Wikipedia talk:Administrators

Would it be good to have a list of administrators here? Jeronimo

Yup. -- Tarquin

At first blush, it sounds like a good idea to me. — Toby 09:27 Sep 20, 2002 (UTC)

You've been blushing a lot lately. ;) --mav

OK - Here is a list (/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Listusers&limit=5000&offset=0) of every user. All that is needed is for somebody to search for "sysop" and write down the sysops user name here. --mav

I can do better than that! Run this query: SELECT CONCAT("*[[User:",user_name,"|",user_name,"]]") from user where user_rights != "" ORDER BY user_name and cut-n-paste. --Brion

Sorry about the inadvertent capitalization of your name, mav. --Ed Poor

No biggie on the capitalization thing but just be careful not to delete Toby's message next time. --mav

Actually, I noticed that when I did the Diff in History, and I was putting it back when we got an edit conflict. I was correcting the "m" as well as putting back his message, but you are faster on the draw than I am. --Ed Poor

Opps! Sorry about that. :) --mav

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Hello. Something in one of Eloquence's messages to wikien-l has been confusing me. When he requested temporary sysop status in order to delete some pages, he added, "I've thought about making this possible for non-sysops by changing the code accordingly, but the security risk is too high." Changing the code? Doesn't that involve having "developer" status? He's not indicated as a developer on the Wikipedia:Administrators page, and I thought that the Wikipedia power hierarchy was a total order, so that all developers were sysops automatically. This is only idle curiosity, but since it is confusing me, I'd be grateful if someone could explain! -- Oliver PEREIRA 17:10 Jan 26, 2003 (UTC)

There are several different kinds of developer status:

• right to commit changes to our CVS server (I do have this right)
• right to directly access (via ssh[?]) our server and alter the files stored there (I do not have this right since I have not asked for it; Brion, Ed, the Bomis folks and a couple of other people do).
• right to run read-only SQL queries using the Wikipedia interface; every sysop can do so, so I have this right while I have sysop status.

And no, developers are not automatically sysops. Jimbo has offered me permanent sysop status but I have declined (I prefer to be a non-sysop most of the time in order to better understand how the Wikipedia workflow can be optimized). --Eloquence 17:29 Jan 26, 2003 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the explanation! It seems that the power hierarchy is even more complicated than I thought. Ah well, never mind... -- Oliver PEREIRA 19:02 Jan 26, 2003 (UTC)

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I just thought I'd better point out that Zoe seems to have been missed off the list. -- Oliver P. 21:23 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

She's on now. But what happened to Lee Daniel Crocker ?? His name didn't come up when I queried the user table. --Uncle Ed 21:39 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

I disabled his access while he was gone just so we didn't have an unused developer account potentially open to unnoticed cracking. Well actually, I meant to do that but forgot, and then accidentally didn't restore him when I mucked up the sysop accounts the other day. :) I'll put him back. --Brion 22:51 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

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Could you please add a sv language link to Wikipedia:Administratörer? // Liftarn

Done Enchanter

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Is there a good page around to show just what capabilities sysops have, and how to use them? For instance, I see that I can apparently block by IP address, but only (as far as I can see) from seeing them on Special:Recentchanges or Special:Watchlist. Not that I would imagine it likely I'd need to from the User page or a history page, but it'd be nice in general to have a HOWTO or something to see what all there is to it. -- John Owens 09:43 Apr 6, 2003 (UTC)

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What, what WHAT!!! User:Rambot is a sysop??!! Why in the world is a bot a sysop? One glitich in the bot's code and it deletes 100 articles a minute! And since it is a registered bot these edits would not show up on Recent Changes! --mav

Rambot is *not* a sysop. Presumably someone made this list by checking for "user_rights != ", without actually checking the contents thereof. Registered bot accounts are marked with "bot" in the user_rights field. --Brion 05:25 Apr 10, 2003 (UTC)

Whew! Thanks for the info. --mav

Rambot, we hardly knew ye. -- John Owens

Before your time I suppose. Rambot created 30,000 articles on US places and then went through several runs to add more info to each of them. --mav

I'd gotten the idea of what it is, and figured it was responsible for a lot of those geographical/census pages that crop up about 1/3 the time I hit Special:Randompage, especially after I looked at some histories. Did it have anything to do with the 1911 encyclopædia too, or was that all by hand? -- John Owens

Actually, looking at it again now, Rambot's last major contributions were in December 2002, and I started here in October that same year (or a bit earlier, anonymously), so not entirely before my time. -- John Owens

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Does this page need to be protected? I hear that soft security works well these days... Martin

• content moved to Wikipedia talk:Image use policy - User:Black Widow discusses the DMCA, copyright, cliques, and deletion of photos

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"Four of these (in bold italics) also have developer rights." Well, no, I count 5. Koyaanis Qatsi

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Who is User:Jasonr? Does he/Has he ever existed and should his name remain on this list? Tuf-Kat

Employee of Bomis, hasn't contributed for a year or so, but stops in occasionally to do admin stuff. Yes, he should stay. Koyaanis Qatsi 18:59 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

I guess my question was how can he be an admin when he doesn't appear to have an account. I'm sure he's a swell chap and all, and I have no problems with his sysopness, I'm just curious as to how it's possible. Tuf-Kat

He has an account; he just doesn't have a user page. Koyaanis Qatsi

Aaaah.... Tuf-Kat

Unblocking users

I've been thinking of writing a "unblock all IPs banned more than 30 days ago" script. And running it once a week. Any takers? --Ed Poor

Well, I was just going to add an automatic timeout to the banning system; the length of ban would be set when banning (default 30 days, options to less?), and when the timeout came up, they fall off the list. Sound good? (Also, there should be a log page listing bans, manual unbans, and automatic unbans.) --Brion 21:03 Nov 26, 2002 (UTC)

• user:H.J. talk deleted - a catalogue of confusion - see user:H.J./ban for something more like truth.

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Could someone unprotected this page for 10 mn. I am feeling lazy with links and would like to edit it, to copy it to fr. Thanks User:anthere

Done. You have ten minutes :-) -- JeLuF 21:04 Apr 30, 2003 (UTC)

done; Thanx alot anthere

Why does this page need to be protected anyway? Martin 23:14 Apr 30, 2003 (UTC)

that is a mystery. Answer will be "to avoid it being vandalized". In case nobody would notice it...I could hardly argue against using precautionary principle. humpf.

There is no reason to have this page protected; I've unlocked it. --Brion 01:29 May 1, 2003 (UTC)

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Since I worked inspiring myself of this page; two comments. It is mentionned all users, non-signed included, can edit articles AND upload files. I think un-loggued user cannot upload files. ant

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• feedback moved to User talk:Janet Dayton

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I would be interested in becoming an administrator if Wikipedia is still short of administrators. 172

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I'm a bit lost in this process. I've sent out requests on the mailing list and have received support from three professional scholars who are also, without a doubt, among the best contributors: JTD, Tannin, Danny and others. I greatly appreciate their confidence, but I don't know what I'm to do next. 172

Honesty compells me to say that I'm not a professional schlolar, 172, much as I appreciate your comment. I am, in my own small way, a capitalist of sorts. :) Tannin

The implementation has to be done by a sysop with "developer" access. Normally Ed Poor does it, but he's not around, so you'll have to wait for one of the others. Assuming, of course, that said developer is convinced that there's a consensus in favour of your sysopship... Martin

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Where do I apply for sysop status? I'd like to help in such regards. Kingturtle 22:48 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

As the text of this page states ; on the en.wiki mailing list. I'll support your application. --mav

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I just unprotected this page (again!) for the same reasons as Brion did above. I do wish people would RTFM sometimes... *grr* Martin 18:14 May 14, 2003 (UTC)

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I would like to understand. It is written deletion of images are permanent. This has also been told to me when I asked for the undeletion of the baboon image. So, if it is really the case, it is absolutely useless to add a link for Wikipedia:votes for undeletion. It is maybe not necessarily to make believe regular users tehy will gain anything in spending time challenging a decision when the image is permanently lost. So, please, is it permanent or not permanent ? Anthere

From what I can tell, image deletion is permanent. The image description page can be recovered, but the image is permanently lost. -- Minesweeper 01:37 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Uploads can never be permanently lost unless the person who uploaded them loses their original copy or, of course, vanishes completely. Images from the public domain are naturally enough retrievable again. Sysops who delete images ought to save a copy themselves before deleting just in case; this has been my custom at least. --Brion 02:17 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi I was trying to fix a typo in the NLCS series someone had listed 2001 twice instead of 2002 at it said i was block for vandalism, don't know how that is vandalism but anyway some one may wnt to atleast fix the typo

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Instead of having to contact any administrator and hoping that he/she reads the request, how about creating a page Wikipedia:Sysop requests[?] which all admins are required to watch? This could be used to request the editing of protected pages, banning of IPs, what have you. Is there such a page already? Alternatively, sysop usernames could be flagged in some fashion, but this would smack of elitism. ---Eloquence 21:25 Jan 19, 2003 (UTC)

but w3 *IS* teh l33t! (kidding) -- t

... and detrimental to npov. Sysops already have a disproprtionately high

credibility with the credulous. See Milgram experiment. It is bad

enough that the Hubris of some Sysops, prevents them from recognizing the ::failure of logic, that is known as an appeal to Authority. Who else but ::Two16

well, we have wikipedia talk:protected page, wikipedia:vandalism in progress, and wikipedia:votes for deletion - what other sysop requests are there?

I disagree with the flagging of sysop usernames - I've had bad experiences with such systems elsewhere?