Hello. I have only been on wikiHow as a registered user for about a week, but I have been under an anonymous IP, editing and helping, for quite some time. It may seem like I am jumping the gun on Admin Mentoring, but I want to start as early as possible. I have been patrolling recent changes and tagging topics to start preparing. I would now just need a mentor to help me become fit for the job of an Admin. I do not have any preferences as to experience or time on wikiHow, just someone to help me.
Please reply if there is something i should do first, whether or not this belongs in a full discussion, or if you can help mentor me.
Thanks,
PianoLover1016
I am not an admin. I think being an admin is a great long-term goal on wikiHow. Adminship status isn’t usually given to new users. Most users, even veterans, aren’t admins. It is great that you are interested in becoming an admin. We have an article on How to Become a wikiHow Admin
. Being an admin isn’t something that happens to most users. To be an admin, you must be nominated by another admin and have an admin consensus. I’d like to highlight the last step of the article mentioned above, as I think it’s important:
I don’t think it is best to rush into things. It is a good idea to give your account a history of positive contributions. Knowing the wikiHow Policy
is a good place to start. You can still leave messages on the Admin Notice Board
(ANB), if it’s necessary
. Mentoring potential new admins is a time-consuming job. We have a select amount of admins
who have been contributing to wikiHow for some time. Don’t be discouraged. Being an admin is still a possibility in the future, but users usually need a bit more experience. I am glad you are willing to help out on wikiHow. You can still be a valued member of the wikiHow community without being an admin. I appreciate your categorisation here
. I hope you stick around on wikiHow.
1 Like
Thanks RubyRoseRain! I didn’t notice that when I read the article.
I agree with Ruby. Adding to her message: If you want to get started on these things, I think that you should start off with welcomer and new article booster, which you can take tests for after 1 month of activity on wikiHow. There are articles on each. On a side note, I noticed you didn’t get the newpatroller message- I just posted it on your talk page :).
I do hope to see you climbing the ranks and learning about wikiHow’s ins and outs. It’s a great community in my opinion, we’re happy you found us :).
Adding even more to Ruby’s message above- I can think of lots of good contributors that have thousands of contributions that aren’t admins (I get surprised- some existing admins even don’t have as many). For example, Ruby, Hailey (she has like 36,000), Ruah (4000), even me I’d say ;), and many more. So don’t get discouraged if you don’t get nominated :D.
As Ruby stated above in her last paragraph, you are valued here. I hope to see more from you in the future!
You also might want to note that you don’t have to apply for certain right if you don’t want to. I do agree with FlowerPower that becoming a booster or welcomer does have overlapping skills with being an admin and can help, however it’s up to you if you want to take on any additional roles. Like I said, you don’t have to rush into things. Sometimes it can be better to go slowly but surely. You’ll have a higher chance on passing tests and trials if you have more experience. Also, quality over quantity is a good rule of the thumb. As FlowerPower mentioned, some admins have fewer contributions than non-admins. It is better to have fewer contributions that are higher quality. That said, even the small edits help, so don’t think your contributions are bad! I do also think some people have adminship whilst not having many contributions because they work at the wikiHaus. There are a lot of “hidden contributions”. Thank you for understanding. You show a lot of potential.
If you want a mentor, go for some of the featured authors, New Article Boosters, or even Welcomers.
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I am an admin on wikiHow. I have been one for over 10 years.
I hope that this note will be helpful in understanding the criteria that the current admins look for in a candidate for adminship on the site.
The best advice I can give a new wikiHow user is to NOT TRY to become an admin. If someone’s sole purpose of being here is to become an admin in record time? They’re going to end up frustrated and possibly very discouraged or angry. If, on the other hand, they just like hanging out with like minded people and tidying up articles, writing about how to make or do stuff, or helping others? They’re going to have a great time with or without any extra responsibilities.
I’ve not seen anyone be nominated for adminship in less than a year of contributing here. I think the reason it takes so long for the selection of admin candidates is that current admins value a candidates temperament just as much, or even MORE than we value their knowledge of the site and site policies.
We ask ourselves questions like: Is this candidate levelheaded? Is this candidate consistently kind? Is this candidate knowledgeable in several areas of the site and editing? Has this candidate taken any long breaks from editing? Does this candidate assume good faith? How does this candidate handle being corrected?
Admins have a few more tools to use around the site, and it is imperative that we use them carefully because our use of those tools affects not just ourselves, but the community and site as a whole. This is why we look for candidates with helpful, even temperaments who will not misuse the admin tools. We look for candidates with a large volume of helpful edits. Candidates with good interactions with other users. Candidates whose editing history over time (usually a year or more) has shown that they have the best interests of the site at heart.
If you have further questions about the site or adminship in general please feel free to ping my talk page.
Asking for an admin mentor will not necessarily get you one. Adminship is something that is only given to users who have long-term (maybe 2-3+ years) of experience and many edits (preferably several thousand). I think your best bet is to make good improvements to the site, rather than focusing on becoming an administrator from the very beginning. Most productive contributors on this site have been around for a very long time and are not sysops. You do not have to be an admin to help out.
If you really want to gain the support of other admins, you could maybe start with a different user right, like, maybe, welcomer, new article booster, and Q&A patroller. You could also learn how to carry out maintenance tasks, such as fixing broken redirects
(or tagging them for {{speedy}} deletion), answering help requests
, and reverting vandalism to the site. After you can demonstrate that you are trusted with the tools, existing admins may nominate you to be a candidate. Admins are given tools designed to revert and prevent disruption to the project faster. For example, they can delete pages, rename pages, protect pages, block users, and delete and edit forum posts/threads.
Until you are nominated, you can continue to perform the many other tasks at our community dashboard
for now.
(I am not an admin, I am just stating some of the information from this page
.)
Edit to incorporate some of @Eric
’s corrections.
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There are a few points I want to correct here, @Awesome-Aasim
.
Anyone in the community is welcome to ask an Admin to be a mentor, and it can be for any variety of reasons (may not even be for Admin coaching/mentoring, but other wiki-related tasks). While there’s no guarantee an Admin will have time at the moment, many will be willing to help simply because you asked.
There is no time requirement, or number of years old that your account needs to be before being considered for adminship. Similarly, there’s no minimum number of edits either. We’re more so looking for candidates who demonstrate the characteristics outlined in How to Become a wikiHow Admin (e.g. empathy, kindness, civility, and ability to mediate conflict).
There is no requirement to have other additional user rights before Admin rights, but I would agree that it can tend to give you practical experience that may be helpful as an Admin. :)
I think that is why I said “could” not “must”. And I was also saying that you need to be a long-time wikiHow contributor (at least a few thousand edits) to become an admin. I was not saying you needed additional user rights, though getting them may help you work up the ladder. Jayne also edited my comment after asking me, so… yeah. But my first statement, I will correct.
Hi! I’m not an admin, but I’d love to mentor you! Give my page a check out some time, @RubyRoseRain
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@Awesome-Aasim
, as we’ve already covered, any community member is able to mentor another user. These sorts of replies can be really discouraging to people coming to the forums looking to collaborate. As far as Ruby’s trial period goes, what she can or cannot do is not determined by your arbitrary statements above either.
Please do not continue to reply to messages by arbitrarily making up rules or community policies that don’t exist. Continued replies may just be deleted to avoid confusion and spread of misinformation among other users.
Thanks for commenting, everybody. I really appreciate your help. Since I am obviously not an admin, could someone come around and close this discussion now? No one’s really commenting anymore and I think it’s not really productive to leave it open.
