User:Jaysweet/Why I help out at ANI even though I am not an admin
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Hi, if you are reading this you saw that I am helping out at the administrator's noticeboard, even though I am not an admin. I believe what I do is useful, and I will continue to do so unless/until an admin asks me to stop. I created the disclaimer after a user became frustrated that he had filed a report and a non-admin had responded. I think I was helpful in that case anyway, but in the spirit of full disclosure, I now often let people know as soon as I answer an ANI report that I am not an admin, especially if I believe the thread will eventually result in admin intervention.
Here, I attempt to explain why I think this is helpful.
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[edit] The admins are overworked
Duh. Have you ever filed a report at WP:AIV and seen it languish for ten minutes while the vandal keeps up on their spree? Or requested help with dispute resolution and waited a week without a response? That's because the admins are really busy doing all of these things and dealing with other assorted Wikidrama. If there's anything I can do to offload work from them, I'll do it.
[edit] A significant percentage of the problems reported to WP:ANI don't require administrator intervention
I don't have specific numbers to back this up, but I am sure at least 20-30% of the reports on WP:ANI result in one or more parties being warned, and the issue dropped, and that's a conservative number. A lot of these conflicts can be resolved quite easily by just talking it through. If I see a report that would have been better as a Wikiquette alert or otherwise does not seem to require a block or some such at that time, I will pick it up. I will not pretend to deal with a report where a Checkuser is necessary, or immediate blocking is obviously necessary. (At times, I may pick something up, attempt to talk through it, and eventually come to the conclusion that a block is necessary after all, but I do not feel this is wasted work)
[edit] Even reports that do require admin intervention don't always include all the necessary information
Even some of the most valid WP:ANI reports sometimes take the form "User:So-and-so is being a big meanie and I don't like it! Make him stop!". Well, that's not exactly admin actionable, is it? Ideally, all of the users bringing reports to WP:ANI would provide diffs to back up their contention, but often they don't. If I see a report like that, I will check the contrib history and/or article(s) in question and see if I can find the relevant diffs. If I don't see them, I will ask the reporting user to provide diffs. It doesn't require an admin to do this. Once the diffs have been exposed, an admin can take it from there.
[edit] I'll stop if an admin asks me to
I think what I do is very helpful, but maybe I am wrong. If an admin feels I am doing more harm than good at ANI, I will bow out immediately. So let me know. Thanks, and happy wiki-ing!
