User blog:Zenki7/About promotions, admins and bureaucrats

Hello and welcome to my blog.

At first, I answered to a forum post, but I now decided to make this a blog instead to give out some tips.

So... This blog was initially just about promoting people to bureaucrat status and a story from a friend, where a promotion went terribly wrong, but I decided to also add a section about things, that make a good admin/user.

I did this to provide a counter-example to light things up a bit, as most admins aren't as bad as the bad sheep, that my friend encountered that the other day.

Original intro
As you know, the bureaucrat is one step up from admins. If you are a wiki founder, you will have admin/bureaucrat rights by default, but if you are a wiki founder or admin/bureaucrat, you will also be able to make other people admin/bureaucrats.

Nonetheless, you should be careful who you make an admin or an admin/bureaucrat.

I will now tell you a story about my best friend, who once ended up promoting the wrong person to admin/bureaucrat.

Story about bad admin/bureacrat
My best friend and some other user were once working on adopting an abandoned wiki. I'll call him "fella" here.

So my best friend and this fella kept fixing things on the wiki and in the end, the would apply for adopting the wiki.

My friend met the requirements for adopting the wiki, but the fella didn't. She felt, that leaving him out would be unfair, though, so she promised him, that she would make him an admin/bureaucrat, too, if the adoption would be successful.

So, my friend adopted the wiki and kept her promise. Everything was fine and snazzy and my friend and the fella were working on the wiki together.

After a month or two, things got weird, though. My friend told me, that she noticed, that the fella started editing other users' comments and userpages, so she decided to check what the fella changed.

When the fella's edits messed up people's comments and userpages, she told me, she thought, he just made mistakes at first, but now she had to call him out on his behaviour.

My friend offered to help the fella, as she assumed, he didn't understand what he was doing. The fella didn't answer her.

When the fella kept messing up things and even promoted a vandal to admin/bureaucrat status, my friend got very worried.

She knew, that you can't remove other users' bureaucrat status after giving it to them and that if she did, the fella would probably get mad at her and start edit wars or something like that.

She got even more worried. Then she went to contact the staff and told them about the situation.

The staff stepped in and removed the fella's and the vandal's admin/bureaucrat rights.

The fella had badly hurt my friend's trust in others and she felt bitter about it. I didn't see her for 4 to 5 days until she came over and I comforted her.

We also contacted some of her other friends, who were over at another wiki and told them about it.

They decided to help with the situation and came over to the vandalized wiki. My friend and the others started cleaning up things and ever since, my friend has been more wary of who she promotes and hasn't given out and promotions above moderator rights to anyone ever since.

Broken trust
My friend and the others decided to make a special blog, where new users had to fill out a form to make sure, they are trustworthy.

She said, they should not promote them above moderator status without knowing them for at least a year now.

I think, it's a shame, that my friend had to make such a bad experience with another admin/bureaucrat.

Over at some of her other wikis, she promoted me and a few other people to admin/bureaucrat status in the past and nothing ever went wrong, but there's a single black sheep and then my friend's trust was broken.

It made me very sad to hear about it and to see what happened over at that wiki and I hope, that her trust won't be betrayed again.

This whole thing also tainted my experience as an admin/bureaucrat a bit.

In general
If you ever meet an admin or admin/bureaucrat, who is abusing their powers, I think, you should definitely make sure to contact the wiki founder or another admin/bureaucrat on that wiki to help you out.

If that doesn't work or you are a wiki founder or an admin/bureaucrat, who is noticing, that a wiki founder or an admin/bureaucrat is abusing their power, then don't hesitate to monitor the situation and tell the VSTF or staff about it if you can't handle things on your own.

Remember, you can demote an admin, but not an admin/bureaucrat and admins and above can also mess with the wiki's layout badly, if they don't have good intentions.

While founders, admin/bureaucrats and admins, who abuse their power certainly exist, I think, they are the minority, who make good founders, admin/bureaucrats and admins look bad.

Remember, that people usually don't get promotions for the fun of it. Users usually work towards them and gain them as a privilege, that also can be taken away, if you don't behave yourself.

And regardless of your status, you can be called out or blocked for your actions, so always make sure to be a good user and follow the wiki rules.

Good admin/bureaucrat
Now, enough about bad admins.

I will list some things about what makes a good admin, because bad admins are the minority and shouldn't be your general perception about admins.

So good admins are like this:


 * A good admin...
 * ...is a role model to others
 * ...treats other users with respect
 * ...helps other users
 * ...adds new content
 * ...updates existing content to...
 * ...make it more accurate
 * ...add new information
 * ...fixes mistakes
 * ...monitors wikis to make sure, that...
 * ...users aren't feeling lost
 * ...no one vandalize or spams them
 * ...also monitors wikis to find mistakes, that might have been missed out on
 * ...always assumes good faith before...
 * ...calling out on a user
 * ...blocking a user
 * ...doesn't vandalize or spam wikis

Of cause, even an admin can't be always around the wiki (we also have a life outside the wikis after all) and we also have bad days like everyone else.

If you are angry, then you shouldn't edit at a wiki, but instead write down things and sleep a night over them. The next day, you will say: "What did I write there?! Good, that I didn't post that over at the wiki!" and rewrite your notes to get rid of anything bad or toss them.

I think, this tip also helps people, that aren't admins and some things, that make a good admin also can be applied to other users.

Of cause, a regular user can't do all things an admin can do, but you can still monitor your wikis, be nice to others and try to help out to your best extend.

Outro
If you want to read a short version, you can also check out PyroNacht's blog.

Now I will be back to continue working on a friend's wiki and help him out by adding new content to the articles.

See ya! Zenki