[WikiEN-l] RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous

Tue Jun 21 05:26:53 UTC 2005

>> Ed is spot on, and couldn't be more right about such whinging. Admins
>> shouldn't be above the law, and precious few of us are here to
>> experience an online soap opera of hysterical emotionalism. Its just
>> an encyclopedia, get over it already...
>
>Referring to the 3RR blocking as "law" or "near automatic" is flawed,
>which is why the treatment of RickK is a disappointment, and the
>potential loss of a very valuable individual. If you read the text of
>the WP:3RR page, it would not qualify as anything like "law" as we
>understand it:
>
>"If you violate the three-revert rule, after your fourth revert in 24
>hours, sysops may block you for up to 24 hours."
>
>Emphasis on the "may" part.
>
>For a good system of law you need pre-knowledge of the rules, fair
>application and an independent judiciary. The arbitration committee
>approaches these ideals, but enforcement of 3RR? Nowhere close, and
>it's causing lots of problems.
>
>-User:Fuzheado

Come on, now.  "May" indicates that the administrator had the option to block RickK for up to 24 hours.  An administrator used that option to do so.  (The very same who had in November 2004 awarded RickK the "Order of Canada" for "past work in defending our integrity".)

Certainly you cannot be upset that an administrator used his own independent judgement and chose to use the authority granted to him by the community at large in a way prescribed by formal policy?  

Part of the more general problem I see here that causes this is that granting administratorship at Wikipedia is meant to be "no big deal", yet anything that even hints at removing such, even for an hour or two, is the seen as end of the world as we know it.  If granting administrator status truly is "no big deal", it shouldn't be that much less common to remove it, if only temporarily.  Instead, we have more and more policies and procedures that excuse and insulate administrators from the "no big deal" portion and say "forgive the administrator for being mean because you really were a jerk" or "don't worry about the administrator driving off new users because he's so good at catching vandals."  

If we truly want to live up to the perception and ideal that adminship is "no big deal", it should be a matter of routine to revoke admin priviledges for a few hours for something as little as a single foul mouthed comment, even if provoked and egged on by peers.  If this is done, perhaps we will see less admins defending their actions at any cost, and more "shrugging it off" and proceeding with business.  

For an example of an insulating policy, what's the point of getting another user to certify an RfC if it's only meant to be a request for <i>comments</i>?  To paraphrase a comment I posted earlier on WP, it's as if people think of it as two people ganging up on a third to administer a lashing.  It probably comes from being the first "formal" step of dispute resolution, but we should try to de-escalate the seriousness of RfC so we have a more basic forum for public commentary.   

I didn't mean for this to be a rant, but I hope this is an appropriate place for such comments.  I also hope that anyone not interested will sell me an indulgence for the price of fifteen good edits as penance.  

Michael Turley
User:Unfocused

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