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Functionaries are users who perform specialized roles and have privileged technical access on the Wikimedia projects. Examples include users with CheckUser or Oversight access, as well as current and past members of the Arbitration Committee. Functionary access must be authorized by the Arbitration Committee or the Wikimedia Foundation, and requires that the user sign the confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information. This is in contrast to users who are administrators, bureaucrats, or members of the Bot Approvals Group, for example, as these roles do not deal with private information.
Functionaries whose permissions and responsibilities are confined to the English Wikipedia are under the jurisdiction of the Arbitration Committee. These functionaries include:
- Current members of the Arbitration Committee,
- Former members of the Arbitration Committee who remain in good standing and wish to remain subscribed,
- Holders of checkuser and/or oversight permissions and former holders in good standing,
- Select Wikimedia Foundation staff with trust and safety-related remits.
Sitting arbitrators and current holders of checkuser or oversight permissions are subscribed as a matter of course. Editors who voluntarily resign these permissions, and arbitrators whose term has ended, may remain subscribed provided they remain in good standing. Where permissions are removed for cause, list membership is also usually revoked.
In addition to functionaries-en, checkusers are subscribed to the global checkuser mailing list and oversighters to the local oversight mailing list. These lists are private and membership is open only to current holders of those permissions.
Functionaries are held to a higher standard of behavior than non-functionaries, especially in issues related to their area of responsibility. Users who demonstrate a lack of judgment in an area related to their special access may have their status as functionaries revoked, whether or not an explicit abuse of their privileged access has occurred. As functionaries have a high profile within the project and are the face of Wikipedia both to its editors and to the wider world, it is damaging to the integrity of the encyclopedia as a whole if these users are repeatedly embroiled in controversy. Functionaries may be removed from their position by the Arbitration Committee.