User blog:Moonwatcher x Qibli/Guide to article Moderation

Preface I like to say this. This blog is long. Many won't want to read it because of that, but honestly? This is your choice: Take the 20 or so minutes to read this and know how to proficiently use all of the tools available to you; or you can not, and have to take a good long while to learn all of this information, some of which you may never learn. I realize that sounds pushy, but I'm just tryna say don't be intimidated by the size of this.

Who this applies to/What tools are availible
Content-Moderators, and Administrators can do the following:


 * Editing and moving fully protected pages
 * Deleting and undeleting pages and files
 * Editing and moving protected files
 * Rollbacking
 * Protecting and unprotecting pages
 * Patrolling pages if the community has the recent changes patrol feature enabled
 * Deleting and undeleting article and blog comments
 * Deleting, undeleting, editing, locking, and unlocking message wall threads

Below we'll go into what all of these things are, how to use them, and other things Content Moderators are expected to do.

Editing and moving fully protected pages/files
There's not much to this one other than the principle of it. Basically, once someone has been granted the User Rights content-moderator, or Administrator they are able to edit and move protected articles and Files. As well as, in the case of protected files, re-upload. They can do this in the same way a normal user might edit or move a not-protected page. You should, however, be careful when doing so. Generally, articles and Files are protected for a reason. A reason an article may be protected is that it provides rules and guidelines for the Wiki. A reason a File may be protected is that it is an image displayed everywhere on the Wiki, such as in the Top navigation. A list of all protected pages can be found at Special:ProtectedPages on any Wiki.

Types of protection/why to protect
First off; There are three types of protection. Another way articles can be protected is through Cascading protection. Cascading protection is a form of page protection that allows you to protect a page so that all templates and images on the page will also be protected without needing to protect them individually. This is useful on pages, such as a wiki main page, where most of the included images and templates are used only on that page.
 * 1) Allow all users. This setting makes it so that anyone can edit the article, even logged-out users (unless the Wiki has anonymous contributing disabled). This is the general setting for most articles.
 * 2) Allow only autoconfirmed users. This is a 'semi-protection' of sorts, it allows users who have a Fandom account to edit the article. This is generally used when an article has been experiencing a lot of vandalism from logged-out users. (If a Wiki has disabled anonymous editing, then all articles are under this protection by default.)
 * 3) Allow only administrators. This section is a bit misleading as Content-Moderators can also edit pages under this protection. Articles under this protection are only editable by Content-Moderators and Administrators. Articles are generally protected to this level because they a) Provide Rules and guidelines to the community, and b) Are constantly getting vandalized by logged-in users.

Desktop
To protect a page or file on desktop, all you need to do is: Then, on the page, it brings you to:
 * 1) Click the three dots in the top right corner of the article/file you want to protect.
 * 2) click "Protect" Protecting.png
 * 1) Change the dropdown under "Edit" to either "Allow all users," "Allow only autoconfirmed users," or "Allow only administrators" based on how you want to protect the page.
 * 2) Change the dropdown under "Move" to set what type of users should be able to change the title of the page/move it to a new namespace. Fandom automatically makes this the same as "Edit." If you want to make it different you'll need to check "Unlock further protect options" just above "Move," and then change the settings.
 * 3) Enter your reason for protecting, then click save.

To be noted:

 * Only change "Expires:" if you want the protection to expire at some point in the future

Mobile
While it is slightly more difficult on mobile, here are a few ways this is possible (I myself prefer option 1):
 * 1) Scroll to the bottom of the page and at the very bottom click "VIEW FULL SITE" then proceed the same as described in "Desktop" above.
 * 2) Go to the page/File you want to protect. Scroll to the very top of the page and click the search bar (bottom of the page on apple devices, but it appears as you scroll up), then edit the URL of the page and add   to the very end. Then proceed as described above in "Desktop."

To be noted:

 * Administrators can, if they wish, allow other usergroups, such as Thread Moderators, to edit fully protected articles. They may do so by Contacting Fandom Staff and asking them to allow this.


 * Certain users with Global Rights, such as SOAP, Fandom Staff, Wiki Representatives, and Wiki Specialists can also edit and move fully protected articles and Files.


 * Normal articles may NOT be fully protected, for any reason other than the above stated. This means that articles may not be protected even if it's a page you worked hard on and you don't want someone else to edit it, etc, unless there are compelling reasons, such as vandalism.

Why to delete/undelete
Generally, an article will be deleted for being against the Wiki rules. Often off-topic articles will be deleted, but it all depends on that Wikis policies. You probably won't be undeleting articles very often, as they are usually deleted for a reason, but this will cover how to do so.

Delete
To delete an article on Fandoms desktop skin:
 * 1) Click the three-dot menu in the top right of the article.
 * 2) Select "Delete" deleting.png
 * 3) Enter the reason for deleting the article, then click "DELETE PAGE"