Wikipedia administrators matter that the powers given to sysops are not given out to everyone." In his book "Wikipedia – The Missing Manual", John Broughton states that while many people think of administrators on Wikipedia as judges, that is not the purpose of the role. Instead, he says, admins usually "delete pages" and "protect pages involved in edit wars". While the first Wikipedia administrators were appointed by Jimmy Wales in October 2001, administrator privileges on Wikipedia are now granted through a process known as requests for adminship (RfA). Any registered editor may nominate themselves, or may request another editor to do so.
Jimmy Wales edited his own biographical entry on the English Wikipedia. Writer Rogers Cadenhead drew attention to logs showing that in his edits to the page, Wales had removed references to Sanger as the co-founder of Wikipedia. Sanger commented that "having seen edits like this, it does seem that Jimmy is attempting to rewrite history. But this is a futile process because in our brave new world of transparent activity and maximum communication, the truth will out." Wales was also observed to have modified references to Bomis in a way that was characterized as downplaying the sexual nature of some of his