Guild Wars Wiki:Adminship

Guild Wars Wiki is administered by the community. There are two types of formal administrator status: sysop and bureaucrat. This status is not intended to represent extra weight within community decisions or generally directing the wiki, nor is it a requirement for moderating or enforcing policy. Like all users, administrators are expected to respect policy and consensus.

Sysops
Sysops are users that are also granted technical access to a few restricted features (including blocking users and deleting pages), and the additional responsibility of not misusing them. When effecting a change that requires this access, a clear reason must be provided and the action must only be performed in these cases (or else be reversed):
 * As specifically noted in any written policy, e.g. deletion according to deletion policy. For this purpose, mentions of "administrative action" should be interpreted as an allowance of blocking/banning offenders.
 * In accordance with an arbitration ruling or injunction.
 * At their own discretion, whenever he or she believes it would be supported directly by community consensus (regarding the specific change/action). If going against what would normally be accepted as policy or going beyond usual sysop actions, the sysop is to note this action on the sysop discretion log. If this discretion is exercised and the expected consensus is seriously challenged by any user, an actual consensus needs to be established and implemented or the action(s) should be reverted. In challenged cases that break an explicit restriction, the action(s) are to be reverted while that consensus is not yet established.

Bureaucrats
Bureaucrats have sysop status as well as these additional powers and responsibilities:
 * Altering the assigned groups and administrator status of user accounts based on community decisions, policy, or arbitration. This includes appointing or revoking sysops based on requests for adminship and managing bot status. A clear reason has to be provided in the log when altering the user rights.
 * The group of bureaucrats, as long as there are at least 2, forms an arbitration committee, which is conducted according to arbitration policy. The committee membership for each arbitration case is determined by the list of bureaucrats at the time of the request for arbitration (so gaining/losing bureaucrat status in the middle of a case does not result in joining/leaving the active committee for that case).
 * They are expected to respond to any questions about their actions from anyone, including via e-mail. Each bureaucrat is required to give a publicly reachable e-mail address (shown on the list of bureaucrats).
 * Bureaucrats may only use sysop powers to deal with an ongoing situation and if no normal sysop is available. Additionally, they may delete pages at any time in accordance with the deletion policy. Bureaucrats are only allowed to block in emergencies, specifically for edits that impair the ability of users to access wiki content, such as vandalism.

Note that these bureaucrat-only functions are not subject to the same conditions as sysop actions.

Selection process
The sysop selection (and reconfirmation) process is governed by the policy for requests for adminship. Other ways to lose sysophood include arbitration and voluntary resignation. One also gets sysop status temporarily during a term as bureaucrat.

The bureaucrat selection process is governed by the policy for elections. Bureaucrats are generally appointed for fixed terms of 12 months from their date of appointment, with the term periods being staggered to have a functional and unchanging subgroup during the transitions. Bureaucrats can only be removed before their term end by voluntary resignation (which may be done at any time) or by unanimous votes of the other bureaucrats (as long as there are at least 2 others).

ArenaNet is not formally involved in the administrator selection process except where explicitly specified, and community decisions may not be otherwise appealed to them. ArenaNet staff may participate in the administrator selection process just as any other contributor in good standing, but their opinions are given equal weight as other members of the community.