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Jimmy Wales holds a special role in the English Wikipedia community, due to the central and vital stake he had in its founding. This has in the past included a number of roles in the community's governance, including originally having sole authority to ban editors from the site. Wales's various powers were assumed over time by the Arbitration Committee and the community. Successively, his direct involvement in the running of the site decreased considerably. His role since May 2023 is essentially as a respected senior community member and representative, a source of institutional knowledge, and the holder of the Founder's seat on the 12-seat Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, the ultimate authority over all Wikimedia projects. He is the sole member of the local and global founder user groups in recognition of his status; at his request, neither group confers any advanced rights.[1]
- ^ As of May 2023[update], local founder grants only redundant read rights and the ability to enable 2FA. Global founder grants rollback, the ability to view deleted files, some permissions associated with autoconfirmed, and permissions similar to IP block exempt exemption.