Wikipedia:Administrator elections

Administrator elections is a process, pending a trial run, by which the Wikipedia community decides who will become administrators (also known as admins), who are users with access to additional technical features that aid in maintenance. It is an alternative to the Requests for Adminship process.

The Requests for Adminship process grants administrative privileges if a consensus is found as a result of a public discussion of support, oppose, and neutral statements and rationales from users. The administrator election process grants administrative privileges based on a secret ballot vote. See "Comparison with the Requests for Adminship process" for more details.

A trial of administrator elections will run side-by-side with the Requests for Adminship process. Neither process affects the other in any way, and you can choose to follow either process to be an administrator candidate.

Rationale
Administrator elections are a vote, using the SecurePoll software. A list of voters is available, but their votes are kept secret. The intent is to reduce the amount of contentious discussion amongst voters, thus making the process less antagonistic and increasing the number of candidates willing to volunteer to be administrators.

English Wikipedia administrator promotion rates have been steadily declining since the golden age of administrator promotions around 2005–2008, where as many as 408 admins were being promoted per year. Modern promotion rates are closer to 12 per year.

Procedure
The overall process lasts 10 days: an initial 3-day period for discussion and questions, and a 7-day period for a secret ballot vote. Candidates sign up by a specified date prior to the discussion and questions period.

Election cycles are advertised in advance, including watchlist notices. The process is managed by the bureaucrats, initially in concert with the WMF to set up the SecurePoll software.

Period 1: discussion and questions
During this 3-day period, the community can ask questions and raise issues, as well as provide positive feedback. Candidates are encouraged to participate in the discussion period, answering questions and responding to feedback. During this time, commenters must not indicate their support or opposition.

Period 2: voting
Once the discussion period is complete, a secret ballot vote occurs for 7 days, using SecurePoll. During this period, discussion is closed. Candidates may be asked direct questions on their user talk pages, but they are not expected to watch their discussion page, nor the election page for the full period, to allow them a respite from community vetting.

Who can vote
Administrator elections use the Arbitration Committee Election suffrage requirements. To vote, an editor must meet the following criteria:


 * registered over 2 months before election
 * have 150 mainspace edits by 1 month before election
 * have 10 live edits in the year running up to 1 month before election
 * not be sitewide blocked during the election
 * not be vanished
 * not be a bot

Tallying
At the end of Period 2, votes are scrutinised and tallied, results are announced, and new admins are granted administrative privileges. The pass rate is 70% or greater. The vote tally is calculated by Support / (Support + Oppose) for each candidate.

Election dates
Administrator elections are approved for one election cycle as a trial run, then will need to be renewed with an RFC. This trial will take place in October 2024.

Are RFCs required before the trial?
No. The result of the corresponding request for comment discussion is The community supports trying this proposal for 1 election, after which it will be reviewed in Phase II. While there are concerns regarding the implementation details of this proposal, given this is a trial run, there is sufficient support to run the election as written.

Accordingly, one election will be held, with implementation details (such as scrutineering) worked out based on discussions on this page's talk page. After the trial, request for comment discussions will be held to discuss how to proceed, thus allowing the community to alter the process if desired, or choose not to continue.

Newsletter
If you'd like to receive a user talk message when important administrator election milestones are reached, such as when a date is chosen and when the "accepting candidates" phase opens, please add yourself to the mailing list.