On 5/29/06 9:55 AM, "Conrad Dunkerson" conrad.dunkerson@worldnet.att.net wrote:
To put it another way... if something would have been so disruptive as to prevent a person from ever being appointed an admin in the first place why is it suddenly ok AFTER they become an admin?
One does not have to be "disruptive" to be prevented from becoming an admin. All it takes is to make any decision on-wiki which in any way creates controversy, and it then becomes ridiculously easy to votestack the RFA with opposition.
Admins are routinely called upon to make precisely the sort of controversial decisions on-wiki that will inevitably leave someone pissed off. Deletion and verifiable/reliable sourcing questions quite often result in the people making the choices being called censors, Nazis and all sorts of vulgar names.
Admins are appointed by the community... and when the police lose the support of the people they are policing they generally get replaced... or the neighborhood goes to hell.
Ah, no. One cannot fire a police officer merely because he "loses the support of the people," whatever that means. One must go before a review board, such as a Police Commission, and demonstrate that the officer has committed wrongful acts - abuse of power, misuse of force, etc. Similarly, we have a procedure to allow review of administrative decisions through the Arbitration Committee. Several admins have lost their sysop bit due to ArbCom actions, so this is not some sort of paper tiger but a real check on administrative abuses.
I agree that admins cannot and should not be seen as untouchable and perhaps we need to make clearer to people who feel wronged that they do have recourse to appeal. At the same time, to expect the people that we call upon to make controversial and contentious decisions about the encyclopedia to be somehow subject to the arbitrary whim of the "support of the people" at any time is the height of insanity.
-Travis Mason-Bushman