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Wikipedia:Administrators/Tools
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The wiki software ("MediaWiki") has a number of technical and maintenance features that are restricted. Administrators, commonly known as admins and also called sysops (system operators), are Wikipedia editors who have access to these features (known as "tools") that help with maintenance.
This page lists the details of the mediawiki tools accessible to administrators, and what administrators are able to do with them.
List of tools
Protected pages
- Protect and unprotect pages, with different kinds of protection against editing by certain classes of users, and page moving. Pages are generally protected rarely and temporarily. For information and guidelines, see Wikipedia:Protection policy.
Deletion and undeletion
- Delete pages, including images, and their history. For information and guidelines, see Wikipedia:Deletion policy and (most definitely) Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators. To suggest a page for deletion (after reading the policy and guidelines pages), see Wikipedia:Articles 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 is a matter of cleaning up junk edits on pages with no actual content, or removing material that has been pasted from another site, thereby causing copyright infringement.
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.
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. 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 (talk) to last version by Y) and marks it as a minor change. One-click rollback is mainly intended for vandalism, spam, etc. An explanation is warranted when disputing content, either in the edit summary or by reference to discussion on the talk page; omitting such explanation (whether through rollback or by leaving the summary field blank) is counter-productive and potentially antagonistic. The rollback feature is now also being granted to non-admins (see Wikipedia:Requests for permissions).
Keeping vandalism out of recent changes
- Administrators can exclude bulk 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 do not like, but is meant only for simple vandalism, particularly massive flood vandalism.
Design and wording of the interface
Administrators can:
Other
Administrators can also:
- move pages protected against moves;
- automatically move up to 100 subpages along with a page.
- view Special:Unwatchedpages to see pages which may be more vulnerable to vandalism;
- view the history of deleted pages, and the deleted contributions of users; and
- create accounts with names similar to those of existing accounts.
- Grant and remove rollback.
- Edit without being affected by IP range-blocks. That is, a block has no effect on an administrator's editing access, unless it is specifically a block on their username. (See Wikipedia:IP block exemption).
- Grant Account creator permission for Wikipedia:Requests for permissions.
Misuse of tools
Misusing the administrative tools is considered a serious issue. The administrative tools are provided to trusted users for maintenance and other tasks, and should be used with thought, serious misuse may result in sanction or even their removal.
Common situations where avoiding tool use is often required:
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- Conflict of interest/non-neutrality/content dispute — Administrators should not use their tools to advantage, or in a content dispute (or article) where they are a party (or significant editor), or where a significant conflict of interest is likely to exist. With few specific exceptions where tool use is allowed by any admin, administrators should ensure they are reasonably neutral parties when they use the tools.
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- Communal norm/policy — When a policy or communal norm is clear that tools should not be used, then tools should not be used without an explanation that shows the matter has been considered and why a (rare) exception is genuinely considered reasonable.
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In most cases even when use of the tools is reasonable, if a reasonable doubt may exist, it is frequently better to ask an independent administrator to review and (if justified) take the action. This is a matter of judgement if necessary.
- Uninvolved admins
An administrator is considered "uninvolved" if it is clear that they are able to exercise their tools from a position of neutrality. If they have been involved in a content dispute, were a significant editor of an article in question, were involved in revert wars, or are under their own sanctions for that topic area, they do not qualify as uninvolved.
However, one important caveat is that an administrator who has interacted with a user or article in an administrative role (i.e., in order to address a dispute, problematic conduct, administrative assistance, outside advice/opinion, enforce a policy, and the like) or whose actions on an article are minor, obvious, and do not speak to bias, is usually not prevented from acting on the article, user, or dispute. This is because one of the roles of administrators is precisely to deal with such matters and if necessary, continue dealing with them. That said, an administrator may still wish to pass such a matter to another administrator as "best practice" in some cases (although not required to). Or, they may wish to be absolutely sure that no concerns will "stick", in certain exceptional cases.
If a matter is blatantly, clearly obvious (genuinely vandalistic for example), then historically the community has sometimes endorsed any admin acting on it, even if involved, if any reasonable admin would have probably come to the same conclusion.
However, if there is doubt, or a personal motive may be alleged, it may still be better to pass it to others where possible.
See also
- Adminship
- The tools
