[WikiEN-l] Things about admins

[Guy Chapman aka JzG]

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 18:43:09 +0100, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:

>>>Given that this massive influx of annoyed complaints plainly 
>>>demonstrates that users are much more commonly and much more seriously 
>>>the ones that get annoyed, and supposing that the argument #2 is 
>>>applicable, doesn't it follow plainly obviously that the admins are 
>>>doing much more significant wrongs?

>> No.  Because almost without exception the ones who complain loudly and
>> bitterly are the ones who are *absolutely determined* that The Truth
>> (TM) be told about some person, incident or whatever, and they are
>> kicking back at the janitor who locks them out of the room in which
>> they are trying to start a fight. That's my experience, anyway.

>Oh, and what do you think makes them so determined? Could it be 
>something they genuinely perceive as a wrong? Could it be that they are 
>trying to be genuinely productive, and that from their point of view it 
>is the admins who were "starting a fight"?

I have no idea.  I had a problem today with someone who was absolutely
determined to add a load of innuendo to a WP:BLP.  He flatly refused
to engage in Talk, removed questions and attempts at dialogue from his
Talk page as "trolling", asserted that it was *his* talk page to do
with as he pleased, and even after a short block he went straight back
and picked up the edit war again. 

I think people are used to forums and Usenet where proof by assertion
is a valid technique and where saying the same thing only louder will
very often work.  Here you can say the same thing *better* (i.e. more
neutrally) but if you absolutely refuse to entertain the possibility
that what you have added to a living person bio is anything other than
a beacon of neutrality, notwithstanding that the subject remains
stubbornly free of any convictions or indictments, then you end up
blocked and mailing the list.  The idea of sitting down and talking
calmly about it often does not appear to occur to these people.

>> There are very few genuinely productive editors with a significant
>> history of blocks.

>That's a tautology. Someone who is blocked hardly has any chance to be 
>(and, in most cases, any interest in being) at all productive. What 
>percentage of people that are blocked and never return, would have been 
>genuinely productive if they hadn't been blocked? How can you tell?

SPUI.

Guy (JzG)
-- 
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG