On 2/8/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
We apparently just lost Alkivar (hopefully just on a stress relief break, but he says he's out of here indefinitely).
We're doing terribly at keeping identified, overstressed admins from ending up going over the edge. What are we doing wrong, or what do we need to learn to do right?
We are putting way too much on an admin pool, where only a small group handle 60% of the load. We all need to remember, adminship is *NOT* a big deal. You are not and should not be defined by your edit count. Everyone is quick too jump on prospective admins, without examining it all, and getting to know how someone will handle things. Without requiring 5,000 edits (Which yes, is not hard to obtain.). Now this doesn't mean there are occasions where something needs to be WP:SNOW'ed away.
Threats from unknown sources, I know when my RfA went through, I received a few threats against myself. Now, while I am quite used to it, not everyone is. No one should be subjected to them. I am not sure if these were from actual editors, trolls, or what-have it.
Abuse does happen, and when it does happen, even in small amounts it builds up a group of people who turn and look at the admin pool as if it was full of abuse and corruption (There is no cabal, becomes, There is a cable and we haven't found the leader yet.). Which when this happens, it puts stress on the admin pool.
Vandalism continues to happen, and is something we will never stop. But we can slow it down, and rather than just block half the internet, we need a stronger relationship with the tech community to handle the abuse at the account end (You can't pull a new IP, if you have no account.). We need to make it known, childish pranks *WILL NOT* be tolerated, and blatant vandalism will result in more than just a block and a reset of your modem/router/connection/tin can on a string.
Some proposed solutions: * Wikipedia doubles every 6 months, we need an admin pool to compensate it, and we need those who will focus on handling admin issues, not waive the mop around for 2 months and discontinue use. So lets not look at a new admin based on his edit count, but his contributions and WILLINGNESS.
* ArbCom needs 9 new appointments (3 per term), ArbCom yes has great arbitrators who do a wonderful job, but it is the same people doing it, and slow down those eager to mediate disputes. So I propose we, not take away from those arbitrators doing a great job already, but give them more help. Arbitration is a very time consuming job, and these should be people willing to mediate. (I do not propose we remove the arbitrators currently serving, but we add more.)
* ArbCom needs an "internal affairs" department to look at complaints of abuse and decide if they are just base less complaints which can hurt an admins rep, or if the complaint is actually abuse, then forward it to ArbCom. The committee should consist of non-ArbCom members, and contain atleast 2 non admins.
* Admin actions need to be supported. You can not have an admin take a good action, a user jump them, and other admins choose to take the popular route in hopes of not pissing someone off.
* We need to get more of the people who are reading articles, and just reading, to edit. Devising a strategy to do this, is not something I personally am an expert in. I'm better involved in other ways.
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com
Regards, Joshua Brady [[User:Somitho]]