tarquin wrote:
Before I too jump on the application bandwagon ;) --
what can sysops do
that mortals can't?
As I wrote recently on [[User talk:Sjc]]
« ...if this isn't already documented in a central and accessible place,
please feel free to do so. The "sysop" powers are:
* Block and unblock IPs
o Related to this, ability to see the last octet of IP addresses in
edits by anonymous users, which is normally hidden to discourage random
people haX0ring your IP. (No ability to see the IP address of logged-in
users, as this is not stored in the database -- compare with the old
usemod wiki software, where both anonymous and logged-in users had their
full unfettered hostnames listed to any scmuck who wandered by.)
* Delete pages (there's an etiquette to this, see policy pages; but
people do sometimes take shortcuts, deleting empty pages with no history
more freely)
* Delete uploaded files
o There's also a revert-to-previously-uploaded-version feature, I'm
not sure if this is sysop or everybody.
* Move/rename pages preserving the edit history (planned to be
allowed for all or most users, I prefer all)
* Protect and unprotect pages (locking them against edit by other
users who are not also logged in as sysops). Traditionally this was in
fact used only on the main page, but some of the policy pages are also
locked, which I'm not sure I approve of. Here are all the pages
currently protected:
o Wikipedia:Upload_log
o Wikipedia:Article_deletion_log
o Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not
o Main_Page
o Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view
o Wikipedia:Copyrights
o Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines
o United_States_Constitution/Article_One (I'm a little
confused by this one; I've since unprotected it. It's just a redirect
anyway...)
o Wikipedia:IP_probation_watchlist
o Wikipedia:Most_common_Wikipedia_faux_pas
o Wikipedia:Wikipedia_policy_on_permanent_deletion_of_pages
o Wikipedia:Blocked_IPs
o Wikipedia:Naming_conventions
o Wikipedia:Administrators
o Wikipedia:Policy
If I left any "powers" out, it's by accident.
There are also a handful of 'developer' features available only to a few
of the programmers for purposes of finding and fixing bugs: database
queries, showing the PHP configuration variables, and enabling/disabling
a read-only mode to prevent edits to the database in the middle of
certain upgrades. --Brion VIBBER »
-- brion vibber (brion @
pobox.com)