On 4/23/07, John Lee <johnleemk(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I think this might be time to bring us back to the thread on "Major
dysfunction in RfA culture" which died a few days back. RfA is presently
only accepting candidates willing to run the gauntlet of participating in
certain obligatory things such as vandal patrolling, the deletion process,
etc., even if there's no reason to believe the candidate lacks the
necessary
clue to read relevant policy and/or use common sense should he/she decide
to
go on vandal patrol or close a deletion debate, and even if the candidate
has not expressed any desire to get involved in those areas of the 'pedia.
As a result, the only people accepted are those obsessive enough to do
these
things - and it's not surprising that there's substantial correlation
between obsessiveness and likelihood to burn out, so it should be no
surprise either that many admins are likely to burn out. I think if I ran
for RfA today, I would be rejected because I simply haven't shown the
requisite obsessiveness. I've tried before, but I'm just not the type to
stay focused on something for too long - I totally understand why so many
people get burned out. (Those who don't are normally...not exactly normal.
Some just snap and start forgetting why they are here in the first place,
as
RickK did.)
As I've said before, we're relying too much on these powerhorses and not
enough on the "long tail". WP relies on the thousands of editors who
anonymously make one edit and never come back. Why can't we rely on
thousands of admins to make one admin action and never come back (to
exaggerate a little)? What's wrong with tolerating admins who don't really
use the tools except when they come across a situation warranting tool
usage
in their normal course of using WP? (That's basically what I do these
days,
avoiding the drudgery of focused obsessive admin work.)
If someone can be trusted not to abuse the tools, and to have a clue about
using them, there's really no reason to deny them adminship. That's the
whole point behind adminship not being a big deal. If this was actually
practiced, I think we might see a little less burnout than we do now.
Spreading the load makes a lot of sense.
Johnleemk
Yes.
I would like to see candidates knowledgeable and willing to take on one
particular admin task. If they want to work in another, they need to do the
required legwork to know how things work. I still haven't applied a range
block, because I know I'd mess it up. It's pointless to force someone to
work in every possible admin workfield. There's so much people who are
clueless about copyright that if people need to know everything, we'd need
to oppose adminship of pretty much everyone when it comes to their WP:PUI
and copyright speedy work.
Mgm
Mgm