MediaWiki Administrator's Handbook/Preface

So you've become an administrator on a MediaWiki project, or you just want to know what the differences are between an administrator and a normal MediaWiki user? This Wikibook is intended to help with the job and try to explain the special functions available to an administrator. It also covers some of the things you need to avoid when trying to do your job.

This book is not a policy manual, although links to existing policies on several Wikimedia projects have been provided for reference purposes. This book is about How-to admin in the general sense and is appropriate to any project using the MediaWiki software.

An important point to note here is that while most Wikimedia sister projects use the term administrator or admin to mean a person who has been granted "Sysop" privileges with the MediaWiki software, most MediaWiki documentation usually uses the term Moderator instead. This Wikibook is not dealing with any of the software configuration issues that are associated with low-level operating system commands and configuration files directly associated with the use of the MediaWiki software. Most MediaWiki documentation calls these individuals administrators, but with Wikimedia sister projects these individuals are usually called developers instead, as the MediaWiki software developers also do the low-level software configuration for Wikimedia projects. Instead, the term administrator is going to apply to the project moderators and following Wikimedia sister project conventions and hierarchies.

The specific permissions granted to an administrator on a MediaWiki project can differ. This book covers the full set of permissions that might be granted but on the particular project you are interested in you may find that some functions listed here are unavailable.

See the MediaWiki Developer's Handbook for a book on how to "hack" Mediawiki to customize the software, add an extension, or contribute to Mediawiki development.