Talk: Gboyers

Moved

Grand Theft Wiki has moved to GrandTheftWiki.com. This was a decision made by the whole community for a wide range of reasons.

Unfortunately, Wikia took it upon themselves to ban GTW's staff from this site and all of Wikia, and keep this site open as a copy of Grand Theft Wiki.

Even though I founded Grand Theft Wiki in 2006, and I had the backing of the community to move, Wikia are pretending it never happened so that they can continue to earn money on the adverts that this community hates so much. They have thrown away their dignity, and lost the respect of the community.

Please join us at our new location, and join in the celebration of being free from Wikia's money-driven clutches.

You can contact me either here or on my GTW talk page. Gboyers ^talk 11:58, September 10, 2011 (UTC)

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Promotion

You never seen me in action--—Preceding unsigned comment added by Wcrolas990 (talk • contribs) Please remember to sign your talk page messages with ~~~~.

First prove it that my english sucks. Second i'm not threatening if it was i would say if you won't give it i will rape your whole family you fucking prick :).--—Preceding unsigned comment added by Wcrolas990 (talk • contribs) Please remember to sign your talk page messages with ~~~~.

Mistake

You know that it should be like this Israeli-Russian nor Isrli-Russian--—Preceding unsigned comment added by Wcrolas990 (talk • contribs) Please remember to sign your talk page messages with ~~~~.

Don't lie.--—Preceding unsigned comment added by Wcrolas990 (talk • contribs) Please remember to sign your talk page messages with ~~~~.

The thing is i'm sick from school i can say some fucking shit i can't remember what is it called gibberish.--—Preceding unsigned comment added by Wcrolas990 (talk • contribs) Please remember to sign your talk page messages with ~~~~.

I swear alot because in lithuania 3 year old knows how to swear. It's just sad :( got a lithuanian gene even if my past relatives are spanish blood.--—Preceding unsigned comment added by Wcrolas990 (talk • contribs) Please remember to sign your talk page messages with ~~~~.

Thanks for the info about the wikis. By the way, why you was blocked for six months? -- Ilan xd 17:45, September 20, 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for telling me that. You still have your admin rights? -- Ilan xd 18:05, September 20, 2011 (UTC)

Warning/Blocking question

Since you think I'm too quick to block I think I'll ask your advice. I've got an editor who's inserting factually incorrect information into an article, refuses to discuss his edits on talk pages, and has continued inserting the false information after being warned. He's User:Daniel sugden (talk|contribs). I warned him nicely once, and then sternly once. How would you proceed in regards to warnings/blocks? Jeff ^{(talk this way)}/_{(stalk this way)} 02:38, September 21, 2011 (UTC)

Your opinion

Gerard, just out of interest, what do you think of the Competence is Required as a ruling on here? I think it is not needed here and Jeff thinks it should stay, so just looking for a third opinion. Dan the Man 1983 17:24, September 23, 2011 (UTC)

This is the difference between my wiki and this one. On GTW, the focus of staff is on helping users become good editors, not restricting editing to an elitist selection of staff (like WikiGTA and GTAModding) or forcing inexperienced users out (like here). I always said CIR was ridiculous, especially since it's just an opinionated Wikipedia essay. Yes, I can understand saying that people who are repeatedly destructive should be eventually removed, even if it's all accidental. But saying you need to be experienced and competent to edit here is overstepping the line by a mile. This is not my wiki any more, so it's your choice, but given the rules and attitudes, I would not like to be a new user here. Gboyers ^talk 18:09, September 23, 2011 (UTC)

I'm not wed to the idea that it has to stay exactly as it is. What I want is for an actual rule to say something along the lines of "If, even after multiple users have done their best to help you, you still aren't able to contribute constructively to the wiki, you may be blocked from editing as a last resort" After having looked at the few competence blocks I installed on Bully Wiki, I furthermore came to the conclusion that in four years of wiki-editing, there has been only one user who actually needed to be blocked specifically for competence. That was the 99.7.x.x editor I've mentioned a few times before. The reason I want a rule stating that competence blocks are allowed, however, is to prevent a Wikipedia-esque months-long appeals process while you try to prove that the incompetent editor is actually beyond help.

If you've got the stomach to sift through Wikipedia drama, you can look at the cases of Gavin.collins and Pumpie for two cases of incompetent editors who I think should have been blocked years before they finally were and who, especially in the case of the former, drove good editors away while the bureaucratic engine ran in low gear. Jeff (talk|stalk) 18:49, September 23, 2011 (UTC)

So because Wikipedia (25 million pages) allowed a couple of incompetent editors to cause trouble, you think the GTA Wikia (52,000 pages) should have a whole policy to scare away everyone who isn't an expert at using wikis? If you have this as a policy, and you follow it, then you will end up banning users just because they're new. I doubt that's your aim, but it will be the result of the prescriptive way policy and staffing works on this site. Which is the wrong way. Gboyers ^talk 19:33, September 23, 2011 (UTC)

You've been determinedly misinterpreting and accusing me of misapplying the Competence policy ever since your block expired and you started posting here again, and I'm getting rather sick of it. And start indenting your posts properly. Jeff (talk|stalk) 21:45, September 23, 2011 (UTC)

Sigh. You're the one repeatedly misinterpreting me. It was User:WikisEditor who chose that ridiculous policy, not either of you. As far as I know, you've not blocked anyone for breaching it, so how on Earth could I be accusing you of mis-applying it?? The thing I personally disagree with is how policy on this site is prescriptive and limiting, whilst the wiki SEEMS to be trying to be community-focused. I'm not accusing you of being a Nazi or of mis-applying policy, not at all. I'm accusing the policy of being inadequate. With the CIR policy, you make all your visitors scared of contributing, having to look over their shoulder every 5 minutes to check if what they're doing is against the 1000 individual rules on the site. I run my wiki completely differently - with fewer rules, and instead having principles, objectives and priorities which everyone is working towards. Anyone who does anything against that can expect to be warned or removed. It works much better for us, but only because all my staff 100% understand this, and I trust them all to stick to doing things which improve the wiki. Of course we have some absolute rules, and quite a few guidelines (e.g. article naming) that show the ways of doing things that we've chosen.

That's what works for us, because of the type of site my staff and I run. I am not suggesting that you should copy my policies, not at all. I'm suggesting that you should decide HOW you want to run this site, and select/write whatever policies you need to enforce that. At the moment, this site seems to be made of randomly-selected policies - some inherited from GTW (that I wrote), some that you guys have used before (e.g. from bully), and some copied from elsewhere (e.g. Wikipedia). In my opinion, you need to re-think it all from scratch and make the wiki how you (and your users?) want. This is what I keep trying to explain - it's not directed at any individual.

As a starting point, I suggest you answer these questions:

1. What do you want this wiki to become? What is your end-goal?
2. How do you want to make this wiki different to GTW and others?
3. How much freedom do you want to give your users? In what areas?
4. How much freedom do you want to give your staff? In what areas?
5. What should the focus of staff be? Expertise, enforcement, guidance, training?
6. How should the final decision be made? User vote, staff vote, or bureaucrat decision?
7. What do you expect from very new users?
8. What do you expect from very experienced contributors?
9. What specific actions do you absolutely need to ban from the site completely?

Your answers to those questions should form your policy. When answered, write a policy statement like these:

• If you want a strong, rigid, structured wiki, focused on accuracy, you might give users little freedom. This sort of wiki might even be "selected users only" or require edits to be approved by staff. You might have several ranks of staff/users, each saying what they're allowed to do (e.g. editor, senior editor, reviewer, rollbacker). Users in the community should have some input, but it will always be staff making the decisions. There's no room for error, and users who don't adhere to the structure should be removed without delay. Staff are able to do whatever they need to do to make the wiki excellent.
• If you want a community-led wiki, then democracy would be the centre of decision-making. You'll have discussions and votes on everything, with the role of staff being to oversee the debates and uphold the outcomes. Policy will be focused on discuss first, act afterwards. Users who go against established decisions or are seen to subvert the democracy will be dealt with severely, for breaching the community's trust.
• If you want a free and open wiki, focused on being fun rather than correct, you'll give users complete freedom. You'll have people cleaning up messes, and will ofc take action against vandals, but you don't restrict users from getting stuck-in. Your editing policies won't be very strict, instead you'll have guidelines to steer people in the right direction. Staff will be responsible for training users and cleaning messes, rather than being in-charge. Decisions should be made by the community, but could be made by staff IF they are able to please everyone.

At the moment, you seem to be a mixture of these, and it makes no sense. You have votes and some firm policies, but staff are able to overrule them. You encourage participation, but scare users off with high expectations. Try answering my questions and producing a policy statement, then we'll see what policies you need to make it work.

As for indenting my posts, you're seriously shouting at the founder of this wiki (longest-serving user, highest active edit count, and wrote most of the policy here) for something ridiculous like that? The way I always do it is if there's a discussion between two people, one person indents and the other doesn't. (Same with 3, but the third person always indents 3 times) That way it's very easy to see which replies belong to the same user. Stack-indenting (every reply indents another) is meant for complex non-linear tree-style conversations, where you need to show who is replying to which comment. But here it's all in chronological order - every new post goes on the bottom - so stack-indenting is pointless. It's just silly forcing there to be 5+ indents in a conversation between 2/3 people - it makes it harder to see whose reply is whose, and wastes hundreds of pixels in width. But hey, whatever you want. I've done nothing but try to help, but if my advice isn't good enough for the almighty bureaucrats, I'll leave you to it. Gboyers ^talk 05:48, September 24, 2011 (UTC)

Yeah it was WikiEditor who added that policy here, cause most of the policies he added come from BW. I don't think we can justify the Competence is Required policy on here, when no IP's(most incompetent of users) edit here and most, if not all users are competent already. If they're not, then a little help would not go a miss, instead of rousing at them for doing wrong.

My problem with the ruling, it makes people who read it feel like they're editing on thin ice. People when editing should feel like they're doing something good and having fun and not feel like they're going to be blocked any minute all because competence is a strict must on here. Competence requirement is an unwritten must on all wiki, and it does not need to be written in a policy, which makes it seem like a scare tatic.

Another way I see it is that people when editing are going to make mistakes, as it is human nature to make mistakes. It is very easy to grill them for making mistakes, but it is much easier and more rewarding to the wiki if you correct their mistakes and help them.

What I want from this wiki is a community where everyone can edit and have fun editing under a fair policy system, where major decisions are done by voting where everyone, staff or not has their say. We all have one thing in common, we all love GTA. Dan the Man 1983 16:35, September 24, 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan, sounds good to me. Jeff, do you agree with those sentiments? Gboyers ^talk 16:59, September 24, 2011 (UTC)

This should be adequate. I do have a concern about editors who wikilawyer about whether they broke the rules or not and whether we have the right to block them, but I don't think that warrants retaining an unpopular and more-harm-than-good policy like Competency Is Required. Jeff (talk|stalk) 22:51, September 24, 2011 (UTC)