My impression is that in recent times, the number of WP admins has grown roughly in line with the number of WP pages.
This has nothing much to do with the activities of certain high-profile sysops, I think. Nor is it directly related to the presence on the site of a handful (at any one time) of problematic users.
I would say a sysop per 1000 or more pages on the site is not excessive. Sysop powers of rollback help in dealing with nuisance- or graffiti-level vandalism. The power to temp-ban IP-only users is also useful in repelling the casual vandal (of the school kid/Random page add rude word type). The more talk pages, the more need to have a little supervision of talk discussion when it gets heated.
I honestly think those things, together with quick deletions of low-grade pages, represent the bulk of sysop activity. I would argue that the volume effect of the growth of WP means that the sysop body does need to grow in line. Actually my impression is that the time to discovery of casual vandalism is lengthening, on average.
I'm no great fan of a self-aware attitude amongst sysops; it can be helpful in dealing with certain users to 'wear the hat' rather conspicuously, but that trick doesn't always work. I thought that it was interesting that Jimbo, in his London talk, was in agreement with Theresa Knott that vandalism as we presently know it is not too serious an issue for WP; a comment that he balanced by saying (in effect) the Old Bolsheviks of the site were more of a problem.
Charles
Charles Matthews wrote:
My impression is that in recent times, the number of WP admins has grown roughly in line with the number of WP pages. [...] I would say a sysop per 1000 or more pages on the site is not excessive.
I'm having trouble extracting from your message whether you are advocating (a) limiting the amount of sysops, or (b) increasing them.
Both are topics that I really don't understand why people even start them. We can't artificially increase the number of sysops if there aren't any who volunteer. Similarly, we can't arbitrarily choose some people and de-sysop them solely on the grounds that we want less of them. How would you feel if your request for adminship was rejected just because "there are already enough of them"? It's simply not fair.
The number of sysops is not something that we should (or even can) regulate. It's a quantity that evolves by itself.
Timwi
Timwi wrote
I'm having trouble extracting from your message whether you are advocating (a) limiting the amount of sysops, or (b) increasing them.
I was of course responding to posts suggesting a decrease in numbers would be welcome.
<snip>
The number of sysops is not something that we should (or even can) regulate. It's a quantity that evolves by itself.
I don't know about that. Appointment could be for a limited term, for example; with a need to stand for re-election. The system could probably be tweaked in other ways.
Not that I advocate that. I thought it was better to make a new thread in which to discuss the numerical side.
Charles
Having fixed terms is an excellent idea. One or two year appointments would be ample, and would not be overly burdensom. A sysop whose term had expired could stand for re-election after (say) 6 months. Mark
--- Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Timwi wrote
I'm having trouble extracting from your message
whether you are
advocating (a) limiting the amount of sysops, or
(b) increasing them.
I was of course responding to posts suggesting a decrease in numbers would be welcome.
<snip>
The number of sysops is not something that we
should (or even can)
regulate. It's a quantity that evolves by itself.
I don't know about that. Appointment could be for a limited term, for example; with a need to stand for re-election. The system could probably be tweaked in other ways.
Not that I advocate that. I thought it was better to make a new thread in which to discuss the numerical side.
Charles
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On Fri, 11 Jun 2004 11:10:46 -0700 (PDT), Mark Richards marich712000@yahoo.com wrote:
Having fixed terms is an excellent idea. One or two year appointments would be ample, and would not be overly burdensom. A sysop whose term had expired could stand for re-election after (say) 6 months. Mark
Why have a delay at all?
Why have a delay? I think it would be healthy to remind sysops periodically of what it is like not to be a sysop. Mark R
--- Fennec Foxen fennec@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jun 2004 11:10:46 -0700 (PDT), Mark Richards marich712000@yahoo.com wrote:
Having fixed terms is an excellent idea. One or
two
year appointments would be ample, and would not be overly burdensom. A sysop whose term had expired
could
stand for re-election after (say) 6 months. Mark
Why have a delay at all? _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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