Slim Virgin wrote:
On 5/29/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
I am far more worried that one of Merkey's anon detractors claims that they just got past RFA with another as-yet-unnamed account ...
Quite a few groups are claiming to have succeeded in getting RfAs through, and in some cases more than one admin account per person, because the process has become almost completely formulaic. It's one of the reasons I don't like to see high article edit counts (with minor edits) and low talk-page interaction, because that's one of the ways they claim to get them through. (And that's not a comment on Gracenotes, before anyone interprets it that way.)
I don't know what the solution is, because a large chunk of the community still argues that adminship's no big deal, which means there's no will to check who's being given it.
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Well, remember, Jimbo Said So(TM), as far as "not a big deal" goes. But hey, I'll say it. It's a pretty big deal. Otherwise, we'd just let anyone at all do it.
It's often argued that "admins can't do anything that's not reversible". Technically speaking, that's true. Blocks can be lifted, deletions can be restored, rollbacks can be reverted, and so on. Realistically speaking, it's not. A poorly-executed admin can cause a ton of drama and bad will, even if it is later reversed. Administrative consensus is also a very powerful thing, and admins must be very careful to make reasoned decisions and be willing to carefully consider objections to them.
If these things are not done, it can eventually result in good editors giving up in frustration and leaving the project. And there is no "undelete editor" button.