Website

I have often thought about creating my own website, and hosting this blog under my own domain name. I first created my own website, as far as I can tell, on 5 October 2002. It's still in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, and I very helpfully put a "created site" date on it. I won't link to it, because I created it when I was naive and thoughtless with regards to my personal information, but it is extremely plain, created using HTML, no special effects, and includes pages about Disney films and the Simpsons. Pretty much, it looks just awful today in the world of Web 2.0. Obviously my ICT skills have improved much since, but I have to wonder if it is really worth creating a site about me. I have to wonder, do people actually care? I don't have a lot of hobbies: most of my time is either spent on the internet on Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube or Yahoo Answers, or else I'm studying. Apart from this blog (and of course my Facebook profile), I don't put anything about myself on to the web. Not because of fear of stalkers or for want of privacy, but because I don't think people actually care who I am. You'll notice that I haven't created a profile on Blogger, and I tend to keep information about me on Wikipedia to a minimum (I don't use my real name, don't give my age, though I do give my general location and there are pictures of me on Commons from various meetups). I have often thought about being really open - there are some that list all their phone numbers and their home and work address, as well as giving their full name. It would be nice, but I think to myself, what's the point? Would people look at me any differently? Would they care who Majorly really is? That's why I don't create my own website. I don't think people care enough, and I don't particularly either.

Commons RFA is turning into English Wikipedia RFA

Yes, you read right. It's a bit of a late post really because it's been happening slowly but surely for months, but I thought I'd write about it now. People try to promote the idea that Commons is a lovely place to work, where everyone works together in peace and harmony. Frankly, I prefer English Wikipedia. This is one of the reasons I resigned on Commons. While English Wikipedia is far from perfect, its community is larger so there are a larger variety of people.

While not strictly an RFA, ABF is having an RFB on Commons. People make a huge deal out of bureaucratship. I wish I knew why. Perhaps it's because they have the only irreversable action that can be given to just anyone (as opposed to Checkuser/Oversight where one must be identified and over 18). I have never understood why bureaucrats do not have ability to reverse +sysop. So much so, I managed to get the ability added on Meta-Wiki.

Anyhow, this RFA has had three opposes in particular that bother me, all by respected admins on the project, one a bureaucrat, two checkuser and two steward. Such people have influence, and they know it. So it is very important they use it wisely. Let's look at the opposes in question:

Oppose. ABF is a very good contributor to Wikimedia Commons, but I feel unsure about giving him the big mop. While I have no reason to believe he'd be unfit for user renaming or SUL stuff, I am really uncomfortable with giving him the ability to promote sysops. Nothing personal, I think ABF is a good sysop, but I happen to think we have much better candidates for bureaucratship. guillom 19:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

What's wrong with this? There's no evidence or examples. Not a single one. While RFA is of course about giving ones opinion on a candidate, it would be immensely helpful for the rest of us to give some kind of reason for this "bad feeling". Guillom has simply not explained how ABF would be bad choice, just that he would be.

Oppose I believe ABF is a hard worker and I am grateful for all the time he puts into Wikimedia Commons. I wish, however, he would have asked the advice of sitting bureaucrats before accepting this nomination. This is a completely different role than sysop; and while I trust ABF's abilities for the sysop role, I have to oppose his nomination for bureaucrat. This is not personal, nor is it an indictment of my faith in ABF's good faith and honest intent. Bastique ^demandez 19:18, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

What's wrong with this? Since when do people need to ask advice before nominating? We don't ask before making an admin nomination - why are bureaucrats so special? Bureaucratship is indeed a completely different role, but only as an historical accident. If things had gone differently, admins and bureaucrats could share the same abilities. It does not require any better judgement than an admin, even less so. I trust ABF to evaluate consensus on RFDs, as we should since he's an admin. Therefore, he should be trusted to evaluate consensus on RFAs, which are really a vote count anyway. Any sensible person with a calculator can do it. Bastique continues, explaining he trusts ABF as an admin, but not bureaucrat. He neglects to explain why though, and that it isn't personal (though of course it is personal, it's ABF's RFB...)

Oppose - ABF is a fine administrator but simply is not the best choice for this role. Despite ABF's activity in nominating users for adminship (and his participation in other RFAs where they are not the nominator), I do not think they have the requisite judgement to perform promotions. This is not to say that they are untrustworthy per se, however they are not well suited for this role. I too wish ABF had consulted some trusted users (whether bureaucrats or not) prior to this request. I would have much preferred to avoid making such statements in public, however given that this is a live request, I find myself unable to support this candidate. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 20:16, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Mike does not think he has the necessary "judgement" to perform promotions (though promotions are not difficult at all). As with the other two, he does not explain how he gets that idea, just that he does. And again, who is to suggest that ABF didn't contact anyone first (not that it's necessary)? He is supported by Cecil, a bureaucrat, who clearly thinks differently to the others. And there are other trusted people supporting him.

I am currently supporting him. I don't have issues with people opposing, but opposing with improper or lack of reasoning is unhelpful to the candidate, other voters, and merely looks like well-poisoning. Being opposed is not a pleasant thing, I assure you, especially from well-respect users. Pull your finger out and oppose properly if you have to do it.

Commons is not mellow

Some people say they love Commons. I have slowly started to hate it. I have found the community to be unfriendly and hostile. Most of my activity there recently is voting on RfAs, where the ridiculous strictness from enwiki has been gradually seeping through. There was a recent poll where the community were essentially planning to ban any new editor from voting on RfAs because they didn't have the necessary edit count. How friendly and welcoming from this supposedly "mellow" community. As well as this, some were trying to prevent people running because they didn't have 500 edits - editcountitis, editcountitis, editcountitis. There's so much more to experience than edits. Not according to Herbythyme, whose joke of an RfB is passing as a popularity contest. Those supporting cannot have looked at the way he hypocritically opposes people who had more experience than he did, people who have more experience than some of his candidates, and of course his friends. It's just really unfair. Frequent opposes on RfA for such poor reasoning makes me ill frankly. It is people like Herbythyme and Marcus Cyron (another frequent opposer, whose opposes are normally in all caps and with several exclamation marks) who put me off editing Commons more, and probably put off good potential admins with their "must... oppose... not got x edits..." attitude. They seriously need to chill out a bit on these requests, lighten up a little and remember it's just a website. And it is not a big deal, especially if the editor is an admin on another project. You can go and promote the "mellow" essay all you like - Commons' most regular editors are the least mellow people I've ever encountered.

Bot Approvals Group

Something that really irritates me is the Bot Approvals Group (or BAG). The job of the BAG is to basically, as the name states, approve (or not approve) bots. I don't know if this is still the case, but the BAG are a self-appointed little group who basically control which bots do and don't get to do stuff on Wikipedia. At one point, there were "mini-RfAs" that allowed people to join this little group. Following an MfD, they promised reform (much like Esperanza lol) and made the process more open - anyone can simply add themselves to the list. But it appears they've reverted back to the old "vote for me" way. I think bots that do get approved need some sort of technical knowledge in some ways, but I think bots and the approval process are one of the most overlooked features on Wikipedia. Why would that be? Well, most bots go unnoticed (with perhaps the exception of vandalbots and archivebots). We just take all their hard work for granted (well, the coder's hard work, but you know what I mean). The approvals take part on this page. You may notice the lack of voting and the very few editors participating in the discussion. Indeed, the page cries out "Please remember that all editors are encouraged to participate in the requests listed below. Just chip in - your comments are appreciated more than you may think!" Right, unless you have a BAG badge, and then your comments aren't considered
nearly as important. Consider the stark contrast to RfA - people are literally falling over one another to vote on as many RfAs as possible. Why is this? Is the bot page not advertised, or well known? Could it be that people are scared to comment on bots, because bots are "scary and evil" and if you let a bad one slip through it could destroy the wiki? On Commons, the bots are done on the same page as the RfAs. This makes sense to me - it's a bureaucrat's job either way, and having them in one place seems pretty sensible. Maybe to keep the page's loading time low, the transclusions could be turned to links? I just think the BAG is an utterly pointless waste of space. I'm currently participating in the discussion here, where I have proposed it be disbanded. Please comment there if you agree with me.

NotTheWikipediaWeekly MFD

This MFD is one of the most ridiculous I've seen in recent times. It's of the latest NTWW episode, which contains conversations with Somey (Wikipedia review admin), Moulton, and Greg Kohs. Apparently, the episodes are allowing banned users to contribute to Wikipedia via ogg... the banning policy does not state that users cannot speak on to Wikipedia, and if this is a convenient loophole then so be it. As most people know, I disagree with the part of the banning policy, where banned users edits are reverted on sight. If a user comes back and edits productively, they should just be left to get on with it. If they are discovered, then block them fine, but leave the edits. Anyway, NonvocalScream, an editor (at least under this name) here since January nominated the page for deletion. Luckily, most people are seeing sense and voting to keep, but there are some (who I expected) who are voting to delete. Which doesn't make much sense - they are voting to delete something that no banned editors have touched, or even spoken on! As I stated on the page, the ogg files are going to stay regardless of what happens to the page, as they are hosted on Commons, a separate site to Wikipedia. This nomination is completely pointless, won't achieve anything apart from drama, drama and more drama, and all it's done is given more publicity to NTWW - which is good.