Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
For my money, a properly stated case against an admin from an editor with a history and a decent reputation is never a problem. The vast majority of complaints about admin behaviour are generic "rouge admin abuse" crap and can safely be ignored, especially if they can't bring themselves to state it in a civil manner. Sounds like this lot fails on both levels.
An editor with a history and decent reputation knows the ropes, and that alone helps to keep him out of trouble. There are exceptions, as the recent complaints by Waerth have shown. His complaints about how Thai open proxies are blocked made sense, but his presentation of the problem and abuse of those who wanted to help was abrasive and disinclined most people from trying to help him
The others probably don't know what they have at their disposal, and need to be taught. One starts with the presumption that the claim is valid, even if 95% of those claims turn out to be completely unfounded. We can't really judge the validity of a claim without investigating more deeply.
Some claimants are grossly abusive and offensive. This goes well beyond simple claims of admin abuse, or the occasional cuss word. This should receive a personal response from the moderator asking the claimant to tone down his comment, and restate his complaint in a more civil manner. The mederator could even promise that if he does that he will let the revised complaint move onto the list. The moderator makes no comment whatsoever about the merits of the claim; doing so would compromise his neutrality. The moderator can let the claimant know that list members are free to take up advocacy or not for the claim, and that it is not uncommon to wait for up to 48 hours before there is any reply.
Once a complaint has reached the list it is up to the interested list members to ask for diffs or other missing information. A very common missing bit of information is the person's own user name, without which nothing can be done with the complaint.
Assuming the complainant gets the message about how to civilly present his case, arguments can be made against excessive e-mails or persistent whining, but it is difficult to establish clear criteria about these because the tolerance of list members varies considerably. Again though, the moderator must avoid getting himself into the middle of a fight that has nothing to do with him.
Ec