Wikipedia:Requests for adminship

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Requests for adminship (RfA) is the process by which the Wikipedia community decides who will become administrators (also known as admins or sysops), who are users with access to additional technical features that aid in maintenance. A user either submits his/her own request for adminship (a self-nomination) or is nominated by another user. Please be familiar with the administrators' reading list, how-to guide, and guide to requests for adminship before submitting your request.

This page also hosts Requests for bureaucratship (RfB), where new bureaucrats are selected.

About RfA

The community grants administrator status to trusted users, so nominees should have been on Wikipedia long enough for people to determine whether they are trustworthy. Administrators are held to high standards of conduct because other editors often turn to them for help and advice.

Nomination standards

There are no official prerequisites for adminship, other than having an account and a basic level of trust from other editors. The community looks for a variety of things in candidates, and everybody has their own opinion. For examples of what the community is looking for, read some successful and some unsuccessful RfAs.

Decision process

Any user may nominate another user with an account. Nominations remain posted for seven days from the time the nomination is posted on this page, during which time users give their opinions, ask questions, and make comments. This discussion process is not a vote (it is sometimes referred to as a !vote, using the computer science negation symbol). At the end of that period, a bureaucrat will review the discussion to see whether there is a consensus for promotion. This is sometimes difficult to ascertain and is not a numerical measurement, but as a general descriptive rule of thumb most of those above ~80% approval pass; most of those below ~70% fail, and the area between is subject to bureaucratic discretion.

Bureaucrats may also use their discretion to close nominations early, if a promotion is unlikely and they see no further benefit in leaving the application open. Only bureaucrats may close a nomination as a definitive promotion, but any user in good standing can close a request that has no chance of passing; please do not close any requests that you have taken part in, or that are not blatantly unpassable. In the case of vandalism, improper formatting or a declined or withdrawn nomination, non-bureaucrats may also delist a nomination, but they should make sure they leave a note with the candidate, and if necessary add the request to the unsuccessful requests.

In exceptional circumstances, bureaucrats extend RfAs beyond seven days or restart the nomination so as to make consensus clearer. If your nomination fails, please wait a reasonable period of time before renominating yourself or accepting another nomination. Some candidates have tried again and succeeded within a month, but many editors prefer several months before reapplying.

Self-nominations are permitted. If you are unsure about nominating yourself for adminship, you may wish to consult admin coaching first, so as to get an idea of what the community might think of your request. Also, you might explore adoption by a more experienced user to gain experience.

Expressing opinions

Any Wikipedian with an account is welcome to comment in the Support, Oppose, and Neutral sections, but IPs are unable to place a numerical (#) "vote". The candidate may respond to the comments of others. Certain comments may be discounted if there are suspicions of fraud; these may be the contributions of very new editors, sockpuppets, and meatpuppets. Please explain your opinion by including a short explanation of your reasoning. Your input (positive or negative) will carry more weight if supported by evidence. In close nominations, detailed explanations behind your position will have more impact than positions with no explanations or simple comments such as "yep", "no way" and "as per."

To add a comment, click the "Voice your opinion" link for the relevant candidate. Any Wikipedians, including users who do not have an account and/or are not logged in ("anons"), are invited to participate in the comments section and ask questions. Always be respectful towards others in your comments. Constructive criticism is useful for the candidate to hear so he/she can make proper adjustments and possibly fare better in a future RfA attempt. You may wish to review arguments to avoid in adminship discussions. Irrelevant questions may be removed or ignored, so please stay on-topic.

Note that the Requests for adminship process draws a variety of Wikipedians to express their opinions and help make these decisions. There are some editors who oppose many, or even most, requests, for a particular reason. Although the community currently endorses the right of any Wikipedian with an account to comment in the Support, Oppose, and Neutral sections, this more-or-less uncommon voting pattern is perceived by some as "trolling". Before responding to such comments in an RfA, consider whether that is the best forum for what you have to say. Not fanning the fire will, at the very least, not make the situation worse. Remember, the bureaucrats who close the discussions have a lot of experience, and are able to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Nominating

Nominations can only be accepted by the user in question. If you wish to nominate a user, contact them first before making the nomination page. If they accept, create the nomination and ask them to sign their acceptance. To nominate either yourself or another user for adminship, follow the instructions on this page. The nomination may be considered "malformed" and removed if you do not follow these instructions or transclude the request properly. Users interested in becoming administrators may add themselves to Category:Wikipedia administrator hopefuls. A list of these users including additional information is automatically maintained at Wikipedia:List of administrator hopefuls.

Current nominations for adminship

About RfB

Requests for bureaucratship (RfB) is the process by which the Wikipedia community decides who will become bureaucrats, users with the ability to make other users admins or bureaucrats, based on community decisions reached here. They can also change the user name of most users and can grant or remove bot status on an account.

The process for bureaucrats is similar to that for adminship above; however the expectation for promotion to bureaucratship is significantly higher than for admin, requiring a clearer consensus. In general, the threshold for consensus is 90%, those below 85% will fail and the rest are within the bureaucrat's discretion. Bureaucrats are expected to determine consensus in difficult cases and be ready to explain their decisions.

Create a new RfB page as you would for an RfA, and insert {{subst:RfB|User=USERNAME|Description=YOUR DESCRIPTION OF THE USER ~~~~}} into it, then answer the questions. New bureaucrats are recorded at Wikipedia:Successful bureaucratship candidacies. Failed nominations are at Wikipedia:Unsuccessful bureaucratship candidacies.

At minimum, study what is expected of a bureaucrat by reading discussions at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship including the recent archives, before seeking this position.

While canvassing for support is frowned upon (to the extent that canvassing editors have had their RfBs fail), some users find it helpful to place {{RfX-notice|b}} on their userpages. Such declarations are most definitely allowed.

Please add new requests at the top of this section immediately below this line.

Current nominations for bureaucratship

Related pages

• Requests for self-de-adminship can be made at m:Steward requests/Permissions.
• Requests to mark an account as a bot can be made at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval.
• Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship - Requests for comment on possible misuse of sysop privileges, as well as a summary of rejected proposals for de-adminship processes and a list of past cases of de-adminship.
• Wikipedia:Miniguide to requests for adminship