Board Thread:Administrative/@comment-867021-20121206144439/@comment-122657-20121212184603

Whew! A lot of heavy discussion in here.

First off, let me say that though this board is marked 'Admin only' I don't believe that it is actually restricted to only admins, so everyone must adhere to our site standards for language. I don't believe there is a place for publicly swearing on the site, and it presents us in a bad light.

Onto major points. Please keep in mind these are my personal opinions, and I am open to change based on community majority consensus:

Block Disagreements: In the past, we have had situations where one admin felt another admin was being a bit too harsh against a user. At that point, we've swapped the admin who was 'in charge' of policing the user's edits. Typically, if a user has been found to be breaking site policies, they require some policing afterwards to ensure they don't revert back to their previous ways (which they usually do at some point). That being said, all disagreements with any administrator's actions should be directed at that administrator first, and if the disagreement continues, should be brought to the rest of the admin community for consensus and buy in. If the entire community is split, I don't mind stepping in to help figure out how to handle that user's actions and if they stay on the site.

Administrator Disputes: I expect all users granted Administrator privileges to be adults enough to work out disputes between themselves. Petty in-fighting, name calling, and edit wars are not acceptable among users, and administrators should be exemplifying the 'ideal' user, at least in public. Private issues that cannot be resolved can warrant buy-in from the admin community consensus, but if the issue persists beyond that resolution, I would just as soon block both Admins from the site altogether. Part of the duties of an administrator is to practice diplomacy among all users on the site, working to resolve issues in a way that satisfies everyone. If that can't be accomplished among two diplomats, I don't see how we can expect either one of them to do so with individual users.

History: While some historical site knowledge is obviously no longer applicable to current site management, there do remain some cautionary tales which help to provide insight regarding how our policies have been implemented since 2005. Among the original batch of Administrators, there became an issue regarding copyright infringement. Specifically, one administrator insisted that using images or text from other websites was infringement and should not be tolerated. They believed this to the point of instantly banning users who added or uploaded any content from any other site. The site founder disagreed with this policy and disagreed with the harsh treatment of the infractions. Images were then seen to be original property of the company who published them, not the property of the individual who scanned and cropped the image. Text from other sites (at the time) was considered to be essential for the growth of the site. More than the copyright issue, the method of resolving these issues was frowned upon. Users who did nothing more than upload their favorite picture of their favorite character were chastised and blocked from ever contributing to the site again, not fully understanding what they did or why it wasn't acceptable here. This lead to exactly what Kevin was talking about before, two administrators (neither of which could have their privileges revoked) who were working at cross-purposes of each other and essentially throwing the entire site into chaos over it. Once that issue was finalized (the admin left, the founder stayed), the conscious stance of only making users who were able to be diplomatic, kind, and able to give users the benefit of the doubt in every instance possible were made to be Administrators. The site would welcome new contributors with open arms, using admins to guide the new people to make edits which were acceptable according to site policies.

In any system that is proposed, this core belief of diplomacy, kindness, and patience must remain at the center.

It is my belief that you are having difficulty exhibiting these virtues, Bill, especially towards administrators with differing opinions. As you said, you get 'cheesed off' pretty quickly, which sounds to me as if you have a tenancy to take some things personally when they may not actually be personal.

That said, however, in the name of diplomacy, kindness and patience, I am open to the ideas put fourth here towards a formal system.

I don't personally like the idea of formal grievances. To me, that sounds like unresolved issues, regardless if they're agreed upon by other members of the community or not. Issues should be completely resolved as they come up, rather than left as evidence to prove that something has to be done later. I personally don't want administrators with grievances on file, especially from other admins, and I don't want users around with unresolved issues waiting to escalate. Maybe it's just the verbiage used, but that's my personal opinion regarding a formal grievance system.