Re: [WikiEN-l] incivility consciously as a tactic.
The problem I've consistently seen with incivility as a tactic is that, the longer someone is around, the more of it they can get away with. Administrators and other high-profile, long-term editors should be held to the highest standards of civility, but the enablers just make excuses for them, and lackeys tend to form around them, stalling, preventing, or just complicating any attempt to deal with their behavior. I got really sick of meeting rude, or even abusive, editors, only to realize they were admins, too. They have long dragged down the project as a whole, but no-one ever seems interested in actually doing anything about the problem. Matt ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] VIP Treatment
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 18:12:51 +0100 From: Phil Nash phn...@blueyonder.co.uk Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] VIP Treatment - Original Message - From: Matthew Jacobs sxeptoman...@gmail.com To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 6:02 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] VIP Treatment Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:12:49 -0400 From: Marc Riddell michaeldavi...@comcast.net Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] VIP Treatment Agreed. But how could such a mechanism be created given the existing structure of the Project? marc Riddell I've seen a lot of complicated RfA proposals, as well as community desysop procedures, and I really think the simplest solution would be for Adminship to no longer be a lifetime appointment. Make it for terms of one or two years, with no limit on the number of terms, and no requirement to re-apply. It simply means that admins remain accountable to the community, giving them an incentive to remain polite and fair, to the best of their ability. I don't buy the arguments that good admins will never be re-appointed, as good admins may make a few enemies, but they'll gain even more supporters. I also believe that the community could easily adapt to manage the increase in RfAs. To be clear, there is no perfect solution, but I think that instituting admin terms would be a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, I also don't think the community will ever accept such a major change, as it's become far to conservative regarding policy. This isn't a new idea, and has been proposed, and rejected, more than once: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals#Reconfirm_administrators As you point out, it is open to abuse by enemies the admins may have made- which is only to be expected if they're doing their job properly, since some people, sadly, will never accept authoritative statements of WP policy. Worse (as in my case), they might receive death threats on a daily basis. I never claimed it was a new idea. I'm aware various versions are brought up, though people often try to tinker with it and end up making it more complicated than it needs to be. I was asked what I think would help fix WP's issues, and I answered. I also mentioned that I think it's got near-zero chance of passing, as, for the most part, I don't believe the community is interested in improving WP at this point, but only protecting territory. Any system is open to abuse. My argument is that it better enables the community to prevent and deal with abuse when (not if) it happens. Yes, admins make enemies, but they also gain supporters. A good admin will gain more of the latter than the former. As you pointed out, you're already receiving death threats, so how is that an argument against change? If anything, it has the potential to reduce it somewhat, as they have something they can do about their anger/frustration, whereas there's little recourse at this time. Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:14:12 +0100 From: WereSpielChequers werespielchequ...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] VIP Treatment Re Matthew Jacobs and the periodic reconfirmation idea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WereSpielChequers/RFA_reform#Periodic_reconfirmation There's also the point that some of us don't like the idea of admins becoming a small elite group within the community. OK we are already quite a way from the no big deal idea of adminship, but one of the downsides of reducing the admin cadre to a small number of fixed term admins is that the vast majority of our current 1400 or so admins have insufficient activity to get through an RFA. Many of the rest are unlikely to want to put themselves through the RFA hoops again, especially if remaining an admin means taking on a significantly larger share of the admin workload. We need to remember that admins are unpaid volunteers doing a bunch of essential chores on the site. We also need to remember that the fewer admins there are the more their scarcity value increases. So fixed terms might be of interest to status seekers and those exhibitionists who rather enjoy the opportunity of an RFA to have a public confrontation with their critics. But we'd lose most of the quiet and uncontentious admins who are active editors who have the tools and use them as and when they come across a situation that requires them. Of course periodic reconfirmation would work if we made adminship a salaried position. But I'm hoping that we can find other ways to fix the RFA problem long before that starts to look necessary. That said RFA is continuing to decline, this year, maybe even this month, may well see the first month without a new admin since October 2002. With 20 new admins so far this year compared to 52 last year we will be doing very well in the rest of the year if we manage to kepp the year on year decline at only one third. There is a real risk that 2012 could see
Re: [WikiEN-l] VIP Treatment
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:12:49 -0400 From: Marc Riddell michaeldavi...@comcast.net Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] VIP Treatment Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 11:07:03 -0600 (MDT) From: Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] VIP Treatment why should they bother politely pointing someone to OTRS, much less spend time and effort trying to be diplomatic themselves? Sxeptomaniac Because they are decent capable people, take pride in doing a good job, and are concerned about the accuracy and reputation of Wikipedia. Fred on 9/12/12 2:58 PM, Matthew Jacobs at sxeptoman...@gmail.com wrote: Oh really? So why do we have to desysop admins? Were they misusing their tools in a decent capable way? Was it part of doing a good job? Were they desysopped for being concerned about the accuracy and reputation of Wikipedia? I can understand if you think I'm overstating the problem, but I find it ridiculous that you would deny the obvious: some people are drawn to adminship for the wrong reasons, and some maybe even for the right reasons, but choose to act on them in a short-sighted way. No RFA process, no matter how good, will ever be able to fully weed out people who really shouldn't be admins. The problem is, WP has no mechanism for dealing with those who turn out to not exemplify what an administrator should be, but stop short of actually breaking rules. Sxeptomaniac Agreed. But how could such a mechanism be created given the existing structure of the Project? marc Riddell I've seen a lot of complicated RfA proposals, as well as community desysop procedures, and I really think the simplest solution would be for Adminship to no longer be a lifetime appointment. Make it for terms of one or two years, with no limit on the number of terms, and no requirement to re-apply. It simply means that admins remain accountable to the community, giving them an incentive to remain polite and fair, to the best of their ability. I don't buy the arguments that good admins will never be re-appointed, as good admins may make a few enemies, but they'll gain even more supporters. I also believe that the community could easily adapt to manage the increase in RfAs. To be clear, there is no perfect solution, but I think that instituting admin terms would be a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, I also don't think the community will ever accept such a major change, as it's become far to conservative regarding policy. Sxeptomaniac ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] VIP Treatment
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 11:07:03 -0600 (MDT) From: Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] VIP Treatment why should they bother politely pointing someone to OTRS, much less spend time and effort trying to be diplomatic themselves? Sxeptomaniac Because they are decent capable people, take pride in doing a good job, and are concerned about the accuracy and reputation of Wikipedia. Fred Oh really? So why do we have to desysop admins? Were they misusing their tools in a decent capable way? Was it part of doing a good job? Were they desysopped for being concerned about the accuracy and reputation of Wikipedia? I can understand if you think I'm overstating the problem, but I find it ridiculous that you would deny the obvious: some people are drawn to adminship for the wrong reasons, and some maybe even for the right reasons, but choose to act on them in a short-sighted way. No RFA process, no matter how good, will ever be able to fully weed out people who really shouldn't be admins. The problem is, WP has no mechanism for dealing with those who turn out to not exemplify what an administrator should be, but stop short of actually breaking rules. Sxeptomaniac ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
