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.

[edit] 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 while logged in, but not used their bureaucrat abilities in the last two months. Last updated 18 August 2009.

See also: Special:ListUsers/bureaucrat

[edit] Former bureaucrats

• Nichalp (rights • renames • contribs), removed by ArbCom 13 June 2009
• Danny (rights • renames • contribs), resigned 21 March 2007
• Dannyisme (rights • renames • contribs), 21 March 2007, Danny's Office Actions account
• Essjay (rights • renames • contribs), resigned 4 March 2007 (reason)
• Francs2000 (rights • renames • contribs), resigned 29 March 2006
• Optim (rights • renames • contribs), removed 9 February 2006 due to inactivity at Wikipedia since 7 March 2004 and user's request
• Ed Poor (rights • renames • contribs), resigned 12 September 2005 (reason)
• Eloquence (rights • renames • contribs), resigned 26 May 2005
• Ugen64 (rights • renames • contribs), resigned 12 October 2004

[edit] Instructions

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

[edit] Promotions and RfX closures

Note: As in the case with non-admins and AFD, 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}}
On hold RfA	{{subst:rfah}}	{{subst:rfab}}
On hold RfB	{{subst:rfbh}}	{{subst:rfbb}}

• Remove the "Voice your opinion" and talk page link (example).
• Replace the {{rfatally}} template with the accurate tally.
• 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. Please reference the RfA (or RfB) when making the promotion.
• 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:Unsuccessful adminship candidacies (Chronological) and Wikipedia:Unsuccessful adminship candidacies (Alphabetical) or Wikipedia:Unsuccessful bureaucratship candidacies.
• Inform the user of the result, whether it is successful or unsuccessful.

[edit] Renames

1. Check at Special:ListUsers that the requested name is not taken.
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.

[edit] Usurpations

When usurping a target name (User:Target) with a current name (User:Current):

1. Confirm that User:Target has not objected to the usurpation.
2. Using Special:Renameuser, rename User:Target to User:Target (usurped); this vacates the target name for the renaming of the current name.
3. Make sure any resultant redirects to User:Target (usurped) from User:Target are deleted. This will prevent any conflicts when renaming the current name to the target name.
4. Using Special:Renameuser, rename User:Current to User:Target.
5. Append the {{done}} or {{not done}} template to the request.

[edit] Special conditions

1. For anonymization requests where the username was created by someone else, or has no license-worthy edits, the request should first be sent to the Oversight list at oversight-l to determine whether or not HideUser should be used instead of Rename.
2. For requests from OTRS, contact a bureaucrat who is also an OTRS volunteer (see above) who can check the ticket. For OTRS agents, you can check if the bureaucrat has access to the queue the ticket is in, by going to otrswiki:List of accounts.

[edit] Bot flags

1. Check that a member of Bot Approvals Group approved the bot request and requested that it be flagged.
2. Go to 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:Userrights.
3. Update the listing on Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Approved.

[edit] Mailing list

A Bureaucrat mailing list (wikien-bureaucrats) was established in March 2009. It is intended as a convenient way to notify bureaucrats about urgent matters or, on rare occasions, to discuss private matters. Any issue that is neither urgent nor necessarily private should instead be handled on the wiki, for instance at the bureaucrats' noticeboard.

Membership is strictly limited to current bureaucrats. However, not all bureaucrats are members. Membership is indicated above. Currently, the list administrator is Dweller and there is a vacancy for co-administrator.

[edit] Subject matter

Please use the list with care: most issues can and should be discussed onwiki, either at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard, via a Bureaucrat's talk page, or in the appropriate on-wiki forum. Please do not email regarding matters that are neither urgent nor concern private information. If an email sent to the list is urgent but does not involve private information, a copy of the text of the email should be posted to the bureaucrats' noticeboard. Please do not contact the list with concerns about edit-warring, conflict, or need for specialist tools, such as Checkuser or Oversight.

To contact the bureaucrat mailing list in appropriate circumstances, please use Special:Emailuser/Bureaucrats, or e-mail wikien-bureaucratslists.wikimedia.org. Please include links to any relevant on-wiki discussion. If you have a private request, please explain why it must remain private. If you prefer to contact an individual bureaucrat directly, you do not have to contact the mailing list.

[edit] See also

• Special:Log/rights: log of user rights changes;
• Special:Log/renameuser: log of username changes;
• Wikipedia:Bureaucrat log: for Bureaucrat activity (user rights adjustments) prior to 24 December 2004;
• Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard: discussion of Bureaucrat-related matters (please note that questions relating to decisions by particular bureaucrats should be directed to their talkpage in the first instance);
• Wikipedia:User access levels: general information on the English Wikipedia's user rights system;
• 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);