* Mark Gallagher wrote:
While I agree with the general idea of what you've
been saying since
your RfA passed, I think you could do with being a little less smug
while you're saying it.
Heh, 'since my RFA passed'... and well before it. As to 'smug', not my
intent, but someone once told me that I 'use sarcasm the way most people
use punctuation'. I'm not sure they meant it to be the great compliment
that I took it for. Accuse me of arrogance and I'll accuse >you< of
perceptiveness. :]
You haven't dealt with the same sorts of issues
that other admins have.
Now, it's not necessary to fight trolls, regularly clean up heavy
vandalism, mediate bloody disputes, etc., to be an admin, so that's no
slight on you.
You are mistaken. I have dealt with heavy vandalism and bloody disputes
and trolls in great degree for many years. Granted, much of that was off
Wikipedia or before I became an admin for the stuff ON Wikipedia, but this
image you project of me as someone unfamiliar with such conflict and
dispute would be shocking to those who know me better. As you noted, I've
been dealing more with article issues of late, but that isn't the sum of
my background nor my only area of involvement on Wikipedia.
I think admins have a responsibility to be civil and
polite *on
Wikipedia* at all times; I think the better admins out there go one
better and are actually *pleasant* to deal with. This is what I aim
for; I often fall short of that goal, but it's there nevertheless. It
can be very difficult to maintain one's temper when dealing with
problematic users. That's a Bad Thing, true, but it would be nice if
those criticising had some understanding of the difficulty.
Again, you seem to think I DON'T have, "some understanding of the
difficulty"... at which point I'd invite you to review my interactions
with Pigsonthewing, Karmafist, Selina, Freestylefrappe, et cetera. As I
mentioned earlier in this thread, I've been kicking around on the 'net for
a couple of decades now. It is not >possible< to do that and NOT gain an
'understanding' of the difficulty of keeping your temper in check when
dealing with some netizens. I've been stalked around the net, received
threats and real life harassment, and have the special 'privilege' of
being despised above all others by an infamous 'net kook. Trust me... I
'get' it. We're all human and sometimes people get under our skin. I don't
exempt myself from that... if anything I'm 'by nature' of the same sort as
the admins I'm objecting to, I've just had alot (really really really
ALOT) of practice in phrasing, 'Die you farging bastage!' as, 'I see and
appreciate your point, but feel there may be other issues you might wish
to consider'.
Often a polite, private message will
work wonders. Standing by and pointing the finger and saying "you see
what bastards these people on Wikipedia are?" is *not* going to improve
anyone's behaviour, administrator or not. It is an oft-repeated tragedy
that people who are absolutely correct can be ignored, simply because
the way that they make their points gets people off-side immediately.
Please consider this; if the point you're making is important to you, it
will be worth your while to change your mode of delivery.
Entirely true. However, I am not (primarily) TRYING to nudge individual
admins towards greater civility. It is inevitable that admins will from
time to time be uncivil. The greater problem, in my opinion, is that the
admin COMMUNITY largely accepts and allows these incidents without comment
or repercussion... to the point that they have become somewhat
commonplace. I would like to see a collective rather than individual
change... and that requires public demonstration of the problem. It simply
isn't possible to make a case for a global shift through individual
appeals. I believe that a change in the culture and standards of adminship
would do more to reduce such incidents than I could possibly accomplish
through 'individual counseling'. Not that there is no merit in such... I
do that quite a bit also, but I think a different method is needed for
this issue.