Danny,
since you took the time to think about this, I've done the same before
replying. Responses are inline, I hope this doesn't get too long.
On 10/6/06, daniwo59(a)aol.com <daniwo59(a)aol.com> wrote:
Originally, I planned to answer Parker Peters's email. I wanted to say
something, at least, but I didn't want it to be trite. I didn't want to
defend
some admin actions while agreeing with him about others. There will be
(have
been?) plenty of people to do that. In the end, all of that is irrelevant,
because it is his perception of the problem that really matters, not
whether the
problem is truly relevant in particular instance X or Z. It is a
macro-issue,
and it deserves macro-answers, or alternately, macro-changing in
our thinking.
Yes, it is a macro-issue, but it comes from many, many single instances I've
seen while being an editor and later an admin.
I think the real issue can be boiled down to a single statement: "Wikipedia
is big ... really, really big." As of yesterday,
Alexa ranks us the number
12
website in the world, and we are still climbing. In English alone, we have
close to 1.5 million articles and 6 million total pages. We have over 2.4
million users and close to 600 thousand images. I don't know how many
edits we
are getting per day, per hour, per second, but I can only assume that it
is a
very substantial number.
That might be part of it, but even when Wikipedia was smaller, the seeds of
the problem I'm seeing were there.
No single person, or even small group of people, can tend to something this
big, or even familiarize themselves with all its nooks
and crannies. Yet
we
have to. That is the challenge.
There are 1,015 people with admin powers, and for various reasons it is
assumed that the burden of responsibility lies with
them (it really
doesn't,
since it should rest on the entire community, but that is a different
story).
I'd beg to differ in one respect: I think admins are responsible for their
own actions. And I think, since admins are the only ones who can safely
combat or fix the problems caused by other admins, we're in trouble.
Of
these thousand or so people, some are more active than
others. Some can be
found patrolling the projects every hour of every day, while others pop
in for a
few minutes every few months, and still others are gone for good.
For now, consider me in the latter category.
As such, the burden is overwhelming.
I don't think it needs to be, nor should the size of the burden be an excuse
for abuses or incivil behavior.
There is so much to do, so much that
needs tending, but we've grown faster than our
admnistrative structure,
and the
fissures are beginning to show. By piling on the load, it is only natural
that admins (and here I mean people who perform admin tasks, whether they
are
admins or not) begin to feel frustrated and burn out.
Agreed. But again, too often this "burn-out" has been used as an excuse to
justify poor admin behavior rather than a notice to censure admins and get
them to back off, take a breather, and come back fresh. I don't really care
what the genesis of poor behavior is, if the result is that new editors are
driven away from the project or incivility is tolerated, then it is a
problem that can't be excused and needs to be fixed.
It is especially onerous
when every action is going to be viewed by people who
will challenge
it--and
the admin--any way they can. Do you risk making all the rapid decisions
that
need to be made, one after the other, even if it means that some bad
decisions will inevitably be made?
If you're willing to learn from your bad decisions and apologize if you are
at fault, I don't think so. What I have a problem with is people who are
unwilling to admit they made a mistake, unwilling to admit when they are at
fault, and quite willing to attack anyone who differs with them.
Do you risk maintaining old procedures, which once
worked quite well but are starting to buckle under
the weight, or do you
experiment with something new and untested?
I would hope we risk the new and untested procedures, but I've rarely seen a
new policy or procedure pass unless it actually increases admin power while
decreasing admin responsibility. My problem I mentioned with the unblocking
procedures is a case in point; we've set up so many roadblocks after someone
got their panties in a wad seeing another admin unblock someone they hated,
that now it's impossible to unblock an illegitimately blocked user in an
expeditious fashion without the risk of being accused of incivility or wheel
war incitement.
If there is to be change, what are
the priorities?
I would hope that the priority is to make a better encyclopedia and a more
civil community, and maybe to tear down some bureaucratic roadblocks so that
things can move more smoothly. I feel we have too many bumps in our
collective road.
If there is to be discussion about change, at what point do we
end the talking and decide to act?
I don't know.
These are some of the real issues that Parker Peters is raising. Note that
they are dilemmas, and the nature of a dilemma is that
there is no right
answer, except perhaps from the safety of hindsight. And yet, decisions
have to be
made.
Yes, decisions have to be made. I've made a few suggestions today that I
hope will be taken seriously:
#1 - the creation of a "mini-admin" or "first grade" admin position,
as a
"training wheels" step for new admins, so that they have some power but not
the total power an admin today has, to minimize the damage they can do while
allowing them to learn the role of an admin.
#2 - Altering the account creation procedure so that all new registered
editors immediately get the welcome notice, as well as a link to the dispute
resolution page, so that they immediately have those items on hand and have
some help readily available if Being Bold gets them into conflict with
someone.
I'd also suggest that we take quite seriously warning template abuse: good
faith edits should not receive "vandalism" warnings and so forth, and too
many pov warriors still feel like they can call any edit they disagree with
"vandalism" and get away with it.
These are my suggestions, trying to be helpful. You seem reasonable and I
hope they are taken seriously.
Parker