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Administrators, or "admins" for short, are STEUDians with sysop rights.
- If you need to request administrator assistance, click here.
Administrators
Administrators are equal to everyone in terms of editorial responsibility. The terms "sysop" and "administrator" are misnomers in a sense, as they simply indicate users who have had performance- and security-based restrictions on several features lifted because they seem like trustworthy folks and asked nicely. Administrators have no special power over other users other than applying decisions made by the user community. In certain cases, such as vandalism, speedy deletions or dealing with abusive users, administrators may act autonomously. In this sense administrators are trusted and expected to behave impartially, and in the community's best interests (as with all users).
The community looks to administrators to perform essential housekeeping chores that require the extra access administrators are entrusted with. Among them are watching votes for deletion and executing the consensus of the community on keeping or deleting these articles, keeping an eye on new and changed articles to swiftly delete obvious vandalism, and meeting user requests for help that require administrative access. Since administrators are expected to be experienced members of the community, users seeking help will often turn to an administrator for advice and information.
List of administrators
Below is the list of administrators on this wiki:
- Kevin W. (bureaucrat) (semi-active)
- Luke80 (bureaucrat) (semi-active)
- Sasoriza (bureaucrat) (semi-active; contact when needed)
- Hawku (active)
- Sneg (inactive)
- TimPendragon (inactive)
What administrators do
Wiki software has important features which are restricted. Of those restricted features, administrators have access to the following:
Protected pages
- Directly edit protected pages. For information and guidelines, see editing protected pages.
- Protect and unprotect pages. Pages are only protected in certain rare circumstances. For information and guidelines, see protection policy.
Deletion and undeletion
- Delete pages and their history. For information and guidelines, see the deletion policy. To suggest a page to delete (after reading the policy and guidelines pages), see votes for deletion. 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, it's gone. For information and guidelines, see image use policy. To suggest an image to delete (after reading the policy), see images and media for deletion. To challenge a decision to delete an image, make sure that you still have a copy of the image (there is no way to restore it), then leave a post at the administrators' noticeboard. 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. When looking at a user's contributions, a link that looks like: [rollback] – appears next to edits at the top of the edit history. Clicking on the link reverts to the last edit not authored by that user, with edit summary (Reverted edits by X (Talk); changed back to last version by Y) and marks it as a minor change. In a fairly recent change, admins can also rapidly revert changes when viewing a difference.
Hiding vandalism from recent changes
- Sysops 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://stexpanded.wikia.com/wiki/.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=Michael&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 Recentchanges display (by using the marker originally added to keep massive bot edits from flooding recentchanges, 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 Recentchanges. 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 bans and blocks for more information on when blocks are appropriate and when they are not. See Special:Ipblocklist for currently blocked IP addresses and usernames.
Design and wording of the interface
- Sysops 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 "Special:Whatlinkshere" and the page that a blocked user sees when trying to edit a page.
- Sysops can edit the style of the interface by changing the CSS (cascading stylesheet) in the monobook stylesheet at MediaWiki:Monobook.css.
Responsibilities
Administrators should keep an eye on all pages to help keep the wiki "cleaned up" and running efficiently. Administrators are expected to play an active role in helping out on one or more of these pages. If you are an administrator, please sign up below for an area to supervise. Working together lightens the workload for each of us.
Becoming an administrator
Our policy is to appoint new admins only when and if the current number becomes insufficient to handle daily tasks. At this time, we are not looking for more administrators.
Admins may be chosen from among those who contribute regularly, show good sense in terms of content and wikification and comport themselves well in dealings with others. They should be trusted, respected members of the community, with only the community's best interests in mind.
If you would like sysop access, and you are willing to take on a little more responsibility in our community, add your name to requests for adminship according to the guidelines mentioned there, and fellow editors will discuss then vote in order to determine if you should become an administrator.
- NOTE: At present, we do not need more admins. Only when this notice is removed should you consider requesting admin status.
Be careful, please!
If you are granted access, we ask that you exercise care in using sysop functions, especially the ability to delete pages and their histories, to delete images (which is permanent!), and the ability to block IP addresses. You can learn more at the Wikia administrators' how-to guide. You should also review pages linked from Wikipedia: Administrators' reading list before using any of your sysop abilities.
Other access types
In addition to administrators, there are other types of identified users, listed here in roughly ascending order of power. Administrators fall between signed-in users and bureaucrats.
Signed-in users
Users with ordinary access, including visitors who haven't "signed in," can still do most things, including the most important: editing articles and helping with maintenance tasks. But only signed-up users can upload files or rename pages; see Special:Userlogin to sign yourself in.
Bureaucrats
Users with "bureaucrat" status can make other users into sysops (but cannot 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.
Stewards
Users with "steward" status can change the access of any user on any Wikimedia project. This includes granting and revoking sysop access, and marking users as bots. Their actions are recorded at Meta:Bureaucrat log. 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 Wikia software and database. These people, by and large, do not carry out administrative functions, aside from sock puppet checks and reattributing edits. See m:Developers for a list of developers and further information.
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 and come to a resolution in an orderly and civil manner. However, if the matter is not resolved between the two parties, you can take further action by posting your grievance on the administrators' noticeboard.
Administrator abuse
Administrators can be removed if they continually misuse their powers. To report admin abuse, leave a detailed message on one of the following:
- Kevin W.'s talk page
- Luke80's talk page
- Sasoriza's talk page
- Sneg's talk page
- TimPendragon's talk page
Or, leave a post on the admin noticeboard. If you are unable to do so (because of a block), you may e-mail an admin or contest the decision on your talk page.
External links
| project navigation | |
| main page • introduction • style guide • wanted pages • pages needing attention | |
| fan fiction index • featured content • recent changes • quick index • FAQs • policies and guidelines • special pages | |
| forums • administrators • get help • templates • rank images | |
Content on this page was adapted from Wikipedia.