User blog comment:Brandon Rhea/Tips for being a great admin/@comment-166269-20121025194745

My philosophy has always been that of Wikipedia: that admins are simply editors with access to extra tools, and that they should act only as editors except in those cases where they are acting as an administrator (normally, specifically when they are using their admin tools). If you come into a discussion with "I'm an admin, here's what I think", you're already doing the wrong thing, because everyone else is going to see the "I'm an admin" and either defer to your opinion, or challenge your authority. It goes without saying that admins should be expected to have a good grasp on the various policies and guidelines of a community - including the unwritten ones - but neither the knowledge nor the position should be used to "win" discussions; this only serves to breed frustration and resentment with other editors.