User:Murph146/Becoming An Administrator

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What is a Wikipedia administrator?

If you are viewing this article then it's very possible that you are interested in becoming a Wikipedia administrator. Administrators, commonly known as admins or sysops, are Wikipedia editors trusted with access to restricted technical features ("tools"). For example, administrators can protect, delete and restore pages, move pages over redirects, hide and delete page revisions, edit protected pages, and block other editors. See Wikipedia:Administrators/Tools for more information.

Administrators assume these responsibilities as volunteers; they are not acting as employees of the Wikimedia Foundation. They are never required to use their tools and must never use them to gain an advantage in a dispute in which they are involved. Administrators should not be confused with Wikimedia system administrators ("sysadmins").

The English Wikipedia currently has 852 administrators.

How to prepare

While there are no offfical qualifications for adminship, other than being registered, it is probably most important that a nominee be a registered user of Wikipedia for a considerable amount of time. Because there are no qualifications time will be one of your biggest factors, among others, in the community determining whether or not they will approve your nomination. The more time you have spent editing documents and getting involved with the site the more experience you will gain to help you be a great admin if your request for adminship is successful. The length of time you have been a member is not the only factor users look at though. A couple other things that users look for when reviewing a new nomination are how they handle difficult questions, tasks, and disputes with other members.

The Process

In order to become an administrator you must first be nominated for adminship or nominate yourself. When either of these cases take place a page must be created as an RfA (Request for Adminship) subpage. The newly created page will allow the you or the person who nominated you to write a description of why you would make a good administator and explain the qualities that you possess. In a situation where you nominated, before the RfA can continue you must first accept the nomination for adminship. On a side note more than one person can nominate you for adminship. At a minimum the nomination for any user will continue for a minimum of seven days and can only be closed by a Wikipedia Bureacrat.

The next step in the process is to answer questions that Wikipedia has prepared for editors requesting adminship and questions that other users submit. It is important that when answering these questions the user stays calm and does not get involved in arguments and other things of that nature. Keeping calm when dealing with other users and not taking this personally all the time will lower the stress and allow them to better complete the process without any issues. <br\>

Wikipedia Questions

Below are the standard questions that Wikipedia requires you to answer if your are requesting adminship.

1.) What administrative work do you intend to take part in?

2.) What are your best contributions to Wikipedia and why?

3.) Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

User Questions

I also wanted to include some of the questions that other users taking part in your adminship project might ask. Below are several of those questions. As you can see I put them in order of their difficulty in my opinion. If you would like to view the entire RfA's that these optional questions came from please use the links below the questions.

1.) What is your opinion of WP:NLT and how would you enforce it, as an admin?

2.) How does one determine consensus? And how may it be determined differently on a talk page discussion, an XfD discussion, and a DRV discussion?

3.) In order to illustrate that you have at least a passing knowledge/understanding of the policies and processes in relation to the tools and responsibilities that go along with adminship, please answer the following questions. see below

Please describe/summarise why and when it would be appropriate for:

...an editor to be blocked (or unblocked)?
...a page to be protected (or unprotected)?
...a page to be speedily deleted (or speedily restored)?
...the policy to ignore all rules to be applied to a situation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Scottywong
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/MikeLynch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Fayenatic_london

Community Decision Process

The decision process of whether or not the request for adminship will be successful or unsuccessful is based on rating system as follows: support, deny, neutral. Typically, nomination with an 80% approval rate will pass and the user will become a new administrator. On the other hand, those nominations with an approval below 70% will fail. It's important to remember that bureaucrats have the ultimate say because any nomination is subject to their discretion. If you aren't successful that doesn't mean you can't try again at a later date. Typically most have a 4 in 10 chance in having a successful nomination, so it's not impossible.

Now That You're A Wikipedia Admin

Please note that Wikipedia rates these tasks on the possible negative effect they can have on the rest of the community and they ascend in order of severity. Before doing any type of admin work on a namespace article, it is imperative that you take the time to review how each of these tasks are completed in a manner than will not harm the rest of the site or make other doubt your skills. And again remember these are just a small portion of privileges and that it may take time to hone your newly acquired admin privileges. A great site within Wikipedia that will allow you to practice these skills in a safe environment is the New Admin School. <br\>

Newly Acquired Privileges
1. Granting and revoking account creator
2. Rolling back pages/articles
3. Protecting
4. Protecting deleted pages
5. Rollback granting and revoking
6. Deleting
7. Dealing with disputes
8. Blocking
9. Viewing deleted pages and contributions

What Does Being an Admin Involve?

As I'm sure you know by now, the work you do as an administrator is on a volunteer basis. Just because your not being paid for the work you do, you are still expected to follow all Wikipedia policies and guidelines. The manner in which you handle yourself reflects not only yourself, but also the admin community. One of the stereotypes of Wikipedia admins is that some are more powerful than others and that they think they are better than the editors. But, when interviewing several Wikipedia admins the majority stated that all admins basically have the same amount of power. The admins that are more powerful than the rest is a much smaller number and is usually due to that person being a bureaucrat or member of one of the Wikipedia committees.

The policies and guidelines that Wikipedia expects you to follow can be viewed on the appropriate tab within the bookshelf and is a good page for you to familarize yourself with now that you're an admin. The page breaks down the basis for Wikipedia's policies and guidelines and will give you an idea of how you should operate within these policies and guidelines. The policy that I think is most important for new admins to follow is the NPOV (Neutral Point Of View). Wikipedia also classifies NPOV as one of their three Core Content Policies. The other two core policies are verifiablity and no original research. For a list of the other policies and guidelines that you are expected to follow please see the List of Policies and Guidelines<br\>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_policies_and_guidelines<br\> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Core_content_policies<br\>

Past and Present Requests For Adminship

Before applying to become an administrator we suggest that you take a look at a number of past and present successful/unsuccessful requests so that you have a good idea of what is expected structurally and strategically. Be sure to take your time when applying for adminship or when speaking with someone who has nominated you. The most common reason for someones application for adminship not being successful is they did not read the directions clearly and did not review the suggested advice pages. To view the archives of successful and unsuccessful requests for adminship, please see the tab labeled "requests for adminship."

Success Stories

One success story I'd like to share with you is that of user:2over0 whose request for adminship was successful in November of 2009. This user's request for adminship came about through a nomination from user:MastCell. Since joining Wikipedia in 2005, 2over0 has made 16,423 edits and contributes almost 3 edits per page. As expected the majority of edits are on articles and following that is edits to talk pages.

The reason he was nominated is due to several qualities and factors that are mentioned within this bookshelf. Some of these factors are that he has been a user for over two years, he maintains a calm and calm perspective when dealing with conflict, and he is consistently a voice of reason and moderation. When it came time for other users to vote on his nomination the support was unanimous with 94 people in support and no one opposing. Overall, I would say that 2over0 nomination is a great example for other users who are looking to become admins. For more detailed information and his responses to the questions submitted feel free to visit his adminship nomination which can be found in the successful adminship archives.

Another great success story is that of user:Eliz81. This particular user was nominated by user:Alison and a co-nomination for user:anonymous dissident (who is also a bureaucrat). Since joining Wikipedia Eliz81 has made over 15,836 edits and averages 1.5 edits per page. It is very clear from both nominations that this user is thought very highly of and is quite knowledgable. What struck me as most important is that when dealing with certain issues "Rather than slapping down a boilerplate warning, she would often be found leaving a message specifically targeted for that person." This to me shows much more concern for other people's feelings and is a much more personal way of handling an issue. While this is just one example of a quality she possesses, there are several others evident in the nomination. Overall I would say that Eliz81 is a great example to the rest of the Wikipedia community of how an administrator should try to act on an everyday basis or when possible. Again for more information on Eliz81's nomination for adminship please see her requests on the Wikipedia successful adminship page.