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Administrator retention
I firmly believe we need to be working to retain good Administrators as well as good editors who are not Administrators and that this should be a clearly stated goal, perhaps even part of the project's title. I know that we are losing good Administrators, some possible because of abuse, others because of lack of community support (I don't mean deliberate lack, more inaction or lack involvement in the areas they work). Then of course there's burnout. I've recently been in contact with one good Admin who works in an area where there is a lot of pov pushing who is becoming much less active because of lack of support.(And in cases where there are areas of the world from which we draw few or no Admins we may need to be recruiting). I know of others who have left or retired from certain areas where they seem to be fighting a losing battle. Maybe there are some editors who see Admins as an unnecessary evil, but I hope the vast majority of editors understand that we play a vital role on Wikipedia. We certainly have an important role to play in helping to fix some of the problems that cause editors to leave - pov pushing, personal attacks, edit warring,etc, let alone simply blocking obvious vandals. Active Administrators are a pretty small number (697 seems to be the current count) and we are having problems getting more. but the number of articles continually grows.
Dougweller (
talk) 09:52, 9 July 2012 (UTC)reply
I agree with this, however the solution is not apparent to everyone. What works properly is to fight against the 'US Vs THEM' mentality from both sides. If you wanted to, I could address this with dynamics to consider and pathways to community strength, however, I do not see at the moment that there is sufficient drive for change that can carry through the radical changes that would permanently strengthen the bonds between the admins and non admins. Too many on each side don't want to work together at this point in time, and it is a shame too. Penyulap ☏ 11:37, 9 Jul 2012 (UTC)
Retention of experienced users is important whether they are sysops or not. There is work done about how wikipedia selects sysops that might help (I mentioned it to John above) wrt sysops, and there is an interesting study on wikipedia "power users" too. There are a number of inter-related things that have effected my own experience: burnout, abuse, hounding, actual harassment/real-life stalking (yes it happens), time-wasting, and then real-life/work commitments. There are also off-site issues we can't fix that are designed by banned users to hound ppl here. IMHO we need to see what keeps ppl here as much as we need to see what pushes them away--
Caililtalk 13:41, 9 July 2012 (UTC)reply
Bridging the gap is the purpose of the template that I 'incubate' on my talkpage (barely masked by the I don't like admins dynamic). Where an admin makes a block, and everyone signs off on it, then that IS a strong block, the admin has the support of the community and that is plain to see. Sure, you are going to have small CONLIMITeds, but a clearly stated reason on an otherwise 'out!voted' template will not lose editors because it makes sense to them. Whereas to the !voters socks and so on who just think oh it's three to one or whatever, they might get to wondering why policy overrides conlimit. The template itself is a success, although I may have had slight doubts about the equations before placing it, within a few hours I knew with complete certainty, and then enjoyed examining new data, how people are reluctant to speak out, and people are reluctant to 'back up' a bad action. Obviously at the moment it is a voluntary thing rather than the template used, but I expect it would be interesting where editors sign off on their own templates saying that a block was a good idea. I intend to try that as well, for the previous block and see what happens there, I expect as there is less controversy, it would possibly produce more useful data, less critical of admins and a more balanced appraisal of it's merits. Of course I still know that in the end the project destination hasn't changed, and officially I'm still not meant to be liking admins or something, blah blah don't forget it. Penyulap ☏ 14:20, 30 Jul 2012 (UTC)
When I finish choking on my rage and shaking off that filthy accusation (need a shower now) I'll have a witty retort. Penyulap ☏ 15:07, 30 Jul 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Administrators § Involved admins
User:Novem Linguae: regarding your
edit about involved admins: as
User:Espresso Addict has removed your description, can you provide more insight on how the administrators policy for involved admins has changed? I don't have enough background to know what the community standards used to be.
isaacl (
talk) 22:47, 10 April 2022 (UTC)reply
Did you get a sense from that discussion on how the policy on involved admins is stricter? Without further guidance, "WP:INVOLVED is stricter." is a bit mysterious-sounding. I can imagine back in the days when admins were appointed and everyone knew each other, there was less concerns about who enforced policy. However, I don't have the first-hand experience to be able to adequately describe how things have changed.
isaacl (
talk) 23:17, 10 April 2022 (UTC)reply
Could have been that AN thread I mentioned. But honestly I don't think this is worth a deep dive, as I don't object to your edit. –
Novem Linguae (
talk) 01:25, 11 April 2022 (UTC)reply
Perhaps the whole item should be removed for now? If someone can provide more description on how community standards have changed, they can add that guidance.
isaacl (
talk) 01:54, 11 April 2022 (UTC)reply
I have removed the item in question for now. Anyone is welcome to reinstate it with more detailed guidance.
isaacl (
talk) 20:36, 13 April 2022 (UTC)reply
Guidance on biographies for living persons
Can anyone add more details on how the guidance for biographies for living persons is stricter? It would be great if someone who has been a long-time participant in revising
Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons could provide a historical look at how the guidance has changed.
isaacl (
talk) 20:53, 13 April 2022 (UTC)reply