YPPedia talk:Administrators

From YPPedia

Administrator Discussion

Just figured now would be a good enough time to start off this discussion. I'll hazard that doing it here is okay instead of the forum as those obsessed with the wiki will be here :). There are two things that should be discussed, the requirements for applying for adminship and then the selection process. I'll just make two sections for that. For reference, take a look at Wikipedia's admin selection process. --Guppymomma 21:58, 14 August 2005 (PDT)

Administrator Requirements

3 months of Y!PP game playing at least would be a good starting point. I'm not sure how to measure wiki knowledge though, but at least some level is needed. --Guppymomma 21:58, 14 August 2005 (PDT)

1000 edits is the "fuzzy baseline" for new admins at wikipedia, though I don't think there are enough edits to me made (with out pointless ones, and mass changes) to require that many for adminship. Is 500 to high? Wikipedia count is determined using Kate's Tool. I haven't seen the code but suspect it's just a quick SQL query into the database. Would need the devs to put it on the server, but once it's there we can get a feel for how many edits people are actually making.
Also, Requests for adminship/Standards is a nice thing. It does not state actuall policy, but allows existing admins to define individual standards they have before they will vote for an admin.
Finally, who votes, and what margin is required for the nomination to pass? Again referencing wikipedia, all users can vote for 7 days, and 75% - 80% in favor are required to pass. Voting can be extended in tight cases. I think that is good, though YPPedia is rather different, where active YPPepedians are few, and voting can be skewed by a small, in-game campaign towards those that neither use the wiki nor play long. Perhaps we need a "Spirit of the wiki" clause somewhere. — Callistan (talk/contrib) 13:51, 19 August 2005 (PDT)
While I would expect some involvement with the wiki for anyone up for adminship, I am not sure if we really need a specific baseline. Do you think it will become a problem with just checking the edits for each person nominated? That should give an indication to their level of involvement.
As far as the "Spirit of the wiki", we could perhaps let the current Moderating Editor (Oceanmaster), have veto power. If there is a clear case of abuse of the system, we could step in. (This could be in addition to checking the player history which Eurydice mentions below.)
However, I tend to favour more open and free-form systems, so as not to overly complicate things. --Bia 20:47, 6 September 2005 (PDT)

What would you all think about having a requirement that in order to be a Wiki admin, you have to have a good behavior record as a player on YPP? (Note, I said "good," not "spotless." People make mistakes sometimes.) --Eurydice 17:11, 25 August 2005 (PDT)

I think it sounds reasonable to me. A good admin should be a good player. What would "good" constitute aka how would they know if they were good enough? --Guppymomma 17:26, 25 August 2005 (PDT)
An OM (likely the OM Wiki Liaisony-Type Person) would be able to check our records and see all complaints (by and against the person in question) and petitions linked to the player's account. We wouldn't be able to tell you specifics about the player's conduct, but we could tell you if there was anything glaring and/or pertinent. Most people have very good records, so this shouldn't be too much of an obstacle. It also might be good to check out the type of posts the applicant makes on the YPP forums. I'm not saying this should be THE major qualification, but I think it should be "in the mix." --Eurydice 17:36, 25 August 2005 (PDT)

Administrator Selection

I like Wikipedia's nomination and comment dealie where people can put in votes for/against with reasoning bits. --Guppymomma 21:58, 14 August 2005 (PDT)

Agree — Callistan (talk/contrib) 13:14, 19 August 2005 (PDT)
Good system. Agree--Fiddler 13:18, 19 August 2005 (PDT)
Agree – Yaten talk 13:20, 19 August 2005 (PDT)
Agree Sounds peachy --Eurydice 13:25, 19 August 2005 (PDT)
Er, as long as we don't allow flame wars. It could get nasty. --Eurydice 17:19, 25 August 2005 (PDT)
Agree Order is a good thing. --Danet

Possible name misplacement

Isn't Lizthegrey a Ringer? After all, she works on fixing bugs and doing coding stuff, unlike the other OMs. For obvious reasons, I can't fix that myself. --Thunderbird 21:55, 3 September 2005 (PDT)

Yup. Fixed. – Yaten talk 22:08, 3 September 2005 (PDT)
Oops, too much bleary eyed copy pasting :) --Guppymomma 22:32, 3 September 2005 (PDT)

Implementing a system

I think we've had some good discussion, and it's time to implement a permanent system. The general consensus I've seen so far seems to be a similar process to Wikipedia's:

  1. Users request to be nominated for adminship, or can nominate themselves.
  2. Using a template (see the WP template), a voting area is setup.
  3. Administrators (or possibly anyone as at WP; thoughts?) may vote for a seven-day period using their own personal standards, which can be viewed at a page similar to Requests for adminship/Standards.
  4. At the end of seven days, an administrator looks for a general consensus (it's 75-80% at WP) and promotes the user. Perhaps this should only be done by the current OM editor.

Necessary additions to the YPPedia:Administrators page and subpages:

  • Wikipedia has no official experience or edit standards; I'd like to see at least three months in-game experience, though I'm not sure how to determine this—it may need to be a personal standard. This seems logical at YPPedia:Requests for adminship/Standards.
  • I think the questions for each user that can be seen on WP nominations are nice, but may be a bit complicated for YPPedia. We may need to rethink these.
  • We would need a new template similar to the WP template.
  • I think a "good" in-game record is necessary, and should be approved by the rotating OM editor.

Just some thoughts—I think a few more player admins wouldn't hurt (the current player admins should have to reapply also, I would assume) and there are some good candidates who might be interested.

– Yaten talk 21:15, 16 September 2005 (PDT)
An Oceanmaster is able to check how long someone has been active. Perhaps nominees should give some indication of their game experience, if they are willing to accept the nomination. This could be one more duty of the managing editor.
Since I am not extremely familiar with wikis, does anyone have an idea about how many player administrators would be a good idea? --Bia 01:02, 17 September 2005 (PDT)
I've been away for a few days, catching up now. That plan sounds good to me, Yaten. Definitely yes on the 3 months thing and the good record (game & forum) thing. As for the questions, I think a modification of 1 along the lines of why do you want to be an admin (aka have you read the fact that having adminship is basically just getting a little more work to do and isn't really additional power) and I especially like question 2 about what article/wiki thingees that you've done are you proud of (aka do you know what to put in a wiki and how to edit one). Question 3 isn't really relevant here.
As for who votes, I think it should be open voting. If there are suspicious looking filler votes by greenie voting accounts, the wiki OM should be able to look into that and switch the person to rejected due to not having a good record. WP has .13% administrators (588 of 443,963) and I don't think they have a cap on number of administrators. 1608 users have logged on here at YPPedia. While I don't think it's really necessary to have a cap on numbers (qualified helping hands are good because that distributes monitoring among many, leaving everyone with more time for creating real content which is everyone true interest here), I'd think we should try to shoot for a minimum of 16 player volunteer admins because, well, that sounds like a good number :) of folks to slap vanity templates on everything ;).
We'll also need to set up the requests for de-adminship (WP has something for this right?) in the event that folks get uhhh weird. --Guppymomma 07:55, 20 September 2005 (PDT)


Being the master of copy & paste that I am, I'm plopping some WP stuff over here for us to alter to our needs. Since some of the page names are already in use, I'm pseudosandboxizing some of 'em to be moved over when they're "done." YPPedia:Administrators, YPPedia:Administrators' reading list, Template:RfA, YPPedia:Requests for adminship/Standards, YPPedia:Requests for adminship. Lots of things on those all need to be fixed :) as WP uses a lot of templatey things and I didn't look too carefully, just copy pasted for the most part. --Guppymomma 12:54, 20 September 2005 (PDT)

This is going to take a lot of work....more pages with red links that need page creating: YPPedia:Requests_for_administrator_attention, YPPedia:Redirect. The YPPedia:Revert page will be fine if the requests page red links are created/fixed. Help! (Just a note, people who aren't admins can help with this as well, especially those who are going to apply to be admins.) --Guppymomma 10:19, 27 September 2005 (PDT)

Administrators page

I'm doing some edits now to start YPPediaizing it. I'm zapping out the following bit since we don't have one. Just wanted to mention it in case an arbitration committee is needed in the future.

Enforcement of Arbitration Committee rulings
Admins have the authority to enforce rulings by the Arbitration Committee.
See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Admin enforcement requested.

I'm also noting that the mentioned bit about monobook.css in the mediawiki namespace doesn't seem to actually have anything in it, but I'll leave that bit in. Taking out the bit about being able to do sql queries though.

--Guppymomma 20:43, 25 September 2005 (PDT)

I'm bleary with Benedryl, as far as I can tell there aren't any Stewards are there? And using Fiddler as my guinea pig shows that bureaucrats can indeed desysop folks. --Guppymomma 20:52, 25 September 2005 (PDT)

There are lots and lots of pages that need creation before we can implement. See YPPedia:Administrators to start de-redding links by creating the appropriate pages. --Guppymomma 21:07, 25 September 2005 (PDT)

Okay, I think I've gotten enough of the changes that we can start doing requests for adminship as soon as Yaten double checks the template and the directions/wording on Template:RfA and YPPedia:Requests for adminship. When that's done, he'll migrate the sandbox text over to the real page and unprotect it. Various policies need to be created, see the list on the Main page talk. YPPedia:Redirect also needs some dire help :) --Guppymomma 15:42, 27 September 2005 (PDT)
Great job! I haven't had a chance to read through everything, but what I've seen is top-notch. --Barrister 16:11, 27 September 2005 (PDT)

Booched Links

There are a few links on the page which need to be fixed to Wikipedia:Wikipedia:... on this page. Could an administrator fix them? --Nickster 14:06, 27 October 2005 (PDT)

Done. Let me know if I missed any. --Barrister 14:21, 27 October 2005 (PDT)
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Software should be Wikipedia:MediaWiki. Thanks for sorting this out! --Nickster 15:00, 27 October 2005 (PDT)