On 5/28/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Well, we may just have to have a secret cabal, and
deal with it.
Openness is exposing people to too much risk.
It's almost but not quite a truism: being open and transparent is more
likely to make people mad at you than being secretive and doing things
behind closed doors. That is the reason, not maliciousness, cabals
typically form in the real world. I think the level of openness and
transparency in Wikipedia (and I would distinguish it from Wikimedia,
the organization) is exemplary and should be retained. However, given
the ever increasing amount of outside harassment, I think it would be
fair to add a note to [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship]] that
becoming an admin may expose you to such harassment, regardless of
your actions.
There are plenty of people, myself included, who don't mind dealing
with that kind of thing. I've been called a "child molester" on WR, am
a proud member of the "Hive Mind", have been accused repeatedly in
lengthy rants off-Wikimedia of being a "corrupt admin", etc. It goes
with the territory. I'm a freelancer without family, so there are very
few ways in which a person on the Internet can harm me -- and my
feelings don't get hurt if someone whose opinion doesn't matter to me
harasses me.
Erik