Wikipedia:Bureaucrats

"WP:BUR" redirects here. For "Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy" see WP:BURO

Bureaucrats are Wikipedia users with the technical ability to:

• promote other users to administrator or bureaucrat status;
• grant and revoke an account's bot status; and
• rename user accounts.

They are bound by policy and consensus to grant administrator or bureaucrat access only when doing so reflects the wishes of the community, usually after a successful request at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. In like fashion, they are expected to exercise judgment in changing usernames, and in granting or removing bot flags on the advice of the Bot Approvals Group. They are expected to be capable judges of consensus, and are expected to explain the reasoning for their actions on request and in a civil manner.

Bureaucrats do not have the technical ability to remove admin rights from users or to grant other levels of access (they cannot assign oversight or checkuser rights). These actions are performed by stewards, a small multilingual group that serves all Wikimedia projects. Additional stewards are elected annually; for more information see Requests for permissions. Changes in user rights by stewards are recorded at Meta:Special:Log/rights.

Users are granted bureaucrat status by community consensus. The process is similar to the process of granting administrator status, but the expectations for potential bureaucrats are higher and community consensus must be clearer. See Wikipedia:Requests for adminship#About RfB.

Current bureaucrats

Note: Under "Notes", "Active" means they have performed a rename, promotion, or flag in the last two months. "Inactive" means they have not edited nor used their bureaucrat abilities in the last two months. "Editing" means they have edited but not used their bureaucrat abilities in the last two months. Blank means they are active as an editor and as a bureaucrat. Last updated 19 December 2008.

Former bureaucrats

• Danny (talk · contribs · rights · renames), resigned 21 March 2007;
• Dannyisme (talk · contribs · rights · renames), 21 March 2007, Danny's Office Actions account;
• Essjay (talk · contribs · rights · renames), resigned 4 March 2007 (reason);
• Francs2000 (talk · contribs · rights · renames), resigned 29 March 2006;
• Optim (talk · contribs · rights · renames), removed 9 February 2006 due to inactivity at Wikipedia since 7 March 2004 and user's request;
• Ed Poor (talk · contribs · rights · renames), resigned 12 September 2005 (reason);
• Eloquence (talk · contribs · rights · renames), resigned 26 May 2005;
• Ugen64 (talk · contribs · rights · renames), resigned 12 October 2004.

Instructions

These are instructions for bureaucrats, regarding bureaucratic actions and processes.

Promotions

Note: Like with Articles for deletion, requests for adminship can be closed by non-bureaucrats in certain cases, for example if the user has withdrawn the request or the outcome is very unlikely to be positive (see WP:NOTNOW). Non-bureaucrats should be very careful in the latter case and only close RfAs when they are not in doubt. In such cases the requesting user should always be asked to consider withdrawal first.

• Wait at least seven days after the listing was made on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.
• Check the history for the transcluded page to be reasonably sure that the comments are genuine.
• Determine whether there is a consensus that the person should be promoted using the traditional rules of thumb and your best judgement.
• Edit the nomination. Add the relevant header and footer to the discussion page, remembering to substitute:

Discussion	Header	Footer
Successful RfA	{{subst:rfap}}	{{subst:rfab}}
Unsuccessful RfA	{{subst:rfaf}}	{{subst:rfab}}
Successful RfB	{{subst:rfbp}}	{{subst:rfbb}}
Unsuccessful RfB	{{subst:rfbf}}	{{subst:rfbb}}
Bureaucrat discussions	{{subst:bdtop|a|p}} (passed RfA) {{subst:bdtop|a|f}} (failed RfA) {{subst:bdtop|b|p}} (passed RfB) {{subst:bdtop|b|f}} (failed RfB)	{{subst:bdbot}}
On hold RfA	{{subst:rfah}}	{{subst:rfab}}
On hold RfB	{{subst:rfbh}}	{{subst:rfbb}}
Successful BAG	{{subst:rfbagp}}	{{subst:rfbagb}}
Unsuccessful BAG	{{subst:rfbagf}}	{{subst:rfbagb}}

• Remove the "Voice your opinion" link (example).
• Place the word "Final" before the parenthetic voting results, change "Scheduled to end" to "ended," and update the ending time and date to reflect the current time and date.
• If there is a consensus, promote to admin or bureaucrat using Special:Userrights. If present, be sure to remove userrights made redundant by the sysop flag, such as rollback, accountcreator, and ipblock-exempt.
• Remove the request from requests for adminship. For successful nominations, add a summary of the outcome to successful requests for adminship or successful bureaucratship candidacies. For unsuccessful nominations, add the summary to Wikipedia:List of failed RfAs (Chronological) and Wikipedia:Unsuccessful adminship candidacies or Wikipedia:Unsuccessful bureaucratship candidacies.
• Inform the user of the result, whether it is successful or unsuccessful.

Renames

1. Check that the request at Wikipedia:Changing username is legitimate.
2. Be sure that the user has no history of abuse and that the request is in the best interest of the project. Check the changing usernames guidelines and use your judgement.
3. Enter the old and new name at Special:Renameuser.
4. Append the {{done}} or {{not done}} template to the request, so that Chris G Bot 3 can archive it accordingly.

Flags

1. Check that a member of Bot Approvals Group approved the bot request and requested that it be flagged
2. Go to Special:Makebot or Special:Userrights and set the flag.
   • The former results in bot flaggings being logged separately from other user rights changes
   • Bot flags can also be removed using Special:Makebot or Special:Userrights.
3. Update the listing on Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Approved

See also

• Special:Log/rights: log of user rights changes;
• Special:Log/renameuser: log of username changes;
• Special:Log/makebot: log of bot flaggings and unflaggings using Makebot;
• Wikipedia:Bureaucrat log: for Bureaucrat activity (user rights adjustments) prior to 24 December 2004;
• Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard: discussion of Bureaucrat-related matters;
• List of bureaucrats: automated list of all users who have bureaucrat permissions;
• Wikipedia:User access levels: general information on the English Wikipedia's user rights system;
• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship#About RfB: to become a bureaucrat
• User:NoSeptember/crat stats: Bureaucrat activity statistics;
• m:Stewards: information on users who can grant and remove all user flags (including removing the admin flag);
• m:Developers: information on users who maintain the MediaWiki software.