Ritchie333's Administrator proteges

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Ritchie333's Administrator proteges

Post by CrowsNest » Thu Aug 23, 2018 4:23 am

The figures show, Wikipedia is still losing Administrators at a far higher rate than it is promoting them.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:RFA_by_month
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... s_by_month

They're at -34 already for the year.

So it was good then, that a while back Ritchie333 took it upon himself to lead the way in identify new candidates and guiding them through the process as their nominator. Regular readers of his dedicated thread here will know what a joke he is, barely fit to be an editor let alone an Administrator. And it cannot really be in any doubt that he has his own selfish reasons for nominating the people he does, being keen to promote the idea that civility is less important than content creation, and evident dedication to Wikipedia's mission is more important than actual evidence of competence in the critical skills needed in an Admin, namey temperament and judgement. Not that he wants it to be too obvious, loudly proclaiming those rare times when he deviates from the master plan of stuffing the admin ranks with Ritchie-likes. Dumb and dumberer.

With another of his nominations, Philaphrenzy, heading for a fail, I have decided, as a sort of consumer protection / buyer beware service for the Wikipedians, nominated editors and voters alike, and as much as for our own amusement, to do a proper assessment of Ritchie's actual record of success when it comes to picking good Administrator candidates. It is based both on whether they actually pass, and whether they do useful work if they do.

As you will see, I think it is fair to say that Ritchie is at best, on the simple pass/fail numbers alone, only picking a winner 3 out of 4 times. Given RfA is such a horrible experience, you would hope he could do better for his clients than that. However, on a more sensible reading of outcomes, namely what is best for Wikipedia (competent Administrators who will contribute to their fair share of the workload) it can be argued his true success rate is as low as 31.25%

I stress that these are not thorough reviews, and where specific incidents are not mentioned, you should not assume I have looked into what they are doing, just where and how often. It may also not be a comprehensive list, since I know of no other method of finding his nominations except posting all the RfA pages he created himself. It didn't catch Jbhunley, I just remembered it as a recent case. I haven't included co-noms for lack of a way of finding them, and the fact that they probably involve less scrutiny.

Fails

Nominating Yash! was a real fuck up. Ritchie failed to spot his dodgy past, and so a week was wasted as he was slowly pulled apart, before withdrawing. It cannot have been a nice experience, and most likely explains why just eight months later, he decided to vanish. So, if Ritchie's glowing assessment of his contributions was truthful, that's quite a blow for Wikipedia.

Jbhunley was an epic fail. Ritchie really needs glasses if he couldn't spot what traps lay in wait for this guy, or how he would react to them. Being guided through the process by Ritchie proved such a trauma for this guy, he has said he never intends on doing it again.

Trying to get Headbomb made an admin at the fourth time of asking, that was just dumb. On the bright side, Ritchie letting him ride that bomb all the way into the ground, has probably ensured he will never try again.

For someone who claims some kind of special expertise in speedy deletion, the collapse of his nomination of CaroleHenson after just a day, when it became patently clear this user, who wanted to work in speedy deletion, wasn't remotely up to that job as yet, really has to be laid squarely at Ritchie's feet. The fact they have not put themselves up again, despite that failure being 15 months in the past now, suggests there was more to this user failing to make the grade than just lack of experience. She had after all, been an editor for six years before Ritchie came a calling.

Thanks, but no thanks

Now to Lourdes. She passed, and lasted as an Admin for a whole day. Now, it might seem unfair, given the circumstances, to put that on Ritchie. But having only looked into her briefly because of that RfA, I called it here at the time, that she was obviously pretty nuts, something that should have been obvious in the sort of thorough review a nominator should do for any candidate, but especially one who had already failed once. So I am taking it.

Nominating Ealdgyth was definitely a mistake, although given Ritchie's philosophy, he'll surely disagree. This woman made it clear she had no need or desire to be an Administrator, except to be able to more forcefully put her opinion across that not all editors are equal, and civility is less important than content creation. And with just 16 logged admin actions, but plenty of her friends benefiting from her opinion as an Administrator over whether they deserve a block or not, we can say she has stayed true to her word. It seems like a high price to pay for allowing Ritchie to set off what was essentially just a coronation, a fucked up exercise in rewarding someone for article edits.

It also appears putting Megalibrarygirl in the frame was an exercise in drama we could have all been spared. As with Eaglyth, it appears this was merely about giving a woman a pat on the back for all her hard work. Ritchie is lucky that the huge amount of questions and the distasteful tone of the opposes didn't do any harm. Partly because the community rallied round to do what was being asked of it, perform another coronation. Yet they were clearly sold a pup. Ritchie promised a candidate who would be a real asset in the area of undeletion, and yet she has only logged ten such actions, or one for every month she has had the power. Having also logged 225 deletions in that time might have indicated some usefulness for the project, but alas, ironically, it appears these are just her doing non-controversial housework. There's certainly no sign of her doing the heavy lifting she herself promised. It's all very ironically gender typical, especially if her reluctance to do more is down to a fear she is too inexperienced.

Dodger67 seems a disappointment. We were promised by Ritchie that he wanted to get his teeth into assorted deletion backlogs, yet just 329 deletions in eighteen months is barely a gnat bite. Nearly 5,000 moves might indicate he is doing something useful in draft space as promised, but with his identified temperament issues, you hope it's not just throwing newbies work into the trash. His overall activity has massively dropped this year, so perhaps he is feeling the strain that any basically unsuitable candidate would.

To be fair, Ritchie didn't promise a lot from his nomination of Schwede66, so I guess we cannot be too surprised that it hasn't seemingly brought Wikipedia a lot. About the best thing you can say about their meagre productivity as an admin, is that he is at least a generalist, logging actions across the board, blocks, protections, deletions, rights, etc. He is unheard of at the usual Administrator noticeboards, so we can only presume this admin work is all being done, as promised, simply as part of his main interest, wiki-scribbling about New Zealand. To be honest, I think perhaps the workload here was not such that it really needed a seven day mass examination of his record. And at worst, it might mean he is now out there OWNing the shit out of that little backwater area of the encyclopedia. It's not like any of them check up on each other, is it. No IAD on Wikipedia. Ritchie did promise they would become more active in DYK, yet there is no sign in the logs that he does any heavy lifting there.

Nominating Primefac was definitely a mistake. For someone who was only promoted in January 2017, it is distinctly alarming to see him having already racked up tens of thousands of deletions and protections, and 600+ blocks. All you need know about the disaster potential of such an admin, is that Primefac was one of the three geniuses who signed off on the legitimacy of the Daily Mail ban discussion. If he applies the same level of intellectual rigour in all these other actions, then he is definitely a net negative, even if these Admin actions are restricted to just template space, as suggested. Ritchie is unlikely to care though, since to him, anyone who hates the Mail with a passion and does something to fuck them over, is alright in his book.

The brain dead drone that is 331dot also has to be filed as a failure. Wikipedia really doesn't need any more Administrators of this sort of calibre, especially not when they prove to be quite active. I've written about him here before, his latest embarrassment being his intervention in the Peter Hitchins affair. Ritchie described him as "good, solid, dependable", but when you realise that's probably how both of those idiots think of themselves in the role, is it any surprise it becomes a case of the blind nominating the blind.

Success stories

Five months may be too early to judge CordlessLarry, but based on what he has done so far, it is clear that unlike some of Ritchie's other candidates, he has every intention of pulling his weight as an Administrator. So we can call that a tentative win.

On simply the numbers of logged actions, I guess we can call Ritchie's prodding of Anarchyte to run again as win for Wikipedia. His general absence from AN/I for a guy with that many logged blocks, and a willingness to indulge The Rambling Man in his sad little side project, should be cause for concern however.

Similarly, GeneralizationsAreBad is probably a win for Ritchie, the logged actions being consistent with their promise to work in SPI and other general admin areas. Although these days, is it really a good thing that a former SPI clerk dives right in to blocking socks left right and centre, and doesn't blow the whistle on the corruption of the likes of Bbb23, who is the person this editor talks to the most. Ritchie was recently mooting standing as a CU so as to watch the watchers. That could get awkward.

Joe Roe goes into the success pile, simply by virtue of being a reasonably proficient AfD closer, as was his indicated areas of interest, processing around a hundred a month. The lack of noise suggests he knows what he's doing, the caveat being nobody on Wikipedia really does.

We can chalk up Jo-Jo Eumerus as a win for Ritchie. He wanted to help out at the chronically understaffed file deletion areas, and with nearly 20,000 deletions in just over two years, and high edit counts to related noticeboards, he seems to be pulling his weight. Whether he is any good, or whether it is enough, we can only speculate. What we certainly do know from one hilarious recent incident, is that if file copyright was left to the likes of Ritchie to sort out, Wikipedia would be screwed.

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Re: Ritchie333's Administrator proteges

Post by CrowsNest » Fri Aug 24, 2018 11:53 am

Philafrenzy is well on course to be another loss, and Ritchie is trying to blame Kupdung for it......
I didn't run his nomination past you because I noticed you seem to have retired and handed in your admin tools; if I had done, you might have said "hang on, there's a problem with", I'd have turned down a nomination and I wouldn't have subjected him to this Chinese water torture. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:43, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
It's a particularly bizarre comment, since Kupdung never mentioned, never even hinted, that he was pissed at not having been consulted.

Still, is it any real surprise that Ritchie is the sort to take credit for successes, while disowning his failures?

In the very same comment, he basically admits to having no problem with nominating people he wants to be admins, even when he knows they would fail. Which rather undermines his claim he doesn't like submitting people to unnecessary torture.
Carrite is a good editor and content contributor and I'd support him at RfA (although I don't think he'll ever pass for reasons that are not worth going into here).
Although Carrite would probably quite enjoy the platform offered by an RfA guaranteed to crash and burn to air his laundry list of everything he thinks is wrong about Wikipedia. In much the same way Ritchie relishes any and all opportunity to offer his irrelevant personal views on politics etc, anywhere and everywhere on Wikipedia. Both good reasons not to make either an Administrator, indicative as they are of a personality not suited to being a humble servant/janitor/representative of others. A conduit for acting on their opinions and wishes, not their own, which is really all Adminship is supposed to be. It must really piss Carrite off that Ritchie managed to somehow get through the process and be that sort of Admin. And all of the other editors Ritchie claims to admire, who are just as unfit for the role of Admin as he is.

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Re: Ritchie333's Administrator proteges

Post by CrowsNest » Fri Aug 24, 2018 12:02 pm

There's more! :lol:
I think you have misunderstood my point - I added this comment in the "general" section because it was not a critique or comment on anything else anyone has said. Rather I see people in the "oppose" section that I like as admins, have nominated for RfA, or who I would like to nominate at RfA but for various issues. So I was attempting to justify the nomination for those I respect who may be confused about it. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:25, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

How is it relevant, midway through an RfA, to give an out-of-the-blue comment about your reasons to nominate the person which don't address the issues raised during the RfA? This is a page to discuss the suitability of Philafrenzy for RfA, not a page for you to add some self-justification. This belongs at the RfA talk page, or even better at your own talk page. The motives, qualities, judgment, ... of the nominator have no come into pl

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Re: Ritchie333's Administrator proteges

Post by CrowsNest » Fri Aug 24, 2018 12:40 pm

Ouch :lol:
Additional question from BanedonIncreasing

16. Why did you approach Ritchie333 for adminship instead of self-nominate?

A: I needed the advice of an experienced nominator as to whether I was a suitable candidate. It's difficult to be objective about oneself. Philafrenzy (talk) 22:50, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
I wonder if Phil will reassess this belief when they come out the other side of this process properly beaten up, and largely for issues that a competent nominator really could have spotted.

Even worse, it looks like if he had had a decent nominator, one with experience of the area Phil wants the tools for, Phil could have made a better case for why he need the tools. Instead, he went for Ritchie, who doesn't even know which bits of it need the tools and which don't. A decent nominator could have easily foreseen the objection that within the area he wishes to work, he has no demonstrable record of doing the process related bits that don't require the tools, which casts doubts on his potential competence in the bits that do.
It's not the main DYK process where admin powers are lacking Nihlus. It's when flawed DYKs are reported on ERRORS where the admin powers are required as by then they are live on the main page. Obviously they should never get that far but they do on a regular basis. Philafrenzy (talk) 19:48, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

A question for you Nihlus. Would you be prepared to do more work at DYK, including building preps and queues? If you don't want Philafrenzy to do it, somebody still has to. For the record, I don't want to do it because I find the work dull and unrewarding. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:08, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Ritchie333, if you want to badger opposes, please do some research first before adding fuel to the fire. "Building preps" is something Philafrenzy can already do, just like every editor; but he has never done this. Your argument "If you don't want Philafrenzy to do it, somebody still has to." is completely meaningless (or fallacious), since he can do this without any problems, but has chosen not to. Fram (talk) 11:28, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
And it's not like Ritchie didn't have any advance warming either.....
Philafrenzy primarily approached me for adminship because he thinks there are not enough people monitoring and updating the DYK queues, particularly when issues are reported there, or at Main Page errors.
An apology is clearly owed. Will Ritchie do the right thing, and give it?

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Re: Ritchie333's Administrator proteges

Post by CrowsNest » Sun Aug 26, 2018 3:07 am

I don't know why nobody else seems to be putting people up for RfA. I certainly wouldn't do it if most of my nominations hadn't passed; and having had one near miss, and another probably near miss on the way, I really think now is time to stop and let somebody else have a go at it.

Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:40, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
No, keep going. It's hilarious.

I want more of this.....
if somebody had advised me there might have been a problem, or I had seen evidence of a problem (and that was the central point - I hadn't), I'd have not gone forward with the RfA.....

Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:40, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

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Re: Ritchie333's Administrator proteges

Post by Dysklyver » Sun Aug 26, 2018 2:11 pm

Maybe someone should tell dear Ritchie Swan that he just isn't putting forward very good candidates and is forgetting to massage the records so they pass. :roll:

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Re: Ritchie333's Administrator proteges

Post by CrowsNest » Mon Aug 27, 2018 6:23 pm

Ritchie evidently turned down the chance to nominate newest victim on the block, L235 (Kevin).

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =855220328

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... nship/L235

He is the first to oppose too, on the basis Kevin isn't in line with consensus often enough at AfD.

This is a laughable positiuon, Rtichie usually having no clue what he's doing as an Admin closer of AfDs. Expecting people to blue link their opinions to ensure Ritchie can understand the policy basis of their vote was one recent idiotic thing I was him say in closing an Afd.

If the RfA quickly becomes an obvious pass, you can expect Ritchie to perform an about face and reconsider his position, for reasons that won't make any sense other than, ironically, he doesn't like people knowing he's often going against the community with his views.

Often outspoken, casting himself as the only sane person in the room, Ritchie is also often weak willed when it matters. Just another reason not to like the bloke.

P.S. A hilarious previous interaction between the two.....

https://www.wikipediasucks.co/forum/vie ... 5017#p5017

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Re: Ritchie333's Administrator proteges

Post by CrowsNest » Mon Aug 27, 2018 7:16 pm

:lol: Turns out he withdrew while I was writing that post.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =856814713

Do I know this fucker or do I know this fucker? :cool:

Sneakily sliding into neutral just in case he can say he was right all along. Grow a backbone Ritchie. You can either support on the basis you believe him when he says he won't be working in deletion, or you can oppose because you feel deletion is so fundamental to what being an Admin is all about, he just needs to wait until he can prove himself ready. Or you can strike your oppose and walk away entirely, sparing everyone from reading your ridiculous comments any further.

Unsurprisingly, out of all the available options, he took the dickiest one.

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Re: Ritchie333's Administrator proteges

Post by CrowsNest » Tue Aug 28, 2018 8:04 pm

Philafrenzy can now officially be added to Ritchie's "L" column.

Looking at how nasty it got in the end, it has perhaps opened Phil's eyes on the true nature of Wikipedia, and he may now begin that long slow decline of an editor who has lost all belief in the project.

Towards the end, Phil was even reduced to having to pull people up who were telling obvious lies about him. Which, RfA being what it is, was used against him. Where was Ritchie? Well, I imagine the fact these people were all friends of his, admired for their content edits (which for him, makes them good people) makes it hard for him to stand up for his nominee, defend his basic dignity, his right not to be lied about (gee, is that, not, like, a policy or something?). What a dick.

So well done Ritchie! He's all about the editor retention. :lol:

What I don't see in Ritchie's recent edits, is any kind of apology to his nominee. Not even a commiseration. He just buggered off and dived back into wiki-scribbling, as he has done on so many other occasions when apologies are owed.

I don't care what excuses he wants to offer, the only explanation for a whopping 99 people to end up opposing or staying neutral about your noninee, when there isn't a single unforeseeable issue in play, just the usual stuff you can find if you look through their edits or ask them a few questions, is that he didn't do his job as a nominator properly.

You can tell Ritchie didn't really know this guy, because he's actually quite the stickler for policy. Not the sort of quality Ritchie likes to see in candidates, for obvious reasons. Administrators who know policy can easily be a threat to Administrators like Ritchie, who just basically wing it.

One of the very last people to stick the knife in, was Jbhunley, who was only recently one of Ritchie's other failures. Boy, he can really pick 'em can't he? Proper nasty that. Would have made a fine addition to the toxic sludge at the bottom of the current admin gene pool.

Ritchie's sticking to his guns, swearing not to nominate anyone anymore. Good.

Although I must just remind everyone, in the tradition of HTD Strategies Inc., due to a well picked battle, we're good either way. Ritchie carries on nominating, the quality of the Admin corps gets steadily worse. He stops, then Wikipedia runs out of admins much sooner than anyone even imagined.

HTD! :twisted: :ugeek:

HTD

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Re: Ritchie333's Administrator proteges

Post by CrowsNest » Wed Aug 29, 2018 7:01 pm

I knew I'd seen this page before. So like Ritchie to keep his own scorecard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ritchie333/RfA

It looks like he only lists the hugely successful RfAs of Cullen328 and Ivanvector as a co-nom. He must have done more co-noms than that, surely? Is he perhaps hiding an even worse record there? It stands to reason, since you can see how he might do less due-diligence then.

This percentages are interesting. Do we agree that if Ritchie is as bad at picking Admin candidates as his failure percentages and two withdrawals suggests (and having one success who is now in some weird limbo), then can we seriously even credit him with successes in the 98-100% range?

It may be the community's fault, or it may be Ritchie's vanity in seeking out these easy wins, but a lot of those walk-overs are the sort of RfA where the successful candidate didn't really need the tools or ultimately hasn't used them much. The coronation/reward style RfA, the tools given out as some kind of long service & good behaviour medal. Some say that is what Adminship should be, but it clearly isn't what it is today.

Still no apology to Phil. Even though he is getting a mix of commiserstion and yet more shit flung at him for having the temerity to query if he has been served due process. Come on Ritchie. You put him in the meat grinder, show your face at least.

Even the bots seem to know you have cut and run...... :lol:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =856997713

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