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User:Gurch[edit]

Gurch (talk • contribs) I've been active here for about 15 months. I have 40,000 edits, 30,000 admin actions, two bot accounts and one sysop bit. I don't know, or care about, my edit summary usage, namespace distribution or vandal-fighting statistics. I've had enough, and I'm thinking of requesting de-adminship. Do you think I'm ready? – Gurch 22:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Reviews

  • What the hell? Don't do it. You're one of the best admins we have. --Rory096 00:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Of course, I wouldn't understand how you feel because I have yet to experience de-adminship, let alone adminship. You are an astounding contributor to Wikipedia, but the final decision is made by you. If you've had enough, and you want to request de-adminship, I'm for you all the way! Sr13 (T|C) Editor review 02:29, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I advise you to experience neither, and you'll be better off for it. Unless you enjoy drama, of course (in which case leave the project now, and don't come back) – Gurch 00:11, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Er, actually, I'm only here because I mis-clicked on my way to peer review. But as long as I am here: why? Opabinia regalis 04:19, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How did you manage that? Typed WP:ER instead of WP:PR? Anyway, as far as "why" is concerned, read my statement. I've had enough – Gurch 00:11, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Presumably; I was surprised to find myself here, and equally surprised to see you here. From what I read of the mess that broke out around Christmas, you were one of the consistently sensible ones, which is increasingly rare around here. I have historically proven useless at cheer-up talks, but you found adminning and gnoming to be satisfying at one point; <cliche> it'd be a shame to lose you but good to see you take a break and come back refreshed.</cliche> Opabinia regalis 03:25, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, you read that stuff too? You see why I'm fed up with the place, then, surely – Gurch 11:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Didn't everyone read some of that stuff? It spilled over into enough places. I was on vacation at the time (lot of people could've used one, it seems) and was surprised to come back to that mess again. And yes, the whole situation is frustrating, including the fact that nothing seems to have been learned from the previous n iterations of the same argument. Incidentally, peer reviewing an article that someone is preparing for FA is a satisfying experience that's low in drama - you get to read a high-quality article on a cool topic you wouldn't have otherwise sought out, the author gets some useful suggestions from an outsider, and then you get to see the article improve based on your input. Also has the advantage of putting you several layers away from having to give a toss about what Arbcom is doing and who's talking about who on IRC. Opabinia regalis 04:05, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • From delldot: Hi Gurch, you sound stressed out. What's to stop you from taking a break from the activities that have been burning you out, rather than requesting to be de-adminned?
  • You seem like a really friendly editor, with friendly talk and user talk comments. If something is stressing you out, you seem to be handling it well -- I see no evidence of losing your temper on your talk page or recent contribs.
  • You're a big asset to Wikipedia. You do tons of chores: talk page archiving, participating in FA discussions, well, you know what all you do.
  • As you mention, you make a ton of minor edits. You've been doing a huge amount of vandal whacking, which can lead you to lose your faith in humanity, or at least human males between the ages of 13 and 15. I suggest switching up your editing style for a while, to see if you like it better. Try writing an article, bringing one up to FA or GA status, or getting involved in a wikiproject. Anything that doesn't involve admin tools. I suggest this because I don't see any advantage to getting rid of the tools unless you feel a pressure to be using them as long as you have them. Which in my mind there's no need to. If you take a break rather than de-admining yourself, you can start back up if you become less burned out without having to go through the trouble of requesting re-sysoping. These are just my thoughts, of course they could be way off base since I don't know you or your situation except from what your talk and contribs pages can show me, which is not much. I'm certainly willing to discuss it more if you like. delldot | talk 22:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • You can replace "requesting de-adminship" with "leaving" in my above statement if you wish. I would request de-adminship on the way out for security reasons, to make it clear I was actually going, and to prevent admin-related requests being left on my talk page and then not dealt with. I put "requesting de-adminship" because most of the requests here say "I'm thinking of requesting adminship", and I am in the opposite situation.
  • 99% of my user talk messages are template warnings against vandalism. Not that friendly, but I take your point; I guess they're not that uncivil either. I lost my temper four weeks ago at WP:AN, so it has long since disappeared from my recent contribs. Now I've come here, which is probably the wrong way to handle things, since nobody seems to have done it before, but I can't think of an alternative. Going to WP:RFC would suggest that I've done something wrong. (If I have, of course, then by all means say so).
  • FA discussions? I think I participated in one once. Anyway, however big an asset I am, my impact on the project as a whole is negligible. Nothing will fall over if I leave. And remember we all work for free. So I'm not thinking about the project, I'm thinking about myself (there's this thing called "real life", you may have heard of it); but rather than just leave, which would be selfish, I thought I'd do what you're supposed to do on a wiki and see what consensus says.
  • You'd be surprised how many vandals are outside that age/gender bracket. Unfortunately, I suck at writing articles. My contribs page can actually show you rather a lot (as can my log of admin actions); sadly finding it is pretty much impossible. You probably haven't come across my typo corrections, for example, even though I made 13,000 of them on this account. It is full of stuff I hardly even remember doing. As for my talk page, check the archives, I try to make them accessible. Thanks for the advice, anyway – Gurch 00:11, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it's fine that you came to ER with this, there's no reason it should only be used for people wanting to get ready for RFAs.
  • You mentioned consensus; well, I think the consensus is definitely that everyone wants you to stay! But you're right, your own needs come first, you have to take care of yourself. (I wonder if you're experiencing the same "wikipedia is ruining my life" feeling that I sometimes get).
  • I get the feeling from your statements here that you're burned out, which would suggest that a wikibreak might be the best thing. Surely it's possible that you'll feel differently in a couple months? Of course you're right that the project won't fall apart without you, but that doesn't mean that you or your contributions won't be missed -- they will. I see no reason to make the wikibreak permanent until and unless you decide later that it suits you.
  • I think from your responses that you're more frustrated and sick of the project than I originally realized. It's understandable -- you've been working really hard. Thus I'm sticking to my original suggestions - work less hard, take a break, or change up what you're doing, the areas you're participating in. You mentioned drama -- maybe you can just avoid the dramatic areas? Sorry I can't be more helpful, I still understand frustratingly little about your situation. I looked at one of your talk archives, and there's plenty of vandals and spammers railing at you, but nothing I could identify as for sure the cause of your burnout, if that's even what it is. I couldn't find the AN thing you mentioned either. I wish I knew how to help better, but I guess ultimately you have to decide what's best for you. Let me know if you want to discuss more. delldot | talk 01:49, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good.
  • Possibly "no consensus", taking into account advice I've sought elsewhere, but I guess you're right. Of course, it would be a lot easier if most people did want me to go, fortunately I'm not unpopular/notorious enough for that (not that many people have even heard of me). Wikipedia is not "ruining my life", but it is affecting it.
  • I'll consider it.
  • Vandals and spammers don't bother me; if necessary they can just be ignored. I sympathise with your problems finding stuff. Finding anything on AN is near-impossible these days. A lot of administrators (myself included) don't even bother reading it unless something is brought to their attention. The best way to avoid drama is not to be an administrator – and have no contact with them. Not being an administrator yourself, you're probably under the illusion, as I once was, that things are run relatively smoothly. In fact, among other things, the level of bureaucracy is such that administrators aren't even allowed to use common sense any more, there are backlogs that would take months to shift (by which time another one would have appeared), and the most aggressive administrators and ex-administrators have spent the last few months conspiring to get rid of each other. If you really want to read it (though you probably have a better use of your time), some of the stuff about IRC channels and experienced contributors being forced out, all of which means that among other things I don't even trust the Arbitration Committee any more. The vandalism on the Main Page we had didn't exactly help, either.
Thanks again – Gurch 11:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do what makes you happy, that's my opinion. Just H 13:29, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If I did that, several of our policy pages would be missing and a number of people would be indefinitely blocked. I don't want to be disruptive – Gurch 14:58, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • You mention ignoring the vandals, which I think is a brilliant idea. But what's to stop you from ignoring the drama and bureaucracy, too? You're considering leaving the project entirely, why not just leave those aspects of the project that bother you? I read part of the links you had, they really are quite exhausting. But surely there's no way for people to force you to participate in the drama just because you're an admin? (if there is, thanks for warning me in advance!) You could take a wikibreak and then, when you're ready, come back and start working on different areas. I certainly understand your frustration at feeling your hands tied and bureaucracy causing backlogs to form, though as you say as a non-admin I haven't really experienced it. It sounds like you feel like all the rules are preventing you from making a good contribution to the project. So you obviously care about what's best for the project (well, OK, duh). So, if you were to take a break and then avoid the frustrating areas, the project would lose a hard worker in those areas, the project would still be better off than if you were to quit entirely. Surely there are some backlogs you could clear without controversy? (e.g. WP:IFY, Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit, or even the editor review backlog!) Who knows, maybe something will strike your fancy. Anyway, I hope you don't leave, but I also hope you do what's best for your life, which of course is for you to decide. delldot | talk 18:32, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Avoiding controversy on a personal level isn't that difficult; certainly it's not impossible for an administrator (though it is a lot easier to become involved once you are one). Just by being here, though, I notice a lot of things – regardless of what I'm actually working on – and I refuse to just sit and do nothing in certain situations (probably part of the problem). I wouldn't necessarily say the rules are an issue (as least not The Rules as in the official policies), but we do tend to suffer quite badly from instruction creep, in certain processes. In the early days of Wikipedia there was a sort of solution to this built-in, in the form of Ignore All Rules; unfortunately, while it's still "policy" in that it has a message at the top saying so and Jimbo Wales endorses it, it's been the subject of much argument, and it's not considered acceptable to actually cite it as an explanation for your actions (unlike every other policy we have), making it somewhat useless.
    I might have a look at those categories. A few of them seem to be worryingly large now, such as Category:Category needed – which despite a very impressive effort over the last month or so still contains over 15,000 articles (erk!) I imagine they get pretty boring pretty fast, though. You seem to be doing well with the editor review backlog yourself, no need to worry about that – Gurch 21:39, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I know what you mean about instruction creep. I have anarchist leanings myself so that kind of thing drives me nuts. Have you considered removing the pages in question from your watchlist and kind of self-enforcing an avoidance of those areas?
  • Erk indeed about the CAT:NOCAT backlog. You're right that it would probably get boring to do nothing but wikify or categorize all the time, you'd need to mix it up and find a bunch of tasks that vaguely interested you. You said earlier that you're not good at writing articles, but you seem to be a good writer here, maybe you should try it. How much time do you spend on WP a day anyway? If it's a lot, maybe that's part of your burnout. Have you considered limiting your time on WP to a couple hours a day? As for the ER backlog, don't let me stop you, it's all yours if you want it! ;) delldot | talk 00:18, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Questions

  1. Of your contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
    Not really, no. It's mostly just maintenance work.
  3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?
    Inevitably, yes. Though since I don't actually contribute any content, not that many. Often, a simple explanation of what I'm doing will suffice. Unfortunately, Wikipedia has more problems now than one can even comprehend, let alone attempt to deal with. I've participated in more extensive discussions on various issues, but this was of little help, and I no longer believe I can achieve anything productive.
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