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User:RobinHood70/RfA

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This is an archive of past UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page, except for maintenance such as updating links.

Request for Adminship: RobinHood70Edit

Our Request for Adminship (RfA) process is based on Wikipedia's policy. An editor, when nominated, accepts and answers questions, which can be asked by any registered editor. Votes and comments can also be left by any registered editor. Daveh makes the call, based upon the community's consensus, after about a week.

RobinHood70 (talk+ • contribs • edit count • logs • email) has been an obvious administrator candidate for a couple of years, at least. However, until recently he has turned down suggestions that he be nominated for the position. He is now willing to become an admin, so I think UESP should take advantage of the opportunity to add such a qualified editor to the team.

The biggest question is perhaps, why now? Thanks to our group of temporary-turned-permanent admins, plus the welcome return of several inactive admins over the last few months, UESP has more active and semi-active admins than ever before. So we don't have an urgent need to add more administrators. However, it never hurts to have an extra person available to help out, plus I think it's better to start an RfA discussion when the site is relatively under control rather than waiting until after a crisis has erupted. At this point it's been long enough since RobinHood70's return to the site to be sure that he's re-acquainted himself with everything that's been going on at UESP and, perhaps more importantly, that the current community has had a chance to get to know him.

As for RobinHood70's qualifications.... He's been on the site longer than almost any other active editor (even a few hours longer than me!), and has been a patroller for four years (since April 2008). He is very knowledgeable about wiki mechanics — including a thorough understanding of templates, plus having enough wiki know-how to run one of the very few UESP bots. He's clearly familiar with the site's policies; his participation in countless current discussions demonstrates his interest in maintaining and improving those policies. He has had Blocker rights since months after the group was first created (August 2010), and has always shown good judgement in using those rights. In fact, he has consistently been one of the most accessible editors with blocking rights, so making him an administrator should provide the community with a reliably-available admin in case of any urgent vandalism or other requests. He's been very active helping other editors and answering questions — to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if many new editors on the site think that he already is an administrator.

In short, he's an obvious candidate.

QuestionsEdit

Q1: Why were you previously not interested in being an administrator, and why have you now changed your mind?

There were several reasons I was opposed to becoming an administrator, but the two most prominent ones were that I don't like being the final arbiter in most situations—I prefer discussion and consensus, probably to the point of driving people nuts—and, as Elliot has already mentioned, I had concerns about my ability to do the job effectively given the frequent cognitive difficulties caused by the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
The reason I've changed my mind in terms of being the one to make the final decision has been twofold. First, with the current admin team being so large, any decision—even something as trivial as a page deletion—is really a collaborative effort, so nobody makes the final decision on anything. Second, I've been one of only two admins on another small wiki for almost a year now, and realized that...it's really not that scary to be the one who has final say on something. :)
As far as the CFS goes, it's something I've been dealing with since shortly before I started editing at UESP. Yes, I make some really dumb mistakes at times or misunderstand what I'm reading, but so do we all...I just do it a little more often than others. In the end, though, I haven't done anything that would earn me a spot on the Village Stocks page (if we had one), and if I don't catch my mistakes, I know that there's a whole wiki full of editors who will point out what I've done wrong so that the appropriate action can be taken.

Q2: What do you hope to accomplish as an administrator? What have you accomplished already? Have you made any notable mistakes, and if so, what did you learn from them?

Being the template editor that I am, one of the things I'd like to do in the near future is to review our various template pages for their protection level. Some years ago, we had an attack on our most commonly used templates and it wreaked havoc on the wiki. Subsequent to that, most widely used templates were semi-protected, and a couple even have full protection, but I'd like to review that list and make sure that we haven't missed anything important.
In addition to that, I've noticed a couple of times that our pages marked for deletion have been a bit backlogged. It's been noticeably better recently thanks to the efforts of one admin in particular (who has done 344 out of the last 500 deletions), but it's definitely something I intend to help out with.
In terms of accomplishments, I tend to think my biggest accomplishment is in Template space, where, over the course of about half a year, I systematically went through all of our templates and did a lot of simplifying, adding new features, harmonizing, etc. Templates remain my biggest single interest in terms of wiki work, though I'll admit, the bot is starting to become better developed as well, and therefore more interesting.
As for notable mistakes, the most notable one was actually on the wiki I mentioned above instead of this one. (And as I've said before, while it may not be a wiki guideline, I personally believe that an admin's behaviour on other wikis should reflect on those where they hold a position of responsibility.) I recently accidentally blocked a legitimate user because I wasn't paying close enough attention to their edit. When another user pointed it out, I promptly unblocked the user and apologized, though the unblocked user has not, as yet, returned. That was a definite reminder to me that even when I'm convinced something is yet another spambot edit, that I need to stop and be certain before doing anything drastic.
Of course, I've also made mistakes on this wiki, such as spectacularly screwing up the various Ingredients pages due to a template error the other day, but I see that kind of error as somewhat less problematic. People generally know when something's an accident that'll be fixed shortly...accidental blocks don't tend to be dismissed quite so easily. (And thanks again to Elliot for spotting the template problem before I did...one tiny little space, or lack thereof, is all it takes sometimes!)

Q3: What do you see as the UESP's main challenges in the near future? Are there any changes that you think need to be implemented?

My answer to this isn't anything original, though all of the recent admin nominees have had slightly different takes on it. I feel that our biggest challenge is getting accurate information onto the Skyrim pages. I think several recent discussions have started to shape how that will come about, and other than encouraging those types of discussions to continue, I don't see any major changes that need to be implemented. (Well...except for needing new templates of course. I always think we need new templates. <grin>)

Q4: What other wiki-related activities do you perform that people might not know about?

Honestly, others have largely stolen my intended answers to this question! Probably the one thing left that some people might not be aware of is that I like to take up the "rear guard" when it comes to patrolling—doing my best to ensure that as few things as possible hit the four-week patrolling limit without being patrolled—and I intend to continue that as an admin.

Q5: What action will you take if you see another administrator perform an action that you completely disagree with? When you strongly oppose something, how do you plan to express it?

It really depends on the nature of the action. If it's clearly just an accident and it needs immediate correction (e.g., deleting the Main Page), I would undo it without further comment unless I can come up with something as hilarious as this. But that's obviously not the main focus of the question.
In the event of a dispute, I've always felt that it's preferable for an admin team to be as professional as possible, and I think part of that is knowing when to try to resolve the dispute behind the scenes and when to solicit community feedback. If the disagreement affected only a small portion of the wiki or one or two users, I would therefore probably try to talk to them via e-mail or IRC rather than making it a public issue. If, on the other hand, the issue affects a very large portion of the wiki or its user-base, or if private discussions don't result in a compromise or understanding, I believe that public discussion is the way to go. In the end, this wiki isn't about what any one user thinks or feels is the right thing to do, it's about what works best for all of us as a whole.
As for how I express my opposition to something, again, I think it comes back to being professional. That means trying to be courteous and non-judgmental as much as possible, taking a breath and choosing my words carefully, even when I'm convinced the other person is wrong. While I won't hold it up as a model of ideal behaviour, I think the recent discussions about information on quest vs. place pages is a good example of why I feel this is the way to discuss opposing views. A lot of people use the wiki in ways that I don't, and had never even considered prior to that discussion. By talking it out rather than digging in my heels (much), I realized that there were issues I wasn't thinking of that needed to be addressed in order to ensure that we were serving as much of the community as possible.

VotesEdit

Cast votes with Support, Oppose, or Neutral. Comments are also welcome.

  • Support: As nominator. --NepheleTalk 05:14, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: He hasn't yet answered the questions, but I don't need to hear his answers. RH70 is a fabulous editor. He is very friendly, he knows and edits every namespace on the site flawlessly, and is never impatient with any stupid, serious or other questions that I, or anyone else, have for him. I would argue that out of every editor, regular, patroller, admin, or otherwise, RH70 is the most deserving of the position. ESQuestion?•Email•Contribs 05:40, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: I don't know whether I am allowed to vote or not, but either way, RobinHood70 certainly has helped me with countless things across the period of time that I have been a member on the UESPWiki and he is more than deserving of this position. Plus he does have professional integrity and the ingenuity along with the edits, etc, to more than qualify for this position. I would highly be disappointed if somehow he didn't manage to obtain the position of Administrator, but I doubt that would ever occur because nearly every member on this wiki knows how muhc work and dedication he has put into this site :) Helenaannevalentine 05:51, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: I am 99% certain that every editor can cast a vote in an RfA. ESQuestion?•Email•Contribs 05:54, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: Well in that case, I'll change my comment to a vote right now, but if I cannot, then it's not such a biggie as I've gotten my message across as to how RobinHood70 deserves this. Thanks for confirming Eric! Helenaannevalentine 05:58, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
You most certainly can vote. elliot (talk) 06:03, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: The first thought that came to my mind when I saw this was finally. I know that Rob's CFS has been a major factor in his activity on the site, so I am glad to see that he has decided to change his mind or has deemed himself healthy enough for it. When it comes to templates, there are really only two people that I can turn to for questions regarding templates: one is Nephele, and the other is RobinHood70. Being one of the most knowledgeable users on the site in regards to templates and especially metatemplate is something that should not be ignored. Now, not only does he run a bot–which has helped me wade through template data–he edits more than most users. For awhile now, I have considered it a detriment to the site by not having Rob as an administrator. I could go on, but I don't see there being any problems with this nomination. elliot (talk) 06:03, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: Wait - you're not an admin already? The fact that I didn't know that is probably a good sign. --TheRealLurlock Talk 11:47, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: Well, it's about time! RH, everybody knows you're incredibly knowledgeable and helpful, and on top of that you're also one of the nicest, most patient, most reasonable and level-headed people I know. This nomination is a long, long time coming, and I was so happy to wake up this morning and see that I'll finally be able to vote "support" for your RfA :). eshetalk 13:47, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: Wait, you mean he isn't an admin already? WHY NOT? ThuumofReason 14:40, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
    • Change vote to Oppose: Several good points have been brought up, and while I'm not entirely aware of the circumstances discussed above, after seeing evidence of the opinion flip-flopping from the links above, I agree that it's probably not a good idea to give RH the power to ban people, among other things. He's a good editor, but so was rpeh, and I don't believe rpeh should have been de-admined for off-site actions in the first place.ThuumofReason 17:39, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: Not much I can say that hasn't been said, either by voters or RH70 himself. He's an excellent contributor and completely deserves this position. Vely►Talk►Email 17:10, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: RobinHood has my complete support, per all of the above; his suitability for administratorship can't be disputed. --Legoless 18:19, 16 April 2012 (UTC) Removing my vote for the time being. I'd prefer to stay neutral until I know more. --Legoless 18:07, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: I could write an incredibly lengthy wall of text listing all my reasons, but I won't. Let's just say it's about time! --ABCface◥ 20:20, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: An unofficial admin for a long time, it's time that he finally claimed his rightful title! • JATalk 21:26, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: This seems to be an RfA for RobinHood, and I'll sign off on that. But my vote is contingent upon me being entirely unaware of anything written above, as I'm too busy. If I notice later that Robin has written something I intensely disagree with here, such as a call for a religious war or any use of the word "indubitably", then I will change my vote. Minor EditsThreats•Evidence 02:04, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: I've been in detox for my recent skooma[1] binge, so my apologies for coming to the party late. I want to put my full support behind this nomination. RobinHood has always been one of the most helpful, nicest, mildest editors on the sight, and I can only see promotion as helping the wiki. When I was a young lad back in 2011, I was legitimately surprised to find that RH wasn't an admin. Even though we have plenty right now, Robin has been around forever and I can't see that changing in the near future. You're awesome, Robin. Keep up the good work — as a patroller, and as an admin!! —SkoomaManiac Talk ♫ Contribs 19:03, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose: When Nephele posted this nomination two days ago, I literally revisited all the different emotions I’ve been through since joining the UESP three years ago, and it resulted in an immediate wikibreak on my part - I needed to get my head on straight so I could approach this nomination in a decent manner. The day was ruined anyway, so I decided to write a lengthy, nasty oppose-vote from hell, just to get my concerns scribbled down somehow. It took me less than 5 minutes to find 13 reasons to oppose the nomination, but I realized that all my reasons looked like personal attacks, and that wasn’t exactly constructive, nor was it fair. I then decided to just abandon the wiki, leave it behind, and live happily ever after – but then I realized that it would mean three years of hard wiki-work would go down the drain. The e-mails from concerned users kept popping in, and I finally realized that I had to place a vote, even if I didn’t really want to – but as administrator, it is the only responsible thing to do so here goes.
For the past few months, I’ve changed my behavior somewhat – I know an awful lot of you is under the impression that I’m going nuts, suffer from personal issues or whatever, but it all comes down to frustration with what this site has become since the release of Skyrim back in November. Over and over, I have shouted the word “idiocy” as loud as I could, but to no avail, and have seen my opinions being ignored 99% of the time. One way or the other, these idiocy shouts can be traced back to the nominee, so I’ll try and figure out how a person can mean so well – and do so bad. It’s going to be a long post, because it’s incredibly complex to explain – but if you care about this wiki, please read.
Of course, we can’t skip the Rpeh/KrustyIDaveh incident, so let’s just start there and be done with it. After nearly a full years wiki-break, RH70 rejoined the wiki on December 22nd to help out with the huge amount of Skyrim edits, which was fine. We had an incredible community back then, and an awful lot of fun, mostly due to how ridiculous and chaotic everything was. The fun lasted 40 days, then Snowmane posted his infamous de-admin request for me and rpeh, a rushed and unneeded action that both me and rpeh tried to stop. Unfortunately, somebody smelled blood; notice RH70’s uncertain oppose to the de-admin request then jump to his post on Daveh’s talk page, where he shows his true colors. He didn’t seem satisfied with the way the votes were going, so he brought in Daveh who had no choice but to de-admin both me and rpeh in an attempt to shut people up. Can’t blame him for that. The rest is history, Daveh decided to de-admin rpeh permanently, while I managed to get through the scandal with the tools intact. What is really important to note is that I started it, by calling the Wikia people morons in an edit summary, reverted Snowmane’s first attempt at drama, and even called Snowmane a moron when I had to go through the usual concerns on my talk page – rpeh simply followed up on an action initially performed by me – but he was butchered, and I was spared. Wonder why? Look no further – or please look closely: who is missing from this post about my admin-ship, despite having started it all – take a wild guess. He was busy agreeing with Daveh in the aftermath just above – where RH70 more or less explains all of this a whole lot better than I can. That is true bloodthirst wrapped in polite words, but it is right there on the page, so make your own decision. Let me finish off this section with a RH70 quote that leads to the next section: “Clearly, there are people in this discussion who would see rpeh back as an Administrator. But just as clearly, there are a good number of people who wouldn't.” Let’s take a quick look on these people, shall we? Ironically, they can all be found complaining on my talk page, in the very same concerned thread I linked to above. What’s even more ironic is that the exact same people were the first ones to support this nomination. Just scroll up and see for yourself.
Let’s look at this group of people. Where did they come from? Answer is simple – with the exception of helenaannevalentine, they are all the first ones to respond when they believe power is being misused, just like RobinHood70: they all spend an awful lot of time making ‘maintenance edits’ and none of them could make a content edit to save their life. When they see injustice, however, they will jump out of their PC-friendly IRC-chatroom and attack right away. Please click each and every link in the section above, then look at their contributions to the site. A clique like that is to be expected on any wiki, but RobinHood70 encourages them (maybe even leads them?) in the everlasting wiki battle between people with authority and people with no understanding of the word whatsoever. These people will often throw guidelines and policies all over a heated debate, just to prove their point – but can more often be seen breaking the same policies by ignoring consensus (or simply ignoring the fact that the community may have something to say) and will never even stop to think twice about the possible consequences of their actions; in short, cliques like that should never be encouraged, they should be controlled. That’s what administrators are for, but when rpeh understandably left the wiki, the clique and RH70 suddenly found themselves ahead of everybody else – and the downfall of UESP was unavoidable.
What did RH70 do next? Well, he took it upon himself to make sure that each and every possible unpatrolled edit on the wiki would be patrolled. Once again, he never even thought about the consequences and started recruiting good editors whenever they popped up, and without knowing them at all. This lead to a series of more or less uninspired patroller nominations, including some kind of inappropriate “The UESP needs YOU”-job add, which I (thankfully) can’t find anymore. RobinHood70 knows better than anybody that a patroller nomination will scare 50% of all users away, but he went ahead anyway – strangely obsessed with unpatrolled edits, and unaware of the rising concerns from editors all over the wiki, he started using up good editors, in the process causing them to disappear. Where is Alfwyn? Where is Thuraya Salaris? Where is everybody? Answer is simple and quite natural – they jumped the sinking ship while they could. Who can blame them? Alfwyn seriously tried to discuss how to handle things, and went a long way to prove his point - and he was probably one of the best editors I’ve seen on the site. What did he get? He got yelled at, he was belittled, and nobody cared when he started uploading Skyrim dungeon maps in an attempt to organize things. When he disappeared without a trace, RH70 finally woke up and asked where he was gone – but damage done, Alfwyn gone. That’s very poor considering how much of an interest he took in the, at the time, incredibly unimportant amount of unpatrolled edits. This section was aimed at the many patrollers out there – be very aware that it is thankless to make an effort on the Wiki. That being said, the situation reflects my point - before Skyrim, we handed out cookies to encourage users to keep up the good work – now, we’re reduced to judging people’s efforts from stat tables and whether or not they agree with the clique and RH70.
Still obsessed with unpatrolled edits, RobinHood70 then decided to send an invitation to all inactive administrators, so they could ‘re-join’ now that everything was great on the Wiki. Problem is, the Wiki was shit. When Nephele decided to prove a point by digging up a dinosaur of a guideline and belittle my efforts on the Forbidden Legend page, I was getting tired. So very tired. Please read through this discussion. Please note that RH70 couldn’t be bothered to participate until he realized Neph was getting into trouble. Just read it. RH70 reveals he knows nothing about the specific quest, nor can he be bothered with doing research on the matter. Witness the amount of wasted words and how I finally get angry and ask him to at least play through the quest ONCE to validate the ton of opinions. Also, take note that RH70 admits that he hasn’t even played the game at all, which is suspicious considering the amount of edits he’s patrolled, and his strong opinions on the quest page. Finally, witness how the unneeded discussion ends with me leaving quest pages behind, to little effect, then witness how the entire thing gets ridiculous and the absence of RH70 when Neph tries to sum things up. I rest my case – I think you get my point; discussion for the sake of discussion and we ended up with the exact same policy as before. I doubt RH70 even read Neph’s walkthrough though, despite all his nodding and agreeing when it was finally posted and turned out to be even longer than the Forbidden Legend page, but that’s beside the point. Time was wasted and most of the newly invited ex-administrators went back to sleep. Can’t blame them for that.
At this point, idiocy popped up everywhere. The whole auto-patrolled user discussion was launched, and while it was well-intended, it was nothing but a side effect of the RH70 ‘unpatrolled edits’ craze. Again, nobody even thought about the consequences. If you’re interested, read my post, then read RobinHood’s response underneath. It all ended up with three really good editors having to go through a voting session they never really accepted or deserved (I’d compare it to making a CP post called “What do you think about [User]?”) with the usual controversy and even more bull to follow. Can’t be bothered with a link, but it basically ended up with anger from Aliana and Manic – I just hope that PLRDLF missed it completely.
I could keep going, but it is time to stop. RH70, I seriously believe that you meant no harm with any of this and did what you thought was the right thing to do. I think you’re an excellent editor and patroller and you have done a ton of good stuff for the site – but you as an administrator is a really really bad idea. Maintaining this site (and the quality of the content) takes an awful lot of knowledge, not only about Elder Scrolls and wiki markup, but about how to deal with people, how to think twice when suggesting or discussing something, and always take into consideration how your opinions may affect the wiki and all the editors, not only at the current time, but also two years into the future. Sorry about using this nomination to sum up what I think went wrong with the wiki, but you played a huge part in the demise and it should be taken into consideration – I love this wiki to death, warts and all, and I’ll openly admit that I have made my share of mistakes in the past few months, due to my frustration over the problems explained above. I really want to see the wiki flourish again, but I don’t see that happen with you as administrator. Sorry. --Krusty 17:14, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: There's obviously a lot to respond to here, but I'll try to keep this as short as possible (which I know I'm not good at).
First off, I believe guidelines and rules are there for a reason, and that for too long, there has been an unwritten policy of "we ignore them when Admins are involved". That's not fair to anyone, and in the end, even if sometimes the rules get in the way or need to be changed, not enforcing them only with certain people only serves to create division in the community. I'm a rules-oriented person and as an Admin, if I become one, I would try to be a model of following our policies and guidelines. I believe that's appropriate for every Administrator. That informed my various replies that Krusty paints as being "bloodlust". It was nothing of the kind - I simply wanted the rules to be followed by everyone.
In that vein, my post to Daveh's wall did indeed show my true colours: I saw gross violations of Wikipedia's guideline on involved administrators and I asked the person whose job it is to deal with these issues to make a ruling on the concern. After the de-adminship, in point of fact, I wrote to Daveh directly expressing that I thought Krusty should be re-adminned; Daveh can confirm that if it's really necessary. It went privately because I was really tired when I wrote to him and didn't trust that I was writing well enough for public consumption; I had intended to post publicly the next day, but by the time I started formulating a reply to add to the thread, Krusty had already been re-adminned, so it was a moot point. In the end, the simple fact is that we all make mistakes or poor judgement at times, and a single disagreement about the best way to handle something is usually not cause for de-adminning.
Contrary to Krusty's assertion, there is no cabal clique. While there are occasional off-wiki communications between users, I can tell you that Krusty and I have exchanged more e-mails and chatted more in IRC since my return than Nephele and I have in our entire UESP existence. As for Elliot, helena, and Eric Snowmane, we're all late-night editors (our time) by and large, as Krusty himself knows since Elliot, ES, and I are often all on the IRC with him when he wakes up. (I don't recall ever seeing helena there, but I do often see her editing while I'm patrolling.) By the same token, the nomination was posted fairly late at night, so it's only natural that those three were the first to respond.
Amusingly, however, while not in a clique, I do consider myself to have a niche, just like almost every editor does. I'm a WikiGnome. I will probably always be a WikiGnome. That's exacerbated by the CFS, which makes it hard to concentrate for long periods, but even if they found a cure tomorrow, I suspect that would still be my style. I do my best to get the little stuff out of the way, like patrolling, like re-writing templates that often need it, like moving pages or proposing them for deletion, etc.—I do all that because I enjoy doing the little things, and it allows those who enjoy working on bigger projects to do so without having to worry about the little things that take up so much time. As an Administrator, should I gain those rights, that won't change. I will still most likely take care of things like page deletions and page protection rather than focussing on things like content creation, like Krusty does, or adding masses of technical information via a bot like Nephele does.
As far as my obsession with getting new Patrollers active, that goes to the difference in approach that Krusty and I have towards the wiki. I don't believe either of us is wrong, and in fact I feel both styles are very necessary to have a functioning wiki. Krusty, at least in my observation, focuses on creating content. That's excellent because obviously we need content in order to be valuable as a wiki. I focus on ensuring that the content others are adding is correct, well-formatted, and fits into the theme of the page, hence my attempts to ensure that virtually every last edit gets patrolled. I believe that both of us, in our own way, are raising the quality of the wiki overall, and that encouraging editors to focus only on one way of doing things would be detrimental. That's what I was trying to express in the auto-patrolled users discussion. I believe that patrolling everything helps us avoid having incorrect or badly formatted information on our wiki. To this day, I still find information in the tail end of the Patrol Log that is clearly incorrect...and has been sitting there for four weeks with nobody questioning the change. That's why I patrol as much as I do, and why I often don't have as much time as I'd like to play the game itself.
On a side note, a few informational issues: I've had the game and been playing it since Christmas. I believe my statements in regards to play time where that I hadn't had time recently to play it because of the patrolling backlog. When I did develop the time, I played through the relevant quests, though nothing in my concerns changed as a result. I'm also confused as to why Krusty thinks Alfwyn got yelled at or belittled. I always thought our working relationship was quite good, and in fact thanked Alfwyn several times for coming up with better ways to deal with some things than I had.
Finally, in the above discussion, Krusty variously assigns motives to practically everything I've done in recent times. Rather than prolong the drama, let me just say that his perceived motives and my real ones are very very different. I try at all times to be open and honest about what I'm doing, but if at any time anyone has concerns about anything I've said or done, I encourage them to ask, either on-wiki or off. Krusty and I have done this many times over the last couple of months in light of his obvious discontent with my style, and I thought he understood that my motives were nothing like what he believes them to be. Obviously, I wasn't communicating as clearly as I thought I was, or he simply wasn't believing me. – Robin Hood↝talk 21:40, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Something strikes me wrong, someone who has claimed for so long to not wanting to be an admin being offered it and just accepting. I don't think the line of 'I was surprised to find he wasn't an Admin' really adds much either.
    • During this discussion in which he appears to agree with Nephele about thecontent of quest pages, Krusty makes a point about how wording can make a different to the content of the Quest Pages in questions, but RH70 ends talking about quality somehow... topic change? In his next comment, RH states to know nothing of, and not participate in, the FA procedure (possibly to ignore Krustys point about them) . But one comment down the line he then decides to bring FAs back up to prove his own point, to which he claimed he was not a participant. I'm not sure having your opinion on something jump from one side of the fence to the other is a valued attribute for prospective administrators.
    • During this discussion, I also read the RH seems to hold personal grudges (which would be fine if he didn't hold the personal grudge and then act upon it) by conveniently looking up (i'm sure anyone interested could of done so) rpehs history elsewhere.
    • As well as this, I don't feel the need for another Administrator at the moment. I feel like this RfA has made things very uncomfortable around the wiki this past few days, I could see this RfA being successful driving the community into two more obvious halves than previously when rpeh got summarily de-adminned. The amount of people that have disappeared since this RfA has shot up has got to be more than average, I think this can be no coincidence and do not wish to see this unique community split more for the sake of one more Admin at a time when we have plenty around. I cannot blame this RfA soley I think its been coming on for a while, but I think this was the final nail in the coffin for a few editors.
  • I can’t think of much else to say, but I just don’t like the mood and community around here at the moment. And I honestly believe its driven a few of my fellow editors away. --kiz talkemail 17:27, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: Can you clarify what I said in terms of "quality"? The only thing I see that's similar is where I talk about raising or lowering standards, which was a direct response to Krusty's comments about "we will lower our standards" and things looking "bad and messy". I won't say it was my finest moment in any event, but I think there's been a lot of frustration between various people on the wiki, of all roles, which Krusty himself says above. Ideally, I'd like to see us find a way through that that we can all be happy with. As far as personal grudges go, I realize it may have appeared that way, but it really wasn't. As I said above, the only "grudge" I have is when people are blatantly violating our policies and guidelines and Administrators don't say or do anything about it—that's what you were seeing expressed there.

    Going back to your first comment about why I'm running, I tried to explain that in question one. While I've never coveted an Admin position, and I explained the main reasons I haven't wanted it in the past, I have occasionally made offers to be essentially the WikiGnome of an Admin I described above, one who takes care of the menial tasks to allow others to take on whatever they enjoy doing. I saw that various things like our deletion categories were getting backlogged, so I made the offer to Nephele a couple of weeks ago that if help was wanted, I felt both willing and ready. I gather she was busy, so I didn't even get a reply to my e-mail until the day of the nomination, but I wasn't in any particular hurry. Also, another reason I neglected to mention originally, but is a significant contributing factor, is the simple fact that we now pretty much have our patrolling under control, so I have more time for things like bot work and potentially administrative duties. With Eshe's departure, though, that may no longer be the case...she was a significant patroller. We'll see. – Robin Hood↝talk 22:09, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

  • Comment: It was indeed where you spoke about standards, but what first pointed out the is this comment from Ratwar: " We're not talking to each other. We're talking past each other. Robin Hood". Which shows its not only me thinking that you side-tracked off topic a bit. I'd also like to comment on your 'There is no clique(/cabal)' link, I think there is. And has been for atleast a few months, and I think it traces back too... This discussion, (it was also noticeable when ChatSpike died because only one half bothered joining the Xertion channel). One would like to think there is no clique, but I can see that there is. I think a few users (from both sides) will be able to see what I mean. Looking at the opinions on those two links for different people will also show there are about 3 grounds: One Side, the Other Side and 'The Group in the Middle'. I'm not saying its just you, but I think that there are many of use (knowingly or not) that are a part of one side or the other. And, I have to say - it also seems to be split between edit *type* (maintenance/content basically), interpret that as you will but I think its unhealthy, and I think this rfa would split the community more. --kiz talkemail 19:28, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: I think it's a bit late to worry about splitting the community, although I am still surprised by how quickly we divided ourselves. I log on one morning, see Robin Hood's RfA, and think "Well it's about time!" and cast my vote. I log on the next morning and see that the entire community has separated on the issue. Really? Is this such a critical issue that we need to fight amongst ourselves, only harming the wiki in the process? If we keep burning these bridges, we'll only destroy the wiki in the process.

    As for his edits, I don't see why focusing on maintenance edits is such a bad thing. I personally float around and do whatever is needed, so I tend to bump into Robin Hood a lot, and every now and then I help him. All I can say is, he does his job well and he helps satisfy a niche group of tasks that in all honesty only Elliot shares. Maintenance edits might seem like cheating (for lack of a better word), but they are very important to keeping this wiki running smoothly. • JATalk 22:08, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

  • Comment: At no point did I (or will I) blame this for that, I think the phrase I used 'was the final nail in the coffin'. Which says this has been happening for a while (off-site more than on, although it does show in some discussions) and the links I linked to in my last reply indicate when I saw it happening from. --kiz talkemail 17:20, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: I recall thinking that Ratwar had misunderstood what I was trying to say, and he obviously thought the same, so honestly, I'm inclined to put that issue down to misunderstandings on both sides and leave it at that. The bigger issue, as you've said, is that there are obviously groups of people who think in different ways. (I don't think "cliques" applies, but let's not get hung up on terminology.) My question to you, or to anyone else who has any ideas on it, is: how do we resolve our differences? In the larger sense, we need to be talking to each other more, rather than complaining about so-and-so to those we know are likely to agree with us. As to my specific RfA, if I withdraw, it will rightfully be seen as being bullied into withdrawal by those who've opposed it; if I let it run, it will rightfully be seen as divisive or exclusionary of those who opposed it. What's the solution? – Robin Hood↝talk 22:08, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: The only thing I can think of is either a re-vote or just extend the vote period. I don't think either of those options are particularly fair. I think side or camp maybe better than clique but they are all much the same thing. I don't think your being bullied into withdrawing it, 4 (fairly polite - to my surprise) oppose votes is something I wouldn't class as bullying. I'd like to say something about you though, your about the best of the side your in - but I think the 'flip-flopping between topic' point lets you down most IMO --kiz talkemail 17:20, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: Polite? Here are some quotes: "His main input has been to spend hours splitting hairs and pushing his own idiosyncratic POV on policy debates...and sucking up to people he thinks will benefit his wiki career.", "This entire nomination is nothing but a façade", and "Disgraceful.". Granted, those are all quotes from one user, but they're hardly what you'd call polite. • JATalk 17:43, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose: There's absolutely nothing to justify this. Krusty has already covered the main points, Kiz has added some detail, but there's another important point. There has always been a tradition that admins should have some Major Work behind them before being nominated. While some have had to be prompted (one of the "Support" voters for instance), there's simply nothing on RH70's CV that qualifies. His main input has been to spend hours splitting hairs and pushing his own idiosyncratic POV on policy debates while doing nothing but fixing typos, over-complicating templates, and sucking up to people he thinks will benefit his wiki career. This entire nomination is nothing but a façade to add another voice to one "side" when votes are called. It has no merit whatsoever. rpeh •T•C•E• 18:06, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: One would argue that tons of maintenance, minor work, and fostering of a friendly atmosphere (from my POV), all of which are little things, culminate into Major Work. I don't see what the issue is with forming policies and focusing on keeping the wiki a well-oiled machine. "Sucking up" sounds like more of a personal attack than anything else; I could just as easily argue that right now you're being a belligerent nuisance who only came back to get some sort of petty revenge, just for the sake of harming the wiki and satisfying a grudge. • JATalk 22:08, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
  • General Comment: I realized afterwards that I forgot to address a few points in all of the above. I think the main ones were covered, but if anyone would like me to address something I missed, please feel free to ask again. – Robin Hood↝talk 00:14, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: IMO someone who inspires such negative emotions from others users should not be approved. But RobinHood70 has the right to wait for Daveh to make the final call, leaving the nomination open is not ignoring those who opposed it. There does appear to be a divide between users along the lines of maintanence/content edits which needs sorting in a separate article. I really can't make up my mind about whether RobinHood should be an admin. which is why I am so late to the party. The Silencer has spokenTalk 22:49, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose: per krusty and rpeh I agree that nothing good can come of this. something is rotten in the state of Winterhold. Haysie 21:29, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: This user created an account in July 2011 and never used it afterwards except to create their user page. It seems rather odd that their only contribution is to participate in a vote. – Robin Hood↝talk 22:09, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
I agree with you on that one. That last vote is dubious at best. ThuumofReason 22:59, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Do these two apply here at all? I mean, Daveh might not be keen on strongly considering a vote from someone with nearly no contributions, but it's possible that Haysie's been watching the wiki or stumbled across this page and decided to look into the situation. Vely►Talk►Email 23:10, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
See "Expressing opinions" in Wikipedia's RfA guidelines. – Robin Hood↝talk 00:51, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
This is exactly the sort of thing that disqualifies RobinHood from being an admin. He's quite happy to accept "Support" votes from people with few contributions, but heaven forfend anyone should oppose him. Disgraceful. rpeh •T•C•E• 05:15, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
  • comment: He did not complain about getting oppose votes, he merely commented that a random user with only 2 userpage edits was voting. There is nothing wrong about that, nor does that disqualify him from being an administrator. ESQuestion?•Email•Contribs 05:20, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Rpeh, it's highly convenient that someone who claims to know you makes their third edit by opposing an RfA which you happened to oppose. Your continued use of such unacceptable and disgusting tactics is what disqualified you from being an administrator. That is disgraceful. elliot (talk) 05:27, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
There's nothing that disqualifies Haysie from voting. Nothing. What disqualifies RobinHood is his total misuse of a Wikipedia policy - as I said in my !vote, he has a habit of pushing an "idiosyncratic POV". In this case, he ignores the bits of the policy to which he links that say "the community currently endorses the right of every Wikipedian with an account to participate" and "Before commenting or responding to comments in an RfA, especially 'oppose' comments ... consider whether ... RfA is an appropriate forum for what you have to say". In other words, he's misusing policy yet again to push his POV. Total disgrace. rpeh •T•C•E• 16:35, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes, being a meatpuppet does disqualify him from voting. elliot (talk) 16:56, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose: RobinHood, I've been thinking this over for the past few days, and discussing the pros and cons of your being an admin with a few editors whom I trust implicitly. In fact, much the same as Krusty, the abruptness of this RfA caused me to run screaming from the wiki (and the IRC), hell bent on never coming back. But then I had an epiphany, and realized that that was the cowards way out. Obviously, I don't feel I can bring myself to support this, for all of the reasons Krusty, Kiz and rpeh have stated above. As illustrated in Krusty's links regarding the Forbidden Legend quest page, and the discussion that accompanied it, you usually tend to just agree with everyone else (stronger and more vocal users especially) instead of holding your own opinions or expressing them, and as a result you are easily swayed and tend to "flip flop", as Thuum of Reason put it. Case in point; your extremely misguided recruitment scheme for patrollers. You encouraged a new user to run for patrollership, even though they later admitted that they had no idea what patrolling entailed. You supported the nomination, and other users followed suit. However, when the consensus turned and people began to oppose, you changed your vote, effectively throwing an unfortunate Helena to the sharks after buoying her up all along. This worried me immensely, as it showed how quickly you could turn on people who trusted you, and showed a darker undertone to your usually sunny personality. I'd also like to address the point that there are no "cliques" on the wiki. That's completely untrue. The wiki has been divided since Rpeh was de-admined, and you know it, and I know it, and anyone who's been for here for more than 6 months knows it too. In fact, the proof is in this nomination, because apart from Elliot, the only reasons that people seem to have for supporting you are A) They think you're nice and/or B) You encouraged them to be a Patroller/Userpatroller. So I'd like remind everyone that this isn't a popularity contest, that this is about picking the best person for the job, and not simply the one who has the most friends in high places. Kitkat •Talk•Contrib•E-mail 17:59, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
First off, how is changing a person's mind a bad thing? And secondly, the only people perpetuating the "camp" idea conveniently happen to be the same people who oppose this nomination (people are mad rpeh is no longer an admin, so they will oppose any RfA brought up). Now if there is something truly egregious, then please bring it to light, because the opposes seem to contain a lot of fluff. elliot (talk) 18:19, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

RfA Withdrawn

At this point, I feel that my RfA became a battleground for much larger issues than whether or not I'm a suitable candidate. As far as my candidacy goes, some users have brought up valid points, and they're things I'll need to address should I run again. In other cases, like the apparent flip-flop on Featured Articles, I believe it was a huge misunderstanding all around and I'm being unfairly judged.

Whatever the case may be in regards to specific concerns, though, it has become clear that there are deeper divisions in the community than I think most of us were aware of. Honestly, until this RfA, the only person I knew had any major complaints was Krusty. I think that goes for most everyone else too. Krusty and I have started trying to work things out, and Kiz just wrote me as well, beating me writing him by a matter of minutes. I'll also be writing to Kitkat, if she doesn't mind, in the hopes of coming to some understandings there as well. Out of all of the Oppose votes, hers I think, had the most points that I felt weren't based on misunderstandings or on other issues entirely.

I hope that any others who are having concerns will write to me or to others who may not share their views, but whom they feel they can talk to. As I said somewhere in the midst of all of the above, we need to work on healing the divisions in this community by talking to each other rather than about each other. – Robin Hood↝talk 18:33, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

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