On 6/18/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 6/18/07, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:
On 6/18/07, Slim Virgin
<slimvirgin(a)gmail.com> wrote:
As I see it, what we need to start doing as a
minimum, is stop
promoting people who've spent a few months hitting revert every few
seconds. That kind of profile tells us nothing about the person, and
it's too easy to build up several accounts that way. And we need to
ditch the "it's no big deal" thing. It's not for us to decide that
it's "no big deal" when hurtful material deleted from Wikipedia ends
up on Wikitruth, just because the material's not about us. The
existence of Wikitruth is a direct consequence of the "it's no big
deal" mentality.
I think it's far too late for that, and that the only solution is to
embrace the "it's no big deal" mentality. Any information which is a
[[clear and present danger]] should be oversighted and taken away from
the view of even the admins.
Then you have to trust the oversighters.
Sure, but you don't need as many oversighters as you do admins. The
vast majority of deletions and undeletions aren't of materials that
pose a clear and present danger. Plus deletion isn't the only task
which requires adminship to perform.
Look, Wikitruth was able to evolve because we regarded
adminship as
"no big deal" while giving admins access to deleted material. That
meant we regarded undeleting deleted material as "no big deal." When
it started happening, we realized that in fact it was biggish, and we
developed oversight, which is restricted to fewer people than
adminship.
But the people with oversight are selected by the community (most of
whom are unknown) from the set of current admins (most of whom are
unknown). So in fact, nothing has changed.
All that has to happen now is for Wikitruth (or anyone else interested
in causing trouble) to get someone on the ArbCom so they have access
to oversight. It's only a matter of time before it happens.
This is the rule of evolution. Niches will be filled. The only way to
thwart it is to anticipate and fill the niches ahead of time. We seem
to be very bad at doing that.
What I am arguing here and elsewhere is that one of the very obvious
niches is that people can get to be admins by hitting revert for a few
months. I think we need to put a stop to that.
I think if you do put a stop to that, Wikipedia won't have enough
admins to handle the tasks at hand.