Trusted/senior users (narrow focus)

I appreciate FT2's 18:02, 20 December 2009 post, which I largely agree with and read as a clarification of his earlier posts. I guess for now my main point is that we should not idetify admins with this pool of experienced editors. I really believe that admins should have a narrow range of carefully described powers and roles which largely have to do with maintenance.

Yes, there are more experienced editors. But in my experience, newbies recognize experience and value it. And I will go further: people respond to experience better when it speaks for itself, not when it wears a badge. I remember seven or eight years ago when a now-de-sysoped- sysop saw an edit conflict, and his first edit was "I am admin, what seems to be the trouble here" like he was sheriff. Belive me, nothing good came from this intervention. When the Sarah Palin article was paralyzed, I showed up and simply asked a few questions (about sources, about the key issues). I am not claiming I am a great mediator, but I discovered that a low-key approach can be very effective. I was not claiming to be an authority, but it quickly became evident to everyone that (1) I understood the core policies really well and (2) complying with these core policies would guide edits that everyone would find equally acceptable. Policies provided a non-partisan point of reference for deciding hat could and could not go in. It took a couple of days but it worked.

So I agree completely abou the value of experienced editors. I just see no need for a formal hierarchy and indeed I think it can be counter-productive. Slrubenstein 14:05, 21 December 2009 (UTC)