Tim Marklew wrote:
I would also ask that sysops should not generally sign contributions as sysops (i.e. writing "Ed Poor - Sysop"). It could be give the misleading impression that sysops are acting officially on behalf of Wikipedia, rather than acting as an individual contributor.
Yes, I think that should be socially unacceptable. Anyone can be a sysop just by asking, so it's really nothing. We only reluctantly have sysop status in the first place, to deal with some specific technical problems.
In essence -- there are some commands (delete, remove) that have some ramifications that people need to understand before using them, so we'd prefer that people have been here for a little bit before using those powers. And there are true vandals, people who post random crapola just to be funny or whatever. We want sysops to be able to ban those people, but we don't want people to get into ban wars, etc., so we restrict that ban power to sysops.
And then there are the problem cases, people like '24' and possibly Helga -- these people aren't simple vandals, but neither are they getting with the program in a constructive way. I reserve the right of final banning on those cases to myself, although of course I'm probably too patient in seeking general consensus first.
--Jimbo