Help:SOAP

The Spam Task Force is an all-volunteer group of Wikia users who have been given some additional user rights across Wikia. The task force is made up of users who act in the interests of the greater Wikia community by helping keep Wikia vandal and spam free. Task force members have most of the same privileges as local administrators, but on all Wikia wikis; they also have access to a few extra tools that help them react quickly and effectively to find and remove vandalism and spam. It's important to note that they do not replace or "outrank" local administrators. The local community and the local admins are responsible for their wiki-specific tasks; but the task force is only there to help with cleaning cross-Wikia spam, and reverting vandalism on quiet or inactive wikis.

Program overview
"OK," you say, "but what exactly is the Spam Task Force?"

The task force members are:


 * …normal everyday users who are volunteers that help out the wider Wikia community during their spare time;
 * …trusted users who have been given sysop-tools across the whole of Wikia in order to clean up and prevent spam and help out with vandalism;
 * …able to successfully track cross-wiki spammers or vandals, block them and dispose of their garbage.

Contact us
Wikia's current Spam Task Force volunteers are listed below. If you need help with clearing up vandalism or spam, please contact them via the links provided. If nobody appears to be available, you can report the spam on the VSTF wiki and someone will clean it up as soon as possible.

Former volunteers are listed here.

Program policies and guidelines
The members of the Spam Task Force hold a "maintenance" role on Wikia. What this means is that these Helpers do not have any say over local wiki content, policies or site discussions. They should respect local wiki policies and guidelines even if they may be different from a typical Wikia or their own beliefs and customs.

Due to the nature of the program, all volunteers that are invited to join must be at least 18 years of age. Volunteers should not have any serious record of being blocked, locally or globally around Wikia. Criterion is decided on a case-by-case basis.

Each member volunteers for a period of three months. At the end of that time, if the Wikia Community Team and the volunteer agree, they may sign up for an additional 3 months.

When to take action on a wiki
Members of the Spam Task Force should help out a wiki only if there is:


 * …obvious cross-wiki vandalism that is needed to be cleaned up;
 * …a problem with vandals and no local administrators are available, or active, to block them;
 * …obvious spam, especially if there is a known cross-wiki spambot at work;
 * …a request from the Wikia Community Team to help with cross-wiki maintenance tasks;
 * …a broken or problematic interface message (such as a JavaScript, stylesheet, or interface message causing a wiki to be unusable)

As a general rule-of-thumb, volunteers should avoid very active or large wikis due to the fact that their services are not normally required (although global tools may automatically make changes on all wikis).

General guidelines

 * First and foremost, always be polite and courteous to your fellow editors, even if they respond negatively to you.
 * Remember to use clear edit summaries without jargon, so that local communities know what you were doing.
 * Please overwrite the 'content was:' auto-edit summary text with your own summary when deleting a 'spam' or vandalism page. This is done so that the abusive content does not show up on recent changes and in the logs.
 * Also, manually revert edits (as opposed to using rollback) done by abusively named accounts so that those usernames do not appear in auto-edit summaries in logs.
 * If a local administrator reverts or blocks you, do not reverse their action — instead, seek a staff opinion. Remember, do not engage in disputes or conflicts with local communities.
 * Most importantly of all — Communicate! Even though we all do it every day, it can sometimes be overlooked in certain situations. If in doubt about whether an action would be welcome, or if someone objects to your work, use the user talk pages, Community Portal, Forums, or Main Page talk to discuss the issue in a polite and friendly way. Remember that you are a representative of Wikia as a whole — some users may not be familiar with the wider community, so their interactions with you may be their first with a Wikia team member…make sure it is a pleasant, or at least courteous, experience for them. Again, if communication fails for whatever reason, simply stop; take a breather, ask another experienced user for input, or simply advise the administrators that you understand their position and that you're available in the future if another need arises.
 * Lastly, please remember that local sysop tasks are to be taken care of by local administrators. Unless a wiki is inactive, there are no current admins or you are asked to help, then let the local administrators do their job — this helps communities to view the Spam Task Force as an "asset" as opposed to "being in charge." This is especially true of large wikis with an established administrator group, such as Uncyclopedia or Memory Alpha.

How to join the Spam Task Force
We're always looking for new, active, resourceful and friendly users who have demonstrated that they have an interest in helping out the wider Wikia community. And the best way to do this is simply to get involved! Occasionally, someone with an established history on Wikia and who has shown that they are willing and able to help will be invited to join the volunteer scheme. Currently, to join the Spam Task Force, you must be invited. Those who have been observed being involved will be selected as new volunteers are needed.

"OK...but what does that mean? How do I get involved? Where do I start?"

There are many ways you can help out the team and become a valuable VSTF prospect:
 * Assist the current team by reporting spam or vandalism on the VSTF Wiki or on Wikia CVN channels.
 * Reverting vandalism cross-wiki. Ensure you respect local policy (i.e. no edit warring) and report to local admins for active wikis or VSTF for inactive wikis.
 * Realize that this is not a game nor is it fun. It's tedious work, and it's important to have this mindset and realize treating it like a game is contrary to our cause. Be friendly with the community, however when making reversions or undoing spam or vandals, show no emotion and avoid using emotion or frustration in edit summaries.
 * Be a team player and collaborate! Be helpful and friendly with the VSTF team and the wider Wikia community and maintain a professional, yet casual mindset. Remember that this is a "volunteer role," that means quality over quantity. Last thing you need to be is burnt out.

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