Should WMF hire professional Wikipedia Admin Managers?

[Vigilant]

Moderator's Note: Due to their more general nature, the posts in this thread were split from this other thread (about the questionable actions of a specific Wikipedia administrator), which requires registration to view.

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I'll grant that what is enough to desysop and what is not clearly defined, but I think there are anough policy violations combined with "conduct unbecoming" and standards for admin behavior that the case is warranted, and his reaction and replies have been so subpar so far that unless they get a LOT better he has no chance of coming out of this with the tools.

I came into this with no preconceived notions, I don't recall ever having any serious interactions with this admin before, but the instant I saw that block I knew there was a real problem, and the pile of additional evidence bears that out.

I was making a more general point about the lack of hard rules leading to lack of consistency leading to unprofessional favoritism and game playing to the detriment of disfavored persons.

Once again, the WMF should hire fulltime employees with significant real world experience in managing social media platform communities or MMORPG communities to run the ARBCOM and all advanced permissioned aspects of en.wp.

The way all of this is currently being done is ad hoc, kangaroo court, Lord of the Flies garbage.

[Boing! said Zebedee]

I was making a more general point about the lack of hard rules leading to lack of consistency leading to unprofessional favoritism and game playing to the detriment of disfavored persons.

Once again, the WMF should hire fulltime employees with significant real world experience in managing social media platform communities or MMORPG communities to run the ARBCOM and all advanced permissioned aspects of en.wp.

The way all of this is currently being done is ad hoc, kangaroo court, Lord of the Flies garbage.

I think you're making a lot of sense there, but it's actually difficult to get it right even with professional moderation. I've worked professionally in website moderation (well, I was paid for it, but it's probably not for me to judge how professional it was), and it can be surprisingly tricky to establish effective hard rules and consistency. There's always a new case just around the corner that doesn't fit, and there's always something different about every one. And the more specific the rules, the more fresh cases don't fit. As a result, that company's approach was to go for more generalized guidelines and individual moderator discretion.

Saying that, a team of paid moderators - who would confer over tricky situations (in private, not in public in drama board style) - can provide a lot more consistency with a lot less fuss. And rules can be modified far more effectively when there's a professional team on the job and you don't have to go through a free-for-all consensus (of the kind that is helping grind the Wikipedia gears ever slower). But there would still be regular shitshows and revolting peasants and all that.

And surely one reason the WMF will never employ professional moderators is that it would make them legally liable for their actions?

[Poetlister]

And surely one reason the WMF will never employ professional moderators is that it would make them legally liable for their actions?

That's undoubtedly true. For the same reason, they'll never have professional checkusers.

[Vigilant]

And surely one reason the WMF will never employ professional moderators is that it would make them legally liable for their actions?

That's undoubtedly true. For the same reason, they'll never have professional checkusers.

There's no more real liability in having employees do this work.
Not really.

Who is going to sue them for having employees manage advanced permissioned users who wouldn't if those positions continue to be manned by volunteers.

Whoever is doing risk analysis around this topic needs to go back and read a few of the basic books.

[Midsize Jake]

There's no more real liability in having employees do this work.
Not really.

I agree, though the one caveat IMO would be that we're assuming the paid professional employees won't themselves post or record anything (even in private) that's clearly defamatory towards an identifiable person. If they do, then I suspect the WMF could become more of a target - certainly they have enough money, after all. And in most cases I'd say that's a safe assumption, but let's not forget we're talking about people who will have been hired by the WMF's HR department.

Which leads to another recommendation I would have for them, which is to contract the whole thing out to a third-party company, have them do the hiring, training, etc., and try to have them take on most of the liability if something like that happens. Of course, the obvious problem there would be that any company willing to take this on might decide to hire a bunch of WP regulars as consultants, so that might actually be worse.

[Newyorkbrad]

And surely one reason the WMF will never employ professional moderators is that it would make them legally liable for their actions?

That's undoubtedly true. For the same reason, they'll never have professional checkusers.

There's no more real liability in having employees do this work.
Not really.

Who is going to sue them for having employees manage advanced permissioned users who wouldn't if those positions continue to be manned by volunteers.

Whoever is doing risk analysis around this topic needs to go back and read a few of the basic books.

Vigilant, I understand the reasoning for your suggestion that more of the moderation on Wikipedia should be handled by professional employees rather than editor-volunteers. Depending on the degree, this could be considered a continuation of the transfer of certain responsibilities from ArbCom to the Office a couple of years ago. But ... can you identify a major online platform, of anything remotely approaching the size of Wikipedia, with a highly regarded moderation staff? I don't think anyone looks at Facebook, Twitter, or whatever and praises them for the speed, even-handedness, and good judgment shown by the content-and-conduct moderation teams. I don't want to reflexively reject your idea (not that my opinion matters much these days), but it would be useful to have a model for what you are suggesting.

[Vigilant]

And surely one reason the WMF will never employ professional moderators is that it would make them legally liable for their actions?

That's undoubtedly true. For the same reason, they'll never have professional checkusers.

There's no more real liability in having employees do this work.
Not really.

Who is going to sue them for having employees manage advanced permissioned users who wouldn't if those positions continue to be manned by volunteers.

Whoever is doing risk analysis around this topic needs to go back and read a few of the basic books.

Vigilant, I understand the reasoning for your suggestion that more of the moderation on Wikipedia should be handled by professional employees rather than editor-volunteers. Depending on the degree, this could be considered a continuation of the transfer of certain responsibilities from ArbCom to the Office a couple of years ago. But ... can you identify a major online platform, of anything remotely approaching the size of Wikipedia, with a highly regarded moderation staff? I don't think anyone looks at Facebook, Twitter, or whatever and praises them for the speed, even-handedness, and good judgment shown by the content-and-conduct moderation teams. I don't want to reflexively reject your idea (not that my opinion matters much these days), but it would be useful to have a model for what you are suggesting.

Thanks for chiming in. I honestly appreciate it.

I wasn't thinking that the standard social media companies would be a good model.

I was viewing MMORPG companies as the starting point.
Now, they have customers who pay money every month to play these games and from what I've seen, they are much more responsive than FB, twitter, etc.

If nothing else, there would be a manager and employees accountable for these actions instead of a group that only elects insiders.

If you're looking for a current WMF model of customer support failure, look no further than WP:VEF and Sherri Snyder, Oliver Keyes, Brandon Harris, James Alexander, Eric Mo:eller, etc. This is EXACTLY the wrong way to do this. You don't put misanthropes with poor socialization skills into these roles. You just don't.
It would be akin to hiring only people afflicted with Tourrette's to be bank tellers.

Hire an experienced manager from Blizzard.
Give them a mandate to hire a team.
Allow this team to set policy, broadly, in their area of responsibility.
Delegate reasonably and leave the engineers to the coding, editors to the writing and all advanced permissioned users reporting to this team.
Allow anonymous feedback into the team's performance tracked by issue numbers.
Measure and analyze this data.
Tie compensation to customer satisfaction with the performance and pleasantness of the interactions.
Have at least ONE team at WMF that has the best interests of the customer base as their primary goal.

This isn't terribly hard to do, it just requires a little bit of courage and some political will.

[Beeblebrox]

I don't necessarily think Vig is wrong here, just that it is extremely unlikely to happen anytime soon. And if and when it does happen, there will be much drama and wringing of hands over the idea that paid mods will be "in charge" with the subtext that of course everyone wants to find a way to be on that team and actually get paid for what they currently do for free.

And Enigmaman, I just don't even know what his deal his. His whole response to this has been to pull a babe-in-the-woods act, like he really didn't know that some of things he was doing were downright crazy and seem ridiculously vindictive and arbitrary. Like he really didn't know that trying to just shut down a discussion of how crazy he's been acting just made it worse. And now he's shut down completely for four days. I see he often takes short breaks of a few days, but I'm starting to wonder if he's decided to just not engage with the case. That would be smarter than trying to defend indefensible actions, but it'll end the same.

[Kumioko]

I agree there's no chance of this happening mostly because the admins and the WMF both have a vested interest that it not happen.

In the case of the admins there are a lot that are assholes and shouldn't be admins. Paid, professional moderators would clean that right up. Not good for that abusive admin culture that's currently deey rooted I to Wikipedia.

For the WMF this could lead to some legal scrutiny but more likely the WMF uses these problems to recruit more donations. It's a problem more money can fix apparently. At least in the eyes of Katherine Maher and her underlings.

[Vigilant]

I don't necessarily think Vig is wrong here, just that it is extremely unlikely to happen anytime soon. And if and when it does happen, there will be much drama and wringing of hands over the idea that paid mods will be "in charge" with the subtext that of course everyone wants to find a way to be on that team and actually get paid for what they currently do for free.

I'm looking at the total cost of ownership here.

It's a small amount of actual cash that could really give a huge boost to the happiness and satisfaction of the overall editor base.
All manner of headaches that promulgate from the existing Lord of the Flies masquerading as an encyclopedia model.

It removes the glass ceiling of adminship and moves it closer to the roots of "being an admin isn't really a big dealio" ideal.

The current model of Dictator for Life unless you got caught eating a live baby just exacerbates the existing problems that a semi-anonymous collaborative project already comes to life with.

I would do away with RfA completely and have an application form that editors who want to be an admin can fill out.
Anonymous answers from the admin management team.
No public shaming and Christians vs The Lions show as RfA is currently constituted.

There's really no downside.

[Newyorkbrad]

This is an interesting thought experiment. I couldn't agree with eliminating adminship altogether, even if there were any chance of its happening, but moving some more of the most difficult issues to the paid staff might make sense.

A related issue is that even if this change were made on En-WP and perhaps a couple of others, the paid-employee approach might not be viable for all language wikis. That being said, I'm not sure how things that would currently be handled as Office actions on En-WP, are dealt with on smaller wikis where no one in the Office speaks the language.

I don't necessarily think Vig is wrong here, just that it is extremely unlikely to happen anytime soon. And if and when it does happen, there will be much drama and wringing of hands over the idea that paid mods will be "in charge" with the subtext that of course everyone wants to find a way to be on that team and actually get paid for what they currently do for free.

I'm looking at the total cost of ownership here.

It's a small amount of actual cash that could really give a huge boost to the happiness and satisfaction of the overall editor base.
All manner of headaches that promulgate from the existing Lord of the Flies masquerading as an encyclopedia model.

It removes the glass ceiling of adminship and moves it closer to the roots of "being an admin isn't really a big dealio" ideal.

The current model of Dictator for Life unless you got caught eating a live baby just exacerbates the existing problems that a semi-anonymous collaborative project already comes to life with.

I would do away with RfA completely and have an application form that editors who want to be an admin can fill out.
Anonymous answers from the admin management team.
No public shaming and Christians vs The Lions show as RfA is currently constituted.

There's really no downside.

[Vigilant]

This is an interesting thought experiment. I couldn't agree with eliminating adminship altogether, even if there were any chance of its happening, but moving some more of the most difficult issues to the paid staff might make sense.

A related issue is that even if this change were made on En-WP and perhaps a couple of others, the paid-employee approach might not be viable for all language wikis. That being said, I'm not sure how things that would currently be handled as Office actions on En-WP, are dealt with on smaller wikis where no one in the Office speaks the language.

Sorry, I think I was unclear

Not eliminate adminship.
Eliminate RfA.

Potenitial admins submit their interest via a webform or email to the admin management team.
The admin management team makes a decision and informs the applicant privately.

No show trials at RfA.
No digging up of stuff from 10 years ago.
No dogpiling.
No vendetta settling.

If a newly constituted admin is unfit for the role, the admin management team simply removes that userright and informs the person privately.
If the person disagrees with the removal, they can have that conversation privately with the admin management team.

I don't think there's a single person, outside of the political cliques, that thinks that RfA as currently constituted is a net benefit to the editor base.
That's what I meant about getting rid of Christians vs Lions and Lord of the Flies.

Manage the promotion and demotion of advanced permissioned users in a dignified, professional manner and leave the wailing and shrieking by the roadside.

[Midsize Jake]

A related issue is that even if this change were made on En-WP and perhaps a couple of others, the paid-employee approach might not be viable for all language wikis. That being said, I'm not sure how things that would currently be handled as Office actions on En-WP, are dealt with on smaller wikis where no one in the Office speaks the language.

That objection has come up before in relation to this idea, so as long as you're showing an interest in it, do you think there would be some sort of general outcry (over unfairness, favoritism, cultural hegemony, etc.) if the WMF imposed a rule/standard whereby the paid managers (or ombudsmen, or whatever we're calling them) are only hired for encyclopedic wikis that have, say, more than 2,000 active users (by their definition)? Or alternatively, more than a certain number of admins (since it's a more definitive number)...?

I guess I can't say that the extent of the problem is going to be proportional to the size of the user base in all cases, and in reality it's probably more of an "80-20 rule" situation, but still, most of those smaller wikis just don't seem to have these kinds of problems. When there are only a couple-hundred people working on one of these things, it's not so hard for the "reasonable" admins to keep track of what's happening with the less-reasonable ones.

There's also the whole issue of bilingual people who behave abominably on one language-specific wiki but perfectly well on another, and whether or not their access rights should be restricted on the latter as well as the former, but that strikes me as more of an argument for paid managers/ombudsmen than against.

[Randy from Boise]

It's a small amount of actual cash that could really give a huge boost to the happiness and satisfaction of the overall editor base.
All manner of headaches that promulgate from the existing Lord of the Flies masquerading as an encyclopedia model.

It removes the glass ceiling of adminship and moves it closer to the roots of "being an admin isn't really a big dealio" ideal.

The current model of Dictator for Life unless you got caught eating a live baby just exacerbates the existing problems that a semi-anonymous collaborative project already comes to life with.

I would do away with RfA completely and have an application form that editors who want to be an admin can fill out.
Anonymous answers from the admin management team.
No public shaming and Christians vs The Lions show as RfA is currently constituted.

There's really no downside.

In practice this would be an Ultra-Clique that would alienate everyone not in it.

And until they fix the registration process to make a ban mean a ban, they'd be chasing their tails and wasting every cent dumped into the enterprise.

RfB

[Vigilant]

It's a small amount of actual cash that could really give a huge boost to the happiness and satisfaction of the overall editor base.
All manner of headaches that promulgate from the existing Lord of the Flies masquerading as an encyclopedia model.

It removes the glass ceiling of adminship and moves it closer to the roots of "being an admin isn't really a big dealio" ideal.

The current model of Dictator for Life unless you got caught eating a live baby just exacerbates the existing problems that a semi-anonymous collaborative project already comes to life with.

I would do away with RfA completely and have an application form that editors who want to be an admin can fill out.
Anonymous answers from the admin management team.
No public shaming and Christians vs The Lions show as RfA is currently constituted.

There's really no downside.

In practice this would be an Ultra-Clique that would alienate everyone not in it.

And until they fix the registration process to make a ban mean a ban, they'd be chasing their tails and wasting every cent dumped into the enterprise.

RfB

You’re moving the goalposts.

My proposal is around RfA.

[Poetlister]

Yes, let's not muddle returning banned people and RfA. It is entirely possible for a sock of a banned person to become an admin under the present system. I expect that it would be no harder under the proposed alternative.

[Randy from Boise]

Okay, let's leave aside the different issue of the tens of thousands of wasted volunteer-hours due to the idiotically loose registration protocol and the ability of unregistered individuals to tamper with the information database... Fixing which would more or less end the "shortage" of administrators in one bold swoop...

===

The fallacy of this well-intentioned proposal is the utopian suggestion that WMF should hire PROFESSIONAL OVERSEERS WITH REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE MANAGING ONLINE COMMUNITIES.

That's a fine aspiration, but in the real world WMF will hire people with WIKIPEDIA experience, who will self-select when making new hires, constituting themselves an ultra-clique — a cabal of check-cashing ultimate cabalists. Everybody not in this clique would be rapidly alienated from it. Just now the internal politics at WP are as mild as they've ever been as some of the worst gameplayers depart and the universal set of active volunteers continues to age. I really doubt the need to throw a hand grenade into the status quo process.

A far more easy and less alienating system to implement the proposed "submit your credentials, no RFA circus" idea would be to make the democratically-elected and underutilized set of bureaucrats the decision-makers on these applicants. Sure, that has the same potential of making the bureaucrats into an ultra-clique in the long run — but at least there would be a modicum of democratic community control over the process, which is less apt to alienate and chase away valuable contributors.

Would I favor such a system? Yeah, probably. Would it pass a community vote? No.

Administrators guard their cohort carefully and the status quo has a huge home field advantage with the WP requirement for supermajorities to pass initiatives.

RfB

[Poetlister]

Does this mean that we abolish RfAs but not RfBs? If we don't retain RfBs, how do we get new crats? Or do the existing ones appoint them too, removing the element of democratic control?

[Dysklyver]

Does this mean that we abolish RfAs but not RfBs? If we don't retain RfBs, how do we get new crats? Or do the existing ones appoint them too, removing the element of democratic control?

Doesn't Vigilant's proposal make crats totally unnecessary?

[Vigilant]

Tim,

You’re arguing against the hypothesis again.
Look up that term and try again.

[Poetlister]

Does this mean that we abolish RfAs but not RfBs? If we don't retain RfBs, how do we get new crats? Or do the existing ones appoint them too, removing the element of democratic control?

Doesn't Vigilant's proposal make crats totally unnecessary?

Yes, but Randy is making a different proposal.

[Beeblebrox]

Back to the original topic, arbcom actually moved very quickly once the workshop was closed. A proposed decision was posted well before it was due, arbs voted, the inevitable desysop of Enigmaman was approved and the case is closed.

[Vigilant]

And then ARBCOM went bat shit crazy and tried a momentous power grab under the guise of password security.

[MysteriousStranger]

Yes. Yes, they should.

[Randy from Boise]

And then ARBCOM went bat shit crazy and tried a momentous power grab under the guise of password security.

Or not.

I'm hearing the undeclared sock and WPO member BURob on this: one stupidly phrased proposal does not a conspiracy make.

RfB