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 also restore the entire page 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".