On 5/29/06, Nick Boalch n.g.boalch@durham.ac.uk wrote:
Conrad Dunkerson wrote:
Look around at your fellow admins from time to time and ask yourself... is there ANY way this person could pass an RFA at this point? If the answer is 'no' then the de facto situation is that a person who does NOT have the support or respect of the community has powers which are only supposed to be held by those who DO... and that inherently breeds disruption and resentment and ongoing damage to Wikipedia as a whole.
I don't think that is a particularly fair test. As is obvious, admins are occasionally called upon to perform actions that upset people -- I don't think admins should shrink from making those hard choices.
I can think of several thoroughgoingly solid admins, people who temper a good knowledge of policy with a healthy dose of knowing that what we're here to do is write an encyclopaedia, who I doubt would pass an RfA because they've done things that have made them controversial or unpopular in certain sectors of the community.
The community giveth, and the community taketh away -- but it taketh away under the auspices of proper consideration by the arbitration committee, not by having unpopular admins strung up by a baying lynchmob.
I agree with this. Funnily enough, I originally read RFA as "request for arbitration" and agreed with the comment. I don't think admins necessarily need to enjoy broad-based popularity, but they do need the support of the most experienced Wikipedians, including arbitors. No one expects police to be popular - but you do expect them to have the support of the people who appoint them.
Steve