Wikipedia:Joowro

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 (system operators), are Wikipedia editors who have been granted the technical ability to perform certain special actions on the English Wikipedia. These include the ability to block and unblock user accounts, IP addresses, and IP ranges from editing, edit fully protected pages, protect and unprotect pages from editing, delete and undelete pages, rename pages without restriction, and use certain other 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 3 administrators (see Template:Plainlink 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
• Grant and revoke certain user permissions requested by user accounts
• 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
• Move a page to any desired title
• Perform other special actions as listed at Template:Section link

By convention, administrators normally take responsibility for judging the outcomes of certain discussions, such as deletion discussions, move discussions, and move-review discussions, but non-admin editors may also close discussions (see, e.g., Template:Slink and Template:Slink).

Becoming an administrator

The English Wikipedia requires that administrator candidates possess the extended-confirmed user right. Any extended-confirmed user can request adminship ("RfA") from the community. 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 editors possessing the extended-confirmed user right 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 editors' watchlists and Template:Centralized discussion. The community has instituted a question limit: no editor may ask more than two questions of a candidate. Also disallowed are multi-part questions that are framed as one question, but which in effect ask multiple questions and exceed the limit. 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 bots with administrative access. See 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:

• Administrative backlogs
• Anti-vandalism
• Copyright problems (advice for admins)
• Incidents for admin attention
• Main Page sections, such as In the news or Did you know
• Recent changes patrol
• Speedy deletion requests
• Three-revert rule and edit warring violations

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 Arbitration Committee remedies and the 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).

Current Administrators

1. De-Invincible (yeewtu) 06:45, 29 Morso 2024 (UTC)