[WikiEN-l] The Counter Vandalism Unit? Whaa?

[Alphax (Wikipedia email)]

The Cunctator wrote:
> On 2/4/06, Jay Converse <supermo0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>On 2/4/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On 2/4/06, Jay Converse <supermo0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>On 2/4/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Oh, lordy! The unwashed masses! Quick, defend the citadel. Being an
>>>>>admin really ain't that amazing.
>>>>
>>>>Except for the simple fact that they can delete images, which cannot be
>>>>restored.  All it takes is one bad apple to completely destroy
>>>
>>>Wikipedia's
>>>
>>>>images, unless they're stopped in time.
>>>
>>>That's true now, isn't it?
>>>
>>>>And we all know how hard it is to remove an admin once he's there.
>>>
>>>That's because becoming an admin isn't automatic.
>>>
>>
>>You're completely avoiding both my points.  If you give everyone a gun, all
>>it takes is one person to fire a shot for the whole town to erupt in a blaze
>>of gunfire.  If you give trustworthy people, a small portion of them, guns,
>>then those people become a symbol of trust and honesty to everyone else.
>>Obviously guns are a bit of an extreme comparison...
> 
> 
> I'm not avoiding your points, I don't buy your logic. Yes, guns are an
> extreme comparison and, I think, a poor analogy. The thought of
> holding a funeral for the loss of a Wikipedia image is pretty
> entertaining, though.
> 
> [Not to get into it, but: I'm not a huge fan of a small portion of
> "trustworthy" people wielding guns. Somehow a lot of people seem to
> get killed by guns in the US nonetheless.]
> 

That is because (as I understand it) the rules for firearms ownership
are pretty much the same as what you are suggesting for adminship -
anyone who qualifies, gets teh awesome power. In fact, some states
(well, counties anyway) /require/ people to own guns.

Now, are you *sure* you still want adminship to be automagic?

> 
>>Also, by using circular logic on the second point, you're ignoring the fact
>>that it seems to be generally thought that the current de-adminship process,
>>which relies on admins not coming in hundreds at a time, is already broken,
>>and you want to flood it even further.  You're saying that by adding more
>>people to be looked over, the already bogged-down system will magically fix
>>itself?
> 
> 
> No, I'm saying that the current system sucks, and that it should be
> replaced by an "easily given, easily taken away" philosophy.
> 

In case you haven't noticed, Wikipedia is not a little website in some
random backwater of the internet like it was 3 years ago - we're now one
of the Top 20 (Alexa peak of 13) websites _in the world_. We cannot
afford to hand out administrative privileges in this manner. However, I
do think that we should make it far easier to /remove/ adminship from
those who abuse it.

-- 
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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