Forum:A Suggestion to Improve The Wiki's Standards

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I first wrote this here. But because no-one noticed I'd like to post this on its own thread because I think this is a good idea.

We should completely remove all votes, awards and non-awards. The admins should be the only ones who make decisions and have 100% total control over users. Admins, who gain their position from being the most knowledgeable about what to do, should be the only ones who do what now all registered users can do. In order to prevent vandalism, we should make it so that Admins have more power to the point that VFD will be locked from editing by regular users so that only they may vote on articles. This is so idiotic decisions are a thing of the past. Only the admins should be able to choose who deserves awards, what articles should be featured and deleted and they should be able to ban normal users with or without a reason at any given time, for any given length of time. This sounds draconian until you hear the reasoning behind it.

This may sound like a troll post but I'm serious. Admins get to their positon because they know what is best for the encyclopedia. It isn't like a country were everyone should get a say, this is a completely different matter were absolute authority by a few is good. Unlike autocracies in real life, were the person in charge may be inexperienced or incompetent, a person can only become an admin if they know what they are doing. And those who say "That's elitist and a dictatorship!", well one would still make their way up into admin status as it is now, but would only do things such as write funny articles and actively contribute as opposed to whine on if it should be deleted and continue to make the wiki better and better, and the experienced admins would do the rest.

But isn't this an over-the-top idea?

Nope. The only reason why this might sound strange is because it isn't a familiar concept. Because for most of Uncyclopedia's history we have ran on a system in which admins have only acted as regular users with more powers, it might sound extreme if administrators were immediately given total control. But this isn't what I'm saying. Firstly, it could be implemented over a period of days or weeks. It would be slowly phased in so that it would be almost un-noticable. After a long period of administrators gaining more powers in minor things such as the phazing out of regular users discussing nominations (which in turn would start with, for example, their votes only being worth half of what an administrator's are), in about four months of this all voting and foruming would be completely banned from all non-administrators. As this would occur at a slow pace it would allow everyone to be eased into it and eventually accept it as the norm. This would be positive as it would drastically improve how decisions are made within the wiki.

This means it would become an internal issue: UotM, for example, would be so that administrator's couldn't vote for themselves (or even other admins). This would mean that administrators would be able to choose which regular users are among the best and as a result of this said user would become more likely to become an administrator in the future. This DOES NOT mean that everyone who writes a featured article would become an administrator. Not at all. Only 20 or so people at the very most (around the same as it is now, and being roughly 2% of the active userbase) would be admins. This means that only the best of the best would get to make decisions about which articles would be deleted or featured. In some matters more than one administrator should be involved with (like with the vote-for-deletion process), but in others administrators would be able to work independently against a problem. For example, if a normal user, be he IP address, registered user or experienced user, was acting in a way that said administrator thought was erratic or damaging to the wiki he could immediately issue a ban without any restriction as to the length or nature of the ban.

This would be impossible to implement!

It wouldn't at all. As I said before, most of it revolves around making it so that people adapt to accepting these changes. The worse way this could go wrong would be to have a "whether you like it or not" attitude around it. The more people who realized this would not be a negative change to the wiki the better. It would also not be impossible to completely revoke voting privileges, as most of this would be fixed by fully protecting all voting pages. All of this would be extremely easy to implement. The only reason why it might take weeks to begin the intiative would be because people would initially be hostile to the idea of no longer doing things they previously participated in. Take note that a lot of people have forgotten the phrase "editing is not a right, it is a privilege". Who is to say this doesn't apply to wiki decision-making?

And it isn't like the best users who WOULD be able to make these decisions but not be administrators wouldn't eventually become administrators within a period of a month or two. And once several of these people were admins, that would be it. These people would have everything they had before, but because they would be among the ones most knowledgeable about how the wiki should be run they would be entrusted with the ability to do so much more than they had before (and the many others who aren't as good as them). Of course, administrators who demonstrated unproffesional behaviour may be subjected to a vote by another admin as to whether or not he should be de-opped. If the user done something extemely brash then he may immediately be de-opped and possibly permabanned. This would mean that if an administrator's quality was to drop, he would be disposed of and the non-admin writer of the month could possibly take his place (take note that administrators could not be user or writer of the month, meaning they would have to take a behind-the-scenes stance on improving the wiki).

So In Conclusion...

Bad articles would be a thing of the past as voting would only be done by the wiki's best users. Non-admins will still have plenty to do as they would be the ones writing funny articles and eventually working themselves up into administrators by becoming better and better. VFH would also greatly benefit from this as no-more self-written articles would appear. The regular users would write articles and be able to talk with others on their talk-pages, and admins would do the rest. Admins having complete authority is no bad thing as, unlike a police-state, the administrators would know what they're doing. And if they don't then they would be de-opped. More people would be banned but only for the sake of quality. I'd like to hear what other people have to say about this. -- ENTER CITADEL T)alk C)untributions B)an 00:39, August 8, 2012 (UTC)

Voting

Score: -8

Bad idea. ~[t h s] UotM 01:11, 08/08/2012
Against. I like voting occasionally, but would probably never be opped. -- Simsilikesims(♀UN) Talk here. 01:21, August 8, 2012 (UTC)
Boner. That's apparently a thing now. ~jcm 22:48, August 8, 2012 (UTC)
Putting admins in charge of everything would alienate a lot of users and I would imagine there would be a pretty big exodus of irritated and disenfranchised people. We all play a part in most facets of the wiki, we all ENJOY playing that part, we are all GRATIFIED by playing that part, and we are all very much WANTING to be a part of the various processes here, all of us, that is, except those who don't, sorry. Its great that you are trying to improve the wiki, but you wont find anyone whod openly agree with this. Take up an issue or find a user space you care about and work on improving those, be bold. The future is limitless. The sky is just the beginning. The lake is like an ocean. The wind is your salvation. Jesus died so we could make funny articles. --ShabiDOO 22:54, August 8, 2012 (UTC)
tl;dr —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 00:12, 9 August 2012
Feel free to interpret that comment as exemplifying the attention span of some admins^[1] and a possible reason why one shouldn't put too much faith in the admins. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 00:15, 9 August 2012

↑ In this particular admin's defense, though, he hasn't been getting a lot of sleep lately. ; )

Against. I read it as a troll post when I read it in the other forum. Like many simple concepts, "open editing" has some profound and subtle effects on Wiki usage. Allowing everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by nontechnical users. Nominally Humane! 02:00 09 Aug
Against. I can't be bothered to read your entire essay, but based on what I did read: I'm against it. -- The Zombiebaron 04:55, August 9, 2012 (UTC)
Against. You have articulated a position well but I prefer the system we have developed. It can be chaotic, messy, disorganised and inefficient but at least it isn't a tyranny. If your suggestion about how to run Uncyclopedia had been operating when I first joined, I am sure I would have received an infinite ban from an admin when I voted against articles that I thought were not good enough to feature. A benevolent dictatorship is still a dictatorship. --RomArtus*Imperator ® (Orate) 07:07, August 9, 2012 (UTC)
Against. Because admins make mistakes, and normal users sometimes have brilliant ideas. I don't see why what is essentially a minority of users doing the wrong thing should mean that everyone else has to suffer for it. ~Sir Frosty (Talk to me!) 07:18, August 9, 2012 (UTC)

8===========D~ ~ ~ ~O:

I vote this.    - Not particularly sincere, Sir ColinAYBCUNVFHWhoringMore Whoring at 08:24, Thursday 09 August 2012 -

LOL JEW!!!!!111111--WELCOME TO UNCYCLOPEDIA HELL!!!! 09:20, August 9, 2012 (UTC)
Partial For. I've been outsourcing a lot of things to the admins lately. For instance my bathing routine used to just a pitiful wank in the shower. Now Lyrithya and sannse join me for a deep genital cleanse accompanied by sapphic frolics and jollies.--Sycamore (Talk) 12:28, August 9, 2012 (UTC)
For. Because I'm a rebel. And I'm not even going to change the score. Yeah, well what are you going to do about it, tough guy? Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 13:57, August 9, 2012 (UTC)
Against. Primarily per Romartus. You keep arguing about how your system is better because it's less messy, but that is very much the course democracies that became benevolent dictatorships take. I haven't seen any admin being de-opped even in the current system, and if we go by your idea, abusive admins might even "gang up" on a user; not necessarily by blocking him, but by ostracizing him on VFH and VFD and other voting pages. My comments are not meant to reflect my opinion of our active admins' character at all, but if you give powerful people too much power, even otherwise mild-mannered and just people may be tempted to abuse it, such as what happened in The Stanford Prison Experiment. I know I may be drawing some rather paranoid analogies here, but that could very well be what Uncyclopedia spirals down into if we go by your system. And no, phasing it in like this does not change the outcome I believe it will have. A benevolent dictatorship is still a dictatorship.
P.S- While I do agree that to be an admin you need to have a lot of experience as well as managerial skills, your assumption that they would be better at judging the quality of articles, as well as who the best users are around here on these grounds alone is pretty offensive, if you ask me. --Lord Scofield Stark 15:55, August 9, 2012 (UTC)
Against. Say no to hypsters, all the time, everytime. --Oli Omni Ombudsman 16:52, August 9, 2012 (UTC)
Against. I would still disagree even in an alternate reality. --Master Wangs CUNT and proud of it! 06:45, August 11, 2012 (UTC)
Against. --EMC^[TALK]18:05 Aug 11 2012
Disagree in all universes, alive and dead. I'm sorry, but really, I don't want to see Uncyc to become another Singapore. |Si Plebius Dato' Joe ang Kemador CUN|IC Kill | 10:42, August 13, 2012 (UTC)
For. because I CRAVE SUPREME POWER -- » Sir Savethemooses Grand Commanding Officer ... holla atcha boy» 15:25, August 13, 2012 (UTC)
I'm with the the mooses guy. Incidentally, I'm also with savings. -- TKFU U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UU U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U CK 15:35, August 13, 2012 (UTC)
I was going to vote against, but now I feel obligated to vote for savings-- Phlegm Leoispotter * (garble! jank!) 15:59, August 13, 2012 (UTC)
- You rigged the poll! I'm rigging it back! |Si Plebius Dato' Joe ang Kemador CUN|IC Kill | 07:16, August 14, 2012 (UTC)
Who wants to wind up in the same place as Bulbapedia? Not me! —qzekrom.net16.net clicky! 16:27, August 25, 2012 (UTC)
I'm seconding Dan and saying that this is a very bad idea. -- Кıяву ^Тαгк _{Сойтяıвs} 2012-08-31T00:10