MEpedia:Admin guide

This Admin guide is intended to provide new administrators with the tools and information they need to be successful admins. For more information on admins, see: MEpedia:Administrators.

Monitoring
An administrator may regularly patrol changes to MEpedia. When there are multiple administrators, an administrator can mark a change as “patrolled”, which simply means that an administrator has already reviewed the change, so that other administrators don’t have to review the change as well. The typical pages monitored by administrators include the following: For more information on “patrolling” changes, see MediaWiki's 'patrolled' edits.
 * Recent changes: Special:RecentChanges
 * New pages: Special:NewPages
 * New uploads: Upload log or Special:NewFiles, but especially Category:Media uploaded without a license
 * New moves: Move log
 * Articles to be deleted: Category:Articles for deletion
 * Contributors in need: MEpedia:Editor help desk
 * Task list for admins

Moderating discussion pages
Occasionally, an administrator may need to moderate a discussion on a talk page if the discussion gets out of hand. With the StructuredDiscussions extension, posts on discussion pages can be ‘deleted’ by administrators. (Posts can also be ‘hidden’ by regular users.)
 * Explaining ‘deleting’ and ‘hiding’ on discussion pages

Spam, vandalism, and hacking
An administrator is the first line of defense against spam, vandalism, and hacking. Developers can also provide assistance. More extensive information on spam, vandalism, and hacking:
 * Spam detector: Special:SmiteSpam and Special:SmiteSpamTrustedUsers
 * Blacklists and whitelists
 * Search MEpedia for suspicious links: Special:LinkSearch
 * Blocking users (last resort):
 * Special:Block and Special:Unblock
 * Special:BlockList
 * Special:AutoblockList (for an explanation, see https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Autoblock )
 * Temporary shutdown of MEpedia to prevent edits:
 * Have a developer "un-comment" the first line in the LocalSettings.php file, which currently says .  For more information, see: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Lock_the_database
 * Old way to shutdown and restart: Special:LockDB and Special:UnlockDB
 * MediaWiki’s Combating Spam Guide: https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Combating_spam
 * MediaWiki’s Combating Vandalism Guide: https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Combating_vandalism
 * MediaWiki’s Website Security Guide: https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Security

Protecting pages
Certain key pages may need to be protected from incorrect edits. Administrators can designate these key pages as 'protected', which prohibits non-administrators from editing them. Administrators can also designate a page as 'semi-protected', which prohibits new editors or moderated users from editing them. (A new editor is someone who has done fewer than 50 edits.) Note: All pages in the "MediaWiki:" namespace are automatically protected by default.
 * List of protected pages: Special:ProtectedPages
 * Semi-protection message
 * Full page protection message

User maintenance (‘Bureaucrat role’)
The ‘bureaucrat role’ of administrators is concerned with maintaining the users, groups, and rights of MEpedia. Users are members of groups, and each group has special rights. Therefore, you can change a user's rights by adding or removing them from certain groups. For more information on the bureaucrat role, see MEpedia:Bureaucrats.
 * List of groups and the rights given to each group: Special:ListGroupRights
 * Rename user: Special:RenameUser
 * Add or remove admin privileges: Special:UserRights
 * Lists of users
 * Administrators: Special:ListUsers/sysop
 * Users with bureaucrat role: Special:ListUsers/bureaucrat
 * MEAction staff: Special:ListUsers/staff
 * Active users: Special:ActiveUsers
 * All users: Special:ListUsers

User notices
An administrator may periodically update the user notices: Note: Every time you update MediaWiki:Sitenotice, you MUST also increase the number stored in MediaWiki:Sitenotice_id. If you do not increase the number in MediaWiki:Sitenotice_id, then the notice will NOT be shown to users.
 * New user message: Template:Welcome, or MediaWiki:Welcomecreation-msg
 * Site notice for non-contributors: MediaWiki:Anonnotice
 * Site notice for contributors: MediaWiki:Sitenotice

Search-and-replace text
An administrator can search for text in multiple pages and automatically replace that text with other text. This tool comes in handy for tasks such as renaming categories in multiple pages.
 * Search-and-replace tool: Special:ReplaceText

Developer info
An administrator may occasionally need to work with developers. Developers are individuals who perform technical maintenance on the software and hardware underlying MEpedia.
 * For more info: MEpedia:Developer guide

Learn more

 * Administrator's guide - MediaWiki
 * Preventing access - MediaWiki
 * MediaWiki Administrator's guide - Wikibooks