Founder group

The founder global group was created on February 27, 2009. Intended to duplicate the local English Wikipedia 'steward' flag that was attached to en:User:Jimbo Wales, the group used to give Wales full access to Special:UserRights and other steward rights. It was created following his 2009 steward confirmation in an attempt to compromise between the various groups' positions (remove because of inactivity, move to the staff group, keep because he's a co-founder, etc.). The global group used to contain most of the rights the steward group had at the time of creation.

Following Requests for comment/Remove Founder flag and Petition to Jimbo, Wales renounced almost all these rights and removed them: after subsequent edits, the founder groups gives read access to most logs, the ability to edit closed wikis, IP block exempt, rollback, the ability to move pages without leaving a redirect, the ability to view deleted files, and a few other miscellaneous permissions. Jimbo does not have the ability, through his founder tag, to delete content, hide content, perform checkusers, view suppressed content, or change group membership. Also, currently, Jimbo cannot edit protected pages through the founder flag, nor may he edit semi-protected pages, but that may change upon request.

Its roles in various Wikimedia projects are not yet defined. The English Wikipedia has a local founder group, which formerly gave Jimbo Wales full access to UserRights on that project only. The group continues to exist as a courtesy, granting no advanced rights.

Jimmy Wales also holds the position "Founder's seat" on the WMF Board of Trustees.

See also

• Founders: global permission · global groups (toolforge) · member list · group changelog
• Global groups

• Role of Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia
• Requests for comment: Remove Founder flag
• Founder policy, role and responsibilities