[WikiEN-l] Featured editors?

[Steve Summit]

JzG wrote:
> On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:02:43 -0500, "Alec Conroy"
> <alecmconroy at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Okay!!  Well, we're making progress.   That's basically all I've been
>> saying.  There's been a culture developed where good-faithed editors
>> who "sound somehow similar" to the banned people generally face an
>> assumption of bad-faith and are often inappropriately treated
>> incivilly because of it.
>
> Alec, do you actually have any idea how patronising that sounded?

I suspect he did.  And I wondered if you'd take it that way.
Do you have any idea how stubborn and single-minded you're
sounding, by so consistently missing the points people are
trying to make?  (I'm not talking specifically about Alec,
but rather about everyone in this whole, extended debate.)

> Let me correct a misconception you seem to be carrying.  When an
> admin with long experience of one of our long-term abusers
> identifies a pattern of behaviour matching that abuser, you would be
> *amazed* how often CheckUser reveals that the IPs are either the
> same or open proxies. 
>
> You'd also be amazed how often those admins are sincerely trying to
> defend the project against abuse.

Guy: with perhaps one or two exceptions, no one is denying
that there are trolls, vandals, sockpuppeteers and abusers that
desperately need to be summarily banned and/or utterly ignored.
Furthermore, no one is denying that a relatively small number of
editors are spending long, dedicated hours doing frustrating,
unsung work sincerely trying to help the project and defend it
against abuse.

When people ask questions about what you're doing, *you* need
to do what you insist everyone else do, and assume good faith.
You need to stop assuming they're all against all aspects of what
you and your friends are doing.  You need to understand what
they're actually concerned about.

The complaint is not that the real trolls and vandals don't need
banning.  The complaints are instead about things like the
transparency with which the bannings and ancillary actions are
carried out.

We have some admins -- you are one of them -- who are regularly
perceived as acting in a callous, high-handed manner.  THIS IS A
PROBLEM.  It may not be a big problem, it may not be a problem
that is worth solving or is possible to solve, it may not be a
problem that you are willing to admit exists, but it is a problem.

Actually, I take that last part back, because it's pretty clear
that it is not a problem that you are, in fact, willing to admit
exists.  Instead, every time someone criticizes the way you're
doing something, you immediately defend yourself for doing the
thing at all, and reiterate the reasons why the thing needed
doing, and you and your critics end up talking right past each
other again.