On 7/23/08, Ken Arromdee <arromdee(a)rahul.net> wrote:
And if someone makes a police report about a burglar,
the police don't
respond by arresting both them and the burglar.
Again, the point here isn't justice, but to figure out how we can best
write an encyclopedia.
Let us assume, as you do, that there are clear innocents here. Even
still, I think it's entirely plausible that a person could be
sufficiently victimized that they're no longer capable of performing
the role of admin.
As the number of conflicts a user is involved in increases, it errodes
their ability to serve as an uninvolved neutral third party able to
resolve inter-user conflict. It's conceivable to me, in the abstract,
a user could, through no fault of their own, find themselves in a
position where it was probably best they no longer act as an admin.
One way of looking at it would be that, as factions form, it might be
hard for a controversial user to reasonably be viewed as "uninvolved"
in practically any inter-user. Another argument could be that a user
has become a lightning rod for a deeper dispute-- much like the guilt
or innocents of OJ Simpson became, in some circles, a focal point for
race relations in the US. Or maybe it's as simple as recognizing the
status quo isn't working out for the project-- akin to the end of a
romantic relationship, recognizing "This just isn't working out...
I'm sorry, but, the precise nature of our relationship has to change,
but I hope we can still be friends".
(But admittedly, this whole line of thinking is predicated upon the
assumption that adminship truly is not a trophy, and that therefore,
desysopping is truly not automatically a demerit, a punishment, or a
mark of guilt. )
Alec