This is a comparison of how the Wikipedia projects in various languages handle Requests for Adminship (and, if applicable, de-adminship). This page was begun in 2006 with a list of all Wikipedia projects with more than 100 000 articles at the time, in alphabetical order. It was made for study purposes. Feel free to add missing languages and update existing ones!
English
- Candidate suffrage: This is left to the opinion of the !voters. Criteria such as six to nine months, one featured article, or a percentage of edits to a particular namespace appear not infrequently.
- Voter suffrage: At their judgment, bureaucrats may discount votes made by relatively new users, and !votes made for reasons deemed spurious. Anonymous users cannot vote.
- Promotion: The vote lasts one week. At their judgment based upon the votes, bureaucrats decide whether or not to promote the candidate. In practice, all candidates with at least 80% support have passed, and all with less than 59% support have failed. A significant number of candidates fall between 59% and 80% support, and have been promoted or not promoted at bureaucrat discretion. Passing candidates with less than 75% support are rare.
- Demotion: No such procedure exists. Various proposals to this extent have been dismissed on the assumptions that such a process would be abused by trolls, and that in doing their tasks most active admins would make sufficient enemies to fail any reconfirmation process.
- Abuse: Cases of admin abuse can be taken to Requests for Comment, which is generally deemed ineffective for this purpose, or to the Arbitration Committee, which can pass judgment on an appropriate solution. In the past, such solutions have included demotion, censure, a ban from renomination, as well as specific restrictions on the admin's usage of tools or forums.
Other languages
Dutch
- Candidate suffrage: 3 months, 300 edits, as well as a valid userpage and e-mail address.
- Voter suffrage: 1 month, 100 edits.
- Promotion: 75% support is required in a vote, lasting one week.
- Demotion: Adminship is subject to yearly reconfirmation via this same procedure, but only if there are significant objections to the admin, which generally means about 4 or 5 dissenters. The most frequent reason for demotion via this process is inactivity, defined as having less than 250 edits over the past 12 months. Controversial admins are thus subjected to reconfirmation but usually still get the requisite support.
- Other: Not having a valid userpage or e-mail address is grounds for immediate demotion, after a brief grace period allowing the admin to fix this.
French
- Candidate suffrage: Any registered user is eligible.[1]
- Voter suffrage: 1 week, 50 significant mainspace edits.[1]
- Promotion: Favorable support is required in a vote, lasting fifteen days. The definition of "favorable" is at the discretion of the bureaucrats. As of 2021, all candidates with 80% support or more have passed, and all with less than 70% have failed.[2]
- Demotion: Any user with an account at least 3 months old and 500 mainspace edits can make a motion to impose reconfirmation. If six such users do so within 6 months, a confirmation vote is held, following the same rules as a normal vote for adminship.[3]
German
- Candidate suffrage: "significantly more" than voter suffrage.
- Voter suffrage: 2 months, 200 edits.
- Promotion: 67% support is required in a vote, lasting two weeks, with a quorum of 15 voters. It is explicitly stated that all discussion must be done on the talk page.
- Demotion: In case of substantial complaints against an admin, either for tool abuse or repeated incivility, a motion can be made to demote the admin for up to three months. In a vote, the admin needs 67% support to not lose his privileges for the specified amount of time. If an admin has already been subjected to temporary demotion, for a subsequent complaint a motion can be made for indefinite demotion.
- Abuse: Wheel warring or breach of protection policy is grounds for immediate demotion, which is temporary while the community decides how to deal with the person.
Italian
- Candidate suffrage: 2 months, 500 edits. A failed candidate may not be nominated again for 3 months.
- Voter suffrage: 2 months, 500 edits.
- Promotion: 80% support is required in a vote, lasting two weeks, with a quorum of 67% of the average number of votes on the last four successful nominations.
- Confirmation: Admins must be confirmed every year. If 10 users oppose the confirmation, the admin undergoes an election with the same methods as the first one, but with 67% of support needed.
- Demotion: A serious complaint against an admin is discussed for a week. If at the end of the week at least five users with suffrage support demotion, the admin must either resign or stand for reconfirmation by the process above.
Japanese
- Candidate suffrage: No specific suffrage, though candidates usually have several months of experience.
- Voter suffrage: 1 month, 50 edits in article space. 5 edits within the latest month.
- Promotion: 75% support with a quorum of 10 voters. Voting lasts for 1 week, and can be extended by another week.
- Demotion: Admins that go 3 months without editing can be demoted.
Norwegian bokmål
- Candidate suffrage: Four months of activity, 1000 edits and—more vaguely—familiarity with Wikimedia projects, understanding of and agreement with the project's goals and familiarity with the routines on the Norwegian Wikipedia.
- Voter suffrage: An account having been created before the vote started and having at least one edit in the seven days before the vote started.
- Promotion: 75% support is required in a vote with a quorum of four voters. In practice the quorum is always achieved, the typical nomination gets around 20 votes. Most nominations pass unanimously without discussion but oppose voters usually explain their vote.
- Demotion: Inactive administrators are demoted after a certain period. Historically two requests for demotion were filed and voted, on but the process has fallen into disuse. There seems to be a general feeling that there are no abusive admins.
Polish
- Candidate suffrage: 3 months, 1000 edits. A failed candidate may not be nominated again for 2 months.
- Voter suffrage: 500 edits.
- Promotion: 80% support is required in a vote, lasting one week, with a quorum of 20 voters.
- Demotion: No such procedure seems to exist, but due to lack of a translating search engine I may have been unable to find it if it did.
- Other: The same system is used to nominate people for checkuser rights, with 85% support required and a quorum of 25 voters.
Portuguese
- Candidate suffrage: 6 months, 2 000 edits (main namespace only)
- Voter suffrage: 3 months, 300 edits (main namespace only)
- Promotion: : 75% support in a vote, lasting one week, no quorum. If the result is somehow unclear, the bureaucrats can extend this period by another week.
- Demotion: Any user can ask for a particular sysop to be demoted in the event of misuse of the tools. In that case, a new election will be held. Admins can voluntarily stand for reconfirmation when they believe their status is disputed. However, it is incumbent upon the applicant to comply, or not, with the outcome.
- Other: Unlisting a failing nomination per the equivalent of the Snowball Clause is explicitly allowed.
Russian
- Candidate suffrage: 6 months, 1000 edits.
- Voter suffrage: strong anti-puppet policy, 3 months of participation, 100 mainspace edits, 1 edit within 60 to 30 days prior to nomination, 1 edit within 15 days prior to nomination
- Promotion: 2/3 support is required in a vote, lasting two weeks. Bureaucrats are explicitly warned to double-check the candidate's recent activity.
- Demotion: By bureaucrats after less than 100 edits and 25 administrative actions in 6 months.
Simple English
- Candidate suffrage: Not explicitly stated
- Voter suffrage: Be a named user with at least 1 edit before the request in question. New user votes may be disregarded.
- Promotion:75% support with at least 5 legal votes
- Demotion: Historically, consensus by community. Consensus on de-adminship is now unclear.
Spanish
- Candidate suffrage: Not explicitly stated.
- Voter suffrage: 1 month, 100 edits.
- Promotion: 75% support is required in a vote, lasting 15 days. The candidate is explicitly forbidden to vote for themself.
- Demotion: No such procedure exists.
Swedish
- Candidate suffrage: About 2 months of high activity, (about 9 months of low activity for de-adminship)
- Voter suffrage: Not explicitly stated, but there is a rule saying that to vote you have to be "Well-known in the Wikipedia community".
- Promotion: 75% support is required in a vote.
- Demotion: Admins are subject to yearly reconfirmation via the same process. Additionally, a motion can be made at any time to demote an admin, in which the admin requires 50% support to not be demoted.