This is a reasonable concern. I remember some time ago -- several months or a year -- when there was an edit war on a particular page and an administrator joined in with a message like this: "What's the trouble here? I am a sysop -- let's sort this out." Indeed, this was a very inappropriate use of the position. However, a number of other sysops pretty quickly chastised the person in question for projecting power in this way.
I think the only reasonable solution to this problem -- and my response to your concern -- is that sysops should act as "police" in one particular regard: we have a responsibility to police ourselves against this kind of abuse of power.
New contributors need to learn all sorts of stuff when they come to wikipedia -- from the ~~~ trick to the sometimes subtle NPOV policy. I think their learning what a sysop is and isn't is just one more of those things.
Steve
At 02:34 PM 5/23/2003 -0700, you wrote:
--- "steven l. rubenstein" rubenste@ohiou.edu wrote:
Let's not get bogged down in semantics. This may be a case where an analogy to sysop is neither needed nor helpful. After all, judges under certain circumstances have a lot of power, and police often listen to different sides in a dispute, act as mediators, and are themselves policed. If we continue on this track we may end up having a very interesting and informative conversation about the differences between police, judges, and I would then add to the mix constables. But if we are having a discussion as sysop, I have three comments.
- I never sought out the position of sysop but
given that it implied a certain amount of trust by a segment of the community I didn't feel I could turn it down. When I first saw my new screen, with all the powers suddenly at my disposal, I really felt overwhelmed, almost dizzy. Of course my first act was to abuse the power -- although I was the only victim of that abuse. I have recently had an experience where I have been sorely tempted to put a block on a page and ban a user. Obviously I did not. But -- and I realize this may be of little interest to most of you -- so far I see being a sysop as a sort of zen exercise in accepting and renouncing power.
- But I have also deleted a couple of pages, and I
know some others have been very active in this. I wanted to ban one user with what I thought was good cause, and someone else did it the next day. Since virtually everyone in the community saw that person as a pest more than as a member of the community, I'd say -- if we really must have an analogy -- I'd compare sysop to house-cleaner.
- Whether sysop is a mop or a cop, either way I see
the role as being an agent of the community. If I understand the deal right now, there is virtually nothing a sysop can do that cannot be undone by another administrator; it seems to me that virtually all sysops, if they ever act, do so when they have a sense from the community.
Anyway, aside from my periodic zen moments, it does seem to me that the job is mostly about tidying up. It seems to me that anyone can do this on a limited basis (by editing -- just like we don't expect the maid or custodian to do all cleaning), and that the other tasks (e.g. cultivating NPOV) really are for the whole community, sysop or not.
Steve
Yeah, I guess that makes more sense than an anology. But I just realised that sysops have another, rarely used power. Sysops have power just from their name "sysop". If a sysop tells a bunch of non-sysops something, and they haven't heard the type of conversation on the mailing list (ie don't know that sysops aren't this exclusive band of 5 people who go around fixing the server and banning people), they'd probably listen to you more than a non-sysop. I don't think this power is actually used by anyone other than jimbo, though. --LittleDan
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