Role account

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A role account is an account that is not associated with a particular person, but with an office, position, or task. Those doing the task use the account only to do the task. They have other accounts for other work.

Use of role accounts is not officially sanctioned on most Wikimedia Foundation projects, though their use has been proposed. In order to use them consensus must be made. Meta-Wiki does not use them currently, but Foundation representatives may do so in the future.

[edit] en:

On the English Wikipedia, five role accounts are currently permitted.

  1. User:Schwartz PR[ref?], the account for a public relations firm working closely with the Foundation.
  • Note: this account has not edited since 2006.
  1. User:Mediation Committee[ref?], the account for contacting the members of the Mediation Committee on the English Wikipedia, this account does not edit.
  2. User:Oversight[ref?] account was created by the Arbitration Committee in February 2008 in order to make reporting of privacy violations easier.[en 1]
  3. User:Bureaucrats[ref?] account was created by bureaucrats on the English Wikipedia as of March 2009 to enable people to contact the private mailing list.[en 1]
  4. User:Wikipedia Information Team[ref?] account created to send emails to accounts where an email address exists; or for emails to be sent direct to OTRS. Account makes no edits.</ref>

The following role accounts exist on the English Wikipedia for historical purposes and are inactive:

  1. User:Mediator[ref?] [en 2]
  2. User:User Advocate[ref?] [en 2]

Any other accounts with multiple users are likely to be blocked.


  1. ↑ a b A special:emailuser points directly to the oversight list, however this account does not edit.
  2. ↑ a b Role accounts were created unilaterally in 2003 and are no longer used. However, the User:Mediator role account helped lay the groundwork for the Mediation Committee and the Arbitration Committee, and the User:User Advocate role account did the same for the Association of Members' Advocates.

[edit] fr:

A "gardener" role account exists on the French Wikipedia and was used for a while without any opposition.

Un autre role existe également sur la wikipédia française, la jardinière. Il a fonctionné un certain temps, sans la moindre opposition de quiconque.

A large portion of the initial page was removed and is now visible in the talk page.

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