The Lord of the Flies has nothing on this nutcase..

Either mad as a hatter or a damn good impression. Wikipedia Civility Police, you know where to find me.

Well that little exchange was rather entertaining, 7 out of 10 for all participants. Needs a block though for maximum amusement value.

That's was only a taster of the discussion that extended over several pages. I'm not sure I'm in the mood for another block right now though, hoping to get back to my granddad porn once I find my viagra ... if only I could find my glasses.

They say you lose three things as you get older: your hair, your teeth ... I've forgotten what the third is.

You're into porn of grandads shagging?

Listen grandpa, stop watching your porn collection, your Dick will need some help and I'm 23, my balls dropped when you were out doing grandma...If you don't hate kids then why do you think they are too dumb to be an admin..insecurity issues eh?--Warpath (talk) 22:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC). Nope, nothing crazy here.

I do find it amusing how someone can label a 23-year-old as a child, yet a 25-year-old is suddenly a full-grown mature adult - even though they can be clearly as immature as the 23-year-old. The two years in between must somehow be the magic two years that the person "grows up".

You can never be too dumb to be an admin on Wikipedia, it's practically a requirement isn't it?

"Life here is counted as wiki years so 1 year = 10 years in real life, so I was nearly 21 when i left." Don't take that "23" as gospel.

He left in 2007 pretty much. 2007 and two years later, now he's 23. I think I believe him. Besides, 21 is an adult, no matter how much people don't like that. So 21, 23, or whatever, he's still an adult. This "children are ruining the project" nonsense is getting tiresome. It's adults ruining it, more so.

Proof?

This is my opinion, no need to prove it. You are free to disagree (which I'm sure you do).

I am waiting with eager anticipation for the inevitable story to hit the news about 12-year-old Randy from Boise blocking an eminent professor of philosophy for quoting from sources not in Randy's school library.

Why is this straw man so popular? There are plenty of people who would agree that kids tend to act like kids, but I've never heard a single one of them assert that there's some magical age where some magical switch gets flipped.

Personally, I don't care whether someone really IS 13, or merely acts 13. I gotta admit tho, it does make me giggle every time some obvious kid gets all worked up over someone daring to admit that with adolescence comes adolescent behavior.

To think this guy was almost a steward.

This is how his candidacy looked before MZMcBride came forward with evidence of wrongdoing.

That talk page is a great read. Malleus and Ottava in the same 'room.' I was hoping that Giano was going to join, just so the triumvirate of Latin-based username-supereditors could commence. Should that three-man Senate convene, I wonder if it would rain frogs. If I were God, I'll give em all the tools - at least it would be a start to level the proverbial playing field.

If only it could be so, oh what fun and frolics would come from 3 such admins. But alas the RfA process rather ensures this will never be so. Wikipedians can be such spoil-sports, don't they realise the entertainment value they are denying us?

Okay, is the Latin name some kind of marker tag for Jesuitical assholish Roman Catholicism? Sister Mary Sadistica? Wannabe Essjay?

Haha. My theory is that a Latin name has a high probability that the editor possesses superior writing skills, while at the same time having a great contempt for civility and authority.

I'll test this out with my sock, "Mo Ritmo."

Spanish is not quite the same as Latin.

Oya como va
Mo Ritmo
Bueno pa' gozar,
Ottava

Bollocks!

Latin username=Pretentious Gobshite.

In that case, of the three-man triumvirate mentioned earlier then I am the only Gobshite, as both Ottava Rima and Giano are italian, not Latin.

Who's 25?

I call Warpath a child because he acts like one, and because he flips his shit anytime he perceives "ageism".

25 is apparently the magic age someone becomes an adult. Just ask User:Friday.

It is you, is it not, that says 25 is the age someone becomes an adult?

You obviously miss the point of what someone's getting worked up over. It's the stereotype labelling and sweeping assumptions that just because someone is not an adult, that they must be immature and therefore unsuitable for adminship. And yet, we have numerous admins who are underage, who are better than many admins who identify as adults. The proof is right there. Most admins desysopped by ArbCom for misbehaviour are adults. Adults are the ones causing more problems than children on Wikipedia. The "obvious kid" you see getting worked up is more often than not an adult.

Nobody is getting upset that you say a child will normally act like a child, so stop pretending they are. It's the fact you are labelling a child as immature when they clearly are more mature than most adult admins. I'm sad you find your prejudiced ideas funny - I certainly do not.

I'd be interested to know what your definition of "maturity" is. Most dictionaries I've consulted would suggest that an important aspect is "fullness of development", but clearly you can't be arguing that a twelve-year-old is fully developed either physically or mentally. Or are you? Children are clearly immature by any reasonable interpretation of that word.

I'd say it is the point at which no part of their living expenses is paid for by mom, dad, or a third party (such as the state).

In fact the U.S. Dept. of Ed. does estimate this to be 25. Student financial aid applicants younger than that can be disqualified on the basis of their parents' income, which must be reported in addition to their own wages. Yes, even if you are completely estranged from your family (as probably many of us were at that age), and even if you have no idea how much your parents make, even if you might be an orphan and not realize it yet, don't worry... uncle sam is right on top of it.

What I've said is that a decent rule of thumb for when someone has an "adult brain" is around 25.

I've never asserted that this is a magical cutoff, or that all people are the same. But, you'd have to be capable of grasping nuance to appreciate the difference. Kid brains aren't often good with subtleties.

Clearly some are, since we have several admins of that age doing just fine. Maturity is indeed fullness of development, but some children are beyond their years mentally, and physically. If they act like an adult, there is no problem.

Precocious demands to be seen as "mature" by young people is unattractive and seems to me disrespectful. But it is certainly accepted by Web 2.0 culture.

This is strictly my opinion, of course, but "maturity" isn't always the key issue with underaged admins. People can call it "ageism" if they want to, but the fact is, the older you get, the more disturbed you are by the idea of very young people being in positions of authority. A good example is how anyone who's over 40 has that moment when they're walking down the street and see a 22-year-old wearing a police uniform - it's unsettling. That 22-year-old may be the bravest, smartest, most-disciplined, and most principled officer in the entire police force, but the sight of this is still unsettling.

You'll say that I'm simply describing an irrational fear, and I am - I'll admit that. But it's not like the fear of aliens or monsters or ghosts - it's more like the fear some white people have in parts of the US when they approach an ATM machine that has a group of black kids hanging out next to it, or the fear many Americans still have when they get on a plane, and see someone else getting on the same plane who looks Middle-Eastern. It's based on knowledge of actual incidents, and yet the chances of anything bad actually happening are very small.

The other problem is that kids tend to be better at two key things than adults: Role-playing games, and accepting the existence and validity of rules. The relatively higher experience with MMORPG's is well-known, but as for rules, remember that someone who's still in school, particularly grade-school or junior high (or whatever your country's equivalent), is likely to be much more accustomed and acclimated to an environment in which rules are strictly imposed. Once you're out of school, and particularly once you have kids of your own, you have to start making your own rules, and that's when you realize how arbitrary and capricious rules can be, if imposed by the wrong people. When you're still in school, you usually only suspect that the rules are arbitrary and capricious, and while you might question them, you almost have to be a budding sociopath - a bully, essentially - not to realize that following the rules, and/or apologizing profusely when you break them, is the best way to avoid long-term problems.

Ultimately, I'd have to agree with Alex here in that it's unsurprising, on the whole, that children would make better Wikipedia admins than adults, at least from WP's perspective. However, I don't believe that means children should be Wikipedia admins - it actually means the opposite. The experience of WP adminship is likely to give young people a dangerously inflated sense of their own importance, reinforce the idea that "rules are rules" and should be followed regardless of their rationale, and worst of all, reward them for using rules as weapons. The latter being, of course, the first and most crucial step toward Adult-Onset Assholism.

You treat children all the same. Children are people too, right? Or are they just irritating little vermin that exist entirely to annoy the big and better adults?

No Somey, the cops you see wearing uniforms in public are the ones the department considers most disposable (cf. the 17-year-olds sent to Vietnam).


Availability heuristic.



Or once you take a full-time job and notice that your workplace violates its own rules on a daily basis, only enforcing them when management needs an excuse to fire someone they don't like.


Misanthropy, yes.

Splendid Assholation. Moulton could have fun with that one.

I think you must have missed a bit out. Surely what you meant to say was: "If they act like an adult [in the runup to their RfA], there is no problem." The fact remains though that they are not adult, and they are indeed, as you correctly say, simply acting like one in a rather restricted environment for a limited period of time with the carrot of adminship being dangled in front of them. Not exactly a very difficult trick to master, even for a twelve-year-old.

No, I missed nothing out. There are adults of course (e.g. Tanthalas39) who openly admit gaming the system. Nevermind though, all adults are perfect, and all children are evil little tricksters.

Has the possibility that the child might actually be naturally very mature for their age not occurred to you?

Briefly, but then I discounted it as being exceedingly unlikely, and not worth taking a chance on. In any event, "very mature" for a twelve-year-old would be as mature as a 14-year-old, so not really all that much difference in practice.

So far as Tanthalus39 is concerned, as you must know I have been very critical of his behaviour, although I do have a certain amount of admiration for his honesty in admitting to it, unlike so many others.

I can't agree with all of the above. I think there are two extreme sides that ignore the existence of the middle ground. I think there are clear examples of mature children admins, and I think there are clear examples of immature adult admins. I also disagree that most desysopped admins are adults. I mean, it may be so, but I think you have to factor in more than just AC cases and look at the ones that otherwise resigned under a cloud or were emergency desysopped as well.

Funny, the only thing honest about Tan was his admission that he was not honest in how he got the mop.

Jenna and Malleus: I'd like to know why you wasted your time yesterday, arguing
with Warpath/Cometstyles/whatever on his talk page.

Neither of you convinced him of anything. After reading thru Cometstyles' past
talk pages and history, I can see he's not a real "contributor" to an "encyclopedia" --
he's just another revert-button-puncher and wiki-politician with an unusually short fuse.

Ask Zenwhat about him sometime. Or just read the last vote of his steward election.
Some of the people who voted for/against him are worse than he is, mind you. OTRS abuse
my ass, that was an excuse to "punish" him for something that we don't know about.

No doubt he spent most of his time in 2006-2008 being a brown-nosing jerk on the IRC channels, yes?

(PS: he's a big football and rugby fan, and is interested in Fiji...and he's a hypocrite too.... )

There's always a middle ground, although whether it's a more "correct" place to be is debatable.

I have no idea whether most desysopped admins are children or adults, and I suspect that nobody else does either, as nobody is required to disclose their age and it would be unverified even if they had; if I were a child aspiring to adminship I might well be tempted to pretend to be an adult, for instance.

I think this word "maturity" is really being stretched to the limits of credibility here though. Maturity isn't a relative concept, or if it's being used in that way then it needs to be properly defined as such. Maturity is to do with an individual's physical and mental development. Once that's complete, then by definition that individual is mature.

Is anyone really arguing that the physical and mental development of even the most precocious of 12-year-olds is in any sense complete?


Quite.


I don't recall arguing with him, but I do recall telling him that he was a complete and utter prick who was making himself look even more foolish than his severely limited abilities made inevitable. Or words to that effect anyway.

Alex, what is your position on child armies? They're okay, right?

Extra for experts:

Why does the current lead to the Wikipedia article about Military use of children mark-up the following sentence as such?



Why would only the sexualized military-occupational role of a child warrant a wiki link? Does Wikipedia culture and leadership perhaps have some undue connection between sexuality and children?

No, they are not okay - I dislike any kind of warfare. I simply do not believe a child's opinion should be dismissed simply because they're a child. Especially on a collaborative project like Wikipedia. There are no rules that state you need to be an adult to be an admin, and many of our best admins are children. Blanket-opposing children on the basis they are "immature", despite the fact they'd probably make a very good admin, is simply counter-productive in my opinion. Adminship isn't difficult, despite what people make it out to be.

Neither is it difficult for a twelve-year-old to pretend to be be mature for a few months to get through RfA, when it ought to be quite clear to anyone that no twelve-year-old is mature, at best mature for their age.

And dare I mention that adminship appeared to be too difficult for you?

It's interesting how much you think you know about 12-year-olds. Again, you're making sweeping assumptions. Have you ever worked with children? I have worked with slightly younger than that age, and while with the vast majority act their age and younger, there is always one or more who is exceptional, and way beyond their years.

You seem so insistent that any 12-year-old who became an admin must have lied to get where they were. How about instead accepting that sometimes younger people can be exceptional?

Adminship is not difficult for me. I still hold admin rights on other projects, and only resigned because of the apparent lack of trust in the "community" (the people who turned up to the RFC). Just because people didn't trust me doesn't mean I found adminship difficult. I can think of numerous admins who get away with murder, and no one dares deal with them.

It is indeed interesting. I guess it comes at least in part from my having studied psychology to degree level.

As I said earlier, "way beyond their years" for a 12-year-old would be acting like a 14-year-old, but as I also said, in the context of wikipedia we ought to stress the word acting.

Is that better than having a 12 year-old? Inquiring minds want to know.

Of course, sex matters. 12 year-old girls often emit yowls which sound much like cats going into first heat. For them was the word "draumatized" coined. 12 year-old boys haven't usually had the hormones hit too hard, yet. In a few years they grow pimply and sullen, and disappear.

I think so, in the sense that anecdotes aren't data.

It is not difficult accepting that younger people can be exceptional. What is difficult is accepting that a bunch of tossers on Wikipedia making questionable judgements is any sort of demonstration of proof of that postulation.

The old saw is that the plural of anecdote isn't data. Unless, they're anecdotes told to cultural anthropologists, Margaret Meade-style, written down, and published.

Do you know how many cases Freud based his psychoanalytic theory on? If not, you would be shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

Freud is very little different from many modern doctors in respect of the number of subjects he examined before publishing.

I agree though that it takes a breathtaking arrogance to produce a full-blown, even if half-baked, theory of human behaviour based on a handful of cases without any supporting empirical evidence. You have to admire the way though that he carefully crafted his theory such that it could never be disproved. If you're not obviously a homosexual then you're obviously a latent homosexual, and if you're female you also have an associated penis envy, latent or otherwise. Brilliant, quite brilliant!