Precedent Set for Failed Admin Nomination at SCP
NEWS/OPINION — A new vote on 05 Command addresses what to do if an Admin promotion doesn’t go through; the first time it has happened in the site’s 13 year history.
“You’re going to be shocked by this, the charter says nothing about elevation of new staffers.” — DrBleep
Note: Please read the Containment Fiction Wiki on Administrators (SCP) to get caught up if you already aren’t.
In his initial post that codified the first Administrator promotion policy and process, TroyL considered what would happen in the event an Admin candidate was argued against:
“For each user you vote NO for, the administration would like to strongly encourage you to explain your reasons why. These people are obviously popular choices, or they wouldn’t be there, so explaining your objections is the surest way to help them overcome the problems you see them having and aid them in becoming a choice you would support.”
This was proven to be too cautious; that, or far ahead of its time. In the 10 years that followed, and in the 13 year-long history of Admin promotions in total, not one candidate for Admin has received a “no”. Not one.
Until now.
We’ve talked at some length about ProcyonLotor. You can read a brief summary here, or open these chat logs here and Ctrl+F “ProcyonLotor” or “Crocutacrocuta” and get the gist.
To his credit, he has been a workhorse to staff for a long time, and has suffered more in #site17 saying the same things to clueless noobs more than anyone should have to. His work largely goes thankless. He isn’t a writer and so has no real presence outside the inner community. There is no question as to how smart… or shrewd… this self-professed raccoon-hyena hybrid is.
On the other hand, he has been notoriously condescending to users and his peers. He is an elitist’s elitist. His behavior has been well-set in a reputation that precedes him, a recent “change of behavior in the last year” — this not being evident to anyone but Admins apparently — notwithstanding.
It would take a particularly dishonest or unperceptive person to spin this individual as a maverick who has the gumption to speak up for what is right. Yet DrBleep and DrEverettMann specifically identify his ability to urinate on people without suffering the usual punishment as a leadership quality. (Oh, and he doxes kids, and brags about it. Also no disciplinary action here, despite doxing being a favorite go-to BS reason for permabans among staff for their vocal critics, like yours truly here.)
Procyon’s nomination to Adminship then was perhaps the most impressive display of distance, ignorance, and overt negligence yet when it comes to the heights of staff being out of touch with the rest of the site.
Especially for being immediately after the Town Halls that specifically attempted to bridge this sort of divide. Even the rationales from the Admins in the promotion thread that support Procyon have subtle, unintended slights that testify in a fleeing way to his well-known questionable character… “his capacity and willingness to speak his mind without any apprehension”; “transformation in character”; “Procy does not mince words and is not afraid to stand up and say “NO.” and/or speak his mind when it is required, a skill that I consider essential for an administration team.”
The first comment suggests almost that there is such a problem on staff and in the higher tiers of it that any measure of an independent, non-sycophantic attitude, no matter how off-putting it is, is all that matters now; “extremely welcome”. (Such goes the value of something that is just so scarce.)
The second claims that this transformation — which accounts for 1/10th of the total sample time for Procyon on the Wiki — is a “profound reason” for voting him in as Admin, when it couldn’t have any profundity at all, were it not for the horrible manner in which this person has habitually behaved. The “profundity” is predicated on something approaching 9 years of an abusive attitude.
DrBleep goes so far as to say that she has heard ProcyonLotor, in the past year’s transformation, “said or taken actions that I never thought he would have been capable of”. Does this sound like the sort of individual who should be an Admin then?
One can notice, though, that ProcyonLotor’s posts on the site — particularly on O5, his den — are much more measured as of late… robotic even. It’s almost as though he is hyper aware how much he would need to clean up the optics of his act in order to be shoved in as Admin, and is laying it on thick in the bottom of the 9th inning.
No surprise then (you would think) that the outcry from the userbase was significant. Reportedly, discussions were had in community social hubs like the SCPD Discord channel wherein hordes of individuals were very upset, even insulted that this would be attempted. Djkaktus pitched a characteristic fit and threatened to quit the site even, if Procyon’s appointment was passed. The ire around this is ongoing today, with many unsatiated with the Admin denial, and who now call for Procyon’s wholesale removal from staff entirely.
Most importantly though, and in a historic occurrence, an Admin — one of two of the most recently established ones no less— voted “no”:
“Procy is a capable and knowledgable [sic] leader who serves a critical role on site staff. He is hardworking and has expertise in invaluable areas, such as licensing or chat moderation.
However, over the last several months, we have attempted to heal the rift that has formed between our community and site staff. While we have made some progress, there remain several issues which have not been substantively addressed. Many in the community have expressed significant concerns about Procy’s past behavior and conduct on staff. I agree with the assessment of my colleagues that his attitude has improved significantly in recent months. This said, given the high degree of contention that has accompanied the proposal to promote him to administrator, and the extent to which distrust in this regard would undo the progress we have made, I cannot support his promotion at this time.” — aismallard
Woah. It turns out SCP already has an Admin who “is not afraid to stand up and say “NO”; that position is filled.
To be redundantly clear, this is really odd and unexpected. Especially to the other Admins. The Admin promotion process has been described as such a formality as to basically be scripted. According to a previous Admin active on the site, most of the time the nomination and consensus is established behind the scenes, so that by the time it gets to O5, it can simply be run like a software program on execute. The history of Admins on the site attests to this. For all previous Admin votes, by the time it got to O5 it was virtually a done deal.
This “no” vote was like someone flatulating over the PA system in the middle of a wedding, the bride walking down the isle. It was a real show stopper. The remaining two Admins didn’t even complete the nominations; they didn’t vote or abstain, they just never responded. The ceremony stopped dead in its tracks like someone who just soiled their pants in public. The O5 thread sank slowly into obscurity, capsizing ProcyonLotor’s anticipated victory for Admin with it.
This is unfortunate also though for a highly recommended and capable Admin prospect, Jacob Conwell, who was nominated alongside Procyon. He might be “The Mr. Zyn”, and is her back-end equivalent, spending years and years shouldering deletions of articles that aren’t up to snuff. His tone is noticeably professional; more so in my opinion from current top site representation. This man feels like a natural leader. He has a long, productive, cordial, constructive, tempered, appreciated, and intelligent history with the site. He’s a MD too, I believe, and I wonder what he practices actually. His promotion to Admin — as his peers correctly point out this time — is long, long justified & overdue.
For some odd reason though, Procyon’s unattractiveness was seemingly enough to take down Conwell as collateral. His votes have not been completed either, despite being almost a perfect opposite of Procyon, and unarguably fit for the role. This is criminal. Could Conwell not be promoted despite this? What’s preventing the other Admins from promoting him through still? It’s almost as if ProcyonLotor, or perhaps some Admins themselves, might have felt that being paired with the pristine Jacob Conwell would provide a sort of cover-fire for his dash into Adminship.
Staff’s expectation for this vote to continue the tradition of being a frictionless process is evidenced by their lack of a protocol for what to do if one doesn’t go through (and how to treat the other person in the pair if there is one). There was no timer on the vote, no deadline to say yay or nay; because obviously, this would be approved, and quickly per the ceremonial procession. There was no definition as to what the eligibility of such an individual would be thereafter for Admin; would they be up for another vote? How long after could they try to stuff the poor nomination through again?
These were the points of a new discussion, and now, a vote.
The stated purpose of this proposal is to “change the way Moderator and Admin are conducted.” The input and voting would become more democratic, with OS+ (operational staff and higher) getting to participate in determining whether or not someone is promoted to Admin; A 60+% majority of “the participating” OS+ vote in favor. The threshold of the official Admin vote would be lowered from 100% consensus to 75%.
This proposal would democratize a portion of the vote to the general staff, essentially acting as a potential veto if the rest of staff felt as though the Admins got it wrong. It is a proofreading and correction clause, and up-regulates the hurdles that someone has to go through in order to become an Admin (practically speaking, though not statistically; according to the percentages, this give a prospective Admin a 15% greater chance of getting it… but that’s pretty much just on paper). It is generally seen as a good move, by site users, staff, and critics alike.
The Major Problem Here is Untouched
There are a few potential problems from the “No” Vote Fiasco that could have worried staff sufficiently to call for a revamp of the entire process, all interconnected fairly tightly:
(1) Staff had to come to terms with the fact that one Admin, once in power, can effectively prevent the promotion and addition of any other Admin after them. This is because prior to this change, a candidate up for Admin would need unanimous consent among the existing ones. This is obviously a worry and might be too much power centralized on one person, and now has to be addressed since prior to this realization of it, it was only theoretical. We can call this a single point of failure.
DrBleep says as much:
“IIRC this is a clause that helps prevent a “constitutional crisis” and prevents a possible single person hostage hold on Admin promotions. Its a quality of life change that was desperately needed in the face of an unprecedented event where all the admins supported a candidate going up, but changed position later… it absolutely is needed to clarify and allow room for people to vote no, without holding promotions completely hostage, thats a dangerous game to play, even with the level of vetting.”
(2) A deeply unpopular person was a few strokes of the keyboard away from getting a sort of power that they have historically demonstrated they will proudly abuse. It therefore might seem like a good idea to make the elevation of an Admin a more robust process, placing more checks, criteria, and stopgaps along the way, so that something like this would be harder in the future. We can call this anti-fragility.
(3) Admin-only votes on a prospective Admin don’t incorporate the opinions or, perhaps more importantly, knowledge that the rest of the userbase might have. Admins can be left in the lurch and the ones holding the bag, looking somewhat bad. We can call this uninformed consent.
Any of these is a fine reason to propose a change in how the promotion process works.
This proposal challenges these problems, essentially taking a 25% piece of the Admin vote and redistributing it to the general staff. This way, if an Admin team approves of a promotion that the rest of the staff (sorry, site users) disagree with, they can be challenged and the process halted. This is a good instance of staff decentralizing some of the power structure, something small in the direction I’ve been shouting in favor of for a while now; ongoing centralization of power has been a serious handicap on the site for a disturbing amount of time.
While problems (2) and (3) are directly improved upon, the central and single point of failure, (1), remains despite this. While perhaps not in effect and in action, on paper it doesn’t solve the “constitutional crisis”, which the other two problems are somewhat dependent on.
Problem (1) is not solved in that an Admin still has the power to hold the promotion process hostage, single-handedly.
This is because, to simplify a whole lot from the discussion, the general staff vote is only subsequent to the Admins’ unanimous approval to put the candidate up for a vote in the first place. In other words, the general staff must first be given a sort of collective permission from the Admins for the chance to participate. They can then help approve or deny, with their ≥60%, alongside a second, public, and official Admin vote with threshold ≥75%. If an Admin doesn’t want a person to be promoted then, they would just have to disapprove of the initial nomination itself. The power play in the “dangerous game” cited is simply collapsed into a less public and more secretive step in the process. There is only a verisimilitude of decentralization and added robustness to this proposal as a result.
Furthermore, an Admin who is aware of this new structure might act accordingly, knowing well that their sole “No” in the new, second vote wouldn’t carry the power it used to. There is structural incentive for an Admin in such a scenario to simply end the process with their power before it can be started by not agreeing to the candidate to begin with.
To demonstrate this, let’s imagine the vote that just happened again. ProcyonLotor is nominated by someone who thinks he is ready for Adminship. He is brought for discussions of his candidacy. Let’s imagine that Admin6 knows they do not want him to be voted into the position, and doesn’t change their mind in the course of their lengthy discussions. Admin6, understanding this new process, would recognize that their sole vote against would not be enough to prevent a confirmation by the total Admin vote (5/6 = ~83%; half of the other Admins would need to abstain for this one vote against to be sufficient in preventing promotion). Admin6 would be incented then to simply front-run the vote in the nomination phase, and vote against the opportunity to be voted on altogether, thereby getting their way, and doing so legally. The other Admins would have no course for redress or complaint.
Let’s complicate the theoretical here by imagining that Admin6 is the only one who is willing to represent the users, as was reportedly the case with aismallard and Procyon. Does that Admin have a moral duty to nip the promotion in the bud at the nomination moment? Would that Admin risk their vote no being the only one, and hinge the promotion on 60% of the general staff’s take? What if it was a closer vote beyond them, with the decision to let it advance to a general staff vote essentially a toss-up?
Or let’s imagine the sinister opposite; that Admin6 is acting in bad instead of good faith. Incentive exists to deny the opportunity to begin with, especially if that Admin knows they are the only one among the other Admins and staff who does not want that individual promoted. This is guaranteed knowledge on the part of such an admin given that DrBleep says numerous times that they discuss candidates thoroughly and over the course of months.
In either scenario, a lone Admin can still exact the single point of failure, just one step earlier, and in a less transparent setting. The increased obscurity denies the candidate the built-in benefit initially explained by TroyL, whereby one can understand why they were not felt to be a candidate. It is as other staffers correctly point out:
“I’m not sure why this extant process can’t serve as the ratification process rather than a new system that is effectively just a whole new vote… I want individual admins to be able to follow their consciousness, absolutely, but they have space to do that in the second vote, they don’t need the chance to do that in formal ratification. At best I think this is needless bureaucracy, and at worst… it significantly reduces the impact of this proposal by locking the chance for staff at large to have a say in admin promotions behind unanimous agreement amongst the current admins.”
— OCuin (I’ll let this “amongst” slide, but gahdamn)
“ ^ This is a good point imo. you have time to change your mind — the voting period is a week. it’s weird that the vote which actually matters is secret and hidden from everyone else… i can see that it says the vote boundary is 75%, but this doesn’t really work with the whole needing it to be ratified unanimously thing… this, along with the lower pass boundary for the rest of staff, means the promotion is still basically 100% top-down, it just looks a bit like the rest of staff are deciding on it.” — gee0765
Their points are not adequately answered by representative staff.
This proposal is a good thing, I think, but there are parts of it that are horribly confused, the attempted clarification tantamount to pure staffspeak. The spokesperson for the proposal, DrBleep, frequently gives incredibly frustrating answers that do not address the confusions and issues brought up.
There are also contradictions in the answers to these questions; for example, on the one hand DrBleep defends the high threshold requirements for Admin promotion as something very necessary due to the high stakes of the job, but then also argues against someone who recommended the initial 51% approval from the general staff be increased. (Staff end up doing this though, to the now 60%.) DrBleep even at one point begins a new answer to a repeated question with “If you want the honest truth…”; something that I suppose is only just now coming out, on page 2, because something other than the honest truth was for some reason the go-to answer before it. Additionally, rationale is given as if novel, when it is not at all new; for example the idea that with this proposal, now other staff can express to the Admins their own rationales and thoughts.
Parts of this proposal only make sense in the context of dirt being out there on candidates that has so far been kept secret from the Admins, and the embarrassment of the staff as subsequently uninformed individuals on a public stage. Are top staff irrationally concerned with their optics here? Is the biggest part of the problem for top staff the rake-shaped bruise on their face that was given to them by their own feet? Does this have less to do with a “constitutional crisis”, and more to do with being mortified in front of your already unimpressed public?
What information could have come to light that the dissenting Admin didn’t know before? Was it the long-hidden fact that Procyon doxed children, got away with it because of nepotism, and has until it counted against his promotion, been proud of it? It couldn’t have been that aismallard didn’t know ProcyonLotor is a caustic asshole. Everyone knows that.
So, we see an indication that some of the highest users on the site staff are perilously kept in a relative bubble of mis- and disinformation regarding its own users; not only that, but those who they only days before vouched for in the elevation to the highest totem of responsibility and representation possible. There have been murmurings that the current SCP staff are too out of touch. The recent Town Halls, their reactions, and now this — both ProcyonLotor’s nomination itself and here in the reaction; the lack of clarity, poor communication given confusingly by the proposing staff to a wide procedural berth around an Admin’s potential to change their mind (something that has just been demonstrated is already perfectly possible…), and sometimes lack of sense altogether— certainly and unfortunately help attest to that idea.
This might explain why they have been so hesitant to provide the routine discipline to their own members that other users of the site immediately get in response to similar actions; AdminBright comes to mind, the persistent sex pest who to this day on his TikTok treats the SCP fandom as a perpetually-filled honey pot.
The peripheral details of the proposal that continue to not make sense are, in my opinion, the cognitive result of staff attempting to push something through that they are unwilling to publicly admit or make eye contact with. Someone reading the discussion who is met with an appreciable amount of confusion in the answers given by DrBleep shouldn’t peg this as a personal failing; the existence of the confusion should be read into as an objective, extrinsic thing instead.
It’s almost as if the redundant and needless division of the Admin vote into two parts intends to be a dogwhistle for anyone who knows something about an Admin candidate to come forward with the dirt that has so far been shoveled into the closet along with all the dead bodies; kept in there by the sheer strength of the fear for seeing what the SCP truly has become.
(This post was sent via WikiDot PMs to ProcyonLotor, a snapshot of which is captured below. Any reply will be posted in full.)
Update: A new-and-improved round of Admin selections are up, more this time. Two have replaced Procyon. So far? You guessed it; unanimous approval. Good for these individuals, Jacob Conwell included. 👏
But what’s this? According to the spokesperson… a very conditioned message that passed under the eyes and pens of all the major players in the Administration…
The horrifying thing here is that according to this statement, the Admins/staff were going to include Procyon again, and the only reason they didn’t was because he stunningly and bravely came to them “of his own volition”.
This doesn’t make much sense, given the new rules that were just passed, where administrators have to be unanimous in their candidacy acceptance. I can’t see a situation where in the dissenting Admin from before would have approved another vote for the same individual only weeks later. Are we to believe that the administrators on a second pass this early on still approved this candidacy at this time? Did the user’s outcry have that little effect and meaning for them?
Right. Thank goodness the people behind this comment are reliable liars.
Thank goodness instead, they have listened to their users and are just too proud or cowardly to admit as much. By attempting desperately to salvage what little character they and quality Procyon have in anticipation of a future promotion (mark my words; this move will be cited as a part of Procyon’s “profound” turn-around, a humility that apparently displays his fitness for the leadership), they have to take the punch of trying to ram Procyon through prior to the completion of a vote that would otherwise make him wait a year). It actually make themselves look worse. But in typical fashion they either can’t see that, or are so protective of their brand that they don’t care.
Thank goodness they are their usual, optics-first, propagandizing, and blatantly misleading selves here. Otherwise, we might actually need to worry that they have not improved on their issues of paying attention to and being in a dialogue with their users.
© Lack of Lepers, 2021
