[WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

[Guy Chapman aka JzG]

On Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:14:01 -0800, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>The problem I find with this analysis is that it's too one sideed.  You 
>outline three broad problems that do indeed happen, and take up a lot of 
>admin time.  Still another huge problem is the tendency of some admins 
>to zealotry, or assuming that a small error by a newbie is a precursor 
>to vandalism.  The most desirable skill in an admin is patience, and we 
>don't see much of that.

That's partly a consequence of promoting mainly vandal fighters, with
a culture of immediatism, and partly the result of the cynicism
inspired by the relentless onslaught of POV pushers, self-promoters
and other types.

But yes, there are issues like you describe.  One that particularly
annoys me is the tendency to overdramatise supposed death threats and
legal threats when the comments have no degree of credibility.  A
credible threat of harm is bad, and reducing the currency of such by
saying that generic "Meh!  I'll kill ya!" crap is a death threat
(rather than just simple stupidity) does not help.

Guy (JzG)
-- 
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG