[WikiEN-l] what is a sysop?

Sat May 24 17:01:32 UTC 2003

This is a reasonable concern.  I remember some time ago -- several months 
or a year -- when there was an edit war on a particular page and an 
administrator joined in with a message like this: "What's the trouble 
here?  I am a sysop -- let's sort this out."  Indeed, this was a very 
inappropriate use of the position.  However, a number of other sysops 
pretty quickly chastised the person in question for projecting power in 
this way.

I think the only reasonable solution to this problem -- and my response to 
your concern -- is that sysops should act as "police" in one particular 
regard: we have a responsibility to police ourselves against this kind of 
abuse of power.

New contributors need to learn all sorts of stuff when they come to 
wikipedia -- from the ~~~ trick to the sometimes subtle NPOV policy.  I 
think their learning what a sysop is and isn't is just one more of those 
things.

Steve

At 02:34 PM 5/23/2003 -0700, you wrote:

>--- "steven l. rubenstein" <rubenste at ohiou.edu> wrote:
> > 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
>
>Yeah, I guess that makes more sense than an anology.
>But I just realised that sysops have another, rarely
>used power. Sysops have power just from their name
>"sysop". If a sysop tells a bunch of non-sysops
>something, and they haven't heard the type of
>conversation on the mailing list (ie don't know that
>sysops aren't this exclusive band of 5 people who go
>around fixing the server and banning people), they'd
>probably listen to you more than a non-sysop. I don't
>think this power is actually used by anyone other than
>jimbo, though.
>--LittleDan
>
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Steven L. Rubenstein
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701
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