With all this hubbub about admins and making more admins with no
criteria and why shouldn't we just bump everyone up a level! and all
that jazz, I think it is high time we evaluate what admins need to be
or do to be successful. Then from there, in my opinion, we can lower
the bar, leave things as they are, or continue to pursue this
everyone's an admin!!! deal. (Sorry if I've inserted my POV too much
into the preceding paragraph)
So. This is how I see it.
Admins must:
be neutral, above all else.
when they block
when they protect
when they delete
recuse when they are unable to be neutral
have the understanding of policy to know when it is objectively okay
to block/protect/delete
be able to judge consensus
not be a timebomb
Therefore, admin candidates must:
demonstrate they can participate in discussions in which they have
no personal invested interest, with positive effect to those who do
have personal invested interest
demonstrate they know the difference between their opinion,
consensus, and the Truth (which doesn't exist on wiki)
demonstrate they recognize their own bias and will refuse to act
upon it
To be honest, I have no idea how they would demonstrate this. But
perhaps if we switched to a system of vouching, whereby different
people would say "I have worked with this user and they have always
been neutral in disputes and blahblahblah." like the nomination,
except more of them. And no edit counts and no FAs and no namespace
distribution. If one is cautious enough to always work within policy,
one will always check unknown policies before doing anything one has
never done before. And then perhaps once the candidate has enough
people vouching for them, they're promoted.
Or maybe something completely different. But in my opinion, adminship
is not edit counts and vandal fighting; it's dealing with things as a
neutral agent of the 'pedia. Well, at least when one has one's admin
hat on.
--keitei