On Sat, 12 Jun 2004 04:08:45 +0100, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
We are trying to, but I don't think that's really possible. We cannot deny that sysops have additional privileges (that's the whole point). This, almost by definition, triggers what I have outlined above.
I disagree. Sysops don't have additional priveleges, but they have additional powers.
They have the power to ban users, but they are not allowed to ban users against policy. They have the power to delete articles- but they're not allowed to delete articles against policy. They have the rollback link- mmm, rollback! - but they could theoretically revert the articles the old-fashioned way. They can theoretically do database queries but I think that's still turned off. =b
This distinction is a little more than semantics. The sysop, ideally, does not do anything requiring general approval like deleting or banning. They're there to implement community decisions, not to make them.
In theory, anyway. In theory, practice is the same as the theory, but in practice it is not. :) The point where this boundary becomes fuzzy is the cutting edge of Recent Changes, where it is clear that the community has decided that vandalism is bad and vandals should be blocked after being warned, but it's not entirely clear who is a vandal and what is vandalism (in some cases). Moving further away from this idealized little circle, we find the newly registered-for-trivial-vandalism username, simple trolls wanting trouble (naming themselves to confuse themselves with sysops, for example), and it continues on from there. Some of the actions taken in this area are not so much against policy as outside of policy, while some are clearly disallowed.