StrategyWiki:Guide/Admin guide

StrategyWiki Administrators, also known as "sysops", are privileged users who, on top of adding content to the site, are able to perform administrative functions such as deleting pages and modifying protected pages. The following page is designed to be a reference for sysops who need a reminder on how to properly carry out such critical functions. For those wishing to become a sysop instead, please go here.

Beforehand
Whether it be spam, a copyright violation, or just a page that doesn't have any particular use, pages are constantly being "deleted" from StrategyWiki. Deleting a page is a simple process. All you have to do is click on the "delete" tab, put in a reason, then click "delete." However, there are a few things you should be aware of before doing this:
 * Are there any links to the page you are about to delete? Before you delete the page, click on the "What links here" link in the Toolbox. If there are pages that link to the page, point the links to a more appropriate page or remove them.
 * Is there a talk page? Deleting a page will not delete its talk page if one exists. Therefore, you need to check to see if there is one; a relatively simple procedure. The "Discussion" link/tab will be blue if a talk page exists, and red if it doesn't.
 * Is what you are deleting an image or some other type of file? If it is, these images/files cannot be recovered after deletion, so they will have to be re-uploaded if it is later deemed necessary.

The reason
You will need to include a summary of why you are deleting the page. Most of the time, MediaWiki will give you a default summary. If it does, then use it. If not, then you need to explain exactly why you are deleting the page. The more specific you are, the better the summary. For example, the summary "copyvio from http://www.example.com " is better than simply "copyvio".

Viewing/Restoring deleted pages
If it is later decided that a deleted page should be restored, go to that page and click on "View or Restore # deleted edit(s)." You will then be brought to a screen showing all the past deletions/undeletions of the page, a restore box, and then a list of the page's history. By clicking on the history links, you can see the wiki code of each revision. You can either restore the entire page by just simply clicking "Restore" or just certain revisions of it by checking the check boxes near each history line, then entering a reason in the above box and clicking "Restore".

Why?
You will need to merge page histories when someone cuts (or copies) and pastes the content from one page into another, generally-empty page (simulating a page move without actually using the "Move" tab), or when content from 2+ pages with existing content need to become one. Splitting page histories is only done if a history merge from 2+ pages with existing content was later deemed incorrect and needs to be reversed. The reason why this is an issue is because of the GFDL. It is against the terms of the GFDL to create a derivative work without giving some sort of history of past works (even if it is copy/paste).

Merging histories
Merging a page history is easy, but time consuming. Simply follow these steps:
 * 1) Delete the destination page (the page where the history from the other page(s) is/are being merged into).
 * 2) Use the "Move" tab to move the page containing the history needed to be merged to the now-deleted destination page.
 * 3) If there are more than two pages that need to be merged, repeat steps 1 and 2 until you move all of the histories that need to be merged.
 * 4) Undelete the revisions that you deleted to make way for the move
 * 5) Revert the page back to the version where all the needed content was present (or move content from various versions until all the desired content is present).
 * 6) Change all links from the redirect pages you made during the moves to the new location. You may want to delete the redirect pages as well.

Note: Before merging histories, ensure that the pages you are merging are actually the pages that need to be merged together, and once complete, the merge will not have to be split, as splitting page histories is even more time-consuming and difficult.

Splitting histories
Unlike merging page histories, splitting them is quite difficult, and very time-consuming. Follow these steps to properly split page histories:
 * 1) Delete the source page (the page that you are splitting the histories from).
 * 2) Undelete only the selected revisions you do not want to keep on the source page (aka, the revisions of the history that was previously merged into the page, but now need to be split up. If there were more than 2 pages merged, only undelete one of the pages).
 * 3) Move the page using the "Move" tab to the new desired location.
 * 4) If more than 2 pages were merged together, repeat steps 2 and 3 until all histories but the main one that you want to keep have been moved.
 * 5) Undelete the remaining revisions.
 * 6) Revert each split page to the correct version, if necessary.
 * 7) Change the links to the now-split page to their respective pages, if necessary.

Importing Pages
Importing a page is a means of transferring pages across various MediaWiki wikis while keeping the edit history intact (and thus satisfying the GFDL). In most cases, this isn't necessary as you may just link to the page's history on the other wiki, but in cases where it is marked for deletion, you'd want to import the page here. Before you import a page, you have to export it on the other wiki. Go to Special:Export on that wiki and export the page or pages that you want to import here. Then, save the .xml file, go to Special:Import, browse to your saved .xml file, and click "Upload". After a while, the pages, with the edit history intact (if you exported them that way), will be on StrategyWiki. Chances are, the pages you've imported will need a large cleanup to meet our formatting standards, as well as to get rid of all of the red links.

Protecting
To protect a page, click on the "protect" tab. Then, select "Sysops only" from the Edit menu. It will automatically making Move Sysops only as well. Then, enter a valid reason for protection and click "Confirm". If you don't want to fully protect the page, the varying options you may choose are outlined below:
 * "(default)" means that all registered users may edit/move the page.
 * "Block unregistered users" means that all registered users using an account less than four days old may not edit/move the page. Since IP editing is disallowed, this mode of protection is rather pointless.
 * "Sysops only" means that only sysops may edit/move the page. This is the preferred mode for protection.

If you check the "Unlock move permissions" check box, you may assign varying levels of protection for Edit and Move. For example, an Edit level of "(default)" and a Move level of "Sysops only" means that any registered user may edit the page, but only Sysops may move it to a new location using the "move" tab (this is called "move protection").

Unprotecting
To unprotect a page, click on the "unprotect" tab. Then, select "(default)" from the Edit menu and enter a reason for unprotection, then click "Confirm".

Protection checklist
Only certain pages really need to be protected, so use the following checklist to determine if the page you are thinking of protecting really needs it or not.
 * Is it a highly used template such as the Header Nav?
 * Is it a highly visible page that doesn't need to be changed all that often such as the Main Page?
 * Is it an archive of past discussion that should not be edited?
 * Does the page exist here for some sort of legal reason, such as the GNU Free Documentation License?

If a page doesn't fit into any of the above categories, then use your best judgment before protecting it, or ask the community. If you are still unsure, it is best not to protect the page.

Editing Protected Pages
Editing a protected page is exactly like editing any other page in terms of procedure, but there are a few things to keep in mind before you hit "save page":
 * Did you use "Show Preview" and found no mistakes in your edit?
 * Is the edit really necessary? If it is like a superfluous edit to a widely used template, it adds meaningless jobs to the job queue.
 * Did you discuss the edit you were going to make first? Getting input before editing a protected page is valuable to see what other edits might need to be made to the page, as well as if editing it is even a good idea to begin with.