Wikipedia:Administrators

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Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Human administration
Wikimedia Board of Trustees
Wikipedians
Wikimedia staff
Stewards
Arbitration Committee
Bureaucrats
Administrators
Wikipedia's administrative tools are often likened to a janitor's mop, leading to adminship being described at times as being "given the mop". Just like a real-world janitor might have keys to offices that some other workers are excluded from, admins have some role-specific abilities, but – also like a real-world janitor – they're not more important than the other editors.

Administrators, commonly known as admins or sysops (

tools
.

Administrators assume these responsibilities as volunteers after undergoing a

community review process. They do not act as employees of the Wikimedia Foundation. They are never required to use their tools, and must never use them to gain an advantage in a dispute in which they were involved. Administrators should not be confused with Wikimedia system administrators
("sysadmins").

The English Wikipedia has 864 administrators (see full list of accounts with administrator privileges or lists of administrators by activity level).

Administrators' abilities

Administrators have the technical ability to perform the following actions:

  • Block and unblock user accounts, IP addresses and IP ranges from editing
  • Apply, modify, and remove page protection on a particular page to restrict or allow editing, moving, or creation
  • Delete pages with 5,000 or fewer revisions[1]
  • Grant and revoke certain user permissions requested by user accounts[2]
  • View and restore deleted pages
  • Restrict and restore public visibility
    of information in individual logs and page revisions
  • Edit fully protected pages
  • Edit pages in the MediaWiki namespace, excluding JavaScript and CSS pages[3]
  • Move
    a page to any desired title
  • Perform other special actions as listed at Special:ListGroupRights § sysop

By convention, administrators normally take responsibility for judging the outcomes of certain discussions, such as

deletion discussions, move discussions, and move-review discussions, but other editors may close discussions in some cases (see non-admin closures
).

Becoming an administrator

The

request adminship
("RFA") from the community, regardless of their Wikipedia experience. However, administrators are expected to have the trust and confidence of the community, so requests from users who do not have considerable experience are not usually approved. Any editor can comment on a request, and each editor will assess each candidate in their own way. However, only registered editors can "vote" in such requests.

Before requesting or accepting a nomination, candidates should generally be active, regular, and long-term Wikipedia editors, be familiar with the procedures and practices of Wikipedia, respect and understand its policies, and have gained the general trust of the community. Candidates are also required to disclose whether they have ever edited Wikipedia for pay. Questions regarding this are permitted to be asked of every candidate, by any editor in the community, throughout the RFA process.

A discussion takes place for seven days about whether the candidate should become an administrator. Per community consensus, RfAs are advertised on

Bureaucrats
may "clerk" RfAs, dealing with comments and/or votes which they deem to be inappropriate.

The RfA process allows other editors to get to know the candidate. Editors explore the candidate's involvement and background as an editor, conduct in discussions, and understanding of the role they are requesting. Editors state if they support or oppose the request, along with their reasons and impressions of the candidate. An

uninvolved bureaucrat then determines if there is consensus
to approve the request. This determination is not based exclusively on the percentage of support, but in practice most RfAs above 75% pass. The community has determined that in general, RfAs between 65 and 75% support should be subject to the discretion of bureaucrats. (Therefore, it logically follows that almost all RfAs below 65% support will fail.)

While RFA is an intensive process, the quality of feedback and review on the candidate's readiness and demeanor by experienced editors is often very high. Applicants who are unsuccessful but take steps to address points raised will often succeed on a subsequent request some months later. If you are interested in requesting adminship, you should first read the guide to requests for adminship and the nomination instructions. When you are ready to apply, you may add your nomination to the Wikipedia:Requests for adminship ("RFA") page, according to the instructions on that page.

Only one account of a given person may have administrative tools. The only exception is administrators may own

WP:ADMINSOCK
.

Adminship is granted indefinitely, and is removed only upon request, under circumstances involving high-level intervention (see administrator abuse below), or due to inactivity.

Places where administrators in particular can assist

Administrator rights can be particularly helpful in certain areas of Wikipedia:

See also

Wikipedia:Admins willing to make difficult blocks and the administrators channel on IRC
for IRC users.

"Uninvolved administrators" can also help in the management of

dispute resolution concerning disruptive areas and situations. Administrators acting in this role are neutral; they do not have any direct involvement in the issues they are helping people with. Lists of sanctions that are to be enforced by neutral administrators can be found at Wikipedia:General sanctions and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Active sanctions (see also requests for enforcement at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement
).

Administrator noticeboards

Three main noticeboards exist on which general administrator discussions takes place (any user may post or take part in discussions there):

  • WP:AN
    ) – Used for things administrators may wish (or need) to know, such as notices and general information.
  • WP:ANI
    ) – Used for matters needing attention from passing administrators. Although threads here can become long, this board is primarily for incidents and other matters needing advice or attention.
  • WP:AARV
    ) – Is a noticeboard where administrative actions by administrators can be discussed and reviewed by the broader community.

Expectations of adminship

Care and judgment

If granted access, administrators must exercise care in using these new functions, especially the ability to delete pages and to block users and IP addresses (see the

'involved' administrator conduct
may not always be.

Administrator tools are also to be used with careful judgment; it can take some time for a new administrator to learn when it's best to use the tools, and it can take months to gain a good sense of how long a period to set when using tools such as blocking and page protection in difficult disputes. New administrators are strongly encouraged to start slowly and build up experience in areas they are used to, and to ask others if unsure.

Administrator conduct

Administrators should lead by example and, like all editors, should behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others. Administrators should follow

bad faith editing is incompatible with the expectations and responsibilities of administrators, and consistent or egregious poor judgment may result in the removal of administrator tools. Administrators should strive to model appropriate standards of courtesy and civility to other editors.[4]

Administrators should bear in mind that they have hundreds of colleagues. Therefore, if an administrator cannot adhere to site policies and remain civil (even toward users exhibiting problematic behavior) while addressing a given issue, then the administrator should bring the issue to a noticeboard or refer it to another administrator to address, rather than potentially compound the problem with poor conduct.

Accountability

Administrators are accountable for their actions involving administrator tools, as unexplained administrator actions can demoralize other editors who lack such tools. Subject only to the bounds of civility, avoiding personal attacks, and reasonable good faith, editors are free to question or to criticize administrator actions. Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrative actions, especially during community discussions on noticeboards or during Arbitration Committee proceedings. Administrators should justify their actions when requested.

Administrators who seriously or repeatedly act in a problematic manner, or who have lost the trust or confidence of the community, may be sanctioned or have their administrator rights removed by the Arbitration Committee. In the past, this has happened or been suggested for the following actions:

Security

Wikipedia's

the Arbitration Committee
, who will consider whether the rightful owner has been correctly identified, and their view on the incident and the management and security (including likely future security) of the account.

Two-factor authentication
is available to further secure accounts from unauthorized use.

Administrators must never share their password or account with any other person, for any reason. If they find out their password has been compromised, or their account has been otherwise compromised (even by an editor or individual they know and trust), they should attempt to change it immediately, or otherwise report it to a bureaucrat for temporary desysopping. Users who fail to report unauthorized use of their account will be desysopped. Unauthorized use is considered 'controversial circumstances', and access will not be automatically restored.

Involved admins

"No man is a fit arbitrator in his own cause"

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

In general, editors should not act as administrators in disputes in which they have been involved. This is because involved administrators may be, or appear to be, incapable of making objective decisions in disputes to which they have been a party or about which they have strong feelings. Involvement is construed broadly by the community to include current or past conflicts with an editor (or editors), and disputes on topics, regardless of the nature, age, or outcome of the dispute.

One important caveat is that an administrator who has interacted with an editor or topic area purely in an administrative role, or whose prior involvements are minor or obvious edits that do not show bias, is not involved and is not prevented from acting in an administrative capacity in relation to that editor or topic area. Warnings, calm and reasonable discussion and explanation of those warnings, advice about community norms, and suggestions on possible wordings and approaches do not make an administrator involved.

In straightforward cases (e.g.,

blatant vandalism), the community has historically endorsed the obvious action of any administrator – even if involved – on the basis that any reasonable administrator would have probably come to the same conclusion. Although there are exceptions to the prohibition on involved editors taking administrative action, it is still the best practice in cases where an administrator may be seen to be involved to pass the matter to another administrator via the relevant noticeboards
.

Non-administrators closing discussions[9] and assessing consensus are held to the same standards; editors closing such discussions should not have been involved in the discussion itself or related disputes.

Grievances by users ("administrator abuse")

If a user believes an administrator has acted improperly, they should express their concerns directly to the administrator responsible and try to come to a resolution in an orderly and civil manner. If the matter is not resolved between the two parties, users can proceed with dispute resolution (see

appeal the block
.

While the

Request for Arbitration, usually when other dispute resolution approaches are unsuccessful (see this section
below).

Misuse of administrative tools

Misusing the

administrative tools is considered a serious issue. The administrative tools are provided to trusted users for maintenance and other tasks, and should always be used with thought. Serious misuse may result in sanctions or even their removal. If a user believes that an administrator has not used their administrative tools as per the established Wikipedia policies and guidelines, then they should first discuss their concerns and issues with the respective administrator, but in case the issue is not resolved and/or broader community input is required, then they can post their concerns regarding the same at Wikipedia:Administrative action review
for review by the broader community.

Common situations where avoiding tool use is often required:

See below for these and for the very few exceptions.

Even when use of the tools appears reasonable, if doubt exists it is better to ask another independent administrator to review and (if justified) take the action.

Reversing another administrator's action

Administrators are expected to have good judgment, and are presumed to have considered carefully any actions or decisions they carry out as administrators. Administrators may disagree, but administrative actions should not be reversed without good cause, careful thought, and (if likely to be objected to), where the administrator is presently available, a brief discussion with the administrator whose action is challenged.

Special situations

In some situations, the usual policy for reversing another administrator's action does not apply:

Reinstating a reverted action ("wheel warring")

When another administrator has already reversed an administrative action, there is very rarely any valid reason for the original or another administrator to reinstate the same or similar action again without clear discussion leading to a consensus decision.

Wheel warring
is when an administrator's action is reversed by another administrator, but rather than discussing the disagreement, administrator tools are then used in a combative fashion to undo or redo the action. With very few exceptions, once an administrative action has been reverted, it should not be restored without consensus.

Do not repeat a reversed administrative action when you know that another administrator opposes it. Do not continue a chain of administrative reversals without discussion. Resolve administrative disputes by discussion.

Wheel warring usually results in an immediate

request for arbitration. Sanctions for wheel warring have varied from reprimands and cautions, to temporary blocks, to desysopping, even for first-time incidents. There have been several relevant arbitration cases on the subject of wheel-warring.[10] The phrase was also used historically for an administrator improperly reversing some kinds of very formal action.[11]

Wikipedia works on the spirit of consensus; disputes should be settled through civil discussion rather than power struggles. There are few issues so critical that fighting is better than discussion, or worth losing your own good standing for. If you feel the urge to wheel war, try these alternatives:

The term "wheel" comes from the description of highest privileged accounts on the PDP-10 and TOPS-20 mainframe computers, where "wheel" was used the way "root" is used on Linux/Unix systems.[12][13]

Exceptional circumstances

There are a few exceptional circumstances to this general principle. (Note: these are one-way exceptions.)

  • Biographies of living persons – Material deleted because it contravenes BLP may be re-deleted if reinstated, if it continues to be non-BLP-compliant.
  • Privacy – Personal information deleted under the Foundation's privacy policy may be re-deleted if reinstated.
  • Emergency – In certain situations there may arise an emergency that cannot be adjourned for discussion. An administrator should not claim emergency unless there is a reasonable belief of a present and very serious emergency (i.e., reasonable possibility of actual, imminent, serious harm to the project or a person if not acted upon with administrative tools), and should immediately seek to describe and address the matter, but in such a case the action should not usually be reverted (and may be reinstated) until appropriate discussion has taken place.
  • Page protection in edit warring – Reasonable actions undertaken by uninvolved administrators to quell a visible and heated edit war by protecting a contended page should be respected by all users, and protection may be reinstated if needed, until it is clear the edit war will not resume or consensus agrees it is appropriate to unprotect.

Review and removal of adminship

If an administrator abuses administrative rights, these rights may be removed by a ruling of the Arbitration Committee. At their discretion, lesser penalties may also be assessed against problematic administrators, including the restriction of their use of certain functions or placement on administrative probation. The technical ability to remove the administrator user right from an account is granted to the bureaucrat and steward user groups (see Special:ListGroupRights). In emergency situations where local users are unable or unavailable to act, stewards are permitted by the global rights policy to protect the best interests of Wikipedia by removing administrative permissions or globally locking accounts and advising the Arbitration Committee after the fact.

There have been several procedures suggested for a community-based desysop process, but none of them has achieved

dispute resolution
to request comment on an administrator's suitability.

Technical note – Removal of rights performed by stewards does not show up in the usual user logs. Use {{Userrights|username}} for full links to user rights information and full logs, including the stewards' global logs on meta as well, or Special:ListUsers to verify a user's current rights.

Procedural removal for inactive administrators

Administrators who meet one or both of the following criteria may be desysopped for inactivity:

(1) Has made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least a 12-month period[14]
(2) Has made fewer than 100 edits over a 60-month period.[15]

This desysopping is reversible in some cases (see § Restoration of admin tools) and never considered a reflection on the user's use of, or rights to, the admin tools. The admin must be contacted on their user talk page on two occasions before the desysopping depending on the criterion:

For criterion (1): One month before the request for desysopping and again several days before the desysopping goes into effect.
For criterion (2): Three months before the request for desysopping and again one month before the desysopping goes into effect.

In addition, any editors who are falling lower than an average of 50 edits per year over a 5-year period should be notified by talk page message annually that they are at risk of falling below the required level in the future.

Desysopping on inactivity grounds should be handled by English Wikipedia bureaucrats. The summary in the user rights log should make it clear that the desysopping is purely procedural.

If necessary, the user's userpage should be edited to clarify the status — particularly if any categorization is involved.

Voluntary removal

Administrators may request that their access to administrative tools be removed at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard.

Disputes or complaints

In most cases, disputes with administrators should be resolved with the normal dispute resolution process. If the dispute reflects seriously on a user's administrative capacity (blatant misuse of administrative tools, gross or persistent misjudgment or conduct issues), or if dialog fails, then the following steps are available:

Administrator recall

Some administrators place themselves "open to recall", whereby they pledge to voluntarily step down if specified criteria are met. The specific criteria are set by each administrator for themselves, and usually detailed in their userspace. The process is entirely voluntary and administrators may change their criteria at any time, or decline to adhere to previously made recall pledges.

Arbitration Committee review

This is an involuntary process. Generally, the Arbitration Committee requires that other steps of dispute resolution are tried before it intervenes in a dispute, such as raising the issue at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. However, if the matter is serious enough, the Arbitration Committee may intervene early on. Remedies that may be imposed, at the discretion of the committee, include warnings, admonishments, restrictions, and removal of administrator privileges.

Administrators subject to bans

In general, administrators who are subject to restrictions such as topic bans, interaction bans, or blocks of any length keep their tools unless one of the above removal processes apply. However, as with

community ban
.

Restoration of admin tools

Regardless of the process by which the admin tools are removed, any editor is free to re-request the tools through the

requests for adminship process.[16]

Former administrators may re-request the admin tools subsequent to voluntary removal or removal due to inactivity. The request is granted unless one of these situations applies:

Procedure

Former administrators may request restoration of admin tools by placing a request at

resysop procedures. The change is recorded at the list of resysopped users
.

History

In the very early days of Wikipedia, only Bomis employees were administrators, as the server password was required to make any administrative changes.[22] The idea of an administrator role was proposed in late 2001 during the development of the first version of MediaWiki.[23] Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales directly appointed the first administrators in February 2002.

Under the role-based access control currently used, individual accounts are marked with the special roles they may play; these roles in turn determine any special tools they may access. Administrators were not intended to develop into a special subgroup. Rather, administrators should be a part of the community like other editors. Anyone can perform most maintenance and administration tasks on Wikipedia without the specific technical functions granted to administrators. An often paraphrased comment about the title and process of adminship was made by Wales in February 2003—referred to as "sysops" here:

I just wanted to say that becoming a sysop is *not a big deal*.

I think perhaps I'll go through semi-willy-nilly and make a bunch of people who have been around for awhile sysops. I want to dispel the aura of "authority" around the position. It's merely a technical matter that the powers given to sysops are not given out to everyone.

I don't like that there's the apparent feeling here that being granted sysop status is a really special thing.

— Jimmy Wales, 2003[24]

Stated simply, while the correct use of the tools and appropriate conduct should be considered important, merely "being an administrator" should not be.

As Wikipedia's worldwide cultural impact and visibility grew, and as the community grew with it, the role of administrators evolved and standards for adminship rose. Given the lengthy procedures required to remove administrative access, which often include attempts to resolve the dispute prior to

requests for adminship
.

See also

Contacting administrators

References

  1. steward
    .
  2. ^ Administrators are able to grant and revoke the account creator, autopatrolled, confirmed, edit filter helper, edit filter manager, event coordinator, extended confirmed, file mover, IP block exempt, mass message sender, new page reviewer, page mover, pending changes reviewer, rollback, template editor, and AutoWikiBrowser access user rights.
  3. ^ interface administrators can edit JavaScript and CSS pages in the MediaWiki namespace.
  4. ^ See principles in several arbitration committee cases: Decorum and civility, expectations and role of administrators, responsibility of administrators, and administrators
  5. ^ "example".
  6. ^ Communication principle
  7. ^ "2018 RfC on Admin Email requirements".
  8. ^ "2023 talk page discussion regarding notifications".
  9. Articles for deletion
    , etc
  10. ^ Tony Sidaway; UBX war; Pedophilia userbox wheel war; Freestylefrappe; Daniel Brandt deletion wheel war; Sarah Palin protection wheel war; Fred Bauder.
  11. ^ e.g., "Wheel warring against Jimbo Wales" and "Wheel warring against BLP special enforcement"
  12. ^ "Wheel". Jargon File 4.4.7. Eric S. Raymond. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  13. ^ "Wheel bit". Jargon File 4.4.7. Eric S. Raymond. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  14. ^ Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/suspend sysop rights of inactive admins, June 2011
  15. ^ Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Request for comment on administrator activity requirements, March 2022
  16. ^ Excepting those with a specific arbitration or community sanction barring the request.
  17. ^ Except in the rare instance where the ban is reversed due to a mistake by the community (but not merely due to a successful appeal of the ban), in which case the tools' removals are reversed as well. See 2023 RfC.
  18. ^ Revised November 2019; originally formulated in November 2012
  19. ^ A 2022 RfC clarified a 2018 RfC that this should be interpreted as five years since the last tool use, regardless of whether the five-year mark falls before or after the desysop.
  20. ^ See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2019 Resysop Criteria (2) § Statement 1 by TonyBallioni
  21. ^ See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2019 Resysop Criteria (2) § Statement 3 by Hasteur
  22. ^ nostalgia:Wikipedia_utilities/Old_Page_titles_to_be_deleted_talk
  23. ^ nostalgia:Wiki Administrators
  24. ^ "wikimedia.org archive entry".

External links