[WikiEN-l] Admin / experienced user flameout - how do we talk people down off the ledge?

[Ryan Delaney]

On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 12:29 PM, George Herbert
<george.herbert at gmail.com>wrote:

> Admin Rodhullandemu just retired after being blocked for blocking
> Malleus Fautorum to win a dispute
>
> For reference:
>
> https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Block_review
>
> On and off wiki I have mentioned before that we are really bad, as a
> project, at identifying people who have worked themselves into an
> angry corner and feel that they must blow up and leave, and then
> talking them down and defusing the situation.  This is in my
> experience the typical (or at least, a major and common) exit mode of
> longtime highly involved contributors.
>
> Our existing policy and precedent really don't address this problem.
> We have had individual admins and experienced editors spot the pattern
> start and work to calm situations down on an individual basis, with
> mixed results.  But typically the pattern is not really recognized
> until it's too late.
>
> Posed for consideration - This is a problem worth putting more time
> and effort into, and which the project will benefit significantly from
> getting right over the long term.
>
> The question is - what exactly do we do about it?
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com
>
>
You most definitely do have this exact problem and I am one of many test
cases. I find myself replying to these topics due to my still-passionate
belief in the value of the project being balanced out by my equally
convictional belief that Wikipedia culture is so thoroughly broken on this
issue that it would be truly foolish for me to try to continue to help.

As you might have already gathered from the tone of the previous paragraph,
as well as another email I recently wrote to this mailing list about it, I'm
still sufficiently sore about this that I might descend into ranting if I
get on to the topic -- I have a lot of lingering resentment about this
still, with all the attendant (and irrational) expectations of apology and
reconciliation. Suffice to say that the process of AN/I is extremely
ill-suited to handling allegations of administrator misconduct for reasons
you and David Goodman insightfully and accurately diagnose.

I want to make clear to some, including Charles Matthews (though he is not
the only person to suggest this 'wikibreak' idea to me and others in similar
situations) that I am most definitely not on a "Wikibreak". This isn't an
issue of me getting angry and needing to 'cool down' -- it's an issue of me
coming into contact with first-hand knowledge that administrators doing
difficult work on the worst parts of Wikipedia will absolutely not find
themselves supported by the community for doing so -- to the contrary, they
will often find themselves cut down. Only a fool would continue to do
difficult administrative work in this environment, regardless of his or her
mood at the time. Although I would very much like to see the situation
improved, I have no intention whatsoever in editing in any administrative
capacity until I see evidence of improvement.

So, as I see it, the only road forward that is consistent with both my faith
in Wikipedia as a concept and my unwillingness to edit in an administrative
capacity is to make whatever small contributions I can to people like you
who want to know what is going wrong, what could be handled differently or
better, and what the experience is like for people in my situation.

- causa sui