[WikiEN-l] Thoughts on the process of requesting adminship

[JAY JG]

>From: Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>
>
>On 7/4/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > >However consensus only achieves that level of fairness when inaction
> > >is less harmful than action.
> >
> > Which is clearly the case, given that there are no real problems with 
>the
> > existing situation, and 500 admins and growing to take care of admin 
>duties.
>
>There are many axis to consider harm.
>For example, after making 2000+ edits, failing to abuse procedure, no
>vandalism, etc.. A user goes up for adminship and is denied. We have
>500 admins, why not one more?
>*Most* people would feel hurt by that.

Can we deal with one specific case here?

>Obviously we can't just make everyone admins because their feelings
>would be hurt otherwise... but I think that in cases where a user is
>likely to abuse the tools after they've been around long enough for 2k
>edits that it is abundantly clear. In these cases we see unanimous or
>near unanimous opposition.

In many cases, I've seen rather mixed reviews, with significant numbers on 
both sides, and those who oppose (often on purely policy related concerns) 
being treated rather harshly by supporters.

>In other cases, I think we should give the user a chance to prove
>themselves as an admin. That the risk of a vandal becoming an admin is
>infinitesimal at that point, and the the risk of bruising a valuable
>editors ego is more important.

They have a chance to prove themselves as an editor, and again, I see a 
bizarre imbalance here.  We rarely show this much concern about bruising the 
egos of valuable admins, who have *already proved themselves*; instead, we 
accept with equanimity baseless accusations of "abuse" and cliques", or bend 
over backwards tut-tutting about admins possibly slipping from impossibly 
high standards at one point or another.  But let one controversial "valuable 
editor"'s ego become bruised because they *weren't* accepted as an admin, 
and suddenly we have a HUGE problem which must be fixed by overturning all 
the rules by which and admin is created, and letting everyone become an 
admin.

> > Exactly.  And the people who are denied adminship are generally either 
>not
> > longterm or not trustworthy.  Of course there will be exceptions to 
>this,
> > but these are few and far between.  If we radically re-vamp existing
> > processes with very low error rates in an attempt to achieve perfection, 
>we
> > are fooling ourselves; no process is perfect, none will ever be, and the
> > likelihood that a new process will achieve fewer errors is low.
>
>I think the people which are unilatterly or near unilaterly denied
>adminship are potentially not trustworthy. Many of the no consensus
>users eventually become admins on the second go around, they aren't
>different people... Usually they just used the time to get to know a
>few more admins to help their support base.  That isn't a bad thing,
>but it isn't how we should decide adminship. How much good will did we
>lose from them by denying them once?

No, they don't get to know a few more admins; rather, they make a quite a 
few more edits demonstrating their trustworthiness, or even improve their 
editing ways, removing previous objections.

>Like I said above, I think you are measuring error incorrectly. Our
>current adminship probably detects all vandals, but it also
>misidentifies many good potential admins.

Again, this is just an opinion.  With any screening system there is a risk 
of false positives; I argue that the the number of "good potential admins" 
who are screened out are small, as opposed to the suggested new system, 
where huge numbers of negatives will come flooding in.

>To make a more clear example:  If the security at the airport simply
>shot all the passengers we would successfully stop all hijackers
>pretending to be passengers.

Um, maybe that's clear, but it's not a relevant analogy.  A more relevant 
one would be that you are suggesting that we shouldn't subject airplane 
passengers to security checks at all, because the vast majority of people 
screened are not hijackers at all, and we risk bruising all their egos.

> > i.e. There was no consensus.
>
>Yes. It appeared that you understood the point my message started
>with, that I think that we should accept in the case of no consensus
>not reject. I'm not sure why you feel the need to point out that there
>was no consensus when that's what I'm obviously talking about.

Consensus is required for change; that's pretty standard in Wikipedia.

>As you point out, many of the no consensus people become admins
>eventually (the long term trend appears to be all of them).  These are
>perfect examples of where the system has failed once, but worked on
>the second pass.

No it's a perfect example of the system working; the people do whatever is 
required to gain trust, and in so doing become more trustworthy.

>How much good will did that first rejection cause us?

How many positive changes to editing patterns did it engender in those 
candidates who were rejected?

>(Clearly if they eventually pass it they are a
>trustworthy contributor, so that the process failed them the first
>time is not a success).

Nothing clear about that at all; more likely they cleaned up their act.

>I do not believe
>you have demonstrated how it will harm our goal of making an
>encyclopedia to grant adminship to people without near-consensus
>opposition.

I belive I have demonstrated the *potential* for huge harm.  And I do not 
believe you have demonstrated how it will help our goal of making an 
encyclopedia to grant adminship to people without near-consensus opposition. 
  In fact, the arguments I hear are all about philosophy and feelings, not 
about how article content will improve.

Jay.