Who is the worst Wiki Admin Options Rating

[victim of censorship]

I like to start a survey on who is the worst Wikipedian admin.

I will start the list with my good friend

Gamaliel (T-C-L-K-R-D) , as well as Ryulong (T-C-L-K-R-D)

This should a list of the bad actors of Wikipedia. The world should
know their names.

[Peter Damian]

The term "Worst" does indeed need to be defined.

What makes a bad debt collector? I am strong believer in the principle that people divide into basic personality types, and that these determine what job they are useful at. Some people like repetitive monotonous routine type work, and get upset when you try and give them more rewarding and useful work. That's fine, because you need people to do the monotonous work. Some people don't have an original thought in their heads, but possess finely-honed analytical skills. That's fine, they will be good accountants and auditors. A good debt collector is one who can be as menacing and threatening as possible without actually breaking the law. A bad one is one who doesn't get the money back. And so on.

Some people have no other happiness than to ensure that members of the public abide by a certain set of rules. The rules don't matter to them: it is their job to make sure that they are followed. Think of the scary official characters you meet at an airport. If you step over that yellow line which is exactly five feet in front of the passport-checking booth, you know what happens. If there is one small mistake in the way you filled in the 10-page landing form, God help you.

Wikipedia admins fall in the latter class, don't they? Law/security enforcement officers. They don't need to be smart, they just need to battle constantly against the hordes of people who want to step over the yellow line. They don't care if the person is a terrorist/teenage vandal, or a responsible member of the public who simply got the rules wrong.

So, what makes a bad admin? Nothing. Admins have to be the way they are, because the personality type attracted to the job (likes a badge, likes enforcing rules on reluctant people, dealing-with-crowds mentality) is best suited to the way that Wikipedia is set up. A system that tries to build a project using 'anyone who can edit' is bound to end up in exactly that way.

I have said it many times. It's not the people, it's the system.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: