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In the past, Wales has instructed Wikimedia's system administrators to implement software changes that constitute de facto Wikipedia policy changes. For instance, in December 2005, in response to the Seigenthaler incident, Wales removed the ability of unregistered users to create new pages on the English-language Wikipedia. This change was proposed...

On 6 February 2006, Jimmy Wales was granted the 'steward' right on English Wikipedia by Danny, and was granted the 'steward' right on Meta by Sj. In 2009, a 'founder' flag was established for Wales,replacing his steward rights. The founder user group, to which only Jimmy Wales belongs, gives him a specific set of user rights on all projects includi...

In June 2003, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) was founded as "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit corporation organized under the laws of Florida, United States." The foundation's governance is a board of trustees, that in 2003 initially comprised of Jimmy Wales as Chair, Michael Davis (Mdavis), and Tim Shell (TimShell). Wales kept the position ...

Arbitration Committee

The members of the Arbitration Committee were originally appointed by Wales. He retains the authority to overrule or dissolve the Committee. When the Committee was founded in 2004, he said that he expected to exercise this right "basically never". In June 2008, Wales once again asserted his intention to overrule the Committee if he deems it necessary, but added that he did not expect that would ever come about. This seems to contradict a previous statement by Wales made in April 2007: In Janu...

Mediation Committee

The original members of the Mediation Committee were appointed by Wales in December 2003, at the same time as the original Arbitrators were selected. All new mediator nominations were subject to the final approval of Wales, although he rarely commented on nominations and has never overturned a consensus of the Committee. Jimbo held a subscription to the private mailing list of the Mediation Committee, Mediation-en-l. The Mediation Committee was disbandedby the community in 2018.

Banning users

Historically, Wikipedia:Banning policy § Authority to ban included a line that stated: Jimbo Wales retains the authority to ban editors. In April 2022, Jimbo Wales removed this line from the policy at his own volition, stating in a village pump discussion regarding that line: In order to prevent any further controversy on the immediate question, though, I have personally removed the line in question from the policy and assert affirmatively that I do not have the right to ban users unilaterally.

Blocking and unblocking users

As an administrator on the English Wikipedia, Wales has the technical ability to block editors. However, in August 2009 he decided to permanently renounce these powers. In May 2010 he used them again. On 21 September 2011 he unblocked an IP"Limited unblock for purpose of participating on my talk page only".

User rights

Wales has the technical ability, through the unique permissions flag of "founder", to add and remove all user rights. Wales has not invoked this power often, and his most recent removal of admin rights in 2008 provoked varying amounts of controversy.The question of whether the English Wikipedia community can remove Wales's administrator status has not yet arisen.