Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:12:49 -0400
From: Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] VIP Treatment
> Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 11:07:03 -0600 (MDT)
> From: "Fred Bauder" <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] VIP Treatment
>
>> why should they
>> bother
>> politely pointing someone to OTRS, much less spend time and effort
trying
>> to be diplomatic themselves?
>>
>> Sxeptomaniac
>
> Because they are decent capable people, take pride in doing a good
> job,
> and are concerned about the accuracy and reputation of Wikipedia.
>
> Fred
>
on 9/12/12 2:58 PM, Matthew Jacobs at sxeptomaniac(a)gmail.com wrote:
Oh
really? So why do we have to desysop admins? Were they "misusing
their
tools" in a "decent capable" way? Was it part of "doing a good
job"?
Were
they desysopped for being "concerned about the accuracy and reputation
of
Wikipedia"?
I can understand if you think I'm overstating the problem, but I find
it
ridiculous that you would deny the obvious: some people are drawn to
adminship for the wrong reasons, and some maybe even for the right
reasons,
but choose to act on them in a short-sighted way.
No RFA process, no
matter
how good, will ever be able to fully weed out
people who really
shouldn't
be admins. The problem is, WP has no mechanism for dealing with those
who
turn out to not exemplify what an administrator should be, but stop
short
of actually breaking rules.
Sxeptomaniac
Agreed. But how could such a mechanism be created given the existing
structure of the Project?
marc Riddell
I've seen a lot of complicated RfA proposals, as well as community
desysop
procedures, and I really think the simplest solution would be for
Adminship
to no longer be a lifetime appointment. Make it for terms of one or two
years, with no limit on the number of terms, and no requirement to
re-apply. It simply means that admins remain accountable to the community,
giving them an incentive to remain polite and fair, to the best of their
ability. I don't buy the arguments that "good admins will never be
re-appointed", as good admins may make a few enemies, but they'll gain
even
more supporters. I also believe that the community could easily adapt to
manage the increase in RfAs.
To be clear, there is no perfect solution, but I think that instituting
admin terms would be a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, I also
don't think the community will ever accept such a major change, as it's
become far to conservative regarding policy.