Help:Administrator expectations

The following is an overview of expectations for administrators. It has been heavily influenced by lessons learned from other wikis, and from Wookieepedia's excellent Administrative autonomy and What adminship is not pages. It is highly recommended everyone — regardless of their admin status — read these pages to understand the purpose and expectations of the wiki admin role.

Administrative autonomy
Administrators are trusted members of the community who have been granted rights by that community. They are permitted to exercise their judgment in some cases for the benefit of the wiki at large.

From a practical standpoint, this means the following:
 * Barring extenuating circumstances, no active administrator can unilaterally undo another active administrator's decision.
 * Note: this applies only to administrators performing administrator-only tasks; an admin may for example revert another admin's edits as any user can do to any other user, with the normal rules regarding civility, edit warring, etc. in place.

Therefore: if you believe an administrator wrongfully blocked you, or you disagree with their decision on page deletion, you should go to that administrator and politely state your case. If you and the administrator cannot come to an agreement, only then bring in other administrators to weigh in. The original administrator will remain part of the discussion. The exception is if the administrator has engaged in personal attacks or abusive behavior directed at you.

Guiding principles
Administrators should be regular contributors to the wiki and respond promptly to editor requests. This does not mean they need to be aware of all goings-on nor do they need to be experts in all things wiki nor Critical Role. A critical part of the role (pun intended) is delegation and humility. Administrators are not the owners of the wiki. They are users entrusted with some additional privileges. They should welcome constructive feedback, encourage users to take on projects for the betterment of the wiki, and create an environment that is open to all who wish to contribute.

Administrators should, whenever possible, assume good faith or honest mistakes rather than malice. Blocking is a last resort; except in cases of clear vandalism, personal attacks, or hate speech, always speak to users first, and except in the case of hate speech or other behavior that can endanger other users, keep a first offense block period brief.

Administrators should listen to the will of the community; if there is significant pushback on a decision from a number of editors, it is worth revisiting that decision.

Administrators are required to meet a standard of minimum editing activity/tool usage as outlined on the Help:Administrators and Help:Group rights pages. If you are an administrator and expect you will not be able to meet these requirements, please notify the other administrators so that you can either take a leave of absence, or if appropriate, step down.

The number of administrators is not fixed, but our philosophy is that there should always be at least two and ideally three or more active administrators.

Abuse of the administrator position
This is a non-comprehensive list of actions that may be considered abuse of the administrator position. Editors, if you believe one of these to have taken place, please contact an administrator other than the one who performed these actions.
 * Reverting valid edits or deleting pages without a clear explanation.
 * Protecting mainspace article pages that have not experienced vandalism/edit warring without a clear explanation.
 * Repeatedly failing to respond to requests in a timely manner, without explanation.
 * Violation of wiki policies (eg: civility, neutral point of view, plagiarism, copyright, etc)
 * Repeated and protracted lack of transparency such as making significant edits to policy without first opening it up to community discussion. (Exceptions may be made in the case of widespread vandalism/hacking or similar; in that case administrators are still expected to provide an explanation as soon as possible).

What to do in the case of abuse
Bring the issue to other administrators, preferably on a public space on this wiki such as their talk page. If you can provide evidence, they will open a discussion for the greater community. This is not an opportunity to pile on, but it is an opportunity for others to speak up if they had not done so in the past. The offending administrator will be removed if there is community consensus, or if a quorum of the other administrators agree to remove them. In the case of a bureaucrat abusing their position, please notify the Miraheze Stewards as well, as they will need to step in.

A final note for administrators
Wikipedia refers to holding an administrative role as "wielding a mop". The implication is that you are here to serve the community: to make it a cleaner, better, and more pleasant experience for others. '''You serve the wiki. It does not serve you.'''

Blocking is a tool to prevent disruptions. It is not a means of shutting out someone you find it difficult to talk to. Rollback is a means to quickly undo vandalism. It is not a means of silencing those who add valid material that you happen to dislike.

All of the rules that apply to the rest of the community apply equally if not more so to you: you are not above the law, and indeed, the expectations for you are higher than they are for other users.