The system-generated technical permissions are listed at Special:ListGroupRights​.

"WP:IP" redirects here. For intellectual property, see Wikipedia:Copyrights.

Users who are not logged in are identified by their IP address rather than a user name, whether or not they have already registered an account. They may read all Wikipedia pages (except restricted special pages), and edit pages that are not protected (including pending changes protected​/​move-protected articles). They may create talk pages in any talk namespace but need to ask for help to create pages in some parts of the wiki. They cannot upload files or images. They must answer a CAPTCHA if they wish to make an edit which involves the addition of external links, and click a confirm link to purge pages. All users may also query the site API in 500-record batches.

Edit screens of unregistered users are headed by a banner that reads:

You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to a user name, among other benefits.

See also: Wikipedia:Why create an account?

Registered users may immediately e-mail other users if they activate an email address in their user preferences. All logged-in users may mark edits as minor. They may purge pages without a confirmation step, but are still required to answer a CAPTCHA when adding external links. Edits that they make to a page that is under pending changes protection will be accepted, but will not be immediately visible to non-logged in users until they have been reviewed and approved. They may save books to their userspace. They may also customize their Wikimedia interface and its options as they wish - either via Special:Preferences, or by adding personal CSS or JavaScript rules to their common.css or common.js files.

You are not logged in, so you are not autoconfirmedYour account is autoconfirmedis not autoconfirmed.

Several actions on the English Wikipedia (such as article creation) are restricted to user accounts that are at least 4 days old and have made at least 10 edits to the encyclopedia. Users who meet these requirements are considered part of the pseudo-group autoconfirmed. The conditions for autoconfirmed status are checked every time a user attempts to perform a restricted action; if they are met, permission is granted automatically by the MediaWiki software. Although the precise requirements for autoconfirmed status vary according to circumstances, most English Wikipedia user accounts that are more than four days old and have made at least 10 edits (including deleted edits) are considered autoconfirmed. However, users with the IP block exemption flag and who are editing through the Tor network are subjected to much stricter autoconfirmed thresholds: 90 days and 100 edits.[1]

Autoconfirmed or confirmed users can create articles (except for create-protected pages), move pages (except for move-protected pages), edit semi-protected pages, and upload files (including new versions of existing files, except for upload-protected files). Edits that they make to a page that is under pending changes protection will be accepted and immediately visible to non-logged in users without requiring review or approval. Autoconfirmed users are no longer required to enter a CAPTCHA for most edits, including, but not limited to, adding external links. Autoconfirmed users may email users that have their allow emails from brand-new users checkbox off. In addition, the Edit filter has a number of warning settings that will no longer affect editors who are autoconfirmed.

In some situations, it is necessary for accounts to skip the customary confirmation period and to be confirmed right away. The confirmed group contains the exact same rights as the autoconfirmed pseudo-group, but can be granted by administrators and event coordinators[2] as necessary. It is redundant to grant the confirmed right to an account that is already autoconfirmed since it provides the exact same abilities. To request this permission, see Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Confirmed​. See Special:ListUsers/confirmed for a list of the 457 confirmed users.

As of July 2021, there were approximately 2.1 million autoconfirmed users on the English Wikipedia, of which the vast majority were inactive. See Special:ActiveUsers for a list of recently active users.

Before 16 November 2016, confirmed and autoconfirmed users could also mark new pages as patrolled. This has been changed and now requires the new page reviewer right to do so.

"WP:EXTENDEDCONFIRMED" redirects here. For extended confirmed protection, see Wikipedia:Protection policy § Extended confirmed protection.

You are not logged in, so you are not extended confirmedYour account is extended confirmedis not extended confirmed.

A registered editor becomes extendedconfirmed automatically when the account is both at least 30 days old and has made at least 500 edits (including deleted edits).[3] This user access right allows editors to edit and create pages that are under extended confirmed protection. On English Wikipedia, it also enables editors to use the Content Translation tool. This access is included and bundled in the bot and sysop (administrator) user groups. This group was primarily created to deal with specific arbitration remedies and community issues; the Arbitration Committee has since left community-use decisions up to the community.[4]

See Special:ListUsers/extendedconfirmed for a list of the 57,144 extended confirmed users.

Administrators and bureaucrats are requested from pages other than Wikipedia:Requests for permissions.

See also: Wikipedia:Administrators

Administrators, also commonly referred to as "admins" or sometimes "sysops" (system operators), are editors who are granted the rights by the community following a Request for Adminship (RfA). The RfA process involves in-depth and considerable discussion and examination of the candidate's activity and contributions as an editor and are granted the rights by community consensus. Administrators have exclusive access to a number of tools to allow them to carry out certain functions on the wiki. The tools cover processes such as page deletion, page protection, blocking and unblocking users, and the ability to edit fully protected pages. Administrators also have the ability to grant and remove most access rights to other users (account creator, autopatrolled, confirmed, file mover, edit filter helper, edit filter manager, event coordinator, extended confirmed, IP block exempt, mass message sender, new page reviewer, page mover, pending changes reviewer, rollback, template editor, and AutoWikiBrowser) and to their own alternate accounts. By convention, administrators also normally take responsibility for judging the outcome of certain discussions requiring these technical controls (such as deletions). Administrators are not granted more editorial control over article content than other editors. They are required to follow all policies and guidelines and are held to the same level of accountability as non-administrators. They are not employees of the Wikimedia Foundation and should not be confused with Wikimedia system administrators ("sysadmins").

See Special:ListUsers/sysop for a full list of the 1,088 English Wikipedia administrators.

See also: Wikipedia:Bureaucrats

Bureaucrats are exceptionally trusted editors who have the capability to perform certain actions on other users' accounts. These capabilities are granted by the community following a successful Requests for Bureaucratship (RfB).

Bureaucrats have access to Special:UserRights, enabling them to add users to the bureaucrat group (but not remove them),[5] and add users to and remove users from the administrator,[6]bot, and interface administrator user groups.

See Special:ListUsers/bureaucrat for a list of the 19 bureaucrats.

Unless otherwise noted, see Wikipedia:Requests for permissions to request the following rights. Some of these rights are automatically assigned to administrators.

Members of this group can review other users' edits to articles placed under pending changes protection. This right is automatically assigned to administrators. Prior to September 2014, this right was known as reviewer.

See Special:ListUsers/reviewer for a list of the 7645 reviewers.

See also: Wikipedia:Rollback

Users who are given the rollback flag (rollbacker user group) may revert consecutive revisions of an editor using the rollback feature. This right is automatically assigned to administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/rollbacker for a list of the 6502 rollbackers.

Members of this group have autopatrol, which allows them to have their pages automatically patrolled on the New Pages list. This right is automatically assigned to administrators. Prior to June 2010, this right was known as autoreviewer.

See Special:ListUsers/autoreviewer for a list of the 4169 autopatrolled users.

See also: Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reviewers

Members of this group have patrol, which allows them to mark pages created by others as patrolled or reviewed. This right is automatically assigned to administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/patroller for a list of the 705 new page reviewers.

See also: Wikipedia:File mover

The file mover user right is intended to allow users experienced in working with files to rename them, subject to policy, with the ease that autoconfirmed users already enjoy when renaming Wikipedia articles. This right is automatically assigned to administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/filemover for a list of the 403 file movers.

See also: Wikipedia:Page mover

The page mover user right (extendedmover user group) is intended to allow users who have demonstrated a good understanding of the Wikipedia page naming system to rename pages and subpages without leaving redirects, subject to policy. They are also able to create and edit editnotices as well as move categories. This right is automatically assigned to administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/extendedmover for a list of the 351 page movers.

See also: Wikipedia:Account creator

The account creator user right (accountcreator user group) is intended for users involved in the request an account process (ACC), and so have signed the Wikimedia Foundation's confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information. They are not affected by the 6 account creation limit per day per IP, and can create accounts for other users without restriction. Users in this group can also override the anti-spoof checks on account creation. Additionally, account creators are able to create accounts with names that are otherwise blocked by the title blacklist. This right is automatically assigned to administrators and bureaucrats.[7]

See Special:ListUsers/accountcreator for a list of the 16 account creators.

See also: Wikipedia:Event coordinator

The eventcoordinator flag (eventcoordinator user group) is intended for individuals involved with off-wiki outreach events to create accounts for their attendees. Event coordinators are not affected by the 6 account creation limit per day per IP. In addition, they can allow their event attendees to create new articles by temporarily adding newly created accounts to confirmed user group. This right is automatically assigned to administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/eventcoordinator for a list of the 124 event coordinators.

See also: Wikipedia:Template editor

Users who are given the templateeditor flag (templateeditor user group) are allowed to edit pages protected with template protection, as well as create and edit editnotices. Template protection is only applied to pages in the template and module namespaces, as well as a few pages in the Wikipedia namespace. This right is intended to allow experienced template and module coders to make changes without having to request that an administrator make the edits for them. This right is automatically assigned to administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/templateeditor for a list of the 193 template editors.

See also: Wikipedia:IP block exemption

Users who are given the ipblock-exempt flag (ipblock-exempt user group) are not affected by autoblocks, blocks of IP addresses and ranges that are made with the "Prevent logged-in users from editing" option enabled,[8] and by Tor blocks.

The flag is intended for trusted users in good standing who are unfortunately affected by such blocks. Requests for this permission may be included with your unblock request. If you are affected by an IP address range block, you must send your unblock request using the Unblock Ticket Request System. If you are trying to edit through a blocked anonymous proxy or a VPN service, you must instead send your request to checkuser-en-wpwikipedia.org, or contact a CheckUser directly.

This right is automatically assigned to administrators and bots.[9] If known, an administrator is also free to grant the right to affected good-faith editors without waiting for an unblock request.

See Special:ListUsers/ipblock-exempt for a list of the 686 affected users.

See also: Wikipedia:Edit filter

Members of the edit filter manager group can create, modify, enable, disable, and delete edit filters as well as view private filters and their associated logs. This right is not assigned to administrators by default but they are allowed to grant the user right to themselves. These capabilities can also be granted to non-admins following a successful request at Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard.

See Special:ListUsers/abusefilter for a list of the 147 edit filter managers. All users can check their log entries on the Special:AbuseFilter pages.

See also: Wikipedia:Edit filter helper

Members of the edit filter helper group can view private edit filters and their associated logs. This access is also included in the administrator groups. These capabilities can also be granted to non-admins following a successful request at Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard.

See Special:ListUsers/abusefilter-helper for a list of the 21 edit filter helpers. All users can check their log entries on the Special:AbuseFilter pages.

See also: Wikipedia:Mass message senders

Members of this group may send messages to multiple users at once. This right is automatically assigned to administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/massmessage-sender for a list of the 54 mass message senders.

See also: Wikipedia:Interface administrators

Users who are given the interface administrator flag (interface-admin user group) have the ability to edit site-wide CSS, JavaScript and JSON pages (pages such as MediaWiki:Common.js or MediaWiki:Vector.css, or the gadget pages listed on Special:Gadgets), CSS/JS/JSON pages in another user's userspace, and pages in the MediaWiki namespace. Interface administrator access, along with access to another group that has undelete access, is required to view deleted versions of pages only editable by this group. Because it provides the potential to send malicious CSS, JS, and JSON code to execute in other users' browsers, this right may only be granted to existing administrators,[10] with two-factor authentication enabled on their accounts.[11] These capabilities can be granted following a successful request at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard.

See Special:ListUsers/interface-admin for a list of the 13 interface administrators.

See also: Wikipedia:CheckUser and meta:CheckUser policy

Users who are given the CheckUser flag (checkuser user group) have access to Special:CheckUser, a function page that allows them to view a list of all IP addresses used by a user account to edit the English Wikipedia, an extended list of all edits made from an IP (which includes edits that were made by any user accounts while using the specific IP), or a list of all user accounts that have used a given IP address. They also have access to the Checkuser log, which logs each time a Checkuser uses their tools to view any of the information listed. This user right is only granted to exceedingly few users and after a high level of scrutiny and review by the community, and after review and the support of the Arbitration Committee. Users must also be at least 18 years old and have signed the Wikimedia Foundation's confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information. As CheckUsers have access to deleted revisions, they are also required to have passed an "RfA or RfA-identical process" first.[12]

See Special:ListUsers/checkuser for a list of the 46 CheckUsers.

See also: Wikipedia:Oversight and meta:Oversight policy

Users who are given the oversight flag (oversight user group) have access to additional functions on the page deletion, revision deletion, and block function pages through which they can hide logs or revisions of pages (partially or entirely) from any form of usual access by all other users, including administrators. They also have access to the suppression log, where they can view actions made by other oversighters, as well as the content of the hidden revisions. This user right is only granted to exceedingly few users and after a high level of scrutiny and review by the community, and after review and the support of Arbitration Committee. Users must also be at least 18 years old and have signed the Wikimedia Foundation's confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information. Oversighters are also required to have passed a "RfA or RfA-identical process" first.[12]

See Special:ListUsers/oversight for a list of the 42 Oversighters.

See also: Wikipedia:Bot policy

Accounts used by approved bots to make pre-approved edits can be flagged as such. Bot accounts are automated or semi-automated, the nature of their edits is well defined, and they will be quickly blocked if their actions vary from their given tasks, so they require less scrutiny than human edits.

For this reason, contributions from accounts with the bot flag (bot user group) are not displayed in recent changes or watchlists to users who have opted to hide bot edits. Minor edits made by bot accounts to user talk pages do not trigger the "you have new messages" banner. Bot accounts can query the API in batches of 5,000 rather than 500.

See Special:ListUsers/bot for a list of the 319 bots.

See also: Wikipedia:Bot policy § The "copyviobot" flag

A copyviobot is an approved bot that is given the (pagetriage-copyvio) permission, allowing it to use the API to tag pages listed on Special:NewPagesFeed as likely copyright violations.

User:EranBot is the only copyviobot.

The founder group was created on the English Wikipedia by developer Tim Starling, without community input, as a unique group for Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales—although Larry Sanger is a co-founder, he has never been a member of this group.[13] The group gives Wales full access to user rights. As 'local founder actions' are usually of great interest to the local community, and are only relevant to the English Wikipedia, the 'local founder' right also has the benefit of allowing Wales' actions to be visible in the English Wikipedia rights log. Wales is also a member of the founder global group, which has view-only rights across the Wikimedia network.

The researcher group allows individuals approved by the Wikimedia Foundation to perform a title search for deleted pages, view deleted history entries, and view deleted contents. It was created in 2010 and expanded in 2020.[14][15]

See Special:ListUsers/researcher for a list of the 3 current researchers and meta:Research:Special API permissions/Log for further details.

Transwiki importers is a group which gives editors the (import) permission for use on Special:Import. This interface allows users to copy pages, and optionally entire page histories, from certain other Wikimedia wikis. The import permission is also included in the administrators and importers user groups. There are currently 0 users in the transwiki importers group. This group is mostly deprecated and is only available for assignment by stewards following a special community approval discussion.

Importers is a similar group which gives editors the (importupload) permission as well as the (import) permission for use on Special:Import. Importers have the additional ability to import articles directly from XML (which may come from any wiki site). The importupload permission is also included in the stewards group. See Special:ListUsers/import for the 2 importers. This access is highly restricted and is only available for assignment to a limited number of very trusted users by stewards following a special community approval discussion.

All users can use Special:Export to create an XML export of a page and its history.

See also the import log, transwiki log, Help:Import, and Wikipedia:Requests for page importation.

Further information: Wikipedia:Blocking policy

Any user account can be blocked, regardless of which user group(s) it belongs to. During the duration of the block, the blocking flag disables the user or IP's existing editing privileges depending on which block options are set by the administrator. A partial block still allows some parts of Wikipedia to be edited.

Blocked users are listed on Special:BlockList.

In general, rights of editors blocked indefinitely should be left as is. Rights specifically related to the reason for blocking may be removed at the discretion of the blocking or unblocking administrators.[16] This also applies to the user rights of site banned editors.[17]