User talk:Moneytrees

Moneytrees' Money Tree, day one

Season's Greetings

Hello Moneytrees: Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice if it's occurring in your area of the world, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 02:18, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

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Merry Christmas

Hello Moneytrees: Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice if it's occurring in your area of the world, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, —Ganesha811 (talk) 13:04, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

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2025

	Have a happy New Year filled with light!
	Hi Moneytrees, Best wishes that the new year brings peace, good health and happiness. Thank you for what you do for the encyclopedia and this community. Cheers! Image: New Year's Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, Oji, Utagawa Hiroshige, woodcut, 1857 Netherzone (talk) 15:28, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Freedom

I feel you.[1] I'm actually quite relieved I did not get elected. I've never cracked seventy percent so it's clear in retrospect I had no chance even without the suspension and the name change. My inbox has been so much quieter this last year.Enjoy the freedom to just be a "regular" admin again. Beeblebrox ^Beebletalks 02:09, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Heh, Happy new years @Beebs-- I was kind of half joking with that edit summary; I don't feel "imprisoned" by Arbcom and I'll be sticking around for the PIA5 PD. It's more that I'm free in the sense I'll have more time to do things I want to do as opposed to things I need to do. Early on during my term, I found that I liked investigative functionary work and CU quite a bit, and I was always looking forward to acting more in that capacity post term, without the pressures of having to vote on xyz moral parables and abc contentious thing by def deadline. Also, as you know, there's a lot of constricting factors which discourage Arbs from talking about certain "community politics" stuff while serving, so I've also been looking towards the "freedom" I'll have to be more open with my actions/opinions. I'm thankful with how much of a bird's eye view Arbcom has given me of this site, and I hope to reveal some more truths, break some more narratives, and add some more nuance with this new "freedom".

On the topic of the election, I think voter's feelings towards WPO impacted you more than the name change. Regardless of the suspension or not, you've been involved in a few different heated discussions involving the site and have positioned yourself in support of it (and that's before your essay got published in the Signpost). Even though you haven't endorsed the insults and outings on the site, WPO has been enough of a hot button "political issue" this year that I think public affiliation with it will cause a decent number of voters to balk at supporting you. I guess I'll go further and say that I know that WPO's role in GeneralNotability's departure from the project has turned several newer/younger editors cold towards WPO and arguments regarding the use of it. He was very popular among that crowd, as is ScottishFinnishRaddish-- who has been less active at WPO recently and not been as publicly "pro-WPO" as you have been. This, coupled with the suspension, makes it easier to associate WPO's wrongdoings with you and was going to make reelection harder- the name change probably didn't help, but I view it as more minor compared to the other two factors.

As for me, I've grown increasingly weary towards WPO; I feel like it isn't fulfilling its design as a radical counterpoint to Wikipedia's toxic norms and practices. During the discussions around your suspension, a question came up of how much is WPO considered part of "the community"; I think you would agree with me that WPO is an extension of the community, like ANI in some ways. For a while I've been questioning what differentiates WPO from the other problematic political organs of Wikipedia; people have used offsite forums to promote their own agendas since the dawn of the project. This year, I found out that several vocal critics of WPO, past and present, have accounts on it (under different usernames). If it's not part of the community, then why is so much of the community part of it? More and more, I find all the debates around the site as a silly charade, like some manufactured political thriller with fake names...

That's some of my thinking, if that makes sense. It's part of what I was getting at in my comment at the LB case request, which I noticed got some negative traction over there. Thanks for backing me up a bit there; I meant to have some discussion with those comments, but I didn't have the time. I thought your Signpost essay and the reaction it got was interesting and made me reflect on my own thoughts on the topic. I'm thinking of writing an op-ed in response; not as a rebuttal, but more an attempt to invite a nuanced discussion about WPO and what it means to be "radical" in a large institution such as Wikipedia/Arbcom.

Anyways, I look forward to getting to do more "dirty work" with you and others; I'm thankful for the recent classes of admins we've had and positive on Wikipedia's future... in the short term, at least. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 21:31, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't know if you saw what was going on there the last few days, but it was one of those "this is why people hate this site" type of PVP flamewars that ran several pages. It was -kind of- related to the Signpost piece, but not exactly. I had thought they would note was originally written as a user space essay, and they approached me about publishing it. I'm not sure that makes a huge difference to anyone but me though.

I'm really not looking for drama, but I do get rather incensed when I see new users being treated overly-harshly.

A few people have indicated that they think I'm secretly agitating for recalls, or that WPO is telling me to do that, but neither of those things are remotely true. While WPO pointed out a few specific issues, I found many more, quite easily. The WPO thing is like an albatross around my neck for me sometimes, apparently if I comment there I'm part of their highly organized hive mind and everything I do here is in service to that.

My hope is that if admins hold each other to account for poor decision-making from the get go, as opposed to just observing it for a couple months or years first, more recalls can be avoided. Admin complacency with regard to our own is at least part of the reason recall now exists and has been used.

I proud of the work I did in the committee and don't need to dwell on the suspension, I mean it when I say I'm fine tiwht the election result. The committee needed help, and I'm confident now that it is going to get it just fine without me. I'm actually enjoying just going around and getting things done without having to wait for at least four other people to agree first. Beeblebrox ^Beebletalks 21:52, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox Yeah, I noticed the ZLEA thread but didn't bother reading it; the investigative, analytical elements of WPO are better to focus on than the grudgey, mudslinging side.

Looking back on my term on the Committee, I'm prouder than I thought I would be. I think I advocated for some good change/ideass and reached my goal of being the "analytical and critical" Arb. I think my most important work ended up being more on the mailing list than onwiki, but I'm ok with that. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 20:21, 6 January 2025 (UTC)