On 4/22/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 22/04/07, Cascadia cascadia@privatenoc.com wrote:
"David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote in message news:fbad4e140704220818n7330f43cya6890397a0d06f22@mail.gmail.com...
On 22/04/07, Cascadia cascadia@privatenoc.com wrote:
- Be too nice to the newbie, shoot the veteran: I know Todd said this,
but it happens too much- We're so afraid of biting people that we'll throw the book at a seasoned editor.
e.g. when you demanded Ryulong resign from adminship for blocking your sockpuppet.
If an admin is going to hold the position, they need to be on top of things much better. Personally, if I was an admin, after such a total screw up, I would have resigned and reapplied in a few months. Why? Because it would be admiting I had completely screwed up, and that I was willing to own up to the mistake and take full responsibility for my actions.
Except for the detail that it wasn't anything like a "total screw up." Second accounts are barely tolerated at best, not a "right."
- d.
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Hey, here's part of something we need to realize, in that positive culture you're envisioning:
EVERYONE SCREWS UP.
That's just a fact of life. Even highly-trained professionals make the occasional error. We should certainly expect that from a crew of, well, effectively amateurs.
If someone messed up an edit and broke a page's formatting, you wouldn't call for them to be banned from editing. (I sure hope!) You'd bring it to their attention or fix it. By the same token, administrators will make the occasional mistake too. That doesn't mean they're terrible people, or even careless. It means they're human.
Now, that being said, there's a difference between an error and genuine abuse. Ryulong's actions didn't rise to the level of abuse by any stretch of the imagination. (I'm not sure I'd even necessarily call them an error.) In that case, there was some tension (and still is) between an allowed use of sockpuppets (to maintain privacy), and a prohibited one (to avoid community scrutiny). For all we knew, it could easily have been the same person who made -all- those accounts. There's no way to have the first clue if what any of them said are true. That's why "anonymous" socks are frowned upon.
That being said, given the sensitivity of the situation, I wish Ryulong would have discussed a bit before issuing the blocks. But that's a -minor- error if it is one at all. And part of building a good community is to accept that others -will- have a different viewpoint than you, and unless someone is being egregiously abusive, destructive, or totally refusing to explain themselves at all-learn to accept a good rationale even when you don't totally agree with it. The other guy thinks he's just as right as you think you are.
Seraphimblade