Board Thread:Wiki-Related Discussion/@comment-4839682-20140801184737

Hello again, dearies! As part of my ongoing efforts to get the community involved in everything, I've got a new discussion topic.

I am often asked what the requirements are, or how to become an admin. I think it's high time we have an open community discussion about how we determine our staff members. PLEASE NOTE: I am NOT looking to or suggesting we should promote any new staff at this time. Given the size and activity of this community, we really don't need anymore right now.

First, let me explain a few things!

When I say "Staff members", I am referring to specific classes of users that have special "rights", or abilities on the wiki.

These are:
 * Chat Moderators - Chat Mods have the ability to kick and ban people from chat. (kicks are kind of like warnings, the user can reenter chat immediately, and bans are for a length of time the mod sets) They have no power outside of the chat room.
 * Rollbacks - Rollbacks have the ability to "revert" edits in one click. This means that every edit by the last editor on the particular editor is undone, and removed from the Recent Activity. This is a powerful tool meant to be used for removing vandalism. Rollbacks do not have any other abilities.
 * Administrators - Admins have many abilities. Thhey have both chat mod and rollback privileges, as well as the ability to protect articles, edit the MediaWiki namespace (MediaWiki things determine a lot of how the wiki looks, the pages are very important!), make deletions, rename files, etc. They can promote and demote rollbacks and mods.
 * Bureaucrats - Bureaucrats are essentially admins with one difference - they can create admins. Being a bureaucrat is a very serious role and a huge trust; only a Wikia staff member or the bureaucrat theirself can demote them.
 * Bureaucrats - Bureaucrats are essentially admins with one difference - they can create admins. Being a bureaucrat is a very serious role and a huge trust; only a Wikia staff member or the bureaucrat theirself can demote them.

Alright, with those definitions cleared up, let's go over how we currently do promotions. What has been happening in the past, and is the case with every user who has been promoted in the 2+ years I've been here, myself included, is that an admin suggests to the other admin to promote ____ to a position, an agreement is reached, and it's done. The only time someone has been demoted (that wasn't a self demotion or from extreme inactivity) was decided the same way.

Now, what I feel should be discussed is how the community as a whole feels about this. Is this how we want things to continue? Do we want to explore a new way of doing this?

There are a number of ways this can be done, and different wikis around Wikia have differing methods as well...


 * We could continue with the current system. An admin finds a user they think deserves/would be a good fit, it is discussed with the other admins, a decision is reached, and is then acted upon. I will say that most of the suggestions have been made by me, and the admins as a group strive to promote users that do good works for the community, and that will fit in with the existing staff members. Every promotion (and demotion, of which there have only been two) has been a unanimous decision. We consider ourselves a team, and strive to do the best for the community. Of course, this leaves little decision for the community at large.
 * There are communities in which the bureaucrat(s) and/or admins make all the promotion/demotion decisions alone and at their discretion. I am not advocating or in favor of this, just pointing out that it is a system some wikis (usually smaller, newer ones) use. (I'm already accused of being a tyrant enough, I would never go this far! XD )
 * There are also communities in which polls are used and whoever is voted for gets whatever the promotion is. As in, a user makes a nomination, it is voted on, and that's done. I'm not in favor of this, either, as I personally think polls are a poor method of voting (they have their place, but are crazy easy to manipulate)
 * There are many communities that nominate and discuss, with the goal of reaching a consensus, then act accordingly. As in, a user makes a nomination, it is discussed and those who wish to do so give their opinions, and then it's acted upon.

^^^^I think these are the major methods, if I'm missing any, please let me know.

Additionally, I want to discuss making complaints against staff. At the present time, we actually don't get a lot of "formal" complaints, but it does pop up in discussions that users don't like something, usually to the staff member directly. And usually when a staffer is giving a "warning" or explaining things to a user. I have also received complaints through other means, such as the chatroom or facebook or chats elsewhere. We have tried to encourage users to talk things out with the person they have issues with, either here or somewhere (Community Central is a good neutral place) or bring it to another staff member.

However, that's not always easy to do, is it? XD Every staff member is very much aware that we have had reputations in the past, and we haven't always been the nicest, or come off in a negative way. We are all human, tho! And we're working on it. And it's not easy to complain about someone with "power", whether directly to them or to someone else. If anyone has any two cents about this, please chime in.

I don't ever want anyone to feel uncomfortable or unheard. We are all equals, and that is the end we are striving for. 