[Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia moderators and moral authority

Mon Nov 11 08:33:21 UTC 2002

On Sunday 10 November 2002 09:02 pm, Larry Sanger wrote:
> No.  Our collective experience is more than enough proof that we need
> *consistent* enforcement, Erik, not *stronger* enforcement.  Right now we
> have very strong enforcement.  

Very strong enforcement? That's interesting I thought the whole reason why we 
have been losing contributors is because we are /not/ enforcing our 
Wikipetiquette policy. I think you have been out of the trenches for too long 
Larry -- please join us; become a sysop again. :-) 

>..... Virtually anyone can, for the
> asking, get sysop privileges and start banning IPs and locking pages.
> That certainly appears to be mob rule and by golly, in my experience on
> Wikipedia lately I have to say it certainly *feels* like mob rule.

Are you saying that the sysops are a rampaging mob or that the potential 
exists for this to occur? I am offended and hurt by that implication if the 
former is what you think and not the later. Some of our best and most active 
contributors are sysops and I don't know of a single sysop that would wish to 
harm the project (quite the contrary). We are already in the spotlight and 
are accountable for our actions. Where is the abuse that you seem to imply 
exists? Have I done something wrong? If so I need to know about it. 

> If we had power concentrated in the power of a rotating group of trusted
> individuals who could be appealed to to enforce the *actual rules* that we
> now have on the project--we do have rules on the project, but the
> enforcement mechanism for them is no longer working, I think--then there
> would be, as there is not now, *clear consequences* for breaking the
> rules.  These people would have moral authority and respect that *no one*
> can command right now.

Rotating group? How is that going to solve anything? If anything we need more 
trusted sysops because there are many times when I'm the only sysop online 
and I'm sure other sysops have experienced this as well. This means that 
there are other times when nobody with the power to stop a vandal bot is 
watching the shop. Also pretty much everybody who is a trusted member of the 
community and who doesn't mind the added responsibility is already a sysop. 

It would be silly to rotate this responsibility among the current sysops. 
Believe me I have already tried to recruit several long time and trusted 
users to become sysops. Some of them simply don't want the added 
responsibility at all. That's fine and we shouldn't force this responsibility 
on them. Nor should we trust sysop powers to a completely new user who is 
clueless about our policies and may not really care about the project. What 
does that leave us? With what we have now.

I'm not saying this because I am clinging onto the "power" of being a sysop - 
that is counter to my personality type (INTJ). If we didn't have vandals, if 
everybody got along, and nobody created junk pages that need to be deleted 
then there would be no need for sysops and I would be a very happy person. I 
for one would rather work on chemistry,  biology and geology articles than 
doing the dirty work of sysophood. But in the real world sysops are needed to 
do this dirty work and the pool of people who can be trusted with sysop 
powers is not yet large enough to enact any kind of rotating sysophood 
program. 

If you want to establish *clear consequences* for breaking the rules then how 
about we add to each edit window a statement saying "By saving this page you 
agree to the rules and conditions of using this website" (rules and 
conditions would link to our policy page). Of course we would have to redo 
the policy page so that only real policies are on it. The policies listed IMO 
should be; NPOV, no copyright violations, 'we are an encyclopedia' and yes 
Wikipetiquette. That means that conventions or rules to consider should not 
be on the policy page  (although consistently and purposely not following 
conventions - thus knowingly causing a great deal of work for others - would 
be a violation of the Wikipetiquette policy). 

There should also be a clear escalation process for infringements of policy 
that is rather permissive and forgiving in cases that are not outright 
vandalism for at least the first few violations that the user has been made 
aware of (enforcement is a haphazard and oftentimes unilateral mess right now 
and is often not done for Wikipetiquette - thus we lose users). But users 
that show a clear pattern of violating policy should be "gasp" told they are 
doing so, told what the possible consequences are and if they ignore this 
warning then hard security takes over. But there should be a clear process 
that is both open and fair.     

Just my POV 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)  