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{{Q|Because to win in the game of football, or life, you have to annihilate errything in your path... in a blind rage.|BJ Smith}} |
{{Q|Because to win in the game of football, or life, you have to annihilate errything in your path... in a blind rage.|BJ Smith}} |
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| + | Former bureaucrat from 2011-2014. |
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| − | ==The problem with being a bureaucrat== |
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| + | Semi-retired. |
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| − | If a bureaucrat edits only occasionally, they become sort of the wise man on top of the mountain who advises the pilgrims and occasionally descends to set right what has gone wrong. But bureaucrats are supposed to be responsible for their wikis - especially on such an active wiki as this one. |
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| + | ==Why I stepped down== |
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| − | If a bureaucrat edits every day, he becomes the hardass busybody cop that everyone hates, and his presence can become counterproductive. Especially when it comes to enforcing important but unpopular policies. |
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| + | I never really had the knowledge of the GTA series to be a great content editor. I played and loved Vice City and San Andreas, and most of my best edits were to VC and SA related pages. I didn't care for GTA3, probably because I started with Vice City and compared to it, GTA3 seemed really primitive with the small car selection, simple missions and silent protagonist. I hated the bleak angsty aesthetic and the driving physics of GTA4, and never played GTAs 1 and 2. |
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| − | ==On the subject of the [[GTA Wiki:Image Policy|Image Policy]]== |
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| + | I got the job because the wiki was rebuilding in the wake of the [[GTA Wiki:Community split|community split]]. A guy named WikisEditor somehow knew about Bully Wiki and invited me (and Messi1983) to GTA Wiki not because of my content writing but because of my administrative knowledge. We put the wiki back together, got rules written and a fully functional staff promoted and trained. |
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| − | If you're looking at this page there's a good chance it's because I've warned you to follow the image policy. |
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| + | And with that done, there wasn't much for me to do. |
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| − | The image policy is ''not'' hard to understand. Read the directions. Follow the directions. I ''cannot'' help you if you don't understand after reading the directions, because they are so incredibly simple that I haven't any idea how to help someone who doesn't understand them. There is no rule saying you have to be allowed to upload images and there are plenty of users who can do it right. |
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| + | Every so often something requiring bureaucratish knowledge would happen, like the Dodo/Sasquatch dispute or the January 2014 Administrator Elections. But aside from the occasional Big Thing, all I was doing on GTA Wiki was occasionally reverting vandalism or blocking someone, and enforcing the image policy. And enforcing the image policy is tedious, takes a lot of time, and makes you unpopular with editors who don't see the point. |
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| − | Back in the pre-Wikia New Look days, images weren't much of a problem. But now that wikis show the user who uploaded the image alongside the image, and that wikis which allow badges award them for uploading large amounts of images, most Wikia wikis are chock full of duplicate, low quality and/or irrelevant images. That's why the image policy has to be harsh and why I'm unsympathetic to users having trouble with it - because the constant influx of bad and useless images means that strict administration is necessary. |
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| + | When GTAV came out at first I thought it was awesome. Then I suddenly lost all interest in it. I think it was in the lead-up to a heist where you have to store a getaway vehicle... I don't know. I found that so annoying that I just stopped playing and never started again. And when I realized that GTAV wasn't as great as I thought it was, I began to think it was time for me to leave the wiki. Ironically I started playing GTAV again after I left |
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| − | ==On the subject of myths== |
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| + | Funny thing is, it's hard to let go if only because it's human nature to hang onto power, even if it's a power as insignificant as bureaucrat on a wiki, and even if we're rarely using it and not enjoying it when we do. Dan, Tom and I each have stepped down as bureaucrat before, then gone back and gotten ourselves repromoted - we ended up making a rule to keep us from doing that again, and since we each did that once it kind of balances out. |
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| − | To explain the "nuance" of the position this wiki takes on myths related content. |
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| + | But the truth is, I'm done here, I've been done here for months, and if it wasn't for the fact that there's no takebacks on giving up your bureaucrat spot (especially now that Ilan got promoted into the spot) I'd have left this wiki a long time ago. |
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| − | It isn't that discussion of myths itself is offensive or too far off topic. The problem is that myth related articles tend to be almost completely uncontrollable. First, for whatever reason, they're major vandalism magnets. Second, even if the vandalism is kept ahead of, they tend to fill up with speculation, useless details, and information that isn't just wrong, but "stupid-wrong", e.g. the guy who was convinced that Bigfoot was on the doors of the police cars in GTAV, and that that proved he existed in GTA:SA. Lastly it tends to attract editors who are interested in proving myths rather than editing about them neutrally. They fill up the myth articles with ruminations, personal stories, incorrect information, and modded images masquerading as "proof". If this were Wikipedia, you could call them Single Purpose Accounts and POV-Pushers editing with a Conflict Of Interest. When thwarted, they regularly go full vandal, forcing staff to block and clean up after them. |
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| + | ==What I do now== |
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| − | It is better all around to have an entirely separate Myths wiki, with rules and policies specifically tailored to people who want to write about myths, and simply forbid editing about myths and direct interested editors elsewhere on this wiki. |
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| + | Mostly dispute resolution, advice giving and that kind of stuff. If anything stepping down helps me to work on such things because I can talk to people without the threatening presence of being someone who can block them. |
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| − | ==Why didn't you like the GTA4 era games?== |
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| − | #The setting was so grim and bleak and miserable I found myself unable to enjoy exploring it |
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| − | #The major characters were void of either sympathetic personality traits or motivations |
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| − | #The sluggish unresponsive driving mechanics |
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| − | #Awful radio station selection. Three rap, no metal, and rock spread across 2 stations and mixed in with other stuff? |
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| + | Sometimes I actually write content too. Mostly I look for articles with sprawling disorganized trivia sections and rewrite them integrating as much trivia as I can into the article, deleting the bunk. |
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| − | ==Alternate accounts== |
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| − | *[[User:McJeff Alternate]]: Account for public terminals and occasional spading |
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| − | *[[User:McJeff Chat]]: User account specifically for using the chatroom (as I edit with the Monobook skin I can't access the chatroom under this account) |
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| − | *[[User:Jeff the Bot]]: Dormant user account in case I ever register to run a bot |
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Revision as of 16:32, 21 May 2014
|
Former bureaucrat from 2011-2014.
Semi-retired.
Why I stepped down
I never really had the knowledge of the GTA series to be a great content editor. I played and loved Vice City and San Andreas, and most of my best edits were to VC and SA related pages. I didn't care for GTA3, probably because I started with Vice City and compared to it, GTA3 seemed really primitive with the small car selection, simple missions and silent protagonist. I hated the bleak angsty aesthetic and the driving physics of GTA4, and never played GTAs 1 and 2.
I got the job because the wiki was rebuilding in the wake of the community split. A guy named WikisEditor somehow knew about Bully Wiki and invited me (and Messi1983) to GTA Wiki not because of my content writing but because of my administrative knowledge. We put the wiki back together, got rules written and a fully functional staff promoted and trained.
And with that done, there wasn't much for me to do.
Every so often something requiring bureaucratish knowledge would happen, like the Dodo/Sasquatch dispute or the January 2014 Administrator Elections. But aside from the occasional Big Thing, all I was doing on GTA Wiki was occasionally reverting vandalism or blocking someone, and enforcing the image policy. And enforcing the image policy is tedious, takes a lot of time, and makes you unpopular with editors who don't see the point.
When GTAV came out at first I thought it was awesome. Then I suddenly lost all interest in it. I think it was in the lead-up to a heist where you have to store a getaway vehicle... I don't know. I found that so annoying that I just stopped playing and never started again. And when I realized that GTAV wasn't as great as I thought it was, I began to think it was time for me to leave the wiki. Ironically I started playing GTAV again after I left
Funny thing is, it's hard to let go if only because it's human nature to hang onto power, even if it's a power as insignificant as bureaucrat on a wiki, and even if we're rarely using it and not enjoying it when we do. Dan, Tom and I each have stepped down as bureaucrat before, then gone back and gotten ourselves repromoted - we ended up making a rule to keep us from doing that again, and since we each did that once it kind of balances out.
But the truth is, I'm done here, I've been done here for months, and if it wasn't for the fact that there's no takebacks on giving up your bureaucrat spot (especially now that Ilan got promoted into the spot) I'd have left this wiki a long time ago.
What I do now
Mostly dispute resolution, advice giving and that kind of stuff. If anything stepping down helps me to work on such things because I can talk to people without the threatening presence of being someone who can block them.
Sometimes I actually write content too. Mostly I look for articles with sprawling disorganized trivia sections and rewrite them integrating as much trivia as I can into the article, deleting the bunk.