User:Murph146/Policies & Guidelines

 Becoming an Administrator RFAs Policies & Guidelines Tutorials & Resources 

Overview

Administrators are users trusted with access to certain tools on the English Wikipedia. They are expected to observe a high standard of conduct, to use the tools fairly, and never to use them to gain advantage in a dispute.

Wikipedia administrators operate under a collective set of policies and guidelines. These policies and guidelines are listed and described in various articles on Wikipedia, but are not currently consolidated in one location. This page exists to house links to all relevant policies and guidelines in order to aid Wikipedia administrators in their daily Wikipedia activities.

Administrator Duties, Responsibilities, & Expectations

Care and judgement

If you are granted administrator access, you must exercise care in using your newly acquired tools and functions, especially the ability to delete pages and to block users and IP addresses. You can learn how to do these things at the Administrators' how-to guide and the new administrator school. Please also look at the pages linked from the Administrators' reading list before using your administrative abilities. Occasional lapses are accepted but serious or repeated lapses may not always be.

Administrator tools are also used with judgment; it can take some time for a new administrator to learn when it's best to use the tools, and it can take months to gain a good sense of how long a period to set when using tools such as blocking and page protection in difficult disputes. New administrators are strongly encouraged to start slowly and build up experience on areas they are used to, and by asking others if unsure.

Administrator conduct

Administrators are expected to lead by example and to behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others. Administrators are expected to follow Wikipedia policies and to perform their duties to the best of their abilities. Occasional mistakes are entirely compatible with adminship; administrators are not expected to be perfect. However, sustained or serious disruption of Wikipedia is incompatible with the status of administrator, and consistently or egregiously poor judgment may result in the removal of administrator status. Administrators should strive to model appropriate standards of courtesy and civility to other editors and to one another.

Administrators should bear in mind that they have hundreds of colleagues. Therefore, if an administrator finds that he or she cannot adhere to site policies and remain civil (even toward users exhibiting problematic behavior) while addressing a given issue, then the administrator should bring the issue to a noticeboard or refer it to another administrator to address, rather than potentially compound the problem by poor conduct.

Accountability

Administrators are accountable for their actions involving administrator tools, and unexplained administrator actions can demoralize other editors who lack such tools. Subject only to the bounds of civility, avoiding personal attacks, and reasonable good faith, editors are free to question or to criticize administrator actions. Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed.

Administrators who seriously, or repeatedly, act in a problematic manner or have lost the trust or confidence of the community may be sanctioned or have their access removed. In the past, this has happened or been suggested for:

• "Bad faith" adminship (sock puppetry, gross breach of trust, etc.)
• Breach of basic policies (attacks, biting/civility, edit warring, privacy, etc.)
• Conduct elsewhere incompatible with adminship (off-site attacking, etc.).
• Failure to communicate - this can be either to users (e.g., lack of suitable warnings or explanations of actions), or to concerns of the community (especially when explanations or other serious comments are sought).
• Repeated/consistent poor judgment

Security

Main page: Wikipedia:User account security

It is extremely important that administrators have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices. Because they have the potential to cause site-wide damage with a single edit, a compromised admin account will be blocked and its privileges removed on grounds of site security. In certain circumstances, the revocation of privileges may be permanent. Discretion on resysopping temporarily desysopped administrators is left to bureaucrats, who will consider whether the rightful owner has been correctly identified, and their view on the incident and the management and security (including likely future security) of the account.

Administrators should never share their password or account with any other person, for any reason. If they find out their password has been compromised, or their account has been otherwise compromised (even by an editor or individual they know and trust), they should attempt to change it immediately, or otherwise report it to a bureaucrat for temporary de-sysopping. Users who fail to report unauthorized use of their account will be desysopped. Unauthorized use is considered 'controversial circumstances', and access will not be automatically restored.

Involved admins

In general, editors should not act as administrators in cases in which they have been involved. This is because involved administrators may have, or may be seen as having, a conflict of interest in disputes they have been a party to or have strong feelings about. Involvement is generally construed very broadly by the community, to include current or past conflicts with an editor (or editors), and disputes on topics, regardless of the nature, age, or outcome of the dispute.

One important caveat is that an administrator who has interacted with an editor or topic area purely in an administrative role, or whose prior involvement are minor or obvious edits which do not speak to bias, is not involved and is not prevented from acting in an administrative capacity in relation to that editor or topic area. This is because one of the roles of administrators is precisely to deal with such matters, at length if necessary. Warnings, calm and reasonable discussion and explanation of those warnings, advice about community norms, and suggestions on possible wordings and approaches, do not make an administrator 'involved'.

In cases which are straightforward, (e.g. blatant vandalism), the community has historically endorsed the obvious action of any administrator – even if involved – on the basis that any reasonable administrator would have probably come to the same conclusion. Although there are exceptions to the prohibition on involved editors taking administrative action, it is still best practice in cases where an administrator may be seen to be involved to pass the matter to another administrator via the relevant noticeboards.

A user seeking administrator or uninvolved user help may use the {{uninvolved|type|details}} template to request assistance. Requests will appear in Category:Requests for uninvolved help until removed.

Policies

There are two main categories which Wikipedia policies can fall into; site-wide policies for all of Wikipedia, and policies pertaining only to administrative activity.

Wikipedia Policies

• The five pillars
• What Wikipedia is not
• Notability
• Article titles
• Copyright violations
• Image use policy
• Neutral point of view
• No original research
• Biographies of living persons
• Verifiability
• Wikipedia policies & guidelines - for all other policies not listed above

Administrator Policies

• Administrators - General administrator article
• Administrators' noticeboard
• Administrator intervention against vandalism
• Arbitration enforcement
• Proposed deletion
• Candidates for speedy deletion
• Deletion discussions
• Deletion review
• Requests for undeletion
• Requests for page protection
• Requested moves
• Categories for discussion
• Redirects for discussion