Forums: War Room → Major change to user rights system

When Avatar Wiki and the Avatar Fanon Wiki merged in 2009, one of the central compromises to allow this change to be more acceptable to all parties was the introduction of fanon administrators, who would have "authority" over the fanon portal while possessing fewer rights than admins. This was okay because users who edited "the canon side" and users who edited "the fanon side" did not usually overlap. The wiki could be managed as two separate spheres under one common domain.

But the times have changed. As was always going to be the case, we are increasingly one community with a much higher proportion of users with interests in both our articles and writing their own fan fiction. The limits of what fanon admins can and can't do also seem now hopelessly arbitrary – under what circumstances can they delete pages outside the fanon namespace? Are they a form of elected council with fanon decisions delegated to them, or are they more like admins, who have no decision-making power at all?

The continuation of this dual management system seems both impractical and archaic. So I'm proposing that add either three or four admins, bringing their number up to either eight or nine, while removing the fanon administrator user rights group. Under this new status quo, any admin interested in maintaining the fanon portal will be able to do that, while any admin actively interested in maintaining the fanon portal will also be able to be effective on other parts of the wiki. This should both remove what is now a slightly frustrating historical artefact as well as fulfil our maintenance needs for the big year ahead of us.

I look forward to hearing everyone's opinions on this as well as a discussion of the specifics if we choose to go ahead. The 888th Avatar (talk) 00:32, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

I think it's a great idea, and I doubt it would cause any problems. Lady Lostris should be one of the first ones added to the Administrator list! ~Mysteria Femina~ (wall • Girl Genius talk) 00:38, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

(psych) I agree. The wedge separating canon editors from fanon is more and more diluted. Limiting fanon admin rights seems ever sillier when they're the only ones around when there's vandalism and they can't properly react on it. I agree with the obliteration of fanon admin rights, but I don't think current fanon admins should automatically be promoted to admins. ― Thailog 00:44, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

Before I agree, I have a few questions (I'm quite confused). I know this abolishes the Fanon admin position, so will current Fanon admins be promoted to administrator status? If so, will there be a administrator election involved here? Annawantimes (Talk) 00:46, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

(THIRD EDIT CONFLICT!) Yes. I had a whole bunch of crap typed, but before I get conflicted again, I'm for this.*Winks at Bahjy* In protest of the message wall, READ THE SIG! 00:48, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

I'm with Thailog and Annawantimes here. I think that the class may not be needed anymore, but what will happen with all other usergroups? More admins? What sort of effect would that put on other users as well? Logistical questions, but I guess I'd have to support. --I'm The Bos ^Wall 00:49, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

I support this idea as well. Seeing how both wikis were merged such a long time ago, it is about time that we get rid of the virtual separation that there still is and that are the fanon administrators. As I see it, nothing would really change, just the name of the function, so I see no reason to oppose this in any way.

As per Thailog and Annawan's question: I don't think that the current FAs should become automatically admins. That would not be fair to the community, and frankly, I wouldn't want that at all. So I'm in favor of disbanding the FAs, and electing new admins according to the set procedure. Lady Lostris (talk • HotN) 00:50, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

My questions have been cleared up, and I support wholeheartedly. :) Annawantimes (Talk) 00:52, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

I mentioned you, Lostris, because you deserve to be an Admin, not because you are a fanon admin. ~Mysteria Femina~ (wall • Girl Genius talk) 00:53, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

Hehe, my remark about me not wanting that was solely a reaction to the confusion of the FAs automatically becoming an admin, not to what you said, I was flattered by that :-) Lady Lostris (talk • HotN) 00:55, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

I find nothing wrong with this proposed change. Thailog makes a good point in regards to fanon admins not being able to properly handle certain cases of vandalism, especially when there are no admins available at the time. The Ultimate Waterbender 00:54, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

Per Lostris, fanon admins won't automatically become admins, though as they're great people their chances are more than good when we come around to choosing our three or four new admins. To answer Bos' question, there will only be more admins and no fanon admin group – no other changes at this point.

What are people's preferences on that, by the way? Three or four new admins? The 888th Avatar (talk) 01:04, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

IMO, I don't see any reason to have more than two. ― Thailog 01:05, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

This is absolutely perfect. Honestly, I didn't like the last fanon admin elections much, because both people elected also edited mainspace so much. The fanon admin position has become fairly pointless, as almost everyone on this wiki edits both sides of it. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 01:17, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the proposal as 888 has stated. There is just no real difference between an FA and a rollback user anymore -- the position of FA really doesn't do anything now. KataraFanboy Send me a messenger hawk 01:21, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

wjxhuang: IMO, three new administrators would do it, perhaps just two. Annawantimes (Talk) 01:26, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

I think Thailog is right here and 2 new admins would suffice. I always thought the current admins were doing a good job, so I never really saw the need of having more admins. The fact that there will be no more FAs will not change that as they couldn't do much anti-vandalism work anyway. Lady Lostris (talk • HotN) 02:13, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

Not to mention that FAs are simply rollbacks with a little more power. The "middleman" position's no longer needed. I think 2-3 new admins would suffice. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem 02:55, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

Two is okay with me, that would bring the total up to seven. The 888th Avatar (talk) 04:51, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

I figured there would be a forum for this at some point. Yes, now is as good a time to make the change as any. Two new admins sounds perfect to me. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 14:25, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

I completely agree with this. FAs and admins separation has always been quite dispensable. The administrator position should suffice for both sides of the wiki. I think two new admins would be a good number too,k seven is enough. Dcasawang1 • wall 14:53, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

I suppose two additional admins are enough, seven is a good number. Annawantimes (Talk) 22:15, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

I agree completely, and I also think that the fanon admins shouldn't be just promoted, but yes, nominations would open. I'd also hope that the fanon admin information and nomination pages wouldn't be deleted for archival purposes. Rassilon of Old ^{(Wall - Help)} 22:25, February 13, 2012 (UTC)

Well, I don't want to be rude, but if all fanon admins are going to be dismissed from their position, and there will be new places for any of them to become admins... Then, as I'm around for just a month, I don't know if the original Admins are doing their job (just because I don't know them/I think I don't know, well)... So, what's I'm trying to say is: election for all new admins. Everybody who is an admin or fanon admin today should take place for equal rights at this election. If there are only going to be 7 or 8 nominations... =x (I don't know if I made my point clear... I'm a little stressed/tired) Master Ratava熱沓霸師傅 23:37, February 14, 2012 (UTC)

I don't see why the current admins -who are doing a good job- should be up for election again. It's not because you don't know them personally (yet) after a month, that that means that they're not doing a good job as admin. So like said before, I'm for the disbanding of the FAs and open up two new admin spots, but I see no need at all to put the other admin sports up for election again. Lady Lostris (talk • HotN) 23:42, February 14, 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The current admins are Dcasawang1, Thailog, The Bos, Vulmen and I. I am the only admin left who didn't become an admin as a result of a community vote, but I was voted into bureaucratship. We are doing our jobs and I'm confident we continue to enjoy community support. If a current admin is to be ever removed while still active, it requires community consensus on the forum, which has never happened. Our traditional practice has been to only hold nominations and votes for available positions. I just don't think elections after the manner of national politics are necessary on the wiki. The 888th Avatar (talk) 23:48, February 14, 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Lady and wjxhuang, the current admins are doing a fine job, I too see no reason to disband them from their positions and subject to re-election. Annawantimes (Talk) 03:25, February 15, 2012 (UTC)

I've been lurking this page and pointing people to it for awhile. We clearly have a lot of consensus here, so, cool. ^^" Just tossing in my approval. But yeah; as per Lady & 888 - there's no need to take such drastic measures, and the community indeed does approve of admins' current roles. Vulmen (talk • EoK) 03:54, February 15, 2012 (UTC)

Yes they do, but likewise that consensus can also change should the circumstances call for it. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem 04:28, February 15, 2012 (UTC)

8D sorry for my commenting yesterday, well, why is there a reason not to make all fanon-admins into admins already? I think that the more the best, not talking about quantity, or commitment, but "availability"... If them all are going to work on both canon and fanon sides, so their work increases, though fanon-side doesn't need to have fanon admins, the reason for this changing's just a class name and canon-rights-giving as far as I can tell. I see no meaning in disbanding them all. And, having more people working together with the same range rights, that would divide the amountment of work equally among all admins. And none of them would be overwhelmed =x Master Ratava熱沓霸師傅 12:44, February 15, 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's why many of us have supported opening two additional admin positions for nominations in addition to the current five to bring the number up to seven. :) We do recognise that the overall maintenance workload will increase, but not by enough to justify drastic expansions. I agree with the others that it would be unfair for the additional positions to be simply filled by present fanon admins. Despite my high regard for them, they were voted in as fanon admins and not as admins – our past understanding was that the two roles were different. The 888th Avatar (talk) 12:53, February 15, 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps Master Ratava was thinking of having more than 7 admins; in which case would only cause more confusion and conflict among admins rather than efficient division of workload. :| Axiovatar Talk 16:49, February 15, 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, (I think 7 is a good number, but...) I was thinking of keeping the number of people that we have today. =x Just in case some of the users get inactive (for any reason). =/ Master Ratava熱沓霸師傅 17:03, February 15, 2012 (UTC)

If administrators become inactive, there is a time limit before they are removed. If they're inactive for three months, a bureaucrat will remove their rights since they clearly don't need them anymore. There's no need to make administrators run again if they haven't fallen into inactivity, which no administrator has. --I'm The Bos ^Wall 17:08, February 15, 2012 (UTC)

Then 7 is a very good number indeed ;D Master Ratava熱沓霸師傅 17:10, February 15, 2012 (UTC)

Always try to inform yourself about the status quo before suggesting changes to it. ;) The 888th Avatar (talk) 23:57, February 15, 2012 (UTC)

Advice noted =D Hey guys, so there are 5 admins today, and 3 fanon admins... Why then 7? All 3 fanon admins are very good at their jobs... Why don't we agree to give them 3 the admin status already? If they're doing everything right, I cannot see a reason for eliminate one of them. It's just one more. Or is it time for doing annual nominations again (and I don't know about it...)...? Master Ratava熱沓霸師傅 00:17, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

I can't argue with that – they're doing a great job, but when the three Fanon admins were elected, the community voted for them to become a Fanon administrator, not an administrator. They can all be nominated for adminship, but only two of them can be elected (per the consensus formed for two new admins above). :) Annawantimes (Talk) 00:21, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

Like 888 and Annawan already explained, the fanon administrators were voted fanon admin, not regular admin, and many held different criteria to support someone for admin/fanon admin, meaning that their support for voting someone fanon admin not necessarily holds true to make them admin and vice versa. To keep the entire thing fair towards the community, the two new admins would need to be elected, otherwise they wouldn't necessarily have the community consensus behind them that the other admins have.
As for why only two new admins despite having three fanon admins: the workload on the wiki as it is now just doesn't call for three new admins. Two extra would more than suffice.
And just a general remark: voting for admins isn't something annual, it's just being done when a new admin spot opens. The timing for opening up admin nominations can vary and depends on the reason, but it is in no way an "annual event." Lady Lostris (talk • HotN) 01:52, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

As always, I am the dark cloud in these happy debates which almost all of the community supports. I now stand, once again, with a strong opposition to this idea. I understand why you would want to do this, but, well, I really don't. Please help me understand if you think my argument is unreasonable. Moving on...

There are two sides to the wiki. A canon side, along with all the "Avatar Wiki" navigational and site pages, and a fanon side - user made content made for their own enjoyment. It seems simple that in such different areas, there should be different groups of administrators to each of these. The admins are really the controllers of the wiki - who have earned their way into having the honor and responsibility of keeping everything together - all site preferences, themes, canon pages, forums, user groups, images and commenting. They support us from every direction. Each of the five we have is specialized particularly in a certain area.

Fanon admins are much different, as fanon is all user created, non official content. They're doing the admins a favor by organizing and maintaining the fanon community, their projects, and their systems. While fanon authors and admins alike both take a big roll in the canon side of the wiki, can they help it? In order to be a fanon admin anyway, you need rollback rights, granted to ones with high commitment and activity to the things that regular admins maintain. Of course both sides are going to overlap. Many users who aspire to be fanon administrators may be very active in the canon, forums, and site maintenance, but they don't want to have the responsibility of overlooking the whole site, they just want to be a leader of the fanonical side of the wiki. This change would ruin that. If you want to have authority over the fanon portal, you should be able to be an extremely strong contributor to the fanon side of the wiki, without needing to have the traits of a full admin.

I find it merely a large organization fault in this proposal. It's a fault in a system that will replace one that I currently see nothing wrong with. Why would you change what we have anyway? We have 3 great fanon admins, and 5 great normal admins. They help with both sides of the wiki, but focus on what they're supposed to be doing. Just because their jobs overlap, do you really think that they should all become admins, and add a couple more with them, and then just say, "Yeah, admins who feel like being in charge of fanon, go for it, just try to help when you can and I bet the admins will do just as good as a job as the fanon admins used to."

No. I will not agree to this. Just making a lot of admins who can maintain the fanon portal if they wish. Fanon admins were made to maintain the fanon portal - admins to maintain everything else! Why would you create one central group giving fanon admins more power than they need, having multiple jobs in a whole different area of the wiki for the same user group which will now be doubled in size? You can't have a whole army focusing on a huge amount of things, you need smaller, more elite groups focusing on separate areas of the whole. It's unreasonable not to!

I stand my ground. Sorry for this being so long, but I hope you can respond reasonably. BlackMonkey ^{Talk - Rhythm} 02:47, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

What do Fanon admins currently do? They move necessary articles to userspaces, format articles, and add categories. You don't need additional rights to do these things. As such, the fanon admin user right is nothing more than a title to denote the leaders of the portal, in my opinion. They do a nice job, but they're additional rights aren't really necessary. :) Annawantimes (Talk) 03:24, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

ARG, Lady Lostris, and KFB are all large canon editors. Vulmen and I are large fanon editors. I am quick to format/move fanon pages when they are needed and I think I still help contribute to how the fanon portal is run. Lady Lostris (among others) is frequently involved in making new canon policies, image naming, and grammatical maintenance. The current fanon admins are so involved in mainspace editing that their qualifications would put them up to being some of the top candidates for adminship if the nominations were proposed today. While I do respect the position of fanon admin, it is clear that it is not being used exclusively for fanon maintenence in light of admins who are also experienced in the area. AvatarRokusGhost does (roughly) as much canon editing as any of the admins and some admins do as much fanon editing as PSU (again, roughly). The overlap is too much to justify two usergroups. --I'm The Bos ^Wall 03:44, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

I know exactly what you mean, and with some points I agree with you. However, there are a few things I'd like to set straight;

• there are three sides to the wiki. The mainspace, fanon portal, and film portal. :P
• admins are not "controllers" of a wiki. They have more access to tools, which enables them to take the role of "janitors with privileges", as The 888th Avatar says.
• I agree on your comment about "each of the five [admins being] specialized particularly in a certain area," however they are not assigned to a particular area, they just utilize their skills where need be.
• I also agree with your points on fanon admins taking "responsibility" from the admins for the fanon portal, I also agree there needs to be an "elite group" focussing on the fanon portal. But fanon admins really aren't far off admins access wise, fanon admins just can't undelete pages, edit style sheets, block, and from my memory as a fanon admin, they have a move limit (don't quote me on it!). Might as well open up more positions for adminship when the fanon admins aren't too far off from them and are still limited.
• I also wholeheartedly, completely, and irrefutably agree with the fanon admin position being a stepping stone from rollback to administrator, and I know that users I asked about being an administrator in the past, said they'd rather be a fanon administrator first. I think that removing the fanon administrator user right is a huge loss in the creation and training of potential administrators. And there is a solution to that issue, which I'm not sure is fully necessary, but hey, might as well look into it.

I know wikis with a large community (including Wikipedia & Bulbapedia) have a larger chain of command. One particular user right they have is "junior administrator". I'd imagine that their user rights would be the same as that of a fanon administrator, however they'd have community permission to use their abilities across the whole wiki, not one specific namespace. If we were to introduce this user right to Avatar Wiki, I would definitely think of them as "apprentices" to administrators, who would teach them how to do a particular maintenance job, and then tell them to do it, essentially training them so that when the day comes when a new administrator is to be elected, there is a pool of junior administrators to choose from, as oppose to the silence on nominations for adminship, which has been the case in the past. Examples of users I'd think would qualify for this class would be users such as the current fanon admins, Natsu11, Ultimate Waterbender, Theavatardemotivator, and a few more that I can't think of off the top of my head.

Another compromise, is for me to "reboot" the Fanonbenders so that they can actually help the fanon portal and do stuff, cause at the moment, I've abandoned them, and neglected to lay the foundations for their work. If the community wants to recognise the Fanonbenders as a source of help for the fanon portal, then I'm more than happy to help set it up again, so that the community is more aware of them, and help is more accessible.

Those are my many thoughts, but I definitely think the junior administrator user right should be considered and discussed. Rassilon of Old ^{(Wall - Help)} 03:47, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

(lots of edit conflict) BlackMonkey: I don't really buy the "there are two sides to this wiki and separate they must be" argument. If I am to accept your argument that fanon is a fundamentally different facet of the wiki, then the logical corollary would be that this wiki actually has more than two. I mean, the skills needed for managing our blog posts are vastly different from maintaining canon articles. The nature of managing our forums and maintaining project pages differs vastly with canon articles as well. Are you suggesting that we institute "blog admins" and "forum admins" as well?

Yet one single user rights group currently covers all these different aspects of the wiki, and I challenge anyone to say that we're performing exceptionally poorly in any of those areas. The reason for this isn't because we're all so awesome and can somehow cover all bases. The reason is that, even now, we have a very diverse group of people who are free to maintain the aspects of the wiki they feel comfortable dabbling in. At the same time, we're not restricted into "specialising" in one area. For example, I'll be honest and say I don't do image maintenance all that often. But if an image is accidentally deleted, I still have the ability to restore it.

The idea now with fanon is precisely the same. Because so many on the wiki do in fact have an interest in fanon, you can be sure that many of the admins will be able to perform fanon maintenance to a high standard. (That's not even counting rollback users, who can do most of this maintenance anyway.) But at the same time, admins who take a high interest in fanon maintenance won't be constrained, and can also block users, restore pages, edit MediaWiki messages etc. The end result is more flexibility and more fairness all around. The 888th Avatar (talk) 03:49, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

Also, I'm not sure if it was ever pointed out here, but fanon admins were only created because when the fanon and canon wikis merged, the fanon admins didn't want to lose their user rights. We just kept the user right once all the original fanon admins left the wiki. Rassilon of Old ^{(Wall - Help)}

Firstly; BM, you really shouldn't have to worry whether you would receive reasonable responses.

Two sides to the wiki, yes. I clearly see the differences. Their differences should be respected, and there is currently a forum show-casing that people desire site-wide changes to not include the fanon portal; as that is and should always stand to respect authors' preferences. This, however, does not mean that we require Fanon Administrators to act as another barrier to enacting policy across the wiki. That forum alone should show that administrators can/should respect these differences and take these aspects of the wiki into account.

It's also not true that admins have a "specialization." It's more of an "area of initial interest." That only provides a quick overview of the admins; a 'personal touch' of them if you will. It doesn't even remotely specialize them in said field. I am not limited nor specialized to simply social communication. I have done a little of everything across this wiki, inclusive of fanon edits. I've performed Fanon Administrator work; as have rollback users.

There truly isn't very much difference in a Fanon Administrator and a rollback. All the same functions are used, with only a new title and arbitrary "you shouldn't do's" given to FA's that really don't hold any water or rhyme or reason other than to try to "segregate" the already thin line between FA and Admin. So in short; a Fanon Administrator is really a glorified rollback being told they can't be an admin. It's...not really needed, when everyone can perform their work without any extra rights.

You can't speak for every FA's wants or lack of wants. Two examples; I've seen KataraFanboy perform an extensive amount of factual corrections and vandal fighting, expanding articles and verifying edits for their factuality. I doubt he has no interest in becoming an administrator or for the quality and maintaining this wiki. Likewise, Lostris has done extensive work on this wiki as far as canon is considered, maintaining every nook and cranny that can be found. Undoubtedly she would accept adminship if given the opportunity. For more examples; read what TheBos said - he depicted this clearly.

So; maintaining the fanon portal is a responsibility for all to bear. Rollbacks have done their fair part in keeping fanon clean as well - it is available for everyone to take part in. Admins should likewise chip in - and have done so. Thailog and 888 have helped countless times with numerous edits and categories. I personally have helped many times with rewriting many templates; in fact, actually...every one of our admins has had a strong hand in the shaping of the fanon portal, especially in these last few months. There has not been any lack of participation here.

It is wrong to believe that an admin is shoehorned into one area of expertise. Instead; it is a cooperative effort to maintain the wiki as a whole; fanon included, as demonstrated in these recent months alone. This is not giving admins "more power than they need." They already have that power - and respect, you make it sound as if this is an abuse of power. I assure you it is not.

-And now this-

No; there are not three sides to the wiki. There is no "Film" portal. It falls under the canon side, factual - real world - show, etc. Why don't you try looking at the many namespaces we have? Should we have a "Transcript" portal next? Oh wait; we do. It is all canon.

Hey! I was the one that said admins were glorified janitors. XD And of course; we take care of every aspect of the wiki. A janitor has to clean house of the entire place. We admins already do edit and care for even the fanon side; and participate in its growth and debates, without being a Fanon Administrator.

As I already explained; it is not the case that any of us admins are specialized in one single area. It's simply not true. It's only that we got a mention in that area. Anyone else is just as approachable.

Even rollbacks are allowed to move pages as per fanon policy; applying the "Fanon moved" template on the user's message wall without issue.

Wrong. Fanon administrator is not at all a stepping stone of rollback to administrator. From a rollback you can go straight to administrator no problem; simply show interest in the care of the wiki and a knowledge for policy. That actually goes against the entire idea of Fanon Administrators to be "Focused solely on the fanon side of the wiki." Which supposedly should steer them away from being an administrator. Obviously; these FA's aren't respecting that idea. ^_~

^ This right here is also an example for why these "junior x" positions totally shouldn't be created. We do not need to micromanage this entire wiki and make a mess of user rights. I'll let 888 say more on this. Vulmen (talk • EoK) 04:07, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

Sorry 'bout that Vulmen! I could've sworn I'd seen 888 say that! Perhaps he quoted you. Anyway, don't get me wrong, I know the fanon admin position isn't a stepping stone, but that's how a lot of users see it, as a way to test whether they'd be a good admin or not. I know for sure, although I wasn't intending to become one, I'd never have accepted a nomination for adminship, I just don't think I'd have the skills required, and I know the community felt the same. However, my being a fanon administrator taught me a lot, about my own abilities and the wiki, it taught me enough to feel comfortable with an admin position. Rassilon of Old ^{(Wall - Help)} 04:13, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

Haha totally forgiven. xD Clings to my mop. Anyway; I'm glad to hear you had a good growth experience through that role, regardless of it not being oriented toward that at all. :) Vulmen (talk • EoK) 04:18, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

I know, it's just a shame that we're losing that growth opportunity. I'm sure Bos will agree with me that he learnt heaps during his time as a fanon admin. Rassilon of Old ^{(Wall - Help)} 04:22, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

Just as I learned from being a rollback. We should exercise using appropriate and needed roles; not questionable intermediates. :) Focus on the needs; not just what would be nice/extras. Vulmen (talk • EoK) 04:29, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

It's FactCheck time on Avatar Wiki! :P There were two claims I have issue with... stay tuned...

• Wikipedia has junior administrators. False. They never have, and virtually all administrators on Wikipedia were rollbackers before gaining adminship. (fact ends here and analysis begins) Yet as a very occasional Wikipedia user myself (and a very frequent observer), I have never heard of new admins struggling to adjust to their new role and struggling to use their rights. As someone who went from knowing nothing about wikis to being an administrator in a relatively short period of time myself, I'd argue that no stepping stone is necessary – just observation of what current admins did and how they did it, which I did diligently.
• Fanon admin is a stepping stone to adminship. False. The statistics don't lie – out of the fifteen people to have held adminship on Avatar Wiki, only one became an admin after being a fanon admin. We're very clear that rollback users are equally eligible for adminship, and the role we defined for a fanon admin did not in fact really "prepare" one for adminship. So if people do believe that fanon admin is a stepping stone to adminship, then they are very, very wrong.

This leads me to oppose the junior administrator proposal. The provision of rights to additional people needs to be done in a rational way that accounts for the quantity of maintenance required. Too many cooks above that workload is essentially overcrowding the kitchen. Many Wikia wikis, seeking to emulate the idealistic principles of Wikipedia, commit this mistake and it gets really ugly when wikis end up giving out adminship to anyone who wants it. Let's stick to the proposal of removing fanon admins for two new admins. The 888th Avatar (talk) 04:39, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

I just want to say that League of Legends Wiki has a user group called Moderators which is pretty much junior admin. They can do everything an admin can besides protect, edit mediawiki, nuke, have bots, and add/remove rollback from users. You can look further into it here. Also, I don't think there should be a limit to the amount of admins a wiki has. The more, the merrier. Of course users should earn it, be trusted, and have the need for those tools, but there really shouldn't be a certain number of admins that a wiki should have. That's just my opinion.  Technology Wizard  Wall  Contribs 

I disagree with that, the more admins, the more complicated and messy. We just don't need more than 7 admins. Rassilon of Old ^{(Wall - Help)} 05:01, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

I believe it's obvious we haven't constrained ourselves to a finite number of admins. Admins should be added when appropriate, not just make everyone an administrator who supposedly is worthy.

I'm sorry; but your suggestion simply is illogical here. Reasons have already been supplied as to why not to do as you suggested, and countering with "the more the merrier" only furthers the red flags that we shouldn't follow through with your suggestions.

Also; it is irrelevant how other wiki's are ran. They can be good for providing an example; but they hold absolutely no bearing on us at all. Vulmen (talk • EoK) 05:03, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

I am simply stating my opinion, whether it's logical to you or not is your choice, but there is definitely logic in my words. No, there's no need to promote all users who are worthy of the rights, but users who have dedicated a lot to the wiki and actually have the need for the tools (they fond vandalism, report pages to be deleted, request mediawiki edits or request protection for pages) deserve to be promoted. Obviously there would be a number of admins to a point that there wouldn't be a need for any more. 7 is a good number, and as long as 2/3 of those admins are active, then there would be no need for more, unless 2/3 go inactive.  Technology Wizard  Wall  Contribs 

I'm just going to repeat that keeping too many admins on a wiki is basically the same as hiring too many cooks for an establishment. Sure, all those cooks could well be very qualified. But you don't need a dozen people to perfect that broth – and in fact, you're going to ruin it with all the crowding, yelling and confusion! Wikipedia can afford to have no limit because their establishment always has a shortage of cooks, but I'm satisfied in saying that we're more fortunate. The 888th Avatar (talk) 05:11, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

And by suggesting that we need junior admins too, we're simply adding kitchen hands to what is already a particularly crowded kitchen. :D The 888th Avatar (talk) 05:13, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

Wow, I've set to sleep and then, wake up and the discussion grew wide o.o; Guys, I agree with the fact that fanon is a different side of the wiki, but, it's not independent, without canon side, what fanon would be?

As user rights: if fanon admins are doing canon admins' jobs, then they're not sticking to their position. Not disrespecting anyone, i.e.: if you're employed for graphic designer roll, and you ends up being a programmer it is wrong. I do aprove we having two more admins. Because fanon portal doesn't need a user rights position, fanon and canon aren't two wikis, they're, yes, two sides os the same wiki.

Well, if it's so necessary that we have fanon admins, then make them a user group! Like Fanonbenders (we don't need to make another user group for that, I think Fanonbenders are already functioning as fanon admins, just for their proposal). I see Fanonbenders as fanon admins without user rights.

I'm having to be short, for now that's all I have to contribute. Have a good morning guys! ^_~v Master Ratava熱沓霸師傅 11:37, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

Well, without the canon side, the fanon portal would be a standalone, that's all. Nothing lost. :) It will still be a gallery of marvelous fanons for all to enjoy.

FAs helping out in the canon namespace? That's precisely the whole point of this thread! To eliminate the awkward barrier between the supposed duties of both parties, and bring about the potential of having one merged body accomplish more rather than be "restricted" to one particular namespace. If a graphic designer does a great job as a programmer, why not grant him/her the flexibility to do both? :D Axiovatar Talk 12:02, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

Axio (I love your username; it does seem like my mis-pronounciation of Harry Potter's spell accio, lol) Back to the main issue: what I meant was, that if Avatar (canonly speaking) wouldn't never been existed, then we wouldn't have fanon for something that hadn't had been. (Fanon side only exists based on canon side; that's my point; I'm not talking about fanon-wiki or canon-wiki). When I said about GD/programmer example, I meant that if somebody works (and gets paid for it) as one function, and for any instances, has to do another function, then (in real world) they should be paid for that second function as well. That's my point about user rights: if fanon admins are doing canon admins jobs, here on the wiki where nothing is paid-work (we're here for fun and because we love/like Avatar), then based on this I agree with we not having two kinds of admins. Just Admin position. And if the wiki does need to have, for real, some group of users to do fanon-only jobs, we already have (Fanonbenders). So, I don't see anymore about this situation. I love the way Avatar Wikia works today (canon/fanon, both sides). But if some changings are needed, then let's make them. If futurely they don't seem to work, we get back to a previous point where everything was all right. That's not shameful to turn back a few steps if it is for steping foward more than just a few. Master Ratava熱沓霸師傅 12:20, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

Oh, sorry about the misunderstanding (on the fanon-canon wiki thing). :) And I guess I didn't quite understand the following example as well ^^". Good to know that you're with the change. :> You're quite ambiguous with the last message (at least, to me).

Actually, in real-life, it depends on your boss whether to give you a raise (since you're doing a job beyond your designated one). That or, you're willing to help out for free. :D I don't recommend the latter tho... Axiovatar Talk 12:40, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

Alright. Lets use 888's restaurant example. We currently have 5 cooks - they make everything happen. If we have too many cooks, the kitchen will become crowded, messy, and unorganized. Now lets say the fanon administrators are like, bakers, they focus on the dessert. Of course a baker is going to stir a bowl of soup every once and a while, and a cook will probably have experience in in making delicious pastry dough, but they focus on what they are supposed to. This proposal - it's like, alright, just telling all the bakers to leave and hiring a lot more cooks, who can make dessert for the guests if they feel like it or if they have time in the kitchen.

If I went a little too far into that analogy, my final statement was trying to say that this proposal is just letting the users who are the leaders of the fanon portal go, and then making more admins who can maintain the fanon portal when the wish. I find it unorganized to this.

Furthermore, fanon administrators play a large role in the community, even with limited powers that are only slighter higher than that of a rollback. Fanon admins maintain everything they're supposed to, they are the users who the fanon authors look up to for questions. They were given and now handle well the responsibility to maintain Featured Articles, set up dates for Fanon Awards, fix fanon templates and images, write fanon columns in the BSST, and answer the many questions on the fanon admin noticeboard. The whole reason for this proposal revolves around how little power fanon admins have over the rest of the fanon community. I don't think you realize this, but the rank of fanon admin is not a role of power! The users do not elect who they they want the most powerful, they elect the one who they think can hold the aforementioned responsibility over the fanon portal duties the best. That's what a fanon admin is, a user with rights almost like a rollback, who can edit any namespace they wish, but can be trusted with the responsibility of keeping the fanon portal up and running smoothly. If this proposal was to go through, we'd just make a huge amount of admins and throw the responsibility that fanon admins had onto the admins who felt like keeping up with fanon portal.

And I do find the role of fanon admin as a stepping stone to adminship, a leadership role that isn't as high. I desire to be a fanon admins some day, and have been told by multiple users that I'd make a good one. That's gone now. I'd have to be an admin, and I do not feel up to the admin rank. This is a big loss for a lot of the community. BlackMonkey ^{Talk - Rhythm} 12:52, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

Creative, but your analogy doesn't fit the current situation. Your analogy assumes fanon admins really just aren't competent with canon and vice versa. Yet we have conclusively proved that to be untrue. It is more correct to say that at the moment we have eight cooks who are all competent and can cook both main dishes the establishment offers. Unfortunately, due to outdated laws, five of them only make one of the dishes while the other three make the other dish. This is inefficient – the establishment would function and meet demand better if all of them were permitted to cook both dishes. In fact, the resultant increase in efficiency would be so great that the establishment could in fact do with just seven.

Any one of the roles you ascribed to the fanon admins don't need a fanon admin user right to be fulfilled. They can be done by admins and rollbacks that are interested in performing those tasks. Granting a couple of people some extra rights does not give them some sudden mystical ability to fix templates or write columns. The kind of roles you described at most call for a fanon council, a user group not run by its founders but by certain people elected by the community at large (like the Standards Council). Such a council I would be happy to support.

Finally, BlackMonkey, I note that I don't like singling out people for a lecture on wiki principles. But I find the insinuations from your last remarks unacceptable. True wiki leadership does not refer to a set of exclusive abilities one can employ at will around the wiki. It does not refer to the authority to block a user for disruption. It does not refer to slapping warning templates around. Leadership on a wiki is not about the ability to coerce; no, it is about the ability to serve. The ability to say what needs to be said. The ability to do what needs to be done. The ability to create, not the ability to take down. The ability to improve something, not the ability to undo it. None of these qualities require even a single additional user right. A user who has just joined the wiki could exercise true leadership. But a user who has been here for years could be incapable of that true leadership. I'm afraid I don't think you understand these ideas, and until you do, I'm not happy to support your nomination to any elected position on this wiki. Look – I am not trying to attack your character, which is honest and sound, but I am trying to give you what I believe to be necessary advice. I am hoping that you can take this on board and become the best possible contributor you can be to this wiki that we all share. The 888th Avatar (talk) 13:48, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

Speaking as a fanon admin now myself, the only thing that I have done with my extra rights so far is rename images. All the other things I've done and do on the fanon portal, like changing and rewriting the policies, moving fanons to userspaces, applying templates, correcting spelling/grammar, answering questions about fanon, etc, none of that, and I really mean none, are things that I needed the title fanon admin for to do. Even as an autoconfirmed user, I would've stuck my nose in the debate about the fanon policies etc. I do that now as well when it comes to the canon side. All the things fanon admins do are things you don't need extra rights for and are things that anyone who wants can do. The only thing we've explicitly reserved for a fanon admin is moving a moved page back to the fanon portal, but that is just a reservation on print, as anyone can do that. The role as fanon admin is just in a name, nothing more. If I wouldn't have been elected fanon admin, I can honestly say that my edits over the past months wouldn't have been different at all. By removing the function of fanon admin, nothing will change, absolutely nothing. There will just be a title less on this wiki, but the edits of the fanon contributors will remain exactly the same, so you have nothing to fear in that department.

Like 888 said, a dedicated usergroup could be created, but in my honest opinion, that really isn't needed. The users who are contributing on the fanon portal now, will continue to do so. What I do on the fanon portal, I will continue to do so, regardless of the title of fanon admin. What's in a name? In this case, nothing, so in line of our housekeeping efforts of the past months, eradicating left overs from past times, the fanon admins are one of the last things that have to go to make the cleaning complete.

As a personal note, I detest referring to the fanon admins as the leaders of the fanon portal, nothing could be farther from the truth than that. ARG, KFB, and myself are not the leaders, we're ites cleanup crew, we're more the slaves of the fanon portal than its leaders. Like 888 pointed out, being an admin is about serving, not leading and dictating the course of something. It's about listening and seeing what you can do to make that community wish come true.

And I'm sorry, but opposing an idea that is best for the wiki just because you'd like to hold that position one day strikes me as rather selfish. Being a fanon author liked by people doesn't give you an advantage over any other user when it comes to becoming a fanon admin. It's about editing the portal for the better and knowing it's policies, striving to improve the portals working, nothing more. There just something odd about opposing an idea that's better for the wiki as a whole just because you aspired to hold that position one day, I'm sorry. Lady Lostris (talk • HotN) 17:39, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

I think there's a crucial point being left out here (though it has been mentioned by someone so far): the creation of fanon admins was a compromise to make the merger smoother. Some people didn't want canon and fanon mixed together (myself included) so admins didn't want to have the responsibility of maintaining fanon (idem), and thus it was delegated to fanon admins. On the other hand, fanon admins didn't want to lose the admin rights they held in the fanon site. However, the point that (I think) everyone is missing is: none of the current fanon admins are among the originals. Therefore, the original reason behind the existence of fanon admins has lost its foundation.

Admins have maintained fanon articles as necessary, I myself have moved many pages to the user mainspace, and fanon admins have also deleted unduly images and renamed unsightly images as they deemed fit. We have very clear and delineated policies for both spaces, and I don't see why we need separate groups to uphold them. As long as compliance is satisfied, an admin doesn't need to be labeled to enforce them.

My original point for support still stands: the fact is that we have three fanon admins that can't effectively handle certain cases vandalism for lacking the proper tools, even though they are "admins". They can't even ban people who vandalize fanon pages, so... are they really admins, or just editors with a title and limited privileges on one side of the site? If we want to serve (like 888 so adequately put it) the community, we need to be one cohesive group handling the same tools, in order to do so. ― Thailog 18:18, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

Gee, I knew this would happen. I knew it from the second I got off the computer this morning. You can believe me if you wish, as the following statement will sound like your ordinary childish excuse, however, you have my word that it is true. I was writing my last argument before school, and I guess I was putting a little too much time into it because I was still working on it when I had to leave for school in five minutes and I still hadn't packed up - so I sort of had to rush the end of my last paragraph. Still, that might have been a plus for you guys because if I didn't have to leave my comment would have been a lot longer.

My point being, whether you believe that story or not, is that my statements "I desire to be a fanon admin some day", and "That's gone now," are not related to my statement "This is a big loss for a lot of the community." The last sentence was sort of a wrap up of the entire argument, my little bit there was just an extra. Many users also wish to be fanon admins before having adminship, I can name others who have said so and others who have also told me that they dislike this proposal. I hope that you can sort of, rethink the last paragraph in the argument I made before now if you found it offensive. If not, it's your loss.

Back on track, I can continue with my opposition. Both of you, 888 and Lady, said that the responsibilities of the fanon admin rank which I stated do not need any particular rights or powers to fulfill. The funny part is right after I said that list of tasks before, I said that fanon adminship is not about power at all, which I believe is true. Of course any user can maintain community fanon voting, of course they could get right into fanon forums and make reasonable fanon portal decisions, but the fanon admin role is the responsibility. The fanon admins were given the responsibility with honor and community consensus, they were expected to complete what was needed, and they still are now. Your major reason for getting rid of fanon adminship is because they have no real rights over other users. They don't - I agree, but they are the ones who maintain the fanon portal, and if you don't want me to say they're the leaders, I won't, I'll say they're the janitors - and we need janitors. The whole fanon maintaining user group you thought of, just to let you know, would basically be just recreating the fanon admin role again, regular users who have the responsibilities of keeping the fanon portal up to par, except without the official user right change. But as you said, fanon admins hold no real power over other users, so why would the user right change even matter? As quickly as you delete fanon admins, you want replacements with this user group.

Now here's another thing. I understand why the removal of fanon adminship may seem reasonable, as they do not hold any power over other users, but the question is, why would you change it? We've been successful with the system we have currently for so long. So even if the change is a bit reasonable, there's no reason to do this unless there's a large benefit of removing fanon admins. As far as I can see, there isn't, Lady even said that "By removing the function of fanon admin, nothing will change, absolutely nothing." If there's no gain, why would you change something that doesn't need to be fixed?

The rank of fanon admin may have little more power than just a name - but with the name comes the responsibility, it's a name the fanon community elected with the wiki's best intentions in heart, a name we look up to as our fanonical supervisor. Just a name, ha! The name of fanon admin means more to us than you can imagine. I sincerely don't want it gone. BlackMonkey ^{Talk - Rhythm} 22:19, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

To BlackMonkey's last comment: I realize that the evidence as to why the FA position should be removed has contradicted itself; and that using a new user group of the same purpose is basically reinstating the position, understand the purpose of this forum. We're certainly not trying to remove the ever important role of Fanon administrator from the Fanon portal; but as we've said, they don't extra rights to do their job. If the user right is no more on Avatar Wiki, a group of skilled formatters dedicated to the Fanon potral can still do the job, without the unnecessary additional user right which is being used in different namespaces. Leaving the user right on the wiki is unneeded if it's not being used to fulfill the purpose for which it was created. The role will not change, but the title will be taken away. :) Annawantimes (Talk) 22:41, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

So we went through all this just to get a simple title change? Bummer. I still hold the same position as I did before. BlackMonkey ^{Talk - Rhythm} 22:44, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

You understand why this is a practical proposal, no? The Fanon admins are doing a great job doing their job. What they've been appointed by the community to do doesn't require extra user rights. As Lady Lostris has said above ^^ she used her Fanon admin rights to rename some images for the mainspace, which is something ordinary users cannot do. If the same job can be done without the needless extra user right, why keep it around? Annawantimes (Talk) 22:53, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

Because there's no benefit of taking it away - what harm is there to be done by having an extra user right? Is it so urgent that we need to immediately downgrade the fanon admins and disorganize the wiki leadership, changing the system that's worked well on this site since the two original wikis were merged years ago? BlackMonkey ^{Talk - Rhythm} 22:58, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

What you're not understanding is that the title grants essentially nothing. Lady, ARG and myself have basically no more rights than any rollback user does. The title of "FA" atm is just a title, and nothing more. KataraFanboy Send me a messenger hawk 23:01, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) BlackMonkey: I understand what you're saying here: but removing the user right will not have an effect on the quality of the Fanon portal. If the additional rights are never used to improve its quality, what good is there to have it? They're appointed to keep the Fanon portal up to standard, but if they have extra rights hanging around that they do not use, what's the harm of removing it? Annawantimes (Talk) 23:02, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

No, you shouldn't say "What's the harm of removing it", you should say "What's the harm of removing them"? You think because we don't use the fanon admin rights - which should be noted as not being a problem for the past couple years - we should completely remove fanon admins as a whole? It's just unreasonable! Removing it and them would create an unorganized mess which I have described in detail in previous rants. BlackMonkey ^{Talk - Rhythm} 23:09, February 16, 2012 (UTC)

Hehe, sorry, I should have typed "them". :) You're missing the point here, I'm afraid. What has been said time and time again is that there will always be several individuals who take up the role of keeping the Fanon portal up to standard. What wjxhuang is trying to accomplish here is removing the user right of Fanon admin, and not the role that Fanon admins play. To carry out their role, they do not need the additional rights they have now. It hasn't been a problem for several years, but remember what was said in the early hours of this forum's existence: Times have changed since the merge. What you seem to be missing is that the additional rights that Fanon admins have are never used, and therefore they are unneeded. If it is not essential to their role, then it makes sense to remove it rather than to have it around, that is perfectly reasonable. I feel like a broken record here, please try to analyze that point closely. :) Annawantimes (Talk) 00:17, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

BlackMonkey: You're forgetting: in eliminating the FA position, we will also be creating two more regular Admin positions. And, if I had to venture a guess, two of the Fanon Admins will be moving on (I'm not saying I think any two will; I'm ust saying I think it will be two FAs in general). Therefore, these people who do great work in both areas will get the additional benefit of everything admins can do. And they deserve those rights. Unfortunately, one of them will not get to receive the rights. But they're really not losing rights in the first place. Honestly, having more administrators serves a much larger purpose than keeping the Fanon Admins, who can do their jobs perfectly with more (or less) rights.

As for FA being a step up...no. FAs are rollbacks with the power to delete Fanon pages, and nothing more. Admins can easily handle that. Therefore, the position of FA has no purpose, other than for titular reasons. Having a multitude of admins, however, DOES. Therefore, this will be an improvement to the wiki. And, BM, if your reason for wanting to be an FA is because you can maintain the portal...you don't need 'em. You can do that perfectly fine with Rollbacks, as can ARG, Lady, and KFB.

*Winks at Bahjy* In protest of the message wall, READ THE SIG! 00:42, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

I forgot who said it, but as pointed out before, the only reason there is something as a fanon admin is because it was a compromise in order to get the merger of the Avatar Wiki and the Avatar Fanon Wiki completed. The fanon admins were instated because the admins of the fanon wiki didn't want to lose their rights. Since then, things have changed, the community has changed, and so have the fanon admins. The title on itself was created as a deal, a sweet-talker to get people to agree to something, but if you break it down to the core, a fanon admin is really nothing. The only thing we can do more than any rollback user is rename images. As I said before, we've been trying to rid the wiki from unnecessary templates and other things. Although the admins have historic value, the title on itself has no meaning now. It's just that, a title, something people incorrectly see as the leaders of the fanon portal.

When I said that nothing would change, I was pointing at the fact that the title of fanon admin is a hollow title, it means nothing. By taking the title of fanon admin from ARG, KFB, and myself, I can guarantee you that none of our contributions would change. I will keep doing what I have been doing before, so will the others, with or without the title.

I really fail to see how removing the title of fanon admins would create an unorganized mess. This proposal comes with the implied responsibility of the current and the two new admins to show a bit more interest in the fanon side, but if you look at it, all the admins have already shown an interest in the fanon side. They're already active their. 888 and Thailog have helped out numerous times with their bots and with moving low quality articles. Dc has been a tremendous help with applying the property and author templates. Vulmen has moved low quality fanons, as well as played an important rule with forming the new fanon policies and enforcing them. And Bos, he has been a fanon admin for almost a year before he became an admin. By just looking at his contributions, you know that the fanon portal is still very dear to him. I can't even imagine him letting the fanon portal slide to an "unorganized mess," I can't imagine any user that has witnessed our efforts of the past months to stand for that. The abolishment of the fanon admins doesn't mean anything. It will not change anything, except removing a name from the user rights.

Sure, "don't fix something that isn't broken," but why keep something around that isn't needed? ARG, KFB, and I aren't any better fanon users than you, TAD, Ultimate, OR, Bahjy, or any other fanon user. It's just a name and the ability to alter image names. Like Thailog pointed out, us fanon admins can't do anything when a vandal strikes, we can't do anything more than a regular rollback user can. So yes, the fanon adminship isn't a position of power, you're right about that , but then you should ask yourself, why keep a position around that unnecessarily glorifies three users for nothing? They're no better than any other rollback, so why should they get the title of "(fanon) admin" when they can hardly do anything more?

Like I said before, a special user group isn't needed, as that would indeed reinstate the fanon admins under another name. Like Annawan said, even with the fanon admins gone, their work will never be. I know my edit pattern wouldn't change and I'm certain neither would KFB or ARG's. The fanon portal is a part of the wiki, and as such, the admins have a responsibility, just like all the other users here, to keep it up to standard, and I have no doubt at all that the tasks can be accomplished perfectly without the presence of fanon admins.

Azulazulazula, small correction: the only extra rights FAs have is that they can rename images and can protect pages (something they never have to do). According to current policy, pages are hardly ever deleted again, and even so, deleting a page is something rollbacks can do as well (however, they're not supposed to, but that's not the point here). I completely agree with you that two new admins and removing the fanon admins would be better for the wiki as the three fanon admins can do nothing when a vandal strikes. Lady Lostris (talk • HotN) 00:53, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

To be honest, I think it's more correct to say that we don't know if we need a user group for fanon yet. My previous post merely floats the idea as something to do if it really does turn out we need one. If it does turn out that we need one, we can't be sure at this time of how its membership will work, what it would need to accomplish, or indeed in what manner it should accomplish its goals. The only thing I can be sure of at the moment is that I would never support the creation of a group that essentially acts the way fanon admins act now.

I think the best thing to do would be to leave questions of user groups and other additional fancy ideas for other threads. Maybe we should just get the question of whether to remove the fanon admin right resolved at this time. :) At the moment, we seem to have a very firm majority in favour of the proposal. If we are in agreement, I would like permission for these changes to be carried out as soon as early next week (a staff request will be needed). The 888th Avatar (talk) 04:12, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

BM has a point about the "title" of fanon administrator, in the sense that you look to them for support regarding fanon, but again, it is most likely that two of our fanon administrators will become administrators, and it isn't hard to find a popular fanon author to ask for help. Moving on, I agree with 888. Let's just focus on the matter at hand, being whether or not the fanon administrator user right should be deleted, which I support. I also like the idea of a "Standards Council"-like group, which we can discuss when this discussion is ended. Rassilon of Old ^{(Wall - Help)} 08:58, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

On any other wiki, the people to ask questions to about anything on the site are the admins, I don't see why people that would need an answer to something wouldn't be able to find one just because there are no more fanon admins. For fanon, they were indeed the logical person to turn to, but if they wouldn't be there, the admins would be the logical people to turn to.

Good idea, we're kind of drifting away from the core question of this forum. As per my consensus above and my the consensus of nearly everyone that commented on this forum, I'm in favor of carrying out this changes. Lady Lostris (talk • HotN) 09:07, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

Alright, I know you guys aren't liking me on this thread, and I know the majority is against me so the proposal will pass anyway, but I'm going to keep fighting. To answer Lady's question in response to my question, "Why keep something around that isn't needed?", well, it's not a bad thing for fanon admins to have, is it? Is there some negative effect that we have to destroy by deleting the rank of FA? Is there any real benefit to this, besides changing the leadership roles that have been faithfully running this site for years? Is it so urgent now, now that we have realized that fanon admins scarcely use the extra powers they have, why do we need to act so quickly and get rid of them? It's not like they do not deserve the small amounts of rights they have now.

I understand that fanon admins are merely just rollbacks with a title - but that title means something to us. It isn't just a title left. With that title brings no power, but it gives to it's holder the responsibility of keeping up with all site fanon pages and systems, and who we elect with the title of Fanon Admin is who believe can have this responsibility without faltering, even with no extra powers. I'd rather have few elected users designated to hold this responsibility than have it thrown on to the an increased number of admins.

Also, at Lostris, saying, "On any other wiki, the people to ask questions to about anything on the site are the admins", well most wikis do not have a completely separate fanon side within it's same site, so it seems only organized of us to have two separate councils, admins and fanon admins focusing on our two separate sides, admins with a lot more rights as they manage most of the site, fanon admins with little as they just need to be janitors of the fanon portal. The are role models for our fanon community, that many authors live up to and want to be someday, I included. They're what we believe to be the best fanon users we have, whether or not that's the truth. I think it would be a loss to see this great position go, for the fanon community's sake. BlackMonkey ^{Talk - Rhythm} 12:40, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

BlackMonkey: It seems as though you're implying that Administrators aren't as devoted and approachable to the fanon namespace as FAs do. Unfortunately that's a notion that has to change. Admins are as helpful and responsible towards fanons as any FAs are. It's like saying that a step from FA to A would detract whatever mystical fanon-maintenance aura one has and instead become a canon-devotee oblivious to fanon activity. I believe The Bos is an excellent example contrary to that claim. Annawantimes is right; this forum is indeed going around in circles.

(edit) I wholly support 888th's proposal as well. Axiovatar Talk 14:53, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

There's no loss whatsoever. You have already admitted that FAs are rollbacks with a title, and I pointed out that they can't handle vandalism (even on their own mainspace), so the reason to keep FAs around seems like merely ego stroking for a selected few. It comes off rather unreasonable to hinder the increase of the Admin roster just because some(?) think the FA is an important title. The FAs themselves have admitted that it's not. And it's equally unreasonable to elect two more admins all the while keeping the three FAs. The bottom line is FAs are not real Admins, as they are incapable to perform in that capacity. It seems that your self-admitted desire to become a FA is not letting you judge this issue objectively.

I fully support this motion. ― Thailog 13:40, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Thailog here. For now, Fanon Admins have next to nothing besides a title. That title brings nothing. They're glorified rollbacks, and that's all. They need the power that comes with adminship, in order to fulfill the duties that they were created to do in the first place. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 14:59, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

Um... no. The fanon admins have been doing what they were created to do in the first place rather well with the rights they currently have for the past two years or so. Admin powers for the fanon admins would not have a particular benefit for the community, as far as I can see, because they haven't needed them since they were created.

And Thailog, your last statement, or rather, your second-to-last statement, is completely and utterly false. I haven't been spending hours after hours for the past days because I want to be a fanon admin and I don't want that chance to go! That's just, no. To say that I'm not thinking objectively because I disagree with you, blaming it on how I previously said I wanted to be a fanon admin, it's foolish. BlackMonkey ^{Talk - Rhythm} 20:07, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

I again ask -- what is the purpose of the title "fanon admin" atm BM? Sure, we have done work -- but anyone can on fanon space! There is no extra rights we have, making the title nothing significant. We still pretty much have the rights any rollback does, and nothing more. Giving new admin slots would give us (IF we get elected) the chance to test our leadership.

You have outright listed one of your goals to be an FA. These rants to me reek of you desiring to get that position. Again, as of right now, there is no purpose to the title -- it's a title and nothing more. KataraFanboy Send me a messenger hawk 20:11, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

The title of fanon admin is what the community has elected you to hold, as we believed that you were trustworthy enough to hold the responsibility of managing the fanon portal and systems, leading the fanonical community. Fanon adminship is not a title of power, and it does not need to be. It's a title of responsibility. We look up to the it, we see you as the top we could get to in this side of the wiki.

Of all the things admin rights would do for you, it wouldn't be testing your leadership. You, Lady, and ARG have already demonstrated your leadership well, and that's why you were elected. Personally, I see you with no more great leadership capabilities than the other admins here, so I really think that making you admins would just be giving you more power, and I'm not saying you don't deserve that, however, it's just not necessary for your job of being the fanon portal janitor. The FAs haven't needed the admin powers since they were created, so I don't see it necessary for them to have in them future.

And I'm not going to start an argument on my motivation for these rants, for the sole reason that I explained they're not because of my desire to become a fanon admin someday. What's the point of telling the truth if you guys aren't going to believe it and will put me down instead? BlackMonkey ^{Talk - Rhythm} 20:34, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

Let's go back to what 888 originally said: "The limits of what fanon admins can and can't do also seem now hopelessly arbitrary - under what circumstances can they delete pages outside the fanon namespace? Are they a form of elected council with fanon decisions delegated to them, or are they more like admins, who have no decision-making power at all?" --> The purpose being that the FA title has no extra rights and thus really shows us as nothing more than let's say another user group -- we can do the exact same as any story editor or "Fanonbender". We don't really have any other rights, as 888 outlined, so, why keep us in this position? Per what everyone else said -- we are just glorified rollback users and the title/position are un-needed. KataraFanboy Send me a messenger hawk 20:39, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

Fanon admins have never needed admins powers? So, no FA has ever needed to block an user who has vandalized a fanon page? Now that's completely and utterly false. And it's impractical to keep the status quo.

We've thoroughly showed why Fanon adminship is a void and pointless position, and yet you are adamant to exhort the importance of the title and the responsibility it supposedly carries. If a FA has the responsibility to maintain that mainspace, how are they supposed to do so, if they need to ask Admins to block a "fanon vandal"? Your logic is flawed. If FAs are responsible to look over the fanon side, then does that preclude other admins from doing it? If I see an user vandalizing a fanon article should I not revert the vandalism? Should I stay still until a FA asks me to block said user? Fanon belongs to the Avatar Wiki, and as such it's the community's responsibility to safeguard its integrity, whether they are auto-confirmed users, rollbacks, admins or bureaucrats. This pretty much renders FAs pointless. ― Thailog 20:43, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

If an FA needs to block a user, than they tell and admin. What's that, like, four clicks? All this talk about not blocking and blocking and telling others to block, here's a question. With the old fanon admin/admin system we've been working with for the past several years, has a vandal in either namespaces ever gotten away with changing an article without being blocked because of a user's inability to block them? Don't make up scenarios if they're never going to happen. I'm sure that fanon admins have had no problem telling admins to block necessary vandals over the past couple of years. Why has it became such a problem now that we need to urgently get rid of them? They haven't done anything wrong and getting rid of them would give us no real benefit. BlackMonkey ^{Talk - Rhythm} 20:54, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

You are missing the point of the original proposal -- that is that the FA title serves no additional purpose. Once more, what rights do ARG, Lostris and myself have that rollbacks don't? The title serves no purpose as is, and that's why this forum came up. KataraFanboy Send me a messenger hawk 20:56, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

If the only purpose for this is because the rank of fanon admin has no more powers and rights than a rollback, and therefore are actually just glorified rollbacks, wouldn't the solution be to just remove them instead of also getting more admins? While you have been recently bringing up good points, I still think this whole thing's a bit random because it's never been a problem before, so I don't see why we need to take action now. Just let things flow as they've been positively flowing, and unless a problem comes up, keep it that way. We've been doing fine with fanon admins for quite a long time now. BlackMonkey ^{Talk - Rhythm} 21:08, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

No, keeping them around would give us no real benefit. I'm not making up scenarios, but you are oversimplifying things, and your condescending tone is counterproductive. Yes, FAs can ask Admins to block users, but Admins aren't around 24/7, so until the time one admins sees the request, the vandal will keep vandalizing pages, flooding the RC page and wasting the time of those who are reverting his mess. And if it's not a big deal to have FAs ask and wait for Admins to intervene, then why have Admins at all? Why don't we just do away with Admin rights and ask the staff every time we need to block vandals? "What's that, like, four clicks?" Another flawed logic.

Your insistence in keeping FAs only perpetuates the outdated notion that the Avatar Wiki is split in two sides.

Though now I'm confused: what are you against anyways? Removing FAs altogether, or adding more admins? ― Thailog 21:12, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

I'm sort of against both - but mainly on removing FAs. Why shouldn't we just keep doing what we've been doing for so long now, I see no harm in that. And, "Why don't we just do away with admins and ask the the staff to block vandals?" Well, there's a simple answer - convenience. The admins are on this site, and with 5, there's going to be only few amounts of times when none of them are here. Fanon admins don't have to wait, and admins shouldn't have to go through the business of asking a staff member here. Once again, you make an example that would never actually happen. BlackMonkey ^{Talk - Rhythm} 21:28, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

There are plenty of examples where a fanon admin has requested admin intervention and had to wait—I challenge you to dig a little deeper and put your money where your mouth is. I'm done with this; you are clearly desperate and we are going in circles. You don't even know what you are against, seeing as you've just asked why not we simply remove FAs and keep the number of admins are it is, after huge walls of text that argue against that. ― Thailog 21:34, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

Thailog: He said "I'm sort of against [Removing FAs altogether... and adding more admins] - but mainly on removing FAs." --I'm The Bos ^Wall 21:44, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

After he said "wouldn't the solution be to just remove them instead of also getting more admins?" and I asked him to edify. My point is: he's contradicting himself. ― Thailog 21:49, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

What I meant was that if you're going to remove the fanon admins it would be better to keep the admins unchanged, because according to you, fanon admins and rollbacks are exactly the same, so removing them wouldn't even affect anything else. BlackMonkey ^{Talk - Rhythm} 21:55, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but your sentimental attachment to the idea of fanon adminship is clearly clouding your ability to objectively judge this proposal. The problem I am attempting to solve with this proposal is that while we need effective fanon maintenance, this cannot be guaranteed while we still have fanon admins who can do little more than rollback users. More than once, people have elaborated on the inability of fanon admins when in a situation to do, well, anything. The present situation is inefficient and is outdated. Once upon a time, at least fanon admins still had something rollback users didn't – the ability to delete – but even that distinction is gone. The 888th Avatar (talk) 22:36, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

And, BM, as far as your argument "The times where there are no admins are few and far between", ...no. Not even close to true. I can't tell you how many times, at like 1:30 AM (here, EST) there has been a vandal/troll, but no admin to deal with it. But often times, KFB and ARG are still on at that time (usually not Lostris, not calling you out, as I have no reason to; just explaining.  :)), and could deal with them, if necessary. But since they're just Rollbacks (this is not a typo), they can't. The Fanon Admins serve no real purpose any more. And frankly, saying that the fanon side looks up to them, is a load (no offense to anyone here). Everyone knows they have little power, and while they do hold the highest position possible on that side, the position is meaningless. However, having those extra admins to help would serve purpose; much fewer opportunities for vandals to strike, additional abilities that they do deserve, and the ability to delete pages, which God knows, is very often times needed. The FAs, not even the title, as you believe, serve no purpose anymore, and simply hold a meaningless title. I must, and can safely say (once again meaning no offense to this statement) that you are the only one who looks up to the fanon admins, purely because they are fanon admins. Most people admire Lostris, KFB, and ARG for their work in the fanon portal, and in the canon portal, both places where they (or at least two of them) could use their extra rights. Then, there's the fact that, technically, the fanon portal is a part of the wiki. It's not seperate. The only difference is the title, and the purpose. They both make up the wiki, and having seperate user rights for both sides, especially when those rights serve no purpose at all, is silly, and anymore, quite idiotic (no, I'm not calling you an idiot, despite how that may have sounded).

And yeah. I have to agree that your wanting to be a FA exudes heavy bias in this situation.

*Winks at Bahjy* In protest of the message wall, READ THE SIG! 23:13, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

QUESTION: How would a few more Administrators get in each other's way? It seems like adding two (or maybe even three) Administrators would be quite beneficial for controlling vandalism, enforcing policy, and cleaning up the Wiki in general. You guys spent a lot of time on the cooks metaphor, but I think police guarding something incredibly valuable, or construction workers building a vast project would be more appropriate to describe the situation. More people helping would increase efficiency and extend the reach of Administrator power, which would be great considering that there have been so many LoK trolls and vandals on the loose lately. And there definitely are a few users who deserve the promotion for their hard work, so it's not like you'd be appointing Admins for the sake of having more. Just my two cents. ~Mysteria Femina~ (wall • Girl Genius talk) 23:30, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

You know what, I'm just going to do you all a favor, and stop contributing to this forum. I'm up against every current admin and fanon admin, and many other rollbacks in between. It's come to me that no matter how much I rant on my truthful opinions, you will win. It's just a fight, and I lost by briefly mentioning I wanted to be a fanon admin in the future - that was my downfall and you guys aren't going to let me get back up, even when I explain my actions. So go change our wiki's leadership system, I'd rather leave with what I still have then get bashed and insulted (whether or not you meant for that to be my reaction) by posting another one of my views. I have more important things to do than argue online anyway. I hope you didn't take anything I said before too seriously if it seemed offensive, and we can make up for it in the future. BlackMonkey ^{Talk - Rhythm} 01:39, February 18, 2012 (UTC)

I have nothing against you, BlackMonkey. I was simply genuinely confused by the entire debate, not trying to make a point about you in particular. I'm sorry if my question made you feel unwanted, because that certainly wasn't my intention. Please stay! You have a valid argument, and I hate to see someone so upset over what is supposed to be constructive banter. ~Mysteria Femina~ (wall • Girl Genius talk) 01:55, February 18, 2012 (UTC)

It's a little late for this now, but I do have a prime example of a fanon admin needing admin rights. A while back, we had a vandalism attack. A user repeatedly added tons of cats and images and such. Aggressive badge editing, whatever. Point is, I took this to the admin noticeboard. Rass, however, was the only Admin or Fanon Admin on. Because he was not a full Admin, he did not have the right to block this user. Because of this, the vandalism went on for much longer than it should have. Had Rass had the powers of an Admin, it could have been stopped there. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 03:57, February 18, 2012 (UTC)

I can confirm that. There was a period of mass vandalism by the same guy. It got to the point where I actually contacted Wikia Staff to sort it out. I can't remember who ended up blocking him, but I have a feeling it was the Staff - you can check the Noticeboard archive if you really want to. The same thing has happened multiple times. Rassilon of Old ^{(Wall - Help)} 04:05, February 18, 2012 (UTC)

BlackMonkey: I sincerely hope you get your act together and stand up for what you believe in, instead of conceding just like that. The reason for the length of this forum was to ensure that your view's aren't flawed. We all strive to garner a complete consensus, and we're not going to go ahead with the proposal unless you see what benefit is to be accomplished here, and agree. I believe we're not at the point of voting yet. Axiovatar Talk 05:19, February 18, 2012 (UTC)

Actually, Axiovatar, we do not typically always achieve 100% consensus via forums. If we needed 100% agreement, nothing would ever get done. We debate out reasons and why's, pros and cons, and based upon the visible support and agreement coupled with reasoning, sometimes votes is not necessary. Votes is when there is obvious disagreement and the clash of views will not be settled.

In this case; a host of wikians have all added their support to this. Quite a list of reasoning has been provided. There would be little reason to shift to votes when a forum such as this (with such agreement doesn't occur frequently) has carried out to the extent it has and garnered this support in the process. It is healthy and purposeful to take time to delve into all sides of the equation before conceding to a direction; and that is what we have done, and the path is mostly now before us. This forum is pretty much at its end I do beleive. Vulmen (talk • EoK) 05:41, February 18, 2012 (UTC)

I really hate to see when one utterly gives up without much conclusion. It gives the feel of you not fully expressing your views on the flaws of this shift. There might be a serious drawback, and we could reconsider this post before it occurs. Not that I saw any, but just that we could at least make people feel satisfied, and not leave discontentedly. :( But I can see that this thread is lingering for five days already. If 888th wishes to go ahead with the plan, he should. Axiovatar Talk 06:55, February 18, 2012 (UTC)

Update: I've sent a Special:Contact request for the removal of the group – in the meantime nominations for adminship is underway. The 888th Avatar (talk) 10:59, February 19, 2012 (UTC)