Help:Sysops and permissions

From GAWDAwiki

Different user groups have different levels of access and permission to content on GAWDAwiki.

Sysops

GAWDAwiki's team of editors and administrators are included in a group called 'sysops' (or known more generally as 'administrators'). Most of the time this group should go largely unnoticed by the normal users of a wiki community. Everyone can get involved in editing pages, and even undertaking drastic reorganisation of the wiki. The extra powers of a sysop user are intended for use in settling disputes and preventing repeated vandalism.

What can a sysop do?

There are a number of extra features available to sysops. The key ones are as follows:

Protecting and unprotecting pages, and editing protected pages

'Protecting' a page prevents normal users from editing the page at all. There are several reasons why a particular page might be protected. For more information see Help:Protected pages.

Deleting pages, and undeleting.

A page can be deleted semi-permanently, such that it is no longer available (even in the page histories) for normal users. Normal users do not have this power.

Blocking a user or IP address, and unblocking them.

Users can be blocked from the wiki. This is a useful way of keeping out persistent vandals. Users are identified by their registered user name, or by I.P. address, and can be blocked permanently, or just short length of time to give them a "cooling off" period. Only a sysop can block a user.

Patrolling, and seeing patrolled edits.

This is a way of coordinating with other sysops, to ensure that every edit of the wiki has been checked over by a trusted user.

Bureaucrats

Another level of permissions within a default MediaWiki set-up, is the 'bureaucrat' group.

The main thing a bureaucrat can do, which 'sysop' cannot, is promote users to be sysops (and demote sysops to normal users). See Help:Assigning permissions