Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25979511-20180129192821/@comment-3218221-20180130031725

Sxerks wrote: At this point in time, no. I simply don't have the time to add anything that isn't already being done by someone else at a faster pace. I've been on Wikia for 10 years and have seen many people come and go, I'm not the one who is going disappear.Adding rights to other users is usually done out of necessity, is there a need for another moderator,rollback or admin? Also people shouldn't just be given rights they need to be ask if they want to take responsibility for using them. - Sxerks, refusing to give Chrome Bureaucrat rights on 21 Oct 2017. Bolding mine.

When the senior admin disappears for over sixty days on a regular basis, yes – there is a need for another admin. When the senior admin "[doesn't] have the time" to contribute yet still claims "I'm still here everyday," – yes, there is a need for another admin. When multiple people have issues with the senior admin's conduct and dearth of contributions – yes, the senior admin's behavior should come under review. Yes, there is a need for a significant change.

Sxerks wrote: User rights are not rewards they are a responsibility. Just want to make sure everyone reading this understands that. - Sxerks, Animanga Wiki, 29 Oct 2017. Bolding mine.

Sxerks wrote: as far as adding rights, you would have to have quite a few edits and be someone who is actually going to stick around - Sxerks, Rosario + Vampire Wiki, 17 Aug 2013. Bolding mine. (He is a bureaucrat+wiki there, but the wiki is not listed in his usual trophy template. Same situation with the Everything Edits Wiki)

'''Sxerks is absolutely correct. I completely agree.''' He said it himself: user rights are a responsibility, and an admin must be someone who is actually going to stick around.

Time and time again, Sxerks has not stuck around. The last edits he made to this wiki were in November (as seen on via the Contributions link I included earlier), and his long history of vanishing, reappearing to do only the most minimal of edits, and vanishing again is plain not only in his logs for this wiki but on the several other wikis he has kindly made easily accessible via his profile template.

A responsible admin makes regular, meaningful contributions to the wiki they admin, and by "regular" I mean "more than every 1-2 months" and by "meaningful" I mean "more than deleting a spam edit" here and "reverting edits you do not like with no explanation" there. A responsible admin would have acknowledged their constant absences and made Chrome a bureaucrat.

Someone who is a sysop on thirteen wikis at minimum (including R+V & EE, with a decent possibility that there are more unlisted on his template) cannot be uniformly responsible across all wikis. It is impossible for Sxerks to fulfill his sysop duties on all those wikis on a meaningful level, and the proof is in the logs. Visit his contribution logs on the wikis he is listed as a sysop for, and the big picture quickly becomes clear....


 * Wasteland Wiki: Sxerks (bureaucrat/admin) made a grand total of seven edits in 2017, six in July, one in November.


 * Minami-ke Wiki: Sxerks (Founder) contributed 24 times in 2017, except I strongly suspect that the 19 edits he made on November 13, especially the nine edits all made at precisely 01:11 AM, were actually made by a bot under his own name. He did this on the Drrr!! Wiki too, if you look at his contributions.


 * Gakuen Alice Wiki: Sxerks (bureaucrat/admin) has a better track record here, with edits as recent as this month. However - the two Gakuen Alice threads I linked earlier (at the words "multiple" and "issues") make it plain that contribution logs doth not a responsible admin guarantee. This is one of the wikis that has found him to be most problematic, despite his apparent activity. In fact, a similar case can be found with...


 * ...the Animanga Wiki, where Sxerks is also a 'Crat/Admin. His most recent edits, all on January 14, were just discussion edits, not content edits. And once again, his long list of edits in 2017 masks the community discontent with his service. See the link at "people" above.


 * ToAru Wiki: Sxerks ended the 2017 year with a prolific total of (1) edit on November 14, and that edit was a nostalgic comment on a blog post. In other words, Sxerks did not contribute to the ToAru Wiki for an entire year.


 * Thief (Reboot) Wiki: Sxerks founded this wiki as the newer version of the older Thief Wiki, which he also founded. Seven edits total in 2017, with the last in October.

(Edit: I was right; after I first published this reply, I discovered that he's an admin on the Watamote Wiki. And the sense of déjà vu this Watamote thread is giving me seems particularly relevant. "I'm an admin, and I'm here everyday..." - and so the cycle repeats itself.)

(Edit: He's a bureaucrat/admin on the Strawberry-Marshmallow Wiki (last active 2014) and the Kimi ni Todoke Wiki (last active in Oct), and is an admin on the KissxSis Wiki (note the irony) and Azumanga Wiki)

Sxerks wrote: I support you adopting it, I am an admin on 20 or so wikis and probably don't have the time for this one. The other main user "VvAnarchangelvV" looks to mainly have edited the torment side of things and not the upcoming Numenera.

- Sxerks, declining to adopt the Torment Wiki on 23 Jun 2015

I could list more, but I think - no, I'm certain – that would not be necessary. Sxerks' modus operandi, then, is as follows: as a founder, or as a newly appointed sysop, he will make a decent, respectable contribution to a wiki for a duration of time, and proceed to sit upon his laurels. His edit count will decrease over the years - at varying rates, yes, but on average they decrease - and in tandem, so do the nature of the edits themselves. He stops adding significant content in favor of minor, easier edits (adding categories; adjusting MediaWiki code; 'discussion edits'); and with his loss of interest in his own edits comes greater interest in the edits of others. I am not refering to simply undoing spam; this wiki's users can attest to him reverting hours of their work without explanation.

When I look at the template Sxerks proudly showcases across wiki after wiki (even wikis that he's just visiting) – when I look at all those (Bureaucrat) and (Founder) labels glinting next to those names, and when I compare that amount to his low number of recent contributions across those wikis – I can arrive at only one conclusion:

Sxerk, what you value most is your 'rank' as an admin. There is nothing wrong at all with taking pride in being a sysop, but when you rack up labels without doing anything with them - the sentiment starts to feel a little hollow. Being a sysop is not solely about 'status', and whatever 'inherent' respect that the role affords is still conditional on the sysop's actions. Staff member Sannse wrote a post about a good Admin's philosophy that I implore you to read, reflect on, and use as a framework in considering your own actions as an Admin up until now.

...I would like to leave you with one last quote.

Sxerks wrote: Are you still on about this? After none of you edit for months?

- Sxerks, this thread, today

The clear, deliberate incredulity underlying Sxerks' question, and its sheer dismissiveness really does say it all. Once again, he is willingly deaf to users' concerns. He must be aware of his hypocrisy, but does not address it. The logs show that he never changes, because he believes he does not have to. He had his way after the events of October 2017, and he has retained his rights on so many wikis for so many years.

"Are you still on about this?" A responsible admin would not trivialize the concerns of his userbase. A responsible admin would never have assumed a sysop position across as many wikis as Sxerks has, because to do so would be inherently irresponsible. A responsible admin would have made Chrome a Bureaucrat, and they would have done so without demurring.

It is not just that Sxerks is failing to do what he himself has said a responsible admin should so, it is that he cannot do it. The statistics, the history - he cannot keep up with all the wikis he 'administrates' and even if he could... Well. He certainly likes being an admin, but I cannot say for certain that he likes administrating. Here he is on the Made in Abyss Wiki, contributing to it just last month as a regular user. In a sense, this is him actively neglecting the many, many wikis he 'administrates' in favor of those that do not fall under his responsibility.

I stand by everything I said in the October 2017 thread. It is astounding that the only active admin on the wiki has been denied Bureaucrat rights for so long, and for no reason. Let us lessen Sxerks' burden by this much. The time I've taken to collect evidence and write this statement is more time than Sxerks has put into this wiki for the past two months. The time I would need to refute, "After none of you edit for months?" would be negligible. The evidence speaks for itself.

Do not let his status quo remain the status quo. Not again. As you can see, the community mindset has not changed after four long months; we remain firmly in support of Chrome. Her message wall is the one people turn to, not his, and that is because the community expects something different from her than they from what they expect of Sxerks. I truly wish that a successful compromise had been reached back in October, but it is clear that some lasting change must happen on the wiki – if not one way, than another.