Wikipedia:Criteria for adminship

Administrators are users who can do a few things more than regular users. This is to help Wikipedia run smoothly. Bureaucrats are users who can do even more, and who also help this project run better. You can find more information on what administrators and bureaucrats can do, and a list of who they are, on Administrators.

As they gain experience, some users of Wikipedia think they can help more by becoming an administrator or a bureaucrat. Administrators and bureaucrats are elected by voting. Although every user of Wikipedia can try to become an administrator or a bureaucrat, there are some criteria that must be met. These criteria have been developed by a consensus of Simple English Wikipedia users. They are listed below.

Criteria for becoming an administrator

Definitions

• Named editors are those who log into Wikipedia using their username and password, before they edit.
• Anonymous users are those editors who do not log in to edit. They are known by their IP address numbers.
• Administrators are named editors trusted by the community. Therefore, administration or administratorship (adminship for short) is about trust.

Who can become an administrator

• Any named editor can become an administrator of Simple Wikipedia. Anonymous users cannot become administrators.
• Users have to be active editors in this project for some time before they request adminship. There is no set time, but three months is preferred.
• Editors who want to become administrators need to have a working e-mail address configured in their profile. They also need to regularly read and respond to the e-mail sent to that address. This is because administrators are sometimes contacted by e-mail.

Other requirements: familiarity with rules and work

• Candidates must be familiar with the rules of the Simple English Wikipedia.
• Candidates should also be familiar with changing pages. For this reason, a user should have at least several hundred changes in this Wikipedia. There is no exact number of changes needed. Usually, a lower number of very good changes is better than a higher number of lower-quality changes.
• There are different sections in this Wikipedia. To become an administrator, it is good if most of the candidate's changes are in the sections that make this Wikipedia better. This Wikipedia is made better by adding or changing articles (in the "Main" section), by writing or improving templates (the "Template" section), or by making the category system better (mostly in the "Category" section). Many editors do not support candidates who have made most of their changes to the "User" or "User talk" namespaces.

Filing a request

• Possible candidates can file a request (ask for a vote) at the Request for adminship page. They can nominate themselves. This is called self-nomination.
• A named editor can nominate another editor to become an administrator also, but the nominated person must meet these requirements. The nominated person must also accept the nomination.

Who can vote

• All users, either anonymous or named, are welcome to comment in requests.
• Each named editor can vote. There are some restrictions though. They are outlined below:

• Anonymous users cannot vote.
• Named editors cannot vote in requests that were already running when they made their first edit to the Simple English Wikipedia.
• An editor cannot vote in the request that proposes them to become an administrator.
• People who use multiple accounts to vote ("sockpuppets") will be blocked. None of their votes will be counted.
• Users who are unable to edit articles at the time the vote was started cannot vote in a request. Votes of users who were disallowed from editing after they voted may or may not be counted.
• Votes made by users with very few edits may or may not be counted.

Vote by the community

• The vote runs for one week. If the request is a self-nomination, the one week period is counted from the time the request is submitted. If the candidate is nominated by another editor, the one week period is calculated from when the nominated person accepts the nomination.
• Within that week, qualifying editors can say what they think about the request. A qualifying editor can either support or oppose a request. When voting, people often give a reason why they voted the way they did.
• Each qualifying editor has one vote.
• Sometimes it is hard to decide whether to support or oppose a request. If you do not feel strongly one way or another, please express your feelings in the comment section. Comments are not votes. Some editors may want to express their difficulty in deciding by voting neutral, but this should not be done. These "votes", if they occur, will be treated as comments and moved to the comment section.
• While the vote is still running, a voter may change opinions and vote differently or not vote at all. The original vote should not be deleted, but marked with strikethrough. Votes marked that way will be treated like invalid votes.
• The vote may be prematurely closed per WP:SNOW and WP:NOTNOW.

Counting votes

• At the end of the one week period, votes will be considered. There is no clear count. Remember, an argument is considered based on validity and merits. Arguments without merit are likely to be discounted. A rough consensus of about 75% support is what is looked for as to passing a successful request. Some examples of a comment that could be considered without merit include but are not limited to; the comment being struck out by the editor who made the comment, the comment being made by a banned user, and others. "Neutral" comments are hosted in the "Comments" section of the request.

A successful request

• A bureaucrat decides whether a request is successful. If there is consensus in making a candidate into an administrator, a bureaucrat may use their tools to promote the editor to administrator, at any time after the voting period is over. The closing bureaucrat should look for consensus when making their decision.
• Bureaucrats make their decisions based on the consensus of voting users -- not simply on the percentage of supporting votes.
• Generally, at least 75% of the votes cast need to be in support of a candidate to indicate a consensus for the adminship request to succeed.
• Requests with fewer than 5 legal votes total are considered to have failed.
• Upon closing an RfA, the closing bureaucrat should add the relevant header and footer to the discussion page, remembering to substitute:

Discussion	Header	Footer
Successful RfA/RfB	{{subst:aap top}}	{{subst:aa bottom}}
Unsuccessful RfA/RfB	{{subst:aaf top}}
On hold RfA/RfB	{{subst:aah top}}

Criteria for becoming a Bureaucrat

• Any active admin who has had adminship for more than six months may become a bureaucrat. Active means more than 150 admin actions in the six months. To request, place a section on the normal requests page. For bureaucratship to be given, the user must get at least two endorsements from the current bureaucrats. If valid objections are given, the user must go through a normal request (like for adminship) where generally, at least 85% of the votes cast need to be in support of a candidate to indicate a consensus for the bureaucratship request to succeed.

Criteria for becoming a CheckUser

• CheckUsers are special users; they can see the IP addresses, and user agents of named users. This can be useful for vandal-fighting and in investigating sockpuppetry.
• The full requirements for CheckUsers are listed on the CheckUser policy page.
• CheckUsers must be at least 18 years old and a legal adult where they live; they must also sign the Access to nonpublic personal data policy.
• In general, the same rules mentioned above for editors becoming Administrators, also apply to Administrators who wish to be granted the CheckUser status.
• Only administrators can apply for CheckUser access.
• A successful request for CheckUser must have a minimum of 25 support votes, with at least 70% support overall, per m:CheckUser policy.

Criteria for becoming an Oversighter

• Oversighters are special users; they can remove revisions of pages from every public log.
• The full requirements for Oversighters are listed on the Oversighter policy page.
• Oversighters must be at least 18 years old and a legal adult where they live; they must also sign the Access to nonpublic personal data policy.
• In general, the same rules mentioned above for editors becoming Administrators, also apply to Administrators who wish to be granted the Oversighter status.
• Only administrators can apply for Oversighter access.
• A successful request for Oversighter must have a minimum of 25 support votes, with at least 70% support overall, per m:Oversight.

Related pages

• Wikipedia:Administrators
• Wikipedia:Requests for permissions