[WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 12:56 AM 6/1/2010, Durova wrote:
>Let's not mince words: Wikipedia administratorship can be a serious
>liability.  The 'reward' for volunteering for this educational nonprofit can
>include getting one's real name Googlebombed, getting late night phone calls
>to one's home, and worse.  The Wikimedia Foundation has never sent a cease
>and desist demand to the people who have made a years-long hobby of driving
>its administrators away.

Durova's history is a classic example. She was hounded by a screaming 
mob when she made a mistake, even though she recognized the error and 
undid it within an hour. She might have been desysopped had she not 
resigned, but that would have been a miscarriage of wikijustice. She 
should have been defended, but was not. And why? I've never really 
studied that.

While I've studied and have dealt with administrative abuse, the 
people who are most abused by the Wikipedia system are 
administrators, and that is probably a major source of abusive adminship.

I've argued for clear and strong rules for admin recusal, but what's 
often been missed is that this *protects* administrators from 
becoming over-involved in the mudslinging contests.

I've been a meeting chair, and a good chair rigorously stays away 
from involvement. So the chair is obligated to rule on matters of 
procedure, and perhaps a member stands up and starts shouting about 
how stupid a ruling was and how the chair is biased. What does the 
chair do? Argue?

No, the chair puts the ruling to a vote, immediately (that's the 
substance, there are details I won't go into). The chair is not 
actually in charge, the membership is, at all times. The chair is 
just a servant. A chair who doesn't understand that and who becomes 
attached to control can make quite a mess, and the belief of some 
that Robert's Rules of Order is some kind of oppressive document have 
probably experienced a chair like that. But even a few members in an 
organization who understand the rules and know how to use them to 
guarantee that decisions are adequately deliberated and that 
democratic decision-making is maintained efficiently can handle even 
a poor chair.

But there is no power that can avail against a stupid and active 
majority, and when that happens, it's time to consider leaving.