Wikipedia administrators
This entry was posted on 10-03-2006 and is filed under uncategorized.
Wikipedia faces a challenge of how to keep their volunteers in line? They are not monitarily compensated so it is something else they get from their work. We are tempted to say the below comments from the Wikipedia Review explains what that is they get from their volunteer work. Wales and/or Sanger are to be commended for finding a free source of labor, so to speak. I wonder what Wales plans are to maintain or improve this aspect of Wikipedia?
A nice post from the Wikipedia Review:
I've seen several threads here of people shocked by wikipedia administrators behavior.
First from wikipedia's own article, "moderator":
"From an important historic point of view, whimsical self-indulgence was once extremely common amongst those who were involved in the administration of internet forums and discussion boards. Narcissistic, undereducated and power-mad individuals, often with poor social and communication skills, would take it upon themselves to interfere with the postings and discussions of other board users, often using intimidating language and various threats including modifying, deleting or otherwise interfering with posts, threads and subjects. In the worst cases, a whimsically self indulgent moderator could threaten to delete another board user's account, regularly spending vast amounts of time trawling through old posts in a desperate attempt to prove to the board owner or community that their actions are somehow justified. Fortunately, as the internet has matured, so has its userbase and today this kind of behaviour is somewhat rare. It is important to note, however, that some of these characters are still active in various internet communities."
This basically talks about how young teens with no maturity on power trips make terrible moderators. Well these are what wikipedia admins mostly are.
