The history of administrators Options

[Peter Damian]

In 2001 Larry wrote here http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikip...May/000123.html in a reply to Crocker, who had written:

There is no such thing as an "administrator" in Wikipedia in the sense of someone responsible for its content, nor should there be. Nupedia has those (and should); Wikipedia just has us, and we are just as responsible for its content as anyone else. It does have a few folks to set policy, but even they have been very respectful of the community process of content creation and not tried to subvert it by establishing "control" or "ownership". Further, it is obviously impractical to have an infintely scalable content-creation method with non-scalable editing and expect to keep up. Wikipedia CANNOT work unless EVERYONE is an editor and administrator as well as an author. "

Larry replied:

Notice, there is no one claiming to be editor-in-chief or even editor of Wikipedia. A wiki, by its design, doesn't need one. Wikipedia needs people to act as "gardeners" (in Jimbo's metaphor). The reason Wikipedia is so successful at creating content is that there aren't any editors standing in the way of content creation. This means there's a lot of garbage that needs cleaning up, and the whole thing is a work-in-progress, but a lot work *is* done, and we *do* have a lot of very good articles and many that are improving.

It was a little like that when I started contributing in 2003. Quite a friendly place, even.

(1) When was the concept of 'administrator' devised? It seems to be built into the concept of the MediaWiki. Was it part of the original Ward-Cunningham design? Is it related to the administrator concept in computer systems design?

(2) When did the role become important, and when did the divide between editors and admins begin to get bitter?

(3) Who was the first editor to be banned? My research suggests an eccentric IP beginning with '24', who they called '24'.

(4) Who were the first rogue admins?

[Peter Damian]

Research (and a discussion with Brion Vibber) confirms that there was a basic admin capability under the original UseModWiki system, but the "sysop" function as we know it arrived with the new software in January 2002.

The interesting thing is that everyone who was provably not a vandal was eo ipso a member of the 'community' and could simply ask for adminship, and it was always given, at least for the first half of 2002. This was used purely for blocking IPs. The idea of blocking a member of the 'community' was unthinkable. Then some problem users turned up, and the question was raised whether at some point it would be necessary to block logged in users. Jimmy gave this wonderfully cheesy reply:

I hope it doesn't sound too corny, but I think that the wiki spirit of love will prevent this ... Now I realize -- build it in a spirit of trust, and only do something about problems when they come up, always resisting the temptation to solve problems that don't exist, or to over-do the solution. If vandals start logging in, we'll have to do something about it. But until that happens, maybe our trusting nature will make it less fun to vandalize us.

Jimmy, yes it does sound really corny and cheesy, what were you thinking of?

The idea of not blocking users actually did survive with the concept that admins should never block other admins (no "wheel war" as they idiotically called it). But that simply proves that the real 'community' was the admins all along, whatever rubbish they talk about the whole community, and being an admin not that special blah blah.

The other interesting thing that came out of that period was the great extent they went to in order not to block or ban obvious trolls. E.g. the IP called '24' who was clearly deranged, plus another person who would write articles consisting of perfectly correct sequences of pi. From this there evolved the Wikipedian idea that you try as hard to keep people in the community, until all efforts fail. Then the offending heretic is cast into the outer darkness, labelled and vilified and marked as a leper etc etc.

Wales comes across clearly as a sort of Jesus figure, and perhaps he thought of himself that way too, in some way at least.

[edit] I think the user called 'CARROTS' goes down in history as the first actual user to be banned. Later on there was someone called Helga. After that, many many others, of course.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian:

[EricBarbour]

Jimmy, yes it does sound really corny and cheesy, what were you thinking of?

That's the joke. He doesn't think.

I think the user called 'CARROTS' goes down in history as the first actual user to be banned. Later on there was someone called Helga. After that, many many others, of course.

Where did you find the CARROTS reference?