A substantial fraction of our admins are largely
worthless at writing
articles. In
fact, there's a good argument for the position that
people who can write articles should not be admins: we need them
writing articles, not running around breaking up fights.
Kelly
I think that admin powers are primarily editing tools which, secondarily,
can be used for community governance. Someone does not have to be an admin
to make peace and sort out fights - in fact, the only admin tools that can
be used to break up fights are to lock a page (which does not fix a fight,
just moves it to the talk page) and to threaten blocks for misbehaviour,
which is actually something that the blocking policy opposes. People can be
effective mediators and peacemakers without admin tools.
On the other hand, if you do a lot of editing you will find yourself needing
to delete pages (when you create a page or a category with a typo in the
name, for example) or edit protected pages (like DYK and the Main Page), or
have a look at a deleted page that you want to re-create (especially if the
page was speedied).
That said, of course, I agree with Geni that there is lots for an admin to
do even if s/he does not create pages or add much in terms of content. And
again, and RFA is really a matter of posing the question to the community -
do we trust this person not to abuse admin tools. In the case of Acetic
Acid, while I have not voted, I have seen a lot of contributions by this
editor, I have seen them around a lot, and I think I have enough information
to have an opinion as to whether they would or would not "behave themselves"
- without having ever used irc.
Ian (Guettarda)