Let's not get bogged down in semantics. This may be a case where an analogy to sysop is neither needed nor helpful. After all, judges under certain circumstances have a lot of power, and police often listen to different sides in a dispute, act as mediators, and are themselves policed. If we continue on this track we may end up having a very interesting and informative conversation about the differences between police, judges, and I would then add to the mix constables. But if we are having a discussion as sysop, I have three comments.
1) I never sought out the position of sysop but given that it implied a certain amount of trust by a segment of the community I didn't feel I could turn it down. When I first saw my new screen, with all the powers suddenly at my disposal, I really felt overwhelmed, almost dizzy. Of course my first act was to abuse the power -- although I was the only victim of that abuse. I have recently had an experience where I have been sorely tempted to put a block on a page and ban a user. Obviously I did not. But -- and I realize this may be of little interest to most of you -- so far I see being a sysop as a sort of zen exercise in accepting and renouncing power.
2) But I have also deleted a couple of pages, and I know some others have been very active in this. I wanted to ban one user with what I thought was good cause, and someone else did it the next day. Since virtually everyone in the community saw that person as a pest more than as a member of the community, I'd say -- if we really must have an analogy -- I'd compare sysop to house-cleaner.
3) Whether sysop is a mop or a cop, either way I see the role as being an agent of the community. If I understand the deal right now, there is virtually nothing a sysop can do that cannot be undone by another administrator; it seems to me that virtually all sysops, if they ever act, do so when they have a sense from the community.
Anyway, aside from my periodic zen moments, it does seem to me that the job is mostly about tidying up. It seems to me that anyone can do this on a limited basis (by editing -- just like we don't expect the maid or custodian to do all cleaning), and that the other tasks (e.g. cultivating NPOV) really are for the whole community, sysop or not.
Steve
At 11:10 AM 5/23/2003 -0700, you wrote:
--- Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com wrote:
I guess a sysop is more like a judge. I don't think it is fair to say that sysops are a police force. Being a policeman (or woman) implies doing something compulsively, without consent, as opposed to someone more like a judge, who consents all involved parties as well as the rules/laws, the previous precedents, and the jury (in this case the Wikipedia community).
If sysops are going to consider themselves judges, we're going to have serious long-term problems.
I for one prefer the Jimbo-as-judge, everybody else enforce his decisions, either through force (police==sysop) or persuasion (coaching==caring user).
Otherwise we'll run into the situation of he-said she-said.
===== Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com 818.943.1850 cell http://www.christophermahan.com/
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