Battlestar Wiki:Requests for adminship/The Merovingian (3)

The Merovingian

Back to RFA.

Vote here (6/3/0) ending 17:51, 6 August 2006 (CDT)

The Merovingian (talk • contribs) – The Merovingian's history with us has not been entirely smooth. During his first months with us, his unmatched energy and enthusiasm for the project were sadly tempered with an impatience and quickness to anger which did not recommend him for adminship.

In the last few months, his demeanor has improved drastically, and he has acquired a remarkable maturity and level-headedness. This track record was unfortunately marred by an incident three months ago, involving a series of attacks against fan reporter Jim Iaccino, a.k.a. "KoenigRules". The results of this were such that I was forced to oppose his last nomination for adminship - despite his recently improved behavior, I felt he needed to demonstrate that he was capable of adhering to higher standards on a permanent basis.

It is my opinion that Merv has done so. He now makes persuasive arguments in rational tones, he appeals and defers to group consensus when appropriate, and he has been helpful and patient with new users.

Merv has always been a contributor of the highest order. As one of the most serious and vocal opponents of his adminship in the past, it is my pleasure to state my belief that Merv has demonstrated the maturity and patience to wield admin privileges responsibly and effectively. I would be honored to work alongside him as an administrator. --Peter Farago 00:37, 28 July 2006 (CDT)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:--I am The Merovingian, and I accept this nomination. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 17:51, 30 July 2006 (CDT)

Support

1. Support as nominator. --Peter Farago 00:37, 28 July 2006 (CDT)
2. Support I am delighted to support, based both on absolutely superb contributions and behavior that has steadily improved to its currently decorous state. --CalculatinAvatar^(C-T) 04:18, 28 July 2006 (CDT)
3. Support Has made excellent contributions in the last few weeks. --FrankieG 06:40, 28 July 2006 (CDT)
4. Support. I feel gaining Peter's support after all this time is no mean feat. You've earned mine as well for the same criteria. With great power comes...well, you know the rest. Get your mop and bucket. --Spencerian 07:10, 28 July 2006 (CDT)
5. Support I've been highly impressed with his contributions and such here recently. --Talos 13:05, 29 July 2006 (CDT)
6. Support Merv was the second user to greet me when I came here. I was overzealous when I first arrived, but he helped me to temper myself through helpful suggestions that were not rude or even bossy. He's an excellent editor here and I couldn't think of a better choice for admin. --Homeworld616 01:33, 30 July 2006 (CDT)

Oppose

1. Oppose I've reconsidered my vote light of Merv striking out Cranky's vote. Not that there was anything wrong in striking out Cranky's vote, but the fact that Merv did it shows that he hasn't learned much in the way he deals with people. I would like to respect Peter's judgment that he's now ready for admin-ship, but this incident just pushed me back to the "NO" camp. Thanks Merv. I should also add that I'm utterly baffled that this process has gone on for nearly a year and three previous failed admin votes, in which at least one of them Merv nominated himself, and in the other two he accepted. I guess the one question I have is "why does this position matter" so much? He didn't even refuse the nomination after the KR incident, which would have been the honorable thing to do. In previous RFA's, he's bragged that he had a Plan R ready (recruitment) to essentially troll for votes at other forums. (Mercifully, this was not employed during the last RFA). Still, the question begs to be answered: Why does this position matter so much? Why is being a contributor not good enough? And sadly, I don't agree that he's ready yet. I really wanted to give him a chance.--Larocque6689 00:16, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
2. Oppose Strongly - Merv has attitude has not changed and I think that people should be reminded of the RFC in how he handles difficulties situations. Not one person owns any such article has people and Merv has told me. No article is of ownership so saying that you are working on your articles should be a presence that he still has the mentality of ownership of the wiki. A - Merciful and I worked on the Battle template for two weeks and got comments during that time. And once Merciful updated all the pages, Merv objected to it's use and the design. B and C - In that note, The BW:ES project has not been finalized nor has anything been set in stone, yet he has gone around to all the episodes and made significant changes without getting any consent with the project group. Posting something on the think tank for project creation, not for doing the standards does not count. The BW:ES project was not his creation, but FrankieG project idea. The podcast project is also something to point out, while there was a field to "view" podcasts from the episode pages, the idea was never implemented because there was to many disagreements. (i.e. Battlestar_Wiki_talk:Podcast_Transcripts#100.25_done_podcasts_we_should... At this point before he did this, the BW:TANK project did exist.) D - No project on welcoming committee. It's open for anyone who can post a welcome message to someone and not just posting, but also helping. G After being a strong opponent to the idea he has graped the idea that he should be the only person in charge of maintaining the portals (e.x. Check Userpage) and decide what should be placed. (e.x. The RDM Portal FA is a current BW:FA candidate.) The Cylon agent speculation page has been a project, but disallows other users information on the page. My own conflicts with merv have yet to be resolved. I have yet to hear an apology from him from the many actions he has done to enrage me leading up the the RFC on me. The BW:AN post is another thing. And if you look closely at the RFC, he did preach. The RFC was not a discussion forum, but analysis of the situation of people's comments. I can not vote for a person who can not apologizes to someone after they admit they are wrong except he can to people outside the Wiki. (I would expect a public apology to Larocuque on his talk page because he has said he is sorry in this RFA, but you have not done it directly to him. For this, you can not be ready to be an admin) And using the System Message namespace for an RFA, shows me that messages are going to be abused. This system is for server related issues regrading updating and databases issues. General information should be posted on the BW:CP where there is a notice board, but RFAs don't get "riddled" everywhere except someone's user talk page or if they have pages under "Watch" status. Also in the current sub-page of BW:TK, an established project, he objects to a subpage for a list of manual checks for users and admins. The list is going to be design for admins and users alike to see what is going on the wiki and to give shortcuts to the correct pages. Not one person can be the trafficker of information. We each have our own skills that relay on one another. Merv thinks his skills is all this wiki needs. Me, I good at code, not content, but I love the show, Peter good at grammar, CA, good at grammar. Frank is another contributer to info. Merc has been good with design and syntax fix. Spenc is good at condensing things. Talos is good at images. Ford same reasons. And the wiki can not be here at all without Joe. As posted out, Merv does not want us associated with a outside forum in anyway shape or form to function as one. Also to bring back a forum issue is irreverent to why we should not listen to Larocuque's vote. I do agree that Cranky1c's vote should be discounted because it breaks every rule in the book, but a simple "Please read the RFA guidelines, would have been a simple enough." Also posting a link where there is adult content is UNWISE without any warning. If any of the pictures are like bad, that is serious bad things that can happen to the Wiki even though you are linking. -Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 01:38, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
3. Weak Oppose Ok this was a tough decision and most certainly isnt mean as an attack as an oppose. I definitly think you are over a lot of the bad stuff that happened in the past but there are still times when arguments get a little out of hand and when you make changes before concensus is made. I also think the whole Koenigrules issue was a pretty big thing and its hard to forget that. Apologies are fair enough but you need to think a little more about how your actions can affect other people. I think this needs to be made completely clear too. And if you does make admin I most definitly dont want to see posts on Skiffy and other forums of you "speaking on behalf" of the Wiki as has done in the past. I'm still skeptical about if another bad situation is going to arise in the future, and if so then it may bring the whole of the Wiki into disrepute as you would be an admin. So just be very very careful about what you say/do outside of the wiki. Good luck Merv, but im staying neutral on this one. --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 10:54, 30 July 2006 (CDT)

   Ok I'm sorry to do this but i'm moving to oppose. From the comments ive seen from other people here there are some serious issues about Merv's behavour outside of the wiki, and im really not sure we want to bring some of this bad kharma here. --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 03:55, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

Neutral

Comments

• It's only been a month since the last RFA. Why are we going through this again so soon? Edit: Please ignore the last question. I just noticed it was Peter who made the nomination. --Larocque6689 19:06, 30 July 2006 (CDT)

• A few things to point out: Laroque6689 is of course, trying to goad me into some sort of inappropriate outburst disproving that my behavior is fine. So instead of taking my word for it, I'll supply links to things he's said and you can decide for yourselves, but essentially, Larocque6689 is one of the regulars from (Caution: Some of these messageboard posts I'm pointing out containg mature content) "The Moist Board": many of you, my fellow, BattlestarWikipedians don't use the messageboards a lot so to give a quick run through: when they talk about "those internet Original Series fans who hated the new show and clogged the messageboards full of cruft when the Miniseries came out", that's them. ---->Essentially, I refuse to be intimidated by trolls on the messageboads, and do not shy away from saying that Scifi.com's messageboards have little if any moderating and we need moderators to keep order there. More so than ever after a new troll "hatebait", began sexually harassing several members of the messageboard.---->At any rate, many of you saw during my last RFA that these people just go on mudslinging grudge matches and I doubt actually care about the show. For starters, Larocque6689 does not care about KoenigRules. --->Yikes, this is one of the more tired messageboard arguement tactics by a third party; I am not fighting with KoenigRules, have retracted everything about that mishap, and (Although this is based on how he feels) I think things are productively moving foward. The point is, it's been more or less a rehash of an arguement from April. When Larocque6689 can't think of something actually new to use to defame someone, he just reposts the same old arguements into a room to open old wounds. They just don't like it that I want to actually have people behave on Skiffy, observe: "Blame would-be Sciffy moderator The_Merovirgin, who reports posts of his enemies as fast as they are posted).--Larocque6689". --->Larocque & Co. kind of obsess over me, as seen in this example, just reposting the same things over and over again. --->here's another one = Larocque and the other TOS trolls really just hate it that I actually want there to be moderators on Skiffy. I mean heck, Koenigrules was there post-GTA's and shared in my disgust at the troll backlash from the likes of hatebait, who kept sexually harassing people but never got banned. They kept running around going "report a post and your a snitch and a troll!" (Trolling being the exact opposite of reporting bad posts). And of course, Larocque has now announced my new RFA in another troll-forum], in the dedicated Hate-The-Merovingian thread. Any surprse that a few hours after we started, someone joined BattlestarWiki (Cranky1c) for the express purpose of voting against me? Well, judge for yourselves Larocque6689's conduct and character; check out his List of posts on MortalStorm and List of posts on Moist Board. I'm sorry that KoenigRules and I, and the rest of the BSG community, have to keep dealing with people like this. --->Finally, Larocque6689.....is just obviously a malicious user who popped in to vote against me. Please take a look at the Full List of Larocque6689's Contributions to BattlestarWiki:' Once, on April 12, he made some minor changes to "33" and "Water". Besides that, All he's done is come here to yell about me becomeing Administrator....of a website he hardly ever uses. Funny that he knew to voice his opinions on my RFA here, when an announcement that there's an Administratorship election in progress wasn't even posteed as a header on top of the website: these TOS trolls (people that actually use the term "GINO"/originated it) just....stalk me on the internet all the time and obsessively read everything I do. Creepy and petty. ---->What are Larocque6689's opinions? Well, judge their worth on their merit I guess. Myself, I would value KoenigRules vote/input on my RFA (even if negative) and have sent him a PM asking if he'd like to vote me up or down. Because KoenigRules knows what KoenigRules thinks, not Larocque6689. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 00:19, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
  • A couple of things Merv. First, it's true I haven't contributed a lot to the Wiki. One of the reasons was that your power-tripping drove me away. I had actully prepared a whole whack of stuff from my own BSG website. At some point I would love to buff up both the TNS and TOS sections, but that's my business. (And to the Wiki-ians, yes, you have permission to use my website as a resource ) Secondly, I'm not trying to goad you into anything - I'm just asking a simple question: "Why does this matter?" Thirdly, someone did alert me to this RFA. I thought it was open, which is why I posted in it. There's no conspiracy at work, it's just a fact. I was going to go "neutral" until you struck out a vote against your adminship (which I really think was out of order). Cranky's vote should have been discarded but not by you. You could have shown restraint: you didn't. Finally, instead of using this opportunity to show your best side, you belittle my (modest) contributions here, try and second-guess my motives, and bring in stuff from other forums which don't have any place here. I did not come here to thwart your latest attempt to become an admin, rather, I just came here with some questions. If you could just calm down for a few moments, this exercise could become productive again. (To the wiki people, I'm sorry I screwed up the formatting, this isn't exactly user-friendly and I'll try my best not to do that again) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Larocque6689 (talk • contribs).
    • I appreciate that there are complicated inter-personal issues at work here which involve off-wiki activities, but could I please encourage the participants here to refrain from harsh language and mud-slinging? Every user here is entitled to an opinion. --Peter Farago 01:20, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
      • Merv, NEVER link to other websites which contain adult/pornographic images, at the very least without some kind of warning. Some of us use the wiki at work... --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 04:16, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
        • Merv, you not doing yourself any favors responding to these types of posts. It's making me waver on my support. I appreciate your hard work, but these kinds of attacks are best ignored. --FrankieG 07:53, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
          • Agreed. Best to just let them shout themselves out. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 08:40, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
            • Now that's "Admin" type behavior, and will be appreciated. :-) --FrankieG 08:50, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
              • Merv, I wasn't trying to goad you into anything. There was a reason I cast a Neutral vote. I had some questions but had no desire to be an impediment to the outcome of the vote. Your striking out Cranky's vote (while procedurally correct) really stepped out of the boundaries of what I consider nominal election behavior. For the very same reason, what right did you have in taking another "Oppose" vote and reclassifying it as a "Weak Oppose"? You aren't in charge of this RFA, other people are, and that's thir responsibility, not yours. In an election, a candidate does not throw out votes cast against him, for the same reason that it's considered improper to stuff the ballot box. Other people are in charge of the ballot box, not the candidates. Your response - which seems to be a standard one - is to toss out the "troll" label and post a bunch of links. You've psycho-analyzed me and claim I "don't really care" about KR. (It's an utterly false claim, if you knew anything about me). I agree with Shane - you owe me an sincere apology, which I would gladly accept if one were offered. I didn't bring any of the off-Wiki stuff into this RFA for the simple reason that they don't belong here. Rather, I asked a question, which remains unanswered. Granted, it's a subjective and kind of fuzzy question, but given the number of times these RFA's have happened, it is a valid one. "Why is this position so important to you?" You've invested a lot of time - emotional and otherwise - in "Plan R" - and simply won't take no for an answer. You could almost add a tagline to your name: "desperately wants to be a Wiki admin." All I just want to know why it matters to you so much to be elevated to this position. Because you really, really want it.--Larocque6689 17:23, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
                • Mercifull moved it himself and added week oppose to it. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 17:42, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
                  • My bad. I would have struck those remarks and your response, but I guess it's part of the record. Please skip over that sentence. Thanks.--Larocque6689 17:55, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
• I would just like to add that I dont have anything against you Merv, and i've been very impressed with the contributions you have made here, however as can be seen from this page there are still a lot of issues regarding conflicts with other people and i'm not sure this is the kind of thing we want to bring over to the wiki. --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 08:05, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
  • Mercifull I don't know if you go to the messageboards a lot, but there is actually not "issues" online except for trolls yelling at me like this. I honestly do not know how KoenigRules feels (his opinion would actually matter) though I hope I made amends with hem. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 08:37, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
    • I dont use any BSG/Sci Fi message boards for unfortunatly all I have to go on is what is shown here. --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 09:33, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

For some time now, one of my side projects has been to review Merv's message board postings, as well as the postings that related to Merv. Granted, there's been a change in his behavior, which became prominent in the aftermath of the KoenigRules incident. It is obvious to me that Merv isn't very well liked and there are reasons, and let's just leave it at that for right now. Yet, an observation I have made is that the same people who decry his behaviors also commit similar behaviors themselves: personal attacks. I'm not going to provide links and all that because Merv's links (warnings are good things Merv) are more than sufficient to illustrate my point: his opponents employ the same disgusting behaviors that they accuse him of. Yes, the KR incident was deplorable, however it is the issue that keeps on being dragged out like a dead horse and beaten ad nauseum. I'm not going to speak for anyone else, but judging from comments from both parties, I believe that they want the issue dead and buried. Essentially, I feel that the decision to elevate Merv to admin status would be controversial, regardless of whether or not people agree that he has changed his behavior. It might also bear badly upon the Wiki, given that Merv has issues with people on the boards.

Merv is a great contributor to the Wiki. The issue that some people have had is that he has, in the past, spoken as being one of the operators of the Wiki. In fact, while he has never really said as such, people assume him to be the official spokesperson for the Wiki. This is not the case. I will therefore be codifying that into an official policy, which I will be running through the Think Tank as my ill body permits.

Another thing is that I don't believe Merv needs the tools. From what I've gathered from his words, the tools would be more of a convenience if anything else. (This by the way is not a vote, hence this being under the comments section.) What I am really saying here is that people think being an administrator is a life-long job title. It isn't. Let me remind people that administrative privileges can be taken away if misused.

I put this all here because I feel that people should really understand that people don't have to be administrators to help shape the wiki. Adminship is not an entitlement. It is not a title. It is a responsibility. Also, in Larocque's case, if he was scared off by Merv, he shouldn't have been; he should have approached any admin with his concerns. It should not take an RFA to bring these issues up. He's more than welcome to contribute here. As is anyone else. If anyone's been "scared off" for any reason, I would very much like to know this, because this concerns me greatly.

I've said my piece. Questions? -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 12:51, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

The following was moved by Joe Beaudoin Jr. at 12:51, 31 July 2006 (CDT). It is an oppose vote that cannot be counted due to Cranky1c being a new user.

Oppose With all due respect, the arguement that a couple of months of improved behavior is equivalent to "adhering to higher standards on a permanent basis" is unpersuasive. KR was not the subject of a mere prank or fan infighting, but suffered an intrusion in his professional life that can not be overlooked for a nice e-mail and the submission of some articles, no matter how well done. Those of us who work in professional environments know that administrative and organizational memory for this kind of thing is not wiped clean even when it falls below the threshold for disciplinary action. Some errors in judgement are simply incompatable with being trusted with positions of authority, and I believe this is the case here, whatever his contributions. Mero may be a talented contributor and editor, but he should remain so. --Cranky1c 12:08, 16 March 2006 (EST)

Member since 31 July 2006. Vote will not be counted.---->As a countermeasure against voter fraud, you have to be a member of BattlestarWiki for at least 3 weeks before you're allowed to vote (and even then, your vote might be cast in a bad light if you only occassionally contribute). This person joined less than 6 hours ago. Yikes. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 23:32, 30 July 2006 (CDT)

Merv, what business do you have in striking out someone's vote in YOUR OWN RFA? That's something for the admins. You have no business discarding ballots for your own election. That takes a LOT of chuztpah. I'm changing to a NO vote. --Larocque6689 00:11, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

Note: I'm sorry if I'm not allowed to do that I wasn't sure; we don't do RFA's very often, I thought anyone could point that out. Regardless, no, what was balsy was that we have a 3 week waiting period before voting and you've got people joining a matter of hours ago to try and vote people down (Peter just editing something a few minutes ago; Peter I assume if I have done something wrong you'd have told me? If I have I'm sorry, I wasn't sure what to do)--The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 00:35, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

Merv's action was appropriate, per the precedent we set during Merv's second RFA. See the relevant page for details. --Peter Farago 01:09, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

I didn't read the rules closely enough, sorry about that, folks. Fair enough to strike the vote (mistaken sure, fraudulent, c'mon) but that doesn't change the merits of the arguement. Probably should have gone under comments. Still learning to navigate this a little. --Cranky1c

By all means (based on past RFA precedent) you are allowed to make comments on an RFA, even if you aren't eligible to vote yet. Perhaps you'd like to move this to Comments?--The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 09:26, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

I tried to move it around to the comments section earlier. Doesn't seem to have taken, could be I haven't done it right. Will Try again latter.--Cranky1c

I want to take a minute to clarify my reasons for nominating Merv, and respond to a few valid points that have been brought up.

Joe states that he doesn't believe Merv "needs" the admin-level tools and privileges. I think it's hard to argue that any one of us "need" those tools to fulfill our functions - there are currently seven administrators, and if any one of us were removed, the others could certainly keep the place running. We did not need another administrator when we elected CalculatinAvatar and Mercifull, but consensus was that they had demonstrated a capacity to use those powers well, and that their help would be welcome.

So, the relevant question for me is not whether Merv needs to be an administrator, but whether he can shoulder those responsibilities and better add to our community with them. I believe this unequivocally. I often took great issue with Merv's behavior from the time I started contributing here until last spring, and did not hesitate to speak out against him. In the time since, I have watched him grow to a reasonable, level-headed, fair-minded and capable contributor who communicates well, admits when he's wrong, and throws himself whole-heartedly into his work, whether that consist of tedious cleanup and drudgework, active discussion on talk pages, or large and complicated articles.

It first occurred to me that Merv had reached a point where he would be a capable moderator shortly before the KR incident. I had already intended to nominate him for some time at that point, but the words exchanged at that time shook my conviction deeply, and I decided that Merv would have to demonstrate his responsibility on a much longer basis in order for me to support him. As I stated above, I now believe he has done this.

Merv is an extremely active contributor, which means that he is often online. When we are confronted by vandals, as we were last month, it is essential that we have a rapid response available. Merv, simply by dint of his ernest contribution and near constant presence, would increase our ability to defend the wiki immeasurably. By the same reasoning, Merv would benefit from the rollback function, and he can be trusted to edit pages that, for various reasons, need to be protected.

So, does Merv need to be an Admin? Well, no. But neither did CA or Mercifull, and I'm pleased to work alongside both of them. Merv can be trusted, and he should.

Secondly, in response to Larocque6689 and Mercifull, regarding the issue of Merv's off-wiki activities - I frankly could not care less what Merv does outside of the wiki. We all have friends and enemies outside of the wiki, and their opinions of us - and our other activities in the real world - should have very little bearing on our opinions of each other. We have a very narrow focus: creating an encyclopedia for all things Galactica, and maintaining order and harmony among our participants. This is why we don't accept votes from newly registered users with an axe to grind. By the same token, any activities outside of that - petty arguments, posting pornographic links, whatever - are irrelevant to our central goal.

What does matter is when our conflicts in the outside world get dragged into the Wiki, or when our actions here insight comment and dissent out there. This was why Merv's actions with regard to KR shocked my so greatly, and shook my growing confidence in him as a contributor. When Merv realized the significance of the situation, he resolved that conflict as quickly and maturely as he could, and I believe that he learned a valuable lesson. It has been three months since then, and at this point I'm willing to stake my reputation as a judge of character on my conviction that it will not happen again.

Lastly, I want to point out that while every admin elected to date has passed his RFA with unanimous consent, that is going to be an increasingly difficult standard to match going forward. There is at least one user who has questioned my fitness for adminship, and stated that he would have voted against me had he been given the chance. Merv is a controversial figure, and is likely to inspire objection, but I believe that his qualifications are clear. If we ever break our precedent for unanimous acclamation, Merv is the candidate to do it with. --Peter Farago 15:49, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

YOu said all of that a lot better than I could Peter (btw Peter and Joe, sorry I forgot to put a warning up before the links to the troll stuff, I should have thought of that, but once Merc pointed it out I did, sorry)--->Merciful: you don't really go to the messageboards a lot you said, but I haven't been in a fight with anyone online for months. The moist board trolls just keep yelling all the time, but I'm not stirring up controversy on a weekly basis; I mean check foryourselves (Joe said he did) I"m not really argueing with anyone. Yes, as you said I tried to fix things with KR as best I could, and I realized not to Jump to conclusions (It's not simply that I'm sorry that this got me in an arguement; I actually now realize my conclusions were totally wrong, as were my actions, and I shouldn't have done any of them). Beyond that there really isn't much "Controversy" in making me an Admin; I mean I'd like to know what a big respected fan like KR thinks, but the moist board people are just the trolls that get kicked off of Skiffy. --->I"m just fumbling for words; Joe and Peter summarized the situation with them more accurately than I can. I hope, Merciful, that you reconsider your switch from Neutral to Oppose, though I understand why you did it and I'm glad about the weak-oppose label you put in; but the reasons you said were controversy --->There really is not current online controversy, as Joe pointed out this is just people posting dead arguements ad nauseum long after they've been buried.--------->On top of all of this is the concern that I'm doing things "outside of the wiki", that is, acting like a spokesperson. After my KR goof (I was angry and not really thinking then) I've made it a point to always point out that I'm not some official spokesperson for Battlestarwiki, to point out to people that other people are here as well and its a group effort. Joe himself noted above that I haven't been doing that (I'm glad he was making sure). Yes, by virtue of the fact that many others aren't on the messageboards but I am, some people confuse things and think I'm in a higher position because I'm the only guy they see; but I mean SteelViper, NoneofyourBusinesss, and Sauron18 also go to the messagebaords; point is you might see people making that mistake, but whenever I have come into contact with them I have made it a point to correct their mistake and explain that BattlestarWiki is a large group effort. --->This also happened in our fan awards, the Golden Toaster Awards: the trolls on the Skiffy board don't bother to read other fansites, and there were several dozen "Representatives" of these awards on different boards, but I was a prominent one on Skiffy (I wans't even the only one, there were 2 of us); if you check, they then started positing all of these things going "We are boycotting the GTA's! The Merovingian *RUNS* them!"...and I had to explain that I in fact was far from running them as like 20 people did more work on those than I. The trolls just think like that.------------>But as for the point of letting messsageboard and BattlestarWiki things mix here, ***'Do you see any messageboard posters voting here in my favor? Do you see any threads on the messageboards telling people to come vote for me?***--->I wanted to be on my best behavior, so I've made it a point not to mention this current RFA to *anyone* or bring it up on any messageboards. I've only been talking about it here. There are no throngs of Merovingian supporters coming in to vote, who are just from the bboards and not regular contributors. THat's not happening. I wanted to make sure things were restrained here and I handled the situation maturely, without mixing it up with messageboard goings-on. I hope this is proof enough that I am trying my best to make sure that messageboard and wiki activities don't affect each other. THanks. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 16:43, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

Merv, there's not a lot I really want to add to the below comment, except that I'd wish you'd stop trying to explain away your critics as "trolls" who belong to "troll boards". You've actually slammed the entire user community of two separate message boards. I think the characterization is undeserved, and cannot fathom why a "joke" board like Moist continues to draw so much derision from some quarters. The humor is rough, but it's a friendly place and the members go there to hang out and have fun. One of Moist's longtime critics is now a "Moist Babe" for life. ;-) I'm not suggesting Merv join up - but maybe it's time to bury the axe, or least the epithets. Also, if your intention is to keep separate your message board activities and your wiki activities, then you're not doing a good job of it. Let me suggest that you do as you claim, and don't talk about the people who don't like you. If you claim that it doesn't bother you, then don't let it bother you. In any case, none of this should have any bearing on this RFA, so please stop peppering your responses with references to the people you claim are "trolls". Let me suggest that when you're at Sciffy, don't bring up the Wiki. And when you're at the Wiki, don't bring up Sciffy. And in the RFA's, keep the other boards out of it.--Larocque6689 23:26, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

Questions for the candidate
A few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:

1. What duties, if any, would you anticipate helping with? Please check out Battlestar Wiki:Project List's for a list of projects.

A. Episode Summaries, episode analysis, episode questions, episode notes. Character bios. Cylon series. Spearheading the Writer/Director category project. Furthing the Timeline project (and fighting the grave threat posed by the Season two timeline discontinuity). The Battles series (which I created). Going through every source of information available, be it GalacticaStation, GateWorld, NowPlayingMagazine, Lucy Lawless fansites, Ron Moore's blog, the official messageboards, and post as much information as possible on this Wiki, and turn it into a truly reliable "go-to" site for up to the minute BSG information, **making sure that all of the information we post is properly sourced.

B. Expanding our Cast and Crew articles, which so far are kind of sparse. This is major ongoing project.

2. Of your articles or contributions here, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?

A. The battles pages, all of which were of my own design (I made the battleboxes for Lord of the Rings battles on standard wikipedia, and when these were done, I wanted to keep doing something like that so I created the battles series here)

B. Due to my vast knowledge of BSG trivial facts and analysis, I have made great contributions to the episode guides, and as it's not like I have a life outside of this :) I'm usually the first to post notes for an episode up after it airs (though this is not a rule), and I'm really happy with the episode guide stuff I've done (check the history tabs, etc). I guess a random sampling of some of my better works would be Downloaded, Cally, Uniform, Fall of the Twelve Colonies etc., my great contributions to Life Forms of the Twelve Colonies (ever vigilant),...and pretty much the entire episode guide. I spearheaded the movement (after debate for months) to give Cylon copies who have become individuals their own character pages, and to consider them separate characters.

C. Created and implemented the Episode Standardization project, in which I removed the "mini-reviews" from our Season 1 episode guide and replaced them with (I hope) impartial Analysis.

D. Helping out on the Welcoming Committee.

E. I tried to work things out with Koenigrules after what happened the other month; last RFA I was shocked that KR thought I hadn't appologized for what happened (I did, completely, I just made a big mistake which I retract); however rather than draggint things out in the open I tried to work things out through Private Messages on the bboards since my last RFA, which I felt was the more mature thing to do.

F. Since my initial time at BattlestarWiki, as Peter mentioned above, I've gone from "biting the noobs" to gently trying to help along new users. See this page for one example. Also, as Homeworld616 said above, he was a new user and rather than becoming impatient that he was unfamiliar with things here (as I might have a year ago) I helped him along with constructive imput.

G. Updating the Portals Project pages, and my extensive contributions and revisions/restucturing of the Cylon agent speculationpage (Jammer = Cylon), as well as Science in the Re-imagined Series

H. Asking a large portion of questions on Battlestar Wiki:Official Communiques; I hate it when other websites get to talk to someone like, Katee Sackhoff, and half the questions are "wow, why are u so hot?" "Wow, is it fun to work on the show?" etc. I'm happy I was able to provide good questions for that which actually addressed several long standing problems (although the Wizards have gained the upper hand in the Season two timeline discontinuity.

I. On my own initiative e-mailing Bear McCreary and obtaining his permission for BattlestarWiki to post the lyrics to the soundtracks here.

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?

A. After my last RFA, I Private Messaged Koenigrules and (I hope) worked things out, in private as opposed to dragging it through the public eye.

B. During the RFC for Shane, rather than preaching fire and brimstone I tried to be restrained and give Shane opportunity to reform his behavior. That could have gotten ugly but I think we handled it well, without having to have temporary bans or anything.

4. I have worries that because of the amount of previous RFA's and self nominations that you believe that being an Administrator is very important to you. I don't agree with people using Admin status as a "trophy symbol", what can you say to alleviate my concerns about this and what would you do as an administrator that you are not currently allowed to do as a user?

I'd be able to ban vandals, delete pages instead of waiting for an Administrator to come by to delete them, and all in all it wouild make my work alot faster to be one of the "Mop Boys" :) --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 08:48, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

Re-imagined Series definition: Battlestar Group ^{(TRS: "Water")}. It also doubles as an acronym for the television series itself.

Galactica 1980 definition: When John Steadman asks if the Warriors know anything about these creatures, Dillon looks this up ^{(1980: "Space Croppers")}

Original Series definition: a title of nobility (e.g. Lord Baltar)