* Mark Gallagher wrote:
G'day Conrad,
Hello Mark.
Of course, we don't know the full story. It could be the editor was an obnoxious so-and-so who'd been cutting a swathe through Wikipedia, vandalising and POV-pushing, and when he seemed to be about to re-write our article on New World Order to make all those loony right-wing Americans seem less loony, the camel gave one hell of a scream as it felt its long-suffering back finally break. Or perhaps not.
As I said, the user had never been blocked or 'in trouble' before. Nearly all of those defending the admin action actually cited bad behaviour by OTHER people as 'justification' for blocking. 'They are all disruptive POV pushers so we should block them indefinitely' sort of thing - with NO evidence of this being true of the person actually blocked being presented... or apparently needed in the eyes of far too many.
Now, it's obvious to anyone that refusing to accept criticism, refusing to change in the face of clear evidence that we're wrong, etc., is a terrible way to conduct our affairs. It's not quite so obvious that pointing to unspecified inappropriate behaviour and the unnamed admins who encourage it and saying "tut, tut" without making any effort to do anything about the problem is also pretty terrible.
Perhaps it could be noted that there are OTHER (less 'terrible') reasons for describing issues without 'naming names'... such as focusing on a general problem rather than specific individuals, attempting not to bias ongoing discussion by leaving the individual name out of it, and/or presenting a scenario without names to get an evaluation based on the scenario itself without any preconceptions based on the names attached.
And... weren't you the one who, when I DID specifically object to the actions of someone by name, told me that such public confrontations are counterproductive and it would be better to keep the matter private? It seems almost as if objections are ALWAYS wrong, no matter how presented.
I see. Do you have a link?
As you insist;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/MONGO
And what did you do about it? Did you say "no, this is not appropriate. This was plain-jane edit warring, and should be treated as such. Admins should never use their admin powers in an edit war, nor should they call non-vandalism edits 'vandalism' to justify a block."
Um... yes?
Did you seriously think there was any question of that? If so, I think you need to consider the possibility that you do not understand me at all;
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice...
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice...
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice...
Did you say anything at all? If you piped up at all, was it to make a comment like my suggested one, or did you make one more of the sort you've become famous for --- like the one in your email to the list?
"Famous". How lovely for me.
Well maybe someone might eventually listen and consider the validity of these 'famous' comments rather than making invalid negative assumptions from which they might be dismissed.
We have damn near a thousand admins now. Some of them are becoming admins without even knowing what adminship is all about. Others have become too caught up in the tougher admin jobs, and become jaded. A couple (and this one irritates me) feel they have the support of ArbCom regardless of what they do (whether ArbCom agrees or not is a different story), and feel they have no reason not to do as they please.
I agree... but do not consider any of those people 'the problem'. There will ALWAYS be people who 'cross the line' from time to time (or who do not know where it is)... no procedure for appointing and/or removing admins will ever prevent that. The 'problem', in my view, resides in the admin community in general, including ArbCom members, who tacitly condone these things by failing to do anything about them or making outright statements in support of double standards;
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noti...
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noti...
Would you find it inconceivable for me to say that I >like< Tony, and Kelly, and Jimbo (I do not know MONGO or Johnleemk well but assume they are equally worthy of respect) despite having directly criticized all of them strongly in the past?
These are all good 'admins' doing good things... but they DO 'mess up' occasionally and the fact that this is ACCEPTED and that people are often outright attacked for saying so is, in my opinion, THE biggest problem Wikipedia has right now. It discourages examination of problems and encourages increasingly disruptive behaviour.
Overall, considering the sheer number of admins involved, I think we can be pleased that very, very few of them are bad admins.
Again, I agree... except that it isn't primarily an issue of 'good admins' and 'bad admins'. The greater issue is 'good' and 'bad' admin ACTIONS... and the response to such by the admin community.
But when we come across an example of an admin misbehaving, we should be either trying to improve their behaviour, or stripping them of adminship until we can trust them with the extra tools and the inevitable (but unfortunate) increase in status.
Again, I focus on the actions and community acceptance of them rather than the individuals. In my view what needs to change is the community's willingness to say, 'Um no... that's not kosher' to 'good' admins - and the willingness of the admin community, ArbCom, and all the way up to Jimbo to HEAR it >without< stomping the person saying so as someone who "would never *dream* of actually doing anything likely to make things better for Wikipedia" and other such pleasantries.
That kind of response causes most people to clam up, avoid drawing negative attention to themselves, and just let the status quo go on rotting from within.
You won't find alot of us who are so arrogantly self-assured as to be willing to be labeled "obnoxious". :]
Clucking that everything's broken isn't going to improve the lot of Wikipedia's admins, nor that of the Wikipedians who are forced to put up with them.
Everything is not broken. Just one thing... how Wikipedia's PTB respond to criticism of anyone 'on the inside'.
In response to your analysis I would propose at least two more 'groups' - those who challenge the admin community as a whole to confront the perceived double-standards, and those who respond with some rather nasty comments and assumptions instead of considering that they might have a point.
Or perhaps those aren't "groups" so much as individuals. :]