Wikipedia talk:Administrators

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Complaints

Can anyone see a reason for having two sections, #Grievances by users ("administrator abuse") but also #Disputes or complaints? They seem to cover the same ground to me. Can we merge them? – Joe (talk) 13:01, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I'd support that. At the very least the latter section needs to include processes between talk page and arbcom. Thryduulf (talk) 22:11, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Why is Wikipedia using bias and questionable reporting to slander political candidates?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Not an issue for Administrators. Referred elsewhere.

Why is Wikipedia involved in gaslighting and reporting unfavorable and misleading information about Political Candidates in effort to mislead the public. This is more than just business as usually this is evil collision. I’m scared to trust anything on Wikipedia even again. 2603:6081:F840:A3:A184:50DA:FCC4:3D6C (talk) 01:25, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Examples would help. HiLo48 (talk) 01:36, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

And this is not a content noticeboard either, it is a talk page for discussing the administrator user right, if you are trying to contact an admin WP:AN is the place, but it seems more like you want WP:RSN for a discussion of a subject like this. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:01, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Are admins required to have notifications enabled?

At Help talk:Notifications#Admin notifications Schwede66 asked essentially this question, which is not addressed by this policy. The spirit of not requiring admins to have email enabled and places like ANI requiring a talk page notification rather than a ping suggests that there is currently no expectation that admins are required to have them enabled, indeed I believe that at least one administrator (Liz) does not and I am not aware of the community having an issue with this.

If this is correct we should consider adding something similar to the language regarding emails to this policy, maybe saying having them enabled is "suggested" or "recommended" but explicitly not required, and that even if they do have them enabled they are not required to respond to them (for the same reasons admins are not required to reply to emails). Thryduulf (talk) 20:06, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

@Thryduulf seems like an easy no. They are not required to do lots of things that are not in the policy. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:05, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Pings can fail, so should not be relied upon for any mandatory communications. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:08, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

• Only place I know that address this is WP:ADMINACCT. While best practices are for administrators to have email enabled, they are not required to enable or reply to email.[1] It does not mention notifications but does require communication and response to questions about their actions.[2] So with that I think it would be best practice to have notifications on, I know Liz can be pretty hard to get a hold of because of that, but it does not seem to be required. PackMecEng (talk) 21:40, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

  I agree that admins do not need to have notifications enabled, but would suggest that those who have them turned off state that clearly on their user page. —Kusma (talk) 21:42, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

  I think that is a perfectly reasonable requirement. It is possible to tell when someone does not have email enabled (if you do) - there is no "email this user" link when viewing their user page, but as far as I am aware there is no way to tell when someone has pings switched off. I have the setting enabled to give me a notification when a ping fails, but I didn't get one when pinging Liz in my opening message. Thryduulf (talk) 23:00, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

  It takes an extra step to leave a talk page message, but I wouldn't say that makes it pretty hard to get a hold of a particular editor, as long as they are either watching their own talk page or have kept notifications for talk page messages enabled. isaacl (talk) 21:58, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

• It's not required, and I don't know that it should be required (long-term abusers would have a field day), but admins really should turn pings on unless they have an extremely good reason not to. I remember back when I was a very new editor (not even extended-confirmed), an admin made a mistake with Huggle and accidentally gave me a templated warning. I instantly pinged him about it, but because he didn't have notifications enabled, he never saw my message. Now, if this happened to me today it would obviously be no big deal, but as a new editor who wasn't an expert in the way pings and talk pages and warnings and blocks work, I remember just being afraid I was going to end up blocked. While everything ended well in that story, I wouldn't be surprised if we've lost would-be productive editors over the years because an admin made a mistake and never saw the ping about it. The spirit of ADMINACCT is making sure reasonable queries can be answered, and admins should try to follow that even when something isn't required by the "letter of the law". Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:11, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
• Per this discussion, I've reworded the bullet about emails to include mention of notifications. New wording While best practices are for administrators to have email and notifications enabled, they are not required to do so, nor are they required to read and/or respond if they are enabled. Administrators who do not have notifications enabled are strongly encouraged to note this on their user page.. I'll leave a note regarding the last clause for inclusion in the next WP:ADMINNEWS. Thryduulf (talk) 13:14, 2 November 2023 (UTC)