User:Silly Dan/Admin questions

From Wookieepedia, the Star Wars wiki.

Contents 1 GHe's questions 2 Darth Culator's questions 3 Kuralyov's question 4 Imperialles' question

[edit] GHe's questions

G1 Why do you want to become an administrator?

I got nominated by RMF and some of the other IRC regulars. I decided since a lot of my time on the wiki was spent reverting vandalism, tagging nonsense for deletion, and joining in discussions which were on their way to consensus, I might as well accept the nomination.

At the time, the practice of asking nominated users a series of questions to see what sort of admin they'd be hadn't been established. It wasn't until LtNOWIS's nomination that we started doing this extensively. After Imp and Darth Culator answered the current set of questions, I decided that I should as well.

G2 In your opinion, what is the role of an administrator?

To improve the wiki by implementing consensus and policies, blocking disruptive users, deleting unnecessary articles and images/multimedia, and helping new users.

Also, apparently, being called "gay" by random idiots.

G3 In your view, do administrators hold a technical or political position?

It was originally a technical position: and in most ways, it is. There's nothing stopping other users from proposing changes to policy, warning possible vandals, marking articles for deletion, etc. However, it's gradually slipped into a political position, partly because we're given slightly more say in the voting when choosing more admins and bureaucrats, and partly because we're the ones who are the "public face" of the project. Thus, it's important for us to tread wisely when exercising certain powers.

G4 How do feel admins should use their power/stand in comparison with other users?

Carefully.

G5 Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

Oddly enough, the articles I specialize in tend not to attract edit wars. There are a few protracted policy discussions which were a bit annoying, but if I got angry at any other users, I hope that I didn't type it out. The closest I came may have been this page and related discussions, but I think my feelings there might have been best described as "angrily neutral." I hope I didn't completely poison my relations with any other users here.

G6 Of your articles or contributions to Wookieepedia, are there any with which you are particularly pleased, and why?

Wookieepedia:What Wookieepedia is not codified a lot of common sense for me, Time travel and Herrit summarized some of the "wacky fun" parts of the EU, and making sure all the GG4 and GG12 aliens had non-stub articles was something which I think helped the overall quality of the wiki. (Note: I do not mean to say that I destubbed all of the GG4 and GG12 alien articles here, or that I did everything myself: but I destubbed a lot.) I de-copyvioed Han Solo, but all that's left of what I wrote are some stray sentences in the section on his early career and the Original Trilogy.

G7 What sysop chores do you anticipate helping with?

I delete a lot of things, have blocked a lot of vandal sockpuppets, and rollback nonsense.

G8 How important is it for you to be involved in things such as CT, IDrive, FA, and other community-centered items that involve discussion and voting?

So important that I should get back to helping out with that.

G9 Do you think admins performing actions (I.e. deletions, blocks, etc.) for reasons not covered on policy should be sanctioned/punished? If so, how?

They should at least be prepared to explain their actions to other users.

G10 What is your policy, if any, of welcoming new users? Should you welcome a new user, do you look at his/her contributions beforehand? What about anonymous IPs?

I always check at least one edit before welcoming a new username. Then I welcome them with {{w}} alone, {{w}} and a "please don't do that" warning, or by blocking a vandal sockpuppet (which is all they're after anyway.)

Anonymous editors get the {{anon}} template only if they seem to have been making a lot of non-useless edits.

G11 How would you react if someone undeleted an article you'd mistakenly speedied? Under what circumstances would you consider it appropriate to undelete an article mistakenly speedied by another administrator, if any, and how would you approach this task?

I'd either reconsider my actions and thank them for catching my mistake, or ask them why they undeleted it and take no further action. I think the three-revert rule can be informally thought of as applicable to admin actions as well, so I don't like to revert another admin's blocks, unblocks, deletions, or restorations very often.

G12 How would you react if your user page was vandalized? Under what circumstances would you block the offender? Is there anything else that you would do in this situation?

I'd ask them not to do that, but I'd only block them if they kept it up after a warning, if they were engaging in blatant vandalism (a troll-only account), or if their username was unacceptable.

G13 Under what circumstances would you consider blocking an established user?

Under the terms established in the blocking policy. If they don't like it, they can request an unblock, and I'd probably unblock them (especially if a reasonable explanation or genuine-seeming apology was given.) We've had very few established users who've done anything worth more than a 24-hour "cooling off" or "warning" block though: which is exactly what I'd expect. Most people start editing a specialist wiki to improve it, not to wreck it, and the ones who keep at it are the ones who want to improve it. I think the opposite case, where a disruptive user becomes a productive user, is more likely (though that's going to be rare too, unfortunately.)

G14 If you could change any one thing about Wookieepedia, what would it be?

We should be more polite and welcoming to new users. This means welcoming new users with {{w}}, giving warnings instead of blocks for bad edits made in good faith, and not using "anon" as though it's a synonym for "dumbass."

G15 Would you look at a glass to be half-empty or half-full?

Depends what it's a glass of.

[edit] Darth Culator's questions

C1 Do you feel the current blocking policy is too restrictive, not restrictive enough, or OK as it is?

I like it fine. I think I even voted for it.

C2 Have you ever considered becoming a regular visitor to the Wookieepedia IRC chat?

I'm there right now.

C3 How do you feel about people who already have some influence on other Star Wars communities (TheForce.Net, StarWars.com) trying to change policies here?

I don't like it very much. It's not because I don't like those communities, but because we have an established community here, with our own set of rules. It's inevitable that these rules will be different from fansite to fansite: not so much because our site or their site is wrong, but because we're trying to do different things.

What I dislike even more, though, is when people threaten to leave Wookieepedia because one policy "ruins the whole thing." I started out writing all of my articles in present tense, and I still don't like those era tags very much, but I stuck around anyway, didn't I?

What I dislike even more than that is when people try to drag Wookieepedia to become wholly supportive of their fan ideology, or badmouth Wookieepedia elsewhere because they perceive it as overrun by some fan ideology. This is because I think fan factionalism is inherently silly and sometimes obnoxious, especially once it gets to the level of manifestos full of rhetoric and invective. (And yet, Star Wars fans still seem, for the most part, to be more polite to each other than Robotech fans. I have little good to say about my time in that online fandom...though I wonder where they keep their wiki....)

C4 How many clones do you think fought in the Clone Wars? (Note: You are wrong no matter what answer you give.)

OK, here's my wrong answer.

A lot of people have complained that a few million soldiers isn't enough to fight a galactic war. However, it occurs to me that if you're cloning an entire army in a single city, it would be tough to get more than a few million clones without running out of space and food. Plus, if you're using the members of the Jedi order (minus librarians, little kids, defectors, and solitary agents mostly off doing their own things) for almost all of the high-ranking officers, there's only a few thousand of them to go around.

Since new EU like the New Essential Chronology talks about conscripts, volunteers, and clones from other sources joining in, and pre-2002 EU had lots of Clone Wars veterans who weren't Jedi and didn't even vaguely resemble Temuera Morrison, though, I'm forced to assume that the Jedi-led Mandalorian-trained Kamino-produced Clones weren't the whole of the Republic's forces. They just showed up in all of the most important battles of the war for the same reasons Luke Skywalker and pals never missed a decisive moment in the Galactic Civil War — a combination of being the best forces available, and simple narrative convention. As to what absolute fraction of the Republic's forces they made up, I won't even try to answer.

If some newer EU, or your interpretation of the films or of existing EU contradicts that answer, that's fine with me. "Just think to yourself it's just a show, I should really just relax."

If you don't like that, here are the correct answers I can rotate through when next asked: "Lots", "Enough", and "Whatever it says in the Holocron continuity database."

C5 Who is the most awesome Jedi of all time? (Note: The only correct answer is Kyle Katarn.)

Kyle Katarn, though whenever I play him he's not so good with the lightsabre.

[edit] Kuralyov's question

K1 Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?

I'm not officially a member of any political party, though I've steadily voted for the NDP's candidates. I've always looked for reasons to vote for the Liberals instead, but they keep running lame candidates in my riding.

If I were British, I'd vote Labour, unless they annoyed me enough to turn to the Lib Dems. If I were American, I'd be a registered Democrat. I don't understand the internal politics of any other countries enough to say more.

Details of my "in-universe" ideologies may be found in my userboxes.

[edit] Imperialles' question

I1 What's more important to you: consensus or policy? --Imp 00:24, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

If consensus is to change policy, we may need to change the policy.