On 18/04/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Why not require support voters to demonstrate trust instead of only assuming the good faith of those supporting the candidate?
It depends on whether you see adminship as a big deal or not a big deal. The 'crat who sees it as not a big deal will think, "Well, this guy's been nominated, no reason not to trust him with the tools has been given. Promote."
The 'crat who sees it as a big deal will think, "Well, this guy's been nominated, but it would hurt really badly if we make someone who's been around enough to be nominated an admin just without thinking! There's no evidence he can be trusted, so reject."
I personally feel that adminship is not a big deal, and no convincing argument has been presented to think otherwise. I just checked, and I realise I replied to you on the list concerning this subject in the very same thread just three days ago, after you suggested that this philosophy may be antiquated.
A single rogue admin, or even a few of them, won't hurt WP to the point that it can't recover, or needs immense effort to recover. We know this from painful experiences in things like the userbox wars. A philosophy of "promote if no reason not to trust" may let one or two rogues through, but if it means an extra couple of hundred admins, who can each do at least a couple of hundred admin actions a day on average, I'm all for it.
(You might dispute the assertion that this philosophy will only let a tiny amount of bad apples in, but I can't think of many, sorry, any bad apples who didn't get in under our present Kafkaesque gauntlet at RfA that would have gotten in under an RfA operating under the "no big deal" thinking I'm advocating.)
Johnleemk