Wikipedia:Role of Jimmy Wales
This is an information page. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines; rather, its purpose is to explain certain aspects of Wikipedia's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices. It may reflect differing levels of consensus and vetting. |
Jimmy Wales holds a special role in the
Software and policy changes
In the past, Wales has instructed Wikimedia's
In February 2006, Wales created the T1 criterion for speedy deletion of divisive and inflammatory templates, which was repealed in February 2009.
In
In July 2010, Wales
Wales maintains a very active
Founder flag
On 6 February 2006, Jimmy Wales was granted the 'steward' right on English Wikipedia by Danny, and was granted the 'steward' right on Meta by Sj. In 2009, a 'founder' flag was established for Wales,[2] replacing his steward rights.[3]
The founder user group, to which only Jimmy Wales belongs, gives him a specific set of user rights on all projects including: abuse filter viewing, viewing deleted pages in the File and File talk namespace, and creating accounts. The rights associated with this flag were once much more extensive, including all administrative rights and user right editing, but were dramatically reduced in May 2010 following an incident where he deleted files at Wikimedia Commons without seeking consensus. In April 2023, these global permissions were again reduced at Jimmy Wales's request.[4] Jimmy Wales also agreed to the removal of his English Wikipedia administrator, CheckUser and Oversight permissions; and to modify the local Founder permission so that it was no longer able to grant permissions to himself or other users.[5]
Wikimedia Foundation
In June 2003, the
Founder's seat on the Foundation Board
Since 2008, Jimmy Wales is (additionally to the Chairman Emeritus) granted the "
Committees
Arbitration Committee
The members of the Arbitration Committee were originally appointed by Wales, and he at one time asserted the right to overrule or even dissolve the Committee. When it was founded in 2004, he said that he expected to exercise this right "basically never". In June 2008, Wales once again asserted the power to overrule the Committee if he deemed it necessary, but added that he did not expect that would ever come about. This was in apparent contradiction to a previous statement by Wales made in April 2007:
Here, let me by decree in this very instant make the following binding pledge upon myself:
In the event that the ArbCom makes a ruling against me, overturning any decision I have made in my traditional capacity within Wikipedia, the ArbCom's decision shall be final.
In January 2009, Wales stated that he did have the authority to remove sitting arbitrator FT2. Upon the arbitrator's resignation, the Committee declared that whether or not FT2 was to be replaced was a decision for Wales. That same month, the Committee restricted its official mailing list to "sitting arbitrators, the designated mailing list coordinator, and Jimbo Wales"; the position of designated mailing list coordinator was subsequently discarded, making Wales the only non-arbitrator privy to the list.
In July 2009, the Committee announced that it had convened with Wales's endorsement an Advisory Council on Project Development. A storm of protest from the editing community over the initiative led to its abandonment and the resignation of the arbitrator primarily responsible.
In August 2009, the Committee
In September 2009, Wales declared that he wanted his role to appoint Committee members following the
The English Wikipedia community ratified a rewritten
Wales continued to assert implied reserve powers over the Arbitration Committee, including the hypothetical power to disband it. In December 2013, arbitrator-elect 28bytes resigned amidst a controversy over his status as a Wikipediocracy admin. Citing 28bytes's overwhelming support in the just-concluded election, Wales offered to exercise his reserve powers over ArbCom for the first time ever and call a special election to reconfirm 28bytes to his post. 28bytes, however, declined the offer, and no election was held. As a result, no determination was made as to whether Wales had the power to call a special election.
In December 2017, upon the conclusion of the
Mediation Committee
The original members of the Mediation Committee were appointed by Wales in December 2003, at the same time as the original Arbitrators were selected. All new mediator nominations were subject to the final approval of Wales, although he rarely commented on nominations and has never overturned a consensus of the Committee. Jimbo held a subscription to the private mailing list of the Mediation Committee, Mediation-en-l. The Mediation Committee was disbanded by the community in 2018.
Functionary actions
Banning users
Historically, Wikipedia:Banning policy § Authority to ban included a line that stated: Jimbo Wales retains the authority to ban editors.
In April 2022, Jimbo Wales removed this line from the policy at his own volition, stating in a village pump discussion regarding that line: In order to prevent any further controversy on the immediate question, though, I have personally removed the line in question from the policy and assert affirmatively that I do not have the right to ban users unilaterally.
Blocking and unblocking users
When he was an administrator on the English Wikipedia, Wales had the technical ability to
On 21 September 2011, he unblocked an IP "Limited unblock for purpose of participating on my talk page only".
User rights
Until April 2023, Wales had the technical ability, through the unique permissions flag of "
See also
- User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles
- Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee
- Wikipedia:Argumentum ad Jimbonem
- Wikipedia:Appeals to Jimbo
- Meta:Founder
- Wikipedia:Wikipedia holidays
- Wikipedian of the Year
Notes
- IP block exempt exemption.
- ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
- ^ See April 2023 Statement by Jimbo Wales, made in the context of an English Wikipedia arbitration case request
- ^ Phabricator task, Global Founder rights log, English Wikipedia log
- ^ https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-June/010743.html
- ^ "Bylaws - Wikimedia Foundation". wikimediafoundation.org. Retrieved 2017-02-25.
- ^ "Board of Trustees/Restructure Announcement Q&A - Wikimedia Foundation".
- ^ "Wikimedia Foundation Board Handbook - Meta". meta.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 2017-02-25.
- ^ "Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-05-02/Board restructuring". Wikipedia. 2015-07-10.
- ^ "Wikimedia chair Jimmy Wales steps down - Wikinews, the free news source". en.wikinews.org. Retrieved 2017-02-25.
- ^ See past Administrators' Noticeboard discussions concerning Wales's removal of administrator privileges from individuals: the Bedford case (July 2008) and the Scarian case (November 2008). His desysop of Jasonr in November 2009, reversing his own unilateral action from the project's early years, was less controversial, as Jasonr had only 4 edits.
- bureaucrat status revoked by the meta.wikimedia.org and English Wikinewscommunities, largely due to inactivity.