User blog:Brian McClure/Adminship is not a badge of honour

Currently we have three candidates for adminship here at Wikisimpsons. It's great to see users that are dedicated to wanting to help this site. The site has come a long way in the last few months, and it's thanks to the dedicated users who work hard to clean things up.

That being said, there seems to be a belief that adminship is a badge of honour, a reward. And, some believe that putting in a few months of editing is more than enough to earn it. This is not true. None of the three users told us why they need the tools or why they deserve, they simply said they want to be admins. All three are good editors, but haven't really shown a need for the tools. Being an administrator means:


 * 1) You need to be dedicated to the site (for more than a few months).
 * 2) You need to have a good knowledge of the site policy.
 * 3) You have to be able to assist users, solve arguments, and clean up vandalism (at wikipedia, admins are often compared to janitors).
 * 4) You need to be a good editor, and being a good writer definitely helps too.

It's not a reward and not something you should just expect to be handed to you because you've been here a few months.

It never hurts to have a lot of admins, but I don't see a pressing need for three new ones right now. We're certainly not desperate enough to appoint any user an admin, and I don't think we should start.