But I think the key norms are universally accepted.
Take "No personal attacks" and "civility" as two examples. Differences may exist whether a particular matter is or isnt an attack or uncivil, whether to act or ignore it, and a number of long-term users and admins have at times posted in a way that clearly breaches those and do not seem to hold them in high regard judging by their conduct. Despite all the breaches of these, in 10 years I have yet to see any communal proposal gain any kind of traction to agree that incivility is okay, that rudeness or attacks are sometimes allowed, or that vested/long term users should be held to a different standard than anyone else. Nothing to that effect has ever been proposed seriously nor gained traction. Why? Because we don't believe in those things. The belief in a common high standard is universal, even if some users don't act up to it.
What we have trouble with is people who _know_ these are universal norms but still seem to think "who cares" about them. The first problem is basic attitudes - people who know what is agreed but flagrantly ignore it when it suits them, or selectively apply it.
The second problem beyond that is the problem of "fiddling while Rome burns". While we potter round discussing if, perhaps, such and such an incident was uncivil or BITEy, and whether anyone feels consensus exists to act, the user affected may be discouraged and leave. That's fine, we want to go careful and not be over extreme. Again we count on users to act to a high standard and enact the norms of the community. if they do - and the norms are pretty uncontroversial - then these issues would largely be resolved by the involved person themself.
Given that the community has fairly stable long term and universal norms (although the detail and edge cases are very uncertain) what we need is admins who at least agree and follow those norms or try to, to a high standard. This would mean taking care in grey cases to avoid risk of upset even if it's an "edge case"... take care to be visibly fair and neutral even if they could argue they aren't involved, take care to explain and apologize if needed rather than assume or act rough.
This is what I mean by needing users to have the right basic attitude. the rest then overlays that.
FT2
On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 12:48 AM, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.comwrote:
This all sounds good, and comes off as straightforward -- and it would be, if we lived in a world where "Wiki norms" were clearly defined and universally accepted. The problem there is that there is a great deal of disagreement about what those norms should be, as well as what should be done in any particular case, and disagreement often leads to exactly the kind of personal judgments about character and fitness to be an admin in general that you make here: "These are the expected standards [chosen by me
- who else?], we need people who exemplify them, and if you don't either
because you can't or don't want to, you're not fit to be an admin and should be desysopped." That is profoundly alienating in practice, and you cannot win people over to your point of view when your approach is that authoritarian -- and it is the "norm" on AN/I.
If I had to read minds, I'd guess that this is exactly what Jimbo was trying to avoid when he said adminiship is not a big deal. Obviously, it has become a big deal, but not for any good reason, and you're going to continue to lose valuable contributors as long as this continues to be the standard.
- causa sui
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