(continuation from Part 1, preceding.)
I never sought the desysopping of JzG, as an example, and didn't
argue for it for WMC. I argued for *suspension* until the admin
assured ArbComm that he would not repeat the use of tools while
involved. JzG's actions had been egregious, and still ArbComm was
unwilling to ask for assurances. Behind this, I'm sure, was an
impression that JzG would have considered it an insult. But it should
be routine. Indeed, ArbComm bans editors all the time when it could
simply ask for *voluntary assurances.* And even more are community
banned under a similar failure. Voluntary compliance, negotiated with
respect, is far less likely to build up sustained resentments, than
bullying and blocking.
These are all really obvious principles, but it's been amazing to see
what oppositino they aroused when they were brought up before
ArbComm. ArbComm remained silent on them, and on what was said in
response. ArbComm mostly functions as a passive body, but then it
does something different and becomes very active. It depends on whose
ox is being gored.
> The problem, as I have defined it, is of negative voting. The
>sheer suspicion of those who apparently want the mop-and-bucket. (And
>anyway, I obviously was using "well-adjusted" in the sense of "round peg
>in a round hole", not as a comment on anything else.)
If it's easy to revoke, it would obviously be easier to grant.
Indeed, the supermajority standard is a problem. You propose that an
administrator might avoid being "shot at" if the admin avoids
controversial areas. So, to become an admin, avoid controversial
areas! But, then, we don't know how the admin will behave when
involved in controversy.
The same arguments that are applied to, say, required reconfirmation
of administrators, should apply to granting adminship in the first
place. If an editor has tacked difficulties, the issue should be how
the editor did it, not how many people were offended. If the editor
needlessly inflamed the topic, that's a problem, for sure, and could
betray that there could be problems as an administrator. But if the
editor calmed the conflict, with only a few die-hards then resenting
the intervention or involvement, it should be a positive mark. There
is no substitute for actually examining the record, if the record matters.
In fact, it shouldn't matter much, and here is why: adminship should
routinely be granted based on an agreed-upon mentorship, with an
active administrator. I'd suggest, in fact, that any admin who
approves of the adminship would be allowed to do what a mentor could
do, but an agreed-upon mentor would be taking on the responsibility.
So if anyone has a complaint about the admin's actions, they have
someone to go to for review, without going to a noticeboard and some
possible flame war there. They can even do it privately, by email.
That's how WP DR structure is supposed to work, it's supposed to
start small. I've been amazed to see how few understand this!
Given administrative supervision, with any supervising admin being
able to go directly to a bureaucrat or steward and request removal of
the tools, if necessary, there is no reason to disapprove of almost
anyone, and a discussion would only take place to the extent that it
would be an opportunity to express objections. The closing bureaucrat
might, indeed, review those, but numbers would not matter. What would
matter would be (1) no sign of *likely* abuse, and (2) the presence
of effective supervision.
At Wikiversity, this is apparently done, though I don't know all the
details. There is then, after a time on probation, a "full adminship"
discussion. (There is no difference in the tool settings between the
two, an admin on probation has full tools, the only difference is a
responsible mentor.) But with a more detailed structure, there might
not be the need for "full adminship." I'd say that every
administrator should have a "recall committee," a set of editors who
are both trusted by the admin and by the community to correct the
admin if he or she veers off-course. Only when this process fails,
perhaps because of too-close alignment of the admin and the recall
committee, would it be necessary to escalate to broader discussions.
Ultimately, we should go back and set this up for existing
administrators. This should, in reality, only be a problem for
administrators who believe that they should have no supervision at
all. That's a problem in itself. And I'm leaving the details of how
such a committee would be formed, and how admins who have become part
of it are replaced as they vanish, as many do, to a later discussion
and, of course, ultimately, to the community if it ever starts to go
here. I'm just proposing ideas to show that there might be some
possible solution, and with no pretense that my ideas are the last
word. I really do believe in the power of informed consensus, and the
only kind of consensus that I have a problem with is when it is
inadequately informed and is (quite likely as a linked condition) too
narrow, with too few participants. But fully informed consensus that
is real consensus with only a relatively small number is unlikely to
be reversed by broader discussion.
This is why thorough discussion at the lowest possible level, seeing
true consensus, is actually efficient, and only seems otherwise to
someone who doesn't know how to (1) maximize its effeciency by using
the debate to create a FAQ so that the same issues don't get debated
over and over and over, and/or (2) doesn't want to discuss, but also
doesn't trust what will happen if he or she stands aside and, say,
simply raises the issue in Talk and then lets go or also raises it on
a WikiProject. Instead, what tends to happen is that someone who
isn't willing to actually discuss goes to a noticeboard and claims
that an opposing editor is being "tendentious." It works, too often!
Noticeboards aren't supposed to resolve content issues, at least not
AN and AN/I, and admins are not supposed to resolve content disputes
with the use of tools, but you cannot judge tendentiousness and
distinguish it from, say, an expert patiently explaining an issue
over and over and then perhaps becoming angry at meeting ignorant
insistance for an editor or two, accompanied by revert warring by
them. The expert is, of course, very likely an SPA, and is actually,
often, COI, and so is easily seen as someone to be excluded. And thus
one more expert joins the ranks of blocked or banned experts, I've
seen it happen many times. Sometimes it gets fixed, but often not.
And that damage accumulates, unless admins take an active role in
actually resolving disputes instead of judging them. The power of
judgment is not a police power! Discretion is, but that's distinct.
Good police officers, when they encounter people fighting or about to
fight, will separate them and normally only arrest someone if there
has been injury, or the person resists separation and won't stop. If
it's neighborhood police, they may sometimes help people to resolve
their dispute, not by judging it, but by pointing to resources and by
perhaps saying some kind words to both sides, encouraging them to
work out the problem.
And the rest of this is about personal history, and is an aside.
On Wikipedia, I was able to to this a few times, it was quite
successful, and it avoided one or both of the parties from being
blocked, they were headed for that, and they turned into cooperating
editors. And this is the work that was directly prohibited by ArbComm
in my MYOB ban. I was never able to figure out the sense of this ban,
because there were no allegations of improper behavior related to
it.... I think that the reality was that many simply wanted me to
shut up. But they didn't make that clear, and what they did was
something different that turned out to be quite unclear. It was
eventually made clear enough that I simply stopped editing Wikipedia,
for the most part, but the later "clear" interpretation was very
different from the original sanction.
And ArbComm's last reponse wasn't really an interpretation, it was
more in the nature of advice that I should stop doing anything
controversial, whether or not it was covered by the ban, and ArbComm
only began, haltingly, to address the fact that I was being hauled
before Arbitration Enforcement, again and again, by the same editors,
two of them parties to the original arbitration, for stuff that
wasn't actually found to be a ban violation when ArbComm was asked,
and without any showing at all of *actual harm.* I'd made comments,
for example, that either were or became the consensus in a poll, and
supposedly I was allowed to comment in polls. ArbComm, however, and
many editors and administrators, tend to assume that if there are a
number of editors and administrators yelling at one editor, that one
editor *must* be doing something wrong. It's an assumption that is
often efficient, it's probably right more often than not, but when it
fails, there goes any ability to benefit from a whistleblower. And so
serious problems can continue for years.... as they did in the cases
where I was involved. I was confronting what I called a "cabal," by
which I meant exactly what Lar has been asserting recently about the
same general group of editors, a "mutually-involved faction." I made
my meaning clear, but, somehow, some arbitrators actually asserted
that I *really* meant something else, and then I was sanctioned for
not backing up what I didn't mean and did not assert.... go figure!
And all this was considered so hot that all the Evidence and the
Workship was blanked. Mostly the Evidence that I put up was just edit
histories showing involvement in a field. Almost none of it showed
actually reprehensible conduct, because I wasn't attempting to get
anyone sanctioned, and only WMC confronted for long-term use of tools
while involved. But I had to explain, I believed, why there were a
dozen editors filling up the RfAr with Abd did this and Abd did that,
which was actually irrelevant to the filed case, but the "mutual
involvement" showed why these editors would care so much. They were
not neutral. And then, of course, if I tried to respond to evidence
presented against me, my responses became voluminous. ArbComm, quite
simply, had not, and probably still has not, developed methods to
deal efficiently with factional conflict. I was, I believe, standing
up for community consensus (and that's becoming apparent as more
people become aware of what had been happening), but when the
community is mostly not paying attention in a field, someone who does
that can seem to be an isolated pov-pusher or tendentious in other
ways, if faced with a faction. I had beeen quite careful. I didn't
drag people to noticeboards, I simply discussed edits in Talk, and
was being successful in shifting article consensus, being opposed by
revert warring from about only one editor, for the most part. (In the
last incident, I had 0RR, he had 3 and then self-reverted, added a
pile of blatantly POV material to the lede, then went to RfPP and
requested protection because of edit warring, when he was the
principal edit warrior. And succeeded. And that's what had just
happened when I was banned by WMC. For? He didn't say! Positions that
went to mediation, of mine, were confirmed. In spite of serious
opposition from the same set of editors, whitelistings I requested
were granted. I wasn't getting anyone blocked or banned, and wasn't
asking for it, but they sure wanted me out of there! And that, alone,
should have been a clue. But it takes time and effort to understand
these complex situations, it's much easier to make a quick judgment,
decide whom to ban, and be done with it. But that tendency, then,
preserves conflict and prevents genuine consensus from forming.
I personally don't care, the Wikipedia articles, even on subjects
very dear to me, aren't that important, and Wikipedia is not a safe
place to put content that requires work to create. I'm actually
grateful to be rid of any idea that I have a responsibility to edit.
(I'm not banned or blocked anywhere, by the way, just en.wiki topic
banned on Cold fusion, where I've become an expert and COI, I'm
actually in business selling research materials, and there is this
weird MYOB ban in place, which was allowing a few editors to
constantly harass me by claiming I was "commenting on disputes" even
if I didn't make any comments at all, but just an ordinary edit that
reflected apparent consensus... and anything that could be
wikilawyered into a ban violation was, so... given that there was no
initiative to address the real source of the disruption (once upon a
time there would have been, but those editors had all disappeared), I
just stopped editing entirely.
I was much more interested in Wikipedia process and the principles of
consensus and neutrality, and how to facilitate them, toward the goal
of the overall project. Until that goal becomes more important than
whatever it is that occupies the active core, I don't see much hope.
People like Lar and others do see some of the problem, but they,
sooner or later, burn out and leave. I had, at one point, three
arbitrators who did understand, for the most part, my goals. But, of
course, they always recused, and one rather promptly resigned. My
original MYOB ban provided for a mentor to allow me to participate in
discussion. Fritzpoll had volunteered to be my mentor, during the
case. Denied as not needed since there was no mentorship requirement.
But, in fact, there was! Then, later, Fritzpoll ran for and was
elected to ArbComm. Because the issue of mentorship had come up,
because it was mentioned in the ban, he again volunteered, privately,
to ArbComm. It was denied, he was told that arbitrators could not be
mentors. That was odd, since he and two other arbitrators were
already recusing when anything involving me came up! This was the
reality: there were many who simply wanted me, as I wrote before, me
to shut up. Many arbitrators. A majority? Maybe. But would that
majority have insisted on it if it became obvious what was going on?
My organizational theory says, no, not likely. But as long as this
kind of motive could take cover under some other seemingly reasonable
excuse, it would be maintained. Arbitrators have always been
administrators and are, quite understandably, uncomfortable with an
editor who has been a primary party in two ArbComm cases and which
have resulted in censure or desysopping. It's instinctive, protect-our-own.
I was disappointed that the arbitrators who recused (a total of
three, I think) didn't then present arguments and evidence. I know
what they knew. I know more about the situation that I'm not
disclosing, because of personal confidences revealed to me that I
don't have permission to reveal. My general position on ArbComm is
that necessary support structure has not been created, so arbitrators
are faced with a much more difficult task than is necessary. They
don't have time to do the research necessary to uncover what evidence
is good and what isn't. So decisions tend to become matters of quick
impressions, and that's a setup for bad decisions, and I've seen some
doozies. Not involving me.