User:Brews ohare/Structure of Wikipedia

This discussion is based entirely upon documentation from the English language version of Wikipedia. Its applicability to other language versions has not been examined. As noted here: “Wikipedia may be cited with caution as a primary source of information on itself, such as in articles about itself.”

Overview of organization
The contributors or editors of Wikipedia participate subject to a number of policies and guidelines governing behavior and content. These rules are supervised by various authorities: Jimmy Wales, nominally in a position of ultimate authority, although he has deferred in most instances to the leadership of Wikipedia, the ~34 present Bureaucrats or Crats, the ~740 active Administrators or Admins, and another group called the Arbitration Committee or ArbCom with 15-18 members or Arbs, depending upon the rules adopted each year. There were 15 active Arbitrators in 2011. The Wikimedia Foundation or its designated agents also have authority to impose bans against IP addresses for pages, topics, or the entire site.

Bureaucrats
Bureaucrats or Crats are a category introduced in 2004, and have only a few limited activities. Among these, they may remove Administrators and Bureaucrats if so instructed by the Arbitration Committee, and appoint Administrators and Bureaucrats following a selection procedure. Selection follows a discussion process, Bureaucrats decide what criteria constitute a "consensus" upon appointment, at the end of which a Bureaucrat reviews the situation to see whether there is a "consensus". For appointment of Bureaucrats, consensus must exceed ~85%, but final judgment is one of Bureaucrat discretion. As a result, Bureaucrats have almost complete control over appointment of new Bureaucrats. The number of newly appointed Bureaucrats has steadily declined over the years, with only two successful candidacies in 2011. Bureaucrats serve indefinitely.

Administrators
The activities of Administrators or Admins are described in a how-to guide instructing Administrators on the use of their powers, which include actions to block users' IP addresses. There is a distinction between a ban and a block. A ban requires "consensus", and is a formal warning: if an individual Administrator judges a ban has been violated, without further consultation that Administrator can impose sanctions. A block, on the other hand, can be imposed by a single Administrator and prevents editing to some degree, large or small.

The nomination and selection of Administrators is supervised by Bureaucrats, who decide whether, in their opinion, a candidate has garnered sufficient support in the discussion of a candidacy, a process like that for appointing Bureaucrats. A "consensus" exceeding ~70% is required, but the judgement of Bureaucrats is the deciding factor. A list of unsuccessful requests shows the number of refusals peaked at 543 in 2006 with 353 acceptances, and has steadily declined since as the number of applicants has dropped off, with only 155 refusals and 75 acceptances in 2010, and 75 refusals and 46 acceptances as of end of October 2011.

Administrators serve indefinitely, but can be disbarred by Bureaucrats if the Arbitration Committee formally requests it. "Throughout the history of the project, there has been a convention that adminship may be removed only in cases of clear abuse." A possible exception to the "clear abuse" criterion is the Restriction on arbitration enforcement activity, which appropriates to the Arbitration Committee the power to limit an Administrator's activities whenever the Arbitration Committee deems that Administrator "consistently make[s] questionable enforcement administrative actions." and to decommission the Administrator if they override another Administrator's actions without the Arbitration Committee's written authorization or "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors".

As of 2009 there had been 47 removals during the history of WP, and following 2009 no public record has been maintained of these actions. Of the approximately 1,526 Administrators empowered, 207 (or 13.5%) have declared themselves open to recall under circumstances devised by themselves. There is a provision for possible removal of inactive Administrators.

Although attempts have been made to implement a community-based removal of Administrators, none ever has been agreed upon.

Arbitration Committee
Members of the Arbitration Committee (referred to as ArbCom), or Arbs, act in concert or in sub-groups to impose binding solutions to conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve, mainly by imposing, or defining violations under which they will impose, bans and blocks upon users' IP addresses. Though disputes commonly arise over content, the Arbitration Committee explicitly excludes all content issues from their deliberations and focuses upon disciplinary actions. Aside from enforcing an end to disputes, the Arbitration Committee can give specific users the ability to remove some types of edits from the revision history, for example, material considered defamatory. The Arbitration Committee can request Bureaucrats to exercise de-Adminship under the circumstances described under Administrators. Arbitrators are elected annually in one-year or overlapping two-year terms, and also can be appointed directly by Wales or the Wikimedia Foundation. The election rules are debated each year.

Wikimedia Foundation
Wikipedia is one of a dozen projects of Wikimedia, an organization owned and operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Among the functionaries of Wikimedia are the Stewards of the Wikimedia wikis who have complete access to the wiki interface on all Wikimedia wikis, including the ability to change any and all user rights and groups; and the SysOps of the Wikimedia Meta-Wiki, who manage and maintain the Wikimedia Foundation servers. The tools used by the Stewards in exercising control over the wikis of Wikimedia are described in a handbook. Some indication of the control given to Stewards and System Administrators can be found on the Wikimedia web pages.

The overall control is by the ten-member Wikimedia Board of Trustees one of whom is Jimmy Wales. The present membership is found here.

General references

 * A detailed discussion of how WP works, including the arbitration processes. Some subsidiary web links are found here.


 * A "how-to" manual that besides mechanics of use, includes sections on dispute resolution over both content (Chapter 10: Resolving content disputes) and personal attacks (Chapter 11: Handling incivility and personal attacks).


 * Forward by Jimmy Wales. An enthusiast's attempt at a history of Wikipedia, faulted for some gaffes by reviewers on Amazon.


 * A basic "how-to" manual for readers and first-time contributors.