List

So there's no requirement for e.g. how long one must have been a sysop? Will bureaucrats show up differently in Special:listusers? Pakaran 17:14, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Apparently they do show up differently, but only here on Meta - which is a Good Thing IMHO. Pakaran 17:18, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Can another rule be added that if you make someone a sysop, you list them on the appropriate "list of administrators" page, and remove the request from Interwiki requests for adminship?. People might waste their time checking up on applications otherwise, only to find they've already been done. Angela 22:20, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well, I think that once we handle the current backlog (which I imagine will happen half an hour after Tim wakes up) requests won't be so frequent that people do the equivalent of edit conflicting with each other. However, I do think that making sure to list people is a good idea. And it should probably be a formal rule, looking at how many people forget to list pages they protect now, which involves a lot less work.
If you don't belong to a (small) wiki where you promote someone, I'd say it's only reasonable to create an account there in order to list the user, or just edit the list as an anon. Pakaran 22:27, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Small WP

I have noted that I will intend to follow 'spirit rather than letter' for the smallest of Wikipedias. What I mean, is that on some Wikipedias the usage is so small that none or almost none of the users can be said to be 'active'. In such a case I'd rather go with the spirit of only doing promotions that would not be objected to by people on the Wikipedia in question, rather than the letter of only promoting active users. This is only about the smallest Wikipedias - the larger ones usually have a method in the place for working with community consensus, and for intermediate small ones, an 'only active users' rule does seem to be appropriate. Of course it also depends on what one calls active... Andre Engels 03:03, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

That sounds good to me. Honestly, there's little real policy at this point - pretty much what we have is Brion's rules of thumb. I think generally the person who requests to start a nanoWikipedia is given sysop status, but I wouldn't swear by that. Pakaran 03:04, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

suggestion: change name from Bureaucrat to....

The word Bureaucrat tends to be used pejoratively to refer to slow moving public employees who frustrate you through their red tape and snail like movement. I suggest changing the term to one of the following: prime sysop, divine sysop, sysop sire, generator, begetter, ambassador or captain....something fun and imaginative....not something so governmental and legal sounding. -Kingturtle

We chose "bureaucrat" on a whim precisely because you can't take it seriously when it has such a lame name. Maybe we were wrong. :) --Brion VIBBER 05:01, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Though bureaucrat is quite unattractive name, I am inclined to side with Brion on this. What bureaucrats are supposed to do is more of "maintenance of user status data," than making substantial decisions based on their own judgments. But said that, I hope there is some better term. Tomos 23:59, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I agree the name needs to be changed. Bureaucrat is often used to suggest a negative impact on institutional processes, and I believe some people will see it that way. Or else people who want to cause problems will take rhetorical advantage of it. Not everyone will know enough not to take it seriously. It's a public relations problem we don't need to give ourselves. In the spirit of not complaining about a problem without offering a solution, my suggested name is "sysorg", as in system organizer. Michael Snow 02:57, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Problem with minor Wikipedias?

Although I am now a "Bureaucrat", I notice that cy.wikipedia doesn't seem to recognise the fact! Is this a bug somewhere? -- Arwel 15:22, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

No, you're not one anymore. The idea was cancelled yesterday. Angela 20:38, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Huh? It certainly wasn't, we just took out the addition of the cross-wiki sysopping, which wasn't well thought out and ruined the whole thing by making people paranoid and putting insane rules on it that defeated the purpose. --Brion VIBBER 21:42, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I think this has been suggested before, but I would like to suggest an alternate term for someone who can create and demote sysops on their local wiki -- the "sysop". -- Tim Starling 03:37, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that all the sysops should be able to use that function? - I think it is not a bad idea indeed. Simpler structure, fewer titles, and more wiki than creating some bottleneck. We do not need to discuss how to select bureaucrats, etc., either. Tomos 20:44, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)


Page "Blanked"

OK, so Bureaucrat isn't actually blank, but it's been gutted. Any REAL reason? --Dante Alighieri 19:15, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Bureaucrats no longer exist. In future, they might re-exist, but currently it is likely that when they do, you would only be able to make sysops on your own Wikipedia, not any Wikipedia. Angela 20:38, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Still there, and you can only make sysops on your own wiki, not on any wiki. --Brion VIBBER 21:42, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Beg to differ -- I'm a sysop on cy and en, and when I go into specialpages and click "Turn a user into a sysop" I get "The action you have requested can only be performed by sysops with "bureaucrat" status." -- Arwel 22:51, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
That's because your account on cy wasn't marked as 'bureaucrat'. Is is now; please try again. --Brion VIBBER
Ah yes, it's working now. Thanks. -- Arwel 14:28, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)


Czech bureaucrat or sysop

Angela told me, the Czech sysop, or even bureaucrat (?), is cs:Wikipediista:Miroslav MALOVEC. But since 18 December 2003 he has been no longer active. Could I be a Czech bureaucrat or sysop instead / together with him? Removing of some deleted test is heavily needed. -- V. Z. 15:15, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Return to "Bureaucrat/2004-02" page.