Wikipedia talk:What administrators do/Archive 1

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If Admins are not here to build the encyclopedia...

...then why can't I become an admin merely based on extensive edits to the Wikipedia: namespace? --Aaron 04:25, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Because RFA is broken, in my opinion, as well :). People simply have varying views of what an administrator should be. Cowman109Talk 04:33, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Horrible title

I see what you are trying to say, i.e. that the tools given to admins don't help them expand the content of Wikipedia, but the title is terrible. Given the recent drama between admins and editors this essay title will only be inflammatory and unhelpful. Also, even though deletion, blocking and page protection don't actually add content, I think everyone would agree that they are necessary tools in helping "build the encyclopedia". Everyone is here to build the encyclopedia, in one way or another. Admins are just given a few tools that would be too dangerous to grant all editors. —Nate Scheffey 11:04, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. The implication in this essay seems to be that a) administrators shouldn't be writing articles and/or b) people who write articles don't have the ability to become administrators (e.g. the rather bizarre suggestion that people who write articles may not be familiar with civility - well, no they may not be, but that's not restricted to people who write articles and neither does it mean that most people who write articles cannot be civil). By splitting administrators into "types" the essay fails to acknowledge that there are plenty of people out there (and I'd like to think that I was one of them), administrators and non-administrators alike, who both write articles and interact with other users. My main enjoyment on WP is in writing articles, but I still interact with other users and use my admin powers when necessary. Does my desire to write articles mean that I am a bad administrator? I think not. -- Necrothesp 12:39, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
This is an essay mostly in response to the growing number of people who seem to think that only people who make featured articles should become administrators, and all administrators should be focusing on creating and improving articles instead of doing things in other namespaces. I admit the language could be toned down a bit - the types of administrators section I don't like much myself, either, and it doesn't seem to focus on what I'm trying to get across. I'll see if I can reword it a bit. Cowman109Talk 17:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I changed the title as the original deviated too much from my intent. Is this more acceptable to you now? Cowman109Talk 18:42, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Instruction creep

This page sounds like instruction creep, in that it creates more levels of bureaucracy than we already have... I do not see right now how that is a good thing. Ansell 11:26, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't see how this constitutes instruction creep. I am simply working to clear up misconceptions about administrators that strangely seem to be growing, such as the belief that we should punish administrators who do not work on the main article namepsace and that administrators who focus on backlogs are less important than everyone else. This in no way tells people what to do, and for the record I loathe process with a fiery passion and believe firmly in IAR, so if you're telling me that this somehow introduces process, I'll be more than glad to kill the process inducing words with fire :) Cowman109Talk 19:49, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Ahah, I see the paragraph you were referring to and removed the links to WP:DENY and suggestions of how administrators should deal with vandalism accounts. I also toned down the wording (and removed quite a bit) from the 'articles' section. Cowman109Talk 19:52, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

very much mistaken

this "essay" is very much mistaken on several levels (such as the implication that "administrators" are a seperate set from, rather than a true subset of, editors), and it raises the question, how bad can an essay be to be kept in WP namespace before it must be moved to user namespace? This one cannot even be fixed because its very title is a mistake. Admins are editors who have shown they may be trusted to act in the project's interest. There is no way to even become an admin other than helping build the encyclopedia. Admins who drop their "let's build an encyclopedia" attitude the moment they are given the buttons they wanted have betrayed the community's trust. Admins who slowly lose the focus of building the encyclopedia should seriously re-evaluate why they are here in the first place. The last thing we want is a "shadow community" of IRCite admins who have lost interest in building the encyclopedia. dab (ᛏ) 08:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. This is the first step towards a highly bureaucratic system bordering on caste system. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 09:00, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
My opinion is that people who prefer IRC chatting to WP editing, should be admins on IRC rather than WP. I don't see how, with little or no experience in editing, content disputes, etc, they may adequately run Wikipedia these days. Should we wonder that quality editors leave the project in droves? Unlike specialists in content, there will never be a shortage of people craving for power to judge and to block. Currently, the surest way to adminship is to log in on IRC and to spend there some 10+ hours a day. We are told that admins are just janitors or they do some mysterious "behind-the-scenes-work"; but why did janitors usurp the power in this would-be temple of knowledge and treat its priests (contributors) with dismissiveness bordering on contempt? I am told that WP namespace starts to resemble IRC which I am told is a total, disgraceful mess. It is very sad here nowadays. --Ghirla -трёп- 09:16, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I fully agree with Dbachmann and Ghirlandajo on this issue. This essay is extremely mistaken and I think it would be good to userfy it. Besides, it's linked to from only two pages so it doesn't really have anything to do in the Wikipedia namespace. — mark ✎ 09:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I would also encourage Cowman to userfy this to his own space, possibly under a different title. Saying this is an essay that has the support of many editors is probably...stretching things a bit, and the title certainly will end up stretching tempers past their breaking point. -- nae'blis 18:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
I am more than willing to edit specifics to be more acceptable and compromising (which I've done), but as I've stated above, the issues here need to be addressed. Too many users are under the silly impression that we should punish administrators who don't work in the article namespace. For the record, this was moved from userspace to the Wikipedia namespace (by suggestion from *gasp* IRC! :) ). And, it's pretty unrelated, but I feel that IRC is also an important tool for communication - it lets administrators coordinate and informally ask for help - it is also an extremely crucial point in mediation, as I've found with the mediation cabal, but that's mostly unrelated from adminship. Cowman109Talk 19:58, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

"Administrators who only know how to make featured articles may have the least need for the tools" - Can anyone name one admin - just one will do, to whom this phrase applies? Giano 18:54, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Re: Cowman109: I still disagree strongly. Administrators are here to build the encyclopedia, no more, no less. That admins may be doing grunt work sometimes instead contributing content doesn't matter; the primary purpose of anyone here should be to build the encyclopedia. Also, I am of the opinion that solid and enduring experience in editing articles and contributing quality content is of paramount importance to being a good administrator. It gives one the experience to handle all sorts of editors and conflicts, it keeps one grounded in the community, and it helps to keep one aware of the ultimately servient nature of the sysop tools.

No, I don't think we should 'punish admins who don't work in the article namespace'. Yes, I do think such admins should reconsider their approach to the project, because I consider the emergence of a class of Wikipedians doing only meta-work to be a thoroughly unwelcome development. There should not be an admin-editor divide. As Dbachmann says above, admins form a true subset of editors rather than a separate group. — mark ✎ 19:01, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I strongly agree 100% with all of Mark's comments. Giano 19:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the line upon consideration that there are still areas in the main article namespace that administrators deal with, such as move requests. I am understanding where you're coming from - this essay is not meant to disparage the administrators who deal mainly in the article namespace, but as I've stated above, it is to show that administrators have other responsibilities that should be recognized. Cowman109Talk 19:18, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Purpose of this essay

As it's been questioned, here's a basic summary of the purpose of this essay:

Lately there are many notions about that administrators should be punished or their privileges revoked if they are not working on the main article namespace - this essay is a reminder of the other responsibilities of administrators and what they can do, and indirectly is a rebuttal to people who believe that only people whose main focus is in the article namespace should be administrators as there are plenty of other areas administrators are needed in, such as backlogs and in content and user disputes.

Does anyone disagree with the above? That is my intention with this essay, and if the essay does not properly represent that belief of mine, then I'm more than willing to tweak it so it does not offend anyone. Cowman109Talk 19:21, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey, if it represents your belief, then we can't tell you to think otherwise (which is why I asked you to userfy, not delete); think of the criticism as being ways in which other people think about it. As for the root of your question, though, I think that administrators are (and should be) here/able/willing to do both tasks. As mentioned above, anytime you get a group of editors who start to focus entirely in project space, the tunnel vision can get pretty deep, and the broad perspective which makes some admins, mediators, and other editors so effective can get lost. I think that's what people are objecting to.
The name change is an improvement, but it still seems superfluous. We give them the extra buttons to do the extra work, so of course they're not just here to build the encyclopedia (but then you get into the whole argument of whether or not deletion is 'building', etc... and I don't want to start that fight here!) -- nae'blis 22:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Agree with Nae'blis. That's precisely why I asked to userfy it. — mark ✎ 07:01, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

well, I do disagree with the above, at least partially. Nobody is opposed to people doing important houskeeping work. Admin buttons are useful for rolling back and speedy-deleting nonsense and blocking vandals. At this point, the community of WP editors both builds and protects an encyclopedia. Admins are just the same as everyone else as far as the building part is concerned, but they have additional possibilities wrt the protecting part. But before we promote admins, we have to have reasonable evidence they understand how the project works, so there is really no way around contributing to the building part before people are made admin. If some admins then decides they want to concentrate on housekeeping, I am sure nobody will object, and everybody will thank them warmly. The problem arises only when such admins, having lost touch to the intricacies of article building and content disputes then decide they want to act as an authority in "wikipolitics", viz. outside their field of housekeeping. People inventing bureaucratic positions for themselves, people behaving as courtiers towards the arbcom, erratic and whimsical blocks of good faith editors with summaries such as "hate speech", that sort of thing. Admins just plodding away on RCP are no problem, there is no reason to demote them, and my thanks to them. Admins that are obviously losing the building focus and then try to act as some sort of government and see themselves as a class apart from mere 'editors' are a problem. The only way to avoid this I can see is granting admin privileges only to active editors. I could imagine a separate status of "mop wielder" with just rollback (and deletion?) privileges. Or, if we had a working RFDA where admins would be forced to re-submit to RFA if considerable concern with their behaviour is forwarded in good faith (I know the trolls would RFDA me within the minute, but I'd be willing to accept that), a solution would be to only address such problems as they arise. See also Wikipedia:Administrator Review. As it is, I see no justification for this essay, and potential harm in relation to the problems I just outlined. If you move the focus away from adminship, saying something like Wikipedia:Wikipedians build and protect the encyclopedia at the same time (but the building and protecting part are often blurred and not clearly distinct), I might agree: the focus would then lie on the practical problem facing us, viz. the increasing workload of protecting just what we have (at what point will 50% of our energy be tied up just with preventing deterioration of content? what shall we do to prevent this?), instead of casting an admin caste separate from the editor community. dab (ᛏ) 10:25, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I would rather agree with dab. The goal is not to deny the importance of housekeeping, far from it. But the problem is the superiority attitude exhibited by some admins and the increasing internal bureaucracy. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 10:42, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Deletion is the fundamental opposite of building the encyclopedia !?

Goodness, rather than just complaining, I'll try and improve this. I think it's findamentally flawed, but who knows. First pass coming, probably a brutal edit. - brenneman {L} 06:53, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

So far just re-wrote lead. Anything with a poor lead is almost always crap. Remember that these are meant to be compelling to readers, if you're not trying to change people's thinking what are you writing for? What's this about really? It wanders a bit in the middle. Can we get a more focused outline, then fill it in? How about:
  • Almost everything here gets condensed into a brief synopsis of what adminstrators can do. That's one section.
  • A short analysis of some areas of sysop work. For example, how many admins closed IFDs between January and March? For those admins, how many article edits did they have? That's a second section.
  • Finally, since the first two sections are all just facts, some arm waving about letting people do what they are good at. From each according to their means and all.
brenneman {L} 07:06, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I suggest PRODding this

I suggest to just PROD it and ask the author to find a single user who would contest the PROD. If anyone but the author contests the Prod, this should go straight to MfD and from what I know of how things normally end up, I bet a bottle of something really good that the conclusion will be "userfy". --Irpen 07:04, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

If no one objects to the prod why don't we just userfy anyway? No need to delete this, really. - brenneman {L} 07:21, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I have no objections to userfying. I just find it too offensive to remain in Wikipedia space. The author is welcome to move it to his userspace pre-empting the MfD outcome. Even if this piece ends up deleted rather than userfied by a MfD, nothing prevents it from being restored to the author's userspace. --Irpen 07:29, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Does no-one used the "reject" option anymore. There are loads of old essays that are marked as "rejected by the Wikipedia community". But the discussion is still there so people can see why they were rejected. Surely that is a more principled way of dealing with this than brushing under the carpet into user space? Carcharoth 12:20, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
a) Prods are only for article space.
b) Prods can be legitimately removed by the author, in any case, and we already know that the author cares about this piece.
c) Userfying OR rejecting it seem reasonable, if the author is amenable to either. Both seems like overkill, as he is entitled to his opinion (but most controversial essays start in userspace and move outward, see User:David Gerard/Process essay). -- nae'blis 15:00, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I suggest rejecting this

See Category:Wikipedia_rejected_proposals and Template:rejected. In other words, preserve the discussion for historical interest and future revival of variants of these discussions. Simnply deleting out-of-hand is destructive. Carcharoth 12:24, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think that might be the most sensible idea. I reject it, for reasons outlined above. However, in category:rejected proposals I found a few userfied proposals too, so the two options are not mutually exclusive. Deleting it without leaving a trace is obviously not a good idea. — mark ✎ 12:32, 27 September 2006 (UTC)