Wikipedia:Super-user
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Super-users refer to a proposed class of administrators who would have all the powers of full administrators with the exception of blocking and unblocking rights. Users could put in requests for adminship to become either super-users or full admins. "Super-user" is merely one proposed name for this class of users.
Debate[edit]
Arguments in favor[edit]
- The most controversial actions taken by sysops usually involve blocking. Admins have considerable latitude to block users for periods of up to a month. These decisions often involve subjective judgments as to whether a user is acting in good faith. Routine maintenance tasks, such as cleaning up votes for deletion and copyright problems, are frequently backed up with unresolved situations. These tasks involve relatively objective questions (e.g. Has a consensus been reached? Is the document a copyright violation?) There are a larger number of users qualified to handle routine maintenance than blocking and unblocking. Rad Racer 00:36, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Super-usership could be a stepping-stone to full adminship, and allow users to see how adminship candidates will handle other admin powers before granting them blocking powers. Rad Racer 00:36, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Due to Wikipedia rules being so inchoate, to where many "rules" are not even rules but guidelines, the admin has too much discretionary power. There is also very little oversight of admins, which is not the case for newer sysop categories like bureaucrats, ArbCom and so forth - once you're an admin, you're an admin. We already have a few abusive admins, and a few is a few too many, we don't need any more. Any checks and balances to keep potentially abusive admins at bay is a good idea. Why have people go from normal user all the way to admin, with suddenly the ability to protect, lock or delete pages, do rollbacks, AND ban users? I think a mid-step between normal user and full-powered admin is a good idea. I don't think superusers should have been privileges, but if some people think they should, I would be willing to compromise and super-users the right to ban someone for 24 hours. Ruy Lopez 02:57, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Arguments against[edit]
- Who would become a superuser after this is introduced? Will all existing admins remain full admins? This will obviously create tension between superusers and admins perceived to "not have earned their wings" as superusers are required to. But OTOH it's obvious that we can't just demote all admins to superusers and have them reapply for the "honor" of being able to block, if only because this would be massively unpractical for Wikipedia, which would suddenly find itself deprived of effective means to combat persistent vandalism. What then? A "request for demoting" page to strip "unworthy" admins of blocking powers? Needless to say that would become a bitter warzone, since it's now no longer a "big deal" to be "desysopped". Whatever ideas we adopt, we better make sure we have a migration path handy as well. JRM 21:01, 2005 Mar 30 (UTC)
- One could already argue that some of the current sysops have not "earned their wings," since the RFA standards have risen considerably in the past few years. The only way I can think of to really combat that would be to have re-elections similar to the arbcom. I wonder if that proposal has ever been made before? Rad Racer 21:12, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- The ArbCom is a handful of people, and the last ArbCom elections caused a lot of heat in certain spots. You're talking re-elections of all the 392 administrators currently on the English Wikipedia—or, if we consider that number too high anyway (which I don't, incidentally), "just" votes on those new people we deem worthy. And while that's going on, I take it nobody would have the power to block people, other than maybe stewards and other people who don't have the time? Or are the elections "negative" instead, electing people who are no longer fit to block? It would be an interesting experiment, for sure, but I think I'd rather pass up on it. Or avoid the Wikipedia namespace altogether for the duration. I really think it could get that bad. JRM 23:04, 2005 Mar 30 (UTC)
- Nah, we could give each admin a 3-year term, beginning on the date they became sysop. Then there would be steady trickle of re-elections. Rad Racer 23:16, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Starting with the oldest and most trusted admins, and ending with the newest, who can hang around for 3 years while the chaff is slowly separated from the wheat in dinosaur land... I still don't see it. :-)
Look, once there is the ability to strip people with blocking powers of that power and only that power, what do we need all these multi-level users and reelection schemes for? People are too hung up about the admins as it is now. Give everyone Da Powah, and be liberal with it, knowing that we now do have an effective way of defanging it (compared to now, where you practically need to eat babies before being desysopped). Assuming that the majority of admins are causing absolutely no problems at all (which is true, and check the full list of admins for people you've never seen fighting if you don't believe me), we only need the opportunity to declaw those few who are drawing blood, not to have every admin go through the community gauntlet on the assumption that their behaviour isn't good enough anymore for our "evolved" Wikipedia. JRM 23:31, 2005 Mar 30 (UTC)
- Starting with the oldest and most trusted admins, and ending with the newest, who can hang around for 3 years while the chaff is slowly separated from the wheat in dinosaur land... I still don't see it. :-)
- Nah, we could give each admin a 3-year term, beginning on the date they became sysop. Then there would be steady trickle of re-elections. Rad Racer 23:16, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- I agree 100%. There are only a handful of abusive admins but they cause trouble way out of proportion to their numbers. I'm sure none of the handful of abusive admins could get through a RFA today. The argument that we should hand ban power to people who don't deserve it, because we currently have admins who probably shouldn't have it, is silly. Ruy Lopez 02:29, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- The ArbCom is a handful of people, and the last ArbCom elections caused a lot of heat in certain spots. You're talking re-elections of all the 392 administrators currently on the English Wikipedia—or, if we consider that number too high anyway (which I don't, incidentally), "just" votes on those new people we deem worthy. And while that's going on, I take it nobody would have the power to block people, other than maybe stewards and other people who don't have the time? Or are the elections "negative" instead, electing people who are no longer fit to block? It would be an interesting experiment, for sure, but I think I'd rather pass up on it. Or avoid the Wikipedia namespace altogether for the duration. I really think it could get that bad. JRM 23:04, 2005 Mar 30 (UTC)
- One could already argue that some of the current sysops have not "earned their wings," since the RFA standards have risen considerably in the past few years. The only way I can think of to really combat that would be to have re-elections similar to the arbcom. I wonder if that proposal has ever been made before? Rad Racer 21:12, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Similar ideas[edit]
- Reposted from User talk:Jguk/admin criterion:
- How about a sub-category of admins? No powers to do the 'sexy' things, but the power to do the tedious chores? I don't envision people signing up because they're eager to do the work, but a public-spirited user could adopt a particular housekeeping duty (say, dealing with copyvios), and do a few whenever she feels like it. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:12, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- Reposted from Wikipedia talk:Administrators:
- Has anyone been considering an intermediate level for "super-users"—people who spend a lot of time on Wikipedia but don't get bogged down in VfD debates, etc.? In particular, I would like the ability to revert vandalism, and perhaps some marginally greater ability to move pages would be nice, though I'd probably just end up causing trouble ;-) —User:Mulad (talk) 05:13, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
- There's an advanced new "user levels" system coming in a future version of the software that will make such ideas possible. For now, though, you're either a sysop/admin or you're not. (Note that "super-user" wouldn't be such a good name, because it sounds like the person who can do everything...) - IMSoP 18:54, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Some veteran editors don't want to become administrators, don't want to or don't want to be obligated to do administrator work but really just continue writing and not get harassed by wannabee administrators. They are very familiar with policies. --Jondel 00:43, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Really see Wikipedia talk:User access levels, because it mostly makes this proposal obsolete, as far as I'm concerned. If different rights are implemented, we can just keep admins full admins and give the community the power to strip people of exactly those rights they have been found to abuse (if any). Similarly, powers that are uncontroversial for experienced users (rollback, editinterface) could simply be granted, and anyone who abuses it has it taken away. This does not necessitate the creation of more artificial levels of usership as this proposal would see. Such a caste system will just spark a lot of bitterness, envy and pointless discussions over authority, even more so than is currently the case with the two-level system. (Four- or five-level system, actually, but beyond user and admin it matters little.) Don't reward people with privileges for good behaviour, take away those privileges they are found to abuse instead. Abilities that are innately abusable because they affect others and can cancel themselves out (blocking, protection) would be the exception, and would be handed out on a trust basis. A low level of trust, as was once the case for adminship, because we would know we could more-or-less easily strip powers from anyone who abused them. JRM 21:15, 2005 Mar 30 (UTC)