Sonic News Network:Requests for User Rights

Requests for adminship (RfA) is the process by which this wiki's community decides who will become administrators (also known as admins or sysops), who are users with access to additional features, most notably the ability to delete pages and to block users. A user either submits his/her own request for adminship (a self-nomination) or is nominated by another user. Please become familiar with the Administrators' how-to guide before submitting your request. This process is modeled around Wikipedia's RfA process, and more information can be found at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.

Layout
The following layout must by used for all new nominations. Nominators are encouraged to use the following code as a template, added as a new section under the current nominations and customized for the specific nominee.

Word bubbles must not be used as they interfere with numbering, and signatures must contain no line breaks. Signatures must contain a link to the relevant user's user page but no links to the pages of other users.

Username (rank requested)
Username (talk): Contributions Edit Count

Short section describing nominee's suitability for rank requested. Signature of nominator to be included at end of paragraph, along with the date of nomination.


 * For nominations by other users only, a single bulleted paragraph by the nominee accepting the nomination. Signature of nominee to be included at end of paragraph.

Discussion

 * Comments in short, signed, bulleted paragraphs.
 * Responses to specific comments should be offset with an extra asterisk. Responses should also be short, signed, single paragraphs.

Note: Adminship is not taken lightly. Nominators may want to spend time on their requests. The short section should cover reasons why the nominee would be expected to use admin tools appropriately and demonstrate that they are dedicated to the wiki. It should also explain why giving them such tools will further the aims of the wiki.

Discussion
Once a nomination has been made, users will review the nominee and declare their support or opposition by placing a short comments and their signature in the 'Support' or 'Oppose' sections (in the format of a numbered list, i.e. preceded by #). As above, word bubbles must not be used as they interfere with numbering and there must be no line breaks. Signatures must contain a link to the relevant user's user page but no links to the pages of other users. Do not try and include your entire thought process in such comments; only include the key reason or reasons for your vote.

At the same time, users are encouraged to explain their decision in the 'Discussion' section.

The 'Discussion' section can be used for further commentary or for asking the nominee questions in order to clarify your position. Comments must be short, single paragraphs in a bulleted list and include a signature. Again, do not use word bubbles, even if you frequently use one on talk pages.

Direct responses to a bulleted comment (e.g. by the nominee) should be placed directly after the comment and indented with one additional bullet point. (That is, a comment preceded by a single asterisk * would be followed by a comment preceded by two asterisks **. If you have trouble formatting lists in this way, it is recommended that you go to Special:Preferences and deactivate the visual editor under the 'Editing' tab.)

Any user can contribute to the discussion or declare support or opposition, but opinions have more weight if backed up by reasons and evidence (e.g. occasions in which the nominee has done particularly good or bad work). The opinions of long-standing users, particularly current administrators, will also tend to hold more weight than recently-joined or inexperienced users.

Resolution
Adminship and bureaucrat nominations will last for two weeks; rollback and chat moderator nominations will last for one week. In this time, nominations must have received a sufficient number of participants in order to be valid. For rollback or chat mod requests, 5 users must have participated. For adminship requests, 10 users must have participated. For bureaucrat requests, 15 users must have participated. Nominations that have not reached this quorum level at the end of the relevant period have failed. (Note that participants include those who comment and remain neutral.)

This is not a majority vote. It is an attempt to assess the community's consensus regarding the candidate. The candidate should have the support of most of the community, so if the vote is close, the candidate will probably not be given adminship.

After the two weeks have passed, a bureaucrat (a user who has even more rights than an administrator, and can give other users admin rights) will read through the request, determine the community's consensus about whether the nominee should be made an admin, and close the discussion. The discussion will be removed from this page, but is still accessible through the page's edit history.

Demotion discussions will last as long and require the same number of participants as promotion discussions about the same rank.

If a nominee decides at any time that they do not wish to pursue a promotion for themselves, they are welcome to remove the discussion entirely before it comes to a conclusion. However, a nominee is not permitted to remove a demotion request.

A nominator is entitled to remove any discussion they have posted (including a demotion request) if no other users have yet commented.

Advice
Here are some pieces of advice for nominators and nominees:
 * Follow the process as described above. Failure to do so will harm your chances of success.
 * Demonstrate that you understand what being an admin involves. Read through Help:Administrators' how-to guide if you are not familiar with the role.
 * Being a good user is not sufficient to be made an admin. Do not bring up number of edits, number of pages created, being nice to other users, not engaging in vandalism, or knowledge of the Sonic series. Only users widely recognized as good users should be nominated for adminship (those that have not demonstrated this through their work will have their nominations rejected quickly) and they do not need to prove this again during the debate for adminship.
 * Don't expect that the community will be familiar with your work. You must provide evidence. In its simplest form, this may include listing pages (or talk pages) where you have been particularly influential, but preferably you should provide a link to the Diff pages of major edits you make.
 * Don't expect that the community will necessarily be aware of your nomination. You are advised to request comments from regular users, particularly admins (a list of whom can be found here). Note, however, that only asking your own friends to comment is usually transparent and may harm your chances in the long run.
 * If you are an admin on another wiki site, this can provide good evidence of your suitability for adminship, assuming either you have been granted adminship in recognition of the work you have done on the site (as opposed to receiving it because you founded the site or were one of the only users) or you have been an effective admin having received the privileges. You must provide a link to the site in question.
 * Don't lie, as doing so will almost certainly result in a failed nomination.
 * Remember that this is not a talk page. Please keep discussions relevant to the matter at hand and do not start to chat. For instance, try not to thank everybody who votes in your favour.
 * The ideal candidate is one who is being prevented from carrying out work by the limitations of their user rights. If you can demonstrate that you would have used admin rights in the past (e.g. by tagging pages for deletion that were subsequently deleted, or informing an admin about a vandal that was subsequently blocked), provide evidence for this. Don't attempt to influence the discussion by promising to do something or act differently if you are successful, as this is a sign that you are not yet ready.
 * Don't talk about things that you don't do, only things that you do do.
 * Please be civil!

Current nominations
Here are the users who are currently nominated for sysop, rollback, bureaucrat, or other privileges. New nominations must be added below this line.

MetalShadow272 (Demotion)
MetalShadow272 (Talk): Contributions Edit Count

I propose to demote MetalShadow272 from his rights as a Chat Moderator, with a few reasons: Metal is a person who likes to joke around a lot, especially on the chat. Do not take this is a hasty conclusion, he is a good moderator, well-outspoken. However, he has had difficulty with following some rules, that of which are dependent on keeping his title as a mod, and by the fact that he takes some jokes too far. These "jokes" have even broken our Policy of not feeding the vandals.

One issue is with capital letters, where he (and notably a few other users) has/have used full-capital sentences numerous times frantically, which is filling the chat with spam. Another issue is when he's made gags about "death-threats", and most recently, one where he posed as a dangerous vandal to this wikipedia. This is unfair to many users, and unacceptable in general, considering it was enough to alert a user to message me on my talk page. Finally, there have been points where other users have said that Metal has made a few "low blows" which then causes Metal to threaten to leave the wiki, until everyone becomes pitiful and beg of him to stay/return. Thus, this cycle has repeated a few times, and we can no longer endure this problem.

Evidence of Metal posing as said vandal.

17:48, May 30, 2012 (UTC)

Support

 * 1) As the poster. 17:48, May 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Sorry, Metal, but you have gotten out of hand with your jokes, as well as your overall behavior on the chat. Your most recent joke is what provoked this demotion request though. Posing as a vandal is not taken very lightly here, especially when it concerned the mentioned user to message every active admin in pure fear. EYCEST★R   ★   17:51, May 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) I'm unfortuantly going to have to agree. I've seen him do some rude things on chat (and what has been posted above) and he has spammed before on at least one occasion.
 * 4) Per DF. I'm sorry, Metal. Even when your acting as a vandal on my chat when I was offline. I am disappointed. Sonic  The  Hedgehog  Dude  18:17, May 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) I think I may have support this demotion, that pracical joke wasn't appropriate as it caused quite a panic. I'm also aware that this isn't the first time Metal has been slected for demotion because of his actions, that should've been enough for him to realise that he may take jokes too far and that he should tone it down for the sake of everyone else. Metal may be going through some things (per OMG) but that's no excuse, we all have problems in our lives, but we all do not spam or vandalise.  Myself  123  18:32, May 30, 2012 (UTC)

Oppose

 * 1) No. Metal may have some problems right now, but he does not deserve to be demoted. He's been through a lot. His parents punish him for things his brother does, he almost failed school, and he's been kinda stressed out, which may have contributed to his recent behaviour on chat. Also, that vandal thing was just a JOKE. It was never meant to be taken seriously.
 * Takes jokes too far....That's a big lie. People just get tired of them eventually and find them annoying. One issue is with *capital letters.....Did you forget that most users here, including a few MODS, have done that, other than Metal?
 * Death threats.....Metal hasn't done that in about a month.
 * Also, most users here do worse, with RPing,stabbing, destroying, and others?
 * Including Mods like Free and Darkness?
 * And posing as a vandal....IT WAS ON ANOTHER CHAT! IT WAS JUST A JOKE!
 * And the reason why he threatened to leave the wiki, is because no one here can take a joke. (Ohmygod123 18:00, May 30, 2012 (UTC))

Discussion

 * @OMG "but he does not deserve to be demoted" May you elaborate a bit more on that? Any additional info as to why you feel Metal shouldn't be demoted would be greatly appreciated and may help aid your decision. EYCEST★R   ★   18:10, May 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * I am neutral here. That incident had freaked everyone there out, but when someone breaks the rules on chat that has under-edits, he takes his job very seriously and does what he needs too. The Shadow Of Darkness 18:18, May 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * @OMG Thanks for the additional info, but you do realize that the joke was very serious? I'm afraid, it can't be taken lightly. EYCEST★R   ★   18:29, May 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * @DarkFuture: I think you're taking the Vandal joke TOO seriously. The vandal joke was on Dude's Tiny Chat, NOT the SNN chat.(Ohmygod123 18:31, May 30, 2012 (UTC))
 * OMG, you're not taking it seriously enough. Have you even seen our history with this vandal? 18:34, May 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * @OMG Yes, however, it was brought to the SNN, making it our issue. EYCEST★R   ★   18:36, May 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter where he did it, it relates to the SNN and it's not how a Chat Mod should act, even if they're not currently modding.  Myself  123  18:39, May 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * Regarding your latest "update", OMG, it is true he takes some of his jokes too far., and I don't need to explain why. I did mention that other users have used all-caps persistently, read through the demotion again. The Death Threats thing/RolePlaying supports his threats of leaving the wiki. Finally, again, the situation was brought to our wiki on another chat, which, again I say, caused SpyroSonic to inform all active Administrators. 18:43, May 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * @Myself: Why do YOU care? You never come on chat, so you have NO right to support this demotion. (Ohmygod123 18:45, May 30, 2012 (UTC))
 * Myself 123 has every right to support Metal's demotion, he is an Administrator, and has seen some of Metal's action before. I wouldn't recommend bossing an Administrator around like that. 18:47, May 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * Indeed, and I was affected by this prank. I know it meant to be a joke (I think everyone knows that) but it wasn't, it was quite serious ans it went too far.  Myself  123  18:51, May 30, 2012 (UTC
 * I think I'll stay neutral on Metal's demotion. He HAS been getting out of hand with his jokes and hasn't learned his lesson. However, he is an outstanding moderator, but some discipline may be in order. Time Biter  "The Rift"  20:07, May 30, 2012 (UTC)