User:Varks Spira/Wikipedia administrator

Wikipedia administrators^[1] are editors who have access to a number of tools that allow them to carry out certain functions that regular editors cannot. They can restrict the editing of problematic articles or other pages in Wikipedia, block problematic users, ^[2], and delete and restore pages and images.^[3] All administrators have the capacity to undo any administrator-level action taken by another administrator; repeated reversions of this type are known as a wheel war.^[4] The English Wikipedia has approximately 1600 administrators, while other language-versions of Wikipedia have significantly fewer.

An editor becomes an administrator on the English Wikipedia by going through a week-long public vetting process known as an "RfA", or "Request for Adminship". During the RfA, the prospective administrator is typically asked questions on a wide range of hypothetical situations, as well as to explain any past actions which questioners may think inappropriate. The heart of the RfA is the comments expressed by editors in support of, opposed to, or neutral regarding making the editor an administrator.

The authority to increase an editor's system access privileges to "administrator" level rests with a group of elected "bureaucrats". In general, though the opinions expressed by editors during an RfA are not consider to be "votes", bureaucrats look for "rough consensus", and almost always fail candidates with less than 70% support and promote candidates with over 75% support. 70-75% is a discretionary range where crats may either pass or fail candidates.

Bureaucrats in turn are accountable, if problems are alleged, to an elected arbitration committee, and to Wikipedia's co-founder Jimbo Wales.^[5] Bureaucrats may not remove administrator privileges. That may only be done by elected "stewards".

The decision to delete a Wikipedia article is made in one of three ways, always by an administrator:

• In a "speedy deletion", if the article seems to clearly have no merit. Typically a regular editor will tag such articles to bring them to the attention of administrators.
• If an editor challenges the article via a "proposed deletion", and no one objects within seven days.
• By the community of editors via discussion at WP:AFD. A final action to delete requires administrator privilege and is based on the administrator's interpretation of the discussion; here good arguments with reference to policies and guidelines are supposed to be given much more weight than the number of editors expressing an opinion in favor of or against deletion (any editor can nominate an article for deletion via AfD).

An academic article that needs to be read.^[6]