So what you're saying is: Too much privilege (and prestige) and not enough responsibility? How do we fix it? Steve

In fact, judging by the number of edits some people make, WP is the only reason they get up in the morning. And the only thing they do all day.

Here's an example of what I mean. I noticed that a specific administrator, in the last 12 hours, managed to get into a delete wheel war with another admin, get himself blocked for 3RR, and then unblocked himself. He then unblocked an obvious troll, without informing the blocking admin, and blocked another editor permanently, accusing him of being a sockpuppet, with no evidence that I am aware of. My curiousity piqued, I looked at his recent edits, and discovered that *none* of his past 600 edits have been to an article, but do find a comment he has posted today saying that Jimbo is "too busy asking for money" to deal with Wikipedia issues. I then do an editcount, and discover that of his 8700 edits, only 1800 are to articles, the *exact same number* of edits he has made to his User page. I look at his User page, and discover *86* user boxes on it. What is going on here?

jayjg wrote: administrator, another with to is articles, at If you think he shouldn't be an admin, I invite you to file an RFAr about it, rather than complaining to the mailing list, which does nothing but create ill will amongst contributors.

jayjg wrote: If you think he shouldn't be an admin, I invite you to file an RFAr about it, rather than complaining to the mailing list, which does nothing but create ill will amongst contributors.

The reality is that de-admining isn't a simple process and it's only

"Carbonite" wrote likely to be successful in clear cases of admin misconduct. In cases where an admin hasn't blatantly abused his powers, but has made many poor judgement calls, there's not much that can be done. I certainly remember a time - and it can't have been so long ago - when it was generally assumed that one could reason with Wikipedians. Indeed we were rather reluctant to write off individuals as irrational. Does that not scale, then?

What's strange to me is that it seems that WP is one of the few places where you could really provide a comprehensive CV of all the good you've done and why you should be admin. Why not ask candidates to provide X diffs demonstrating their dispute resolution skills, and invite nay-sayers to provide diffs of bad judgement? Simple statistics should mandatorily be collected which would show roughly what sort of Wikipedia member they are: How many different talk pages have they left comments on? How many user talk pages have they left 2 or more comments on? How long have they been active? What is their activity pattern? How many edits have all the people voting for them made? I like stats! Steve

On 1/3/06, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: Thanks Geni. I was trying to think of a way to say that

On 1/3/06, Guettarda <guettarda(a)gmail.com> wrote: It isn't, but being able to handle a dispute in an adult and reasonable manner certainly IS required. Most administrative tasks have a high potential to be controversial (e.g. deletion, blocking) and I don't want to appoint someone who won't be able to handle such situations. -Matt

On 1/3/06, Steve Bennett <stevage(a)gmail.com> wrote: Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task People keep seem to be forgeting this.

All this discussion of admin standards is pretty funny, when so many of the longtime admins who end up pontificating on policy got their post within virtually no support votes at all... hell, look at mine, not that I consider myself that much of an oldtimer: 3 votes. That's it. I'd been on Wikipedia all of two months, with only ~600 edits. Even then (which was late 2003), there was some discussion of how it might be too HARD for people to become admins, as we then (and much, much, much more now) needed more people able to fight vandals effectively. It's often underappreciated just how important that little rollback link is for efficiently removing vandalism from a large number of pages. And we need more people to have it. Many times, I'll set Recent Changes to hide logged-in users, 500 edits to a page, and 'diff' everything on that page... and while all those edits will have scrolled off the view of anyone else trying that by the time I'm done, there'll still be a bunch of uncaught blatant profanity edits that slipped through. It's like a firehose sometimes. (I'm inclined to make some strained simile involving strainers or buckets and not enough, etc... but I won't.) It's simple: WE NEED MORE ADMINS. I do agree with the 'admin status is no big deal' line of thought. If we invest too much in it, it gets hard to get people on the team rolling back vandalism and taking care of speedy-delete material (though a standard policy of simply blanking pages instead of worrying about deletion would help on that score). Furthermore, it fosters the very annoying trend to drag every admin into ever more arcane WikiPolitics and layers of bureaucracy... the powers are there to be a janitor, not a legislator. They're unrelated. (I don't enjoy spending my time on talkpages... if I want to have a discussion with someone, I use email or MUX, not a wiki page... and VFD is a bilious slimefest I'd be happy to see gone entirely.) Maybe giving people block/ban powers is a big deal, however. Since the proposals for bureaucrats, Arbitrators, and the like eventually did go through, maybe block powers can be split off of adminship and given to some other userclass, and we can thoroughly establish once and for all that an admin's job is maintenance. Maybe even rename the label: 'Maintainer', 'Janitor', etc. I don't really care what you call it, but apparently 'Administrator' gets people thinking too much about it meaning you're the boss... and I have to admit it gets heavily misinterpreted outside WP: If I tell someone that I'm an administrator on Wikipedia, they think I'm saying I'm on the Foundation board, or a siteadmin, or a developer. As WP's public pfoile continues to rise, that'll be more of an issue as "Wikipedia Administrator" J. Random Wikipedian gets quoted in a news article as an authoritative source of official opinion. Further, when we find there's a bad admin, this doesn't mean "we need to make it harder for people whose main contribution is vandal-fighting to be an admin", it means, fire their ass, deadmin them, and then get someone else. If all they do is get in fights with other uses or throw their weight around on talkpages, they don't need the anti-vandal tools. -- Jake Nelson _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Hi, Time for hiercharchies of admins? Give "rollback" powers to anyone with half a clue. Save temporary block powers for people with a whole clue. Save permanent block/ban powers for people with demonstrated good judgement, preferably on the previous levels. Not to make it a prestige thing, of course... Steve

On 1/4/06, Sam Spade <samspade.thomasjefferson(a)googlemail.com> wrote: Evidence? Policy does not support your claim. The way the softwear works does not support your claim (protection is hardly dispute resolution it is mearly reduceing the heat). The way admin powers are used does not support you claim (cheack the log). -- geni

The #1 admin job is dispute resolution, like it or not, and good dispute resolution is not indicated by the % of interested voters who happen to be a part of ones clique, faction, or cabal ;)

All this discussion of admin standards is pretty funny, when so many of the longtime admins who end up pontificating on policy got their post within virtually no support votes at all... hell, look at mine, not that I consider myself that much of an oldtimer: 3 votes. That's it. I'd been on Wikipedia all of two months, with only ~600 edits. Even then (which was late 2003), there was some discussion of how it might be too HARD for people to become admins, as we then (and much, much, much more now) needed more people able to fight vandals effectively.

is for efficiently removing vandalism from a large number of pages. And we need more people to have it. Many times, I'll set Recent Changes to hide logged-in users, 500 edits to a page, and 'diff' everything on that page... and while all those edits will have scrolled off the view of anyone else trying that by the time I'm done, there'll still be a bunch of uncaught blatant profanity edits that slipped through. It's like a firehose sometimes. (I'm inclined to make some strained simile involving strainers or buckets and not enough, etc... but I won't.) It's simple: WE NEED MORE ADMINS.

make it harder for people whose main contribution is vandal-fighting to be an admin", it means, fire their ass, deadmin them, and then get someone else. If all they do is get in fights with other uses or throw their weight around on talkpages, they don't need the anti-vandal tools.

On 1/5/06, jayjg <jayjg99(a)gmail.com> wrote: to tools. Well I think we all agree about what the problem is here. So what do we do about it?

Is it any longer possible to be familiar with enough of the key policy pages? Why is there no 'Dummies' guide? (Well, maybe there is and I just don't come across it.) Norms - well, yes, community norms are what actually matter.

"jayjg" wrote that we are creating administrators who are not part of the community, not familiar with its policies and norms, and not particularly interested in Wikipedia's goals. The first point is how older generations always talk, of course. I.e. it is the postulation of a 'generation gap'.

Second point might be factually true. How many of us would like to take an exam on policy? Is it any longer possible to be familiar with enough of the key policy pages? Why is there no 'Dummies' guide? (Well, maybe there is and I just don't come across it.) Norms - well, yes, community norms are what actually matter.

Not interested in WP's goals. Possible, though I wonder just how many people are interested in my current goals (this week, 1911 EB reference wikification and blue-linking, sort out and develop William Blake mythology, [[Category:Category theory]]).

There is a kind of progression: encourage people to have user accounts when they were happy as IPs; user pages too tribal or full of 'This Wikipedian drinks coffee' user boxes; RfA votes for people with too high a proportion of edits on User Talk pages, or vandal chasing, and not enough good name-space edits.

We have to live with all of this, by the way. Admin status is the major form of recognition open to everyone that means something (barnstars have long been debased currency, Featured Articles I can no longer be bothered with, as slanted to certain kinds of writing.)

Potential solutions: - Stop talking about a gap in terms that can only accentuate it

- Do something about a policy guide for non-veterans

- New recognition mechanisms, raise the bar for admin creation for newcomers, more active research of committed content-oriented RfA candidates from those who quietly get on with it.

I don't think we all do agree on that. You appear to think the problem is that it's difficult to de-admin an administrator. I think the problem is that we are creating administrators who are not part of the community, not familiar with its policies and norms, and not particularly interested in Wikipedia's goals.

It turns out that, in practice, it is difficult to de-admin an administrator. Jay.

On 1/4/06, Sam Spade <samspade.thomasjefferson(a)googlemail.com> wrote: Is it really that hard at the moment? Two admins who have pulled my blocks have ended up as non admins.

"Reducing the heat"? Sam Spade

From: wikien-l-bounces(a)Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg

It's not at all hard to be come an admin, and Wikipedia is currently creating a new admin a day. If I wanted to, I could create a sockpuppet account, use it for 20 minutes a day, and within 6 months have it to admin status. I already know of one banned edtior who was very close to succeeding at this (he was caught via other means), and I know of another problem editor who is currently preparing a sockpuppet (actually his third) for an adminship he will certainly receive (unless he is exposed first).

The solution (and problem) lies in the selection of admins, which I believe has become too lax. We need to recognize that adminship on a top 30 website IS a big deal. Even one admin who's unfamiliar with policy or who gets into wheel wars can cause major issues. We need stricter screening of candidates, preferably as soon as possible. Carbonite

My personal policy is to only vote for a candidate if I can personally vouch for their editing, conflict handling, and janitorial abilities. There was a time when I would support every candidate that looked ready. I eventually realized that was only hurting the 'pedia, since even a good editor can go a bit crazy with admin tools due to a lack of understanding.

On 1/4/06, Carbonite <carbonite.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote: Incidentally, I agree with this, but the problem is that it will really become harder and harder to screen candidates accurately. Do you have any suggestions on how this could be done in some kind of scalable fashion? Ryan

Chris Jenkinson wrote: then an I didn't see that as complaining or whining. Since Jay dd not mention names, I see his comments as representing a real example of a more general problem.

Maybe we need to be thinking harder about how to improve Arbcom. Ryan

On 1/4/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney(a)gmail.com> wrote: Maybe the arb com needs to be thinking harder about how to improve arbcom. Would it be out of the arbcom's jurisdiction to establish groups of people to help them out? Couldn't they say "X, Y, and Z are beurocrats who, if the three of them agree, can temporarily de-admin a user; the arbcom reserves the power to overrule any decision they make"? Anthony

I almost wish it were feasible to make a "Request for De-adminship" where someone could be nominated for admin removal as a result of a user conduct RFC, but then I realize what a trollpit that would become in a matter of hours.

On 1/4/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney(a)gmail.com> wrote: Perhaps Arbcom could be enlarged, and start forming qorums of 5-6 to hear the incoming cases on some sort of rotating basis? Nathan

On 1/5/06, Nathan Russell <windrunner(a)gmail.com> wrote: This was rejected because currently, all Arbitrators must hear all cases, so adding to Arbcom doesn't reduce the amount of work. Having a low quorum, or splitting the Arbcom into two panels, means you get an incoherent political situation where the result of the RFA is determined by the randomly selected makeup of the panel. What will happen when one Arbcom disagrees with the other?

On 1/5/06, Garion1000 <garion1000(a)gmail.com> wrote: They up Two points: (1) WP:ISNOT a bureaucracy. :-) I had to get that out there.

(2) I'm probably more interested in the lower-court system since I'm from the United States and I'm modelling this after the Supremer Court. My main point, however, is that while increasing the number of Arbs may improve the situation, it couldn't improve the situtation any more than a lower court system would also- but the lower court system would have fewer possible drawbacks.

Ryan _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On 1/5/06, Garion1000 <garion1000(a)gmail.com> wrote: Two points: (1) WP:ISNOT a bureaucracy. :-) I had to get that out there. (2) I'm probably more interested in the lower-court system since I'm from the United States and I'm modelling this after the Supremer Court. My main point, however, is that while increasing the number of Arbs may improve the situation, it couldn't improve the situtation any more than a lower court system would also- but the lower court system would have fewer possible drawbacks. Ryan

On 1/5/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney(a)gmail.com> wrote: Regarding number 2, this is how the US appeals courts work. "In a court of appeals, an appeal is almost always heard by a "panel" of three of the court's judges, although there are instances where all of the judges will participate in an en banc hearing." [[United States court of appeals]] I have no idea what the advantages/disadvantages are supposed to be.

jayjg wrote: I know you didn't, but the details were so specific it was immediately clear to me (and others) who you were talking about. I just didn't find the not-quite-naming and shaming helpful.

jayjg wrote: incidents point. Most making provided a admin involved in norms are he Maybe he's a bad admin, he certainly gets involved right in the thick of the latest and greatest controversy on Wikipedia, but he also received 53 support votes on his RFA, including a number of high-profile editors who do not normally vote or typically vote oppose. And despite all the controversy he's in recently, he still managed to become elected to one of Esperanza's positions with 19 votes. I don't want to get into some kind of psychological analysis of everyone's voting habits, but I believe if someone is unsuitable then they would never get as many votes as he has. Yes, maybe he hasn't been editing the article space enough. I probably don't edit the article namespace enough either. But if what he is doing is building friendships and welcoming people to Wikipedia, then I don't see what he is doing as a problem. People are more likely to contribute if they feel happy here and I believe his actions are helping in this area. He isn't directly building the encyclopaedia, but he's helping get others to build it.

jayjg wrote: that wars from No, I think he's wrong on this issue, and I've promised elsewhere to talk to him about it.

Well, that's great, but again, the issue isn't this particular individual. Rather, this is a symptom: Why do we have administrators who are unfamiliar with policy? Why do we have administators who are unwilling to accept community consensus, and, indeed, seem almost unfamiliar with the concept? Why do we have administrators who think that it is so important to have "fair use" images on userboxes that it is reasonable to completely ignore any risks of copyright lawsuits against Wikipedia? Those are the issues here, and your having a chat with your friend isn't going to fix the root cause.

Chris Jenkinson wrote: The sentiments there are good but not always practical. I can get far more attention with a pointed one-liner than with a long detailed analysis of a situation. That has nothing to do with the validity of my assessment. When it comes to answering messages one needs to be selective. Answering every message can be a physicla impossibility. Ec

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Ray Saintonge wrote: Our particular allowances for them would be nothing more than more civility and more presumption of good faith, same as for everyone else. I'm not arguing for anything more than this. Do you have a solution?

The sentiments there are good but not always practical. I can get far more attention with a pointed one-liner than with a long detailed analysis of a situation. That has nothing to do with the validity of my assessment. When it comes to answering messages one needs to be selective. Answering every message can be a physical impossibility. You raise fair practical points. A pointed one liner is good but if people interpret it as rude then it is not good, even if you think they are being overly sensitive.

Answering every message may be a physical impossibility, but that doesn't mean that an attempt shouldn't be made.

I know that bickering on the list is not good, but I can't ignore this hypocrisy. Chris Jenkinson (user:Talrias), an admin, who calls for civility, has caused me considerable trouble recently (to the point where I've had to ask him to leave me alone)

Well to be fair, nobody actually thinks an Esperanza position means anything. Isn't it just some sort of social club?