User blog comment:Agent Spy/Spam and Vandal Reduction Team/@comment-33628828-20130411204313/@comment-33628828-20130411230009

Wikis could still have their own local checkusers and admins as always. Janitors would be a (very) limited group, only a few users, but with the ability to check the IPs of spam accounts. They wouldn't be using their rights for anything other than obvious spam or vandalism cleanup.

I'm not sure where the attitude against the users of a community voting for what they want came from here. Voting for who has advanced user rights is certainly not a perfect system, in the same way that democracy is not a perfect system. However, when it comes to who can check IPs and globally block people, I would much prefer someone that I know is trusted by a vast majority of the community over someone arbitrarily appointed by a group of people based on how much those people like that person. Remember, positions are always a popularity contest. In this case, the contest involves the entire community, rather than a small group of people pretending that the represent everyone and know what will be best.