign created by a politically-charged community. However, I still think that there's room for the community to heal and bonds to be reforged :) --GamerAim
- I, too, am extremely disappointed that it's come to this. I'm disappointed because this community continues to make childish power plays against each other, and in doing so have really toxicified this whole site. GamerAim is always willing to engage in reasonable discussion, and, like it or not, is always implementing their interpretation of policy - If your interpretation of policy is different, then let's discuss it, but let's not drive away one of the most reasonable, community-minded, and productive members of this site.
- I hate to sound like a broken record, but when I see GamerAim was 100% entirely conflict-free and never posed any problem to anyone in this community in the time preceding the creation of the Discord channel, and I see the utter rubbish that Discord members randomly come out with out of the blue, seems to me that the real issue is Discord and the active members who insist on bringing their conspiratorial rubbish here. This consistent conflict on D&D Wiki, especially against GamerAim, is nothing but Discord arguments being dragged back on to this site which is meant to be about collaboration, not getting angry at each other for no reason.
- If GA gets demoted, I will seriously consider stepping down, because it would be nothing but an entrenchment of the hostile community that is making its home here. --SgtLion (talk) 01:55, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I find that the "If GA gets demoted, I will seriously consider stepping down", an unnecessary comment that is more reminiscent of throwing a tantrum for not getting the outcome that you want than the point of this community becoming hostile (constructive criticism) you want it to be. ConcealedWife (talk) 04:00, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- You can find the feelings of another user as unnecessary as you like. I personally find it important to share how distressing and undesirable this community will become if this next step of entrenching the utter terribleness of the Discord community into the site goes ahead. --SgtLion (talk) 04:16, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I did not say that your feelings are unnecessary. I said that a comment threatening to leave if GA isn't demoted is unnecessary. It's manipulative. ConcealedWife (talk) 04:21, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- Do not call me manipulative, please. A comment saying I'd give serious consideration to leaving is an effective way to share my feelings on the situation. It is how I honestly feel.
- You might unfoundedly believe I feel otherwise, but if so, your belief is wrong, so please don't belittle and slander me because of that misunderstanding. --SgtLion (talk) 04:30, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I did not say that your feelings are unnecessary. I said that a comment threatening to leave if GA isn't demoted is unnecessary. It's manipulative. ConcealedWife (talk) 04:21, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- And I find this whole RfA reminiscent of throwing a tantrum because I corrected users on policy or warned them for breaking it. As SgtLion said, please do not slander, belittle or insult users. And this coming from a user who tried starting drama in Discord because she thought I disliked her...--GamerAim
- You can find the feelings of another user as unnecessary as you like. I personally find it important to share how distressing and undesirable this community will become if this next step of entrenching the utter terribleness of the Discord community into the site goes ahead. --SgtLion (talk) 04:16, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I find that the "If GA gets demoted, I will seriously consider stepping down", an unnecessary comment that is more reminiscent of throwing a tantrum for not getting the outcome that you want than the point of this community becoming hostile (constructive criticism) you want it to be. ConcealedWife (talk) 04:00, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- Now I know I've jumped in on the drama on the discord server more than once and mentioned how much I disliked it but I must say looking through the work that GA has completed I am confused about what he has done on the wiki to deserve demotion. I have read through hours of backlog and there are absolutely times that I feel GA has abused the title of server owner and shoved his weight around. But once again, I support GA at this time because to me it is a question of his work ethic which I feel is impeccable considering all of the formats to 3e and whatnot.-- Cotsu Malcior (talk) 04:34, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I apologize if I came off as shoving my weight around at times, Cotsu. I think it is difficult sometimes to look at my actions without also seeing that crown attached to my name without conflating the too, but I think you've known be long enough to know that it would require something extreme for me to throw my weight around like that intentionally. I have been one of the loudest proponents to limiting administrative authority on D&D Wiki - or more specifically, bringing it back in line with how administrators used to act. I'm not sure if you were in the server when ConcealedWife left, but I took it very seriously and examined my own behavior before moving forward, and I admit that I did not like all of what I saw. Towards that end, I did take several steps to limit my own authority. I think that, looking at the facts and my history of behavior and actions overall, people will see as you did that I have been a net benefit to D&D Wiki because even when I make mistakes, I do my best to make amends and personally handle the situation with upset users to ensure that they know I am taking the matter seriously.--GamerAim
- I apologize if I came off as shoving my weight around at times, Cotsu. I think it is difficult sometimes to look at my actions without also seeing that crown attached to my name without conflating the too, but I think you've known be long enough to know that it would require something extreme for me to throw my weight around like that intentionally. I have been one of the loudest proponents to limiting administrative authority on D&D Wiki - or more specifically, bringing it back in line with how administrators used to act. I'm not sure if you were in the server when ConcealedWife left, but I took it very seriously and examined my own behavior before moving forward, and I admit that I did not like all of what I saw. Towards that end, I did take several steps to limit my own authority. I think that, looking at the facts and my history of behavior and actions overall, people will see as you did that I have been a net benefit to D&D Wiki because even when I make mistakes, I do my best to make amends and personally handle the situation with upset users to ensure that they know I am taking the matter seriously.--GamerAim
- Support. First of all I'll say I don't care what happens on Discord. The only thing required of an admin is that they can be trusted with the admin tools. The main issue seems to be concerning the page restorations. This seems to be a result of the confusion over what policies are in affect. There's the historical "it's on the wiki now, you don't own it", and the G7 speedy inherited from Wikipedia. This should be discussed at Help:Policies and not a reason for going after an admin. It looks like GaimerAim acted in good faith. If what he did was in error, then it's a matter of communication, clarification and learning. I would only consider an Oppose if it can be shown there was maliciousness or complete incompetence at play. Marasmusine (talk) 14:00, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I must say I am not surprised this happened. Many feathers have been ruffled but I hardly see removing admin rights from someone because disagreements exist to be okay. I think a 21st century culture of instant gratification supplemented by Discord creates topics "consensus"-d much too quickly, and brewed much drama we've seen. Perhaps discussion is necessary for that. There's certainly things occurring offsite, but here on the wiki GamerAim conducts themself generally within reason. Since a policy hasn't been created or exists to impose sanctions on users from off-site platforms, this RfA simply seems misplaced. If there is evidence on the wiki to support this RfA, let it be known.
- I won't be commenting on the discussions below. Not because anything one person says I find to be true or untrue, I simply don't want to participate in the back and forth ebb and flow of it. BigShotFancyMan (talk) 05:48, 3 October 2018 (MDT)
- I do support GamerAim, and believe that they should continue being an admin. With that said, GA has made mistakes, and should not immune to criticism, but this whole thing has honestly spiraled out of control. It is not my place to rule on the situations that have arisen outside the realms of D&D Wiki, but I am sorry for how GA has been treated, as the wiki is supposed to be a place where users can work together to better our community.
- With that out of the way, I can move on to why I support GA's continued admin-ship. On the wiki, GA has strived to abide by the rules on the wiki and has tried be frank/straightforward about their opinion in a vast array of situations. They have also shown a constant wiliness to improve upon themselves while also trying to always do what they believe is the correct. With that said, it appears that most of the issues that users have with GA arise from GA's strict adherence to rules and regulations and using his power as an admin to either prevent other users from breaking those rules or fix problems that have arose due to users breaking those rules. This has more often then not rubbed users the wrong way and resulted in this Rfa.
- I also believe that the vast majority of what GA has done on the wiki has been appropriate, but because of numerous users concerns I do think that it may help GA to seek additional aid when needed more often and/or try to explain situations in a concise manner without having conversations devolving into arguments. This recommendations of course should not distract from GA's excellent record on the wiki, and as such why GA has my support.--Blobby383b (talk) 14:49, 5 October 2018 (MDT)
- I support GamerAims continued adminship, as someone who was active on the discord and previously the tavern until this happened. The discord has been called unofficial but has multiple times overstepped its purpose becoming a stand-in for the wiki.This isnt entirely GamerAims fault but i feel for it to have impact on the vote for GamerAims responsibility as an admin on the site there has to be a direct connection to the site and not an unofficial discord and his behaviour on the discord should be discarded for this rfa. On the wiki i see no reason why GamerAim shouldn't continue being admin though in the future i think the discord should be closed down due to potential conflicts, i personally have had no problems but as this rfa has proven, many have had issues that should be taken elsewhere instead of an Rfa solely made to besmirch him and the things he has done elsewhere.--SandyBleach (talk) 13:39, 7 October 2018 (MDT)
- Support I may upset several people; but this is necessary. I have Moved related posts to the relevant section; to properly follow due process as I believe that my reasons for Opposing GamerAim are valid at the start of this RFA the whole process is to the detriment to the community and devolved into a direct attack on GamerAim based on his reactions to the open hostility here and events that happened elsewhere that as stated are not relevant to the discussions here on this RFA. I humbly request that my vote is changed from oppose to Support. Time to end this nonsense as Adults and move forward. I want to see D&Dwiki community thrive, not tear itself apart internally. -- Kildairem 08:08, 8 October 2018 (PST)
- As the party that is in the middle of the current situation; I feel that a consensus was reached by the Admin's and that GamerAim has abused his Admin Authority by reversing the policy without discussion with the other Admin's and notification to me; the creator of the campaign setting; that was created on D&D wiki prior to the D&D Wiki license updates. -- Kildairem 20:32, 1 October 2018 (PST)
- This is not the appopriate place to discuss this matter, please keep all relevant discussion in Talk:Meadowlands (Stormforge Supplement). I will personally revert any edits and block any willing breachers of this rule - An RfA is not the place for legal discussion about a campaign setting. --SgtLion (talk) 01:55, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- SgtLion, This RFA is specifically about GamerAim abusing his authority. My opinion is relevant to the discussion; My opinion is based on the premise that the other Admins left up the Talk Page specifically so that a discussion could be had there in the case that the Admins or other users wanted to continue talking about the Admin’s decision. I don’t dispute that GamerAim was following the Wiki Policy; however before undoing the deletion GamerAim should have posted on the Talk Page about the policy and that he believed that the pages should not be deleted. All that being said; I believe that this RFA is a confusing mess. I disagree that it should continue. If possible I would like to talk to GamerAim and decide if he is taking the feedback that has been posted and is able to ignore the personal attacks. I do not know the whole story that has caused others to Oppose GamerAim’s Adminship, but from what I have seen on the RFA there are a lot of unnecessary drama going on. ‘’’I know I can not petition for the RFA to be deleted; but I think that instead of extending the time, the RFA should start again with a new format. With each vote being made explaining the reason why and not permitting responses on the RFA Page. Instead responses should be posted on the discussion page.’’’ -- Kildairem 23:29, 7 October 2018 (PST)
- Seems to me like this RfA is about anything but about GamerAim abusing his authority. I take no issue with you discussing the matter here, just not in a legal capacity. As an admin GamerAim has a perfect right to revert deletions that appear to be against policy; That issue is under discussion and when consensus is reached, they've already stated they will happily abide by the result. That is perfectly fitting behaviour for an admin.
- Though on one level I quite like your latter proposal, I think it would only serve to further confuse things at this point. --SgtLion (talk) 05:20, 8 October 2018 (MDT)
- "Support." After taking some time to think on things a while, my initial knee-jerk opposition was probably a tad rash. The consensus seems to be, based on support votes and Jwguy's neutral vote, that we shouldn't hold anyone accountable on the wiki for their interpersonal interactions outside of the wiki, regardless of how poor either party's behavior might be within that interaction or whether that interaction takes place in locations related to the wiki but not on the wiki proper. I still have issues with the Discord server and the way GamerAim leads it, but those issues I will bring up via the appropriate channel (hopefully without causing a flame war).
- I remain concerned about the issue with copyright as well as some of his behavior in this RfA, for basically the same reasons as Jwguy stated below (and I will likely be issuing him a warning for his behavior here as he has explicitly invited such), however, he seems to have understood why his behavior with regards to that was wrong; I will remain concerned, but, in light of that, it seems somewhat unlikely that his pattern of behavior will continue to be problematic going forward. — Geodude
- Support See talk.
Oppose
- As the one nominating, I oppose, as per the reasons listed above. Varkarrus (talk) 16:49, 1 October 2018 (MDT)
- You were kicked/banned because you remarkably managed to accrue 3 warnings within 24 hours. The final one was, indeed, for defamation. Not the simple act of opening this RfA - that is your right, even if it comes off as spiteful as it happened just after I initially warned you - but because you spread blatant lies about me, particularly in regards to me chasing Guy away. This was done in an attempt to sway others against me. Hence, you were warned and subsequently banned. Of course, I recognize the consensus that Discord actions cannot be punished on D&D Wiki - unlike you and everyone else here - so rest assured you won't be blocked from here :) --GamerAim
- "Defamation?" seriously? You've accused me of that and outright *lying*. Lying implies intent. Worst case scenario is I'm mistaken about the things I've shared, but considering the sentiments have now been echoed by several people, it doesn't seem likely. "Sway others against you?" So discussion is banned now too? I'm sure you wouldn't ban anyone for trying to sway people Towards you. By your logic, you should be warned / banned for "lying," "defamation," and "swaying people" against me and several other people at this point. Perhaps you should discuss with your fellow admins on the discord what constitutes defamation, instead of throwing out warns and bans willy nilly. Varkarrus (talk) 08:48, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- At least the rest of the accusations being lobbed at me can be interpreted from a certain point of view in some circumstances as being negative on my part. But the accusation regarding Guy is a wholesale fabrication. No twisting something I said. Just blaming me for Guy's (un)usual behavior. So, while discussion is allowed - no matter how baseless the claims made - there is a line that was crossed. That is why you were banned. So, feel free to sway people against me (though I ask that you please not), but do not create wholesale fabrications (as opposed to the 90% fabrications you otherwise made) that attribute another user's behavior to me.
- Debating policy is expressly disallowed in Discord, and doing so solely with admins would lack the transparency I am known for advocating. I would have rather someone else did it, but Geodude declined, CL was sleeping, Mara and GD are never online and SgtLion isn't in there (along with other standing admins). So, there was no one besides me, and I acted accordingly. I'm sorry if you are offended, but you'll be allowed back in 7 days :) Alternatively, you can appeal your block. Maybe on the community portals talk page?--GamerAim
- "Defamation?" seriously? You've accused me of that and outright *lying*. Lying implies intent. Worst case scenario is I'm mistaken about the things I've shared, but considering the sentiments have now been echoed by several people, it doesn't seem likely. "Sway others against you?" So discussion is banned now too? I'm sure you wouldn't ban anyone for trying to sway people Towards you. By your logic, you should be warned / banned for "lying," "defamation," and "swaying people" against me and several other people at this point. Perhaps you should discuss with your fellow admins on the discord what constitutes defamation, instead of throwing out warns and bans willy nilly. Varkarrus (talk) 08:48, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- You were kicked/banned because you remarkably managed to accrue 3 warnings within 24 hours. The final one was, indeed, for defamation. Not the simple act of opening this RfA - that is your right, even if it comes off as spiteful as it happened just after I initially warned you - but because you spread blatant lies about me, particularly in regards to me chasing Guy away. This was done in an attempt to sway others against me. Hence, you were warned and subsequently banned. Of course, I recognize the consensus that Discord actions cannot be punished on D&D Wiki - unlike you and everyone else here - so rest assured you won't be blocked from here :) --GamerAim
I am extremely disappointed that it's come to this. I've hoped GamerAim would improve by taking into account the feedback he's received from other users, but quite frankly he hasn't, and the fact that we're at this point sadly proves that it's not only me that thinks this. In expansion to what Varkarrus linked above, I would like to highlight several instances in which I feel GamerAim has behaved in a manner not befitting of a "face" of the wiki:
- He has worked against consensus both on the wiki, such as undeleting the Stormforge campaign setting without any discussion after consensus was established between three other admins (which is presumably the cause of the newest admin, Guy, leaving the wiki only a couple weeks after his induction, though only Guy really knows for sure), and on the wiki's Discord server (on which he has the owner role), such as implementing several rules and a warning system for the server without even discussing it with the other admins that are on the server, let alone establishing consensus, and in a couple cases he's even implemented rules after discussion when the consensus was against that rule.
- At one point, a reddit user complained that a D&D Wiki user was illegally reproducing DM's Guild content on the wiki, and that they couldn't place any deletion tags on those pages because of issues with the captcha. GamerAim not only refused to help the user (note: AmalgamGames is GA), but also discouraged anyone else from doing so, on the basis that "reddit is always mean about the wiki so just ignore it." (paraphrased)
- Several times, he has warned that he will undo any administrative action he personally deems unfair without warning or conversation, even when consensus has been reached by other admins or the involved parties, and he has done so several times over Discord. Most recently, he has threatened to block me from the wiki the next time I make a page deletion that he personally disagrees with.
- As Varkarrus stated above, there was a whole incident where after bringing up the wiki username of ConcealedWife potentially being a violation of username policy (which in itself was reasonable), he then harassed her over Discord about it (or at the very least she feels that way) while waiting on a response from Green Dragon. After the username issue was settled, he continued to hound her over trivial or imagined rule violations on Discord. She wrote out a complaint/criticism about the issues she had had with GamerAim and the Discord server, and rather than listen to her feedback and take it into consideration and improve, he banned her and deleted her post without a second thought. ( ) After he was asked why he banned ConcealedWife, after you got past the name-calling and belittling directed at a couple different users, his reasoning was basically that he felt his authority was threatened and that he thinks he knows better than everyone else. Even after I unbanned ConcealedWife from the server, she expressed no desire to return, because of GamerAim's behavior towards her. (this screenshot is also relevant)
- With regards to his poor behavior towards ConcealedLight (again, see the link above), I agree with Varkarrus that this is extremely unbecoming of an admin. He's made belittling comments toward CL (he claims that wasn't his intention; it certainly comes across that way from my pov though) and made remarks which he even admits are passive-aggressive, in response to others disagreeing with him.
I and other users have brought up this pattern of poor behavior to him probably half a dozen times at least, over the past few months and everybody involved is just exhausted dealing with this. I want GA to remain an admin, I really do, but I cannot in good conscience support this RfA. Behavior on Discord doesn't normally carry over to the wiki, but I feel GamerAim's behavior on the wiki, on Discord, and in the one case on Reddit reflects poorly on the rest of the admin team and on the site as a whole, and I know I'm not alone in this. If GamerAim is demoted because of this and subsequently improves his behavior, I might be open to reinstating him as an administrator, but at present I feel he is a poor fit for the position. — Geodude
- That campaign setting again? You cannot delete articles for that reason. You went against long-standing policy, like SgtLion and I told you and Guy. You cannot form consensus to delete a page for that reason. Policy isn't something that users can just will up on the spot. I followed policy. You did not.
- Again blaming me for Guy - a guy notorious for disappearing after confrontations with other users - disappearing after a confrontation with another user. If Guy is going to leave because I informed him of our long-standing policy, then maybe he wasn't admin material after all. If so, that's a shame, because our two disagreements aside, I was quite happy that he won his nomination.
- You guys sure do love consensus when it benefits you. Never mind the years of history, policy and precedent formed before you joined. But none of that matters because a couple people who don't even understand D&D Wiki policy decided they know it better? Someone has to remind you guys of policy, and that means ignoring misguided consensus. You want consensus to change policy? Do what I do and appeal it on the appropriate talk page. Reach out to people. Don't make a decision in your isolated corner and get upset when it isn't taken as law.
- But then again, half of what you have going for you is comments on unofficial third-party platforms. We do not operate on r/dnd! That user made a YouTube video slamming D&D Wiki and posted it on reddit. That's not an official support channel, and he provided no proof that his claims were valid. I repeat: a YouTube video found on reddit does not qualify as a copyright infringement claim on D&D Wiki. But hey, consensus :)
- I "interpreted" your statement as an indication that you would violate policy. I informed you that there would be consequences. I know this is difficult to understand, but...if you repeatedly break policy despite being warned multiple times to stop...you will be blocked. Protip: don't do that.
- I feel I should also rebutt your points, Geodude671, in that I don't believe a users actions on unofficial chat channels, or Reddit, are at all relevant to the wiki. If we strip your comments of those, then we're left with the legitimate complaints of "they undeleted a campaign setting because they believe that is policy" and "he made a passive aggressive comment and another one that comes across as bad". And I don't feel those two things are at all material problems, nor indicative of a dangerous pattern. --SgtLion (talk) 02:44, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- "I've hoped GamerAim would improve by taking into account the feedback he's received from other users" Just to add, I'd like to know what feed back I failed to take into account? I took CW's feedback into account, although she blatantly refuses to accept this fact. I also agreed to the informal ban on communicating with ConcealedLight. Unless you can provide substantial evidence here, I think we can regard your assertion as a blatant falsehood.--GamerAim
- "I've hoped GamerAim would improve by taking into account the feedback he's received from other users" Just to add, I'd like to know what feed back I failed to take into account? I took CW's feedback into account, although she blatantly refuses to accept this fact. I also agreed to the informal ban on communicating with ConcealedLight. Unless you can provide substantial evidence here, I think we can regard your assertion as a blatant falsehood.--GamerAim
I oppose GamerAim's continued Adminship.
- No Admin should be above the consensus of other Admins. No Admin who controls a Discord channel should be allowed to ban a member; just because he or she feels they have the right to do whatever they wish.
I am willing to look at alternatives to deletion; such as locking the pages if the Admins are willing to work with me. -- Kildairem 20:43, 1 October 2018 (PST)
- We definitely would have been willing to work with you, and still are! I'm sorry, but Guy and Geodude misled you about what they had the authority to do. That's on them, not me. They can't just overrule long-standing policies because they discussed it by themselves in ignorance of aforementioned policy.--GamerAim
- We definitely would have been willing to work with you, and still are! I'm sorry, but Guy and Geodude misled you about what they had the authority to do. That's on them, not me. They can't just overrule long-standing policies because they discussed it by themselves in ignorance of aforementioned policy.--GamerAim
- I second this on all counts. --MetalShadowOverlord (talk) 00:23, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- Keep in mind that GamerAim's ownership of the Discord channel is irrelevant to this site. The Discord channel is entirely and wholly unofficial. --SgtLion (talk) 01:58, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- Keep in mind that, until I pointed it out, the discord channel was listed under the contact information for this wiki. It might have been listed as "unofficial" there, but it was subsequently removed after I noted it. The discord maintains the hierarchy of this wiki when it comes to admins and the owner claims to 'follow wiki policy'. Furthermore, admins use it as a hub for spreading information, helping out users and discussing staff matters in the admin-only chat. I don't believe that calling it "unofficial" and trying to stow it under the carpet is fair, especially as its influencing the way users see this wiki negatively. -- ConcealedWife (talk) 11:00, 2 October 2018 (CEST)
- Keep in mind that GamerAim's ownership of the Discord channel is irrelevant to this site. The Discord channel is entirely and wholly unofficial. --SgtLion (talk) 01:58, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I agree that these are all issues. But it sounds like the problem is admins treating the Discord as official when it very clearly and explicitly isn't. As a problem, that perhaps should be rectified, but it still does not change that we as a wiki have never judged users based on their actions outside of the site's context, and for good reason. And if the Discord maintains the hierarchy, does that mean I'm on the bottom of it by not being there? ;~; --SgtLion (talk) 03:34, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I stated that the discord follows the hierarchy of the wiki. In what universe did I mention that not being in the discord means you are at the bottom of the hierarchy? It means that whoever is an admin here, is an admin there. ConcealedWife (talk) 04:25, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- Ah, then I misunderstood your words - That makes sense. Apologies. --SgtLion (talk) 04:38, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I stated that the discord follows the hierarchy of the wiki. In what universe did I mention that not being in the discord means you are at the bottom of the hierarchy? It means that whoever is an admin here, is an admin there. ConcealedWife (talk) 04:25, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I agree that these are all issues. But it sounds like the problem is admins treating the Discord as official when it very clearly and explicitly isn't. As a problem, that perhaps should be rectified, but it still does not change that we as a wiki have never judged users based on their actions outside of the site's context, and for good reason. And if the Discord maintains the hierarchy, does that mean I'm on the bottom of it by not being there? ;~; --SgtLion (talk) 03:34, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I oppose GamerAim's continued adminship.
- I guess I should start at the start. I joined the wiki around January of this year. Previously, I had already been writing and rewriting lore with Concealedlight without an account. CL eventually convinced me to create an account to do the edits myself and voila, here I am. I believe I was working on the Anuran at the time and I was interested in getting tips from other users to improve myself and my work. CL gave me an invite to the discord, which I accepted about a week or so later.
- As soon as I joined, I was singled out by the user in question, GamerAim, for having a name similar to ConcealedLight. I pointed out that the name was just a joke and I never really engaged with other users, nor claimed or tried to impersonate an admin. In the days that followed, I was harrassed time and time again about “wiki policies” which were apparently followed in this discord. Despite the fact that a majority of admins reached consensus (This consensus was reached on the wiki as well) that this was not a problem as my name was different enough, GA remained on my case, constantly threatening to bring this issue to GreenDragon to force me into changing my name. Comments like “Do you even have your own identity if your name is based off your relationship to another user” were also flung to my head.
- More small issues kept arising, with a prominent one being the use of ‘external emotes’ - a feature (pretty much the only feature you get) only available to users who support discord financially. Which GA disabled as soon as I used one, claiming that it went against one of the wiki’s policies (I can’t even remember which one.) and threatened to ban me if I were to use one again. I was also warned for mentioning things that might potentially ‘trigger’ other users. I became increasingly annoyed at these small jabs in my direction and what made it worse was that other admins approached me with the message “This is GA’s discord and it’s best to agree with everything he does.” which is entirely unbecoming of an admin who is supposedly all about ‘making sure everybody feels equal as we are all equal on the wiki.’.
- The situation escalated as in the continued harassment started getting to me and I ended up calling ConcealedLight in tears because I felt unwelcome and personally attacked. GA then threw a massive fit (one of many to come), a huge drama ensued where they played victim and exclaimed that “Nobody even cared to understand or ask how *he* felt about this situation.” and transferred ownership of the discord to another user, Geodude761. User SgtLion left during this drama. Things were quiet for about a day or so before GA was back, claiming his ownership back and giving me a half-assed apology.
- It still wasn’t over because next thing I know I’m attributed the “Meme” role (In my opinion, a shame role) "Dishonour Guard" (The opposite of the Discord's 'Honour Guard', a role supposedly awarded to users who work on improving and preserving pages) I should mention that when I pointed out I was working on a few pages on the wiki, I was told that I should wait at least two weeks before I could become 'Honour Guard.' by GA. A rule he made up at that moment in time and would quickly abandon as recently a new user joined and was awarded the role because they were ‘actively chatting’ for two days - not even about anything D&D or article related either.
- Fastforward to a short while ago, where a controversial spell called "Change Sexuality" is discussed in the discord. User Varrakus and GA are discussing the spell, stating it's homophobic but they then continue to make jokes about killing heterosexuals, which is Okay according to their logic because heterosexual people are not discriminated against or killed. Instead of being a responsible owner, GA continues to defend their actions without regard for anyone’s feelings. I'm not straight myself but the spreading of hate messages is uncalled for and these messages irked me.
- Then comes the breaking point; after showing time and time again that they only follow policies from the wiki when it suits them, GA decided to start messing with me again, changing my role from 'Honour Guard' back to 'Dishonour Guard.' without a warning after the admins had discussed that nobody should be given this role if they expressed their dislike for it in the past. I wrote my frustrations down in a lengthy message which I posted in the discord (Geo already posted that message in a screenshot in his Oppose), as I feel every new person is allowed to know that GA is trying to make themselves seem like the ruler whose word is law, often ignoring other admins unless the majority speaks out against them, while simultaneously trying to preach the 'Wiki Policies' and that 'This is just like the wiki, where everybody is treated equally.’. I was subsequently banned with the message “You just broke the rules” - which, in itself, is hilarious to me, as those rules are copied 1 for 1 from the rules I set up for my own discord. (Save for the rule about images that trigger people) I later found out that GA continued calling me more names behind my back before making up the excuse “I was trying to avoid drama.”.
- GA then messaged me, with another half-assed apology. What is most annoying of their apologies is that they don’t seem sincere in any way - they always blame someone else. Be it blaming CL for informing me that GA is calling me names behind my back or blaming me for getting upset at his constant bullying and belittling. While I enjoyed the company of other users on the discord and working on articles on the wiki, I have become extremely hesitant of contributing further as the way some users are treated here by GA is absolutely abhorrent and someone who is this petty does not deserve to have his adminship renewed.
- As I have mentioned in another comment - I am aware of the fact that the discord is “unofficial” but users are encouraged to join the discord to discuss issues. Admins use it to announce information to users and they use their admin chat to discuss issues in discord but also issues that arise on the wiki. Furthermore, the hierarchy of the Wiki is maintained as well in the shape of the administrative team. I believe GA should be held responsible for his actions on the discord as it is clear that its drama bleeds into the wiki and gives users a negative perception of the wiki as a whole.
- Edit: I will add this less-than-favourable talk: {1 2 3 4 5 as, when I returnd to get the information I needed, I instead found that GA has actually removed all evidence of bashing me, as well as his joking about killing heterosexuals and people's children. I guess he forgot to delete this though: joking about killing heteros and BigShotFancyMan's children & more confirmation of that same incident.) ConcealedWife (talk) 04:00, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- 1) I let the name thing go when GD cleared it. I seem to recall Geodude having more issues about your "identity" than me, and I believe I called him out for asking you something along those lines. 2) External emotes were never intended to be allowed. You were the first one to bring to my attention that they could be used. Hence they were disallowed after you joined. 3) Conveniently ignoring the emotional distress the situation also caused me. 4) I never made jokes about killing heterosexuals. 5) My apology was sincere. 6) Your "husband" has been accused of misconduct more often than I have been, but I guess he's totes cool and I'm the sole D&D Wiki bad guy. 7) I fixed many Discord issues, including the HG/DG roles, after you left. In direct response to your frustration. Please do not act like I've done nothing to help mend the wound between us. Though I do not understand how you got the idea I disliked you - though I admit my feelings were mixed at times, as I am not required by law to love you - I continually made attempts to reassure you that I was not picking on you. I restructured the server to address your complaints.--GamerAim
- 1) I let the name thing go when GD cleared it. I seem to recall Geodude having more issues about your "identity" than me, and I believe I called him out for asking you something along those lines. 2) External emotes were never intended to be allowed. You were the first one to bring to my attention that they could be used. Hence they were disallowed after you joined. 3) Conveniently ignoring the emotional distress the situation also caused me. 4) I never made jokes about killing heterosexuals. 5) My apology was sincere. 6) Your "husband" has been accused of misconduct more often than I have been, but I guess he's totes cool and I'm the sole D&D Wiki bad guy. 7) I fixed many Discord issues, including the HG/DG roles, after you left. In direct response to your frustration. Please do not act like I've done nothing to help mend the wound between us. Though I do not understand how you got the idea I disliked you - though I admit my feelings were mixed at times, as I am not required by law to love you - I continually made attempts to reassure you that I was not picking on you. I restructured the server to address your complaints.--GamerAim
- I have added some screenshots to help refresh your mind about the killing of hetero's and BSFM's children. I guess you forgot to delete that one. :) ConcealedWife (talk) 06:35, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- At this point, these wild accusations are just disruptive. I did not delete the jokes, because they never happened. All I ever said was that I'd consider supporting a spell [suggested by a D&D Wiki user] that killed heteros as I interpreted it to be allowed under certain implementations. That was it: I said it wasn't against the rules since we had comparably bad spells that were allowed. If we held a discussion and the consensus was that such spell should not be allowed, I'd have abide by it. Because I always follow policy. Additionally, I never threatened BSFM's children. I said - in the cesspit to end all cesspits that is #adult-theme - that Donald Trump's EPA allowing asbestos in buildings again would put BSFM's kids at risk. I informed him of this because he was in favor of Donald Trump's presidency.
- Furthermore, your screenshots prove nothing. They show me bidding goodnight in my (a)typical GamerAim mannerism. In fact, I said that I love them all. Can I not express love for my fellow users? Is it my "be sorry when I've won" comment that irks you? I'm not sure how that's offensive. Just me being tiredly over-dramatic after a long evening of defending myself after being pelted with senseless accusations. And then I expressed disappointment and betrayal with regards to another user. Am I not allowed to have personal conversations with other users in third-party channels? That's what the server is for! I use D&D Wiki itself for being serious and - like everyone - use Discord to be more casual. And finally you can see me stating that I always tried to limit the power of myself and others. Your screenshots show me blatantly admitting that I was not threatening or joking about killing kids or heteros. You literally posted my defense against your accusations as proof of your accusations. It also shows me politely asking CL to stop using slurs.
- Again, your screenshots show little to incriminate me. At worst, they show me physically and emotionally exhausted as I go to bed. Or me telling EpicBoss99 how I felt about what he did. I'm transparent about my feelings. Is that a crime now? Is it "manipulative?" I don't think it's any more manipulative than you talking about how you once cried to CL over me. Which I said at the time I felt bad about because I never meant to upset you ever. Please, CW, save us both some time and stop lobbing baseless accusations at me.--GamerAim
- Again, your screenshots show little to incriminate me. At worst, they show me physically and emotionally exhausted as I go to bed. Or me telling EpicBoss99 how I felt about what he did. I'm transparent about my feelings. Is that a crime now? Is it "manipulative?" I don't think it's any more manipulative than you talking about how you once cried to CL over me. Which I said at the time I felt bad about because I never meant to upset you ever. Please, CW, save us both some time and stop lobbing baseless accusations at me.--GamerAim
- I have nothing left to say to you GA. You always twist the situation around and accuse someone else. The screenshots confirm that BSFM read the whole conversation where you joked about killing heterosexuals, nothing more. You saying "Haha, I did not do that." proves nothing. I could go around messaging other users to confirm that it did indeed happen (Because the messages *are* deleted, I checked it myself this morning) but I don't have to - BSFM's comment shows enough. Your child-like behaviour just keeps on showing, moreso with the banning of Varr from discord for starting this RfA in the name of 'slander', as well as accusing everyone of being a traitor. I will await further comments and the outcome. -- ConcealedWife (talk) 08:45, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- Once again, even though you've acknowledged the point, I feel it's important to reiterate out how irrelevant the cesspit of Discord is to the site. If we're going to involve actions on third-party platforms into our decisions, it does seem unfair not to agree that we're going to do as such before punishing people on a basis we've previously agreed is irrelevant. --SgtLion (talk) 04:16, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- Not holding other admins accountable for or even turning a blind eye to the abhorrent interactions they have with other users outside of the wiki, in the name of the wiki and it's policies, is a crime in itself. GA ignored consensus reached on my username (I have an e-mail from GD confirming that this consensus was reached) and continued to bully, insult and belittle me. At this point I wonder how you would feel if a fellow admin were to start calling other users on the phone, or sending them private messages on facebook to harass them - These are third party means of contacting people, after all. I have also found that after a brief absence, the 'unofficial discord' is now on the D&D Wiki:Community Portal again. It seems that slapping the title 'unofficial' means its now connected and recognized by the wiki, but is otherwise a lawless wasteland where admins can be as abusive as they see fit without having to fear consequences. If you feel that an admin who acts this childish outside of the wiki should go scot-free, I'm not sure what to tell you. ConcealedWife (talk) 05:33, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I understand you dislike me, but do not lie about me. I did not ignore consensus regarding your username. Once consensus is made, I accept it. I always have and always will. The Discord is on the community portal because that's where all unofficial third-party community pages go. But they aren't dandwiki.com, so they aren't official. I. Did. Not. Harass. You. I'm sorry that you never forgave me for being concerned that your username violated username policy, but nothing I did was personal. You claim that Discord remains a lawless wasteland, when you haven't been there in months. You say I haven't done anything to change, but that isn't true. I never acted childish, but I did address the complaints against me. Some were valid, but they are valid no longer. How else can I make this clear? I don't know why any of you even bother writing long-winded accusations against me. Just say "I don't like GA and never will" and be honest.--GamerAim
- I understand you dislike me, but do not lie about me. I did not ignore consensus regarding your username. Once consensus is made, I accept it. I always have and always will. The Discord is on the community portal because that's where all unofficial third-party community pages go. But they aren't dandwiki.com, so they aren't official. I. Did. Not. Harass. You. I'm sorry that you never forgave me for being concerned that your username violated username policy, but nothing I did was personal. You claim that Discord remains a lawless wasteland, when you haven't been there in months. You say I haven't done anything to change, but that isn't true. I never acted childish, but I did address the complaints against me. Some were valid, but they are valid no longer. How else can I make this clear? I don't know why any of you even bother writing long-winded accusations against me. Just say "I don't like GA and never will" and be honest.--GamerAim
- I will respond and will mention that while I have not experienced much on this website. I do know that despite you mentioning that you dont want to involve this in your decision making, then do not and I will say do not advertise this in any way on your website, even if you say it is unnofficial, people will now associate this website with that discord. But as long as you advertise this server it is deffinitly a part of this discussion as it is a platform that is as much about this website as the website itself -- RedHawk007 (talk) 04:33, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- All I have to add to these walls of text is that I still maintain a person's actions on third-party platforms are irrelevant position on the wiki, no matter how egregiously you fail to get along with them there. As a site, we do not hold authority over Discord servers, whatever they claim or do on that server is their own business. If we blocked GamerAim today, they would still rightfully be server owner; We have no control over their actions there.
- It's also prudent to point out that taking a user's text out of context and consequently changing its tone, as has been done a billion times in this RfA, is not appropriate, and usually a warn-able offense. --SgtLion (talk) 07:15, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- All I am saying is that while the discord server is represented on the website, it represents the website and what happens on there should be taken into account what happens. A simple although slightly different is the Roll20 situation at this moment and the reddit. What happened on the Reddit, while it was clearly not on roll20 itself got Nolan T in trouble, despite it being a different platform. -- RedHawk007 (talk) 08:04, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I do appreciate that viewpoint, I'm not saying it's literally impossible to do, but it doesn't serve D&D Wiki to do so and we've historically agreed not to.
- We link to Reddit, to Wikipedia, to random forums, all sorts, throughout our core pages; We can't hold people accountable for actions just 'cause we link to a place where it happened. The rules, policies and expectations of behaviour in Discord are different to those on this site. In the case of events like roll20, people get punished because their policy dictates what you can and can't do on other sites, whereas our policy doesn't, and until that changes, we should not be doing so. --SgtLion (talk) 08:11, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- Look bub, I get that we can't hold admins accountable for everything they do off site. But, quick anecdote for a second, whenever I've gotten a job as a camp counselor and I'm given a camp shirt, one of the things they tell me is that, while wearing that shirt, I represent their company. I would get in trouble if I wore that shirt while not at work, and was rude to someone, or did something controversial, or even drank alcohol, because anything I did wearing that shirt that reflects badly on me would also reflect badly on them. This is no different, GA has had interactions off-site in the name of D&D Wiki that are reflecting badly on the community. 142.55.40.55 Varkarrus 08:21, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- Quick anecdote: D&D Wiki isn't the camp you worked at. Also, almost nothing you've accused me of is substantial. i.e. it either didn't happen or I rectified the offending behavior. If what you guys keep saying was the truth, then I agree I should be demoted! But it's not. It's just not. You have nothing on me, because I didn't do anything. Please stop spreading libelous accusations against me and let this go.--GamerAim
- Quick anecdote: D&D Wiki isn't the camp you worked at. Also, almost nothing you've accused me of is substantial. i.e. it either didn't happen or I rectified the offending behavior. If what you guys keep saying was the truth, then I agree I should be demoted! But it's not. It's just not. You have nothing on me, because I didn't do anything. Please stop spreading libelous accusations against me and let this go.--GamerAim
- For the future, please don't call me bub, it's an unnecessarily rude and incorrect term of address. As I explained, different places have different policies. If we're judging people by their offsite behaviour, especially if we're judging people by largely fabricated behaviour misrepresented by choice offsite chat snippets taken out of context, we should write that phrase into policy before we start doing it. --SgtLion (talk) 08:58, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I assure you that none of the snippets have been fabricated. I only left out unrelated pieces of text from other users between these messages. You are free to visit the discord and fact-check these snippets for yourself - Nothing is stopping you or any other user from doing so, so accusing me of presenting GA in a bad light through the means of fabrication is unwarranted. I'm sure you'll find a lot more of these conversations as these were just the first things I ran into. :) -- ConcealedWife (talk) 09:05, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- Apologies, ConcealedWife, I wasn't trying to imply you had fabricated any of the text snippets you posted (I haven't looked very hard, as I say, I think Discord is irrelevant). However, what GamerAim has been accused of doing has been largely fabricated, as their initial rebuttal pointed out. --SgtLion (talk) 10:12, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- It's alright. In hindsight, I should have probably just made screenshots of the conversation as a whole. That's on me, my apologies. I also assure you that nothing of what I accused GA of is fabricated. I have nothing against them, I simply wish to see justice for the bullshittery that is going down here. I must admit that their twisting and turning without concrete proof is starting to annoy me. -- ConcealedWife (talk) 10:48, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- The screenshots are real, I will admit this. BSFM may have taken what I said as a joke about killing heterosexuals, but that was Varkarrus. And it was an anonymous user of D&D Wiki. Again, all I did was say that the article in question about killing hets would not be against policy IMO, but I'd have done whatever the community consensus said to on that matter. Your screenshots "support" me being a heterosexual child threatener in much the same way as me taking a photograph of my bruised arm proves that you beat me up. Or we can bring this back to me: I said I loved everyone. There are minors in that server. That screenshot could then be used to assert that I'm a pedophile. I'm not, of course, but that's just an example of another way you can twist the "evidence" to support your fabricated claims. I'm sure that an event similar to what you say happened - I remember it as well - but it happened nothing like you claim it did.
- P.S. I didn't accuse everyone of being a traitor, though I did express feeling betrayed to a couple users. I did say "goodnight, traitors and comrades" as a goodnight jest. That should be evident by my subsequent declaration of love. But, ya know, feel free to "interpret" the events however you like. It won't change the facts, CW.--GamerAim
- P.S. I didn't accuse everyone of being a traitor, though I did express feeling betrayed to a couple users. I did say "goodnight, traitors and comrades" as a goodnight jest. That should be evident by my subsequent declaration of love. But, ya know, feel free to "interpret" the events however you like. It won't change the facts, CW.--GamerAim
- It's a massive shame that I can't back my claims up further because you deleted all evidence of the conversation taking place. Should I remind you that both you and Varr were asked to stop having that talk about killing heterosexuals because several users came forward, explaining that they were uncomfortable with the conversation and 'joking' between you two? I don't remember which admin came forward. I'm interested as to why you won't admit you keep deleting evidence of your wrongdoings. -- ConcealedWife (talk) 10:48, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- This is what I mean when I talk about taking events out of context, and another reason why enforcing standards on other platforms is entirely impractical, and why this conversation is silly and irrelevant. The controversial 'killing hets' topic (which was indeed, at least partially initiated by Varkarrus) was entirely killed when I complained to GamerAim about it. A short conversation was all it took for them to realise the conversation was making people uncomfortable, the conversation was removed and the issue never arose again. Putting personal pride and views aside for the comfort of others is simply a positive and admirable mark. --SgtLion (talk) 13:12, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I'm interested to knowing as to why and how this event was taken out of context. The fact it even happened in the first place is not cool in any way and I'm sure it would fall under GA's own rule not to do anything that might "trigger" another user. I also fail to see why him stopping this conversation is as admirable as you make it out to be. -- ConcealedWife (talk) 13:38, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- Are you familiar with D&D Wiki's warning policy? A user, as per policy, should not be banned until they get 3 warnings, unless it's due to extenuating circumstances. And warnings disappear after 6 months. Because D&D Wiki recognizes that humans are like articles: improved with iteration, not better off deleted immediately. It should not be admirable to stop doing something wrong, this is true. But it shows that I always try to accommodate the community. Because we all make mistakes, ones that upset other users and make them uncomfortable. Even other admins have done so, probably more often than I have. But the true measure of a person's character isn't whether they make mistakes (look Vark, singular they!), but whether they learn from it. I can't say it for everyone here, but I think the record shows that I've done my work to learn from mine.--GamerAim
- Are you familiar with D&D Wiki's warning policy? A user, as per policy, should not be banned until they get 3 warnings, unless it's due to extenuating circumstances. And warnings disappear after 6 months. Because D&D Wiki recognizes that humans are like articles: improved with iteration, not better off deleted immediately. It should not be admirable to stop doing something wrong, this is true. But it shows that I always try to accommodate the community. Because we all make mistakes, ones that upset other users and make them uncomfortable. Even other admins have done so, probably more often than I have. But the true measure of a person's character isn't whether they make mistakes (look Vark, singular they!), but whether they learn from it. I can't say it for everyone here, but I think the record shows that I've done my work to learn from mine.--GamerAim
- I too oppose GA's continued position as an administrator.
- It's no secret to those present, GA's dislike of me. Between the insults and belittling directed at myself and other users, the wheel warring he's inappropriate initated and engaged in, the several invalid and unofficial warnings on and off the wiki he's made against myself as well as a whoely lack of professionalism contribute to the opinion that GA isn't or at least is no longer a suitable face of the wiki. —ConcealedLight
- Could you possibly link to any pattern of insults or belittling? Or wheel warring GamerAim has "initiated"? Or is this another 'off-site' perspective? --SgtLion (talk) 13:05, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- Could you please provide corroborating evidence to support your claims that I am unsuitable to have administrative tools on D&D Wiki? Any evidence that in the over 1.5 year time span I've been an admin that I abused administrative permissions? Because that is what the RfA process is here to decide, not to resolve a personal dispute over your perception that I dislike you. I have disagreed with your conduct on some occasions, but I do not dislike you on the whole, but even if I did, that isn't against policy.
- I ask you - as a fellow member of the community, not as an admin - to please not abuse the RfA process to settle personal disputes. If this is about you recently feeling upset by me warning and joking with you, that matter is resolved, as GD said, and I agreed to an informal ban on communications. I am only communicating with you now because you are opposing my RfA and SgtLion and I would like some evidence to back your claims that I am unsuitable for administrative tools.
- P.S. If anyone else would like an informal ban on me communicating with you, just ask! You're under no obligation to chitchat with me if you dislike me as a person for any reason. Me not interacting with you is as simple as plainly and clearly requesting that I cease communications with you :) --GamerAim
- P.S. If anyone else would like an informal ban on me communicating with you, just ask! You're under no obligation to chitchat with me if you dislike me as a person for any reason. Me not interacting with you is as simple as plainly and clearly requesting that I cease communications with you :) --GamerAim
- I've already communicated my concerns to GD in private which were echo'ed by users here and I will reserve my right not to interact with both of you when you're like this. —ConcealedLight
- I've already communicated my concerns to GD in private which were echo'ed by users here and I will reserve my right not to interact with both of you when you're like this. —ConcealedLight
- Put me down as well for another opposition vote. I believe that the past events reflect very poorly on GA's judgement as well as his ability to be the "face" of D&D wiki. Quincy (talk) 15:10, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
- I oppose GamerAim's continued adminship. I could spend all night writing up essays to defame character, start arguments, point out hypocrisy, and picking apart everything one person has ever done on this wiki and on his Discord, but... I'd really rather not. From my pile of gripes I can pick four points I feel obligated to make, the last of which is quite personal.
- Anyone who routinely uses language as horrifically toxic as that present in this page's history, and in the preceding Discord screenshots, does not deserve to be the face of anything respectable. "Betray," "traitor," "the one other honest admin," false accusations of "libel," and on and on and on. Disliking and belittling those who disagree with him, while praising and upholding those who agree. Etc. That alone should be instantly de-qualifying, let alone all the other abusive, belittling, confrontational, and conflict-causing behavior I've seen from the relevant user.
- Anyone who enforces their opinion over 10+ other active users' universal consensus, and (I quote) "didn't view consensus as legitimate," and disguises this as upholding the "spirit and intend of the wiki", and continues to do so for months does not deserve to be an administrator on any wiki. That alone should be instantly de-qualifying, let alone all the other instances of ignoring consensus and abusing power.
- Recently, an incomplete campaign setting was speedily deleted both due to potential copyright infringement and to the request of the sole significant contributor. It was discussed by three administrators and the sole significant contributor to reach apparent consensus in this deletion. Precedent for speedy deletion for both of these issues (let alone both) exists in the deletion log with hundreds of examples from several administrators from Marasmusine to Green Dragon over the past five years. Our written policy, both then and now supported this deletion. It's worth foot-stomping the fact that even after GamerAim rewrote the then-proposed deletion policy, including completely rephrasing the part regarding author-request-deletion (which is again only one of two reason the content was deleted), it still warranted speedy deletion as he wrote it. In short, this deletion had consensus, policy, and precedent in spades for both of its deletion reasons. In response to this deletion, GamerAim undid the deletion without discussing it at all beforehand, then warned two administrators for violating "unwritten" policy (again despite the fact written policy supported the deletion). Since then he has defamed both of the administrators several times for this action, even including on this page. When I began to bring up my evidence and make my case, trying to discuss it rationally—as opposed to arrogantly undoing the actions of a then-fellow administrator—I was not only ignored entirely, but in other locations GamerAim defaced my actions as "abusing my power" and "violating policy." He literally did so on this page. Meanwhile he has yet to respond on my talk page at all after I provided some of my reasons, apparently dismissing them as irrelevant. God knows what he's said on his Discord. As far as I can gather his rigid stance only began to diminish when Green Dragon declared "sole significant contributor request" was a valid reason for deletion, albeit not speedy deletion. As of this moment I remain convinced GamerAim feels his actions were correct and justified despite the fact they were destructively taken against actions supported policy, precedent, consensus, and even quality content curation. This whole situation and how it was handled exhibits a myriad of problems, including the (1) "toxic conflict-causing language" and (2) "violating consensus" already mentioned. Not only this but it represents an unwillingness to work with peers or even DISCUSS anything, a habit of creating conflict where there wasn't any, a misinterpretation (at best) of policy, using only what works in your favor (two precedent examples from 6 years ago as opposed to the hundreds made since then even from the same administrators), a stark double-standard (accepting GD's words as gospel but ignoring the thoughtful actions and words of several other administrators), not only twisting the truth but blatantly lying, libel (which as this RfA shows he loves to accuse others of), viewing his thoughts/actions as blatantly superior to the several combined thoughts/actions of his supposed peers, and overwhelming levels of hypocrisy. Ironically what he should have done is follow the advice he himself gave on this very page, "Do what I do and appeal it on the appropriate talk page. Reach out to people. Don't make a decision in your isolated corner and get upset when it isn't taken as law." His horrid response to this matter perhaps isn't enough reason for de-qualification, but it succinctly displays a continued pattern of behavior I find wholly unacceptable for an administrator.
- GamerAim's continued behavior and his abuse of power are the only reasons I still refuse to be part of the Discord server, and as I've stated I will rejoin it or a similar server (even if only to lurk) on the very day he is no longer the server owner. GamerAim's behavior is far from the only reason I insulted everyone who supported me by disavowing my adminship, and far from the only reason I blocked myself, but to say it isn't a major factor would be a lie. This last point isn't enough to be de-qualifying, but it is enough reason to cause my return solely to vote in this RfA. - Guy 22:56, 12 October 2018 (MDT)
- Even if it doesn't mean anything and you're chastised by the ensuing paragraphs, I missed having you around Guy. I'll go back to my corner now. I hope to have you around again even if nothing is accomplished by all this. —ConcealedLight
- Even if it doesn't mean anything and you're chastised by the ensuing paragraphs, I missed having you around Guy. I'll go back to my corner now. I hope to have you around again even if nothing is accomplished by all this. —ConcealedLight
- Most of these points have already been brought up and refuted, but it's understandable not reading the odysseys preceding your vote, so I'll sum up the arguments that pretty much dismiss these points. Same as everyone else, though, I hope for ye return.
- 1. Again, out-of-context, not toxic, and on a third-party platform. You can find me saying far more toxic and disgusting things than the word 'Betray' all over the wiki. Aside from minor passive-aggression that everyone has engaged in with the overly charged drama here, GamerAim continues to be a perfectly amiable, reasonable and polite person on the wiki.
- 2. I've no idea what you're talking about? GamerAim has very consistently abided by policy on the wiki, which does technically overrule consensus, so if that happened I can certainly bet it was because policy. If this is Discord, then, whatever, there are no relevant rules to be beholden to there.
- 3. Again, GamerAim acted entirely on written policy. Our deletion policy didn't even pose *any* clause for deletion by user request, until recently (thanks to your efforts, Guy), and speedy deletion by user request isn't and has never been technically allowed. I'll happily concede that though I had agreed the deletion was fine, I was wrong - it did actually contravene policy as written, so GamerAim was right to revert. Again, policy overrules consensus, and as it is what GamerAim has been citing all along, it's pretty clear proof this whole affair has been a matter of Good Faith. I too would, overrule an action by consensus of a thousand admins if it was clearly not actually allowed.
- 4. Don't know how many times I have to say it. Dandwiki.com has zero authority over the unofficial D&D Wiki server. This is not a vote on owner of the Discord server. What happens on that server is entirely under the owner's purview. So, beyond an act of petty revenge, I'm not quite sure why you cite that as a factor in your vote. --SgtLion (talk) 06:50, 13 October 2018 (MDT)
- You are absolutely biased. You consistently ignore the passive aggressive comments that GA has made in this RfA, furthermore, you condone this behaviour it by claiming "Well, I would have said worse." - Do you genuinely believe that saying that makes this sort of behaviour (from an admin no less) alright? Because to me it just sounds like "I express passive-aggressive behaviour towards users too so it's okay." - It's not. You should not be doing this either and frankly it disgusts me that you encourage it. ConcealedWife (talk) 13:09, 13 October 2018 (MDT)
- Yes, that is how a community process works - We're all biased, and we vote for things we are biased for. I don't recall how explicitly pointing out passive-aggression amounts to 'consistently ignor[ing]' it. Yes, I believe when you are witchhunted and harassed over made up drama for months, then a few pretty minor passive-aggressive comments is understandable. I'm sorry that stating this is somehow interpreted as encouraging bad behaviour, but it's not. If it weren't for this needless generated drama, none of this overly charged discourse would be happening at all. --SgtLion (talk) 13:35, 13 October 2018 (MDT)
- Call it needless drama - No matter how you twist or turn the words, there's still a group of users out there who are concerned about a slew of bad behaviour from an administrator. The fact you discredit all of GA's wrongdoings by calling it 'made up drama' speaks for itself as well. ConcealedWife (talk) 14:57, 13 October 2018 (MDT)
- I call some drama needless because conduct on some Discord server is not in our jurisdiction. I call some drama made up because there have been accusations and actions pursued based on provedly false pretences. I hope that explains my intended meaning more clearly. --SgtLion (talk) 16:15, 13 October 2018 (MDT)
- I agree that administrators should keep their cool under stress, and for the most part I have. I apologize for where I lost my cool, but I also don't believe that being, as SgtLion said, "witchhunted and harassed over made up drama for months," was one of the job descriptions for becoming an administrator. Taking criticism, sure. I have always done that, even welcomed it! But all administrators are humans and all humans have limits to how much abuse they can take before they start making snide comments. None of us, not SgtLion,
MaraBSFM, Kydo, GD, CL or Geodude, are perfect. I think SgtLion makes a valid point that we all do these things every once in awhile, but there used to be a mutual respect, not just among admins but among all users, that not every sleight needs to be sanctioned. As administrators, we look for patterns of minor sleights. Let us know (preferably on another talk page) if you have any more questions on administrator procedures!--GamerAim
- I agree that administrators should keep their cool under stress, and for the most part I have. I apologize for where I lost my cool, but I also don't believe that being, as SgtLion said, "witchhunted and harassed over made up drama for months," was one of the job descriptions for becoming an administrator. Taking criticism, sure. I have always done that, even welcomed it! But all administrators are humans and all humans have limits to how much abuse they can take before they start making snide comments. None of us, not SgtLion,
- So....anyone notice any admins missing? Must be perfect if they ain’t listed ;-) BigShotFancyMan (talk) 18:26, 13 October 2018 (MDT)
 |
Whack! Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know you did something silly. |
- Personally, while I do not believe anyone is perfect, I do not believe this sentiment should be used to excuse wrongdoing.
- I, for one, do not expect my wrongdoings to be excused. Though I do find it a bit hypocritical that you hold me solely responsible for my responses on this RfA that put me under undue stress while also laying blame on me for Guy blocking himself and leaving D&D Wiki. I'm curious if you believe I am also responsible for Varkarrus bringing Discord drama over to D&D Wiki? I just want to know how responsible I am for peoples' actions (like how you said my Discord conduct should be scrutinized because the server is linked on the social media page, even though I tried to get it removed when Geodude671 first added it).--GamerAim
- I, for one, do not expect my wrongdoings to be excused. Though I do find it a bit hypocritical that you hold me solely responsible for my responses on this RfA that put me under undue stress while also laying blame on me for Guy blocking himself and leaving D&D Wiki. I'm curious if you believe I am also responsible for Varkarrus bringing Discord drama over to D&D Wiki? I just want to know how responsible I am for peoples' actions (like how you said my Discord conduct should be scrutinized because the server is linked on the social media page, even though I tried to get it removed when Geodude671 first added it).--GamerAim
- I have done no such thing; My arguments on the matter are/were solely regarding whether you were using your power as an administrator appropriately in that instance, and as a secondary value, whether Varkarrus' statement was a lie, as you asserted it was in justification for the former. My personal thoughts on Guy and the situation at hand was never discussed, nor do I have any intention to do so, as they are not relevant or important. I also have not held you accountable for anyone's actions but those provably your own. --Jwguy (talk) 15:52, 15 October 2018 (MDT)
NeutralOpposed - I'll be frank: I'm only in this section because I am still deciding, and because I honestly am conflicted on this issue. On one hand, I'm going to dismiss the arguments of interpersonal conduct in relation to the discord server; As others have said before me, it is not relevant to this server. My own opinions about things said and done in it notwithstanding, I also think it should be stricken from this wiki's pages and we, as a website, ought to distance ourselves from it, as it is now. It provides no benefit to this site when it is mired in such discord and any attempt at dismissing it as irrelevant while we are simultaneously broadcasting its invite code and asking people to appeal their bans from the discord server on our wiki is hypocritical and foolish. I have suggested as much here: Talk:D&D Wiki on Social Media#Discord Removal.
- On the other hand, there are parts of GamerAim's conduct here, and in at least some of the screenshots provided, that I don't believe can be defended, and I don't consider them professional or appropriate. Whether we consider discord relevant to the server or not, part of one's candidacy for adminship should absolutely concern with how they wield that power against other users, not just their contributions to the wiki. Frankly, I feel as though the behavior on this page was already warranting concern, as a number of posts appear defensive or condescending, and I frankly cannot trust someone with power when they have previously used power to warn and ban users for 'spreading blatant lies in order to sway people against me', on their discord server or not, especially not in the context that the argument was presented by the offender, themselves.
- I'm also concerned regarding the issue of Copyright that was brought up on Reddit because -- and let me preface this comment with the fact that I have personally and exhaustively argued in defense of fair use and against strict copyright rules on record, and I stand by that -- any legitimate violation of copyright is a problem for Dandwiki. It is a serious issue and can place Dandwiki in a potentially dangerous place, legally speaking. I am currently researching this incident and I will otherwise not comment on it until I have finished.
- Whether you consider me a 'traitor' or not for voting this way, so far, is up to you. Personally speaking, while I perform select edits every now and then, I watch this website from my RSS feed and check in frequently. This is an unfortunate and disconcerting set of affairs to have come in to. --Jwguy (talk) 17:23, 3 October 2018 (MDT)
- This is exactly why I take issue with the fact that admins cant be held accountable by how they act off-site! Because, you are right: GamerAim's behaviour in the screenshots provided IS inexcusable, unprofessional, and inappropriate. He was acting as such while also acting as a D&D wiki admin, AND as the "owner" of the D&D wiki server, which reflects poorly on the entire D&D wiki administration. Varkarrus (talk) 18:08, 3 October 2018 (MDT)
- Prior to my recent restructuring of the Discord server rules, there was no pretense that it was more than tangentially related to D&D Wiki. At the very least, I actively voiced against such pretenses. People had issues with the server, so I took steps to resolve them by treating it as more "official" than before. Under these circumstances, I don't see how my conduct in what was effectively my own server that you chose to join should reflect on my ability to wield administrative tools on D&D Wiki, considering that I responsively wielded them for over a year. I ran a server for my fellow community members; users who were informed multiple times, both before and after the rules change, that Discord is not a legitimate D&D Wiki communications channel. The link for it on social media explicitly said that the Tavern is the official chatroom (and the interpretation that Discord is separate from D&D Wiki was derived directly from GD's ruling regarding the Tavern). That is not how I ran it.
- In short, I don't see how I can be held accountable to policies that don't and didn't exist. If you want us to be held accountable in the future, that's fine! But it's not any fairer to hold me accountable retro-actively than it would be you being blocked for joking about killing heterosexuals in Discord months ago. If I seem a bit on edge during this whole debacle, it's because of the scale of the injustice being proposed here.--GamerAim
- In short, I don't see how I can be held accountable to policies that don't and didn't exist. If you want us to be held accountable in the future, that's fine! But it's not any fairer to hold me accountable retro-actively than it would be you being blocked for joking about killing heterosexuals in Discord months ago. If I seem a bit on edge during this whole debacle, it's because of the scale of the injustice being proposed here.--GamerAim
- I second removing the link from our social media page. I only mentioned Vark appeal her ban from it because she expressed contention over it on my RfA. I otherwise do not mention the Discord server on D&D Wiki (besides the long-standing link on my user page).
- I have not wielded the power wrongfully against users, either on here or on the Discord server. It was brought to my attention that lying in the manner Varkarrus and Geodude671 did is against D&D Wiki policy. No one else has been sanctioned because no one else spread the specific lie spread by them. While I disagree with the interpretation and use as evidence of many claims made here, they were not so baseless as claiming that I was single-handedly responsible for Guy leaving D&D Wiki. I did not announce myself as an administrator of D&D Wiki during that reddit discussion, so I fail to see how that could be relevant even if wrongfully representing D&D Wiki was against policy. My username there also differs from mine here, so the connection would not have been obvious to any onlookers.
- I do apologize if any of my comments came off as defensive or condescending; I am simply trying to alleviate any concerns and refute any claims that I believe are wrongful. This is done only for the sake of the reviewing bureaucrat and other users. I do not intend to be condescending, either. Is my use of smiley faces or long-winded explanations of events giving you that impression? Of so, please let me know and I will cut down on it! As I said above, I respect all opinions here, even if I disagree with them.--GamerAim
- I do apologize if any of my comments came off as defensive or condescending; I am simply trying to alleviate any concerns and refute any claims that I believe are wrongful. This is done only for the sake of the reviewing bureaucrat and other users. I do not intend to be condescending, either. Is my use of smiley faces or long-winded explanations of events giving you that impression? Of so, please let me know and I will cut down on it! As I said above, I respect all opinions here, even if I disagree with them.--GamerAim
- According to your statements in the above argument on the matter, you argued that lies were spread about you especially in regards to driving Guy away, and that the motive behind them was in order to sway people against you. Stating that you 'drove someone away' is, at best, a hyperbolic accusation on its own, in the absence of a contradiction (i.e., the someone in question never having been away, at all). By all accounts here, and elsewhere, it does not appear that anyone can truly say exactly why he left without making an assumption. In regards to the 'in order to sway people against me' line, it is extraneous and only serves to bulk up the purported offense as if it were something more than it was. Because of this, it comes across as if you were acting less as an impartial arbitrator and instead were leaking your own displeasure into your ruling. It should also go without saying that the wiki is designed around swaying people, whether for or against. That's why we make these arguments toward each other all the time, in pursuit of consensus.
- You have every right to govern your own server(s) in the way that you see fit. That said, whether you view that action as justified or not, do you contest that there is a very clear concern regarding your partiality when you're elevating a purported offense to more than it is, packing it with non-issues about swaying people, and then acting as judge, jury, and executioner on offenses against your own character? And when it all comes to a kick/ban due to a user -- miraculously, in your own words -- accumulating 3 warnings for behavior, against yourself, within 24 hours of posting this RfA? Does it matter if it was in the Discord if it reflects on how you use the powers of an admin?
- I think that, in light of that, I have every right to be concerned regarding how you might use your power as an admin. It doesn't matter whether it was in Discord: That just means you weren't held to our standards and rules... but it absolutely does give reason to consider your capacity to use your power as an admin here in that same light.
- As for the screenshots, I am not considering anything that amounts to, on its own, an interpersonal conflict. The arguments between you, ConcealedLight, ConcealedWife, Varkarrus, and whomever else, and the contents thereof, aren't something I am interested in, as they are completely outside of the scope of Dandwiki, the website, and your personal interactions away from here are not to be scrutinized in any official capacity -- not because they are away from here, but because they are explicitly only involving you and those parties without other context relevant to our site. What does concern me are the items that directly relate to this wiki, such as your purported jokes about calling people traitors over this RfA, and the questionable manner in which you told EpicBoss99 that their neutrality is noted, and then seemingly attempted to further press them into changing their vote with statements such as they were risking ending it all by voting neutrally, in regards to your contributions. With this being the serious matter that it is, I can't help but disapprove of that as being sly, and it certainly doesn't help matters when some of the main arguments being brought against you are your conduct and use of power against others.
- As for the reddit incident, whether you announced yourself or not, it seems as if the user knew you were an administrator, with the "I'm speaking with a DanDWiki admin right now to try and resolve this." line in response to most of your suggestions, which they argued were not working or that they were barred from doing so by some means. That said, that isn't the issue: The issue is that someone alerted you to a potential copyright issue, and some of our editors corroborated it, and your actions in response were to discourage others on the matter because the reddit user in question had not followed the process you considered proper. You openly said you'd accept a legal attack (i.e. DMCA) on this site rather than working immediately to defend against it, because we shouldn't reward their bad behavior. Don't misunderstand, I am not saying you should have immediately disregarded all rules and deleted the campaign, but we should always treat claims of Copyright Infringement seriously: We can't let our personal offense to a reddit user's behavior detract from that, or discourages others by the same token because of it.
- Lastly, while I don't think the smilies help, I think they moreso don't help when you're delivering arguments followed by what equates to, in my mind, a verbal backhand. Consider the following quotes:
- "The real difference between us and them, SgtLion, is that we apologize for our mistakes instead of stubbornly refusing to admit them.--GamerAim Chatmod.png (talk) 05:23, 2 October 2018 (MDT)"
- "And I find this whole RfA reminiscent of throwing a tantrum because I corrected users on policy or warned them for breaking it. As SgtLion said, please do not slander, belittle or insult users. And this coming from a user who tried starting drama in Discord because she thought I disliked her...--GamerAim Chatmod.png (talk) 05:20, 2 October 2018 (MDT)"
- Without going through the lengths of filling this reply with quotes, I'd argue that neither of these comments, and the others like them, are professional or appropriate. I do not mind you defending yourself, and I would always have you do so, but you and I both know neither of these are defending anything. They only serve to exacerbate tensions and arguments between you all. --Jwguy (talk) 20:34, 3 October 2018 (MDT)
- I only care to repeat the point I've made elsewhere, that this process seems to just be part of a wide, incessant, highly charged, and emotionally tiring witchhunt; in that exceptionally horrible position, one would have to be divine as a god to be, 100%, wholly unresentful about the whole affair. I would undoubtedly do far worse. --SgtLion (talk) 00:18, 4 October 2018 (MDT)
- I agree with you on almost every points you make, JwGuy. GA spends his days proclaiming he is better than 'the others' ('The real difference between us and them, SgtLion, is that we apologize for our mistakes instead of stubbornly refusing to admit them.'--GamerAim) while he has done nothing but taunt us with these statements, only further proving his inability to act as a responsible admin. I was never here to question GA's ability to work with the admin tools - I am here because he displays behaviour off-site, in the name of the Wiki ("I have been working on making the discord more official") that is unbecoming of an admin. As an admin and "Face of the wiki" (Quoted from the [RfA info page]) this behaviour is less than favourable and even if he does not lose his adminship over this, he should not be in charge of any third party application such as Discord, as even his supporters Cotsu expressed a concern over his power-hunger. He claims to have bettered the discord in my absence, but as I have befriended more than one person there I was more than aware of the situation that was still going down there - after all, we wouldn't be having this rfa if it was going as good as he claimed it to be.
- Another quote from the rfa: "Administrators must be courteous, and exercise good judgement and patience in dealing with others." qualities that GA has shown not to possess while off-site, banning users for 'defaming his character' and speaking out against his constant belittling and bullying.
- I also wonder if GA ever read the RfA page as the first thing he did was vote in support of himself here, in another act that comes off as ignoring or otherwise stepping all over the severity of the situation. (Quoted: Who may comment in the Support, Oppose and Neutral sections: Any D&D Wikian with an account is welcome to comment here, except for the candidate (who may respond to comments by others). Certain comments may be discounted or removed if there are suspicions of fraud; these may be the contributions of very new editors or sockpuppets, as well as meatpuppetry and other activity that may be the result of an illegitimate attempt to shift the balance of opinion. - Rfa page) -- ConcealedWife (talk) 05:50, 4 October 2018 (MDT)
- First of all, I apologize again of my conduct was offensive and I thank you for bringing it to my attention. I can see how those comments would have been construed as offensive and will not make any similar comments in the future. However, if you truly believe that I deserve to be sanctioned, by all means please issue me a warning as I did to CL when I believed he violated policy. I have no problem being held accountable for recent unaddressed actions that I committed. I also apologize for offending you with my smiley faces. I only ever meant for them to alleviate hostilities and express sincerity. While I make no excuse for my actions and will accept a warning if deemed appropriate, I already apologized to EpicBoss99. My reasons for saying what I did, regardless of whether I should have done it, are on Discord where they belong, and you may look there if you want to see it.
- Lying or swaying people against me are not in themselves to terrible to deserve a warning, but the lie was made in arguments about why I should not be an administrator. It was not a white lie, and I did not want to express that what happened was solely for lying or for swaying people against me. That is why both were mentioned, because the lying was exacerbated by its function of turning people against me for something I didn't do. This is a serious offense, whereas simply giving an interpretation of events is not. Again, this is why other people who gave their interpretations were not sanctioned.
- I don't see why the warnings being for behavior against me is relevant. I would have issued those warnings if Varkarrus had picked on someone else, but she picked on me. That's just how it happened. My warnings were impartial - the ban wasn't even issued until the day after, when I had time to think it over. You say that it gives you concern about how I might abuse my administrative powers on D&D Wiki. But again, I've been an admin for over a year and have not - even recently - abused that power. I do understand why you might have concerns, but the fact remains that I am already an admin and have proven that I can be trusted through my actions as an admin.
- The issue with reddit is, IMO, the same as the one with Discord: we don't have jurisdiction there. However, once consensus determined that it was irrelevant and we should act regardless, I abode it. I am passionate about my belief in policy and express it plainly at times, but I have always followed whatever was decided to be the correct course of action.
- Again, most of the complaints about my actions in Discord were before I worked to make it "more official," and I did so solely in response to the needs of the community. They wanted all administrators to be held accountable and to abide by policy in the server, so I did what they asked. I have already said why I think we're having this RfA. At this point, I'm just talking in circles.
- I did vote for myself, with a little winky face. One of my more positive qualities is that I attempt humor to alleviate hostilities between users. I admitted that I wasn't allowed to vote for myself. I try to come off as laid-back, casual and approachable.--GamerAim
- I did vote for myself, with a little winky face. One of my more positive qualities is that I attempt humor to alleviate hostilities between users. I admitted that I wasn't allowed to vote for myself. I try to come off as laid-back, casual and approachable.--GamerAim
- I've taken a good long time to think about the issue at hand, your responses, and other items of interest that I've been keeping tabs on throughout the wiki for the last several days. I wanted to make sure my response was appropriate and fair, and was the result of deliberation rather than a momentary reaction. Whatever may happen, I cannot in good conscience do nothing. I am changing my vote to Oppose.
- Frankly, I consider your response to be arrogant: You've asserted that your administration on this matter concerning your own personal offense are completely legitimate and impartial, despite the massive conflict of interest and personal stake you have in it. Your arguments to justify the ban over a
lietruth (your assertion that it was a lie was your own opinion, not proof; furthermore, the subject user confirmed that this 'lie' is/was correct, in an above statement, making it all the more important to display the true issue with your actions: You attacked another user for saying something you disliked and denied without proof, which then turned out to be true) were unsatisfactory, and still come off as you hyper-inflating the issue due to personal interest. I have personally watched for the last several days and have seen at least one example, and hearing of more, of you pushing for others to come and vote favorably in your regard, which I considered without respect for the process at large and the severity of the claims against you. There was never a claim of jurisdiction over reddit, but rather that you refused to investigate, and discouraged others from investigating and acting on the content on our site, where we absolutely do have jurisdiction.
- Frankly, I consider your response to be arrogant: You've asserted that your administration on this matter concerning your own personal offense are completely legitimate and impartial, despite the massive conflict of interest and personal stake you have in it. Your arguments to justify the ban over a
- I've read the counter-arguments, both by you and other admins: That your contributions to the site are too valuable to lose, and that this is a tempest-in-a-teapot set upon us with interest in deposing you.
- To the former, I argue that you can perform just as well without your administrative privileges, or at least to a sufficient degree. Any one of our staff can assist you in edits you cannot make yourself without those powers. That is not an appropriate argument for ignoring the issues being brought up, corroborated, and proved here.
- To the latter, I argue that even despite this supposed intent, it behooves us to act as protectors of our community and legitimately address issues that are brought up, especially if they are provable issues of improper conduct with regard to our site or your position as administrator. It doesn't matter who brings up a problem, if the problem itself is legitimate. To ignore it in the face of that is partiality and putting relationships ahead of Justice.
- That's how I feel; I do not believe the position of administrator should be solely based on one's contributions to the site. Paying your way to power, no matter the currency, inevitably leads to corruption and upheaval. I accept that maybe it's me who is out of place, in this regard, but that's a separate matter. --Jwguy (talk) 08:53, 15 October 2018 (MDT)
- Just as a note, I'd point out that - lie or not - the subject user's response actually confirmed that the accusation was not true. I quote: "GamerAim's behavior is far from the only reason I insulted everyone who supported me by disavowing my adminship". And you go on to say GamerAim 'attacked' a user? I don't remember that at all. --SgtLion (talk) 09:17, 15 October 2018 (MDT)
- That is incorrect; 'far from the only reason' indicates that it is still a reason, just that there are others as well, and of a great number. I consider GamerAim's use of administrative powers in excess and without justifiable cause to be an attack on the user -- an aggressive action against them -- especially given the context and circumstances indicated above - notably, that the accumulated warnings were largely based in personal offense and were issued within 24 hours of this RfA's posting, which GamerAim has even indicated would be miraculous in any normal situation. --Jwguy (talk) 09:25, 15 October 2018 (MDT)
- Being a minor part of someone's decision to leave is not equivalent to 'driving a user away' - That's still an incorrect and wholly unfair statement. I personally would not call an event on some Discord server where a user got banned for 3 days for literally breaking the rules of that server an 'attack'. I also personally find it pretty expectable that a hostile RfA would trigger a hostile conversation where rule-breaking happened. --SgtLion (talk) 09:41, 15 October 2018 (MDT)
- That is subjective, and your opinion is noted, but I disagree; The severity of any part of cause is not something that can decided by either of us, unilaterally, least of all in favor of our own positions -- only that it was, indeed, a cause. That should, at the very least, be something we agree on, given the statement as-is, and the assertion that this is untruthful is objectively incorrect in the face of that -- stating initially that it was simply untrue, and then stating now that it was only a minor cause... that kind of unsteady position and argument should be evident enough. It is especially concerning that despite this, and despite GamerAim's action against the individual, regardless of the fact that his accusation turned out to be true, that it was still action against another user based in personal offense, with a personal stake in the matter, with exaggerated offenses. We can cherry-pick each others' arguments all day, but we should cut to the chase: Is this behavior okay, in your opinion? It isn't, in mine.
- You can call it what you wish, and you will always have my support in that, but semantics over what is and is not 'an attack' will not better serve the argument or the wiki. Also, in regard to your last point, whatever we consider 'expectable' should not mean we excuse or condone that behavior, nor does it mean that should somehow be exempt from consideration in regards to whether they should have power or not, full stop. --Jwguy (talk) 11:15, 15 October 2018 (MDT)
- I'll clarify just because who-knows-why, that my latter sentence referred to how not-miraculous it was that Varkarrus was subsequently banned for breaking the rules of some server. And yes, I think the behaviour of "correctly reverting an action that explicitly breaks explicit written policy", an act so cruel and fiendish that GamerAim somehow became responsible in any way for Guy leaving is more than acceptable behaviour, it is exemplary - If you think otherwise, you are an odd admin. --SgtLion (talk) 13:50, 15 October 2018 (MDT)
- I hesitate to consider that this post has been made with composure, given the theatrics and sarcastic tone of the second sentence.
- It would seem the crux of our disagreement, here, is that we're observing different issues. I am sorry: I do not think that escalating and hyping up charges against a user (i.e. accusing them of a lie because you don't like what they're saying -- and this certainly appears to be what it has turned out to be), and directly handling a ban that you have personal interest in, with the charges being a matter of personal offense against yourself, is appropriate, as it compromises the impartiality of the administration. Furthermore, GamerAim's own statements on the matter lead me to believe his actions were partial. Perhaps, I am an odd admin -- you won't ever see me deny it -- but that's how I feel, nonetheless, and I do not think it is wrong to pursue that.
- I mean, you accuse me of acting inappropriately, but here you are accusing SgtLion of not acting with composure.
- To say that I am responsible for Guy leaving — as you, Vark and Geodude have done — is to lie, because it is blatantly fallacious.
- If I'm a bad person for having a personal interest in something I do, then by that logic this RfA isn't legitimate because I can only be nominated by a user in good standing, and since Vark had a personal interest in seeing me demoted, she shouldn't be a user in good standing. I didn't do it out of personal interest; I did it to "defend my community."
- Because it is my community, as toxic as it is. Please do not insult me and SgtLion by implying that we're not defending our community. At any rate, it's possible to defend the community and myself at the same time. (If we don't have a personal interest in this community, why are we involved with it?)
- You're right. It isn't for any of us to say who is right or who is wrong. It is up to GD (or BD, technically) to weigh the facts and opinions, not for us to judge each other. And though this whole RfA comes off as judging me over personal grudges, propaganda and untruths, I have no judged anyone the harsher for it.--GamerAim
- Considering that this does come across as lashing out and making a large number of reaching arguments about accusations and insults that did not occur, I'll state that, yes, I would also hesitate to consider that this post was made in composure, as well.
- I am willing to consider that you've taken offense to that, directed at you or SgtLion, and that was certainly not intended. Still, a call to calm ourselves and post with composure is hardly the same as the comments of your own that I've asked you to consider.
- No implications of any sort were made against you or SgtLion. I made a comment about myself and my motivations. Somehow drawing an insult onto your own or someone else's person over that is not rational nor is it often done in composure or good spirit. I've already made my comments to the rest of your arguments in the appropriate chain of replies, but I humbly think you ought to take a step back, here. Lashing out like this does not help you or anyone. --Jwguy (talk) 19:34, 15 October 2018 (MDT)
- Of course I have a personal stake in this. The majority of people who opposed me do too. They want to see me removed from adminship out of a personal dislike of me. Not even over things I did on D&D Wiki, where I am considered The Face of D&D Wiki. It's because they dislike how I ran a server that is — as my 'supporters' have made me realize during this RfA — "mine."
- I don't even have to follow any interpretation of D&D Wiki policy on Discord. I can ban whoever I want for whatever reason I want to and D&D Wiki itself has no jurisdiction over it. GD did not endorse the server. He did not want an official Discord server, which is why the one I made was never official. I created it as a courtesy to other users as a way to community during D&D Wiki technical difficulties. It's not the official Tavern. No one has to be in there. It is, for all intents and purposes, a fan server. Is a D&D Wiki administrator not allowed to do other things on the side? It is, in truth, no more a part of D&D Wiki than D&D Wiki is owned by Hasbro or Wizards of the Coast.
- I have not used my position as a D&D Wiki administrator to abuse anyone on D&D Wiki based on events in Discord. People say they've had issues with me for months, but in all that time I did not abuse my administrator powers or position on D&D Wiki.
- Conduct on third-party platforms was never implied to be a responsibility of an administrator, and yet here I am being accused of poor conduct. Perhaps, if those users had opened a discussion on whether an administrator should be held responsible for off-site conduct, I would have made doubly sure that I was not infringing on that responsibility. For that reason alone, this RfA should be dropped based on the pretense of its creation.
- I am not responsible for Guy leaving. If Guy left because I told him not to speedy delete G7, that's on him. Green Dragon agreed that G7 is not enforceable on D&D Wiki. Guy was never chastised or sanctioned over his use of it; he was just informed that he isn't allowed to do it. Guy has a history of leaving over things like this. This is not the first time it is happened. Less than two weeks before he blocked himself, I made a joke in Discord (to which no one objected, FYI) that he was going to block himself after becoming an admin. Shortly before becoming an admin, he was asking (seriously or not, IDK) to be blocked. Other users had concerns about this during his last RfA. This is why it's ludicrous to accuse me of being responsible for Guy leaving. Guy left and blocked himself because that is who Guy is. And I'm not criticizing him for it, but that was always the concern about his behavior, and it is extremely unfair to accuse me of being responsible for a behavioral trait that Guy had previously exhibited without my involvement.
- Sure, I guess no one needs to be an administrator. We could all have GD do everything for us. But being able to do it by myself is why GD nominated me. And again, even if there's no reason I "need" to be an administrator, there's also no reason that I shouldn't be one anymore. Because I already am one, and I have not abused that privilege.
- I never pushed anyone to come vote for me. A couple users have expressed an interest in voting, and I offered to help them with it if they needed it. Geodude and ConcealedLight have done the same thing; they saw a user express support or opposition for me, and reminded them that they can vote. I did not go up to random users and coerce them into voting. I also consider some aspects of this RfA to be disrespectful towards the process, but there's nothing we can do to stop it.
- In conclusion, if you think I've really broken policy on this page, issue me a warning. I won't challenge a warning if I've done something wrong. If there's not a policy for it, propose one. Stop it from happening again. That is what I always do. I have even tried to get policies created in response to criticisms other people have of me.--GamerAim
- There is some misdirection here. In response:
- The argument is about using administrative power against someone in matters you have a personal stake on. It is an argument of judgment and restraint and the responsible use of power. Not having personal interests in general. This was never implied or stated. While I know you did not imply as much, it should be noted that I, myself, was never involved in any of this; I found my opposition purely as a response to your own actions and words, explicitly.
- This is largely irrelevant. You conceded, yourself, that your actions as an administrator elsewhere are valid reasons to have concern regarding your position as one here. You have not been penalized for how you run your server generally or specifically by any legal or otherwise punitive measure, nor have I stated anywhere that you can or cannot do anything else outside of Dandwiki. I maintain my position that your conduct with power outside has brought concerns about your capability to be impartial, among other items.
- You have not been accused of this, at the very least, anywhere in this chain of discussion, that I can see.
- Whether or not you were informed explicitly ahead of time that your actions elsewhere would cause people to have legitimate concerns and issues regarding your claim to the position of administrator is, in my opinion, of little consequence, and I'd would say somewhat irrelevant. This RfA has brought forward legitimate questions and concerns regarding your capability to uphold the role.
- Whether Guy left or not, and whether his reasons for leaving were silly, negligible, or justified, are not the point of the argument. Whether this was expected of him or not, is not the point of the argument, either. It's that you declared your part in it to be a lie, and escalated the offense to retaliate against a user from a position of power on what was largely a personal matter. The veracity of the statement was not ever really that important, although I did consider it notable considering that it wasn't a lie, at all, under new information, largely because your biggest justification for this was that it was a bald-faced lie intended specifically to sway people against you. What is it, now?
- This is deflection. The issue is whether you can be trusted with power in light of these issues, not that anyone having power is a problem -- and I believe that you know that. Furthermore, while unfortunate, you are not the sole arbiter to decide whether you've done something wrong or not, or whether you should continue being an administrator. Neither am I, or anyone, for that matter, aside from Green Dragon, and he graciously defers to counsel from the RfA functionality.
- You were not implied to have coerced anyone, although some of your jokes have been pretty questionable, as mentioned above, but there are examples on your talk page where you've asked people to comment on the matter, and then directed them here, that seem to support the concern that it has occurred. That said, I'm willing to accept that you do not concern these actions with the same level of significance. Suffice to say, this might well just be a matter of my personal opinion, and I do not believe I gave it undue importance in my response that included it.
- As for the concern about a warning for conduct on this page, I believe that is already being attended to by another administrator. I do not believe that it should detract from my position on the RfA, as-is. --Jwguy (talk) 11:15, 15 October 2018 (MDT)
- I just want it to be said that the Discord warnings were newish and the warnings started being taunted. (and they still are. Even yesterday, after I issued a warning for belittling another's work, the user "smirks".) GA issued warnings over things because it seemed better to do that than kick people for no reason or not telling them. If there are suggestions for disruptive users making light of warnings please share. Otherwise, GA's hand was a little forced when users want to keep on with no civility or etiquette. GA didn't come to the wiki and stir the pot when the user was toxic on Discord, nor did GA headhunt any work from users goading them on the Discord. I could say more but I'll just support the things that SgtLion and GamerAim have already mentioned. BigShotFancyMan (talk) 11:30, 15 October 2018 (MDT)
- also, is this the edit [] that GA is said to be acting in bad faith? BigShotFancyMan (talk) 11:37, 15 October 2018 (MDT)
- Hey, Bigshot, you remember on the 2nd of this month when GA pinged everyone on the server in the announcements channel and lavishly asked them all to vote for him? I remember that. I also remember deleting the ping, replacing it with what was said when Geo was getting RfA'ed(for demotion) and asking GA to keep announcement as announcements. Of which I was told to stop slandering him. Though I guess the later is canvassing rather then coercing. Just thought I'd share. —ConcealedLight
- shoot. they've figured out my weakness...honesty!
- shoot. they've figured out my weakness...honesty!
- Hey, Bigshot, you remember on the 2nd of this month when GA pinged everyone on the server in the announcements channel and lavishly asked them all to vote for him? I remember that. I also remember deleting the ping, replacing it with what was said when Geo was getting RfA'ed(for demotion) and asking GA to keep announcement as announcements. Of which I was told to stop slandering him. Though I guess the later is canvassing rather then coercing. Just thought I'd share. —ConcealedLight
- also, is this the edit [] that GA is said to be acting in bad faith? BigShotFancyMan (talk) 11:37, 15 October 2018 (MDT)
- I just want it to be said that the Discord warnings were newish and the warnings started being taunted. (and they still are. Even yesterday, after I issued a warning for belittling another's work, the user "smirks".) GA issued warnings over things because it seemed better to do that than kick people for no reason or not telling them. If there are suggestions for disruptive users making light of warnings please share. Otherwise, GA's hand was a little forced when users want to keep on with no civility or etiquette. GA didn't come to the wiki and stir the pot when the user was toxic on Discord, nor did GA headhunt any work from users goading them on the Discord. I could say more but I'll just support the things that SgtLion and GamerAim have already mentioned. BigShotFancyMan (talk) 11:30, 15 October 2018 (MDT)
I recall GA's announcement, the specifics no but thanking you for changing it to its usual generic format yes. BigShotFancyMan (talk) 13:03, 15 October 2018 (MDT)
- I did not object to you replacing it, nor did I ask you to stop slandering me. I did ask, in jest and in the unmoderated private #admin group chat, if people could stop slandering me, but I assure you it wasn't directed at you personally. So, I will concede that I forgot I did generally ask people to vote for me, but I wasn't pushing anyone to. There was no standard Discord policy around how to announce RfAs, and people who wanted to vote against me or not vote at all were not being attacked by what I wrote. So, even though I did ask, I don't see the relevance in it.--GamerAim
- I did not object to you replacing it, nor did I ask you to stop slandering me. I did ask, in jest and in the unmoderated private #admin group chat, if people could stop slandering me, but I assure you it wasn't directed at you personally. So, I will concede that I forgot I did generally ask people to vote for me, but I wasn't pushing anyone to. There was no standard Discord policy around how to announce RfAs, and people who wanted to vote against me or not vote at all were not being attacked by what I wrote. So, even though I did ask, I don't see the relevance in it.--GamerAim
- Perhaps I should have mentioned that you are not one of the users with a personal stake in this. Regardless of whether I agree that I should not have issued the bans, I did concede that other users had issue with it and tried to address the issue to prevent upsetting anyone in the future.
- I did not concede that. I maintain that your concerns are valid to an extent, but that I have been an administrator for over a year and have had very few issues. Perhaps you never noticed that before on account of me helping users and not upsetting them not being on the front page of the Wiki, unlike this RfA. It is easy to look at this RfA and make a judgement because it does not and cannot reflect all the positive interactions I have had as an admin.
- You said yourself that my conduct in Discord raises concerns about my ability to administrate on D&D Wiki. And yet, history shows that this concern is unwarranted.
- Again, the questions are legitimate on paper, but there is nothing backing them. People questioned my ability to administrate on D&D Wiki. Look at my history, and you'll see it is pretty much clean.
- Guy left because of Guy, not because of me. He can say that I'm the reason he lost his house or his job or his dog or whatever, but it won't make it true.
- Again, what have I actually done to make you question my ability to be an administrator? I have been one for over a year, so please show me evidence of me abusing the power that this RfA is here to determine if I should have. It is not determining Discord adminship. It is D&D Wiki adminship, which I have had for over a year and not abused. As you say, GD determines adminship, not me or you or anyone else here but him. That is why I am still replying after almost two weeks to ensure that he has all the right information. Not that I am calling you a liar.
- Again, a user expressed a desire to support my adminship. Just as I said. I directed him to here. I don't deny that this happened, but I disagree that there's anything wrong with it. Even if it stands to "benefit" me, I was still trying to help a user with something they seemed to want.
- I am not trying to be dismissive of your opinions, so please don't take it that way. I'm not saying you did, but I want to make sure you don't. At best, I would like for you to see the situation the way I do, though I understand that is unlikely. At worst, I want GD to know my perception of events.--GamerAim
- Well, the bulleted list falls apart when too many of the responses end up the same, and in the interest of bringing this too a close and not overly beating the horse, I'm going to simply the response.
- History is History. It is nothing more.
- I am not concerned with history, in this case, because it does not really affect the issue at hand. A similar example is that a character witness is largely inconsequential in modern trials, and for good reason: I am concerned with the issues being brought up here and now, which have largely been proven to have occurred. An extreme analogy: A police officer can have a good and respectable history until he kills someone unjustly when he thinks no-one is looking. It is extreme, absolutely, but it makes a point: History doesn't change what happened, today. A year of the past doesn't change how you act in the present, or how you'll act in the future. All I know is that you've crossed the line, in my opinion, already once when you thought it was inconsequential, and... well, you don't see anything wrong with it.
- Honestly, as far as Guy and his leaving goes, whether he was justified or not is besides the point. You clearly have your opinion on that, as you've so stated, and that's fine. Varrkarus does, too. And so does Guy ((who frankly is the authority on why he has done anything he does, regardless of whether those things make any sense or not). But that's what they are: Opinions. You essentially accused someone of lying because you disagreed with them -- and I believe I can say that because you have next to no legitimate capability to claim otherwise: By definition, it was not a lie, given all that we now know, nor was it when the truth of the accusation remained unknown. The subject user has directly contradicted your assertion. I have tried to see it from your point of view, but the problem is that, in face of all this, you essentially just punished someone for saying something you did not agree with, and that's without going into all the other problems with the matter, like the partiality concerns. All you've done is assert that your interpretation of the event was correct, and that's not sufficient.
- Those concerns are legitimate, and they were brought up, here, in this RfA. You say they're nothing more than paper, but I disagree. They're serious. Despite the fact that you've said that you're not trying to be dismissive, that is exactly what you're doing when you argue that despite all of this, there's nothing but hot air behind it. That you did nothing questionable, nothing wrong. That you understand why people would be concerned, but then claim those concerns have no backing in nearly the same breath. And that's what has been going on virtually this whole time.
- You'll recall that despite all of the proof, originally, that I was a neutral vote: I didn't start off looking to condemn you, GamerAim, and I frankly do not care to do so, now. I held you to task over it all, yes, but I was neutral. But at the end of all this, I can't remain that way, and I won't. I accept that you do not see anything wrong with what you've done, or that you don't consider anything about it questionable, but those very things are my concern and they're what have convinced me to vote the way I have. Mistakes? Those happen. They're not good, and we should be strict about them, but they sometimes do happen.
- What's left to say is that you are still just factually incorrect about the false statements regarding Guy - If, as you say, the truth was unknown to everyone, then just to maliciously assert it as confirmed fact is, what anyone reasonable would call, a lie.
- And the police analogy is just silly; no police officer was ever fired because of his personal disagreements at the local wine club, however unjustly he did or didn't use his position as clubmaster. --SgtLion (talk) 01:57, 16 October 2018 (MDT)
- Put the police analogy like so: The wineclub is not endorsed or recognized by the owner of the police station, but all the board members of the club are police higher ups and all cadets are forced to wear their uniform when they enter the wineclub (read: They were stripped of their ability to change their discord username, instead forced to use their DandDwiki name.) Now tell me that the clubmaster,should not be held accountable for blemishing the name of the force by wearing his uniform and abusing his position of power in a public place. :) 62.72.193.117 05:38, 16 October 2018 (MDT)
- I thought I'd pipe in too, after Jwguy's thoughtful and thorough response. I too oppose GamerAim's continued adminship. I'm far less active on the site than I used to be, and lurk mostly in a few select pages/places, but I still have a vested interest in the site being run well. I have no personal experience with GamerAim - if we've had any interaction at all, it's been passive and/or benign - but I stand behind (almost all of) Jwguy's points. The conversation on this page stands as a testament that GamerAim does not qualify as an admin. By that I do not mean that he is a bad person; that sort of thinking has led this sour page to where it is. GamerAim is a fantastic editor and seems a fine (if a temperamental and a little two-faced) person. It's just that my criteria for what I think makes a good admin are high.
- A big problem is that pretty much no one is neutral on the issue. Makes sense, as it is a community with friendships and all, but it makes for regimented and divisive thinking and rhetoric. Just look at the current page for proof: it's already far too long and muddled for me to try and raise any points from amidst the wall of text. Some people support for fairly clearly personal reasons, while others stand opposed purely for theirs. (Something I really want to say here is that SgtLion staunchly defends GamerAim by often stating that they themselves "would undoubtedly do far worse" in the situation; no you wouldn't, SgtLion, my feeling is you'd deal with it gracefully and sensibly. You're just about the best admin I've ever met on any site ever.) Indeed, even I'm not neutral: I like Guy and his work immensely (without ever having had any meaningful contact with him) and his opinion probably affects mine, even if I try to disconnect myself from it. Jwguy stands as one of few who seem capable of disconnecting themselves from the situation, which is why I stand behind his arguments. Cancelion (talk) 14:00, 15 October 2018 (MDT)
Neutral
- While I am concerned with how things have been going, this isn't the right way to solve this problem. GamerAim wants to make the site better like everyone else here. Even though BSFM, GamerAim, and I disagree on the ownership of pages, I still think his help as an administrator has been valuable. I think we can come to a compromise together that ALL users, new and old, will be satisfied with. I'm gonna be neutral here, but I still respect everyone here. I really hope we can go back to being a happy group of creators again :) --EpicBoss99 (talk) 22:13, 1 October 2018 (MDT)
- I just wanted to clarify that I'm choosing to vote neutral because I can't make an informed decision in this argument. This isn't a betrayal towards anyone or a certain side of the argument. I am just making the best decision that I can make with the information that I have, since I wasn't present when anything stated here happened. The only information I have about any of this is what's been stated here on this page. --EpicBoss99 (talk) 17:02, 2 October 2018 (MDT)
gollark: Praise the market!!!!!!!¡!!!??!!nnnn!!¡1
gollark: Possibly, why?
gollark: Communism.
gollark: Soviet national anthem?
gollark: I'm not actually on.
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