Project:Moderation

The Moderation policy governs the standards to which administrators and content moderators are accountable concerning their sysop access level, while also supporting the grounds with which they act. This page describes in detail the justifications for actions concerning deletion, rollbacking, page protection, and blocking.

For the policies concerning administrator behavior and standards, as well as an overview of adminship, see Project:Administrators.

Deletion
Deletion involves the removal of a page and all of its revision history. Before a page is nominated for deletion, concerns should first be raised on the talk page. If the ensuant discussion determines that the page should in fact be deleted, it may be formally nominated by placing the delete tag on the page. From there, if it is clear that the consensus is to delete the page, an administrator will follow up and delete the page.

When a page is deleted, its talk page should be as well. However, if the discussion that led to its deletion should be preserved (as in major pages or discussions that have implications beyond just one article), the discussion should be moved to a community posting, and any necessary adjustments to policy should be reflected on the appropriate pages.

If you would like to request restoration of your work, contact a local admin listed at Special:Listusers/sysop.

Reasons
The following reasons correspond with MediaWiki:Deletereason-dropdown.


 * General reasons


 * Article namespace


 * File namespace


 * Talk namespace


 * Template and category namespace

Rollbacking
The rollback tool undoes all consecutive edits by a particular user until the last edit by a different user, all with one click. Because this tool does not allow for a customized edit summary, it should only be used to revert blatantly disruptive edits, such as vandalism, patent nonsense, or a large string of otherwise problematic edits.

"Reverting" simply means reversing an article to a previous state. Any method that effectively reverses even a small portion of content can be considered a reversion. Reversion of edits that do not satisfy the above requirement for rollbacking should use the undo system, with a comprehensive but concise edit summary to explain the reason for the reversion.

Per the code of conduct, there is a maximum of one revert allowed per instance, while reversions of reversions are prohibited. This applies even to administrators except in the event of disruptive edits. If a disruptive editor engages in an edit war with an administrator, further action to inhibit that user from making their changes may then be taken (see &sect; Page protection and &sect; Blocking).

Page protection
Page protection suspends the ability of editors to edit a page depending on their user access level. Semi-protection prevents new or anonymous editors from editing a page, while full protection prevents non-administrator users from editing a page.

Because the goal of the is to build an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, pages should rarely be protected for an indefinite amount of time. This section explains when articles should be protected, for how long, and at what level. For a list of currently protected pages, see Special:Protectedpages.

Reasons
The following reasons correspond with MediaWiki:Protect-dropdown. Pages are semi-protected or fully protected depending on the average access level of the users necessitating the protection.



Blocking
Blocking prevents the targeted user from being able to edit pages, including in some cases their own talk page. This is considered a last resort taken by administrators against users who have repeatedly engaged in disruptive editing or behavior. Generally, blocking should be preventative rather than punitive. The duration of the block is often at the discretion of the block performer; it can range anywhere from a three-hour cool down enforcement, to a full ban, which is indefinite.

With the exception of blatant vandalism, a user should be warned prior to being blocked. Such a warning should include the exact offense committed, and the potential duration of the block if the behavior continues. The language of the warning should adapt to the likely motive or intention behind a user's actions. Repeated but non-malicious mistakes should be met with a courtesy warning, whereas repeated malicious behavior should be met with a clear warning. Repeated offenses after having already been blocked generally escalate the block duration.

Reasons
The following reasons correspond with MediaWiki:Ipbreason-dropdown.