Steve Bennett wrote:
On 3/31/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam(a)vyznev.net>
wrote:
sock. The six months or so between the two events
served not only to
familiarize me with Wikipedia, but also to provide other users with some
confidence that I wasn't going to go on a vandalism spree as soon as I
got my admin buttons.
The chance that anyone will go on a "vandalism spree" with admin
rights is vanishingly small. And if they did, they can be quickly
desysopped before they've done any real damage (as I understand it).
Is this really what the whole RfA charade is about? Protecting
ourselves against users with 1500 edits who might suddenly,
inexplicably turn into vandals the instant they're given admin rights?
Sounds fishy to me.
Well, no, the part about going on a vandalism spree was hyperbole. It's
more about protecting ourselves against users who might use their admin
povers for more subtle undesirable things, such as POV pushing, or for
ends incompatible with the project (like the folks who think the best
thing about Wikipedia are the userboxes), or who might simply use them
carelessly or thoughtlessly, say, by rangeblocking all of Europe.
That said, even vandalism _is_ a concern, if an unlikely one. Besides
the obvious opportunities, like replacing MediaWiki messages with
genitalia, a malicious admin could really have a field day with the
ability to edit the sitewide javascript files. Unfortunately that does
make adminship a big deal in some ways.
(Ideas on how to sneak in some malicious javascript without getting
immediately noticed snipped per [[WP:BEANS]].)
--
Ilmari Karonen