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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 are 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, apply and remove page protection, 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 or being elected by their fellow editors. 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 818 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:

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., Wikipedia:Deletion process § Non-administrators closing discussions and Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions § Non-admin closure).

Becoming an administrator

On the English Wikipedia, there are two processes for becoming an administrator: through consensus established by public discussion, or by secret ballot. The English Wikipedia requires that administrator candidates possess the extended confirmed user right.[5] (Other Wikipedias have their own policies for granting adminship.)

Only one account of a given person may have administrative tools. The only exception is that administrators may operate bots with administrative access. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry § Administrative sock puppets for more information.

Administrator permissions are granted indefinitely, and are removed only upon request, under circumstances involving high-level intervention (see § Grievances below), or due to inactivity.

Request for adminship through consensus

Any extended-confirmed user can request adminship ("RfA") from the community. However, administrators are expected to have a high level of trust and confidence with the community, so requests from users who do not have considerable experience are usually not successful. 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" on requests.[6]

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.[7] 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 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 and designated monitors 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. When you are ready to apply, you may add your nomination according to the nomination instructions.

Administrator elections

Administrators can also be selected by an administrator election with a secret ballot. Administrator elections, which began in 2024, do not replace RfA, and prospective administrators may freely choose which process to use. A trial election was held in October 2024. Administrator elections were authorized permanently on a 5-month schedule in an RfC held in early 2025. Excluding the pre-election windows for candidate nominations and ballot setup, the process lasts 12 days: 5 days for discussion and questions, followed by 7 days for a secret ballot vote. Election cycles and the timeframes for each window and period are advertised in advance, including by watchlist notices.

After voting has ended, the election will be scrutinised by three English Wikipedia checkusers or stewards. They will check for any duplicate, ineligible, or sockpuppeteer votes and strike them as necessary. Once scrutineering is complete, votes are tallied, results are announced, and new admins are granted administrative privileges. To be successful, a candidate must receive a support percentage of 70% or more and a quorum of at least 20 support votes. The vote tally is calculated by Support / (Support + Oppose) for each candidate. "Neutral" votes are not used in the calculation of a candidate's percentage of support and have no impact in that regard.

Places where administrators in particular can assist

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

See also Admins willing to make difficult blocks, the administrators channel on IRC and the administrators channels on Discord.

"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).

Administrator noticeboards

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

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 administrators' how-to guide to learn how to perform these actions). 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.

Administrator conduct

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 are not exempt from any of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines; they are expected to follow them and perform their duties to the best of their abilities. Occasional mistakes are entirely compatible with the use of the administrator toolset; administrators are not expected to be perfect. However, sustained or serious disruption of Wikipedia through behavior such as incivility or editing in bad faith is incompatible and a direct conflict 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 edits, discussions, interactions, and conduct should set the example for all other editors at all times. This is both a requirement and a condition with holding administrator privileges.[8]

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.

Accountability

Administrators are accountable for their actions involving administrator tools, as unexplained administrator actions can demoralize other editors. 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 or in a recall petition. This has happened or been suggested for the following actions:

  • "Bad faith" adminship (sock puppetry, gross breach of trust,[9] etc.)
  • Breach of basic policies (attacks, biting/civility, edit warring, privacy, etc.)
  • Conduct elsewhere incompatible with adminship (off-site attacking, etc.)
  • Failure to communicate[10] – 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 or respond if they are enabled. Administrators who do not have notifications enabled are strongly encouraged to indicate this on their user page.[11][12]
  • 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.
  • Repeated or consistent poor judgment.

Security

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 characters 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.

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"

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 or age 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 involvement is 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[13] 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

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 start a discussion at administrative action review or the administrators' noticeboard to request feedback from the community – however, complainants should be aware that their behavior is equally taken into account as the user that they are discussing. If a user believes they have been blocked improperly, they can go through the block appeal process and explain the situation and why they believe the block is improper or unjustified.

While the Arbitration Committee does not routinely review short or routine blocks, concerns about an administrator's fitness and suitability for the role may be brought to the committee with a Request for Arbitration, usually when other dispute resolution approaches are unsuccessful and when this process is a last resort (see this section below).

Misuse of administrative tools

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, 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 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