Forum:Proposal to change VFS rules

Forums: Index > Ministry of Love > Proposal to change VFS rules

Note: This topic has been unedited for 1047 days. It is considered archived - the discussion is over.

Current VFS rules:

• The first 10 days of a month (1st - 10th), current ops have a vote to see if we need more ops.^†
• The next 2 days (48 hours) of a month (11th and the 12th), any users can nominate users for oppage (not yourself you egotistical jerk!), but not vote. Hold your horses there.
• The next 8 days (13th - 20th) support up to three people for oppage (op votes count double in this vote).^∆
• The following 10 days of a month (21st - 30th), current ops take the users with at least 50% of the leader and vote on who to op. Each op gets two votes apiece (unless there's only two candidates). Stacking these votes is not allowed. In the event of a tie in this round, the candidate with more user votes than the other gets oppage. If this was also a tie, there will be blood.
• The last day of the months with 31 days, current ops play Russian Roulette to see who gets de-opped. (Zombiebaron goes first with 6 bullets)

---

Proposal:
Firstly, all members of the community ought to be allowed to decide whether or not we need new admins. This just makes sense. Why should the decision for new hires be left to the group of individuals whose absence necessitates new hires in the first place? Shouldn't those of us who need admins, and are irked when they're not around to help us, decide when it's time for some more of them to remedy this? Anywho, this can of course be done through the VFS on the first 10 days of each month, or a vote/discussion can be posted in the Village Dump at any time to request this. Either way, the only thing that changes is who's allowed to vote on needing new admins. Secondly, the second round of voting ("The following 10 days of a month...") ought to be open to the whole community, not just ops.

The current rules only allow the community to suggest to administrators who ought to join their ranks, rather than allowing the whole community to ultimately decide who to entrust sysop privileges to. Now, I'm not saying anything bad about administrators' judgment when it comes to choosing new administrators. I understand that administrators are to have more respected opinions on who ought to be an admin since they themselves are admins. However, this is already reflected in administrator votes counting as double. Given this, I see no point in letting 20 or so (active) admins ultimately decide who should become an admin when it is something that affects the entire community. The votes and opinions of we regular users ought to count to the very end of this process.

So if the community wants this, the rules will be changed to:

• The first 10 days of a month (1st - 10th), the community may have a vote to see if we need more ops.^†
• The next 2 days (48 hours) of a month (11th and the 12th), any users can nominate users for oppage (not yourself you egotistical jerk!), but not vote. Hold your horses there.
• The next 8 days (13th - 20th) support up to three people for oppage (op votes count double).^∆
• The following 10 days of a month (21st - 30th), the community takes the users with at least 50% of the leader and vote on who to op. Each user gets two votes apiece. Stacking these votes is not allowed. In the event of a tie in this round, the candidate with more user votes from the previous round gets oppage. If this was also a tie, there will be blood.
• The last day of the months with 31 days, current ops play Russian Roulette to see who gets de-opped. (Zombiebaron goes first with 6 bullets)

Vote

For

Score: +8.5

1. Obvious for. --Hotadmin4u69 ^[TALK] 19:09 Feb 15 2011
2. For this or Spang's substitute, which is clever but also requires math of some sorts. Still, math is fine with me. -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 19:39, February 15, 2011 (UTC)

   'Dillo and Mhaille both actually make fair points. Still, I like Spang's idea too with the runoffs. -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 21:37, February 15, 2011 (UTC)

   Still, so does e|m|c. Admin votes already hold an enormous sway in the popular vote, and it is just as dangerous for an absentee admin to return and make a community-blind decision as it is for a whored-to/absentee user to do the same. Also, admins can have cliques too. Also, we should just rename this "cliques" and turn Uncyclopedia into a party-organized system. It is the way of the future! -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 21:45, February 15, 2011 (UTC)

   Thats the thing, they are all valid points. No system is without flaws, its finding a system that ticks the most boxes and is the most balanced. Cliques are a bad thing no matter where they occur. -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

   FU TKF - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 02:09, Feb 22

3. For. I recall proposing something along the same lines a few months ago, and no one giving a fuck. SIRE FREDDMOOSHA AMUSE ME 19:47, February 15, 2011 (UTC)
4. yeah --Roman Dog Bird 19:58, February 15, 2011 (UTC)
5. For the bit about letting users have some say in the decision if more are needed, although some balance would be needed, etc etc... I dunno. But thing is, sometimes there really is nobody around, and how can the not around folks really appreciate the whole not-aroundness, not being around?

1234 ~ 20:57, 15 February 2011

1. For. - Like your average Congressperson, I'm voting for this without reading it. -- Kip > Talk • Works • • 21:02, Feb. 15, 2011
2. For Change the rules and then de-op everybody. The Middle East is doing it, so why shouldn't we? MegaPleb • Dexter111344 • Complain here 04:43, February 17, 2011 (UTC)
3. For in principle if not for this exact set of rules. Uncyclopedia is stagnant. We're losing members on a month-by-month basis; we're not the vibrant community we used to be. Why? What's wrong? It's hard to say with 100% certainty, but I don't think the idea of Uncyclopedia has become irrelevant, so it's something we're doing wrong. No offense to the admin staff, who are smart people who have worked their asses off, but I think it really is a very unfortunate structural problem that adminiship carries a for-life term and that admins decide who's going to be admins. I think people don't like that, and people don't want to remain part of that kind of community indefinitely. And it is a problem that some of the most enthusiastic and passionate people are basically treated like second-class citizens, and that new ideas are almost always met with "Oh, God, no, fuck that, we're not doing that, and if you bring it up again I'll block you" from the current staff. Frankly, we could use a little new blood around here. We need a little new blood around here. pillow talk 18:40, February 17, 2011 (UTC)
4. For per above. --Mn-z 23:44, February 18, 2011 (UTC)

Against

Score: 13

1. For the Nth time, over policing is not a good thing. Your suggestion will lead to the site having new admins every month. We'll end up with having more admins than writers. As for the third round, votes can and will be rigged via campaigns, IRC noise etc. Anyone, regardless of his work in the site or the relevancy of him becoming an admin will become an admin, just because he will gather enough friends. The only way to prevent that, in my opinion, is round 3, unless someone has other ideas. Admins can't revoke votes arbitrarily just because we feel like it and if there are is no sockpuppetary involved. Other than that, it's certainly not a "suggestion" of the community, I haven't seen so far that the candidates of the 3rd round (which, most of the time are actually 2, which means that the 3rd round mostly doesn't happen) have been thrown out. There wasn't and there will not be a case when someone who wasn't nominated in the 3rd round who gets all of a sudden opped out of the blue. I think the fact that the site has been running more or less smoothly for what, almost a year now? without a VFS shows that there is no urgent need for a new admin often. I have no issue with refreshing the list of admins, when needed - but this will turn it into a never ending popularity contest, drama fests and will have no relation to the actual necessity of new or extra admins. It's a technical duty, it needs to be based on technical necessity, nothing more. ~ 20:09, February 15, 2011 (UTC)
2. What he said. As the friend of the inventor of the plane made entirely out of feces said: "This shit will not fly". --ChiefjusticePSX 20:32, February 15, 2011 (UTC)
3. Against, as per below... -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)
4. Against. More democracy =/= better. (talk) 20:51, February 15, 2011 (UTC)
5. Strong against the part about opening the last round up to everyone - I could say something about however much I may distrust the admins, I distrust the users far more... or I could just agree with some or all or none of what Mordillo said. I dunno what he said, though. It was a giant block of text.

1234 ~ 20:57, 15 February 2011

You voted twice. Gen. Fudgem0bile Wants to play Planeshift. 03:55, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

1. Against At the moment vandalism gets taken care of and there's no stupid banning from power-crazed Admin spoons. Let's not ruin everything. If you want to be an admin, go to Conservapedia and pretend the world's 6000 years old. mAttlobster. (hello) 21:49, February 15, 2011 (UTC)
2. Against. Also, I'm not entirely sure why we stopped having those monthly admin votes. Not that we need any more admins. I just love voting. -- Brigadier General Sir Zombiebaron 22:30, February 15, 2011 (UTC)
3. What the fucking fuck is this? I mean seriously, do you all have some sort of obsessive disorder? It works just fine how it is, the balance between administrator and user influence is perfect, both users and administrators have to deal with a new admin in a different manner, go fuck yourselves. Love, – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 23:06 Feb 15, 2011
4. Against. It's working fine as is. Since there are no serious problems, at the beginning of every month we don't nominate names, then no users have a vote, then no admins get to pick, then no new admins are made. It's the circle of life. Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 00:44, February 16, 2011 (UTC)
5. Nah. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 00:53, Feb 16
6. Against. But in favour of monthly medical and mental tests for admins, on the lines of the same policies enacted in the 'Adult Entertainment Industry'. --RomArtus*Imperator ® (Orate) 07:27, February 17, 2011 (UTC)
7. Against. - needs more concrete terms on what exactly constitutes a quorum of "the community", I also kinda dislike the fact that this implies that "the community" is mutually exclusive from admins - also seems silly since an admin vote is in that case essentially an exercise in removing people from said community. -- Prof. Olipro KUN (W)Anchor Op Bur. (Harass) 10:51, February 18, 2011 (UTC)
8. Against. as per the many articulate points expressed here. There isn't enough vandalism or disruption to warrant increasing the number of admins, and when there is, the first people to notice will be those trying to deal with it. That said, if the community clearly and vociferously feel the need for some new admins, we should take that on board; but not as a matter of course every month. Opping people on a monthly basis regardless of need brings no additional benefits to the site that I can see. -- |c|o|d|e|i|n|e| 14:37, February 21, 2011 (UTC)
9. Against. No need for me to repeat arguments already presented. There is a sufficiency of megalomaniacs, myself included. Rev. Zim (Talk) Get saved! 04:53, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

VFS rules history (for the benefit of you and your children):

• 2005 - Only admins can vote; then changed to: "Any logged in user can can vote or nominate although Bureaucrats (those super admins that can promote people and such) have the ultimate veto as it's them that carry out the actual promoting!!"
• 2006 - The above changes to: "Currently only admins can vote for new sysops, as they are the ones who know the ins and outs of the wiki and can best decide which users would fit best in admin hats. All users are welcome to comment on nominations, however, and self-nominations are allowed (though they don't count as proper votes)."
• 2007 - Anyone is allowed to vote/nom; then changes to the current rules (which included the note "The ops can change these rules at any time for any reason to help the fight against wiki-terrorism", but does no longer)

A lot of these changes seem to have been done arbitrarily (digging through talk archives and forums related to VFS leaves me finding no community discussions about the VFS rules or how they became what they are; any explanations for these precedents is unknown to me). --Hotadmin4u69 ^[TALK] 19:09 Feb 15 2011

You're wrong. The current VFS rules are:

• Only sandwiches may be nominated.^†
• All nominations must be edible by humans.
• Votes are limited to 1 per household.
• IPs may only nominate half a sandwich.^∆
• When nominating a sandwich, you must describe it in as much detail as you feel like.

†: Though "sandwich" could mean anything.

∆: Half sandwiches may be combined to form a full sandwich by two IPs.

What's all this jibba jabba about admins? We need more sandwiches, not admins. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 19:17, 15 February 2011

But admins taste better! --Hotadmin4u69 ^[TALK] 19:18 Feb 15 2011

I agree with changing the rules, but don't like this new idea where everyone basically just votes twice. Why not just have one vote, and throw in some kind of instant runoff voting so nobody's vote goes to waste. • Spang • ☃ • talk • 19:30, 15 Feb 2011

The Existing System

As the guy who pretty much put the existing system together I'd just like to put my twopenneth into the discussion for what its worth. No system is going to be without flaw, the current system was seen as a way to cover the most bases. It was viewed as a fairer method than the previous one "ie, where only admins were allowed to vote", in that it gave a voice to the rest of the community. However, because that system could be abused by sockpuppets and "cliques", a second tier was put in place. This was also intended to have a focus on giving adminhood to those who were actively performing tasks that benefited the community and the site, rather than someone who might just be popular. -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

They why are our admins all shit? Present company included, of course. Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 00:45, February 16, 2011 (UTC)

I think Mhaille has a point. You're screwed either way. Feudalism leads to power abuse by the few. Democracy leads to corruption and power abuse by the many. I guess it doesn't really matter. It's Mrthejazz... a case not yet solved. 07:45, February 17, 2011 (UTC)

Our good friend Aristotle and other recognised the following systems of government: Monarchy, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy and Tyranny - or no government, Anarchy. Uncyclopedia exhibits all of these traits which is probably why it still works six years from its foundation. --RomArtus*Imperator ® (Orate) 08:02, February 17, 2011 (UTC)

You forgot Theocracy. ~ 14:30, February 17, 2011 (UTC)

Aristotle's not my friend, dadaism is. Dada. DAda. DADA! It's Mrthejazz... a case not yet solved. 03:27, February 18, 2011 (UTC)

I hardly see what the theme from Jaws has to do with this. Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 04:24, February 18, 2011 (UTC)

No, Romartus

We don't exhibit all those traits. We're an aristocracy, plain and simple. There's a core group that makes all the decisions, has all the power, and will never let it go. And when there's a proposal to open things up a little, they all turn out and vote "No" - not that they have to vote at all, but they're virtually unanimous in saying "No, we're in charge and we're not giving that up and we're vaguely annoyed that the idea was even brought up."

And you know what we find? There are more of them than there are other active users: the "against" vote, which is mostly admins, is the largest voice here.

Does it not occur to anyone else that there might be a reason for that? It's a pretty simple one: in a physical aristocracy, people eventually get frustrated at having no voice, rebel, and cut the aristocrats' heads off. In a virtual aristocracy, when they get frustrated at having no voice, they shrug, log out, and go play outside or something. pillow talk 18:50, February 17, 2011 (UTC)

While I'm guessing I'm someone whose opinion you would generally disregard - but I'd like to ask this question, Is is not more often the case that a small group of users are often more keen on becoming the 'aristocracy' themselves than bringing common sense and simply changing things for the better because they are right, or would these contributers rather be a 1000% wrong simply to be factional with an imaginary 'overclass' just see their own little vision and own little addition of power for themselves come into effect?:)--Sycamore (Talk) 19:06, February 17, 2011 (UTC)

I'm struggling with the wording of your question. I think what it boils down to is "Is it more likely that someone wants to be an admin because they have better ideas than the current admins, or just because they want to have a little power?"

And my answer is that, believe it or not, it doesn't really matter! If ten people say "We're in charge, now shut the fuck up and go write for us" then everyone else has a tendency to respond, "Fine, enjoy your little wiki, I'll go somewhere where I'm respected." Even if the ten people are the smartest, most competent, most sensible people in the wiki, it still doesn't do us any favors to let them run the show permanently.

Look, there's not always a "right" or a "wrong" answer to any given policy issue. I started VFG because I thought it would benefit the community to have a place to show off their work, and to have a pre-nomination process that was less formal and labor-intensive than Pee Review. The admins said "No, fuck that, we need to allocate what few resources we have to VFH." They even went so far, at one point, as to delete all the redirects to VFG to make it harder to find.

Was I wrong? Were they wrong? Well, I think we both had good points, and neither the presence nor the absence of VFG were going to ruin Uncyclopedia.

What is going to ruin Uncyclopedia is that, whenever someone has an idea like that, the answer they get is "Look, we set up the status quo, the status quo is fine, and we're in charge; now shut the fuck up, go away, and write for us, bitch." People leave.

Not to play Chicken Little too much here, but we're stalling out. This site is dying. At the rate things are going, we're going to be featuring articles at +6 pretty soon - or refusing to feature articles at all. Guys, we need to shake things up a little bit. pillow talk 19:21, February 17, 2011 (UTC)

So authoritarianism on voluntary projects is bad. Authoritarianism on the part of an aging elite goes on here and we should have some slightly randomized shakeup of creating new sysops regardless of mentality or ability; and the idea that telling people to quit whining a go write articles because there's no other point to coming here and they are the lifeblood of this project whose aims have to be article creation as opposed to wikipedia polishing.

First point = Agree completely, tell me where it's going on and I'll help out in resolving this.

Second point = Sysops just have a couple of extra tabs above users and articles, in no way does the actual day to day culture affected on site by having them here insofar as the oppression goes. The desire to be one however veiled not usually a good sign for reasons to do with character and the benefit they will bring to the wider community.

Third point - is being told to fuck off and go write articles that bad an idea? (seeing as articles are what we're about) most policy makers usually succeed in making templates look better while putting good contributers off with their little power whoring policy agendas. Ironically a lot of the VFG element while crying for better content are often the same people peddling the crap they want to see on VFD:)--Sycamore (Talk) 19:35, February 17, 2011 (UTC)

I think your analysis of the second point is totally wrong. Saying that sysops just have "a couple of extra tabs" is like saying there's no difference between a king and a serf except one crummy little army. Those "extra tabs" determine whether I even get to be here. Which means that if this were real life, they'd have little a button that could incinerate me from high orbit. There's no more absolute power than that.

Our admins aren't tyrants, but they do use that button for more than preventing vandalism. They make rulings on everything right down to content; someone got hit with a "don't edit war with admins" ban the other day because of a disagreement over what would be funnier in an article. On a talk page the other day, I saw someone say "I'm going to do this myself if you won't," and an admin replying, basically, "No you won't, unless you want to be banned."

Now, in both those cases, I actually agreed with the admin and disagreed with the user. But that's beside the point. The point is: sometimes people here say "an admin is just a janitor." That's bullshit. An admin is a janitor, but he's also a king. He gets his way on everything - from major policy issues right down to whether a semicolon would be better than a colon - and anyone who disagrees gets to either hold their tongue or vanish forever. pillow talk 19:51, February 17, 2011 (UTC)

See I've never seen that. You've been banned and there was outcry, if I was banned without 'some kind' of reason... well um you get the idea;) Bans are not really cast in stone, I would say that the very restrained culture on the part of admins has not been brilliant for a happier or harmonious community - many contributers act well outside the confines not of just good conduct here, but on a level of total disrespect to others in any sphere and get away with it. If you behave in an adult way, chances are you'll not really be in the bother you are describing. Certainly older contributers tend to be admins, and more often than not, due to their record, command a respect (in their opinions on the sites direction) that someone who has been here for two months is not going to get:)--Sycamore (Talk) 20:03, February 17, 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Hyperbole that our "couple of extra tabs" make a big difference in how much power we can possibly yield. Now, admins do have to make a lot of judgment calls - otherwise, let's be honest, this place would be a lot messier than it is - so it'd be nice if users would raise issues in an adult, reasonable and preferably hilarious way. Oftentimes they do, sometimes they don't.

And on the admins' side, it's our responsibility to be reasonable as well. Bans can be undone, pages can be restored, but "because I'm an admin" is generally not sufficient justification for anything. The situation Hyperbole mentioned about the user being threatened with a ban if the admin didn't his way - that's just embarrassing for the admin. Uncyc power does not translate into real authority, guys. (Note: I have no knowledge of who was involved in that particular incident, nor any details.)

Last thing. Sometimes admins do silly things like joke bans. Forgive us these small indulgences, provided they're done tastefully and for humorous effect. Being an admin can be like being a janitor, and screwing around with our couple of extra tabs is a tempting kind of stress release. —rc (t) 02:19, February 18, 2011 (UTC)

Hype, I think you're comments are massively unfair. Do you genuinely believe that I voted against the proposition above because I have some desire to "cling to power"? Your argument is just a straw man and the rest little more than ad hominem attacks, though I am slightly disappointed that you haven't used the word "cabal" once. To argue that the admins work as a collective and get their way on every issue is rubbish, would we be engaged in this discussion if that were true? Hell, maybe I should just lock the page and ban you fuckers?

I wouldn't say that admins haven't made mistakes, and there have been occasions when admins have had to be slapped on the wrist when they have acted out of line. I've made mistakes, but I'd like to think for the most part I've done considerably more good than harm. Most of the users here (regardless of any extra buttons they may or may not have) are happy to help each other, and usually without the need for added drama. -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

I really can't tell the extent to which you're serious here... and if you're joking, I don't think it would be a good idea to respond as though you were serious. pillow talk 07:23, February 20, 2011 (UTC)

Hype, don't you remember those times when an admin lost his position for abuse of power and whatnot? Granted, it's rare, but its not like it never happens. --Mn-z 13:20, February 20, 2011 (UTC)

That's not the point. I don't want to pick a fight with Mhaille if he's just being friendly. He accompanied his post with a two-hour ban for me that felt like a joke ban, leaving me a little bewildered about the extent to which this was a joke response. pillow talk 17:47, February 20, 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps you didn't notice my sarcasm, he haven't had any de-opting (that lasted over a day) since 2006. --Mn-z 19:06, February 20, 2011 (UTC)

Hype, my comments above were actually serious. Or as serious as Uncyc should ever get. The ban was for shits and giggles. I hate to fall back on the same old comments that everyone else keeps making, but when it all comes down to it we're ALL here for the funny. When people end up here to push other agendas, for trollin' and dramamongerin', regardless of whether they have ops or not, then that is a problem. I don't for one moment seek to belittle "issues" that people raise, or to imply that everything is always rosy or that things can't change or shouldn't change, however I do take issue with your implication that the "against vote" is indicative of a virtual aristocracy. I could, just as easily point out that the same small clique of people appear to be at the heart of most of the drama that appears on the site. Does that, by implication, lessen any issue being raised? By all means make a valid point where there is one, but lose the repressed masses/freedom fighter spiel.

I'm actually a bureaucrat on this site, though fuck knows why, which gives me even more buttons than others. Before I was "upgraded" I spent a number of years as an admin. Do you think for a second that either of these nebulous "titles" defines me as a person? I'm not naive enough to believe that "power", imagined or virtual, doesn't change the individual, or that "groupthink" isn't an issue for any community, no matter the size, but speaking for myself I see no difference between any contributor to this site.

I genuinely couldn't give a flying fuck if any clique of people disagree with my viewpoint, I will attempt to deal with any issue as my conscience dictates. I've issued bans to people who I consider to be friends where I have felt it necessary. I'm also not really bothered about what people were doing six months or a year ago, but in what they are doing now. Here, as in real life, there's no time to waste on getting beat up over stuff. People will hold different views to yours, have different cultural references and values. You are going to come into contact with people you will not like, people who act like arses. Well tough shit people, that is what the world is, and how you deal with it will reveal how the world will judge you. Now lets all join hands and sing that classic song from the New Seekers..... -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

All right, Mhaille, if your comments were serious, I'll go ahead and respond. You seem to be accusing me of claiming that the admins are meeting in some smoky back room and agreeing that they will never allow anyone else to have a voice on the wiki. I'm not claiming that, I've never claimed that, and your response made me think you didn't read a word I wrote. Which is why I wasn't sure whether you were joking. (Also because you misused the phrase "straw man" so badly that I thought you might be making fun of people who don't know their fallacies.)

No, I don't think the admins are "conspiring" to maintain control of the project. It's a lot simpler than that. The admins are, by and large, the people who built the status quo structures and policies of Unc; they like them, they're happy with them, they're proud of them, they don't want to see them fucked with too much. Pretty simple.

But now, with the system we have, we're hopelessly stuck. The current system says "Let's just nominate new admins-for-life when there aren't enough people to keep up the site." Well, guess what - a lot of people don't like that system, so they leave. Which means there are always enough people to keep up the site, because now half the people on the site are admins-for-life.

Which means no matter how hard you work, the site doesn't need you in that club. Which means you'll never get to be part of the club. We can watch the site admins having a grand old time joke-banning Cajek and spontaneously featuring Snowman and setting up colonizations and reskins and making serious decisions about who gets to run IRC and shutting down any new ideas they don't really care for.

Do you really not get it, Mhaille? The issue isn't whether you've done anything shady, incompetent, or otherwise wrong. You haven't, not that I know of. The issue is, you're in the club, we're out, and it's always going to be that way. And that's fucking lame. pillow talk 01:55, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

OK, I'll bite....it is a straw man argument, you are substituting a weaker form of the argument to "prove" your point. The argument is about a proposal to change the VFS, you have turned it into all Admins are evil therefore we must change the rules. But anyhoo....below you say Leddy can't know anything about the state that Uncyc is in because he's not edited here for sometime, after stating that you yourself haven't edited for six months. You also make the statement that "maybe admins can't see the site how WE users can"...and above "you're in the club, WE're out"...firstly despite your insistence on an US and THEM partisan situation on Uncyc I think it is far more complex than that. I wouldn't dream of speaking for others, nor imply that I understand every nuance of what sections of the community are thinking. Who exactly are the WE you refer to?

Your comment "a lot of people don't like the system so they 'leave'" is certainly interesting. Do you have clear examples of this? How would you explain people who have become admins or in some cases Bureaucrats, who according to your criteria became part of the virtual elite, leaving? I've been around the site for coming up to six years, I've seen a lot of people come and go, I've seen so many "Uncyclopedia is dying" messages, I've seen so many self important, self opinionated people rant and rave and revel in the drama they seem to enjoy causing, I've also seen a lot of people who are just happy to contribute to the site in whatever way they can.

Admins on the site are a necessary evil. As far as I'm concerned I'm here to write and to add pretty pictures to things, and to help others to do the same. I don't self identify as part of any clique, and I would fight tooth and nail to stop any from forming. People need to think for themselves and not as part of a group collective. My main argument with your comments is that you are placing a whole group of people in one pigeon-hole. As I've said before I may have more little buttons available to me than other people but I am here to contribute. I also have more in common with some of the more anarchic members of the community and am very anti-establishment. Please don't make assumptions that all admins are X or that all users are Y, or that having a few extra buttons means you become incapable of seeing important issues affecting the community. -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

I didn't see this message when you first posted it. First of all, the phrase "straw man" doesn't mean "changing the subject to something easier to argue." That might be called "moving the goalposts." A straw man argument is what would happen if I put words in your mouth in order to easily defeat "your" argument that's actually mine (for example, "Mhaille says no one has ever left Uncyclopedia. What a fool!" That'd be a straw man.)

So, am I changing the subject or moving the goalposts? I sure don't think so. The question was whether we need a VFS. My argument is that we need a VFS because an unchanging adminship is bad for an Internet community.

I never said a word about all admins being evil or all admins being the same. The way I feel about your comments, its as though I said "taxes are too high" and you translated that in your head to "fuck all politicans" and, as a politician, took offense. Look, Mhaille, I don't think you've ever done a bad job, I don't think you're evil, I don't think you're selfish or incompetent - I just don't like there being a rigid, never-changing group of admins. Where no one can get promoted, and no one loses their job for not doing it, new ideas are less likely to flourish, the direction the site takes is not very flexible, and long-term, hardworking users get frustrated about being left out of the club. It's a structural problem, not a personnel problem. pillow talk 19:07, February 25, 2011 (UTC)

I think I'm missing something here. Why are admins the cool kids club(I was pretty sure we weren't) and why does changing VFS fix that(because it seems like you're just increasing membership)? - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 02:07, Feb 22

Do I really have to answer that? I mean, if admins aren't the "cool kids club", how come none of them have asked to be de-opped? How come none of them have come forward and said "Well, this is a lot of work, and I guess I'd prefer to be a normal user." Do you really think anyone would ever prefer not being able to be able to unban themselves at will, and generally being treated like a grown-up, to having it the other way around??! pillow talk 02:11, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Because when we get frustrated and bored, we leave. For example, until a week ago, I hadn't edited in 6 months, and the work I do around here is questionable at best. I've always been a bit more of a writer, but it takes less time to log in and delete something every once in a while. And who isn't getting treated like a grown-up? And, at the risk of being repetitive, or restating myself, or being redundantly recursive, or repetitive, how does increasing the number of people in the cool kids club make it any less of a cool kids club, if you'll forgive my tortured analogy. (And don't forgive my analogy, the dirty bastard likes the humiliation.) - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 02:25, Feb 22

Wow, it's crazy that I even have to answer that one, too. I think maybe admins simply can't see the same things we users see... I don't know. Okay, let me give you a not-so-hypothetical situation. Let's say that some random admin was doing something irritating to another admin - something like, let's say, blanking pages in his own userspace as part of some test project, thus making people panic when they saw Recent Changes. You know what the response would be? "Hey, let's talk about this on IRC." And that's all I personally would ever see. Now let's take the exact same situation with a regular user. You know what you see? Some humiliating lecture on their talk page ("I think you're ignoring me and you should know better than this; knock it off or you'll be spending some serious time in the corner") and possibly a token hour-long block or something. Really, it's very much the difference between being treated like children and adults.

And to answer your question - well, obviously, adding people to the "cool kids club" decreases the number of people who are left out of the "cool kids club," doesn't it? But look down the page a little: you know what the very, very obvious solution to A) getting some new blood in and B) not having too many admins is? De-op some people. pillow talk 02:33, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

I disagree (although I supported and still support deopping admins who have long absences from the site). I have long believed that fewer admins is better (and I know this is an easy thing for me to say, since I've been an admin for so long, but bear with me for a minute). We've had too many admins before, or admins opped without due process, and the fallout from that was seriously disruptive to admins and users alike.

What's more important is, as you say, putting less emphasis on admin authority in dictating site policy. Votes should be equal, admins shouldn't be jerks and lord their menial power over regular users just because they can, and admin buttons should never be pressed for petty or vindictive reasons. Users should make decisions (including who gets opped) on an equal basis with admins. This will probably never happen entirely because Uncyclopedia simply isn't organized enough, but we can certainly start by eliminating admin privilege in votes.

One final thing: if an admin treats an user poorly, they do have the option (though they might not be aware of it) of turning to another admin for help through IRC or email or talk pages. I think it's true that admins are leery of stepping on other admins' toes, but I've reverted bans that I thought were unfair and restored pages that I thought had been deleted without due process. Unfortunately, that means the user has to know which admins might be able to help him out (messaging BobBobBob probably won't do much good these days), but it can be done. —rc (t) 03:07, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

I hate to defect to any argument that sounds like 'admins know best,' but it just seems to me that the only group on the site that really knows when the admins are feeling overworked is the admins, and that's why I'd rather keep the vote to determine whether to hold a VFS in the first place to just admins. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 03:13, Feb 22

You have a point, but overwork isn't necessarily the only reason for opping people. Like Hyperbole is saying, a small cadre of dictators can potentially dictate policy without bothering to let any dissenting opinions in. Mixing in new blood can shake up the system in a good way.

Like I've said already many times, I'm no fan of lots of admins, but I think Hyperbole is right to say that admins shouldn't get to pick and choose who joins the ops club. —rc (t) 03:24, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

But is this happening? Maybe I just haven't seen it going on yet, but I haven't seen any of these abuses that we're trying to correct. I guess Uncyclopedia doesn't seem broken to me, and I'm wondering why we're all trying to fix it. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 03:31, Feb 22

Leddy, I don't want to, like, blantantly call you out here, but do you really think you're qualified to say how broken Uncyclopedia is or isn't when you haven't been here in six months? pillow talk 04:04, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Probably not. Show me the broken, so I can agree with you. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 04:44, Feb 22

Well, just for starters - compare this with this. What happened? Do you have a theory? pillow talk 05:13, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

I think it's more effective to compare a low voted article on that gets featured to one like this. That last thing is a clear demonstration of a broken VFH, not that VFH is even the biggest problem on the site. MegaPleb • Dexter111344 • Complain here 05:19, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Ok, so VFH votes have been declining since THINKER wrote Why?:Pour Boiling Hot Water Down Your Trousers? in 2007. How is that caused by admins? I've been around for most of 2007-2011, save for my recent leave of absence, so I think I'm fairly qualified to talk about the decline we've been experiencing, and it seems to me that it's a result of a reduction in our market share by reddit, 4chan, and the like. Just ask around, people have heard of uncyclopedia but don't care enough to spend any real time here, and that's why VFH votes have been going down. Nobody spends enough time here to even get to know who the admins are. They usually just look at the front page, chuckle, click random page once or twice, and then bugger off to stumbleupon or somewhere similar. It's distraction, not disillusionment. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 07:02, Feb 22

Also, not that he needs it, but I can vouch for TLB witnessing the decline and fall of VFH. It's a long and terrible process that's happened long before any of the article you cite, but back even before Spang and Ljlego remodeled the place entirely into something notoriously more user unfriendly (though much prettier and fancier). I speak, quite vainly of course, of my first feature, which garnered a then-record low of 10 votes to pass VFH. Also, the "VFH sucks" argument has been retread hundreds of thousands of times so I of course have nothing new to add. Just wanted to mention another one of my record-breaking articles that are oh so very funny (and to point the blame at Spang. FU SPANG!) -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 07:47, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

It's not just VFH. It's everything - Pee Review, VFD, UnNews, mainspace articles, everything. One of the most striking pieces of evidence is here. We're not getting new users anymore. People are still creating accounts, but no one sticks around long enough to make an impact on the site. 2009 was bad; 2010 was a disaster.

I simply can't see how "reddit and 4chan" could be cutting into our market share. 4chan is 2 years older than us and was huge when we were at our healthiest; reddit is roughly the same age as us and in theory is more of a complement to Unc than a competitor (in that it steers traffic here).

Personally, I think the reason people don't stick around is that they don't see much of a community here. And I think the reason they don't see much of a community here is admin-user conflict. There are a handful of users who I think have been critical to there being a community here, and I think a lot of them have quietly exited stage left - or vasty reduced their activity - after a scuffle with an administrator. pillow talk 15:54, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Actually if you have a look at the Special Active Users page which shows activity from individual contributors (actually user accounts, not IPs) there's over a thousand people who have edited Uncyclopedia over the last week and the vast majority more than once. Just because you can't see people voting on VFH and other little cliquey areas of the site doesn't mean that people aren't active here using the site in their own way. -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

The reason admins vote against making more admins isn't because of some bullshit power trip that people seem to have imagined. Fuck, I haven't even fucking been here for however long its been now. I voted against this change because it will mean more admins, because regular users like to make other regular users admins, and admins like to keep the levels pretty constant. I've seen some drama shit erupt pretty much out of nowhere (I went into IRC and found out I couldn't op e|m|c because of some crap that happened half a year ago or something, for example), and admins are far from immune to that. More admins means more risk of conflict, and while two users in a conflict can be bad, two admins means there isn't anyone higher up to ultimately resolve the shit, which makes shit even worse. So yeah, it's more than knowing someone wouldn't get ops and delete all of uncyclopedia or some shit; being an admin is about being trusted enough to not fuck with other admins hard enough to start shit and piss people off. More admins--and that's what this change would make--just means more risk of conflict. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 06:51, Feb 21

The conflict still exists, TLB. It's just that right now it's conflict between users and admins. And when that happens, the users are eventually "handled" - either banned or put on some kind of "we're watching you" probation (whether formal or informal). Then they lose their enthusiasm for the project and leave. And their friends watch it and they leave too.

I mean, surely everyone's got to be wondering: Why, in three short years, have we gone from featuring articles at +35 to featuring articles at +10? Where'd everybody go?

Wikia's dicked us around a little, and that hasn't helped, but I really do think that user-admin disputes - and the impossibility of ever becoming an admin - are costing us the lion's share of users. pillow talk 02:07, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

We haven't featured articles at +35 in a long time. The reason isn't a site thing, it's just that people don't want to put a lot of time into reading a full article. Look at trends on sites like blogger. We live in an age of attention deficit disorder, and sites like ours that require time or concentration on a single task are never gonna be as popular as places like 4chan or reddit. Our most popular articles are often our most succinct--just look at your own poodle article's popularity on stumbleupon. That's something we're all gonna have to deal with. And with regard to the above discussion except down here because down is the new up and all the popular kids are doing it, in your example the situation as you described it puts the admin clearly in the wrong, so I don't really know what you're talking about as far as that goes...and exactly who are we hypothetically deopping, here? - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 02:43, Feb 22

TLB has a point here, much of the reason why there's fewer numbers on VFH is because of user apathy/dissention. The last time an article got 30+ votes on VFH, it finished with a score of +11. The only reason it got so much attention was because it was also the 14th time it was nominated. -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 02:46, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

I would argue that we have more pet projects going on now than probably at any other time in Uncyc's history, and that's taking user attention away from what was once Uncyclopedia's core - the mainspace and VFH/VFP. That's not a bad thing - expanding in other ways is great - but it means that such seemingly quantifiable ways of measuring Uncyclopedia's popularity are going to get skewed. —rc (t) 02:52, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

I'd just like to restate how glad I am that that article got featured. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 02:56, Feb 22

RC, you have a point, but pet projects aren't enough to account for our VFH slump in and of itself. We simply have a smaller active userbase than we did three years ago - on the forums, on VFH, on VFD, everywhere. And it's not because there are people who "only Pee Review" or "only do UnNews" - the people who are active in those places are active everywhere. No, plain and simply, there are just far fewer kids in this sandbox than there used to be. pillow talk 03:55, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

I won't argue with that, especially since I've hardly been around for the past two and a half years. But I do think that we need to consider that the nature of Uncyc might be reducing our number of active users and edits. Consider these things:

1. Uncyclopedia has built up over 25,000 articles in the mainspace. What if I come to Uncyc and I want to do an article on a popular subject, like Justin Bieber? Oops - there's already an article there, and most users would probably be leery about fiddling with a full-on article too much. Sure, we know that there are lots of projects other than the mainspace to work on, but the average user might not bother sticking around long enough to realize that. They just know (or think they know) that they can't write their sweet JB page, and so they head on to... I don't know, zombo.com or whatever is cool on the internet in 2011.
2. Uncyc is dauntingly large to anyone who wants to really get a feel for everything the site has to offer. Heck, I edited Uncyc daily for years, but after my long hiatus I'm reluctant to dive into some areas of the site because I don't really know how things run these days.

These are perhaps issues to discuss separately, but I only want to point out other possible reasons for userbase shrinkage in addition to problems between admins and users. I don't think it's simple enough to reduce to one cause. —rc (t) 04:45, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

No, everybody above (except my sockpuppets)

I've always figured that Uncyclopedia is ruled by "reason" and "common sense". If I want something to happen and I don't have admin superpowers to do it myself, I just discuss it with an admin on his talkpage or on IRC and voila, it happens. Now, what's the problem with this system? Well, obviously, if there aren't a lot of admins around, people will have to wait before stuff happens and feel annoyed and possible complain about it, possible in a whiny manner. To be honest, this might've been a problem some months ago, when vandals were running amok and would only have their desire to be banned fulfilled after a couple hours of said "running amok". But then Zombiebaron came back, and now Rcmurphy, Codeine and Leddy are back. So I don't think we need more admins right now, stuff usually gets done on time and stuff usually gets fixed on time. The only thing I'd ask of the admins is to listen to reason and common sense and when the community is begging them to have a vote for new admins, to not completely reject the idea. Jibba jabba etc. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 19:59, 17 February 2011

That's only because you found the Clitoris -- Prof. Olipro KUN (W)Anchor Op Bur. (Harass) 10:57, February 18, 2011 (UTC)

A new proposal

I'm all for instituting a new VFS system in which all registered users have an equal say. (IPs still suck. Get a username if you want to vote on stuff like this.) But let's be honest - a straight-up vote every month would probably result in far more admins than we need. There's a significant whoring clique here (as there has always been - some of the names may have changed, but the spirit remains the same), and I guarantee we'll get more scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours deals than is good for the wiki. Admins suck, and more admins suck more.

The system now is far better than in the early days, when people (like me) just kind of got opped on a whim, and it's better than the middle days, when the same thing happened and then everybody got mad at each other and quit and then came back and pretended like nothing happened. But it can always be improved.

What we need, in my opinion, is a simple and democratic system that results in new ops only when they're really and truly necessary. Never more than one at a time, and far less than one per month (barring mitigating circumstances like a mass exodus of current admins, a big influx of new users, etc.). Maybe that means having a straight-up vote but only every three or four months, or instituting some convoluted new monthly system that will usually end without an opping. Convoluted new monthly systems suck, so here is what I propose.

• We have a quarterly vote for new sysops. This should be announced via the Forum so that users will be aware that voting will be taking place.
• First ten days is the vote on whether we need a new op. Yes or No. All registered users, including admins, get a vote and everyone's vote counts the same.
• If the consensus is yes, the rest of the month is nomination and voting. Everybody gets one vote only and everyone's vote counts the same.
• At the end of the month, the user with the highest vote total gets opped. In the case of a tie, the tied users get a one-week runoff vote.
• That's it.
• Sundaes for everyone.

Having long periods of time between votes will also allow users to raise issues they have with the system or to discuss changes that may need to be made. (E.g., we may decide that for the next quarterly vote, we actually need two new ops because we were just featured on the front page of the New York Times.) No system will ever be perfect, mostly because Internet People suck and they will do stupid things. But my proposal will at least make everything much simpler and more democratic. —rc (t) 02:02, February 18, 2011 (UTC)

FU RC, by which I mean For.. This makes sense. -- |c|o|d|e|i|n|e| 14:45, February 21, 2011 (UTC)

• I like this too. Simplest solution = the best solution. -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 02:17, February 22, 2011 (UTC)
• This seems reasonable, for the most part. Would solve more problems than it'd be apt to cause, at least.

1234 ~ 04:42, 22 February 2011

So are we gonna stop writing huge blocks of text and just do a vote for a new admin?

• It kinda seems like that's the direction this conversation is going. Obviously all the admins are against it (probably because we don't really need new admins). But if the userbase wants it, I say we give it to them. -- Brigadier General Sir Zombiebaron 03:19, February 18, 2011 (UTC)

  This seems to me to be more in principle than anything - we don't need any more admins currently, especially with the three that came back, but for when we do - some people don't like how that happens, apparently... but perhaps we could jump the gun and just op Socky here and now?

1234 ~ 03:37, 18 February 2011

• Meh, just make me admin. I mean...

What's the worst that could happen?

It's Mrthejazz... a case not yet solved. 04:56, February 18, 2011 (UTC)

Polish point of view

Well, it looks like some kind of a revolution, eh? :P Well, on Polish uncyc there is no such problems with voting on admins. First of all, everybody can nom anybody (who meets requirements of 750 creative editions and who has never been banned for vandalism) for a VFS ;p. then all with at least 100 edtis can vote. if there is 60% of votes for, and more than 50% of admins voted yes, then the candidate gets opped. simple. "jerks", "retards", "idiots" etc. never could make it through the voting so it's a good and simple system. We have no "vote on need of voting system". and there is no constant number of ops, so if one gets opped nobody needs to get deopped. But it's a problem of voting system. you use "first-past-the-post" and we vote yes/no on a certain person, not comparing to others (there can be two or more votings at the same time ofc). Maybe Polish system would solve problems here? Sir Ptok-Bentoniczny^{Pisz tutaj} • KUN 14:38, February 20, 2011 (UTC)

And about deopping - other admins vote in an open voting on deopping or keeping a certain sysop. that's all.

• For -- Brigadier General Sir Zombiebaron 07:28, February 21, 2011 (UTC)
• Actually, that sounds like the wikimedia projects system in general... not a bad system, but it can be scary what they tend to dig up on a person.

1234 ~ 14:27, 21 February 2011

Let me just ask this

I've heard a lot of "We shouldn't have new admins because we already have enough admins and more would be too many."

Has any thought been given, at all, to the idea of rotating out admins? Either rotating out the less active ones, or simply retiring some of the ones who have been here forever - you know, kind of like how U.S. Presidents eventually go back to being normal private citizens?

Is that totally off the table?

And if so - why? pillow talk 02:22, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Admins coming back and being all "eh, what happened?" would be the biggest flaw. -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 02:30, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

But there is precedent for that exact idea. MegaPleb • Dexter111344 • Complain here 02:46, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

That's some extreme inactivity being considered, though. Deopping them wouldn't do much in this whole club analogy: those kids have left the clubhouse a long time ago. -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 02:50, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

The de-opped admins were only gone for months, specifically in the 5-8 month range. To ask the question another way, why shouldn't we de-op every admin who hasn't edited in say 2 years (or on or after Jan 1, 2009 to make the math easier)? --Mn-z 03:00, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Eh, what happened? ;) Srsly, I can't believe I held the Godlike powers of Adminship for so long after abandoning the pleasures of Uncyclopedia for the siren song of real life. I did get the occasional n00b plea of "my paeg is awsoem make it a faeturd page!!one1", so removing me from the list of people with a cluestick is a great idea. No more bogarting the n00bs for me. -- Sir BobBobBob ! S ? [rox!|sux!] 16:53, February 25, 2011 (UTC) (my sig isn't even current, ffs)

And if you ever decide to edit more frequently and want your ops back, all you have to do is ask. Retired admin privilege and all that. -- |c|o|d|e|i|n|e|

• If we are going to deop inactive admins (or move them to a "dead op" group like we discussed back in 2006), which I feel is a good idea, because we have never done it (even though I'm pretty sure we decided we would back in 2006), then here is a list of admins who haven't edited significantly in the past year or more:

BobBobBob, 3 edits in 2010

Braydie, 0 edits in 2010

Cs1987, 4 edits in 2010

DWIII, 7 edits in 2010

Dawg, 4 edits in 2010

Elvis, 0 edits in 2010

EvilZak, 0 edits in 2010

Famine, 0 edits in 2010

Flyingfeline, 0 edits in 2010

Hinoa, 0 edits in 2010

IMBJR, 0 edits in 2010

Insertwackynamehere, 0 edits in 2010

Isra1337, 0 edits in 2010

KP, 0 edits in 2010

Keitei, 0 edits in 2010

Manticore, 0 edits in 2010

Nytrospawn, 1 edit in 2010

Paulgb, 0 edits in 2010

PantsMacKenzie, 9 edits in 2010

Rangeley, 0 edits in 2010

Sikon, 1 edit in 2010, 1 edit in 2011

Spintherism, 0 edits in 2010

Strange but untrue, 0 edits in 2010

Tom mayfair, 6 edits in 2010

Tompkins, 1 edit in 2010

Volte, 0 edits in 2010

I propose that we deop all of these wonderful people and leave a note on their talkpage explaining that they were deoped due to extreme inactivity, and that they can be reopped again if they would like. I miss every person on this list so much you guys. -- Brigadier General Sir Zombiebaron 05:26, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Seconded, though Dawg (and maybe some others, but I'm too lazy to check at the moment) are crats, so I'm not sure if they should be de-opped. Also, add Stillwaters to that list. MegaPleb • Dexter111344 • Complain here 05:32, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Feels a little strange to de-op the founder. Not saying that it's a bad idea, just saying it feels a little strange. pillow talk 05:39, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

I had a hard time deciding what to do with the crats. Keitei, Dawg, PantsMacKenzie and Paulgb are all crats, but all are also extremely inactive. I don't think we should deop Stillwaters for the same reason we will never deop Chronarion. -- Brigadier General Sir Zombiebaron 05:41, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Also - why give them a "you can be reopped again if you would like" offer? I've been here for years and I've never heard of, say, Spintherism. Don't you think it's fair to say that someone like Socky has more of a legitimate claim to an adminship than Spintherism does?? pillow talk 05:45, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I peruse uncyc from time to time and I prefer vandalism control to actually writing articles. If you look at my contributions from when I was very active, you'll see that they're mostly reverts/bans. I would prefer to remain an admin, if possible. There have been a few times in the past year where I've banned some vandals when no one else was around. --PantsMacKenzie 18:32, February 25, 2011 (UTC)

You should read my critically acclaimed article about this subject. And I'd have to say the crats should all be pushed to just adminship for now. If they haven't returned by the next time this kind of thing comes up, then the users around at that time should decide to completely de-op them. MegaPleb • Dexter111344 • Complain here 05:47, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

As for Paulgb, he doesn't want to be connected to the site at all anymore (check the logs for his page), so 'crat or not I'd say he's definitely a goner. -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 06:32, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps a more radical approach would be to de-op the founders too but otherwise downgrading the others who have since disappeared would be fair.--RomArtus*Imperator ® (Orate) 11:14, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

On Polish Uncy an admin who is inactive for 30 days MAY get a vote for deopping. it depends if he is considered useful or useless by bureaucrats. then admins vote on keeping him.deopping. ofc they try to contact the admin before but if they fail, they consider he "doesn't give a shit". I saw your list of inactive admins and I couldn't believe you didn't deop them already but I look from Polish POV. I don't say the Polish system is better (especially I'm not active on Polish Uncy atm) - it's different. I wrote all this shit so you may get another idea to solve the Uncy's inactive sysops problem.

Shortly: If an admin is inactive for a long time - he doesn't give a shit. he would tell otherwise he has holidays or something. in an extremal case, one Polish admin asked his mother to write on forum he was dying in a hospital O.o - he definitely didn't give a shit. but some suddenly disappeared and never came back.

Sir Ptok-Bentoniczny^{Pisz tutaj} • KUN 00:41, February 28, 2011 (UTC)

I think 30 days is too short. This wiki is more active, and we have seen admins come back from long periods of inactivity. However, 1 year with no edits is more long enough. --Mn-z 00:53, February 28, 2011 (UTC)

I think 30 days is too long. This is the information superhighway! Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 05:31, February 28, 2011 (UTC)

I would like to have a say in this

I think that we should give admin power only to those who have seriously contributed to keeping our site clean of vandalism and stupidity. I know a few people who I personally believe should receive such power (Lyrithya and Socky, for examples). We don't even need to vote; let's just give them the power for free.---   TALK What's it like to be a heretic? 02:57, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

The point of creating new admins isn't to reward good works, it's to have people to ban idiots and delete shitty articles. Yeah, those guys seem pretty cool. That doesn't mean that we should immediately make them sysops. Over-policing can be just as bad as under-policing. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 03:03, Feb 22

What I mean is that they should be opped because they have potential. Not because they do good works. I do good works, but that doesn't mean I should be opped (although that would be nice). And we should only opp one every few months.---   TALK What's it like to be a heretic? 03:26, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

I think you're misunderstanding me. We shouldn't op anyone because we think they'd be good at it. We should op them because we need an op and they seem like the best candidate for the job. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 03:33, Feb 22

That sounds like the same thing---   TALK What's it like to be a heretic? 04:05, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Just for shits and giggles

Here's how I'd do VFS if it were up to me.

1. At the beginning of the month, the admins decide, by consensus, how many admins we'll need for the next month (call that x).
2. Any admin who's celebrating their y-year anniversary that month, if y is an even number, is then de-opped.
3. De-opped admins are ineligible to become admins again for one year.
4. If that leaves us with fewer than x admins, then the whole Uncyclopedia community votes on who's going to fill those slots. Anyone eligible to vote on VFD gets a vote.
5. If that leaves us down one bureacrat, the admins then vote one of their own into a 'crat position.

And there you go. It solves about 10 problems at once. It lets fresh, hardworking talent get promoted. It gets rid of stale admins who no longer know the site or the culture. It gives people a sense that their hard work gets rewarded. It gives perfectly good admins a one-year break to experience things on the other side of the fence before they're inevitably re-voted in.

I think it'd be better for Uncyclopedia in every conceivable way... not that I expect to ever, ever see it happen in a million years. pillow talk 03:43, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

nahhhh, it lacks one thing: boobs---   TALK What's it like to be a heretic? 04:07, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

It might solve some problems, but it would bring up a host of new ones. At least some de-opped admins would likely leave for good - for some of us, this is what Uncyc is now, maintenance work. Granted, admins might write an article or two every now and then (some do much more than this, I'm aware), but admin stuff is the reason that I personally have been checking Uncyc every day for the past couple weeks. Bringing in new blood has its advantages, I don't deny that, but arbitrarily kicking out old admins (without regard to the quality of the work they actually do) has its downsides.

It also doesn't make sense to me (especially given your arguments on in this forum, which certainly have merit) to institute point #1 above. If admins are interested keeping our circle tight, it would behoove us simply to decide that we need a very small number of admins. In some ways this is only shifting admin power, whereas I think a better course is to reduce any distance between users and admins. —rc (t) 04:31, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

If admins were rotated out every 24 months, it would be impossible to keep any given circle tight. That's why point #1 would no longer be the problem it is now. If admins refused to ever, ever increase the number of admins - there'd be 0 administrators after two years. Probably not a situation anyone wants. pillow talk 05:04, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

But one of your central arguments above is that admins like being in the admin club (not a point I would care to deny very vehemently), so what makes you think a system like this would ever work smoothly? The people who are in want to stay in. Don't you think - even if the system did eventually thin out the admins-for-life - that many people would try to freeze the system or get it overturned to keep that club in stasis? Two years is a long time to have a position, only to have to hand it over just because an hourglass ran out. —rc (t) 05:29, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

I mean, it's possible. But Democracies do exist. People all over the world hand over control of cities, states, countries, because an hourglass ran out. It doesn't seem so far-fetched that the principle could apply to a wiki.

I do think the system would work once it was established - once people knew they were being elected to a two-year term, we'd have no problems. The real impossibility would be getting very many people who feel they were appointed to a life term to go along with the plan in the first place. pillow talk 05:37, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain..Uncyclopedia..I see a pattern developing here...--RomArtus*Imperator ® (Orate) 11:28, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

But unlike in cities, states and countries, there aren't many repercussions to refusing to follow procedure on a wiki. The internet might be getting more real, but it's not real life yet. Why do you think there are so very many trolls online? Trolls are probably lovely people in real life. I'm sure they shop at Hallmark and donate to Important Causes. But see, on the internet there is no Hallmark. Except hallmark.com. —rc (t) 14:52, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

I think Wikia could use its reserve powers to force out admins if someone tries to overthrow the system. Actually, Wikia staff is going to do all de-opting of crats, whether the 'crat leaves willing or not, for the simple reason that no-one else can remove a 'crat tag. --Mn-z 23:13, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Can't crats remove themselves? This is something I have never known nor thought about. -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 01:32, February 23, 2011 (UTC)

They can't add/remove bot tags either, at least last time I checked. --Mn-z 01:59, February 23, 2011 (UTC)

Well, according to the user rights page, I cannot remove myself as a 'crat but I can de-op myself. I don't know how a de-opped bureaucrat would look. Probably like a chump. —rc (t) 02:03, February 23, 2011 (UTC)

So, no change, then. Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 07:52, February 23, 2011 (UTC)

Actually it's a bit of an improvement. —rc (t) 20:28, February 23, 2011 (UTC)

The Great Administrator Mixup

• Don't reply below, go here instead: Forum:The Great Administrator Mixup

I've been thinking more about this, and while I don't think that your proposal as given above will ever gain enough popularity to be instituted (and, as I've said, I don't think it would work properly as-is), mixing in new blood and seeing how that affects Uncyclopedia would not be a bad experiment.

So let me propose this: any admin who is willing to be part of the Great Administrator Mixup would "hand off" their ops to a democratically-elected user on a trial basis, say for a month. This has to be voluntary on the part of the admin, and I don't think participating admins should be de-opped, but should actively refrain from using any admin powers during the trail. For example: I volunteer to be part of the test, and Hyperbole is elected by current admins and users to be one of the temporary admins. I (or another 'crat) op Hyperbole, and for the next month Hyperbole essentially has my job, and I'm to act as nothing but a regular user.

This would give possible new admins a taste of what being an admin is like, and at the end of the trial the community could discuss the results. If it works - if we see tangible benefits - that would give weight to the potential of a more permanent rotating admin system.

I would be willing to be one of the demoted admins for the trial. If a couple more current admins join me, we could give it a spin. —rc (t) 16:59, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

It's like timesharing administration. Please refrain from throwing furniture out the window into the pool. -- Mitch 17:08, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Don't think of it as demotion, think of it as freedom. --Black Flamingo 20:47, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Don't any of you have something better to do?

Nearly all of you lot seem pretty accurate in at least some of your assessments, nevermind those with which I personally agree... but this is ridiculous! Drop it already, why don't you? Some alternate ideas have been proposed, why not yae or nay those and go do something else, eh? This ain't going nowhere as it is, so please just... stop. 1234 ~ 04:20, 22 February 2011

Gosh you're such a party pooper. If you don't like this forum, just ignore it.---   TALK What's it like to be a heretic? 04:26, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

I was. But this is just ridiculous.

1234 ~ 04:29, 22 February 2011

Somethings in life we just have to deal with it.---   TALK What's it like to be a heretic? 04:33, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

tl;dr

But, for the record, Mordilly holds my proxy vote for this. Or Mhaille. Or maybe both of them. (I get two votes don't I?) -- sannse<staff/> (talk) 04:45, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

I don't think anybody gets any votes. pillow talk 05:00, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

I say

From now on, we act as an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We'll take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week. But, all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting, by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs, or by a two thirds majority in the case of more major occurrences. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 23:15, Feb 23

I suggest we go to a system based on strange women lying in ponds and distributing swords. --Mn-z 02:47, February 24, 2011 (UTC)

Ummm...

...I don't see any of this having any effect on anything in any way. It's like watching an argument between the bridge staff on the titanic before it hits the iceberg. Maybe we'd be better off promoting the site. As for not enough admins - in the past couple of years I've only had an issue with lack of admins around once. Pup 02:38 24 Feb '11

Ummm...

Im going to nominate this page on VFH and VFD. And then add a few images to the super long block text, the polish recomendation and add a few Oscar Wild quotes :) --Shabidoo 04:53, February 24, 2011 (UTC)