But that is an exceptional case, when Jimbo hands out a decree from the top against community consensus, and it doesn't happen very often. It can't be taken as the general situation. In general, what is good for the Wikipedia is determined by the community and not some omnipotent being with an absolute and unquestionable benchmark of appropriateness. We ARE here to build an encyclopedia, but since it is WIKIpedia and not Nupedia, there can be no encyclopedia without the community. The community builds the encyclopedia. Except for certain special authorities like Jimbo, it is the community that must decide whether an admin's actions are in the best interests of the encyclopedia, we shouldn't take the admin's words for it.
Look at it this way, we rely upon the community to decide who will work best for the encyclopedia in the first place. What miracle suddenly happens after the RfA concludes that the very admins who were chosen by the community get the power to disregard the community? It's like "Now you know you made a mistake and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. I AM THE TYRANT MUHUHAHAHA!!!"
And for the trolls complaining about corrupt ArbCom, ofcourse they whine about it because the ArbCom tends to rule against trolls. But if we have an avenue of removing those invalid criticisms without any negative effects, and have as an additional benefit the direct accountability of the admins to the community without going through the indirect and unnecessarily resource consuming process of ArbCom or even worse, Jimbo himself.
Molu
On Tue, 30 May 2006 11:04:00 +0100 Nick Boalch wrote:
This is simply not the case. If an admin is acting in the interests of the encyclopaedia then he is doing the right thing, regardless of what the majority of the community thinks.
We're here to build an encyclopaedia, not a community. Usually the interests of the encyclopaedia and those of the community go hand in hand. Where they don't, the encyclopaedia comes first. Always and without exception.
[[:m:Instruction creep]]. Such a mechanism would be totally unnecessary.
Trolls complain about ArbCom being 'corrupt' because, rightly if they're trolls, they don't get the results they want from it.
Cheers,
N.
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Molu wrote:
Look at it this way, we rely upon the community to decide who will work best for the encyclopedia in the first place.
Agreed.
What miracle suddenly happens after the RfA concludes that the very admins who were chosen by the community get the power to disregard the community?
None. As I've said before, administrators can be seen as people who've been trusted by the community to Do The Right Thing.
It's like "Now you know you made a mistake and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. I AM THE TYRANT MUHUHAHAHA!!!"
It really isn't (or certainly shouldn't be). Can you actually find an example of an admin behaving like that who hasn't been desysopped by ruling of the Arbitration Committee? I doubt it.
And for the trolls complaining about corrupt ArbCom, ofcourse they whine about it because the ArbCom tends to rule against trolls. But if we have an avenue of removing those invalid criticisms without any negative effects, and have as an additional benefit the direct accountability of the admins to the community without going through the indirect and unnecessarily resource consuming process of ArbCom or even worse, Jimbo himself.
I think what would happen is:
(a) our hypothetical 'admin impeachment' page would get waterlogged by people without the time or inclination to look properly at cases like the arbitrators do.
(b) a significant minority of the contributors there would be people with grudges against individual admins or adminship in general, making it almost impossible to arrive at decent consensus.
(c) or, if by some miracle it did work properly, trolls would soon start complaining about 'admin impeachment' being corrupt.
Cheers,
N.
"Nick Boalch" wrote
Can you actually find an example of an admin behaving like that who hasn't been desysopped by ruling of the Arbitration Committee? I doubt it.
In fact we have probably not 'culled' enough admins, if one were to judge solely by management criteria. It is not done lightly. Also, we tend to assume admins act in good faith, and that if they get things wrong (happens) then it is reversible. That is not exactly accurate: but any admin not acting in good faith is probably a troubled person, not just a troubled admin. And mistakes alone don't justify a de-sysop.
Charles
charles matthews wrote:
Can you actually find an example of an admin behaving like that who hasn't been desysopped by ruling of the Arbitration Committee? I doubt it.
In fact we have probably not 'culled' enough admins, if one were to judge solely by management criteria. It is not done lightly. Also, we tend to assume admins act in good faith, and that if they get things wrong (happens) then it is reversible. That is not exactly accurate: but any admin not acting in good faith is probably a troubled person, not just a troubled admin. And mistakes alone don't justify a de-sysop.
Yes, I agree -- and that wasn't what I was trying to imply. One of the advantages of Wikipedia is that almost every action can be undone.
The part of my message referred to as 'behaving like that' (which you snipped) was quoting Molu describing admins acting in a power-hungry manner:
It's like "Now you know you made a mistake and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. I AM THE TYRANT MUHUHAHAHA!!!"
Cheers,
N.