[WikiEN-l] Civility poll results

[Charles Matthews]

Surreptitiousness wrote:
> I'd offer the view that an admin who gets involved as one party in a 
> long series of trolling may not be suited to the role either.  It could 
> be taken to suggest the admin has an issue with knowing when to step 
> back, or possibly even too much self-belief in their own righteousness 
> to be bordering on arrogance. Both of these would indicate an 
> unsuitability to the role.  
I'd agree to the extent that there is a point at which any admin should 
be looking for the right kind of help (outside admin assistance, from 
people who are clearly uninvolved neutrals). It is not a good sign if an 
admin ploughs on unaided, in a difficult situation.

<snip>
> Any admin who thinks their 
> solution is the only way is wrong, and any arbitration committee that 
> thinks Wikipedia would be worse off losing an admin is wrong. We all 
> live in the real world, we all acknowledge there are times we get chewed 
> out even though we did everything right, just because sometimes that's 
> the way the cookie crumbles. Sometimes you take one on the chin to keep 
> up appearances. Life is full of hard decisions, and Wikipedia isn't 
> going to be any different.  We need people on the arbitration committee 
> who are aware that justice can't only be done, it needs to be seen to be 
> done. The last part is the harder part, and the committee has to my mind 
> often failed in that sense by being, as you say, sympathetic with 
> admins. 
I can't go into private discussions I know about, obviously. I've 
several times made public my view that we should give admins plenty of 
discretion, and balance that by a small number of de-sysops. So I agree 
pretty much with what you say. "Sympathy" needs to be in the way of a 
full understanding of the job description, not in continuing admins who 
really don't match that description. The counter-argument, though, is 
that the "community" will not accept certain tough decisions; in other 
words there will be some adverse comment. Sometimes there is much more 
to these situations than meets the eye.

Charles

Charles