User blog:Josephyr/The Road to Becoming an Administrator

Hello everyone! This is my first blog on Community Central (took me long enough!), and I decided to talk about a well-covered, but important topic - the road to adminship.

For some, traveling the road to becoming an admin is easy; for some it's hard; for some it's confusing; for some it's difficult. I hope to provide the best possible route to receiving administrator rights on a wiki in the clearest possible steps.

First, one must ask themselves, "Why do I want to be an administrator?" This is the first and most important step on the journey. A user should not solely seek this position for the title, influence, or power that it holds. A person desiring to have SysOp rights should want them in order to further help the wiki, whether that is through deleting unneeded pages, blocking troublemakers, or even taking the role of a leader to help with community-based tasks. A user should have clear and concise reasons as to why them being an administrator would benefit the wiki before taking the step to request the rights.



Second, one must be fully familiar and assimilated into the community on the wiki where they desire administrator rights. It is unwise to instantly join a wiki, and request administrator rights very soon, unless the circumstances call for such unusual action. It is highly recommended that a user knows the wiki's workings, the user's interactions with one another, and have a good knowledge of the current circumstances on the wiki. After a user has attained this knowledge, they may move onto the next part of their admin journey.

Third, one must have an established history of quality edits. To become an administrator, a community has to see that you genuinely care enough for the wiki to help build it up through good contributions. Remember, it is not the *quantity* of edits (the amount), but the *quality* of them.

Fourth, one must have a general knowledge of administrator tools, before considering the role of being one. There are dozens of help pages which can assist a user in this area, with some being Help:Deleting, Help:Blocking, and Help:Rollback. Having a general idea of how to use these tools will help prevents mistakes, or mis-clicks. Once a user has a basic understanding of these, they can move onto the next phase of their administrator journey.

Fifth, and last, is requesting the rights. Every wiki is different in this manner. Since we've already established that one should be familiar the community's workings in the second point, this should be an easy step. Remember to follow the wiki's guidelines for requesting admin rights, and be completely genuine with your application. Do not make up things, or act a certain way to achieve the rights. However, in the event the wiki does not a community, or a specific procedure, ask one of the bureaucrats for their assistance in the matter. And as always, if there are no bureaucrats, you can adopt the wiki.

Well, I hoped you enjoyed reading this blog, and I wish you a very good day.

Cheers,