User:Murph146/Policies & Guidelines

Overview

Administrators are users trusted with access to certain tools on the English Wikipedia. They are expected to observe a high standard of conduct, to use the tools fairly, and never to use them to gain advantage in a dispute.

Wikipedia administrators operate under a collective set of policies and guidelines. These policies and guidelines are listed and described in various articles on Wikipedia, but are not currently consolidated in one location. This page exists to house links to all relevant policies and guidelines in order to aid Wikipedia administrators in their daily Wikipedia activities.

Administrator Duties, Responsibilities, & Expectations

Care and judgement

If you are granted administrator access, you must exercise care in using your newly acquired tools and functions, especially the ability to delete pages and to block users and IP addresses. You can learn how to do these things at the Administrators' how-to guide and the new administrator school. Please also look at the pages linked from the Administrators' reading list before using your administrative abilities. Occasional lapses are accepted but serious or repeated lapses may not always be.

Administrator tools are also used with judgment; it can take some time for a new administrator to learn when it's best to use the tools, and it can take months to gain a good sense of how long a period to set when using tools such as blocking and page protection in difficult disputes. New administrators are strongly encouraged to start slowly and build up experience on areas they are used to, and by asking others if unsure.

Administrator conduct

Administrators are expected to lead by example and to behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others. Administrators are expected to follow Wikipedia policies and to perform their duties to the best of their abilities. Occasional mistakes are entirely compatible with adminship; administrators are not expected to be perfect. However, sustained or serious disruption of Wikipedia is incompatible with the status of administrator, and consistently or egregiously poor judgment may result in the removal of administrator status. Administrators should strive to model appropriate standards of courtesy and civility to other editors and to one another.

Administrators should bear in mind that they have hundreds of colleagues. Therefore, if an administrator finds that he or she cannot adhere to site policies and remain civil (even toward users exhibiting problematic behavior) while addressing a given issue, then the administrator should bring the issue to a noticeboard or refer it to another administrator to address, rather than potentially compound the problem by poor conduct.

Accountability

Administrators are accountable for their actions involving administrator tools, and unexplained administrator actions can demoralize other editors who lack such tools. Subject only to the bounds of civility, avoiding personal attacks, and reasonable good faith, editors are free to question or to criticize administrator actions. Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed.

Administrators who seriously, or repeatedly, act in a problematic manner or have lost the trust or confidence of the community may be sanctioned or have their access removed. In the past, this has happened or been suggested for:

"Bad faith" adminship (sock puppetry, gross breach of trust, etc.)
Breach of basic policies (attacks, biting/civility, edit warring, privacy, etc.)
Conduct elsewhere incompatible with adminship (off-site attacking, etc.).
Failure to communicate - this can be either to users (e.g., lack of suitable warnings or explanations of actions), or to concerns of the community (especially when explanations or other serious comments are sought).
Repeated/consistent poor judgment

Security

It is extremely important that administrators have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices. Because they have the potential to cause site-wide damage with a single edit, a compromised admin account will be blocked and its privileges removed on grounds of site security. In certain circumstances, the revocation of privileges may be permanent. Discretion on resysopping temporarily desysopped administrators is left to bureaucrats, who will consider whether the rightful owner has been correctly identified, and their view on the incident and the management and security (including likely future security) of the account.

Administrators should never share their password or account with any other person, for any reason. If they find out their password has been compromised, or their account has been otherwise compromised (even by an editor or individual they know and trust), they should attempt to change it immediately, or otherwise report it to a bureaucrat for temporary de-sysopping. Users who fail to report unauthorized use of their account will be desysopped. Unauthorized use is considered 'controversial circumstances', and access will not be automatically restored.

Involved admins

In general, editors should not act as administrators in cases in which they have been involved. This is because involved administrators may have, or may be seen as having, a conflict of interest in disputes they have been a party to or have strong feelings about. Involvement is generally construed very broadly by the community, to include current or past conflicts with an editor (or editors), and disputes on topics, regardless of the nature, age, or outcome of the dispute.

One important caveat is that an administrator who has interacted with an editor or topic area purely in an administrative role, or whose prior involvement are minor or obvious edits which do not speak to bias, is not involved and is not prevented from acting in an administrative capacity in relation to that editor or topic area. This is because one of the roles of administrators is precisely to deal with such matters, at length if necessary. Warnings, calm and reasonable discussion and explanation of those warnings, advice about community norms, and suggestions on possible wordings and approaches, do not make an administrator 'involved'.

In cases which are straightforward, (e.g. blatant vandalism), the community has historically endorsed the obvious action of any administrator – even if involved – on the basis that any reasonable administrator would have probably come to the same conclusion. Although there are exceptions to the prohibition on involved editors taking administrative action, it is still best practice in cases where an administrator may be seen to be involved to pass the matter to another administrator via the relevant noticeboards.

A user seeking administrator or uninvolved user help may use the {{uninvolved|type|details}} template to request assistance. Requests will appear in Category:Requests for uninvolved help until removed.

Misuse of administrative tools

Main policy links: Wikipedia:Administrators#Misuse of administrative tools, Wikipedia:Administrators#Uninvolved admins

Misusing the administrative tools is considered a very serious issue; they are provided to trusted users for maintenance and other tasks, and should always be used with thought, care, and with due diligence and good judgment. Serious misuse of the tools may result in sanctions or even their removal. If a user believes that an administrator has not used their administrative tools as per the established Wikipedia policies and guidelines, then they should first discuss their concerns and issues with the respective administrator directly. In cases where the issue is not resolved by discussing it directly and/or when broader community input is determined to be necessary or required, users can post their concerns regarding the issue at Wikipedia:Administrative action review for review by the broader community.

Common situations where avoiding tool use is often required:

Conflict of interest or non-neutrality – Administrators should not normally use their tools in matters in which they are personally involved (for example, in a content dispute in which they are a party). See Involved admins.
Communal norms or policies – When a policy or communal norm is clear that tools should not be used, then tools should not be used without an explanation that shows the matter has been considered, and why a (rare) exception is genuinely considered reasonable.
Administrator actions in conjunction with paid editing – Administrator tools may not be used as part of any paid editing activity, except as a Wikipedian-in-Residence, or when the payment is made by the Wikimedia Foundation or an affiliate of the WMF.
Reversing the actions of other administrators – Only in a manner that respects the admin whose action is involved, and (usually) after consultation.
Reinstating an admin action that has already been reversed (sometimes known as "wheel warring") – Responses have included Arbitration and desysopping even the first time.

See Wikipedia:Administrators (policy link) for these and for the very few exceptions.

Even when use of the tools appears reasonable, if doubt exists it is better to ask another independent administrator to review and (if justified) take the action.

Reversing another administrator's action

Administrators are expected to have good judgment, and are presumed to have considered carefully any actions or decisions they carry out as administrators. Administrators may disagree, but except for clear and obvious mistakes, administrative actions should not be reversed without good cause, careful thought and (if likely to be objected) usually some kind of courtesy discussion.

Reinstating a reverted action ("Wheel warring")

When another administrator has already reversed an administrative action, there is very rarely any valid reason for the original or another administrator to reinstate the same or similar action again without clear discussion leading to a consensus decision. Wheel warring is when an administrator's action is reversed by another admin, but rather than discussing the disagreement, administrator tools are then used in a combative fashion to undo or redo the action. With very few exceptions, once an administrative action has been reverted, it should not be restored without consensus.

Do not repeat a reversed administrative action when you know that another administrator opposes it. Do not continue a chain of administrative reversals without discussion. Resolve admin disputes by discussing.

Wheel warring usually results in an immediate Request for Arbitration. Sanctions for wheel warring have varied from reprimands and cautions, to temporary blocks, to desysopping, even for first time incidents. There have been several relevant arbitration cases on the subject of wheel-warring. The term was also used historically for an administrator improperly reversing some kinds of very formal action.

Possible indications of an incipient wheel war:

An administrator getting too distressed to discuss calmly,
Deliberately ignoring an existing discussion in favor of a unilateral preferred action,
Abruptly undoing administrator actions without consultation.

Wikipedia works on the spirit of consensus; disputes should be settled through civil discussion rather than power wrestling. There are few issues so critical that fighting is better than discussion, or worth losing your own good standing for. If you feel the urge to wheel war, try these alternatives:

Seek constructive discussion,
Follow dispute resolution processes as with any other conduct matter. For example: move the issue to WP:ANI and wait for input, or (for serious and egregious misuse of tools) consider RFC or RFAR.
Take a break and calm down.

Exceptional circumstances

There are a few exceptional circumstances to this general principle. (Note: these are one-way exceptions):

Biographies of living persons—material deleted because it contravenes BLP may be re-deleted if reinstated, if it continues to be non-BLP-compliant.
Privacy—personal information deleted under the Foundation's privacy policy may be re-deleted if reinstated.
Emergency—in certain situations there may arise an emergency that cannot be adjourned for discussion. An administrator should not claim emergency unless there is a reasonable belief of a present and very serious emergency (i.e., reasonable possibility of actual, imminent, serious harm to the project or a user if not acted upon with administrative tools), and should immediately seek to describe and address the matter, but in such a case the action should not usually be reverted (and may be reinstated) until appropriate discussion has taken place.
Page protection in edit warring—reasonable actions undertaken by uninvolved administrators to quell a visible and heated edit war by protecting a contended page should be respected by all users, and protection may be reinstated if needed, until it is clear the edit war will not resume or consensus agrees it is appropriate to unprotect.

Policies

There are two main categories which Wikipedia policies can fall into; site-wide policies for all of Wikipedia, and policies pertaining only to administrative activity.

Wikipedia Policies

Administrator Policies

Administrators - General administrator article
Administrators' noticeboard
Administrator intervention against vandalism
Arbitration enforcement
Proposed deletion
Candidates for speedy deletion
Deletion discussions
Deletion review
Requests for undeletion
Requests for page protection
Requested moves
Categories for discussion
Redirects for discussion