Discretionary Sanctions

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CrowsNest
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Discretionary Sanctions

Post by CrowsNest » Thu Mar 22, 2018 1:20 pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... _sanctions

one day soon we'll find every article is under one form of DS or another.
I quite agree.

Rather disturbingly, the above comment was made not by a critic of DS, but by Arbitrator Euryalus, as he (admittedly with regret) supported the rolling out of DS in yet another area of long term dispute (infoboxes).

This never ending expansion of the scope of DS is a symptom of what has ailed Wikipedia's governance system for years - Administrators being too scared (often because of the nasty commentary and even retaliatory actions of their own so called brother officers) to take decisive but potentially controversial action, without having an additional piece of paper that backs their authority over and above their shiny little sheriff's badge.

Despite having had numerous reminders over the years that things are not remotely OK with the current system, Wikipedia's means and methods of resolving disputes between Administrators who disagree, often for reasons which aren't remotely justifiable in policy, remain extraordinarily unprofessional and prone to inflaming rather than reducing tensions.

This is perhaps, or more likely undoubtedly, because their means of quantifying, reviewing and correcting poor performance in Admins, and generally ensuring the cadre as a whole is a calm and collegiate bunch who are actually held to a higher standard, has remained unchanged for a decade or more.

Indeed, I struggle to think of the last significant change in policy/practice/culture in this area, after say, the clarification of what wheel warring actually is. I suppose some might claim the increased demand for potential admins to be content people before they can get the job is an improvement, but it is pretty clear this doesn't have the improving effect people think it has, and they either don't know or don't care that it is effectively just a silly little comfort blanket.

So, unless there is some remarkable change in how Wikipedia works, and there's no reason to believe there will be, you can indeed look forward to the day there won't be a single article or action that doesn't fall under some DS criterion. Given what that really means as far as who is likely to be put off editing and who is likely to want to endure or might even flourish, the upside here is that it will most likely Hasten The Day.

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