[WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

[geni]

On 2/10/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> Geni,
>
> You're welcome to your opinions, and I appreciate your more thought-out
> response. However, I do believe that you're missing the largest benefit
> of the proposal: the de-politicizing of RfA. The de-emphasizing of the
> status of being an admin. Perhaps you don't see these a benefits.
>

I see that after the resulting mess people will be more uptight than
ever about who they let get hold of the admin bit.

> It seems to me that one hazard for an admin who if heavily involved is a
> sort of "messiah complex" -- the belief that without them (or in this
> case, others like them) the project will fail.
>

Such admins are normally within a couple of a weeks of burnout.
Generally they drop off before they become a problem.

> As others have pointed out, Wikipedia is built on a premise that open
> editing can produce a quality encyclopedia. This is a premise that many
> (most?) traditional encyclopedia editors can't believe will work,
> because they passionately believe that without people like them, it
> cannot possibly work.

Admins are a pragmatic response to finding that the pure editing
approach doesn't quite work.

Unfortunately we then hit a "if all you have is a hammer everything
looks like a nail problem". It has become to tempting to try and solve
problems by increasing admin powers or throwing admins at the problem.
Often it appears to work but far to often admins are little more than
a sticking plaster.

> So I ask you to think carefully about your own motives and beliefs about
> admins on Wikipedia. No one else knows what those are.

I think admins useful furthering the objective of finish what my
ancestors started and conquering the world in the name of the Crown.
No you don't know my motives are and I don't know yours (I think it is
a fairly safe assumption that you want to improve wikipedia) but that
has little relevance to the truth or otherwise of my arguments

> It's very possible that my proposed experiment has real problems and is
> unworkable. But, may I suggest that you offer alternate suggestions for
> improvements, instead of just criticizing those of others?

I always tended towards Karl Popper's philosophy but no matter. I
think we need to find a better way of dealing with problem admins and
stop trying to use admins as a sticking plaster for problems that are
better dealt with through other means.

-- 
geni