Dwarf Fortress Wiki:Request for Adminship/Mason11987

Administrator Candidacy Questionnaire

Why would I be a good Administrator?

I understand the wiki system, setting up and manageing templates/categories. I understand the system messages (which sysops have default access to modifying). I ran the sporewiki for a year+ prior to it's launch [1] and am still a bureaucrat there even though I haven't edited in a while. I'm also an admin at sagan4wiki, which is a conceptual offshoot inspired by the spore game [2], I didn't create any of the content but the backed organization/templates/messages are almost completely my work and the community decided to name the planet's moon after me because of how much I helped :D. I'm also still a sysop at cybernations wiki [3] and did a lot of organization there, though I'm inactive in that game/wiki as well now.

Basically, there are a lot of things that can be done to improve a wiki that take a lot of testing and deleting of testing pages, moving over redirects, and modifications to system messages. The people who have admin powers now are awesome "leaders" but without a lot of time describing things that can be done, those sort of changes can't be easily completed.

There are three philosophies for "admins", or sysops which have developed over time on wikipedia.

1. People who should get the position are people who deserve to be rewarded for maintenance stuff or content creation stuff
2. People who should get the position are people who are good leaders, and should be "in charge"
3. People who should get the position are people who could do good without the tools, but who could do more good with them.

I think #1 is unnecessary, assigning sysop as a reward system is not the right thing to do, because it shouldn't be about a "title". This leads nicely into #2, sysops shouldn't be in charge, they should be as accountable as anyone else, and if people think they are doing badly they should remove their power or have it removed. If we need "leaders" they should be bueracrats, and should recognize that the only types of people who get sysop would be #3. #3 is where I think I fall, and I think it makes the most sense. The community at large would be best helped by people contributing exactly as much as they are capable to contribute. I feel that if people can contribute to the wiki more if they could do a couple more things, then they should have it. The key point is that most people who are content-creators or typograpical-editors do not need these powers. This shouldn't make them feel less important, because they aren't. But people shouldn't feel like they are more important just because they have the powers either.

Supporting Evidence

• Contributions. But here are some additional logs of work I've done at other wikis just to make it clear that I am not a person who comes to wikis to screw with them. [4], [5]
• DF2010

Public Q&A

• Q: Example question from a user goes here. Make sure to sign it with --~~~~!
• A: Administrator candidate's answer goes here.

Public Discussion

Discuss things here, yay

Votes

Support

1. STRONG SUPPORT: (Applicant) I think the wiki could use someone who as much wiki experience as I have to screw around with some things rarely modified on this wiki to see if everyone would like some neat new changes. Mason11987 11:55, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
2. SUPPORT: Blah blah blah, signature

Oppose

1. OPPOSE: Blah blah blah, here's why, signature

Neutral

1. NEUTRAL| blah blah blah here's why signature