D&D Wiki:Requests for Adminship/Mkill

Mkill

Mkill's Nomination. Failed.

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Voice your opinion (3/4/0) (42.85% Approval - Neutral is not counted) Ended as per Mkill's post below. --Green Dragon 13:20, 12 August 2007 (MDT)

Mkill has joined recently, but in this time has made very insightful discussion and comments, valuable changes to the SRD (with a temporary adminship), and has contributed excellent homebrew material. He is a very active user and is bringing many positive changes and ideas to DnD Wiki. I can see from the recent changes page every day good uses of his temporary admin privileges. I would like to see him be made a permanent admin so that he can continue the good work and help DnD Wiki flourish. --Aarnott 11:02, 23 July 2007 (MDT)

I have some free time at the moment, which will change soon, so it is sure that I won't be able to keep up that high amount of edits/day. Still, I would be glad if the community would entrust me with this privilege. As for general policy and views on D&D Wiki, I'd basically continue what I've done since I came here. --Mkill 11:07, 23 July 2007 (MDT)

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 have you helped with or what sysop chores are you planning on helping with in the near future? Please read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list on Wikipedia before answering.

A: I've been the most active sysop in the last 2 weeks, and I'd also say the most active user by edits I think. My improvements in the SRD are already visible, such as recategorizing the spells by Class and Level. Lots of stuff was just formatting. I removed double redirects, cleaned up orphaned categories, worked on candidates for deletion, fulfilled protection requests... etc. --Mkill 07:40, 2 August 2007 (MDT)

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

A I've added some automatic functions, such as for creating feat tables, and I plan to keep on working on that. --Mkill 07:40, 2 August 2007 (MDT)

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: Everybody has been really nice. I did disagree with people but that was civilized exchange of opinions. I can be pretty rough and direct, sometimes, but I try not to. If I get angry at something the best thing is to close the browser and deal with it the next day. Usually, emotions have cooled down then.

Admin functions like block user and protect page are not to be used to "win" an argument (obviously). --Mkill 07:40, 2 August 2007 (MDT)

4. Optional question from Green Dragon: What will make you stay on D&D Wiki? For some reason many people after becoming Admins leave, Calidore Chase, and Xenophon are some good examples. I do not want this to happen to you as well again, so why do you think you will stay and continue for a long time to come to help D&D Wiki? --Green Dragon 13:44, 31 July 2007 (MDT)

A: It's normal that people come and go. It's a hobby, and nobody is paid to do this. I can't promise I won't get too busy in my job some time in the future. Just make sure to always recruit competent and active people as admins and don't hesitate to de-op those who don't show up for a few month. --Mkill 07:40, 2 August 2007 (MDT)

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Discussion

Support

• Support - Mkill obviously has my support as I outlined above. --Aarnott 15:14, 24 July 2007 (MDT)
• Support - He's done alot for the wiki since he's been here. I personally feel you couldn't pick a better man for the job. I'll still disagree with him sometimes, though ;) -- Flession 08:15, 24 July 2007 (MDT)
• Support - Despite some minor disagreements with him, I think Mkill would make a great admin considering his valuable contributions. As a matter of fact I was considering nominating him myself. --Daniel Draco 22:59, 30 July 2007 (MDT)

Oppose

• Minor Oppose - First off, I would like to say that I do want Mkill as an admin, I just do not think he is ready yet. I am opposing this because I can see areas where Mkill can, and I think should, improve, before he becomes an admin. Two areas come to mind. The first is in discussions. Many people have said (Dmilewski above, etc), and I have noticed in my readings, that many of his replies are taken as rude, even though they are not written to be rude. Mkill has a unique way of responding (I think that Mkill said it better somewhere himself, I just cannot remember where....), and I think that this way of responding should be changed as it is taken as rude. The reason I see this as important is because, as Sig said (on the wizard forums) "Maybe we should use dandwiki instead ... the moderators are very kind and very helpful." I do not want this to change. Therefore, I think that the first area to improve, before adminship, is discussions. The second area to improve deals with understanding the wiki system and culture. Since the time I have been back I have seen decisions, many not bad, that were implemented without a discussion by the community. There are many examples of this; the changing of Main Page (adding Meta Pages), adding Recent Edits to many D&D pages, etc. I believe that an Admin should see that he/she does not have more say than an average user, and just because he/she can edit the Main Page (or whatever...) does not mean that he/she has more say over what goes on it. I will not lie, I used to be this exact way. I used to think that because I started this site I should have more say in things, however through time I have come to realize that a site (or anything for that matter) cannot work within a classist system. The admins are not here to be more important or better than a user, they are just here to help the users if they have problems. Therefore, I see the second area of improvement, before adminship, being an increase in community control and less personal control. One can have personal control over one's own work, but personal control over the site is not okay, this is because D&D Wiki is everyone's work. After an improvement in discussions and decisions I would be more than happy to nominate Mkill as an admin. --Green Dragon 08:06, 2 August 2007 (MDT)

• I tend to agree with what you are saying here Green Dragon. I still think Mkill would make a great admin, but you are right about the needed improvements. I think it has been the positive attitudes of the admins (you, Dmilewski, Sledged, EldrichNeumen when he was more active) that has kept me decently active in the community for so long. So, I will think about moving my vote to oppose temporarily because I have seen how Mkill has been being less abrasive since Dmilewski's comments and yours yesterday. I think maybe we should delay the date for the final decision of the admin request by a week or so -- by then I am sure we will see what we want him to be as an admin. Most of it is really unspoken rules, that I didn't even know myself. The fact is, Mkill has done a LOT of positive work here, so he definitely matches the capability that we need in an admin. Now that he knows what dndwiki needs for the face of an admin, I'm sure he will meet what we need. --Aarnott 08:46, 2 August 2007 (MDT)

• @GreenDragon: There are 2 issues here:
• First, my edits: I believe that the basic principle of a Wiki is "those who are willing to do it get to decide". Sure, you can have a vote on everything, but that means nothing gets done for a month or so, see The Tavern. If I would have just put up a complete page, it would already be finished. Votings are a god tool if some issue is highly debated, such as the "L5 header vs. anchor" issue, and to fix general guidelines and rules. For stuff like adding a link somewhere, deleting a misspelt redirect or blocking a vandalizing IP, we need no vote, we just need someone to do it. If you disagree with an edit, just start a discussion on the relevant talk page or change it directly. It's a wiki.
• The second point is more general, about what a good admin is: Requests for adminships are not popularity contests. It's about whether someone has the skills and the will to contribute. I'm here because Aarnott put me up for vote. I am the way I am, I've shown what I would do as an admin, and that's it. If I don't get admin rights, it just means less work for me and more for others. Fair enough.
• Final note: If you want "more community control and less personal control", just unprotect the Main Page so everyone can improve it. --Mkill 22:04, 2 August 2007 (MDT)

• Maybe on the wiki you were on the decisions were made by the people willing to do them, however on D&D Wiki major decisions are decided by voting. That policy, I feel, is not going to be changed in a long time. Any Admin on D&D Wiki should understand that that is how D&D Wiki is run, even if it does go against some ideas from other wiki's. Also, it would be rude to keep reverting the edits of a helpful user (I had to do that a bit ago when you made the archive with 19 articles... That got you angry and I am sure it would get anybody angry). The reason voting is done is so people do not get offended.
• About your second point you are right, it is a popularity contest. Act the way you want on discussions and I am sorry for trying to change your way of responding.
• Finally, that last comment was a joke right? I don't see how it could be serious... --Green Dragon 12:13, 10 August 2007 (MDT)

• Oppose - He is certainly knowledgeable. Note: I think that he needs to lighten up on his interactions. As an admin, he'll be "the face" of the wiki. We are generally laid back around here, as many folks implement their own ideas of what D&D should be. In general, we are less combative and more cooperative. I highly recommend that he read Green Dragon's comments to people to learn our tone of voice.

• I moved my vote to Oppose. Mkill is a great help where he puts his mind. However, he needs time to take in the culture here. All the good ability that he has is of no use if folks revert his edits, and otherwise get offended at his tone. His response above swayed me to believe that he is not yet ready for here.

• --Dmilewski 13:19, 10 August 2007 (MDT)

• Oppose I just changed my vote from support to oppose because of the rudeness of this candidate. I just read User talk:Dmilewski#Category redirect and I have decided that I cannot endorse a candidate that is that rude to an admin and a valuable asset to this community. I strongly disagree with this nomination, and with this candidate getting admin status. --— Blue Dragon (talk) 15:00, 11 August 2007 (MDT)

• Oppose I agree with all the above. While he is knowledgable, and a valuble asset, he can sometimes be a tad mean. --Darknight227 04:48, 12 August 2007 (MDT)

Neutral

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Reasons why I take my candidacy back

Ok, guys, everybody had their fun but I stop the whole thing before somebody else does.

The main reason is that I am angry at how the whole thing was handled by Green Dragon. Revoking my status during the candidacy was ok, after all he is a bureaucrat here, not leaving a note on my talk page was not. In fact, I think he has issues with me but I never saw him approach me on my talk page.

Then, he keeps reverting my edits. Just one example. He put ages old discussions back on a talk page from an archive "because we only archive when there is 30". Right. I've regularly archived stuff back when I was at Wikipedia more regularly and that was never reverted. It's just cleaning up and making sure readers don't have to scroll whole novels to see what's going on. I won't discuss other reverts here, but he made strong efforts to leave the impression he was just doing this because they were my edits. Stuff like that brought my interest to be deeper involved here down to zero, as I want to get things done, not deal with people's antics.

Last, obviosly most people here want a Mr. Nice Guy, and I can safely say I'm not. I came here to improve the site. But I retain the right to tell people when their fighter build is crap or when they write something that can't be used on the gaming table because it's garbled and unreadable. Deal with it. --Mkill 10:09, 12 August 2007 (MDT)

This was not fun for me, however I do not know about anybody else (actually, this has kind of been hell for me). First off I revoked the temporary adminship rights because Mkill was done working on the SRD, as he stated. Secondly, I know most of the above post is just a rant against me and I would like everyone to know that I have discussed all these decisions of mine with Mkill either above, on my talk page, or somewhere else. If anything, I would ask one to please read the post above (and my post down here) with the known biases. --Green Dragon 13:20, 12 August 2007 (MDT)