User:Sjb72/If

Introduction

I was once asked what my personal criteria was for being an admin. Rather cheekily, I suggested that it was all laid out in Rudyard Kipling's poem If—.

The other day, it occured to me that with a bit of re-writing, and a lot of shoe-horning of aspects of Wikipedia, I could make it a set of criteria to work towards.

Having done that now, I realise that I shouldn't take myself too seriously. Please don't see it as my definitive criteria for Admins, more as a bit of fun.

The original work by Rudyard Kipling is much better - you can view it here

If—

By Sjb72, with apologies to Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your cool when all about you
Are disrupting Wiki and blaming it on you,
If you can self-nominate despite the inevitable oppose !voting
But make allowance for their doubting too
If you can RFC on a dull topic and not get bored waiting for responses,
Or being slandered, don't retaliate,
Or being hated, don't give way to trolling,
And yet don't look too good, nor acronym yourself into oblivion:

If you can write FAs - and not make FAs your master;
If you have high edit counts - but not Wikicountitis;
If you can meet with Sockpuppets and Meatpuppets
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to re-read your copied posts
Twisted by bitter editors to use as evidence against you,
Or watch your beautiful article being torn apart at peer review,
And pick up the pieces and remove the dodgy templates:

If you can take all your barnstars
And risk future ones by voicing opinion against the rest,
And lose, but start rebuilding confidence,
And not harp on about it at the Village Pump;
If you can force yourself to wade through those frequently asked questions at HD
And keep doing it as there will always be ignorant newbies,
And still be doing it when you should be having a Wikibreak
Except the Will which says to them "This is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please ask at the Reference Desk"

If you can talk with spammers and keep your principles,
Or converse with Jimbo and don't get big headed about it,
If neither vandals nor 'crats can hurt you,
If all editors rely on you, but none too much;
If you can citate the uncitable non-notable article
With seconds before someone speedy deletes citing SNOW,
Yours is the mop and all the buttons that go with it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Sysop, my friend!