[WikiEN-l] Requirements for Adminship

[K P]

On 2/19/07, Jossi Fresco <jossifresco at mac.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Feb 19, 2007, at 11:58 AM, Rich Holton wrote:
>
> > If an experienced admin is "swaggering" and abusing power, then that
> > admin is causing an asymmetric amount of damage to the project; not
> > the
> > kind of damage a vandal can cause, but damage none-the-less. We
> > need to
> > have effective and efficient ways to curtail that kind of damage, just
> > like we need effective and efficient ways to curtail the damage a
> > vandal
> > causes.
>
> Are we editing the same Wikipedia? I have not seen such "swaggering"
> and "abuse of power" but in exceptional cases.
>
> -- Jossi


But earlier you had to discredit me personally and my contribution to
Wikipedia in order to support admins, so I have to wonder if you're
looking.   I do think that most of the administrators on Wikipedia can be
supported for the jobs they do, without discrediting casual contributors.
But look around, look at user RfC and review some of the admins who have
been up there.   There is plenty of obvious swaggering.

Wikipedia is huge.  There are places on Wikipedia you've probably never
imagined.  The rampant nationalism on Wikipedia is staggering.  And much of
it is supported by entrenched pet administrators.  Although this is slowly
working itself out in certain areas, for one FAR is taking some of these
pages down, and others may be held up by a stricter FAC.

There are also a lot of administrators who go above and beyond the call of
duty, like one poor guy who stepped in to edit an article posted for
deletion, got his solid edits reverted, got personally attacked by article's
owners and his 8 sock puppets, then recruited other editors to fix the
article while being attacked by these idiot socks!

But he's not the problem.  The problem and issue is the overall damage to
Wikipedia by the presence of administrators who do abuse their power, and is
the system broke, and can it be fixed if it is?

If there is a problem, denying it doesn't address it any better than
attacking the messenger.  Particularly when a large part of the problem is
the denial of a problem, and an entrenched culture that prevents reviews and
solutions to the problem.

KP