George Herbert wrote:
People who are causing a problem but have "aware
friends" - people who
know them and know AN and ANI and policy ok - rarely get driven off.
Their friends post an ANI thread if they're blocked excessively, or go
to the admin and advocate moderation, or go to another administrator
and advocate moderation, etc.
Once one becomes known to someone in that set of people, actually
"driving someone away from Wikipedia" becomes exponentially more
difficult, if anyone supports the problem case at all.
In the real world that might be called corruption, or in some cases
nepotism. Perhaps when there is a dispute between an admin and a
non-admin leading to disciplinary action for both being at fault, the
penalty for the admin should be doubled.
I almost wish we had an admin action review board,
whose job it was to
say just quickly look at some fraction (10%? 1%?) of all admin
actions and see if they're documented, justified, reasonable etc and
give the admins feedback, request more writeup, ask for
reconsideration etc.
That's a possibility. Included among these sins could be impersonal
behaviour and messages full of jargon.
Key question - in terms of hostility, do people think
that hostility
to new editors is more from admins, more from self appointed
gatekeepers, more from normal users interacting hostiley in a small
article space?
Probably a combination of the first two. The gatekeepers will often see
themselves as future admins. If they know about the RfA process they
will quickly learn what it takes to become an admin. The gauntlet that
must be run there imparts adminship with highly prestigious status.
Oldtimers can keep repeating that adminship is no big deal, but the
actual process tells a different story. I would place the bulk of the
responsibility for perpetuating hostility with the admins. They should
know better; they should set the example; if they fail to do so they
should be treated more harshly. The "normal" user expressing hostility
within a narrow set of articles is less of a problem; his adversaries
are often as well versed in the topic area as he is. His biases are
more easily identifiable, in contrast with the one who reacts
impersonally across an unlimited range of articles seeking strict
application of rules over areas where he knows nothing.
Ec