On 6/30/05, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
I have come to realise that our current process of requesting adminship is at a sharp contrast to the wiki model in general. I have come to believe that we are not following our own principles that we so highly value.
This was a lovely essay, Timwi.
There is no fundamental reason not to apply soft security to adminship. A few technical changes which should be made to allow this:
1) Prevent permanent image deletion. 2) Provide much better (and more visible) feedback mechanisms for the whole community to see what has been deleted - both revisions of articles and revisions of images. These things should show up on watchlists, for instance, with links to their deleted histories. 2.1) Those SPECIAL cases in which there is some deleted personal information that the whole wide world shouldn't see, should be dealt with specially. They should not prevent active users from browsing or commenting on the bulk of deleted revisions/images. 2.2) There should be additional feedback mechanisms highlighting anything that /is/ deleted permanently; with meta-information visible to all.
And a few social changes : If you reduce hard security, you do have to increase soft security. * It would become normal for admins who crossed a line to be admonished and forced to stop using admin powers for a short while, just as good users are sometimes blocked for a short while. * There would be a page for people to discuss users who shouldn't be admins. * If an admin were admonished, the person who nominated that admin should be also; people should take responsibility for their sponsorships
One final thing I would like to stress : we take in all manner of people who *can't write* and, by allowing them to try for weeks and months, in the presence of good models, we teach them. People who have never been good writers become skilled at writing crisp, neutral, encyclopedic prose... even if they still can't write a decent letter to their parents. Ond of the advantages of making adminship more open would be that more people would learn to be skillful, neutral administrators.