Wikipedia:Some people are irreplaceable
 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community. |
The common wisdom of the community is that you are not irreplaceable and that everything will get done just as well if individual contributors leave or are banned. This wisdom is wrong and dangerous. In truth, some people are irreplaceable
Consider the following examples:
- Phabricator translations stopped being updated when MModell stopped working for the WMF
- Article history templates stopped being maintained when Gimmetrow left
- The sole active admin of the Amharic Wikipedia was desysopped and banned for homophobia, leaving the project, which had refused global sysops, with no active admins.
- One editor handling lots of COI edit requests stopped editing, resulting in a backlog of 1000 requests
Every "copyright admin" has a real life, we can't be here 24/7. Diannaa and MER-C have done so much work in the area for years and years, and it is completely unacceptable. Diannaa has been like Atlas holding up the clouds for so long, and it is not healthy. Dianna's done 87,609 reviews at Copypatrol, and several thousand other reviews off of various requests. She's been the go to person for copyright issues for so long, it's basically a policy to ask Diannaa about your copyright issues. There's so much shit going on, how is it even fair to expect Diannaa to keep up so extensively with a user who is not getting it? But don't worry, DanCherek can take Diannaa's place as the person who carries the massive weight of vetting current edits for copyright issues- he's done 1,275 reviews in the last 30 days. That's not fucking fair for him at all! We can't let this shit continue like that! If MER-C stops editing, the workflow at CCI will face serious issues, since he's the only one with access to the script that removes not copyright-able edits from the the contributor surveys- if he just stopped editing one day, what would we do? Other editors in the area- Hut 8.5, Sphilbrick, and Wizardman, just for example, have been around for over a decade, and despite the work they've done, it just doesn't end. If any of the mentioned users stopped editing, there would be serious issues for the entire site. That sort of system does not fucking work!
— Moneytrees, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive336#We cannot sweep copyright issues under the rug any longer, August 2021 (final emphasis mine)
This shouldn't be treated as an excuse for any of these people to behave in ways that are otherwise disruptive, or to immunize them from accountability for their actions. It's merely an acknowledgement that the common wisdom doesn't always hold.