Forum:Before You Request for Adminship

This page is for community discussion of which Novelas participants should be sysops (administrators, "admin" for short).

How does one become an administrator?
Any Novelas participant can become an administrator. If you have a record of good editing then you are likely to be trusted and be granted the privileges administrators have. But make sure you understand what it means to be an administrator: you will be expected to do a lot of work&mdash;sometimes dull and boring work&mdash;for the community. You can request adminship by self-nominating yourself (above). You can also be nominated by someone else. For each nomination, provide a short description of reasons why the nominated person should be an admin. It is helpful to describe past wiki contributions at this and other projects and indicate any similar sysop status on other wiki projects.

The editing history of each person who is nominated for adminship will be open to discussion by the community. Community members can comment on the nomination and express their support.

Seven days after the nomination has been listed, a Wikia bureaucrat will make the final decision based on the community discussion.

What can administrators do?

 * Deletion of pages that are not useful to the community
 * Deleting a page does not actually remove it from the database. It is merely invisible to non-custodians and can be restored at request.
 * Before you delete a page, it is worth checking with the person who created it.


 * Edit and move protection of pages
 * administrators can protect pages to prevent editing. There are two types of page protection: semi-protection, which prevents anonymous and new users from editing, and full protection, which prevents all non-custodians from editing. A page can also be protected to prevent moving. Page protection can be lifted by any custodian upon request. Page protections and unprotections can be monitored by viewing the protection log.


 * Rollback
 * administrators have a rollback tool to revert the last change or group of changes made to a page by the same editor. This tool used to quickly respond to obvious vandalism. For other edit reversions, the rollback button should not be used and a good edit summary should be provided.


 * Undo
 * administrators can also revert edits other than the last one. On diff pages, an "undo" link should appear next to the "edit" link on the right-hand revision. Note: if a more recent edit has changed the part of the page where you are trying to undo an older edit, the attempted undo action may not work.


 * User blocks
 * administrators can block users from editing. Blocks can be temporary or permanent. Most frequently, blocking occurs in response to obvious and repeated vandalism. When blocking a user, a reason for blocking must be provided which is displayed in the block log. It is also possible to block problem-causing IP addresses from creating new user accounts.


 * Editing MediaWiki namespace
 * administrators are able to edit the standard texts that are used by the MediaWiki software. An example of these texts is the site message.

How are Administrators expected to act?
Administrators are supposed to follow the same principles as every other user, including being being civil]], assuming good faith on the part of other wiki participants. Administrators are expected to act professionally and work with the community to decide what administrator actions (such as page deletions) are best for the community.

Problems with Administrators
If you have a question about an action (page deletion, page protection, user block, editing MediaWiki namespace pages, violation of Wikiversity policy or some other action that does serious damage to the project) by an administrators, the first thing to do is leave a message on that administrators's user discussion page. Administrators should always be able to explain how their actions support the project. If you cannot get satisfaction from discussion with the administrator, you can place comments, suggestions, complaints or questions at the Community portal. Try to resolve all custodian problems by discussion.

Administrators can lose their status if their actions disrupt the community. Adminship is a position of responsibility and the position is not suited for everyone. Please also note that in all instances not listed above, admins have no more power or weight than other wiki participants.