[WikiEN-l] Re: automatic annual revocation of admin

Tue Jun 21 18:51:14 UTC 2005

Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Fastfission wrote:
>
>>But that's again because being an administrator is supposed to be "no
>>big deal" or whatever Jimbo said about it. It generally just means
>>"this person has been around for awhile and does not have some sort of
>>pathological editing problem that makes large amounts of people hate
>>them." It is not a title that is supposed to relate to any particular
>>POV except "Wikipedia is a good thing" which even then you can find
>>some variety in. 
>>
>If being an administrator is no big deal then removing that status 
>should be no big deal as well.  Perhaps being desysopped should be 
>automatic for everybody afte maybe a year.  There could then be a three 
>month waiting period before being readmitted.  Three months of enforced 
>humility might be good for some people.  Since this would apply to ALL 
>admins there could be no claim of descrimination.
>
>Ec

This an interesting idea, at least to me. 

The primary problem I see is that three months without admin tools after one year with is a total of 15 months in an admin cycle. 3 months out of 15 is 20%. That's far too much to lose, if the goal is just to ensure a few people don't develop a calcified bad attitude. 

It certainly would encourage administrators to be especially civil, if they knew they had to renew their appointments periodically. But the cost is probably too high. 

Ultimately, I think the solution is going to be more coaxing and encouragement (and reward) of the behavior we want most, and discouragement of that which we don't. And yes, that does include reprimands and punishments, starting with as minor as we can conceive of, and going upward as far as we need to. 

But my original point was that it should be no big deal when there are very minor punishments applied. The ideal goal is that good administrators will recognize and acknowledge their own occasional outbursts as inappropriate, and ''request'' these minor punishments, in large part to show good faith and a level playing field to those who aren't administrators, as well as to set an example. 

Michael Turley
User:Unfocused

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