User blog comment:Bigrika/This Wiki has a problem.../@comment-11163511-20180119145117

I am going to be honest with all of you... I can assure you I did intend to make an official announcement. I just needed to sort things out so as get the job done as efficiently as possible. I am trying to the best of my abilities to get things going but as with all of us (unless you’re a bot) I have responsibilities outside this site and in real life that I must take care of. And yes, I do admit I have duties on different wikis, but that would not stop me from coming back here to help as much as I can.

The reason why there has been a delay in the official announcement is not only because of my circumstances but also because I sent a similar message to Airy’s about their status and I am currently waiting for a reply from the other selected candidate, Jade The Tiger. As Airy has said, I wish to get some things sorted out and get our new admins ready for their jobs. I wanted to get my new recruits acquainted with each other and discuss a schedule for any potential action we decide to take, so that we can make announcements regarding those actions.

The reason I chose a private form of contact like deviantArt was because like Airy said, I didn’t want their contact details to leak out. I was only trying to protect their privacy. And it was the only private form of contact I had to reach them about such a matter. I wanted to announce to the selected applicants first to also see if they’re still available, just in case so I can think about selecting someone else. I also pre-enabled their status so they won’t have to wait for me when they finally take action. If they ever abuse their powers, I always have the ability to disable the status before things get out of hand. I wanted to finish contacting the two so I can get an idea who are officially going to take the jobs and then make the announcement.

Don’t even say I’m simply appointing friends. In line with Airbender’s words, I admit to having limited contact with them recently and it is likely the only contact I’ve had with each of them so far. The same goes with Jade. We’re not complete strangers in the sense that I knew them as users on this wiki but not in the sense that I had any personal attachment with any of my selected candidates. I chose them only on the criteria I mentioned in the blog and their personalities that I’ve observed through their activity and words.

I admit I should have set a deadline for the applications, but I had no idea when Wikia Staff would reply to my adoption request, therefore I couldn’t pin down when to close them. I waited a bit to see of any more applications came in but there weren’t any after Elyjh’s and that was when I decided to start reading through the applications until the reply comes, which took a week. Basically, I waited a week for applications, then several days for Wikia Staff to confirm the adoption. I then began to message the candidates and there’s a delay waiting for them to reply. This explains the wait. I do apologize for not making an in-between announcement regarding the sudden closing.

If I weren’t trying to be democratic, I would have never made have opened admin recruitment and letting all of you apply. And I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t feel I didn’t have as much time to help out. I needed someone more active than me to take care of the place and even though the users I chose haven’t created content recently, they did say they would regularly visit the wiki, just without editing. I’ve visited like that several times in the past so I know what it feels like and the biggest problem involving cleaning up doesn’t require an admin to be on daily but they should have enough time to sort out pages and conduct deletions gradually.

The reason why I said others could have an opinion on applicants was because this is based on a similar system has been used on the wiki by past admins when they recruited members. The difference with what I intended for the blog was instead of other users nominating which could lead to people nominating someone who might not be available for the job, I allowed for users to apply by themselves. It seemed to work back then and many of you have been around long enough to be acquainted with the COTM nomination method that works in a similar way. I do understand if you don’t want to express your complaints openly and I included “disagree” just in case someone would want to express that but I was hoping there would at least be recommendations about existing applicants. This was to give even users who aren’t applying a chance to voice their opinions about who should become an admin. But since I never received any such comments, I only had the applications, all of your edit histories and general behavior on the wiki to base my judgement on. I had no way of knowing some of you would like a poll and I don’t trust the Wikia polls as one person can vote multiple times even for 1 entry, making it hard to keep track of the votes.

I also decided to choose two admins because like you said, Rika, I can’t do this job alone and neither can they. If I only chose one, my absence would lead to the other admin having to deal with everything by themselves. Having two meant that they can communicate with each other when deciding on big decisions and can help speed up the process. I’m not trying to make plans by myself, that’s why I needed to contact the others. I know a couple users won’t represent an entire community but they’ve been around long enough to understand what’s going on and hopefully help me and the whole decide on a course on action that should hopefully meet the needs of our user base. An action nor an announcement doesn’t come overnight, even we have to think what questions to ask and what actions to take and to ask for opinions for.

And plus, I did make an effort to allow everyone to voice their opinions and complaints on my last blog. I put “Questions and Feedback” in its own section so it’s easier you all to see. I did get some suggestions as to consider giving admins specialized jobs and the revival of Monster of the Month but not much in regards to what changes you wanted to see on the wiki. I still haven’t conducted any major actions because we haven’t got a thought out plan and these suggestions would have proved very useful in helping us do so, if only there were more.

I never wanted to start an argument in any way and I’m terribly sorry on my part for letting this miscommunication happen. If I missed anything and if you have any questions at all, just feel free to reach me, I’ll be willing to listen as long as you also listen to what I have to say so we can sort things out. I won’t ban or block you simply because you have an opinion, because that’s not what good admins do. I will try to get announcements about our plans as soon as we’ve finished discussing them and of course, I will need all your input.