User blog comment:Sannse/Navigating the Wilds of Adminship/@comment-6301973-20130802045241

TEXT WALL! Sorry..... This is good stuff. wish I had this blog when I became lead admin of the warframe wikia 5 months ago by the founder who did not have time to work on the wikia or even to monitor my activities after making me an admin. But I think I did alright, anyway. It is important that, since not all wikias are the same, different "guidelines" are implemented for different wikias. for instance, warframe wikia is protected all over the place with the mild lock of restricting unregistered/new users from editing. we do this because of the huge number of vandalisms we get on popular pages, especially when the game comes out with a new update. the hard lock of admin only is reserved for archived pages and "Main" pages (like the templates that are used on the home page, as well as the home page).

admins to soon is certainly a bad idea. that is a good way to get your wikia thrown in a direction you did not want. time is the friend of founders/bureaucrats. to make sure that the admins is not only making good edits, but also making them in line with the theme/feeling of what you intended in the first place. when I went to become an admin of warframe wikia, I had over a month on it with over 500 edits, a couple blogs, and comments all over the place. since then I have used the idea of time, quantity, quality, and (maybe most importantly) visibility of users as a guide to asking our bureaucrat to make other users (and asking that user) an admin.

I would also add two other things to this blog.

delegation is your friend: I have had much leadership experience and formal training. From that, I know the power of the many! The guidelines listed above and the level of activity of current admins and the amount of support I feel we need help me understand when it is a good time to add another admin and who to add. Right now I am comfortable with all the admins and their behavior. I often get a little stressed about not being able to keep up with the wikia only to find out later that the others have covered it. so it is good to have a group to cover when one is not there. share the load and all.

To many cooks in the kitchen spoils the stew: I have also learned when not to even try to take charge of something when there is already a lot of leadership. I have increased my requirements incrementally to recommend others to become admins of warframe wikia. To many admins can make discussions take to long. Eventually, with to many people, there are styling conflicts. Conflicts with admins are NO GOOD! I am the lead admin, but by no means do I have the best ideas. Some times I bow to the skills and ideas of others. even if its not how I would have done it.

Maybe one other thing. don't be afraid of big changes once in a while. they can really throw off a community. making the wikia hard to navigate. so long as the changes are once every few months and make the wikia more clear/easier to get around for most people, then it is a good change.