Steve Bennett wrote:
On 3/31/06, Ilmari Karonen
<nospam(a)vyznev.net> wrote:
sock. The six months or so between the two events
served not only to
familiarize me with Wikipedia, but also to provide other users with some
confidence that I wasn't going to go on a vandalism spree as soon as I
got my admin buttons.
The chance that anyone will go on a "vandalism spree" with admin
rights is vanishingly small. And if they did, they can be quickly
desysopped before they've done any real damage (as I understand it).
Is this really what the whole RfA charade is about? Protecting
ourselves against users with 1500 edits who might suddenly,
inexplicably turn into vandals the instant they're given admin rights?
Sounds fishy to me.
Well, no, the part about going on a vandalism spree was hyperbole. It's
more about protecting ourselves against users who might use their admin
povers for more subtle undesirable things, such as POV pushing, or for
ends incompatible with the project (like the folks who think the best
thing about Wikipedia are the userboxes), or who might simply use them
carelessly or thoughtlessly, say, by rangeblocking all of Europe.
There are people who are working towards getting several userids up to admin
status, doing uncontroverisal editing in areas they don't care about, so
that they can then use that status to enforce their views in areas which are
truly of concern to them. This has been advertised and discussed on
off-Wikipedia fora.
Jay.