Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-10-15/Op-ed

Op-ed

AdminCom: A proposal for changing the way we select admins

Looie496 is a neuroscientist specializing in learning and memory. He has been an English Wikipedia editor since 2008, where he writes articles about the nervous system and maintains WikiProject Neuroscience.
The views expressed in this op-ed are those of the author only; responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section. The Signpost welcomes proposals for op-eds at our opinion desk.

There is wide agreement among English Wikipedians that the administrator system is in some ways broken—but no consensus on how to fix it. Most suggestions have been relatively small in scope, and could at best produce small improvements. I would like to make a proposal to fundamentally restructure the administrator system, in a way that I believe would make it more effective and responsive. The proposal is to create an elected Administration Committee ("AdminCom") which would select, oversee, and deselect administrators.