"Conrad Dunkerson" wrote
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.
Well then, where is objective evidence that the neighbourhood is going to hell? I don't mean general bitching. I mean evidence that vandals sweep through Wikipedia, or edit wars take over.
I know where to look for entirely credible evidence of people who would like to see admin powers diminished to the point of ineffectiveness, and to have admins looking constantly over their shoulders at what the People's Commissar might be thinking.
This thread was started on the proposition about imbalance 'between the user rights and admin privileges'. It is really not the same question, whether unpopular admins should still be in the job. Note that correcting the purported imbalance would affect all admins, righteous and popular or not.
En-WP's Arbitrators have been quite prepared to de-sysop people. But relatively few cases have been brought on that, which stand up at all. And numerous which look like general attempts to pressurise admins who are doing just what they should be.
Charles