Difference between revisions of "OrthodoxWiki:Administrators"

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This is a general discussion page for OrthodoxWiki '''Administrators''' to work out various administrative issues, notes, and to-do lists.  Our host and first-among-sysops is [[User:FrJohn|FrJohn]].   
 
This is a general discussion page for OrthodoxWiki '''Administrators''' to work out various administrative issues, notes, and to-do lists.  Our host and first-among-sysops is [[User:FrJohn|FrJohn]].   
  
*For the sake of grabbing attention with new notices, it's probably best to put new subjects at the top of this page after the "Useful Admin links."
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*For the sake of grabbing attention with new notices, it's probably best to put '''new subjects at the top''' of this page after the "Useful Admin links."
 
*'''If you are not an administrator''' and would like to leave a note for the admins to see, please put it on the [[OrthodoxWiki talk:Administrators|Talk page]].
 
*'''If you are not an administrator''' and would like to leave a note for the admins to see, please put it on the [[OrthodoxWiki talk:Administrators|Talk page]].
* For a who's who, see [[:Category:Sysops]] and [[Special:Listusers&group=sysop]].
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* For a who's who, see [[:Category:Sysops]] and [[Special:Listusers/sysop]].
  
 
==Useful Admin links==
 
==Useful Admin links==
Line 13: Line 13:
 
*[[Special:Listusers]]
 
*[[Special:Listusers]]
  
==Wikimedia Commons==
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==OrthodoxSource==
I just ran across the storehouse of [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Orthodox_Church images and other files related to Orthodoxy] on the [http://commons.wikimedia.org Wikimedia Commons].
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In case you haven't been over to [[osource:Main page|OrthodoxSource]] lately, we can now login there with our OW logins.  A category structure needs to be worked on, as well as some basic documents to get things up and running well there, based primarily on existing category structures here on OrthodoxWiki.  Obviously, not everything will map the same, but we don't want to reinvent the wheel any more than need be.  &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font size="3.5" color="green" face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">Fr. Andrew</font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <small>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]] <font face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">('''[[User:ASDamick/Wiki-philosophy|THINK!]]''')</font></small> 02:51, June 19, 2008 (UTC)
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 +
 
 +
==Category Sitemap==
 +
In case anyone's interested in the category structure, I put up a [[User:Magda/Category Sitemap|sitemap]] of the categories on the English-language wiki.  I find it exceedingly helpful, when trying to interwiki between languages, to have a common category structure.  I think some of what we currently have could be improved (like the Orthodoxy by country, which includes "Western Europe" and "Asia" as well as countries in those regions).  I would rather provoke discussion (this means you, Fr. Andrew) on the topic before making any sudden moves.  And, no, I have no idea ''why'' I went through the whole thing, but there are a whole lot of categories. —[[User:Magda|<b>magda</b>]] ([[User_talk:Magda|talk]]) 19:16, June 4, 2008 (UTC)
 +
 
 +
==New disciplinary policy==
 +
All sysops should read and familiarize themselves with the new official [[OrthodoxWiki:Disciplinary policy|disciplinary policy]] as approved by [[User:FrJohn|FrJohn]] on May 29, 2008.  Comments and adjustments are of course welcome.  Relevant templates for enforcement:  [[Template:Warning]], [[Template:Warning2]] and [[Template:Banned]].  &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font size="3.5" color="green" face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">Fr. Andrew</font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <small>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]] <font face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">('''[[User:ASDamick/Wiki-philosophy|THINK!]]''')</font></small> 20:43, May 29, 2008 (UTC)
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 +
 
 +
==Eliminating directory articles==
 +
I'm of the opinion that we ought to eliminate all the directory articles. Here's my rationale:
  
How do you think we can integrate these or best draw attention to these as a source for articles? I think, as a rule, we should prefer images with open licenses to those from our other benefactors.
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*The function is fulfilled far better by sites like [http://www.orthodoxyinamerica.org OrthodoxyInAmerica.org] and other regional and jurisdictional sites.
 +
*Keeping them up to date and fully accurate is almost impossible.
 +
*Keeping them representative of Mainstream Chalcedonian Orthodoxy ''only'' is a continual problem.
 +
*They're somewhat irrelevant to the role of OrthodoxWiki as an encyclopedia.
  
[[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]
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What do you think?  &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font size="3.5" color="green" face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">Fr. Andrew</font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <small>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</small> 08:16, August 28, 2007 (PDT)
 +
:I agree. Keeping the listings up-to-date will continue to be a large workload especially with the addition of personal information such as the resident priest, that can change frequently. Having discovered the OrthodoxyinAmerica site really makes keeping a directory in Orthodoxwiki redundant. [[User:Wsk|Wsk]] 18:45, August 28, 2007 (PDT)
  
==Year-end inventory==
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: Just adding another comment to "bump" this again to attention.  Let's axe the directory articles!  It's too much work to keep them going, and there's no way we'll ever be as accurate or useful as existing sites.  I'd like it if other admins would comment on this.  &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font size="3.5" color="green" face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">Fr. Andrew</font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <small>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]] <font face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">('''[[User:ASDamick/Wiki-philosophy|THINK!]]''')</font></small> 11:40, March 20, 2008 (PDT)
Please see [[OrthodoxWiki:Inventory]]. Thanks.
 
  
==New Features==
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:: Judging by the ''accessed count'' at the bottom of those pages, it looks like they are being used, do you find much out of date info on them?  - [[User:Andrew|Andrew]] 12:39, March 20, 2008 (PDT)
As of Nov. 21, 2005 I've enabled the option to show the # of users watching each page. (Check down below, near the metadata stuff.) I've also added a feature that allows bureaucrats (i.e. me) to rename users without hacking through the database directly. This should help with the occasional request for account renaming. [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]
 
  
:Nov 28 update - Added [[Special:Editcount]]
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:::I may very well be a large contributor to the ''accessed count''.  Fr. Andrew, thanks for the "bump," as I don't believe I'd seen this thread before, which raises excellent points.  My only preference for having a directory on OrthodoxWiki is that I can *fix* things when they're wrong, like broken links.  That desire can easily be focused on submitting corrections to the jurisdictional sites and/or orthodoxyinamerica.org.  Also, I'm not sure what happened to the ROCOR directory.  That being said, I have begun coming across regional organizations (included in the "external links" sections) which are not necessarily pan-Orthodox; would there be an appropriate place to include those links?  —[[User:Magda|<b>magda</b>]] ([[User_talk:Magda|talk]]) 14:46, March 20, 2008 (PDT)
  
==Awards, Recognizing civic virtue on the wiki==
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::::Where other ''active'' sites exist that already have the information that we have (i.e. name, basic location, link to website), then it would be unnecessary to duplicate this; perhaps a link to that website would suffice.  That said, I know that in my antipodean (well...) part of the world, we don't have anything of the sort, so I would be very much against this for the Australasian articles. &mdash; by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 17:04, March 20, 2008 (PDT)
I've been admiring Wikipedia's use of [[w:WikipediaBarnstars|barnstars]] to award people who contribute their time and talent to the wiki. We should keep this in mind as we continue to grow, and figure out how to adopt something like this for our local practice.
 
  
A few links of interest here:
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:::: Magda, a [[List of parish directories]] article might do the trick, consisting mainly of a series of external links.
* [[w:Wikipedia:Barnstars]]
 
* http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?BarnStar - pre-dating Wikipedia
 
* http://www.thebarnjournal.org/stories/story018/index2.html - Images, some ideas for alternative barnstars
 
  
Don't forget the mention of barnraising on the [[OrthodoxWiki:Community Portal]].
+
:::: Pistevo, y'all gotta get on the ball down there!  :)  Seriously, though, I have no problem with OrthodoxWiki hosting something until such time as an external site might be created.  I'd even be willing to host it in my own webspace if someone else would be willing to maintain the file and send it to me for FTPing.  &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font size="3.5" color="green" face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">Fr. Andrew</font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <small>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]] <font face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">('''[[User:ASDamick/Wiki-philosophy|THINK!]]''')</font></small> 04:39, April 1, 2008 (PDT)
  
==Talk page archives==
 
What do y'all think about what to do when an article's Talk page becomes unwieldy?  My own opinion is that we should follow Wikipedia's lead on this and create archival subpages (see [[User Talk:ASDamick|my Talk page]] or [[Wikipedia:Talk:Pope_Benedict_XVI|this Wikipedia page]] for an example), though [[User:Joe Rodgers|Joe Rodgers]] prefers that we instead erase Talk pages whose issues have been dealt with, that the history of the Talk page should serve as an archive.
 
  
The reason I'd like to see them archived instead of erased is that it is useful to see what relevant discussion has occurred regarding an article, which would be extremely tedious to try to track by attempting to sort through the changes in the historyAdditionally, having the archives available makes it possible for precedents in our work to be searched for and made use of.
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If no one voices an objection, I'm going to start deleting the Parish Directory articles for the US within a day or two, for the reasons noted above.  (I also have TOP SECRET information that SOMEONE is working on an external directory for Australia.)  So, speak now, or forever hold your keys... or something&mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font size="3.5" color="green" face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">Fr. Andrew</font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <small>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]] <font face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">('''[[User:ASDamick/Wiki-philosophy|THINK!]]''')</font></small> 10:43, April 2, 2008 (PDT)
  
What do you think? &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|{{User:ASDamick/sig}}]] 19:09, 28 Jun 2005 (EDT)
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Hmm... I agree that strictly this isn't in line with OWiki's mission... BUT I also see Magda's point that these are both pan-Orthodox and easily updatable, unlike any other directory I'm aware of , and I note that these have been popular "articles" over the years. Maybe we can wait a little bit on this? I dunno. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk]) 18:20, April 2, 2008 (PDT)
  
:I'm the sort of person who keeps everything, so I'm voting archival before erasureWhat are the marks of a talk page which needs to be archived? One person might have a different sense of "how full is too full" than another. —[[User:Magda|magda]] 20:23, 28 Jun 2005 (EDT)
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: Having waited a couple months without any major objections being raised, I'm beginning deletion&mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font size="3.5" color="green" face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">Fr. Andrew</font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <small>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]] <font face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">('''[[User:ASDamick/Wiki-philosophy|THINK!]]''')</font></small> 14:00, June 14, 2008 (UTC)
  
:I agree, FWIW, that a record would be good to keep. I vote for archiving over erasing.  &mdash;{{User:Dcndavid/sig}} 17:00, 5 Jul 2005 (EDT)
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:: Reminder: With the deletion of each parish listing article, we will need to delete the title of the removed articles from the Churches Category pages. Currently, the titles for the deleted articles still appear in the Churches Categories but which lead to blank pages![[User:Wsk|Wsk]] 18:09, June 14, 2008 (UTC)
  
==Blank articles==
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::: I'm not sure I understand what you meanCould you link to what you're referring to?  &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font size="3.5" color="green" face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">Fr. Andrew</font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <small>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]] <font face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">('''[[User:ASDamick/Wiki-philosophy|THINK!]]''')</font></small> 18:56, June 14, 2008 (UTC)
I've been searching about for blank articles and turning them into links in existing articles, basically just to keep things tidierIt seems to me that having articles with no content at all (not even an external link) ends up skewing our results in Google and can be frustrating to a user who clicks on a supposedly filled link and finds nothing at all. I'm of the opinion that the best way to keep outlines of potential growth areas is to keep them as links until there's actual content to offer. 
 
  
I can of course go and undelete the articles I've deleted if there's a consensus that we should have these blank articles, but it seems to me that a link serves just as well as a placeholder and eliminates the problems I mention above. --[[User:ASDamick|Rdr. Andrew]] 08:26, 14 Apr 2005 (CDT)
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::Click on the Category 'Churches' on the main page. All the lists are still listed on Category [[Churches]] page.[[User:Wsk|Wsk]] 20:21, June 14, 2008 (UTC)
  
::Most of these are my fault - sorry! I think what you're saying makes sense! [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]
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:::There are lists of other parish directories in [[:Category:Churches]], but not the USA directories, that I see.  I haven't come across any category page which gives links to articles which no longer exist.  Try refreshing the page or clearing your browser cache, perhaps. —[[User:Magda|<b>magda</b>]] ([[User_talk:Magda|talk]]) 20:29, June 14, 2008 (UTC
  
==Appointing Sysops==
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:: Thanks. I notice that it is all cleared, now. Earlier when I noted a list was deleted and I clicked on the Category  'Churches', I still could get the listed page, but with a note that none existed as if one were starting a new page. I may have just caught the deletion process in 'midstream'. Sorry for my 'alarm'. [[User:Wsk|Wsk]] 20:40, June 14, 2008 (UTC)
I just wanted to share some thoughts about how I've gone about appointing sysops. Basically, I'm looking for a few things:
 
*Some degree of sanity as well as a healthy dose of balance and humility in content submitted and dealings with other people online.
 
*A demonstrated commitment to OrthodoxWiki and a desire (or at least a willingness) to take on some of the administrative burden for keeping this site in good order. This generally means a good record of broad interest in the wiki.
 
*Finally, some ecclesiastical standing (as a cleric, seminarian, presbytera, recognized Orthodox personality, etc.) is desirable but not required. This is so because it is helpful to have those who are, in one way or another, "authorities" in the Church moderating things, and, of course, public recognition helps establish the credibility and status of OrthodoxWiki.
 
  
''"If anyone aspires to the office of sysop, he desires a noble task"'' (cf.1 Tim 3:1) - If I've overlooked you or if you have someone to nominate for sysop duties please leave a note on my [[User_talk:FrJohn|user talk]] page. Of course, I reserve all rights in terms of appointments and terminations.
 
  
So far, I've been pretty liberal in knighting sysops -- at this point we can use all the help we can get, and it seems to me to be a good thing to empower a robust band of trustworthy members to help manage the site. [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]] 21:58, 27 Feb 2005 (CST)
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Fellow sysops, I'm proposing adding the parish directories of Australia to be deleted, because these are currently available on http://orthodoxyinaustralia.com/ (providing more information in any event).  The situation is worse with these articles as they generally don't get updated. Good idea? -- &mdash; by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 02:58, January 21, 2013 (HST) -- URL edited 1/Feb/2013
  
==Spam Battleplan==
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: Hi! I think you have good precedent here, especially if the pages are not being updated. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk]) 21:38, January 31, 2013 (HST)
I notice we've been getting hit by spambots lately. Sadly, I doubt this problem will resolve itself. If it stays at this level, I think we can handle it, but if it increases substantially we'll have to take some preventative measures. What I would ''like'' to be able to do is implement a captcha system for anonymous posters. I was searching over at meta.mediawiki.org today and found only a teeny bit of discussion about this. The more radical solution would be to disable edits by anonymous users altogther. I don't think it's the best solution, but at least we can know that this would be the worst case scenario.
 
  
You can rollback an article by clicking on "diffs" from the Recent Changes page and then "rollback," or clicking "history" on that page, then "compare," then "rollback." Note that anonymous edits can never be marked as "minor" so they'll always show up on "Recent changes."
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: Yep. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font size="3.5" color="green" face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">Fr. Andrew</font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <small>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]] <font face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">('''[[User:ASDamick/Wiki-philosophy|THINK!]]''')</font></small> 03:13, February 1, 2013 (HST)
  
If the spam bots ravage the site too seriously, we can restore backup of the entire site from the previous day or week, and then lockout anonymous users from editing.
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:As you probably noticed that during our discussions in 2007 about deleting parish directory pages in the USA that I agreed in their removal, mainly over the issue of maintaining their currency. I still favor their removal for that reason. Also, even the effort of maintaining a simple listing of parishes for the world means thousands of entries, maybe tens of thousands, that should be in some orderly manner but could be difficult given the differences of opinions concerning identity of the ecclesiastical  groups. (Transfer of my comment of User talk:Pistevo)[[User:Wsk|Wsk]] 10:04, February 1, 2013 (HST)
  
So, let's keep on the watch against spam! Besides exhorting you, I just wanted you all to know that there is a plan and spam won't destroy us! (''the crowd cheers and runs exuberantly from the stadium'').
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::Thanks everyone!  Over the next few days, I'll change the directory pages to be links to the relevant page on the OrthodoxyInAustralia.com website, pending their deletion (before the end of the year). &mdash; by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 18:33, February 1, 2013 (HST)
  
::[[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]] 18:00, 11 Feb 2005 (CST)
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==Wikimedia Commons==
 +
I just ran across the storehouse of [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Orthodox_Church images and other files related to Orthodoxy] on the [http://commons.wikimedia.org Wikimedia Commons].
  
'''Update:''' See [[OrthodoxWiki:Vandalism]] for further discussion of this. - [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]] 16:55, 30 October 2005 (CST)
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How do you think we can integrate these or best draw attention to these as a source for articles? I think, as a rule, we should prefer images with open licenses to those from our other benefactors.
  
==Featured Article==
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[[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]
What do y'all think about changing the [[Template:Featured|Featured Article]] on a weekly basis?  Also, how do we choose?  Perhaps we could rotate the choice between sysops who would like to participate. --[[User:ASDamick|Rdr. Andrew]] 09:04, 8 Feb 2005 (CST)
 
  
It might be a good idea to "watch" the [[Template talk:Featured]] page. Should we each try to come up with a possibility for a featured article once a month or something (at least when we only have one left in the queue)? {{User:Magda/sig}} 09:29, November 11, 2005 (CST)
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==Year-end inventory==
 +
Please see [[OrthodoxWiki:Inventory]]. Thanks.
  
==Standard Welcome==
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==New Features==
Methinks a useful practice for us to begin would be to have a standard welcome that gets added to every new user's Talk page as soon as a sysop notices his registration. Included could be links to the Community Portal, the Style Manual, help pages, etc. This is what the one on Wikipedia looks like: [[Wikipedia:Template:Welcome]]
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As of Nov. 21, 2005 I've enabled the option to show the # of users watching each page. (Check down below, near the metadata stuff.) I've also added a feature that allows bureaucrats (i.e. me) to rename users without hacking through the database directly. This should help with the occasional request for account renaming. [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]
  
Perhaps the best way for us to do this would be to have a template with the welcome in it ([[Template:Welcome]], perhaps, which is what Wikipedia does, too), so that we could just post '''<nowiki>{{welcome}} --~~~~</nowiki>''' in the new user's Talk page and not have to update each Talk page every time we want to include something new in the welcome message&mdash;we could just update the template.
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:Nov 28 update - Added [[Special:Editcount]]
  
Thoughts?  --[[User:ASDamick|Rdr. Andrew]] 12:33, 2 Feb 2005 (CST)
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==Awards, Recognizing civic virtue on the wiki==
 +
I've been admiring Wikipedia's use of [[w:WikipediaBarnstars|barnstars]] to award people who contribute their time and talent to the wiki. We should keep this in mind as we continue to grow, and figure out how to adopt something like this for our local practice.
  
:Okay. Sorry to ask basic questions, but I can't find the answer elsewhere. How do you know when a new user registers? Is there a log that can be "watched?"  I noticed a new name show up on the Recent changes page, but could not tell whether or not he had been lurking for a while in the background.  Fr. John sent him the welcome message, so I guess he's new. And then Rdr Andrew sent the Welcome message to a User that hasn't shown up recently in Recent Changes. How did you know if he was new? --[[User:Dcndavid|DcnDavid]] 22:53, 1 Mar 2005 (CST)
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A few links of interest here:
 +
* [[w:Wikipedia:Barnstars]]
 +
* http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?BarnStar - pre-dating Wikipedia
 +
* http://www.thebarnjournal.org/stories/story018/index2.html - Images, some ideas for alternative barnstars
  
:: What I do is scan [[Special:Recentchanges]] and [[Special:Listusers]] regularly.  If I see a name I don't recognize, I send them the welcome.  Eventually, I'll probably just scan [[Special:Recentchanges]] for such checking as our user base grows and my memory starts to fail.  :)  --[[User:ASDamick|Rdr. Andrew]] 11:09, 2 Mar 2005 (CST)
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Don't forget the mention of barnraising on the [[OrthodoxWiki:Community Portal]].
  
:::See whether the [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orthodoxwiki/database?method=reportRows&tbl=1 Database table] I've made at the Yahoo Group would be of any use. We could appoint a day/schedule/person to update it periodically, but this might prove useful in making sure we're "noticing" new people, not people who don't use their accounts as often. --[[User:Magda|magda]] 13:32, 2 Mar 2005 (CST)
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==Appointing Sysops==
 +
I just wanted to share some thoughts about how I've gone about appointing sysops. Basically, I'm looking for a few things:
 +
*Some degree of sanity as well as a healthy dose of balance and humility in content submitted and dealings with other people online.
 +
*A demonstrated commitment to OrthodoxWiki and a desire (or at least a willingness) to take on some of the administrative burden for keeping this site in good order. This generally means a good record of broad interest in the wiki.
 +
*Finally, some ecclesiastical standing (as a cleric, seminarian, presbytera, recognized Orthodox personality, etc.) is desirable but not required. This is so because it is helpful to have those who are, in one way or another, "authorities" in the Church moderating things, and, of course, public recognition helps establish the credibility and status of OrthodoxWiki.
  
==[[:Template:Independent]]==
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''"If anyone aspires to the office of sysop, he desires a noble task"'' (cf.1 Tim 3:1) - If I've overlooked you or if you have someone to nominate for sysop duties please leave a note on my [[User_talk:FrJohn|user talk]] page. Of course, I reserve all rights in terms of appointments and terminations.
What are the situations when this template should be added and removed? {{User:Magda/sig}} 14:06, November 29, 2005 (CST)
 
  
::Hi Magda, I think we should add it to a user's page whenever they advertise their independent group in any way. This would mean if they use an ecclesiastical title in their user name, or if they provide links to their group's homepages. We'll let them do this (where appropriate), but should make sure their identity is clear so nobody gets confused (and also so that no one thinks we're endorsing their views, which would hurt our credibility considerably). I'm trying to make this into a formal policy at [[OrthodoxWiki:User_guidelines]]. {{User:FrJohn/sig}}
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So far, I've been pretty liberal in knighting sysops -- at this point we can use all the help we can get, and it seems to me to be a good thing to empower a robust band of trustworthy members to help manage the site. [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]] 21:58, 27 Feb 2005 (CST)
  
 
[[Category:OrthodoxWiki]]
 
[[Category:OrthodoxWiki]]
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[[el:OrthodoxWiki:Διαχειριστές]]

Latest revision as of 04:33, February 2, 2013

This is a general discussion page for OrthodoxWiki Administrators to work out various administrative issues, notes, and to-do lists. Our host and first-among-sysops is FrJohn.

  • For the sake of grabbing attention with new notices, it's probably best to put new subjects at the top of this page after the "Useful Admin links."
  • If you are not an administrator and would like to leave a note for the admins to see, please put it on the Talk page.
  • For a who's who, see Category:Sysops and Special:Listusers/sysop.

Useful Admin links

OrthodoxSource

In case you haven't been over to OrthodoxSource lately, we can now login there with our OW logins. A category structure needs to be worked on, as well as some basic documents to get things up and running well there, based primarily on existing category structures here on OrthodoxWiki. Obviously, not everything will map the same, but we don't want to reinvent the wheel any more than need be. —Fr. Andrew talk contribs (THINK!) 02:51, June 19, 2008 (UTC)


Category Sitemap

In case anyone's interested in the category structure, I put up a sitemap of the categories on the English-language wiki. I find it exceedingly helpful, when trying to interwiki between languages, to have a common category structure. I think some of what we currently have could be improved (like the Orthodoxy by country, which includes "Western Europe" and "Asia" as well as countries in those regions). I would rather provoke discussion (this means you, Fr. Andrew) on the topic before making any sudden moves. And, no, I have no idea why I went through the whole thing, but there are a whole lot of categories. —magda (talk) 19:16, June 4, 2008 (UTC)

New disciplinary policy

All sysops should read and familiarize themselves with the new official disciplinary policy as approved by FrJohn on May 29, 2008. Comments and adjustments are of course welcome. Relevant templates for enforcement: Template:Warning, Template:Warning2 and Template:Banned. —Fr. Andrew talk contribs (THINK!) 20:43, May 29, 2008 (UTC)


Eliminating directory articles

I'm of the opinion that we ought to eliminate all the directory articles. Here's my rationale:

  • The function is fulfilled far better by sites like OrthodoxyInAmerica.org and other regional and jurisdictional sites.
  • Keeping them up to date and fully accurate is almost impossible.
  • Keeping them representative of Mainstream Chalcedonian Orthodoxy only is a continual problem.
  • They're somewhat irrelevant to the role of OrthodoxWiki as an encyclopedia.

What do you think? —Fr. Andrew talk contribs 08:16, August 28, 2007 (PDT)

I agree. Keeping the listings up-to-date will continue to be a large workload especially with the addition of personal information such as the resident priest, that can change frequently. Having discovered the OrthodoxyinAmerica site really makes keeping a directory in Orthodoxwiki redundant. Wsk 18:45, August 28, 2007 (PDT)
Just adding another comment to "bump" this again to attention. Let's axe the directory articles! It's too much work to keep them going, and there's no way we'll ever be as accurate or useful as existing sites. I'd like it if other admins would comment on this. —Fr. Andrew talk contribs (THINK!) 11:40, March 20, 2008 (PDT)
Judging by the accessed count at the bottom of those pages, it looks like they are being used, do you find much out of date info on them? - Andrew 12:39, March 20, 2008 (PDT)
I may very well be a large contributor to the accessed count. Fr. Andrew, thanks for the "bump," as I don't believe I'd seen this thread before, which raises excellent points. My only preference for having a directory on OrthodoxWiki is that I can *fix* things when they're wrong, like broken links. That desire can easily be focused on submitting corrections to the jurisdictional sites and/or orthodoxyinamerica.org. Also, I'm not sure what happened to the ROCOR directory. That being said, I have begun coming across regional organizations (included in the "external links" sections) which are not necessarily pan-Orthodox; would there be an appropriate place to include those links? —magda (talk) 14:46, March 20, 2008 (PDT)
Where other active sites exist that already have the information that we have (i.e. name, basic location, link to website), then it would be unnecessary to duplicate this; perhaps a link to that website would suffice. That said, I know that in my antipodean (well...) part of the world, we don't have anything of the sort, so I would be very much against this for the Australasian articles. — by Pιsτévο talk complaints at 17:04, March 20, 2008 (PDT)
Magda, a List of parish directories article might do the trick, consisting mainly of a series of external links.
Pistevo, y'all gotta get on the ball down there!  :) Seriously, though, I have no problem with OrthodoxWiki hosting something until such time as an external site might be created. I'd even be willing to host it in my own webspace if someone else would be willing to maintain the file and send it to me for FTPing. —Fr. Andrew talk contribs (THINK!) 04:39, April 1, 2008 (PDT)


If no one voices an objection, I'm going to start deleting the Parish Directory articles for the US within a day or two, for the reasons noted above. (I also have TOP SECRET information that SOMEONE is working on an external directory for Australia.) So, speak now, or forever hold your keys... or something. —Fr. Andrew talk contribs (THINK!) 10:43, April 2, 2008 (PDT)

Hmm... I agree that strictly this isn't in line with OWiki's mission... BUT I also see Magda's point that these are both pan-Orthodox and easily updatable, unlike any other directory I'm aware of , and I note that these have been popular "articles" over the years. Maybe we can wait a little bit on this? I dunno. — FrJohn (talk) 18:20, April 2, 2008 (PDT)

Having waited a couple months without any major objections being raised, I'm beginning deletion. —Fr. Andrew talk contribs (THINK!) 14:00, June 14, 2008 (UTC)
Reminder: With the deletion of each parish listing article, we will need to delete the title of the removed articles from the Churches Category pages. Currently, the titles for the deleted articles still appear in the Churches Categories but which lead to blank pages!Wsk 18:09, June 14, 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Could you link to what you're referring to? —Fr. Andrew talk contribs (THINK!) 18:56, June 14, 2008 (UTC)
Click on the Category 'Churches' on the main page. All the lists are still listed on Category Churches page.Wsk 20:21, June 14, 2008 (UTC)
There are lists of other parish directories in Category:Churches, but not the USA directories, that I see. I haven't come across any category page which gives links to articles which no longer exist. Try refreshing the page or clearing your browser cache, perhaps. —magda (talk) 20:29, June 14, 2008 (UTC
Thanks. I notice that it is all cleared, now. Earlier when I noted a list was deleted and I clicked on the Category 'Churches', I still could get the listed page, but with a note that none existed as if one were starting a new page. I may have just caught the deletion process in 'midstream'. Sorry for my 'alarm'. Wsk 20:40, June 14, 2008 (UTC)


Fellow sysops, I'm proposing adding the parish directories of Australia to be deleted, because these are currently available on http://orthodoxyinaustralia.com/ (providing more information in any event). The situation is worse with these articles as they generally don't get updated. Good idea? -- — by Pιsτévο talk complaints at 02:58, January 21, 2013 (HST) -- URL edited 1/Feb/2013

Hi! I think you have good precedent here, especially if the pages are not being updated. — FrJohn (talk) 21:38, January 31, 2013 (HST)
Yep. —Fr. Andrew talk contribs (THINK!) 03:13, February 1, 2013 (HST)
As you probably noticed that during our discussions in 2007 about deleting parish directory pages in the USA that I agreed in their removal, mainly over the issue of maintaining their currency. I still favor their removal for that reason. Also, even the effort of maintaining a simple listing of parishes for the world means thousands of entries, maybe tens of thousands, that should be in some orderly manner but could be difficult given the differences of opinions concerning identity of the ecclesiastical groups. (Transfer of my comment of User talk:Pistevo)Wsk 10:04, February 1, 2013 (HST)
Thanks everyone! Over the next few days, I'll change the directory pages to be links to the relevant page on the OrthodoxyInAustralia.com website, pending their deletion (before the end of the year). — by Pιsτévο talk complaints at 18:33, February 1, 2013 (HST)

Wikimedia Commons

I just ran across the storehouse of images and other files related to Orthodoxy on the Wikimedia Commons.

How do you think we can integrate these or best draw attention to these as a source for articles? I think, as a rule, we should prefer images with open licenses to those from our other benefactors.

Fr. John

Year-end inventory

Please see OrthodoxWiki:Inventory. Thanks.

New Features

As of Nov. 21, 2005 I've enabled the option to show the # of users watching each page. (Check down below, near the metadata stuff.) I've also added a feature that allows bureaucrats (i.e. me) to rename users without hacking through the database directly. This should help with the occasional request for account renaming. Fr. John

Nov 28 update - Added Special:Editcount

Awards, Recognizing civic virtue on the wiki

I've been admiring Wikipedia's use of barnstars to award people who contribute their time and talent to the wiki. We should keep this in mind as we continue to grow, and figure out how to adopt something like this for our local practice.

A few links of interest here:

Don't forget the mention of barnraising on the OrthodoxWiki:Community Portal.

Appointing Sysops

I just wanted to share some thoughts about how I've gone about appointing sysops. Basically, I'm looking for a few things:

  • Some degree of sanity as well as a healthy dose of balance and humility in content submitted and dealings with other people online.
  • A demonstrated commitment to OrthodoxWiki and a desire (or at least a willingness) to take on some of the administrative burden for keeping this site in good order. This generally means a good record of broad interest in the wiki.
  • Finally, some ecclesiastical standing (as a cleric, seminarian, presbytera, recognized Orthodox personality, etc.) is desirable but not required. This is so because it is helpful to have those who are, in one way or another, "authorities" in the Church moderating things, and, of course, public recognition helps establish the credibility and status of OrthodoxWiki.

"If anyone aspires to the office of sysop, he desires a noble task" (cf.1 Tim 3:1) - If I've overlooked you or if you have someone to nominate for sysop duties please leave a note on my user talk page. Of course, I reserve all rights in terms of appointments and terminations.

So far, I've been pretty liberal in knighting sysops -- at this point we can use all the help we can get, and it seems to me to be a good thing to empower a robust band of trustworthy members to help manage the site. Fr. John 21:58, 27 Feb 2005 (CST)