Wikisource:Administrators
See also:
- Wikisource:Administrators' noticeboard
- System list of administrators / List rights of administrators
- Advanced rights holders' activity
- Admin statistics ()
Current administrators
[edit]Administrators are given access for one year per the Restricted access policy. Regular votes are held to confirm each user's status. Other languages indicate the areas in which the administrators might be able to converse with outside project members, or help provide public domain translations.
| Username | Other languages | Next confirmation | Other access |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alien333 | French (native), German (basic), Python, Javascript, and Lua | 2025-12 | |
| BD2412 | French (basic) | 2025-11 | bureaucrat, enwp admin, enwikt admin, enwq admin & crat |
| Beeswaxcandle | Music (Lilypond) | 2026-06 | bureaucrat |
| Beleg Tâl | French (intermediate), Latin (basic) | 2026-03 | |
| CalendulaAsteraceae | Spanish (near-native), Italian (intermediate), French (basic) | 2026-05 | |
| Charles Matthews | French (intermediate), Russian (basic) | 2026-11 | enwp admin |
| EncycloPetey | Spanish (intermediate), Latin (intermediate), French (basic), German (basic), Ancient Greek (basic) | 2025-11 | enwikt admin, species admin |
| Hrishikes | Bengali, Hindi, Sanskrit (basic) | 2025-11 | Commons filemover & extended-uploader |
| Ineuw | Hungarian (intermediate), Hebrew (intermediate), French (beginner), | 2026-03 | |
| Jan.Kamenicek | Czech (native), Slovak (fluent), Russian (basic) | 2026-05 | commons filemover |
| Kathleen.wright5 | 2025-12 | ||
| Mahagaja | German (fluent), French (intermediate) | 2026-01 | mul.ws admin |
| MarkLSteadman | German (intermediate), French (basic) | 2026-09 | |
| Prosfilaes | Esperanto (basic) | 2026-11 | |
| Samwilson | PHP, Javascript, Lua | 2026-01 | WMF staff (as SWilson (WMF)) |
| SnowyCinema | Danish (intermediate), Spanish (basic), Tagalog (basic), Python, JavaScript (intermediate) | 2026-01 | |
| WEBridge | Chinese, French (nearly intermediate), Korean (very basic), Japanese (learning) | 2026-03 | mul.ws admin bureaucrat and importer + others see all |
| Xover | Scandinavian languages, general geekery (programming etc.) | 2026-10 | interface administrator |
Confirmation discussions
[edit]Restricted access depends on the continued support of the community. This may be tested by a vote of confidence, in which a simple majority (50%+1) must support the user's continued access for it to be retained. (What access a discussion concerns should be explicitly noted in the discussion's introduction.) Any user may propose a vote of confidence, but at least three established users must support the need for one before it can be called. Such a proposal is made automatically one year after the last scheduled or called proposal (concerning all restricted access).
In the case of an unscheduled (called) proposal, the user may not use the restricted access for any non-trivial action at any time until the vote is closed. A bureaucrat will eventually archive the discussion and, if so decided, request removal of restricted access by a steward.
BD2412
[edit]
Support — Alien 3
3 3 02:48, 2 November 2025 (UTC)
Support --Jan Kameníček (talk) 12:39, 2 November 2025 (UTC)
Support SnowyCinema (talk) 21:03, 2 November 2025 (UTC)
Support--WEBridge (talk) 21:52, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
Support Ternera (talk) 19:26, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
EncycloPetey
[edit]A vote of confidence has been called by three established users.
Support confirmation as an Admin
[edit]
Support. Yes, I understand the opposing arguments mentioned below. At the same time, EncycloPetey has been one of the few administrators who consistently conduct thorough patrolling here, contributing significantly to maintaining the site and its high standards. I would strongly prefer to keep them as an administrator, while they make a clear effort to improve their communication with other users — something I still believe is possible. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 12:25, 2 November 2025 (UTC)
Support. I have been in two minds about where to land on this, and so to begin with, will acknowledge that EncycloPetey's actions are undoubtedly far from perfect. That said, I think many of the discussions EncyloPetey has been in have been overdramatized by all involved, and think the villainy for this should not be placed squarely on EncycloPetey's shoulders. Furthermore, given many of these discussions revolve around style, I think it worth explicitly stating that I appreciate that at least one admin actively defends consistent styling of works, and especially fully-proofread works, even if said Admin's comments may sometimes come off as bitey, condescending etc. (And yes, they are sometimes, but at least to me, not always). Furthermore, I am reminded of the time that Alien333 answered a Scriptorium post about how TOC's work for downloaded texts, and had their head almost bitten off, when Jan Kameníček saw the exact same comment of Alien333s as absolutely neutral and polite (paraphrasing slightly). So hopefully we can manage some amount of empathy, in that conversations can be difficult... Anyway, while this explanation (and vote) may not change the outcome of this confirmation, I think it worth having on record that at least some Wikisource users strongly value proofread texts being left alone style-wise, unless there is some sort of discussion first about possible changes (see also one of the Scriptorium discussions involving the long s template).
- I also realise there are some specific concerns raised in this vote of confidence. Here, I find it slightly harder to support EncycloPetey's specific choices, but do support the rationale that some action was warranted. For example, I think EncyloPetey's stance about the use of old-style in Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen (the misuse rollback situation) was reasonable, and as they coherently explained on the admin noticeboard. This was a text which had been abandoned for years, and then was picked up in the MC by two(ish) editors, who were in no way interested in using old style. I do not think it is just my personal stance that the specifics of styling are less important than the consistency of the overall work (or series), and so removing old-style in this situation made sense (to me). I think this rationale equally follows from that of preferring straight quotes in works involving multiple contributors, as for most works in the MC, unless there is a clear push by a user early on for a consistent style, which was not the case. Equally, I feel EncyloPetey's rationale regarding He who gets Slapped was also not unreasonable, at least until the point that they decided to immediately block Justin... From my perspective, EncyloPetey used standard formatting to generate a very simple table. There was nothing especially hacky in this formatting, and Justin well-knew EncyloPetey was an experienced editor, i.e. one that could manage making a table as simple as this. Moreover, in the (unlikely) event that this table was displaying incorrectly for Justin, I would have been surprised if some 90% of the other tables on Wikisource weren't also displaying incorrectly for them. Maybe Justin did not take the time to think through all of this, before switching the table to a (in my mind complicated) running header with div styling, that then actually broke the formatting (e.g. the center line was not the correct length/thickness on my display). In this sense, I would consider this a disruptive edit, i.e. not really in good faith. And sure, as above, I equally do not consider this a glowing endorsement of EncyloPetey's choices, as the immediate block was unnecessary (the text was yet to be completed/announced). But overall, and the reason for my long-winded explanation that ended up on the support side of the line, is that I still prefer admins that do something when issues arise, rather than just leaving everything be. What is the point of having admins otherwise? (fixing technical issues aside - very much appreciate you Xover, Alien333 and whoever else does things behind the scenes). I hope this at least makes some sense, and that I have not caused offence to anyone who did actually receive biting or condescending comments from any user on Wikisource, admin or otherwise. Regards, TeysaKarlov (talk) 03:38, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
- @TeysaKarlov: First, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to write this. If I may attempt to summarize some key points from your perspective: 1. Koavf was being disruptive by knowingly breaking a table, etc., and 2. you'd rather have an admin who does something when disputes arise rather than nothing
- To respond to your point about the Koavf dispute, Koavf's actions in that scenario certainly were not blameless (as most of us agree), but EP accused him of vandalism (a word which I think needs not be left out of talk on this issue, because that's specifically what it was framed as), which itself has a very particular definition and that word was definitely being misused in this case. Wikipedia's encyclopedia article on its own vandalism currently gives this as part of its definition of the word: "Vandalism includes any addition, removal, or modification that is intentionally humorous, nonsensical, a hoax, offensive, libelous or degrading in any way." This clearly did not fit the situation, since whatever fault you might find in Koavf's behavior that day, it included none of those facets. Koavf clearly believed (though was acting much on emotion in the moment) that he was doing something at least adjacent to the right thing, in his perspective. Further, the idea that Koavf's intent that day was even disruptive (even if it was disruptive in consequence, which is more defensible) is a complicated issue. Koavf shouldn't have edit-warred, and given his long time and prolific engagement with Wikimedia to the point he literally has his own Wikipedia article about him should have informed him against that decision, so you could probably argue that facet of what he did was perhaps in bad faith—but 1. then EncycloPetey did the same thing (and is also a long-time WMF contributor, just without the "creds") so really both parties are at fault for that, and 2. Koavf's judgment easily may have just been clouded in anger, so the degree of bad faith is where we may really have to start getting into armchair psychologies of the people involved which probably isn't in our wheelhouse anyway. The point is: Koavf overall was likely doing what he believed was right (though the devil's in the details).
- On the second point, I think I can (mostly) agree that usually when a user is actually deliberately disruptive or a page clearly needs to be speedied, EP is good at cleaning it up—probably more active in this endeavor than many of us. But, the true test of the admin, in my view, is not what they do in these rather uncontroversial situations, but what they do in controversial ones. A very important facet of community engagement in general, and one that especially should be modeled as an admin, should be caring deeply about consensus in highly controversial, complex matters, especially those involving well-established contributors (like Koavf). The "just do something" instinct, in those situations, is probably not a good trigger to pull. It'd always be better to try and gain some kind of consensus at the Scriptorium, etc., if there's a dispute about a page that has virtually no views (which was the situation of the debated page in question with Koavf). If it was on a high-profile template, for example, and Koavf's edits were breaking things sitewide, that'd be another story where more direct intervention might be called for.
- Separately, on the topic of being "bitey" (a word used quite a lot here), this is also enormously bad, in my view, for an admin because we're a very small community working with enormous amounts of content, an endeavor which can easily be argued to be within the realm of a sunken cost fallacy ("transcribe all public-domain works" being impossible to even do halfway for so many reasons I need not detail here). At the very least, what we want is a varied, diverse, organized array of content that could feel comprehensive enough to the general public. We need all the contributors we can get to accomplish anything resembling this mission, and having a hostile adminship hurts that cause. Anyone being scared away or discouraged from the project because they feel the environment is hostile or that they can't contribute hurts us tremendously. As I pointed out in my oppose vote, it has been said by several users in his previous vote of confidence in 2019 that his civility/engagement with other contributors needs work, but little to no work seems to have been done to improve on that front.
- That being said, I have sounded rather harsh I think throughout this whole debate. So, to counter that a bit, as many have detailed below, EP does very good work on the site himself, so I hope that his de-adminship, if it so happens here, does not discourage him from delivering more great transcription work. For example, his work on classic Greek and Roman stories, as well as his filling of Portal:Newbery Medal and Portal:Pulitzers, are highlights that I think should not be taken for granted in this discussion. SnowyCinema (talk) 04:58, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
- I edit in good faith. Please do not assert that I don't. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:15, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
- @SnowyCinema @Koavf Given your responses, and in case you wanted it on record, no, I do not consider Koavf's edit vandalism, and I think it quite a stretch to try and call it vandalism. However, I consider the greater issue here to be the question of good/bad faith editing, and to what extent any actions thereafter were (un)reasonable. Along these lines, I actually think a statement like "I edit in good faith. Please do not assert that I don't" is part of the problem. To me, the question of editing in good or bad faith includes, as an integral part, checking how other users, and the community as a whole, view your edits. If the edits are not well received, and you continue to edit in a similar fashion, then the edits are not in good faith. I would just consider this disruptive editing, and Koavf has some history of disruptive edits with EncycloPetey, and evidently with others (well done on having your own Wikipedia article, I think?). Moreover, there seems to be more than enough of a "disruptive history" to warrant Koavf taking care in editing a work on which EncycloPetey has started, and is likely to finish based on editing in sequence/the topic of the work (and equally, for EncyloPetey to take more care editing a work Koavf has started). In this sense, and as I described in my previous post, I considered Koavf's initial edit (table to div and running header) as a bad faith edit based on my definition of good/bad faith. If you also want it on record, I do not care about the edit warring; two people wasting their time is up to them. Of course, it may be that Koavf has a different definition of what a good faith edit is, and so in that sense, could (unequivocally?) claim their edit was in good faith. Perhaps, this disagreement could have been settled if Wikisource had its own definition, but Wikisource is often lacking in that regard... And sure, the question could then be taken to the Scriptorium, but even then, I would be hesitant to say "It'd always be better to try and gain some kind of consensus", at the very least because of the time it takes for everyone to comment/discuss/argue, and in many cases, on issues which have been argued before. Maybe in this case though, getting a better feel for what percentage of Wikisource users considered this a good faith edit (or considered this vandalism, if you instead feel that is the central issue) might have been worthwhile. Either way, and in case it also need be said again, I do not think an immediate block was warranted, but still think some action in these scenarios is warranted, and appreciate when admins take these actions (although, yes, far from perfectly in this case).
- On the separate issue of bitey-ness, I also concur that this is enormously bad. But it is enormously bad regardless who is being bitey (admin or otherwise). Having hostile users full stop is the issue. And so if you think EncycloPetey's comments were hostile, then I think there should be reprimands outside of just admin (re)confirmation. Please start this discussion if you feel this is the case, and are comfortable doing so. But if EncycloPetey's comments didn't meet that level of hostility, then (at least I) try and hold off on judgement of non-hostile but ill-received comments for this (re)confirmation, and weigh up whether EncycloPetey's beneficial actions as an admin have outweighed the harmful ones. And, as above, I narrowly land on the beneficial side of the line. Regards, TeysaKarlov (talk) 21:03, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
- "based on my definition of good/bad faith" Yes, anything can be anything based on someone making up a definition. You may wish to use w:en:WP:AGF instead or en:wikt:good faith/en:wikt:bad faith. If you use these words the way they mean, then no, I was not nor have I ever been editing in such a way as to hide my true motives or otherwise dissimulate. If you use "bad faith editing" as anything that someone retroactively objects to, well, then you are editing in bad faith, since I am pushing back against your novel definition of bad/good faith. No one is disputing that others objected to my edits. You can object to someone and still think the person is acting in good faith (i.e. has genuine motives and is not being deceptive). Since I already asked you to stop asserting that I'm acting in bad faith and you took the opportunity to immediately do that again, I'd like to ask that you please leave me out of this entirely. I don't see prolonged discussion of something from months ago as being very productive to the current discussion about an admin's entire body of usage of tools, interactions with colleagues, editing, etc. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:21, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
- @Koavf Apologies if I implied I was making up a definition. I merely meant that two people can have different opinions of what constitute "honest intentions", taking the Wiktionary definition for good-faith, as I would rather not use Wikipedia's on Wikisource, and where I use the words opinions and definitions essentially synonymously (i.e. my definition felt like the explanation of my opinion). If you did not see my intentions as honest in the above, then yes, you could consider it "in bad faith". But if it will help clarify (for the future), my opinions of bad faith do not revolve around retroactive objection, but are concerned with repeated (retroactive) objections which are not duly considered when making future edits, and so could corrupt the honesty of ones intentions (on occasion). Perhaps I even say this in the hope of avoiding "this situation" happening in future (with you or others), and hope both you and EncycloPetey can read what I wrote in the above in that frame of mind. I do not believe I was trying to write the above merely to be argumentative, and as you may or may not know, I usually refrain for a great many discussions on Wikisource for this very reason. But if I have caused more harm than good in doing so, I can perhaps only again apologise. But I do also feel the above is relevant to the productivity of the current discussion, given the number of oppose votes that are related to "this situation", and given that I do also discuss other matters. Regards, TeysaKarlov (talk) 00:05, 9 November 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you. Onwards and upwards. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:06, 9 November 2025 (UTC)
- @Koavf Apologies if I implied I was making up a definition. I merely meant that two people can have different opinions of what constitute "honest intentions", taking the Wiktionary definition for good-faith, as I would rather not use Wikipedia's on Wikisource, and where I use the words opinions and definitions essentially synonymously (i.e. my definition felt like the explanation of my opinion). If you did not see my intentions as honest in the above, then yes, you could consider it "in bad faith". But if it will help clarify (for the future), my opinions of bad faith do not revolve around retroactive objection, but are concerned with repeated (retroactive) objections which are not duly considered when making future edits, and so could corrupt the honesty of ones intentions (on occasion). Perhaps I even say this in the hope of avoiding "this situation" happening in future (with you or others), and hope both you and EncycloPetey can read what I wrote in the above in that frame of mind. I do not believe I was trying to write the above merely to be argumentative, and as you may or may not know, I usually refrain for a great many discussions on Wikisource for this very reason. But if I have caused more harm than good in doing so, I can perhaps only again apologise. But I do also feel the above is relevant to the productivity of the current discussion, given the number of oppose votes that are related to "this situation", and given that I do also discuss other matters. Regards, TeysaKarlov (talk) 00:05, 9 November 2025 (UTC)
- "based on my definition of good/bad faith" Yes, anything can be anything based on someone making up a definition. You may wish to use w:en:WP:AGF instead or en:wikt:good faith/en:wikt:bad faith. If you use these words the way they mean, then no, I was not nor have I ever been editing in such a way as to hide my true motives or otherwise dissimulate. If you use "bad faith editing" as anything that someone retroactively objects to, well, then you are editing in bad faith, since I am pushing back against your novel definition of bad/good faith. No one is disputing that others objected to my edits. You can object to someone and still think the person is acting in good faith (i.e. has genuine motives and is not being deceptive). Since I already asked you to stop asserting that I'm acting in bad faith and you took the opportunity to immediately do that again, I'd like to ask that you please leave me out of this entirely. I don't see prolonged discussion of something from months ago as being very productive to the current discussion about an admin's entire body of usage of tools, interactions with colleagues, editing, etc. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:21, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
Support per Jan Kameníček above. (I have been rather inactive as of late, and if someone strikes out my vote as a result of that, that is okay with me.) --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:42, 11 November 2025 (UTC)
Oppose confirmation as an Admin
[edit]
Oppose. While I generally find EncycloPetey to be a strong and conscientious contributor to this platform, I feel that I can no longer support their adminship. Last year I noted that EncycloPetey had been making overzealous use of reversions, even towards good-faith policy-compliant edits (see, for example, this complaint at WS:AN). I suggested that they take note of WS:AP which has the following to say about rollbacks: "it may be aggravating to the affected user if it is used to rollback a legitimate change which the administrator disagrees with. Administrators should avoid rolling back legitimate edits if at all possible." Unfortunately, I have seen this behaviour continue since then, most notably in this case where the change EP rolled back was not only in good faith and compliant with policy and established practice, but was also in accordance with the discussion on the work's talk page. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 01:53, 2 November 2025 (UTC)
Oppose. I really appreciate EP's contributions, but I cannot trust them anymore with the admin tools. Beyond the rollback issue (see BT's comment), and generally pretty bitey behaviour towards new users, I find most of all concerning WS:AN#User:Koavf deliberately breaking page format. EP edit-warred with an established editor without really trying to discuss (it takes two to edit war), which is bad enough already for an admin, but also:
- blocked someone they were in an active dispute with, which no admin should ever do (WS:BP#When blocking may not be used:
administrators should not block those with whom they are currently engaged in an article-editing conflict
) - repeatedly called that same established user a vandal. While Koavf was not blameless in what happened, vandalism is
deliberate attempt to reduce the quality of the library
(WS:VANDAL). Calling good-faith edit-warring vandalism is stretching the facts or misunderstanding what vandalism means. - despite being confronted with the two above points, not given any sign that they understand that it was wrong and that they wouldn't repeat it.
- blocked someone they were in an active dispute with, which no admin should ever do (WS:BP#When blocking may not be used:
- Oppose. I have called for a vote of confidence before, and I do so here again. Since your previous re-confirmation, which I also opposed, you have continued to engage in highly unprofessional and disruptive conduct. There is an ongoing discussion on the noticeboard, where you banned another user, and reported the ban, over a petty formatting dispute. This “report” immediately follows another “report” of yours, again overdramatizing petty disputes. This continues a long pattern of this behavior, going on since at least 2019, but presumably for longer. Enough is enough, and you’ve given us plenty enough. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 02:46, 2 November 2025 (UTC)
Oppose The arguments laid out above are enough to convince me. To say it in the nicest of ways, it seems that the behaviors listed above are things that the community at large finds to be not in line with many of its values and policies. I would find Jan's hope that EP could change their behavior more convincing if EP had actively apologized or had given meaningful evidence to show he would change any of these listed behaviors. I just haven't really seen much evidence of a fluid mentality in EP. In fact, I've seen the opposite. An amount of stubbornness is just broadly apparent in his attitude—and in all fairness, many of us may be at least somewhat guilty of that, but it doesn't help this matter that he's that way.
- I should also point out that EP has had one previous vote of confidence in 2019. Many of the issues raised here were also raised in similar form there (concerns about interactions with other users as an administrator), but he passed that vote of confidence. Despite this, there seems to have been no change, and also no acknowledgment, of the concerns raised in that vote, which are still ongoing. We've in fact seen the opposite of acknowledging and backing down—more like doubling down on it. At least one voter (Beleg Tâl) who casted a support vote in the last vote of confidence was the first to oppose this time, and I would not be surprised if other previous supporters / abstainers also changed their minds in this vote (after all, several of those previous voters have themselves been the subjects of quarrels fairly recently since that older vote). SnowyCinema (talk) 21:01, 2 November 2025 (UTC)
Oppose Per the above. Nobody's perfect, but the inability or unwillingness to see what the problems are in principle is unacceptable. I look forward to his continued quality edits as a non-admin. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:13, 2 November 2025 (UTC)
Oppose EncyloPetey has shown, time and time again, that they abuse their role as an administrator to punish users who encroach on their perceived territory. They do this mainly by weaponizing their own definition of "vandalism," which does not align in the slightest with established WS policy. Because they have shown an unwillingness to wield power responsibly, it would be detrimental to the community to continue their adminship. That being said, EncycloPetey is a dedicated and talented editor, and it would be nice to continue working with them as a peer.
Oppose regretfully, there is a nice way to assert their typographic views, but they have become increasingly bitey. maybe some coaching from mentors to reapply. --Slowking4 ‽ digitaleffie's ghost 02:18, 3 November 2025 (UTC)
Oppose further adminship per above plus low usage of edit summaries.--WEBridge (talk) 21:59, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
- @WEBridge: I may understand the first part of this reasoning, but I truly fail to see why you (as so often) weigh such irrelevancies as edit summaries and omit all the valuable admin's work that has also been discussed above. Yes, some admins are attentive to edit summaries, while their involvement in administrators' tasks is unfortunately very limited (if any); however, it is this work that provides value to Wikisource. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 22:45, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
- I have witnessed another administrator elsewhere repetitively deleting things without clear reasons.--WEBridge (talk) 03:44, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
- Not giving a deletion rationale for non-obvious deletions is really infuriating. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:33, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
- I am afraid that what some other admin allegedly does is even less relevant for this confirmation discussion than the edit summaries. I suggest the confirmation of the admin is taken more seriously with really relevant reasons, whether for or against. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 10:35, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
Neutral
[edit]Hrishikes
[edit]
Support — Alien 3
3 3 02:46, 2 November 2025 (UTC)
Support --Jan Kameníček (talk) 12:28, 2 November 2025 (UTC)
Support SnowyCinema (talk) 21:03, 2 November 2025 (UTC)
Neutral. More edit summaries would be much better.--WEBridge (talk) 21:52, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
Nominations for adminship
[edit]- Older nominations are archived.