User blog:CyBeRdrgn/Administratorship

One question Admins are asked frequently:

How do I become an Admin?

Surprisingly, (or not, if you stop to think about it,) the first criteria is to not have asked. ;)

1. What are admins?
 * Admins (Administrators), and other "ranks" in groups of any sort are literally the servants of the group. We enforce the desire of the community we represent.

2. What is the desire of the community?
 * To have a pleasant experience in the group. It's that simple. We want what you want. What we don't want as a group is:
 * an Administrator who bullies the group.
 * too many Administrators.
 * spam.
 * vandalism.
 * flaming.
 * etc. I'm sure you can come up with many, if you think about it as you should.

3. Who promotes the Admins?
 * Generally, the group. Although I am not so sure it's really a promotion. lol A user 'empowered' with the tools for granting a fellow member the access to similar tools executes the decision.

4. What is spam?
 * Spam is unwanted information, normally unrelated to the topic of DCW. By the way, gibberish is also not wanted, and similar to spam in some ways.

5. What is flaming?
 * Flaming is what happens when people get angry. It is an attack on a person. All users are advised that flaming is unnecessary -- a simple correction is sufficient.

DCW Administrators are part of a special group for Administrators-only discussions -- what DCW direction is (mostly how to improve DCW), for example. For the most part, most of our actions do not require discussion, because we all share the same goal and most of the time we simply decide based on the established rules and policies.

This all boils down to:

Administrators will be promoted from the ranks of active users as and when DCW needs them.

Don't take it too hard if you're not promoted. There are many reasons why it is so. It may be simply that you are too inexperienced, or perhaps DCW doesn't need you yet. If you are already doing a good job, keep it up -- patience and consistency are some of the requirements for an Admin. Even as a normal user, you will find you already possess access to many of the tools for maintaining DCW and helping out in other ways.

Good luck!