Do you need to report persistent vandalism or spam to an administrator? File a vandalism report.
Do you need to report an inappropriate username or an account with a username that blatantly violates Wikipedia's username policy? File a username report.
Do you need help with resolving a dispute with another editor? See dispute resolution.
Do you need to report or discuss a policy violation or behavioral issue (such as an evasion of a block, abuse of tools, or other incidents) on Wikipedia that requires administrator intervention? File an incident report.
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 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:
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents (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.
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 administrators' how-to guide and new administrator page to learn how to do these things). New administrators should also look at the pages linked from the administrators' reading list before using their administrative abilities. Occasional lapses are accepted but serious or repeated lapses, or lapses involving breaches of 'involved' administrator conduct may not always be.
Administrator tools are also to be used with careful judgement; 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.
Administrators should lead by example and, just like all editors, should behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others at all times. Administrators should follow all Wikipedia policies and perform their duties to the best of their abilities. Occasional mistakes are entirely compatible with the admin toolset; administrators are not expected to be perfect. However, sustained or serious disruption of Wikipedia through behavior such as incivility or 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 high standards of courtesy and civility, and their conduct should set the example for all other editors.
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, the administrator should bring the issue to a noticeboard or refer it to another administrator to address, rather than potentially compound or escalate the problem with poor conduct.
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:
"Bad faith" adminship (sock puppetry, gross breach of trust, etc.)
Breach of basic policies (attacks, biting/civility, edit warring, privacy, etc.)
Conduct elsewhere incompatible with adminship (off-site attacking, etc.)
Failure to communicate – this can be either with editors (e.g., lack of suitable warnings or explanations of actions), or to address concerns of the community (especially when explanations or other serious comments are sought)
While best practices are for administrators to have email and notifications enabled, they are not required to do so, nor are they required to read and/or respond if they are enabled. Administrators who do not have notifications enabled are strongly encouraged to indicate this on their user page.
Repeated, consistent, or egregious misuse of a tool or user permission that is bundled with the administrator toolset (such as moving files or the use of rollback) – an administrator can be stripped of their administrative privileges completely just to remove access to a bundled user permission.
Wikipedia's policy on password strength requirements requires administrators to have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices. Because they have the potential to cause site-wide damage with a single edit, a compromised admin account will be blocked and its privileges removed on grounds of site security. In certain circumstances, the revocation of privileges may be permanent. Any administrator who is discovered to have a password less than 8 bytes in length or among the 10,000 most common passwords may also be desysopped. Discretion on resysopping temporarily desysopped administrators is left to 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.
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.
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.
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 this section below for further information). One possible approach is to use administrative action review or the administrators' noticeboard to request feedback from the community – however, complainants should be aware that the behavior of the filer is often also scrutinized. If a user believes they have been blocked improperly, they may appeal the block.
While the Arbitration Committee does not review short or routine blocks, concerns about an administrator's suitability for the role may be brought to the committee with a Request for Arbitration, usually when other dispute resolution approaches are unsuccessful (see this section below).
Misusing the administrative tools is considered a very serious issue; they are provided to trusted users for maintenance and other tasks, and should always be used with thought, care, and with due diligence and good judgment. Serious misuse of the tools 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 directly. In cases where the issue is not resolved by discussing it directly and/or when broader community input is determined to be necessary or required, users can post their concerns regarding the issue at Wikipedia:Administrative action review for review by the broader community.
Common situations where avoiding tool use is often required:
Conflict of interest or non-neutrality – Administrators should not normally use their tools in matters in which they are personally involved (for example, in a content dispute in which they are a party). See Involved admins.
Communal norms or policies – 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.
Administrator actions in conjunction with paid editing – Administrator tools may not be used as part of any paid editing activity, except as a Wikipedian-in-Residence, or when the payment is made by the Wikimedia Foundation or an affiliate of the WMF.
Reversing the actions of other administrators – Only in a manner that respects the admin whose action is involved, and (usually) after consultation.
Reinstating an admin action that has already been reversed (sometimes known as "wheel warring") – Responses have included Arbitration and desysopping even the first time.
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.
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:
Blocks made by the Arbitration Committee: Blocks authorized by the Arbitration Committee must include a clear indication of their source, such as "For the Arbitration Committee", "Appeal is only to the Arbitration Committee", or "{{ArbComBlock}}". Administrators must only place, reduce, or remove such blocks with the prior, written consent of the committee. (See also: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy § Appeal of decisions.)
CheckUser blocks: Blocks designated as "CheckUser blocks" (that is, blocks relying on confidential checkuser findings) may not be reversed by administrators who do not have access to the CheckUser permission. Appeal of these blocks may be made to the Unblock Ticket Requests System (which has a designated "checkuser" area) or to the Arbitration Committee. Administrators were reminded in July 2010 that they may not reverse CheckUser blocks without prior consent from the committee or a checkuser.
Oversight blocks: Blocks designated as "Oversight blocks" (that is, blocks relying on information that has been suppressed) may not be reversed by administrators who do not have access to the oversight permission. The Arbitration Committee ruled in March 2013 that oversight blocks cannot be reversed without prior consent from the committee or an oversighter.
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 decision by consensus. 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. The phrase was also used historically for an administrator improperly reversing some kinds of very formal action.
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:
Seek constructive discussion, and aim to cool the situation and bring it back to normal processes, if able. Adopting a deliberately calming manner and approach as you explain may help. In some cases, email may allow heartfelt personal advice to be given that could not easily be posted on-wiki.
If you are concerned that not acting (or the delay needed for dialog) could quickly cause the situation to get much worse or would be grossly inappropriate, it can sometimes be sensible to email the Arbitration Committee and let them know about the situation or request intervention or speedy advice. (This might be the case where non-public information or harm could result).
And remember that you have hundreds of colleagues: you are not alone and most issues are made worse by poor judgment. If you are seen to conduct yourself well, usually the matter will blow over soon, however bad it may seem. Sometimes it's best simply to take a break and calm down.
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.
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 an 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, the rights can be removed via a ruling of the Arbitration Committee. Arbitrators can also opt to place lesser penalties against problematic administrators, including the restriction of their use of certain functions or placement on administrative probation.
The community may start a recall petition to require an administrator's status to be reconfirmed through a re-request for adminship (RRfA). Some administrators will voluntarily stand for reconfirmation under certain circumstances. See § Administrator recall. Users may also use dispute resolution to request comment on an administrator's suitability.
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.
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.
Administrators who meet one or both of the following criteria may be desysopped for inactivity:
Has made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least a 12-month period
Has made fewer than 100 edits over a 60-month period.
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.
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:
The community may start a recall petition to require an administrator's status to be reconfirmed through a re-request for adminship (RRfA); administator privileges will be removed if the administrator does not start an RRfA within 30 days of a successful recall petition, or does not pass the RRfA.
In addition to this procedure, individual administrators may pledge to voluntarily step down if specified criteria are met. These criteria are set by each administrator for themselves, and usually detailed in their userspace. Administrators who made such pledges may change them at any time, or decline to adhere to previously made recall pledges. Most of these voluntary pledges were made before the RRfA procedure was introduced for all administrators.
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.
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 applies. However, as with all other granted user rights, the administrator tools will be removed from a user who is subject to an indefinite sitewide 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.
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:
The admin tools were removed while the administrator was "under a cloud". If there were serious questions about the appropriateness of the former admin's status as an administrator at the time of resignation or removal, the request will be referred to WP:RFA. In doubtful cases, re-granting of the tools will be deferred until a broader community discussion takes place and is closed.
Removed as a result of a community ban. When an editor's admin tools are removed as a result of a community ban, the editor will need to re-apply through the typical process (WP:RFA) to regain the tools.
Lengthy inactivity
Over two years with no edits. If an editor has had at least two years of uninterrupted inactivity (no edits) between the removal of the admin tools and the re-request, regardless of the reason for removal, the editor will need to request reinstatement through the WP:RFA process. In the case of an administrator desysopped due to a year of inactivity, one additional year of continued uninterrupted inactivity (no edits) from the removal due to inactivity will make a new WP:RFA necessary for reinstatement.
Over five years since administrative tools were last used. In the case of removal due to inactivity, for any administrator who does not have a logged administrator action in five years, bureaucrats should not restore administrator access upon request.
Security of account cannot be established. At their discretion, bureaucrats may decline to restore admin tools to an editor if they are not satisfied that the account is controlled by the same person who used it previously.
A bureaucrat is not reasonably convinced that the user has returned to activity or intends to return to activity as an editor. Should there be doubt concerning the suitability for restoration of the admin tools, the restoration shall be delayed until sufficient discussion has occurred and a consensus established through a discussion among bureaucrats.
In the very early days of Wikipedia, only Bomis employees were administrators, as the server password was required to make any administrative changes. The idea of an administrator role was proposed in late 2001 during the development of the first version of MediaWiki. 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
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 arbitration, the community carefully scrutinizes requests for adminship.
^These blocks can disallow editing of certain pages or namespaces, or be applied sitewide and to all pages.
^Pages with more than 5000 revisions can only be deleted by a steward.
^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.
^Only interface administrators have the ability to edit JavaScript and CSS pages in the MediaWiki namespace.
^Excepting those with a specific arbitration or community sanction barring the request.
^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.
^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.
