On 3/6/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'm sick and tired of people misunderstanding what an "administrator" of Wikipedia is. It was a misnomer to begin with........"Administrator" could refer to a manager, or someone appointed by a court; it typically describes someone in an important official position.
In the computer world, "System Administrators" and "System Operators" (sysops) are those with special privileges on a multi user system. They can do things that ordinary users can't do. Read/delete any file, restrict user accounts. On some Unix type systems, they are members of the "wheel" group thus the term "wheel war". Wikipedia is a multi user system and Admins/sysops on Wikipedia have some of these same powers. They can delete any article, restrict any user. They need these powers and they are a necessary evil.
If a user tries to edit a page and can't because he is blocked, whether he deserved it or not it's an insult to his intelligence to tell him it was "cleanup" by a "janitor". I came to this list a few years ago because I was blocked for a month, my whole ISP was because of one vandal with an army of sock puppets and a slew of throwaway ISP accounts. You are not going to get me to believe that drastic action was done by the guy who mops the server room floor.
I say continue to call them what they are, "Administrators".