Administrator nominations - gripes about the voting system

[Politoed666]

*man, do I seem to be starting a lot of threads here.*

There have been some good points made on Talk Pages about some problems with the voting system for promoting administrators, but I feel this needs a proper discussion.

First off, it's a problem that we value all votes equally. Bulbapedia is not a democracy. Yes, the editorial board has the final say on the issue, but two of the six members are on hiatus and three of the remaining four rarely show up. That leaves... TTEchidna to make the decision.

Here's the deal; Jiouji Derako pointed out that if we have twenty users who rarely contribute versus five administrators/bureaucrats, the n00bs win. That's a problem. I believe that we need to rank votes based on the status of the user. Here's the proposed system:

Regular users who have fewer than 1000 mainspace edits: 1 credit
Regular users who have more than 1000 mainspace edits: 2 credits
Administrators: 4 credits
Bureaucrats: 6 credits
Editorial Board members: 8 credits

Sound fair? I simply don't think it works to have inactive users voting for users whom they know next to nothing about simply because they're "friendly" or "they're the one who gave me the welcome message." Get what I'm saying?

The other thing: What's so hard about putting a bolded "Agree" or "Disagree" before you post? It's clearly stated in the rules regarding voting!

Your thoughts?

 

[Argy]

This sounds reasonable to me, even though I'm sorry I'm not familiar with the situation.

I just have to say this:

The way I see the editorial board, and the way it is at many newspapers, is a group whose opinions, style, and experience (and stake in the creation and/or finances of the wiki) are respected enough to allow them to set the broad vision for the wiki. We focus on the general, whereas everyday editors/sysops are in charge of the specifics.

So, when I say that I think it is a good idea to recruit more sysops, it's for the means of delegation, not handing over power. The editorial board — and the fundamentals of Bulbapedia — will not change unless it decides so itself. On top of that, all decisions must be approved by Archaic or evkl regardless of who proposes them.

I think it may be beneficial to have non-editorial board sysops specialize in certain areas and report to certain members of the editorial board. For example, I'm the acting style editor, so sysops who do lots of work editing articles for grammar/spelling/style and aesthetics would report disputes to me.

The editorial board makes the rules. Sysops enforce those rules.

 

[Politoed666]

Seriously, doesn't anyone else find this remotely important?

 

[Martonimos]

You don't value ALL votes equally. I quote the page:

If the user has at least 10 votes, 2/3 of which are in his or her favor, and of those against, not more than half of them are the votes of a user that is already an administrator, they will gain the position of administrator. [emphasis added]

So all it would take is one or two "no" votes by an administrator to block a nominee from ever becoming an admin himself. Mathematically, it should only be one, but considering that your lone vote against Magnedeth didn't stop him from becoming an admin, it may be two. The problem then becomes that enough "no" votes from normal users (as long as they don't exceed half the umber of the "yes" votes) would override that block, meaning more no votes would ensure him the nomination.

Also, under these rules, a user who gets 7 yes and 3 no votes would get the nomination, whereas one with 9 yes and 0 no votes wouldn't. While the chances of that ever actually happening seem slim, it just doesn't feel right to me that that can happen.

These are my personal gripes with the system. As far as bad users electing a bad admin, I was worried about that (in fact, Jiouji Derako was trying to allay my fears), but considering what happened with Kuki, Tavisource, and Origamiguy (who, regardless of how good they are as normal users, I do NOT believe to be admin material), I don't think that's something we need to worry about too much.

EDIT: JD did also say that "the vote reason should matter at least as much as the vote itself." I think that's a good approach. Instead of assigning concrete numerical values to each vote, let the bureaucrats decide what each one should count for individually. I know it seems subjective, but let's face it: a process like this pretty much has to be.

 

[Maverick Nate]

Also, under these rules, a user who gets 7 yes and 3 no votes would get the nomination, whereas one with 9 yes and 0 no votes wouldn't. While the chances of that ever actually happening seem slim, it just doesn't feel right to me that that can happen.

So you say it won't work? I find that a little ironic because you are the one with 16 yes and 0 no and you don't think you will win? Change your thinking!

 

[Martonimos]

This isn't about me specifically. Also, it's 18 now. What I meant was that the rules say ten votes total, 2/3 of which must be positive.

7+3=10; 7/10=.7>6.6666666

9+0=9<10

So the guy with 9-0 in favor won't have the total number of votes (not positive votes, but total votes) necessary, while the guy with fewer people in his favor and three people against him would become an admin.

I'll admit that it's probable that the actual process wouldn't work that way. But that's how it's described on the page, and it could cause problems...

Edit: OK, now it's 21-1 in favor. One guy did vote against me. ...although I have no idea who he is, or where he comes from.

 

[electAbuzzzz]

I agree with Martonimos. I was actually thinking the exact same thing. It's not about us - Mart and I are both doing ok either way - but in theory, the situation is possible. So far the system hasn't let me down on any of the already-closed nominations, but I can see something like that happening.

~buzzzzy

 

[TTEchidna]

I was thinking that we could really just figure out what to do when it comes up and then base precedent on that. I mean, look at the first US President who died in office; he didn't even give the country a direction, he was President for such a short time. They figured out what to do due to that.

 

[Maxim Posthumus]

Huh. When I saw that debate about weighing of votes yesterday I said "I don't care unless someone nominates me". And what?! I got nominated!

Well, I don't think I'll be chosen because most of important people hate me or have some kind of grudge against me. But still, I'm proud of my nomination.

I know it'll sound like a political campaign but I can bring on a reason why I can be a good admin.

I'm one of main mistake correctors. Even though you may not like my "methods", you must admit that I corrected hundreds of mistakes, stupid trivias, false statements and misconceptions on Bulbapedia. Lately, I became less active but I can still do my work and I promise to be as active as I can. I didn't make many articles but all articles I made (or remade from scratch) are high quality and very informative. I never make stubs, unless it's needed for disambiguation or I wait for someone to expand it. I'm also sure I won't be abusive of my powers. I felt a power abuse on my back several times and I promise I won't do it myself. Please trust me. I'm the right person in the right place! Administratorship would really help me doing my work on Bulbapedia.

 

[Martonimos]

...not the place for that, dude. Like... at all.