On 10/24/02 6:41 PM, "Poor, Edmund W" Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com wrote:
People enforcing social norms by quickly reverting the work of vandals and antisocial jerks is SoftSecurity, if those people are organized and empowered with social authority that makes no difference, except now it may seem reasonable to some folks to call that group a "police force" -- which BTW is not Ed's term, but yours.
I hardly implied it wasn't. It is the case organization and empowerment with social authority make only a limited difference from self-organization. However, that is not what Ed said. He was discussing granting special powers to a group of people differentiated not by social authority but by the law of the code (admins).
I just want to make clear that I too very much want to find solutions to the problems we have with recalcitrants. Our best approach is to figure out ways to make the problems disappear, not ways to fight them.
Yes, I am talking about special powers -- but not simply an arbitrary _degree_ of power, which is what we have now. Developers can ban anyone, anytime, and are answerable only to Jimbo. Sysops can ban an IP, and any other sysop can unban that IP.
And those developers should never do so.
But it's all arbitrary, unless there is a consensus on what rules these bannings are intended to enforce.
Wikipedia is the world's largest wiki, isn't it? When it's 10 times or 100 times the size, with 1,000 to 3,000 logged-in, daily contributors -- how will we manage then? My plea is for some way beyond the personal judgment of an elite, to maintain order, lest a self-perpetuating cabal develop that freezes out the very type of capable and devoted contributor it formed to protect.
I'm not hitting a single note. I'm not saying, just give me power. I'm not saying make everything a matter of dry, rigid rules.
But sheer anarchy tempered by three dudes with shotguns isn't my cup of tea either.
I agree with you. You want answers? Here's what should be done. One thing to consider is whether we can figure out a way to make IP banning 99.999 percent unnecessary. If we can do that, then we can reserve that power for Jimbo, our GodKing (see MeatballWiki).
In the meantime, here are things to consider, in some kind of descending hierarchical order: * make IP bans automatically time-limited. (definitely) * make sysop status automatically granted. (should happen) * state policy that if you make a bad IP ban, your sysop status will be revoked (until it gets automatically granted again) * allow sysops to enforce the above policy (that is, allow sysops to un-sysop other sysops) * make un-sysoping two-way; that is, you temporarily sacrifice your sysop power to temporarily remove another's sysop power * get rid of the VANDALISM IN PROGRESS page or at least rename it to something less violently alarmist
There are many other interesting things that could be done. But I think the best thing would be for us to avoid paranoia and take a concrete measure of what the worst anyone can or has done.
One article being irrationally skewed can be a big pain in the ass, especially if you care about the subject and know it well, but it's not that important overall. It's only important if it becomes a problem statistically--many articles for an extended period of time. That is what must be avoided.
Another good place to start is to notice what causes difficulties for you as an editor for undoing problematic edits. Consider what interface tools would make it easier to "fix" "problems".
(I put those quotes because we also need to make sure that "unfixing" is just as easy.)
I hope this makes some sense.