PvXwiki: How it works

This essay is taken directly from my PvXwiki article and therefore have various internal links from it. Please bear with any discomforts this presents for you.

I'm sure anyone who plays the game more than a week knows about PvXwiki. It's a build database for Guildwars that has all those popular builds people use. And it's a wiki. Managed by people. Currently, it's managed by two admins who do all the work making sure the wiki isn't broken, a couple MCs for the PvP section, and a collection of PvE players that contribute intermittently. The wiki used to be more active in the past and generally flows and has flowed in the same direction as Guildwars. Game updates would bring in some new builds, more users were likely contribute, and then it would all die down in a few days. But in the end, what you see is just a collaboration of a small userbase.

There's a generously large rectangular box at the top of each page proclaiming that the build is either ''Good'' or ''Great''. These assignments aren't arbitrary or omniscient. These tags are added based on ratings by users with no obligation to back up their ratings. Quality assurance of ratings is relegated to the Admin noticeboard and admins themselves to moderate the ratings. Being an administrator doesn't necessarily mean the user needs to be experienced with PvE or PvP. The MCs, and formerly Build Masters, were introduced in order to differentiate users who administrated the wiki from those who focused on moderated the builds. The build police can't catch every single suspicious vote though, and if they did, none of the builds would get vetted. In fact, for most builds, the only votes will be from same group of 7-8 people who bother to vote in the first place. If you read through most of the ratings for builds, you'll see most of the builds being rated are ones that have been vetted already. These ratings generally agree with existing consensus. It's call the bandwagon, one or two people sound like they know what they're talking about and others follow just to get the build out of testing. Otherwise, untested builds can go for weeks before receiving five votes. So if you think the build is great because "the entire Guildwars community" says it is, just remember the people who gave it that rating are a few users who know more or less the same amount about the game as you do. The Meta tags for PvP are managed by the MCs, however the meta tags for PvE aren't moderated officially. The two unofficial PvE admins, Life and Athrun, are rather inactive and the PvE section is left up to its own machinations. There is rarely any consensus on what builds are actually PvE meta, although most of the time it's obvious enough that there's no need to contest so. The wiki is not infallible about the current cookie builds and the current meta, sadly.

It requires a different mindset when it comes to how the wiki works. Over the years, the unofficial policy for the wiki developed into the motto: "Only store the best builds on the wiki". This is the ideal that PvXwiki and it's community operates by. This evolved out of necessity as much as a commitment to quality builds. Remember that PvXwiki started out on Guildwiki, vetting was done on the talk page. The move to a wiki dedicated to builds didn't happen until mid-2007. In the first couple years, it was still (wait for it...) fun to create your own build that you found effective and share that knowledge with other people. There was no established cookie cutter builds, the rating system was to be added, and innovation impacted the build. This left the PvP section waterlogged with builds no one was sure anyone actually used. The situation eventually lead to the removal of the Other section and re-balancing of the rating system you see. The general movement towards this ideal contributed to the idea of PvXwiki as a source for cookie cutter builds.

PvXwiki's reputation as an elitist circlejerk and the scourge of all creativity can be reasonably concluded in the eyes of many players who find joy in creating their own unique builds; it's an integral part of Guildwars. Many people even feel threatened by the wiki; I find it particularly amusing that some view the wiki as some all-knowing juggernaut out to consume every last drip of creativity left. It's like we want to know what your build is so we can somehow steal your idea from you. Players want feel like they have an original idea no one else thought of before and are inclined to defend it. I think one of the points people miss is that no one pulled those builds out of their ass. These build are developed by players who play the game, refine the concept, and intentionally or unintentionally share it with others. We see this in PvE with Guildguru topics introducing Sabway, Racway, Spiritway, etc. and word-of-mouth for Imbagon. In PvP, it's the gimmick builds and popular setups in GvG and HA. None of the builds on the wiki are original ideas, they originate from players and are further refined on the wiki. And they continue to be refined, that's the spirit of a wiki and follows the spirit of PvX:OWN. It's the player base as a whole that develops a build rather than any single player.

On a relevant topic, the idea of one build representing multiple variant builds and the WELL tag can be frustrating for people. The concept for general builds is covered on this page. To summarize it, builds have a few core skills to a build and usually revolves around an elite skill or game mechanic. As long as the core concept for the build is kept intact, any other skills used are up to the player. This can be interpreted quite liberally to include almost any build variation possible. If some variation isn't covered, then it's as easy as adding it to the page. So while you do not see your exact build on a build article, be rest assured that core idea for your build is there. If it isn't, you can do yourself and the rest of the community a favor and add it to the build article. That's the purpose of the wiki. It's a relatively simple and fascinating concept in a way. The WELL tag has an insidious reputation and it's the source of most conflicts on the wiki next to the build actually being trashed. People may not or won't understand that their build isn't as unique or effective as they thought. This often happens in Dervish builds where players bring Mystic Regeneration and Armor of Sanctity for "survivability" instead of killing power. At some point, yo have to draw the line between a variant and build. They are two different concepts.

tl;dr you're basically advertising a website.

If you want me active on PvX then you need to do something about the troll voting and the people who push for poor skills on purpose.

Amen.

12char.

Don't be daft. PvX is such an integral part of the Guild Wars community that it even has a direct link accessible from every page here on Guru.

Relyk is simply trying to put a few misapprehensions to rest, as I see it.

People with their own creativity with builds tend to hate PvX, those of us with lesser talents love the damn thing.

I have read this, but I fail to understand how it brings anything new to the table or takes away the stigma pvx has.

Its basically an explanation of how pvx works and why it works that way, but thats something everyone on guru probably knows already.

So, enlighten me: Whats the added value of this article?

The "essay" isn't structured correctly, doesn't demostrate an proper arguement or even bother to formulate one.

You resolve them by first acknowledging the most glaring issue.

...has absolutely nothing at all to do with stifling creativity and everything to do with the people who run and contribute to the site. It has always been this way and if activity there has slumped you have no one to blame but yourselves.

The only thing that happened when I decided to leave gwpvx was part of the comunity not having access to several of my builds. The reason I left gwpvx was cause I disagree with the idea to reroll that was promoted by gwpvx at that moment cause well the builds for a class are no much compare to builds for other class(es).

If this is an attempt to get some people back to gwpvx my answer is a big NO.

And btw Relyk your nice gwpvx trashed not so long ago some of my builds and surprise I see some of them considered now great but the funny part is that those builds have been posted relative recently by others not by me. So please explain me how almost over night some builds changed from trash to great when surprise none of the mechanisms used in them changed. I bet that if I would had try to repost them would had been insta trashed again. In those conditions when I believe members of gwpvx made fun of me there is just no way to see me back on gwpvx.

L.E. : Also I don't get for who you want to explain. With the launch of GW 2 the GW community will lower, it's low even now so with a % moving to GW 2 it's clear how it will be.

Here's how much of an elitist circle-jerk it is... I was permabanned for contributing to discussions on improving builds and build pages!

@guy above; I don't know why you can be angry about someone else releasing your build... It means they've learned their mistake, there are more people voting who understand the concept, etc. it's a good thng.

PvX is exactly how democracy works IRL. Corrupt as RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO, which is funny because it's just a game. Problem is, it's such an easy trolling target because it's mostly based on opinion. You can put any spin on a good build and show why it's trash. The AP Ele was trashed, the Rit Lord party-healer was trashed, the Mark of Pain nuker was laughably trashed. Every single paragon build was trashed, discordway was trashed, Shock Axe in PvP was trashed, Hbash/mobeus was trashed, etc. etc. etc.

tl;dr, if there is a low userbase of people who don't even play Guild Wars, there will not be accurate votes. With the current userbase, one dumbphuck and ruin a build's rating. This is why you should contribute.

Until it gets credible people moderating or establishes some proper standards with vetting on the pve side (ie. pvp has at least obs mode for baseline), nothing is going to change.
Basic build concepts, when massive overhauls of game mechanics and/or skills occur, and pvp bars are the only areas where it still has credibility because they're the only areas where it's impossible to mess with. The recent AP mopper & ele debacles are the most obvious examples of idiots shitting it up time and again.

They should implement an actual vote extension, so people that try builds can actually vote for them working.

You know, thumbs up/down stuff, with reset system that clears the thumbs for all builds with a key skill that changes after an update.

The reasons I find that many people have are ones that are personal and are often coupled with spite or rumored testimony. The whole creative factor can be alive on PvX. Userspace is always abundant and I've always posted my fully thought theorycraft in my sandbox. What many people fail to realize is that PvX is a data base of builds that are viable and used throughout the Guild Wars community as a whole - not just the PvX one, not the Guru one, but ones that are commonly found throughout Guild Wars. There have and will always be people that never realize this. Instead they will post their creative build and when the community (which is actually a good one and one that I have much contact with in real life) calls them out on it being inferior (which it always is), they take it to heart. PvX has always had the worst of luck when it comes to its contributors, and because these people assume the worst in others because they gave criticism to someone's creative build. PvX never had room for creativity in its buildspace, only functionality. Of course, you will always have trolls there who will make it worse for everyone. Minion was PvX's most recent, along with still trying to make socks (puppet accounts) even though they get banned briefly after. But, you really can't get rid of the troll factor anywhere you go on the internet. GWGuru is no way better than PvX in that respect as well. The stigma for PvX will never end because of how paved in the image is of it being website that harbors trolls, flamers, and "big mean jerks who killed creativity." Those who do get by the stigma, such as myself, were often more successful in their Guild Wars knowledge. Creativity is a wonderful thing, but because people tried to push it into its buildspace, the site went down hill.

There are no major contributors to the wiki from guru except for Minion up until recently. Xenomortis, Minion, Cuilan, and a couple others have made any lasting contributions. I rarely see any discussion about wiki builds beyond using them for reference. The only person from the pvx side that contributed to guru was Karate Jesus. Life contributed to both sites equally, Vincent Evan also contributed to both significantly. I find it hard to believe that anyone that hasn't contributed and participated in discussion has an idea of the mechanisms behind pvxwiki. If people are aware, that's a large majority not making their voice heard on the wiki or even on guru itself. It's not obvious to me why people refuse to contribute to the wiki, they have such strong opinions about what's wrong with the wiki yet they don't do anything about it. I can only surmise they believe it's a waste of time and effort to attempt to do so. In fact, that's what Cuilan says in his post. If I explain how the wiki works, then we can tear down a barrier that shouldn't be there in the first place.

The wiki has credible people moderating the PvE section, they currently inactive. It also has a policy for vetting. It's in my opinion that PvP players hold builds at higher standards than what players see in obs mode. Obs mode doesn't serve as a baseline, it only supports arguing for or against a build. This fact is obvious because not every build/gimmick seen in obs is vetted and stored ont he wiki. Unfortunately, there are no contributors for high level PvP, and therefore no actual vetting for PvP builds. The AP mop and ele issue are the very reason the wiki needs more people for consensus. The silent majority seems to stand by and let the consensus of a small group of people decide if the builds get trashed.

People can already do such with the current system. Giving thumbs up or thumbs down says nothing about the build and doesn't provide any consensus on builds. Implementing such would likely prove insurmountable even if that's what people want. Votes are already wiped for builds that get changed in updates. The wiki has a specific tag for such. Admins will normally wipe a build (remove all current votes) or archive it depending on the significance of those changes.

yeah RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOin elitist scumbags omg

I was going to say "what about Auron?" - then I read his talk page(s).

Auron rules.

Occasionally.

I have a few issues with PvX, even though I usually post my stuff there. Several of my suggestions have been trashed, but I'm not mad at it.

I do feel, however, that sometimes opinions (votes) value too much theorycrafting over practise. I've built myself several RA builds that lead me to 25 wins at least once (and generally net me good results), but I would probably not bother posting them there after my Mind Burn build got trashed due to "energy problems" I never had.

There's not much you can do about theorycrafting in PvP, especially when it comes to RA. The issue of "My build got 25 wins in RA" doesn't just pertain to vetting on pvx. The way it's setup now, you have to be committed toward pushing it as a good or great build. I personally had energy problems with Mind Burn spamming it too often but seen it used fairly often in formats, so I understand why there was merit to posting it. I don't think there was enough discussion and whether improving the build was possible or not. Nothing was brought up on the AN about it either. That's more of an exception rather than the rule as Mind Burn was recently updated.

Good old Auron.

PvX has a one dimensional, 2 point scale for rating builds with a small and conflicting population. These factors scupper any potential you think PvX has.
It's pretty shit.

PvX is a great resource, but I find it really annoyinbg how some great builds (that actually work) are slated while some truely dreadful builds (some that don,t even work) are highly rated. I can only assume that these ratings are decided by opinion and not by usage.

So PvX s a great resource, some good builds and a good place for ideas, but most of the builds there can be improved on with a little thought.

I think the problem for me is that I have a perception that it's run by a bunch of self-appointed, opinionated people and anyone else is barely tollerated at best. Of course, I could be wrong, that is just a perception I have. Maybe they could work more on the perception if that is not the reality. e.g. why do I think of "them" when a wiki should be "us"?

Democracy is great until you realize how stupid the average person is.

It's pretty well-understood fact that only about 1-20% of players in guild wars (depending on how pessimistic you are feeling) know how to recognize a good build from a bad one. Letting the 50th percentile make decisions is a recipe for failure. Asking them whether a build is good or not is as worthwhile as asking them the length of the Emperor of China's nose.

All which points to the inescapable conclusion that a wiki of the nature of PvX needs to be a meritocracy rather than a democracy.

I have tried to be active on the old wiki, but most of the time I felt like I was the only sane person in the entire PvE section, drowning in a sea of trolls and flames.
In the end I got permanently banned because of Tahiri-something-, after he flamed me on a buildpage, to which I replied if he had anything intelligent to say, or if he/she was just blind.

Needless to say I did not bother to create a new account on the new wiki.
I do look at discussion pages from time to time however, but it doesn't seem like anything has changed.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but to me it still looks like there is a core group of people ( with the majority of them not being that great in anything other then a few select SC's )that decides what builds are awesome and which ones are not, a herd of people simply agreeing with them because its them, and them as a whole flaming everyone with a different opinion.

Relyk if you could take over the entire PvX vetting process and turn it into a one-man show where you have the final say over everything, I'm sure PvX would be so much better.

Assuming that those in charge have merit. There is little evidence to support this.

I don't know about the whole PvXwiki thing. It sounds like there is some attitude and feel to it that the GW developers, the ones who work on the actual game and get paid for it, did not intend for the game. Whatever the case, I wasn't that enthusiastic about the two posts about PvXwiki in this forum. When I saw them with still no replies, I was kind of hoping it would stay that way. It was just a blatant copy and paste job on a forum where people usually communicate and interact. Like someone just came here, pasted a lot of text in mere seconds, and left expecting us to take all the time it takes to read all that.

I get a similar experience sometimes on Yahoo answers. I post a question and some "Top Contributor" pastes some generic section of literature from some website as an answer. An answer that is vague. And just expects me to be impressed and choose it as the "best answer" to give him more points. It's like they come and they're like, "here, I'm pasting this, now choose my answer and give me my points, bye."

I think that's the main problem with the site. Although there's some helpful suggestions every once and then, I feel that people over there usually prefer to just trash builds than properly work on them, but I had to do it alone. For example, even my current Mind Burn build has been improved since I posted it there. But I havent' touched it for a while, under the belief that maybe PvX vetters were right and maybe Mind Blast was completely superior. Anyways, recently I went back to remember the sheer power of Mind Burn, got to start using again, and it still overwhelms enemy monks as much as it used to did (~240 damage for 5 energy, 5 recharge and 5 exhaustion is way too much, and requires one healing skill and one condition removal skill to take care of it). I'll probably attempt to post it again over there, now that I've polished the build and found the (my) "best way" to use it without exhaustion problems.

EDIT: I also don't like how the vetting system works, honestly. It's annoying when a single, random 0-0 is enough to take a build away from being great, or even from being good.

And then I also see PvE builds like Onslaught Dervish, which completely faceroll everything, and are possibly better than most "good builds" and a good chuck of "great" builds, being categorized on "good" because Pious is (slightly) more overpowered.

It's a popularity contest, let's call it what it is. With policies in place like this...

"Administrators, once promoted, are considered fully autonomous...because the Administrator's character is well-known before his promotion, abuses of administrator power simply do not happen."

...an assumption which stems from either being naive or retarded, take your pick.

I tried to create discussion to improve builds and it got me banned. I'm still compelled to try to contribute for some retarded reason, like PvX is my drowning foal and I have the oar to save it. I also agree with Jeydra.

When it comes to good PvE players on PvX, they are Relyk, Xenomortis, Chieftain Alex and, dare I say it, myself. This is heavily outweighed by the bad players who are good or merited on Speed Clearing, PvP and botting. They're not so good at PvE and are the ones that require the build discussions to explain why they're wrong something (not always, but often)

Then maybe those player merited at speed clearing should be overseeing the SC builds only? Meritocracy is great in theory, it's just the problem of proving merit.

The system originally had a 3 point scale with innovation having its own value and weight. this was moved to a check because innovation was a poor representation for vetting builds. I don't understand how it's one dimensional when the scale is supported with comments and votes can be removed if the score isn't reflected by the review. That's an oversimplification of the vetting process.

I'm sure if you were quoted on your response, it wouldn't sound as polite. Are you the same Wielder of Magic on wikia because that account isn't banned? It's quite difficult to get yourself permabanned if you actively contribute to the wiki, there have only been two cases where that's happened. Seems to me like it was a case of you getting banned for attacking Tahiri while he was only attacking your build. If you didn't bother contacting admins contesting the ban, blaming the wiki doesn't seem fair. I dislike generalizations because I don't know which people or builds you're talking about. You could easily use the AP ele issue to make that statement, which is likely considering the attention it got on guru.

Are you simply posting this reply reading the first line of both threads? This is copied word for word stuff I wrote on the wiki. I'm the same person posting it here as on the wiki, it would take 30 seconds to check that was true. You surmise that the threads have no value based on that? That's blatant shallow-mindedness. The advantage of posting it here is for the very reason people communicate and interact.

If you're going to cherry pick a policy, at least choose one where it isn't stated in the same section this only applies to situations involving administrative duties. There is a policy located directly below this in the list of policies called PvXwiki:Administrate users, not content, that explicitly states that autonomy only applies to users and not content related to the wiki. The issue we have now is the lack of admins because most of the rfAs for adminship have been declined.

Life and Athrun were made PvE admins because they had expertise in fowsc and deep respectively among the other qualities required for adminship. Most people who contribute and update the speedclears are casual contributors and anons that only stay for a couple weeks. The only semi-active players currently would be Falrach and Tahiri.

I stick to 7 hero teams and rarely pug. I have a completely different playstyle and perception than most players and it makes it hard to discuss builds. I also have limited experience with speedclears as I don't particularly enjoy them. That leaves me at a woeful disadvantage in discussion for the "player" portion of the PvE section.

And I care that other people think a build is effective or fun to play if I find it fun or effective, so that would be an impossible proposition (not to sound melodramatic). Most people tend to not be so modest when it comes to builds they create and play.

That policy includes this line:
"the administrator should not protect the page to preserve his edit, block users that disagree with him, or apply any other administrative powers to his advantage in a dispute."

Hang on... So when I was banned by Fagmin for being "annoying" and not agreeing with her ideas, that was outside policy?

Well, true or not, PvX has had a reputation of being a circlejerk, like you said it. Personally I think the problem wasn't as widespread, but some build discussions drew more of such behaviour than others and then got generalized to the whole site. In any case, it's very late in the GW1 lifetime, and trying to repair that reputation now probably won't work, since there just aren't enough players to care. Hopefully a build site for GW2 will get off to a better start.

You misinterpreted 'two point scale'.
Builds are rated out of 5, except everything 3 and below is considered trash, so stored builds are actually only rated between 3 and 5, hence my '2 point scale': If it's not 4/5 it's terrible. You may as well have scores of 0,1 and 2: in fact that may be an improvement since it'd weaken the effect of negative spike voting (see the E/A AP build).
You require the population to differentiate between builds of varying quality using a tiny scale and consider 'average' to be 'trash'; not something I necessarily disagree with, but understand that even something that I consider to be 'above average' and vote accordingly, I can still be casting a 'trash vote' (see the Searing Flames build).

It is one dimensional because, well, the real number line is one dimensional.
You may take input across two factors (with one more heavily weighted than the other), but this information is lost when you collapse it into a single, one dimensional, value.
The comments are there to rationalise a vote; they're not immediately reflected in the rating a build gets and do not affect where a build is placed.

I think you meant many, but it can so easily be hasn't.
I really like to take part in a build related site, but I'm not dumb enough hang around a place where people screw with the rating system. People 0 and 5 things and it only makes another person score harder in the other direction to counter it to keep a build in great or even good. A lot of builds are obviously not perfect or complete trash, yet they get 0 (or very close to it) or 5. Can't even bother arguing about something because it's often a tool used to get someone to waste their time into thinking people care.

I'm someone who thinks a site based on an older game can still stick around with activity, but I can't see that with PvX.

PvX is a site with staff and those that run the site. End users ultimately don't have much say on how the site is run or how features are enabled.

Pvxwiki isn't as bad as you people make it to be. The two point system is more to reduce bulk than anything. There are a lot of great builds but only so many that are popular even if suboptimal.

The problem is PvP players in the PVE section and PvErs in the PVP section. Lump this with people who aren't very good at the game, voting for builds that work but have skills that are plain useless most of the time.

Also, PvE builds are much more specialized due to zones. You don't need deny hexes in a zone where there's only hexes like parasitic bond.

The other reason is because skills change but the wiki doesn't keep up due to bureacracy. Patient spirit doesn't heal when removed anymore.

People being bad: It's the reason you see ethereal light as a skill on UA builds. Or Healer's boon with no Heal party. Or full protection prayers builds with no gift of health.

This is a discussion of average, weighted scores, so speaking about integers can be somewhat of a misnomer. The threshold to keep a build is 3.75, it's completely possible for scores to be below three with enough votes. It only becomes that "two point" system for the minimum 5 vote requirement. The wiki previously allowed for scores where builds that were considered average were stored, the Other section. The problem is that builds that get vetted as 'average' don't get used. The only thing worse than trashing a build is storing a build that people theorycraft as average. There are plenty of great and awesome builds available on every profession, if someone comes to the site looking for builds, why would a choose one the a vetting process regards as average and there are builds considered superior in quality? That's what happened with the Other section, where builds there weren't used for years. A build carries with it a connotation that if it's good or great, that people will like it and use it. Does that mean that happens? Not all the time. But that's how consensus was reached for the build and I think gives a lot of weight to builds that actually get vetted. It's also a way to reduce systemic bias for individuals actually testing builds. Issues such as vote bombing are simply an abuse of the system and are more of an issue of users themselves than the actually system.

You don't lose that information, it's an average score that's representative of the votes for the build. The average for each scale and the votes used to calculate that score are shown directly below on the ratings page as well as the weights and criteria being stated in policy. That's hardly one-dimensional compared to vetting it by the number of thumbs up a build receives for instance. One-dimensional would be like buying a game because it received over 80 on Metacritic without looking at the average user score, ratings, or reviews behind the ratings. That's not what is happening when builds get assigned to Good or Great by vetting procedure.

It does put a substantial amount of weight on individual votes. It has to because if even a single person doesn't find it valuable in a small sample size, you sure as hell want that reflected on a site that takes pride in hosting only the best of builds for the Guild Wars community as a whole to reference and use. That's my personal view on how vetting has been treated now and in the past.

Perhaps but you also have enough of a world view to understand everyone else, and you personally test teambuilds in a way few people do. And you have the rare quality that you are fair. If you can't handle speed clear teambuilds, you could easily get someone else you trust to do it, e.g. I would get impulsion to vet all speed clear builds. If you're worried about player teams that aren't 7H, you could ask Xenomortis.

If I needed a quick check on an idea, I'm more willing to trust your word whether it's worth pursuing or not than any 'discussion' or 'consensus' on PvX. You might not agree with my approach, but it's something I believe in.

If it works as you claim then what difference does it make if they are appointed by an entirely neutral party such as Curse. There is the appearance of cronyism in the selection process which would be easily eliminated in this way. You have had one social group on PvX vs. the rest of the site for at least 2 years now including an admin with demonstrable bias. That's a serious problem when these people have the ability to interpret and enforce site policy against regular contributors as they see fit. I am not implying this person is necessarily unjustified simply that the concept of neutrality flies out the window when a group has a history together and decides they don't like someone.

It's worked so far for Wikipedia, Guildwiki, and Guildwarswiki. Anet itself seems content to let users run Guildwarswiki. Adminship is hard to obtain because most of it is done at their own discretion and every admin has their own criteria and strictness, at least for pvxwiki. Cronyism (which I had to look up sadly) would imply they aren't qualified; becoming an admin isn't a popularity contest and the requirements are stated in policy. As Auron is often the one to evaluate adminship and hates everyone, I don't think that's an issue. What social group are you talking about, because there is more than one? Which admin are you discussing? You don't provide examples for his "demonstratable bias." At least give a name to the person that you have an issue with. If it was a guessing game, you are most likely referring to Frosty.

Admins don't interpret and enforce site policy, policy simply serves as guidelines like any other wiki. Policy lawyering is quite despised in discussions on the wiki, more so than on most wikis from my experience.

On part of having a neutral party like Curse, we did have that with the Wikia staff over at Wikia. You can tell how well that went. They ended up restricting admin powers as well as moderated and limited the userbase from making their own decisions. They ended up banning one admin (Karate Jesus) because he was outspoken against them. There's a reason any wiki community chooses to moderate itself.