This is a guide to current practice at Wikipedia's requests for adminship (RfA) process, the mechanism by which editors are considered for administrator status. To become an administrator, there needs to be a clear consensus that you are committed to Wikipedia and can be trusted to know and uphold its policies and guidelines.
For an unprepared user, even a very valuable contributor, the process can be frustrating and disheartening. Under no circumstances should any editor, otherwise considering acceptance of a nomination, interpret the contents of this guide as a barrier to nomination. Accordingly, no Wikipedian should refer to this guide for the purpose of deterring a candidate from accepting a nomination. This is only a guide to current practice on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship, not policy.
For an informal look, please see the Miniguide to requests for adminship and the more detailed page at Advice for RfA candidates.
RfA is the means by which the Wikipedia community develops consensus on whether an editor should be given administrator rights, such as the abilities to delete a page, protect a page, edit a protected page, and block a user.
The reality is that adminship is oriented to communal trust and confidence, not percentages and numbers, and each user will have their own way to assess candidates' readiness for the role. While anybody can apply, a review of failed RfAs will quickly show that members of the community have many unwritten expectations.
Common areas where users may have expectations will usually be those that show:
Evidence of any concerns may also be raised and questions asked, for reassurance whether they will present concerns in future, and any other signs of helpfulness or work undertaken in the community will be seen positively.
The nomination process is not intended as a forum for voting on a nominee's popularity or strength as an editor. It is a forum by which consensus is generated on whether an editor should be given administrator privileges. An editor should not construe the outcome of an RfA as praise or condemnation of their efforts as an editor. Instead, it is an evaluation of their likely ability to appropriately use administrator rights.
An RfA is a very open voting process where your record will be looked at by experienced (and sometimes opinionated) users who have already made up their minds about what kinds of people they want as administrators. An RfA is open to everybody, including anyone you may have had disagreements with in the past, as well as new and inexperienced users you may be disagreeing with at the time.
Some users find the level of scrutiny and frankness very difficult. Some editors have left Wikipedia as a consequence of an RfA that has gone poorly. This should not happen, as this process does not judge an editor's value to Wikipedia. There are many fine editors who would not make good administrators.
Things that a potential administrator nominee should consider before accepting a nomination include:
The nomination process has clear instructions for constructing, accepting, and posting a nomination. A number of RfA contributors look askance at nominees who do not follow the instructions properly. Administrators are expected to read and follow policies. The inability to do this here is a bad sign. If something is unclear, then ask the person who nominated you, put a message on the discussion page of WP:RFA, or ask a user who has nominated someone else. Avoid mistakes rather than making them and then fixing them.
RfA contributors want to see a record of involvement and evidence that you can apply Wikipedia policies calmly, maturely and impartially. What are often looked for are:
These points are not mandatory and there are always exceptions, but if you think back over your contributions and any of these is missing, it may be better to broaden your experience before an RfA.
There are also several other things that contributors will raise, such as whether you have an email address set. This is important for administrators, who may need to be contacted by users who have been blocked from editing.
Some editors have listed their individual rough criteria for support on the Advice for RfA candidates page.
No matter how experienced you are, some actions will cause problems. In roughly decreasing order of seriousness, here are some things which, if seen in your edit history, will be raised and thoroughly discussed:
However, many RfAs have succeeded despite some of the above. The important factors are:
Most users are sympathetic to special circumstances or serious conditions. However the well-being of the project and ability of a candidate to carry out adminship without undue stress and problems are paramount. The community has endorsed adminship for people who have chronic or serious clinical conditions, schizophrenia being one example. Such conditions are not necessarily "blockers" at RFA. Legitimate concerns would include impact on the project, impact on your judgment and interactions, capacity to cause "blow-ups" or other problems, evidence it can be managed so as not to cause a problem, etc.
If you are affected by a condition or circumstance that affects your editing or could do so, then you may wish to disclose it. If you do then readers will probably look for three main things:
Depending on the condition you might consider things like these in your nomination or in a disclosure statement:
Even if you disclose an issue, nobody needs to know actual specifics of treatments, names of medications etc. If a treatment has helped prevent symptoms then it's enough to say (eg) "since 201x meds have kept me largely free of symptoms". You don't need to disclose your entire medical history or describe your whole offline life. Users just need the information that lets them assess the degree of risk of impact, severity, mitigation and management for the project. You may want to ask another user you trust about the level of detail before you post.
If you have been involved in discussions on very controversial articles, your adminship may be a target for heated objections on the basis of your involvement in those pages. This may reduce your chances of becoming an administrator. In some cases voters may attempt to maintain a "balance of power" across controversial subjects by opposing all potential admins involved on the opposite sides of controversial edit wars.
It may be a good idea for you to highlight the controversy in answering the standard question "Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?". You can note how you dealt with the controversy, cite example edits by you and your responses to uncivil comments made by others. In referring others to a past edit it can be useful to provide a "diff", a unique and durable link to a post. However, if you have been involved in edit wars (other than against blatant vandalism), or been uncivil on those pages, it may adversely affect your RfA.
Nominators should be careful in their decision to nominate someone for administrator status. As noted above, the RfA process can lead to unsavory results. A nominator should consider the possibility of the negative impact on a nominee, and ensure they are making appropriate nominations.
A nomination consists of an introductory nomination statement (example here), followed by three initial questions (shown here) to be answered by the nominee. When you craft a nomination for someone, including yourself, you should outline in the nomination statement why you think the nominee should be an administrator. You might offer some information on where the nominee has done significant work, areas where the nominee has already helped out with administrator appropriate tasks, how long they have been with the project, and their ability to handle stressful situations. Single-line nomination statements will do little to aid the nominee, and may hinder the RfA.
When nominating someone, it is generally a good idea to ask them if they would like to be nominated before crafting an RfA nomination per the instructions at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Nominate. If the person you want to nominate is willing to accept the nomination, you may place the {{subst:RfA-nom|YOUR USERNAME}} template on their talk page. This provides some basic information on what the nominee should do.
Once the RfA has been created, it is a good idea to work in concert with the nominee to carefully craft the nomination before listing it at WP:RFA. You can advise the nominee on their answers to the questions, fix any errors that might have been made on the RfA either by yourself or the nominee, and generally prepare the RfA for a successful run. Common errors include not formatting the closing date properly, not officially accepting the nomination on the RfA, and the nominee voting for themselves. Poorly prepared RfAs are not looked upon well by RfA contributors as for some this shows a lack of careful attention to process and detail and a lack of respect for the RfA process.
While voting is in progress, be ready to answer any enquiries the applicant puts to you. Should the process go sour, consider advising the applicant of the option to withdraw (as Closure below).
The RfA nomination process evolves. Initially nominations were an ad hoc assemblage of comments made on a mailing list. Later, the process became more formalized as the WP:RFA page. As time has gone on, efforts have been made to improve the process. The process we have in place now is relatively straightforward.
Either you or another editor may nominate you to be an administrator. Anyone can be an administrator, and anyone can nominate a candidate. However, keep in mind that nominees who have not been on Wikipedia for very long are not necessarily well regarded, as they are less likely to perform effectively as administrators and they are not widely known by RfA voters. It's considered good practice to approach the nominee first to find out whether they would accept the nomination.
To nominate yourself, follow the instructions as they are outlined at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Nominate. For someone else to nominate you, they should likewise follow the appropriate instructions on that page. There is also a list of editors willing to consider nominating you. If you have been nominated, then again follow the instructions on that page. Once, by following the instructions, an RfA has been transcluded (i.e. posted) to WP:RFA, the nomination is open for discussion. RfA subpages should not be commented on before being posted to RfA, nor should votes be cast on the RfA subpage until the nomination is posted to the RfA page.
Administrator nominees should move slowly in this process. There is no deadline, and no need to rush. It is better to get it right than to move too quickly and make errors.
An RfA remains open for seven days, beginning from when the nomination is posted to WP:RFA. RfA contributors will make comments when they wish. RfA contributors will generally add additional questions to the standard three questions that currently are part of every RfA. Administrator nominees should stay involved on their RfAs so that they may answer these questions or any other comments raised on their RfA. Absence by the nominee from the RfA process during the seven days it is open can harm the chances of success. While it is appropriate to respond to comments and questions raised on the RfA, it is important to keep in mind that the RfA is not a forum for debate except as it closely relates to the nominee's acceptability as an administrator. Poor behavior by an RfA candidate will generally have negative consequences.
Sometime after the seven days for the RfA have elapsed, a bureaucrat will review the RfA and close it. A bureaucrat will close the RfA as soon as this is feasible, which may be hours or even a day or two after the formal closing date. Do not remove your own RfA from WP:RFA unless you are intentionally withdrawing your nomination from consideration.
Currently, there is an open-ended debate regarding whether a nomination that is going poorly should be removed from WP:RFA. There is no standard by which such nominations are removed, nor any consensus on whether they should be removed. Nevertheless, some bureaucrats and other parties occasionally do remove RfAs that are going poorly. You should not take offense if this happens; it is being done to protect you from ill will that may be generated by the RfA. If you did not wish to have your RfA prematurely removed, you may petition the person who removed it to reinstate it. You may find who removed the RfA by reviewing the page history of WP:RFA.
If you would like to withdraw your nomination after it has opened, you may do so simply by editing the RfA to strike out your acceptance of the nomination and indicating your desire to withdraw instead. To do this, place <s> before your nomination acceptance, a closing </s> after your acceptance, and indicate your desire to withdraw. This might look like this:
If you'd like, you may remove the RfA from WP:RFA on your own, but you are not required to do so. If you do so (though again you are not required to), you should edit the RfA after you have removed it from WP:RFA and place {{subst:rfaf}} at the very top of the page, {{subst:rfab}} at the very bottom of the page, remove the entire line that contains the "Voice your opinion on this candidate" link and replace it with '''Final''', change the ending date to the date you withdrew, and update the final tally of votes. Additionally, you should edit Wikipedia:Unsuccessful adminship candidacies appropriately to include your nomination. The date you should use on that page is the date you withdrew.
The community is divided about successful candidates posting unpersonalised "thanks for voting" messages to voters' talk pages, though personalised thanks for particular reviews, comments and questions are perfectly in order. If you do send a message to everyone please respect those editors who have put "no Thankspam" messages on their talk page, and make sure your thank you does not look like a barnstar. A perfectly acceptable alternative is to post a thanks message instead on your own talk page and/or the talk page of your RFA.
It is the job of bureaucrats to determine consensus when closing a request for adminship. As RfA is not a straightforward majority vote, there is no precise "pass" or "fail" percentage, and the bureaucrat may discount comments which were made in bad faith or are of questionable validity. However, as an approximate guide, you are likely to pass if you achieve at least 75% support. Nominations which receive less than 65% support are unlikely to be successful, except in exceptional circumstances.
If you feel that a nomination is wrongfully declared as unsuccessful, you may petition the bureaucrat who made the decision. This can usually be determined by looking at the page history of WP:RFA and seeing which bureaucrat removed the RfA from the page. Bureaucrats do have the option of extending RfAs where they think this is necessary. Another possibility is to wait for some time and either renominate yourself or have someone else nominate you for a second time. Many current administrators did not pass their first nomination, yet had a later nomination easily succeed. In some cases, administrator nominees have tried more than twice. In one case, a nominee tried seven times. Your first nomination is not your only chance to become an administrator.
Bureaucrat nominations (RfB) are also considered on WP:RFA. Bureaucrats are at present responsible for the following tasks: determining consensus on RfA and RfB, and granting rights on successful nominations; processing the removal of administrator rights due to inactivity or arbitration committee requests; determining consensus for bot approvals group membership applications; and assigning bot flags. The RfB process is similar in nearly all respects to the RfA process with a few exceptions:
As a result of the higher level of consensus required, almost half the requests for bureaucrat status have been rejected, whereas more requests for adminship are approved.
Former administrators may seek reinstatement of their privileges through RfA unless prohibited from doing so by an arbitration remedy.
Admins who resigned voluntarily, under uncontroversial circumstances, can ask to skip RfA. Upon a review to confirm that the user both was in good standing at the time of the de-adminship and is in good standing currently, a bureaucrat may restore access rights. If there is any question that reinstatement would lack community consensus, the user will be referred to RfA. The guiding principle for such decisions, per Wikipedia:Bureaucrats, is that bureaucrats may grant adminship only when doing so reflects the wishes of the community.