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

Tue Jun 21 17:56:57 UTC 2005

Rebecca a écrit:
 > On 6/21/05, Anthere 
<anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
 >
 >>I would recommand some rules I proposed more than a year ago on meta. I
 >>believe a few projects follow them as well.  There are two ideas
 >>
 >>* an editor is gone, does not edit any more  ---> he will be removed
 >>sysop status. If he needs them back, he can ask and sysop position is
 >>granted back pretty easily. But we do not pretend we have 600 sysops
 >>while only 100 are active.
 >
 >
 > Why? We've never had a problem with an editor returning from hiatus
 > and mysteriously going nuts. This was proposed once before, and turned
 > down very strongly, as it is a solution without a problem.

If only because rules and habits are no more the same now that they were 
3 years ago. There is an expectation that the candidate sysop knows the 
project quite well, know the people, know the rules... and I believe 
this is also why there is this requirement of number of edits which the 
english wikipedia insist so much upon. I do not say it is good or not 
good, I just observe it.

I also think that if an editor away for 3 years just came back now... he 
would neither know the rules, nor be known himself by current editors.

Trust, or the way trust is "measured" as changed over the years.

If it was not the case, some editors who have been active for more than 
3 years on wikipedia, who have been sysops for more than 2 years... 
would not lose sysophood on the german wikipedia these days.

 >>* an editor must be lightly confirmed once a year. Without making a big
 >>mess of it. If several people question the status, it will just be 
removed.
 >
 >
 > This is a terrible, terrible idea, Anthere. The standards at the
 > moment are fairly good for newish users, as a means of working out
 > whether they are trusted enough by the community to become admin
 > users. Anyone who edits in controversial areas, does RC patrol, or is
 > involved in any meta issues at all invariably makes enemies on
 > Wikipedia, with a couple of exceptions who have the patience and
 > diplomacy of a saint (ala Jwrozenzweig or Michael Snow). If you sack
 > an editor as an admin because they had to be voted again at the end of
 > a year and they've made some enemies (as opposed to doing something
 > seriously wrong), you're bound to have a lot of editors mysteriously
 > resigning a little after one year after becoming an admin. I've said
 > it before, and I've said it again - this is a volunteer project. If
 > you punish good, long-term users without very good reason, they will
 > quit. And this is a Bad Thing for the project as a whole.
 >
 > -- ambi

Hmmmm, you have a point.

Well, I do think that if someone is doing a *good* job, he can afford to 
make some ennemies, but still be trusted enough by the community or by a 
large enough number of the community, so that a couple of votes against 
him will *not* remove him sysop status.

On the other hand, if this sysop has made SO MANY ennemies during his 
activity as a sysop, so many that he has say 60% of editors voting 
against him staying a sysop... well, I would say this person should 
maybe not stay sysop. It might be that it drives him away to remove him 
his status, which would be extremely unfortunate. But I see no sense in 
keeping a problematic editor sysop, only to avoid losing him as an editor.

This is mostly a question of trust. We can all agree we sometimes 
disagree with others on some decisions. That does not mean we consider 
them bad persons or do not trust them. We just ponctually disagree on 
one issue. If we are a good community, when the time comes for voting, 
we can decide to agree we trust a person, even though we think he acts 
as a cowboy sometimes. If we are a good balanced community, good long 
term sysops will not be "punished".

Trust can be gained, or lost. But if it is lost, I see no point in 
pretending it is still there. It means work for the community to "check" 
each action of a non-trusted sysop.

Imho.

Ant