Board Thread:Wiki Running/@comment-3225604-20150125104941/@comment-4189499-20150126134847

Roseturnip, this blocking mistake does not make you a bad admin. First off, everyone makes mistakes, and it can be hard to judge sometimes what crime deserves what punishment. It is a very subjective judgement which can only be refined through cooperation with others in a similar position and the sharing of ideals to find the happy medium which suits everybody. This isn't something that can happen overnight but which must be worked on together.

Anyway, blocking is such a small, relatively insignificant part of admin duties that there's no way anyone can say "I can't block therefore I can't be a good admin." I like CzechOut's analogy for adminship being like receiving the key to the janitor's closet, and within the janitorial role of the admin lie many different jobs. There are some people like me who just like playing with the paint cans to make the place look prettier. Other people enjoy tidying and ordering the content to make it more accessible to the other users. Then there are others who mop up the badly written edits to make them cleaner and easier to read. Still others pick out the rubbish in the comments to leave that section nice and tidy. And then there's implementing structural changes to the wiki to upgrade its technology and report on any major problems to the community. Telling the ruffians that repeatedly mess up the place to go away isn't something you should waste too much time on, and it would be more beneficial for you to help teach the regular users how to tidy up after themselves to take some of the burden of cleaning up off of admin hands rather than spend that same time getting them to leave.

OK, extended metaphor over. What I'm trying to say is that don't take blocking as the be-all and end-all of your adminship. There is so much more you could do to help this wiki with your access to admin tools than just blocking as many vandals as possible. An obsession with preventing vandals from attacking can drive admins, as a general rule, to become much less likely to want to help other users improve and instead punish for every slight mistake, which isn't good for editor morale. Try not to punish people until you have enough citable evidence to clearly prove their guilt, and if you don't, help them improve so they don't make the mistake on the future, preferably by writing them a message on their wall so they can see it. At other times, use your powers for good in other ways. There is so much more you can do, and so many other possible uses for your time, that stressing over a couple of people who might turn into vandals just isn't worth your time. Allow Darian to be unblocked this time and then take some time off of vandal patrol. You are a good admin. You can just be a good admin in other ways :)