On 3/7/07, xaosflux xaosflux@gmail.com wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Ray Saintonge" saintonge@telus.net ...
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
People who ask admins/sysops to make editorial decisions are simply unaware of their role. Instead of causing loads of work by renaming the position, it would IMO be more effective to educate the others. People who make editorial decisions about writing are usually called editors. Should we rename that term too?
The name change process should not be a problem, as it would happen gradually. Admins did used to be called sysops, and that term has not completely died out. Applying to be a jamitor could be renamed "Request for Brooms".
I'd be fine with renaming it back to sysop if it would help specify that it is more of a technical role then a management one.
However, administrators are performing roles that are in effect editorial in nature; e.g. decisions at Afd and DRV to name just two. Changing the name of this role wont significantly decrease the perception of power/influence; it is real and as more and more new articles are being thrown on Afd, I expect that new users often form their first impressions of "administrators" due to an editorial judgement.
The current climate is at odds with [[Wikipedia:Administrators]]:
"From early on, it has been pointed out that administrators should never develop into a special subgroup of the community but should be a part of the community like anyone else."
I'd like to throw in a more radial idea to this renaming discussion. Maybe we can separate the editorial roles out from the current administrator role, and call the new role "editor at-large", Custodian, or similar. This separation is already in practise at DRV where usually senior administrators make the final decision. The role of a sysop is then to perform technical actions where a clear policy exists, or based on the decision of a custodian. This role would be primarily more attractive to a different set of people like developers, bot operators, or people who just want to clear backlogs and don't really want to be held responsible for having made a bad editorial decision.
To restore the level playing field, the administrator "bit" could then be given to anyone who has been "active" for a six months stretch (100 edits/month?), and has maintained a defined "editing rate" (100 edits in the *last* month seems sufficient) without a formal objection being raised by another editor. This ensures the editor has been in regular and recent contact with lots of other editors, so other editors have as a collaborative group implicitly and continuously approved of the "bit". The first time a user gains the bit, they could be listed on a NewAdmins list and senior admins could keep an eye on them for strange happenings. Less paperwork and less credibility attached to the role also means it is less of a problem if the bit is revoked because nobody explicitly vouched for them in an RfA.
If these ideas have been thrashed around already, could someone point me to the previous discussions.
-- John