On 6/17/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
The problem is that Wikipedia, for better or worse, has an inquisitorial system, with all the dangers such a system presents. We need to limit our investigations to harmful activities. Harmful activities cause harm, observable trouble. An administrator who uses open proxies but does not engage in vandalism or sockpuppetry is not producing observable trouble.
Fred
Fred, a banned user could cause a lot of trouble if he got elected to ArbCom using open proxies and a concocted admin account, built up easily by doing lots of vandalism reverting. There has to be some minimal accountability with admins, in part because they can be elected to these positions, and in part because they can cause big problems even without these extra powers.
The concern with CW was in part the use of proxies, in part the low level of content contribution, and in part his/her unwillingness to explain, even by e-mail, why s/he was using open proxies. It's this last point that has attracted a lot of the opposition on the RfA. All in all, it added up to a worrying picture.