Wikinews/Open English/Administrators
Open English "Administrators" are members of the community who are trusted to take care of some of the less-pleasant maintenance of the site. They've earned this trust by being around for a while as contributors, and it's "No big deal".
It's important to know that the terms "sysop" and "admin" are really inaccurate, but they're the terms used by the Mediawiki software. These members of the community have a couple of extra jobs
What's the deal?Edit
The Mediawiki software has few restrictions, and those which exist are there primarily for security reasons. Sysops are tasked with:
- Archiving, and editing archived, articles. An archived page is "protected" to prevent edits to its contents. Admins are the people who protect, and unprotect, pages according to the Open en.Protection guidelines and Open en.Archiving conventions.
- Deleting articles, images, templates, etc. along with their histories. Decisions to delete something are almost always by the community, via polls on the Open en.Deletion requests following the Open en.Deletion guidelines, but also may be made in accordance with the Open en.Speedy deletions guidelines. Articles, templates, and other pages may be petitioned for undeletion on the Open en.Undeletion requests page, but once images are deleted they are gone forever.
- Block user accounts or IP addresses. Blocking of user accounts and IP addresses is only done for persistent bad edits, for malicious edits, or on decisions by the community according to the Open en.Blocking policy. Admins may apply temporary blocks for edits of up to 30 days, or permanent blocks to accounts impersonating legitimate accounts or which are clearly offensive, and must document the reason for the block, letting the user know who blocked them and why they were blocked.
RequirementsEdit
The requirements of adminship are basic: remain active on the site and follow the guidelines and policies of the community. A vote of confidence may be called on an admin to determine if the community continues to trust them to follow the community's will - a simple majority of registered and active users. An admin's activity should be reviewed annually, and admins are encouraged to volunteer to be de-admined if they will be unavailable for an extended period of time.
Becoming an adminEdit
Any registered and active user may request adminship, or may be nominated for adminship (the user must accept the nomination.)
You are encouraged to work in Open English Wikinews for a while before requesting adminship; other contributors will need to know you before they will vote for you, and they will likely want to see what kind of contributions you make.
Being an adminEdit
As an admin, you are expected to be active in the community and to be responsive to requests for assistance. Some of the things you are expected to help maintain include:
- Deletion requests should be kept current
- Speedy deletions should be current
- Water cooler should be regularly archived, and you should try to stay abreast of the community's interests and concerns
- Recent changes patrol
- Developing stories
Of course everyone needs a break now and then, and short breaks are not a problem. If you think you might be away for longer, it might be a good idea to ask to be deadmin'ed; it's not difficult to become an admin again. Less of an issue if you're asking for it back after a vacation than if you're asking for it back after it was removed. In fact, we encourage people to move in and out of the admin role as you have time for it; be a "winter admin" when you have extra time for it, and not an admin during the summer when you're busy, or whatever fits for your lifestyle. It's no big deal.
List of administratorsEdit
| User | Date admined |
|---|---|
| Example | January 1, 1972 |
Requests for adminshipEdit
Place a link to your user account, and write a short introduction to yourself explaining a bit about yourself and why you would like to become an admin for the community. Here's an example:
=== [[User:Example]] ===
I've been a contributor since January 1, 1971, and I feel I can give a bit more time to maintaining the community. I especially want to work on archiving articles as they age, but I also plan to do RC patrol for vandalism and help out on welcoming new contributors. ~~~~
Vote of confidenceEdit
Place a link to the admin's user account, and write a short reason why you feel they have lost the confidence of the community. Here's an example:
=== [[User:Example]] ===
Example's last edit was in June of 1972, 33 years ago. Even then the edits were primarily POVioring in news articles against the Republican administration. You can see this at [[Example link]] and [[Example link]]. For these reasons I feel Example is not currently meeting the requirements for adminship, and I'd like the community to consider whether they should be in the position for now. ~~~~