charles matthews wrote:
No, no. There has to be a connection with a reality principle: bad judgement leads to consequences. Otherwise we cannot get on with the big project. 'Capricious' is managing to look down the telescope the wrong way. There has _always_ been the principle that 'be bold' applies to editing, but admin powers are to use with great caution. I mean, this goes back to the days Larry Sanger was on the project!
<sigh> But Charles, that clearly isn't the principle on which 'penalties' were based. If it were then why did David Gerard receive no penalty? Physchim62? Doc glasgow? MarkSweep?
David Gerard has stated that he did not know that there was already a wheel war going on when he first deleted the template... he saw it and nuked immediately without checking. He also described both the template creator and the person using it as 'vile trolls'... and the people discussing the matter on WP:AN as 'a consensus of the stupid' (paraphrasing in both cases, but accurate) - he has since, laudably, acknowledged that he was surprised to find that they WEREN'T actually trolls and that he (and many of us) could have been more diplomatic. How does all that square with the need for "great caution" which ostensibly got the others into trouble?
El C was clearly not particularly 'cautious' in making nasty comments to Carnildo and retributively blocking him, but received only a "reprimand".
Et cetera.
The fact that every admin who was on 'Jimbo's side' was given a pass (except for El C's 'reprimand') seemed to suggest THAT as the dividing line rather than 'caution'. Yet, of those receiving penalties, only Karmafist took action after Jimbo had stepped in. Hence my statement that most were judged against a standard that did not exist at the time they took their actions. To me the 'cautious' approach would be to follow procedure... NOT indefinitely blocking someone for things not covered under blocking policy and which a strong consensus (whether 'of the stupid' or no) opposed / NOT deleting templates out of process while a vote is going on and no applicable 'speedy' criteria exists (again, T1 was created after the fact). THAT'S cautious. Stopping to discuss and follow process. Mocking such as 'wiki-lawyering' seems to reduce "caution" to 'correctly guessing how the powers that be will rule on the situation'... with none of those nasty 'hand tying' precedents to serve as guides for such a guess. :]