(continuation from Part 1, preceding.)
I never sought the desysopping of JzG, as an example, and didn't argue for it for WMC. I argued for *suspension* until the admin assured ArbComm that he would not repeat the use of tools while involved. JzG's actions had been egregious, and still ArbComm was unwilling to ask for assurances. Behind this, I'm sure, was an impression that JzG would have considered it an insult. But it should be routine. Indeed, ArbComm bans editors all the time when it could simply ask for *voluntary assurances.* And even more are community banned under a similar failure. Voluntary compliance, negotiated with respect, is far less likely to build up sustained resentments, than bullying and blocking.
These are all really obvious principles, but it's been amazing to see what oppositino they aroused when they were brought up before ArbComm. ArbComm remained silent on them, and on what was said in response. ArbComm mostly functions as a passive body, but then it does something different and becomes very active. It depends on whose ox is being gored.
The problem, as I have defined it, is of negative voting. The sheer suspicion of those who apparently want the mop-and-bucket. (And anyway, I obviously was using "well-adjusted" in the sense of "round peg in a round hole", not as a comment on anything else.)
If it's easy to revoke, it would obviously be easier to grant. Indeed, the supermajority standard is a problem. You propose that an administrator might avoid being "shot at" if the admin avoids controversial areas. So, to become an admin, avoid controversial areas! But, then, we don't know how the admin will behave when involved in controversy.
The same arguments that are applied to, say, required reconfirmation of administrators, should apply to granting adminship in the first place. If an editor has tacked difficulties, the issue should be how the editor did it, not how many people were offended. If the editor needlessly inflamed the topic, that's a problem, for sure, and could betray that there could be problems as an administrator. But if the editor calmed the conflict, with only a few die-hards then resenting the intervention or involvement, it should be a positive mark. There is no substitute for actually examining the record, if the record matters.
In fact, it shouldn't matter much, and here is why: adminship should routinely be granted based on an agreed-upon mentorship, with an active administrator. I'd suggest, in fact, that any admin who approves of the adminship would be allowed to do what a mentor could do, but an agreed-upon mentor would be taking on the responsibility. So if anyone has a complaint about the admin's actions, they have someone to go to for review, without going to a noticeboard and some possible flame war there. They can even do it privately, by email. That's how WP DR structure is supposed to work, it's supposed to start small. I've been amazed to see how few understand this!
Given administrative supervision, with any supervising admin being able to go directly to a bureaucrat or steward and request removal of the tools, if necessary, there is no reason to disapprove of almost anyone, and a discussion would only take place to the extent that it would be an opportunity to express objections. The closing bureaucrat might, indeed, review those, but numbers would not matter. What would matter would be (1) no sign of *likely* abuse, and (2) the presence of effective supervision.
At Wikiversity, this is apparently done, though I don't know all the details. There is then, after a time on probation, a "full adminship" discussion. (There is no difference in the tool settings between the two, an admin on probation has full tools, the only difference is a responsible mentor.) But with a more detailed structure, there might not be the need for "full adminship." I'd say that every administrator should have a "recall committee," a set of editors who are both trusted by the admin and by the community to correct the admin if he or she veers off-course. Only when this process fails, perhaps because of too-close alignment of the admin and the recall committee, would it be necessary to escalate to broader discussions. Ultimately, we should go back and set this up for existing administrators. This should, in reality, only be a problem for administrators who believe that they should have no supervision at all. That's a problem in itself. And I'm leaving the details of how such a committee would be formed, and how admins who have become part of it are replaced as they vanish, as many do, to a later discussion and, of course, ultimately, to the community if it ever starts to go here. I'm just proposing ideas to show that there might be some possible solution, and with no pretense that my ideas are the last word. I really do believe in the power of informed consensus, and the only kind of consensus that I have a problem with is when it is inadequately informed and is (quite likely as a linked condition) too narrow, with too few participants. But fully informed consensus that is real consensus with only a relatively small number is unlikely to be reversed by broader discussion.
This is why thorough discussion at the lowest possible level, seeing true consensus, is actually efficient, and only seems otherwise to someone who doesn't know how to (1) maximize its effeciency by using the debate to create a FAQ so that the same issues don't get debated over and over and over, and/or (2) doesn't want to discuss, but also doesn't trust what will happen if he or she stands aside and, say, simply raises the issue in Talk and then lets go or also raises it on a WikiProject. Instead, what tends to happen is that someone who isn't willing to actually discuss goes to a noticeboard and claims that an opposing editor is being "tendentious." It works, too often! Noticeboards aren't supposed to resolve content issues, at least not AN and AN/I, and admins are not supposed to resolve content disputes with the use of tools, but you cannot judge tendentiousness and distinguish it from, say, an expert patiently explaining an issue over and over and then perhaps becoming angry at meeting ignorant insistance for an editor or two, accompanied by revert warring by them. The expert is, of course, very likely an SPA, and is actually, often, COI, and so is easily seen as someone to be excluded. And thus one more expert joins the ranks of blocked or banned experts, I've seen it happen many times. Sometimes it gets fixed, but often not. And that damage accumulates, unless admins take an active role in actually resolving disputes instead of judging them. The power of judgment is not a police power! Discretion is, but that's distinct.
Good police officers, when they encounter people fighting or about to fight, will separate them and normally only arrest someone if there has been injury, or the person resists separation and won't stop. If it's neighborhood police, they may sometimes help people to resolve their dispute, not by judging it, but by pointing to resources and by perhaps saying some kind words to both sides, encouraging them to work out the problem.
And the rest of this is about personal history, and is an aside.
On Wikipedia, I was able to to this a few times, it was quite successful, and it avoided one or both of the parties from being blocked, they were headed for that, and they turned into cooperating editors. And this is the work that was directly prohibited by ArbComm in my MYOB ban. I was never able to figure out the sense of this ban, because there were no allegations of improper behavior related to it.... I think that the reality was that many simply wanted me to shut up. But they didn't make that clear, and what they did was something different that turned out to be quite unclear. It was eventually made clear enough that I simply stopped editing Wikipedia, for the most part, but the later "clear" interpretation was very different from the original sanction.
And ArbComm's last reponse wasn't really an interpretation, it was more in the nature of advice that I should stop doing anything controversial, whether or not it was covered by the ban, and ArbComm only began, haltingly, to address the fact that I was being hauled before Arbitration Enforcement, again and again, by the same editors, two of them parties to the original arbitration, for stuff that wasn't actually found to be a ban violation when ArbComm was asked, and without any showing at all of *actual harm.* I'd made comments, for example, that either were or became the consensus in a poll, and supposedly I was allowed to comment in polls. ArbComm, however, and many editors and administrators, tend to assume that if there are a number of editors and administrators yelling at one editor, that one editor *must* be doing something wrong. It's an assumption that is often efficient, it's probably right more often than not, but when it fails, there goes any ability to benefit from a whistleblower. And so serious problems can continue for years.... as they did in the cases where I was involved. I was confronting what I called a "cabal," by which I meant exactly what Lar has been asserting recently about the same general group of editors, a "mutually-involved faction." I made my meaning clear, but, somehow, some arbitrators actually asserted that I *really* meant something else, and then I was sanctioned for not backing up what I didn't mean and did not assert.... go figure! And all this was considered so hot that all the Evidence and the Workship was blanked. Mostly the Evidence that I put up was just edit histories showing involvement in a field. Almost none of it showed actually reprehensible conduct, because I wasn't attempting to get anyone sanctioned, and only WMC confronted for long-term use of tools while involved. But I had to explain, I believed, why there were a dozen editors filling up the RfAr with Abd did this and Abd did that, which was actually irrelevant to the filed case, but the "mutual involvement" showed why these editors would care so much. They were not neutral. And then, of course, if I tried to respond to evidence presented against me, my responses became voluminous. ArbComm, quite simply, had not, and probably still has not, developed methods to deal efficiently with factional conflict. I was, I believe, standing up for community consensus (and that's becoming apparent as more people become aware of what had been happening), but when the community is mostly not paying attention in a field, someone who does that can seem to be an isolated pov-pusher or tendentious in other ways, if faced with a faction. I had beeen quite careful. I didn't drag people to noticeboards, I simply discussed edits in Talk, and was being successful in shifting article consensus, being opposed by revert warring from about only one editor, for the most part. (In the last incident, I had 0RR, he had 3 and then self-reverted, added a pile of blatantly POV material to the lede, then went to RfPP and requested protection because of edit warring, when he was the principal edit warrior. And succeeded. And that's what had just happened when I was banned by WMC. For? He didn't say! Positions that went to mediation, of mine, were confirmed. In spite of serious opposition from the same set of editors, whitelistings I requested were granted. I wasn't getting anyone blocked or banned, and wasn't asking for it, but they sure wanted me out of there! And that, alone, should have been a clue. But it takes time and effort to understand these complex situations, it's much easier to make a quick judgment, decide whom to ban, and be done with it. But that tendency, then, preserves conflict and prevents genuine consensus from forming.
I personally don't care, the Wikipedia articles, even on subjects very dear to me, aren't that important, and Wikipedia is not a safe place to put content that requires work to create. I'm actually grateful to be rid of any idea that I have a responsibility to edit. (I'm not banned or blocked anywhere, by the way, just en.wiki topic banned on Cold fusion, where I've become an expert and COI, I'm actually in business selling research materials, and there is this weird MYOB ban in place, which was allowing a few editors to constantly harass me by claiming I was "commenting on disputes" even if I didn't make any comments at all, but just an ordinary edit that reflected apparent consensus... and anything that could be wikilawyered into a ban violation was, so... given that there was no initiative to address the real source of the disruption (once upon a time there would have been, but those editors had all disappeared), I just stopped editing entirely.
I was much more interested in Wikipedia process and the principles of consensus and neutrality, and how to facilitate them, toward the goal of the overall project. Until that goal becomes more important than whatever it is that occupies the active core, I don't see much hope. People like Lar and others do see some of the problem, but they, sooner or later, burn out and leave. I had, at one point, three arbitrators who did understand, for the most part, my goals. But, of course, they always recused, and one rather promptly resigned. My original MYOB ban provided for a mentor to allow me to participate in discussion. Fritzpoll had volunteered to be my mentor, during the case. Denied as not needed since there was no mentorship requirement. But, in fact, there was! Then, later, Fritzpoll ran for and was elected to ArbComm. Because the issue of mentorship had come up, because it was mentioned in the ban, he again volunteered, privately, to ArbComm. It was denied, he was told that arbitrators could not be mentors. That was odd, since he and two other arbitrators were already recusing when anything involving me came up! This was the reality: there were many who simply wanted me, as I wrote before, me to shut up. Many arbitrators. A majority? Maybe. But would that majority have insisted on it if it became obvious what was going on?
My organizational theory says, no, not likely. But as long as this kind of motive could take cover under some other seemingly reasonable excuse, it would be maintained. Arbitrators have always been administrators and are, quite understandably, uncomfortable with an editor who has been a primary party in two ArbComm cases and which have resulted in censure or desysopping. It's instinctive, protect-our-own.
I was disappointed that the arbitrators who recused (a total of three, I think) didn't then present arguments and evidence. I know what they knew. I know more about the situation that I'm not disclosing, because of personal confidences revealed to me that I don't have permission to reveal. My general position on ArbComm is that necessary support structure has not been created, so arbitrators are faced with a much more difficult task than is necessary. They don't have time to do the research necessary to uncover what evidence is good and what isn't. So decisions tend to become matters of quick impressions, and that's a setup for bad decisions, and I've seen some doozies. Not involving me.