WikiQueer:User access levels

A contributor's access to perform certain actions in WikiQueer is determined by various flags on their account, some of which are automatic and others of which must be given to them manually. A user with a flag is said to be a member of that flag's 'user group', giving them certain 'permissions' and the use of certain features of the MediaWiki software.

Users are assigned the highest possible permissions based on the groups they are members of. A user who is an administrator, bureaucrat and rollbacker, for instance, would be able to use Special:UnwatchedPages (granted with the 'sysop' group), Special:RenameUser (granted with the 'bureaucrat' group) and to also use rollback (granted with the 'sysop' and 'rollbacker' groups). If the user was removed from the 'sysop' group, they would still be able to use rollback, because they are still a member of the 'rollbacker' group.

Membership in a user group is sometimes referred to as a 'flag' or 'bit'; being made a member of the 'sysop' group is synonymous with being 'given the admin bit' or 'receiving the admin flag'.

Overview
All visitors to the site, including unregistered users, are part of the '*' group, while all logged-in users are also part of the 'user'</tt> group. Users are automatically promoted into the Autoconfirmed/Established users group when their account is four days old and has ten edits. Other flags are only given upon request; some, such as 'rollbacker'</tt> or 'bot'</tt>, are granted unilaterally if the user demonstrates a need for them (see WikiQueer:Requests for permissions‎ and WikiQueer:Bots/Requests for approval). Others, such as 'sysop'</tt> and 'bureaucrat'</tt>, are given only after community discussion and consensus at WikiQueer:Requests for adminship. Users are only made members of groups such as 'oversight'</tt> and 'checkuser'</tt> with the approval of the Arbitration Committee and after confirming their identity with the The Aequalitas Project.

Unregistered users
Contributors who have not created an account or logged in are identified by their IP address rather than a user name, and may read all WikiQueer pages (except restricted special pages), and edit pages that are not protected or semi-protected. They may create talk pages in any talk namespace but may 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 one or more external links, and click a confirm link to purge pages. All users may also query the site API in 500-record batches.

New users
A user who edits through an account they have registered, may immediately create pages in any namespace (except the MediaWiki namespace, and limited to 8 per minute) and may also 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 also customize their Wikimedia interface and its options as they wish, via Special:Preferences or by adding personal CSS or JavaScript rules to their vector.css or vector.js files.

Autoconfirmed users
A number of actions on the English WikiQueer are restricted to user accounts that pass certain thresholds of age (time passed since the first edit) and edit count: users who meet these requirements are considered part of the pseudo-group 'autoconfirmed'</tt>. Autoconfirmed status is checked every time a user performs a restricted action: it is then granted automatically by the software. The precise requirements for autoconfirmed status vary according to circumstances: for most users on en.wiki, accounts that are both more than four days old and have made at least 10 edits are considered autoconfirmed. However, users with IPBE editing through the Tor network are subjected to stricter autoconfirmed thresholds: 90 days and 100 edits.

Autoconfirmed status is required to move pages, edit semi-protected pages, and upload files or upload a new version of an existing file. Autoconfirmed users are no longer required to enter a CAPTCHA for most events. Autoconfirmed users may mark pages created by others as patrolled in Special:NewPages and save books to the wiki. In addition, the Edit filter has a number of warning settings that only affect editors who are not autoconfirmed.

Administrators
Administrator rights are granted by the community. The process involves considerable discussion and examination of their activities as an editor. Users who are members of the 'sysop'</tt> 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, access to modify fully protected pages and the Mediawiki interface. Administrators also have the ability to grant and remove account creator, rollback, ipblock-exempt rights, confirmed user, auto-reviewer, and edit filter manager rights to other users, and to their own alternate accounts. Administrators are otherwise no different from any other editor.

Administrators are also known historically as "sysops" (system operators). The two terms are used interchangeably.

See Special:ListUsers/sysop for a list of users in this group.

Bureaucrats
Bureaucrat rights are granted by the community to exceptionally trusted users who are allowed to perform certain actions on other users' accounts.

Bureaucrats have extended access to Special:UserRights, enabling them to add users to the 'sysop'</tt> and 'bureaucrat'</tt> groups (but not remove them), and both add users to and remove users from the 'bot'</tt> user group. Bureaucrats can use Special:RenameUser to rename users (including themselves).

Bureaucrats also taken on global rights roles generally reserved for Stewards on Wikimedia projects.

See Special:ListUsers/bureaucrat for a list of users in this group.

Reviewer
This usergroup was used in the pending changes trial. Members of this group can review other user's edits to articles placed under pending changes. This right is automatically assigned to administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/reviewer for a list of users in this group.

Rollback
Users who are given the rollback flag ('rollbacker'</tt> user group) may revert revisions using the rollback feature. This right is automatically assigned to administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/rollbacker for a list of users in this group.

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" within some MediaWiki sites.

See Special:ListUsers/autoreviewer for a list of users in this group.

Confirmed users
In some situations, it is necessary for accounts to be exempted from the customary confirmation period. The 'confirmed'</tt> group contains the same rights as the 'autoconfirmed'</tt> group, but can be granted by administrators as necessary. See Special:ListUsers/confirmed for a list of users in this group.

Accountcreator
Users who are given the accountcreator flag ('accountcreator'</tt> 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.

See Special:ListUsers/accountcreator for a list of users in this group.

Ipblock-exempt
Users who are given the ipblock-exempt flag (<tt>'ipblock-exempt'</tt> user group) are not affected by autoblocks and blocks of IP addresses and ranges that aren't made with the "anonymous users only" setting. This right is automatically assigned to administrators and bots, however the flag must be added separately to enable editing from IP addresses affected by Tor blocks.

See Special:ListUsers/ipblock-exempt for a list of users in this group.

Oversight
Users who are given the oversight flag (<tt>'oversight'</tt> user group) have access to Special:HideRevision, through which they can permanently hide revisions of pages from all users, and Special:Oversight, where they can view a log of such actions and the content of the hidden revisions. This right is only granted to exceedingly few users who are at least 18 years of age and have identified themselves to the Wikimedia Foundation.

See Special:ListUsers/oversight for a list of users in this group.

CheckUser
Users who are given the checkuser flag (<tt>'checkuser'</tt> user group) have access to Special:CheckUser. They are able to view a list of all IP addresses used by a user account to edit the English WikiQueer, a list of all edits made by an IP, or all user accounts that have used an IP address. They may also view a log of such requests. This right is only granted to exceedingly few users who are age 18+ and have identified themselves to The Aequalitas Project.

See Special:ListUsers/checkuser for a list of users in this group.

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 need less scrutiny than human edits.

For this reason, contributions from accounts with the bot flag (<tt>'bot'</tt> 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 users in this group.

Table

 * As a function of the Requests for adminship and Requests for Bureaucratship processes, all bureaucrats on the English WikiQueer are also administrators, and so have all the permissions of the <tt>'sysop'</tt> user group in addition to those rights from the <tt>'bureaucrat'</tt> 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.