Help:How to Administrate

Administration of the Database Project can be a very tricky job. This page is intended to give administrators an idea of some of the tasks they have the ability to help perform to keep the project running smoothly.

As usual, there is never a quota, nor is there a specific requirement that any of these tasks be completed. They are simply guidelines of things that need to be done, one way or another.

Article Administration
With growing numbers of registered members each day, our daily edits also increase. Because of several uncontrollable factors, from time to time poorly written or malicious edits can make their way to the database. It is one role of the administration team and the staff at-large to keep a watchful eye for such edits. If an edit is found that doesn't meet our standards, it should be reverted (aka rollback) or edited to bring it 'up-to-snuff'. Should the circumstance reveal a malicious editor, remedial action must be taken.

New Members
New members are a very special circumstance. We should be careful to show them leniency so not to disuede their return, but ensure they are not breaking our rules.

When a new member registers on the database, our first step is to welcome them. On their 'user page', we add the tag and save it with the subject "Welcome!". This is a standardized greeting to ensure no new member receives more / less attention than another. Please do not stray from this format.

Edits can begin quickly from new members, often before they have had a change to look at our help section, in particular Help:How to Edit and Help:Editing Tips and Etiquette. Please remind new members that don't follow these guidelines with a gentle reminder on their 'talk page', adding links to as necessary.

Malicious Members
An unfortunate symptom of having a freely-editable database on our unfortunately corrupt Internet is the intermittant arrival of 'bad guys'. They often find the 'honour system' too tempting to resist and begin a barrage of edits in very poor taste.

Fortunately for us, our software is well equipped to handle such eventualities. The 'rollback' feature is generously applied to all of their posts and their account is to be suspended for an appopriate amount of time.

As a general guide, users who add some non-sensical characters to a page (eg. akefjaksdf) should not be suspended, merely pointed to the Sandbox to practice, reminded of our and cleaned-up after. On the other hand, users who post clearly obscene, lude, or offensive content to one or more pages are to be banned for an absolute minumum of 1 week (input as 168 Hours), to our most harsh of punishments: 1 year. (input as 8760 Hours). The latter is usually reserved for repeat offenders.

Our community has worked very hard, without any pay, on building this resource and would not take it lightly to have their work defaced. Please directly contact our Editor-in-Chief, Jamie, if there are any concerns with this policy.