Mailer diablo's RfB, Cyde bravely leads the opposition Options

[guy]

Don't often get a chance to discuss an RfB. I think Mailer diablo is OK. Cyde weys is opposing, which may indicate something.

[Nathan]

Haha. I'd automatically support anyone Cyde opposes.

"The enemy of my enemy.." and all that.

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[Somey]

Cyde is only opposing Mailer diablo (along with Cyde's female counterpart, "pschemp") because Mailer diablo put himself in the "Administrators open to recall" category.

Everyone has to understand that User:Cyde's admin status on Wikipedia is the single most important thing in the entire world to him. It's how he defines himself. Any threat to that status, including the existence of other admins who suggest reforms that might eventually lead to his own loss of that status, must, in his view, be attacked and opposed without hesitation. It's the most obvious thing in the world, and IMO it's also the most sad and pathetic thing on Wikipedia. Poor wittle Cydeweys! "WAAAAAAAAAH!"

He's even gone so far recently as to say things like:

Administrating is about administrating, not writing articles ... you don't need any special tools to write articles (and indeed if you're only going to write articles, you don't need adminship). He's added to the general confusion of RFA, in addition to the weird recall thing as pointed out by Pschemp.

We do seem to be experiencing some sort of new uprising of admins who think that other admins who don't spend as much time writing articles are worthless. Let me respond to that accusation. I don't spend too much time writing articles. Why? Because anyone can do it, whereas not everyone can program. To the people claiming that my contributions aren't valuable because I'm not mostly devoted to working on articles, I respond with this: you go add significant functionality to pyWikipediaBot.

This, of course, is coming from someone who essentially never writes articles at all, since he's barely coherent most of the time, and far too busy protecting that precioussssss "SysOp bit" of his to do much of anything else. And sorry, Benjy-boy - unlike you, I both write and program, and I can tell you it's often a lot easier to do the former properly than the latter.

So what were we on about? Oh, yeah... Mailer diablo does seem like a decent sort, actually.

[Nathan]

Somey: Of course. He has no power anywhere else, he's just some fat kid in school. (Maybe "the" fat kid in school who was always picked on..sorry, I couldn't resist that one)

So now he likes what power he has, it goes to his head and he abuses it why...because he's some faceless person (ok not so faceless that we don't have his picture) on the net that nobody can do anything about.

You know the line from one of the Superman movies "With great power comes great responsibility"? It's true for anyone who has any position of responsibility over others (I'm a director for a webhosting provider - I can't just suspend someone's account because I don't like them - it's the same thing with Wikipedia - having the power to do what you want doesn't always mean you should "just because you can"). You have to have some sort of social skills, problem solving skills, etc. He doesn't have any of that (should be a requirement but it isn't). He doesn't own up to his mistakes, as though he's 100% perfect. He has never seriously apologised to anyone for wronging them.

I could write more but meh..

Anyway, I like the "Administrators open to recall" idea. I suppose it makes me Cyde's mortal enemy all the more (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif) (hmm I'm starting to enjoy that idea way too much)

I never really thought of pschemp as Cyde's female equivalent..she seemed fairly nice at one time, I can't speak for how she is now because I haven't been watching.

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[Somey]

he's some faceless person (ok not so faceless that we don't have his picture) on the net that nobody can do anything about.

What we're doing may be enough, actually. Even if it's all we really can do, one must never understimate the power of Google.

I never really thought of pschemp as Cyde's female equivalent..she seemed fairly nice at one time, I can't speak for how she is now because I haven't been watching.

Just to be clear, "counterpart" and "equivalent" aren't the same thing, IMO. One might almost use the term "meat puppet," but the main thing is that they're in lockstep on this one issue (i.e., admin recall and accountability), as well as the general idea that people they dislike are "incapable of change," which really just means they'll always dislike (and try to ban) them no matter what happens later on.

They're also both convinced, and try to convince others, that banning the people they dislike is an always-effective way to remove them completely, as if the ones who even care don't just come back under different account names, or don't appear on sites like this one, which is just as capable of being indexed by Google as any other site on the web. It's a function of being power-mad to convince yourself that your so-called "power" is much greater than it actually is.

They could be quite different in many other ways, but as admins they're peas in a pod. Even if they're not deliberately coordinating their efforts, they might as well be.

[Nathan]

Yeah, that's completely ridiculous..you can't say someone's "incapable of change" if you really have no idea what they're capable of in the first place, like you can't presume to "know" someone if all you know of them consists of a few personal dealings through Wikipedia (or some other place on the net).

I'm capable of going down to Maryland and giving Cyde a good punch in the face but you don't see me doing it (he'd win by sitting on me and crushing me). Now now..I shouldn't be so mean. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

I think Cyde needs that thing called a social life (I should speak for myself) to get him away from the computer and to do other things instead. But OH NOES he would be leaving the only thing he cares about (I love sarcasm). I'll bet if he applied all this energy he wastes on Wikipedia to his actual school work, he'd be a straight-A student. I wonder how he can even have time for school when he spends so much time on Wikipedia.

And about the rest..wow..pschemp didn't strike me as someone who'd do that..that really disappoints me (but realistically speaking, you can't really guess what someone would do with adminship until they actually have it, so RFA's are a bit presumptuous in that respect - it's like asking the community if they're willing to trust you with that power with what very little they know of you already, and that can be deceiving - being an editor and being an admin aren't mutually exclusive of each other).

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[Somey]

And along with the idea that admin "prestige" is seen as a reward, comes the corrollary that the adminship belongs to him as a personal possession. He's constantly whining about how desysoppings are a "draconian punishment" that's "waaay out of proportion" to anything he or anyone else might have done to deserve it... It isn't just unbecoming on Wikipedia - it would be unbecoming, if not outright embarrassing, even on some pornography newsgroup somewhere, or one of the many gamer sites he frequents. It would probably be embarrassing even on Encyclopedia Dramatica, where Cyde is probably viewed as some sort of godlike figure.

I just feel sorry for poor Mailer diablo... He's probably been checking this thread all day, looking for someone to actually say something about him! I guess we're going to have to give it a new title!

[Somey]

From the page in question:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RFB#Mailer_diablo

I cannot believe people are opposing on the fact that mailer believes admins should be people who actually write this encyclopedia.

But that is, in fact, exactly what they're doing!

Currently at 55/19/2, with nearly all the opposers agreeing with Cyde, and in particular referring to Mailer diablo's personal "1FA" rule, which basically stipulates that anyone he supports for adminship should be a primary author of at least one featured article.

This is a clear indication of one of the more divisive schisms that are going on among the admins (it's getting hard to keep track of them all, though!). This one might be referred to as "writers vs. janitors," and the janitors see Mailer diablo as one of the strongest proponents of the opposing side. It's either that, or 19 admins are actually Cyde's sock puppets!

I guess this makes Cyde the "Loudmouth Janitor"?

[Cobalt]

I guess this makes Cyde the "Loudmouth Janitor"?

Or he's too afraid to lose something he hasn't realized doesn't really matter all that much in the big picture. Sounds like he's found something to cling to.

[guy]

I don't accept the 1FA rule (knowing too much about how the FA system works), but I thoroughly respect Mailer diablo's motivations. You can't be an Admin if you don't understand how to write a good article, any more than you can be an editor of a traditional encyclopaedia.

I don't know what constitutes "consensus" on RfB, but it's probably stiffer than the 75-80% rule on RfA.

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[Nathan]

I'd have to say I agree.

[Somey]

I'd have to say I agree too, but ultimately it's another symptom of (sorry to constantly harp on this) Wikipedia being too big. Nobody can possibly keep track of who's writing what, to what extent, and how well - there are simply too many writers producing too many articles, so they try to quantify it in whatever way they can. Featured Article count is probably as good a way of quantifying it as any, but ultimately any such methodologies are suspect, if not flat-out useless.

The problem is compounded by the fact that so many topic areas have already been covered, any new article is likely to be about an obscure subject nobody cares about. People see these articles on the New Pages list (or categories of rewrites) and think, SNOOZEFEST! And they're right, in most cases... So they either ignore those articles, or just glance at them to see if they look "notable" or are filled with pornspam links, and move on. It has a bad effect on Quality Control, to say the least.

Breaking WP up into smaller, interlinked communities would help solve that problem, and many others, but they can come up with all sorts of reasons for not doing it other than "we like our power just the way it is, thanks," which of course is the real reason!

[guy]

He's withdrawn.

[Somey]

He's withdrawn.

Well, that's too bad, really. Let's see, what was the final score, 83/32/3? Not quite "consensus," I guess... This just shows once again that if the minority is vocal enough, all sorts of worthy candidates for promotion can get hosed.

Still, with a user name like "Mailer diablo," I'm surprised he even made admin in the first place. If he'd picked a really good name, like "Emperor Pasta," "Cozy Little Earphones," or "Wild Wacky Wangdoodle," he'd probably be a steward by now.

[LamontStormstar]

He probably picked the name because he played Diablo II. Lots of people used to play that.

[Somey]

He probably picked the name because he played Diablo II. Lots of people used to play that.

He should have stuck with that, then. Wikipedia II isn't due to be released until sometime in the 23rd Century, and even then, the new version probably won't even have decent 3D graphics! Heck, it isn't even as much fun as the original version of Duke Nukem.

[guy]

If it's any help, he's Malayan and lives in Singapore. He posts with the same name on several fora.

[Somey]

If it's any help, he's Malayan and lives in Singapore. He posts with the same name on several fora.

I'd actually thought he took the name from "Mailer-Daemon," an e-mail header... That name was used by alt-n, Inc. as the inspiration for the name "MDaemon," a popular Windows mail server package. But y'know, I'm silly.

Why are we even still posting to this thread?