Administrators are Pikipedia users who have sysop rights.
For a listing of all sysops, including inactive ones, see Special:Listusers/sysop.
Sysops are not imbued with any special authority, and are equal to everyone else in terms of editorial responsibility. Some consider the terms "Sysop" and "Administrator" to be misnomers, as they just indicate users who have had performance- and security-based restrictions on several features lifted because they seemed like trustworthy folks. Sysops should not have power over other users other than applying decisions made by all users.
The community does look to sysops to perform essential housekeeping chores that require the extra access sysops are entrusted with. Among them are keeping an eye on new and changed articles to swiftly delete vandalism, and meeting user requests for help that require sysop access. Since sysops are experienced members of the community, users seeking help will often turn to a sysop for advice and information.
What's different
The Wiki software has a few important features that are restricted. Of those restricted features, sysops have access to the following:
- Protect and unprotect pages.
- Directly edit pages in the MediaWiki namespace.
- Delete pages and images.
- View and restore deleted pages and their history.
- Revert pages quickly. Note that while any user can revert a page to an earlier version, sysops simply have access to the faster, automated Rollback tool to help them revert vandalism. Rollback rights can also be granted to normal users.
- Block IP addresses, IP ranges, and user accounts for a specific time or indefinitely.
- Unblock IP addresses, IP ranges, and user accounts.