We can't lower the bar. Admins need to be neutral, have a good grasp of policy and be non-destructive. We can't grant someone admin powers without knowing if they fulfill those criteria. Mgm

On Wikipedia "consensus" is used to mean "consensus of people that decided to express an opinion". We don't hold referendums on policy decisions. Every time a proposal for a new system of selecting admins has been discussed, it has been rejected. That is a consensus to keep things pretty much as they are. It's possible that some new proposal might gain approval, but none have so far.

If consensus is reached, it's up to pretty much anyone to carry it out. If it turns out there wasn't consensus then we'll find out when someone reverts the changes. Policy is determined in pretty much the same way as content in articles. It keeps getting changed until everyone is happy with (or at least willing to accept) what we've got. The principle of "Be Bold" isn't applied so much to policy - it's usual to discuss changes before you make them, rather than making them and seeing if any reverts and only discussing it if they do, but the basic process is the same.

On 2/17/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: And, this, to me, is the biggest problems with admins on Wikipedia, it is a BIG deal, it's such a big deal, that no one who has ever attained it should ever have it removed--according to the lucky few who've managed to convince their peers that they're just like them. Adminship is given by people who spend most of their time on the web to others just like them, outsiders need never apply. So, is Wikipedia a general encyclopedia that anyone can edit (the best idea of its time), or is it a private club for people who spend all their time editing Wikipedia? It's the latter, now, and that will always be the entrenched ownership of Wikipedia: a small group of like-minded people who spend a lot of time online, people who, realistically, cannot be the experts or best editors for the bulk of general Wikipedia articles, because they don't go to libraries, they only use online resources, they don't know how to access resources not found in cyberspace, which is not currently the depository of all knowledge. There is no willingness or ability to de-admin someone because in order to jump through all the necessary hoops, one has to be one of the editors who is like the ownership cabal: living in cyberspace, and these people would never risk their own future chance to join the exaulted ranks just to take down an administrator who does things that could get a regular editor permanently banned from Wikipedia. Adminship on Wikipedia is too special, too elitist, too permanent--have the right number of edits and move directly to tenure, do whatever you want afterwards. Editors know how to admin shop--if you have a certain bias and want an article to stay with your bias, there's just the perfect admin to take it to, instead of requests for protection, if you are one of the many Wikipedia editors with nationalistic agendas, you can admin-shop to make sure your agenda is well-represented. If it's really no big deal, it shouldn't be handed out like it is a big deal, with the knowledge that it's permanent, that you've achieved status, that you can do whatever you want, that you can now protect the pages you want to make certain that your POV is locked in. I think that people underestimate the real damage being done to Wikipedia by the way admins are chosen, given absolute power, made an elite class, and given tenure the instant they pick up the tools. Yet, essentially there is no way to desysop a bad administrator at Wikipedia, because being an admin at Wikipedia IS a very big deal. The RfA process is a big deal, your status at Wikipedia when given admin tools is a big deal, your ability to keep that power no matter that you do things that would get an ordinary editor, the common, banned, is a big deal, and your ability to manipulate Wikipedia to suit your agenda is a big deal. Ec is correct, there is no consensus, besides that which the ownership of Wikipedia by the cyber-living has already established. At some point, imo, it has to be decided, is Wikipedia a general online encyclopedia that anybody can edit, or is it an elitist workspace for an elitist group of people who live in cyberspace? Because this latter group is none too fond of the anybodies of the world. KP

On Feb 18, 2007, at 3:39 PM, Marc Riddell wrote: A common complaint by these that have much to say but show little interest in contributing of their valuable free time to keep Wikipedia ticking. Administrators perform an admirable job and a thankless one, by the look if it. -- Jossi

Jossi Fresco wrote: Just because someone isn't going out of his way to make himself visible in the way that some admins do does not mean that he is doing nothing to keep Wikipedia ticking. Your attitude is very broadly disrespectful of a wide range of contributors. Have you forgoten that this thread started with complaints about admin burnout. The general solution that was suggested was to loosen up the extreme restrictions on becoming a sysop. But those content with the present state of things argue loudly against it. You can't have it both ways. Stop complaining about being overworked, or do something about the problem. Ec

On 2/19/07, Jossi Fresco <jossifresco(a)mac.com> wrote: What is the difference between these two? The editor who is not an administrator has to live in daily fear that at any point, especially should they edit on any remotely controversial subject without the protection of another "friend" who is an administrator, they can be accosted by any administrator, their rights to edit terminated. All this can be done at the whim of any administrator, who can then lock the talk page, who is then defended should they revert and block any other user who speaks in the defense of the blocked editor as a "sockpuppet of a blocked user." And what will happen should this happen? Nothing at all. The editor will remain blocked, at the whim of the blocking admin. The appeals process will not happen, and no resolution can happen. The supposed "authorities" who are supposed to prevent this prefer to turn a blind eye, to dismiss complaints against administrators without ever investigating. Meanwhile, the Admin is growing an ever larger ego, based solely on his ability to do just this. Rather than acting within policy, Administrators on Wikipedia are the equivalent of Judge Dredd - they are judge, jury, and executioner all in one package, screaming "I am the law" and doing whatever they want, confident that the other Judge Dredds will back them up if any questions of their abuses are ever raised. Of course, there are perception such as yours. But these are See above. Editors cannot do nearly as much as an admin, because they do not have the protection of position. Rather than exacerbating the width of the perceived chasm between A noble concept, but completely inadequate with today's crop of admins; the goal of the vast majority of the administrators is not to build bridges or even an encyclopedia, but to consolidate their power and ensure that they have the power to be as abusive, mean, incivil as they wish to be. The rules to an admin are for the "little people", not for them. Parker -- ==== Parker Peters http://parkerpeters.livejournal.com

Jossi Fresco wrote: In order to be perfectly clear I will begin by quoting back the statement that you so conveniently left out above: On what do you base the notion that those "who have much to say show little interest in contributing", or add the gratuitously sarcasrtic "valuable" to your statement. That is disrespectful of all who working to find a solution to the problem. The series of threads did start with a very valid complaint about admin burnout. Would you have preferred that I call it "self-congratulatory whining"? :-) And the point is? That's not what you were suggesting in your previous post. The broken AfD process is only a small part of the problem. Reducing the distinction between admins and non-admins would allow us to build easier bridges than the engineering masterpieces that your approach would require. Ec

Jossi Fresco wrote: What consequences, Jossi? If "editors can do as much as an admin besides deleting an article and closing AfDs", then what possible consequences would there be in having many more admins? The reality is that there are significant differences (far more than you suggested) between admins and non-admins. Deleting, viewing, and restoring articles, blocking and unblocking users, protecting and unprotecting articles...those pop to mind quickly. But even in that reality, the vague imperative to "think of the consequences" is not helpful. If you believe there would be significant consequences, please tell us about them. -Rich Holton User:Rholton (an admin)

Jossi Fresco wrote: Jossi, you say that you are not against having many more admins, but you are against relaxing the criteria for becoming an admin. Do you have any useful suggestions for expanding the ranks? Relaxing the criteria should have benefits beyond increasing the number of admins. It should help to eliminate the perception that being an admin is a "big thing". Yes, many non-admins overrate the prestige of becoming an admin--and many admins do as well. I don't think it does anyone any good to minimize the real differences that exist. As an admin, I can view any deleted article any time I want with no permission, implicit or explicit, and no community review. This is a big deal to some non-admins, and there are presumed legal reasons for keeping this distinction. Just telling people to self-nominate for the current, restrictive RfA is not a viable solution to people who may have good reason to view those deleted articles. This is just one example. If you haven't been following this list recently, I urge you to view the archives and review this thread and the thread on admin burn-out. I think it will help you to understand some of the issues that lie behind some of the recent posts. -Rich

Jossi Fresco wrote: I look forward to seeing your nominations. You're picking at my example, rather than addressing the larger issue, which is your earlier statement that "editors can do as much as an admin besides deleting an article and closing AfDs". However, since you made that statement you have stated that "adminship *is* a big deal" (emphasis yours). So I assume that your earlier post was in error, or I misunderstood, or you've changed your mind. We agree. As it currently stands, adminship *is" a big deal. Because it is a big deal, it is desired by many. And many people rightly feel proud when they achieve it. I think this is a bad thing for the project. And I think you're missing the fundamental problem that the current strict criteria creates: the notion that adminship is a big deal. I believe that the "big deal" about being an admin is primarily a function of the strict requirements, not of the power that adminship gives you. As you did point out, most of the powers are reviewed by the community. These powers could be given to many more people, with much less strict criteria, with resulting in "chaos". Withholding these powers, which are not inherently a "big deal" does cause hard feelings and encourages the elitism (both actual and perceived) of the admin class. Because adminship has become a "big deal", some of those who become admins do "swagger around". Some of them have a very high profile, and abuse their power. This gives admins a bad image, because the presumption is that most admins act this way. Because adminship is a big deal, we a very reluctant to remove admin powers from an admin. This encourages the view that the abusive, swaggering admins are acceptable. This leads to increased abuse of all admins. Which leads many admins to becoming less caring/more abusive in return. It's a self-reinforcing cycle. All of this leads to many good, trustworthy contributors having no interest whatsoever in becoming admins. They don't want to subject themselves to the crazy and often humiliating process at RfA. They don't want to incur the abuse that is often heaped upon admins. And some admins will actually say that those people who don't want to go through these trials aren't fit to be admins! We have to stop this self-destructive cycle. Admins should have respect and be respectful. We need to have effective ways of dealing with admins that get a fat head and abuse their power. We need to diminish the perceived and real chasm that exists between admins and editors. I believe that one key way to accomplish this is to greatly relax the de-facto requirements for becoming an admin. Part of that will be more effective and more frequently used mechanisms for de-adminning. You can do the latter unless you do the former, because there is a real shortage of admins, and there is currently wailing and gnashing of teeth when any active admin leaves...even when there is general agreement that the admin was borderline abusive. -Rich

Marc Riddell wrote: I've noticed that repeatedly. Not just on this list, but in a lot of things elsewhere that have nothing to do with Wikipedia. It's as though certain kinds of comments that address fundamental issues just go flying over people's heads. It sometimes makes me feel that I know that I've said something good when nobody responds, or they divert the discussion into a trivial subsidiary issue. One of my favorite Nietzsche quotes is, "There are no Christians alive today; the last one died on the cross." I think that other philosophers have also remarked how disciples change the nature of great ideas into something smaller. Sometimes when even Jimbo starts talking about reliability and reputation I start to wonder whether he has been smoking too much corporate air. I still like to believe that the situation is salvageable, and that at some point bold Lancelot will come along to cast the Hinayana from the temple. Ec

K P wrote: Agreed. If this wasn't clear in my long rant above, it was an omission on my part. -Rich

David Gerard wrote: Right now it takes an ArbCom decision or direct intervention from Jimbo to de-admin someone. This is *very* asymmetric to the RfA process. Perhaps this is why there is the perceived need for the RfA to be so stringent. If an experienced admin is "swaggering" and abusing power, then that admin is causing an asymmetric amount of damage to the project; not the kind of damage a vandal can cause, but damage none-the-less. We need to have effective and efficient ways to curtail that kind of damage, just like we need effective and efficient ways to curtail the damage a vandal causes. I do believe the relaxation of de-facto requirements to become an admin needs to come first. But streamlining the process to remove abusive admins is also an important step. -Rich

David Gerard wrote: That's pretty binary thinking, David. Can you not even imagine the existence of other alternatives? -Rich

On Feb 19, 2007, at 11:58 AM, Rich Holton wrote: Are we editing the same Wikipedia? I have not seen such "swaggering" and "abuse of power" but in exceptional cases. -- Jossi

On Feb 19, 2007, at 1:25 PM, Rich Holton wrote: My point is that you do not define rules by their exceptions. If there are exceptional cases, then these need to be dealt with separately of the norm. In our case that would be ArbCom stepping-in and desysoping these few admins that abuse power. -- Jossi

Jossi Fresco wrote: How many would you consider to be an acceptable number? -Rich

On Feb 19, 2007, at 1:43 PM, Rich Holton wrote: No, Rich. The ball is in *your* court now. -- Jossi

On 19/02/07, Rich Holton <richholton(a)gmail.com> wrote: I think you really need to answer his question first. You're playing sophist here. - d.

I don't know if I know 100 of those admins, but I could probably rattle off 10 abusive ones as of that date. So my projection? Roughly 75-80. -Jeff -- If you can read this, I'm not at home.

On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:46:58 -0500 (EST), "Jeff Raymond" <jeff.raymond(a)internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote: Name and shame. I'll start the RfC myself. Unless I'm on the list, of course... Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On 2/19/07, Jossi Fresco <jossifresco(a)mac.com> wrote: But earlier you had to discredit me personally and my contribution to Wikipedia in order to support admins, so I have to wonder if you're looking. I do think that most of the administrators on Wikipedia can be supported for the jobs they do, without discrediting casual contributors. But look around, look at user RfC and review some of the admins who have been up there. There is plenty of obvious swaggering. Wikipedia is huge. There are places on Wikipedia you've probably never imagined. The rampant nationalism on Wikipedia is staggering. And much of it is supported by entrenched pet administrators. Although this is slowly working itself out in certain areas, for one FAR is taking some of these pages down, and others may be held up by a stricter FAC. There are also a lot of administrators who go above and beyond the call of duty, like one poor guy who stepped in to edit an article posted for deletion, got his solid edits reverted, got personally attacked by article's owners and his 8 sock puppets, then recruited other editors to fix the article while being attacked by these idiot socks! But he's not the problem. The problem and issue is the overall damage to Wikipedia by the presence of administrators who do abuse their power, and is the system broke, and can it be fixed if it is? If there is a problem, denying it doesn't address it any better than attacking the messenger. Particularly when a large part of the problem is the denial of a problem, and an entrenched culture that prevents reviews and solutions to the problem. KP

on 2/19/07 4:50 PM, Jossi Fresco at jossifresco(a)mac.com wrote: Is the same culture that began WP the same one in place today? Marc

Marc Riddell wrote: Marc, Just a sample of one, to give you some idea. Here's the page for my RfA (Request for adminship): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Rholton Compare that to any of the current or recent RfA's. I'm pretty sure that, should I apply (especially self-nominate) for adminship now, I would be turned down on the basis on not enough contributions to policy discussions, or for "not needing" the tools (although, I have in just the last few days, taken some time to deal with the incoming new pages, deleting those that are obvious speedy's). -Rich

On 2/19/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs(a)earthlink.net> wrote: Just curious, Have you ever closed an AFD on a webcomic? Considering your "old school POV" in the subject, could you be impartial judging consensus? The same question could be asked the "webcomic inclusionists".

Stan Shebs wrote: I thought you were here longer than that. I think the culture has changed. The Seigenthaler incident was a big turning point in that. After that the rule bound control freaks seem to have become more dominant. We had to respond to Seigenthaler, but in the process we ended up with a lot of unnecesarily restrictive procedures. Yes, I can even remember trying to predict when we would reach 100K articles. Some of the creative energy can still be there in some WikiProjects. I can take or leave webcomics, but it's still interesting to see how some of them regard Wikipedia. Ec

Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> writes: .... Definitely agreed. We can't even sensibly discuss restoring anon page creation, despite the utter lack of evidence either way that it worked. -- Gwern Inquiring minds want to know.

Jossi Fresco wrote: Boosterism aside, how has the RfA culture produced amazing results? Ec

On 2/19/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net> wrote: Deserving of an Austin Powers quote if ever there was an e-mail to earn one. KP

KP, In Karate there are 32 Vital Points on the human body. Some, when struck, can take as long a 10 days for the desired effect to occur ;-). Keep the faith, Marc

On 2/19/07, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: No, you're both wrong, it's all in the wrists. No, wait, maybe it's all in the breathing. KP

on 2/19/07 8:51 PM, geni at geniice(a)gmail.com wrote: geni, ==Sources== * http://www.ao-denkou-kai.org/leo_training.htm Are you wanting to revert my edit? :-) Marc

Jossi Fresco wrote: If that's the case why are the exceptional cases dominating the conversation? Are the admins so powerless that they can't control their renegades? Ec

On 2/19/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: No! They're not so powerless. However, it's strongly to their disadvantage to do anything to control their renegades. Because .... adminship is such a damned big deal, no one who ever got it would ever risk losing it, and anyone losing it, increases the chances of scrutiny in too many ways on others who hold the power--any time any administrator loses the tools, editors notice they're not infallible, editors may question other administrators. Adminship is not in practice what it was intended, I think, to be. I don't think it was intended to be a big deal. I don't think it was intended to be a position of power so much as an additional set of duties that certain dedicated users could control. But I think it warped into a big deal power play. And human beings have shown through history that they will do anything, up to and including destroying their own power base/country/mission to keep their personal power. They're not so powerless that they can't control them, they're so powerful that they won't control them for fear of their own power being curtailed. Also there's no purpose in discussing the non-exceptional cases. There are plenty of administrators who do a great job. Plenty of editors, too, who crawl around on the fringes doing a great job with articles--hopefully someone gives them a barnstar. This is the best part of Wikipedia: the anybodies who are doing great work. But I don't think Wikipedia overall is maintaining a welcoming atmosphere for the potentially huge variety of people needed to reach its ultimate goal, and part of the problem is, imo, the insufferable poweropoly of adminship. It's designed to not foster self-reflection. KP

On 20/02/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: It's entirely unclear what is being advocated. I'm seeing long invective-filled posts that tell me to go look for examples to support the ranters' positions myself, but no actual case examples. And let me remind you I'm one of the ones who thinks RFA is utterly broken and we probably need about twice as many admins. Indeed. Now please give me some solid criteria, with actual case examples where you think someone should indeed have been de-adminned swiftly and also cases where you think they shouldn't. So we're all on the same page here. - d.

geni wrote: I would tend to look toward the long tails, and more of the "quiet admin" as Stan describes himself. I'm sure that many good admins just don't want to get involved in the constant haggling that goes on. Some might quietly go ahead and work on cleaning up non-contentious backlog, but they aren't even going to try to become admins in the current scheme of things. Ec

Rich Holton wrote: One way in which I would have found this useful when I was more active in Wiktionary would have been to review the history of articles that were transwikied. Such a use would have been entirely passive in that it would involve no change to the Wikipedia database. Needing to be dragged into the usual battles over deletion, blocking, etc. would be too high a price for such a privilege. Ec

On 2/19/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: The consequences that we should most consider, imo, are the consequences of losing anybody because our adminship is so poorly thought out and so hostile to the individual who doesn't live in cyberspace, both by creating a position of privilege unavailable to these editors, adminship, and by creating an exclusive group on Wikipedia that is oftentimes overtly hostile to these part-time editors. It was possible, just because of this atmosphere, to totally dismiss the possibility on this thread that I, as one of these outsiders, could even make a contribution to Wikipedia. I do volunteer charity work, in addition to spending time with family, job and passion--no successful charitable organization that relies upon volunteers should ever discredit people who have only a few hours to give. What's great in Wikipedia is due to the huge variety of anybodies, not the small exclusive group of admins, and creating a body of administrators who are so incredibly like-minded, which is what the current RfA process and the big deal about adminship create, is not conducive in the long run to making Wikipedia a place where anybody can edit. And the consequences of letting anybody edit are becoming clearer over time. Here is one of anybody's edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sei_Whale Don't forget to compare Britannica's article on the same subject. KP

On 19/02/07, Jossi Fresco <jossifresco(a)mac.com> wrote: Indeed. List any such cases (that's the put-up-or-shut-up bit) and see if these can be dealt with by less than apocalyptic means first (that's the assume good faith in the admins as well bit). There's a lot of unspecified accusations in this thread and very little in the way of concrete examples at all. - d.

On 19/02/07, K P <kpbotany(a)gmail.com> wrote: I see many complaints; how many of these are actually reasonably substantiable is an entirely different question. Please give examples of complaints you consider reasonable complaints and those you don't, so I have some idea of your sensitivity level. - d.

On Feb 19, 2007, at 2:38 PM, K P wrote: Sorry, but I also have my own dignity and comfort level. I do not have to respond to people that believe that Wikipedia is a cesspool. -- Jossi

Jossi Fresco wrote: What's amazing about this comment, sent at 8:09 (PST), is that in a message sent at 8:07 (two minutes earlier) you took me to task when you said: With your new message you not only spurn facts for perceptions, but invite us to take it further into the realm of speculation. This is a very fast conversion from belief in facts to belief in perceptions. ;-) Ec

on 2/18/07 5:08 PM, K P at kpbotany(a)gmail.com wrote: HELLO OUT THERE! THIS IS THE POST I was presenting to originally. It has to do with attitudes - not who's doing what, or how many there are to do it. It presents to how people are regarded and subsequently treated. It presents to the very culture of WP itself. You can try to fiddle with the edges and stick chewing gum in the cracks of the problems, but until the state of the very culture itself is seriously dealt with it's going to rupture. Marc Riddell

On Feb 15, 2007, at 13:10, Rich Holton wrote: Just for clarification: my post was to discuss the role of adminship, not the merits of making people admins easier or whatever the other thread was dedicated to. :] I'm not thinking of the one or two people who might be inclined to make huge swaths of sockpuppets, but rather those whose own personal biases prevent them from acting in the best interests of others. These are the people who I think should not be given a general managerial role such as admin, but who are perfectly adept at making Wikipedia a wonderful place. I think the idea is that of consensus: the community agrees to delete, block, protect and the admin is only doing what the community wants. Or preempting it as the case may be, but that's more tricky. We want admins who will follow consensus; not all people do this naturally, while all people correct errors naturally. What I think we don't want is admins who put their own input into what they do, and delete things they want deleted, and protect things they want protected. We /do/ very much want people to edit things they want edited, change things they want changed. Deleting and editing are not quite the same thing and thus shouldn't work quite the same way. Also, I don't see how your comments were in response to mine, but it's all good. :] --keitei

Rich Holton wrote: I agree with that. They should, of course, be willing to serve as sysops. I would de-sysop people who have disappeared completely for an extended period of time, but these could have the privilege restored on request. Again, I agree. Some people are just too quick to judge. We all make mistakes, or have moments of anger where are behaviour is less than respectable. That, however, should not be thrown back in people's faces every time they do something wrong thereafter. If the penalty for a given action is to be blocked for a week that should be the end of it That is key in any form of remedial justice. I don't think so. Such a monomanic job is just another way of developing more people with a narrow outlook. I would rather see admins who can perform a variety of tasks, and know that developing articles is the most important one. Ec

Timwi wrote: I don't view it as a hassle. It would just be a simple matter of asking a bureaucrat, and having him switch it back on. Ec

On Feb 16, 2007, at 7:48, Timwi wrote: I stated that incorrectly then. I meant that admins when acting as admins must be neutral in their approach to admin actions. One can demonstrate this by being neutral when approaching conflicts with others, but other than that, I have no idea how they could demonstrate it. And yes, the best way to know whether someone will be a good admin is to just let them try. My criteria, as you put it, were just meant as what I think admin candidates ought to show (just, "I can be neutral when asked to be", no shrubberies or herrings), but there are many different ways of determining whether someone will do or be something. I'm asking if maybe our current criteria, varied and sundry though they are, are determining whether they will be good admins, or if they are just arbitrary bars. Could we lower the bar and still allow in good admins while keeping out the bad? And then the backlogs are better, people leave less, etc etc. Hopefull.

MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: That's assuming that everyone is actually interested in editing regularly and actually interested in putting actual effort into demonstrating anything about themselves to other people for the express purpose of gaining adminship privileges. 99% of the people who would be useful admins do not fit that (quite demanding) criterion. Timwi

On 2/16/07, Timwi <timwi(a)gmx.net> wrote: I think you've misread what was written. Here's a longer quote: So what this means is that whenever an admin uses the tools, they must use them in a neutral fashion. This is nothing new, and is merely the first step in the logical chain from which Keitei derives her "things we should look for in an admin". You don't need the buttons to show that you can behave neutrally and civilly, acknowledge your own biases etc. These are all qualities we can look for in people's editing activities. -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain(a)gmail.com

Stephen Bain wrote: And you don't need to show that you can behave neutrally and civilly or that you can acknowledge your own biases in order to quality as someone who simply won't abuse the "buttons". Timwi

Stephen Bain wrote: And by doing that, you are slightly skewing the permissible sets of attitudes in admins towards what *you* consider "constructive" or "an option which helps in a dispute". This is how we got into the current situation where newcomers perceive the community of admins as an abusive cabal. Timwi