I will point out that Grif doesn't want the role but can't make himself let go. He didn't even refute it.

It's Grif's pattern of behavior to be both admitting and resistant about his desire to no longer be bureaucrat. Telling me he's miserable and wants out and hoping someone will magically take over for him winkwinkstuckouttongue, then saying that he doesn't really wanna go... probably after a bit he'll leave, since he definitely wants to eventually... And then stating me, or most recently Phantomlink, must have misunderstood what he said.

Grif has come to me more than once since January to drop-hint about wanting staff improvement. Considering the topic started with him wanting better people around so that he could leave, of course I took these conversations as reminders that he wanted to enable his departure. I figured those were when he was in "don't want to be crat anymore" mood swings. He'll likely respond with saying he never meant to do that, I'm reading into things, which is as predictable as him claiming not to have pressured that admin.

He pushes for replacements but changes his mind and claims that's never what he meant. He literally even picked a replacement (see previous mention about carrot dangling, which I am most definitely not changing my opinion on) but then found reasons not to go through with it. Mid-convo of telling me that he was giving this admin the crat position so he could leave he told me about how he actually wasn't planning on stepping down after giving it to them.

Meanwhile, he's barely even involved with the wiki. He doesn't even do the stuff he claims on the staff page. Grif's not a bad sort of person; I am not saying that. But I am saying that this is what he's put me through about the wiki and his status as bureaucrat for the wiki. It's not a healthy situation to say he wants out, wants to step down and then push back when the discussion returns or the opportunity creates itself.

1. Grif's admission he wants someone else instead of him as a crat. Skype emotes move, btw.
2. Grif's admission that he's wanted to step down for awhile.
3. Grif claiming the wiki itself was his idea first.
4. Another reference to not wanting to be crat with "ensuring it every day", which, of course, he doesn't do because he has barely been around all this time. This was even pointed out two years ago by someone. I can find the link later.

Also, when I spoke about derailing/backtracking consensus, I meant conversations that he participates in, not the ones that he sees after the fact. As I said about the bureaucrat nom, we all discussed what role we wanted a crat to play in the wiki and there wasn't much overlap until we all pretty much, Grif included, mentioned at some point 2 was a good number to work with for now. As soon as I pointed out that we'd agreed on one thing at least, Grif started talking about not committing ourselves to a number. The encouragement to open up voting for a new crat was slated to be the Saturday we chose, to make it after the content mod and before the new volume. A day or two before Saturday came around, Grif made a speech and tried to stop it from happening, and I had to protest that we had agreed for more than a week that our discussion was toward this goal date. These are just two most recent examples.

I'm out of time and need to leave for work. These are just samples of what I personally have been through with Grif. And I repeat, it's not healthy for any of us.

Sorry, one other thing before I leave. To my knowledge going to Grif for performance reviews is not something that happens with our staff. If any staff member has actually done this, please feel free to say so.

Grif made a speech and tried to stop it from happening. That is not how it played out. In your original post (which was since edited) in the Discord there was incorrect information stated including that I was going to step down if two bureaucrat nominations were made. I stated "There still hasn't been a consensus on what course of action is even going to be taken" the prior conversation had ended with people voicing various opinions and overall no one really knew what was even going on, in fact not even every administrator had even seen the discussion. Bureaucrat nominations have ALWAYS been open, this announcement itself did not open them, nor did any issues I raise suggest that nominations should be closed. A final plan on what we were actually doing (Phantom posting this nomination and users simply being encouraged to nominate bureaucrats with a handy list of them posted) finally came about AFTER me pointing out several unanswered questions as to what was occurring (my so-called speech Hazel mentioned). Prior to this, people were still discussing if we wanted to do an admin-vote, if we wanted to put bureaucrats as a reelection sort of system, and I said we needed to RESOLVE what EXACTLY we're doing before we say what date it's happening. Sorry if this reply comes off as a bit emotional, but I never tried to stop this.

Alright. Had a conversation with Griff on Discord about this, and he gave me the Greenlight to share it here. Here are the pics.

In other, irrelevant news, how very funny that Mercury was actually called "Marcus" back when the Wiki used Fan-Nicknames in V1.

I have temporarily removed my first screenshot proving I was talking to Grif, due to Grif receiving unwanted stuff on Skype. Will amend later once home.

Might be a touch rude, but Grif, I don't think you read my paragraph thoroughly. I said "encouragement to open up voting" meaning that we were encouraging people to step up and cast a vote. Of course voting is always open and I deliberately chose the word "encouragement" to avoid implying otherwise. Also, the context is specifically about you trying to prevent it from happening on the pre-agreed goal date of Saturday, not that you tried to prevent it from happening completely.

I am also seeing in your post that you're taking credit for a consensus that you took no part in other than to say stuff to prevent the existing ones: ~"Final plan came about after I spoke up." Then there's redirecting SYUTK by offering up Preda as having anything to do with this discussion, which they do not. I see you telling SYUTK that your problem with admins was that they didn't take action after discussion while in the post here you are talking about how moving forward was what you opposed us doing.

Also, if I edited a post, it was to fix a typo. Otherwise I create a new comment or explain that I edited to add (ETA). This has always been the case with me; I even remember Mini asking me about it when we first joined the wiki.

I really am sad this is devolving into a debate between us. I set out originally to cast my vote because of your very clear expression of not wanting to be where you are. Putting my every word through the rails like this when my intent is to look out for you is just... I don't even know what to say.

I am going to add that all admins saw the conversation and took part in some way, apart from Lauren who chose to say nothing. Chish, once asked why she wasn't saying anything, admitted that she didn't know what to say. Maki chose to finalize his decision to demote himself from admin, which he'd already put forth weeks ago that he was considering. Mino and I both encouraged the discussion.

Sorry about the contactable info on the screenshot. I took it down once I saw it on my break and will replace the image with one that has it edited out when I am home.

Alright, it came across as you saying that I was trying to stop the entire thing, even with the context you included, so hopefully you can understand why I felt it necessary to respond to that statement. Sometimes, different people take the same sentence differently, especially when pronouns get thrown into the mix. And it's no big deal about the discord tag, I figured out how to turn off messages/requests from people not sharing a server. So here's to hoping everything is cool on both sides.

Well, hopefully the Hazel and Grif back-n-forth portion of this is over. I still haven't added a link to that thread I said I would, but I don't think it's significant or being waited for.

So this is where things are at for active votes:

• Phantomlink959 is in favor of Grif's demotion due to inactivity over the years.
• 73.Anon.52 is against Grif being demoted because they figure the more the merrier and Grif can be a backup.
• HazelQuill7445 is in favor because Grif doesn't want the role, has used his lack of desire for it to increase the stress/burden on at least two other staff members, and as a coworker has on multiple occasions stalled or derailed helpful actions for the wiki.
• SpiritedDreaming is against because she feels that Grif is more able to be active and contactable since the staff's increase use of Discord.

Any more discussion or questions to be had? At the moment, this looks to be 2 and 2.

I vote...........Against.

The reason being that, on one hand, it's true that Grif's attitude towards leaving is so zig-zagging that it's like a rollercoaster and that in itself is frusfrating, and he probably/likely has given input late in staff discussions due to his Skype-related problems.

His "dangling of the carrot" over the staff can also be a problem if only Bureaucrats can promote other staff from now on. And if he "delayed consensus", even if it was only because others treated his word as absolute, then it's true that not much could've been done even if the ideas were unilateraly good.

On the other hand, Griff is not the only Bureaucrat anymore. Chish is the new Crat, and that means the problems are solved to an extent by the sheer fact that you can choose which road to travel. If you ever felt like Grif's word was absolute and he had the final word on every decision, then you no longer need to feel like that because Chish's word is also available and has equal weight.

If Griff prevented promotion of staff with ridiculously-high standards, well, now Chish also can dangle the carrot. And if she feels someone deserves a promotion, and majority agrees, then Griff can't really "delay/backtrack" this consensus.

And if an idea has nothing wrong with it, but you felt like you needed Griff to give you the green light to carry it out, well, now you don't strictly need him to give you the greenlight, Chish can do it too.

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Basically, if you feel like dealing with Griff in decision-making is too frusfrating but needed to be done because "He's the boss, his vote overrules all of ours", even if it wasn't true, then just deal with Chish instead.

At the same time, as has been noted before, ever since Discord was added in, he's been far more available than he was before, which allows Griff to remain helpful, if anything be more helpful due to more activity and availability.

And in an overall sense, it doesn't hurt to have 2 Bureaucrats instead of 1. If anything, it's preferred since if something happens to one of them, we still have the other to carry on. Maybe, if another bureaucrat is added, Griff could be denominated. But at the moment, there's no real need.

tbh I think the only real problems that I've seen with Griff are cases where Griff was mostly unavailable and didn't know what the concensus was yet had to make a decision.... but Griff should be far less intrusive on another 'crat's edits.

It'd be a problem if Griff had trouble respecting authority, but he doesn't.