Wikipedia:Social contract for higher powers

Introduction

A number of people have administrator or other types of special access to the English Wikipedia, through means other than community consensus. For example:

• Jimbo Wales, the founder of Wikimedia, has administrator access because he founded the project.
• Various people associated with the Wikimedia foundation have special levels of access to the English Wikipedia and all other Wikimedia projects.
• Some MediaWiki developers (who also maintain the server configuration) have special access both via MediaWiki, as well as direct access to the database and servers on which Wikipedia run.
• Some people who have been involved with Wikimedia projects early on, and have had access granted to them without going through the normal processes.

The term 'higher power' is used here to label these people.

The editors of English Wikipedia have very little recourse to enforce any policies against higher powers, either by technical means or at law (as the Wikimedia foundation is the legal owner of the Wikipedia trademark and the servers on which it is hosted, and people with direct access to the servers can override any technical restrictions put in place). The only final recourse which English Wikipedia editors have against such people is to create a 'forked' encyclopedia with another name. Such extreme actions, however, would result in fragmentation of knowledge, and get in the way of the important task that Wikipedia editors carry out for humanity.

Actions by higher powers can often result in friction within the Wikipedia community. Therefore, there is a need for a 'social contract', which defines what higher powers should and should not do. Compliance with the social contract is necessarily voluntary, but higher powers are strongly urged not to disregard the contract, for the good of Wikipedia. It is hoped that higher powers will voluntarily make a best effort to follow this social contract, and so Wikipedians who believe a higher power has inadvertently violated the policy may politely explain why to the higher power.

The Social Contract for Higher Powers

1. Higher powers shall be exempt from the other provisions of this social contract in circumstances where:
   1. they are obliged to take some action or make some omission, by any court of law, or they have received legal advice that they must take some action or make some omission to avoid civil or criminal liability. Wikipedians acknowledge that, due to their special status, higher powers will sometimes be required to do certain things by law.
   2. failing to do so could threaten life or property, or result in the compromise of the servers or a server on which the English Wikipedia is hosted. Wikipedians acknowledge that there are circumstances in which changes to Wikipedia must be made for safety or security reasons.
   3. some action or omission is urgently necessary to protect the English Wikipedia from vandalism on a scale which cannot be quickly reverted by the usual means, or to prevent the corruption of data or the inaccessibility of Wikipedia. Wikipedians acknowledge that there are circumstances in which changes to Wikipedia must be made to protect it from vandalism or corruption, and to maintain availability.
2. Higher powers have equal status to all other users as editors of the English Wikipedia, and have equal status in the determination of the policies to be used on the English Wikipedia.
   1. Higher powers should not signal their status as higher powers during decision making processes, as this could be misinterpreted as a request that they be given a higher status.
   2. Higher powers who are well known on Wikipedia as a higher power, such as Jimbo Wales, should take explicit measures to signal that they have equal status as an editor of the English Wikipedia.
   3. Higher powers should not make comments before the media on their preference for future editorial or policy/administrative decisions, unless that preference has been considered, and is the current consensus on the English Wikipedia, or the higher power makes it clear that the statement relates to his or her personal preference, and may not be accepted as a real policy.
3. Higher powers should abide by all official policies of the English Wikipedia.
4. Higher powers should not perform functions which require administrative access (even if they have the technical ability to do so), unless:
   1. they have followed the normal process to gain such access and been approved by the community for that access, or,
   2. they have been regularly carrying out that function before the establishment of this social contract, but
   3. should stop carrying out that function if any process for removing that access concludes that access should be removed (even if they still retain the technical ability to carry out the function)
5. Any enforcement policy actions, including arbitration, should be carried out as if a user were not a higher power, and
   1. higher powers should observe any restrictions put in place as a result of the action, even if they have the technical ability to override the restriction.

See also

• Wikipedia:Governance review