On 3/7/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/7/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'm sick and tired of people misunderstanding what an "administrator" of Wikipedia is. It was a misnomer to begin with, and we've had nothing but trouble with this name ever since. Users misunderstand it (and ask admins to make editorial decisions). Media misunderstand it (and either do not explain it, or connect it to power and influence). And it's no wonder. "Administrator" could refer to a manager, or someone appointed by a court; it typically describes someone in an important official position.
It's true that "admin" is a bad name for the role. However, it's also true that it's a bad role, which blends all kinds of different priveleges together. For example, allowing admins to edit protected pages (a content role), banning people (a policing role), editing mediawiki pages (development) and viewing deleted pages (purely an issue of trust).
I think you've hit the nail on the head. Admins are asked to make editorial decisions because they're essentially the only ones with the power to make those decisions (even if we say they don't have the authority to do so).
If admins don't make editorial decisions, and Wikipedia is not a democracy (editorial decisions aren't made by majority vote), then who makes the editorial decisions?
Frankly I think this is one place where Citizendium got it right, and by that I mean separating the admins (constables) from the editors (who make editorial decisions). I don't mean to imply that their method for choosing editors (reliance on credentials) is necessarily appropriate, just that their approach of having someone there in the first place to make these decisions, is.
Anthony