> The kind of disaster you are afraid of could be happening with anyone, not just a corpus maintainer.

Careful with arguments that rely too much on the theory of chaos. Of course, either you or sysko could go nuts one day and destroy all of TTB, but there need to be some basic assumptions on regular behavior. What Alan suggests is appropriate, IMO, with regard to CMs because they are really in the gray area between having complete trust and having none, and it would be good to make this area as "white" as possible.

> Honestly if someone wanted to damage the corpus, they have no reason to wait and ask to become a corpus maintainer to do so.

However, there's a big difference between damaging the corpus by adding bad sentences/translations YOURSELF (which are, by the way, easily deleted en masse) and doing the same to other people's without their permission. The latter gives birth to frustration and lack of trust, which encourages people to leave the project.


On a different note, cutting standards/principles just because of desperation (e.g., choosing a controversial member to be CM just because that language doesn't have CMs) is practically justifiable, but, in my experience, it's not a very wise strategy and lacks foresight. I'm sure that someone well versed in history could back me up on this with concrete examples. I think it's important to maintain high standards at all times, so as not to regret it later (unless it's really a life or death matter, which this isn't).

> It has always required that you click on "ok"

Believe it or not... no. At least, not for me.

--- On-Select "Issue" when Adding to a List ---

I don't know if it's just me and my slow connection, but I've noticed today that selecting a list to add a certain sentence to, which normally would make the addition as soon as you select, now requires you to select and click the "ok" button afterwards.

Is this a recent change in the scripting? Is it here to stay? Or is it just me?

Personally, I prefer the on-select auto function.

Vous savez, dans mon pays natal il y a plusieurs techniques qui sont très utiles pour "rendre moins troublants" des gens qui n'utilisent pas l'internet de manière "acceptable". Je pourrais vous en apprendre deux ou trois si ça vous intéresse.

Je suis entièrement d'accord avec vous. Ce genre de comportement doit être anéanti, et tous ses praticiens bannis sur le champ. Je vous suivrai bras-dessus pour qu'on puisse gagner cette lutte interminable.

- Chef Conspirateur

"etre" is "tree" with the final letter shifted to the front :-)

A simple mail-in voting system might work. For example, the admin could nominate someone and then send a message to all CMs and Advanced Users with the description of the nomination and a simple "Yes/Indifferent/No" reply option.

Then, once a certain minimum number of votes come back and there is a sufficient majority (say, 70%) one way or the other, the decision is made.

Such messages could even be automated and thus translated into different languages.

Yea, we're done. This is depressing.

+1 for this consideration.

> It's not an argument. It's just something we can do if we need to. This is called democracy.

First, yes, it is - your argument is simply implicit. People who want to make a certain change will often say that it can be easily reverted, but this is rarely true. Here, you are pushing for a certain change and I am pushing against it.

Otherwise, why would you even write what you did? I did not ask you if statuses could be reverted - I know firsthand that they can be.

Also, don't use "democracy" as some sort of sacred word that cannot be challenged. Democracy is maybe the most efficient for governing a country of millions, but this is not what this site is.

> And you are very good at accusing people... perhaps you should read #3 again.

What was my accusation that you're now accusing me of? I'm not being sarcastic - I really don't know.

> I'm glad for your opinion, though. I hope other users can express theirs, too.

Yes, one hopes.

But, just so that I can get something straight once and for all:

Are you, personally and as an administrator of this site, stating that a CM who:

insults, harasses, accuses, blames, and provokes (with bad faith)

is still an acceptable CM provided that he/she does the mechanical functions of a CM correctly?

I know you won't answer all of my points, but at least answer this last one.

> There is no such a sanction, is there?

There is. It's called "ethics".

> A status doesn't have to be permanent. If we are unhappy about a CM as -- and only as -- a CM, we can simply restore the previous status.

This is a famous sophistic argument. This is one of those things where a decision more or less stays once it is made. The effort to demote someone is a lot greater than the effort to promote them (not in theory, but in practice).

Then my next question is:

Can a user who consistently does many of the "things Tatoeba does not tolerate" here:

http://blog.tatoeba.org/2011/05...-behavior.html

be eligible for CM?

> And these arguments should be related to the actual role of a corpus maintainer

What "the actual role of a corpus maintainer" is should be clearly define before it is requested that people give "solid arguments".

My votes:

1) NO (there was a long wall post by liori that more or less summarized all the reasons I would put here, but unfortunately the old posts are now nowhere to be found). As *one* argument, SC's productivity is offset by the productivity that other people lose arguing with him or being harassed by him.

2) No comment.

3) No comment.

4) Yes.

I also had a couple of lists disappear.

Probably.

Bonne chance, sysko.

And when you add to that the fact that non-native speakers sometimes speak better than native ones, it becomes a true mess for the brain to digest!

> Yes, you're right, only main dissenters should be legitimately harassed, beaten, jailed, ruined, tortured and poisoned.

I never said *should*. Again, you put words into other people's arguments.

> More seriously,, Navalny is the proof that letting your identity public when you blog is extremely dangerous in Russia.

Wrong. Many people blog in Russia without being anonymous, and the majority of them are not in danger. I suggest you Google "Echo Moscow" (one of the dominant Russian news outlets) and look through their blogs.

> Fortunately, I live in a free country.

There's no such thing in this world as a "free country". You seem to enjoy Boolean logic, but reality doesn't work in 1's and 0's.

I repeat: your statements are simplistic, one-sided, and naive. Additionally, as they are pointed towards entire countries (in which many residents nevertheless have some sort of national pride, be there problems or not), they are potentially offensive and should not be thrown out so liberally on a place like the wall of an international website.

About your arguments:

They're inconsistent. First, you say that in the aforementioned countries it is, in general, a crime to express your opinion. Then, you give two very notable opposition figures as examples.

But, like sharptoothed already said, your examples are good examples of people who seriously go against the government and who pose what the government considers a potentially serious threat. They are not to be confused with the lay person living in those countries.

I keep in close touch with both Russia and China, and I've friends from Belarus and Iran. I can tell you that there's millions of people who commit this "crime" of expressing their opinion both in the press and in online forums without being jailed and put through all of the horrific things you list. Not surprisingly, this is because they are not serious opposition figures. Now, assuming that most, if not all, Tatoeba users are fairly benign people who are not actively involved in overthrowing the governments in their countries (I doubt they'd spend time on Tatoeba if they were), I think that it's safe to conclude that most people who come and post here can do so rather freely without fear of being jailed (I emphasize the word *most*).

> He might also be arrested or didn't want to give his e-mail address because he comes from a country where expressing an opinion is a crime, such as China, Russia, Belarus, Iran...

If you would, please refrain from making such loaded and simplistic statements on the wall.

> It's you who said Alan_US should be a Corpus Maintainer because he is a programmer.

That's not what liori said. What liori (and what I, coincidentally) said was: the fact that he's helped or is willing to help with coding shows that he cares about the project. And that's a plus for being a CM.

And then you proceeded to digress this argument into god-knows-what, like you always do. It's a lame tactic.