Wikipedia:Administrators

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This page documents an official English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that all users should follow. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. If in doubt, consider discussing changes on the talk page.
Shortcuts:
WP:ADMIN
WP:SYSOP
WP:MOP
This is the symbol of a Wikipedia administrator. It combines the site's logo with a mop, as sysops are colloquially likened to janitors for rhetorical reasons.
This is the symbol of a Wikipedia administrator. It combines the site's logo with a mop, as sysops are colloquially likened to janitors for rhetorical reasons.

Administrators, commonly known as admins and also called sysops (system operators), are Wikipedia editors who have access to technical features that help with maintenance. English Wikipedia practice is to grant administrator status to anyone who has been an active and regular Wikipedia contributor for at least a few months, is familiar with and respects Wikipedia policy, and who has gained the trust of the community, as demonstrated through the Requests for adminship process. Among other technical abilities, administrators can protect and delete pages, block other editors, and undo these actions as well. These privileges are granted indefinitely, and are only removed upon request or under circumstances involving high-level intervention (see administrator abuse below). Administrators undertake additional responsibilities on a voluntary basis, and are not employees of the Wikimedia Foundation.

In the very early days of Wikipedia, all users functioned as administrators, and in principle they still should. From early on, it has been pointed out that administrators should never develop into a special subgroup of the community but should be a part of the community like anyone else. Generally, the maintenance and administration of Wikipedia can be conducted by anyone, without the specific technical functions granted to administrators. While the tools granted to administrators are technical and do not convey authority per se, administrators are people that are entrusted with potentially harmful tools.

Because administrators are expected to be experienced members of the community, users seeking help will often turn to an administrator for advice and information, or in a dispute. In general, administrators acting in this role are neutral; they do not have any direct involvement in the issues they are helping people with.

Currently, there are 1,557 administrators on the English Wikipedia.

Request assistance - Full list of administrators - Requests for adminship

Contents

Administrator tools

The wiki software has a few important features that are restricted. The tools cover processes such as page deletion, page protection, blocking and unblocking, and access to modify protected pages and the mediawiki interface. They can also grant and remove rollback and ipblock exemption rights to other users.

Full details, and comments on their use, are listed at Wikipedia:Administrators/Tools.

  • Note that administrators as a rule see exactly the same IP information about users, that other (non-administrator) users see, and can neither view pages deleted using oversight, nor modify other users' bot or sysop status. Each of these require additional permissions that are only granted to a very few users.

Adminship

There are no official requirements to becoming a Wikipedia administrator. Anybody can apply regardless of their Wikipedia experience. However, there are some standards to be aware of.

Adminship is oriented to communal trust and confidence, rather than checklists and edit counts; each user will have their own way to assess their confidence in a candidates' readiness for the role.

No big deal

Shortcuts:
WP:DEAL
WP:NBD
WP:NOBIGDEAL

An often paraphrased comment about the title and process of administratorship—referred to as sysops here—is the following, said by Jimbo Wales in February 2003:

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.

– Jimbo Wales, wikimedia.org archive entry, gmane archive entry

A modern clarification of this statement as of 2008, would be to say that while correct use of the tools and appropriate conduct is considered very important, the title of "administrator" is not a big deal, nor should the process of acquiring it be presented as a big deal. There is very little extra decision-making ability that goes along with adminship, and it does not add any extra voice in consensus decisions. In that sense, whether a person is an administrator is not, in and of itself, important.

However, it is also worth noting that the Arbitration Committee, in its attempt to deal with chronic areas of dispute on Wikipedia, has authorized a small amount of additional authority to "Uninvolved administrators" in certain topic areas. This authority includes a form of increased decision-making, meaning that the uninvolved admins can impose additional editing restrictions in certain situations. For an example dealing with disputes in the topic area of Eastern Europe, see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren#General restriction, and for a complete list, see Wikipedia:General sanctions.

Becoming an administrator

If you are interested in becoming an administrator, you should first read the guide to requests for adminship and the nomination instructions. When you are ready, you may add your nomination to the Wikipedia:Requests for adminship ("RFA") page, according to these instructions. A discussion will then take place among fellow editors about whether you should become an administrator. After seven days, a bureaucrat will determine if there is consensus to give you admin status.

You should become familiar with Wikipedia by editing for a while before requesting or accepting a nomination for administrator status; you need to know what you are doing, and other users will need to recognize you in order to agree on trusting you with admin tools. Keep in mind that each language's Wikipedia has its own policies for administrators, which may differ from this (the English) Wikipedia.

Although multiple user accounts are allowed on Wikipedia in general, only one account of a given person should have administrative tools. The sole exceptions are by agreement of Arbcom or the community.

Be careful, please!

If you are granted access, you must exercise care in using these new functions, especially the ability to delete pages and the ability to block IP addresses. You can learn how to do these things at the Administrators' how-to guide and the new administrator school. Please also look at the pages linked from the Administrators' reading list before using your administrative abilities.

Administrator tools are also used with 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 on areas they are used to, and by asking others if unsure.

Administrators and all other users with extra tools are expected to have a strong password, to prevent damage in the case of a compromised account. (See also Wikipedia:Security.)

If you have exercised your right to vanish, and return under a new name, your new name can request administrator access by contacting a bureaucrat privately and producing satisfactory evidence of being the same user, provided you did not originally request desysopping under controversial circumstances. This will not guarantee privacy, however, as new accounts which are granted sysop rights without an RfA tend to attract attention and speculation.

Administrator conduct

Administrators, like all users, are not perfect beings. However, in general, they are expected to act as role models within the community, and a good general standard of civility, fairness, and general conduct both to users and in content matters, is expected.[1] [2] [3] When acting as administrators, they are also expected to be fair, exercise good judgment, and give explanations and be communicative as necessary.

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

  1. Misuse of tools (deletion, protection, blocking in clearly improper circumstances)
  2. Breach of basic policies (attacks, biting/civility, edit warring, privacy, etc)
  3. Repeated/consistent poor judgment
  4. Fighting with the tools (known as "wheel warring"). That is to say: with very few exceptions, as soon as an action using tools is reversed by another administrator, it should not be reinstated by the original user or any admin, no matter how good the intention may be, without consensus. There are certain caveats, however; see #exceptions below.
  5. Failure to communicate[4] - this can be either to users (eg lack of suitable warnings or explanations of actions), or to concerns of the community (especially when explanations or other serious comments are sought).
  6. "Bad faith" adminship (sock puppetry, good hand/bad hand, gross breach of trust[5], etc)
  7. Conduct elsewhere incompatible with adminship (off site attacking, etc).

Places where administrators in particular can assist

Administrator rights can be particularly helpful for working in certain areas of Wikipedia.

See also Wikipedia:Admins willing to make difficult blocks, where admins willing to handle more difficult blocks and other situations can make themselves known, and the administrators channel on IRC for IRC users.

Grievances by users ("Administrator abuse")

If a user thinks an administrator has acted improperly against them or another editor, they should express their concerns directly to the administrator responsible and try to come to a resolution in an orderly and civil manner. However, if the matter is not resolved between the two parties, users can take further action (see Wikipedia:Dispute Resolution). For more possibilities, see Requests for comment/User conduct: Use of administrator privileges and Administrator's noticeboard: Incidents

Misuse of tools

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, 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 below for this and for the very few exceptions.

In most cases even when use of the tools is 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.

Shortcut:
WP:UNINVOLVED
Uninvolved admins

An administrator is considered "uninvolved" if it is clear that they are able to exercise their tools from a position of neutrality. If they have been involved in a content dispute, were a significant editor of an article in question, were involved in revert wars, or are under their own sanctions for that topic area, they do not qualify as uninvolved.

However, one important caveat is that an administrator who has interacted with a user or article in an administrative role (i.e., in order to address a dispute, problematic conduct, administrative assistance, outside advice/opinion, enforce a policy, and the like) or whose actions on an article are minor, obvious, and do not speak to bias, is usually not 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 (although not required to). Or, they may wish to be absolutely sure that no concerns will "stick", in certain exceptional cases.

If a matter is blatantly, clearly obvious (genuinely vandalistic for example), then historically the community has sometimes endorsed any admin acting on it, even if involved, if any reasonable admin would have probably come to the same conclusion.

However, if there is doubt, or a personal motive may be alleged, it may still be better to pass it to others where possible.

Reinstating a reverted action ("Wheel warring")

Administrators are strictly forbidden from fighting over the use of administrative tools by using those tools.

Wikipedia:Wheel war describes wheel warring in these terms:

A wheel war is a struggle between two or more administrators in which they undo one another's administrative actions. Do not repeat an administrative action when you know that another administrator opposes it. Do not continue a chain of administrative reversals without discussion.

Sanctions for wheel warring have varied from reprimands and cautions, to temporary blocks, to desysopping, even for first time incidents. Wheel warring has been used as grounds for immediate revocation of adminship following Arbitration in a number of cases.

When an action performed using administrative tools has been rejected to the point that another administrator has reversed it (or similar related actions were reversed), then there is very rarely a valid reason for the original or any other administrator to reinstate the same or similar action again, without clear discussion leading to a consensus decision. Administrators involved in wheel wars have had their administrative access revoked to prevent further incidents.

As a corollary, reversal of an administrative action should also not be undertaken lightly, or without good cause.

Exceptional circumstances

With very few exceptions, once tool use has been reverted, tools should not be used by the original (or any other) administrator in that matter (even for a desirable reason). There are a few, specific, exceptions where re-use of tools may be reasonable:

  • Wikipedia: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 (ie, reasonable possibility of actual, imminent, serious harm to the project or a user if not acted upon with admin 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.

Note these are "one way" exceptions; for example, an exception for re-deletion does not imply that an exception exists for re-reversal, unless consensus seeking has taken place.

Removal of adminship

Administrators can be removed if they misuse their powers. Currently, administrators may be removed either at the request of Jimbo Wales or 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 powers or placement on administrative probation. The technical ability to remove administrator status rests with stewards.

There have been alternative procedures suggested for the removal of sysop status, but none of them have achieved consensus. Some administrators will voluntarily stand for reconfirmation under certain circumstances; see Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall.

Technical note—removal of rights does not currently 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 users' current rights. See: Bugzilla 12925.

Voluntary removal

Administrators may request that their access to the administrative tools be removed at m:Steward requests/Permissions. Administrators who stepped down in good standing (that is, not in controversial circumstances) may request their administrators status be restored at any time by a bureaucrat. This is commonly done at the bureaucrats' noticeboard.

Administrator recall

Main article: Wikipedia:Administrators open to recall

Some administrators place themselves "open to recall", whereby they will voluntarily step down if a certain volume of editors in good standing request so. The specific criterion are set by each administrator for themselves, and is usually detailed in their userspace. Should the recall process result in that administrator stepping down, she or he will then request as normal for removal, at m:Steward requests/Permissions.

Security

Main article: Wikipedia:Security

It is extremely important that administrators have strong passwords and follow personal security practices. Because they have the potential to cause site-wide damage with a single edit, a compromised sysop account will be blocked and its privileges removed on grounds of site security. In certain circumstances, the revocation of privileges may be permanent. Discretion on resysopping temporarily desysopped administrators is left to bureaucrats, 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.

See also

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