I also like the guy, and think he has room in the project...but I did not appreciate him deceiving people to get sysop, I did not appreciate him using policy holes to get sysop in spite of obvious opposition, and I did not appreaciate in the least that he tried to apply pressure on me to be made sysop on meta. That seriously decreased the level of friendly feeling I could have toward him. Fortunately, there was a high level initially :-) so some of it is still there :-)

I am also seriously concerned by his last requests, being a sysop on wikibooks, being a steward and suggestion that any sysop on one wiki should be sysop anywhere. I also am concerned that he got all this power, not because people trusted and supported him, but essentially thanks to rules. I think a project like wikipedia should be flexible, and driven by people decisions and collective feeling. Not by rules applied blindly. When someone is made sysop, thanks to rules, against community wishes, I think the system is seriously broken and rules should be changed. There should be a way to have decisions back in the hand of people, rather than in the words of rules.

Also, there is a weird situation where basically, anyone made sysop one day will stay sysop forever, except if he makes a horrible infringment (even in this case...). So, someone made sysop without trust can stay a sysop even though people do not trust him. Is that good ? Why is it a permanent status ? Should it be unrevocable ?

ant

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