Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com writes:
charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Why doesn't ArbCom come down on admins who fail to respect contributors? Why isn't that a high priority?
Why don't we get the cases brought that mean we could do that? We have a clear policy on civility. Some people do reckon that long service gives them some rights in how they talk to others. They are certainly wrong about that, and should note well that ArbCom doesn't have binding precedents, and may well up the tariff of punishment for shooting off your mouth. As far as I can see, this causes a large outcry when it is proposed, but it may well happen.
I back Charles 100% on this.
I am on the ArbCom mailing list, and take an active part in it. I can assure everyone that the ArbCom takes a very dim view of admins behaving badly. The thing is, unless cases are brought, then the ArbCom doesn't see it.
The problem is that leads to fairly arbitrary decisions, of which I was a victim in the summer. In February, blocked wrongly for a non-existent 3RR, at 1 AM in the middle of an edit that had taken an hour, I self unblocked. I was a very naughty boy and I was punished by being blocked again, but everyone seemed to think that was closed.
Then, months later a completely unrelated issue in which I was tangentially involved goes to ArbCom and results in this issue being dragged up again. Now probably it would not have led to my desysopping had I not regarded the article ban as unacceptable (and successfully campaigned against it but that's another story), but it does raise two issues:
1) If admin status is no big deal, is removing it no big deal either? Arbcom is becoming more willing to remove admin status, of which I generally approve (despite possibly being a victim of it).
2) If ArbCom is the only body that can remove admin status, excluding self-administered recalls, then how does it cope with low-level but persistent admin misbehaviour? ArbCom is much better at dealing with egregious single incidents.