SpongeBob Wiki:Administrators

Administrators, sometimes called admins or sysops, are users who have been promoted and given additional rights and responsibilities on the wiki. It is one of four ranks of wiki staff, although members of the two higher ranks, bureaucrats and the proprietor, retain the lower administrator rank as well. The umbrella term "wiki staff" is preferred when referring to the administrators of the SpongeBob Wiki, but be aware that terms like "administrators" or "admins" have sometimes been used to refer to the entire wiki staff rather than the specific administrator rank.

Overview
Administrators are users who have a proven track record of high-quality edits and responsible, mature behavior, and have had performance- and security-based restrictions on several features lifted because they seemed like hardworking and trustworthy folks. This includes the ability to block vandals or disruptive users, quickly revert damage done to articles, and delete unwanted images or pages (among other functions listed below). Users cannot ask to be promoted: all decisions on promotions and demotions are made by the current staff members, although users are free to decline when offered a promotion.

In general, administrators are not imbued with any special authority and are equal to everyone else in terms of editorial responsibility. Staff members' votes and opinions are given equal weight to regular users in talk page discussions and any other democratic process or informal discussion. Admins should not have power over other users other than applying decisions made by all users, but when they do exercise their authority to enforce established rules and regulations, users should defer to their judgement rather than arguing, edit-warring and making a scene. Administrators are not infallible, however any mistakes made by the wiki staff will be dealt with internally; Users should never attempt to give a staff member an official warning, but instead, voice any legitimate concerns to a bureaucrat in private, such as via a PM on the forum. While warnings given to users by an administrator cannot be appealed, the other staff members have the ability to overturn any unwarranted warnings or blocks if they see fit. In addition, there are a few specific transgressions that only administrators can dispense warnings for.

Because of their experience, users seeking help will often turn to an administrator for advice and information. During vandal attacks or edit wars, users may contact any staff members who are online for assistance. Administrators are expected to keep an eye on Special:RecentChanges as much as possible in order to notice incidents on their own.

Many essential housekeeping chores require the additional editing tools granted to administrators, and users should feel free to ask for assistance if they are not able to perform certain necessary functions on their own, such as having pages protected or unprotected, having redirects deleted to make room for moves, etc. For less pressing matters, delete can be placed on pages or images requiring deletion, and an admin will get around to it sooner than later, as they are expected to periodically check and empty the "to be deleted" category.

If it is possible, it would be convenient for administrators to also go to the staff channel in the official Discord server, which is a faster and more effective way of discussing wiki matters, although important decisions should ultimately still be made through the forum. It is very rare that situations are pressing enough that there is no time for forum discussion.

Administrator group rights
The wiki software has several important features that are restricted from usage by regular users. This page lists all the restricted features granted to administrators (and other user ranks), but a more comprehensive overview is provided below.


 * Protecting and unprotecting pages.
 * Directly editing or moving protected pages.
 * Deleting pages, files and their history.
 * Viewing and restoring deleted pages and page histories.
 * Hiding specific revisions of a page from public view, including the associated edit summary if necessary.
 * Viewing and restoring hidden revisions.
 * Instantly reverting the most recent edits made to a page via rollback (note that any user can manually revert a page to an earlier version, admins can just do it faster).
 * Blocking user accounts, IP addresses and IP ranges for a specific time or indefinitely; see the blocking policy for more information.
 * Unblocking user accounts, IP addresses and IP ranges.
 * Hiding inappropriate usernames from public view.