Global rights

This page documents global rights, particularly the process for proposing and implementing global groups, the principles underlying the use of these global rights, and the restrictions upon their use.

The principle of global user rights on Wikimedia Foundation projects is that they are established to provide functionality that is absent from local projects. Global rights are not intended to supersede rights on local projects, and all global rights must be used in accord with local policies governing such use. In the absence of a specific global user rights policy on a local project, the local project policy for the use of the equivalent local right should be considered binding. If the user exercising a global user right is unaware of the local policy, or unable to read the policy because of a language barrier, that user should be aware that violating the local policies will result in the removal of the global right.

All proposals for new or significantly altered global user groups must be publicized and discussed in such a way and over a period of time that allows members of all Wikimedia Foundation projects to participate. At a minimum this should include notices on the village pump (or equivalent) of all projects, and preferably watchlist notices (or sitenotices) for all major proposals.

Any abuse of a global user right will result in the immediate removal of that right. Abuse is the willful violation of a local or global policy, or consistent violation of local or global policies through ignorance or an inability (through a language barrier) to understand the local policies. Abuse of global rights should be reported immediately to Wikimedia stewards either at the stewards' noticeboard or by email at: stewardswikimedia.org.

The assignment of global groups is made based upon criteria set out on the global policy governing the use of each specific global rights. The individual global rights policies should take into account the level of trust required and the methods for establishing that these requirements have been met.

Each project has the technical ability to opt in or opt out of specific global groups via Special:WikiSets. The opt out process should be initiated by local projects following local processes for achieving a policy consensus.

• Basic global user groups
• Special global permissions