Wikipedia:Formal organization
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The formalities of Wikipedia administration are described, with links to the appropriate Wikipedia pages. This information can be helpful to Wikipedia contributors in understanding how Wikipedia is organized.
No attempt is made to evaluate whether Wikipedia is in fact governed in the way it claims to be governed, nor is any attempt made to evaluate the adequacy of this structure to meet the ever-changing demands upon an online encyclopedia. This discussion is based entirely upon the English language Wikipedia; its applicability to other language Wikipedias has not been examined.
For a discussion on the various user access levels, see Wikipedia:User access levels.
Overview
[edit]The contributors or editors of Wikipedia participate subject to a number of policies and guidelines governing behavior and content. These rules are supervised by various authorities, which are discussed below.
Editors
[edit]Editors, or Wikipedians, are any regular contributor to Wikipedia, whether as a registered user or by using a temporary account.
Administrators
[edit]Administrators are users entrusted to perform several administrative tasks on the project, such as:
- Blocking and unblocking accounts, temporary accounts, and IP addresses
- Protecting, unprotecting, deleting, and undeleting pages
- Deleting revisions, edit summaries, and/or the username used to make an edit
- Granting the confirmed, extended confirmed, pending changes reviewer, new page reviewer, page mover, template editor, autopatrolled, rollback, file mover, account creator, event coordinator, mass message sender, temporary account IP viewer, IP block exempt, edit filter helper, edit filter manager and election clerk user groups[a]
Bureaucrats
[edit]Bureaucrats, known as 'crats for short, are some of the most trusted users on the project, with the bureaucrat user group being the most advanced permission able to be granted locally.[b]
Bureaucrats may grant and remove the administrator,[c] bot,[d] and interface administrator[e] flags from an account, as well as grant the bureaucrat flag.[f] Current Wikipedia policy requires bureaucrats to also be administrators, although this is not a technical requirement and is not present on some other wikis.
Arbitration Committee
[edit]
Members of the Arbitration Committee (referred to as ArbCom), or Arbs, act in concert or in sub-groups to impose binding solutions to conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve, mainly by defining what constitutes a violation in such disputes and imposing sanctions, such as bans and blocks upon users.
ArbCom has very wide latitude in adjudication, as indicated by the following freedoms: ArbCom is free to widen or to divert a case to any subject of their choosing.[1] They are empowered to rule preemptively based upon conjectures about the future.[2][3] Rulings need not follow guidelines and policies; deliberations are not based upon the "rule of law".[4][5] They are free to adopt opinion,[6] and are not required to assess "who said what in the past".[3]
Though disputes commonly arise over content, with the exception of topic bans the Arbitration Committee explicitly excludes all content issues from their deliberations and focuses upon disciplinary actions.[7]
- The difference between edit warring as disruptive behavior and as an attempt to straighten out what an article says may depend upon who is considering the issue.[8]
Although edit warring in principle refers to article editing, in practice it is considered disruptive to argue too much on the Talk page as well, and extended discussion may be viewed as tendentious editing, or refusal to get the point, or interfering with consensus,[9] all forms of misconduct and therefore subject to discipline.
Aside from enforcing an end to disputes, the Arbitration Committee can expunge material from any form of usual access, or give specific users the ability to remove some types of edits from the revision history, for example, material considered defamatory.[10] These powers also can be exercised by Stewards of Wikimedia.[11]
The Arbitration Committee can request Bureaucrats to exercise de-Adminship under the circumstances described under Administrators.
Arbitrators are elected annually in one-year or overlapping two-year terms, and also can be appointed directly by Wales or the Wikimedia Foundation. The election rules are debated each year. Although nomination is subject only to rather broad criteria, in practice only Administrators have succeeded in being selected as Arbitrators.[12]
Wikimedia Foundation
[edit]Wikipedia is one of a dozen projects of Wikimedia,[13] an organization owned and operated by the Wikimedia Foundation.[14] Among the functionaries of Wikimedia are the Stewards[15] of the Wikimedia wikis who have complete access to the wiki interface on all Wikimedia wikis, including the ability to change any and all user rights and groups, view user information in cases of abuse, and so on; and the SysOps of the Wikimedia Meta-Wiki,[16] who manage and maintain the Wikimedia Foundation servers. The tools used by the Stewards in exercising control over the wikis of Wikimedia are described in a handbook.[17] They are guided by the Stewards policy, and are elected.[18] Some indication of the control given to Stewards and System Administrators can be found on the Wikimedia web pages.[19]
The overall control is by the ten-member Wikimedia Board of Trustees of whom Jimmy Wales is Chairman Emeritus and a member. The present membership is found here and some historical data here.
References and notes
[edit]- ^ All of the above except for autopatrolled, edit filter manager and election clerk are included in the administrator user group. Administrators are also exempt from IP hard blocks, with the exception of Tor blocks.
- ^ The functionary user groups (CheckUser and Oversight) must be granted by stewards on Meta-Wiki.
- ^ After a successful request for adminship or administrator election
- ^ After a successful bot request for approval if the bot does not already have the flag.
- ^ After a successful request on the bureaucrats' noticeboard.
- ^ Bureaucrat permissions must be removed by a steward on Meta-Wiki.
- ^
"Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration". Retrieved 2012-05-31.
all actions and general conduct, not merely the direct issue, may be taken into account
- ^
"Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration". Retrieved 2012-06-07.
Arbitrators focus on the risk and benefits for the future, not on past issues.
- ^ a b
"Arbitration is intended to serve Wikipedia". Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. Wikipedia. Retrieved 2012-07-07.
...the committee is more likely to consider if a user can change, or what restrictions would be of benefit to the project, than on who said what in the past
- ^
"Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration". Retrieved 2012-05-31.
Arbitration is not a court case
Recently changed to read: Arbitration is not a legal process - ^
"Wikipedia:The rules are principles". Wikipedia. Retrieved 2011-10-21.
The rules are principles, not laws, on Wikipedia. Policies and guidelines exist only as rough approximations...
- ^
"Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration". Retrieved 2012-05-31.
A person's general manner, past actions or incidents, and the impressions of them by reasonable people, may all be used to guide the Arbitrators.
- ^ "Conduct and content disputes". Wikipedia:WikiProject Arbitration Enforcement/Standards and principles. Wikipedia. Retrieved 2011-10-25. "...arbitration enforcement is set up only to address user conduct problems, not disputes about content."
- ^ Phoebe Ayers; Charles Matthews; Ben Yates (2008). How Wikipedia works: and how you can be a part of it. No Starch Press. p. 403. ISBN 978-1593271763.
- ^ "Disruptive editors sometimes [use] several practices when disrupting articles:... Their edits are largely confined to talk-pages, such disruption may not directly harm an article, but it often prevents other editors from reaching consensus on how to improve an article." "Attempts to evade detection". Wikipedia:Disruptive editing. Wikipedia. Retrieved May 27, 2012.
- ^ "Wikipedia:Oversight". Wikipedia. Retrieved 2011-12-02.
- ^ "Oversight policy". Wikimedia. 13 January 2012. Retrieved 2012-03-03.
- ^ For example, in 2012 all 13 active ArbCom members were Administrators. See "Members: Active arbitrators". Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee. Wikipedia. Retrieved 2012-03-01.
- ^ "Welcome to Wikimedia". Wikimedia. Retrieved 2011-12-07.
- ^ "Wikimedia Foundation home page". Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Retrieved 2011-12-07.
- ^ "Stewards". Wikimedia. Retrieved 2011-12-05.
- ^ "System Administrators". Wikimedia. Retrieved 2011-12-05.
- ^ "Steward handbook". Wikimedia. 8 October 2011. Retrieved 2011-12-03.
- ^ See also this page, which lists the active Stewards.
- ^ "System administrators–System administrator actions". WikiMedia. 14 November 2011. Retrieved 2011-12-03.
General references
[edit]- Phoebe Ayers; Charles Matthews; Ben Yates (2008). How Wikipedia Works: And How You Can Be a Part of It. No Starch Press. ISBN 978-1593271763. A detailed discussion of how WP works by some believers in the project, including the arbitration processes. Some subsidiary web links are found here.
- John Broughton (2008). Wikipedia: The Missing Manual. O'Reilly Media, Inc. ISBN 978-0596515164. A "how-to" manual that besides mechanics of use, includes sections on dispute resolution over both content (Chapter 10: Resolving content disputes) and personal attacks (Chapter 11: Handling incivility and personal attacks). This book is available on WP as the article Help: Wikipedia: The Missing Manual.
- Andrew Lih (2009). The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia. London: Aurum. ISBN 9781845134730. Foreword by Jimmy Wales. An enthusiast's attempt at a history of Wikipedia, faulted for some gaffes by reviewers on Amazon.
- Dan Woods; Peter Thoeny (2007). "Chapter 4: Using and improving the 800-pound gorilla of wikis, Wikipedia". Wikis for Dummies. Wiley. pp. 81 ff. ISBN 978-0470043998. A basic "how-to" manual for readers and first-time contributors.
See also
[edit]- Wikipedia:FAQ/Administration
- Editing environment - describes how Wikipedia is governed? What happens when content disputes 'boil over' into accusations of bad conduct?
- Editorial discretion - discusses how common sense and Wikipedia policy dictates that editors must practice discretion regarding the proper inclusion of relevant and well-sourced content.
- Editor integrity - discusses how editors have a responsibility to uphold the integrity of Wikipedia and respect intellectual property rights of the sources they draw upon when they create and improve encyclopedia pages.
- The essence of Wikipedia – describes how Wikipedia is the harnessing of the collective intelligence and collaborative efforts of editors who hold opposing points of view, in an attempt to preserve all serious contributions which are reliably sourced.
- The rules are principles - describes how policies and guidelines exist only as rough approximations of their underlying principles.
- Wikipedia is a community - describes how there is nothing wrong with occasionally doing other things than writing the encyclopedia, and that community spirit is a positive thing.
- Wikipedia is a volunteer service - discusses how editors on Wikipedia are mainly volunteers. Editors can contribute as much as they want, and however long they desire.
- Wikimedia Foundation and ArbCom
External links
[edit]- "Wikipedia power structure". Wikimedia. Retrieved 2011-12-26.
- Wikimedia research projects concerning Wiki activities
This article incorporates material from the Citizendium article "Wikipedia#Organization", which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License but not under the GFDL.