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Administrators, commonly known as admins or sysops, are Apexpedia editors who have been granted the technical ability to perform certain special actions on the wiki, including the ability to block and unblock user accounts and IP addresses from editing, protect and unprotect pages from editing, delete and undelete pages, rename pages without restriction, and use various other tools.

Administrators assume these responsibilities as volunteers who go through a community review process. They are not acting as employees of Wikia. They are never required to use their tools, and must never use them to gain an advantage in a dispute in which they are involved.

Administrators abilities

Administrators have the technical ability to perform the following actions:

  • Block user accounts and IP addresses from editing.
  • Apply page protect to restrict editing of a particular page.
  • Delete pages that are vandalism or undesirable.
  • Rename a page to any desired title.
  • Edit fully protected pages.
  • View and restore deleted pages if necessary.

By convention, administrators also normally take responsibility for judging the outcome of certain discussions, such as deletion discussions, moving discussions, and move-review discussions, although in appropriate circumstances this can also be done by other editors.

Becoming an administrator

Apexpedia has no official requirements to becoming an administrator. Anyone can apply regardless of their experience. Administrators are expected to have the trust and confidence of the community, however, requests for adminship from users who do not have considerable experience are typically not approved. Each editor will assess their confidence in a particular candidate's readiness in their own way. Before requesting or accepting a nomination, candidates should generally be active and regular Apexpedia contributors for at least several months, be familiar with the procedures and practices of the wiki, respect and understand its policies, and have gained the general trust of the community.

If you are interested in requesting adminship, you should first read the guide to requests for adminship and the nomination instructions. When you are ready to apply, you may add your nomination to the nomination page, according to the aforementioned instructions. A discussion and voting process will then take place among fellow editors about whether you should become an administrator. After seven days, a bureaucrat will determine if there is consensus to approve your request. This determination is not based exclusively on the percentage of support, but as a general descriptive rule of thumb.

Only one account of a given person may have administrative tools. The only exceptions are bots with administrative access. See our policies.

Adminship is granted indefinitely, and is only removed upon request, under circumstances of community intervention, or temporarily for inactive admins.

Places where administrators in particular can assist

Administrator rights can be particularly helpful for working in certain areas of the wiki:

"Uninvolved administrators" can also help in the management of disputes and resolutions concerning disruptive areas and situations. Administrators acting in this role are neutral; they do not have any direct involvement in the issues they are helping people with. Lists of sanctions that are to be enforced by neutral administrators can be found at our blocking policy page.

Administrator noticeboards

One main noticeboard exists in which administrators should keep an eye out for problems that are harmful to Apexpedia:

Administrators

Active Administrators

Semi-Active Administrators

Inactive Administrators

Past Administrators

Expectations of adminship

Care and judgement

If you are granted access, you must exercise care in using these new functions, especially the ability to delete pages and to block users and IP addresses. Occasional lapses of judgment or mistakes are accepted but serious or repeated lapses, or lapses involving breaches of administrator conduct 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 they are given, 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 to ask 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 the 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 the wiki 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 Apexpedia-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. The following is a reference for such cases:

  • "Bad faith" adminship (sock puppetry, gross breach of trust, etc.)
  • Breach of basic policies (attacks, 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 or 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 desysopping. Users who fail to report unauthorized use of their account will be desysopped. Unauthorized use is considered 'controversial circumstance', 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 involvements 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.

Grievances by users

If a user believes an administrator has acted improperly, they should express their concerns directly to the administrator responsible and try to come to a resolution in an orderly and civil manner. However, if the matter is not resolved between the two parties, users can take further action. They can contact a bureaucrat to have the situation discussed and reviewed. Note: if the complaining user was blocked improperly by a bureaucrat, they may appeal the block and/or e-mail Wikia staff directly.

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 administrative actions should not be reversed without good cause, careful thought, and (if likely to be objected to), where the administrator is presently available, a brief discussion with the administrator whose action is challenged.

Reinstating a reverted action

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. Administrative 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 discussion.

Possible indications of an incipient admin 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.

Apexpedia 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 admin war, try these alternatives:

  • Seek constructive discussion.
  • Follow dispute resolution processes as with any other conduct matter. For example: move the issue to the consensus track and wait for input, or discuss the issue calmly in the chat.
  • Take a break and calm down.

Review and removal of adminship

If an administrator abuses administrative powers, these powers can be removed. Administrators may be removed by bureaucrats or wikia staff. At their discretion, lesser penalties may also be assessed against problematic administrators, including the restriction of their use of certain functions or placement on administrative probation. The technical ability to remove administrator status rests solely with bureaucrats and wikia staff.

Procedural removal for inactive administrators

Admin accounts which have made no edits or administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped. This desysopping is not to be considered permanent, or a reflection on the user's use of, or rights to, the admin tools. The admin must be contacted on their user talk page and via e-mail (if possible) one month before the request for desysopping and again several days before the desysopping goes into effect. Desysopping on inactivity grounds should be handled by bureaucrats. The summary in the user rights log should make it clear that the desysopping is purely procedural.

Voluntary removal

Alternatively administrators may request that their access to administrative tools be removed by contacting a bureaucrat, or contacting wikia staff directly.

Restoration of adminship

Unless specifically prevented by prior community consensus, regardless of how adminship is removed, any editor is free to re-request adminship through the typical requests for adminship process.

When an editor re-requests adminship subsequent to voluntary removal or removal due to inactivity (see below), there will be at least a 24-hour wait to ascertain whether at the time of removal the editor was from resignation. If there is a currently open community discussion concerning this issue, re-granting will wait until the discussion is closed.

Lengthy inactivity

In the case of an administrator desysopped due to inactivity, if, after the one year of inactivity which led to the desysopping due to inactivity, there is another full year of continued inactivity, then, if the editor returns after that, the editor will no longer be able to merely re-request the admin tools, but instead will need to request adminship through the nomination process.

After voluntary removal

Administrators in good standing who were not considered to be poor staff members when voluntarily requesting removal that is not in controversial circumstances, may request at any time that their administrator status be restored by a bureaucrat, provided the bureaucrat is satisfied that the account's security has not been compromised in the meantime. This is commonly done at the bureaucrats' user talk page.

After removal due to inactivity

If the user returns to Apexpedia, they may be resysopped by a bureaucrat without further discussion as long as there are no issues with the editor's identity and they stopped editing the wiki while still in good standing or in uncontroversial circumstances.
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