On 7/17/06, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
Yes, I do not deny that. Now -- if a user finds an admin to have done something wrong, does that make it likely that the admin has done something wrong? Obviously you'll say 'no' because there's only one user complaining, and everyone else sides with the admin. But read on...
Personally I think the likelihood depends on the nature of the complaint. And one other things, while we are on this topic -- in the end these are never just about one complaint. They are things like "Admin X insulted me, remove their status." We look into it, and we find that the insult is minimal if existant at all, and it comes at the end of a long exchange in which the user has flagrantly broken rules themselves.
Now you seem to want to interpret a situation like this as being a non sequitur. I would object that it isn't. The real non sequitur is committed by the user trying to use some paltry violation as an argument for bigger repercussions. An admin's ability to be a responsible admin is not predicated on whether or not they use polite language with every user; it is the sum total of their work as an admin. It is unreasonable to not take that into account.
But we have already established on this mailing list that admins *do* conspire, albeit on a very subtle and subconscious level, without knowing it. Someone (not me!) gave this analogy with noblemen in the Middle Ages, who rarely if ever accused each other of a crime even if they knew about such a crime. If an ordinary citizen were to accuse a nobleman of anything, all the noblemen (who were "known to be reliable" and supposedly had "ability of independent assessments") would side with their fellow nobleman and all come to the same conclusion in his favour.
On issues of real merit there is plenty of dissention both on the list and on WP:AN. On issues with almost no merit, there is almost no discussion. (And no, I'm not saying that the amount of discussion is an indicator of merit -- only the converse. There is plenty of discussion for things without merit, too.)
A-ha! Doesn't this explain the above effect then? If a majority of admins agree with a decision, then the decision is less likely to be questioned (and, consequently, the complaining user is taken less seriously). Therefore, admins will agree with each other in order to reduce the likelihood of being questioned. This is the "benefit of agreeing with each other" that you were looking for. :)
Uh, sorry, I don't see that. If you want to make an argument about convenience, argue instead that many admins would sooner just abstain from contributing to an issue -- even if they think another admin is wrong -- because they have other things to do. But to claim that people actively agree with each other just to be expedient is both without evidence and silly. I'll admit to not paying attention to every issue, even if I could conceivably have an opinion of it, but I'll never fake an opinion. (You could, of course, postulate that subconsciously I agree because I want to expedite, but now you're not only asserting something rather large about the abilities of humans to think freely at all, but you're also substituting abstract and unprovable psychological explanations for ones based on individual rational action. Take your pick; I find the latter to be simpler in this case.)
Now, does "the way things are done on Wikipedia" refer to the spirit of the policies, or the behaviour of admins in practice? We all know that there are significant differences between those two.
The mixture of the two which accounts for how admins generally act. They generally do not always act to the letter of the policies, but they often do act within the spirit of them and to the ends with which they were developed. Which is the way that all "organizations" act.
Such as?
Such as many of the ones which end up on this list. If you want to start pulling out examples now, I'll let YOU start with that. You're the one trying to make a grand theory.
Of course it is easy for you to claim that someone has "absolutely no regard for policy XYZ", but surely most of the time it is more likely a misunderstanding of the spirit of the policy (by either side!), or just complete ignorance of a less obvious policy. It is, for example, not intuitive that we should have a policy on "notability" or "verifiability", so why should anyone look that up?
Sure. In my experience users usually get pointed to the right policy pretty early on. There are nice rational reasons for that as well. If I tell somebody about 3RR and the consequences, and they violate it anyway, I can, with a clear conscience, block them for the violation. If I tell them about NPOV and they ignore it happily, it just makes it easier to deal with them. It's in my interest to tell them about the policy, because it makes it clear that ignorance is not the cause of their actions.
I take a lot of time to make sure that users who are obviously just confused about Wikipedia understand how it works. Usually they are pretty easy to spot, in comparison with people who have malicious intent.
And yes, I'm happy to assert that there are people with malicious intent. I could go through a list of the epithets I've had directed at me from POV-pushers, if you're interested. They include things like "JUDENSCWEIN TO THE OVENS ! -- LIARS ! --ALL OF YOU !" No, I don't believe everything a user says, just because they say it.
Not very but at least a little? ;-)
One of the reasons I think that groupthink probably has less truck around Wikipedia than many other places is that: 1. we are all pretty disconnected with each other, physically, nationally, politically, etc. We share certain things, true, but the differences are pretty stark. I don't have to tell someone to their face that I think they're wrong when I type it in; it is pretty easy to disagree on here in comparison with "real life". 2. there is little incentive. The only incentive you've postulated is expediency. That's not much, especially when it is easier to get that by just not participating. There is no opportunity for improvement of my status by agreeing with others. There is no real chance of punishment for disagreement. I agree where I agree, I disagree where I disagree, and when I get tired of it I take a break and go edit some articles or draw some pictures.
Which isn't to say that admins will generally tend to give other admins the benefit of the doubt. But there are rational, non-psychological reasons for that. Users could be anyone, but admins have at least been approved by other Wikipedians. It's a very weak form of accredation -- again, to consider admins a very homogenous intellectual group, except perhaps by how they spend their leisure time, seems incorrect to me, and the things which they all agree on, the "systemic bias", generally don't come into play on these sorts of disputes -- but it is more than you have with unknown users.
In my experience, most user complaints against admins are bogus. But not ALL are. Even when knowing the former, we have to take care to look out for the latter.
FF