Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-24668482-20160731122921

The community here is growing, and it is time to grow the team to match it. We need volunteers to help out in different places around here. I do not have the time to dedicate to this wiki as I would like and this place needs active people who are invested in the wiki and the game. It needs you guys, basically.

The wiki can be split into two main areas: Content (the articles, databases etc.) and Community (forum, chat and message walls).

Everyone here has their own strengths and their own preferred areas to hang out. So we are looking for volunteers to play to their own strengths and interests. Love talking to friends on the forum and have a little free time? Then consider volunteering to spend a few hours a week being a discussions moderator, welcoming new users and helping people learn how to use the system. Not a big fan of the forum but love tinkering with articles and fixing the (many) typos? Then consider volunteering to take on one of the content roles instead. Love getting involved in everything around here? Then why not volunteer for both content and community roles.

There is no need to do more than you are comfortable with or interested in, and volunteering shouldn't impact your own time and fun on the wiki. Being a volunteer should just be one of many hats you can wear, that can be put on when needed, and taken off when not, rather than a full time job. If we have more than one volunteer in each role, then every volunteer will not feel under pressure to do more than they currently have time for. Things will run smoother if there is always someone around to jump in and help out if someone needs help, and people will feel safer knowing that there are team members on every time zone so someone is always nearby if needed.

So here are the available roles that we need volunteers for:

Community 'Stream' There is currently one main role within the Community Stream of the Team:

Discussions Moderator Discussions Moderators are users who have additional tools available to manage conversations in various features across the community where users are having social discussions. These tools are: Having this status causes "DISCUSSIONS MODERATOR" to appear next to the username on the user's userpage
 * Removing and restoring threads and replies from any user.
 * Closing and reopening threads
 * In the Forum feature specifically, moderators also have the ability to manage Forum boards, move threads from one board to another, and highlight and un-highlight threads.
 * Deleting blog comments
 * Editing and deleting article comments

Content 'Stream' There are also two main roles within the Content Stream of the Team:

Rollback Anyone can revert vandalism and bad-faith edits, but it takes a couple of clicks in the page history to get it done. Users with the "rollback" tool can undo bad edits with one click, by using the rollback link on diff pages, user contributions list, or the list of recent changes.

Rollbackers (users with Rollback rights) can be seen via Special:ListUsers/rollback, but they do not by default have any special title that appears on their userpage.

Content Moderator Content Moderators are users who have additional tools available to moderate the content parts of the community. These tools are:
 * Deleting and moving protected pages
 * Deleting and moving files
 * Undeleting pages and files
 * Rollback
 * Reupload files
 * Protecting and unprotecting pages

Administrators Administrators (also known as "admins" or "sysops") are trusted users, who are generally chosen by the community and also have access to the following rights:
 * All privileges from the Discussion Moderator and Content Moderator groups.
 * Delete and undelete pages, as well as delete images or files.
 * Lock (protect) both a page and a file so it cannot be edited or renamed by users without adminship privileges.
 * Block users who are vandalizing the wiki from editing and other actions.
 * Grant and revoke both the Chat Moderator and Discussion Moderator rights.
 * Edit the community's skin and format.
 * Edit whitelisted MediaWiki pages.
 * Admins can also turn on and off additional features here, such as the chat feature; top 10 lists; image galleries etc.

Having this status causes "ADMIN" to appear next to the username on the user's userpage.

Although all Admins have tools that allow them to work in both the Content and Community streams of the wiki, they is no expectation that any one admin should be an expert in all areas. Admins should be free to declare an area of interest/expertise - such as just being involved on the Community side or just being involved in the Content side, or even just being involved in the back end stuff such as the media wiki pages - although an admin could also declare themselves an all-rounder if they have both the time and the ability to help out everywhere. A list of active admins and their areas of interest can be made so that people know who is the best person to approach for help when they have a problem.

For a full list and description of user rights, including what all registered users can already do as standard, see Help:User Rights.

So how will this work?

Ideally, having 3 people in each role would work best for now, but this can be flexible. If there are many more volunteers for a particular role than is currently needed, then the community can vote on who they feel would be best for the role. The other volunteers would be free to volunteer again, or else could take on another role that they are interested in for now.

In the interest of fairness, and hopefully getting the right people for the roles, there are some conditions that users will need to meet in order to be eligible:


 * 1) Anyone who has ever been blocked from the wiki is not eligible for any of the above roles
 * 2) Volunteers should be members who have been consistently active in the community for at least 3 months already.

The second condition may sound a little unfair, and is definitely flexible. I can think of a number of people who have been members here for a shorter time that would do a wonderful job in any of the above roles, and would encourage people to apply anyway if they are really interested in volunteering but do not meet the 3 months yet. Just state that you are under the 3 months when volunteering and maybe give a reason or two why you think that an exception should be made. The main reason for the 3 months criteria to highlight that taking on these roles is to take on a big responsibility here. Users in these roles need to be familiar faces to the community who are not only very familiar with how things work here but also plan on sticking around for a long time to come. We need people that will still be here to help out in 2 months or 4 months or 6 months’ time. And so someone who has already been here that long is more likely to stick around for a long time to come, hence the basic criteria. Only you can answer the question of do you think you will still want to help out on the wiki in the months to come, and it should be a serious consideration before volunteering.

If all that sounds like something you would be willing to do, then please respond below listing the role you would like to take. This thread will be active for a week to give people a chance to think about whether they want to volunteer or not before responding. 