User:AmiDaniel/VandalProof/ModeratorTools

This page very basically details the abilities and duties of moderators for the applicationVandalProof. If you have any question about moderating, please contact me.

Moderate List
Before adding any user to the list of authorized users, please always check the user's edit count to verify that the user has (at the very minimum) 250 edits and that these edits were made over some period of time longer than one week. Please also check the user's talk page to see if he/she has recently been accused of vandalism or 3RR violation, or has had any recent disputes. Assessment of whether to approve a user should be based upon whether you can clearly assess that the user will use the tool for the purpose of fighting obvious vandalism (as defined in Vandalism) as opposed to using it to wage edit wars or otherwise violate Wikipedia's policies. Users should not be turned down because you disagree with their politics (Wikipedia or otherwise) or because you personally do not like the user. If you do not believe that a user would make a good candidate to use the tool, please post a message on the user's talk page explaining why. If you are unsure as to whether to approve a user or not and/or are waiting for the user to explain his/her intentions, you can add the word "(hold)" after their username in the Awaiting Approval section so that other moderators will know that no decision has yet been reached.

The list can, of course, be modified by hand; however, to make this easier to do, moderators will find under the Moderator Tools menu the item Moderate User List. Clicking on it will produce a dialog with a list of all the current users.

To add a user to the list, simply type in the username and click the small plus (+) button next to the input box. The user will then appear in the below list in alphabetical order with a check next to his/her name. To remove a user from the list, click on the username in the list and then click the minus (-) button. In order for your changes to take effect, you must click on the Update List button, which will take a few moments.

Welcome template
I have created a welcome template for mods for easily welcoming new members. Simply add this to their talk page (note with the new 1.1 version you should have a button that will do this instead)

The result will be:


 * Welcome to VandalProof!


 * Hi ((Their username)), thank you for your interest in VandalProof and Congratulations! You are now one of our authorized users, so if you haven't already simply download VandalProof from our main page, install and you're ready to go!


 * If you have any problems please feel free to contact me or post a message on VandalProof's talk page. Once again congrats and welcome to our team!

Simple as that! I have also added mine to the custombuttons.txt by replacing  with:

 Welcome to VandalProof

Hope this helps! - Gl e n T C 08:53, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Moderators are strongly encouraged to alert users when they have been added to the list, and they are also encouraged to explain to users who are not approved why they were not.

After you approve/reject a user's request to use the tool, please remove his/her username from the Awaiting Approval section, and provide an edit summary explaining which users you approved or rejected.

User Application Decline template
I have also created an application declined template for mods for declining those applicants that do not quite scrub up. Simply add this to their talk page:
 *  -Your reason- 

The result will be:


 * Your VandalProof Application


 * Dear ,


 * Thank you for applying for VandalProof! (VP). As you may know, VP is a very powerful program, and in fact with the new 1.1 version release it has even more power. As such we must uphold strict protocols before approving an applicant. Regretfully, I have chosen to decline your application at this time. The reason for this is . Please note it is nothing personal by any means, and we certainly welcome you to apply again in the not too distant future. Thank you for your interest in VandalProof.

Simple as that! I have also added mine to the custombuttons.txt by replacing  with:

 %P Notify user that his/her request to use VP was not granted

It will prompt you for the reason before adding the notice to the users talk page.

Hope this helps! - Gl e n  TC (Stollery)  09:04, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Editing the Welcome Page
Another task I'm hoping moderators will participate in will be modifying the welcome page to include information about possible bugs and common problems that users have had. The welcome page can be found at: User:AmiDaniel/Welcome_to_VandalProof. While anyone can edit the actual page, only edits made by moderators will be visible to the tool's users. As such, it's very important that before making changes to the page you check that no non-moderators have edited the page since you.

Moderators should occasionally read through the bug reports listed on VP's talk page, and if one is found that is not yet listed on the Welcome page, please add it to the appropriate section. Be aware, however, that nothing below Current Users will be visible from within the tool.

At the bottom of the page you will see two sections: Current Users and Commands. Under the Current Users section is the official user list that is used for startup authentication. It is recommended that you don't modify this by hand, but rather use the above described method to ensure that everything remains in the correct format. The Commands section contains a variety of commands that VP interperts.

One command that is very important is the "USERIN" command. If you change the number of sections on the page, be sure to update this to reflect the section in which the user list is stored (i.e. if the user list is in section 7, the page should include the command "USERIN: 7").

Dealing With Abuse
If it is brought to your attention that a user has been abusing the tool, please remove the user from the user list to ensure that he/she will not use it again until. If the user has only mildly abused the tool, such as being blocked for 3RR, it would be appropriate for him/her to "re-request" permission after a week or so; thus, you should add the commands section: TEMPREM(username;date user may reapply) {your username} BECAUSE:reason

This will cause the following message to appear in place of the typical "log-in successful" box when s/he tries to connect to VandalProof:

For more serious cases of abuse where the user should never again be allowed to use the tool, you should add: PERMREM(username) {your username} BECAUSE:reason

This will then cause the following message when s/he logs in:

Warning Templates
Thought I'd add this just as an FYI