[WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous
Erik Moeller
erik_moeller at gmx.de
Tue Jun 21 19:14:19 UTC 2005
Anthere:
> If only because rules and habits are no more the same now that they were
> 3 years ago. There is an expectation that the candidate sysop knows the
> project quite well, know the people, know the rules..
...
> I also think that if an editor away for 3 years just came back now... he
> would neither know the rules, nor be known himself by current editors.
I think it is completely fair to indicate on the list of administrators
if an admin hasn't made edits for some months or even years. In fact,
this is exactly what we're doing on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_administrators
This helps users to know whom they can contact for help and expect an
answer.
However, revoking someone's status just because they *might* become
active again without knowing the rules seems to violate the "Assume Good
Faith" principle. If an admin pauses for 6 months and then goes back to
performing admin operations, I expect them to make an effort to look at
what's changed first. If they don't make such an effort themselves,
again, it is not our duty to punish them, but to revert actions which
have been made accidentally in violation of newly established rules, and
to educate them.
Adminship is about trust. If we trust a person, we should know that they
will try to do the right thing, even under changed circumstances.
Therefore, we shouldn't have to take someone's privileges away just to
make sure they don't do anything bad -- because this could indicate to
them that we no longer *trust* them. I don't want to send this kind of
message to people like Mintguy, Vicky Rosenzweig, April, Salsa Shark,
Optim, Mirwin, Maximus Rex, or Zoe.
I believe this is especially true if an admin is still active on
*Wikimedia*, but just not on the same project anymore.
Erik
More information about the WikiEN-l
mailing list