I recently was engaged in an encounter with a particularly troublesome admin. He blocked
me and when I attempted to contact him through e-mail, he made ad hominem personal attacks
and generally condescended to me. Now I can assure you this is the only time an admin has
ever personally attacked me, but I have repeatedly encountered the seemingly glaring
obviousness that is admin elitism.
Wikipedia editors, or regular users, usually create and edit articles, sometimes reverting
vandalism or dealing with formal Wikipedia business. And once an editor has performed a
large enough amount of good deeds, they can be nominated for administrator. An RfA is a
harsh process which yields few admins, and this would seem to make them an exclusive group
(which they are indeed). Many people (or at least me) seem to regard adminship as a sort
of trophy rather than advanced tools. And it would be intuitive to think that. On almost
all websites, being made a moderator (or other "elevated user right status") is
a gesture of great respect, trust, and exclusivity. This is because moderators are the
"high lords" of the website, much like mayors or representatives.
So why shouldn't adminship be a trophy?
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