AdamBotsLive:Administrators
From AdamBotsLive
Administrators are members/users who have "SysOp rights". Current AdamBots-Live policy is to grant this access liberally to anyone who has been an active AdamBots-Live contributor for a while and is generally a known and trusted member of the community.
Any user can behave as if they are an administrator (provided that they do not falsely claim to be one), even if they have not been given the extra administrative functions. Users doing so are more likely to become full administrators.
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So, what's the deal?
The wiki software has a few important features that are restricted. Of those restricted features, administrators have access to the following.
Protected pages
- Edit the Main Page, and other protected pages. You can suggest changes at Talk:Main Page. It's possible for the main page to receive a lot of vandalism; protecting it is an unfortunate compromise to keep our welcome mat free of random profanity.
- Protect and unprotect pages. Pages are only protected in certain rare circumstances.
Deletion and undeletion
- Delete pages and their history. Sometimes deletion is a technical matter, in which a redirection page has to be removed to make way for renaming an article, or a page whose history has been broken up has to be deleted and the pieces recombined. Other times it's a matter of cleaning up simple junk edits on pages with no actual content, or removing material that has been pasted in from another site and infringes copyright.
- View and restore deleted pages and their history.
- Permanently delete images. This is a non-reversible change: once deleted, always deleted. For information and guidelines, see AdamBots-Live:Image Use Policy. Note that there is no particular reason that image deletion should not be reversible; this is simply the way the software works at present.
Reverting
- Revert pages quickly. Any user (logged-in or not) can revert a page to an earlier version. Administrators have a faster, automated reversion tool to help them revert vandalism by anonymous editors. When looking at a user's contributions, a link that looks like: [rollback] – appears next to edits that are at the top of the edit history. Clicking on the link reverts to the last edit not authored by that user, with an edit summary of (Reverted edits by X to last version by Y) and marks it as a minor change.
- Do not use one-click rollback on edits that are not simple vandalism; please use manual rollback with an appropriate edit summary.
Hiding vandalism from recent changes
- Admins can hide vandalism from Recent changes. To do this, add &bot=1 to the end of the URL used to access a user's contributions. For example, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Example&bot=1. When the rollback links on the contributions list are clicked, the revert and the original edit that you are reverting will both be hidden from the default recent changes display. (The bot marker was originally added to keep massive bot edits from flooding recent changes, hence the "bot".) This means that they will be hidden from recent changes unless you click the "bots" link to set hidebots=0. The edits are not hidden from contributions lists, page histories or watchlists. The edits remain in the database and are not removed, but they no longer flood recent changes. The aim of this feature is to reduce the annoyance factor of a flood vandal with relatively little effort. This should not be used for reverting a change you just don't like, but is meant only for simple vandalism, particularly massive flood vandalism.
Block and unblock
- Block IP addresses, IP ranges, and user accounts, for a specific time, or indefinitely.
- Unblock IP addresses, IP ranges, and user accounts.
- See AdamBots-Live:Blocking policy for more information on when blocks are appropriate and when they are not. See Special:Ipblocklist for currently blocked addresses and usernames
Design and wording of the interface
- As of December 6, 2003, admins can change the text of the interface by editing the pages in the MediaWiki namespace. This includes the text at the top of pages such as the "Special:Whatlinkshere" and the page that a blocked user will see when they try to edit a page (MediaWiki:Blockedtext).
- As of June 3, 2004, admins can edit the style of the interface by changing the CSS in the monobook stylesheet at MediaWiki:Monobook.css.
Other
There are various other actions which only those with administrator privileges can perform:
- Can move category pages and other move protected pages
- Can view Special:Unwatchedpages to see pages which may be more vulnerable to vandalism
- Can view the history of deleted pages
Becoming an administrator
If you would like sysop access add your name to AdamBots-Live:Requests for adminship according to the guidelines mentioned there, and a voting will take place by fellow editors in order to determine whether you should become an administrator.
It is recommended that you write for Wikipedia for a while before requesting administrator status, since other users will have to recognize you before they can agree on your promotion.
Be careful, please! If you are granted access, we ask that you exercise care in using these functions, especially the ability to delete pages and their history, to delete images (which is permanent!), and the ability to block IP addresses.
Places where admins in particular can assist
Admin rights can be particularly helpful for working in certain areas of Wikipedia.
- Incidents that may require admin intervention
- 3RR violations
- Intervention against vandalism
- Copyright problems
- Admins will also find their rights useful for RC patrolling.
Other access types
In addition to administrators, there are other types of identified users, listed here in roughly ascending order of power. Administrators lie between signed-in users and bureaucrats on this list.
IP addresses
Visitors who haven't "signed in" can still do most things, including the most important: editing articles and helping with AdamBots-Live maintenance tasks.
Signed-in users
Signed-up users can do everything 'IP Addresses' can and also upload files, move/rename pages, create their own user page, and start new articles; see Special:Userlogin to sign up for yourself.
Bureaucrats
Users with "Bureaucrat" status can turn other users into sysops (but not remove sysop status). Bureaucrats are created by other bureaucrats on projects where these exist, or by stewards on those who don't yet have one. Sysoppings are recorded in Special:Log/rights or AdamBots-Live:Bureaucrat log for activity prior to December 24, 2004. Sysoppings by stewards are recorded at Meta:Special:Log/rights but the few stewards who actively sysop users on the English Wikipedia do so using their local bureaucrat status, making this distinction rather academic.
Stewards
Users with "steward" status can change the access of any user on AdamBots-Live. This includes granting and revoking sysop access and marking users as bots. Their actions are recorded at Special:Log/rights on meta. Requests for their assistance can be made at m:requests for permissions. Normally, they will not perform actions that can be carried out by a local bureaucrat.
Developers
The highest degree of technical access (actually a group of levels, the difference between all but the lowest of which isn't really visible to users) is "developer", for those who can make direct changes to the MediaWiki software. These people, by and large, do not carry out administrative functions, aside from sock puppet checks and reattributing edits.
They can be contacted via the wikitech-l mailing list. See m:Developer for a list of developers and further information.
Administrator abuse
Administrators can be removed if they abuse their powers. At their discretion, lesser penalties may also be assessed against problematic administrators, including the restriction of their use of certain powers. The technical ability to remove administrator status rests with the stewards.
Dealing with grievances
If you think an administrator has acted improperly against you or another editor, you should express your concerns directly to the administrator responsible. Try to come to a resolution in an orderly and civil manner.
