[WikiEN-l] for years been promoting admins who go with the flow rather than challenge low level bad behavior by admins and long standing users

[FT2]

I think you're missing the point, or not appreciating where I'm looking. The
point about basic attitudes is they inform all other discussions. An admin
who embodies courtesy, thoughtfulness, calmness, balance, is not the kind
who will be (as you describe) "fundamentally unwilling to talk about it, or
even listen". That's a basic attitude problem, verging on incompatibility
with adminship. Yes BLP is a serious matter. So is resisting "mass panic"
and engaging in dialog and consensus seeking - another basic attitude: faced
with a major crisis some will forget such basics and others won't.

I wasn't active at the time (on wikibreak) so I didn't see the blow by blow
unfolding of all this nor "who did what". While BLP is a major problem,
there was probably very little that needed doing "that day" or which would
not have tolerated courtesy and time for a formal consensus seeking
approach. Even if some felt that these articles needed radical handling,
that would not negate a good basic attitude of respectfulness - it's as easy
as "Apologies, I don't disagree that we need discussion but I feel this
deletion is required. You do have valid points though".

The fact that you felt as you describe actually demonstrates the point I'm
making - because the things you describe as "the problem" would actually all
be failings of very basic courtesy and standards to other users. Your own
words show it - your complaint is unwillingness to talk, unwillingness to
listen, arguing against the person not the issue, incivility,
belittlement, etc. The words you're using show the problem was not really
BLPs or even the complexity of the dispute, but more it was the way that
basic attitudes were not sufficiently followed by all participating admins.
If they had been, you would not have felt as you describe.

My argument is therefore directly in line with that - that admins need to be
first and foremost, people who can and do exemplify good standards of
conduct - even in a heated matter.


FT2.




On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 11:55 PM, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com>wrote:

>  On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 5:18 PM, FT2 <ft2.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> (snip)
> > Given that the community has fairly stable long term and universal norms
> > (although the detail and edge cases are very uncertain) what we need is
> > admins who at least agree and follow those norms or try to, to a high
> > standard. This would mean taking care in grey cases to avoid risk of
> upset
> > even if it's an "edge case"... take care to be visibly fair and neutral
> > even
> > if they could argue they aren't involved, take care to explain and
> > apologize
> > if needed rather than assume or act rough.
> >
> > This is what I mean by needing users to have the right basic attitude.
> the
> > rest then overlays that.
> >
> > FT2
> >
> >
> I'm still losing sight as to what this has to do with administrator
> flame-out.
>
> Anyway, I think you've chosen easy cases for "universally accepted
> standards". Let's try a hard case of a disagreement about basic values that
> directly led to my 'flame out' and retirement: Should an administrator
> avoid
> the appearance of impropriety by declining to use sysop tools to enforce
> the
> Biographies of Living Persons policy in a dispute where he could be seen as
> a participant? My opinion, and that implied by a few interesting Arbcom
> rulings, is that it's dangerous -- but BLP-violating content is much more
> dangerous, so we ought to remove it with all possible haste. That is not at
> all everyone's opinion, as I found out.
>
> Now, in my view, that's a kind of disagreement people ought to be able to
> talk about. Both sides are plausible and it's a hard nut to crack, and you
> could hold either viewpoint in good faith. So suppose I really was wrong.
> Someone should be able to peer-review administrative conduct and say "Look,
> you don't want to do it that way because X Y and Z consequence is bad for
> the project." That's how we reach this kind of consensus about how things
> ought to be done that gradually takes form in the policy. The problem was
> that not only did people disagree with me, but they were fundamentally
> unwilling to talk about it, or even listen to what I had to say: rather,
> they took on this exact same attitude that you display here: "These are the
> rules, you fucked up, so grovel and apologize, and you should be
> desysopped.
> It's not necessary to explain why the rules are the rules because they're
> the rules. If you don't understand or disagree, you're a problem, and
> having
> you around is bad for the project." What you said is the nice way of saying
> the same thing.
>
> Why would anyone want to be an administrator in this kind of environment?
>
> - causa sui
>
>