A small number of vetted LocalWiki volunteers are "global administrators". This means that they have a few more responsibilities than local administrators. There's currently no application process for global adminship, but I'm sure there will be at some point.

This page is a how-to guide for global admins.  This page doesn't go over the functions and responsibilities of normal regional adminship. For that, please see the Local Administrators Hub page.

Global admins do not make judgements in content disputes, etc.  They are simply folks who make sure really nasty abuse doesn't happen, or that it gets properly cleaned up when it does happen.

Current global admins

Please feel free to contact these people in the event of serious abuse or for API keys. Do not contact them for regional content disputes or anything that a local administrator takes care of.

How to block a user IP or range of user IPs

  1. View the global activity page and click on a user, then go to their user activity page (click on their user stats #s).  Then you'll see their IP addresses.
  2. Enter these IP addresses in the admin here to block those IPs from editing.

Advanced usage: if you notice a pattern of IP addresses, you can enter a CIDR (http://ip2cidr.com/) range rather than just a simple IP address.

How to disable a user account

Normally, people can disable their own account by going into their user settings. In some cases, though, global admins may want to disable an account manually--particularly with spam or abuse accounts.

  • To disable a user account, simply go to their user page and click on "Administrate user."  You'll then be in the admin screen for the user. Uncheck "is active" and save the page. The user is now disabled and cannot log in or edit.

How to create a new API key for a user

If someone has requested an API key and the community has given input, then you can create an API get for them by visiting the admin interface and going into "Authtoken" -> "Tokens", selecting the user, saving the page, and then emailing or otherwise privately sending the API key to the user.

How to revert a page and delete all intermediate versions

Sometimes a page needs more than a simple revert--sometimes all intermediate versions of it need to be cleared out as well. Please use this with extreme caution and only in cases in which we've collectively established precedent. By default, it's important that all LocalWiki actions are public and transparent to the whole LocalWiki community. That said, on rare occasions this must be done.

  • To do this, when in the "Revert page" screen simply select "Permanently remove older versions".  To hide the change from the Activity feeds, you can also select "Don't log this change:."

How to delete a page and delete all previous versions

Sometimes a page doesn't simply need to be deleted--all previous versions of it need to be deleted as well. Please use this with extreme caution and only in cases in which we've collectively established precedent. By default, it's important that all LocalWiki actions are public and transparent to the whole LocalWiki community. That said, on rare occasions, this must be done.

  • To do this, when in the "Delete page" screen simply select "Permanently remove older versions".  To hide the change from the Activity feeds, you can also select "Don't log this change:."

How to delete a LocalWiki region

Sometimes people make spammy regions. Sad. Or they make a mistake. For now, the best way to fix this is to go into the admin panel -> Region settings -> uncheck "is active."  This won't delete any of the region content but it'll disable it for the time being.

How to move a page between regions

When you go into the page editor, you'll see a button: "Move".  This will allow you to move a page between different regions.  This is usually useful because people will accidentally create a new page in an incorrect region (such as /main). I notice this happen a lot with class projects, where you have a bunch of undergrads suddenly adding a bunch of pages somewhere and then they get really angry if you delete anything because they're supposed to get class credit.

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