User:Tznkai/desk/A Theory of Administration

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Foreword

I am writing (welcome to the wide world of the wiki) this essay in order to address two closely related problems. First, the widening gulf between the administrators and all of the other editors on Wikipedia. This gulf is not only in activity, age, and perspective, but trust. The absence of trust is the origin of most of the woes found in the current formal dispute resolution process. The second is a distinct lack of uniform quality among administrators. This is in large part because we have no clear standard of the characteristics and behavior of a "good" administrator.

What I'm setting out below is in no way meant to provide an objective standard to try administrators against, or for use in a game of gotcha. Instead, it is a great deal of free advice and punditry with the hope of shaping community norms, which hopefully will be worth far more than you pay for it.

--Tznkai (talk)

Introduction: What exactly does "administrator" mean?

There are a lot of different ways to define "administrator", but the best one is to refer to those who take an active role in administrating the site. Mostly, this refers to the 1701 or so accounts with the sysop flag, or more accurately, the account holders, who have the ability to protect and delete pages, block users, view deleted pages and edits, and a few other useful tools, informally referred to as "the mop." "The mop" suggests that the administrator is a perpetually boring figure who performs boring and somewhat smelly maintenance tasks we associate with the cleaning and maintenance staff of a particular building. Sure, they have keys to the whole place, but they're not in anyway in charge. Thus in a sense, anyone who does the cleanup and maintenance associated with administrators is an administrator.

This essay refers to a sense of "administrator" that is both wider and more narrow those typically presented. It refers to users who attempt to solve and adjudicate disputes, whether it is edit wars, interpersonal conflicts, unpleasant behavior or what have you. The users who do this that are the most relevant are those who have the capability to enforce their opinions with the technical tools described above. (Henceforth referred to as "admin(s)"). Any person with the sysop's tools is a potential admin, but not all act like them in the sense described here. There are quite a few non sysops who do their best to act as admins without actually being sysops. This essay is relevant to them as well.

Why have admins?

Its important that we do not take the presence of admins as a given on Wikipedia, nor the natural entitlement of any user who happens to have been around long enough. They certainly aren't representatives, elected or otherwise, of the so called "Wikipedia community" (to be discussed in full below). No, they are the result of a perfectly natural and inevitable occurrence in no way unique to Wikipedia: people.

Wikipedia is simultaneously a collaborative encyclopedia and the community of self-selected volunteers who collaborate to create that encyclopedia. Seeing as that community is made of people, and people, being finite fallible creatures, given enough time, energy and virtual proximity, will disagree, make mistakes, and otherwise cause problems. As you all know, Wikipedia operates on a consensus model in order to create both its content, and the policies, guidelines, and procedures on how to shepherd that content into being, and otherwise make decisions. Since consensus is usually neither self-evident nor self enforcing, problems are the predicable result of such a decision making model. Admins then, are (somewhat less) self-selected volunteers who make attempts to solve those problems, whether they be technical or behavioral in nature.

The divide

On Wikipedia we find it distasteful for any user to try to enshrine a particular version of content, and even more distasteful, even dangerous, for a sysop to use technical tools to enforce such a position.^[1] The admin is constrained to certain spheres, generally the enforcement of conduct policies, of which there are many, and the adjudication^[2] of disputes within those policies, of which there are also many.

The implication then, is whatever problems admins acting as admins do not directly solve content problems except in the face very particular problems. In fact, the admin acting as an admin does not directly contribute to the encyclopedia at all.^[3] The admin then, acts in service to those who do directly contribute to the content of the encyclopedia, and is separated from the direct creation of content by at least one degree.^[4]

One degree of separation

Two degrees of separation

The content and conduct policies generally make up Wikipedia's governance, and they inform the admin and set her^[5] boundaries. It should be obvious, axiomatic even, that better content policies, guidelines, and procedures will lead to better content and that better conduct policies Content policies control the quality of our content, conduct policies control contributors so that they remain focused on content instead of each other.

Three degrees of separation and more

The admin should have no legitimate influence as an admin at three or more degrees of separation. This would be doing an act, which might help another act, which might help another act, which might help the act of content creation. Attempts to bring in larger ideas of "natural justice," "fairness" "right and wrong" "deterrence" "solidarity" and other so called principles usually fall into this category.

Notes

^ The reasons behind this are plenty, but beyond this essay, so they are simply taken as granted.
^ I use adjudication here instead of mediation deliberately. Admin work often includes mediation, but mediation does not always include adjudication. Adjudication is enforced, which mediation is not, an admins always operate at the minimum, with the implied threat of enforcement. Max Weber once famously said the state is an entity that claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence. The admin analogously, claims legitimacy through policy, and has an monopoly on the ability to employ technical hurdles. The problem is not in the idea of enforcement, but whether the claim to legitimacy is sound, unless of course you are a full blooded anarchist.
^ An admin acting as an admin may do great deal to remove or undo bad content, through deletion and reversion of vandalism, but these are not positive contributions, but negative ones, neither word used in the normative sense
^ The real world analogues are endless, but here are a few: mechanics, lawyers, judges, police-persons, hairdressers/barbers, firfighters, doctors, nurses, teachers, executives, shippers, reporters, restaurateurs, custodians, janitors, salespersons, retailers, and politicians of all stripes. This list should make it clear that services are vital, but when done poorly cause far more harm than good.
^ If I can't find a way to avoid using a pronoun, I will use the feminine one.

[1] The reasons behind this are plenty, but beyond this essay, so they are simply taken as granted.

[2] I use adjudication here instead of mediation deliberately. Admin work often includes mediation, but mediation does not always include adjudication. Adjudication is enforced, which mediation is not, an admins always operate at the minimum, with the implied threat of enforcement. Max Weber once famously said the state is an entity that claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence. The admin analogously, claims legitimacy through policy, and has an monopoly on the ability to employ technical hurdles. The problem is not in the idea of enforcement, but whether the claim to legitimacy is sound, unless of course you are a full blooded anarchist.

[3] An admin acting as an admin may do great deal to remove or undo bad content, through deletion and reversion of vandalism, but these are not positive contributions, but negative ones, neither word used in the normative sense

[4] The real world analogues are endless, but here are a few: mechanics, lawyers, judges, police-persons, hairdressers/barbers, firfighters, doctors, nurses, teachers, executives, shippers, reporters, restaurateurs, custodians, janitors, salespersons, retailers, and politicians of all stripes. This list should make it clear that services are vital, but when done poorly cause far more harm than good.

[5] If I can't find a way to avoid using a pronoun, I will use the feminine one.

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