SmashWiki:Requests for bureaucratship/Serpent King

Serpent King (talk • contribs • edit count • passing RFA • RFB page)

Candidate, please summarize why you are running for bureaucratship below.

Hey all, Serpent King here. So yeah, I figured I would throw my hat in the ring here, in part on inspiration from Crow's guide to applying for adminship (his bit about promotions not being about whether the wiki needs it or not being the part that stuck out, and I fully agree) and in (larger) part because I feel like I fit the role sufficiently well.

I have been a user since March, 2015, and an administrator since November, 2015. I have contributed truckloads (over 17,000 edits) towards this wiki, and while I understand this means little, I think it is important to point out my overall dedication towards the wiki.

Since gaining adminship, I have gone to great lengths to improve my dispute handling skills, which was something that a lot of people were saying needed work. I now believe that the skill has become one of the strongest tools I possess. I think I can speak for most users when I say that I have obtained the trust of our community, though I suppose the results of this will tell us that for sure.

As you guys probably know, bureaucrats gain 3 major new powers:

• Promotions: While RfR promotions are pretty clear cut, RfA/B promotions are obviously the hardest part of the job. I believe, however, that I am capable of making promotion decisions without bias and based on both consensus and, as the case may be, my own judge of character. I want to re-enforce the fact that, especially in promotions, making a decision based in part on judge of character is not a bad thing, not in the slightest, because a promotion is a long-standing change in the very workings of our project. This is not to say that crats should be deaf to consensus when making these decisions, but it is important that they understand exactly what they are doing by promoting a new staff member.
• Renames: Easy enough, we have a clear cut policy for that. I have never really been sure why admins don't have this power to be completely honest.
• Interwiki: Not a tool that I see myself using in the near future, true, but who knows?

I have never been good at bragging about myself or...well really even talking about myself without a prompt, so while I realize that the contents of this RfB may be minimal, I wish to really get the work done in responses to all of your questions, comments, and concerns. I will do my best to answer and address them accordingly. Thank you all for your consideration, and have a nice day.

Support

1. Support. With all the work he has done for our wiki to improve its quality, his great understanding of the writing language, his better abilities at handling disputes, and general activity, it would be dumb to not choose this guy eventually for bureaucratship. -- Beep (talk) 02:08, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
2. Support. As far as admins go, you are probably the one most suited to become a bureaucrat. You are by far the most responsible admin, and you seem to have a very good understanding of what it means to be an admin or a bureaucrat, which is a good sign. Your ability to enforce policy stands out, as you not only have a great understanding of these things, but handle them in a polite manner, so as not to upset the users who potentially violate them. Your strong judgement skills would come in very useful for the ability to promote users, and overall you seem to have more consistent presence than Toomai, which could potentially speed up processes such as RFRs. I can't imagine a situation in which you misuse, or clumsily apply bureaucratic powers, so given all the positives I have mentioned, and your strong experience on the wiki, I see no reason why I shouldn't support this. Alex Parpotta the flying lobster! 05:46, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
3. Support. Incredibly active and amazing at dispute resolution. More importantly, very thoughtful before taking concrete action, so I would trust SK with pretty much any permission other than the ability to delete the entire wiki at once. Nyargleblargle (Contribs) 08:02, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
4. Support I've never been one for big words, but at the same time I feel that anything I could say has already been said. Aidan, the Wandering Dragon Warrior 10:03, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
5. Support. Serpent is amazing as an admin, and I know he can do even better as a bureaucrat. Black Vulpine of the Furry Nation. Furries make the Internets go! :3 10:07, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
6. Support. I can't really think of anything to say for this, so I'm just gonna let the other comments speak for me. Great candidate though! even if he's a pain for me sometimes. BSTIK (talk) 12:02, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
7. I've been an admin for over a year now. A year and...about 4 months, to be precise. Of course, I failed in my first attempt, but I attribute my success to my second attempt to a variety of factors, the most prominent one being Serpent. He was basically like my mentor, teaching me how to be a more professional user among other things. If it weren't for him, I'd probably never be where I am now, or, at the least, it would've taken me longer to get here. Keep in mind, this is completely without bias. I'm merely stating my experience with him. With that in mind, I support this. If there's anyone I'm going to trust with the powers of a bureaucrat, it's Serpent. Disaster Flare (talk) 12:42, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
8. Support. Per Black Vulpine. A51 Trooper 18:29, 21 July 2017 (EDT)
9. Solid support. Per what has been said already, the only issues SK seems to have are being human and making some non-perfect decisions. He is very active (which can lead to more opportunities for error/arguments, mind you) and knows what to do. He is responsible, full stop. I know this is a bad argument, but only Toomai has bureaucratic power and is ever actually around. It is a shame admin has a green text for Luigi and bureau is a weird brown tho. RobSir zx 22:58, 21 July 2017 (EDT)

Oppose

1. ...

Neutral

1. Switched to Support. In order to see what people genuinely think about this and for some edit-history evidence to be presented, I am not going to show outright support until after some time has passed. Really, there is no reason for me not to support in my mind currently. After all, there is only one currently? Serpent King has been a well performed admin from my perspective. RobSir zx 03:16, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
2. Neutral with a lot of mixed feelings and a very weak lean towards oppose. To be honest, I'm not really sure where to go with a response to this RfB. Let me start with my reservations on the subject:

   • This may be nothing other than a weird mis-reading on my part, but it does seem like you occasionally play favorites. Going to a then-new user and saying they have "great promise" feels like you're deliberately trying to single out someone with atypical praise rather than simply the normal encouragement I'd expect.
   • I'm still leery about the Template:CharBar incident where you implemented a messy template without prior discussion, and users followed your lead into putting it on dozens of pages. While this was over a year ago and we've addressed the subject in SW:CONSENSUS recently, it still left a very bad taste in my mouth. Being the "popular" admin people see as a role model comes with the responsibility of setting an appropriate example, and that incident was the most concerning instance of users following your lead almost a little too eagerly.
   • A constant issue brought up every time someone pursues a bureaucratship request is "do we need another?" As you correctly identified, there are only three major powers associated with the position that you don't have already as admin, all of which are needed infrequently at most. With Toomai unambiguously active on a regular basis lately, there's no urgency to the position. Lack of need doesn't necessarily mean we shouldn't, but it does discourage me from wanting to support your candidacy (or anyone else's, for that matter) at the moment.

   As for positives:

   • You've generally matured in your handling of user interactions. You reasonably pointed out examples of your participation in discussions, and are generally reasonable in your interactions recently so far as I've seen. The few instances where I remembered being uncomfortable with your behavior are further in the past than I had thought.
   • You're regularly online and, to my knowledge, have used admin powers reasonably and responsibly.
   • You've contributed heavily to both the front-end and back-end of the wiki, showing that you're clearly more committed to the site than merely surface-level contributions.

   It's a weird situation. I see the pros and cons and, to be honest, I end up feeling like almost everything cancels out. You haven't done anything that is a dealbreaker or enough to push me into full opposition, but I also see no pressing need nor a particularly convincing case to support you. I apologize if this is overly long-winded or confusing, but I did my best to express the feelings I have on the subject. Miles (talk) 04:49, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

   Playing favorites: "great promise" may have been too strong language, I'll admit. This was more or less an overjoyed reaction to gaining someone new who most likely wouldn't leave after 5 edits and who does not only focus on the competitive scene. While it is no problem that people focus on the competitive scene, there is still plenty of work to be done elsewhere, and getting help on those things elated my spirits a bit.

   CharBar: As stated, that was a long time ago, and I have since realized where I had gone wrong there. Talk's cheep, but you'll see: it won't happen again, that's a promise.

   Do we need another: I personally believe that the need for a new admin or crat shouldn't influence their gaining the promotion, both because it's not really fair to them to evaluate it this way, and because, looking to the future, we very well could run into a situation where a more consistent crat could be deemed necessary.

   Hope this clears up any misunderstandings towards your negative feelings on this. Serpent King 05:36, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

   • The "great promise" statement was clearly not written in the context of "you are one of the best".
   • The CharBar incident was a long time ago and is very incompatible with the current Serpent King.
   • I really dislike the "do we need another?" argument, but even ignoring that, I don't think only one active bcrat is ideal for the wiki at any time. Plus, if a second bureaucrat becomes more urgent, the wiki is better off starting with a leg up instead of (most likely, given the circumstances where it would occur) having to rush an RfB through. Nyargleblargle (Contribs) 14:24, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

3. While an extra bureaucrat (not sure on spelling lol) would be nice, I just don't see the need. Smash 4 having no important patches recently and smash for switch having no place to be announced means little traffic. Even in red, one semi-active bure was fine, because they don't seem to be needed much. Plus, I feel like one person should be the highest authority, similiar to our president for americans. Having two high powers will introduce many unique and possibly dangerous (in terms of the wiki, not people's health) situations that the wiki hasn't dealt with before. Some examples right off the top of my head include:

   Disagreeing on an RfA closing

   Disagreeing on a specific rollback example in a RfR

   One bure overpowering the other

   Penro 14:58, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

   You are looking at it in the wrong way: having more than one opinion as a crat who promotes people should be a good thing. In this way, we flush out more bias that maybe one crat may have that the other doesn't. Serpent King 16:35, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

   Maybe I am, but all of those examples are real and likely examples to occur. You do have a good point however, and the people on the support side have a huge point. Plus, as i mentioned before, i feel one bure is enough, and all we need, due to the reasons mentioned earlier. Penro 17:06, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

   I think you are probably most worried about the overpowering thing? Well I'd like to think that...since Toomai and I don't really overpower each other now (crats don't have any more say than admins in discussions except for promotions) in any situation, this would be the case even if we had the same role. Serpent King 17:15, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

   I don't believe it is proper to compare between now and future-adminship, as honestly, you two barely interact in wiki (except Discord maybe) and will interact much, much more later.

   There is one more thing i will mention: Poyo. If i recall, after he trolled hard on discord, you told him to "kindly go to hell" on discord. I honestly don't think that is acceptable, even if Poyo kinda was on the wrong. Temper can occasionaly get to you, i feel, and that left a bad taste in my mouth. You should have blocked him, and moved you, maybe raging irl instead of telling someome that. Otherwise, i now support you all the way. Penro 17:43, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

   Perhaps I should have shown more tact, but I have little tolerance for those looking to pick fights or troll for the sake of trolling. Let it be known that I did ban him right after that, btw. Everyone's temper gets to them occasionally, and there are certain things that break through my otherwise "ironclad emotional armor"...err so to speak... Serpent King 17:55, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

   (reset indent) Perhaps, but "going to hell" is tremendously different then having low tolerence. You are right however, we are himans, and sometimes the armor cracks.

   Just to be clear, when i meant the disagreeing of an RfA, i'm meaning hostile disagreement. Two giant arguments between the highest powers of anything, espicially when a person's adminship is on the line, can lead into some very unwanted traffic all over. Maybe I'm overthinking this or sound dumb, but this is what i think. I can't possibly see arguments between bures healthy for the wiki, if it happens commonly.

   If we had a second one, though, you would be perfect for the role. It's moreso the idea of two bures i am againist, not you being one. -Penro 22:51, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

Comments

One thing tho, try to extend in your RfB if possible, cause like you said, this seems minimal. I understand you have a lot of strong points to choose you as a bureaucrat, though it would be nice to "brag" a little more about them, at least the necessary to enrich your RfB, so that people who still have doubts about you, end up having NO doubts. Good luck on your RfB man ^.^ -- Beep (talk) 02:11, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

Thank you. As I said I have never been good at bragging about myself...Instead I brought up the concern most people had when voting on my RfA and detailed the difference between admin and crat powers and how I would use the new ones. Everything else should be able to be cleared up in responses to concerns and questions if you ask me. Serpent King 02:15, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

"Since gaining adminship, I have gone to great lengths to improve my dispute handling skills, which was something that a lot of people were saying needed work. I now believe that the skill has become one of the strongest tools I possess."

Could you please link some examples of disputes you handled that you think demonstrate this? Miles (talk) 02:54, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

Sure thing: there's this one that unfortunately went further on discord so you don't get to see the whole thing, Crow and I found a nice compromise here, not sure where the main discussion went for this, but we ended up with a decent compromise for the title of the competitive history articles, here I killed an edit summary dispute, I also broke up the favorite user list thing that started up a while back, then there was this debacle over a Palutena alt. There are probably more, better examples hiding among the heap of talk edits I have made over the years. This was significantly more difficult than for my RfA, just owing to the fact that I didn't have so much other crap (warnings, notices, etc) to sort through. Serpent King 03:43, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

I'm just making a post so people are aware that I acknowledge its existence. I don't currently have anything useful to say. Toomai Glittershine The Dispenser 06:35, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

I would like to motion to make "do we need another one" be completely disregarded as a valid opposition. It is basically the antonym of the "why not" argument, which I think we can agree should NEVER be the basis of an argument for RfA/RfBs. Alex Parpotta the flying lobster! 15:16, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

I second this. Black Vulpine of the Furry Nation. Furries make the Internets go! :3 20:35, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

Question: Are there any bureaucrat actions in recent memory that you would have done differently? And why? Toomai Glittershine The Hammer 18:41, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

Recently...um...This is going to sound lame but I guess not. Looking through logs, renames seem fine (is "ANИA" an unacceptable username given the "И"? I wouldn't count it unacceptable), and Vulpine's, Junko's, BSTIKs, Parpotta's, and Rob's RfRs seemed sound enough to pass. Serpent King 19:12, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

ANИA is a pretty clear-cut case. From SW:NAME:

"Usernames that consist of non-English characters [are unacceptable]. We are an English-speaking wiki, so most, if not all, users would have difficulty recognizing and referring to such usernames, and would likely not be able to understand what the username means. Additionally, the vast majority of users would not have the means to type the name out, making it needlessly difficult for them to refer to a user using such a username."

Nyargleblargle (Contribs) 22:35, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

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