Wikiversity talk:List of custodian mentors

Making this list more useful
As Wikiversity has aged, a number of names on this list are no longer active, which is not helpful to newcomers seeking a mentor. I propose periodically updating the list to reflect activity. I'm not suggesting removing people - merely reordering the list and/or rearranging the page so that newcomers can see which custodians are really active and in touch with present-day Wikiversity. --McCormack 07:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Rearrangement of March 2008
I examined the recent edit histories of all mentors from the beginning of the year.
 * Remi: over 2000 edits; most active custodian.
 * SB_Johnny: over 1500 edits; about the same as Erkan.
 * Erkan_Yilmaz: over 1500 edits; about the same as SBJ.
 * McCormack: over 900 edits.
 * Cormaggio: about 400 edits, fairly evenly paced.
 * JWSchmidt: about 400 edits, but almost all before he went away in mid-January.
 * HappyCamper: less than 50, and almost inactive since January.
 * Michael_Billington: less than 50; very few last year as well, apart from work on open proxies.
 * Sebmol: 10 edits this year.
 * Robert_Horning: no edits since May 2007.

It would be a difficult call to know exactly where to put the cut-off point for "activity" in relation to mentorship. The first 6 on the list are clearly active. HappyCamper seems to be an "interested" Wikiversitarian even if not particularly active, and Michael Billington is around on IRC even if not editing much. Perhaps others can comment? --McCormack 07:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Rearranging sounds fine - would also be good if the mentors write a short statement, Erkan Yilmaz Wikiversity:Chat  10:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Should the bar be set higher for mentoring?
The "3-month" criterion may have sounded good in 2006, but as Wikiversity has aged, custodians have come and (almost) gone and perhaps changed their mentalities from the time they were elected. In particular, we now have custodians who have almost no interest in the project whatsoever. I feel that some sort of additional criterion should be added to ensure that mentors are really only custodians who are seriously involved with Wikiversity. --McCormack 10:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Personally I think the 3-month criterion is a bit arbitrary. For example, I'd be fine with User:Mu301 mentoring someone right now (even though he's only been Custodian a short time), but would not be comfortable with, e.g. User:Robert Horning mentoring someone because we haven't seen him in ages. Maybe we should just do "open RFAs" for mentors, which would allow mentors to receive community approval and still maintain the buffer between new candidates and political processes. --SB_Johnny | talk 12:49, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I have no problem with the 3-month criterion, and it's not the length of time that I feel needs changing. In fact, almost the reverse. The problem with inactive custodians increases with their age, although it is not just a problem with age. I'm looking at whether there is some kind of additional criterion which could look (somehow) at current activity and commitment. --McCormack 12:54, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * What's an "open RfA"? Sounds like it might solve both this problem and the one below. Can you describe what you mean? --McCormack 13:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Elections. I wouldn't support them for applicants that find mentors, but it's always been an "unwritten rule" that an applicant could choose this path if no mentor was willing to take them on. What I meant was that we could ask community consensus to appoint a mentor, though upon thinking of it we might be even better off just keeping a very low bar for b'cratship, and use that election to appoint mentors (there's nothing inherently wrong with having 50 b'crats running around). --SB_Johnny | talk 13:43, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Making mentors and bureaucrats the same thing is an interesting idea, and I'm thinking through the consequences: I'm interested in educating good custodians, so I guess I'd have to go for bureaucrat (which isn't to my taste, but if I have to...); I don't think Remi is really that interested in mentoring - but perhaps Erkan? We'd need at least 2 or 3 more bureaucrats just to keep the existing active mentors, with perhaps more down the line. Is this good? And it doesn't really deal with the problem I originally brought up, which is the question of (temporary) retirement through relative inactivity. Unsure. --McCormack 14:11, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm confused. Johnny, are you proposing that the community could appoint a mentor, even after that mentor has refused? This strikes me as unfair on the mentor (though perhaps you're saying that a mentor can be nominated through the voting period, and where the mentor was happy with this - in which case I support this). However, I don't see how conflating mentors and bureaucrats makes sense (even though I think we need more bureaucrats - and McCormack, I'd be happy to nominate you). But as McCormack says, it seems that this conflation wouldn't make any difference to the underlying issue of people becoming inactive. It seems to me that if any custodian is prepared to mentor a potential custodian, they should be able to do so (with flexibility in the 3-month rule) - the bureaucrats could then decide if the mentoring has been positive, and whether the 'mentee' should be made a full custodian, or whether a further period of mentoring might be necessary. So basically, I don't agree with raising the bar. :-) Cormaggio talk 14:59, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * yup, I am interested in mentoring, otherwise I would remove my name from the list. How about asking the incative mentors by mail/user page also ? Erkan Yilmaz Wikiversity:Chat  15:49, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

We should also not forget what the goal here is at Wikiversity: learning. Even if we have unexperienced mentors the mentoring system can also be seen as learning experience for them: taking responsibility. Why should this be learned outside this virtual space (only) ? Getting to know more of the facets of WV. So in my opinion the bar should be as it is or even lower. When a custodian wants to take more responsibility we should give her/him the possibility. There are enough custodians around to detect problems. And I am sure that at the appointment period there will be more eyes watching, Erkan Yilmaz Wikiversity:Chat  16:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Yep - this is echoing my thoughts entirely. :-) Cormaggio talk 17:19, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I forgot to indent my comment, sorry :-( Erkan Yilmaz Wikiversity:Chat  17:21, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The concept of "learning by doing" is a little too basic for my liking; I prefer the idea of a bit of advance training thrown in as well, which is the idea behind the How to be a Wikimedia sysop learning project (which you are all invited to join in the role of tutors, by the way). --McCormack 18:46, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Joined, Erkan Yilmaz Wikiversity:Chat  21:10, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Should there be wider discussion of a candidate before a mentor accepts them?
This particular question was precipitated by the speed with which SB_Johnny accepted Terra as a candidate (less than an hour!), but goes back to previous occasions as well when an individual mentor has jumped at a candidate with no community discussion. While Terra has some edit records which appeal to my own view of what a candidate should do, I think that the community should have a greater opportunity to think about potential candidates before a mentor is secured. Terra is virtually unknown to any of us, and appears to be extremely new to all Wikimedia projects. While I don't know of any potential problems with Terra, hastily accepted requests in the past have ignored problems known to people other than the mentor. On the whole I would suggest that there should be a 5-day period before mentorship begins to allow at least a basic discussion of the underlying merits. Put it another way: why are these no-big-deal relaxed laissez-faire mentors always in such a hurry? Consensus is formed s-l-o-w-l-y and speed disrupts things. --McCormack 10:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, keep in mind that I invited him, so was expecting the request. I had already gone through his contribs on various projects, including deleted contributions and so on on WP (he does new page patrol there, so lots of deleted contribs from deleted articles). IMO, anyone with a good contrib history on multiple projects, and has helpful contribs here should of course have use of the tools so they can be even more helpful. Custodianship is nothing but posession of a mop, and if it seems clear enough that someone would make good use of the mop, why not give them the mop? Making a political thing out of it is what has led to so many problems on Wikipedia and to a lesser extent Wikibooks and other projects.
 * As JWSchmidt has said here and there, it's the mentor's choice whether to put their ass on the line. I'm perfectly willing to do so in this case, because I strongly support making multi-project contributors feel welcomed and valued. --SB_Johnny | talk 12:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi SBJ. Please don't feel negatively criticised. My real point is: just take things slowly and carefully, because that's always a much better way towards consensus. When things move fast, the speed alone can alienate. --McCormack 12:52, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * No worries, mate... never a doubt on where your heart is! Just keep in mind that we can do our "vetting" over the 1-month mentorship period, which is plenty of time to learn how a custodian will rise to the tasks. Giving the tools without fuss is a sign of our good faith in the applicant, and assuming good faith is one of our most important tenets. Politicizing the process inevitably brings about an erosion of that tenet. --SB_Johnny | talk 13:09, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Politics is just an inherent part of sociality - what we're doing here (discussing how decisions are made) is a political process. Of course, I know what you mean here, but I would put it another way - I think adminship is fetishised on WP, rather than politicised. (Guess who's writing an academic paper at the moment - I'll shut up now :-)) "Multi-project contributors" - I think we should have a barnstar with the WMF logo on it - does such a thing exist? Cormaggio talk 15:09, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * If you're writing a paper on adminship, then please feel welcome to attach a copy to How to be a Wikimedia sysop. --McCormack 15:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Nice initiative - thanks McCormack! I'll add suggestions to the page/talk page... (And no, btw, my paper is on "collaborative research in Wikiversity" - it's for Wikimania.) Cormaggio talk 17:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)