Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not the Stanford Prison Experiment
 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Admins tend to know what they're doing. |
Wikipedia is not the Stanford Prison Experiment. Administrators are not chosen at random, nor are they personal friends of the management, or people who just happened to get in on the ground floor. Admins are nominated, make statements, are then questioned and evaluated by their peers and finally approved by bureaucrats to be given "the mop". They are, without exception, editors with a substantial history of edits, a minimum of several months of service and an applied and demonstrated knowledge of Wikipedia policies and guidelines and common practice and civility. So if an administrator...
- gives you some advice
- edits an article or the links, references or formatting therein
- reverts or refactors your edit
- uses their administrative tools to block an editor, protect or delete an article or otherwise f**k up your day
...the chances are they know what they're up to. Are administrators perfect? No. They don't have magic powers, and they can have the piss frustrated out of them just as quickly as anyone else. But so would you if you told your child to stop drawing on the wall with crayons for the 4th time that day.