RuneScape:Requests for adminship/Gaz Lloyd

Gaz Lloyd
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RfA

I would like to nominate Gareth for bureaucratship. I believe that Gareth has several qualities that I look for in a bureaucrat.

First, Gareth exhibits good judgmental skills and demonstrates an exceptional ability to be neutral even in the most divisive cases. He always stays calm in discussions, and does not harbor strong views to any particular side. Gareth always stays calm and clear in RfA discussions, and the same is true in the opposite case: desysop/derank discussions. A more extreme example would be in Forum:Why is Stinkowing still an administrator?, where, despite the heated nature of the discussion, Gareth was able to deliver a thorough and fairly unemotional decision. The same is true in Forum:Request to Lower a Rank. In both cases, Gareth avoided the more scathing language that leads to heated wars. He demonstrates the ability to take the "high ground" quite well. In the other discussions that Gareth has participated in, he takes a similar approach. I am extremely satisfied with him and am confident in his ability to properly handle RfA closures.

Another aspect that I find commendable is Gareth's altruism of sorts. He always puts the community's decision first, regardless of whether or not it conflicts with his own beliefs. The most recent example of this is in Forum:Clan Camp, where Gareth simply laid out the situation and let the community decide what it would prefer to have. This is definitely something that I would like to see in a bureaucrat. The community should always come first.

There is also the matter of Gareth's activity. There have been recent complaints about "inactive" bureaucrats. Gareth would definitely change that, as he is constantly present in the IRC and in-game. He is well-known to most users, which definitely makes him much more approachable than the age-old bureaucrats like Oddlyoko or Eucarya. Gareth's high level of activity means that he is accessible when needed but not overly influenced by a few members of the community. Furthermore, Gareth also demonstrates a strong commitment to the wiki, as he is the bedrock of many of its channels, including the Clan Chat and Skype. I am confident that Gareth will be with us for a long time.

Gareth's delineation between work and play is also commendable. While Gareth likes to have fun (who doesn't?), he knows what is appropriate and what is not appropriate for each particular venue. While he "lets his hair down" in places like the IRC (he habitually makes a good-natured sport out of trolling me, for example), he is one of the most uptight users in the Yew Grove. Gareth knows when it is appropriate to have a bit of fun and knows when he needs to be professional. The lack of connection between the two realms is quite important, even more so for a bureaucrat who is both accessible to the community ("play" realm) and professional in his duties ("work" realm)

Anyways, that is why I believe Gareth would make a wonderful bureaucrat. Thanks for your time, folks. 19:55, May 18, 2011 (UTC)

''I accept this nomination for bureaucratship. I understand that the only difference between bureaucratship and the administrative ability that I already have is that I am able to assign user rights. I understand that I may not, for any reason, delegate any form of adminship to any user who has not passed an appropriate RFA, RFB, or RFF. Lastly, I understand that the respective agreement in regards to standard adminship still applies. Signed,'' 21:42, May 18, 2011 (UTC).

Questions for the nominee
1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?

The standard bureaucrat - user rights and revdel - and administrator - delete/block/protect/close etc - actions when required. I also plan to keep up my current editing rate, or even higher as I have several months of free time starting this Friday. There are always articles in need of cleanup, vandals to be reverted, and in general things to be done on wiki.

I would also like to note that while I do not post on every Forum thread or RfA, I do add every one (and many of the RfDs and other RuneScape namespace discussions) to my watchlist (which I use the email notification feature) to keep up to date on wiki matters, and I read and understand them all, posting my comments when I see the need.

2. What are your best contributions to the RuneScape Wiki, and why?

I am proud of my contributions to the calculators on-wiki, especially after making complex code, that I have spent a half-hour working on, work as I intended it to. However, I feel my "best" contributions to the wiki are to the community aspects, where I provide my knowledge, assistance and slightly quirky humour to the members of the friends/clan chats, IRC channel, and events team. I hope to continue my contributions to the community for a long time to come, regardless of the result.

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

None significant enough for me to remember recently. As almost every candidate says, I (try to) keep a cool head in a conflict and will resolve it in a calm manner. I also attempt to keep the medium a ruckus is arising in as cool an atmosphere as possible, doing my best to avert flame wars.

Additional questions (asked by the community if necessary)
Looking over previous Requests for adminship, are there any that you feel should have been closed differently or left open? 20:16, May 18, 2011 (UTC)


 * I concentrated on recent RfAs, as the further back you go the less the RfA discussion reflects the current standard.
 * I did not notice any RfA where I seriously disagreed with result, as our 'crats are competent at determining consensus. there were two example comparisons I would like to comment on:
 * [ Thebrains222 (unsuccessful)] vs [ Thebrains222 (successful)]. Only three months apart, yet the first is very close and is closed as no consensus, but the second is quite clearly successful.
 * [ Sentra246 (unsuccessful)] vs [ Sentra246 (successful)]. Almost 4 months between them, and only a slight change in the opinion of editors. However this slight change is enough to push from no consensus into successful.
 * I should note that (for the second one) I would have either extended the nomination a further week, or closed as no consensus - however reading Caleb's reasoning as fair and sound, and of course (as far as I have seen) Sentra has proven himself a capable admin.
 * It was good for me to see the difference between the pairs, both in terms of the first from the second, and between the two then-candidates. It shows that some fairly small changes in terms of the candidates behaviour, and the other editors opinions, can change from unsuccessful RfA to a successful RfA.
 * That may have gone slightly off-topic, but it will help me in determining RfA consensus should this pass. 21:42, May 18, 2011 (UTC)

What is your stance on bureaucrats being forced to maintain relative inactivity to remain impartial? 21:56, May 18, 2011 (UTC)


 * If it is forced I don't think it should be. As I implied in the questions above, I think bureaucrats should be allowed to be as active or inactive as they like. Forcing (or just implying forcing, as it is the default) can just lead to less edits and valid input by what are often the most valued/senior of contributors to the wiki. As long as a neutral point of view is used when closing discussions, I don't see any reason for any bureaucrat to be 'forced' into inactivity to be neutral/impartial. Per above, I intend to not lose activity. 22:26, May 18, 2011 (UTC)

Discussion
Support - As nominator. 19:56, May 18, 2011 (UTC)

Strong Support - It's worth coming out of retirement for three minutes to support this. Liquid covered everything, really, though I'd like to point out that Gaz has demonstrated this level of maturity on a very consistent basis. I can't remember a time over the course of the past three years when Gaz was any different from the way he is now. 20:10, May 18, 2011 (UTC)

 Pending Strong Oppose - I trust Gaz completely, and I have no doubt in his abilities to make a fine bureaucrat. But I really don't think we need another one right now. Caleb JUST got it. I never see lingering requests in BR, and everything else seems to be running smoothly. Unlike sysop, bureaucrat should really only be given if we need them. Unless someone is planning to go inactive soon, I really don't think we need another. I'll give this some more thought over the next two weeks and see what I think then. 20:32, May 18, 2011 (UTC)
 * I have given this a lot of thought, and I have changed my opinion a little. Gaz is an excellent sysop and I think that's where he should stay for now. In the event that we need another bureaucrat, this can be back on the table.  17:08, May 20, 2011 (UTC)

Pending - per Halo. Nothing against Gaz..he's awesome and could definitely handle it, but we really aren't in need of another 'crat right now... 20:40, May 18, 2011 (UTC)
 * Neutral - Sorry Gaz, I just don't think we need another 'crat at the moment. Luv you though, and I'll still execute you by firing squad as normal  20:53, May 20, 2011 (UTC)
 * Guard, volley fire at 100 yards, guard... load! 21:02, May 20, 2011 (UTC)

Neutral, I love Gaz, but I don't see the need for another 'crat at the moment. 22:13, May 18, 2011 (UTC)
 * I love you too bro. 22:29, May 18, 2011 (UTC)
 * Stop arguing Gaz. 22:32, May 18, 2011 (UTC)

Support - I would like some of our 'crats to be more active. I am not talking about anyone in particular, but it's an overall sentiment that I feel and is sometimes joked about. It appears that there is an unofficial "rule" that the moment you get the light blue hilite, you disappear only resurfacing for RfA's, requests and maybe some editing every now and then. I trust that Gaz can help change this. 06:16, May 19, 2011 (UTC)

Oppose When the day comes we need another 'crat, Gaz will be the first to have my full support. But crat tools should be much more limited, for the simple reason that there is barely any need for them. I am not going to actually count, but how many crat actions were needed in the last 30 days? They close RFAs and grant rollback and that other newish position thing we made up. And revision delete. Sorry, there is just all too little call for these actions. The day we need someone, Gaz is the man. Right now it is pointless to me. Sorry bro.--Degenret01 06:44, May 19, 2011 (UTC)

Oppose - While I don't agree with the argument that there is some sort of quota on bearcats, I do have some issues with Gaz becoming one that prevent me from supporting this.
 * a) My biggest concern is whether or not Gaz can stay completely neutral in closing RfAs. It seems to me that he is sometimes partial to his friends in closing threads.[1][2] I fear that he can be influenced behind-the-scenes by others (including myself) too easily. If he is to become a bearcat, he needs to be able to completely shut himself out from anything like that on any RfA he is going to close.
 * b) Pursuant to the above, I am not sure Gaz is really a deep thinker. I mean no offense by this, but I feel that he is less involved in serious and philosophical discussions that I would hope. Furthermore, I have not often seen him explain and substantiate his position on an issue, whether in discussion or in closure. As much as I disagreed with Caleb's closing of Sentra's RfA, he was able to rationally explain his thought process, and I expect all other bearcats to do the same.
 * c) Gaz is not really active on the wiki. Yes, I know he's in-game and on IRC 24/7, but that's not all I'm looking for in activity. I've said at times that the benefits of having an active bearcat are twofold; they are around more often to fill requests, but they also have the distinct viewpoint of truly being involved in the nitty-gritty parts of the wiki, like countervandalism or taking charge with new updates. Gaz clearly satisfies the first part of this, but looking over his contributions from the last six months or so shows me that he really does not do as much basic editing as I want to see.
 * d) As a follow-up to "c", I think our current group of bearcats could use a jolt. The four semi-active bearcats do not do a whole lot in the way of editing, and that is certainly understandable. Unfortunately, their general absence from the community has reinforced the notion that somehow bearcats are better, their edits rarer, and their appearances more elusive. I do not think that this is good or sustainable, and I think it needs to change. While Gaz is certainly more present and accessible than the rest of the group, I doubt that he can truly be revolutionary, and I doubt that he can change the stigma of bearcats.

Gaz is a leader of the community, a smart guy and someone I'm glad to call my friend, but I don't think his set of skills and his frame of mind suit bearcatship. Gaz, feel free to reply to this if I've mischaracterized anything. 07:24, May 19, 2011 (UTC)

Neutral - I strongly disagree with the notion that there is no need for more bureaucrats right now. There has been an increasing need for revision delete in the last few months. I do not know how often others come across this situation, but there have been over 30 instances where I needed a bureaucrat to revision delete links to malware and virus-ridden sites in the last two months, but none showed up for the next several hours. While the closing of RfAs and the assignment of rollback and custodian rights are not highly urgent, almost all cases which require the use of revision deletion are. Potentially harmful links should be hidden from the public's view so that no one might happen across it and have his or her computer infected. Additionally, the pages targeted with this kind of vandalism are usually high-traffic pages and have several hundreds of revisions; it is neither easy nor fast deleting the entire page and restoring the appropriate revisions. Furthermore, this is increasingly important to consider if other revisions have already been deleted for the same reason(s) since it must be made sure that those revisions do not surface. Because of this, revision deletion is obviously highly preferred, but I really wish that it was not required to wait around for the odd chance that a bureaucrat shows up to revision delete something for me. That being said, I hold some of the same reservations Cook has addressed in his post above. While Gaz is a great guy and is surely able to determine consensus well, I believe he may be swayed a little bit too easily by others. This is not something I would wish to see in a bureaucrat. In any case, I would still truly like to see an active bureaucrat some time soon although my standards for "active" might be higher than that of most people. 08:03, May 19, 2011 (UTC)

Weak neutral (if that makes any sense) - I almost opposed per Cook, although I agree with Suppa in that a more active, editing 'crat is needed - the last bureaucrat I saw editing anything in the mainspace was Caleb un-redlinking 2 pages. Gaz isn't particularly active by way of editing anyway, although his continuous presence in IRC/CC is an asset, so someone can always nab him to laz0r some inappropriate revisions. I'm weak neutral because I'll change my stance quite easily, but I'm not supporting/opposing. 14:37, May 19, 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Sorry Gaz, I just don't see a need for the tools, either in you or around the wiki. While it would be nice to see turquoise in the RC more, I rarely see you in there anyway, so I don't think you'd fill the space for an actively editing 'crat. 15:12, May 27, 2011 (UTC)

Weak oppose - In an email reply from Uberfuzzy to Azaz129, he wrote: "One thing We've always admired about your wiki is even though you have a way above average number of sysops, you have managed to keep the bureaucrat list small, showing that you understand what that roll is meant for, and not just another checkbox."[1]

While I believe we will always need sysops, there is no such need to have additional bureaucrats regardless of the entrants qualifications. Should the need for a new bureaucrat arise, Gareth would be in a similar predicament as Murphy had stated above, "When the day comes we need another 'crat, Gaz will be the first to have my full support." Until such a time arises, I do not feel that anyone needs the additional rights of UserManagement or RevisionDelete as the later can be solved through additional and enhancing the existing edit filters. 15:38, May 19, 2011 (UTC)
 * That phrase that Uberfuzzy said was a large part of my thinking in my comment.  17:45, May 19, 2011 (UTC)

Pending - Per Ryan. I'm sure the time will come. 19:51, May 19, 2011 (UTC)

Strong support - I would just like to point out that the "not needed yet, but some day, therefore oppose" argument rings very hollow to me. Barring significant brain surgery, Gaz is still going to be the same person on that day in the future as he is today. If the community plans to give him the tools at that future point, there is absolutely no reason not to grant them today. Anyone who knows him knows better than to even suspect that he's going to use them badly during this interval.

I don't believe there is any merit to keeping a small list of bureaucrats (as is implied by Uberfuzzy above) so long as everyone on that list uses the rights productively. If a bureaucrat does even one useful task, they have contributed some measurable positive good to the wiki. Artificially restricting the number is essentially akin to saying that it's a status symbol, rather than simply the ability to perform certain tasks. That's not what I think it's about and I hope I am right in saying it isn't what Gaz thinks either. He can do the job and should be allowed to do the job. 00:05, May 20, 2011 (UTC)
 * You cannot say for certain that he will be the same. Look what happened to Jediadam.  I'm near certain he didn't have any brain surgery  00:16, May 20, 2011 (UTC)
 * He probably didn't have any surgery, but he also didn't significantly change. Looking back with hindsight I'm reasonably confident that most people who knew him and had seen him around would be able to tell that given the kind of consequence-free opportunity that maxing out and quitting provided, he'd do something like that. 00:26, May 20, 2011 (UTC)

Neutral - You're a great sysop, but what I have seen hasn't convinced me that you need or would neccessarily use them effectively 00:16, May 20, 2011 (UTC)

Oppose Gaz is a great guy. He's always on the IRC and the Friend's Chat and ready to help. But as a lot of user's have already said, we don't need another 'crat right now. My other problem is that even though he has a large amount of edits, is active on the Yew Grove, I just don't see him editing in the mainspace as much. If someone can show me that i'm wrong on one of those points I oppose. Spamnub 00:23, May 20, 2011 (UTC)

Strong Support - I honestly think that you would make a great Bureaucrat, not only because of your fantastic ways here on the wiki, but also because of the fact that you are simply more active on the wiki, than our bureaucrats Oddlyoko, Dtm142, Whiplash, Laser Dragon and Eucarya all put together. I would love to see us get a more active bureaucrat on here to help with issues that are more urgent than oddlyoko's "...I'll visit once a week after I get my weekly digest...". I definitely support your nomination for Bureaucratship. 11:26, May 20, 2011 (UTC)
 * Uh, Adam, three of the five people you mentioned are inactive. 16:37, May 20, 2011 (UTC)
 * There are anonymous users that are more active than Oddlyoko/Eucarya/Whiplash put together - 16:41, May 20, 2011 (UTC)
 * And, excluding Whiplash the others have been gone for an extremely long time. 17:00, May 20, 2011 (UTC)

Support - I was actually going to put my opinion on the matter sooner if I had thought of a better way to express it than what bull already said; Gaz is very trust-able, helpful, and a good editor -very good qualities for a 'crat to have, as such I don't see the need to oppose because "there's enough 'crats" 12:32, May 20, 2011 (UTC)

Oppose - We should only get another crat when we need another crat. Currently I see no need for another crat, as virtually every request is dealt with in under 24 hours. I don't have much of an opinion on whether Gaz would make a good crat or not, but there is just no need for another crat at this time. 06:04, May 21, 2011 (UTC)

Very strong support Liquid's covered everything I was going to say.--  Joelthefrog1   11:46, May 21, 2011 (UTC)

Oppose - I agree with Degen and the others, there's just no need for another right now. -- 12:02, May 21, 2011 (UTC)

Oppose - Even though Gaz is a great person, I don't think it is good to make him a bureaucrat. Even though he is good at looking at what the community wants, I think that some users might have an influence on what Gaz would close a RfA with. This is something cook said, but also something I see myself. He might be a little bit too easy to have an influence on for some people to be a bureaucrat. Sorry. 17:22, May 21, 2011 (UTC)

Oppose - Per all. Gaz is an excellent choice, but we have no need for an additional 'crat. -- 17:36, May 22, 2011 (UTC)

Oppose - Per Cook. While I believe Gaz is a great person, I fear he might be influenced easily, which would result in biased RfA closings. Sorry. 17:41, May 23, 2011 (UTC)

Oppose - I agree with cook. -- 14:59, May 30, 2011 (UTC)