Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan/2025-2026/Global Trends/Users with extended rights
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Across Wikimedia sites, trusted volunteers perform tasks—both technical and social—to keep Wikimedia projects and their communities running smoothly and safely. For situations that require tools and access — such as the ability to block a user or delete a page — Wikimedians elect trusted members of their communities to carry out advanced tasks and implement policies, guidelines, and consensus. We have begun using an umbrella term, users with extended rights, to describe these users: administrators, CheckUsers, stewards, Arbitration Committee members, and many more. These are the users who form the front line of sustaining Wikimedia projects, using their tools and their trust to keep Wikimedia projects safe and welcoming, curating the environment that enables other editors to contribute.
These users play an outsized role in the health of Wikimedia projects, preventing harm and paving the way for positive change, and yet their numbers are declining. The Foundation aims to work with users with extended rights across communities to support their work and enable a multigenerational Wikimedia.
Who are users with extended rights?
"Users with extended rights" is a relatively new term, encompassing administrators, functionaries (CheckUsers and oversighters), and a number of other roles with advanced access.
Below is a table with an overview of our understanding, with the knowledge that many projects have other role structures (e.g., deleters or discussion closers):
| Local roles | Global roles | Special roles |
|---|---|---|
| Administrators Implement community consensus |
Global rollbackers Undo vandalism across wikis |
Meta-Wiki administrators Manage some multi-wiki anti-abuse tools |
| Bureaucrats Facilitate admin elections & grant access |
Global sysops Support small wikis with admin tasks |
CentralNotice administrators Manage banner campaigns |
| Interface administrators Maintain interface pages |
Stewards Highest-access user right, performs tasks associated with most other roles |
Volunteer Response Team agents Respond to emails from the public |
| CheckUsers Investigate coordinated abuse |
Ombuds Commission Investigate privacy violations | |
| Oversighters Hide problematic material |
UCoC Coordinating Committee Implement the Universal Code of Conduct |
|
| Arbitration Committees Mediate disputes and conduct issues |
We'd like to learn from you on these roles:
- How do these roles' responsibilities differ on your wiki?
- Does your wiki have other roles not represented above?
Please share your perspective on the talk page.
The gaps
Considering the important role of these users in the maintenance and growth of Wikimedia projects, their retention and recruitment is key to sustaining Wikimedia long-term. Particularly in light of the global trends of fragmenting trust in online information and the spread of mis and disinformation, users with extended rights will help form the front line to keeping Wikimedia trustworthy and relevant. However, year over year, fewer users start the journey towards becoming a user with extended rights. A recent report by the Research Team on "Wikipedia Administrator Recruitment, Retention, and Attrition" found that over half of large Wikipedias saw declines in monthly active administrators since 2018.
Where administrator decline is significant in and of itself, it highlights a concerning scenario for other, often higher-impact roles that administrator rights are commonly an entryway to. For example, all stewards have prior experience as an administrator on one or more wikis, and generally as a CheckUser or oversighter as well. Fewer administrators means fewer users eligible for higher-access roles.
Note that the graphic above contains Patrollers as the top of the funnel. For many, the gateway role to becoming a user with extended rights is patrolling. Many thousands of Wikimedia editors patrol recent changes or new pages, watching for and reverting unconstructive edits. While patrolling does not require extended rights, many users who go on to obtain extended rights start out as patrollers.
Supporting users with extended rights
The Wikimedia Foundation FY23-24 and FY24-25 annual plans both emphasized support for these users in multiple goals. Current work includes both technical and social support:
Technical interventions
A number of updates and new features have been deployed (or are in-the-works) to reduce the burden on users with extended rights and support their technical needs. Investing in technology which expands the capacity of users with extended rights is highlighted in this year's Infrastructure goal.
- Automoderator - an automated anti-vandalism tool
- Community Configuration - enables volunteer administrators to customize features on their wiki
- UploadWizard improvements - reduces the burden on volunteers who patrol Commons uploads by reducing the number of bad uploads
- Edit Check - a framework for nudging new editors in the right direction before bad edits are made, reducing the burden on volunteers who patrol new edits
- Edit Patrol - a tool for patrolling new edits in the Android app
- iOS Watchlist - expand watchlist functionality to the iOS app, allowing patrollers to review recent edits on pages they watch
- PageTriage improvements - maintaining the tool used by English Wikipedia volunteers who patrol new pages
- Global account blocks - providing a highly-requests global account moderation option for stewards
Social interventions
To ensure sustainability of the projects, the recruitment and retention of users with extended rights is paramount. We need to understand their needs, motivations, and user journey, to allow us to encourage more users to become users with extended rights, and provide the support that existing users need to keep building Wikimedia projects.
- Research Team Administrator recruitment and retention research project
- Supporting increased storytelling and celebrating of users with extended rights, including emphasis shifts in WikiCelebrate and the Functionary of the Year category for the Wikimedian of the Year
- Wikimania 2025 pre-conference day for users with extended rights, along with a special one-off users with extended rights scholarships, to bring more of these users to Wikimania to build connections and share skills
- Legal's Committee Support Team, which directly supports many users with extended rights
- In-person gatherings for Stewards and U4C members
Participate
Help us document the work of users with extended rights by participating on the talk page.
- How do these roles' responsibilities differ on your wiki?
- Does your wiki have other roles not represented above?
- Are there practices on your wiki that you'd like to share and discuss with others?