Mailing List Archive

>Kind of the same problem arose on fr, Admins were considered cream of
>the cream. I have put in place a demythification process here :
>*http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Administrateur/Tableau_de_bord_de_l%27administrateur
>*http://fr.wikipedia.org/Wikipédia:Administrateur/Processus_de_suppression
>*http://fr.wikipedia.org/Wikipédia:Administrateur/Processus_de_blocage
>*http://fr.wikipedia.org/Wikipédia:Administrateur/Processus_de_protection
>(other links can be found at the bottom of the first page)
>which goal was to de-sacralize the admins job. This has definitely
>worked on fr to make the admin position clearer and a lot of people
>who dreaded becoming an admin for fear of being cast into an
>authoritarian category have expressed interest in becoming admins. (4
>in the last two weeks), which helps.
>
>I don't know whether this can solve any problems, but it could be a
>starting point and I am willing to help putting it together for other
>languages if anyone is interested, providing I am supplied with the
>appropriate shotscreens.
>
>
>
I kind of did the same on nl: We had only 14 sysops or so. I then went
on a drive to get more and voila we have 34 now. We also had the problem
that people though being a sysop is som kinf of authoritive thing but I
was able with the help of others to debunk that. We got a couple of more
applications now for adminship. So our total number will rise even more!

I have offered Britty to go around all Japanese users and ask them to
become admin. Maybe we should co-ordinate an effort by first writing a
tex in Japanese oon demystifying the adminship and explain to people why
jawp needs more and then go to everybody's user talkpage we think is
usefull and ask them personally to apply for adminship??? Same like I
did on nl:.

Walter van Kalken

Walter van Kalken

Thank you Delphine and Walter for your feedback.

After a half year attempt to recruit new admin candidates, here I try
to summarize the situation.


In my views the current situation on JAWP is:
1. The JA WP is suffered by shortage of sysops.
1a. some users don't recognize the situation, because they don't
recognize the situation closely.
1b. other (or the majority in my view) know the shortage but don't
think themselves as possible sysop candidate.
1c. except some users, including me (I had contacts over 20 users),
almost no one recommended new candidates or urge them to request for
sysoship.

2. Some users, not in a small number, misunderstand sysopship of our project.
2a. Some think it a sort of authority or a kind of honour.
2b. Some users who don't know how to work sysop previledges or who are
afraid not to understand policies and guideline. Shortly they
underestimate themselves.
2c. Some thinks sysops should do so-and-so activities which need no
sysop previledges (like casting a Welcome message, voting on VfD,
archiving talk discussions or VP ...). Perhaps it can be included to a
phenomenon on #3, but I think it is a sort of misunderstanding what
sysops are.

3. Misunderstanding around sysopship causes phenomena: like
misunderstanding as if sysopship grants a sort of authority,
self-descouragement to request for sysopship, gossipng, power
conflicts (in my opinion JAWP has such conflict at least twice) and so
on.

4. The cultural features of Japanese (because most of Ja contributors
are Japanese in birth) , for example lack of trustness but strong
demand for assurance (a Japanese sociologist pointed it out in his
papter), gossiping ouf of wiki, strong afraid to make a failure or a
keen sense avoiding a "shame"; fear to reject of request for sysopship
(it could be a shame for him):

Point 4 seems to be the hardest points to alter, so I try to think
how other points could be changed.

For 1c, I expect more users, particular current sysops recommend good
users as sysop candidates. An user who I asked him to request for
sysopship replied me a recommendation from only one person was not
enough make him request for sysopship. Another guy who was already a
sysop urged him, iirc, and now the user is a sysop on JAWP. Offering
from plural persons would be effective for other people, I think.

Since today I urged already over 20 people to request for sysopship. I
hope others follow me.

Point 3. is hardly deatl with by itself. Misunderstanding established
for a long time - for two years - couldn't be easliy resolved. I
expect here each user point out such misunderstanding by occasions.
Particularly a sysop have misunderstandings like "a sysop can be
allowed authoritative by his nature" or "a sysop without using any
sysop previledge is still a good sysop". I suspect on JA WP even some
sysops have such thoughts.(In my parts I believe in a good sysop
should be an active users and use his previledge appropriately by
occasion. )

And one of most effective ways to resolve Pt.3, is an appropriate
information on what sysop preveledges are. That is, already Notafish
showed us an example. I think such close explanations would be helpful
not only avoiding misunderstanding but encouraging potential
candidates: like Walter said on JAWP, there is no specially
difficulties on doing sysop tasks. But it is sometimes unclear even
for a newly created sysops in my experience. (Not every sysop knows
what is MediaWiki messages, how to merge two files and so on)

To encourage potential candidates, I think also DeWP provides us with
an interestign attempt. There is an "official trainee" of Wikipedia
(Wikipedia-azubi) ;-) A user requested for this position from his own
idea. Under some experienced Wikipedians' instruciton, he is learning
how to edit articles, make a discussion, deal with trolls and so
on.... He said now he writes a coursebook to be a good Wikipedian by
himself. On a communith which the shortage of sysops suffers possibly
need such attempt to involve more persons into administrative issues,
like a trainee course and/or guidebook.

--
Aphaia (at) gmail (dot) com