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The user access level of editors affects their abilities to perform specific actions on Wikipedia. A user's access level depends on which rights (also called permissions,
user groups Ancient Egyptian roles * User (ancient Egyptian official), an ancient Egyptian nomarch (governor) of the Eighth Dynasty * Useramen, an ancient Egyptian vizier also called "User" Other uses * User (computing), a person (or software) using an ...
, bits, or
flags A flag is a piece of fabric (most often rectangular or quadrilateral) with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic design emplo ...
) are assigned to accounts. There are two types of access leveling: automatic and requested. User access levels are determined by whether the
Wikipedian The Wikipedia community, collectively known colloquially as Wikipedians, is an informal community that volunteers to create and maintain Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. Since August 2012, the word "Wikipedian" has been an ''Oxford Dictio ...
is logged in, the account's age and edit count, and what manually assigned rights the account has. Anyone can use the basic functionalities of Wikipedia even if they are not logged in. Unless they are blocked, they may freely edit most pages. Being logged in gives users many advantages, such as having their public
IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...
hidden and the ability to track one's own contributions. Furthermore, once user accounts are more than a certain number of days old and have made more than a certain number of edits, they automatically become autoconfirmed or extended confirmed, allowing the direct creation of articles, the ability to move pages, to edit semi-protected and extended-protected pages, and upload files. Further access levels need to be assigned manually by a user with the appropriate authority. An editor with more experience and in good standing can attempt to become an
administrator Administrator or admin may refer to: Job roles Computing and internet * Database administrator, a person who is responsible for the environmental aspects of a database * Forum administrator, one who oversees discussions on an Internet forum * N ...
, which provides a large number of advanced permissions. Many different flags for specialized tasks are also available.


Overview

All visitors to the site, including unregistered users, are part of the group, and all logged-in registered users are also part of the group. Users are automatically promoted into the autoconfirmed/confirmed users pseudo-group of established users when their account is more than four days old and has ten edits, and the user group later on, at 30 days of age and 500 edits. Other flags are only given upon request; some, such as , , or , are granted unilaterally if the user demonstrates a need for them (see Wikipedia:Requests for permissions and Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval). Others, such as and , are given only after community discussion and consensus at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. Users are made members of such groups as and only with the approval of the
Arbitration Committee On Wikimedia Foundation projects, an Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) is a binding dispute resolution panel of editors. Each of Wikimedia's projects are editorially autonomous and independent, and some of them have established their own ArbComs w ...
, after signing the Wikimedia Foundation's confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information. User groups have one or more rights assigned to them; for example, the IP block-exempt (IP block exemptions) group has the '' and '' rights. All members of a particular user group will have access to these rights. The individual rights that are assigned to user groups are listed at Special:ListGroupRights. Terms like ''rights'', ''permissions'', ''bits'' and ''flags'' can refer to both user groups and the individual rights assigned to them. Permissions requested at Requests for permissions only have local rights on the
English Wikipedia The English Wikipedia is, along with the Simple English Wikipedia, one of two English-language editions of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was founded on January 15, 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition, and, as of , has the most arti ...
wiki. Members of ''global user groups'' have rights across all
Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...
wikis, although that access can sometimes be restricted by local wiki policies. Users registered at Wikimedia wikis also have registered user rights to other Wikimedia wikis if their account is a SUL or unified login account. Both local and global user group membership across Wikimedia wikis can be viewed at Special:CentralAuth.


User groups

The system-generated technical permissions are listed at Special:ListGroupRights.


Standard user rights that are granted automatically


Unregistered (IP or not logged in) users

Users who are not logged in are identified by their
IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...
rather than a
username A user is a person who utilizes a computer or network service. A user often has a user account and is identified to the system by a username (or user name). Other terms for username include login name, screenname (or screen name), account ...
, whether or not they have already registered an account. They may read all Wikipedia pages (except restricted special pages), and edit pages that are not
protected Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although th ...
(including pending changes protected/ move-protected articles). They may create
talk pages MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki software. It is used on Wikipedia and almost all other Wikimedia websites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata; these sites define a large part of the requirement set for Med ...
in any talk
namespace In computing, a namespace is a set of signs (''names'') that are used to identify and refer to objects of various kinds. A namespace ensures that all of a given set of objects have unique names so that they can be easily identified. Namespaces ...
, but need to ask for help to create pages in some parts of the wiki. Furthermore, they cannot
upload Uploading refers to ''transmitting'' data from one computer system to another through means of a network. Common methods of uploading include: uploading via web browsers, FTP clients], and computer terminal, terminals (SCP/ SFTP). Uploadi ...
files or images. They must answer a
CAPTCHA A CAPTCHA ( , a contrived acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart") is a type of challenge–response test used in computing to determine whether the user is human. The term was coined in 2003 b ...
if they wish to make an edit which involves the addition of
external links An internal link is a type of hyperlink on a web page to another page or resource, such as an image or document, on the same website or domain name, domain. Hyperlinks are considered either "external" or "internal" depending on their target or ...
, and click a confirmation link to
purge In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another organization, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group underta ...
pages. All users may also query th
site API
in 500-record batches. Edit screens of unregistered users are headed by a banner displaying the Anoneditwarning system message.


Registered (new) users

Registered users may immediately e-mail other users if they activate an email address in their user preferences. All logged-in users may mark edits as
minor Minor may refer to: * Minor (law), a person under the age of certain legal activities. ** A person who has not reached the age of majority * Academic minor, a secondary field of study in undergraduate education Music theory *Minor chord ** Bar ...
. They may purge pages without a confirmation step, but are still required to answer a
CAPTCHA A CAPTCHA ( , a contrived acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart") is a type of challenge–response test used in computing to determine whether the user is human. The term was coined in 2003 b ...
when adding external links. Edits that they make to a page that is under pending changes protection will be accepted, but will not be immediately visible to non-logged-in users until they have been reviewed and approved. They may customize their Wikimedia interface and its options as they wish—either via Special:Preferences, or by adding
personal Personal may refer to: Aspects of persons' respective individualities * Privacy * Personality * Personal, personal advertisement, variety of classified advertisement used to find romance or friendship Companies * Personal, Inc., a Washington, ...
CSS Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone t ...
or
JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...
rules to their common.css or common.js files. They may create and maintain a
watchlist Watchlist or watch list may refer to: * Watchlist (NGO), the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, a non-governmental organization * Watchlist (wiki), a tool for monitoring changes on wikis See also * Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreenin ...
.


Autoconfirmed and confirmed users

Several actions on the English Wikipedia (such as article creation) are restricted to user accounts that are at least 4 days old ''and'' have made at least 10 edits. Users who meet these requirements are considered part of the pseudo-group . The conditions for autoconfirmed status are checked every time a user attempts to perform a restricted action; if they are met, permission is granted automatically by the MediaWiki software. Although the precise requirements for autoconfirmed status vary according to circumstances, most English Wikipedia user accounts that are at least 4 days old ''and'' have made at least 10 edits (including deleted edits) are considered autoconfirmed. However, users with the IP block exemption flag and who are editing through the
Tor Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to: Places * Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain * Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city * Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano * Tor Bay, Devon, England * Tor River, Western New Guinea, Indonesia S ...
network are subjected to much stricter autoconfirmed thresholds: 90 days and 100 edits. Autoconfirmed/confirmed users can create articles (except for create-protected pages), move pages (except for move-protected pages), edit semi-protected pages, and upload files (including new versions of existing files, except for upload-protected files). Edits that they make to a page that is under pending changes protection will be accepted and will immediately be visible to "users" who are not logged in without requiring review ''or'' approval (unless there are prior pending changes awaiting approval, in which case edits not made by reviewers or administrators will not become visible until the prior pending changes are accepted). Autoconfirmed users are no longer required to enter a
CAPTCHA A CAPTCHA ( , a contrived acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart") is a type of challenge–response test used in computing to determine whether the user is human. The term was coined in 2003 b ...
for most edits, including, but not limited to, adding external links. Autoconfirmed users may email users that have their "allow emails from brand-new users" checkbox off. In addition, the
edit filter Edit may refer to: Concepts * an action that is part of an editing process (including of images, video, and film) * a particular version that is the result of editing, especially of film (for example, fan edit), or music (for example, radio ...
has a number of warning settings that will no longer affect editors who are autoconfirmed. Autoconfirmed/confirmed users gain access to additional tools such as Wikipedia:Twinkle. Sometimes, it is necessary for accounts to skip the customary confirmation period and to be confirmed right away. The group contains the exact same rights as the pseudo-group, but can be granted by administrators and event coordinators as necessary. It is redundant to grant the right to an account that is already autoconfirmed since it provides the exact same abilities. To request this permission, see Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Confirmed. See Special:ListUsers/confirmed for a list of the confirmed users. , there were approximately 2.1 million autoconfirmed users on the English Wikipedia, of which the vast majority were inactive. See Special:ActiveUsers for a list of recently active users. Before 16 November 2016, confirmed and autoconfirmed users could also mark new pages as patrolled. This has been changed and now requires the
new page reviewer New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
right to do so.


Extended confirmed users

A registered editor becomes automatically when the account has existed for at least 30 days ''and'' makes its 501st edit. This user access right allows editors to edit and create pages that are under extended confirmed protection. The English Wikipedia also enables editors to use the
Content Translation tool Content or contents may refer to: Media * Content (media), information or experience provided to audience or end-users by publishers or media producers ** Content industry, an umbrella term that encompasses companies owning and providing mass ...
to create articles and the INDEX template on user pages. This access is included and bundled in the and (''administrator'') user groups. This group was primarily created to deal with specific arbitration remedies and community issues; the Arbitration Committee has since left community-use decisions up to the community. Extended confirmed is revoked if a user is in another group with which it is redundant, and in rare cases may be revoked for other reasons, such as if a user games the system by making many trivial edits. If extended confirmed is revoked, it may be re-granted at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Extended confirmed. That page may also be used to request early grants of the group, but requests are almost never accepted except for legitimate alternate accounts of users who are extended confirmed on other accounts. See Special:ListUsers/extendedconfirmed for a list of the extended confirmed users.


Administrators and bureaucrats

Administrators and bureaucrats are requested from pages other than Wikipedia:Requests for permissions.


Administrators

Administrators, also commonly referred to as "admins" or sometimes "
sysop A sysop (; an abbreviation of system operator) is an administrator of a multi-user computer system, such as a bulletin board system (BBS) or an online service virtual community.Jansen, E. & James,V. (2002). NetLingo: the Internet dictionary. Net ...
s" (system operators), are editors who are granted the rights by the community following a successful Request for Adminship (RfA). The RfA process involves in-depth and considerable discussion and examination of the candidate's activity and contributions as an editor. Candidates are granted the rights by community consensus. Administrators have exclusive access to a number of tools to allow them to carry out certain functions on the wiki. The tools cover processes such as page deletion, page protection, blocking and unblocking users, and the ability to edit fully protected pages. Administrators also have the ability to grant and remove most access rights to and from other users (account creator, autopatrolled, confirmed, file mover, edit filter helper, edit filter manager, event coordinator, extended confirmed, IP block exempt, mass message sender, new page reviewer, page mover, pending changes reviewer, rollback, template editor, and AutoWikiBrowser) and to their own alternate accounts. By convention, administrators also normally take responsibility for judging the outcome of certain discussions requiring these technical controls (such as deletions). Administrators are not granted more editorial control over article content than other editors. They are required to follow all
policies and guidelines Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an orga ...
and are held to the same level of accountability as non-administrators. Administrators are not employees of the
Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...
and should not be confused with Wikimedia system administrators ("sysadmins"). See Special:ListUsers/sysop for a full list of the English Wikipedia administrators.


Bureaucrats

Bureaucrats are exceptionally trusted editors who have the capability to perform certain actions on other users' accounts. These capabilities are granted by the community following a successful Request for Bureaucratship (RfB). Bureaucrats have access to Special:UserRights, enabling them to add users to the group (but not remove them), and add users to and remove users from the , , and user groups. See Special:ListUsers/bureaucrat for a list of the bureaucrats.


Flags granted to users giving access to specialized functions

Unless otherwise noted, see Wikipedia:Requests for permissions to request the following rights. Some of these rights are automatically assigned to administrators.


Pending changes reviewer

Members of this group can review other users' edits to articles placed under pending changes protection. This right is automatically assigned to administrators. Prior to September 2014, this right was known as . See Special:ListUsers/reviewer for a list of the reviewers.


Rollback

Users who are given the rollback flag ( user group) may revert consecutive revisions of an editor using the
rollback In political science, rollback is the strategy of forcing a change in the major policies of a state, usually by replacing its ruling regime. It contrasts with containment, which means preventing the expansion of that state; and with détente, w ...
feature. This right is automatically assigned to administrators. See Special:ListUsers/rollbacker for a list of the rollbackers.


Autopatrolled

Members of this group have , which allows them to have their pages automatically patrolled on the New Pages list. Prior to June 2010, it was known as . Before December 2021, it was automatically assigned to administrators, but following an RFC, it was removed from the default toolkit. The 2021 RFC concluded that administrators are allowed to grant the user right to themselves without approval or a discussion beforehand, similar to the edit filter manager user right. See Special:ListUsers/autoreviewer for a list of the autopatrolled users.


New page reviewer (patroller)

Members of this group have , which allows them to mark pages created by others as patrolled or
reviewed Review is an evaluation of a publication, product, service, company, or other object or idea. An article about or a compilation of reviews may itself be called a review. Review may also refer to: Evaluation processes *Book review, a description ...
. This right is automatically assigned to administrators. See Special:ListUsers/patroller for a list of the new page reviewers.


File mover

The file mover right is intended to allow users experienced in working with files to rename them, subject to policy, with the ease that autoconfirmed users already enjoy when renaming Wikipedia articles. This right is automatically assigned to administrators. See Special:ListUsers/filemover for a list of the file movers.


Page mover

The page mover user right ( user group) is intended to allow users who have demonstrated a good understanding of the Wikipedia page naming system to rename pages and subpages without leaving redirects, subject to policy. They are also able to create and edit editnotices as well as move categories. This right is automatically assigned to administrators. See Special:ListUsers/extendedmover for a list of the page movers.


Account creator

The account creator user right ( user group) is intended for users involved in the request an account process (ACC), and so have signed the Wikimedia Foundation's confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information. They are not affected by the 6 account creation limit per day per IP, and can create accounts for other users without restriction. Users in this group can also override the anti-spoof checks on account creation. Additionally, account creators are able to create accounts with names that are otherwise blocked by the title blacklist. This right is automatically assigned to administrators and bureaucrats. See Special:ListUsers/accountcreator for a list of the account creators.


Event coordinator

The event coordinator flag ( user group) is intended for individuals involved with off-wiki outreach events to create accounts for their attendees. Event coordinators are not affected by the 6 account creation limit per day per IP. In addition, they can allow their event attendees to create new articles by temporarily adding newly created accounts to
confirmed In Christian denominations that practice infant baptism, confirmation is seen as the sealing of the covenant created in baptism. Those being confirmed are known as confirmands. For adults, it is an affirmation of belief. It involves laying on o ...
user group. This right is automatically assigned to administrators. See Special:ListUsers/eventcoordinator for a list of the event coordinators.


Template editor

Users who are given the template editor flag ( user group) are allowed to edit pages protected with Wikipedia:Protection policy#template, template protection, as well as create and edit Wikipedia:editnotice, editnotices. Template protection is only applied to pages in the Wikipedia:Template namespace, template and Wikipedia:Lua, module namespaces, as well as a few pages in the Wikipedia namespace. This right is intended to allow experienced template and module coders to make changes without having to request that an administrator make the edits for them. This right is automatically assigned to administrators. See Special:ListUsers/templateeditor for a list of the template editors.


IP block exemption

Users who are given the ipblock-exempt flag ( user group) are not affected by WP:AUTOBLOCK, autoblocks, blocks of IP addresses and ranges that are made with the "Prevent logged-in users from editing" option enabled, and by Tor (anonymity network)#Tor exit node block, Tor blocks. The flag is intended for trusted users in good standing who are unfortunately affected by such blocks. Requests for this permission may be included with your Wikipedia:Appealing a block, unblock request. If you are affected by an IP address range block, you must send your unblock request using the Wikipedia:Unblock Ticket Request System, Unblock Ticket Request System. If you are trying to edit through a blocked anonymous proxy or a VPN service, you must instead send your request to , or contact a #CheckUser, CheckUser directly. This right is automatically assigned to administrators and bots. Administrators are also free to grant the right to good-faith editors known to be affected by IP blocks, without waiting for an unblock request. See Special:ListUsers/ipblock-exempt for a list of the affected users.


Edit filter managers

Members of the edit filter manager group can view, create, modify, enable, disable, and delete Special:AbuseFilter, edit filters, including private edit filters that are hidden from public view. They can also view any associated logs that are generated by any edit filter. This right is not assigned to administrators by default, but they are allowed to grant the user right to themselves without approval or a discussion beforehand. The edit filter manager user rights can also be granted to non-admins following a successful request at Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard. See Special:ListUsers/abusefilter for a list of the edit filter managers. All users can check their on the Special:AbuseFilter pages.


Edit filter helpers

Members of the edit filter helper group have the ability to view all Special:AbuseFilter, edit filters (including private edit filters that are hidden from being publicly viewed), as well as view their associated logs. It does ''not'' grant them the ability to modify or make any changes to edit filters. The user right is intended for editors who are interested in helping with edit filters or have demonstrated experience with helping with public edit filters on appropriate discussion pages, but do not yet meet the thresholds required to be able to modify them. The user right is also intended for users who are currently active edit filter managers on other Wikimedia wikis who would like to learn from the English Wikipedia, as well as full Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Clerks, sockpuppet investigation (SPI) clerks who have been promoted past being a trainee. This access is also included in the administrator groups. These capabilities can also be granted to non-admins following a successful request at Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard. See Special:ListUsers/abusefilter-helper for a list of the edit filter helpers. All users can check their on the Special:AbuseFilter pages.


Mass message sender

Members of this group may send messages to multiple users at once. This right is automatically assigned to administrators. See Special:ListUsers/massmessage-sender for a list of the mass message senders.


Interface administrators

Users who are given the interface administrator flag ( user group) have the ability to edit site-wide CSS,
JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...
, and JSON pages (pages such as MediaWiki:Common.js or MediaWiki:Vector.css, or the gadget pages listed on Special:Gadgets), CSS/JS/JSON pages in another user's userspace, and pages in the MediaWiki namespace. Interface administrator access, along with access to another group that has undelete access, is required to view deleted versions of pages only editable by this group. Because it provides the potential to send malicious CSS, JS, and JSON code to execute in other users' browsers, this right may only be granted to existing administrators with Help:Two-factor authentication, two-factor authentication enabled on their accounts. These capabilities can be granted following a successful request at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard. See Special:ListUsers/interface-admin for a list of the interface administrators.


Functionary user levels


CheckUser

Users who are given the CheckUser flag ( user group) have access to Special:CheckUser, a WP:SPEC, function page that allows them to view a list of all
IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...
es that have been used by a user account to edit the English Wikipedia, an extended list of ''all edits'' made from an IP address or range (which includes edits that were made by any user accounts while using the specific IP or range), or a list of all user accounts that have used a given IP address or range to edit the English Wikipedia. They also have access to the Special:CheckUserLog, Checkuser log, which logs each time a Checkuser uses their tools to view any of the information listed. This user right is only granted to ''exceedingly few users'' and after a high level of scrutiny and review by the community, and after review and the support of the WP:ARB, Arbitration Committee, typically around once a year (see ). Users must also be at least 18 years old and have signed the Wikimedia Foundation's confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information. As CheckUsers have access to deleted revisions, they are also required to have passed an "RfA or RfA-identical process" first. See Special:ListUsers/checkuser for a list of the CheckUsers.


Oversight

Users who are given the oversight flag ( user group) have access to additional functions on the page deletion, revision deletion, and block Help:Special page, function pages through which they can hide logs or revisions of pages (partially or entirely) from any form of usual access by all other users, including WP:ADMIN, administrators. They also have access to the Special:Log/suppress, suppression log, where they can view actions made by other oversighters, as well as the content of the hidden revisions. This user right is only granted to ''exceedingly few users'' and after a high level of scrutiny and review by the community, and after review and the support of WP:ARB, Arbitration Committee, typically around once a year (see ). Users must also be at least 18 years old and have signed the Wikimedia Foundation's confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information. Oversighters are also required to have passed a "RfA or RfA-identical process" first.The Wikimedia Foundation has Special:Diff/545773892, stated that an "RfA or RfA-identical process" is required for users to be granted access to deleted revisions. See Special:ListUsers/suppress for a list of the Oversighters.


Other flagged accounts


Bots

Accounts used by approved WP:BOT, bots to make pre-approved edits can be flagged as such. Bot accounts are automated or semi-automated, the nature of their edits is well defined, and they will be quickly blocked if their actions vary from their given tasks, so they require less scrutiny than human edits. For this reason, contributions from accounts with the bot flag ( user group) are not displayed in Wikipedia:Recent Changes, recent changes or Help:Watching pages, watchlists to users who have opted to hide bot edits. Minor edits made by bot accounts to user talk pages do not trigger the Help:Using talk pages#You have new messages, "you have new messages" banner. Bot accounts can query th
API
in batches of 5,000 rather than 500. See Special:ListUsers/bot for a list of the bots.


Copyright violation bots

A is an approved bot that is given the permission, allowing it to use th
API
to tag pages listed on Special:NewPagesFeed as likely Wikipedia:Copyright violations, copyright violations. User:EranBot, EranBot is currently the only bot with the copyviobot flag.


Founder

The Special:ListUsers/founder, group was created on the English Wikipedia by developer User:Tim Starling, Tim Starling, without community input, as a unique group for User:Jimbo Wales, Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales—although User:Larry Sanger, Larry Sanger is a Founder of Wikipedia, co-founder, he xtools:ec-rightschanges/en.wikipedia.org/Larry Sanger, has never been a member of this group—see Special:ListUsers/founder. The group formerly gave Wales full access to Special:UserRights, user rights, and no longer has any function but continues to exist as a courtesy. Wales is also a member of the founder m:Special:GlobalGroupPermissions/founder, global group, which grants several more rights across the Wikimedia network.


Researchers

The group allows individuals approved by the Wikimedia Foundation to perform a title search for deleted pages, view deleted history entries, and view deleted contents. It was created in 2010 and expanded in 2020. See Special:ListUsers/researcher for a list of the current researcher and meta:Research:Special API permissions/Log for further details.


Importers and transwiki importers

The group gives editors the (import) permission for use on Special:Import. This interface allows users to copy pages, and optionally entire page histories, from certain other Wikimedia wikis. The import permission is also included in the administrators and importers user groups. There are currently users in the transwiki importers group. This group is mostly deprecated and is only available for assignment by stewards following a special community approval discussion. is a similar group which gives editors the (importupload) permission as well as the (import) permission for use on Special:Import. Importers have the additional ability to import articles directly from XML (which may come from any wiki site). The importupload permission is also included in the stewards group. See Special:ListUsers/import for the importers. This access is highly restricted and is only available for assignment to a limited number of very trusted users by stewards following a special community approval discussion. All users can use Special:Export to create an XML export of a page and its history. See also the Special:Log/import, import log, Wikipedia:Transwiki log, transwiki log, Help:Import, and Wikipedia:Requests for page importation.


Blocked users

Any user account can be blocked, regardless of which user group(s) it belongs to. While the account is blocked, the blocking flag disables the user or IP's existing editing privileges depending on which WP:OPTIONS, block options are set by the administrator. A Wikipedia:Partial blocks, partial block still allows some parts of Wikipedia to be edited. Blocked users are listed on Special:BlockList.


Indefinitely blocked users

If an editor is WP:INDEF, blocked indefinitely but not WP:SBAN, site-banned, their rights should generally be left as is. Rights specifically related to the reason for blocking may be removed at administrators' discretion; certain rights might also later be removed under applicable inactivity rules. When an editor is indefinitely site-banned by the community, their granted permissions should be removed. If the ban is reversed due to actual error (e.g. votestacking in the ban thread), the rights should be restored, but otherwise a user who successfully appeals their ban is not automatically entitled to regain the rights.


Global rights

Global rights have effects on all public Wikimedia wikis, but their use may be restricted by local policy, see Wikipedia:Global rights policy. For an automatically generated list of global groups with all their permissions, see Special:GlobalGroupPermissions. For a list of users along with their global groups, see Special:GlobalUsers.


Stewards

Stewardship is an elected role, and stewards are appointed globally across all public Wikimedia wikis. Users who are members of the user group may grant and revoke any permission to or from any user on any wiki operated by the
Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...
which allows open account creation. This group is set on meta:Main Page, MetaWiki, and may use meta:Special:Userrights to set permissions on any Wikimedia wiki; they may add or remove any user from bugzilla:12518, any group configured on metawiki. Stewards generally act only when there is no user on a particular wiki that can make the necessary change. This includes granting of the or access levels on wikis which do not have any local bureaucrats, and removing such flags if the user resigns or the account is acting maliciously. Stewards are also responsible for granting and revoking access levels such as and , as no other group is capable of making such changes except meta:System administrators, Foundation sysadmins and meta:Trust and Safety, Trust and Safety staff. Stewards can also act as #CheckUser, checkusers, #Oversight, oversighters, #Bureaucrat, bureaucrats or #Administrator, administrators on wikis which do not have active local members of those groups. For example, if a wiki has a passing need for an edit to be oversighted, a steward can add themselves to the user group on that wiki, perform the necessary function, and then remove themselves from the group using their steward rights. Most steward actions are logged at meta:Special:Log/rights or meta:Special:Log/gblrights (some go to meta:Stewards/Additional log for global changes). See Special:GlobalUsers/steward or meta:Special:ListUsers/steward for a list of users in this group.


Other global user groups

Other global groups include WMF staff, sysadmins (system administrators), ombuds, Wikipedia:Volunteer Response Team, Volunteer Response Team (VRT) members, global bots, global rollbackers, global sysops (not enabled on English Wikipedia), and interface editors. See Wikipedia:Global rights policy, Global rights policy and meta:User groups for information on these, as well as a full list.


Table

* Generally, bureaucrats on the English Wikipedia are also administrators, and so have all the permissions of the user group in addition to those rights from the group. However, this is not a requirement of the MediaWiki software nor is it a formal requirement of the Wikipedia:Requests for adminship#About RfB, Requests for Bureaucratship process; it is technically possible for a user to be a bureaucrat without also being an admin. * Deprecated permissions are either no longer assigned to any group or the group to which they are assigned is no longer populated.
* IPs and new users are limited to 8 edits per minute. Autoconfirmed or confirmed users who are in no usergroup with the ''noratelimit'' userright are limited to 8 moves per minute. Rollbackers in the same situation are limited to 100 rollbacks per minute.The API query https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&meta=userinfo&uiprop=ratelimits, groups can be used to check those values. Account creations are subject to an IP based limit, mw:Manual:$wgAccountCreationThrottle, set at 6 for WMF wikis, but users with ''noratelimit'' are unaffected.


User access level changes


Former levels

* ''Course coordinator, instructor, online and campus volunteer'' *: Enabled users to manage course pages in the "Education Program:" namespace, which wa
shut down in June 2018
* ''Afttest and Afttest-hide'' *: Only granted by WMF staff, these enabled users to delete and/or hide WP:AFT5, article feedback. Removed in March 2014 after a one-year run. * ''EP staff, administrator, campus-ambassador, online-ambassador, and instructor'' *: Used by users to coordinate and work with students, instructors, and institutions as part of th
education program
Deprecated since 2013.


See also

* Meta:User groups * mw:Manual:User rights, Manual:User rights on MediaWiki * Special:ListGroupRights * Special:UserRights, See what usergroup a user is in * Wikipedia:Editing restrictions * Wikipedia:Editorial oversight and control (explains the access structure from the perspective of quality control on Wikipedia)
Wikipedia User permissions API
* Wikipedia:Requests for permissions (to request certain userrights) * Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations


Notes

Wikipedia user access levels, Wikipedia features, {{PAGENAME