Rich Holton wrote:
It's important to de-sysop (without prejudice)
the
inactive. Otherwise we're deceiving ourselves about
how many sysops we have.
I agree with this, but I don't agree to having sysops re-voted-on and
re-elected every 6 months. It should be possible by software to
determine inactive sysops and de-sysop them without inconveniencing
active sysops so much.
If indeed being a sysop is "no big deal" as
it says on
[[wikipedia:Administrators]]
([
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators]),
then being voted out as one should also be "no big
deal", right?
That page only says it to reduce the amount of hard feelings and
resulting flaming a little. In practice, however, it *is* a big deal in
the sense that sysop status is seen as an elevated status or a position
of authority, consciously or not. I'm sure many sysops also feel
slightly more powerful or influential than they did before they were
sysopped, even though few will admit it. De-sysopping for such a
frivolous reason is thus likely to cause hard feelings for the ex-sysop
in question.
If we are short on good sysops, let's make sure
that
it is understood that being a sysop is a service to
the community, not a power trip.
We are trying to, but I don't think that's really possible. We cannot
deny that sysops have additional privileges (that's the whole point).
This, almost by definition, triggers what I have outlined above.
Timwi