geni wrote:
2009/2/12 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
Indeed. As I suggested, a small amount of enforcement of good behaviour amongst the admins by the ArbCom will go a long way to getting all admins to behave in a more fitting manner. As Lar pointed out, the admin bit is so much of "no big deal" that people will do anything not to lose it.
No. Arbcom needs one of a pretty narrow set of Casus bellis to even act. There are quite a selection of problematical actions an admin can carry out that arbcom will never be a realistic threat against. In theory this kind of thing should be prevented by other admins but that isn't always too effective.
People have thought that in the past - that the ArbCom won't act against admins doing certain things - and they have been wrong. Your theory is more like wishful thinking from the admin side: there is a tariff, there are procedural things that are constants. In other words the old business of a system that can be gamed in some ways, because it is too rigid. David is essentially correct, and it is faitly obvious that sanctions have a deterrent effect on most people (though not all).
Charles