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Stewards/Confirm/2025/EPIC

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EPIC

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logs: rights, globalauth, gblblock, gblrights | translate: translation help, statement

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  • Personal info: I've been a steward since the elections last year. I found myself having quite a hard time getting to know stuff in the beginning, one of the reasons being that I didn’t have any functionary experience, and I made quite some mistakes because contrary to how I had planned I had taken too quick of an approach, but I feel that the more time that has passed the more familiar I have become with the toolkit and stewarding in general.

    With that being said I've been one of the most active stewards this year and performed over 60,000 actions in total, and I’ve been the steward with the most loginwiki checks this year. Most of my usage of the tools has went towards helping at Steward requests pages, as well as handling IRC requests and emails sent to the VRT oversight queue. I'm also one of the list owners of the global renamers' mailing list, and therefore I also help out in that end.

    I had thought a lot about whether to run for confirmation or not, but I believe I've proved the opposition in my initial candidacy wrong and continue to find myself making good use of the tools, and I'm willing to continue serving for another year if the community wants it that way. Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns you want me to respond to. EPIC (talk) 00:00, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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Comments about EPIC

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  • Do you still believe that stewards do not have to treat wikis on which they are full administrators as home wikis? I notice that you have also granted Oversight to someone on Wikidata while having been an administrator there since 2023. Sdrqaz (talk) 14:01, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I explained the most of it on that page but I'll do so again. Simply, I do not see Wikidata as a home wiki and I am not as active there as I once was. The only wiki I would have seen as a home wiki is svwiki, for which I have refrained from taking actions. With that being said, if there is any wiki that the community does not want me to perform actions on I will simply respect that, and after that discussion I decided to not perform future steward actions related to Wikidata, which I haven't done since then either (except for two resignations which fall under the clear cut cases). EPIC (talk) 14:15, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    On a second note regarding the question, there's no solid definition of a home wiki; but for stuff like this I would say it depends on multiple factors, e.g. activity on that wiki and which "community" it is. EPIC (talk) 18:30, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I will be   Neutral here, barely (mainly on the strength of EPIC's general work and pragmatically because his commitment on Wikidata kind of gets to the same result). Disregarding EPIC's adminship on Wikidata for a moment, I don't think that it is a good idea to continue insisting that a project where he spent equal time with Swedish Wikipedia is not a project where he is considered an active community member. Even if that was in the past, appearances of impropriety matter when you're in a position of power, and I'm not sure he gets it (this may be part one of Ajraddatz's concerns). Even if something can be done, maybe it isn't wise to do it; sometimes privileged users need to err on the side of caution when using their permissions.
    PS: I've looked through what I can for Ajraddatz's concerns and it does seem like EPIC did close some SRGP requests early: one 19.5 hours early and two requests a few minutes early (A09, Syunsyunminmin). While looking through the requests, there were a lot that were closed "on the dot" or within five minutes. Those aren't issues in themselves, of course, but please be careful: not everything needs to be done immediately. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:15, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you for the thoughts.
    As for the SRGP requests, there was indeed a request which I closed almost way too early, which was because of me being dumb and misreading the closure date, which I thought was the same day I closed that discussion. When I did realize some time later there was basically no reason to re-open it anymore and therefore nothing new that happened on that end either. EPIC (talk) 23:43, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep You are indeed an Epic Steward. --Stïnger （会話） 14:02, 6 February 2025 (UTC).[reply]
  •   Keep --TenWhile6 14:05, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep --Skilsdhuo (talk) 14:06, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep This is the most "epic" steward out of all the current stewards we have. He has been a big help to Vietnamese Wikipedia in dealing with LTAs. He's super active. His actions are quick and swift. I like it! I hope he can serve as steward for many years to come. We need quality steward like this. Nguyentrongphu (talk) 14:12, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep - XXBlackburnXx (talk) 14:16, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep EPIC is a diligent man TUIBAJAVE (talk) 14:19, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep --Codc (talk) 14:21, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep --Minilammas (talk) 14:24, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep and once again thanks for being an EPIC steward. --shb (t • c) 14:25, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep Concerns from last year stew elections got fixed, I see no reason not to keep.--A09|(pogovor) 14:25, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep Ayane aka. eunn 14:31, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep: very impressive activity. Svārtava (tɕ) 14:35, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep --Icodense (talk) 14:37, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep aqurs ❄️ 14:39, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep Thank you for your work and wish you luck for this next term. --V0lkanic (talk) 14:43, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep BZPN (talk) 14:45, 6 February 2025 (UTC).[reply]
  •   Keep Nemoralis (talk) 14:52, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep highly active and helpful on IRC, and I believe they have been quite receptive to the feedback they received. Thank you for your work! --KonstantinaG07 (talk) 14:53, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep Incredibly active; no concerns. ⟲ Three Sixty! (talk, edits) 15:18, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep though try to avoid a repeat of the "burnout" in mid-2024. Thanks for your work in helping me with my bot as well. Leaderboard (talk) 15:28, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Just want to clarify that the thing in May was not related to a burnout - it was simply because of increasing long-term personal issues that I felt were affecting my work negatively. Reason I chose to stay on was because I still find Wikimedia work a fun task and I wanted to see how things would turn out in the future. EPIC (talk) 16:00, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep incredible activity. AramilFeraxa (Talk) 15:39, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep One of the most active stewards and in my opinion a good steward. Drummingman (talk) 15:43, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep —MdsShakil (talk) 15:44, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Building off of Sdqraz's question, I have concerns about what happened here. It seems like Epic used his position as a Steward to ignore a local policy he disagreed with on a wiki he holds advanced rights on in order to do a favor for another Steward. In that conversation Epic stated he wished to avoid a repeat of a situation where admin was removed and the community then voted it back after the person indicated they wanted to continue. I would suggest that shows Wikidata reasonably making decisions as a community - something I would like Stewards to respect - and further more if that's what he wanted to avoid, as a member (and admin) of the community he should have sought to reform the Wikidata process, something he still hasn't done. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:03, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Some time after that had occured a local RfC was opened to let bureaucrats locally remove admin rights, which I supported and it was ultimately successful. As such, I'm fine with how that turned out and there wasn't really anything else for me to do on that end. All that being said I do think we handled it poorly and the request should have just been processed no questions asked - the reason I waited because another steward had asked Martin a question regarding the request and I didn't really want to override that. After the occurred I chose both to refrain from handling requests related to Wikidata, and to just process inactivity related requests without any leeway, as long as they are correct and in accordance with the local policy - as far as I've been made aware of there doesn't seem to have been any other issues on that end. As Mykola also stated in that same discussion I'm also a strong proponent of inactivity removals, which was demonstrated e.g. from Steward_requests/Permissions/2025-01#Luki@barwiki as well. EPIC (talk) 16:13, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    With respect, the change to crats removing just means you are no longer in a position to stop implementation of a policy you disagree. My last sentence is about the idea that rather than using your power as a steward in the first place to ignore a local policy you should have sought to change the policy as a community member and/or done nothing at all as a steward. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:29, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    To clarify I'm not really in objection to the inactivity policy, for the most part I wanted to avoid a Mike Peel situation and overriding another steward. With the crats having the ability to remove sysops I didn't feel like there was anything else to change. It's them who are responsible for enforcing the inactivity policy, which I am happy with. EPIC (talk) 16:48, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep --Borhan (talk) 16:04, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep Ternera (talk) 16:05, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep Hey man im josh (talk) 16:24, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep JrandWP (talk) 16:24, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep very active, especially in areas that require constant work. Only feedback would be to look in to ways to document some locks/blocks better (e.g. on cuwiki or otherwise) - to aid in appeal reviews. This is something many of us could work on, and only is noticed here as a function of the high volume work being performed. (Thus you may be a unique position to lead a solution). To be clear, EPIC is always responsive to questions about any of this and I have no concern about him being accountable. — xaosflux Talk 16:28, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • From the outside, EPIC certainly does a lot of good work. But I'm afraid I have a couple of pretty serious concerns here, and while I'm not going to specifically oppose the confirmation, I would like to see some improvement in these areas over the next year.
    • The first is collaboration. Others have noted a couple of examples above, but the bulk of this feedback is related to EPIC's discussions with other stewards through private channels. When EPIC thinks they are right, they dig in and refuse to accept any other perspectives, regardless of the number of other stewards telling them they are wrong. In my mind, one of the key qualities that stewards should have is a collaborative mindset - please consider taking feedback from others into account and acknowledge it, even and especially if you disagree with it.
    • The second is activity. While it is true that EPIC does a large amount of good work, his sheer volume of actions poses a number of problems. Without getting too much into discussions on how healthy it is for someone to be monitoring steward request pages for 20 hours a day, I think it creates a very unhealthy culture for other stewards, who often need to rush to try and action requests before EPIC can get to them (which usually happens within minutes). This leads to mistakes and a lack of oversight, as most stewards simply avoid the requests pages now. I've also noticed EPIC closing requests on SRGP before the closing time has even been reached, which seems like an attempt to make sure he "gets" the action to me. His repeated actions on homewikis also falls into this basket - there are 32 stewards, there is no reason that you need to be actioning requests on wikis where you are an admin. Any requests. Please consider reducing your activity in a lot of these areas, to give other stewards a chance to get experience and to return to a healthier culture that acknowledges that these requests often do not need to be actioned in three minutes.
  • Overall I have been pretty disappointed with the quality of EPIC's work and his interactions with others over the last year. I really hope he takes this feedback into account and improves in the coming year. This won't be new to EPIC, I have expressed these concerns (as have others) multiple times this year, but I think it's important for the community to know what is happening behind the scenes too. – Ajraddatz (talk) 16:45, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd like to respond to this as I do take these concerns seriously.
    • On the collaboration point I've done the best I can - it can happen that I might become a bit frustrated if it's too much for me, but I try to keep it calm and to be cooperative. I've asked several questions and second opinions when unsure about something - these are sometimes responded to but often not, which can be a factor at several times. If I then perform that action after having received no response, I assume there are no objections to that - and receiving negative criticism regarding that after the occured can, of course, be frustrating, as I have already given others a chance to comment at that point, which can be part of the problem. I do think I've gotten better over time with handling such stuff - most of the feedback I've received regarding that, at least in recent times, has been mostly rare, but I do of course accept such feedback and take it into account.
    • On the activity point, most of what you are referring to has been months ago and is outdated. I've done several measures to give other stewards a better chance to do more stuff, most notably in recent times, on pages such as at SRG, if they want to, and I also don't action as many reports/requests as I used to in previous months. We now have several stewards working on requests sent to that page, such as Bsadowski, but this was not previously the case. At some times, mainly in the first half of the year, I had been the only steward monitoring SR pages and at such times, especially for unclear or potentially controversial cases, I've given well of a chance for colleagues to action on or comment on requests, but since the other stewards hadn't been doing stuff there, it ended up being me who did most of it anyway, including some unclear cases. Other than that the other main factors as to why I've continued to be active are mainly two; one, I enjoy doing steward work and assisting others and it's a good way for me to pass time, and two, I'd like to avoid the previous backlog situation the stewards had in previous years, such as in 2023. Overall I've just wanted to do both the community and fellow stewards a favor from my end; the situation in previous years has been a mess and has delayed both response times and other stewards' willingness to handle the large backlogs, and that's what I want to avoid having again. With the "home wiki" actions part I assume you are referring to the Wikidata situation, and I've already responded to that above; that is the only "home wiki" related steward action that I know of/remember, and I've already declared that I have not seen Wikidata as a homewiki, but I chose to refrain from Wikidata related stuff, even though it's rare. As for the SRGP part it's mainly just a coincidence or a mistake (such as misreading the closure date) if I happen to close it just a bit too early. With that being said those cases have been quite rare as far as I know, and none in "recent" times.
    In short, some of what's being mentioned is true and I take full accountability for it, but much of it has been older stuff and I see myself as having improved from it. As such I do not see it as something to "make a mountain out of a molehill" over, but I try my best to take concerns (both from the community and from other stewards) into account, which I think has gotten better for me over time. Other than that the feedback for my work, both from the community and from other stewards' side, has been mostly positive. EPIC (talk) 17:33, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you for the response; while I think we may disagree over how recent these issues were or are, I do think that this presents a more measured response to concerns that it felt like you blew off in the past. I have no doubt you'll be confirmed and look forward to continuing to work with you, and appreciate that you will continue to give these subjects some thought. – Ajraddatz (talk) 22:46, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep quebecguy ⚜️ (talk | contribs) 17:42, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep. كريم رائد (talk) 18:40, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep Brilliant steward, epic you may say! That being said I have noted the comments from Ajraddatz, but I'm pretty confident that EPIC is respoding well to this feedback - of course, I can't see steward mailing lists so don't know the full story. --Ferien (talk) 19:01, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep --Jan Myšák (talk) 19:53, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Absolute   Keep. Queen of Hearts (talk) 20:00, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep yes, of course. Sincerely, Gadir (talk) 20:02, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep —Aopou {talk} 20:11, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep Zafkiel GD | Talk 21:22, 6 February 2025 (UTC).[reply]
  •   Keep The best --Smatteo499 (talk) 21:24, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep. Karol739 (talk) 23:13, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep —Eihel (talk) 23:47, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep Miniapolis 00:14, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep, I have worked with the OP on implementing some private global filters that I suggested changes to/or to fully implement via Discord and email. Codename Noreste (talk) 00:18, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep--Cactus🌵 spiky ouch 03:25, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Keep. Neriah - 💬 - 10:21, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Keep Good job, you are my favorites steward. --Lookruk 💬 (Talk) 09:45, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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