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
 * New moves: Move log
 * Articles to be deleted: Category:Articles for deletion
 * Contributors in need: MEpedia:Editor help desk
 * Task list for admins

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
 * Search MEpedia for suspicious links: Special:LinkSearch
 * Blocking users (last resort):
 * Special:Block
 * Special:BlockList
 * Special:AutoblockList (for an explanation, see https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Autoblock )
 * Temporary shutdown of MEpedia to prevent edits:
 * How to guide: 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 'semiprotected', which prohibits new editors 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

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. 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 (is this right?)
 * Delete user: Special:CloseAccount (is this right?)
 * Add or remove admin privileges: Special:UserRights (is this right?)
 * Lists of users
 * Administrators: Special:ListUsers/sysop
 * Users with bureaucrat role: Special:ListUsers/bureaucrat
 * MEAction staff: Special:ListUsers/staff
 * All users: Special:ListUsers

User notices
An administrator may periodically update the user notices:
 * New user message: Template:Welcome
 * Site notice for non-contributors: MediaWiki:Anonnotice
 * Site notice for contributors: MediaWiki:Sitenotice

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.
 * Developer main duties include:
 * Nightly or weekly backups of the website
 * Yearly performance-tuning of the MariaDB database
 * Upgrading the MediaWiki software, the VisualEditor extension, and the Citoid extension every 2 years. (A VisualEditor upgrade will probably come bundled with a Citoid upgrade.)
 * Occasional implementation of fixes or improvements
 * Task list for developers: MEpedia:Suggested_tasks
 * How to backup MEpedia: https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/215089918-How-do-I-backup-my-entire-account-
 * Software version and extension info: Special:Version

Learn more

 * MediaWiki Administrator's guide - Wikibooks