Misplaced Pages

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#wikipedia-en-admins is a closed Internet relay chat channel allowing for real-time communications among administrators on the English Misplaced Pages and selected others. In addition to English Misplaced Pages administrators, access to the channel has been provided to some administrators on other Wikimedia projects, former admins, developers, OTRS respondents, and other users. As with all freenode IRC channels with the word Misplaced Pages in the title, it is managed by the Group Contacts.

Purpose

As envisioned by the founders and channel operators, the main purpose of the channel is to provide a forum for interaction among administrators. The channel provides a place for admins to obtain input from their colleagues on issues that arise from time to time, as well as to seek out an administrator with particular skills or interests to address a situation, or to locate a functionary such as a checkuser, bureaucrat, or steward where called for.

In addition to these primary purposes, the channel also facilitates social interaction among the administrator corps and other invitees apart from their day-to-day on-wiki dealings. The channel also has played an occasional but valuable role in emergency circumstances, such as when a rogue administrator deleted the main page and blocked Jimbo Wales.

The channel was originally created by Talrias for Danny to deal with urgent living biography issues. Foundation staff and board members sometimes come onto the channel with a problem needing solving. It's a work channel with a lot of background chatting.

Important: The channel is useful for administrators to double-check themselves or obtain second opinions prior to acting, but in-channel discussion is never a substitute for an administrator's taking responsibility for his or her own administrator actions, nor for on-wiki discussions (on WP:ANI or another appropriate forum) of controversial issues or decisions. Basing an admin decision on IRC discussion is a bad idea. You bear responsibility for your own actions. WP:ANI is probably a much better idea if the matter's not urgent.

Conduct on the channel

The ethos behind the channel is "You're an admin, you were picked for your judgment. Use it."

Note that if you use the channel to sanity-check a decision, you still need to justify it as needed on the wiki. An administrator's actions must be able to stand on their own merits, regardless of any discussions on IRC.

Those on the channel should comport themselves in a collegial manner, even when upset or involved in an issue. Don't be rude to or about people. Ever.

Although channel guidelines discourage the release of channel logs by any participant, and their publication on-wiki is even more strongly discouraged, the channel (like any other IRC channel) is not secret or secure. Logs have in the past become available or forwarded to various people, including editors who were the subject of discussion as well as the Arbitration Committee.

How to obtain access

All Misplaced Pages administrators are technically entitled to entry to the channel, though in practice some are made unwelcome. If you're an English Misplaced Pages admin:

1. Request access below, providing your cloak details and/or IRC nick. (Someone will then process these by hand with /cs ACCESS #wikipedia-en-admins ADD nickname 5.). Once done, you can get access to the channel by typing /msg chanserv invite #wikipedia-en-admins. You should then be able to join the channel as normal.

   Also consider pinging ops in #wikimedia-ops (with !ops) which may expedite the process.

2. If you wish, go here to request an IRC cloak. (Sean then processes these by hand). This step is optional, but a good idea.

   If you wish for 'automatic' access where a /cs invite command is not required, please ask an op while in the channel. A cloak is required for this, they will op themselves and do /mode +I *!*@your/cloak/here

• The IRC instructions page may also be helpful.

Once an editor is granted access, he or she generally retains it indefinitely. No formal process for the removal of access exists and such matters have so far been addressed by the channel operators on a case-by-case basis. Formal access to the channel will not be revoked unless a participant refuses to abide by the standards of conduct expected of channel members.

Pending requests

Please register before adding a request (type in /msg nickserv register password, replacing password with one of your choice)

Channel operators

There are several channel operators for this channel who have the ability to add users to the channel's access list, and remove users from the channel or access list.

The channel owners say that they would like all English Misplaced Pages administrators on the channel, particularly new ones, so as to get the admins talking to each other and learning accepted practice from the distinguished and well trusted admins there.

No aspect of IRC is mandatory to being an admin, and if anyone tries to make it a criterion for support at Requests for adminship, such comments should be ignored.

Sources of processes detailed on this page

James F. retains personal control over Wikimedia-related IRC channels. However, neither freenode nor the WMF confirm him being an designated contact or any existence of him acting in any official capacity in doing so. The Foundation disclaims IRC, so James is the sole source of authority. James is only occasionally active at the moment in this area. This means that his deputy, seanw should be consulted for the majority of issues. (Please note that Sean William is not seanw, however similar their names may seem.)

Because of the private "ownership" perceived by the contact persons and operators of the channel, many Misplaced Pages administrators choose to avoid the use of the IRC and encourage others to avoid it as well. The channel was created without consensus for it at Misplaced Pages, and it has since run without any direct relation to Misplaced Pages's policies and processes. There are no appeals on Misplaced Pages for bad behavior on IRC, and the channel operators are avid that it remain this way. Consequently, users should approach the channel only for purposes of conversation, and never, under any circumstances, to conduct Misplaced Pages business. The channel is a diversion that may or may not be useful.

See also

• IRC
• Misplaced Pages:List of administrators/IRC nicknames

• Misplaced Pages adminship