Admin Forum:Q&A with Admins and Founders

Hi all, if you've been reading the Admin Central:Forum, you know that I'm BassJapas, more commonly known among Wikians as Jazzi. I was recently asked to create a thread with questions for Admins and Founders. Now, to let you know, I'm very nervous about writing this, so I apologize for any spelling errors and grammatical mistakes.

Although I already have a couple of questions to ask you guys, I don't have many, so feel free to add new sections with more questions, but don't forget to expand on what you're asking.

This thread is open for anybody to add new questions, so don't be afraid. I'd love to see what you guys have to say. -- Bass Japas   (Jazzi)  02:28, July 2, 2011 (UTC)
 * Edited by The Midna of Zeldapedia

Founders, how do you find new users?
At the start of a new wiki, it's always hard to start a community, and once it starts, it's still a bit hard to keep that community growing. What are your best ideas for finding new users? What are the best ways to start a community? How do you keep that community going?

Replies

 * As an admin on several wikis, the best way to find new users is not really to go looking outside your wiki, but to encourage and strongly support the best users on your wiki and give them a good example to do the same for other users. Encouraging anonymous users to contribute as registered users also helps. Too many anonymous users makes it very difficult to manage and distinguish between those who care and the potential vandal.
 * However, even though I haven't seen great success going outside your wiki, you should still try to advertise your wiki on other sites and with other methods (Facebook, Twitter, IMDB, official forums, etc.). -- Fandyllic (talk &middot; contr) 31 Jul 2011 3:36 PM Pacific
 * Great points, Fandyllic. I like encouraging the hard work within the wiki. I think that is something that is really important. --Meighan http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png (help forum | blog) 18:44, August 1, 2011 (UTC)

Admins, how did you get to the point of adminship?
We all started off as just a simple new user in the sea of hundreds. Whether or not there is a smaller community on the wiki you edit at, or if there's a large one, we all started out small. And from that original stance, how did you become an admin? Was there a Request for Adminship involved, or did you adopt through Community Central:Adoption requests? Everybody has his or her own unique story on becoming an admin. Why don't you tell us yours?

Replies
I became admin on the Shrek wiki when I got obsessed with achievements. I was collecting hundreds of points. One of the achievements I wanted was Stopping by to say hi!, which was for leaving a message on someone's talk page. The main 'crat at the time, Manyman, was the user I picked. I had no idea what to write, so I browsed his messages for inspiration. One of them was a RfA, and I commented "I wanna be one too!" Because of all of my edits I'd already made for achievements, he gave it to me right away. For other badges, I wrote a blog post called Achievements and commented on it. I added lots of categories to pages (all relevant, of course) and stopped using the Preview button. I improved our wiki a lot, but didn't actually want adminship when I asked for it and received it. But, I still worked to be the best administrator I can be. —Airhogs777 (talk • contribs) @WikiShrek 18:58, July 3, 2011 (UTC)

My rise to adminship was completely out of the blue! I had just joined the Jadusable Wiki and had a huge spiel on my user page about remember to keep the quality of the article, and that I was asking around for information we had missing. After making edits here and there, I went to thank the Founder for welcoming me to the wiki. When he read my user page he promoted me! It was totally unexpected. :) Immortallies 19:48, July 3, 2011 (UTC)

I went through several requests for adminship on the CoD Wiki, the ones which failed (all 4 of them 9_9) failed because apparently I didn't have enough experience and partly that "there were enough admins". Eventually the 5th one passed, and I have enjoyed being an administrator ever since and was promoted to bureaucrat in January. If anyone ever asks why I put so many RfAs/RfBs in, it's because I always thought I was the best person for the position, while that may seem complacent and totally arrogant, which it probably does, I really did think that and had my expectations crushed many times. I didn't give up and determination to help and general friendliness got me where I am today. So in conclusion (a.k.a. the TL;DR version), just being a general help in all aspects of the Wiki and being friendly to all users no matter their status will always help you obtain adminship, if that is your aim. --Callofduty4 02:13, July 5, 2011 (UTC)

On Bleach answers, I was promoted because I was one of two people answering questions. I am already the 4th in charge of Bleach wiki even though I am not an admin and so when we needed another admin on answers, the one active admin there thought it would be easiest on us both if I was made an admin.--

I was originally an admin in charge of fan fiction content on the Sims Wiki, but eventually that job was phased out and I was given the normal admn role. I'm actually surprised still that I got in for adminship, as I was only on wikia for about a month and a bit when it was approved. --W H  (Talk) 02:29, July 5, 2011 (UTC)

I started to edit the Fairy Tail Wiki because I liked the show, and when I realized that the articles weren't really that great, I began editing them in an attempt to improve the quality of them. I didn't plan on becoming a regular editor there, I just wanted to lend a helping hand, and after a while on the wiki, I realized that I enjoyed editing there and after I had made over 6000 edits and realized that I was more active than all of the current admins I decided to ask one of the crats for admin status and it was granted to me.

After coming back from hiatus after my stint of removing red links (I didn't understand their purpose then), I had come back to edit MarioWiki and eventually ran for rollback. Of the three rollbackers, only two were active though, I was the most active and probably cared the most about the page formatting, our admin had to take a leave to study for tests and he had granted me the rights while he was off testing. I'm still an admin there, and I think he realized that another admin was needed on the site and decided to allow me to keep the rights. In December of 2010, I had gone to Pokémon Wiki after a user in Zeldapedia's IRC channel linked us to them, and I noticed that their news and Did You Know sections on their main page were excessively long. I archived their news and fixed their did you know section so that it's randomized. Being careless then, I had forgotten to ask the admins if that was okay. I then went on another hiatus, coming back in January to check up on the DYK section. In late April I became an active contributor and I ran for admin once the RfA page was created. I had two opposes and two neutrals, the neutrals later turned into supports, and Arceus The God of Pokemon had gotten banned so his vote was void, and who he claims was his little brother wasn't eligible to vote, so I ended up with straight supports in the end. I proved myself to the community that I was able to hold the job of admin in a short amount of time and am able to give the help that the site needs. I had the intentions to adopt Zelda Answers because the admin wasn't active since June 11, the admin came back and I woke up one morning and my rights were changed. I didn't really know what to say, I was in shock and still tired, so I kind of laughed and figured I need to stop editing so much since I'm dreaming about wikis now, it turned out it wasn't a dream and my rights really were changed. I'm not really sure how I became admin on Green Day Wiki, but it got to the point I wasn't able to keep the wiki up to the quality I'd like it at and I didn't have the motivation to edit that wiki, since all I really wanted to do was listen to their music, not edit about them, so I had removed my rights. I was an admin of the 3OH!3 wiki, but as I grew older and ninth grade came around, I stopped listening to 3OH!3 as much after I realized how vulgar their music was. I guess, all this could've been simplified by saying, "I became an admin on many wikis and it was a great experience" but that wouldn't be as personal, if that makes sense.

How do you interact with the members of the community?
If a new user needs help, do you give them the help they need? How do you go about with it? What kinds of help have you given? From helping with signatures, to helping teach the standard of the wiki, new users need help, some more than others. But one very important thing to remember when helping an user, new or old, always be friendly about it.

Replies
A new user tends to make mistakes or lumber about. It's easy enough to understand, after all every wiki pretty much has a different set of rules. And I certainly never forgot about my first blundering errors. At the time I joined the One Piece wiki, administration was really... not much of an administration, so I had to pretty much figure out everything by myself. Now we've got several crats/admins and as one of them I try to be as helpful and patient as possible. If I see another user being overtly harsh toward a newbie, I respond as encouragingly but firmly as possible (if they have made a mistake). It's good being kind, but it's equally important the people understand the rules so they don't get reprimanded repeatedly in the future by the community.


 * For the obvious experienced wiki users, I tried just to leave encouraging words on their talk pages and some guidance to match policies and style guides. For new users, I try to mention their most egregious errors and what they could do to fix or prevent them while also encourage future edits of better quality.
 * On a wiki with lots of history and established policies, it is also important to be careful about following the rules, but not use them to bash users over the head. If a user disagrees strongly with some policies or rules, I encourage them to try to find other users who agree with them and try to change the policies or rules. Of course, your wiki should have a reasonable method to change policies. Wikis run by admins who see themselves as aristocrats or wiki dictators usually don't grow much or last long.
 * For important wiki news or changes, I usually use MediaWiki:Communitymessages-notice-msg and MediaWiki:Community-corner. -- Fandyllic (talk &middot; contr) 31 Jul 2011 3:50 PM Pacific

What wikis are you an admin at?/What wikis did you found?
Some admins edit at many wikis and are admin at one, and some admins edit at a couple and are admins at all. Where do you edit and at which wikis are you an admin? Did you create a wiki? If so, which wiki did you create?

Replies
I'm an admin at the Fairy Tail Wiki and the founder of the Fairy Tail Answers Wiki.

I'm the founder of Project Creative Writers Unite. I was an admin at Green Day Wiki before I resigned, as with 3OH!3 Wiki. It's a complicated thing with Video Game Wiki I'm still admin but we were planning to merge with Wikia Gaming. I'm an admin at MarioWiki and Pokémon Wiki. I'm a rollbacker on Zeldapedia, as I'm still handling some emotional issues and working on maturing before I put in another request for adminship.

Let's see... I founded the NickMag wiki, TeacherShare, Ned's Declassified High School Survival Guide wiki, Ikipediaway (which I gave up on translating the system messages for), and the Happily Divorced wiki. I co-founded the Paper Models wiki, Flower Arrangements wiki and the AWA (which moved away). I was granted adminship on the SpongeBob SquarePants wiki, WikiShrek and the Wikipedia Trading Card Game wiki. I think that's all of them.... —Airhogs777 (talk • contribs) @WikiShrek 00:50, July 6, 2011 (UTC)

I founded the official CoD fanfic wiki (i.e. the one affiliated with the main CoD Wiki). I'm a bureaucrat on the CoD Wiki and I have rollback rights on Runescape and Battlefield wikis. --Callofduty4 21:15, July 30, 2011 (UTC)

I Need to add more admins to my Wikia
(--&gt;) Topic moved to Admin Forum:I Need to add more admins to my Wikia.

Discussion
In my opinion being an admin reqires edits but you have to stand out from others with the same amount of edits. For example on my home wiki (where I just became admin) I set up a quote generator for the main page, and also set up a featured article system. You've also got to want to be admin but not to the point of annoyance. Like after every hundred or so edits I would ask a bureaucrat that I was familiar with and he would ask the other two bureaucrats and they eventually made me admin. But you can't just keep on bugging the bureaucrats about being admin you'll never become one because first of all its annoying and lets face it, a wiki doesn't need a hundred plus admins. If an admin edits atleast once a day thats good enough and usually most wikis have at least 6 admins. --  Kangaroopowah   Talk   18:42, July 2, 2011 (UTC)


 * On the topic of wanting to be an admin, I've often found that the people who make the best sysops material are the ones who don't even consider becoming an administrator until another user suggests it to them. This is a good indicator that the person just cares about improving the wiki to the best of his/her ability and doesn't crave power as its own reward. Gardimuer { ʈalk } 03:50, July 20, 2011 (UTC)


 * To that, I don't think there is any user who truly does not consider becoming an admin. I think it is in the back of everyone's head but yes, the best admin material are the users who do not crave the right but rather work hard and wait for their time to come. I think all users give Adminship a thought but the ones who make good admins are the ones that do not go around requesting it but rather wait for it to be offered.--


 * Haha, I have to agree. When my main wiki's community started nominating users I won't deny wanting to be one, but I certainly wasn't going to nominate myself (and no offense to anyone who has) since I felt it might've been a been self-centered. I was also only just coming back to the comm after a somewhat long absence (about 2 months), so I was flattered and a bit surprised when someone did nominate me, and I was voted as one of the four new admins. But anyway, yes an admin should be someone who can execute authority when they have to, but should also be humble enough to realize they are still only one part of a community.


 * @Godi?.....there are SOME situations where you can't be an admin unless you ask to be one!...Some wikis have stuff like "Request for User Rights"....that would obviously demand nomination from you own side:)


 * I'm in Agreement with Roranoa, in some situations it's better to request the rights. For example on the Fairy Tail Wiki, when I first came there we had 4 admins and only one of them really got on the site. One of the others was missing for five months without reason (we later found out it was due to health problems), another one was just the founder and he barely contributed to the site at all, and the last one contributed to the site when it first jumped off but barely edits now. I was reluctant to ask for adminship, but I became far more active than all of the administrators and pretty much every user thought I was an admin. In addition, there was so much administrative work that needed to be done that just wasn't getting done, so I decided to ask for the rights.


 * Not to break up the flow, but "usually most wikis have at least 6 admins" seems like a generalization. Depending on the users and the admins, 6 can be way too many or way too few. Did you know that WoWWiki has only 4 admins and usually only 2 are active most of the time? Sure it could use more some times, but maybe not. So don't feel too much pressure to have lots of admins. -- Fandyllic (talk &middot; contr) 31 Jul 2011 3:56 PM Pacific