Wikipedia:Super Mario effect

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This page in a nutshell: Some feel that advanced permissions on Wikipedia either provide protection leading to preferential treatment, or leads to harsher treatment compared to other users

The Super Mario Effect is a concept used by some in the Wikipedia community to express the feeling that users with advanced permissions are sometimes treated differently from users without advanced permissions.^[a] First used in a 2012 ArbCom case,^[b] it often refers to the notion that users who are administrators may be admonished or may lose their administrator privileges for behavior that might otherwise result in harsher sanctions, including blocks or bans, if the same behavior was exhibited by a user who was not an administrator.

It is an allusion to the video game franchise by the same name. One of the mechanics throughout the games is that the player starts off normal-sized (known in the game as "small Mario"), and any damage taken from an enemy while the player is normal sized results in Mario's death. However, a red mushroom makes Mario larger (known in the game as "Super Mario"), and one of the added effects of being big is that taking damage will result in the character returning to small size rather than dying. The implication is that administrators are "big" and if they engage in conduct that might be "fatal" to a regular user (for example, resulting in a block), they merely return to being normal sized (becoming a normal user), and must engage in such conduct a second time in order to face the same sanctions a non-administrator would have faced the first time.

The extent to which the Super Mario Effect actually happens has been the subject of some debate. Even if comparatively rare, the concept is often used to express discontent at a perceived lack of fairness.

Reverse Super Mario Effect, on the contrary, can be used to express the feeling that users with advanced permissions sometimes receive harsher treatment than other users by being sent to the Arbitration committee to have their advanced permissions removed in cases where an ordinary user would have received a block.

There are times when the person brings the case to ArbCom because they believe (rightly or wrongly) that they have no other recourse after the administrators' noticeboard chooses to do nothing, often with explicit advice to take it to ArbCom.

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