Forum:Charitwo's sysop

Unless you haven't seen yet, charitwo's sysop was removed by Jen with no summary. I see no reason for this, and have to wonder why. As far as I know, the community members here appreciate Charitwo's work as an admin here. Am I wrong in that?


 * There was no reasoning for that as far as I know, except for Jen's apparent attempts to remove his sysop and vstf&hellip; 1358  (Talk)  18:37, November 3, 2011 (UTC)


 * Hey Monchoman45 and others - Charitwo and I, as well as other members of the Community Team staff, have had many conversations (including today) about what being an admin on Central means. Community Central is going through a lot of changes and we're looking at how to provide the absolute best service and help to all community members - new, old and somewhere in between. Charitwo is a dedicated member of the VSTF and we are happy to have him continue to be a part of that team, and the Central community. Jen Burton (help forum | blog) 18:48, November 3, 2011 (UTC)


 * I suppose that means we get no say in it. Surprising 1358  (Talk)  18:51, November 3, 2011 (UTC)


 * None of that has anything to do with the point of the forum. You can't simply desysop someone because you feel like it, people will notice and I believe we deserve at the very least a reason other than "stuff changes".


 * It's between Charitwo and the staff. 19:35, November 3, 2011 (UTC)


 * I find it to be horribly bad practice for staff to remove the rights of a user trusted with administrator privileges on over 300,000 wikis for, quite literally, no reason.


 * I think it should have been the staff making this announcement ,instead of just doing it and hoping no one sees it in the logs.I would like to see the reason /a brief statement by staff telling us the exact reason why Charitwo lost his sysop powers --Tama 63  20:14, November 3, 2011 (UTC)

(resetting indent) Hey Tama - we didn't have a chance! The forum was made before we were able to post about it. Moncho - I understand you disagree with this decision, but we're not going to go in to the specifics here. I trust people understand that we made the decision based on what we believe is in the best interest of both the active members of Community Central and those who "drive-by" looking for assistance. Jen Burton (help forum | blog) 20:28, November 3, 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, then staff should annouce it now then. -- Ben ( Talk ) 20:33, November 3, 2011 (UTC)


 * What i can gather then, the demotion was because of Charitwo's "Public Relations"?--Tama 63  20:35, November 3, 2011 (UTC)


 * No idea what happened, but really need a good reason for demoting someone who has done so much. I know you might think this is between you and him, but a short statement about this is really better then to leave this blank and stir up speculation.
 * Beside that, a great concern is brought up by Monchoman45 which is not adressed about possible abitrary decisions being made. Those fears need to be adressed or the loyalty of the users involved will deminish as well that it will be looking bad for the company.
 * As i said before, don't have a clue what happened nor the reasoning, and take this as advice, or simply ignore it, but it's better to adress such an event shortly even tough it might be painfull or bringing bad idea's to the surface. Not adressing it causes more issues usually.

Jen the issue being raised here is not so much about Charitwo in particular losing his sysop bit. The issue that our — yours and mine — fellow Wikians are raising is that the method of de-sysoping runs contrary to wiki tradition, custom, and principles. From Wikia’s perspective it was a staffing issue and wanting to ensure the best fit for “customer service”. However, for your fellow Wikians, the method and the manner is foreign to us. It makes us wonder: Is this a future we all might face on our home wikis? Might any of us be next, if traditional wiki de-sysoping processes no longer apply? Thanks! — Spike Toronto  22:13, November 3, 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Spike - that's a legit question. The answer is no - policies on Central (which are changing) will not affect the policies on your home wikis. As you are aware, staff stays out of local wiki disputes unless there's a situation where the ToU has been violated. Jen Burton (help forum | blog) 22:33, November 3, 2011 (UTC)


 * On central, sysops are promoted in votes, namely Community Central:RfA. And because of that, a demotion should also be voted, unless a bad action is made, in which case it should be reasoned. I won't consider fair the demotion if that's because of an internal or off-wiki (community central) discussion involved by Charitwo and a Wikia Staff. Also, Jen, a very *very* bad action should have been done Charitwo for being demoted without being accompanied with a blog post or forum page. 4 hours and still waiting for a reason. I think JenBurton is abusing her position in Wikia as a Staff member to do things that should be left to other groups. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 22:19, November 3, 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, sysops aren't voted on here. Since Wikia can appoint sysops as they please, I don't see why they shouldn't be able to remove them the same way tbh. 22:21, November 3, 2011 (UTC)
 * Ciencia. the RfA process on Central is gone. All central admins are chosen by staff now and are demoted by staff.--
 * Ciencia - the previous promotions of admins on Central may have been done via RfA, but that will no longer be the case. Because Central is Wikia's communications hub and our chief support center, it's more important than ever that the people who are given the privilege of access to admin tools and responsibilities be chosen by staff as the best people for the job. I am not "abusing my position" as staff - Community Central is literally one of my top responsibilities here at Wikia and the decision was not taken lightly, made in haste, nor done on my own. Jen Burton (help forum | blog) 22:33, November 3, 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of opinion, there could be something that we don't know about that isn't our business. I'm sure Jen has good intentions and has a reason for certain actions.
 * The fact is that Jen doesn't want to share her reasons. Just an extension of the lack of transparency of several wikia actions. The forum wouldn't had been created in the first place if a valid reason were made for the demotion, and Jen is still replying to this forum and not giving the reasoning. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 22:47, November 3, 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes I know and I would agree, but you have to consider that it could be a private reason that shouldn't be discussed among the whole community. However I definitely can see where you are coming from.
 * When an administrator or community leader of a community is removed from his position, the community is entitled to know all of the reasoning behind the decision. Hiding the reasoning only encourages members of the community to assume there was insufficient/invalid reasoning (possibly a reason why this forum was made), and hence it is not being presented. I'm not saying that's the case, but the point still stands. --Callofduty4 22:56, November 3, 2011 (UTC)
 * True. But there is still the possibility where this rule may not apply in this case. I mean how do/don' we know that it is very private to the point where it can't be shared. I mean that point is still a possibility.

I remember being equally confused when Godisme was given sysop without any fanfare or announcement. Similarly, the appointment of chatmods on community seems to be a closed process. Perhaps I'm just out of the loop. Ironically, here on community the community doesn't really get a say in the sysop positions.

I find it a little strange that this place is described as "Wikia's...chief support center". Most technical support requests are answered by non-staff members of the community, and often staff's response is "ask on the forums, the people there will help you out". The staff rely pretty heavily on the "power user"-base to maintain this as a chief support centre, which could be reflected a little more in the decisions about the wiki-- Category:Acer4666 10:03, November 4, 2011 (UTC)


 * And to that end, desysoping charitwo doesn't prevent him from leaving comments like this. I fail to see how anyone gains anything from this. I know Jen has on multiple occasions lectured charitwo about being "nicer" and on how he does his job. Watching this unfold, I'm starting to believe that Jen did act alone and that this was more or less a personal attack. I also fail to see how someone with 3 months of limited experience with Wikia is qualified to judge the actions of someone with over 4 years of extensive work in countervandalism and wiki administration. Charitwo is quite literally the single most trusted user who doesn't get a pay check - he has more access than even the other VSTF. From the discussion, it appears to me that there is no reason why Charitwo was desysoped - his right were removed simply because someone didn't like him. Unless someone can give me evidence to show otherwise, this appears to be the logical conclusion that can be drawn from this conversation.


 * Why don't you ask Charitwo for the reason, if you're interested in it? Per Urbancowgurl777, this is between Charitwo and the Staff. Seeing how Community Central is not just another wiki, I don't think the usual promote/demote rules apply here. — Sovq 11:22, November 4, 2011 (UTC)


 * Such a drastic action, especially one that affects the entire community, should not be done in private. Unless the reason is obviously invalid, Jen has nothing to lose by posting it publicly, and everything to gain.


 * Since we don't know the reason, perhaps calling it "drastic" is a bit much? Did you consider that maybe both sides agreed that this would be the best course of action and that the reasons for this decision would not be stated publicly? — Sovq 11:44, November 4, 2011 (UTC)


 * In such a case, I would expect Charitwo to remove his own rights, as that would indicate that it was (at least in part) his decision.

It was not my own decision, not did I agree with any aspect of it. I was told it was "staff consensus" more or less during a community team meeting and that the comment that Monchoman linked above was described by Jen as:

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/charitwo/images/thumb/4/41/Conversation.png/200px-Conversation.png

"'rude and dismissive - and, frankly, unacceptable' and 'I remain unconvinced that you have the demeanor and social skills we need and want our central admins to possess.'"

However, my experience with Jen, our one-sided " Discussions ", and an unofficial skype chat while i was asleep with friends on the inside led me to believe it was all her idea, regardless of whether or not she pushed the team to make their "decision". And just so staff don't think I'm making all this up, Meighan and Trella want more females as CC Admins and a breakdown of the current "admin vibe" :)

I highly doubt I'll ever be put back in the position as CC Admin, especially with what some of the current staff want. Although, I would like to see some more fair and unbiased treatment in the future. Current central regulars feel they have to self-moderate while Jen is present because they also fear losing their rights here and/or elsewhere. The fact that this forum even exists just makes me feel that I'm not alone in that my desysopping was rash, untimely, and without clear public reason which goes against the community principles wikis were founded on. -- 16:13, November 4, 2011 (UTC)

I wanted to add another staff voice here, firstly to say that this was not Jen's decision alone. This was close to happening several times before Jen joined us (as Charitwo knows from our long discussions over the years) and I and others support this decision.

It's been general practice on this wiki for a while not to discuss blocks with anyone uninvolved. I'm sure you can find examples in Charitwo's contributions of him telling various people this. The choice not to discuss the details of this change was similar - it's between staff and Charitwo, and we prefer not to discuss it outside of that. Obviously we still trusted him and respect the skills he has for his VSTF work, or we would have removed those rights too (remember, this was a social change, not a practical one in his case - he still had the same rights, but was asked to only use them as VSTF and not as wiki admin).

Sadly, his latest comments have meant he has lost that trust, and this is something we need to address publicly. He has taken private comments from an internal wiki, and put them on this forum. I recognize that he is not the only one at fault here (obviously those comments were passed on to him by someone else) but we cannot trust someone involved in that breach of privacy. Because of this, Charitwo will also be leaving the VSTF.

I'm sorry this has escalated in this way -- sannse http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png (help forum | blog) 17:55, November 4, 2011 (UTC)


 * All I have to say at this point is you're shooting yourself in the foot. I hope corporate understands what they've done here.

What I don't understand is how his apparent loss of trust affects his ability to maintain wikis and keep them vandalism-free. I think this is highly preemptive - he is yet to abuse the VSTF tools, so why is he suddenly deemed untrustworthy of holding tools that taking private comments from an "internal wiki" (this proves that details were being kept from the community regarding the initial demotion) have nothing to do with? Maybe there's something I'm missing, or I'm just so blind that I cannot see through this. --Callofduty4 18:16, November 4, 2011 (UTC)


 * My bet is that you (Sannse) will retract that post and that decision.
 * I'm not a fan of Charitwo but the fact is that the man has years of work done and experience accumulated and that you (wikia) now has to get someone to do this sort of work or the whole wikia will be infested with spammers and the like.
 * It's also very amusing to see how this whole forum standards versus wiki standards work. I bet that if this was built as a real forum people wouldn't have pulled that "standard practice in wikis is..." talk.
 * But then again... You (wikia) consider this community something owned 100% by you even though you contribute absolutely nothing, the big burden is upon us. At the very least you should have set it up separate from your centralized thing.
 * I'll take this opportunity to say Good Bye.
 * 18:35, November 4, 2011 (UTC)


 * What a mistake to do that. Talking of decisions not being "made in haste" - took a whole 1 hour 40 mins to make that one. Very much an overreaction, doesn't ease anyone's fears that there's an agenda here-- Category:Acer4666 20:20, November 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * Wow, yust wow. This clearly has evolved rapidly into a power struggle/ clash of cultures where the new person (with more power and clear views on a different style/ way of doing things) has removed the old person(s), due to conflicts of interests (and perhaps lack of proper communication/ preparation for the transition).
 * I feel saddened to see this happening. This so clearly is a new boss demanding a new way and removing those not bending along. What has been done cannot be undone however.
 * I am sure it will affect the mood on the forum for the time to come, and is likely to take down quite a number of contributors in it's wake, especially since the community demanded explenations and gets something bad presented towards them.
 * I am only a bystander, but as written above here by another user, the agenda involved makes tensions rise.

Removing my VSTF rights for an issue unrelated to the VSTF or VSTF tools without discussion or notice is quite unfortunate. It is not my fault that Wikia cannot keep their internal wiki secure, not that I really leaked anything at all. Just a couple of opinions by Trella and Meighan on wanting some "female prowess" on the central admin team (big surprise girls wanting girl admins) and that Wikia was wanting to shake things up a bit (we already knew that part) both of these bits were discovered by me. I do not nor ever had access to internal, just to clear that up. Nor was I ever subject to non-disclosure. Again, nothing proprietary was mentioned here anyway.

I've been at Wikia for four years and two months and to see it happen like this with zero regard by Wikia is a slap in the face. I've never held any ill will towards the staff (sans Jenburton) or towards the company. I've always had reservations towards certain changes and decisions but I just bit my tongue and worked with everything the best I could. I've stuck around through thick and thin, during wiki forks, angry blogs, several big changes. They cannot sit here and say that I betrayed anyone. They certainly didn't waste any time removing my access (sloppily and unfinished at that) and it's a shame I won't be able to contribute to keeping this place clean like I always wanted to.

I'll admit I've never been the most "PC" guy around here but I always work hard and I know the site inside and out. It does not surprise me that there is a huge forum against my removal of rights and that so many users are against how everything is being handled (regardless of the outcome). A big thanks to those community members that still believe in me. I appreciate it. -- 04:31, November 5, 2011 (UTC)


 * Giving that the VSTF is doing their job without any reward, and subject to any demotion for a completely unrelated issue, if I were a VSTF member I would resign from my position and let all those girl staff members to do the job of finding and cleaning up spam and vandalism all over Wikia. Charitwo, you have all my support on this. And Sannse, with all the years you have here I would expect more from you than just following the current trending of the new staff bloggers --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 09:42, November 5, 2011 (UTC)


 * I would like to simply point out that Jenburton is technically Sannse's boss. Take that as you want to.


 * I haven't been a huge fan of how Charitwo moderates. But seeing how was willing to work on his mistakes in the discussions on the new IRC channel and the amount of people coming to his defence, which is certainly more than I'd expect to receive if it was me, I think there may be more to Charitwo than I thought.
 * I don't know Jen very well or exactly what went on in the previous discussions staff had had with Charitwo about his behaviour, so I apologise if I say anything inaccurate.
 * Since even before these demotions, Charitwo and Jen have often struck me as similar people. (Although they do clearly have opposite views on many things.) They both haven't been shy about telling off people who they believe are behaving inappropriately, not always [taking] the feelings of the user into account. (That's something we've probably all been guilty of at some point.) At least by my understanding, Charitwo has in the past has been preoccupied with wanting to ban users he found disruptive, when other obstacles have held him back. If what we've been told about Jen's insistence on removing Charitwo's sysop is true, it sounds similar to his insistence on banning those users.
 * I can understand what makes both of you want to do those actions. I believe both of you were doing what you felt was best for the community and I respect that. If people are being disruptive, discouraging or rude. You are right, it is a problem and something should be done about it. Good communication and bad communication can be the difference between earning their co-operation and making things worse. For someone who's not on Wikia specifically to cause trouble, being told "Your behaviour is unacceptable. Now stop." is hurtful, even if they are being wrong and can make them resentful. For Charitwo this has resulted in other users hating him and resorting to trolling him and Wikia. For Jen it has resulted in this. I think these results could have been avoided and both parties interests bests interests kept intact. Listening to each others' concerns and trying not to take the "do as I say" attitude. In Charitwo's case, even showing a bit more patience. I don't know if the talks with Charitwo about his behaviour went this way or not.
 * As someone who probably would have been glad to see Charitwo lose his userrights had this happened sooner, I'm willing to give him another chance. I hope Jen and the other staff can do the same and users who have turned against Jen can give her another chance too. At most would it be possible for his VSTF to be restored and his behaviour over the next few months be assessed to determine if he should be given his central adminship back? -- Deltaneos (talk) 20:44, November 5, 2011 (UTC)

This way that the staff don't appreciate just how much Charitwo contributes t Wikia and the abuse he has had to put up with to help enforce the rules, without their pay, yeah this is a sad day for the actual Wikia community!! SunXia  (Chat)  23:58, November 5, 2011 (UTC)

My input on Charitwo's sysop state
From what I have seen in Charitwo's experience as a VSTF, he has several times lost his temper towards admins on wikis for reasons of the long past, such as his latest actions on both SmashWikis. Notably, on the SmashWiki in the past he was notorious for holding an elitism as an administrator, and when he was criticized he showed deep contempt towards the community. Such behavior is not the kind I would like to see in a VSTF. Several times he has been extremely unhelpful in some cases, once even reverting my vandalism reverts simply because they appeared on an IRC vandalism monitering channel. In another case, he overstepped his powers and literally censored a revision for linking to the other SmashWiki, despite the fact that there had been established consensus on that wiki that talk page content would not be removed like that. In addition, on other wikis, I have heard of him being especially unhelpful in solving IRC disputes on Wikitroid.

Links: Charitwo censors a comment despite it being relatively harmless and it could have been dealt with by other means than this

Charitwo reverting an anti-vandalism edit of mine

Upon politely confronting him on the talk page, Charitwo responds quite rudely.

Summary of Charitwo abusing his powers on the SmashWikia

A display of Charitwo's poor handling on the NIWA SmashWiki

Mr. Anon 00:50, November 6, 2011 (UTC)


 * Well first off, I have no involvement with other wikis IRC channels and my desire to keep my name out of google searches for wikis not associated with Wikia is my business, not yours. The Wikia links you provided are me doing my job as VSTF, if you have a problem with it you were free to contact staff at the time and I would gladly not touched your wiki at all. Sorry, but that's just how it works. -- 01:07, November 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * I had made a mistake on the IRC thing; according to my source, the said incident was on the VSTF IRC channel. Your "desire" conflicted with the NIWA SmashWiki's clear policies, and you got yourself into attrocious edit wars with other users, once saying "I stepped down from being an admin because of people like you". Such a statement clearly shows a level of elitism. I would like to point out that you have played the "I once was an admin but I stepped down" card several times, one of them being in a link I provided, which you dismiss as "doing your job". I didn't complain then because I was an IP at the time and did not know or care much about these issues. However, I have since learned more about your past on the SmashWikia (see one of the links I put up). As for the censorship issue, I did not complain because at the time Wikia staff had a heavy crackdown on users who linked to the NIWA SmashWiki, and, knowing your history, I was afraid of being blocked. Again, I don't have a problem with the Wikia staff, nor do I have a problem anymore with blocking users for repeatedly putting up links despite warnings, but I DO have a problem with censoring material that is not explicitly inappropriate. Read thoroughly what I pointed out, and tell me whether "that's just how it works". I respect Wikia staff, but I do not respect users who abuse their powers, and respond to criticism by making that kind of statement. If this kind of behavior is the type Charitwo displays on other wikis, then I am certainly opposed to him returning as a VSTF. Mr. Anon 01:19, November 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * If you had a clear understanding of Wikia's "crackdown" on users linking to the forked wiki you would have known that it was also me doing my job and not have brought it up here. Also the reversion of "vandalism" of a misplaced "Smasher" article on a user talk page was a mistake and nothing otherwise. To claim we are to be 100% precise and perfect in everything we do isn't feasible.
 * The forked wikis policies were completely foreign to me as here on Wikia it is generally accepted that removing or moving a conversation from a talk page is a form of acknowledgement and that the revisions are fully accessible through the history. It was my desire to keep that wiki from showing up on google through my name, your community thought otherwise and were taken aback by my attempts to loophole your policy through use of __NOINDEX__ to prevent crawling but retain the page per policy which was not in violation. -- 01:27, November 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * "If you had a clear understanding of Wikia's "crackdown" on users linking to the forked wiki you would have known that it was also me doing my job and not have brought it up here. "
 * Did you read my post? "I don't have a problem with the Wikia staff, nor do I have a problem anymore with blocking users for repeatedly putting up links despite warnings, but I DO have a problem with censoring material that is not explicitly inappropriate." DaNASCAT blocked a few users for putting up links to the NIWA wiki. He NEVER actually censored harmless edit descriptions like that.
 * "Also the reversion of "vandalism" of a misplaced "Smasher" article on a user talk page was a mistake and nothing otherwise. To claim we are to be 100% precise and perfect in everything we do isn't feasible."
 * Again, do you read my posts? My main problem was not with you getting in my way there, but your response on your talk page after I notified you about your mistake.
 * "The forked wikis policies were completely foreign to me as here on Wikia it is generally accepted that removing or moving a conversation from a talk page is a form of acknowledgement and that the revisions are fully accessible through the history. It was my desire to keep that wiki from showing up on google through my name, your community thought otherwise and were taken aback by my attempts to loophole your policy through use of __NOINDEX__ to prevent crawling but retain the page per policy which was not in violation."
 * I don't care whether you had concerns about Google results or whatever (though that essentially is a form of sabotaging our wiki...), but you should have backed down after being reverted by members of our community. Edit warring is just as "generally accepted" as being a no-no on wikis, and you violated it. Users have been blocked on Wikia wikis for far less than your actions there. Mr. Anon 01:41, November 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * As far as I remember the edit summary was the auto-summary containing the link to the wiki, if it was something else I really can't recall that far back and inadvertently hid something I shouldn't have. Bringing that revision hiding up here is minor and petty and picking at straws.
 * That talk page reply is just sentiment thinking locally as someone from a local community standpoint, and not an "official" response/reply from a volunteer. I hated the merge and that's why I ended up leaving. There is no changing that sentiment. Sorry.
 * Then why wasn't I blocked? Please stop bringing up non-Wikia issues here. -- 01:48, November 6, 2011 (UTC)