Wikipedia:Global rights policy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This page documents an official English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that should normally be followed by all editors. Any edit to it should reflect consensus. Consider discussing potential changes on the talk page first. |
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This page in a nutshell: Users with global rights should not use them on the English Wikipedia except as detailed below. Use of global rights which is prohibited by this policy may result in blocking and requested rights removal. |
The implementation of global user rights on Wikimedia projects extends to the English Wikipedia. This policy defines their use on this wiki.
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[edit] Use of rights
[edit] Staff
Staff are paid employees of the Wikimedia Foundation. Similar to the Ombudsmen, they hold global checkuser rights as well as global adminship and global oversight rights. They will perform office actions when needed such as complaints related to defamation, privacy violations or copyright infringement.
- List of users with staff rights
[edit] Stewards
Stewards may use their global rollback permission on the English Wikipedia, and may use Special:Undelete to view deleted revisions in the course of their duties as stewards. They are also permitted to the oversight tool to suppress abusive usernames. Stewards generally should not use their global rights to perform tasks that could be performed by local users. In emergency situations where local users are unable or unavailable to act, stewards are asked to use their global rights to protect the best interests of Wikipedia.
In their global role, stewards grant CheckUser and Oversight permissions to all projects (per Arbitration Committee or Board decision), and can remove all permissions (in an emergency, or in response to a user request, Arbitration Committee decision, or Board decision). These actions can affect the English Wikipedia, but are done and logged at meta:Steward requests/Permissions.
- List of users with steward rights
[edit] Sysadmins
Wikimedia system administrators are people who do systems administration work on the Wikimedia servers. They can change the Wikimedia site's live copy of MediaWiki, read server logs, etc. Those with server access can also carry out various non-development tasks.
The Wikimedia Foundation legally controls the servers, so the Wikimedia Board of Trustees are ultimately responsible for determining who has developer access. However, they generally delegate this responsibility. On a day-to-day basis, various developers with root access manage the server accounts.
System administrators may use their global rights in whatever manner they deem necessary to manage the Wikimedia Foundation's assets.
- List of users with sysadmin rights
[edit] Ombudsmen
The ombudsman commission is tasked with investigating complaints about violations of the privacy policy (in particular concerning the use of CheckUser tools) on any Wikimedia project for the board in an official manner. The users who make up the ombudsman commission are given the ability to view the checkuser log on every project. To file a complaint, please contact an Ombudsman privately.
The Ombudsmen may use their global rights for investigating complaints about violations of the privacy policy. Their use of the global rights is at the discretion and restriction of the Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees.
- List of users with Ombudsmen rights
[edit] Global bots
The English Wikipedia allows the use of Global bots to update interwiki links as per the Meta policy, since this discussion. Use of global bots for any other purpose is not currently permitted.
- List of bots with bot rights
[edit] Global rollbacker
Global rollbackers can use their rights by default, provided they previously have not had rollback removed at the English Wikipedia. If removal has previously occurred, they must request and be granted rollback locally by an English Wikipedia administrator. Furthermore, any English Wikipedia administrator can ask a global rollbacker to stop using rollback if what they deem to be misuse occurs, and the global rollbacker must comply with such a request. Such a decision by an administrator can be appealed to the wider community. Failure to comply may result in a block.
- List of users with Global rollback rights
[edit] Global sysops
The global sysop group is not activated on the English Wikipedia as community consensus to opt in was not attained.
[edit] Removal of rights
A user who abuses their global rights by knowingly or recklessly using their global rights on the English Wikipedia in contravention of this policy should be reported to meta:Steward requests/Permissions or #wikimedia-stewards immediately, where the stewards will determine whether an emergency removal of tools is required. An indefinite block may also be placed on the account locally during this period if necessary to prevent further abuse (see the above section).
