Wikipedia:Administrators

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

While the Wiki software we use allows any user to do most things like editing pages and uploading files, there are a few features of the software that we restrict. For example, editing the front page, permanently deleting pages and their history, and banning IP addresses.

Performing these functions requires "administrator" or "sysop" access. Current Wikipedia policy is to grant this access liberally to anyone who has been an active Wikipedia contributor for a while and is generally a known and active member of the community. If you would like such access, send an e-mail to the Wikipedia mailing list giving your Wikipedia login name and requesting access.

The other degree of access is "developer", for those who can make direct changes to the Wikipedia software. Check out Wikitech-L and Wikipedia:Developers.

Even if you are granted access, we ask that you exercise care in using these functions, especially the ability to delete pages and their history and the ability to block IP addresses.

See Wikipedia policy on permanent deletion of pages.

See Database queries for examples of SQL queries to the Wikipedia database. Please be careful with this; our database is very large, and overly complex queries can seriously bog down the server.

Administrators are marked with "(sysop)" in the list of user accounts. Here's a short list as of September 20, 2002: