Mass account creation

Currently, on Wikimedia projects the number of accounts that can be created in a 24-hour period from a single IP is limited to six. There may be situations, including outreach events, where creating more would be helpful. mw:Help:Mass account creation explains some of the ways to work around this limit. This page sets out two options.

Becoming an "account creator"

Main help page: mw:Help:Mass account creation

If you are going to be running many such events, you may wish to get the account creator permission on the wikis that will be involved in your events. Account creator permissions are project specific. If you are an administrator or bureaucrat on the given Wiki, you may have account creator permission already, as this is the default MediaWiki configuration. (If you aren't sure if this applies to your wiki, check Special:ListGroupRights and see if your group includes "Not be affected by rate limits (noratelimit)". If so, your group has account creator permission.)

For each wiki on which you wish account creator permission:

• Check Special:ListGroupRights to see if, on that wiki, local sysops/administrators or bureaucrats are able to assign people to the "account creators" group. If they are, contact a local sysop or bureaucrat to request permission.

• You can find a list of these people on any given wiki at Special:Listusers/sysop.
• Since not all sysops and bureaucrats will be active, look at a few of the users' recent contributions and choose three that have recently edited.
• Post to their talk pages and request the account creator permission. You should link to past events you've run or other proof that you're a credible person, not a spammer.

• If a local wiki's sysops or bureaucrats can't assign you to the group, or if you don't get any response from them, try posting your request to Steward requests/Permissions.

Specific wikis

• On the English Wikipedia, this page is the best place to request this permission.

Requesting temporary lift of IP cap

While those with account creator permission can create accounts for people at events, there are sometimes situations where it would be preferable to open an IP to permit on-site individual creation of these accounts, such as at a GLAM event, without needing to login with a privileged account. Allowing people to create their own accounts may help them feel more engaged. What follows is the procedure to request a temporary lift of the account creation cap on a specific IP for an outreach event. This will permit up to 300 accounts to be made per IP per hour. Please consider if it's really necessary to take this more bureaucratic way.

1. File bug for the site request. Use "Wikimedia" for the product and "site requests" for the component. Also be sure to add the "shell" keyword to the bug. Include the following information:
   • The event timeframe (start and end) of your event, and the timezone you expressed the hours (local or UTC)
   • The IPs to allow (you may have to contact the venue organization to learn this information)
   • The expected number of people to attend the event
   • The list of wikis (don't forget sister projects like Commons) you wish to allow account creation on (think to side wikis like Commons)
   • A link to the whe Wiki page discussing the event or, if there is no such page, a link to your userpage on your primary wiki
2. If filed on short notice, find a sysadmin to assist by going to the IRC channel #wikimedia-tech

See also Requesting wiki configuration changes; wikitech:Increasing account creation threshold contains instructions for the sysadmin.