On Thu, 8 Feb 2007 18:29:54 -0800, "George Herbert" george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
We're doing terribly at keeping identified, overstressed admins from ending up going over the edge. What are we doing wrong, or what do we need to learn to do right?
Ultimately the only way to fix this is probably to be more willing to chuck out people who resolutely refuse to follow policy. Look at the crap Carnildo got simply because he was bot-tagging images which violate our copyright policies. A lot of Alkivar's problem is that there are quite a few editors who flatly refuse to accept that an image scraped off the net somewhere is not an inherently legitimate illustration for any vaguely related article. That's probably the biggest cause of friction.
The second major cause of admin burnout in my opinion is trying to keep insidious POV pushers and off-wiki warriors apart. As soon as you step in and prevent one action, you are immediately seen as "involved" and are no longer trusted by the other side - the best that can happen is when both sides decide you are biased against them. Wikipedia is the number 1 destination for people seeking to fix problems without he outside world, and the editors who come here to pursue these agendas have endless time to pursue them. Caring even slightly about the neutrality of the project means that you *will* get stress.
The third biggest cause of friction is groups who believe they "deserve" a Wikipedia article because they are so great, even though there are no reliable secondary sources. I am getting crap at the moment about the General Mayhem forum, which is of surpassing significance to its members and (as far as I can tell) nobody else.
Guy (JzG)