[WikiEN-l] The admin problem

[John Lee]

Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Admins must be held to a higher standard of behaviour than a simple 
>user.  For example, if a policy allows any admin to block a user for a 
>maximum of 24 hours, there isabsolutely no excuse for blocks that exceed 
>that length of time.  Perhaps that admin himself should be blocked for 
>the amount of the excess time.  I would not go so far as to support 
>having ALL admin actions immedialtely revertible, but the ones that 
>aren't should be clearly defined.  Where an admin has removed a clearly 
>libellous statement from an article the discussion should happen first.
>
>Ec
>  
>
Eek, sorry for the half-baked reply earlier. Stupid computers...

Anyway, I think those ideas are terrible. Process is important, but it 
should not be fetishised. Blocking people for being pricks is one thing, 
but lying about it and using the excuse of "blocking for imposing a 
block exceeding 24 hours" is stupid and crazy. Has everyone gone mad 
over the [[literal rule]] lately? Whatever happened to the [[mischief 
rule]]? Our policies exist only because there tends to be a 1:1 
correlation between the targets of their remedies and people being 
dicks. Now people seem to think this correlation can hold, even if we 
start developing policies with loopholes begging for trolls to demand 
someone be sanctioned for "violating policy". In the end, process exists 
as a guide to ferreting out the dicks in the community. It is not meant 
to be used to find people you can label dicks and then sanction for 
doing something else entirely.

I should also remind you that blocks are not meant to be punitive. I 
find the idea of punishing an admin for a mistake by blocking utterly 
ludicrous. Either the admin made a mistake, is compulsively a 
mistake-maker/dick acting in good faith (not going to name names...), or 
is just a plain dick acting in bad faith. The latter should be dealt 
with by the arbcom or common sense; the two former categories *may* be 
dealt with in a similar manner, but not always.

John