[WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

[Ron Ritzman]

On 3/6/07, Erik Moeller <erik at 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".