Stewards/Elections 2026/Questions

The 2026 steward elections are finished. No further votes will be accepted.

Eligible voters (see application guidelines) can ask questions to all candidates on this page. Please post no more than 2 relevant questions per candidate (in total; ie. all questions a candidate needs to answer are counted), and keep them as concise and relevant as possible. Candidates, please answer as briefly and simply as possible.

For all candidates

Emergency de-sysop

Hi everyone. Best of luck in this election. My question is: Under which circumstances would you consider to emergency de-sysop an user? --Stïnger （会話） 10:31, 16 January 2026 (UTC).[reply]

An emergency desysop would usually only happen in exceptional circumstances – I would consider those to be if a) a user account is compromised (though confirmed compromised accounts should also be locked); b) if a sysop goes rogue or is vandalising a project and that vandalism is clear-cut; or c) if there's blatant abuse of the permission (such as random mass deletions or abusive blocks with no clear explanation – the "with" is critically important to emphasise here). The guiding principle would be whether a desysop remains the most effective means to immediately curb harm to the project, even if the circumstances vary by scenario. //shb (t • c) 11:40, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Emergency de-sysopping is justified only in exceptional circumstances where access to administrative tools poses an immediate risk to a Wikimedia project. Sysop rights are normally removed through local community consensus, and stewards should avoid intervening in routine matters. Urgent intervention may be needed in situations such as an administrator causing ongoing large-scale disruption, for example mass deletion of pages without explanation or unexplained blocking of established users. A clearly compromised account also requires urgent intervention, where locking the account is often the first step. Any emergency de-sysop should be limited to stopping the immediate harm and followed by prompt notice to the local community. I would also notify fellow stewards about the action. – DreamRimmer ■ 15:10, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Removing someone's sysop right should be done very sparingly and only in cases where the user has gone rogue (using the right to destroy the project by deleting the main page, important CSS/JS pages, etc) or if the account has been compromised. This action should only be done in emergencies and the local community/fellow stewards should be notified about the action taken for transparency. Ternera (talk) 16:21, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I view emergency de-sysopping as a temporary risk-containment measure, not a judgment or punishment. I would support it only when there is an immediate and escalating threat that cannot be effectively mitigated through less intrusive means such as discussion, warnings, or rapid local intervention. This could include situations where an administrator’s actions are irreversible in the short term and endanger the project’s core integrity, or where there is a clear loss of judgment during an active crisis (whether due to compromise, panic, or persistent disregard of urgent warnings). For me, the key criterion is time sensitivity: if waiting for normal processes would allow further harm, a temporary removal of rights may be justified. Any such action must be narrowly scoped, promptly documented, and followed by clear notification to the community and a full opportunity for review to ensure transparency and fairness.--Mohammed Qays (talk) 06:41, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think there's a set of written rules, but I have an idea of some situations when emergency removal may be appropriate. Furthermore, considering following criteria, it's possible to understand why an action like this is rare. The first criterion would be the clarity regarding the irregularity of the actions, so that there would be no doubt as to whether or not they are improper. A classic example would be deleting the main page. It is clearly wrong, but that alone wouldn't be a reason as it may have been a mistake. Perhaps also blocking all other admins. Or deleting pages that are fundamental to the project, whether on the article domain or not. So, it must be a series of actions that leaves no doubt about it. The second criterion would be the severity of the actions committed. The greater the damage to the community, the greater the indication for intervention. I'll use the example of deleting the main page. A reader searching the wiki will not find content on one of its most visited pages, and will notice a severe issue rightaway. On the other hand, deleting a series of rarely visited pages, while seemingly wrong, may not constitute grounds for intervention. The low potential damage would allow time to better assess the situation. The third criterion would be the inability of the local community to resolve the situation in time. This could be because local bureaucrats are currently inactive or because the wiki is not configured to allow the removal of administrator tools. Therefore, even if it is not an emergency, at some point the assistance of a Steward would be needed, but, at this moment, the situation leaves no time to start regular de-adminship procedures. The fourth criterion would be time as a factor in worsening the situation or generating damage. Returning to the example of the main page being deleted, the longer it remains deleted, the greater the damage, as more readers will notice the problem. Or, if the administrator continues to perform improper actions, deleting more important pages and causing more damage, the greater the need to stop such actions at that moment. The fifth criterion would be the absence of signs of regret, signs that such actions were a mistake and that there is a desire to stop and/or correct them. Again, in the example of the main page being deleted, if the administrator undeletes it immediately afterwards, it is a sign that it was probably a mistake and not intentional. Or if the administrator communicates with the community informing them of the error after being questioned, admitting to having made a mistake. That's more or less how I would address those situations, but it's all a case-by-case evaluation.—Teles «Talk ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 13:21, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The criterion is quite narrow and would include things like (i) compromised accounts or where the user is engaging in abuse that needs to be immediately stopped (though such accounts will usually be locked), (ii) wheel-warring or revenge blocks or (iii) where the rights were obtained on a smaller wiki by engaging in abuse, such as sockpuppets. By "emergency" I mean that the rights are removed without providing an opportunity for the affected user to respond. In most other cases (such as an abusive block), what I've usually seen is that the user gets a chance to explain their side of the story, and then the stewards decide whether/what action is needed. It's worth noting that if I'm on the fence, I'll perform the desysop - after all this can easily be reversed should it turn out that I was wrong. Leaderboard (talk) 06:46, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Emergency desysop is an extraordinary action taken to ensure proper project operations. I imagine numerous scenarios where an admin going rogue (more often, it’s the account being compromised, and not the admin per se) could deal great damage to the project, if checkuser data does not indicate clear compromisation I’d proceed with desysopping, and a lock if the latter was true, especially if user has advanced userrights such as interface admin or checkuser (perhaps even better would be to straight-up remove CU/OS rights first in such cases). If compelling reasons exist that’d present plausible doubts I would, based on circumstances, consultate other stewards (and perhaps WMF), especially if someone lives in high-risk region with significant political stress that can carry dangerous real life consequences. I am also easily reachable so in cases of emergencies can be handled immediately.--A09|(pogovor) 22:41, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Removing a permission bit in an emergency case needs a solid understanding of what is going on, with actions that are undoubtedly harming the Project. Doing a checkuser might be of help in revealing a compromised account, and in this case the removal of advanced permission would come along with an account lock and a notification to WMF's Trust and Safety and to the relevant Community. --M/ (talk) 07:16, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
As someone who has been in this position before, both as a steward and a local arb or crat, the guidebook on this is either purposefully thin or needlessly thick, depending on your point of view. My argument is that it is both. The freedom that is needed to take such an action falls into the territory and judgment of "you know it when you see it". We could sit here and list out what specific situations in the past have been, but at the end of the day, you can't encompass a set of regulations that define all potential senarios but are still detailed that anyone can calculate a 'solution'. This is part of the reason why stewards are elected need to be well tested and trusted community members, as the power can be abused, which speaks to the nature of this question being raised. My thoughts are that the book that has guided me in the past is the best set of regulations around this and would be close to the values I hold. -- Amanda (she/her) 07:12, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Emergency removal of sysop rights is often a “you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. Someone will always complain. If an admin is acting seriously out of line (e.g., mass blocking or deleting), it’s appropriate to remove the rights in an emergency. Tools can be restored easily; cleaning up after a major misuse is much harder. When in doubt, removal protects the project. That said, where timing allows, it’s wise to contact the admin first. I would likely remove the rights (depending on the exact circumstances) and consult other stewards or WMF Trust & Safety on next steps, such as checking whether the account was compromised. This doesn’t need to be rushed and can be done after consulting others. Luckily, such situations are very rare. -Barras talk 13:37, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Compromised account (which also should be locked btw), Wheel wars or other kind of serious abuse (including delete the mainpage, massively block experienced users without any reasons provided) etc. These abusive actions should be obvious (even if I am not familiar with that language, I can still understand what they are doing; like insert nonsense or lack of reasons), serious (large scale / impact to the project; Not just block a few of individuals / delete a few of pages) and continuous (can be presumed to continue; cannot communicate). Furthermore, although I do not think it is mandatory, I would prefer that there is a request of emergency de-sysop from local sysop (onwiki or offwiki), as well as a brief internal discussion among Stewards, before taking the measure. SCP-2000 13:39, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Emergency de-sysop is a tool for extraordinary circumstances. Before employing it the most crucial questions are a) what is actually happening and b) how urgent is the situation. In obvious cases of ongoing clear-cut vandalism, malicious activity or blatant wide-spread tool abuse a global lock in addition to an emergency de-sysop are warranted. If the situation is not clear cut it is important to get a good picture before taking any action. In any case getting at least one other pair of steward eyes on the case is a necessity in my opinion. Count Count (talk) 13:44, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I would consider an emergency de-sysop only in truly exceptional situations where continued access to admin tools presents an immediate and concrete risk to a project (such as clear large-scale abuse, loss of control of the account, or actions that cannot reasonably wait for normal community processes). A spike in notifications can also be on of the signs that something is wrong. On large and active wikis, this should remain a last resort, as it is generally preferable for another local sysop to intervene first (for example by blocking the account) whenever that is sufficient to stop the harm. The urgency becomes higher when the account holds admin rights on multiple projects, since misuse or compromise then carries cross-wiki impact rather than remaining a local issue. In such cases, removing advanced permissions functions as a rapid harm-containment measure, followed by community notification and review once the situation is stabilised. — Baidax ^💬 14:06, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
This would only happens in specific (but apparently not so rare) circumstances. Basically it boils down to a question of time-sensitive and high volume. It's also depend on the impact (a sysop dumping a high number of dumb messages everywhere is bad but maybe not enough for desysoping ; a sysop starting to block everyone on a project is way worse and need to be stopped). An important thing is to act as fast as needed but not too fast ; it's an hard balance to find, it's very contextual and a wide grey area. Cheers, VIGNERON * ^discut. 17:15, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Home-wikis of smaller wiki families

Most stewards come from Wikipedias, Commons and Wikidata. Do you think having a background at a smaller wiki family (Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikinews, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikivoyage, Wikispecies, Wikifunctions) is an advantage, as a candidate and as a steward? If so, how?

To be clear, "a background at a smaller wiki family" does not necessarily mean only content creation. This question is intended for the candidates that it applies to, but others may answer it as well (How is it an advantage in general?).

NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 11:59, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

As someone who primarily edits smaller wiki family wikis (Wikivoyage and Wikibooks), this feels very close to me haha :). That said, I don't think it's advantageous as a candidate, but I think it could bring in some different perspectives to the table. For us on smaller wiki families, being neglected is unfortunately an all-too-common occurrence on all ends: whether that's a broken mobile website ("new section: /* Listing editor broken again */"...that probably rings a bell for any Wikivoyagers reading this), people making large scale decisions but fundamentally have no idea how the project functions, conflict with some new cross-wiki patrollers or event organisers who can cause some havoc on these projects once again due to lack of understanding, you name it, but these are at least the three largest concerns for us on Wikivoyage.

I doubt being a steward will actually solve any of these issues, nor are stewards are in a position to fix those issues either. I think that insight might be beneficial, but I don't think it is as advantageous as it is for some other similar level roles (such as the Board or U4C). //shb (t • c) 12:51, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think that some small projects with few or no active users can easily be disregarded and fall into disrepair because there are not many speakers or active contributors. On larger wikis, you sometimes see admins stick to one area that they are knowledgeable about, but admins on small wikis have fewer co-admins to fall back on and may need to branch out and assist with tasks they are not as experienced with. I believe that being active at a small wiki could make someone more well-rounded, which could assist them as a steward. Overall, I don't believe it makes a huge difference whether a candidate has a background with large or small wikis as long as they have experience in global areas. Ternera (talk) 16:15, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
While I believe that background in smaller Wikimedia projects can be an advantage, I do not see a significant difference between a steward coming from a small Wikipedia family project or from other smaller sister family projects, as all Wikimedia projects share the same core principles, volunteer-driven structure, and consensus-based decision making. That said, I am aware that some sister projects, such as Commons and Wikisource, have their own community practices, including stronger GLAM involvement and more off-wiki coordination. Experience with these projects can therefore give additional perspective on how consensus and collaboration work in different spaces. Smaller projects often have fewer active contributors and limited local administrative capacity, so editors naturally gain hands-on familiarity with global processes and steward-related work, as actions by global functionaries often appear in their recent changes feed. This builds a clear understanding of how steward actions affect small communities that cannot always resolve issues locally and provides exposure to situations requiring timely attention when local action is unavailable. Working in such environments also encourages contributors to become more self-reliant in understanding policies and technical processes, developing patience and sound judgement essential for community-facing steward work. Overall, this background helps ensure stewards remain mindful that every project matters and deserves responsive and equitable support across the Wikimedia movement. – DreamRimmer ■ 17:34, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I do think a background in a smaller wiki family can be an advantage, but not because it is inherently “better” or more representative. Its value lies in exposure to fragility. On smaller sister projects, processes, tools, and even social norms are often less buffered by scale. When something goes wrong—whether it’s a disruptive user, a technical issue, or a misapplied global action—the impact is felt immediately and often disproportionately. Experiencing that environment trains contributors to be cautious, proportionate, and context-aware.

From a steward’s perspective, this background can sharpen sensitivity to unintended consequences. Actions that might be routine on large projects (global locks, mass actions, cross-wiki enforcement) can unintentionally overwhelm or silence small communities if applied without nuance. Editors from smaller wiki families are more likely to instinctively ask: “Does this community have the capacity to absorb this action, and is there a less disruptive alternative?”

That said, it is not an automatic advantage, nor a prerequisite. Its strength depends on whether the candidate can generalize those experiences beyond their home project. When they can, it helps stewards balance efficiency with care, and reinforces the idea that stewardship is not only about resolving issues quickly, but about doing so in a way that respects the diverse scales, rhythms, and vulnerabilities of Wikimedia projects.--Mohammed Qays (talk) 06:45, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that this can be an advantage in selected cases and a contribution to increasing diversity amongst stewards, which is quite desirable, but this is not what we use to observe in practice. Considering it's a small wiki, it's unlikely that experience on this wiki will be related to many of the tools a steward will use, such as checkuser and oversight tools. Even if there are local checkusers or oversighters and the candidate is one of them, the number of actions and, consequently, the experience gained with such tools is low. Furthermore, it's unlikely that the candidate has been subjected to more complex and difficult situations, something they will need to be prepared to handle as a steward. Therefore, demonstrating experience in other larger projects, even if the home wiki remains the same, would be fundamental. Even if a candidate comes from a large wiki, with rare exceptions, cross-wiki experience is required. So, in any case, this would be required, but it's inevitable that local experience will be questioned and that, most likely, the community will be more attentive and tend to be more demanding in evaluating actions outside the home-wiki to understand if the candidate can work with more complex cases.—Teles «Talk ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 13:40, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
So as someone whose home wiki is in Wikibooks, some of my ideas (which can at times look contrarian) have definitely been influenced by how things are done there. For example, we're the only WMF wiki to provide importupload to all sysops, and until recently we were the only wiki to allow stewards to process non-emergency CheckUser requests, even though we have a pair of Checkusers already. And as a result, I've had the opportunity to perform tasks such as XML upload and history merging, things that on larger wikis would be difficult if straight-up unfeasible (eg I think only a couple of users can perform XML upload on the English Wikipedia). That's naturally something that's going to be helpful as a steward, as one of the tasks is to handle rarely-done tasks on smaller wikis. Going back to the actual question though, notice that what I've said is specific to the English Wikibooks and not Wikibooks (or a smaller wiki family). As far as I can tell, most of this is not true for the French, German and Dutch Wikibooks, nor have I had to do this as an en.wikinews admin. And these kinds of idiosyncrasies also happen on larger wikis (eg the German Wikipedia is relatively import-heavy, with 14 users allowed to perform importupload) So it's more of having cross-wiki exposure that's helpful, irrespective of which wiki you're based from, than being part of a specific wikifamily. And not having cross-wiki experience is not a dealbreaker either; what matters more is the willingness to learn and adjust accordingly without overly leaning on how things work on your homewiki. Leaderboard (talk) 06:32, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I believe any steward should be somewhat familiar with concepts of different wikiproject families purely because stewards often deal with crosswiki issues where a completely promotional tone on one wikiproject family could mean perfectly fine edit in another (ie. Wikipedia vs. Wikivoyage). It’s a plus to have different experience compared to other stewards, it is one of the reason we have such a diverse team of steward so we can cover the whole range of issues. It's definetly an advantage to have significant knowlege about these project, but even more essential is the willing to understand the fundamentals of these projects and discuss issues internally to resolve them as adequately as possible. The biggest disadvantage that candidates from small wikis might have is lack of experience handling complex cases. To me personally, it does not matter from which wikiproject family a user is coming from, but whether he’s able to learn new things, communicate clearly, and not rush into things/concepts/taking actions with limited knowledge. Afterall, we all have different experiences that makes any user group working profoundly as long as they share them and its members learn from eachother.--A09|(pogovor) 23:11, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
On a large wiki like Wikipedia, roles are often highly specialised. On a smaller wiki (like Wikiversity or Wikinews), a user often has to be an editor, a researcher, a technical troubleshooter, and a mediator all at once. As a Steward, I might often be called to help wikis that have zero local administrators. Having experience in a "scrappy" environment means being used to navigating ambiguity and taking initiative where documentation might be thin. Also, many global policies are written with Wikipedia in mind, but they don't always "fit" the workflow of Wikisource (which is about proofreading) or Wikispecies (which is highly structured data). This means that a Steward with a small-wiki background can act as a cultural translator and help understanding for example if a new technical tool might accidentally break something on a sister project. Last, but not least, small wikis often feel neglected by developers or the broader community, and having a wider approach can help in showing the value the whole movement, not just the high-traffic areas. Smaller projects are also frequent targets for "low-effort" vandalism that can stay unnoticed for weeks. Having navigated different project structures makes you more technically adaptable. As a Steward handling global permissions or server-side issues, being "multilingual" in wiki-structures is a massive practical asset. --M/ (talk) 07:49, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The advantage does not come from being from a smaller wiki. The advantage comes from diversity. A community, by a simplistic definition, is a group of people that come together for a common purpose, sharing a common set of goals - even if their values don't align. Those who elect stewards, the voters, look for some commonality in their values within stewards, so that all communities are represented in some form. There are many ways to slice the pie of diversity and get a different set of people, and the size of wikis is one of them, usually leaning towards the larger side. So, from a group looking for more diversity, it would appear to be advantageous to be from a small wiki. But the strength in the vote comes from diversity in and of itself, whatever form a potential steward brings. -- Amanda (she/her) 07:24, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Having experience in sister projects definitely helps. I was an admin and bureaucrat on a small Wiktionary, where rules and guidelines tend to be less formal simply because a handful of long-term editors collaborate closely for years. These communities often value independence and may be skeptical of (or unfamiliar with) global processes like MVR and other formal policies. As a steward, that background makes it easier to communicate with smaller projects: you better understand their context, why their workflows differ from large Wikipedias/Commons/Wikidata, and how to frame requests or interventions in a way that respects local norms while still upholding global standards. In short, it builds empathy and improves messaging when cross-wiki issues arise. -Barras talk 13:48, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I believe there are advantages to having a background in smaller wikis. Smaller wikis have their own unique cultures, including a smaller community size, simpler policies and procedures, and different models of content creation, which are quite different from larger wikis. Additionally, anti-vandalism often involve smaller wikis. I believe that candidates with this background can better understand how to communicate with diverse communities, avoiding conflicts between them when working on anti-vandalism or other maintenance tasks on these wikis. Nevertheless, it doesn't matter where they come from; the most important thing is their ability to communicate effectively with people from different cultures, regions, and languages. SCP-2000 14:08, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I do think that such a background can be an advantage, but it is neither fundamental nor decisive. Comparing candidates based on their home wiki oversimplifies things, as different projects bring different types of experience. In practice, larger projects such as Wikipedia often involve more frequent and complex issues, which can also be valuable preparation for global roles. — Baidax ^💬 16:40, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It certainly have some advantages. Not so much because these wiki are small but because this is an area not yet well covered. Ideally the group of stewards should have a collective knowledge (or even better, collective experience) of the whole wikimedia movement. Each project has a slightly different cultures and dynamic. From a personal point of view, I'm very active on Wikisources, the Wikisources systems are closely related to Commons (in fact, to proofread a book on Wikisource, uploading on Commons is the first step) so I know how important it is to work together on both sites/sides. Cheers, VIGNERON * ^discut. 17:31, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Cross-wiki activity

How do you define being active cross-wiki and do you think that your current activity level fits that criteria? --Min☠︎rax^«¦talk¦» 13:52, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

When I think of a cross-wiki contributor, I think of someone who is not limited to editing their home wiki or one single project. Some projects, like Wikidata will show edits taken automatically (like unlinking an article from an item) and edits like those may not count as cross-wiki activity in my opinion. I would consider myself a cross-wiki contributor because I help with deletions, blocks, and removing vandalism on small wikis as a global sysop. Ternera (talk) 16:29, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
A general definition of being active cross-wiki is having regular involvement across multiple Wikimedia projects, whether through editing content, participating in cross-project discussions, or assisting with maintenance work. On Meta-Wiki, the term is most commonly used for global patrollers who work across several wikis to combat vandalism and spam. I fit this description through my roles as a SWMT member and global sysop, where I routinely carry out actions such as rollbacks, deletions, and blocks on multiple wikis. – DreamRimmer ■ 18:15, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
"[B]eing active cross-wiki" to me means your editing activity is reasonable enough on multiple projects of different nature. As for what that editing activity constitutes being reasonable enough, I would say this includes anti-vandalism, anti-spam or just other routine maintenance tasks like handling speedy deletions or technical fixes. I would say I fit this criteria, since I basically do almost all of that bar technical fixes. //shb (t • c) 21:22, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I define cross-wiki activity less by the number of projects edited and more by situational mobility: the ability to step into unfamiliar communities, understand their local norms quickly, and act appropriately without relying on long-standing social capital. Being truly cross-wiki means not only performing similar actions everywhere, but adapting one’s approach based on the maturity, size, and autonomy of each project. In that sense, cross-wiki activity also includes listening across wikis—following global discussions, understanding how decisions on Meta, Phabricator, or steward noticeboards ripple outward, and recognizing patterns that repeat across unrelated projects. It is about seeing the ecosystem as interconnected rather than as isolated sites.--Mohammed Qays (talk) 06:52, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
A different user asked this question (with an extra part) in 2025, and my answer remains the same. This is reproduced below:
- To be active cross-wiki can mean multiple things - it can involve reverting vandalism, solving technical issues, helping with filters, maintaining bots etc.
- Yes and no. I am not a cross-wiki anti-vandalism specialist, but I do have significant cross-wiki experience otherwise over the years, and continue to do so especially from maintaining Global reminder bot (a lot of which is passive monitoring). This requires good understanding of crosswiki policies, since some wikis have rules that ask for a certain number of test edits, for instance, or require me to contact someone after X months. Leaderboard (talk) 17:50, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Being active crosswiki can mean multiple things and users have different opinions on what it actually encompasses – some count image replacement from Commons and Wikidata item linking towards these requirements even if they are automated. Traditionally it means being sufficiently active on different projects, which can be easily maintained by performing actions related to global anti-vandalism efforts, technical tasks or other processes that ensure smooth operation of multiple projects. While evaluating the crosswiki matrixes I usually look for three things: depth of edits (whether they are only image replacements or more substantial edits), number of edits and what projects did user affect with its editing. But again, crosswiki activity for anti-vandalism users is seen completely different than that of technical crosswiki editors (ie. module updaters) so an uniform answer is hard to provide.--A09|(pogovor) 23:20, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
This means contributing consistently or for a considerable period of time to different projects that have different languages and purposes. This usually happens through antivandalism or antispam actions, the volume of which allows experience in varied situations. By being active cross wiki, an editor acquires a set of experiences that give them an idea of what to do and what not to do in different contexts. Learning to communicate on a wiki with a different language, especially when the language root is different, or learning that, often, the rules of your home wiki are not even remotely followed in others. For example, learning that the 5 pillars are obeyed by a minority was a surprise to me back in the day.
A few years ago, I became curious to explore Wikipedias in different languages to understand how they handle certain situations and, based on their experience, how I could help Portuguese Wikipedia. I initially did this with English and Spanish Wikipedias. After that, I began to engage with other wikis more broadly, and today I consider my participation to meet these criteria.—Teles «Talk ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 13:03, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
My cross-wiki activity started when unified accounts didn't exist, nor a global rollback or many other tools that have come day by day. Cross-wiki actions for me usually come after spammers and long-term abuse accounts, so greatly vary depending on my patrolling or retro-patrolling activities, sometimes also helped by other local sysops or users highlighting spam and abuses. As already stated, Steward tools are of great help when dealing with such eveniences. --M/ (talk) 14:31, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate this interesting question that asks for candidates to both define a cross-wiki activity level and then self-evaluate against it. As the question hints more at self-reflection for scope of understanding, I will be clear that I am not the "typical" steward candidate when it comes to the traditional path of GR/GS or holding rights or remaining active at several wikis. I'm focused more on different types of projects (technical contributions, policy development, auditing, etc), and that focus allows me to bridge cross-wiki concerns and to bring my experience to the discussion. I've previously been an ombud and that is likely the closest "traditional" crosswiki experience I have. -- Amanda (she/her) 08:25, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
To me being active cross-wiki does not just mean doing edits in multiple wikis but also working on ways to generally help the wider wiki community. Part of this can be being a technical contributor writing tools, fighting crosswiki spam and vandalism, working on general policy, creating and participating in global RFCs on meta, etc. Personally while I have done some cross-wiki recent changes patrolling my main focus was on fighting spam providing tools (Spamcheck), processing requests for the global spam blacklist and reverting spam crosswiki. I have further ideas in this area. --Count Count (talk) 13:58, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Being cross-wiki active depends on the role. For global rollback and global sysops, it’s primarily about regular frontline patrolling. It's about tracking edits with tools like SWViewer and reverting or deleting across many small wikis; I’m not engaged in that kind of work (or at least very rarely and also never did that in the past). For stewards, U4C members, OC members etc., the emphasis is different: a wide understanding of diverse project contexts, reliable processing of cross-wiki requests and decisions, and respectful communication with local communities. Judged by those steward criteria rather than raw patrol counts, my current activity is appropriate. -Barras talk 14:05, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I think "active cross-wiki" not only includes anti-vandalism but also efforts related to Affiliations, involving discussions about global governance and technical development. Although I am not very active in handling cross-wiki vandalism recently (Note: I am still active in anti-vandalism on zhwiki and keep an eye on them), I shifted my focus to Affiliations-related efforts (e.g., becoming a member of the Wikipedia Asian Month Steering Committee), as well as participate in and facilitate discussions about features and tools (e.g. Content translation, Tone check). I believe my current activity levels fit this criteria, and I hope my experiences with Affiliations can provide another perspective. SCP-2000 14:41, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
What being active cross-wiki means depends largely on the role. For global rollbackers or global sysops, it primarily involves continuous frontline patrolling. For steward-type roles, however, activity takes also an additionnal dimention. Rather, it is a form of interdisciplinary practice, comparable to comparative law, where the value lies in developing a broad, integrated understanding of how different projects function. This includes the regular handling of cross-wiki requests, familiarity with diverse community contexts, and the ability to engage constructively with local projects. In this sense, cross-wiki activity is not measured by raw patrol volume, but by sustained, informed participation across projects and processes. — Baidax ^💬 15:28, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's a continuum, from someone being active one only one wiki to someone being active on a dozen of wikis (if not more). There is also the question of distribution, someone can be more-or-less equally active on 2 wikis (or more) or being way more active on one wiki than the others. Finally, each wiki is different (one edit on Wikidata does not really equals one edit on Wikipedia), not to mention off-wiki activities (in chapter/user group/etc.). For my own case, I'm active on a lot of different wikis (Wikidata, Commons and Wikisources) but I have a lot more edits on Wikidata (thanks to automated tools) than on the others. To look at it an other way, I'm in the top 50 (or even top 10) on several wikis (Wikidata, frwikisource, brwikisource, brwikipedia). Cheers, VIGNERON * ^discut. 17:52, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Backlogs

We currently have moderate backlogs in Steward requests/Global and severe backlogs in global lock appeals. Do you intent to volunteer in any of these areas? Are there other areas where you see significant stewardly backlogs that you intend to work at? Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 17:02, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I do intend to help in these areas. If elected, I will spend my time on SRG and assist with global lock appeals to help reduce current backlogs and keep them under control. I will also keep an eye on SRB, as although it does not currently show a formal backlog, I have often seen bot flag requests remain without response for long periods, so I would be willing to help with handling them. – DreamRimmer ■ 19:04, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
As I've mentioned in my nomination statement, SRG and SRCU is where I'll likely spend the majority of my time helping out with backlogs, but also some requests at SRP and SRGP, too. //shb (t • c) 21:13, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I'm willing to help at SRG, lock appeals, and anywhere more hands are needed to clear through backlogs. I'm unsure of other areas that are severely backlogged, but I will certainly help if that comes up. Ternera (talk) 00:03, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think working on SRG and global lock appeals directly is going to be my priority especially since I'm not as familiar with all of the LTAs compared to some other candidates and stewards. However, I'm interested in seeing how the process can be improved as a whole, and improve efficiency for the stewards as a whole (so it's less about committing more combined time and more about how more can be done in less time, while maintaining the rigour that is required). I do plan to help out at SRB (not many requests but it's common to see them languish), SRP and SRGP (when things are clear and unambiguous, they tend to be cleared quickly; however, what I've observed is that delays often result when requests are even slightly less straightforward). Leaderboard (talk) 18:26, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I’d intend to work in SRG and SRCU areas, as well as certain SRM tasks. While I could pick any other potentially backlogged venue I’d undertake them only after consultations with fellow stewards beforehand.--A09|(pogovor) 22:38, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, at SRG. That's exactly what I did when I was a Steward. I used to respond to requests from top to bottom when they piled up. In other words, I used to give preference to the oldest ones. Some of them opened for months. A few examples are: ( [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7])
Not just answering "yes" or "no," but working together with the requesters in order to understand the reason behind the request. Furthermore, clarifying the reason for a negative response so that future requests provide complete justifications. Also, discussing with others how to improve our response on that page (example: The state of SRG and Improve explanation of requests).—Teles «Talk ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 13:43, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I am willing to give a hand at SRG, while I am quite conservative about lock appeals, since I'd at least allow some time to have a look at it and get accustomed. --M/ (talk) 16:20, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want to take away from my statement much, which goes into more detail than I would answer here, so I will leave my answer at that. -- Amanda (she/her) 08:27, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
SRG is often very backlogged and I intend to help to reduce that backlog. Other stuff like (global) permissions don't seem to be backlogged, but I'd still help there as needed. I could also imagine to help with the lock appeals, but I guess that won't become the main focus of my work. -Barras talk 14:12, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I definitely want to help with SRG. There also is a short public backlog at SRGP which I want to look at. There might also be non-public backlogs in the VRT. Not sure about the global lock appeals as I assume that that would need some experience with LTAs. In general I am ready to help out wherever necessary. --Count Count (talk) 14:20, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I am willing to help SRG, especially vandals who are using Chinese / active on zh projects. And I will also helped with handling global lock appeal, VRT tickets and participate the internal discussion if necessary. SCP-2000 14:46, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Not only do I plan to help in this area, but this is clearly where I will start to consolidate experience, especially since the pages allow requests to be centralized (especially Global), which is much more practical as this is not always the case with admin roles in projects. — Baidax ^💬 17:40, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
To be honest, I don't know precisely but I'll definitely try to be useful wherever I can. If elected, I guess my first step will be to talk with other stewards and get more acquainted on the more pressing matters. Let's not mistake haste for speed, better to start slow at first and slowly speeding up the pace. Cheers, VIGNERON * ^discut. 17:57, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

WMF consultations

Often, stewards are consulted by the Wikimedia Foundation when developing (and/or deploying) anti-abuse functionality on Wikimedia sites such as hCAPTCHA, Temporary Accounts etc. What experience do you have that would assist in this area, if you would assist? -- Sohom (talk) 14:59, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I have some experience with things like reCAPTCHA having configured it for a form on my personal website. More recently, I worked on a script to help with voting at Wikidata's request for deletion page. I've also tested new features on some other platforms (like Discord) and learned how to submit comprehensive bug reports with plenty of information to help developers squash bugs. Global sysops were able to learn about temporary accounts early on since they were rolled out to small projects first and I believe that was a good learning experience. Ternera (talk) 16:42, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The most I've ever really been involved with in this sphere is often relying this anti-abuse functionality info to my home wiki community (especially when temporary accounts were rolled out), but nothing more than that. I doubt I'll actually be able to add much to the table in this sphere more than what will already have been said in such meetings, unfortunately. :( //shb (t • c) 00:32, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I have been interested in software and tools for a long time, and I have tested new features and shared feedback with the WMF on many occasions. I have used backport windows to request deployment of patches, so I understand what goes into MediaWiki development and deployment work. My experience developing tools and scripts has given me a practical understanding of the pros and cons of technical solutions, how they benefit communities, and what concerns they may raise. While developing tools, I have regularly consulted experienced contributors and sought feedback, so I understand the value of community input in technical work. I have also followed the Trust and Safety Product team’s work on replacing the old CAPTCHA (FancyCaptcha) with the more reliable hCaptcha bot detection service, and I have closely followed the deployment of Temporary Accounts since the first pilot rollouts in October 2024. This has been a valuable experience, and I have seen how WMF staff take community feedback seriously and make improvements based on it, so I believe I have a good understanding of these processes and can provide useful feedback on new tools and technical initiatives when consulted. – DreamRimmer ■ 15:05, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Besides seldomly contributing to abuse filter areas I do not consider myself a very technical editor, at least not in the sense I could produce anything technically very profound myself. However I am always happy to test products, especially in areas I am experienced, and provide meaningful feedback information (either onwiki or on platforms like Zoom or Discord) on more recent tools like user cards, temporary accounts and user-renaming related tools.--A09|(pogovor) 22:48, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I can look at beta features and eventually give also a general help on running things on toolforge, since I still have a shell access and if needed I can move around. I also have a couple of running instances of MediaWiki. I am known to WMF, apart from several Wikimanias, I have visited offices in 2016. --M/ (talk) 14:31, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Fairly limited but I've worked with them in the past (for instance, in Wikimania 2021 when I was part of a team presenting about abuse filters in smaller wikis). I can assist with the technical side (and abuse filters, as an abuse filter helper) as a steward, and am familiar with MediaWiki as well. This does not include incidental collaboration with WMF staff members on-wiki and on Phabricator, nor does it include areas that are not relevant to stewardship. Leaderboard (talk) 11:45, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the cases, I probably wouldn't assist. I have done it in the past in a few opportunities. Since I am not a tech-oriented editor, I usually feel my engagement won't be super useful if what is required is technical feedback, so I tend to skip it. However, I have engaged in some of them when other kinds of input were requested (like this for instance). Or more recently following the implementation of temporary accounts and helping advising checkusers on related updates.—Teles «Talk ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 16:55, 27 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be happy to test or comment new features if asked. However, that's pretty much all I could do. I won't be someone developing new tools or someone coming around with a very new and creative idea. -Barras talk 14:15, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I have taken part in consultations with the WMF in that area and look forward to continue with that. I have ideas for improving the abuse filter infrastructure, the checkuser functionality and anti-spam tools and would love to be involved in the design process and testing improvements there. I have written lots of tools and bots for the German Wikipedia and am familiar with the database design. As a software engineer and user as the same time I think I can be a valuable resource. --Count Count (talk) 14:31, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I am quite interested in helping with developing features and tools:) I will join the conversation between WMF & Stewards, as well as testing and sharing the feedback about the features. In the past I participated and facilitated the discussion between WMF & zhwiki community, and it is great to see that WMF takes some notes and suggestions from it. SCP-2000 14:55, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
While hCaptcha wasn't really my taste compared to others, when Temporary accounts was called IP masking before I left last year, I reached out to the T&S product team at Wiki-conference North America to speak with them about the anti-abuse concerns that it brought up, and I dragged several other relevant functionaries into that discussion at the time. While I'm not as good at @L235: in coordinating people together, I definitely push for the anti-abuse voice to be heard, and not just with that subject. This continued at several monthly steward meetings. This is honestly part of the reason I came back. As I mentioned in my statement, my goal is to have a "strong focus on pursuing a strategic vision and pushing for sustainability". That very much includes this field. I've also fielded this type of role, though less defined or overt in my previous roles of Ombuds and ArbCom. It likely also helps that I am a developer and developed UTRS; so I've seen the development side, the UX side, the policy side, and the critical end user side before, making my insight just that much cleaner and able to bridge gaps. -- Amanda (she/her) 02:08, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
An experience primarily as a user, but little technical development experience, as I am not formally trained as a developer. However, I occasionally look into the progress made in bypassing anti-abuse features, particularly those of reCaptcha, with artificial intelligence: it’s truly a fascinating field, seeing how many barriers quickly become obsolete with AI. I could try to provide feedback to the WMF regarding usage, but it would be more challenging for me to contribute on highly technical aspects, which seem to fall more within the domain of developers. — Baidax ^💬 16:54, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I would assist on that point. Even though I'm not so much active on fr.wikipedia, I do know it well and could help. I'm also very often in contact with newcomers and I've seen first-hand how some features made to deter vandals can affect regular editors. More importantly, I can help for Wikisources where things don't always behave as on others projects (vandalism is quite low, contents can be very different for instance some books do have insults and swearing in them that should not be blocked when proofreading). And it's not just for "anti-abuse functionality", there is so much more where I already helped with the various contacts I already have at the Wikimedia Foundation. Cheers, VIGNERON * ^discut. 18:04, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Self-assessment and challenges

Hi! I'd like to ask two simple questions.

What do you expect to be the most difficult aspect of serving as a steward, and how are you preparing to address it?
If you were to evaluate your own stewardship after one year, what criteria would you use to determine whether you have performed well or fallen short?

Good luck! Best, --𝓰𝓲𝓷𝓪𝓪𝓷기나ㅏㄴ(T/C) 17:56, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The most difficult thing for me probably will be getting accustomed to new tools like checkuser and oversight. They are both tools I have never used before. However, I am confident that I can learn to use them by 1) taking it slowly and 2) asking other stewards and functionaries for assistance if I get stuck. When it comes to evaluating my performance, two things come to mind: activity and community feedback. If I did not have much time to dedicate towards steward activities, it could be a sign that it is time to resign. If I saw messages from multiple users saying I wasn't doing an acceptable job, I would also take that into account since it is very important for stewards to be trusted by the community. Ternera (talk) 21:52, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
For me, the most unfamiliar aspects of steward territory is probably anything to do with VRT. I don't really intend to work on anything VRT-related, but if I do, I plan to take it slow and with the guidance of others. As for the second question, I think it is either if I find myself having to take actions for the sake of staying active, or if I've been told by at least a few users on something that cannot easily be improved, that is probably the cue to resign. //shb (t • c) 02:07, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The most challenging aspect for me will likely be dealing with sophisticated abuse cases involving users who understand our systems well and deliberately work around them to game the system. These are not straightforward vandalism cases and require deeper investigation and careful judgement, and stewards are often the ones making the final decision in such matters. While I have experience handling these types of cases on various wikis, global work as a steward would be new for me, so I am preparing by studying additional abuse patterns and learning from how experienced stewards have handled similar situations in the past. I would also seek a second opinion from other stewards when needed. As for how I would evaluate myself after one year, I would look at whether I contributed a fair share of work to the steward team and whether my actions were consistently correct and policy-compliant. If communities trust my judgement and I have not made significant errors that required correction, that would indicate I am performing well, while feedback from the community or fellow stewards suggesting otherwise, or an inability to maintain the expected level of activity and quality, would be a clear sign for me to step down. – DreamRimmer ■ 16:43, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
For the first question, it's hard to tell but I'm guessing it's going to working with communities at all levels and having to communicate/explain things to them that they might not like (eg why they cannot get permanent adminship) - some users get visibly heated. My approach to handling it would be to stay calm and clear - if the user is getting to my nerves, I'll step back and simply ask another steward to take over. I can see this happening vice-versa as well (i.e, my helping a steward diffuse a messy situation).

I would say that I've performed well if in the 2027 confirmations, the doubters, critics and sceptics in my past candidatures support my continuing as a steward (and if they're vindicated, that's a sign I might have fallen short). Leaderboard (talk) 15:39, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The first question is not a problem for me, since even if many things have changed since 2016, I've stayed around and my own request on #wikimedia-stewards are usually processed and I could easily ask for a second opinion when deemed necessary. The second question pose two different problems, like excessive expectations from volunteer work and unnecessary judgement pressure: I do things when I feel safe both for the Project and for me, no exceptions. This leaves to all of you any other judgement. Thanks. --M/ (talk) 07:17, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe checking temporary accounts since it is a new thing since I was a checkuser. Maybe when doing actions on mobile, since I increased my engagement on wiki with that platform has increased. But still I would be comfortable with asking another steward whenever I face any difficulty.
For the second question, I would like to evaluate the quality of my actions. I don't think I can be too precise. I would like to evaluate my performance by analyzing whether my actions are in accordance with the main policies, like the Steward, checkuser, privacy or global policies. Assessing whether my behaviour and the maintenance of cordiality and respect in discussions and actions are consistent with the position. In general, I prefer to believe that Stewards have to be careful with procedures and rules, but also they must have a nice relationship with users.—Teles «Talk ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 17:16, 27 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
While things certainly changed since I was a steward, I feel well-informed about the changes that happened. I think something I need to get used to are the temporary accounts when using the checkuser tools. However, I guess I will get used to this new thing as well. For the second question, I'd need a fortune-teller's ball. Some points, I personally think might be important, are the own activity level and have there been problems regarding judgement or damaging actions in the past year. If there are no controversial actions, it will usually be about activity level. -Barras talk 16:53, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I think the difficult aspect is using Checkuser, as I don't have any experience in using it. I will take a look at the CU policy and materials in the internal wikis to learn how to use this tool first, and I will try to use it to address the easiest case first (e.g., long term abuse in which I am familiar). Regarding the criteria to evaluate myself, I will base it on my activity level (whether I can regularly contribute), as well as the opinions from my colleagues and the global community. SCP-2000 02:05, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I think the most difficult aspect for me is learning the ins and out of stewardry that are not written down. There is a large amount of procedural knowledge, that I am not yet familiar with. To tackle this I plan to be careful in extending the areas I am active in while watching carefully how other stewards do things and asking questions if I am unsure. As for evaluating my stewardship after one year I would likely have a good look at the feedback I received. Another criteria is how active I had been as a steward. If I think I am not contributing in a meaningful way I would either up my activity or resign. --Count Count (talk) 16:08, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to take a bit of a unique perspective on this and say there is no one 'job' or 'thing to do' that is the most difficult as a steward. In reality, I find it difficult to sit and not be involved in the flaming pile of shit (excuse my language) that is happening in front of me. It's always been the hardest. You know what the right thing to do is, but policy or the stewards distance themselves from the decisions, and only as a keeper of sorts for the wikis not big enough to be independent, that I have to keep my hands out of their decisions when I feel I could help, or be very careful about what I assist in. My drive has always come from wanting to help people, so to be asked to sit out is hard. But I had enough happen within my first round of being a steward to understand that communities will, for the most part, get on their own right path, and that it's part of the growth process they need to have in being a community - otherwise they don't have the independence to be able to call their progress theirs. It often reminds me of the prime directive in Star Trek and how it is debated time and time again as the best, yet the worst tool all in one. That is where implementing a strategic vision, as noted in my statement, is my coping mechanism. Essentially, it comes to how can I make it easier for others, instead of involving myself in the change of others.

In terms of evaluating if my term was successful, or would it continue to be successful, is the better question; it would purely be about activity - visible and invisible - in the areas I promised to work. Barring any major controversy, of course. There are times when success can't be measured by the distance travelled, but instead by the journey taken. So my answer would fall into 'by the extent of the journey taken', which has aspects of growth, time being involved and how helpful I am being. -- Amanda (she/her) 02:41, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I do not have a clear answer for the first question. Perhaps VRT since I used it only a handful of times? On the other hand having checkuser rights on slwiki and becoming one before introduction of temporary accounts is good since I am familiar with the tools provided. The most important obstacle in the next year is whether I will obtain the procedural knowledge needed, as there are a lot of processes and quirks that need to be accounted for when performing certain tasks. For self-evaluation in potential stewardship elections next year I'd look back and see at the feedback that was provided to me. Was I too sloppy at some actions, were any actions deemed controversial by a majority of users, did I gained enough experience to proficiently utilise tools of the stewardship toolbox, how my actions impacted the project(s)? There are many questions to consider, some more, some less, and much of it depends on the circumstances when the next election circle begins. --A09|(pogovor) 12:29, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Home wiki identification

As usual, please identify your home wiki(s). — regards, Revi 19:07, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

At this time, I would consider my home wikis to be the Simple English Wikipedia and Wikidata. Ternera (talk) 21:41, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

For the purposes of the homewiki rule, enwikivoyage and enwikibooks. //shb (t • c) 22:55, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

English Wikipedia and Hindi Wikipedia. – DreamRimmer ■ 12:13, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Portuguese Wikipedia. And... can we say Meta?—Teles «Talk ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 13:27, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

en.wikibooks, en.wikinews, Meta-Wiki, Wikimania Wiki and mediawiki.org Leaderboard (talk) 18:30, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

أتواجد في ويكيبيديا العربية وويكي بيانات وكومنز وهذه مشاريع أعتبرها رئيسية أحرر فيها واتفاعل مع نقاشاتها.--Mohammed Qays (talk) 09:59, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Slovene Wikipedia.--A09|(pogovor) 22:34, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Italian language Wikipedia. --M/ (talk) 06:16, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
English Wikipedia. -- Amanda (she/her) 08:29, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Simple English Wikipedia and Meta mainly. -Barras talk 14:17, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Chinese Wikipedia. SCP-2000 14:56, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
German Wikipedia. --Count Count (talk) 15:17, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
French Wikipedia. — Baidax ^💬 14:55, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Officially CentralAuth says my home wiki is the French Wikipedia but I have more edits (by far) and I'm more active on 3 other projects: Wikidata, Commons, French Wikisource. Just to be safe, I'll refrain from use my steward rights on all these 4 wikis. Cheers, VIGNERON * ^discut. 18:40, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Dealing with fatigue and frustration

Steward work can be stressful and involve dealing with conflict and abuse regularly. How do you make sure that fatigue or frustration doesn't affect your decisions over time? --Saroj (talk) 18:18, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Burnout is certainly a concern every steward should take into account. Personally, I would continue to take wikibreaks if I feel burnout setting in. As for conflict resolution; when I have a disagreement with someone online, I try to take a walk outside to clear my head or do something offline for a while before replying. It can be easy to make bad decisions in haste and there is value in taking time to think about a response. Ternera (talk) 20:25, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It's not that often I've had burnout on-wiki (more often than not, it's irl burnout leading to my Wikimedia activity to increase), but if I do start to feel this, I would probably just start to take more regular wikibreaks, or go back to contributing travel content on Wikivoyage. I'll admit I used to sometimes get very heated in disagreements (though rarely affected my decision-making), but nowadays I've come to accept that most disagreements are simply not worth the mental exhaustion and completely step back or avoid situations that lead to frustration in the first place. //shb (t • c) 23:16, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Special:UserLogout. Leaderboard (talk) 18:30, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Stewards do a lot of work, mostly tiring and thankless. It is quite easy for anyone to feel fatigued if they spend too much continuous time on it. I know that stewards regularly face abuse from LTAs, something I have experienced many times during global patrolling. Speaking about myself, I have rarely faced burnout, and I continue my regular activities with the same level of energy, though I did feel low for a few days after failing an RfA on enwiki, but I still carried on with my normal work. Many people get demotivated or even quit after a setback like an RfA failure, but I was able to take a short break, reflect, and return with the same commitment. I care about the movement and genuinely want to help, regardless of what exact role I hold. In situations involving LTA abuse, I do not engage with trolls; I report or block when needed and then move on. In disputes, I always assume good faith and try to act in the most helpful way possible. I believe that when ego is kept out of the process, frustration does not build up, and I follow the same approach in my work. When dealing with conflict or abuse, I stay calm, and if needed, I log out from the wiki and spend some time on real life activities. I also avoid sitting and editing continuously for long hours, follow a schedule, and return with a fresh mind. I have received advice from experienced users like BRPever, MdsShakil, Novem Linguae and MPGuy2824, and it has helped me a lot in improving my approach. I have also seen EPIC doing excellent work with the same energy and have spoken with them multiple times to understand how they avoid burnout. – DreamRimmer ■ 19:03, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
أجد العمل في مشاريع ويكيميديا هو راحة ولا أجد أي إرهاق في ذلك، على العكس تماماً فأن العمل في مشاريع ويكيميديا هو في فترة راحتي وفراغي وأنا اعتبره مثل الهواية التي أمارسها كل يوم. لكن ربما يحدث ارهاق في حياتك اليومية، وهذا يمكن تداركه بأخذ وقت كافي ومراجعة دقيقة والبحث حول أي موضوع بشكل مفصل ودقيقة، وإن شاء الله لن يكون هناك خطأ أو أي تأثير سلبي. مع التحية.--Mohammed Qays (talk) 09:56, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Although I often deal with cases that can lead to increased fatigue it’s always best if you’re active in multiple areas, that way you can switch between different activities while keeping your general activity. There are always things to do, especially on small wikis, so the possibilities are endless. Another valuable advice is to take any disagreement slowly and provide calm replies so the situation does not get blown out of its porportions, esentially keeping your stress levels low. Sometimes though, it’s just easier to temporary cease certain activities, we’re all volunteers.--A09|(pogovor) 23:03, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I have already covered this role and I am quite confident in being able to determine whether I need a pause or I can continue doing things with commitment. --M/ (talk) 06:21, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I have been there... The way I found was step away when needed. I am glad that Steward work still allows you to work with flexibility, so one can, for instance, have moments of higher engagement, along with intervals with lesser engagement. With more experience, you can foresee when you are becoming stressed out and step back for a while before reaching symptomatic conditions like burnout. When we become less patient, intolerant, easily irritated, it definitely interferes on your judgement, and it's time to leave the work for others, and then recover, get back and help while, perhaps, will be the time for others to take a break as well.—Teles «Talk ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 17:25, 27 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I’ve done this work before, so I know when to step back. If I feel fatigue or frustration, I pause and revisit the case later with a fresh mind. It's also useful to seek a second opinion from another steward on borderline or sensitive matters, stick to documented evidence and policy, and recuse when needed. These habits help keep decisions calm, consistent, and fair over time. -Barras talk 14:26, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Take some regular breaks. If I feel stressed, I will have a cup of tea, take some rest and shift to other real-life stuff. SCP-2000 15:00, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I have infrequently taken short wikibreaks before and will do so again if the stress level gets too high. Sometimes just logging off for the rest of the day is enough for a fresh perspective on the next day. Regularly talking to other wikimedians also helps keeping me level-headed. Viewed from the other side I think it is important to be available as a sounding board to others and generally try to encourage them when they are feeling frustrated or fatigued. --Count Count (talk) 15:48, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The answer in the above question outlines how I struggle with things like fatigue and frustration, but the answer is also contained there too, in that I find something to do that helps out others - not just that helps me. Once I have minimal things to contribute, it's time for me to step down and find a new role. That didn't happen last year, life simply got in the way, but when it does happen, that will be my point to step down. Of course, the other part of the answer if we are talking about the walking away side is I have plenty in my life to do outside of Wikipedia should I need to really just step away before making a post. -- Amanda (she/her) 02:50, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The honest answer may sound somewhat blunt, but I consider myself resilient in real life when it comes to both fatigue and, in particular, frustration. I strive to exercise sound judgement even when this means acting against users I may know well, including people I have met offline, in order to reach the fairest possible decision. That said, my main constraint is not emotional strain but the time taken by my parallel commitments within and beyond the Wikimedia movement, particularly in community development. I therefore aim to contribute meaningfully without treating the role as a full-time position requiring constant availability. I am also comfortable taking the necessary time to assess situations carefully rather than rushing decisions. Finally, I strongly value the collegial nature of steward work: with an unlimited number of seats, it is essential to have a sufficiently broad and trusted group of stewards to support one another, share availability, and seek peer input whenever there is uncertainty. — Baidax ^💬 15:03, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Everyone has ups and downs. I know when I'm close to doing to much and I believe in the strength of the collective, I know that (if elected) I won't be the only steward out there. Cheers, VIGNERON * ^discut. 19:26, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus determinations and rights assignments

Hello all. I have two questions for the collection of the candidates:

The first: Hopefully before deciding to run for stewardship, everyone has probably had a look through at least some of the consensus discussions at places like SRGP, and in many of the SRP requests and such. How would you, as a steward working through these requests, determine if consensus exists in favor of or against a request?
The second: There are occasionally requests for the assignment of the CAPTCHA exemptions global user group made at SRGP. What criteria should be used by a steward reviewing such a request for whether it should be granted, or marked as not done?

Thank you in advance. EggRoll97 (talk) 09:30, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

For question 1: the most important aspect to factor in when determining consensus is that raw vote numbers do not tell the full picture. A request may have 15 support !votes and 5 oppose !votes, but if those five oppose comments present stronger, well-reasoned, and policy-based arguments, theere is no consensus (which is distinct from consensus against) and the request would fail. Consensus in favour and consensus against are a lot more straightforward to determine as usually both the votes and arguments sway more on one side.

For question 2: this is a tricky one, and one where practice is seldom consistent. CAPTCHA exemption requests aren't votes in the first place, but many seem to garner votes (I don't actually blame anyone for this, there is nothing visually noticeable mentioning this). As for the criteria, I'm of the personal belief that anyone with visual impairments and has a reasonable cross-wiki edit matrix should be allowed to request it, but this also doesn't seem to be consistent with current practice which seems wildly inconsistent (including whether it should be assigned temporarily or indefinitely). As practice seems to be rather inconsistent and not well-documented, I would likely not assign this permission without discussing it with other stewards at the very least. //shb (t • c) 11:56, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the great questions! On SRGP, it is important to remember that requests are not a vote. The closing steward should look at comments and arguments provided by users to determine where consensus leans. There are some excellent resources that I like over at w:WP:CON and Consensus. Requests at SRP should be handled similarly, and I would follow the minimum voting requirements, being careful not to grant administrator permissions if there are oppose votes and if no discussion about the vote(s) took place at the request.

CAPTCHA exempt can be a tricky user right. There are a few rationales for granting the right at CAPTCHA exemptions, such as sight impairment or global image replacement. Requests with rationales such as these should be fairly uncontroversial as long as the user is trusted by the community. Uncontroversial requests like these could probably be handled quickly, but I believe that it still would be good to discuss the request with experienced stewards first before closing it since this can be a confusing permission. Ternera (talk) 14:45, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your questions. 1) I have been participating in SRGP request discussions for a long enough, and as we all know, permission requests are discussions and not votes. On many occasions, I have asked relevant questions to requesters to keep request discussions focused. As I mentioned in my statement regarding my work on SRP, I have continuously monitored this steward venue for over sixteen months and manually archived processed requests. During this time, I have closely observed requests, reviewed linked discussions, and seen how stewards assess consensus. If elected as a steward, I would look for policy-based arguments and consider whether any concerns raised have been adequately addressed. MVR provides helpful guidance on how stewards are expected to exercise their discretion when reviewing requests at SRP, and I would follow a similar approach. In cases where consensus is not clear, I would seek input from other stewards. Bolded comments with support, oppose, or neutral are normal on SRGP requests, but when closing these requests, I would give more weight to policy-based arguments and well-founded concerns than to bolded votes. 2) CAPTCHA exemption permission is only assigned to users who have demonstrated a genuine need for it. There are accepted rationales for granting this right listed on the CAPTCHA exemptions page, but I have noticed that most requests are declined because other workarounds, such as the Global SUL script, resolve the issue. I would check whether the user is active across multiple wikis and has been facing CAPTCHA related problems, and whether other solutions like the Global SUL script have failed to address them. If so, I would consider granting the permission for a temporary period, which should be sufficient for the user to become autoconfirmed on those projects. I would leave the request open for a reasonable time to allow comments from fellow stewards or the community before closing it. As most past requests were handled by Xaosflux, I would seek their opinion in unclear cases. – DreamRimmer ■ 17:03, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

For Q1: in general, outside cases where there's clear support/oppose as a whole, and taking the minimum voting rules strictly, it's going to be on a case-by-case situation. This includes things such as (i) checking for potential canvassing or socking, (ii) looking at the arguments presented, if any, and (iii) the total support ratio. If it isn't clear to me for some reason, that's when I'll seek help from other stewards. The main exception is global renamer, for which I'll mainly check if the 80% support ratio is met.

On paper, CAPTCHA requests should be straightforward (close to an auto-grant with a valid reason and no opposition) and it should be unusual for it to take more than a few days (even given the Global SUL suggestion). The reality doesn't seem to be the case, as it seems that stewards are scrutinising such users more than what should be needed given the permission that is being asked for. It could be (i) stewards don't like to handle such requests (in which case I should be able to close them much faster than is currently the norm), (ii) stewards have internally decided to hold such requests/refer for further discussion (in which case I'll need to check the discussions) or (iii) a certain steward is interpreting things differently (in which case I'll need to check with that steward as to why that's the case). Leaderboard (talk) 17:23, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

For consensus based processes I’d proceed on arguments points, as most users sadly take these processes as votings. Majority of requests are quite straightforward, others would likely need internal stewards discussions – especially if voters presented good, policy based arguments both pro and contra the requester. Another SRP technicality is to follow minimum voting requirements, and IMHO any steward should also respect local community decisions, their needs and formed consensus.

CAPTCHA requests are a bit trickier to handle, since they aren’t actually a vote (per se, there are no no voting reminders emplaced there). Regulation is clear, and I’d make an evaluation whether user needs the exemption or could the problem be solved otherwise (ie. via global SUL scripts etc.). Since I have been involved in similar problems in the past when there is no viable solution with currently provided tools I’d likely grant permission temporarily, that should allow the user to become autoconfirmed in the meantime. If I was unsure I could always consult with other stewards or archived request to see similar requests and how they were managed in the past.--A09|(pogovor) 23:10, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

في ما يخص السؤال الأول يتعمد على طرح الموضوع والأدلة المقدمة، أي حسب ما يقدم من أدلة وحجج واضحة ولا يكفي موضوع التأييد أو الرفض وحده وأتفق مع ما طرحه الزميل @SHB2000: الذي أجاب بكل تفصيل عن الجواب الأول.

في ما يخص السؤال الثاني، أفضل مناقشة الموضوع قبل تنفيذ أو رفض الطلب، وأيضا حسب طبيعة الطلب إذا كان يتناسب مع المبررات المذكورة في الصفحة.--Mohammed Qays (talk) 09:30, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

After re-reading Steward policy and remembering that Stewards do not override consensus, I'd weight with a particular attention all the reasoning behind supports and opposes. Usually, problematic candidatures receive a good degree of attention, with trusted users highlighting and motivating their cons and it is quite uncommon that users with several failed requests or trust issues are not spotted by the active community. A different approach is needed when requests come from small projects, in these cases I'd follow the minimum voting policy and if in doubt (e.g. forum shopping, canvassing, multiple accounts, etc) I'd run a checkuser and/or ask other fellow Steward that might have interacted with that wiki community. For CAPTCHA exemptions requests, if it is not a clear-cut case, I'd ask for clarifications or for a second opinion. --M/ (talk) 18:28, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Let's try some general criteria.
- To answer the first one, I would put in questions:
  - Is this right the proper one to provide support or solution for the problem/necessity required? - many times, users request tools that won't solve their issue, which is commonly pointed out in discussions. For instance, requesting CAPTCHA exemption because one of your edits triggered a global abuse filter and you need to edit a certain page.
  - Is this user trusted enough for the level of trust this right requires? - that can be seen by comments from other regular editors, previous edits, local rights, previous community voting processes the user passed or not.
  - Has this user demonstrated the ability, as shown by their previous actions, to use the tool effectively?
- As for the second question, and following the criteria above:
  - Is it really a CAPTCHA issue, or is there another issue hindering the editing process? Is it local, so it could be better dealt by giving local rights?
  - The groups only provides skipcaptcha, so we should not require a higher level of trust. If not a bot, not a spammer, requiring CAPTCHA is out of its original idea.
  - CAPTCHA exemption does not require technical ability per se.—Teles «Talk ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 18:01, 27 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
For Question 1: For the SRP requests, I will consider if the voting has happened on the suitable pages, has a suitable voting period, has proper notice to the community, the number of votes and the ratio of support & oppose (i.e. determine if it meets SRP/MVR and local policies); and arguments (especially red flags which suggest they are not fit for that role). Furthermore, I will also check if there is any inappropriate and obvious behavior during the voting (e.g. canvassing). If there is doubt, I will discuss with other Stewards to see how we can handle this situation. For the SRGP, I will handle it in similar ways, excluding the pages, voting periods, and notice to the community; these factors are only mentioned in MVR.
For Question 2: I will consider if the issue can be resolved by Global SUL, as well as if there is any strong reason to support it (e.g. sight-impaired, maintenance work). Personally, I am not quite familiar with it, so I will discuss with other Stewards before I grant this permission. SCP-2000 03:00, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Consensus at SRGP/SRP isn’t a simple headcount. I weigh policy-based reasons and evidence (diffs/logs), consider scope and risk, allow time for broad input, and discount canvassing or drive-bys. I'd close when arguments clearly converge; if not, I extend, or mark not done without prejudice. In doubt, it's generally a good idea to consult with other stewards, especially if it's not a clear cut case. For global CAPTCHA-exempt, I'd grant only with a documented ongoing need (false positives, accessibility, legitimate high-volume work), a clean track record, and preferably a time-limited/task-scoped grant. Otherwise, especially for vague requests, new accounts, or local issues, I'd not grant the right. -Barras talk 15:16, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
At the end of the day, SRGP or SRP requests have their own criteria for each role or permission, so I can't use a paintbrush without painting an entire city. When I sit down to review a discussion, I simply look at the existing framework in policy to see if/where my judgment comes into play, and when it does come into play, I process things on the strength of argument. I don't mean which side I agree with, just strength in argument. I don't leave this short to sound like I'm above answering - if you have a more specific question, I'm happy to answer in an individual question or on my talk page, but trying to answer further would result in a several paragraph answer for one question, because the terms of each request vary. As far as the second question, "bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy" comes to mind. It's as simple and as complicated as is there a logical reason to grant it, and I don't think it should be more complicated than that. -- Amanda (she/her) 03:06, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Since the first question is specifically about consensus determination I will focus on that and assume that it is request where voting is necessary and that the minimum voting requirements for the role have been met. I would start with checking the votes for evidence of vote-stacking and votes of completely new users. If everything is alright on that front I would look at overall consensus. Some votes are completely uncontroversial (many votes, almost no oppose votes, no real concerns raised in the oppose votes). In others it is clear that there is no consensus (much valid opposition, clear trust issues, missing experience). In the area between I would look closely at the actual comments and see for example how they address the requirements for the position and form an opinion based on that. I would also check the candidate's track record. In non-obvious cases like this consulting with other stewards is a necessity IMHO. RfPs on smaller wikis with very few votes require more scrutiny of candidate and voters. There is no one-size-fits-all procedure.

CAPTCHA exemption requests are granted based on demonstrated need on a case-by-case basis. Demonstrated need can e.g. be visual impairment or cross-wiki bots doing test edits. There is no vote, though supporting/opposing comments should be taken into account. Since the (auto-)confirmed right on wikis includes captcha-exempt and can (mostly) be reached easily a time-limited grant is usually enough. For cross-wiki recent changes patrolling by trusted users I would recommend User:Krinkle/Tools/Global SUL and only consider a time-limited grant if the user intends to patrol on wikis where auto-confirm requires edits in addition to the four day waiting period (on zhwiki 50 edits are required for example). --Count Count (talk) 11:41, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus can be a funny things. Sometimes it's very obvious but most time you have to read everything, beyond the numbers and even between the lines... Hard to answer in general, each case can be different and it takes time. Again, when in doubt, stawards are not alone and can discuss between themsleves. For the second question, I'm not familiar with this particular point (it doesn't seems to be used very much), I'll trust other stewards to guide me on that. Cdlt, VIGNERON * ^discut. 19:45, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Election process

Do you think the steward election and/or confirmation processes could be improved and, if so, how? Ferien (talk) 15:10, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The election process seems very straightforward to me and I appreciate how it is consistently the same each year for the most part. I tend to abide by wikt:if it ain't broke, don't fix it and I don't see a reason to change something that works well. However, I would support an update to allow global sysops to be eligible candidates (there have been discussions about it in different years).— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ternera (talk) 15:32, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Ternera: Just as a note to this question, global sysops are now included in the candidate criteria (see this year's guidelines), although we have no current global sysops who aren't sysops. EPIC (talk) 16:19, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the note! I read the guidelines a few days before that was added. It's great to see that the election committee took that into account. Ternera (talk) 16:27, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The same question was asked in 2025 (not your fault!), and my answer remains the same. To summarise my answer there, it's fine with the main drawbacks being inflexibility and the elections + confirmations taking longer than what I think is neeeded. Leaderboard (talk) 17:11, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it is my fault because I asked it last year (and even the year before, and the year before that) but thank you for your answer! --Ferien (talk) 17:20, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I have created almost all the required pages and templates for this election cycle, and I have not identified any areas that require further improvement. The current process is well-tested and established, and I do not see a need for additional changes at this time. – DreamRimmer ■ 17:16, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think the SE and SC processes work very well for the most part; however, I wouldn't say it's a flawless system. For one, it requires having candidates to have access to a computer during the last two weeks of January, a time when many people (especially where I live) are still on holidays and may not be available on-wiki, leading to any candidates who might have an interest in running needing to wait for an entire year. This could be solved by having two steward elections during the year, one around August, but on the flipside, that is also more time and resources allocated to what is a reasonably time-intensive election for not a whole lot of benefit. The second is minor, and hasn't really happened in maybe over 15 years (at least from reading past discussions), is that stewards are ultimately the ones who finally decide on the final confirmations, leading to the possibility of community consensus potentially being overruled; this isn't as huge of a concern as I might make it seem, though (mainly because it is an expectation that stewards understand what consensus is and interpret it correctly). //shb (t • c) 22:41, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Current stewards elections are well organised apart from the filing process, which is somewhat confusing as it practically ends with #Prerequisites unless I am missing something. While we could potentially include voting through SecurePoll which would provide more anonymity (especially in cases where users could face retaliation), I think they are clerked well enough and the toxicity has not yet reached levels of pre-reform enwiki requests for adminship. While having elections for two weeks is suboptimal regarding computer accessibility, it’s IMHO necessary to properly vet every candidate, afterall it’s the most profound user right someone could get in the Wikimedia sphere.--A09|(pogovor) 23:24, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Apart from election templates and translating statements, the process is transparent and nothing is left to improvisation. I'd just shorten it a bit. --M/ (talk) 07:03, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's just fine as it is. It seems to be working smoothly has been years, and I have never seen anyone to point out an issue that would potentially impact the results. It is well advertised, we have opportunity to make questions, and vote. I would first think of an issue and then a solution for it.—Teles «Talk ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 18:06, 27 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
لا أشجع على تعديل طريقة الانتخاب أو التأكيد، فأجدها على وضعها الحالي جيدة ومناسبة.--Mohammed Qays (talk) 15:11, 30 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

As a voter the amount of information in candidate statements and questions can be a bit daunting, in particular with many candidates, but there is no good way around it. Filing the application was straight-forward. --Count Count (talk) 15:34, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There are things that could and should be improved. The first thing is, that I'd remove the rather generic questions for all candidates part. I don't think those questions are really helpful for anyone. They just consume time of all involved parties. It doesn't make sense to have everyone answering the same question. Often, all candidates write pretty much the same just in different words. It would make more sense to ask specific questions if there are any. Maybe it would make sense to limit candidate statements, questions, answers, just everything to a certain number of words. Voters will most-likely not review the massive wasteland of texts which is produced during the process. Another point is the open balloting. We've been doing this now for many years and there have been discussion about this. I have no idea if it would be better using secure poll for steward elections, but it might be worth thinking about it. I see adnvantages on both sides. -Barras talk 17:10, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I think the election process looks fine to me. As there are more votes using SecurePoll and it works more smoothly, perhaps we can discuss if there is any need to use it? Just my two cents. SCP-2000 03:04, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
My quirk with how steward elections are run is that it's a 43-ish day process, and we only run one a year. It feels cumbersome for candidates to come forward in the first place or for those who have stepped down to wait until February to resume work. The English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee elections are only 29 days. The rest of the wikis usually decide permission holdings in a 1 week, maybe 2 week period. The reason why it isn't ran a second time each year is because of how big it is to organize and the time commitment it takes out of candidates waiting to know if they are selected. I don't know what makes steward elections special. I get it, it's a global encompassing role that easily causes damage. But I think there is such a thing as thinking about your vote too much - or if you are busy enough and feel like the elections are important enough, you will take the time to vote. I've missed out on discussions that I feel I would be good to contribute to simply because I didn't prioritize them, and that's something on me, and does not mean it should be extended. Even the voters have to wait that time to understand who will lead them into the next year, and what the next 8 months will look like. To be clear, I'm not advocating for dropping it to a week or two, but 43 days seems way too much of a burden on everyone involved. -- Amanda (she/her) 03:23, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
That's sufficient. However, from a technical standpoint, I have always found it unfortunate that our projects are made up of patchwork solutions with templates instead of having more appropriate pages where one would only need to fill out a form. From an electoral perspective, a form that would ensure anonymity seems fairer to me, given the very human bias sometimes found in Wikimedia votes to align with the majority vote. — Baidax ^💬 17:44, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Seing the answers above, I don't have much to add. Maybe more/better communication with local community to gather more candidates (but some people are already complaining there is too much candidates) and voters. Cheers, VIGNERON * ^discut. 19:50, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

GSR

If you are all elected, will you continue to serve at the global sysop request until more global sysops are elected? I ask this because many active global sysops are candidates for stewardship (you can safely ignore this if you're not one), and there will be a lot of busy areas for you to manage as steward.🪶-TΛNBIRUZZΛMΛN (💬) 04:27, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I can't say anything with 100% certainty, but at this point I will continue to serve GSR, though the rate of requests I'll handle might decrease by a little bit. It's also possible that it decreases if more global sysops are elected in the future, hard to say exactly at this point in time. //shb (t • c) 06:53, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I have previously seen stewards active in spam removal of some spambots, so yes, I will still perform global sysop duties, perhaps to a lesser extent than now due to other steward-related venues and backlogs.--A09|(pogovor) 11:18, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
My activity at GSR may get lower, but I would still plan to help with backlogs there. I believe some steward/GS activities will cross paths as well. Ternera (talk) 14:15, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I guess those actions that are specific for GS may reduce a little and become intertwined with the role of Steward. I am probably spending some more time with spambots and locking, but, since I am still going to be focusing on countervandalism, I am probably performing GS-specific actions, just like acting as a renamer.—Teles «Talk ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 14:33, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I will continue assisting there as long as it is needed and feasible alongside my other responsibilities. – DreamRimmer ■ 16:30, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I think I am going to remain sufficiently active doing GS activities, especially in UTC+1 morning and day. --M/ (talk) 07:05, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I know I'm exempt from this question, but even if so, I'm happy to assist if anything goes backlog or needs more urgent attention with simply being poked. -- Amanda (she/her) 08:30, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I have not been very active at GSR recently but I am ready to help if there is a backlog. BTW: I am currently developing a tool to provide a filtered version of Global sysops/Speedy delete requests which only includes requests of spam/test/vandalism categories. --Count Count (talk) 14:38, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Case judgment question

Yes, this is the question of the year you've been waiting for(ofc, the candidates may not think that way). Anyway, you saw this request while browsing SRGP. Could you please explain in detail how you would address this request and why you would do so? This is a hypothetical case, not a real-world one. There is no definitive answer to this question; it's intended to see how you decide and explain it.

Global rollback for Sotiale

Status: In progress

Global user: Sotiale (edits ^(alt) • CA • global groups • crossactivity • verify 2FA)

Not ending before 23:59, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

Hi. I'm an admin of sotialewiki and have performed over 60 global undos. Although I may seem inexperienced, I'm confident I can handle this role. Please help me expedite my anti-vandal efforts. Thank you. 00:00, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Support --Fairylove (talk) 00:15, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Support Good user. --I am Dobby the house elf (talk), 00:37, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Support Why not? --Fairy of Joy (talk), 01:51, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Support They are dedicated admin on sotialewiki. They will also do well in global activities. --Fairy of the Hearth (talk), 01:51, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Neutral Their activities seem insufficient, IMHO, because their activities are concentrated within a 2 months. --善良的精灵 (talk), 02:11, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Support They are trustworthy user. --The nectar-drinking fairy (talk), 07:00, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Oppose I trust them, but I still think they lack sufficient experience. This is a matter of necessity, not just trust. --The Wizard of Oz (talk), 09:47, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Oppose per The Wizard of Oz. --Dorothy Gale (talk), 14:11, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Support Hmm, I thought about it a lot, but I support it because my impression of it was positive. --Sunshine Rollbacker (talk), 18:53, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Support Since he is a local admin, I think we can trust him to use this tool. --Meta Meta User (talk), 22:53, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Support per Meta Meta User. --Neutral being User (talk), 05:13, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Neutral I'm not sure if there's enough global activity.. --Champs-Élysées (talk), 11:56, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Oppose per The Wizard of Oz. --Potsdamer Platz (talk), 17:44, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Support --Hampton Court (talk), 03:19, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Support --Fairy who loves fairies (talk), 15:36, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Fairylove, I am Dobby the house elf and Fairy of the Hearth are all admins of sotialewiki.

Fairy of Joy, The nectar-drinking fairy and Fairy who loves fairies are all editors of sotialewiki and have edit counts of more than 500.

Other than the users mentioned above, no other users regularly edit sotialewiki.

4 users, Fairylove, I am Dobby the house elf, The nectar-drinking fairy and Fairy who loves fairies have edit counts of more than 100 on metawiki.

I am Dobby the house elf, The nectar-drinking fairy and Fairy who loves fairies mainly contribute translation-related content on metawiki, and do not participate in discussions or make talkpage edits.

The Wizard of Oz, Sunshine Rollbacker and Meta Meta User are all global rollbackers. The Wizard of Oz is also a global sysop.

善良的精灵 and Dorothy Gale have experience participating in global activities, but do not have any flags. They have over 200 edit counts including discussions.

Champs-Élysées, Potsdamer Platz and Hampton Court are occasionally participate in RFCs or meta discussions.

Assume there are no issues with start and end times.

Assume that a decision to extend the period is not possible.

Do not respond by saying you will discuss it with other stewards, but rather assume that you have to make the decision.

Thank you for your application and dedication. --Sotiale (talk) 16:27, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Note: it seems to be too early, you say "Assume no issue etc.", but I usually follow meta.wiki rule "do not close early". Let's anyway make some math in order to have some idea in case I'd close that after midnight. There are 13 users taking part in this request and the net support percentage is above 75% (76,92). Consensus seems solid to me, especially since opposition (3 with 23%) have only espressed an "experience problem" and not serious issues, nor a lack of trust. This permission does not require additions checks (2FA, Privacy etc). So, after waiting for the stated timeline, I'd assign the rights. --M/ (talk) 17:22, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for sharing this thought-provoking request, Sotiale! Before looking at votes, I believe it is important to go in remembering the Global rollback policy, which says, For consideration, users must be demonstrably active in cross-wiki counter-vandalism or anti-spam activities (for example, as active members of the Small Wiki Monitoring Team) and make heavy use of revert on many wikis and SRGP, which says, Stewards will determine whether consensus exists; when doing so it is likely that the weight given to the input of those involved in cross-wiki work will be most influential. Both of these can be helpful to remember when closing GR requests.

The request above has input from a variety of users; some are globally involved in different ways and others are only involved locally. There are around four support votes (without much input) from users who are only active on sotialewiki; some with more advanced permissions than others. However, it appears that most are not active on a global scale. There are also a few "per" votes which do not add any further input. These would not be factored into the decision since they are only votes.

Looking at the rest of the input, we are left with four supports, two neutrals, and one oppose which make arguments for their sides. Most of the support that remains is from users who are trusted globally and neutral comes from some users who are not as involved. The oppose is from a highly-trusted user and even has some that vote oppose "per" them, but consensus from other users with advanced permissions leans towards support in my opinion and I would close it as "done" if I needed to make a decision. Ternera (talk) 17:39, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Ooh, this is a good one. Though somewhat debatable, this request should ideally be closed as not done as there is no consensus to promote in this discussion. There may be far more supporters than opposers in this request, however:

The Wizard of Oz, who is both a global rollbacker and global sysop, has far more experience in this field compared to any of the other users, and also gives a more compelling reason for why they should not be given global rollback permissions;
The first four users from sotialewiki (three of whom seem to be sysops), as well as The nectar-drinking fairy and Fairy who loves fairies, seem to only support on the basis of OP being an admin on sotialewiki, but the first three plus The nectar-drinking fairy and Fairy who loves fairies haven't made any comments on the candidate's cross-wiki ability;
The fourth user, Fairy of the Hearth, does also make a tangential comment about the candidate's potential for x-wiki work (emphasis on potential), but does not point out to any experience;
善良的精灵 and Dorothy Gale may not have any flags, but they do have experience in this field and thus I would take their concerns into greater consideration;
Champs-Élysées, Potsdamer Platz, and Hampton Court as regulars who participate in such SRGP discussions would also have their voices taken into greater consideration than the sotialewiki editors as they can be expected to know what is expected of a global rollback candidate (Hampton Court's vote here, however, would be discounted as they do not reference anything, it is w:en:WP:JUSTAVOTE);
"per x" !votes aren't necessarily invalid, per se – it could simply mean they agree with the sentiment of what another user has said with nothing else in particular that needs to be mentioned; however, who they are referencing and what point they're referring to is what should be taken into account.

In conclusion, this brings the number of people who are actually discussing the merits of whether the candidate is suitable for cross-wiki permissions down by a considerable amount. The only users who seem to be supporting based on actual merit are Sunshine Rollbacker, Meta Meta User and Neutral being user (2x GRs who know what to expect from a GR candidate and another user who agrees with one GR). That's the same number oppose votes (1 from a GS, and 2 from other users who agree with that GS), as well as two neutral votes, also concerning the lack of activity. With only three users supporting based on cross-wiki merit and also the same number opposing for the lack of it, it is very safe to say that there is no consensus to promote at that time.

//shb (t • c) 22:59, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

First: as a voter I'd have a different reaction as compared to someone who needs to close the discussion. As a voter I find barely a reason, and the comments aren't that much better. So if I were to vote, I would use a standard template asking the user for a rationale. And I cannot use CentralAuth either, since the requester is apparently "Sotiale" itself. Anyway, now back to the question. As a steward, I have to keep my personal feelings aside and look at the merits itself. The feeling I get is that most of the information provided in the question is irrelevant. Yes, there's a group of opposers which say that they need to have more experience, but that in itself is not sufficient grounds to close as no consensus even taking the profile of the opposers into account. And crucially, it's not like it's only new users or socks that have supported the user (editors in sotialewiki do count, even if I don't always agree with the reason for their supporting this user). While a few people did support with no reason, that doesn't mean that their votes have no value. So I'll consider this as sufficient consensus and grant the request. It should be noted that in reality, I would have asked a question asking for a rationale, and have the deadline extended for another steward to review (both of which are disallowed by the question). Leaderboard (talk) 07:01, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, sorry for a late response. Had to gather some thoughts (and make sure to not confuse all faires, which remind me of certain real users :) ). I believe this case could be closed either way as long as a justification for the closure is published as well. I understand this is a hypothetical example, but there is almost no argument based discussion going on (where in normal processes such users would get called out for lack of experience), it's mostly just a pure vote so there is not much to work with. Me personally would not grant global rollbacker rights due to multiple reasons. Global rollback policy states For consideration, users must be demonstrably active in cross-wiki counter-vandalism or anti-spam activities and 60 edits/2 months (or one single revert/day) are a clear example of WP:NOTNOW, which is also historically backed up with certain GR requests (even by users who have admin rights) due to too low crosswiki activity even if their competence had not been questioned. Another reason to not grant stems out of votes itself: votes of users that participate in global anti-vandalism (global rollbackers and global sysops) hold a greater consideration, they made solid oppose/neutral votes – I agree with SHB2000 that "per user" votes should not necessarily be discarded. A significant part of voters have not yet participated (much) in Metawiki discussions – and some votes (especially those of sotialewiki editors) do give off an impression they are supporting the candidate purely for their role as an admin. While admin rights indicate trust and general competence, they are somewhat different from competences of global rollbackers, so the sole reason of having adminship is not an indicator of being able to undertake global rollbacker rights. To sum it up after considering votes we have two supporters (Meta Meta User and Neutral being user), which are globally active as GRs. On the opposition we have a vote from a global sysop, two additional supporters of him and two neutral votes (based on the provided commentary I am interpreting them as {{weak oppose}}). That clearly does not indicate any consensus to promote the user, however I would suggest to keep crosswiki activity and come back in a few months (as per WP:NOTNOW).--A09|(pogovor) 11:32, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to close discussion with no consensus to assign rights. A GR must be trustworthy and have demonstrated experience on countervandalism in many wikis. User has local admin rights ~~and that sotialewiki is full of vandalism~~, so it is likely that they are trustworthy. As for experience, 60 undos globally is not a large number, but still, if the supporters mentioned that they evaluated this user's edits and considered them enough for confirming they have experience, that would be an argument for approval. They don't mention it though. Instead, the opposers mention a lack of experience, which makes sense in the context presented. So far, that would be enough for my evaluation on not assigning the rights as no consensus. However, the question continues with a varied qualification of the candidates, which seems to indicate the potential stance on how each user got to comment on that page or how qualified they are to comment there. That is a less important factor, but could be used in case of suspected canvassing, implied impartiality, or for validating the quality of arguments. Again, they wouldn't be required in this case IMO as I am satisfied with the quality of arguments. I would strongly suggest that this user should get back after a reasonable time after more experience.—Teles «Talk ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 18:26, 27 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

When looking at this request, I would start by considering what global rollback is meant for. It is a practical tool for users who are already doing cross-wiki anti-vandal work and need the permission to carry out that work. So the real question is not whether Sotiale is trusted locally, but whether there is enough evidence of global counter-vandal activity to grant the flag now. While the discussion has demonstrated that the user is without a doubt trusted locally, trust alone is not the deciding factor for this permission. Similar requests were closed as not done where the requester was trusted, but the required criteria for global rollback were not met. According to the global rollback policy, "For consideration, users must be demonstrably active in cross-wiki counter-vandalism or anti-spam activities … and make heavy use of revert on many wikis. They may request access …, providing evidence of this." The discussion has shown that this condition is not met. There are more support comments than oppositions, but SRGP requests are not closed by vote count. What matters is whether comments address the actual requirements of global rollback and whether there are any legitimate concerns. I see there are some "per user" !votes and bolded !votes. I would not discard these !votes, but I would give more weight to !votes that provide detailed reasoning behind their opinion. Many supportive comments come from sotialewiki editors and admins, which shows local trust, but they focus mostly on local reputation rather than cross-wiki work. On the other side, the concerns raised focus on experience and need. The Wizard of Oz points out that the experience is still limited. Other neutral and opposing comments raise the same issue, and the support comments do not show clear evidence of continued cross-wiki activity beyond a short burst of edits. Because of this, I would close the request as not done for now, and encourage the candidate to continue cross-wiki anti-vandal work and return later with a stronger activity record. – DreamRimmer ■ 18:40, 27 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your interesting question:)

Simple statistic: 10 support, 3 oppose and 2 neutral. But of course, it is not the vote.
Fairy of Joy, The nectar-drinking fairy, Fairy who loves fairies, Fairy of the Hearth, I am Dobby the house elf — these 5 users (who voted support) do not actively participate in meta discussions or global activities. I am concerned that they may not fully understand how the global rollbacker works, and therefore, I will not consider their opinions.
According to the Global rollback policy "For consideration, users must be demonstrably active in cross-wiki counter-vandalism or anti-spam activities". Performing over 60 global undos does not seem to determine active in cross-wiki counter-vandalism or anti-spam activities. Therefore, I think Wizard of Oz and others' concern is valid and can be considered.
Although neutral votes do not mean to be against the candidate, I will consider these opinions due to it is not an clear cut case. 2 neutral votes by 善良的精灵 and Champs-Élysées shared the same concern as the oppose votes, which is insufficient global activities. Combined with three oppose votes, I would say there is no consensus to support the candidates to be the global rollbackers.
While I will not promote the right to them, it seems that the only red flag is their insufficient global activities. It is suggested that they can continue to be active in anti-vandalism, and they may gain the trust of others.

SCP-2000 06:18, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I want to be honest: the question doesn’t make much sense to me. The scenario is far from realistic; not because such a vote couldn’t happen, but because the idea that you can’t consult other stewards is implausible. There is almost never urgency in granting global permissions. Even low-level global rights affect all wikis and shouldn’t be rushed. Given that, there are really two options: (1) discuss with other stewards and decide together, or (2) extend the discussion to gather more input. In doubt, I would likely recuse and not close the request at all. On outcomes: this could arguably be closed either successful or unsuccessful. If you ignore neutral votes, support is above 75%, which could be read as consensus. If you include neutrals, support drops below 70%, which argues against granting. Beyond the math, key information is missing. 60 undoes could be a lot if done over a few days (suggesting inexperience), or very little if spread over two years (suggesting low activity). In either case, I would not promote the user. -Barras talk 10:53, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
First I would check that there is no evidence of vote stacking or other election tampering by having a look at the participating users. In the information given for scenario I don't see any evidence of this. Since I am closing and not voting I would not give consideration to the candidate themselves except for checking that there are no red flags. Furthermore closing does not mean that I have to take the background of the voters into account besides giving less weight to completely new users (of which I see none in the scenario). Instead I am focusing on the overall level of support as well as the arguments relating to general trust and the requirements for the position. According to Global rollback to be considered „users must be demonstrably active in cross-wiki counter-vandalism or anti-spam activities“. Numerically the votes are 10/3/2 so slightly over 75% of the S/O votes support the candidate. The overall level of support is (barely) sufficient. No voter brought up missing trust while multiple support votes note that the user is trusted, so that is also not a problem. Finally all of the opposing and the two neutral votes criticize the missing cross-wiki activity while none of the supporting votes with comments took that under consideration. Since this is the central requirement for the position I would deny the request for rollback rights. --Count Count (talk) 08:25, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Good hell, I hope I don't preside over this crappy of a request for permissions in the coming time - and I can say that out loud since this isn't an actual request. The obvious answer to me from the onset - before I took a deep dive to confirm where I would land - is that this has no consensus. I know you are trying to see our thought patterns in doing this Sotiale, so I hope this suffices and that you forgive me for breaking the rule of no consulting with other stewards, because before I dive into how I would determine it, Barras is right that it's not a rush to close and you absolutely should consult with other stewards when something is not clear as day. I think several candidates here have already started to outline my thought process even.

First, Ternera (and others) are right to consult the policy and the permission page to see the context of how the granting is decided. In this case, we need to give more weight to comments about activity cross-wiki and heavy use of the revert tool.
Second, Leaderboard & Count Count are right to consider things that affect the clarity of consensus, like socking or inappropriate notifications of voting. It feels like there could be some just from reading the discussion and without reading the user breakdown. That said, it's not going to affect consensus enough to worry about it here.
Third, would be to apply the context of activity cross-wiki and use of the revert tool on the discussion, and this is where I cringe. "For consideration", the policy says...the person requesting the rights did not explain how they would meet that. Fine, so we move on to the discussion to see if they did for the candidate in case of a language barrier or equivalent. Not one of the supports speaks to the requirement of activity cross-wiki and heavy use of the revert tool. All of the neutrals or opposes do. Whether you give the supports some or no weight has no bearing on the result.
In closing, A09 notes very well in assessing the consensus that "while admin rights indicate trust and general competence, they are somewhat different from competences of global rollbackers" as a general thought. So I don't think this candidate is without merit to run in the first place - this is not a early close as not done.

What I would like to see in a real discussion where I grant permissions is the talk around the relevant criterion on both sides - that's how you get consensus. -- Amanda (she/her) 04:06, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Small wikis

What criteria do you use to determine whether a wiki project should be considered "small"? Beyond your core steward responsibilities, in what ways—if at all—might you support such projects, drawing on your broader, cross-wiki experience? - Klein Muçi (talk) 16:59, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

A general guideline I use to determine whether a wiki is considered small or not is if it meets the global sysop criteria of fewer than 3 active admins or 10 total admins (wikis that don't meet the automatic criteria but have opted into the GS wikiset are not wikis I would consider small). As for how I would support these projects, probably the same as now with my GS tools: anti-vandalism, anti-spam cleanups and also uncontroversial maintenance (including routine deletions), with the key difference as a steward being that I'll have extra lock/global block buttons at my disposal (which I'd count as a core steward responsibility). //shb (t • c) 22:07, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There is no universal definition for what constitutes a small wiki. For the Small Wiki Monitoring Team, the definition is wikis with less than 10.000 articles. The most used small wiki patrolling tool SWViewer has a setting to additionally allow easy patrolling of wikis with less than 300 active users. Global sysops are generally allowed to use their tools on wikis where fewer than ten administrators exist or fewer than three administrators have made a logged action within the past two months. Regardless of being elected to steward I have multiple tools planned to support small wiki patrolling. One is a better list of speedy deletion requests including only those which global sysops are likely to be able to easily decide and the other is a tool to show likely spam link additions for all wikis. --Count Count (talk) 06:23, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
While "small" is often defined by statistics like article count or active editors, I prefer to look at community autonomy. To me, a wiki is small when it hasn't yet reached a critical mass of active, local users to ensure self-governance, neutral balance, and technical maintenance. Beyond my core Steward responsibilities, I believe in empowerment over just enforcement. Drawing on my experience from a large project like it.wiki and my administrative role on Meta, I would support these projects by helping to fix or import essential templates and interface messages that are often the biggest burden for new contributors on smaller projects. Also, assisting local editors in drafting basic, essential policies (like NPOV or Deletion criteria) based on global best practices, so they can eventually handle their own disputes. Finally, since small wiki editors often feel isolated, I intend to be a Steward who doesn't just show up to block a spammer, but stays for five minutes to answer a question or provide guidance on the local Village Pump. --M/ (talk) 07:49, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question on whether a wiki project is "small", and a good example would be to look at the wikis where Global sysops can use their rights. Some medium-sized (and larger) wikis, like my homewiki, are happy to have global sysops, while there are some smaller projects that don't want them. And it's not like stewards won't help larger wikis where needed. So when it comes to supporting projects, the main difference is that smaller projects are less likely to have members that are capable of handling various administrative and technical tasks (for example, importing from an external wiki or assisting with abuse filters, which is something which I've done before), and stewards can also provide best practices and tips to allow them to work effectively (example from another user). It should also be noted that most of these tasks do not need someone to be a steward; global sysops, global interface editor and similar global roles can also help such wikis. That's also why I'm an admin on en.wikinews and Wikimania Wiki. Leaderboard (talk) 09:11, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I think "small" really depends on context rather than a fixed number when we are talking about global patrolling. The global sysop criteria of fewer than 10 admins or fewer than 3 active admins in two months is a useful guideline, but some larger wikis are happy to have global sysops, while some smaller ones prefer to handle things themselves. For me, a small wiki is one that doesn't have enough active contributors to keep up with daily maintenance tasks such as dealing with spam and vandalism, processing routine deletions, or simply having someone available to help with routine maintenance. I am already doing this work regularly, and as a steward I would continue doing the same work while also taking a few extra minutes to help with other tasks. Small wikis often struggle with technical issues that don't actually require steward tools, and I would try to help with those as well. I have also guided users from small wikis in the past on how to request configuration changes and set up gadgets, and I would continue to do so in the future so that they can handle these tasks themselves. – DreamRimmer ■ 12:48, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
When I think of a "small wiki", I generally consider one that falls under the global sysop criteria or one with few to no active contributors. However, it could be open to interpretation based on the person since there every wiki is different. I would continue using tools like rollback and deletion to deal with cases of clear vandalism and spam on these small projects. Ternera (talk) 12:50, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There isn’t a set number of active users, admins, or articles that determines whether a wiki can be considered small. I think it’s generally a mix of how many active people are editing a project and how many admins it has. Article count isn’t a very good indicator on its own. A project can have millions of articles, but if there aren’t enough people to maintain them and patrol recent changes, it could still be considered “small”, at least in regards of active users. -Barras talk 15:07, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Since you mention in the second question that you are looking for beyond steward responsibilities, if you are looking for someone who is here to help expand and grow small wikis, I'm not that person. I think that's the opposite of steward work, which is why we homewikis, so impartiality isn't affected. So it feels simply out of scope for both me personally and for consideration of the steward role. -- Amanda (she/her) 04:15, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I want to make one point of clarification - by opposite, I don't mean working against or that it's not good work to be done to begin with. I was attempting to point out that getting involved in a small wiki, while I already have a large wiki conflict point, would just increase the number of places I would have to recuse for as a steward, and that my skillset lies in middle or large wikis and in support roles, not particularly content roles. I feel like that would put me at odds with my thoughts of how things should work with the local community, and that's not something I want to push on others. -- Amanda (she/her) 16:35, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Small wikis are generally those who belong to GS set with some exceptions, which usually have their own policy on GS rights usage or have otherwise highly active communities. There is no singular, good, fit for all definition – IMHO it's even easier to define what a big wiki is (that it has CU, OS and sometimes ArbCom). I'd act and support local communities not only per my core responsibilities, but with whichever action is best for the given situation (especially speaking from the anti-abuse perspective) if permissible by policies we need to follow. Another point seemingly no one has brought up yet is that every project has some struggles. Here, highly-experienced users (be that stewards/global sysops etc.) can always advice and uncover potential issues on local projects as they have a broader scope and/or experience. At least I am always to hear from folks who deal with anti-abuse matters on best course of taken actions on how to prevent said abuse. What matter most in such cases is to communicate clearly, friendly and not direct local community bodies (most common admins) and these qualities are independent of someone having steward access.--A09|(pogovor) 12:09, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
GS wiki (fewer than 10 sysops OR 3 active sysops), and wikis which have fewer than 10,000 articles (this criteria is mentioned in the Small Wiki Monitoring Team page) can be considered as small wikis. But it really depends on how active the local community is on those wikis and the size of the wikis to determine if they are small wikis or not. If I am the Steward, I will help to handle vandalism and spam, which is the same as what I am doing regularly. SCP-2000 13:46, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Very interesting question. Beyond the simple existing criteria, defining "small" can be a complex matter. If you look just at the raw numbers: 5 highly-active sysops is better than 10 lowly-active sysops ; likewise, 10 sysops for a Wikipedia feels small while 5 sysops on a Wikisource seems big enough. As for supporting small projects, 2 cases come to mind: if the project is new I might try to softly ease the creation (side-remark: going out of the incubator or multilingual Wikisource can be quite different), if the project is not new, I will offer my help (just being there can be reassuring and enough sometimes) and help only if the community ask for it or if it's really needed. I like the quote « teach how to fish rather than to give fish » ; on the long term, it's indeed important to let community grow organically on themselves, but at the same time, if someone is starving right now, then giving them a fish is a better short-term solution (which in practice are not even mutually exclusive). Cheers, VIGNERON * ^discut. 20:40, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
A simple question, but one that directly impacts the work of stewards and can have different types of answers. For a purpose that I don't recall, probably just for the sake of exercising thinking about it, I wrote an unfinished essay in 2011 (that's old and undone - disregard the mistakes) that addressed external interference in small wikis. If I had to pick some numbers, probably a wiki with less than 10 admins, a couple of bureaucrats that may or not be active, no checkuser or oversighter. However, the most important aspect of it has to do with the wiki's self-management capacity than with numbers. How active are the administrators? Do they know how to seek external help if needed? The wiki may be fully functional for local demands, but it may have weaknesses regarding interference from factors more commonly seen in larger wikis, such as LTA, spammers, vandalism in larger scale. The lower the capacity, the more susceptible it is to external offending agents. In most cases, Stewards should focus on non-local actions and think about how they can help editors continue their work in developing the wiki, without having to spend their precious time with maintenance that comes from "external" actions.—Teles «Talk ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 15:46, 10 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Voting versus closing

You've gone to a discussion which is due for closing, with the intent to close it. Under what circumstances would you instead make a vote/comment in the discussion, leaving the closing to others? lp0 on fire () 17:28, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This is a pretty good question, Lp0 on fire! The three main reasons for this I can think of would likely be if a) I think my opinion or voice has the potential to shift the course of the discussion, whether it be any policy insight not yet mentioned in the discussion or just strong views on the matter that would be worth mentioning; b) if I think I am impartial or not in an uninvolved position to close it (whether it may be prior involvement, whatever it may be), I'd recuse from closing and just make a comment as any user; c) there are major misunderstandings in the discussion that would be worth clarifying. The main point here is that in all such scenarios, I am no longer in an uninvolved position to close the discussion and thus would leave it to another steward. //shb (t • c) 23:17, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I will take your mention of the intention to close as unbiased in nature, since it is debatable for a steward that his thinking (or arguments) would prevail over the possible community consensus. I would always leave a comment on closing the discussion, as it is important for other community members to know how I interpreted the consensus and what the possible future consequences are, and especially to cite previous practice and existing rules and guidelines. Of course, leaving strong opinions, votes, etc. comments would make me partial, so it is important not to abuse stewardship. One possible scenario where leaving additional comments or votes would be welcome is, for example, reviving old or dead discussions about deletions, which are common in smaller communities. In such cases, I prefer a thorough discussion with input from community members rather than rushing to close the discussions on the deadline. As SHB already mentioned, it is also good to explain technicalities in case some users might completely miss the point of the discussion, but closing the discussion definitely depends on how much I (would) influence the course of the discussion with my comments. A09|(pogovor) 23:25, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If I come to a discussion with the clear intention of closing it, I would normally avoid adding my own comment, as closers should remain neutral and focus on assessing consensus. I would only comment instead of closing if I realized I had a clear conflict of interest, strong personal views that could affect my judgment, or relevant new information that hadn’t yet been raised. In such cases, I’d add my input and leave the closing to another person to avoid mixing advocacy with closure. -Barras talk 11:48, 9 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If I realise that I am not really neutral or uninvolved, I would avoid closing and just leave a comment. This could be because I have already participated, have strong views on the issue, or there is some other conflict that might affect my judgment as a closer. I would also comment instead of closing if policy or process is being misunderstood, or if important information has not yet been brought up and could change the outcome. In those situations, once my input starts shaping the discussion rather than just judging consensus, it makes more sense to let someone else close it. – DreamRimmer ■ 15:10, 10 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That sometimes happens when the result of discussion is unclear and we need to interfere to try to get from the community what is exactly their opinion on that matter. If I had to comment on a discussion and still keep intention of closing it, I wouldn't engage as an user that are exposing their opinion on agreeing or disagreeing with what is being requested. I would keep my comment on making sure that all gaps are cleared. For instance, if there is an oppose comment, but with no explanation, I could request the opposing user for an explantion on why they disagree with the request. If a fact is mentioned, I would request a diff if needed. If the discussion starts to become heated and getting personal between two users, I would encourage them to stay on the topic. If, however, I engage on the request exposing my opinion on agreeing or disagreeing with it, I wouldn't participate of closure at the same time.—Teles «Talk ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 16:04, 10 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I generally avoid participating in discussions that are nearing a conclusion, particularly if I may be called upon to close them. My priority is to ensure the closer remains a neutral arbiter of consensus rather than an advocate. While Stewards policy rightly preserves our ability to engage as individual users, we must exercise this right cautiously so as not to override the community's voice. Ultimately, maintaining transparency and accountability means ensuring that my personal opinions never provide an obstacle to the collective will of the members. --M/ (talk) 20:20, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Like most people here, I would drop a comment if I feel too strongly. That said, I would go a step further and say that even the appearance of impartiality matters, and if the appearance would be a deterrent to the close, I would not close it. Even if I feel strongly enough to close it, it's extremely rare that I would drop a comment either. The steward role is meant to be a global body that guides communities at best, and constantly getting into the weeds of what we have to close is not a good idea. -- Amanda (she/her) 08:33, 12 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Usually I avoid closing a discussion I have participated in unless it is completely uncontroversial. I also avoid closing controversial discussions I feel strongly about or where it could appear that I might be impartial. If while reading a discussion intending to close I felt that an important point had not been considered or emphasized enough I would comment instead and of course not close the discussion later. --Count Count (talk) 08:41, 12 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The case judgment question (asked by Sotiale) above is a good example. I otherwise tend to comment on cases that aren't "boring" - that is, when there's some actual discussion and it's not just 100% support. If I vote, I would leave the closing to someone else. Leaderboard (talk) 17:17, 13 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

For each candidate

A09

In April last year, you and some other cross-wiki patrollers got into a heated situation with a local admin at iswiki, where your attitude was deemed rather confrontational and the situation eventually lead to a U4C case (Universal Code of Conduct/Coordinating Committee/Cases/Snævar). Some similar situations had happened in the past (although not really of this degree), such as at etwikiquote and ttwiki. As a steward, one of your main responsibilites will be assisting local communities, and you will be expected to handle criticism against you, even of the particularly harsh kind (such as what happened previously). What do you think has changed since these incidents and should we trust that something similar will not happen as a steward? EPIC (talk) 07:21, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@EPIC: That incident was caused by miscommunication on my part, which turned into a much bigger problem than it should. I accept the responsibility for my approach that contributed to the outcome. While crosswiki editors can inform the local communities about broader vandalism or abuse patterns, I also understand it could be seen as demanding. Job of doing global anti-vandalism related edits is vital (and hard as well) to the existence of small wikis. Since then I have reflected on the case and what was learned was demonstrated in my unimpeded continuation of crosswiki work and support to local communities without making harsh demands. I changed behaviourally to communicate more collaboratively, listen first, and step back where appropriate, which has been reflected in my subsequent cross-wiki work without similar issues arising. Global sysops are assistants to the communities, and can provide valuable experience in preventing said abuse patterns, like I did on certain other Wikimedia projects when cleaning certain long term abusers in great cooperation from local community members. For more complex cases I could always consult fellow stewards to not act in isolation. I understand that criticism, even harsh, is part of the role, and I am better prepared now to handle it calmly and constructively. --A09|(pogovor) 12:38, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

AmandaNP

Baidax

This user has withdrawn his candidature.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Going through your cross-wiki contributions, I see relatively limited involvement in steward-related tasks. Stewards have access to advanced tools across all Wikimedia wikis (subject to local and global policy restrictions), and are often required to handle complex cases that demand substantial experience and familiarity with these areas. Do you believe you have sufficient experience to manage such tasks?--BRP^ever 11:48, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @BRPever, thank you for your question and apologies for the delayed response. I do not believe that the number of steward-related tasks completed alone defines a good steward. While activity can reflect engagement, access to the tools themselves is what allows one to fully invest in the role and develop long-term experience: much as I did when becoming an administrator on French Wikipedia. What matters most, in my view, is adaptability, the ability to learn quickly, and to refine one's interventions over time. Moreover, roles involving confidential information should primarily be assessed on trust and integrity, rather than purely on technical output, which is not in itself a guarantee of ethical conduct. Finally, my decision to run is also based on the fact that steward elections are not about replacing others in a limited number of seats, but about strengthening a collective service to the community. Having more stewards with diverse profiles improves responsiveness and provides healthy "checks and balances". Best regards, Baidax ^💬 13:50, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Barras

While the core goals of the Wikimedia movement remain the same, the movement itself is constantly evolving. Given that stewards are often consulted on global policy, technical, and security matters, do you believe the role should include term limits on how many years can one serve in this role, or mandatory pauses to better reflect the current community and allow newer contributors a greater voice?--BRP^ever 11:08, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
That’s an interesting question. I hadn’t really thought about it until now. I don’t see a need for mandatory pauses or term limits for the steward role. I also don’t see a problem with new members joining the team while long-term stewards are still around. In fact, I think it’s good to have different perspectives represented. New stewards can benefit from the experience of long-standing team members. In my opinion, steward work is often more technical in nature, which makes term limits less useful. However, I feel differently about other roles like the OC, U4C, ArbComs, etc. -Barras talk 15:41, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Count Count

Case judgment question: You are reviewing a permission request where a user has requested adminship on a wiki. The request has received no votes. However, the user has previously been blocked on two other wikis for abusing multiple accounts. These accounts were used for vote-stacking and attempting to influence the outcome of discussions. No other steward is available for consultation, and you must make an independent decision. While local policy does not explicitly prevent the appointment, similar requests from this wiki have been approved in the past. How would you proceed, and what factors would guide your decision?--BRP^ever 12:00, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting question. For the sake of a complete scenario I assume that the wiki has no local 'crats and that there is no specific local policy for adminship on that wiki. I further assume that the minimum voting requirements for a 3-month temporary adminship are met, in particular that the request has been open for discussion for seven days on the appropriate page in that wiki.

Usually adminship is granted based on community consensus. In very small wikis with very few active users 3-month adminship can be granted even in the absence of any votes. Generally, whenever adminship is granted the community extends their trust in a candidate. In German we have a word for this, namely Vertrauensvorschuss meaning „advance of trust“. So in order to gauge if the candidate can be given this „advance of trust“ their track record needs to be taken into account. If, for example, the blocks happened 10 years ago while being squeaky clean since then and if the candidate's activity on the wiki he requests adminship has been steady for a long time, I would grant the request for a 3-month adminship. On the other hand if the sock puppeting was recent or if there is no track record of continuous activity on that wiki I would not grant this request. I would err on the side of caution here. Admins on small wikis have an outsized position of power as their influence is not held in check by a strong community with established procedures.

In the real world I would of course discuss contentious cases like this with other stewards before making a decision. Count Count (talk) 14:08, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

DreamRimmer

This user has withdrawn their candidature.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

In 2024, you ran unsuccessfully for adminship on the English Wikipedia, your home wiki. Serious concerns were brought by trusted users against your candidacy then, and while it has been some time, it was not addressed in your statement. Stewardship, being the highest-access role, requires the highest standard of community trust and involves working with functionaries from all wikis (including the English Wikipedia). With this in mind, what has changed since your 2024 RfA? Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 21:22, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for bringing this up. I did not include those issues because I believed they had been addressed and demonstrated through my contributions after my failed RFA at enwiki, and mentioning them might have distracted from the rest of my nomination statement. The main concerns raised during my 2024 RfA were related to source-text integrity issues in my GA article, where I cited German sources that were unrelated to the subject, problems with not properly attributing translated articles I created, some hat collecting allegations, and a discussion in which my replies upset another editor. These were fair criticisms and the primary concerns of the RfA. I believe the hat collecting and permission related issues are now resolved, as I do not hold any unused rights, I have resigned some roles on enwiki where they were no longer needed, and all current roles I hold are ones I actively use. Regarding behaviour, I have had no complaints since then, as I have consistently assumed good faith and kept my replies polite, as can be seen in the discussions I have participated in. After the RfA, I fixed the attribution on all my translated articles and have been much more careful about verification since then. I have also mostly focused on maintenance and technical work rather than content creation, as that is where I am more interested. The bigger lesson for me was learning to listen when experienced editors say something matters or suggest waiting, rather than pushing ahead. I have also started focussing on areas that are my strengths, including running three bots that perform important tasks on some wikis, with one active on Meta Wiki, and I have also created several user scripts, tools, and three gadgets. I do not plan to run for another RfA on enwiki anytime soon, but if I do, I will be a maintenance and technical-focused admin candidate.

I understand that stewardship requires even more trust than adminship and I have learned from the issues mentioned above. I leave it to the community to decide whether the concerns from 2024 still remain OR whether my technical work and work in steward areas demonstrate sufficient progress. – DreamRimmer ■ 16:00, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

You were elected a global sysop 8 months ago, a Meta-Wiki admin 6 months ago, and a temporary Hindi Wikipedia admin 2 months ago. In other words, your admin experience appears to span only the last 8 months, and you do not have functionary experience. Stewardship is a considerable step up from adminship, one which benefits from time-tested experience handling complex issues. Do you have cases you would like to point to which demonstrate this experience, or otherwise how would you contextualize this short timeframe from first admin rights to steward elections? Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 21:22, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

My practical experience with tools is around eight to ten months, and I have logged over 5,000 actions as a global sysop across different GS wikis. I have also been quite active as an admin on Meta-Wiki and Hindi Wikipedia since being elected as a sysop. I do not yet have direct functionary experience, but I can point to a couple of recent investigations that required functionary level analysis. In one case, I identified a former LTA who still held sysop rights on several projects along with global rollbacker rights and was running for global sysop at the time. The case involved extensive cross-wiki research and pattern analysis, and the user eventually confessed to the abuse. I believe I handled the matter carefully and respectfully, and I also acknowledge the good work this user has done from current account.

In another case on English Wikipedia, I identified an LTA account with more than 9,000 edits over almost two years that initially appeared to be a legitimate user but was carrying out wide ranging soft disruption by adding false information to hundreds of articles. I reviewed their edits thoroughly, gathered solid evidence for a block, and filed a detailed SPI which resulted in the account being blocked. I understand that these experiences do not replace years of tested judgement with advanced permissions, but they do show that I can handle the complex and sensitive kinds of investigations that stewards regularly deal with. I have also filed many other SPIs, so I am familiar with what CheckUsers can realistically provide and what they cannot, and through my day job I am comfortable with network and IP related matters.

On the oversight side, I have reported more than a hundred of suppressible cases via email, IRC, and Discord, and nearly all of them were acted upon, which reflects my understanding of what qualifies for suppression. I have also spent the last two years observing various steward venues and reports while doing my usual clerking at steward noticeboards, so I am confident that if elected, I would handle matters with care and meet community expectations. I am not claiming that my shorter timeframe does not matter, but I hope these examples show that I am ready for the analytical and judgement related aspects of stewardship. – DreamRimmer ■ 16:00, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Leaderboard

You have previously run unsuccessfully in last year's steward elections, the 2024 U4C election, 2024 special U4C election, and the 2025 U4C election. Your highest support percentage across all of these was ~55%, in last year's steward elections. 80% is required to be elected. Given that you have submitted a very similar statement from last year, and have not addressed in your statement the concerns which had been brought against your candidacy, I want to provide that opportunity. Why should users who've opposed you in the past support you now? Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 19:50, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Vermont This is a two-part answer. Regarding the SE2025 concerns (Stewards/Elections_2025/Statistics says Concerns about understanding of steward practices and local processes, temperament and potential hat collecting.),
- A lot of opposes piggybanked on Johannes' concerns that I was making improper permissions requests. The answer to this is basically that I already figured this one out in 2023 (i.e, by first asking if I can do X before prototyping rather than the other way round), and so all I had to do was this, using a translator if needed. In other words, that's long past.
- Concerns about understanding of steward practices - many of this stemmed from issues raised by EPIC and a few users about how I requested permissions on Korean Wikipedia and for my bot. The answer to this is that I genuinely did not know that wasn't the right way to go about this (evidently studying past requests wasn't enough), and apologised (though I wished I was informed about this earlier). I subsequently made changes to how I request permissions for my bot, and there's been no issues since then (with the bot getting approval on every wiki I requested in 2025).
- potential hat collecting - I have no idea where that came from. In my opinion, that was always false, and continues to be the case (besides U4C, the only public right I applied for was global renamer in 2025).
Now let's turn to U4C, which is a completely different situation at hand. I don't say this lightly, but I think it's a flaw of the U4C system and not a reflection of my calibre. The reasons are:
- The statistics just don't make sense. The mean has always been depressed. With the exception of the 2025 election, the standard deviation has also been unusually low. This means one of two things: either the cohort as a whole lacks competence, or the U4C system is broken. I carefully looked at the first scenario, because I've never seen something like this in my years of being active here. The reality is that I don't think this is the case, given that even a serving Ombud and a past steward didn't do very well either. And what about those who did get in? Only one person crossed the 60s (forget the 80%). The median for SE elections is more than 80% in comparison.
- As a result, while I am not sure if the reason provided by the U4C committee (essentially being too weird) is correct, I think the low support I got in the U4C elections (i) doesn't mean much and (ii) does not mean that I will do poorly in the SE2026 election (i.e, poor correlation). Frankly, if the U4C itself has to raise a cry for extra volunteers saying that they're struggling with the load, that vindicates my point. I guess in hindsight, I shouldn't have tried for the U4C, which is a shame since it's a role I thought I would have been a good fit for.
- (For what's worth, I also looked at every U4C-related public piece of feedback, such as community guides, about me. The worst I've seen were a few people questioning my low support rate.)
Leaderboard (talk) 16:36, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
While I understand why you're summarizing the feedback from the U4C on your non-voting application as "weird" based on a phrase that was used, the majority of the feedback was not on that topic, and the specific feedback was clearly labeled as one U4C member's opinion/advice. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:48, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Barkeep49 So I looked at it again, and I still find myself with a similar conclusion (if not weird, then too different?). Maybe I'm reading it the wrong way, so how would you summarise it? Regarding the "one U4C member's part", I was told that the feedback was agreed amongst the members. Leaderboard (talk) 09:12, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I would summarize it as "Build your social capital" by acting to shed the hat collector label (such as by not running for anything for a while), be careful about going against community sentiment (one part of which is where I think you fairly summarize as weird), and do good work to let people focus on that for a while. Also the line the person used was based on what they'd heard from others and those others shouldn't be read as the same as u4c members. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:57, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think the hat collecting allegations stemmed largely from the WMF-researcher incident. I saw a lot of complaints that you purportedly come up with problems to ask for user rights to solve them, and that case was mentioned as an example of that. JJP_{Mas_ter} (she/they) 16:24, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
If that's the case, then point 1 (i.e, the "improper permissions requests" part) should address it, as I had that incident in mind when writing that point. Leaderboard (talk) 12:50, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
What went wrong with Leaderbot's global reminder bot task, what have you learned from that experience, and have you been able to apply those lessons elsewhere? (I'm specifically asking about the xwiki/global approval process for that task) All the best -- Chuck ^Talk 22:39, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Alachuckthebuck A few notes:
- A few wikis refused the bot - that's not a failure or issue. When deploying a bot cross-wiki, it's natural to have a few wikis that don't want it. With this being about 1% for the bot, I think that's pretty good. I should note this since there were a few people in 2025 that used the reasoning that since the bot was not approved on their wiki, it's "controversial".
- One common "pain point" was navigating the different expectations that each community had when it came to requesting bot approval. Most of these were easy to fix. For example,
  - fr.wikipedia didn't like that I communicated in English and preferred that I use French (using machine translation). Okay, no problem.
  - nl.wikivoyage wasn't happy that I called GRB (global reminder bot) a bot (they preferred the word "service") and complained that I wasn't clear enough with the tasks (despite one of my goals being to make the documentation as clear as possible). Took a bit of back-and-forth, but ultimately was solved to the user's satisfaction.
  - ko.wikipedia expected me to know a process that was not properly documented, which was one part (see the "another major challenge" section) that some users criticised me for in 2025.
- A major frustration I had was being sent on endless stalls with global applications. Eg when I applied for global bot status, it ended up stalling for a long time. I still cannot understand how it was considered acceptable for me to request bot status on hundreds of wikis, many with little to no community just because some hypothetical wiki may not want the task to be run (which as I said above, has been rare), and trying to get clarity wasn't always going to get the result I hoped. I finally had to come up with a workaround that involves the bot polling Wikidata pages to check which wikis might have a "community". What did I learn from this? To try to be the last person in this situation. In other words, help fellow bot owners by clearly explaining why their task should be approved in a global bot/CAPTCHA application (example).
- Another major challenge - and something that ultimately ended up with significant criticism in my 2025 application - was the approach I followed when requesting rights on individual wikis. Now, I didn't start this process blindly - I spent significant amount of time looking at past requests of this nature. My approach was to wait roughly one week (unless the wiki stated a longer time) and if there was no response, I would generally request the flag on SRB, which is something previous bot owners have done. To me, it looked like that was going well - the stewards would either grant approval or themselves ping/email the bureaucrat, which I thought was better since I didn't want to be seen as being demanding to the community. Unfortunately, I learned in my 2025 attempt that this wasn't perceived as correct by some users, with Korean Wikipedia being particularly unhappy. So what I naturally did is adjust the process. First, I lengthened the waiting period from a minimum of one week to at least two weeks (and usually longer). Second, pinging users wherever necessary. In other words, minimise the chances of bringing into Meta. I've had no issues since then.
Coming to your last question ("have you been able to apply those lessons elsewhere"), well not much but (i) I'll use this process if/when I do something like this again and (ii) more importantly, I hope other bot operators find this useful. Leaderboard (talk) 16:50, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Leaderboard. Your bot attracted significant attention during last year’s elections. Given that experience—and assuming the said bot also served to give you deeper exposure to the broader technical communities within the Wikimedia ecosystem—what do you think worked particularly well with it? What did you learn along the way about the differences between these technical communities and their respective cultures or expectations? Could you share a few concrete examples of community-specific quirks you encountered, and how you adapted your approach to handle them effectively? - Klein Muçi (talk) 16:45, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Klein Muçi
- "What worked well"? Two things: (i) the bot is designed for the Wikimedia community. This meant that (a) the bot can easily be customised and adapted to suit each wiki's preference (which many wikis have done) and (b) the barrier to doing so was made as low as possible, so that the bot can be configured with minimal effort (and clear documentation is similarly important). And if wikis don't want to configure, there's a fallback message with a link to translations in multiple language. (ii) Reliability: the bot is designed in such a way that in case of any issues, the bot will cleanly exit and not remind the user. This is to minimise the chances of unexpected messages, which can easily annoy users. And wikis can easily check the log (Global reminder bot/log) to diagnose possible issues (the most common being CAPTCHA) and quickly resolve them without having to check with me.
- "Differences between communities": I've touched upon that in my answer to Alachuckthebuck's answer above. Also see answer to next part.
- "Community-specific quirks": partially answered above, I'll expand in this answer.
  - Some wikis (eg Polish Wikipedia for arbcom and Hebrew Wikipedia for sysop) use temporary rights for reasons that I didn't expect. I would usually let the community know about that and let them decide on whether they want the reminder for such roles or not.
  - Outdated/confusing documentation: many wikis (eg on ru.wikipedia) simply say that global bots can run on the wiki without additional approval but then somewhere say that global bots can be used only to fix double-redirects. The reason is that before 2021, global bots were only allowed to fix double-redirects. It seemed to me that these wikis simply didn't update their pages. My approach was to not assume anything and to be conservative. This would be first asking the community about the rule. That usually went nowhere (or a no), so after that I would apply for bot rights as normal.
  - Global_reminder_bot/azwiki is a good example of how well the bot can be customised - one of their admins liaised with me on Discord over this. Why they wanted it this way I don't know - but as I said above, that's easy to do. It's however important to not blindly implement everything. A few users queried whether messages can be combined - I had to decline it for now as that would increase the complexity and chance of unexpected bugs. Simplicity and reliability are more important here - after all it can well be the case that I am no longer active one day and it should be easy for the community to put it back if needed.
If there's something I've missed or additional clarification required, please do let me know. Leaderboard (talk) 09:58, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Leaderboard, thank you for your detailed answer. - Klein Muçi (talk) 10:12, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
You wrote that it appears that the community and I have different opinions on what constitutes hat-collecting. What do you believe constitutes hat-collecting? Best, House Blaster (talk • he/they) 06:30, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@HouseBlaster Typically, it happens when a user applies to multiple non-functionary roles within a very short period. In the past, I've seen this to users that apply to two roles in two wikis at the same time, and someone that applied to one adminship role and two global roles in ~45 days. I've never seen someone labelled as such for applying for functionary roles, at least here on Meta.

(Also: I rarely penalise someone for this. In other words, my threshold is considerably higher than most others I've seen. A couple of candidates here have gotten three roles within a year, and I didn't consider it as a negative unlike many others) Leaderboard (talk) 17:13, 13 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Please comment on your availability now; whether it will change in case of successful election of you as steward; what activity level is expected from a steward. Gryllida 08:50, 12 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Gryllida The problem is that "successful election of you as steward" does not appear to be happening this year (and I concede that this may never happen again). If you're asking on general availability, I'm still around. It's more that I had to take a break at that point because I knew that if I don't, I'll simply make a scene. That only makes the opposers even happier. Also: something I try to follow is not to be emotionally invested in these things. If I get it, great - the community wins. If I don't, great - I'll do other things instead (and it's the community's loss).

"what activity level is expected from a steward" - there's no one-size-fits-all answer to this but broadly speaking the question is more of "what value are you providing?". It can well be that a steward that does only a few things, or one that focuses off-wiki, provides a lot of value to the steward team and the community at large, despite that not being visible in public logs. The more inactive a steward is, the less likely they're likely to meet the "are you providing value" condition. Leaderboard (talk) 17:07, 13 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I note that you have asked SCP-2000 and M7 challenging questions. Although there is no formal rule against it, electioneering is avoided in wiki elections. What did you hope to achieve by asking those questions of the other candidates? Thanks and good luck. --Arcticocean ■ 18:11, 12 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Arcticocean I'm confused with your question. Both candidates were asked standard questions and I didn't intend it to be challenging in any way. I'm probably missing something, so clarification would be appreciated. 2024 was the last year I set "challenging" questions, and the purpose of these problems were to discriminate against candidates that were otherwise very strong. With these problems, a lot of leeway was provided in candidates' answers, as you can see in my comments I wrote to candidates in those years. Leaderboard (talk) 16:57, 13 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of picking holes in my description of your question, or talking about completely unrelated questions from 2024, I would ask you to simply answer what was asked: What did you hope to achieve by asking those questions of the other candidates? Arcticocean ■ 22:05, 13 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Arcticocean Apologies (the word "challenging" confused me and I wanted to be sure I was looking at the right question), but nothing in particular. For M7's case, I was just curious on why they did not consider Meta as a home wiki when they're a crat on it (because one generally tends to include a wiki as part of homewiki when they're an admin).

For SCP-2000's case, I was similarly curious as I hadn't seen anyone before describe their experience of being a steward clerk. Stewards don't tend to perform role delegation (stewards clerk is the first case I've seen), so by asking that question I also wondered as to how well stewards collaborated withe clerks, what exactly steward clerks were provided and allowed to do, whether there were specific areas of friction and so on. Does that answer your question? Leaderboard (talk) 03:58, 14 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

M7 (M/)

There have been quite a few changes on the overall operation and workloads of stewards since your last time in the role. How do you see those changes, what are the positives and the negatives that come to your mind?-BRP^ever 15:53, 30 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@BRPever, thank you for this insightful question. I believe the community is looking for candidates who do not simply return as 'veterans' resting on past experience, but who have remained attentive to the projects and are ready to engage with the ongoing evolution—and indeed, the revolution—of the Wikimedia Movement.

The role of a Steward in 2026 is no longer merely a technical safety net, it has matured into a cornerstone of global movement governance.

On the positive side, we have seen significant maturation in our frameworks. The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) has provided much-needed institutional clarity, offering a consistent framework for handling complex cross-wiki issues and reducing the 'gray areas' stewards once navigated in isolation. Furthermore, we now benefit from specialized communication streams and technical tools that allow for a level of professionalized workflow we could only have imagined a decade ago. As our movement celebrates its 25th anniversary, these improvements are vital in protecting our projects from increasingly sophisticated, large-scale threats.

However, we must also navigate significant challenges together. From a technical standpoint, IP Masking, while a necessary victory for contributor privacy, has undeniably made the identification of Long-Term Abuse (LTA) more demanding. It requires stewards to be more technically agile and patient than ever before.

Perhaps most pressing is that we are currently in a position where approximately less than 30 active Stewards serve as the final technical backstop for hundreds of thousands of editors across 300+ languages. Optimistically, this ratio is a testament to the principle of subsidiarity and the resilience of local communities; stewards are most effective when we act as the movement's 'immune system,' intervening only when local structures require support. Conversely, this creates a high risk of burnout. As local adminship fluctuates on some projects, the workload doesn't disappear but drifts upward. Stewards are increasingly acting not just as technical janitors, but as global emergency responders for an ever-expanding territory.

If elected, my goal is to bridge my 'veteran' perspective with these modern realities, ensuring that stewardship remains a sustainable and effective service for the entire movement. --M/ (talk) 21:00, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to ask how you perceived the role of a steward while you were not serving in that capacity, and whether there is anything you would like to do or change after resuming the role? 浅村しき (talk) 14:34, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@ShuQizhe, thank you for your question. During my five-year hiatus, my perception of the Stewardship shifted from seeing it as a technical role to seeing it as a vital service of last resort. Returning to activity, I spent time re-familiarizing myself with every global policy, but I initially didn't intend to run again.

However, my recent experiences dealing with cross-wiki vandals and LTAs changed my mind. I realized that my own current workflow, constantly requesting help via IRC or SRG creates unnecessary lag. It’s not just about the time I lose, it’s about the hours spent by other Stewards responding to requests that I am experienced enough to handle myself.

If elected, my primary focus will be high-volume anti-vandalism and spam suppression. While I have no personal agenda for radical change, I am committed to being an adaptive Steward, who is always listening to the community’s evolving needs and provides the 'hand' where it is most needed to keep our projects secure. --M/ (talk) 21:00, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, thank you very much for your response. This is actually enough — I think we need more active stewards involved in anti-vandalism work, and you are indeed active in this area. I also believe that, as a former steward, your understanding and execution of various activities should be more than sufficient. With that, I wish you success in the election! 浅村しき (talk) 09:26, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

You've said that it.wikipedia is your home wiki. What about Meta-Wiki, where you're a bureaucrat? Do you not see it as a home wiki? Leaderboard (talk) 09:43, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Leaderboard, It is true that it.wikipedia is my home wiki in the sense that it is where my journey began, where 90% of my content contributions live, and where my primary community ties reside.

Regarding Meta-Wiki, I view it as my administrative home. Being a Bureaucrat there is a responsibility I take very seriously, and I believe it is healthy to maintain a distinction between local Meta functions and global Steward functions.

I am fully committed to the Meta:Meta–steward relationship and the principle of neutrality. Specifically: I will not use Steward tools to complete actions related to my own local Bureaucrat tasks. For example, if I close a local Meta request that requires Steward implementation (like a promotion/demotion), I will explicitly list it on SRP for an uninvolved colleague to handle. I will strictly adhere to the policies regarding roles already covered by Meta’s own community (CU/Oversight). I generally do not handle RfC closures, and for any situation where a conflict of interest—or even the appearance of one—might arise, I will recuse myself and seek a second opinion.

My goal is to ensure that my presence as a Steward adds a layer of security and efficiency to the global community, not a concentration of power on Meta-Wiki or elsewhere. --M/ (talk) 21:00, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, M7. I am examining your tenure as itwiki bureaucrat regarding 'bot' flag assignments. The pattern to me is clear: you consistently grant flags to senior local editors (1, 2, 3) while indefinitely stalling requests from newer accounts and global contributors (1, 2 and the like). This latter has been my request, which has been open since December. People who did not receive community support were flagged, while Wikipedians who released public code and received support were not. In the discussion, when pinged about community consensus, you did not engage. This appears to be an informal policy based on tenure, rather than on technical merit or community trust. Question: Looking specifically at the discrepancy between these cases, can you explain your rationale for approving bots from editors lacking clear local support while declining those from global contributors who met the technical requirements? Given this local record, why should the global community trust you to steward rights impartially across wikis? Thank you.—super n∇bl∇(🪰 msg) 09:32, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hello super nabla I am not convinced that your bot request has an urgent or emergency contest, nor this has been specifically brought to my attention. Please note that it.wiki counts 5 bureaucrats and that I have no bias regarding your contributions to the project (cfr logs from your last permissions given, see 1 and 2). Usually I get reminders for things that are in the backlog. Thank you for your understanding. --M/ (talk) 09:44, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your response, but I'm afraid it confirms rather than addresses my concerns. You've framed this as a matter of urgency or personal notification. Yet, the core issue (which thus far remains unaddressed) is why you granted bot flags to editors who lacked local community consensus while stalling on others. You were specifically pinged about my request on 23rd Dec (link) and did not engage with the question of local consensus then (in fact, not even now you engaged on this point).

The consequences of these decisions matter to our content quality and reliability. Bot flags grant significant power to edit at scale: one of the operators you flagged w/o consensus subsequently created numerous disambiguation errors related to the 'Capri' island/commune and did not assist in correcting them. I had to spend hours fixing them (manually), and I'm confident many other errors remain still now. Making errors is human; I do many. What concerns me is the lack of accountability when those errors are pointed out and my take is that this is not we expect from a steward. Sorry. You've had two opportunities now to explain your rationale regarding community consensus versus tenure, and you haven't done so. For these reasons, I cannot support your candidacy, at least at this time.12:30, 18 February 2026 (UTC) —super n∇bl∇(🪰 msg) 12:30, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Mohammed Qays

This user has withdrawn his candidature.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

In June 2025, you ran unsuccessfully for the U4C, earning ~53% support. I am surprised that this is not mentioned in your steward elections statement. What did you learn from this experience, and how did it inform your decision to run for stewardship now? Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 21:59, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Somewhat like the U4C, stewardship involves mediating complex conduct issues and disputes, often in multiple languages or across projects. In a response to a U4C elections question last June, you wrote No, I have not previously worked in environments where I was required to directly handle cases of harassment or exclusion. Has this changed, and are there cases you'd like to point to which demonstrate how you handle high-tension situations as an administrator? Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 21:59, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Vermont شكراً على سؤالك، في ما يخص حصولي في انتخابات أعضاء U4C على دعمٍ بنسبة 53% تقريبًا، الصراحة أني أجدها تجربة جيدة لحصولي على هذه الثقة رغم حداثة وجودي في مجتمع ويكيميديا، وأيضا لم يخطر في بالي أن الموضوع مهم لكي أضعه في تفاصيل طلبي، ولا أجد أن هناك سبباً اجبارياً لكي يوضع ضمن التفاصيل (أردت تلخيص الطلب قدر الإمكان)، وأيضا هذا الموضوع شجعني لكي أرشح نفسي إلى stewardship.

في سؤالي السابق في انتخابات U4C ما يخص القضايا السلوكية والنزاعات، فقد تعاملت مع بعض النزاعات التي ضمن المشروع المحلي (ويكيبيديا العربية)، وهذا ما أكسبني خبرة أكثر وأيضا التواصل مع بعض ذويي الخبرة في الموسوعة وخارجها، الذين هم أقدم مني، وأيضا أنا عن نفسي اعتبر هذه المواضيع خطوط حمراء لا يمكن تجاوزها وخاصة التحرش والخصوصية، ولكن التعامل يكون بالتروي والصبر والحكمة هو ما يعمل على حلحلة الأمور دون تعقيد، وأيضا دعوة جميع الأطراف المتنازعة والتواصل معها يعمل بشكل إيجابي لخلق مجتمع متفاهم وذو شفافية، لأن بعض النزاعات قد تفهم من جانب مختلف وتفهم بغير سياقها ولكن في حالات معقدة جداً يمكن التعامل معها بحزم دون التأثير على المجتمعات أو الأشخاص المتضررين.Mohammed Qays (talk) 06:02, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Your cross-wiki experience is somewhat limited right now. Do you see this as a hurdle for becoming a steward, and if so, how do you plan on addressing it? //shb (t • c) 22:07, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@SHB2000 خبرتي خلال المشاريع الأخرى قليلة وذلك بسبب عملي الوظيفي وأيضا تركيزي الكامل على مشروعين فقط، ولا أجده عائقا أمام وجودي ضمن المضيفين، بالعكس أجده موضوعا يمكن معالجته، والآن لدي فراغ كبير يمكنني التوسع بالعمل عبر المشاريع الأخرى، وفي حال انتخابي سأعمل بناء خبرتي في العمل المشترك بين الويكيات من خلال متابعة عمل المشرفين عن كثب، والتعاون مع الأكثر خبرة، وتولي نطاق أوسع من مهام العمل المشترك بين الويكيات تدريجيًا عند الحاجة. أنا أجيد التعلّم بالممارسة، وأطلب التوضيح عند الحاجة، أعتقد أن هذا المزيج من زيادة وقت الفراغ، والرغبة في التعلّم، واحترام الممارسات القائمة سيُمكّنني من التغلب على هذا القيد بفعالية. Mohammed Qays (talk) 06:05, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Noting this for the record (not a question since Leaderboard has already asked what I wanted to ask). //shb (t • c) 11:11, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Are you using AI/LLMs (such as ChatGPT) in your statement/responses, or making use of machine translation? Leaderboard (talk) 07:43, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Leaderboard Yes. I use AI tools solely for translation from Arabic into English for texts that I write myself. The responses are not automated; the tool is used only to assist with translation. Mohammed Qays (talk) 11:29, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Mohammed Qays Can you share the prompts, in Arabic if required, that you're feeding to the LLM? The reason is that your wording seems to be rather off in places; I think you may be better off using a non-AI system such as Google Translate. Leaderboard (talk) 16:47, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
You were indefinitely blocked from the English Wikipedia from August 2022 to January 2024 (block, unblock request). Could you elaborate on this block, and what did you learn from it for us to trust that something similar will not happen again as a steward? EPIC (talk) 14:49, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Additionally, I'd like to note that I take language barriers into account and that you may respond to this question in any language you want. EPIC (talk) 15:59, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@EPIC كان المنع نتيجة لقلة خبرتي للسياسات والإرشادات في بداياتي في مشاريع ويكيميديا، وارتكبت عدة أخطاء بسبب سوء التقدير وعدم الفهم لسير العمل، ولكن ليس بسوء نية، لأني حينها لم أُدرك تماماً طبيعة المشاريع التعاونية وطريقة التحرير والسلوكيات المتبعة. بعد عدة عمليات منع في ويكبيديا العربية وويكيبيديا الإنجليزية أخذت وقتا بقراءة السياسات والتعلم أساسيات التحرير، وسعيت بنشاط للحصول على خبرة أكبر، وتلك الفترة ساهمت بشكل كبير لتحول مسيرتي في مشاريع ويكيميديا، لأنها مواقع قائمة على الاحترام والتوافق. وتحسنت مساهماتي بشكل ملحوظ في مشروعين منهما ويكيبديا وويكي بيانات، وحتى أني نشرت مقالاً على موقع Diff أصف فيه التحديات التي واجهتني، والأخطاء التي أرتكبتها، وكيف تحسن مساري لاحقاً، ويمكنك قراءة المقال كاملاً هنا: https://w.wiki/FFbm Mohammed Qays (talk) 11:38, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Mohammed, same unanswered question that I had asked before... As an ArWiki admin, you had removed the line on my user profile where I had stated that I was learning the Levantine Arabic language. I consider this abuse of power with a form of censorship. Would you consider what you did a mistake? Also you replaced my entire user profile with a red template that had a trash can on it, with no proper policy based justification. It is known that you are of the opinion that Levantine Arabic is not a real language, if I understand correctly, but that does not mean that you can use your admin rights to remove statements from other's user profiles. Would you consider your actions compliant with the UCoC? Will you continue this kind of behavior as a Stewart? (Your actions at that time seem to have surprised fellow experienced Wikipedians, not just me.) TheJoyfulTentmaker (talk) 23:00, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
مرحباً @TheJoyfulTentmaker، مجتمع ويكيبيديا العربية له سياساته الخاصة، وأنا استخدمت صلاحياتي وفق السياسات التي تنص هناك، وعندما الموضوع يتعلق بموضوع التعلم أي أن هناك ضعف بما تقدمه، مثلاً أنا أتعلم الإنجليزية لذلك لا أستطيع أن أقول أن اللغة الإنجليزية المبسطة هي الأساس وأترك اللغة الأم الأصلية بداعي التعلم وأحاول الترويج لها، بخصوص القالب الذي نستخدمه في صفحات المستخدمين هو قالب معتمد يستخدم عندما تكون صفحة المستخدم لا تتناسب مع سياسات المجتمع، وهو عُرف متوافق عليه بين المستخدمين والإداريين، وقد قدمت وقتها بلاغاً ورد عليه بالتفصيل في هذه الصفحة، والتي اغلقت بالرفض.

كان الأصح أنك تستخدم قالب babel أو أي قالب يشر أنك تستخدم أو تشارك أو تتعلم اللغة الشامية وهذا الموضوع يتوافق مع جميع المجتمعات والمشاريع، ولكن إزالتي للنص أنك استخدمت نصاً ترويجياً لمشروع لم يولد بعد، أما بصفتي مضيفاً أو مستخدماً أو إدارياً أو أياً كان فالموضوع كما هو لدي وحسب ما يوافق سياسات أي مشروع من مشاريع ويكيميديا. شكراً على سؤالك وأعتقد وصلتك عدة إجابات من بعض الزملاء أن مشروع ويكيبيديا العربية له سياسات محلية تنص بشكل واضح حول الترويج، لك التحية. Mohammed Qays (talk) 15:40, 30 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the answer but I find it a bit vague. Which Arabic Wikipedia policy allows you to delete the sentence "I am learning Levantine Arabic" from my user profile? Could you give a precise quote if possible? TheJoyfulTentmaker (talk) 16:21, 30 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the stewards' work is conducted in English. Could that be a barrier for you? In the discussion here, it was written that you can also respond in Arabic, but when it comes to new editors, as part of your work as a steward, I don't think that's an appropriate solution. In fact, I'm concerned that the use of an LLM, which made your messages unclear at the beginning of the discussion, might happen again. I'd be glad to hear what you think about this. Neriah - 💬 - 16:06, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Ping Mohammed Qays. Neriah - 💬 - 22:16, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Neriah لا يشكل أبدا أي عائق ويمكنني فهم اللغة الإنجليزية والنصوص باستخدام الترجمة، وجميعنا نتعلم من الأخطاء، وهذا ليس عيباً، وأيضا لا أجد شيء يجبر المستخدم التحدث بلغة عن دونها. شكراً على سؤالك واعتذر عن التأخر. Mohammed Qays (talk) 14:33, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

SCP-2000

You recently became a permanent administrator on your home wiki in October and an Arbitration Committee member earlier this month. Stewards are often required to act in a capacity similar to bureaucrats on wikis without crats, particularly when handling permission or bot requests, as well as complex cases brought to SRM. They are also responsible for closing global RFCs and permission requests. Do you believe you are ready for this role? — BRP^ever 12:12, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your question. I admit that I do not have sufficient experience handling permissions, SRM cases, and global RFCs yet, so I will not directly involve myself in these cases and requests for the next few months. Instead, I will observe how my colleagues handle these cases and participate in internal discussions to learn how to properly handle these matters. If possible, I will try to handle some noncontroversial cases after a few months. SCP-2000 08:47, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I'm curious on your steward clerk role which you resigned - how did you find it and why did you give it up? Leaderboard (talk) 12:13, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your question. I would say it was not an easy job when I started this role in 2023, as we had to face more than a thousand unresolved tickets. It is wonderful that we used a few months to resolve all of the tickets. Thanks to Amanda, Operator873, Superpes15, and all of my colleagues. It is also a great opportunity to learn the knowledge of proxy, as well as how to handle some of complicated inquires from my colleagues.
The reason why I resigned is because I personally think this role requires daily or bi-daily involvement, and I think I may not have enough time to be involved. Additionally, other Stewards and Clerks are still in the role to help. SCP-2000 03:04, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Now here are two candidates SCP-2000 and SHB2000 and I must distinguish them from each other. Apparently SCP is some kind of acronym. What does SCP mean? Taivo (talk) 14:48, 12 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

SHB (SHB2000)

As someone you've blocked here before, do you have conflict of interest in any other wiki? Can you be able to handle the torch and a lot of tasks if elected? Ahri Boy (talk) 23:16, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I'm not exactly sure what the correlation between me blocking you here on Meta early last year and having any conflict of interests on any other wiki, but I'm going to assume you referring to this (though I'd appreciate a clarification) – in which case, I'd consider myself involved if anything similar with your conduct arises in the future, which would also apply to other wikis. For the second question, I should have no issues taking on the tasks I've outlined in my nomination statement as well as here. //shb (t • c) 06:56, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Is there more info for others about this block? It seems odd because it came more than a month after Ahri Boy's previous contribution? Czarking0 (talk) 05:18, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There have been incidents in the past where many think you involved yourself a bit hastily, or where some found your involvement to escalated the issues. If you were to be elected as a steward, how will you approach similar situations?--BRP^ever 16:00, 30 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, BRPever, thanks for asking! I do indeed recognise that, at times, I've jumped into situations very hastily, occasionally escalating situations unnecessarily, for which I take full responsibility. Upon some reflection, I believe the core issue linking all of these is that I previously reached conclusions (and acted on them) without seeing the full picture – something I've since learned can be very easily avoided with a little more review and quick self-reflection before acting. These incidents have been some challenging but valuable learning lessons and taught me lessons on how to act, both if elected as a steward and as a regular user: for one, I plan on approaching everything cautiously and deliberately, including not acting in situations where I do not know the full picture or in situations where my judgment may be impaired (something I've already changed since). Additionally, as per my nomination statement, I also plan to abstain in situations where I might even have the slightest conflict of interest so as not to unintentionally further escalate issues that are better impartially handled by a completely uninvolved user. All in all, I've learned from my past mistakes, and I intend to carry these lessons forward to ensure I act with greater care and less haste if elected as a steward. //shb (t • c) 11:39, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Now here are two candidates SCP-2000 and SHB2000 and I must distinguish them from each other. Apparently SHB is some kind of acronym. What does SHB mean? Taivo (talk) 14:51, 12 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Taivo: I gotta admit: SHB2000 doesn't actually mean anything, I only picked it so it could be truly random. A few have pointed out that "SHB" does also coincidentally mirror the all-famous suspension bridge in my city, but that happened to be a pure coincidence (and not a commonly used abbreviation outside Reddit). I've been intending to drop the numbers and consider requesting usurping just SHB as I haven't used the numbers in a good while, which would also hopefully come with the added benefit of properly distinguishing myself from SCP-2000, but there's a few other things I'd need to properly sort out before requesting a usurp. //shb (t • c) 22:56, 12 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Adding to Tavio's question, how do you plan to distinguish yourself from SCP-2000 and other candidates? Breck0530 (talk) 04:28, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, Breck0530, for at least a while now, I've mostly only used "SHB" with the numbers omitted in practice (particularly on Meta, and my home wiki, the English Wikivoyage) – including on this nomination to the extent of what is as far as I think is considered acceptable before it gets downright confusing. As mentioned in my answer above, usurping has been on my long-term radar (after sorting at least a few things out, mostly off-wiki) – but even before usurping, you will probably see me using the numbers less. I think that should, hopefully at least, distinguish myself properly from SCP-2000 and cause less confusion over time, though I am happy to take onboard other suggestions anyone may have to minimise the confusion. //shb (t • c) 06:19, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Teles

As mentioned in your statement, you are currently on the Ombuds Commission and have stated your intent to remain there until your term expires. I'd like to clarify that I'm not default opposed to steward-OC double roles (and there have been similar cases in the past where such stewards have been able to do just fine), but I'd just like to know what your approach to avoiding potential conflicts of interest would be, and how you would be able to handle it if re-elected a steward? EPIC (talk) 12:57, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@EPIC, hi! That was fast! I recall that I answered a similar question in 2021. The OC group always have someone holding checkuser or oversight rights locally. What we use to do is completely avoid any sort of engagement when there is a case related with some wiki where we hold advanced rights; and that's actually an easy way to reveal COI. So, in that case, besides my home wiki, I would also avoid any engagement if a Steward would be related with a case for Ombuds to solve. As I mentioned in 2021, having a Steward on a case is really rare though. I believe that's because Stewards are overlooked by their peers and broad community at Meta.

Still, if community sees that a potential fragility on our system, I am willing to withdraw from OC in case I am elected. I would love to conclude my term and keep helping there, but this is one of the most active group (in general) I have seen, are handling cases super well, and they will be just fine without me anyway. Also, that's the second time I am questioned about it; so, it is probably something to reconsider. Thus, I will request removal of OC if elected. —Teles «Talk ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 13:25, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Ternera

This user has withdrawn his candidature.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

In 2025, you took on several advanced roles, including global sysop, Meta administrator, Simple English Wikipedia administrator, global renamer, Wikidata administrator, and Wikisource administrator. These roles require a high level of adaptability and carry significant responsibility, and some may feel this is a lot to take on in a short time. How do you ensure that taking on additional roles does not adversely affect how effectively you carry out your existing responsibilities, and how would you approach this balance if elected as a steward?--BRP^ever 11:58, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent question! I believe it's important for stewards to still be involved with their local communities and I would definitely not give up editing in those areas. Handling vandalism or long-term abuse cases can be stressful and it's never a bad idea to work on article content for some time as a break. As for areas like global sysop and meta sysop, I imagine that my activity could go down but that I would still help with backlogs (similarly to what I'm doing now). GSR used to always be backlogged, but we have many new global sysops and everything is handled pretty quickly at the moment. Every day, I have a list of pages and noticeboards that I check - beginning with Simple English Wiki, Wikidata, and Wikisource. After that is handled, I check global pages. I would continue a process like this, handling steward requests once I have finished tasks at the wikis where I am an administrator. :) Ternera (talk) 14:21, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

VIGNERON

If elected, you will need to handle several kinds of requests to stewards here on meta-wiki. What is your experience when it comes to meta-wiki or steward-related task?--BRP^ever 15:50, 30 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@BRPever: thank you for your question (and sorry for the slight delay). To be honest, if my experience of Meta is quite good (5k edits since 2006 and funnily my first edit here in 2006 was for a steward election, I've come full circle), my experience of steward tasks is more limited. I did requests a few times on Permissions and helped people doing the same. In the end, I mostly see my value in two points that are currently lacking among other stewards: I natively speak French and I have an extensive knowledge of Wikisources. Cheers, VIGNERON * ^discut. 15:28, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@VIGNERON: I don't get why you forgot two very important points regarding your candidacy:
- you have a lot of connections with many communities in the francophone world, including many smaller-languages communities who sometimes lack admin-like functions. Everyone knows you and calls you when they need. Having a steward will really help them thrive.
- you wrote ―but with no real details― that you have experience with these smaller wikis and Wikisource. This is really important, in particular for Wikisources: these wikis have a lower attendance, hence an higher risk of not being monitored nor up to date on a technical side. Having you as a steward increases the reliability of one of our wikis.
- Third point (I know I said two): you are too modest regarding what you can achieve, which makes you the perfect candidate for an important role like this. ;) Trizek ^{from FR} 09:21, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that's very true. Being a well known members of the community is also why I'm so busy (especially with Wikimania right now) and thus why I thought of everything my candidacy and waited a bit too long before answering the questions. Cheers, VIGNERON * ^discut. 10:41, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I can second all of what @Trizek: said. Vigneron's connections extend well past the francophone world and its smaller-language communities into all sorts of smaller-language communities. For instance, I'm from the Saami-speaking world on Wikimedia projects, which might be as far as you could get from the francophone world :D - Yupik (talk) 18:28, 15 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @VIGNERON: Why do you want to become a steward? —Eihel (talk) 01:03, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
- It's not really that I want to become a steward in itself, it's that I think I can bring valuable help to the current steward. In particular to help around the Wikisources, especially the smaller ones (AFAIK, Albertoleoncio is the only steward knowing around the Wikisources). Also, a few people contacted me suggesting to apply (it also happened in the previous years). Cheers, VIGNERON * ^discut. 08:37, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]