Wikipedia:Administrators/Misuse of tools section
This page is reflected both in the main policy and the subpage. To keep both versions up to date and prevent "drift", it's included via transclusion.
Misusing the tools is considered a serious issue. The administrative tools are provided to trusted users for maintenance and other tasks, and should be used with thought, since serious misuse may result in sanction or even their removal.
Common situations where avoiding tool use is often required:
- Conflict of interest/non-neutrality/content dispute - Administrators should not use their tools to advantage, or in a content dispute (or article) where they are a party (or significant editor), or where a significant conflict of interest is likely to exist. With few specific exceptions where tool use is allowed by any admin, administrators should ensure they are reasonably neutral parties when they use the tools.
- Communal norm/policy - When a policy or communal norm is clear that tools should not be used, then tools should not be used without an explanation that shows the matter has been considered and why a (rare) exception is genuinely considered reasonable.
- Reinstating a reverted action (sometimes known as "wheel warring") - see Wikipedia:Administrators#Misuse_of_tools for this and for the very few exceptions.
In most cases even when tools are reasonable, if a reasonable doubt may exist, it is frequently better to ask an independent administrator to review and (if justified) take the action. This is a matter of judgement if necessary.
One important caveat is that an administrator who has interacted with a user or article in an administrative role (ie to address a dispute, problematic conduct, administrative assistance, outside advice/opinion, and the like) or whose actions on an article are minor, obvious, and do not speak to bias, are usually not considered prevented from acting on the article, user, or dispute. This is because one of the roles of administrators is precisely to deal with such matters and if necessary, continue dealing with them. That said, an administrator may still wish to pass such a matter to another administrator as "best practice" in some cases, or if they wish to be absolutely sure no concerns will "stick" in exceptional cases.
Also, if a matter is blatently, clearly obvious (genuinely vandalistic for example), then historically the community has sometimes endorsed any admin acting on it, if any reasonable admin would probably come to the same conclusion. However if there is doubt or a personal motive may be alleged, it is still better to pass it to others.