On 2/19/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Jossi Fresco wrote:
On Feb 19, 2007, at 11:58 AM, Rich Holton wrote:
If an experienced admin is "swaggering" and abusing power, then that admin is causing an asymmetric amount of damage to the project; not the kind of damage a vandal can cause, but damage none-the-less. We need to have effective and efficient ways to curtail that kind of damage, just like we need effective and efficient ways to curtail the damage a vandal causes.
Are we editing the same Wikipedia? I have not seen such "swaggering" and "abuse of power" but in exceptional cases.
If that's the case why are the exceptional cases dominating the conversation? Are the admins so powerless that they can't control their renegades?
Ec
No! They're not so powerless. However, it's strongly to their disadvantage to do anything to control their renegades. Because .... adminship is such a damned big deal, no one who ever got it would ever risk losing it, and anyone losing it, increases the chances of scrutiny in too many ways on others who hold the power--any time any administrator loses the tools, editors notice they're not infallible, editors may question other administrators.
Adminship is not in practice what it was intended, I think, to be. I don't think it was intended to be a big deal. I don't think it was intended to be a position of power so much as an additional set of duties that certain dedicated users could control. But I think it warped into a big deal power play. And human beings have shown through history that they will do anything, up to and including destroying their own power base/country/mission to keep their personal power.
They're not so powerless that they can't control them, they're so powerful that they won't control them for fear of their own power being curtailed.
Also there's no purpose in discussing the non-exceptional cases. There are plenty of administrators who do a great job. Plenty of editors, too, who crawl around on the fringes doing a great job with articles--hopefully someone gives them a barnstar. This is the best part of Wikipedia: the anybodies who are doing great work. But I don't think Wikipedia overall is maintaining a welcoming atmosphere for the potentially huge variety of people needed to reach its ultimate goal, and part of the problem is, imo, the insufferable poweropoly of adminship. It's designed to not foster self-reflection.
KP