Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-233706-20150624014033/@comment-25230922-20150627061720

Believe it! wrote: 452 wrote:What good is a community who allow admins to abuse their powers?
 * Who elected these admins?
 * Who created rules limiting their abuse of power?
 * Who created rules against blocking for no reason?

Wikia grant communities managerial autonomy. Just like in real life, lack of rules always leads to fascism. If the community elected a loose cannon and did not establish rules to govern them, it is that community's fault when the admin does whatever they feel like.

Allow? As if the community could stop such a badmin. They can't. That's the whole point of this article, to get those with power over the badmins to step in and correct a problem that normal users can't.

The badmins were elected by cohorts, who then receive special favors like being made chat moderator, or having users they disagree with blocked.

Wikia staff created those rules ironically, and now they refuse to uphold those rules. User Conduct clearly calls for no harassment. Yet badmins are allowed to threaten users with blocks and block them for having a different opinion of a certain topic, such as a tv episode, or a video game plot, or a political issue. Meanwhile, the friends of the badmins are allowed to post insults and threats to other users all the time, and they never receive so much as a warning.

And even if the users set up their own rules and the badmins break those rules, what exactly are these powerless users supposed to do about it? Contact Wikia staff and you get the same old line about noninvolvement.

452 wrote:
 * Admins do not own the wikis. If the admin has made a statement that admins own the wiki, then politely ask Wikia Staff to inform him otherwise.  (Or ask that question to Wikia Staff here on Community Central, and link the admin to the reply.)
 * Admins are not allowed to remove votes about them - if this has happened, report it to Wikia Staff.
 * Create a blog post named "Creating a set of rules for admins to follow", and suggest some sensible basic rules. When he deletes the blog post, inform Wikia Staff.

And what good will any of that do if RIGHT NOW the Wikia staff are outright stating that they do not get involved in wiki affairs?

452 wrote:Woah, cool! Where does it say this? Since I was thrust into an admin position, I've been searching for somewhere that actually says what admins are supposed to do, and have never been able to find it. So, please, link me to this magical place so I can finally learn what admins are supposed to do!

You wrote it yourself that admins are given managerial autonomy. Managerial means to manage a wiki, which is exactly what I posted before; fixing errors, preventing vandalism, and keeping things civil (i.e. Applying the User Conduct rules). Staff grants them managerial autonomy, meaning that admins, admittedly, hold most if not all of the cards. But it's also clearly stated that there is a checks-and-balances system in place. If a full community believes an admin to be abusing their power, they can create a demotion thread/blog/whatever the site runs on. Should it pass, the next step is for a bureaucrat to demote them. If it's a bureaucrat, the community can still vote. Bureaucrats and admins aren't allowed to remove their own demotion threads, IIRC, and for obvious reasons. In the case of an abusive bureaucrat, asking them to step down is the first step after a passed thread. Then, should they refuse, you contact Staff and see what they can do.

The general reason Wikia Staff does not and cannot intervene is: 1. It would be almost impossible. There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of different wikis. You'd be hard pressed to find the time to help every issue on every single one. 2. Because if they did, it could very possibly result in that same facist environment you keep talking about. Wikia Staff respects the opinions and diversity of its millions of users - they understand that not everything can operate under an extremely specific ruleset.

At this point though, I point to the fact that you have not actually refuted the blog, nor have you refuted Fobarimperius, 452, or Tupka. To be quite honest, I'd actually examine what they're saying. I've seen them work and believe they know what they're doing.