[WikiEN-l] Re: Let's deputize admins and expand the size of the AC (was: Re: Re: Blocking without following policy)

Sat Jun 12 23:46:59 UTC 2004

Daniel Mayer wrote:
> --- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>>... 
>>As I said above, I think the policy leaves room for a group of sysops to 
>>act temporarily, before the AC does.
> 
> 
> Without comment on this particular block, I completely agree with your above
> general statement. I would in fact like to deputize admins so that they have
> more authority to do this sort of thing but would have to implement such blocks
> in triads (three admins would be needed to issue a block; the ability for
> single admins to block obvious vandals would not be changed). 
>  
> 
>>Is it good ?
>>*yes, because AC is acting slowly. Participants are getting upset to see 
>>reincarnations waiting for 2 months before "judgment" by the AC. It is 
>>no good that participants become angry. 
> 
> 
> I agree - The AC is a panel of judges who have the authority to issue long term
> bans. This is a large responsibility and contrary to what many might think, it
> is not fun at all. Thus cases move slowly. We are not, nor have ever been a
> police force and therefore cannot protect people from the actions of others.
> Our job is to judge those people and issue remedies which we hope will be fair
> to the accused and to the community. Admins are the ones who  implement those
> rulings.  
> 
> 
>>In real life, there is similar 
>>provision.... when someone is said to have done something deeply wrong 
>>and is considered a potential threat to the society, he may be put in 
>>jail before the judgment is made. He should be put in jail only if there 
>>is enough evidence naturally. But this prevents damage to the society, 
>>while giving time to judge fairly.
> 
> 
> This concept in the U.S. at least is called 'probable cause'. It allows
> policemen to detain suspects before trial and allows individual judges to
> extend that through trial based on incomplete evidence. The goal is to balance
> the rights of the accused with the right of the public to not be harmed by
> somebody who the police or the arraignment judge reasonably thinks may do harm
> if released. A full trial will determine guilt. 
> 
> In fact I want the AC to change its arbitration policy a bit to allow for
> probable cause blocks of users during a trial based on a simple quorum (4 votes
> in favor). Such a user would only be able to edit his/her user and user talk
> page, and the AC pages concerning him/her. But that only takes care of the
> trial part. IMO, admins also need the ability to do this during day to day
> operations (the pre-trial part). Either way we need to greatly increase the
> size of the AC so that it can deal with the workload. 
> 
> 
>>If there is a mistake, we should deeply apology to the wrongly-blocked 
>>person, and re-consider how we are looking for evidence for next cases.
> 
> 
> Not necessarily - if probable cause was in fact valid to begin with then the
> user was not wrongly blocked. But just as there is a possibility for police
> abuse, there is also the possibility of admin abuse. If that is the case, then
> the admin may be in a trial of his/her own. However, we should assume good
> faith of admins as much as possible - otherwise everybody will be too afraid of
> using their sysop power to do what needs to be done for the good of the
> community. 
> 
> 
>>*yes, it is also good because power should be in the hand of people 
>>first. Those doing the daily work. This is the wiki way.
> 
> 
> I agree. The current set-up is rather top heavy with the AC having most of the
> authority and most of the admins feeling as if their hands are tied. I would
> like to spread some of the AC's authority around but would like to proceed with
> caution. 
> 
> -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

I support all these suggestions. You are right that AC is judge, not 
force police. So, activities should be separated. And empowering teams 
of sysops (with a good balance of pro and con-banning for example) to 
act in good faith while you are working through the case seems a good idea.