In a message dated 3/2/2008 4:39:12 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, dgerard@gmail.com writes:
All of which are looked at by people quite keen to nail admins on violations of such, and almost none of which pan out. This leads to a certain deprecation of such complaints in practice, per the crying wolf phenomenon. Which is probably unfortunate.>>
-------------- That's right. For any action presented, there are knee-jerk reactions from both sides. Both the "He was just doing his job" crowd, and the "admins are all jerks anyway" crowd.
Which is why we need more people willing to look into the details and ferret out what actually happened. I think in general those cases which do come before AN/I or AN are handled appropriately.
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On 03/03/2008, WJhonson@aol.com WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
That's right. For any action presented, there are knee-jerk reactions from both sides. Both the "He was just doing his job" crowd, and the "admins are all jerks anyway" crowd.
Even ones just doing their job can be, um, pretty crap admins. And we do have many crappy admins.
The arbcom is quite happy to remove the admin bit from *bad* admins as needed, sometimes in a sudden midnight swoop. I'd say there's not a problem in practice removing the bit from actually bad admins (as opposed to, e.g., momentarily unpopular ones).
The problem IMO is the sorta crappy ones. Which gets subjective. And it would obviously be better to lure them encouragingly toward non-crapness rather than just saying "Fail. *bang*"
I mean, ideally adminship really shouldn't be a big deal - any experienced non-insane Wikipedian should be able to pass RFA okay. That that isn't how things are is a self-feeding problem. But this has been discussed ad nauseam both here and on WT:RFA.
- d.
On Sunday 02 March 2008 18:56, David Gerard wrote:
The arbcom is quite happy to remove the admin bit from *bad* admins as needed, sometimes in a sudden midnight swoop.
Admins are servants of the community, not the Arbitrary Committee; thus, de-adminning is properly a community decision.
I'd say there's not a problem in practice removing the bit from actually bad admins (as opposed to, e.g., momentarily unpopular ones).
I realize we're not necessarily talking about my particular proposal here, but there's a reason why it requires that someone fail to meet the threshold for two consecutive weeks (and that number is, well, just a number--change it if need be; the principle remains the same).
The problem IMO is the sorta crappy ones. Which gets subjective. And it would obviously be better to lure them encouragingly toward non-crapness rather than just saying "Fail. *bang*"
It's not obvious to me. The good of the community comes before the feelings of admins. A reasonable argument can be made that it is indeed best for the community to maintain some stability in adminship and keep them happy, but it's certainly not self-evidently true.
Problem is there's* too many* of them to educate...
The problem IMO is the sorta crappy ones. Which gets subjective. And it would obviously be better to lure them encouragingly toward non-crapness rather than just saying "Fail. *bang*"
Kurt Weber kmw@armory.com
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On 03/03/2008, Kurt Maxwell Weber kmw@armory.com wrote:
On Sunday 02 March 2008 18:56, David Gerard wrote:
The arbcom is quite happy to remove the admin bit from *bad* admins as needed, sometimes in a sudden midnight swoop.
Admins are servants of the community, not the Arbitrary Committee; thus, de-adminning is properly a community decision.
And the arbcom is the elected power of last resort in en:wp, and has the power of deadminning when it is needed. This may be a good or bad thing, but it's how things presently stand.
I'd say there's not a problem in practice removing the bit from actually bad admins (as opposed to, e.g., momentarily unpopular ones).
I realize we're not necessarily talking about my particular proposal here, but there's a reason why it requires that someone fail to meet the threshold for two consecutive weeks (and that number is, well, just a number--change it if need be; the principle remains the same).
A system like this has been proposed many times before. Why did it fail those times? What can we learn from history?
- d.
On Sunday 02 March 2008 19:20, David Gerard wrote:
On 03/03/2008, Kurt Maxwell Weber kmw@armory.com wrote:
On Sunday 02 March 2008 18:56, David Gerard wrote:
The arbcom is quite happy to remove the admin bit from *bad* admins as needed, sometimes in a sudden midnight swoop.
Admins are servants of the community, not the Arbitrary Committee; thus, de-adminning is properly a community decision.
And the arbcom is the elected power of last resort in en:wp
Hardly.
Created not by community consensus but by the dictate of one user, who still maintains final control over its makeup.
Sure, that one user is the founder of the project. As you're well aware, I'm an Objectivist; I recognize that the WMF has every moral right to do what it pleases with Wikipedia. That doesn't mean it *should*, or that I'm obligated to *like it*. If Jimbo says this is a community project, then, on a personal level, I'm going to hold him to it. He shouldn't consider himself anything special.
No, I'm not going to sue him or the Foundation for exercising its natural inherent rights over the property it controls. But while these people have the right to be hypocrites with their own property, it's still wrong, and I'm going to do whatever I can, non-coercively, to get them to stop.
Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
On Sunday 02 March 2008 19:20, David Gerard wrote:
On 03/03/2008, Kurt Maxwell Weber kmw@armory.com wrote:
On Sunday 02 March 2008 18:56, David Gerard wrote:
The arbcom is quite happy to remove the admin bit from *bad* admins as needed, sometimes in a sudden midnight swoop.
Admins are servants of the community, not the Arbitrary Committee; thus, de-adminning is properly a community decision.
And the arbcom is the elected power of last resort in en:wp
Hardly.
Created not by community consensus but by the dictate of one user, who still maintains final control over its makeup.
Sure, that one user is the founder of the project. As you're well aware, I'm an Objectivist; I recognize that the WMF has every moral right to do what it pleases with Wikipedia. That doesn't mean it *should*, or that I'm obligated to *like it*. If Jimbo says this is a community project, then, on a personal level, I'm going to hold him to it. He shouldn't consider himself anything special.
No, I'm not going to sue him or the Foundation for exercising its natural inherent rights over the property it controls. But while these people have the right to be hypocrites with their own property, it's still wrong, and I'm going to do whatever I can, non-coercively, to get them to stop.
Please don't name call on the list.
More to the point, the community has what we call advisory elections, and the founder does, for the most part, hold to them. It is not unusual for collaborative projects to have a project leader step in from time to time in the cooperate world, as has been my experience. This is not always A Bad Thing.
./scream
On Sunday 02 March 2008 20:17, Screamer wrote:
More to the point, the community has what we call advisory elections, and the founder does, for the most part, hold to them. It is not unusual for collaborative projects to have a project leader step in from time to time in the cooperate world, as has been my experience. This is not always A Bad Thing.
Sure, and corporate projects also don't describe themselves with adjectives like "community-run." Hierarchy is fine, as long as you're honest about it.
If Jimbo is going to call Wikipedia a "community project," then he should let it be just that. If he's going to be the ultimate dictator (benevolent and enlightened though he may be), he should be up front about it.
Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
On Sunday 02 March 2008 20:17, Screamer wrote:
More to the point, the community has what we call advisory elections, and the founder does, for the most part, hold to them. It is not unusual for collaborative projects to have a project leader step in from time to time in the cooperate world, as has been my experience. This is not always A Bad Thing.
Sure, and corporate projects also don't describe themselves with adjectives like "community-run." Hierarchy is fine, as long as you're honest about it.
If Jimbo is going to call Wikipedia a "community project," then he should let it be just that. If he's going to be the ultimate dictator (benevolent and enlightened though he may be), he should be up front about it.
Pardon the spelling, sometimes the inline corrects on its own without my intervention. I mean to spell "corporate".
More to the point, I don't believe I have seen a history of Jim doing things outside of the community, the times he has, I can count on my finger. And for what it is worth, I don't see where he has denied doing so.
./scream
Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
On Sunday 02 March 2008 18:56, David Gerard wrote:
The arbcom is quite happy to remove the admin bit from *bad* admins as needed, sometimes in a sudden midnight swoop.
Admins are servants of the community, not the Arbitrary Committee; thus, de-adminning is properly a community decision.
Unless I missed something in this thread, the AC can remove administrators, being a servant of the community, not withstanding.
./scream