Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4989681-20151209054255/@comment-5454372-20151209063041

It'd probably be helpful to first understand the difference between the "sysop" and "bureaucrat" user rights (you want the "Bureaucrat" user right to promote more admins):


 * Sysop: this is the one that comes with the "admin" tag on your profile, and comes with most of the capabilities you're thinking of (page locking, deletion, MediaWiki editing, blocking)
 * Bureaucrat: this one does not come with the "admin" tag on your profile, but it gives you the right to give other users "sysop" or "bureaucrat" status (including yourself). Bureaucrats can also demote sysops and other lower hierarchy rights, but they cannot demote another bureaucrat.

There seems to be some conflicting information over whether bureaucrats automatically have all the abilities of sysops. The page I linked to above now seems to imply that to be the case, but I previously understood most bureaucrats to have sysop rights because they'd generally give themselves the rights (which is fairly natural, as the bureaucrat user right should only be given to users who would also be trusted with sysop rights).