ikiroid wrote:
Perhaps it's the fact that we only really promote to adminship the workaholics or veterans who slipped through the cracks and we forgot to nominate, so we end up with a backlog of everything.
Along these lines, one of the huge problems with edit-count-creep is that we have created a process that systematically selects *against* people who are careful, take their time, and think before acting. It's not surprising if the current system generates more people who burn out, because sometimes their activity reflects their volatility.
We are supposed to be focusing on quality, not quantity, with respect to the encyclopedia articles. It's high time we did the same for administrators.
--Michael Snow
On 2/8/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 2/8/07 10:34 PM, Michael Snow at wikipedia@earthlink.net wrote:
We are supposed to be focusing on quality, not quantity, with respect to the encyclopedia articles. It's high time we did the same for administrators.
A resounding YES!
Marc
I'd have to say a resounding NO. The article quality philosophy says that we have enough articles and we should put higher priority on improving the ones we have than adding new ones. That philosophy isn't workable with admins. The more popular Wikipedia gets, the more crap there is to deal with. With a few notable exceptions, the people who do most of the admin work burn out in a few months. Managed well, they go back to being productive editors. Managed poorly, they quit the project. "Quality over quantity" would demand more of these people who are willing to do think kind of work, which would probably mean that they are more likely to quit than to return to the pool of editors (where they are still available to do admin tasks).
While I agree that admins can do an immense amount of damage (unintentionally or maliciously), we have raised some standards too high, while neglected others. Edit counts are almost meaningless, but the baseline keeps going up. That's fine for people who go AWB and get a few thousand edits moving the stub template below the cats & interwiki links and calling it "cleanup"...but that means that people who took the time to learn about the community by editing articles and interacting with people on talk pages, and thereby learning about policy and being socialised to the community, are at a disadvantage.
I know lots of people who have been around a couple years, accumulated 2-4000 edits over than time, who know policy and help out newbies, who contribute content...but who have little chance of being an admin because people expect huge edit counts. On the other hand, when the hyper-active editors, who do 2-3000 edits per month for 6 months become admins they (a) may not know policy all that well, and (b) may be reaching the end of their brief, hot flame of contributions.
Michael Snow wrote:
We are supposed to be focusing on quality, not quantity, with respect to the encyclopedia articles. It's high time we did the same for administrators.
The big problem with this sentiment is that you think that quantity gets in the way of quality. That is a major mistake, because it will stop you from promoting people to adminship who would later turn out to be high-quality admins.
You can still demote the very-low-quality admins. You are under the impression that once someone is an admin, they can wreak havoc at will, but this is precisely the misconception that stops you from having enough good admins.
Timwi
on 2/9/07 7:05 AM, Timwi at timwi@gmx.net wrote:
The big problem with this sentiment is that you think that quantity gets in the way of quality. That is a major mistake, because it will stop you from promoting people to adminship who would later turn out to be high-quality admins.
How does the Community define a "quality admin"?
Marc Riddell
On 2/9/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
How does the Community define a "quality admin"?
Duh. 100% edit summaries. 3000 edits, well distributed across article space, project space and article talk space. Never having pissed anyone off. Ever.
Steve
On 2/9/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
How does the Community define a "quality admin"?
on 2/9/07 8:10 AM, Steve Bennett at stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Never having pissed anyone off. Ever.
Steve,
Are you really serious about this one?
Marc
Marc Riddell wrote:
On 2/9/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
How does the Community define a "quality admin"?
on 2/9/07 8:10 AM, Steve Bennett at stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Never having pissed anyone off. Ever.
Steve,
Are you really serious about this one?
He's not wrong.
-Jeff
Marc Riddell wrote:
On 2/9/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
How does the Community define a "quality admin"?
on 2/9/07 8:10 AM, Steve Bennett at stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Never having pissed anyone off. Ever.
Steve,
Are you really serious about this one?
on 2/9/07 9:31 AM, Jeff Raymond at jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
He's not wrong.
-Jeff
Wow! That's a tough one.
Marc
On 2/9/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/9/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
How does the Community define a "quality admin"?
Duh. 100% edit summaries. 3000 edits, well distributed across article space, project space and article talk space. Never having pissed anyone off. Ever.
And you can't have made the 3000 edits over too long or too short a period of time.
On 2/9/07, Taco Deposit tacodeposit@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/9/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/9/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
How does the Community define a "quality admin"?
Duh. 100% edit summaries. 3000 edits, well distributed across article space, project space and article talk space. Never having pissed anyone off. Ever.
And you can't have made the 3000 edits over too long or too short a period of time.
If you want find an admin who's nifty, First you ask these questions fifty.
On 2/9/07, Taco Deposit tacodeposit@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/9/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/9/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
How does the Community define a "quality admin"?
Duh. 100% edit summaries. 3000 edits, well distributed across article space, project space and article talk space. Never having pissed anyone off. Ever.
And you can't have made the 3000 edits over too long or too short a period of time.
Because Heaven knows we wouldn't want people who had been hanging around the project for a long time to be admins.
KP's point, below, about only people who have lots and lots of time to edit becoming admins is a good one -- it means, for the most part, that people with very busy outside lives will never get the chance. We're losing a whole swath of potential admins this way.
The thing about adminship (to sort of address Marc's questions) is we don't really have any other "official" way to recognize editors. Sure, there are barnstars and the like; but these are pretty meaningless outside of a narrow context. There are cabals, but since TINC, well, you're out of luck :) Being able to say "I'm an administrator on the English Wikipedia!" is a kind of code for "I've devoted a lot of time to the project, and people recognize and value my contributions -- I'm an important person!"
It doesn't really matter what the actual work is. The current administrators on this list are talking about the pain and suffering of having to use the mop & bucket (which is, as far as I can tell, entirely true) but ignoring the fact that by having the sysop bit they have recognition within the project that it's not possible to get in any other way. There's no "trusted editor bit" that can be set. There's no "you've been editing for three years, now you're level x". You can make a tremendous number of valuable edits on the projects (or perhaps a smaller number of really good edits over a long time), but there's no way to up your privileges or even recognize you officially without making you an admin. And what if I want that recognition, but don't really have any interest in deleting speedys or mucking through endless policy? Perhaps then you get trouble, or at least an inefficient system where people play to "admin criteria" rather than "let's make this a good encyclopedia criteria".
I give a lot of talks on wikipedia to the outside world, and I get asked all the time if I'm an admin -- not because the people asking really have any conception of what that means, but because they assume that if I know a lot about the site I must be in the "in crowd" and the only thing they know about on Wikipedia that constitutes an "in-crowd" is adminship. We must change this, and find some other recognition mechanism for devoted, conscientious and level-headed editors that does not depend on their knowledge of what the heck "A7" means or whether they've made x number of edits to the wikipedia namespace.
-- phoebe (brassratgirl)
on 2/10/07 2:23 PM, phoebe ayers at phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Because Heaven knows we wouldn't want people who had been hanging around the project for a long time to be admins.
KP's point, below, about only people who have lots and lots of time to edit becoming admins is a good one -- it means, for the most part, that people with very busy outside lives will never get the chance. We're losing a whole swath of potential admins this way.
The thing about adminship (to sort of address Marc's questions) is we don't really have any other "official" way to recognize editors. Sure, there are barnstars and the like; but these are pretty meaningless outside of a narrow context. There are cabals, but since TINC, well, you're out of luck :) Being able to say "I'm an administrator on the English Wikipedia!" is a kind of code for "I've devoted a lot of time to the project, and people recognize and value my contributions -- I'm an important person!"
It doesn't really matter what the actual work is. The current administrators on this list are talking about the pain and suffering of having to use the mop & bucket (which is, as far as I can tell, entirely true) but ignoring the fact that by having the sysop bit they have recognition within the project that it's not possible to get in any other way. There's no "trusted editor bit" that can be set. There's no "you've been editing for three years, now you're level x". You can make a tremendous number of valuable edits on the projects (or perhaps a smaller number of really good edits over a long time), but there's no way to up your privileges or even recognize you officially without making you an admin. And what if I want that recognition, but don't really have any interest in deleting speedys or mucking through endless policy? Perhaps then you get trouble, or at least an inefficient system where people play to "admin criteria" rather than "let's make this a good encyclopedia criteria".
I give a lot of talks on wikipedia to the outside world, and I get asked all the time if I'm an admin -- not because the people asking really have any conception of what that means, but because they assume that if I know a lot about the site I must be in the "in crowd" and the only thing they know about on Wikipedia that constitutes an "in-crowd" is adminship. We must change this, and find some other recognition mechanism for devoted, conscientious and level-headed editors that does not depend on their knowledge of what the heck "A7" means or whether they've made x number of edits to the wikipedia namespace.
Excellent & informative post!
Thank you,
Marc Riddell
On 2/9/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/9/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
How does the Community define a "quality admin"?
Duh. 100% edit summaries. 3000 edits, well distributed across article space, project space and article talk space. Never having pissed anyone off. Ever.
I'd be reluctant to support anyone who has never pissed anyone off. They don't know how to handle personal confrontation.
Steve
- Josh
Marc Riddell wrote:
on 2/9/07 7:05 AM, Timwi at timwi@gmx.net wrote:
The big problem with this sentiment is that you think that quantity gets in the way of quality. That is a major mistake, because it will stop you from promoting people to adminship who would later turn out to be high-quality admins.
How does the Community define a "quality admin"?
Why do you need such a definition?
What you need a definition for is a "low-quality admin", because those are the ones that you want to demote.
While I don't claim that "low-quality admin" is easier to define, I think that common sense can go a long way there. If an admin performs controversial actions regularly, then you might consider they cause more disruption than they benefit the project. Etc.
Timwi
Marc Riddell wrote:
How does the Community define a "quality admin"?
on 2/9/07 8:35 AM, Timwi at timwi@gmx.net wrote:
Why do you need such a definition?
Timi,
I would think for the same reason that, before you decide something is substandard, you would first need to define what the standard is.
Marc
How does the Community define a "quality admin"?
Why do you need such a definition?
I would think for the same reason that, before you decide something is substandard, you would first need to define what the standard is.
Hm, this sounds like you didn't read the rest of my posting, but maybe I didn't make it clear enough, so I'll try again.
I believe that current Wikipedia practices implement the following mindset:
You don't need to define what constitutes a "good quality" editor because the "medium quality" editors can edit just as much as the "good quality" editors. You only need to define "bad quality" editors because those are the ones you need to find in order to block them from editing. "Bad quality" can be determined on the basis of specific incidents (e.g. continued vandalism).
Similarly, I am advocating that the same should apply to admins:
You don't need to define "good quality" in this case because the "medium quality" admins can stay just as much as the "good quality" admins. You only need to define "bad quality" admins because those are the ones you need to find in order to demote them. "Bad quality" can be determined on the basis of specific incidents (e.g. continued disruptance).
Why do we allow everyone to edit even though people vandalise pages all the time? Of course, it's because the constructive edits from passers-by outweigh the work required to clean up after vandals. The RfA system is analogous to having all users blocked by default and requiring them to apply for editing privileges first. Then you'd get people voting "oppose" because the user makes spelling mistakes in their blog or something, thereby missing out on potentially useful contributions like uploading selfmade pictures or organising categories.
Wikipedia claims to have a system in place that finds "good quality" (or at least "good enough quality") admins -- it's called RfA. What I'm saying now is that this search for "good enough quality" admins is misguided because the ones you need to identify are the "bad quality" ones. Although the current system makes it difficult for a genuinely bad-quality user to become admin, it also misses out on "good enough quality" admins because of specious criteria like "not enough edits". This way (potentially) hundreds of users are prevented from helping constructively.
Timwi
Yes, as long as we get the "no big deal" message across (like we have been since the inception of Wikipedia) and admins have no greater power than, blah blah blah, all we really need to do is prevent the bad admins from getting it. Almost all actions that admins take are reversible anyway, all we need is an RfA that ensures that the mediocre admins can still get the bit while we can successfully "fail" the bad admins. I don't even bother checking RFA anymore, it's almost as painful reading through all the questions as it is to actually vote, I know I'd think thrice before accepting an RFA nomination if I were to get it in this day and age.
On 2/9/07, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
How does the Community define a "quality admin"?
Why do you need such a definition?
I would think for the same reason that, before you decide something is substandard, you would first need to define what the standard is.
Hm, this sounds like you didn't read the rest of my posting, but maybe I didn't make it clear enough, so I'll try again.
I believe that current Wikipedia practices implement the following mindset:
You don't need to define what constitutes a "good quality" editor because the "medium quality" editors can edit just as much as the "good quality" editors. You only need to define "bad quality" editors because those are the ones you need to find in order to block them from editing. "Bad quality" can be determined on the basis of specific incidents (e.g. continued vandalism).
Similarly, I am advocating that the same should apply to admins:
You don't need to define "good quality" in this case because the "medium quality" admins can stay just as much as the "good quality" admins. You only need to define "bad quality" admins because those are the ones you need to find in order to demote them. "Bad quality" can be determined on the basis of specific incidents (e.g. continued disruptance).
Why do we allow everyone to edit even though people vandalise pages all the time? Of course, it's because the constructive edits from passers-by outweigh the work required to clean up after vandals. The RfA system is analogous to having all users blocked by default and requiring them to apply for editing privileges first. Then you'd get people voting "oppose" because the user makes spelling mistakes in their blog or something, thereby missing out on potentially useful contributions like uploading selfmade pictures or organising categories.
Wikipedia claims to have a system in place that finds "good quality" (or at least "good enough quality") admins -- it's called RfA. What I'm saying now is that this search for "good enough quality" admins is misguided because the ones you need to identify are the "bad quality" ones. Although the current system makes it difficult for a genuinely bad-quality user to become admin, it also misses out on "good enough quality" admins because of specious criteria like "not enough edits". This way (potentially) hundreds of users are prevented from helping constructively.
Timwi
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On 09/02/07, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
You don't need to define "good quality" in this case because the "medium quality" admins can stay just as much as the "good quality" admins. You only need to define "bad quality" admins because those are the ones you need to find in order to demote them. "Bad quality" can be determined on the basis of specific incidents (e.g. continued disruptance). ... Although the current system makes it difficult for a genuinely bad-quality user to become admin, it also misses out on "good enough quality" admins because of specious criteria like "not enough edits". This way (potentially) hundreds of users are prevented from helping constructively.
Hear, hear.
On Fri, 09 Feb 2007 07:17:48 -0500, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
How does the Community define a "quality admin"?
Badly, for the most part :-)
The admins considered good by other admins are the ones who are prepared to take on the difficult tasks. A small but very vocal group of non-admins considers these to be the *worst* admins, because they are typically the ones who delete things like Encyclopedia Dramatica, myg0t and GNAA.
There is a culture of baiting these admins until they crack. A recent example was MONGO. There are others.
Guy (JzG)
on 2/9/07 9:36 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG at guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
There is a culture of baiting these admins until they crack. A recent example was MONGO. There are others.
Guy (JzG)
As I suggested in a post a while back, perhaps there needs to be an identified, organized support system within WP that an embattled admin can turn to for encouragement and perspective. In this way they may not feel they are so alone in a given situation.
Marc
Marc Riddell wrote:
on 2/9/07 9:36 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG at guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
There is a culture of baiting these admins until they crack. A recent example was MONGO. There are others.
Guy (JzG)
As I suggested in a post a while back, perhaps there needs to be an identified, organized support system within WP that an embattled admin can turn to for encouragement and perspective. In this way they may not feel they are so alone in a given situation.
It would be continuously attacked, as proof positive of the evil admin cabal. That's all part of the baiting culture. There are also quite a few editors who are inclined to regard admins unfavorably to begin, as tiny manifestations of the The Man(tm), and who I'm sure are secretly gleeful when admins are taken down. It's not an organized program of divide-and-conquer, but the net effect is the same. One of the reasons I don't do more admin work is that I see what happens to other admins who stick their necks out, and it's just not worth it to me.
Stan
On Fri, 09 Feb 2007 07:54:06 -0800, Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
There are also quite a few editors who are inclined to regard admins unfavorably to begin, as tiny manifestations of the The Man(tm), and who I'm sure are secretly gleeful when admins are taken down. It's not an organized program of divide-and-conquer, but the net effect is the same.
Seen the ED page on MONGO?
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Fri, 09 Feb 2007 07:54:06 -0800, Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
There are also quite a few editors who are inclined to regard admins unfavorably to begin, as tiny manifestations of the The Man(tm), and who I'm sure are secretly gleeful when admins are taken down. It's not an organized program of divide-and-conquer, but the net effect is the same.
Seen the ED page on MONGO?
Um, yeah, but what's real and what's vandalism on it? I couldn't tell. ED is a useful example of why WP needs to be tough on vandals and trolls, so we don't end up the same way.
Stan
Marc Riddell wrote:
on 2/9/07 9:36 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG at guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
There is a culture of baiting these admins until they crack. A recent example was MONGO. There are others.
Guy (JzG)
As I suggested in a post a while back, perhaps there needs to be an identified, organized support system within WP that an embattled admin can turn to for encouragement and perspective. In this way they may not feel they are so alone in a given situation.
on 2/9/07 10:54 AM, Stan Shebs at stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
It would be continuously attacked, as proof positive of the evil admin cabal. That's all part of the baiting culture. There are also quite a few editors who are inclined to regard admins unfavorably to begin, as tiny manifestations of the The Man(tm), and who I'm sure are secretly gleeful when admins are taken down. It's not an organized program of divide-and-conquer, but the net effect is the same. One of the reasons I don't do more admin work is that I see what happens to other admins who stick their necks out, and it's just not worth it to me.
Stan,
I hear ya. But, by not having such an organized support system for the reasons you stated, don't the wackos win? Who gives a damn if they see it as a cabal or whatever, the benefits can far outweigh the bullshit. I don't mean to belabor this, but, as you might guess, I'm a great believer in interpersonal support systems.
Marc
Marc Riddell wrote:
[...] But, by not having such an organized support system for the reasons you stated, don't the wackos win? Who gives a damn if they see it as a cabal or whatever, the benefits can far outweigh the bullshit. I don't mean to belabor this, but, as you might guess, I'm a great believer in interpersonal support systems.
If it was just a matter of wackos, then yeah, we would just ignore them. But there seem to be a bunch of otherwise-rational editors who would make trouble over it as well, and would take mutual support as a reason to escalate the whole thing into "impending destruction of WP by power-hungry admins". Just look at Cunctator's one-liner here - an admin leaves in pain, and his response is "well, a little churn is good". I encourage you to try designing a support system though, WP can't afford to lose all its admins to "churn".
Stan
On 2/9/07, Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
Marc Riddell wrote:
[...] But, by not having such an organized support system for the reasons you stated, don't the wackos win? Who gives a damn if they see it as a cabal or whatever, the benefits can far outweigh the bullshit. I don't mean to belabor this, but, as you might guess, I'm a great believer in interpersonal support systems.
If it was just a matter of wackos, then yeah, we would just ignore them. But there seem to be a bunch of otherwise-rational editors who would make trouble over it as well, and would take mutual support as a reason to escalate the whole thing into "impending destruction of WP by power-hungry admins". Just look at Cunctator's one-liner here - an admin leaves in pain, and his response is "well, a little churn is good". I encourage you to try designing a support system though, WP can't afford to lose all its admins to "churn".
Stan
Let me follow that up a bit. I think a little churn is good, too. But there's a difference between "Joe's taking a break right now and will be back later" and someone getting so frustrated that they start getting abusive and then leave with no intent to return.
The difference between a break, or even taking a sabattical from admin stuff while still contributing, and a burnout is rather clear.
People taking breaks is healthy and good. Burnouts aren't. I would be extremely happy if we could figure out a consistent way to convert impending burnouts into breaks.
On 2/9/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/9/07, Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
Marc Riddell wrote:
[...] But, by not having such an organized support system for the reasons you stated, don't the wackos win? Who gives a damn if they see
it as
a cabal or whatever, the benefits can far outweigh the bullshit. I
don't
mean to belabor this, but, as you might guess, I'm a great believer in interpersonal support systems.
If it was just a matter of wackos, then yeah, we would just ignore them. But there seem to be a bunch of otherwise-rational editors who would make trouble over it as well, and would take mutual support as a reason to escalate the whole thing into "impending destruction of WP by power-hungry admins". Just look at Cunctator's one-liner here - an admin leaves in pain, and his response is "well, a little churn is good". I encourage you to try designing a support system though, WP can't afford to lose all its admins to "churn".
Stan
Let me follow that up a bit. I think a little churn is good, too. But there's a difference between "Joe's taking a break right now and will be back later" and someone getting so frustrated that they start getting abusive and then leave with no intent to return.
The difference between a break, or even taking a sabattical from admin stuff while still contributing, and a burnout is rather clear.
People taking breaks is healthy and good. Burnouts aren't. I would be extremely happy if we could figure out a consistent way to convert impending burnouts into breaks.
Wait until they come back?
George Herbert wrote:
People taking breaks is healthy and good. Burnouts aren't. I would be extremely happy if we could figure out a consistent way to convert impending burnouts into breaks.
Sometimes you just need a night to sleep things off. My burnout became a short break this week after I took a day and just didn't think about Wikipedia.
Another is to give the opportunity to fix the problem that's being caused. Even if the resolution isn't to your liking, the ability to be heard when you feel like you aren't being head often does wonders.
-Jeff
on 2/9/07 2:58 PM, Stan Shebs at stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
I encourage you to try designing a support system though, WP can't afford to lose all its admins to "churn".
Stan
I¹ve learned a lot from the List today; specifically about some of the people who make Wikipedia go. I have a hell of a lot to learn about its administrative workings; and I won¹t even think about going near the technical background elements (no one is ready for the chaos that would produce :-) ) But, the people
Everyone brings their own special gifts to the Project; that¹s what makes it work so well. Mine happens to be people: how they interact with their self, and with other persons.
From what I have read I do believe a formal, recognized support mechanism is
needed to help persons in the project experiencing periodic, situational difficulties. Were are dealing with creative personalities here, and, like it or not, this creativity comes with a certain degree of fragility, and, yes, flakiness (very definitely, me included in fact I¹ve been called things I had to look up).
To even suggest that if someone burns out, there are hundreds waiting in the wings to replace them is to dehumanize them.
I¹m going to chew on this some more. But whatever proposal I come up with is probably going to require people to do some thinking outside the Wikibox; but why the hell not something¹s not working within it.
Marc Riddell
On 2/9/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 2/9/07 2:58 PM, Stan Shebs at stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
I encourage you to try designing a support system though, WP can't afford to lose all its admins to "churn".
Stan
I¹ve learned a lot from the List today; specifically about some of the people who make Wikipedia go. I have a hell of a lot to learn about its administrative workings; and I won¹t even think about going near the technical background elements (no one is ready for the chaos that would produce :-) ) But, the peopleŠ
Everyone brings their own special gifts to the Project; that¹s what makes it work so well. Mine happens to be people: how they interact with their self, and with other persons.
From what I have read I do believe a formal, recognized support mechanism is needed to help persons in the project experiencing periodic, situational difficulties. Were are dealing with creative personalities here, and, like it or not, this creativity comes with a certain degree of fragility, and, yes, flakiness (very definitely, me included in fact I¹ve been called things I had to look up).
To even suggest that if someone burns out, there are hundreds waiting in the wings to replace them is to dehumanize them.
I¹m going to chew on this some more. But whatever proposal I come up with is probably going to require people to do some thinking outside the Wikibox; but why the hell not something¹s not working within it.
Marc Riddell
Problems like this have plagued online interactions since they started, and to some extent volunteer organizations back into the dark depths of modern history.
That said, some organizations deal with them pretty well, and I am all for outside-ish suggestions on how we can do better with them.
On 09/02/07, Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
Marc Riddell wrote:
As I suggested in a post a while back, perhaps there needs to be an identified, organized support system within WP that an embattled admin can turn to for encouragement and perspective. In this way they may not feel they are so alone in a given situation.
It would be continuously attacked, as proof positive of the evil admin cabal. That's all part of the baiting culture. There are also quite a few editors who are inclined to regard admins unfavorably to begin, as tiny manifestations of the The Man(tm), and who I'm sure are secretly gleeful when admins are taken down. It's not an organized program of divide-and-conquer, but the net effect is the same. One of the reasons I don't do more admin work is that I see what happens to other admins who stick their necks out, and it's just not worth it to me.
c.f. the attacks upon #wikipedia-en-admins, which are largely a proxy for attacks on Kelly Martin.
- d.