Wikipedia administrators

For Information about Wikipedia’s Administrators, see Wikipedia:Administrators.

On Wikipedia, trusted and experienced editors may be appointed as administrators (also called admins, sysops or janitors) by the editing community,^[1]: 327 following a successful request for adminship. Administrators have some technical privileges not enjoyed by other editors, such as the ability to protect and delete pages and to block users from editing pages.

Icon that represents administrators on Wikipedia

Discussion with Wikipedia Administrators in the Wiki Indaba 2023 conference in Agadir, Morocco

Becoming an administrator is often called "taking up the mop",^[2][3] referring to their cleanup and moderation duties.

In July 2012, reports suggested Wikipedia was "running out of administrators" due to fewer appointments compared to previous years,^[4] though Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales denied any crisis.^[5]

Requests for adminship

Administrators are now granted privileges through a process called Requests for Adminship (RfA).^[1] Editors may nominate themselves or be nominated by others. Candidacy typically requires "extensive work on the wiki". Votes above 75% support usually succeed, below 65% fail, and the intermediate zone is handled by bureaucrats.^[6]

Role

Administrators have additional technical privileges for maintenance and enforcement, such as deleting pages, protecting pages, granting user rights, and blocking disruptive users.^[7]: 66

Scientific studies

Studies have analyzed administrator behavior and RfA outcomes, including research from Virginia Tech, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the Polish-Japanese Institute of Information Technology, showing trends in voting and topic focus after promotion.^[8]