Admin Forum:Admins and activity, or lack thereof

Figured this was the best place to inquire.

On our wiki, there is a bit of controversy around admins and their activity status. Some people believe that inactive admins hurt the wiki and others believe that it's more of a non-issue. We have no policies regarding activity and how active admins should be. We also have plenty of active staff, so there isn't any matter of not having enough people around to take care of things.

So, I really want people's opinions and insight on this: '''Does having inactive admins hurt a wiki? Why or why not?''' If an admin knows they are going to be away for a while, then stepping down would be the polite thing to do in that case, and they could probably regain their status on their return. But other than that, so long as the wiki has staff and can take care of itself, I just don't see how inactive admins hurt anything.

Looking forward to the discussion, and thanks to all who reply. 14:36, October 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * I believe that inactive admins should retain their powers. They can just use it when they are back. It really doesn't hurt anyone. — 14:57, October 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * If you ask me, it's ok to be inactive for a few days or even a week. But more than that and it starts hurting the community.
 * Many problems should have gathered by the time, which can be solved only by admins. Admins' behaviour should be example for the rest of the editors.
 * If your not going to be active, just ask the community who is best to be supervisor instead of him, and pass the rights and drop yours. voice (talk) 15:56, October 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * It's really silly to say that admins should be setting an example. Admins are just people with access to a couple of extra buttons, who like to waste their time doing boring tasks. There is no need for them to be incredibly active, and as a general rule, if an admin make only one action while they are one, then it is a net positive to the project. As to if admins should be removed when inactive, I'd generally say no, but if you have a huge list of admins with only one or two active, it becomes hindersome to new users trying to contact one. 16:36, October 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * The "net positive" comment is interesting, I've never heard that. We have less than 10 admins on our wiki, two being inactive, one hardly around at all but still shows up every so often, and one currently temporary. Our wiki isn't too terribly large, but still quite active, so it seems maybe what we have isn't enough, but our rollbacks (another ten or so users) have been modified to also be able to deal with spam, so admin action isn't really needed much of the time when our rollbacks are online often enough to take care of most things users would usually need an admin for. One reason I've heard that our two inactive admins hurt us is because it's harmful to users trying to find someone to contact about something but.. there are still plenty of other people that can be contacted to deal with, say, spam and inappropriate comments, so that reason is sort of moot, I guess. 20:35, October 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * Edit; Come to think of it, I believe much of our community does expect our admins to set an example for the rest of the community, which I guess would be why some feel inactives hurt us. Not really sure, but that makes sense now, whoops. 21:04, October 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * Install InactiveUsers. Or create a "Hey, I'm not here right now, try someone else" template and stick it on their profile and talk page. Lunarity 20:43, October 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * We have the inactives listed as such, but I'll pass those ideas along, thanks. 21:04, October 23, 2012 (UTC)