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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Naming of the administrator group

  • Subject: Due to the confusion generated by the term "administrator", some users suggested changing the category's name. Such changes have already been performed on other editions of Wikipedia, such as on the Spanish Wikipedia. Any user may add suggestions to the list below. — Kudu ~I/O~ 14:39, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Reasoning:
    • Consider the term "Wikipedia administrator" for a second. It sounds very much like "manager of the project". It doesn't correctly reflect the purpose of the figure within Wikipedia. Very much otherwise, it produces confusion by implying inexistent editorial tasks, as well as hierarchy and superiority.
    • Administration is synonymous to management. Administrators don't actually manage anything - they just use their extended power to execute the community's wishes.
    • Every hierarchy implies power. This isn't always a bad thing: some spontaneous hierarchies represent consensual power and aren't prejudicial to a collaborative project like Wikipedia. Other "democratic" hierarchies can produce an "animal farm"-style effect. On the other hand, the titles which are used to represent certain roles within such a hierarchy are essential in the perception of the executable power. (Translated from ejrrjs's rationale.)
  • Options:
    • Administrator: (current)
    • Definition: A person responsible for running a business, organization, etc.
    • Advanced user:
    • Definition ("advanced"): Far on or ahead in development or progress.
    • Special user:
    • Definition ("special"): Adjective: Better, greater, or otherwise different from what is usual: "a special effort". Noun: A thing, such as an event, product, or broadcast, that is designed or organized for a particular occasion or purpose.
    • Librarian:
    • Definition: A person who administers or assists in a library
    • Custodian
    • Definition: A person who has responsibility for or looks after something, such as a museum, financial assets, or a culture or tradition. A person employed to clean and maintain a building.
      • Support:
        1. My suggestion. Seems to fit our culture and is a better description of the actual position. causa sui (talk) 18:33, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
        2. I like it, it sounds very decent. — Kudu ~I/O~ 20:31, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
        3. I'm not really in support of change. Yet I do rather like this one. So if a consensus arose that change was desirable (I don't think it will, mind) then this would be my preferred option. --bodnotbod (talk) 08:18, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
      • Oppose:
        1. Meh. I oppose it for the same reason I opposed "librarian"--admins aren't custodians. Beyond that, the fact is, admins do more than just "clean up". They have a lot of political clout, and changing the name of their user status won't doing anything about it. I dream of horses (T) @ 00:03, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
          I think this is a fair point that highlights the problem here: administrators on Wikipedia are not administrators, either. :) While "administrator" implies higher status, "custodian" is often a euphemism for janitor, which is a stereotypically low status job; I think that is what motivates your objection that admins here have a lot of "political clout". Still, my impression is that adminship and political clout are correlated because they both result from the community recognizing that a user is clueful and trustworthy; that is, they are correlated not because one causes the other, but because both have the same cause. That's what I think is majorly wrong with the "administrator" title: it implies that the authority is from the WP:RFA, when in fact both the authority and the access to extra tools are exclusively the results of the editor's public reputation. With that in mind, it seems to me to be a strength of using "custodian" since it clearly demarcates the "sysop" bits as being in themselves exclusively janitorial, so that any other authority or political clout the user has is clearly only a result of her reputation. That way, we don't implicitly exclude non-sysops from having the same political clout. causa sui (talk) 00:26, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
          The reverse would probably be the case in GB English. I would tend to think of an "administrator" as someone who carries out basic day-to-day tasks as distinct from a manager, who is responsible for creating policy and strategy. In this sense, the existing title is fairly accurate and I can't think of any reason why any editor should not consider themselves to be a "custodian". Ben MacDui 08:21, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
        2. Weaker oppose than for the other alternatives above, but I don't see what the advantage over the established "admin" is. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:16, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Systems operator
    • Defination: Somebody who helps technology run smoothly, through whatever means.
      • Support:
        1. Support as the nominator. This is, in fact, the technical name for an admin, so there isn't too much change, yet it satisfies (or I hope it does) the politico-semantical concerns that I assume bought up the discussion. I dream of horses (T) @ 23:43, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
      • Oppose:
        1. Very much "meh" to the rest of the issue (how many angels can dance on a pinhead?), but a very definite Oppose to this. The admin group is, and always has, been labeled internally by the MediaWiki software as sysop, but in more recent times this definition has been buried away as deeply as possible for very good reason: admins are absolutely and unquestionably not systems operators, they have nothing to do with the technology that keeps Wikipedia running. Indeed the whole point of MediaWiki is to make it easy for anyone to edit (and indeed administer) a wiki regardless of technical competence. Happy‑melon 22:21, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
        2. This would be one of my least favorite names, since it implies technical knowledge, which admins aren't required to have. The only systems operation admins perform is editing interface messages, title blacklists and editing edit filters (even then, this is a separate right). — Kudu ~I/O~ 15:48, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
        3. A systems operator is the hairy, coffee-sipping guy who has the server password. That's not us. (It is very unfortunately that the misnomer "sysop" is already part of our lingo, through the official naming of the user group.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:16, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
      • Comments

Discussion

Could you link to some of the "confusion generated" mentioned in the lead sentence of this proposal? –xenotalk 14:41, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

It's not so much individual cases as it is the general effect. I often see users asking for help from an administrator, thinking that they will be better fit to answer their question, whatever it is, even though it requires no extra buttons. — Kudu ~I/O~ 14:58, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
It is not an unreasonable assumption that administrators will have a good grasp of the project and be able to answer general questions not necessarily related to the administration of the project. –xenotalk 15:05, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
On the other hand, many questions directed to administrators not requiring the use of administrative tools could be answered by non-admin users. — Kudu ~I/O~ 15:55, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
And they often are, thanks to talk page stalkers =). This still doesn't really make a good case to rename administrators (especially given how entrenched the title is in the project). –xenotalk 15:58, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
"I have a vague impression (not supported buy a shred of evidence) that something is marginally wrong so I want to rename a category of 1,545 users who have gotten along just fine for years under that title." No thanks. Show us the problem before suggesting a solution. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:45, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
In which case - would it not be better to create a new role "knowledgeable editor" - perhaps even on a category basis? I don't see that changing the word "administrator" will have any effect on who people ask for help. WormTT · (talk) 13:14, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
That sounds like an interesting idea. — Kudu ~I/O~ 14:17, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
Would be willing to work on it (though I'm not high on free time) - Perhaps taking it to the Ideas lab might be an idea?WormTT · (talk) 15:12, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
WP:HAU seems to serve this purpose, as well as WP:EAR. –xenotalk 15:15, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
And we also have WP:HELP, WP:VP, WP:REFDESK, {{helpme}}, {{adminhelp}}, etc. There are already plenty of ways to find a user to help you. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:57, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

In response to the discussion above, I can say that even experienced users here (>1 year) will, not infrequently, expect me to exercise some kind of administrative fiat in content disputes that I am informally mediating. "As an administrator, you should do this with the article..." With new users, I am more surprised when they don't have this confusion -- so much so that their lack of confusion can imply that they are a sock. "Administrator" implies hierarchy of authority in literally every other context of its usage in the English language, and so every new user will at some point have to relearn its new meaning in the context of Wikipedia. Given that, if we had it to do over, we would probably choose a different word. There isn't any good reason to use the term aside from tradition. causa sui (talk) 18:01, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

How about custodian? causa sui (talk) 18:32, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
I've noticed the exact same thing, many users misunderstand what an admins role is a contnet dispute. However, I don't see how any of these proposed new names would resolve that issue. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:44, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
Rolling with my own suggestion, distinguishing users who can delete, block, and protect as "custodians" would suggest the differentiated role, which we have, without implying a higher authority, which we don't. causa sui (talk) 19:52, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
+1 to causa sui, for reading my thoughts. :) — Kudu ~I/O~ 20:32, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
I belive you misunderstand the nature of the problem. Anyone who bothered to read the policy would know better, but many users simply don't bother to take the time. Changing what we call admins won't change that. I would also add that if you are serious about this you are going to have to seek wider participation, starting with WP:CENT but possibly going as far as a sitenotice. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:55, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunately, people are naturally resistant to change, even when it's a strict improvement :) You're right that it will definitely need involvement on village pump and WP:CENT before anything could actually be implemented. But it's useful to have preliminary discussion to lay groundwork before involving a wider audience. causa sui (talk) 04:33, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I just don't think a strong case for change has been made. Changing the name will require a lot of effort, and will take upwards of several years for it to be assimilated into the site vernacular (and people will still use "admin" or "sysop", especially given that "custodian" has no easy short form [custy?]). My thoughts are that adding a new term to the mix will actually increase, rather than decrease, confusion. –xenotalk 13:06, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
I won't belabor the point; if this straw poll is any indication, bringing this up on WP:CENT would probably not be fruitful. But as a parting shot... I agree that switching the terminology would increase confusion somewhat for established/active users, while reducing it for new users. Established, known users are already in a de-facto higher social class, and since they have a majority of power and influence on Wikipedia, they tend to prevent change that inconveniences them and encourage change that benefits them, even where there is a conflict. What is best for newbies and IPs is often invisible to us in these discussions (and in some cases, it is explicitly disregarded). I sometimes tilt too far in the contrary direction out of an instinct to "balance it out", which might explain why I like this proposal even though it seems to have little traction. It's unfortunate that there is so much tradition behind this term: I think it may be less controversial a proposition if we could go back in time and pick something else to start with. causa sui (talk) 21:18, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Just a question: why is "moderator" not in the list above? That would actually be an alternative I could support, because unlike most of the others, it actually bears a relation to what we do, and it's a well-established term in many other online environments. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:16, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

"Moderator" seems equally misleading as some of the other options (and the status quo, incidentally) since it implies a superior role; in particular, the title of 'moderator' expressly indicates (wrongly) that the 'moderator' has elevated authority over article content. causa sui (talk) 17:12, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Removal of inactive admins from recall category

As another element of cleanup, when we are removing the bit from an inactive admin, should we also remove other admin-related things from their userpage, such as the recall category? For example, CanadianCaesar (talk · contribs) and AnonEMouse (talk · contribs) are still in Category:Administrators open to recall, though they are no longer active. Personally, I think we should remove, or at least comment out the category. The table at Wikipedia:Administrators open to recall/Admin criteria could also be cleaned up, either to have inactive admins removed, or perhaps we should make a separate table to hold the inactive ones, for historical purposes? --Elonka 14:49, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Sure, this should be relatively uncontroversial. — Kudu ~I/O~ 22:38, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Questioning an administrator's actions

I'm beginning to question the adminship of one user who does not understand some basic guidelines and has recently nominated an article for deletion for invalid reasons (possibly to make a point), attacked at least one editor, sarcastically responded to a couple others (in an unhelpful manner), and intentionally vandalized an article (and was warned about it by an IP user!). How would I go about dealing with such an issue, seeing as how the user has been an admin for quite sometime, and is not just a "regular user"? –Dream out loud (talk) 08:09, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:RFC and WP:ANI are the relevant venues. The arbitration committee has the power to remove administrator rights, but they are unlikely to open a case unless some other dispute resolution method has been tried first. Hut 8.5 08:35, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
You can also first politely discuss it with the admin, either on his user talk page or through email. Sometimes there is a good explanation for all of this, or the admin may realise that he needs to take a break when these actions and the impression they give are politely pointed out to him. Yet another possibility is talking (through email) with some admin or experienced user you trust, to check whether they get the same impression you do, and whether they also believe some action is needed.
Note that WP:ANI is only for more-or-less urgent admin actions, if it is more a slow but steady pattern, WP:AN may be a better venue. Fram (talk) 08:43, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Clarification

The "without further discussion" part of WP:INACTIVITY appears to be at odds with WP:RESYSOP. Under ordinary circumstances I'd remove that phrase, but as any substantive edit to this page is by nature controversial, I thought I'd check here first. —WFC— 19:02, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

RESYSOP #3 includes an exception for inactivity restorations. –xenotalk 20:01, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
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