On 01/03/2008, WJhonson@aol.com WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
And sometimes admins have a very odd idea of what a certain policy actually states.
That certainly happens. Sometimes its because their a bad admin, sometimes it's because they follow the spirit of the rules rather than the exact wording that the last person to edit that policy page happened to choose.
One flaw in the promotion system seems to be there is no real test of whether an admin understands something as simple as the difference between "source-based research" vs. "original research". I had to teach one that recently.
I guess the idea is that you show you understand the rules by following them.
Another is why you should *not* use your admin bit, when you are engaged in content disputes.
Absolutely. However, people often complain that an admin is involved when they actually aren't. If an admin comes along an edit war, tries to calm things down using discussion rather than instantly throwing the banhammer around, fail, and end up having to resort to admin actions they are accused of having been involved in the content dispute when they never expressed any view about content whatsoever.
There are admins who behave badly. Although I agree that people complain when admins "do their job", they also complain when admins act abusively. Many admins understand, and some do not. Some admins will apologize when faced with actions which are suspect, and some will not.
Sure, there are valid complaints, but they are a tiny minority.
The ones whom the community has become annoyed with from time to time, and who also refuse to apologize or act contritely are the ones that don't bode well for the project and need a vigilant eye.
I can think of three reasons why an individual admin would get a lot of complaints:
1) They are making bad admin actions 2) They are making good admin actions but hang around controversial areas of the site 3) They are making generally good admin actions but have attitude problems which get people's backs up
It's the 3rd case that causes the problems. The 1st we can simply desysop, the 2nd we can just ignore the complaints, but with the 3rd will have to tread a little more delicately. Sometimes it gets to the point where there is no choice but to desysop, but there is a tendency to try anything else in order to avoid losing the admin's contributions - it's a difficult balance.