From: Timwi <timwi(a)gmx.net>
JAY JG wrote:
What tanglble (not philosophical) benefits in terms of creating a better
encyclopedia would being able to edit freely provide? Well, duh, you
have more freedom and therefore are better able to help.
So, nothing specific comes to mind then?
I think I've been specific enough, but fine, I'll be more specific.
Fighting vandalism using the rollback button, using "delete" to be able to
move page to where a lonely redirect is sitting, protecting pages where
other people are having an edit war, blocking users with obvious violations
of 3RR, ... That enough yet?
None of that actually helps write an encyclopedia, but rather, it helps
administer it (or in the words of one list member "dominate other editors").
It's easy
to refute strawman arguments; that's the reason people make them
in the first place.
From what you wrote later in the e-mail, I assume you think this is a
strawman argument because you are supposedly not actually assuming anyone's
guilty. But then my other argument kicks in that you have no reason to lock
someone out of something that would be useful to them for helping Wikipedia
if you don't even believe they're guilty of anything.
They're not locked out of anything that helps them create or edit
encyclopedia articles. They simply don't have access to admin functions.
To use a rather extreme analogy, there's a reason most countries have fairly
strict gun ownership restrictions, even though they don't consider most
citizens guilty of anything, or likely to go on shooting sprees.
New users are,
in fact, able to completely modify just about any part of
Wikipedia they want. This is a huge amount of trust that already creates
huge vandalism problems. What you are asking for is for them to be given
special powers to do things like easily reverting pages and blocking
users.
No, I am not asking for that. My proposal does not include anyone gaining
administrative privileges without trust from any existing admin (quite in
contrast to the editing privileges, which you get without anyone's trust).
Since, under your proposal, adminship will be open to just about anyone, it
amounts to the same thing.
The reason we can't make them part of the
"basic package" is that there
always needs to be a level "above" which isn't part of the "basic
package".
A level above? Whatever happened to "assume good faith"? Why, that's
positively un-wiki!
As soon as you argue that there is *any* reason to restrict these powers,
all your arguments about Wikipedia "assume good faith" principles fly out
the window. Now what you're really arguing is not that these restrictions
violate Wikipedia principles, but that in your opinion the bar for admins is
set too high; that's an entirely different argument. And once you start
talking about principles, "Assume good faith" is just one.
"Consensus" is
another.
That doesn't mean that we need to treat the
"top level" as such an elitist
position as we do.
Right. Your argument is about the bar being set too high. As I have pointed
out many times, with over 500 admins already, the bar clearly isn't set all
that high.
(Yes, I know, there's also the level of
"developer", but it doesn't count
because it has powers to do irreversible things.)
There's a level above admin and below developer as well, bureaucracts, who
have the ability to create and (I believe) uncreate admins. Since that's
also "reversible", shouldn't that be added to the abilities?
No, not
"guilty until proven innocent". Rather "reserve judgement, because
the jury is still out". That's simply prudent commonsense.
It's the same "prudent common sense" that makes people who don't know
about
wikis sceptical that such a system would work. There is no need to "reserve
judgement" if you can just test the person, by giving them the privileges
and seeing if they abuse them or not. Then you can pass judgement based on
actual facts rather than guessing. Reserving judgement about granting the
privileges makes sense only if the privileges allow you to do something
irreversible.
No, it also makes sense if the abilities are not ones needed to create or
write articles, but rather merely needed to administer the project. Very
little is truly irreversible, but the amount of effort it takes to repair
damage goes up exponentially with each power added; prudence balances the
damage that can be done with the benefit the power adds. Adding admin
powers to hundreds of new editors, who have gone through almost no vetting
process, will inevitably create all sorts of damage which will almost
certainly outweigh any tangible benefits to the project.
You are repeating the same argument that you made
above: "We shouldn't make
more people admins because we already have enough."
Nonsense. I'm saying we don't need to change the process for making admins,
because we have enough for now, and we are making lots more all the time. A
year from now we will have well over 600 admins, in two years likely well
over 800. We're making people admins all the time.
But not only have I refuted this argument already (it
doesn't hurt to have
more if they don't abuse it),
You can't "refute" an argument by inserting a huge (and likely erroneous)
conditional statement in your "refutation". Yes, it doesn't hurt to have
more IF they don't abuse it; but the whole process of creating admins is
geared towards ensuring that new admins will not be the ones likely to abuse
admin powers, and that's just the process you want to remove.
and there is a
process of voting them in which ensures that they are
generally quite sensible.
Again, so you're assuming that people are "unsensible" until you're
convinced otherwise.
No, I simply don't know if they're sensible.
Right, but you're also denying them the chance to show you that they are.
Nonsense. They can edit productively and comment sensibly, and in so doing
build a track record that indicates they are likely to be a sensible admin
as well.
I do know that
the majority of new editors are "not sensible" in that
they are not familiar with Wikipedia policies and norms, and
therefore regularly violate them. Some editors learn the ropes
quickly; others never do, even after tens of thousands of edits,
either because they are unable to learn them, or unwilling to do so.
Right, so just because some of these people exist, others should be denied
adminship because there is a vague chance they might be one of them. Is
that what you're saying?
What is this "denied adminship"? You say it as if its a fundamental right.
As for "vague chance", try "high likelihood if we relax they requirements
in
the way you suggest".
I do have my reasons for posting this proposal; I
believe that there *is*
a problem. Of course most current admins won't see the problem because
they're already admins. If it's too hard for a new user to become admin,
current admins wouldn't have to care, but it means there *is* a problem.
Huh? The problem is it's too hard for new users to become admin,
therefore it *is* a problem? That's entirely circular.
You're making it sound circular, but it isn't. As soon as someone who
deserves admin powers (because they know the policies, they won't abuse any
powers, they always act in good faith, etc.) cannot get them (because
people vote "oppose -- not enough edits"), there is a problem.
Nonsense. No-one "deserves" admin powers; this is some sort of spillover
from modern Western society's culture of entitlement, and sounds
uncomfortably like those editors who get on Wiken-l and complain that their
"right" to edit Wikipedia and rights to free speech on Wikipedia are being
suppressed. And if editors haven't edited very much, then we can't tell if
they "know the policies,
"won't abuse any powers", and "always act in good faith," because
we haven't
seen them in enough situations to be able to make an informed decision on
that.
How far would you take this argument? Would you say that someone who has
made 20 edits, none of them policy violations, deserves admin powers? How
about 1 edit? But no, you're not saying that, because you've already said
that new editors should not automatically get them. Again, it becomes
apparent that your argument is not that any fundamental principles are being
violated at all, but rather that the bar is being set too high for your
liking.
Changes to
current processes which are currently working well make no
sense,
If a user with >600 edits, >1.5 edits per day, nominated by an existing
admin, and absolutely no history of trouble or ill-behaving for over a
year, cannot become admin, the current process is clearly *not* working
well.
Why not?
Because this user should be an admin.
Again, I remind you that assertions are neither arguments nor proofs.
It seems to me (please correct me if I'm wrong)
that most of your
argumentation is to oppose the idea of abolishing the adminship votes
altogether.
Yes. That, and breaking up admin functions and adding them to the basic
package.
But what do you think about my first proposal, to just
make it so that you
cannot vote "oppose" based on number of edits or any other criterion that
isn't indicative of bad faith or other problematic behaviour?
As stated above, the former is shorthand for "I don't know enough about this
editor yet to trust him with admin powers", and the latter is highly
subjective and easily gamed. I would only support this if "support" votes
were subject to the same restrictions.
Jay.