User Rights

## What is a user right?

A **user right** is a special type of permission a user has to make a change or perform a task for a community. A "user rights group" is a set of permissions or abilities. The most commonly recognized user rights group is an "admin", also known as a sysop user rights group. A list of user rights by groups can be seen at Special:ListGroupRights.

To add or remove users from these groups, admins or bureaucrats can go to Special:UserRights. Some groups can only be added or removed by bureaucrats or staff.

Some communities have custom groups, but the information below applies to most.

### Administrators

**Administrators** (also known as "**admins**" or "**sysops**") are trusted users who are generally chosen by the community and also have access to the following rights:

* All privileges from the Discussions Moderator and Content Moderator groups.
* Block users who are vandalizing the wiki from editing and other actions.
* Grant and revoke both the Chat Moderator and Discussion Moderator rights.
* Edit the community's skin and format.
* Edit white-listed MediaWiki pages.

Being an administrator makes the tag "ADMIN" appear next to a user's name on their profile, unless changed on MediaWiki:User-identity-box-group-sysop.

### Bureaucrats

**Bureaucrats** are one level "up" from administrators. Bureaucrats only have the ability to manipulate user rights, as well as block and unblock users, so this right is generally used in addition to the administrator group.

They have the ability to promote and revoke rollback, Content Moderator, and administrator rights as well as appointing new bureaucrats. While they cannot directly remove another user's bureaucrat status, they can remove their own. Bureaucrats also have the ability to remove a user's bot status in case the bot is malfunctioning, but bot flag requests are handled by staff after being approved (by either a bureaucrat or the community).

Having this status causes the tag "BUREAUCRAT" to appear next to user's username on their profile, unless changed on MediaWiki:User-identity-box-group-bureaucrat.

The bureaucrat status can only be removed by FANDOM Staff or by the Bureaucrat themselves.

### Content Moderators

**Content Moderators** are users who have additional tools available to moderate specific parts of the community. These tools are:

* Deleting and moving protected pages
* Deleting and moving files
* Undeleting pages and files
* Rollback
* Re-upload files
* Protecting and unprotecting pages
* Patrol pages if the community has the RecentChanges patrol feature enabled

Having this status causes the tag "CONTENT MODERATOR" to appear next to user's username in their profile, unless changed on MediaWiki:User-identity-box-group-content-moderator.

### Discussions Moderators

**Discussions Moderators** are users who have additional tools available to manage conversations in various features across the community where users are having discussions. These tools are:

* Removing and restoring threads and replies from any user
* Closing and reopening threads
* Manage Forum boards, move threads from one board to another, and highlight and un-highlight threads.
* Moderating chat
* Deleting blog comments
* Editing and deleting article comments
* Moderating the Discussions feature, if enabled.

Having this status causes the tag "DISCUSSIONS MODERATOR" to appear next to user's username in their profile, unless changed on MediaWiki:User-identity-box-group-threadmoderator.

### Chat Moderators

**Chat Moderators** are users who have the chat moderator status in chat to moderate a community's chat room. They can ban users from chat, which will kick a user out of the chat and prevent them from returning until a chat moderator, discussion moderator, or admin unbans them from the user's contributions page or until the ban expires.

Having this status causes the tag "CHAT MODERATOR" to appear next to user's username in their profile, unless changed on MediaWiki:User-identity-box-group-chatmoderator.

### Rollbacks

Anyone can revert vandalism and bad-faith edits, but it takes a couple of clicks in the page history to get it done. The "**rollback**" permission allows a user to undo bad edits with one click: by using the rollback link on diff pages, the user's contributions page, or the list of recent changes. The edit summary for a rollback edit is `(Reverted edits by X (talk) to last version by Y)`.

Content moderators and admins have this permission by default. It can also be granted to other users by adding them to the **rollback** group. See Special:ListUsers/rollback for a member list.

### Founders

A community's **founder** is automatically given admin and bureaucrat rights during the community's creation. This allows them to edit the community's skin and format. As more contributors join, it's a good idea for founders to appoint trusted users as admins, content moderators, discussion moderators, and rollbackers. Founders have a "FOUNDER" banner on their profile, unless they either change it on MediaWiki:User-identity-box-group-founder or later lose their bureaucrat and admin rights.

### Bots

A "**bot**" (short for robot) is any automated process, program, or script that makes it easier for a user to make tedious or repetitive edits and actions on a community. When a bot is running in quick succession, the recent changes log can sometimes be overtaken, making it harder to spot more substantial edits by regular users. Giving an account a "bot flag" will hide these edits from the recent changes list (although any editor can still choose to see them by clicking "Show bots").

On FANDOM, a user who wishes to use a bot should set up a separate account for it, then talk with either other community members or a bureaucrat to ask whether they approve of the creation of a bot. After receiving approval, the bot owner or a bureaucrat can request the bot be flagged for that wiki.

Having this status causes "BOT" to appear next to the username on the bot's user-page.

### CheckUsers

**CheckUsers** have the ability to check another user's IP address, as well as the ability to check what users have edited using a particular IP address, and view the CheckUser log. This ability is generally only available to FANDOM Staff, Helpers, and VSTF, but on very large communities where sockpuppetry is a major problem, access can be considered.