G'day SV,
There's also the issue of sockpuppet admin accounts being used in support of that person's other accounts by blocking opponents, protecting on the right version, and so on. The problem for us is that we have no idea of the scale of it. Does it happen at all? Rarely? A
Cabalism becomes much more worrisome when we face a "Cabal" with only one real person!
lot? We have no information. What I've noticed is that vandalism fighting is becoming an increasing issue at RfAs, and it has seemed to me (based only on my sporadic visits to RfA) that more and more people are being promoted on the basis of lots of minor edits, which is not a good thing for a number of reasons, the sock admin issue being one of them.
My greatest concern for vandal-fighter admins is that they can't be judged by the usual (flawed, but once relatively accurate) metrics used by the RfA Groupies. This is really two problems. First, we get admins who look, walk, and quack like a duck but are in fact turkeys (the CVU issue), and are nowhere near as mature as number of edits, name recognition, etc. would imply. Accordingly, they're promoted to adminship even though they aren't even close to Clueful enough to succeed in the post. This is a problem I've banged on about for a while, so I won't blame anybody if their eyes glazed over for this paragraph.
The second problem with the vandal-fighter admin thing is that the metrics get artificially inflated. "Okay, it's trivial to get 1500 edits quickly, so we'll force you to get 3000 edits". Users with Clue but only 1000 edits may be passed over for lack of experience, but some superdick newbie biter gets a free pass.
Cheers,
On 5/29/07, Gallagher Mark George m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
My greatest concern for vandal-fighter admins is that they can't be judged by the usual (flawed, but once relatively accurate) metrics used by the RfA Groupies. This is really two problems. First, we get admins who look, walk, and quack like a duck but are in fact turkeys (the CVU issue), and are nowhere near as mature as number of edits, name recognition, etc. would imply. Accordingly, they're promoted to adminship even though they aren't even close to Clueful enough to succeed in the post.
Or, worse, they're so clueful it's their second or third admin account.
The second problem with the vandal-fighter admin thing is that the metrics get artificially inflated. "Okay, it's trivial to get 1500 edits quickly, so we'll force you to get 3000 edits". Users with Clue but only 1000 edits may be passed over for lack of experience, but some superdick newbie biter gets a free pass.
That's exactly right. It used to be more than enough to have 1,000 edits, so long as they were decent edits; now it's rarely enough, but no one looks at quality. What quality is there to look at when you're staring at thousands of vandalism reverts?
We know that the easy way to build up a sockpuppet account fast is to do CVU and vote in AfDs. So what do we do? We promote vandal fighters whose only project space edits are AfDs. I take the point that we can't become paranoid, but complacency's no good either.
When people ask me now what they need to do to prepare for adminship, I invariably have to tell them to do the vandalism thing, which they shouldn't have to if they're mature candidates and good writers. Then they risk not getting promoted because they blocked a vandal without using the right tags ...
On 5/30/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Or, worse, they're so clueful it's their second or third admin account.
Evidence or drop the accusation.
That's exactly right. It used to be more than enough to have 1,000 edits, so long as they were decent edits; now it's rarely enough, but no one looks at quality. What quality is there to look at when you're staring at thousands of vandalism reverts?
I think the people decided the requirement for one FA was unreasonable.
We know that the easy way to build up a sockpuppet account fast is to do CVU and vote in AfDs. So what do we do? We promote vandal fighters whose only project space edits are AfDs. I take the point that we can't become paranoid, but complacency's no good either.
Because guess which group of people most need admin powers?
When people ask me now what they need to do to prepare for adminship, I invariably have to tell them to do the vandalism thing, which they shouldn't have to if they're mature candidates and good writers. Then they risk not getting promoted because they blocked a vandal without using the right tags ...
That would be quite impressive. Generally it is quite hard to block people before being given an admin bit.
On 5/30/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/30/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
When people ask me now what they need to do to prepare for adminship, I invariably have to tell them to do the vandalism thing, which they shouldn't have to if they're mature candidates and good writers. Then they risk not getting promoted because they blocked a vandal without using the right tags ...
That would be quite impressive. Generally it is quite hard to block people before being given an admin bit.
It's actually remarkably easy... [[WP:AIV]] gets good results 24x7 for deserving cases.
Indirectly blocking by bringing to someone else's attention after proper procedures are noted may not be what you had in mind, but I was the initiator for dozens and dozens of blocks there before ever setting fingers on an admin-enabled bit...
On 5/30/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/30/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Or, worse, they're so clueful it's their second or third admin account.
Evidence or drop the accusation.
That's exactly right. It used to be more than enough to have 1,000 edits, so long as they were decent edits; now it's rarely enough, but no one looks at quality. What quality is there to look at when you're staring at thousands of vandalism reverts?
I think the people decided the requirement for one FA was unreasonable.
We know that the easy way to build up a sockpuppet account fast is to do CVU and vote in AfDs. So what do we do? We promote vandal fighters whose only project space edits are AfDs. I take the point that we can't become paranoid, but complacency's no good either.
Because guess which group of people most need admin powers?
When people ask me now what they need to do to prepare for adminship, I invariably have to tell them to do the vandalism thing, which they shouldn't have to if they're mature candidates and good writers. Then they risk not getting promoted because they blocked a vandal without using the right tags ...
That would be quite impressive. Generally it is quite hard to block people before being given an admin bit.
-- geni
Geni has the right point here. Article-writers simply don't need the admin tools ass much. ~~~~
On 5/30/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Then they risk not getting promoted because they blocked a vandal without using the right tags ...
That would be quite impressive. Generally it is quite hard to block people before being given an admin bit.
Ok, sorry. :-) I meant warned without using the right tags ...
On 5/30/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Ok, sorry. :-) I meant warned without using the right tags ...
While back in the day Grunt's custom tags were accepted I think some people feel that custom tags now make us look unprofessional.
I don't belive the issue has ever been settled one way or the other.