Comment by akolbe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by akolbe | Hacker News Reader

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A Wikipedia admin is an unpaid volunteer (not a staffer) with access to extra functions of the MediaWiki software Wikipedia uses. They typically get these rights through a community vote like this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminsh...

"Administrators, commonly known as admins or sysops (system operators), are Wikipedia editors who have been granted the technical ability to perform certain special actions on the English Wikipedia. These include the ability to block and unblock user accounts, IP addresses, and IP ranges from editing, edit fully protected pages, protect and unprotect pages from editing, delete and undelete pages, rename pages without restriction, and use certain other tools."

For more info see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators

Note that this is still just a role within the Mediawiki software. They aren't actual sysops with e.g. access to the servers running the software. Only WMF has that.

For the most part this is true but not entirely. Some volunteers have access to servers which isn't based on current employment with the foundation. For example, as a former-employee and current volunteer I retain some access to servers which relates to the work that I do on Phabricator, the bug tracking tool that Wikimedia teams use for collaboration on developing their software. This access is unrelated to MediaWiki itself and I have never been a Wiki admin or otherwise involved Wikipedia editing beyond a few tiny corrections of typos that I undertook on my personal account. It's also possible to apply for access as a volunteer with no history of being employed by the foundation. You would need to be doing some work that justified access, and have your application sponsored by a staff member in order to have said access granted.

> perform certain special actions on the English Wikipedia

What about other languages? Aren’t there any admins for those too?

There are admins on all of the Wikipedias under the WMF umbrella--each one sets their own rules for how admins are picked and how long, if limited at all, their terms are. I do not know what the process is for the Arabic-language wiki in question.

Also a community vote. (The above sysop logs state "according to vote result" and "successful nomination" for the entries logging admin rights being given.)

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