[Wikipedia-l] Re: Please clarify the honorary administrator status

Thu Apr 1 01:54:58 UTC 2004

As I understood the Tim long term view, only the way "powers" (I prefer
"features") is dispense may be customizable. * In all case, decision must be
taken by community consensus.*
As an example, I think (it's just my point of view) that create a complex
hierarchy into a community is a real bad idea. For me, we only need 3 types
of users:
- Normal users
- Administrators "users who have access to administration tools and must
apply community decision"
- Arbitrator "users who was elected by community to resolve conflict"
That mean, in my point of view, that all administrators may have access to
all administration features (remove administrator flag as well). If we have
an easy to see log of all administrators actions (block, ban, give/remove
status, etc.) it may be easy to detect any abuse and take proportional
sanction. Sure it's just a point of view, but I don't see why this system
may have more chance to lead to dictatorship than actual English Wikipedia
system. Contrariwise, I think hierarchize the administration is something
like a defeat avowal. Instead of force administrators to respect rules, you
create new level to oversee them. The only judge we must have is the
community.
Tim explained me (as I understood) that English Wikipedia had a different
view of governance and prefer give different administration "powers"
according to the level of trust the user have. Why not. But why it must be
*the* governance type all Wikipedia must adopt? If you are afraid with this
local governance (and you are not wrong) we can make rules that local
governance system must be first approved by Jimbo or the community (for
example, by a vote on meta).

By the way, I think we must never give a specific "power" to less than 3
people.

Aoineko

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de>
To: <wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 4:00 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Please clarify the honorary administrator
status

> Tim-
> > Currently they have more abilities than bureaucrats. They can grant or
> > revoke any level of access. Currently bureaucrats can only grant
> > bureaucrat or admin status.
>
> I think the best way to go about this is to simply have two types of
> bureaucrats, local bureaucrats who can add and remove all user privileges
> and have access to other high level maintenance functions, and interwiki
> (super-)bureaucrats who can do this on any wiki. I think this additional
> "steward" level is needlessly confusing.
>
> > Additional features may be implemented depending on community sentiment.
> > Ultimately I would like to see stewards capable of configuring the power
> > structure on each wiki individually
>
> We are entering very dangerous territory here. Your original proposal was
> to decentralize power, and that is all well and good. But this idea, to
> configure power structures on a local level, has a lot of room for long-
> term abuse.
>
> Let's say I am a highly influential and generally good-natured user who is
> very active on, say, the Nepali Wikipedia. I'm also known and trusted on
> the English Wikipedia, so I am quickly given the "keys" to this new power
> structure configuration module for ne.wikipedia.org.
>
> Now let's say I happen to believe that it's a good idea to let sysops ban
> any user for repeated POV edits, given prior warnings. I'm sure there are
> many otherwise quite reasonable people who would believe that this is a
> good idea. Because of my influence and my level of control, it would be
> very easy for me to implement this power structure on the Nepali
> Wikipedia.
>
> As the Nepali Wikipedia grows, this principle becomes quite established.
> "POV users" are routinely banned arbitrarily. Because of my influence, I
> have managed to become the "last instance" of appeals -- there is no
> voting before banning, but I, the "steward", have obtained a position that
> effectively allows me to veto or approve any ban. Because I, and nobody
> else, can desysop users, I can easily enforce this principle.
>
> At some point in 2008, some very eloquent English-speaking user of the
> Nepali Wikipedia complains about this unfair power structure, appeals to
> Jimbo, the mailing lists etc. However, he is quickly shouted down by
> people who fear for the autonomy of "their" Wikimedia wikis. They will
> defend almost any rule on the Nepali Wikipedia as being "the business of
> the Nepalese" and argue that Jimbo et al. should stay out of it, because
> they are afraid that if they do not do so, their own idiosyncratic
> policies will come under scrutiny.
>
> "Individual projects should have this level of autonomy!" they will say.
> And: "These rules have been in place for years, there's no reason to
> change them now." There is a high level of tension between the English and
> the non-English spheres, so Jimbo et al. will stay out of it to keep the
> peace. This will set a precedent and other complainants will be similarly
> shouted down.
>
> Now everyone in this scenario acted with good intentions. However, one
> single user has effectively managed to obtain control over what is and
> isn't NPOV in a certain language Wikipedia. There might be more stewards
> later on, but that merely means a change from a monarchy into an
> oligarchy. Their decisions may be wrong or right, that doesn't matter, as
> I think we agree this is not a scenario we want to happen.
>
> I don't like the idea of implementing power structuers on the local level.
> I see no need for it and a lot of ways for things to go wrong. Yes,
> there's a difference between a 20-person wiki and a 20000-person wiki. But
> these differences can be accounted for by developing a multi-stage power
> structure that can be generalized for all wikis, e.g.:
>
> < 10 users    : no sysops or bureaucrats; use Meta to ask super
>                 -bureaucrats to set permissions accordingly
> < 100 users   : at least one bureaucrat, local "Requests for adminship"
>                 page, sysops can ban users if there is general consensus
>                 to do so, bureaucrat can remove sysop status if there
>                 is consensus
> < 1000 users  : "Requests for bureaucrat status" page, appeals process,
>                 arbitration committee
> 1000+ users   : quickpoll-style system for dealing with emergency
>                 situations
>
> I find it highly improbable that the cultural differences are so great
> that we can not deal with the problems - vandalism, sysop status abuse
> etc. - on a general, language-independent level. If you approach this
> problem from a purely rational perspective I believe you will have to
> admit that this is quite clearly so.
>
> In fact, I believe that many non-English wikipedians will embrace your
> proposal not for rational reasons, but purely because they want to grab
> every little bit of autonomy for "their" wiki that they can get.
>
> On each reasonably large wiki there are at least a couple of users who are
> subconsciously motivated by a real drive for power. They will rationalize
> this by saying that "We don't want to be controlled by the English
> Wikipedia", "We have different problems that need different solutions",
> but in reality they are already planning on what to do with these new
> privileges, and not all outcomes will be desirable. I have already
> observed that on some wikis, individual users have worked hard to
> establish a status of authority for themselves, and a tool like the one
> you are describing is exactly what they need to solidify that status.
>
> It is also an excellent tool for astroturfers, who can dedicate a lot of
> time to becoming influential and powerful "stewards" on up-and-coming
> Wikimedia projects.
>
> Keep in mind that Wikimedia is just a couple of years old, but it will be
> here for a long time to come. Unless we screw up in *major* ways, and
> someone creates a successful fork, the *minor* mistakes we make today will
> have *huge* consequences many years in the future that are very hard to
> foresee now, and very hard to repair later. The different languages
> effectively act as barriers, and it is very difficult to spot dangerous
> developments through these barriers. I am strongly opposed to effectively
> granting absolute autonomy to a small set of individuals in defining power
> structures that will likely be in place for years, if not decades.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
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