GuildWiki:Administrators

The administrators of the GuildWiki are a somewhat different union than most other websites out there use. This page exists to show administrative policy and the goals of administrators.

Overview
GuildWiki admins are recommended by the community. Promotion to administrator is done solely at the discretion of the administrators listed below. Once promoted, an administrator is fully autonomous: he may do as his powers allow, as he sees fit. This seems dangerous, and indeed some users have disagreed with this policy in general. However, this policy has worked very well throughout the history of the GuildWiki: it allows incredibly quick resolution of the vast majority of issues. Further, because the administrator's character is well-known before his promotion, abuses of administrator power simply do not happen. Finally, administrators can counteract other administrators. This is the final fail-safe mechanism to ensure that any unreasonable abuse of power is kept in check.

The fine print
Administrators are appointed for life. No amount of inactivity can result in an administrator losing his position. Again, this is because only extremely trusted users are granted administrator status. Administrators may step down at will, or may control their continued appointment in other ways. Administrators in the midst of conflict have, in the past, offered to resign if the community voted it was prudent. The administrators listed below may remove any administrator for any reason, though this has only occurred twice in our history.

Administrators can ban users at will. This is usually done in cases of vandalism, and permanent bans are usually reserved for spambots. However, if an administrator feels it prudent, he may remove a user from the wiki for any reason, or no reason at all. As a matter of courtesy, most administrators will not ban a user he is directly involved with; instead, he will ask another administrator to examine the situation from a neutral perspective.

Administrators can protect or delete pages at will. However, administrators are strongly encouraged to do so only via the community-sanctioned channels, or in cases of obvious vandalism.

Administrators can counteract other administrators, if they feel it prudent. An erroneous ban can be lifted. An erroneous delete can be restored. Typically, only a message on the talk page explaining the reason why such a countermeasure is prudent is expected in such a case. The "reverted" administrator is expected to oblige the revert, and should not reinstitute their action without discussing it with the "reverting" administrator.

Again, though this may seem a fairly chaotic governing system, it works extremely well in context of the wiki. An appointment to administrator is not something done lightly. The administrators are a cohesive team, and the mutual respect they share for another, even when disagreeing, is second to only the respect and care they have for the GuildWiki itself.

Expectations
While administrators may exercise their powers as they see fit, they each typically follow a particular pattern, and the patterns between different administrators typically don't drastically differ by a great amount. The following is what individual admins would most likely do in a certain situation. Again, note that what an admin ends up doing in any particular situation may completely deviate from what that admin typically does, and the admin would not need to justify why that case is any different.


 * PanSola
 * Action increase by one magnitude per recurring offense.
 * Action magnitude goes from: "verbal warning" -> "ban for some hours" -> "ban for some days" -> "ban for some weeks" -> "ban for some months".   "some" can range from 2 to 9 (but usually between 2~4).
 * Revert wars may result in verbal warning on first offense, or protection of articles, depending on the situation.
 * Personal attacks may result in either verbal warning or ban for some days on first offense.
 * Sporadic vandalism may result in ban for some days on first offense.
 * Large scale vandalism may result in ban for some weeks on first offense.
 * No retroactive bans if the ban duration would have expired already had PanSola banned on time. In other words, if PanSola notices someone should have been banned 5 days ago for a duration of 2 days, PanSola won't go back and ban that individual.  However if PanSola notices 30 minutes ago someone should have been banned for 2 hours, PanSola will still give out a 2-hour ban.
 * Spam bots get perm ban. Users with offensive account names get perm ban.  Other users and IPs typically never get perm ban even with multiple repeated offenses.
 * Users banned by PanSola who have a sincere apology, a promise to reform one's actions, an acknowledgment of the wrongdoing, and reasons why the ban should not last its full length, should appeal to the other admins. PanSola will respect the other admins' decision to lift/shorten the ban, but will not personally bother to do anything about it.
 * Users banned by PanSola who believe the ban to be unjust or a mistake may contact PanSola for a lift of the ban.


 * Gem
 * Let's others handle the warnings if possible and bans when warning a user proves to be ineffective.
 * Minimum ban is one day, unless the target of the ban is a regular user who is just pushing the limits of policy, in which case the ban might be as short as one hour.
 * Usual bans range from 3 days to 2 weeks, depending on the severeness of the offense.
 * Accounts only used for vandalizing and spamming will receive an infinite ban.
 * IPs never receive a ban longer than 6 months as they might change owners.
 * Actions on the official Guild Wars Wiki and the PvX wiki might have effect, depending on the situation.


 * Entropy
 * In general, give warnings when it seems it might be sufficient - for example, for breaking GW:1RV or for a single non-malicious vandalism. Err on the side of caution and give people (especially anons) the benefit of the doubt before resorting to banning.
 * No ban will be less than 1 day or greater than 1 month, except for special circumstances.
 * On-and-off vandalism/spamming will be punished based on the severity of the current offense, with past actions taken into account.
 * Personal attacks will usually be resolved verbally if they are between two individuals; if a user is being a general asshat to everyone, they will simply be banned for an "attitude adjustment".
 * Serious, heavy, repeated, and/or bot-like vandalism will result in a long-term or infinite ban, especially if it is a registered account.
 * Sockpuppetry in and of itself is not a bannable offense, but bannable actions perpetrated by a known or very certain sockpuppet will result in a 6-month ban for IPs or an infinite ban for registered accounts, and perhaps a short ban for the puppetmaster as well.
 * Masquerading as another user or having an unacceptable username results in an infinite ban.
 * Retroactive bans are only enacted for the above two reasons, although this is a highly subjective standard based on the severity of the offense.
 * Actions which are not direct policy violations but which are in any way detrimental to GuildWiki, its users, its content, or just generally unsavory edits may be cause for a banning.
 * One's actions on GWW, PvX, or other non-GuildWiki entity (including in Guild Wars itself) will never be cause for a ban in itself, although it may influence the severity of a ban for a related offense.
 * Any and all bans have the possibility of being lifted pending a sincere apology, a promise to reform one's actions, an acknowledgment of the wrongdoing, and reasons why the ban should not last its full length or why it is believed to be unjust. For accidental bans, no such message is necessary. Note that this does not apply for infinite bans.

Current Administrators
These GuildWiki sysops work hard to make sure the wiki is as readable and usable as possible. A system-generated list can be found on Special:Listadmins. If you are made an administrator, please update this list however you see fit.

Wiki Bureaucrats
Gravewit and LordBiro are in charge of appointing and removing administrators and granting bot status requests.

Wiki Administrators
Entropy, Gem, and PanSola are on the wiki daily to fight vandalism, block users, delete pages, and respond to general user requests.

LordBiro does the above jobs as well, and is additionally in charge of appointing and removing administrators and granting bot status requests.

Inactive Administrators
Adam.skinner, Auron of Neon, Fyren, Gares Redstorm, Gordon Ecker, Karlos, MartinLightbringer(CS), Rainith, William Blackstaff, Xasxas256, and Xeon are mostly inactive. While they still occasionally pop into the GuildWiki, they probably should not be contacted for wiki concerns.

Nunix worked mostly on the backend, but has primarily retired from wiki-duties; he still watches his talk page, though, and is a good way to get ahold of (i.e. physically pummel) Gravewit, if needed.

Wikia Staff
Wikia staff may be contacted for administrative matters if no Guild Wiki administrators can be located for several days. A system-generated list of Wikia staff can be found here.