[Wikipedia-l] re: Trusted users

[Jake Nelson]

Chris Green wrote:
> To prove seriousness (i.e. real love of Wikipedia) and
> to prevent sock puppetry why not restrict the
> allocation of trust to those users who have edited
> x(500? 1000?) times?
>
> I would think that this would resolve most problems.
>
> You might have to make an exception for certain
> current sysops who don't really edit but have proved
> their worth to the community.
>
> Sysop status would become automatic after x number of
> edits provided the user hadn't accumulated negative
> votes already from existing trusted users. You could
> keep the voting figures out of the public domain until
> the trigger figure is reached to prevent gamesplaying,
> since people would not know their voting score.
>
> Over time sysop status could be revoked if votes
> against a user became weighted too negatively. For
> questionable cases you could call a vote.
>
> Good behaviour conversely would inevitably lead to the
> regaining of trust as people change their votes and
> might lead to the regaining of sysop status.

Way, way too gameable. Edit-counting is by default a recipe for trouble.
Adding auto-sysoping into the mix, many times moreso. Now, if we had
something (perhaps excessive) where people could rate whether any given edit
was an improvement, and a person had x positively-rated edits (assuming that
this rating would only count in people with likewise well-rated status...),
then something could happen... but you see how complicated that gets.
Automatic sysopping just strikes me as something that shouldn't be in the
equation.
But discussion is a healthy thing... so whatever works.

-- Jake