TechInfoDepot:User access levels

Template:TechInfoDepot information page

To find the permissions for your account, go to Special:Preferences. Your permissions are listed in the user profile tab under "Member of groups".

Template:Wikimedia user access levels

The user access level of editors affects their abilities to perform specific actions on TechInfoDepot. The user access level depends on which rights (Also called: permissions, user groups, bits, or flags.) are assigned to accounts. There are two types of access leveling: automatic, and requested. User access levels are determined by whether the TechInfoDepotn is logged in, the account's age and edits, and what manually assigned rights the account has.

Anyone can use the basic functionalities of TechInfoDepot even if they are not logged in. Unless they are blocked, they may freely edit most pages. Being logged in gives users many advantages, such as having their public IP address hidden and the ability to track one's own contributions. Additionally, once user accounts are more than a certain number of days old and have made more than a certain number of edits, they automatically become autoconfirmed or extended confirmed, allowing the direct creation of articles, the ability to move pages, to edit semi-protected and extended-protected pages, and upload files. Further access levels need to be assigned manually by a user with the appropriate authority. An editor with more experience and good standing can attempt to become an administrator, which provides a large number of advanced permissions. Many other flags for specialized tasks are also available.

Overview

Template:See

All visitors to the site, including unregistered users, are part of the '*' group, and all logged-in registered users are also part of the 'user' group. Users are automatically promoted into the autoconfirmed/confirmed users pseudo-group of established users when their account is more than four days old and has ten edits, and the 'extended confirmed' user group later on.

Other flags are only given upon request; some, such as 'rollbacker' or 'bot', are granted unilaterally if the user demonstrates a need for them (see Project:Requests for permissions and Project:Bots/Requests for approval). Others, such as 'sysop' and 'bureaucrat', are given only after community discussion and consensus at Project:Requests for adminship. Users are made members of such groups as 'oversight' and 'checkuser' only with the approval of the Arbitration Committee, after signing the Wikimedia Foundation's confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information.

User groups have one or more rights assigned to them; for example, the ipblock-exempt (IP block exemptions) group have the 'ipblock-exempt' and 'torunblocked' rights. All members of a particular user group will have access to these rights. The individual rights that are assigned to user groups are listed at Special:ListGroupRights. Terms like rights, permissions, bits and flags can refer to both user groups and the individual rights assigned to them.

Permissions requested at Requests for permissions only have local rights on the English TechInfoDepot wiki. Members of global user groups have rights across all Wikimedia Foundation wikis, although that access can sometimes be restricted by local wiki policies. Users registered at Wikimedia wikis also have registered user rights to other Wikimedia wikis if their account is a SUL or unified login account. Both local and global user group membership across Wikimedia wikis can be viewed at Special:CentralAuth.

User groups

The system-generated technical permissions are listed at Special:ListGroupRights.

Unregistered (IP or not logged in) users

Shortcut: WP:IP

Contributors who are not logged in are identified by their IP address rather than a user name, whether or not they have already registered an account. They may read all TechInfoDepot pages (except restricted special pages), and edit pages that are not protected (including Pending changes protected/move-protected articles). They may create talk pages in any talk namespace but need to ask for help to create pages in some parts of the wiki. They cannot upload files or images. They must answer a CAPTCHA if they wish to make an edit which involves the addition of external links, and click a confirm link to purge pages. All users may also query the site API in 500-record batches.

Edit screens of unregistered users are headed by a banner that reads:

Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you [$1 log in] or [$2 create an account], your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.

Registered (new) users

Shortcut: WP:REGISTERED

Registered users may immediately e-mail other users if they activate an email address in their user preferences. All logged-in users may mark edits as minor. They may purge pages without a confirmation step, but are still required to answer a CAPTCHA when adding external links. They may save books to their userspace but not the Books namespace. They may also customize their Wikimedia interface and its options as they wish - either via Special:Preferences, or by adding personal CSS or JavaScript rules to their vector.css or vector.js files.

Autoconfirmed and confirmed users

Shortcuts: WP:AUTOCONFIRM WP:CONFIRM

Several actions on the English TechInfoDepot are restricted to user accounts which were created a certain number of days ago and which have made a certain number of edits. Users who meet these requirements are considered part of the pseudo-group 'autoconfirmed'. The conditions for autoconfirmed status are checked every time a user attempts to perform a restricted action; if they are met, permission is granted automatically by the MediaWiki software. Although the precise requirements for autoconfirmed status vary according to circumstances, most English TechInfoDepot user accounts that are more than four days old and have made at least 10 edits (including deleted ones) are considered autoconfirmed. However, users with the IP block exemption flag and who are editing through the Tor network are subjected to much stricter autoconfirmed thresholds: 90 days and 100 edits.^[1]

Autoconfirmed or confirmed users can create articles, move pages, edit semi-protected pages, and upload files (including new versions of existing files). Autoconfirmed users are no longer required to enter a CAPTCHA for most events and may save books to the Books namespace. In addition, the Edit filter has a number of warning settings that will no longer affect editors who are autoconfirmed.

In some situations, it is necessary for accounts to be exempted from the customary confirmation period and instead confirmed right away. The 'confirmed' group contains the exact same rights as the 'autoconfirmed' pseudo-group, but can be granted by administrators and event coordinators^[2] as necessary. It is redundant to grant the confirmed right to an account that is already autoconfirmed, since it provides the exact same abilities. To request this permission, see Project:Requests for permissions/Confirmed. See Special:ListUsers/confirmed for a list of the 0 confirmed users.

As of February 2019^[update], there were approximately 1.7 million autoconfirmed users on the English TechInfoDepot, of which the vast majority are inactive. See Special:ActiveUsers for a list of recently active users.

Before 16 November 2016, confirmed and autoconfirmed users could also mark new pages as patrolled. This has been changed and now requires the new page reviewer right to do so.

Extended confirmed users

Shortcuts: WP:XCON WP:EXTENDEDCONFIRMED

A registered editor becomes 'extendedconfirmed' automatically when the account is both 30 days old and has made 500 edits (including deleted edits).^[3] This user access right allows editors to edit pages that are under extended confirmed protection. This access is included and bundled in the 'bot' and 'sysop' (Administrator) user groups. This group was primarily created to deal with specific arbitration remedies and community issues; the arbitration committee has since left community-use decisions up to the community.^[4]

See Special:ListUsers/extendedconfirmed for a list of the 0 extended confirmed users.

Administrators and bureaucrats

Administrators

Administrators, also commonly referred to as "admins" or "sysops" (system operators), are editors who are granted the rights by the community following a Request for Adminship (RfA). The RfA process involves in-depth and considerable discussion and examination of the candidate's activity and contributions as an editor and are granted the rights by community consensus. Users who are members of this user group have access to a number of tools to allow them to carry out certain functions on the wiki. The tools cover processes such as page deletion, page protection, blocking and unblocking, and the ability to modify fully protected pages. Administrators also have the ability to grant and remove the account creator, autopatrolled, confirmed, file mover, edit filter helper, edit filter manager, event coordinator, extended confirmed, IP block exempt, mass message sender, new page reviewer, page mover, pending changes reviewer, rollback, template editor, and AutoWikiBrowser access rights to other users, and to their own alternate accounts. By convention, administrators also normally take responsibility for judging the outcome of certain discussions requiring these technical controls (such as deletions). Administrators are not granted more editorial control over article content than other editors. They are required to follow all policies and guidelines and are held to the same level of accountability as non-administrators. They are not employees of the Wikimedia Foundation and should not be confused with Wikimedia system administrators ("sysadmins").

See Special:ListUsers/sysop for a full list of the 3 English TechInfoDepot administrators.

Bureaucrats

Shortcuts: WP:Bureaucrat rights Help:Bureaucrat rights

Bureaucrats are exceptionally trusted editors who have the capability to perform certain actions on other users' accounts. These capabilities are granted by the community following a successful Requests for Bureaucratship (RfB).

Bureaucrats have access to Special:UserRights, enabling them to add users to the 'bureaucrat' group (but not remove them),^[5] and add users to and remove users from the 'administrator',^[6] 'bot', and 'interface administrator' user groups.

See Special:ListUsers/bureaucrat for a list of the 3 bureaucrats.

Flags granted to users giving access to specialized functions

Pending changes reviewer

Members of this group can review other users' edits to articles placed under pending changes protection. This right is automatically assigned to administrators. Prior to September 2014, this right was known as "reviewer".

See Special:ListUsers/reviewer for a list of the 0 reviewers.

Rollback

Users who are given the rollback flag ('rollbacker' user group) may revert consecutive revisions of an editor using the rollback feature. This right is automatically assigned to administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/rollbacker for a list of the 0 rollbackers.

Autopatrolled

Members of this group have 'autopatrol', which allows them to have their pages automatically patrolled on the New Pages list. This right is automatically assigned to administrators. Prior to June 2010, this right was known as "autoreviewer".

See Special:ListUsers/autoreviewer for a list of the 0 autopatrolled users.

New page reviewer (patroller)

Members of this group have 'patrol', which allows them to mark pages created by others as patrolled or reviewed. This right is automatically assigned to administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/patroller for a list of the 0 new page reviewers.

File mover

The file mover user right is intended to allow users experienced in working with files to rename them, subject to policy, with the ease that autoconfirmed users already enjoy when renaming TechInfoDepot articles. This right is automatically assigned to administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/filemover for a list of the 0 additional filemovers.

Page mover

The page mover user right ('extendedmover' user group) is intended to allow users who have demonstrated a good understanding of the TechInfoDepot page naming system to rename pages and subpages without leaving redirects, subject to policy. They are also able to create and edit editnotices as well as move categories. This right is automatically assigned to administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/extendedmover for a list of the 0 page movers.

Account creator

Shortcut: WP:ACCOUNTCREATOR

Users who are given the accountcreator flag ('accountcreator' user group) are not affected by the 6 account creation limit per day per IP, and can create accounts for other users without restriction. Users in this group can also override the anti-spoof checks on account creation. This right is automatically assigned to administrators and bureaucrats.^[7] Additionally, account creators are able to create accounts with names that are otherwise blocked by the title blacklist.

See Special:ListUsers/accountcreator for a list of the 0 additional account creators.

Event coordinator

Users who are given the eventcoordinator flag ('eventcoordinator' user group) are not affected by the 6 account creation limit per day per IP. In addition, they can temporarily add newly created accounts to confirmed user group, so that those accounts can create new articles.

See Special:ListUsers/eventcoordinator for a list of the 0 event coordinators.

Template editor

Users who are given the templateeditor flag ('templateeditor' user group) are allowed to edit pages protected with template protection, as well as create and edit editnotices. Template protection is only applied to pages in the template and module namespaces, as well as a few pages in the TechInfoDepot namespace. This right is intended to allow experienced template and module coders to make changes without having to request that an administrator make the edits for them. It is automatically assigned to administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/templateeditor for a list of the 0 template editors.

Ipblock-exempt

Users who are given the ipblock-exempt flag ('ipblock-exempt' user group) are not affected by autoblocks, blocks of IP addresses and ranges that are made with the "Prevent logged-in users from editing" option enabled,^[8] and by Tor blocks. This right is automatically assigned to administrators and bots.^[9]

See Special:ListUsers/ipblock-exempt for a list of the 0 affected users.

Edit filter managers

Shortcuts: WP:AFE WP:EFM

Members of the edit filter manager group can create, modify, enable, disable, and delete edit filters as well as view private filters and their associated logs. This right is not assigned to administrators by default but they are allowed to grant the user right to themselves.

See Special:ListUsers/abusefilter for a list of the 0 edit filter managers. All users can check their Template:Special on the Special:AbuseFilter pages.

Edit filter helpers

Shortcut: WP:EFH

Members of the edit filter helper group can view private edit filters and their associated logs. This access is also included in the administrator groups.

See Special:ListUsers/abusefilter-helper for a list of the 0 edit filter helpers. All users can check their Template:Special on the Special:AbuseFilter pages.

Mass message sender

Members of this group may send messages to multiple users at once. This right is automatically assigned to administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/massmessage-sender for a list of the 0 mass message senders.

Interface administrators

Users who are given the interface administrator flag ('interface-admin' user group) have the ability to edit site-wide CSS, JavaScript and JSON pages (pages such as MediaWiki:Common.js or MediaWiki:Vector.css, or the gadget pages listed on Special:Gadgets), CSS/JS/JSON pages in another user's userspace, and pages in the Mediawiki namespace. Interface administrator access, along with access to another group that has undelete access is required to view deleted versions of pages only editable by this group.

See Special:ListUsers/interface-admin for a list of the 2 Interface administrators.

Functionary user levels

CheckUser

Users who are given the CheckUser flag ('checkuser' user group) have access to Special:CheckUser, a function page that allows them to view a list of all IP addresses used by a user account to edit the English TechInfoDepot, an extended list of all edits made from an IP (which includes edits that were made by any user accounts while using the specific IP), or a list of all user accounts that have used a given IP address. They also have access to the Checkuser log, which logs each time a Checkuser uses their tools to view any of the information listed. This right is only granted to exceedingly few users who are at least 18 years old and have signed the Wikimedia Foundation's confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information. As CheckUsers have access to deleted revisions, they are also required to have passed an "RFA or RFA-identical process".^[10]

See Special:ListUsers/checkuser for a list of the 0 CheckUsers.

Oversight

Users who are given the oversight flag ('oversight' user group) have access to additional functions on the page deletion, revision deletion, and block function pages through which they can hide logs or revisions of pages (partially or entirely) from any form of usual access by all other users, including administrators. They also have access to the suppression log, where they can view actions made by other oversighters, as well as the content of the hidden revisions. This right is only granted to exceedingly few users who are at least 18 years old and have signed the Wikimedia Foundation's confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information. Oversighters are also required to have passed a "RfA or RfA-identical process".^[10]

See Special:ListUsers/oversight for a list of the 0 Oversighters.

Other flagged accounts

Bots

Accounts used by approved bots to make pre-approved edits can be flagged as such. Bot accounts are automated or semi-automated, the nature of their edits is well defined, and they will be quickly blocked if their actions vary from their given tasks, so they require less scrutiny than human edits.

For this reason, contributions from accounts with the bot flag ('bot' user group) are not displayed in recent changes or watchlists to users who have opted to hide bot edits. Minor edits made by bot accounts to user talk pages do not trigger the "you have new messages" banner. Bot accounts can query the API in batches of 5,000 rather than 500.

See Special:ListUsers/bot for a list of the 1 bots.

Founder

Shortcut: WP:Founder

The 'founder' group was created on the English TechInfoDepot by developer Tim Starling, without community input, as a unique group for Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales—although Larry Sanger is a co-founder, he has never been a member of this group.^[11] The group gives Wales full access to user rights. As 'local founder actions' are usually of great interest to the local community, and are only relevant to the English TechInfoDepot, the 'local founder' right also has the benefit of allowing Wales' actions to be visible in the English TechInfoDepot rights log. Wales is also a member of the founder global group, which has view-only rights across the Wikimedia network.

Researcher

Shortcut: WP:RESEARCHER

The 'researcher' group was created in April 2010 to allow individuals explicitly approved by the Wikimedia Foundation to perform a title search for deleted pages and view deleted history entries but not to view the actual revisions of deleted pages.^[12]

See Special:ListUsers/researcher for a list of the 0 current researchers and meta:Research:Special API permissions/Log for further details.

Importers and transwiki importers

Shortcut: WP:Importers

'Transwiki importers' is a group which gives editors the (import) permission for use on Special:Import. This interface allows users to copy pages, and optionally entire page histories, from certain other Wikimedia wikis. The 'import' permission is also included in the administrators and importers user groups. There are currently 0 users in the transwiki importers group. This group is mostly deprecated and is only available for assignment by stewards following a special community approval discussion.

'Importers' is a similar group which gives editors the (importupload) permission as well as the (import) permission for use on Special:Import. Importers have the additional ability to import articles directly from XML (which may come from any wiki site). The 'importupload' permission is also included in the stewards group. See Special:ListUsers/import for the 0 importers. This access is highly restricted and is only available for assignment to a limited number of very trusted users by stewards following a special community approval discussion.

All users can use Special:Export to create an XML export of a page and its history.

Indefinitely blocked users

Shortcut: WP:INDEFRIGHTS

In general, rights of editors blocked indefinitely should be left as is. Rights specifically related to the reason for blocking may be removed at the discretion of the blocking or unblocking administrators.^[13]

Global rights

Global rights have effects on all public Wikimedia wikis, but their use may be restricted by local policy, see Project:Global rights policy. For an automatically generated list of global groups with all their permissions, see Special:GlobalGroupPermissions. For a list of users along with their global groups, see Special:GlobalUsers.

Stewards

Stewardship is an elected role, and stewards are appointed globally across all public Wikimedia wikis.

Users who are members of the 'steward' user group may grant and revoke any permission to or from any user on any wiki operated by the Wikimedia Foundation which allows open account creation. This group is set on MetaWiki, and may use meta:Special:Userrights to set permissions on any Wikimedia wiki; they may add or remove any user from any group configured on metawiki. Stewards generally act only when there is no user on a particular wiki that can make the necessary change. This includes granting of the 'administrator' or 'bureaucrat' access levels on wikis which do not have any local bureaucrats, and removing such flags if the user resigns or the account is acting maliciously. Stewards are also responsible for granting and revoking access levels such as 'oversight' and 'checkuser', as no other group is capable of making such changes except sysadmins/Support and Safety Staff.

Stewards can also act as checkusers, oversighters, bureaucrats or administrators on wikis which do not have active local members of those groups. For example, if a wiki has a passing need for an edit to be oversighted, a steward can add themselves to the 'oversight' user group on that wiki, perform the necessary function, and then remove themselves from the 'oversight' group using their steward rights.

Most steward actions are logged at meta:Special:Log/rights or meta:Special:Log/gblrights (some go to meta:Stewards/Additional log for global changes). See Special:GlobalUsers/steward or meta:Special:ListUsers/steward for a list of users in this group.

Other global user groups

Template:Main

Other global groups include WMF staff; sysadmins (system administrators); ombudsmen; OTRS-members (Volunteer Response Team); global bots; global rollbackers; global sysops (not enabled on English TechInfoDepot); interface editors. See Global rights policy and meta:User groups for information on these, as well as a full list.

Table

As a function of the Requests for adminship and Requests for Bureaucratship processes, all bureaucrats on the English TechInfoDepot are also administrators, and so have all the permissions of the 'sysop' user group in addition to those rights from the 'bureaucrat' group. However, this is not a requirement of the MediaWiki software; it is technically possible for a user to be a bureaucrat without also being an admin.
Deprecated permissions are either no longer assigned to any group or the group to which they are assigned is no longer populated.

Template:User access levels

The userright proxyunbannable is assigned to administrators but has no effect since WMF wikis use mw:Extension:TorBlock instead of the default MediaWiki proxy blocker. Administrators are not exempt from tor blocks, only users in the IP block exemptions usergroup are, due to the torunblocked userright.
IPs and new users are limited to 8 edits per minute. Autoconfirmed or confirmed users who are in no usergroup with the noratelimit userright are limited to 8 moves per minute. Rollbackers in the same situation are limited to 100 rollbacks per minute.^[14] Account creations are subject to an IP based limit, set at 6 for WMF wikis, but users with noratelimit are unaffected.

User access level changes

Template:User access level changes

Former levels

Course coordinator, instructor, online and campus volunteer
Enabled users to manage course pages in the "Education Program:" namespace, which was shutdown in June 2018
Afttest and Afttest-hide
Only granted by WMF staff, these enabled users to delete and/or hide article feedback. Removed in March 2014 after a one-year run.
EP staff, administrator, campus-ambassador, online-ambassador, and instructor
Used by users to coordinate and work with students, instructors, and institutions as part of the education program. Deprecated since 2013.

Notes

↑ [1]
↑ In accordance with this RfC, event coordinators may only grant the confirmed flag to editors who actually participate in an outreach event.
↑ Technically, a user becomes 'extendedconfirmed' at the time of their first edit after the following two conditions have become true: (a) 30 days have passed since the user registered and (b) the user has made at least 500 edits (including deleted edits). Their most recent edit must have been made after 5 April 2016, when 'extendedconfirmed' was implemented.
↑ 28 May 2017 clarification request
↑ MediaWiki default settings are that the 'bureaucrats' group has the userrights flag (giving access to Special:UserRights) and can add or remove any flags. However this can be modified by mw:Manual:$wgAddGroups and mw:Manual:$wgRemoveGroups to restrict adding/removing flags to specified ones. Wikimedia's settings file uses these, and by default bureaucrats can only remove bot flags and add administrator, bureaucrat and bot flags. English TechInfoDepot, or 'enwiki', settings additionally permit adding accountcreator and removal of ipblock-exempt and accountcreator; which administrators can do anyway, and removal of sysop.
↑ Since August 2011, per Template:Bugzilla
↑ "Project:Account creators". MediaWikiWiki. 2015. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Account_creators. Retrieved 2015-02-01. "DefaultSettings.php grants the noratelimit user right to bureaucrats and sysops."
↑ This flag only grants the exempted user to edit behind the IP address. IP block exempt users are not able to create accounts while behind an IP address that is also blocked with the "Prevent account creation" option enabled.
↑ Administrators and bots are not affected by autoblocks and hard IP address blocks. However, the ipblock-exempt flag must be added to the administrator or bot account as a separate user right to allow them to edit from IP addresses affected by Tor blocks.
↑ ^10.0 ^10.1 The Wikimedia Foundation has stated that an "RfA or RfA-identical process" is required for users to be granted access to deleted revisions.
↑ Although there are two co-founders, User:Jimbo Wales is the only member of this group: en.techinfodepot.shoutwiki.com (March 27, 2001). "Users - TechInfoDepot". https://en.techinfodepot.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Special:ListUsers/founder. Retrieved November 24, 2016.
↑ The group has access to the browsearchive and deletedhistory rights, as well apihighlimits (Wikimedia NOC)
↑ See the RfC at TechInfoDepot talk:User access levels/Archive 2#Rights of indef blocked users.
↑ The API query https://en.techinfodepot.shoutwiki.com/w/api.php?action=query&meta=userinfo&uiprop=ratelimits%7Cgroups can be used to check those values.