I recently was engaged in an encounter with a particularly troublesome admin. He blocked me and when I attempted to contact him through e-mail, he made ad hominem personal attacks and generally condescended to me. Now I can assure you this is the only time an admin has ever personally attacked me, but I have repeatedly encountered the seemingly glaring obviousness that is admin elitism.
Wikipedia editors, or regular users, usually create and edit articles, sometimes reverting vandalism or dealing with formal Wikipedia business. And once an editor has performed a large enough amount of good deeds, they can be nominated for administrator. An RfA is a harsh process which yields few admins, and this would seem to make them an exclusive group (which they are indeed). Many people (or at least me) seem to regard adminship as a sort of trophy rather than advanced tools. And it would be intuitive to think that. On almost all websites, being made a moderator (or other "elevated user right status") is a gesture of great respect, trust, and exclusivity. This is because moderators are the "high lords" of the website, much like mayors or representatives. So why shouldn't adminship be a trophy?
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Flame Viper wrote:
I recently was engaged in an encounter with a particularly troublesome admin. He blocked me and when I attempted to contact him through e-mail, he made ad hominem personal attacks and generally condescended to me. Now I can assure you this is the only time an admin has ever personally attacked me, but I have repeatedly encountered the seemingly glaring obviousness that is admin elitism.
Wikipedia editors, or regular users, usually create and edit articles, sometimes reverting vandalism or dealing with formal Wikipedia business. And once an editor has performed a large enough amount of good deeds, they can be nominated for administrator. An RfA is a harsh process which yields few admins, and this would seem to make them an exclusive group (which they are indeed). Many people (or at least me) seem to regard adminship as a sort of trophy rather than advanced tools. And it would be intuitive to think that. On almost all websites, being made a moderator (or other "elevated user right status") is a gesture of great respect, trust, and exclusivity. This is because moderators are the "high lords" of the website, much like mayors or representatives. So why shouldn't adminship be a trophy?
Forgive me if I've misread this, but you seem to be simultaneously complaining about admin elitism and saying there's nothing wrong with it.
Adminship is a set of advanced tools. Some people use it like a trophy. There isn't an awful lot that can be done about that. And if it really results from "good deeds" then some people have a very odd definition of "good deeds".
Don't read too much into the "standards" applied at RfA. All sorts of arbitrary metrics and irrelevant judgements are made there. More worryingly, the "standards" are being raised progressively higher, to the point that nobody who would make a good administrator can be one.
I took a glance at the RfA page today to see what was what. It seems that two popular reasons to oppose at the moment are "doesn't need the tools" and "doesn't do enough work on articles".
Just wait... before long people will start applying BOTH those criteria simultaneously. Then *nobody* will pass.
-Gurch
[[WP:AN#User:Flameviper]]. End of story imo.
On 14/02/07, Gurch matthew.britton@btinternet.com wrote:
Flame Viper wrote:
I recently was engaged in an encounter with a particularly troublesome
admin. He blocked me and when I attempted to contact him through e-mail, he made ad hominem personal attacks and generally condescended to me. Now I can assure you this is the only time an admin has ever personally attacked me, but I have repeatedly encountered the seemingly glaring obviousness that is admin elitism.
Wikipedia editors, or regular users, usually create and edit articles,
sometimes reverting vandalism or dealing with formal Wikipedia business. And once an editor has performed a large enough amount of good deeds, they can be nominated for administrator. An RfA is a harsh process which yields few admins, and this would seem to make them an exclusive group (which they are indeed). Many people (or at least me) seem to regard adminship as a sort of trophy rather than advanced tools. And it would be intuitive to think that. On almost all websites, being made a moderator (or other "elevated user right status") is a gesture of great respect, trust, and exclusivity. This is because moderators are the "high lords" of the website, much like mayors or representatives.
So why shouldn't adminship be a trophy?
Forgive me if I've misread this, but you seem to be simultaneously complaining about admin elitism and saying there's nothing wrong with it.
Adminship is a set of advanced tools. Some people use it like a trophy. There isn't an awful lot that can be done about that. And if it really results from "good deeds" then some people have a very odd definition of "good deeds".
Don't read too much into the "standards" applied at RfA. All sorts of arbitrary metrics and irrelevant judgements are made there. More worryingly, the "standards" are being raised progressively higher, to the point that nobody who would make a good administrator can be one.
I took a glance at the RfA page today to see what was what. It seems that two popular reasons to oppose at the moment are "doesn't need the tools" and "doesn't do enough work on articles".
Just wait... before long people will start applying BOTH those criteria simultaneously. Then *nobody* will pass.
-Gurch
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