So you are saying Guerdlam's accusations are actually true? In that case it is a cause for concern! If a certain admin will not pass a RfA today, he has no buisness whatsoever bieng an admin. An admin is a person who has been entrusted with some additional abilities by the community because he is trusted to make good use of them and entrusting those abilities to all users has too much potential for disruption.
If however an admin ceases to be popular within the community, that means he has overstayed his welcome and immediately needs to be kicked out, call it a lynchmob if you will. An admin is a janitor, not the member of some elite aristocracy and if they perform actions unpopular to the majority of the community then they are abusing their powers.
molu
On Mon, 29 May 2006 12:36:51 +0100 Nick Boalch wrote:
I don't think that is a particularly fair test. As is obvious, admins are occasionally called upon to perform actions that upset people -- I don't think admins should shrink from making those hard choices.
I can think of several thoroughgoingly solid admins, people who temper a good knowledge of policy with a healthy dose of knowing that what we're here to do is write an encyclopaedia, who I doubt would pass an RfA because they've done things that have made them controversial or unpopular in certain sectors of the community.
The community giveth, and the community taketh away -- but it taketh away under the auspices of proper consideration by the arbitration committee, not by having unpopular admins strung up by a baying lynchmob.
Cheers,
N.
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Molu,
<snip/>
If however an admin ceases to be popular within the community, that means he has overstayed his welcome and immediately needs to be kicked out, call it a lynchmob if you will. An admin is a janitor, not the member of some elite aristocracy and if they perform actions unpopular to the majority of the community then they are abusing their powers.
Nonsense. Admins make calls all the time that are recognised by the community as necessary, but still make one unpopular with certain subsections nonetheless. RfAs are extraordinarily easy to stack, as opposers count for more than supporters and the wider community does not generally take an interest in them. Requests for adminship tend to involve only a very small subset of the community, who, fortunately, are usually considered sane (editcountitis notwithstanding); requests for confirmation will have all the problems of RfA, with the added drawback of being inhabited by trolls and idiots who are too concerned with advancing their own agendas to bother learning what admins do and why.
Until RfA can realistically be considered The Voice of the People, it is not an appropriate or safe mechanism for reconfirming admins. ArbCom and Jimbo Wales are very well aware of what makes an abusive admin (far more than users such as, well, *you*), and rest assured, if there's a problem, they can deal with it far better than a lynch mob of disgruntled users miffed that they weren't able to turn Wikipedia into their private playgrounds.
I am not the only person who has noticed that, in your brief time on this list, you have rarely posted anything that could not be considered "nonsense". I would like to suggest you spend more time on Wikipedia, attempting to learn what we're about and how we work, before you try to instruct the Wikipedia Grannies in advanced egg-sucking procedures. The views of someone ignorant of Wikipedia procedures can be useful, at times; fresh eyes, etc., but at others it's damned annoying to see someone who doesn't know what he's talking about attempt to lecture us. Please, give it a rest, and fill your head instead of this list.
Brilliant post, Mark.
Jay.
On 5/30/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
Molu,
<snip/>
If however an admin ceases to be popular within the community, that means he has overstayed his welcome and immediately needs to be kicked out, call it a lynchmob if you will. An admin is a janitor, not the member of some elite aristocracy and if they perform actions unpopular to the majority of the community then they are abusing their powers.
Nonsense. Admins make calls all the time that are recognised by the community as necessary, but still make one unpopular with certain subsections nonetheless. RfAs are extraordinarily easy to stack, as opposers count for more than supporters and the wider community does not generally take an interest in them. Requests for adminship tend to involve only a very small subset of the community, who, fortunately, are usually considered sane (editcountitis notwithstanding); requests for confirmation will have all the problems of RfA, with the added drawback of being inhabited by trolls and idiots who are too concerned with advancing their own agendas to bother learning what admins do and why.
Until RfA can realistically be considered The Voice of the People, it is not an appropriate or safe mechanism for reconfirming admins. ArbCom and Jimbo Wales are very well aware of what makes an abusive admin (far more than users such as, well, *you*), and rest assured, if there's a problem, they can deal with it far better than a lynch mob of disgruntled users miffed that they weren't able to turn Wikipedia into their private playgrounds.
I am not the only person who has noticed that, in your brief time on this list, you have rarely posted anything that could not be considered "nonsense". I would like to suggest you spend more time on Wikipedia, attempting to learn what we're about and how we work, before you try to instruct the Wikipedia Grannies in advanced egg-sucking procedures. The views of someone ignorant of Wikipedia procedures can be useful, at times; fresh eyes, etc., but at others it's damned annoying to see someone who doesn't know what he's talking about attempt to lecture us. Please, give it a rest, and fill your head instead of this list.
-- Mark Gallagher "What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse
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