On 7/4/05, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
There are many axis to consider harm. For example, after making 2000+ edits, failing to abuse procedure, no vandalism, etc.. A user goes up for adminship and is denied. We have 500 admins, why not one more? *Most* people would feel hurt by that.
I'd call that harm.
Obviously we can't just make everyone admins because their feelings would be hurt otherwise... but I think that in cases where a user is likely to abuse the tools after they've been around long enough for 2k edits that it is abundantly clear. In these cases we see unanimous or near unanimous opposition.
In other cases, I think we should give the user a chance to prove themselves as an admin. That the risk of a vandal becoming an admin is infinitesimal at that point, and the the risk of bruising a valuable editors ego is more important.
If an editor's ego is bruised by failing their first RfA, then I'd say that either their ego is too fragile for them to be a good admin, or they bring too much ego to the project in the first place.
Reaction to a failed admin bid is probably the best indicator of who's likely to be a good or bad admin. Too bad we can't see that reaction before selecting admins. ;-)