How to be a Wikimedia sysop/Wikiversity

Completion status: this resource is ~25% complete.

In addition to the generic content about How to be a Wikimedia sysop which is about being an administrator on Wikimedia Foundation sister projects, this page seeks to provide guidance on sysop-related matters for Wikiversity. Note that on Wikiversity, sysop status is referred to as 'custodianship'.

What is Wikiversity?

One of the first starting points should be for custodian candidates to appreciate and understand Wikiversity's scope, mission, and vision. Since these are all in development, candidates are strongly encourage to contribute to improvements. An understanding of Wikiversity's history is also advisable. Sysops coming from other WMF projects are enouraged to appreciate that the Wikiversity scope for acceptable content is considerably broader than on the other projects because the mission is about providing learning content and learning spaces. Sysops coming from other projects are encouraged to engage in discussion with other contributors to help determine what content what or may not be considered to be within Wikiversity's scope.

Policies

Secondly, candidate custodians on Wikiversity are strongly encouraged to familiarise themselves with Wikiversity:Policies. What could be useful here is to list a suggested reading in a table, noting the most commonly occurring issues/points of debate on Wikiversity.. Policies attempt to make clear what processes to follow. But many of the policies are still in draft format.

The tables below provides a guide for one's policy reading.

Also note that not everything about what makes a wiki work/not work can be found in these policies. One of the common debates, for example, is over how users, custodians, and bureaucrats interpret and act/don't act on the policies. Other key debates including application of the policies and custodian/bureaucrat attitude towards fostering a "developist" culture compared to a "deletionist" culture. Broader literature about Wikiversity can be found in the Wikiversity namepsace, e.g., some especially useful links are:

Administering Wikiversity Action required The open task template Maintenance Deletion requests Speedy deletion requests Copyright violations Custodian action requests Notices for custodians Events and news Announcements Wikimania Templates Introduction to templates Template guide Welcome Page flag Navigation Admin Template task force Barnstars Userboxes Development Developing Wikiversity Activity bars Wikiversity logos Service community Metadata MediaWiki Project MediaWiki Technical needs Reference Policies Custodians Custodianship (policy) How to be a sysop Mission Managing vandalism MediaWiki Handbook Parser functions Logs Bots Consensus Statistics

People and tools

Thirdly, candidate custodians on Wikiversity should familiarise themselves with people and tools.

• Regarding people, communication is vital, so correspond with your mentor, share about yourself on your user page, discuss ideas and questions on talk pages, and possibly also on the mailing list, IRC etc. See if you can work out how to add News, Announcements, and Site notices.
• Regarding tools, probationary custodians should already be familiar with Help:Editing but a thorough review is recommended (e.g., do you understand templates?) and should try out the sysop tools during their probationary period, including deleting (see also oversight), blocking, protection. Since use of each of these tools runs a potentially strong risk of community upset, but also to not use these tools when appropriate similar runs risk of community upset, you should get familiar with how they work (each action can be undone) and you should then seek guidance from others about their subsequent use in real situations.

Reading list

• Deletion (on Wikiversity)
• Blocking (on Wikiversity)

Policies

Community task: Make a reading list of policies which the community thinks should be read and understood by custodians. Use a helpful order for reading.:

1. Custodianship (official)
2. Deletion policy (proposed)
3. Blocking policy (proposed)
4. Catalyst (proposed)
5. list here
6. Question: How can we make check-boxes?

Here is a list of {{Official policies}} and {{Proposed policies}}:

Other suggested

• Wikiversity:Custodianship#Useful reads for Custodians
• Wikiversity
• {{Administering Wikiversity}}
• Category:Wikiversity culture
• Category:Wikiversity development
• Category:Educational wikis
• User:Gbaor/Custodianship - a useful collection of custodian-training links
• It is a good idea to also read about controversial and 'sticky' custodial-type issues, e.g., Wikiversity talk:Custodianship and Wikiversity:Community Review