Wikipedia:Administrators

Administrators are Wikipedians who have "sysop rights". Current Wikipedia policy is to grant this access liberally to anyone who has been an active Wikipedia contributor for a while and is generally a known and trusted member of the community. "This should be no big deal," as Jimbo has said.

"Sysop" and "administrator" are really misnomers, as they are just Wikipedia users who have had performance- and security-based restrictions on a couple of features lifted because they seemed like trustworthy folks and asked nicely. Sysops are not imbued with any special authority, and are equal to everybody else in terms of editorial responsibility.

Table of contents 1 What's the deal? 2 Becoming an administrator 3 Developers 4 List of administrators 5 Former Administrators

What's the deal? The Wiki software has few restricted features, but they are quite important. These include:

• Sysops can edit the Main Page. For information and guidelines, see Wikipedia:Selected Articles on the Main Page. You can suggest changes there or at Talk:Main Page.
  • The main page used to receive a lot of vandalism. Protecting it is an unfortunate compromise to keep our welcome mat free of random profanity and goatse.cx.
• Sysops can edit other protected pages. They can also protect and unprotect pages. For information and guidelines, or to challenge a decision to protect, see Wikipedia:Protected page.
• Sysops can delete pages and their history. For information and guidelines, see Wikipedia:Policy on permanent deletion of pages. To suggest a page to delete (after reading the policy), see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. To challenge a decision to delete a page, see Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion.
  • Sometimes deletion is a technical matter, in which a redirection page has to be removed to make way for renaming an article, or a page whose history has been broken up has to be deleted and the pieces recombined. Other times it's a matter of cleaning up simple junk edits on pages with no actual content, or removing material that has been pasted in from another site and infringes copyright.
• Sysops can permanently delete images, and this is a non-reversible change: once deleted, always deleted. For information and guidelines, see Wikipedia:Image use policy. To suggest an image to delete (after reading the policy), see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. To challenge a decision to delete an image, make sure that you still have a copy of the image (else there is no way to restore it), then see Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion.
  • Note that there is no particular reason that image deletion should not be reversible; this is simply the way the software works at present.
• Sysops can perform direct read-only queries on the English Wikipedia's database. If you need to know something special about the database that we don't have an automatic process for, then see Wikipedia:Database queries.
  • This is restricted only to prevent excessive load on the database. If someday we have a separate server with its own copy of the database just for public queries, this could be opened to all. If you don't need the last few days' worth of data, of course, you can just grab a backup dump (http://download.wikipedia.org/) and the free MySQL database (http://mysql.com/) and perform all the queries you want.
• Sysops can block IP addresses; see Special:Ipblocklist for currently blocked addresses and Wikipedia:IP probation watchlist for recently unblocked addresses. If your IP has been blocked, then you can see which administrator blocked you when you try to edit, and you can contact them individually if you think that there's been a simple mistake. Otherwise, to challenge a decision to block an IP address, use this page's talk page, or the wikiEN-L mailing list if it's your IP that has been blocked.
  • This is meant solely to discourage persistent junk edits. IP banning is not meant to be used against unpopular opinions. Because dynamic IPs and proxies are so common with major internet providers, if you've been banned for things someone else did, don't take it personal, just notify the list.

Users with ordinary access, including visitors who haven't "signed in", can still do many things, including the most important: editing articles. But only signed-up users can upload files or rename pages; see Special:Userlogin to sign up for yourself.

Becoming an administrator

If you would like sysop access add your name to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.

It's recommended that you write for Wikipedia for a while before requesting administrator status, since other users will have to recognise you before they can agree on your promotion. Also keep in mind that each language's Wikipedia[?] has its own policies for administrators, which may differ somewhat.

Be careful, please! If you are granted access, we ask that you exercise care in using these functions, especially the ability to delete pages and their history, to delete images (which is permanent!), and the ability to block IP addresses.

Developers The other degree of access is "developer", for those who can make direct changes to the Wikipedia software and database. Check out Wikitech-L and Wikipedia:Developers.

List of administrators Administrators are marked with "(sysop)" in the list of user accounts. If you need to contact an administrator, visit one or several of the userpages below. Administrators who have not listed their email addresses can still be contacted by using the "email this user" link on the page, if you have signed in with an email address of your own.

The following users have sysop rights as of June 23, 2003. Six of these (in very strongly emphasized text) also have developer status.

1. 172
2. -- April
3. Ams80
4. Andre Engels
5. Angela
6. Anthere
7. AstroNomer
8. AxelBoldt
9. Benjamin Esham (aka Bdesham)
10. Brion VIBBER
11. Bryan Derksen
12. Camembert
13. Cgs
14. Chuck SMITH
15. Cimon Avaro
16. Clifford Adams
17. Cordyph
18. cprompt
19. Cunctator, The
20. Cyp
21. Daniel Mayer aka maveric149 or mav -- (email (/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Emailuser&target=maveric149) | talk)
22. Danny
23. Dante Alighieri
24. Deb
25. Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed
26. Eloquence
27. Enchanter
28. Epopt, The
29. Evercat
30. Fred Bauder
31. G-Man
32. Goatasaur
33. Hephaestos
34. Ilyanep -- (email (/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Emailuser&target=ilyanep) | talk)
35. Infrogmation
36. James F.
37. Jasonr (Bomis employee)
38. JeLuF
39. JHK
40. Jimbo Wales
41. Jimfbleak
42. John Owens | talk
43. Jtdirl
44. Karen Johnson
45. Khendon
46. Kingturtle
47. Kosebamse
48. Kt²
49. LC
50. Lee Daniel Crocker
51. LittleDan
52. Magnus Manske
53. Manning Bartlett
54. Mark Christensen
55. Martin Harper aka MyRedDice (limited)
56. Mbecker
57. Menchi
58. Minesweeper
59. Mirwin
60. Montréalais
61. Notheruser
62. Oliver Pereira
63. Olivier
64. Peter Winnberg
65. Phil Bordelon
66. PierreAbbat
67. Paul Melville Austin
68. Poor Yorick
69. Quercusrobur
70. Ram-Man
71. Robert Merkel
72. RoseParks
73. Sannse
74. Scipius
75. Sheldon Rampton
76. Sjc
77. Slrubenstein
78. Someone else
79. Stephen Gilbert
80. Tannin
81. Tarquin
82. Taw
83. The Anome
84. Theresa Knott
85. Tim Shell
86. Tim Starling
87. Toby Bartels -- Mail toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu (mailto:toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu) if you're having trouble contacting an administrator by other means
88. TUF-KAT
89. Vicki Rosenzweig
90. WojPob
91. Zoe

For those curious, some incorrect attempts to count sysop users also miscount Rambot, which is not a sysop but a specially marked bot account.

Former Administrators The following users had sysop rights at one time, but by either their own or the community's decision are not current sysops.

1. Koyaanis Qatsi
2. Uwe Kils (only adding, moving and suggesting)
3. Isis