[WikiEN-l] The admin problem

[Peter Mackay]

> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org 
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Alphax 
> (Wikipedia email)

> I fear the day when a group of people will say "Hey! Let's all become
> admins on Wikipedia! All we have to do is revert vandalism for an hour
> for three months, and then we can all become admins and trash the
> place!" Actually, I wonder why it hasn't happened already.

I think because it's too much like hard work. Remember when there was all
that hoo-har about neo-Nazis banding together to try to take over WP? Jimbo
said that this wouldn't happen, because in the end WP was an encyclopaedia
not a game.

It didn't happen anyway, but a few folks here ran round like headless chooks
for a while, and when the neoNazis started up their own fork, a few people
went over and vandalised the crap out of it, and then came back here and
gloated.

Anyway, if we get a bunch of genuine rogue admins acting in an organised
manner, I think it would quickly be noticed and brought under control. It
wouldn't be a matter of voting or wheel-warring. In the end Jimbo and his
trusted assistants would squash the invasion and we'd be better off to the
tune of many packets of three months anti-vandalism work.

Peter (Skyring)