[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]

At 06:11 PM 5/31/2010, David Goodman wrote:
>The assumption in closing is that after discarding non-arguments, the
>consensus view will be the correct one, and that any neutral admin
>would agree. Thus there is in theory no difference between closing per
>the majority and closing per the strongest argument. But when there is
>a real dispute on what argument is relevant, the closer is not to
>decide between them , but close according to what most people in the
>discussion say. If the closer has a strong view on the matter, he
>should join the argument instead of closing, and try to affect
>consensus that way.   I (and almost all other admins) have closed keep
>when we personally would have preferred delete, and vice-versa.

My argument has been similar on this. Wikitheory would suggest that 
no admin should close a discussion with a result that the admin does 
not agree with, so it does a little further than what David suggests. 
I'd even say that an admin who, after reading the discussion and 
reviewing the evidence, is neutral, *should not close.* If there is a 
consensus, say, for Delete, and that represents true broader 
consensus, surely there will be an admin who agrees to close.

I agree that if the admin has a strong opinion or general position 
making it reasonably possible that the decision will be biased (some 
people can actually discern this!) the admin should instead comment. 
Generally, an admin who comments with a position should not then 
return and close, I've seen this violated only a few times. With a 
ban discussion actually, and it was a real problem, in my view.

And the reason for this is quite simple. The least disruptive way to 
review a deletion is to ask the deleting administrator to reconsider 
it. The theory suggests that the one who closes has the authority to 
change the decision based on new evidence or argument. When an admin 
closed on the basis of "consensus" purely, we have a closer who will 
often refuse to change the decision because "the community made the 
decision, not me."

But when the administrator is part of that community, and closed on 
behalf of that community, the administrator represents it in changing 
his mind, based on new additional evidence and argument. This can 
avoid a lot of DRV discussions! I've seen it work, and I've also seen 
the "not my decision" response.

The theory of the adhocracy that is Wikipedia depends on the 
responsibility of the executives -- the editors and administrators 
who act -- for their own decisions. No decisions are properly made by 
voting, per se, most notably because there is a severe problem with 
participation bias. If we wanted to use voting, we'd need quite a 
different structure, which may be advisable, in fact, as a hybrid, 
used where it's necessary for voting to represent true community 
consensus. In an organization that is the size of Wikipedia, that 
would almost certainly be some kind of elected representative body, 
and there are ways to do this without actual "elections" as we know 
them. Simple ways, in fact.

Short of that, we have the efficiency of ad hoc decision-making by 
individual administrators, expected to self-select for initial neutrality.

I've seen closing admins change their mind and undelete based on new 
evidence and argument, and a Delete voter in the AfD discussion got 
upset that the admin was "defying consensus." But I"ve never seen 
such a decision reversed at DRV, nor by a new AfD with a different 
closer. Perhaps it's happened, but, if the admin was truly following 
arguments and policy, it should be rare. Thus the disruption of 
another discussion is avoided unless someone is really pissed and 
pursues it, and, after a while, this can become obvious, such editors 
don't last long, usually.