Wikipedia talk:Admin functions that should be performed only by adults

I think this essay sums things up adequately and objectively. My own personal view (that I'm entitled to) is that minors should not be admins on a project as large and serious as Wikipedia, but it wouldn't necessarily deter me from voting for one. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:03, 1 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks Kudpung. I suppose my view is that since we don't usually know chronological age we have to go by maturity of behaviour, but I think that should be tempered with some sort of advice as to when children should remember they are children. Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers 17:27, 2 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Maybe Wikipedia should have an age limit e.g. 18 years old for admins, even if just an advisory one, and not enforced. 92.26.50.0 (talk) 17:01, 3 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Things have moved on in the last few years. With only 51 of more than a thousand admins having started editing in the last ten years, the chance of our currently having an Admin younger than 18 is decidedly slim, especially as "maturity" is a common criteria at RFA for anyone suspected of being that young. Maybe at some point the foundation will improve the mobile interface to the point where we get a flood of editors using smartphones. But for the moment, we have to get used to the idea that Wikipedia editing is almost entirely confined to laptop and PC users, and dementia is a more real risk among our increasingly elderly admins than any of the problems of childhood.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  18:26, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

View deleted pages
Can children (not minors, because that is an insult) view non-offensive deleted pages? --68.113.92.4 (talk) 15:05, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the belated reply, my watchlist has grown beyond my ability to fully monitor it. I'm not aware of cultures that regard the term minors as insulting when applied to those who are not legally adult, but there are plenty of teenagers I know who would not appreciate being called children. As far as I'm aware it has been a while since any children passed RFA, and I suspect there may no longer be any children who are admins on the English wikipedia. There are probably some admins who are legally minors in some jurisdictions, and it wouldn't surprise me if we still have some admins in their mid or late teens. So the short answer to your question is that I doubt that we have any children who have the userright to view deleted pages. We probably have some teenagers with that right, and whether they are adult enough to view deleted offensive content I'd leave up to their parents or guardians. Wikipedia is not the same as Commons, in that the vast majority of the offensive content that I've come across here has been written, whilst commons is more likely to contain dubious imagery. Generally I believe that the offensive content which we delete from here is targeted at particular people and for that reason I'm fairly relaxed about teenage admins deleting it. I see the parallel as being with real life Graffiti, the person who has been named in a derogatory context is going to be very upset if they see that graffiti, their friends may also be upset, a teenager in a different state who looks at that attack whilst deciding whether to block someone who has been reported to AIV is unlikely to lose sleep over it. Perhaps we should get input here from someone better qualified than me to understand what is reasonable for teenagers to get involved in; But my hope is that the really nasty stuff that teenagers shouldn't see would be included in the stuff that oversighters get rid of when it is reported to them.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  19:50, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Legal and other threats
I think we might want to add dealing with threat situations to the short list of administrator tasks that should be left to the chronologically adult administrators. This would include both violations of the no legal threats policy as well as the hopefully rare instance of threats of violence or other off-wiki types of retaliation for editing. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:09, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree and have tried to write up a paragraph for this, hopefully you or others will radically rewrite as I'm not sure I'm happy with my first draft of this.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  14:02, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm going to do some editing now; please let me know what you think. (One change is that, at least in the US, minors can be sued for torts, although I wouldn't want to see it happen.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:00, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I've edited this section and done some additional editing throughout the page. Comments welcome, of course. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:25, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm broadly happy with those improvements, but there are two things that I think we might want to add. Firstly a sentence as to why legal threats should be handled by adults, and secondly would it be an idea to add a "contact us" option for concerned parents and Guardians of younger admins? If so I'm assuming that arbcom would be the logical group to approach.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  06:59, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * On your first point, I'll try to come up with some wording in the next couple of days. On your second point, I don't know that this is necessary (I don't recall any situations where this was relevant coming up since I've been active), but would welcome others' comments. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:11, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I think if a younger admin needs advice, they would normally approach another admin (who may or may not be younger), as recommended at Guidance for younger editors. Arbcom can't give legal advice anyway. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:48, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks Brad. Sometimes the mere presence of a safety measure is itself some reassurance and comfort. I was thinking that the parent or guardian concerned who read that would think "OK so if something bad does happen there is an email address that I can use". I also think that if people do have concerns then a mechanism that let them contact people who we know to be adults would be more appropriate than one which could in theory put them in contact with someone younger than their son or daughter.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  04:24, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Page title
I have moved the page to reflect wordsmithing improvements to the title. No substantive change is intended. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:53, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Moved
I moved the page because it was unnecessarily long and wordy. Thriftycat Talk • Contribs 15:45, 26 November 2023 (UTC)