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

Tue Jun 21 07:55:45 UTC 2005

Alphax wrote:
> Indeed; at present, it takes the intervention of a steward (which I've
> always thought of as being comparable to a Herculean effort) for someone
> to have admin priveleges removed; even so, it must be at the request of
> said admin, or the result of an RfAr, or something equally vile.

If you think it's too hard to get a steward to desysop someone, you
could always become a steward yourself. The process of becoming a
steward is reasonably democratic. Just state your platform and try to
get elected.

Of course stewards aren't the real problem, before the introduction of
stewards there were a few instances where I was responsible for such
things. An admin violated policy, everyone got angry, I had my finger on
the desysop button and I was encouraging the community to make a
decision, but there was no consensus. Then as now, many people thought
that revoking admin privileges was something you just don't do, except
in some unspecified case of extreme behaviour, like deleting the main
page or something. There was a lack of direction, few people seemed to
believe in the importance of discipline. Frustrated, I later argued that
all rules pertaining to the conduct of sysops were just guidelines, to
be broken at will, because there was no method for enforcing those rules.

I've long thought that the best way to deal with community apathy is by
passionate leadership. I had hoped that the arbcom would fill this role,
and I guess they have been improving over time in this respect. That
doesn't mean other members of the community can't fulfill a similar role
in a less legalistic environment -- by climbing the ladder of technical
power, by proposing policies and enforcing them, and by inspiring other
users to join them in lobbying developers and the Board for changes
which are in their interests.

This is of course the exact opposite to the position of Michael Turley
and Erik, who believe that the problem is in the existence of a power
structure, rather than the solution. Some Wikipedians believe that all
our problems can be traced to a deviation from anarchy, and that the
solution lies in denigrating would-be leaders by calling them "janitors"
or "bureaucrats". I respectfully disagree with this philosophy, I put my
hope in enlightened democratic leadership rather than the mob.

Some people complain that those in power are a cabal, rather than an
accountable and democratic body. I'd prefer it if they'd use a more
accurate word (despots?), but besides that, it will remain a perfectly
valid criticism for as long as there is no easy way for the community to
remove them from power.

-- Tim Starling