[WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

(continuation from Part 1, preceding.)

I never sought the desysopping of JzG, as an example, and didn't 
argue for it for WMC. I argued for *suspension* until the admin 
assured ArbComm that he would not repeat the use of tools while 
involved. JzG's actions had been egregious, and still ArbComm was 
unwilling to ask for assurances. Behind this, I'm sure, was an 
impression that JzG would have considered it an insult. But it should 
be routine. Indeed, ArbComm bans editors all the time when it could 
simply ask for *voluntary assurances.* And even more are community 
banned under a similar failure. Voluntary compliance, negotiated with 
respect, is far less likely to build up sustained resentments, than 
bullying and blocking.

These are all really obvious principles, but it's been amazing to see 
what oppositino they aroused when they were brought up before 
ArbComm. ArbComm remained silent on them, and on what was said in 
response. ArbComm mostly functions as a passive body, but then it 
does something different and becomes very active. It depends on whose 
ox is being gored.

>  The problem, as I have defined it, is of negative voting. The
>sheer suspicion of those who apparently want the mop-and-bucket. (And
>anyway, I obviously was using "well-adjusted" in the sense of "round peg
>in a round hole", not as a comment on anything else.)

If it's easy to revoke, it would obviously be easier to grant. 
Indeed, the supermajority standard is a problem. You propose that an 
administrator might avoid being "shot at" if the admin avoids 
controversial areas. So, to become an admin, avoid controversial 
areas! But, then, we don't know how the admin will behave when 
involved in controversy.

The same arguments that are applied to, say, required reconfirmation 
of administrators, should apply to granting adminship in the first 
place. If an editor has tacked difficulties, the issue should be how 
the editor did it, not how many people were offended. If the editor 
needlessly inflamed the topic, that's a problem, for sure, and could 
betray that there could be problems as an administrator. But if the 
editor calmed the conflict, with only a few die-hards then resenting 
the intervention or involvement, it should be a positive mark. There 
is no substitute for actually examining the record, if the record matters.

In fact, it shouldn't matter much, and here is why: adminship should 
routinely be granted based on an agreed-upon mentorship, with an 
active administrator. I'd suggest, in fact, that any admin who 
approves of the adminship would be allowed to do what a mentor could 
do, but an agreed-upon mentor would be taking on the responsibility. 
So if anyone has a complaint about the admin's actions, they have 
someone to go to for review, without going to a noticeboard and some 
possible flame war there. They can even do it privately, by email. 
That's how WP DR structure is supposed to work, it's supposed to 
start small. I've been amazed to see how few understand this!

Given administrative supervision, with any supervising admin being 
able to go directly to a bureaucrat or steward and request removal of 
the tools, if necessary, there is no reason to disapprove of almost 
anyone, and a discussion would only take place to the extent that it 
would be an opportunity to express objections. The closing bureaucrat 
might, indeed, review those, but numbers would not matter. What would 
matter would be (1) no sign of *likely* abuse, and (2) the presence 
of effective supervision.

At Wikiversity, this is apparently done, though I don't know all the 
details. There is then, after a time on probation, a "full adminship" 
discussion. (There is no difference in the tool settings between the 
two, an admin on probation has full tools, the only difference is a 
responsible mentor.) But with a more detailed structure, there might 
not be the need for "full adminship." I'd say that every 
administrator should have a "recall committee," a set of editors who 
are both trusted by the admin and by the community to correct the 
admin if he or she veers off-course. Only when this process fails, 
perhaps because of too-close alignment of the admin and the recall 
committee, would it be necessary to escalate to broader discussions. 
Ultimately, we should go back and set this up for existing 
administrators. This should, in reality, only be a problem for 
administrators who believe that they should have no supervision at 
all. That's a problem in itself. And I'm leaving the details of how 
such a committee would be formed, and how admins who have become part 
of it are replaced as they vanish, as many do, to a later discussion 
and, of course, ultimately, to the community if it ever starts to go 
here. I'm just proposing ideas to show that there might be some 
possible solution, and with no pretense that my ideas are the last 
word. I really do believe in the power of informed consensus, and the 
only kind of consensus that I have a problem with is when it is 
inadequately informed and is (quite likely as a linked condition) too 
narrow, with too few participants. But fully informed consensus that 
is real consensus with only a relatively small number is unlikely to 
be reversed by broader discussion.

This is why thorough discussion at the lowest possible level, seeing 
true consensus, is actually efficient, and only seems otherwise to 
someone who doesn't know how to (1) maximize its effeciency by using 
the debate to create a FAQ so that the same issues don't get debated 
over and over and over, and/or (2) doesn't want to discuss, but also 
doesn't trust what will happen if he or she stands aside and, say, 
simply raises the issue in Talk and then lets go or also raises it on 
a WikiProject. Instead, what tends to happen is that someone who 
isn't willing to actually discuss goes to a noticeboard and claims 
that an opposing editor is being "tendentious." It works, too often! 
Noticeboards aren't supposed to resolve content issues, at least not 
AN and AN/I, and admins are not supposed to resolve content disputes 
with the use of tools, but you cannot judge tendentiousness and 
distinguish it from, say, an expert patiently explaining an issue 
over and over and then perhaps becoming angry at meeting ignorant 
insistance for an editor or two, accompanied by revert warring by 
them. The expert is, of course, very likely an SPA, and is actually, 
often, COI, and so is easily seen as someone to be excluded. And thus 
one more expert joins the ranks of blocked or banned experts, I've 
seen it happen many times. Sometimes it gets fixed, but often not. 
And that damage accumulates, unless admins take an active role in 
actually resolving disputes instead of judging them. The power of 
judgment is not a police power! Discretion is, but that's distinct.

Good police officers, when they encounter people fighting or about to 
fight, will separate them and normally only arrest someone if there 
has been injury, or the person resists separation and won't stop. If 
it's neighborhood police, they may sometimes help people to resolve 
their dispute, not by judging it, but by pointing to resources and by 
perhaps saying some kind words to both sides, encouraging them to 
work out the problem.

And the rest of this is about personal history, and is an aside.

On Wikipedia, I was able to to this a few times, it was quite 
successful, and it avoided one or both of the parties from being 
blocked, they were headed for that, and they turned into cooperating 
editors. And this is the work that was directly prohibited by ArbComm 
in my MYOB ban. I was never able to figure out the sense of this ban, 
because there were no allegations of improper behavior related to 
it.... I think that the reality was that many simply wanted me to 
shut up. But they didn't make that clear, and what they did was 
something different that turned out to be quite unclear. It was 
eventually made clear enough that I simply stopped editing Wikipedia, 
for the most part, but the later "clear" interpretation was very 
different from the original sanction.

And ArbComm's last reponse wasn't really an interpretation, it was 
more in the nature of advice that I should stop doing anything 
controversial, whether or not it was covered by the ban, and ArbComm 
only began, haltingly, to address the fact that I was being hauled 
before Arbitration Enforcement, again and again, by the same editors, 
two of them parties to the original arbitration, for stuff that 
wasn't actually found to be a ban violation when ArbComm was asked, 
and without any showing at all of *actual harm.* I'd made comments, 
for example, that either were or became the consensus in a poll, and 
supposedly I was allowed to comment in polls. ArbComm, however, and 
many editors and administrators, tend to assume that if there are a 
number of editors and administrators yelling at one editor, that one 
editor *must* be doing something wrong. It's an assumption that is 
often efficient, it's probably right more often than not, but when it 
fails, there goes any ability to benefit from a whistleblower. And so 
serious problems can continue for years.... as they did in the cases 
where I was involved. I was confronting what I called a "cabal," by 
which I meant exactly what Lar has been asserting recently about the 
same general group of editors, a "mutually-involved faction." I made 
my meaning clear, but, somehow, some arbitrators actually asserted 
that I *really* meant something else, and then I was sanctioned for 
not backing up what I didn't mean and did not assert.... go figure! 
And all this was considered so hot that all the Evidence and the 
Workship was blanked. Mostly the Evidence that I put up was just edit 
histories showing involvement in a field. Almost none of it showed 
actually reprehensible conduct, because I wasn't attempting to get 
anyone sanctioned, and only WMC confronted for long-term use of tools 
while involved. But I had to explain, I believed, why there were a 
dozen editors filling up the RfAr with Abd did this and Abd did that, 
which was actually irrelevant to the filed case, but the "mutual 
involvement" showed why these editors would care so much. They were 
not neutral. And then, of course, if I tried to respond to evidence 
presented against me, my responses became voluminous. ArbComm, quite 
simply, had not, and probably still has not, developed methods to 
deal efficiently with factional conflict. I was, I believe, standing 
up for community consensus (and that's becoming apparent as more 
people become aware of what had been happening), but when the 
community is mostly not paying attention in a field, someone who does 
that can seem to be an isolated pov-pusher or tendentious in other 
ways, if faced with a faction. I had beeen quite careful. I didn't 
drag people to noticeboards, I simply discussed edits in Talk, and 
was being successful in shifting article consensus, being opposed by 
revert warring from about only one editor, for the most part. (In the 
last incident, I had 0RR, he had 3 and then self-reverted, added a 
pile of blatantly POV material to the lede, then went to RfPP and 
requested protection because of edit warring, when he was the 
principal edit warrior. And succeeded. And that's what had just 
happened when I was banned by WMC. For? He didn't say! Positions that 
went to mediation, of mine, were confirmed. In spite of serious 
opposition from the same set of editors, whitelistings I requested 
were granted. I wasn't getting anyone blocked or banned, and wasn't 
asking for it, but they sure wanted me out of there! And that, alone, 
should have been a clue. But it takes time and effort to understand 
these complex situations, it's much easier to make a quick judgment, 
decide whom to ban, and be done with it. But that tendency, then, 
preserves conflict and prevents genuine consensus from forming.

I personally don't care, the Wikipedia articles, even on subjects 
very dear to me, aren't that important, and Wikipedia is not a safe 
place to put content that requires work to create. I'm actually 
grateful to be rid of any idea that I have a responsibility to edit. 
(I'm not banned or blocked anywhere, by the way, just en.wiki topic 
banned on Cold fusion, where I've become an expert and COI, I'm 
actually in business selling research materials, and there is this 
weird MYOB ban in place, which was allowing a few editors to 
constantly harass me by claiming I was "commenting on disputes" even 
if I didn't make any comments at all, but just an ordinary edit that 
reflected apparent consensus... and anything that could be 
wikilawyered into a ban violation was, so... given that there was no 
initiative to address the real source of the disruption (once upon a 
time there would have been, but those editors had all disappeared), I 
just stopped editing entirely.

I was much more interested in Wikipedia process and the principles of 
consensus and neutrality, and how to facilitate them, toward the goal 
of the overall project. Until that goal becomes more important than 
whatever it is that occupies the active core, I don't see much hope. 
People like Lar and others do see some of the problem, but they, 
sooner or later, burn out and leave. I had, at one point, three 
arbitrators who did understand, for the most part, my goals. But, of 
course, they always recused, and one rather promptly resigned. My 
original MYOB ban provided for a mentor to allow me to participate in 
discussion. Fritzpoll had volunteered to be my mentor, during the 
case. Denied as not needed since there was no mentorship requirement. 
But, in fact, there was! Then, later, Fritzpoll ran for and was 
elected to ArbComm. Because the issue of mentorship had come up, 
because it was mentioned in the ban, he again volunteered, privately, 
to ArbComm. It was denied, he was told that arbitrators could not be 
mentors. That was odd, since he and two other arbitrators were 
already recusing when anything involving me came up! This was the 
reality: there were many who simply wanted me, as I wrote before, me 
to shut up. Many arbitrators. A majority? Maybe. But would that 
majority have insisted on it if it became obvious what was going on?

My organizational theory says, no, not likely. But as long as this 
kind of motive could take cover under some other seemingly reasonable 
excuse, it would be maintained. Arbitrators have always been 
administrators and are, quite understandably, uncomfortable with an 
editor who has been a primary party in two ArbComm cases and which 
have resulted in censure or desysopping. It's instinctive, protect-our-own.

I was disappointed that the arbitrators who recused (a total of 
three, I think) didn't then present arguments and evidence. I know 
what they knew. I know more about the situation that I'm not 
disclosing, because of personal confidences revealed to me that I 
don't have permission to reveal. My general position on ArbComm is 
that necessary support structure has not been created, so arbitrators 
are faced with a much more difficult task than is necessary. They 
don't have time to do the research necessary to uncover what evidence 
is good and what isn't. So decisions tend to become matters of quick 
impressions, and that's a setup for bad decisions, and I've seen some 
doozies. Not involving me.