Wikipedia talk:Administrators

Archive 1: September 2002-April 10, 2003
Archive 2: April 14, 2003- April 30, 2003
Archive 3: May 1, 2003-July 2, 2003
Archive 4: July 11, 2003-

Jheijmans, former admin?

User:Jheijmans said on his User page that he used to be an admin last year until he quit for a while. Does anybody remember that? If so, we can add him to Former Administrators list. --Menchi 06:30, 13 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Question on Mirror Sites moved to Wikipedia:Village pump.

Moved from Wikipedia:Requests for adminship

I'd like to nominate the following inactive sysops for de-adminship. This has been discussed on wikipedia talk:administrators (further talk can probably go there). I'd discuss it with them first... but they're inactive ;-) This is not to deny their many excellent contributions while here, simply to recognise that they are here no longer.

All the above have been inactive for two or more months - in some cases much longer. Thanks. Martin 20:34, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

What's this for? Just to clean out the list? Will Lee Daniel Crocker have to re-apply for sysop when he comes back? --Uncle Ed 20:50, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Apparently not "just to clean out". On wikipedia talk:administrators there has been some discussion related to perceived security issues concerning inactive sysop accounts. I don't think it's urgent, but should be discussed. Kosebamse 20:55, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Why don't we just deactivate them and allow them to re-sysoped w/o having to go through the normal nomination process when they come back? We need to set a guideline of what time period of inactivity is enough for de-opping though. --Jiang 22:26, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I disagree with this, and I'll say why on Wikipedia talk:administrators, where this discussion began, in the interests of consolidation and forest fire containment. I suggest anyone else who wants to discuss this take their comments there also. -- Tim Starling 00:51, Oct 11, 2003 (UTC)

Martin, absolutely not. Inactivity is no basis for deactivation. Kingturtle 09:18, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I have been banned for "repeated vandalism". I have no idea what I did to deserve this, and seriously hope it was a mistake on the part of the administrator. I defy RickK or whoever else is responsible for sentencing me, to show where I vandalized anything. Vroman 20:30, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

What do you mean? The Block log shows no record of a user called Vroman being banned. If you are blocked, how are you posting here? Angela . 21:30, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

All I can think of is that Vroman got an IP from an IP pool that was banned previously. --snoyes 21:33, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The situation seems to have corrected itself. Thanks for taking the time to investigate. Vroman 23:10, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Specific question on how to become an administrator

Hi! This is taken from the Request for adminship page:

"After a 7 day period for comments, if there is general agreement that someone who requests adminship should be given it, then a developer will make it so and record that fact at Wikipedia:Recently created admins. "

My question is: what exactly does "general agreement" mean? Can you become an administrator by only having one person that has reviewed your work and that was positive about it? (--130.236.224.35)

General agreement means that everyone who responds (more or less) agrees that you should become an admin. Specific questions/criticisms must be addressed before the request/nomination can proceed. If you do make a request there, you can be assured that you will get more than one response. --Raul654 18:52, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

What are these questions/criticisms?

People will post them after a request/nomination is made. They vary on a case by case basis. The most common criticism is that someone will want to become an admin after being here only a short time. They're generally told to keep contributing for a few months, and reapply later. --Raul654 21:39, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Ok, but theoretically it is then possible to become an administrator by just having one positive comment, or am I wrong?

Theoretically, many things are possible. ;-) --snoyes 00:02, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Please add [[eo:Vikipedio:Administrantoj]] Thanks Arno Lagrange 14:42, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Done. Dori | Talk 16:54, Jan 13, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Recently created admins

Wikipedia:Recently created admins is nice but it only lists recently created admins. Do we have a similar page lists old admins? Optim 03:42, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators#Former_Administrators? --Menchi (Talk)â 04:23, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Previously, this was done on the mailing lists, so you'd need to check the wikien-l archives for details of less recently created admins. Angela . 19:22, Jan 22, 2004 (UTC)

I see, thanks Menchi and Angela for your answers! Peace, Optim 11:22, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

168...

I am aware of the actions of 168... that led to the need for arbitration. However, I am curious to know what the process was to temporarily suspend his admin powers until the Committee makes is ruling. Was it the arbitration committee that made the call for the temporary suspension? Was it a developer? Do tell. Kingturtle 07:31, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It was carried out by Tim Starling following a vote on Wikipedia talk:Possible misuses of admin privileges#User:168... which showed 87% in favour of temporarily desysopping 168. Tim then sought the arbitration committee's view on whether he should stay desyopped. Angela . 07:44, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

Where does it say that it was carried out? On what authority does that straw poll carry so much weight? I am trying to find the paper trail. Kingturtle 07:57, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

He then posted on the mailing list and received Jimbo's blessing: [1]. --Jia ng

Arg. That dreaded mailing list. :) Thanks for the info :) Kingturtle 17:21, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Moved here from Village Pump, Fuzheado 02:46, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Remove all sysops

I propose that the term "sysop" be removed from the Wikipedia lexicon. We already have administrator (short admin), and it is kind of confusing to have both. Not to mention that sysop doesn't really fit the bill, unless you consider Wikipedia a system! I am bringing this up now because of the newly emerged Special:Makesysop seems to be introducing the term sysop even more. I am guessing this would be mostly a search and replace kind of deal, disruptive yes, but is it any more difficult than that? Are the benefits worth it? Dori | Talk 20:15, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

When I saw the heading I thought "ACK!", but I think Dori has a nice point here about lingo. We needn't make it too confusing. "Sysop" does sound cooler than "admin", though.... :-) Anyway, I almost always say admin, and will try to do so in the future. Good idea! Jwrosenzweig 21:03, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the idea of this person who calls herself "Dori" (what's in that name, anyway?). Sysop is a great word and should be used more often. 141 21:45, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

...calls himself Dori. Angela . 07:12, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)

Sysop is an account switch and admin is the person who controls that account. Sadly many people use sysop to refer to people. That irks me. --mav 22:02, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Huh? So an admin is someone with sysop status? What kind of sense does that make? I agree that we should standardise on one term to minimise confusion. An admin should be somebody who has an admin account, which is defined by a switch called is_admin or somesuch. - IMSoP 22:42, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

For whatever reason the switch is (or at least was in phase II) is_sysop. Thus the distinction. --mav

So, let's be practical: given that it's confusing to have both terms in use*, would it be easier to standardise on sysop to avoid database changes, or would it be no big deal to just replace is_sysop with is_admin? [*:that is, assuming the consensus is that it is confusing] - IMSoP 23:51, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Honestly, I just use sysop and admin interchangably. →Raul654 23:05, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

But do you think it sensible to do so, especially given that new users won't necessarily realise that they are synonyms? - IMSoP 23:14, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Dori (without any criticism of developers or the DB architects). It would be nice to have consistent naming, more importantly for the MediaWiki software to be useful to folks outside of Wikipedia-land.

I also prefer "admin", though it's no big deal. Tannin 03:09, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Another related peeve is how we have "Talk" pages, yet the link to this is called "Discuss this page." When I give instructions to newbies to "Use the talk page!" I get dozens of emails asking how to get there. They are quite surprised that "Discuss this page" is the appropriate link, and I don't blame them. Fuzheado 00:28, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Refer them to the "discussion page" instead of the "talk page". The link title "Discuss this page" is much more obvious for newbies looking for a way to give feedback.—Eloquence 03:43, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)

I thought this had already been done. Kind of reminds me of how people think "bans" and "blocks" are the same thing. - Hephæstos|§ 03:51, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I like the word sysop. :) But as that's not a very good reason, I support any change/standardisation of the term admin instead. Angela . 07:12, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Being that one of Wikipedia's goals is to attract casual newcomers and (hopefully) turn them into contributors, intuitive interfaces and naming schemes should be a primary goal. →Raul654 07:18, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)

Erm, Cyp has invented a category below to put his vote in, which is very funny - but I'm not quite sure what point he's trying to make. [Especially given that we already have a "don't care" category] Would you care to enlighten us on what your actual opinion is, Cyp? - IMSoP 15:58, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It's probably a very important point I was trying to make, I just haven't figured out what that point is, yet. I thought sysop meant the person, while admin was the state/setting/whatever. I think sysop sounds a bit better than admin, since admin is too common and ordinary-sounding. I think sysop might be slightly easier to pronounce than admin, too. So if it wasn't possible to add new sections, I would probably have voted for "sysop", "don't care" or both. Κσυπ Cyp 22:58, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Straw poll

Note: I've arranged this back into the original options, and moved people's comments to after their names. There's no point having a straw poll if people just put a comment and then vote for it as though it was an option. If you think I've moved your vote to the wrong option - well, you should have voted properly in the first place, shouldn't you? - IMSoP 12:27, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

A) I think that sysop should be deprecated in favor of admin

→Raul654 07:18, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC) - I think admin is more intuitive than sysop. This is very important where new user are concerned.
IMSoP 16:36, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) (although it's marginal, as long as there is a standard term to avoid confusion)
Fuzheado 11:08, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC) (though we can still use sysop casually, but all our docs, official terms, naming should use admin or administrator)
Dori 14:41, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC) we could use the uniformity, and admin makes more sense in this case
Marshman 17:27, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC) Yeh, admin makes more sense
Noel 03:09, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC) To me, "admin" sounds less forbidding, so I prefer it. But if y'all think "sysop" is less intimidating, then I'd go with that instead.
— mendel ☎ 22:00, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC) An admin is a caretaker; a sysop is a babysitter. "Admin" implies more respect for the desires of the administered.

B) I think that admin should be deprecated in favor of sysop

Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 12:31, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC) Just an opinion. Dislike the term administrator on aesthetic grounds, and have some nostalgic affection to the term "sysop"; it's sort of old fogey lingo.
Κσυπ Cyp (based on comment above: So if it wasn't possible to add new sections, I would probably have voted for "sysop", "don't care" or both)

C) Leave it like it is / I don't care

Fennec 03:15, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Angela (Do what you like but don't fuss about people using the wrong one)
Maximus Rex 21:00, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Kingturtle 20:48, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC) (Let's go ride bikes. )
RickK 04:05, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC) (Aren't there more important things to worry about?)
Κσυπ Cyp (I think that admin should be deprecated in favour of sysop on weekdays and that sysop should be deprecated in favour of admin on weekends.)

D) I think both "sysop" and "admin" should be deprecated in favor of "janitor"

Cyan 02:43, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Martin 18:37, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I actually prefer custodian, but janitor is good. moink 22:02, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

blocking utility usage

Out of personal curiosity, I wanted to see how we're doing as a group regarding utilizing the block and unblock powers. I thought I'd share the data; it is for fun and for self-assessment.

Not including tests, jokes and self-bans, the following is a reasonably accurate list of admins and the number of blocks they've made in 2004. It is my understanding that IP blocks expire after 24 hours. As long as that is true, everything is cool - because most of these involve IPs.

86 Maximus Rex (with 10 unblocks)
40 Hephaestos (with 2 unblocks)
35 Morwen (with zero unblocks)
28 Pakaran (with 1 unblock)
28 Dysprosia (with zero unblocks)
25 Ahoerstemeier (with 5 unblocks)
25 Snoyes (with 2 unblocks)
22 Evercat (with 2 unblocks)
18 Salsa Shark (with zero unblocks)
16 Silsor (with 5 unblocks)
16 Angela (with 4 unblocks)
14 Secretlondon (with 3 unblocks)
14 Dori (with zero unblocks)
12 Fuzheado (with 2 unblocks)
12 Tim Starling (with 1 unblock)
11 Dante Alighieri (with zero unblocks)
 8 RickK (with zero unblocks)
 7 Jiang (with 2 unblocks)
 7 Cyan (with 1 unblock)
 6 Tannin (with zero unblocks)
 5 Eloquence (with 3 unblocks)
 5 Raul654 (with zero unblocks)
 4 Delirium (with 12 unblocks)
 4 Ed Poor (with 2 unblocks)
 4 Finlay McWalter (with zero unblocks)
 3 Stevertigo (with 1 unblock)
 3 Jwrosenzweig (with zero unblocks)
 2 Maveric149 (with 3 unblocks)
 2 Infrogmation (with zero unblocks)
 2 Arwel Parry (with 2 unblocks)
 2 Jimbo Wales (with 2 unblocks)
 2 PMelvilleAustin (with 1 unblock)
 2 JeLuF (with zero unblocks)
 2 The Anome (with zero unblocks)
 2 Muriel Gottrop (with 1 unblock)
 1 Danny (with 1 unblock)
 1 Kaihsu (with 1 unblock)
 1 Andre Engels (with 1 unblock)
 1 Camembert (with zero unblocks)
 1 AstroNomer (with zero unblocks)
 1 Adam Bishop (with zero unblocks)
 1 Meelar (with zero unblocks)
 1 Bmills (with zero unblocks)
 1 G-Man (with zero unblocks)
 1 Jtdirl (with zero unblocks)
 1 Evil saltine (with zero unblocks)
 1 WhisperToMe (with zero unblocks)
 1 Quercusrobur (with zero unblocks)
 0 John Kenney (with 2 unblocks)
 0 Menchi (with 2 unblocks)
 0 Jamesday (with 1 unblock)

2004 Totals through 23:10, 17 Feb 2004: 487 blocks. 75 unblocks.

Admins participating in block/unblock activities in 2004: 51

Admins NOT YET participating in block/unblock activities in 2004: 107

Your pal, Kingturtle 03:10, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, pal. How about a list of Bureaucrats now? --Uncle Ed 16:24, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Oh, never mind. They're in Wikipedia:bureaucrats. --Ed

It would be nice to see a more even distribution of banning: when 4% of the sysops account for over 50% of the blocks, I can't help feeling uncomfortable... Martin 18:40, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, as one of the 107 who have not blocked anyone this year, let me say that I didn't ask to be an admin on Wikipedia to block anyone. I found I had the time to help with the maintenance, & so with these "kewl powerz" I occasionally delete some vandalism, once in a while protect a page, but basically find in the few hours I devote to Wikipedia that there's nothing worthy happening to justify pulling the admin rights out of their bag & using them. And besides, I'd rather work on the content -- which is probably the attitude of most admins. -- llywrch 01:06, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Date confusions

Does "The following users have sysop rights as of October 4, 2003" mean to say that the admin list was last updated on that date ? But it is being updated regularly.
Page says "Sysop activity status was checked on February 17, 2004. ". But Optim's entry in the Inactive list shows 6 March.

I think the issue is that Optim listed himself; however, February is the last time someone actually checked the contribs of every sysop to find the inactive ones. Pakaran . 19:12, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

there should be a discussion on 'social organization in cyberspace'

where is the discussion of abuse of authority? the chilling effect on free speech? the discouragement of controversy by 'reversals' and 'deletions' that need not list any reason other than 'this page is garbage'. - - did you folks even take any government classes in school? do you know what 'checks and balances' means? do you even want to talk about it? - - no, of course you dont. admins are just doing their righteous thing and cannot make mistakes of any import. or of course nothing bad is happening. no only bad people are restricted by an unaccountable and unelected admin system. - - nice attitude. thanks for turning wiki into slashdot. nice 'objective' 'wide ranging' page, that. -

Even though I make it a policy not to feed the trolls, in this case, I'll make an exception. You're flatly wrong about admins being unelected - Admins *are* elected on the requets for adminship page. Any person can vote there, although sock puppets votes (accounts with only a handful of edits) tend to be ignored. As far as checks and balances - admins do not think in lockstep. We disagree a fair amount of the time, and we talk it out. If you don't like it, tough. As far as not being accountable - that's what we have the abuse of sysop powers page for. In the future, if you want to troll successfully, you might not want to make your claims so obviously false. →Raul654 02:09, Mar 23, 2004 (UTC)

Well, just to let you know, admins/sysops are elected - see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship - and they are constantly held accountable by the community as a whole, with most of their actions being severely limited by convention. Changes made unilaterally by one admin/sysop are quite often questioned, and very few actions can be taken which are not reversible by someone else with the same status - hence the existence of Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion as well as Wikipedia:Votes for deletion, for instance. That the page didn't express this to you may well be a failure of the page - although in-depth political discussion would probably need a separate page, linked to from here. - IMSoP 02:17, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC) [comment written simultaneously to Raul654's above, and in a slightly more "chilled" mood, clearly ;)]

Haha! I'm actually quite calm, even if the writing didn't sound that way. It's just that the prepetual accusations of being part of a cabal (Plautus, Bird, et al) have really started to annoy me. One and for all, TINC. →Raul654 02:24, Mar 23, 2004 (UTC)

OH gee, 'convention'. we all know how reliable that is. nobody would ever abuse their power because they should be afraid of 'convention'!!! yes, that is a brilliant check and balance. im sure lots of governments use the terrible terrifying power of 'convention' to keep leaders in line. I think thats what kept nixon from assassinating john dean. 'convention'. yeah. good idea guys.

also i am very heartened to learn that administrators can crticizie each other. because we all know that as a group, only admins should be able to criticize each other, after all, they have been the most hard working and care more about wiki than the lowly slimeball users. furthermore, there will obviously be no danger of 'groupthink', because admins are geniuses in the first place, because look how hard they work and how much they care. third off, admins will never ever have their own interests, as a group. nope. there will never be a decision where admins have to decide on something that is between their own interests and the interests of the users. in fact, the interests of the admins are the same as the interests of the users, sort of like Maos argument against democracy in china: the people's interests are represented by the party, therefore the people dont need to have any say over the party.

"If you don't like it, tough. . . . . troll" -- Yes this demonstrates the true democratic spirit of the admins. Obviously someone who thinks like this is very worried about users' interests, and will be protective against the abuse of power as witnessed on just about every other 'community' website on the entire internet, like slashdot, kuro5hin, freerepublic, etc. You sir are truly 'serving the people' and guaranteeting access for all. Nope, no cabalist tendencies here, not at all no siree bob.

Hell, there is nothing to worry about. Why am I even concerned? Yes, the system is perfectly adequate, and nobody will ever be driven off by a bunch of admins deciding their article has no merit or that their opinions are stupid. Or if they did surely they would be able to find the 'admin discussion' where there is guaranteed to be another admin who will take their side against the deleting admin. I dont see why these whiny users want a say in anything, the admins can take care of it all, and if the user cant be bothered to observe this process, too bad for them!

In fact, the discussion pages for administrative decisions are so easy to find, so well thought out, and work so well, that you should be commended for improving on meatspace democracy. Nobody ever goes to the 'deletion list' page and says 'what is this mess'. There are also never any edit conflicts on that page, because it is so short, and there are so few people trying to access it simultaneously. Obviously this whole process of oversight of administrators has been so well thought out and all the issues about overreach of power have been resolved, and nothing really important is going on here.

Nope. System is fine. Full steam ahead. Silence the trolls, for they know nothing of the burden of responsibility!

how come when someone edits a page an admin doesnt like, its called 'vandalism'. but when an admin deletes or edits a page, and writes 'this is nonsense', its called 'administration'?

OK, the first time, I gave you the benefit of the doubt, but after that little diatribe, I'm tempted to move a little further towards Raul654's attitude. However, just to put some more basic facts at your disposal in the hope that you will actually find out something about the system you are criticising:

The concept of a wiki is largely based around the idea of what I referred to above as "convention", also known as "Soft Security" and "Community Solutions". The idea is that everyone is accountable to everyone else, and in an ideal world every user would have equal access to the project. Hoever, in a project the size of this one, it could potentially cause a major nuisance if a random user (who need supply no personal details to have the same access rights as a normal logged in user like me) could do things like page deletion at will - let alone the ability to block other users, which is nonetheless sadly necessary on occasion. So a very limited set of abilities is only granted to a subset of the users. But the decisions are not made by these users, only the actions.

In fact, this whole conversation rather makes me favour the suggestion that we change the terminology to something more akin to "housekeeper". There is no such thing as "the group of administrators", nor are there pages where things are discussed specifically between administrators; and any user is quite free to call any other user's edits "vandalism" or "nonsense", with the knowledge that any other user can come along and disagree with them. In fact, ways of working out such disagreements fairly are always being suggested and tried, as a more thorough look into onsite politics would reveal.

In short, your comments are interesting, but mostly fail to take into account the basic workings of this community. - IMSoP 17:25, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

---

look, man, i dont care about how it works, i care about how its going to work. every single last web board on the internet has had instances where the people in power abused it to delete things simply because they didnt like it. power corrupts.

OK, I can do the condescending thing too: "look, matey boy, if you don't care how it works, shut up and leave us alone"

if there are administrators, and there are more than one, there damn well is a group of administrators. they discuss things on the 'deletion' page, by posting their comments under the suggestions for deletion, suggestions made only by other administrators. if you cant figure out how admins might have a group interest that is different from the users, i feel sorry for you.

the above is factually incorrect. both suggestions and responses on "the deletion page" can be made by any user - yes, that includes you. The only thing the admins/sysops do is implement the final decision. And as for admins/sysops having some kind of "group interest" or "shared opinion", would that arguments were as simple as that around here! At least that way we'd reach some kind of decision sometimes.

the most obvious example would be pages like this. since wiki is itself made by discussions and articles on wiki, and administrators position, abilities, and so forth are come about to by discussions within the wiki system, it kind of stands to reason that eventually some day there will be some fight, wherein the administrators will use their power to further their interests at the expense of the users, on one of these such discussions. any page with discussions about the place of administrators, about admins overstepping, about the way adminning works, etc etc etc, could be a starting point for the armageddon of wikipedia.

so, what are you trying to say exactly? admins will use their power of being able to edit a page, just like we're both doing now (just to stress this, I'm not a sysop/admin any more than you are) to... um... discuss things?

if you dont guard against the corruption of power, it will take over. 'new things' will quit being tried out, because those in power will not want to lose their power. why? because its been institutionalized. the rules are in place. the code is like concrete, it is slowly setting in, without any safeguards in place. By the time you need them, it will be too late.

thanks for the warning. we have plenty of safeguards, and are always open to suggestions for new ones. and it's worth mentioning that users become (and, indeed, cease to be) sysops/admins by the agreement of users, not that of existing sysops/admins, so there is no obvious way of anyone "taking over"

really i dont care though. someone will just fork wiki, since it is all copyleft someone will just take all the content over along with them. sometimes we have to learn things the hard way.

please, feel free to do so; then we won't have to put up with your uninformed rantings any more. HAND IMSoP 00:20, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Administrators should not do anything that's not supported by policy. Everyone can participate in creating policy and reprimanding or de-admining. There is a way to undo every admin action, so everything is reversable. Additionally, normal users far outnumber admins, so they could elect better admins and remove bad ones. Dori | Talk 00:11, Mar 24, 2004 (UTC) [drafted simultaneously]

Well, Dori, maybe this should be explained somewhere. Like in a wikipedia constitution or something. I have read the admin page and other 'meta' pages and none of it mentions 'voting' for administrators. There is no mention of checks and balances. Pretend if you will that an article was written about the US president that somehow failed to mention voting, congress, and the supreme court. That is the situation we have on wikipedia. Furthermore, if the policy is hidden/hard to find/not written, then it is not much different than if users had no voice at all. In fact my problem is not so much the process, it is the geek 'benevolent dictatorship' attitude that goes unchecked in all of cyberspace. This fellow says there are plenty of safeguards but does not mention a single one. You say 'admins shouldnt disregard policy' but how exactly is this enforced?

As for genius saying admins have no group interest, i would simply ask him to study basic political science or history. That is like congress or the politburo saying they never agree on anything. To them, they never do. But they sure agree on their pay raises, on pork barrel projects, on stopping campaign finance reform, rejecting anti-lobbying laws, discouraging third parties through ballot access laws and debates, and on a lot of other things that they, as a class, have a common interest in. The very idea that someone could say that people with power have no 'common interest' is like someone decrying evolution as a crackpot theory. Actually it is a basic scientific fact of human organizational behavior. As for 'condescension', i am just so sorry that I fight fire with fire and am not a submissive little coward like the rest of the users who either give up and leave or dont say anything.

All the information I talked about is in the page, please read it, review it, improve it. We can't force anyone to do anything here. If you think there needs to be a Wikipedia Constitution, then read all the policy pages and write that constition. Dori | Talk 16:28, Mar 31, 2004 (UTC)

I guess the key point about admins/sysops having "no group interest" is that you seem to be over-estimating the amount of power they have, and the extent to which they form a coherent group. The famous assertion that "power tends to corrupt; absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely" immediately suggests (to me, anyway) that a small amount of power will only create a small amount of corruption, and if you look at the actual powers granted, they are about as far from absolute as you can get. And since there is (to my knowledge) no part of the site, and no decision-making process, that involves sysops/admins exclusively (unlike, say, the US Congress), they rarely exhibit any characteristics of a "class" - although there may arguably be psychological effects. Essentially, though, I personally think we are a long way from having anything resembling a "sysop/admin agenda", or the ability to realise such an agenda. - IMSoP 17:13, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Admin powers abuse by Adam Bishop

I am afraid I have to complain about Adam Bishop's unfair behaviour and, what I feel, an extreme abuse of his administrator powers.

On 20 Mar 2004, 22:34 he has blocked my account and unfairly reverted my edits in Cottbus, Munich, Dresden, Leipzig, Free City of Gdansk regarding the usage of alternative language names of various cities.

Despite the Wikipedia rule diplayed on this page Sysops can block and unblock IP addresses. This is meant to be used solely to deal with persistent vandalism. IP banning is not meant to be used against unpopular opinions, non-persistent vandalism, etc. Adam Bishop used this ban againts me to push his presonal POV, and to block me from editing and discussing the issue. His action was done without any discussion or warning.

My opinion is that the alternative language placenames should be allowed on condition that this is aplied equally to all languages. For example if we allow German names for Polish cities, we should also allow Polish names for the German cities.

Adam's opinion seems to be that German names for Polish cities should be allowed and maybe enforces, and at the same time Polish names for German cities should be forbidden.

This subject is already discusssed (and was discussed in time of Adams' actions) in the Wikipedia mediation started at my request:

Adam's action blocked me from participating in these discussions and in the mediation process. Adam should have consulted these pages before makin his action.

In these circumstances I demmand:

a formal apologies from Adam Bishop

some sort of penalty for his unfair and biased behavour

revoking of his administrator rights, as he clearly has broked the basic rules

Mestwin of Gdansk 00:10, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Just received apologies

Hey Gdansk, I shouldn't have blocked you, so I apologize, but you were trolling and vandalizing and it was very frustrating. Polish cities should have Polish names, but Kiel, Munich, and others aren't Polish. You even said to me that you were changing those articles out of some kind of revenge. Adam Bishop 00:00, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Apologies half accepted, as I do not feel guilty, and you continue to claim that I was. That fulfills 0.5 out of my 3 demands above. -- Mestwin of Gdansk 00:29, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Who are you to demand anything? You are not blocked now and Adam apologized. --mav 10:00, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Is there a way to see the IP addresses used by registered users (in order to confirm sockpuppet suspicions)?

Is there a way to see the IP addresses used by registered users (in order to confirm sockpuppet suspicions)? Better yet, is there a way to get a list of users that have connected from the same IP as a particular user? Mkweise 22:48, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No (if you are able to then it's a bug and security issue), but developers have access to the logs and can check if an account is a sock puppet (if it's being used for making trouble). Dori | Talk 22:54, Mar 31, 2004 (UTC)

See wikipedia:feature requests. It's a common request, but there's no ability at the moment. There probably should be. Martin 01:08, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Kinds of users

Wikipedia has different kinds of users, with different kinds of powers.

anonymous users
registered users, also called volunteers. Can upload images and rename pages.
sysops/admins, can revert changes, deleted pages & images, and block users.
bureaucrats, stewards : can appoint admins on one or all wikis
developers: have sql access to all dbs, can change sources.

Admins have extra powers, and thus extra responsibility, but no extra authority. Admins have an 'example function' towards other volunteers. That is: if you are an admin, try to be always polite, friendly, kind, stay out of quarrels, etc.

A admin is not 'more' than other volunteers, but he can do more. All authority rests with the wikipedia community. You can not set the direction of a wiki, act on your own authority, or whatever. This applies even if a community is very small, even new volunteers should have a chance to have their say.

Try to follow procedures strictly - if you as a admin dont do it, dont expect that others will do it. Dont quarrel, and certainly not publicly with other admins. Of course you can have differences of opinion, but keep things civilised.

Dont advertise your being admin. Authority does not derive from this, but is carried by your arguments and deeds.

Listing your real name and email address is not obligatory, but it works easier if other admins know these.

Confidential

If confidential information comes your way, handle it with care.

Protect wikipedia by being carefull with your password. Dont choose an easy-to-guess password such as your name, yopur userid, or words like 'secret'.

Dont forget to logout when using wiki from a public compueter susch as a university

Using your power

You can

block an IP-address: do this only if the user keeps vandalizing pages after having been warned, and for a limited time.
block a user: do this only after conscent from other users.
protect a page: this is antii-wiki. Avoid it when possible. If you do it, state why.
remove a page or image: do this only after having listed the page for two weeks. If the page contains just obscenities, you can delete it immediatly.

Always use you common sense, and act in the interest of wikipedia.

Request to ban John Kenney =

User http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:John_Kenney has just vandalised 3 pages Gdynia, Gdansk and Szczecin by removing the list of sports teams, list of local politicians and the title line. One of his comments was so sick of this shit. I am not sure if the shit remark was to the Polish sporting teams of the Polish politicians, or something else, but this behaviour requiers sokme action. I FEEL INSULTED. Szczecin banditism. Gdynia banditism and Gdansk banditism. May I suggest a 24h ban, and if this will not help to ban this bandit permanetly. Please HELP!!!!!

Go away - you are annoying. Manning 21:48, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Need help to move a page history

There has been confusion over Macrocosm and Microcosm. It was originally Macrocosm. I changed it to Macrocosm/Microcosm. And somebody changed it to Macrocosm and Microcosm. Now the original history is lost and I would like for it to meet up. Is that possible?WHEELER 14:35, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I've done the history merge. Please check if I missed something. Dori | Talk 15:23, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)

Fatal error in Russian wikipedia

In http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Mainpage was added   between words "Çàãëàâíàÿ" and "ñòðàíèöà". Now all pages of ru.wikipedia.org not opening:

Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-new/includes/Skin.php on line 872

How fix it? --Ctac

The sign ";" caused this problem. Who can fix it? On-line access to ru.wikipedia.org doesn't work now!!! It is necessary fix string 872 in skin.php. Please, help! --Ctac 10:09, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This is now fixed, but you still need to remove the &nbsp. This talk page is not the best place to announce such errors since it's not something that administrators can do anything about. #mediawiki is the fastest place to get a response. If you can't get on IRC, ask on the village pump for someone else to report it there. Angela . 11:29, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! --Ctac 11:40, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Page move problems

If I try to move a page over to one of its Redirects (which has a history), the move fails with the message

The page could not be moved: a page of that name already exists, or the name you have chosen is not valid. Please choose another name, or contact an Administrator to help you with the move.

With a link to this page to request assistance. However, when you get here, there doesn't appear to be a suitable category to handle page move problems. (I was trying to move Les Fauves to Fauvism) -- Solipsist 09:25, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Done. I guess the village pump might have been a quicker place to ask. Angela . 23:18, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

Many thanks - I wasn't in rush. I should think the Fauvists are pretty laid back. However, I was more worried about updating the instructions on this page to handle this sort of case, since this is where the error message sends you. -- Solipsist 12:42, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Articleexists now mentions the village pump. Angela . 22:32, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

He-hee - that's one solution. -- Solipsist 05:24, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)