[WikiEN-l] Civility poll results

[George Herbert]

On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 3:26 PM, Emily Monroe<bluecaliocean at me.com> wrote:
>> the arbitration committee have tended to take the view that
>> incivility alone is not a reason to remove the admin toolbox and flag.
>
> Oh, I get it--precedent interferes with my idea.
>
>> But yes, I've always followed Spider-Man, and thought that with
>> great power comes great responsibility.
>
> This is exactly my point. If somebody has privileges, then they have
> that *much more responsibility* to act in a civil matter.

That has unfortunately not been a formal enforced prerequisite nor
strongly reinforced in the admins community.

I agree with you - The example admins set is important.  Every admin
that's rude indicates to people that it's ok to be rude, and/or that
it's ok to be rude if you're special (an admin) and not a peon (normal
editors).  Neither of these is a good thing.

We have to have a tolerance band, even admins who normally go out of
their way to be polite or levelheaded have bad days.  People having a
bad day, but not a persistent problem, should often just be politely
notified and asked to go take the day off and relax / feel better
elsewhere for a while.

But admins who go too far overboard need to be reigned in, as do users
who go too far overboard.  And it does happen.


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