[WikiEN-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by User:Danny

[Matt Brown]

On 4/20/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> It is quite acceptable and even encouraged to unprotect pages that have been
> inappropriately protected.

I think this is (a part of, at least) the core of the problem.  Is it
quite acceptable?  Is it encouraged?  Should it be?

Is it the right of every administrator to second-guess the
administrative actions of any other administrator, and instantly
revert them if they feel justified?

I feel that the immediatist attitude of the vandal-fighter has
infected many of the decision-making processes of en-wikipedia way too
much.  Everything must be fixed NOW.  We must act as if we have the
attention span of a mayfly, because later is as good as never.

Whereas in my belief most administrator actions do NOT need to be
fixed *right now*, even if they are wrong.  Bans and blocks - in most
cases, the world will not end if an individual can't edit Wikipedia
for a day.  Frustrating though it might be.  Page protection: everyone
can live with not editing an article for a little bit.  Deletion:
undeletion can be done at any time, and unless an article is a very
high-traffic one, our readers are unlikely to even notice.

The culture of feeling entitled to instantly revert, though, is quite
damaging.  It escalates arguments, builds up pressure, makes everyone
tense, encourages revert wars.  Nothing on Wikipedia should be settled
by a fight.  I feel that instant, no-discussion reverts of anything
other than *obvious vandalism* - whether edits or administrative
actions - encourages a quite unpleasant pattern of behaviour.

If we feel we have to do things instantly because it's too hard to
keep track of things otherwise, then we need tools - procedure or
software - to help with that.

-Matt