Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe:Sysops How to Guide
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
This page is a basic how to guide for sysops and is especially important reading for those who are considering making a Sysop Rights Request. The information here has been largely taken from the Wikipedia Administrator's How to Guide.
Please note this how to guide does not cover VirtueVerse Policies & Guidelines and is merely meant as an introduction to the tools sysops have available to them.
Contents |
Page/Image Deletion
Checklist:
Deleting a Page
Click the delete or delete this page link on the page you want to delete. You will be shown a page with a box to type in the reason for deletion, and a confirm box. The box will often contain the first 150 characters of the page.
For vandalism and spam deletions, it may be acceptable to leave the full text as the reason (unless the contents contain personal attacks or other content that would be inappropriate to show in the deletion log, which is permanent). In other cases, you should specify why you are deleting it. An example reason is "requested for deletion by owner" or "redundant/misspelled page name please see X".
If the page has more then one revision in its history you will receive a warning on this confirmation page. Please always make sure to check the history of a page before deleting an item that appear to be spam or vandalism, if there is a non-spam or vandalized version available you should revert the page instead.
Deleting an Image
To delete all versions of an image, you can select the "delete all revisions" option, or delete the image description page in the same way you would delete an article. To delete individual revisions, click the del link next to that revision.
If there is more than one revision of an image, clicking the "Delete all revisions of this image" will do exactly that. You cannot delete the most recent one without deleting all older copies and the image description page as well.
After clicking Delete all revisions of this image, you will see a confirmation screen similar to that used for page deletion and the deletion will be logged. There is no such confirmation if you are deleting a single old revision, but the deletion will still be logged.
Page Protection
Protecting & Unprotecting a Page
To protect a page, click the protect or protect this page link. In addition to full protection from edits by non-administrators, it is possible to apply semi-protection from edits by new or unregistered users. This will lead to a confirmation screen very similar to the one used for deletion. Enter the reason for protection in the box, check the confirm box and press confirm, this will be logged. Unprotect works in exactly the same way. Admins must not protect pages they are actively engaged in editing, except in the case of simple vandalism.
Editing a Protected Page
Click edit this page in the normal way. The only difference is the warning at the top of the page reminding you the page is protected.
Protecting a Non-existent Page
Sometimes, a page is deleted and recreated multiple times. In this case, you may protect the deleted page in the same way you would an existing page to prevent future creation.
Protecting or Unprotecting an Image
Protecting an image is mostly the same as protecting a page (see above). When you click "protect" on an image description page, both the page and the image are protected. The image description page will be protected, and non-sysops will not be able to revert the image to an earlier version, or upload a new version over it.
Redirection
This section is a WIP
Redirects are pages that point to other pages, usually left behind when a page is moved (so that links to the original end up at the target page). They can also be created manually. An example would be for a page author with multiple names for the same character. Instead of duplicating the article on several pages, the main page is created, and then redirects from the other page titles are redirected to it.
Editing a Redirect
A redirect will look like this:
#REDIRECT [[Internal Link]]
Normally this is the ONLY content on the page. Redirects are not to be placed before, within, or after legitimate content. If one is found, it should be removed so that the original article can be read. Hiding redirects within articles is classed as Hidden Vandalism.
If you wish to change the target of a redirect, but leave it in place, change the link.
If you wish to change the page into a jump page[1], remove the #REDIRECT keyword, or replace it with "Page moved to: "
Deleting a Redirect
There are two ways to delete a redirect. Remove the redirect code and save the page, or (if the page is nothing but the redirect line itself) delete the page.
Please note the target page in the Edit summary or reason for deletion, such as "Redirect removed: Target Page was [[Page Title]]"
Checking for Broken Redirects
A Broken Redirect is a redirect to a page that does not exist. These should be regularly pruned so that users do not end up at an unexpected empty page. Wikimedia maintains a list of these redirects at: Special:BrokenRedirects.
Normally, broken redirects can safely be removed. However, it's a good idea to see what links to the redirect, to get an idea if it can be edited to redirect to an existing page.
When you delete pages or image, perhaps as part of a cleanup effort, it's a good idea to check the Broken Redirects listing to see if any new ones were created when you performed the deletions.
Checking Double Redirects
A Double Redirect is a redirect to a redirect. Wikimedia indexes these at Special:DoubleRedirects.
These can be chained, so figuring out where they belong can be tricky. Check the page history to help determine the proper target. Then edit the original to point to the end target, and remove the one in the middle if it is no longer needed.
Since Wikimedia only does double redirect checking, you may have to review the listing several times to trim down a chain of three or more redirects.
Recursive Redirects
Recursive redirects are redirects that point back to each other, or in a circle. If left unchecked, when the first one is loaded, the browser will redirect from one page to the next endlessly, putting the user in a loop. However, WikiMedia checks for these when it parses the pages, and will throw an error.
The task at this point is to fix the redirects so that they go where they belong, or if one or more had useful content, revert the page(s) back to that content.
In a worst case scenario, deleting one of the redirects outright will break the chain, and WikiMedia may be able to then analyze the redirects as per Double Redirects, above. or you can do a "nuke from orbit" to remove ALL of the redirects.
As always, check page history on each redirect, to see if they were put in place intentionally or accidentally. you might be able to find clues as to where they belong.
As always, when deleting a page, check the "What Links Here" special page to see what will potentially be affected.
Categories
This section is a WIP
Creating a Category
Moving a Category
Deleting a Category
Categorizing Pages
Sub-Categorizing
Linking and Redirecting to Categories
Templates
This section is a WIP
Creating a Template
Editing a Template
Deleting a Template
- ↑ A jump page is a page that contains only a link to another page.
