[WikiEN-l] BADSITES vs RFA

[George Herbert]

On 5/29/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/29/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I am far more worried that one of Merkey's anon detractors claims that
> > they just got past RFA with another as-yet-unnamed account ...
> >
> Quite a few groups are claiming to have succeeded in getting RfAs
> through, and in some cases more than one admin account per person,
> because the process has become almost completely formulaic. It's one
> of the reasons I don't like to see high article edit counts (with
> minor edits) and low talk-page interaction, because that's one of the
> ways they claim to get them through. (And that's not a comment on
> Gracenotes, before anyone interprets it that way.)
>
> I don't know what the solution is, because a large chunk of the
> community still argues that adminship's no big deal, which means
> there's no will to check who's being given it.

The real problem is that there's no time to check who's being given
it.  I spend a moderate amount of time, 5-10 min or so, perusing a
candidate, unless I already know them extensively.  This compares
rather negatively with the several hours it takes me to ferret out
details in serious abuser / sockpuppeteer cases and track all the
relevant stuff down.  And even in those cases, unless I RFCU on them,
I am left with a lingering feeling that I don't know enough about
them.

Even admins have a hard time doing permanent long-term spree damage
faster than they can be emergency desysopped (and the delay while
finding a steward).  But there's potential there, and the potential
damage an insidious covert admin-powers abuser could cause as opposed
to a blatant spree vandal is something not well discussed.

There are unfortunately two lessons from industry:  One, 4 out of 5
attacks (IT security, industrial espionage, some types of physical
violence in workplace) come from inside.  Two, paranoia about that
statistic has caused many businesses to take drastic precautions that
implode morale and destroy anything worth saving about the business.

We have to trust people to get stuff done in order for the project to
exist.  But both keeping eyes open and thinking about what the bad
guys may be doing is important.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com