Wikipedia now down to 16 Bureaucrats

[Kraken]

Deskana was just demoted for inactivity.

There hadn't been a promotion to Bureaucrat since Lee Vilenski in 2022. And you can see what a useless fuck he is in the car crash possibly sent a kid to suicide experimental RfA recently closed by a non-crat.

Nobody has even applied for this role in nearly 2 years.

Is it time to just get rid of it? Are they serving any real purpose? Are they really what people have always assumed they were? Wise and sensible people who can be relied to keep Wikipedia on a steady course when times are lean and waters troubled?

They're not exactly independent anymore. Two of the sixteen are double jobbing as Arbitrators, with the Arbitration Committee's judgement often being the source of waves. One suspects of this was banned, then if only because ArbCom is chronicle short of capable members, they would give up the Bureaucrat "hat."

Another two of the sixteen are also Stewards, suggesting the role is redundant to being a Steward.

One of the sixteen is a long time member of a critic website that recently upset a lot of Wikipedia editors for their stance on OUTING - that it's perfectly acceptable to doxx any advanced right holders on Wikipedia on general principle. That alone might be a good explanation for why nobody is rushing to apply for this role.

A whopping five of the sixteen possess the extremely powerful CU/OS tools, yet none of them (afaik) have these tools merely so they can monitor their use (or rather, monitor how well ArbCom monitors their use). They all look like people who regularly use these tools in day to day matters. Which again is often a source of waves.

One of the sixteen is the BFF of The Rambling Man. A former Admin and Bureacrat who, UNLIKE CHRIS TROUTMAN, is a pretty fucking good example of how many second chances the majority white straight American male editor community will grant to -ists and -obes if they are first and foremost a dedicated Wikipedia editor, a prolific creator of high quality content. A True Believer.

So there might be at most 9 Bureaucrats who are truly independent and aren't more likely to be the cause rather than the origin of waves. And I am including the one who is famously a trans woman (and whose work blocking open proxies is arguably a full time role in of itself). I am probably definitely missing some controversy in that list too.

And of those 9, how many are active?

Cecilia has 2 edits in 2024. UninvitedCompany has 1.

This appears to be yet another crisis the Wikipedia community is just hoping will fix itself. And much like RfA, which is now killing children, any fix will probably just make things far worse.

[Kraken]

Make that fifteen......

I've been a bureaucrat for 20 years, which is more than long enough. I've not been very active in this role in recent years, so it is time to stand down. Thank you for tolerating me in post for all this time! I'd like to remain an administrator and will of course continue to edit. While I believe I could remove my own flag, for clarity, I'd prefer another bureaucrat to do so. Warofdreams talk 22:02, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

[Bbb23sucks]

And much like RfA, which is now killing children

Wrong: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3327&p=29286#p29286

[ericbarbour]

The "official" list, and you know what I think of their "official lists"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats

Yes, Steve "UninvitedCompany" Dunlop has been very inactive since last year. Maxim, who I STILL think is a sockpuppet controlled by David Gerard, does very little other than arbitration business. Dweller is riding the desysop wave. Same for Cecropia, one of WP's earliest administrators. Bibliomaniac15 is only partly active. Avraham has done very little since 2011 and is also doing the desysop wave. AmandaNP aka DeltaQuad is semi-active since 2021. I still have no idea what that freak Andrew "Acalamari" Spencer does on Wikipedia, other than being an "insider's insider".

And you know what a bullshitter Will "28bytes/Mason" Nicholes is--since he reminds us on WPO routinely. (Is the article he wrote to promote the stupid videogame he wrote still on Wikipedia? Yes it is. How much other COI/paid editing has he done? Plenty. They KNOW he did, and they let him get away with it. He SHOULD have received the Nihonjoe treatment. I know this because I participated in doxing him and describing his COI editing on Wikipediocracy when he was running for Arbcom in 2013. The original thread is in the "Too Embarrassing" area, and much of it was deleted by Zoloft because Nicholes complained to him. There was a WPO blog entry about it--deleted. Thanks to archive.org, you can still see it.)

Side note: many language WPs and other WMF sites have no bureaucrats at all. Its "value" is questionable at best--a WMF employee can always change permissions and create special classes, which is all a bureaucrat really does. It's not labor intensive. Apart from making any bureaucrat one of the "most trusted members of the community" blah blah.

Remember that Der Jimbo The Magnificent openly lies to the press about these little problems.....

Recent signs that administrator activity has declined continuously since late 2007 resulted in some media coverage.[5][6][7] See the chart at right, compiled from "official" statistics. As a result, Jimmy Wales was interviewed by the BBC in July 2012 [8], and lied: "The number of admins has been stable for about two years, there's really nothing going on," he said.

[Kraken]

I had somehow quite forgotten the 28Bytes fiasco included a doxx. So he is Will Nicholes, Atari enthusiast. So Wikipedia.

That's a pretty damn good use of a Wikipedia criticism site, bringing the truth to matters like this......

I am a software developer and retro game enthusiast; the Atari 2600 platform is a favorite of mine. I even wrote a game for the platform myself a few years ago. As a regular reader and big fan of The A.V. Club, seeing them say nice things about my game was a dream come true.

21:25, 4 August 2010‎ 28bytes talk contribs‎ 3,318 bytes +3,318‎ creating page

Like most Atari 2600 games, Duck Attack! uses 128 bytes of RAM to hold all game variables and program call stack. The game uses an unusual 3-line kernel technique to produce sprites that are larger and more detailed than those usually seen in Atari 2600 games.[3]

References

[3] Nicholes, Will. "Duck Attack! technical specifications". Retrieved 2010-08-04.

Conflict of interest disclosure
Hello everyone. In light of some concerns that have been brought to my attention about some WP:COI editing I have done, I wanted to solicit some advice regarding some articles I've written or edited with which I have a personal relationship

The first article is Duck Attack!, about a video game I wrote in 2009. I wrote the Wikipedia article myself in 2010, which, it's safe to say, is against current best practices. I was a relatively new editor at the time (about 100 edits) but I have been regularly maintaining and updating the article with new sources since then.

In accordance with the current best practices, I have tagged the article's talk page with the {{connected contributor}} template, and have updated my userpage to indicate that I am the author of that game.

My bolding.

If your personal involvement with a subject could be seen as overriding the aims and policies of Wikipedia, you probably have a conflict of interest.

You should either not edit the subject at all, or limit yourself to obvious corrections, and discussion on talk pages. Alternatively, take great care to edit to an exceedingly high standard of neutrality.

Anything you say and do on Wikipedia can have real world consequences. Your conduct on Wikipedia is publicly visible forever. Attempts to influence or misuse Wikipedia are routinely exposed in the media, and can lead to significant embarrassment....

......

Editors with COIs are strongly encouraged to declare their interests, both on their user pages and on the talk page of the related article they are editing, particularly if those edits may be contested. Editors who disguise their COIs are often exposed, creating a perception that they ... are trying to distort Wikipedia.

I understand and respect the process of building neutral, well-sourced encyclopedia articles. After all, it's why we're here.

Please disclose any conflicting interests, on or off Wikipedia, that might affect your work as an arbitrator (such as by leading you to recuse in a given type of case).
Regarding on-wiki conflicts, I would tend to recuse if a case focused on (for example) one of my RfA nominators, or someone I'd nominated for RfA. Topic areas where I've invested a lot of editing time would likely merit a recusal as well. Off-wiki, if a case involved someone I knew in person, worked with, or had any type of financial dealings with, I would recuse.

Unfortunately, many past and present arbitrators have been subject to "outing" and off-wiki harassment during their terms. If this were to happen to you, would you be able to deal with it without damage to your real-world circumstances or to your ability to serve as an arbitrator?
No one is thrilled to have their real life information dragged through the internet. I've seen some truly nasty and personal stuff directed at arbitrators and other editors in the past, but if anything, the realization that anyone could do the same to me has heightened my awareness of how article subjects might feel when Wikipedia allows unsourced or badly sourced rumors or gossip to appear in articles about them, in violation of our BLP policy. Just as we don't like other people targetting us unfairly, we should do our utmost to make sure we're not doing the same thing to others.

Firstly, please accept my apologies for adding to the list of questions! I'm one of the less controversial arbitrators but even I have had my writing twisted, my honesty questioned, my personality derided. I've been the target of unpleasant emails and real life actions. Other arbitrators have been subject to much worse. Have you thought about how being an arbitrator might affect you and what have you done to prepare?
I work from home, so I'm not particularly worried about people calling my "office" to complain, and if they decide to show up in person, well, my wife has a big dog with a healthy appetite. But more seriously, I'm under no illusions that being on ArbCom will be a pleasant experience, free of nasty emails or attack articles. I'm not running because I think it would be a fun way to spend my time; I'm running because this is one of the top ten most viewed websites on the internet, and letting the committee that is its de facto "supreme court" fall into the hands of people who are not serious about our responsibilities is not something I want to see.

Should articles ever use The Daily Mail as a reference source?....
The Daily Mail gets it badly wrong often enough that I would be very leery of using it as a source; we could probably do with a periodic review of the articles that do use it to see if the claim(s) sourced to it are being supported by other, more reliable sources, to either swap in those sources or remove the claim.......

Presumably he only retains his membership of Wikipediocracy because he knows Vigilant isn't allowed to OUT members. Even when it isn't even outing. Good puppy.

It's pretty insane now many people (Wikipedia advanced rights holders included) were totally fine with someone being a CU/OS on Wikipedia and a Blog Post writer on Wikipediocracy. The blog is literally used to doxx people, then and now.

Which is fine as a principle, if the authors actually have principles to begin with.

I don't see what's particularly insightful about.....

https://wikipediocracy.com/tis-the-seas ... wikipedia/

If anything, rightly or wrongly, it proves Wikipedia's approach to blocks/bans/socking is the sensible approach for any website committed to pseudonymous editing, and Malleus Fatuorem / Eric Corbett is the proof.

A Brief History of Malleus...

* 100% never was a Wikipedian (simply incapable of accepting he was ever wrong)

* Directly caused far more disruption than his talent/output ever merited, due to the culture of valuing the bauble laden "record" of mere avatars and their internal social circle, over the basic dignity of real people (community)

* Wrongly assumed editors thought he was a cocknozzle because they didn't see him as a real person (by far his funniest ego driven mistake in a litany of ego driven mistakes)

* Socked around his eventual long enough block (because he never was a Wikipedian), showing all those who put their trust in the little shit weasel were the real "fools" alluded to in his chosen avatar (I'll go to my grave still laughing at that one)

* Caught very easily because it's actually VERY EASY to detect socks where the person hasn't tried to (or in his case is simply incapable) of eliminating the part of them the community of real people finds objectionable about their personality.

I think Wikipedia dodged a bullet here. I think the only reason 28Bytes wanted to be an Arbitrator, was to help people like Malleus. Which is a shame really. A Wikipedia modelled on doing what suits editors who think and act like Mallues, would surely have imploded in a lake of flaming shit many years ago.

He could still be doing serious damage if he's promoting edge case Admins who show pro-Mallues tendencies. Not nearly as much damage as an Arbitrator who has such proclivities can do, as can be seen by the fact Wikipedia did indeed have many such Arbitrators during the reign of Malleus, first of his name, evil seed of Queen Bishonen when she bedded her Court Jester Giano The Silly.

I wonder if they regret their actions now? In a very real way I am only what I am because of the cult of Malleus. A thing of such putrid form it offended me to my very core as an English. A man now very in tune with his principles and not afraid to hurt Wikipedians feelings by relentlessly delivering the the cold hard truth of that fetid sewer of corruption and incompetence.

You reap what you sow, and never ever forget it, Wikipedians.

Take a lesson from the Mighty Kraken, Vigilant. Nobody is off limits. If someone is telling you who you can and cannot speak about, then you're not the Big Dog of Wikipedia criticism, you're someone's little bitch.

And who would ever be afraid of what a little bitch has to say?!

Nobody puts Kraken in a corner.

Sorry for the word length Zoloft. Hope it didn't cut into nap time. But sometimes things need to be put into their proper context for the people in the world for whom Wikipedia is an unknowable black box.

I hope your diligant and vigilant investigators are still not missing my contributions to the forum.

I hope in my enforced absence you're still doing your entirely non-partisan non-politically motivated holding to account of the great and the good of Wikipedia.

[boredbird]

I had somehow quite forgotten the 28Bytes fiasco included a doxx. So he is Will Nicholes, Atari enthusiast. So Wikipedia.

That's a pretty damn good use of a Wikipedia criticism site, bringing the truth to matters like this......

Thank you. More doxing is needed.

Notice that he uses his own self-published sources and no one has thought to remove them. Sounds like a dumb game anyway. Definitely not worth an article.

Wait this was the guy they tried to put on ArbCom? Yeah that'll totally improve things.

[ericbarbour]

I think Wikipedia dodged a bullet here. I think the only reason 28Bytes wanted to be an Arbitrator, was to help people like Malleus. Which is a shame really. A Wikipedia modelled on doing what suits editors who think and act like Mallues, would surely have imploded in a lake of flaming shit many years ago.

Once again: there are FAR WORSE people than Malleus rattling around in their ugly little cabinet of freaks, right now as we speak.....

[Kraken]

Malleus and those like him are long gone. Wikipedia is now a very different place. Not one of tolerance or respect for human dignity. Which is ironic. But at least now the disrespect is being targeted at minorities the Wikipedia community as a whole either isn't minded to fight for, or are genuinely scared to defend.