Bureaucrat
Within Wikimedia projects, a bureaucrat is a user who has the technical ability to:
- Promote other users to administrator or bureaucrat;
- Grant and revoke a user's bot flag;
- Add and remove users from the interface-admin group;
- Add and remove users from custom local groups created by local consensus like account creator, deleter, etc.;
- Remove a user's administrator and/or bureaucrat flags on some projects listed below.
Stewards fulfill these roles on wikis without bureaucrats using the requests for permissions page. A small community generally doesn't require a local bureaucrat, because stewards can easily handle the low traffic of requests from that wiki with little delay; generally a user with this access is not needed until several local administrators are present. Other positions may be subject to global policies like the Checkuser policy and the Oversight policy, which define minimum community requirements. The default configuration of the MediaWiki software permits bureaucrats with access to Special:UserRights to add and remove users from all user groups. On Wikimedia projects only stewards have full access to Special:UserRights, while bureaucrats can add/remove only a subset of rights.
Promoting users and bots
[edit]If you are a bureaucrat, to give or remove another user administrator, bureaucrat or bot access (or any other access), go to Special:UserRights on the wiki where you are a bureaucrat. There is a link to this on the list of special pages.
You will see the following form:
Type the user's name into the box, and enter a reason for the change. Choose the rights you wish to assign/remove to the user by ticking/unticking the relevant boxes. Note that if the user group has an asterisk (*) next to it, you will not be able to remove it yourself. When you are done, press the Save user groups button.
The user will gain their access immediately and the action will be recorded at the User rights log.
If you make a mistake and need to remove an access level which you cannot remove, contact a steward.
Removing access
[edit]Below is a list of public wikis where bureaucrats can remove sysop and/or bureaucrat access. Normally these removals have to be done by the stewards. On all private or fishbowl wikis, bureaucrats are able to remove both administrator and bureaucrat flags.
| both administrator and bureaucrat flags | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Wiki | Bug | Fixed on | Notes |
| Removed per phab:T106291. | |||
| se chapter wiki | bug 14665 | 2008-07-05 | It looks like this was set inadvertently, but the Swedish chapter board wishes to keep this configuration. |
| fi.wikipedia | No bug | 2009-03-04 | Originally very likely to have been set inadvertently in March 2009. |
| bug 42114 | 2013-01-04 | Local consensus reached (see bugs 42114 and 42105, and this summary). | |
| fi chapter wiki | bug 25668 | 2010-10-27 | |
| Wiki closed, reset to default. | |||
| br.wikimedia | task T65345 | 2014-04-17 | consensus |
| hu.wikipedia | bug 72055 | 2014-10-16 | |
| pt.wikipedia | bug T107661 | 2015-08-11 | Local consensus |
| co.wikimedia | task T300779 | 2022-02-02 | Non-fishbowl chapter wiki. |
| only administrator flag | |||
| test.wiki | |||
| wikitech | |||
| en.wiktionary | No bug | Per a community vote and bug 42113, enwiktionary bureaucrats lost the power to remove the bureaucrat right (which was apparently never asked for). | |
| Wiki was closed. | |||
| Wiki was redirected. | |||
| simple.wikipedia | T22271 | 2009-09-24 | Community consensus |
| simple.wiktionary | T24522 | 2010-02-22 | |
| outreach.wiki | bug 23118 | 2010-04-09 | Ability to remove bureaucrat flag was removed in phab:T214133. |
| en.wikinews | bug 23392 | 2010-05-08 | Community consensus |
| Removed per task T214765. | |||
| en.wikipedia | bug 18390 | 2011-08-11 | Community consensus |
| ru.wikipedia | bug 30307 | 2011-08-11 | Community consensus |
| ba.wikipedia | bug 33769 | 2012-01-17 | Community consensus |
| fr.wikipedia | bug 35258 | 2012-04-12 | Community consensus |
| en.wikivoyage | bug 43851 | 2013-01-17 | Community consensus |
| test2.wiki | T131037 | 2016-04-04 | |
| fa.wikipedia | T140810 | 2016-07-20 | Community consensus |
| nyc.wikimedia | task T226591 | 2019-06-26 | Wikimedia New York City Chapter wiki. |
| bd.wikimedia | task T251078 | 2020-04-28 | Wikimedia Bangladesh chapter wiki |
| commons | task T261481 | 2020-10-06 | Community consensus |
| de.wikipedia | task T331921 | 2023-04-20 | Community consensus |
| foundationwiki | task T370097 | 2024-07-18 | Wikimedia Foundation managed wiki |