On 5/29/06, Nick Boalch <n.g.boalch(a)durham.ac.uk> wrote:
Conrad Dunkerson wrote:
Look around at your fellow admins from time to
time and ask yourself... is
there ANY way this person could pass an RFA at this point? If the answer
is 'no' then the de facto situation is that a person who does NOT have the
support or respect of the community has powers which are only supposed to
be held by those who DO... and that inherently breeds disruption and
resentment and ongoing damage to Wikipedia as a whole.
I don't think that is a particularly fair test. As is obvious, admins
are occasionally called upon to perform actions that upset people -- I
don't think admins should shrink from making those hard choices.
I can think of several thoroughgoingly solid admins, people who temper a
good knowledge of policy with a healthy dose of knowing that what we're
here to do is write an encyclopaedia, who I doubt would pass an RfA
because they've done things that have made them controversial or
unpopular in certain sectors of the community.
The community giveth, and the community taketh away -- but it taketh
away under the auspices of proper consideration by the arbitration
committee, not by having unpopular admins strung up by a baying lynchmob.
I agree with this. Funnily enough, I originally read RFA as "request
for arbitration" and agreed with the comment. I don't think admins
necessarily need to enjoy broad-based popularity, but they do need the
support of the most experienced Wikipedians, including arbitors. No
one expects police to be popular - but you do expect them to have the
support of the people who appoint them.
Steve