Like most features of the software, it will be decided by programmer fiat unless we get specific direction. I'm quite happy to remove any mention of user rights from the user list, I'm happy to call them whatever you like. You make good arguments, so I'll take those suggestions unless I hear otherwise.
Also, please use the Sourceforge tracker tools. Neither a mailing list nor the Wiki are adequate for the task.
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On 6/2/02 11:01 PM, "lcrocker@nupedia.com" lcrocker@nupedia.com wrote:
Like most features of the software, it will be decided by programmer fiat unless we get specific direction. I'm quite happy to remove any mention of user rights from the user list, I'm happy to call them whatever you like. You make good arguments, so I'll take those suggestions unless I hear otherwise.
Lee, please don't make such changes unless you get a consensus. The idea of hiding or even obscuring information about who is in power is a profoundly bad one.
One of the reason representative democracies work even at all is because it's well known who the representatives are. Whenever it's a secret who's in the government, who's in power, problems are created.
I think it's reasonable that the sysop/developer etc. status is listed on pages separate from the user (aka editor) list, but that it's utterly unreasonable for a sysop or developer to get to choose to announce that status.
Contributors should never have to work to find out who holds the reins of power.
maveric wrote:
Anybody of good intentions can be a sysop if they want to be. I don't think we should label people as having a particular status and thus imply that this status is anything particularly special.
It is something special. To say otherwise is to be disingenuous.
It might also lead to confusion when there are valid disagreements about an article between a non-sysop party and a sysop. The non-sysop would be able to see that a particular person is a sysop and this knowledge might imply that the sysop is acting in some type of official capacity -- which they seldom are in these cases.
Rather, sysops are NEVER acting in some type of official capacity. End of discussion. Only Jimbo can act in an official capacity. Everyone else has equivalent authority. Or, another way of looking at it, is EVERYONE is ALWAYS acting in some type of official capacity, from non-sysops to sysops. We are all equivalently vested.
I suspect the easiest proper long-term solutions to this issue are either 1) Get rid of sysops entirely, and figure out other methods of dealing the stuff they deal with now, or 2) Do something like the Slashdot moderation pool, where some percentage of active participants are always active moderators, and each individual participant only gets to moderate for a few actions over a limited period of time.
--tc
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