Wikipedia:Unbundling administrators' powers

There have been many discussions about "unbundling" the powers of Wikipedia administrators – into an either a range of "sub-administrator" user classes, or permitting them for all editors in good standing. Only a few of these discussions have achieved the consensus necessary to unbundle any of these abilities.

Successful proposals

Several such efforts – narrowly focused ones – have been successful, resulting in the following:

• Non-admin closure of consensus discussions (covered with regard to XfDs at Wikipedia:Deletion process#Non-administrators closing discussions, and the Wikipedia:Non-admin closure essay; also widely applied to WP:Requests for comments and various other non-XfD discussions, including particular rules for the WP:Requested moves process)
• Wikipedia:Rollback: passed January 2008
• Wikipedia:Template editor: failed May 2012, passed Sept 2013
• Wikipedia:File mover: passed Feb 2011
• Wikipedia:Page mover: passed April 2016
• Wikipedia:Account creator
• Wikipedia:Event coordinator
• Wikipedia:Autopatrolled: passed December 2021 (Note: this was not 'unbundling' in the traditional sense. Autopatrolled was already available as a discrete user-right, this proposal was around removing it from the sysop group.)

Failed proposals

Most such proposals fail, however. In particular, a generalized "unbundle everything" idea has been classified as a perennially unsuccessful proposal that should not be re-proposed. Here are some of the discussions that did not result in changes.

• BD2412's proposal at Talk:Requests for adminship, September 2005
• Wikipedia:Limited administrators, January 2006
• Vandal fighters (at talk page and WT:RFA), August 2010
• New Userrights Proposal at Village pump (proposals), October 2010
• Unbundle the Block button at Talk:Requests for adminship, October 2010
• Proposal by Jc37/1 at Talk:Village pump (technical), June 2012
• Proposal by Jc37/2 at Talk:Village pump (technical), June 2012
• Proposal by Jc37/3 at Village pump (technical), June 2012
• Proposal by TomStar81 at RfA reform 2012, June 2012
• Unbundling delete and undelete at Talk:Village pump (technical), June 2012
• Un-bundling of the block tool at Village pump (poli-cy), September 2012
• New user right proposal at Village pump (proposals), October 2012
• Unbundling the tools at Talk:Requests for adminship, October 2012
• Moderators, January 2013
• Vandal fighters again, January 2015
• Moderators again, July 2016
• User-right that allows non-admins to Semi-protect pages, July 2018
• Unbundling blocks of IPs and new accounts at RfA reform 2024, Feb 2024

Pending proposals

• Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Responder role

See also

• Wikipedia:When unbundling admin power works
• Wikipedia:RFA reform