Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-233706-20150624014033

There are various wikis out there right now that have naked fascists administrating them. They block users they disagree with or don't like based solely on those reasons. They lie about why they block them. They harass users with blocks unless they change their opinions. They prevent users from changing their own user pages.

And what does the Wikia staff do about it? Side with the fascists of course. They say admins are given the freedom to manage their own wikis, and the staff doesn't get involved in "local" disputes.

So then what good is the Wikia staff when users who attain admin privileges abuse those powers, violate the spirit of the wiki, break the rules, violate the user conduct agreement, and do so with impunity?

Kind of goes against the whole idea of "open source" doesn't it? Blocking the public from contributing if they have a different opinion from the admin?

And no, the communities don't own their wikis. The admins do. The admins own all the user pages too, since they can block users from editing their own pages. Users can't even vote to remove an admin. The admin can simply delete that motion, or ignore the vote completely and refuse to give up their own power.

All it would take is for the staff to look at a case of admin power abuse, confirm it, and then contact that admin and say... for example, "So I noticed a user posted his opinion in a comments section about an episode and you deleted his comment and blocked him for a year simply because you disagreed with his opinion. Yeah... you can't do that. I have unblocked the user. Please do not misuse the admin privileges again or they will be revoked. Thanks." And I guarantee you that 99% of this will stop immediately. And the remaining 1% will stop soon thereafter because if it does continue, then the staff would make good on the promise.

To put this into perspective, admins blocking people they disagree with is like admins charging admission fees to edit articles, use the chat, post in the forums, or customize one's own user profile. Want to edit articles? Donate 99¢ to my PayPal account. Want to have a talk page where other members can leave you messages? 50¢ to PayPal. Want to chat with other members live? Just $2 for a year's subscription. Never you mind that none of this wiki software or coding is actually owned my me, I'm an admin. I do what I want. LOL!

This is the same thing the admins do, except their form of payment is others agreeing with them or obeying their commands.

Admins are supposed to correct coding errors, prevent vandalism, and maintain peaceful discourse among users. When admins act beyond these functions to serve themselves, they abuse their privileges, and the Wikia staff should step in to address it. Otherwise, the wikis will remain nothing more than official looking blog sites.

So here's some questions for the Wikia staff. Would issuing warnings to abusive admins harm the wikis more than what the abusive admins are inflicting themselves? I mean really. Would the wikis fall apart if admins were warned not to abuse their privileges? Would they all just up and quit? Go on strike? Let other users... take their place and do a better job? And just why doesn't the Wikia staff get involved in such cases? 