Wikipedia administrators

On Wikipedia, trusted and experienced editors may be appointed as administrators (also referred to as admins, sysops or janitors) by the editing community,[1]: 327  following a successful request for adminship.

"[8] Wales had previously (in a message sent to the English Wikipedia mailing list on February 11, 2003) stated that being an admin is "not a big deal", and that "It's merely a technical matter that the powers given to sysops are not given out to everyone.

Andrew Lih, a scientist and professor who is himself an administrator on the English Wikipedia, has said the process is "akin to putting someone through the Supreme Court".

Lih also said, "It's pretty much a hazing ritual at this point", in contrast to how the process worked early in Wikipedia's history, when all one had to do to become an admin was "prove you weren't a bozo".

[1] A 2013 scientific paper by researchers from Virginia Tech and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute found that after editors are promoted to administrator status, they often focus more on articles about controversial topics than they did before.

They found that they could "classify the votes in the RfA procedures using this model with an accuracy level that should be sufficient to recommend candidates.