Posted by greywolf on April 28, 2007, at 23:50:40
In reply to Re: Suggestion to reduce administrative burdens » greywolf, posted by Quintal on April 28, 2007, at 19:09:35
I agree, Quintal, that the civility issues are sometimes hard to call, and I think I recently disagreed with action taken on one of your posts that I thought was pretty innocuous.
But, sincerely, I think those very close, or even wrong, civility calls are a tiny portion of the overall administrative actions. In my view, most of the civility issues involve obvious (and sometimes intentional) violations of the rules. Given the nature of this site, restraint is more highly valued and necessary than on most other sites. I would be concerned that relaxing the civility rules would make it even more difficult to reign in those who are constantly flirting with the line.
Again, I agree that not all determinations under the civility rules are correct or proportionate. I would bet that the deputies themselves would agree that they're not perfect despite their best efforts, and are susceptible to the same interpretation errors as the rest of us. That's one of those system imperfections that can be worked on, but never quite eliminated.
My suggestion is oriented more to those administration board posts that are resource killers for, perhaps, less than important reasons. I won't describe any particular threads that fall into this category, but I think most of them are self-evident. Perhaps I'm being too critical, but it seems that many posts seeking "clarification" or guidance regarding site rules are thinly-veiled attempts to engage in debate for the sake of debate, or to simply force the administrators to admit that the rules do not operate flawlessly in every circumstance. I don't think those situations offer much that is productive or constructive. However, since it may be that some posts are the product of a disorder that creates an inclination to engage others in disputes of questionable value, there will probably always be threads of this nature. I guess it's up to the deputies to determine what the appropriate response is in those situations, and in my opinion that's another reason to consider not adding to their burdens when we can avoid it.
Greywolf
poster:greywolf
thread:754209
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20070423/msgs/754334.html