[WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous

[Michael Snow]

Erik Moeller wrote:

> If adminship is meant to be no big deal, there are a number of things 
> that should be changed, I think.
>
> * Rename adminship to "trusted users" and greatly relax the criteria 
> for becoming a TU (certainly in terms of minimum number of edits, 
> which is getting excessive)

I don't know how much the name matters, but the real criterion, as Erik 
indicates, is *trust*. And I agree that the adminship process is 
seriously afflicted with edit-counting disease.

> * Make all TU actions reversible, and possibly require quorums for some

Isn't reversibility already built into all admin privileges? (Image 
deletion being an exception for technical reasons.)

Quorums are problematic because they require time to form, and part of 
the reason we grant privileges is to help processes go more quickly. 
Plenty of things that require admin attention are backlogged as it is. 
And some situations really do call for swift action, with deliberation 
to follow afterward.

It might be a very good idea, however, if some quorum was required to 
repeat any admin action that got reversed. I don't know if it would be 
possible to implement this by technical means, but I'd settle for it as 
a social expectation.

> It's also a big deal because "administrator of Wikipedia" is a nice 
> title. I think the name "bureaucrats" is very clever in comparison.

I didn't like it when chosen, but it's interesting to reconsider a 
negative as perhaps having some positive effect after all.

> I believe that the way to make adminship "not a big deal" is to 
> flatten the power structure of Wikipedia tecnically and socially and 
> to atomize privileges.

Breaking up the various admin privileges into their component "atoms" 
will not necessarily flatten the power structure. It can just as easily 
encourage people to collect as many of the "atoms" as possible, and that 
kind of attitude would reverse any flattening effect by creating new 
ways to define the stratification of Wikipedia society. The art of 
social engineering is filled with unintended consequences.

--Michael Snow