Basic summary of this policy: Administrators are to serve leadership and maintenance roles on the wiki, and are to act in the best interests of the community. Despite their extra permissions, admins do not outrank other users. New administrators may be nominated at Terraria Wiki:Rights Nominations#Administrators. Bureaucrats are particularly trusted admins who have the extra capability to manage user rights. Bureaucrats are also responsible for resolving admin disputes. New bureaucrats may be nominated at Terraria Wiki:Rights Nominations#Bureaucrats. |
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This page details a formal Terraria Wiki Different users have access to different functions of the site. While anyone can do most things on the site, including reading and editing, administrators have some extra responsibilities and access to a few additional functions.
In order to make them easier to find on the wiki, administrators' usernames are colored cyan.
Abilities
Additional abilities added by the admin group include:
- Deleting and undeleting pages, page histories, and uploaded files.
- Locking (protecting) a page so it cannot be edited or renamed by users without admin rights or autoconfirmed status.
- Blocking IP addresses or user names from editing.
- Very quick "rollback" of undesirable edits.
- Editing the interface by changing system messages and skins.
- Access to the settings of the wiki's abuse filter.
Attitude and responsibilities
Administrators are responsible users who have shown they have the experience, ability, and attitude to be accepted as leaders by the community. They are reliable members of the wiki who have been part of the site for a reasonable length of time.
They are both the role-models and the rule-keepers for the wiki. They should think of this role as serving the community, helping to maintain and care for it, rather than as a position of power and control. They are equal to other users, but have more responsibility and the permission of the community to make decisions for the group.
An admin must act in order to maintain the hairline balance of precise & accurate information and community happiness. This means they are responsible for ensuring that the wiki is not damaged by bad actions, but also that the community as a whole is happy and enjoying their time on the site.
An admin is a diplomat. A gifted diplomat has an opinion, but is able to put that aside for the sake of discussion. They look at things in a broader sense than most, and make decisions within that greater scope. In an argument over the choice between a peanut-butter sandwich or jelly sandwich, the gifted diplomat sees the possibility of a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich!
Admins are chosen based on their history and involvement with the Terraria Wiki.
Their key responsibilities are:
- Maintaining the wiki and keeping it clean.
- Making decisions on behalf of the community.
- Engaging the community, answering questions and helping people out.
- Teaching editors how to make good edits and about MediaWiki software.
- Enforce the rules of the community, blocking as needed
- Managing issues on the wiki, being the moderators and mediators during disputes
The ideal admin:
- Has a love of and knowledge of Terraria, and the Terraria Wiki
- Is willing to maintain the wiki and has available time to do so
- Is kind, friendly and helpful to be helpful to others.
- Hates vandalism and has shown they know how to clean it up.
- Is willing to learn and listens well to others
- Is honest and makes fair and reasonable decisions
- Is happy to answer users questions and to deal with disputes.
- Is authoritative in their decisions (but not authoritarian)
- Makes high quality contributions, with solid spelling and grammar.
- Manages to obtain and hold the trust of the community as a whole
The admin team should contain people with various skills and specialties. All should have knowledge of the basics of administering a wiki, including some knowledge of (or interest in learning) advanced wiki markup including templates, CSS, and JS. The style of contributions are often more important than the number or type. For example, someone with thousands of small spelling corrections is an asset to the wiki, but may not make as good an admin as someone who shows they have experience in helping others in the community.
Admins should have served as content moderators, discussion moderators, and/or rollbackers and used their powers responsibly.
Bureaucrats
| Shortcut: TW:BCRAT |
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A bureaucrat is a user with the extra ability to add and remove rights from others. They are chosen from among active admins, and most of their rights and obligations are part of their admin role. Even more so than admins, they are long-standing and knowledgeable contributors, selected from among the most respected members of the community.
In the case of a disagreement among admins, bureaucrats can also act as "tie-breakers", helping to find middle ground and selecting the best decision for the community as a whole. In this role, at a least two bureaucrats will look at a deadlocked situation and consider all admin and community views. Both must agree on the final decision (or a clear majority if more than two are involved). Because of this extra responsibility (and the fact that bureaucrat rights cannot be removed except by staff), bureaucrats are expected to be the most responsible and reasonable members of the community.
Bureaucrats' names are highlighted in gold.
Who are this wiki's administrators?
The "founder" of a wiki, the person who first requested it, is given administrator access automatically. Founders are also given bureaucrat access so they can make any other user on their wiki an administrator or bureaucrat. For a complete list of users with administrator access, see Special:Listusers/sysop.
If you need to contact an administrator, you can use the Administrator's Noticeboard or the talk page of any active or semi-active admin. A list of active admins can be found on the Navigation Bar under Community > Administrators.
Active
Admins in this section have edited recently and will probably respond to messages relatively quickly.
Semi-active
Admins in this section are more sporadic in their activity. They may still be lurking on the wiki, but they haven't edited in a while.
Inactive
Admins in this section have not edited or responded to messages recently.
How do I use administrator powers?
See Help:Administrators' how-to guide for a guide on using admin functions.
What can administrators not do?
Administrators should not use their administrator powers to settle editing disputes; for example, to lock a page on a version he or she prefers in an editing dispute that isn't vandalism. Administrator powers should be used to help keep the wiki clear of vandalism, spam, and users who make malicious edits, but not for simple disagreements between users acting in good faith.
Additionally, admins on this wiki are not officially affiliated with Re-Logic in any way.
Staff
Wikia Staff members have full access to all Wikia. They will be shown in Special:Listusers/staff on any wiki. Please use Special:Contact to contact Wikia Staff.
Becoming an administrator
Any member of the community can suggest names of people (potentially including themselves) to be considered at Terraria Wiki:Rights Nominations#Administrators. The ideal people are those whom the community knows and trusts, and who quickly come to mind when the question is asked "who should the next admin be?" Each suggestion will then be discussed by the community, to give an opportunity for everyone to give their opinions on the suitability of the candidates.
It's not necessary for everyone commenting to agree on a new admin, but there should be general agreement, especially from other well-respected community members. Overall, a successful candidate will have general support from the community, support from at least two existing admins, and no strong objections from any admin.
Views from unknown commenters (including people from other wikis, or who don't have a known connection to the Terraria Wiki) may be part of the conversation, but should be read in context. For example, an allegation that someone has been rude on an unconnected Wikia wiki might be useful data in reviewing a potential admin, or might be a biased and distorted view that shouldn't affect this wiki. Equally, a large number of supports from unknown people might show that the person is popular with readers of the wiki, or might show that uninvolved people (without actual knowledge of the wiki or its community) are getting pulled in from elsewhere.
Once everyone has had a chance to suggest and comment on candidates, a bureaucrat will set the rights for any candidates which are clearly favored by consensus. When the conversation is mixed and the overall consensus isn't clear, then the bureaucrat must consult with other admins and bureaucrats before making the change.
Bureaucrats are selected in a similar way, but only current admins are eligible. In this case, all commenting admins must agree strongly with the selection before the rights change is made.