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This essay is probably more appropriate to meta-wiki.
On the English Wikipedia, most admin tools are bundled together into a role called administrator. Administrators can do just about everything except make and see oversighted edits, do IP checks, and meta-tasks like adding or removing administrator or higher rights.
There is some call for unbundling of administrator rights, either on a per-rights basis, a per-affected page or, in the case of blocks, user basis, or both.
Administrators use the following tools:
- delete and undelete edits.
- delete and undelete articles.
- change protection levels.
- edit fully protected page.
- add, remove, and change blocks.
- view deleted edits
They have the following social responsibilities:
- Close discussions where the outcome is not nearly unanimous and where a possible outcome would require the use of administrative tools
- Close discussions where the outcome does require the use of administrative tools.
- Honoring non-controversial requests which require the use of tools. This means determining whether the request is non-controversial before honoring on the request of one person.
- Manage pages with long-term full protection, such as heavily used templates, bad-word-lists, etc.
In practice, this means:
- Closing XfD discussions.
- Requires: delete. May require: View deleted edits or articles.
- AN/I discussions.
- Requirements vary by incident. Typically requires block/unblock and seeing deleted history. May require delete or protection-change.
- Speedy deletions
- Requires: Delete, some speedies require view deleted edits/files. Block and protect are helpful.
- Non-controversial page protection, e.g. user-page protection:
- Requires: Change protection levels.
- Edit fully protected pages.
- Requires: Edit fully protected page.
- Edit bad-word lists and similar pages.
- Requires: Edit fully protected page.
- DRV participation
- Requires: view deleted articles
- Userfy deleted pages
- Requires: Restore deleted edits/articles.
Note: This list does not include tasks specifically given to other functionaries.
While the English Wikipedia has largely rejected unbundling, other Wikis may find it helpful. Therefore, thought should be given to a mechanism that allows unbundling.
Previous attempts to change the code to allow unbundling have failed. However, a bot which can make administrative on an authorized user's behalf would serve the same purpose. A bot has the advantage of being easier to code and maintain. It has the disadvantage of separate logging.