Masticationpedia:User rights

The user access level of editors affects their abilities to perform specific actions on Masticationpedia. The user access level depends on which rights (also called permissions, user groups, bits, or flags) are assigned to accounts.

There are two types of access leveling: automatic, and requested. User access levels are determined by whether the user is logged in, the account's age and edits, and what manually assigned rights the account has.

Anyone can use the basic functionalities of Masticationpedia even if they are not logged in. Unless they are blocked, they may freely edit many pages. Being logged in gives users many advantages, such as having their public IP address hidden (very important for your privacy) and the ability to track one's own contributions. Additionally, once user accounts are more than a certain number of days old and have made more than a certain number of edits, they automatically become autoconfirmed or extended confirmed, allowing the direct creation of certain contents, the ability to move pages, to edit semi-protected and extended-protected pages, and upload files. Further access levels need to be assigned manually by a user with the appropriate authority.

An editor with more experience and in good standing can attempt to become an administrator, which provides a large number of advanced permissions. Many other flags for specialized tasks are also available.

Overview

All visitors to the site, including unregistered users, are part of the * group, and all logged-in registered users are also part of the user group.

Other flags are only given upon request; some are granted unilaterally if the user demonstrates a need for them (see Masticationpedia:Requests for permissions).
Others, such as sysop and bureaucrat, are given only after a decision by the Charity's Board of trustees, after signing the Masticationpedia's confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information.

User groups have one or more rights assigned to them; all members of a particular user group will have access to these rights. The individual rights that are assigned to user groups are listed at Special:ListGroupRights. Terms like rights, permissions, bits and flags can refer to both user groups and the individual rights assigned to them.

Permissions requested at Requests for permissions only have local rights on this wiki.

User groups

The system-generated technical permissions are listed at Special:ListGroupRights.

Unregistered (IP or not logged in) users

Users who are not logged in are identified by their IP address rather than a user name, whether or not they have already registered an account.

• They may read all Masticationpedia pages (except restricted special pages), and edit pages that are not protected.
• They may create talk pages in any talk namespace but need to ask for help to create pages in some parts of the wiki.
• They cannot upload files or images.
• They must answer a captcha if they wish to make an edit which involves the addition of external links, and click a confirm link to purge pages.

Edit screens of unregistered users are headed by a banner that reads:

Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you [$1 log in] or [$2 create an account], your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.

 

Registered (new) users

Registered users may immediately e-mail other users if they activate an email address in their user preferences.

• All logged-in users may mark edits as minor.
• They may purge pages without a confirmation step, but are still required to answer a CAPTCHA when adding external links. Edits that they make to a page that is under pending changes protection will be accepted, but will not be immediately visible to non-logged in users until they have been reviewed and approved.
• They may save books to their userspace, but not the Books namespace.
• They may also customize their wiki interface and its options as they wish - either via Special:Preferences, or by adding personal Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) or JavaScript rules to their common.css or common.js files.

Autoconfirmed and confirmed users

Several actions (such as article creation) are restricted to user accounts that are at least 4 days old and have made at least 10 edits to the encyclopedia. Users who meet these requirements are considered part of the pseudo-group autoconfirmed.

The conditions for autoconfirmed status are checked every time a user attempts to perform a restricted action; if they are met, permission is granted automatically by the MediaWiki software.

Although the precise requirements for autoconfirmed status vary according to circumstances, most Masticationpedia user accounts that are more than four days old and have made at least 10 edits (including deleted edits) are considered autoconfirmed. However, users with the IP block exemption flag and who are editing through the Tor network are subjected to much stricter autoconfirmed thresholds: 90 days and 100 edits.

• Autoconfirmed or confirmed users can create articles (except for create-protected pages), move pages (except for move-protected pages), edit semi-protected pages, and upload files (including new versions of existing files, except for upload-protected files). Edits that they make to a page that is under pending changes protection will be accepted and immediately visible to non-logged in users without requiring review or approval.

Autoconfirmed users are no longer required to enter a CAPTCHA for most edits, including, but not limited to, adding external links.

• Autoconfirmed users may email users that have their allow emails from brand-new users checkbox off.
• They also may save books to the Books namespace. In addition, the Edit filter has a number of warning settings that will no longer affect editors who are autoconfirmed.

In some situations, it is necessary for accounts to skip the customary confirmation period and to be confirmed right away. The confirmed group contains the exact same rights as the autoconfirmed pseudo-group, but can be granted by administrators and event coordinators as necessary. It is redundant to grant the confirmed right to an account that is already autoconfirmed since it provides the exact same abilities. To request this permission, see MP:Requests for permissions/Confirmed. See Special:ListUsers/confirmed for a list of the 0 confirmed users.

See Special:ActiveUsers for a list of recently active users.

Extended confirmed users

A registered editor becomes extendedconfirmed automatically when the account is both at least 30 days old and has made at least 500 edits (including deleted edits).

This user access right allows editors to edit and create pages that are under extended confirmed protection.

See Special:ListUsers/extendedconfirmed for a list of the 0 extended confirmed users.

Administrators and bureaucrats

Administrators and bureaucrats are requested from pages other than MP:Requests for permissions.

Administrators

See also MP:Administrators to know more.

Administrators, also commonly referred to as "admins" or sometimes "sysops" (system operators), are editors who are granted the rights by the Charity. The flagging process involves in-depth and considerable discussion and examination of the candidate's activity and contributions as an editor.

Administrators have exclusive access to a number of tools to allow them to carry out certain functions on the wiki. The tools cover processes such as page deletion, page protection, blocking and unblocking users, and the ability to edit fully protected pages.

Administrators also have the ability to grant and remove most access rights to other users (account creator, autopatrolled, confirmed, file mover, edit filter helper, edit filter manager, event coordinator, extended confirmed, IP block exempt, mass message sender, new page reviewer, page mover, pending changes reviewer, rollback, template editor, and AutoWikiBrowser) and to their own alternate accounts.

By convention, administrators also normally take responsibility for judging the outcome of certain discussions requiring these technical controls (such as deletions). Administrators are not granted more editorial control over article content than other editors. They are required to follow all policies and guidelines and are held to the same level of accountability as non-administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/sysop for a full list of the 6 Masticationpedia administrators.

Bureaucrats

Bureaucrats are exceptionally trusted editors who have the capability to perform certain actions on other users' accounts. These capabilities are granted by the Charity following a successful Requests for Bureaucratship (RfB).

Bureaucrats have access to Special:UserRights, enabling them to add users to the bureaucrat group (but not remove them),.

See Special:ListUsers/bureaucrat for a list of the 5 bureaucrats.

Flags granted to users giving access to specialized functions

Unless otherwise noted, see MP:Requests for permissions to request other rights. Some of these rights are automatically assigned to administrators.

File mover

See also MP:File mover to know more.

The file mover user right is intended to allow users experienced in working with files to rename them, subject to policy, with the ease that autoconfirmed users already enjoy when renaming Masticationpedia articles. This right is automatically assigned to administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/filemover for a list of the 0 file movers.

Page mover

See also MP:Page mover to know more.

The page mover user right (extendedmover user group) is intended to allow users who have demonstrated a good understanding of the Masticationpedia page naming system to rename pages and subpages without leaving redirects, subject to policy.

They are also able to create and edit editnotices as well as move categories. This right is automatically assigned to administrators.

See Special:ListUsers/extendedmover for a list of the 0 page movers.

Account creator

See also MP:Account creator to know more.

The account creator user right (accountcreator user group) is intended for users involved in the request an account process (ACC), and so have signed the Wikimedia Foundation's confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information. They are not affected by the 6 account creation limit per day per IP, and can create accounts for other users without restriction. Users in this group can also override the anti-spoof checks on account creation. Additionally, account creators are able to create accounts with names that are otherwise blocked by the title blacklist. This right is automatically assigned to administrators and bureaucrats.

See Special:ListUsers/accountcreator for a list of the 0 account creators.

IP block exemption

See also MP:IP block exemption to know more.

Users who are given the ipblock-exempt flag (ipblock-exempt user group) are not affected by autoblocks, blocks of IP addresses and ranges that are made with the "Prevent logged-in users from editing" option enabled, and by Tor blocks.

The flag is intended for trusted users in good standing who are unfortunately affected by such blocks. Requests for this permission may be included with your unblock request. If you are affected by an IP address range block, you must send your unblock request using the Unblock Ticket Request System. If you are trying to edit through a blocked anonymous proxy or a VPN service, you must instead send your request to checkuser-en-wpMasticationpedia.org, or contact a CheckUser directly.

This right is automatically assigned to administrators and bots. If known, an administrator is also free to grant the right to affected good-faith editors without waiting for an unblock request.

See Special:ListUsers/ipblock-exempt for a list of the 0 affected users.

Interface administrators

See also MP:Interface administrators to know more.

Users who are given the interface administrator flag (interface-admin user group) have the ability to edit site-wide CSS, JavaScript and JSON pages (pages such as MediaWiki:Common.js or MediaWiki:Vector.css, or the gadget pages listed on Special:Gadgets), CSS/JS/JSON pages in another user's userspace, and pages in the Mediawiki namespace. Interface administrator access, along with access to another group that has undelete access is required to view deleted versions of pages only editable by this group. Because it provides the potential to send malicious CSS/JS/JSON code to execute in other users' browsers, this right may only be granted to existing administrators, with two-factor authentication enabled on their accounts. These capabilities can be granted following a successful request at MP:Bureaucrats' noticeboard.

See Special:ListUsers/interface-admin for a list of the 5 interface administrators.

Functionary user levels

See also MP:Functionaries to know more.

CheckUser

See also MP:CheckUser and meta:CheckUser policy to know more.

Users who are given the CheckUser flag (checkuser user group) have access to Special:CheckUser, a function page that allows them to view a list of all IP addresses used by a user account to edit the Masticationpedia, an extended list of all edits made from an IP (which includes edits that were made by any user accounts while using the specific IP), or a list of all user accounts that have used a given IP address.

They also have access to the Checkuser log, which logs each time a Checkuser uses their tools to view any of the information listed.

This user right is only granted to exceedingly few users and after a high level of scrutiny and review by the Charity. Users must also be at least 18 years old and have signed the Charity's confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information. As CheckUsers have access to deleted revisions, they are also required to be sysops, first.

See Special:ListUsers/checkuser for a list of the 2 CheckUsers.

Oversight

See also MP:Oversight and meta:Oversight policy to know more.

Users who are given the oversight flag (oversight user group) have access to additional functions on the page deletion, revision deletion, and block function pages through which they can hide logs or revisions of pages (partially or entirely) from any form of usual access by all other users, including administrators.

They also have access to the suppression log, where they can view actions made by other oversighters, as well as the content of the hidden revisions.

This user right is only granted to exceedingly few users and after a high level of scrutiny and review by the Charity.

Users must also be at least 18 years old and have signed the Charity's confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information.

See Special:ListUsers/oversight for a list of the 2 Oversighters.

Other flagged accounts

Bots

See also MP:Bot policy to know more.

Accounts used by approved bots to make pre-approved edits can be flagged as such. Bot accounts are automated or semi-automated, the nature of their edits is well defined, and they will be quickly blocked if their actions vary from their given tasks, so they require less scrutiny than human edits.

For this reason, contributions from accounts with the bot flag (bot user group) are not displayed in recent changes or watchlists to users who have opted to hide bot edits. Minor edits made by bot accounts to user talk pages do not trigger the "you have new messages" banner. Bot accounts can query the API in batches of 5,000 rather than 500.

See Special:ListUsers/bot for a list of the 2 bots.

Blocked users

Further information: MP:Blocking policy

Any user account can be blocked, regardless of which user group(s) it belongs to. During the duration of the block, the blocking flag disables the user or IP's existing editing privileges depending on which block options are set by the administrator. A partial block still allows some parts of the wiki to be edited.

Blocked users are listed on Special:BlockList.

Indefinitely blocked users

In general, rights of editors blocked indefinitely should be left as is. Rights specifically related to the reason for blocking may be removed at the discretion of the blocking or unblocking administrators. This also applies to the user rights of site banned editors.

Table

• Generally, bureaucrats are also administrators, and so have all the permissions of the sysop user group in addition to those rights from the bureaucrat group. However, this is not a requirement of the MediaWiki software nor is it a formal requirement of the Requests for Bureaucratship process; it is technically possible for a user to be a bureaucrat without also being an admin.
• Deprecated permissions are either no longer assigned to any group or the group to which they are assigned is no longer populated.

• Special:ListGroupRights is an automatically generated list of granted user group rights. The below table is manually updated.

Permission	Allows user(s) to…	All users	Registered accounts	Autoconfirmed and Confirmed	Bots	Administrators	Bureaucrats	other groups
abusefilter-hidden-log	View hidden abuse log entries							OS
abusefilter-hide-log	Hide entries in the abuse log
abusefilter-log	View the abuse log	Y
abusefilter-log-detail	View detailed abuse log entries	Y		Y		Y
abusefilter-log-private	View edit filters marked as private					Y
abusefilter-modify	Modify abuse filters							EFM
abusefilter-modify-restricted	Modify edit filters with restricted actions					Y
abusefilter-privatedetails	View private data (IP addresses) in the abuse log							CU
abusefilter-privatedetails-log	View the AbuseFilter private details access log
abusefilter-revert	Revert all changes by a given abuse filter					Y
abusefilter-view	View non-private abuse filters	Y
abusefilter-view-private	View edit filters marked as private							CU, EFH, EFM, OS
apihighlimits	Request API queries in batches of 5,000, rather than 500				Y	Y		Researchers
applychangetags	Apply tags along with one's changes		Y
autoconfirmed	Not be affected by IP-based rate limits			Y	Y	Y		PCR, IE
autopatrol	Automatically mark all edits made by the user as patrolled				Y	Y		AP
autoreview	Automatically mark all revisions made by the user as "accepted"			Y / N	Y	Y		PCR
bigdelete	Delete pages with over 5,000 revisions							Stewards
block	Block an IP address, user account, or range of IP addresses, from editing					Y
blockemail	Block a user from sending email					Y
bot	Edit without their edits showing up in recent changes				Y
browsearchive	Search deleted pages					Y		CU, OS, Researchers
centralauth-merge	Merge their account	Y
changetags	Add and remove arbitrary tags on individual revisions and log entries				Y	Y		EFM
checkuser	View all IP addresses used by a user account or show all edits from a given IP address							CU, Ombuds
checkuser-log	View the checkuser log
collectionsaveasuserpage	Save books as user subpage		Y	Y
createaccount	Create a new user account for themselves or another user	Y				Y
createpage	Create a new page		Y
createpagemainns	Create a new mainspace page (users without this right are redirected to the Article Creation Workflow landing page)			Y
createtalk	Create a new talk page	Y	Y
delete	Delete a page with ≤ 5,000 revisions					Y
deletechangetags	Delete tags from the database					Y
deletedhistory	View the history of a deleted page or a user's deleted contributions, provided it is not CSS or JS					Y		CU, OS, Researchers
delete-redirect	Delete single revision redirects							PMR
deletedtext	View the text of deleted revisions, provided the page is not CSS or JS					Y		CU, Ombuds, OS, Researchers
deletelogentry	Access the RevisionDelete tool and change the public visibility of log entries					Y		OS
deleterevision	Access the RevisionDelete tool and change the public visibility of edit revisions					Y
Permission	Allows user(s) to…	All users	Registered accounts	Autoconfirmed and Confirmed	Bots	Administrators	Bureaucrats	other groups
edit	Edit any page which is not protected	Y	Y					IE
editcontentmodel	Edit the content model of a page					Y		TE, IE
editinterface	Edit the MediaWiki namespace to affect the interface					Y		IA, IE
editmyoptions	Edit your own preferences	Y
editmyprivateinfo	Edit your own private data (e.g. email address, real name)	Y
editmyusercss	Edit your own user .css files		Y
editmyuserjs	Edit your own user .js files		Y
editmyuserjson	Edit your own user .json files		Y
editmywatchlist	Edit your own watchlist	Y
editprotected	Edit fully-protected pages					Y		IE
editsemiprotected	Edit semi-protected pages			Y	Y	Y		PCR, IE
editsitecss	Edit sitewide .css files							IA, IE
editsitejs	Edit sitewide .js files
editsitejson	Edit sitewide .json files					Y
editusercss	Edit other users' .css files							IA, IE
edituserjs	Edit other users' .js files
edituserjson	Edit other users' .json files					Y		IA
extendedconfirmed	Edit 30/500 protected pages				Y	Y		XC, IE
(not active)	Disable global blocks locally					N
hideuser	Block a username, hiding it from the public							OS
import	Import pages from other wikis					Y		IMP, TWI
importupload	Import pages from a locally stored XML file							IMP
ipblock-exempt	Be unaffected by blocks applied to the user's IP address or a range (CIDR) containing it				Y	Y		IPBE
managechangetags	Create and (de)activate tags					Y		EFM
markbotedits	Mark rollback as bot edits, to keep them out of recent changes					Y
massmessage	Send a message to multiple users at once					Y		MMS
mergehistory	Merge the history of pages					Y
minoredit	Make an edit marked as 'minor'		Y
move	Change the title of a page by moving it			Y		Y		PMR
move-categorypages	Change the title of a category by moving it				Y	Y		PMR
movefile	Change the title of a file by moving it					Y		FMV
move-rootuserpages	Move root user pages		Y			Y
move-subpages	Move pages with their subpages					Y	Y	PMR
movestable	Move pages under pending changes			Y / N		Y
mwoauthmanagemygrants	Manage OAuth grants		Y
nominornewtalk	Minor edits by this user to user talk pages do not trigger the "you have new messages" banner				Y
noratelimit	Not be affected by rate limits				Y	Y	Y	ACCP, EVC, Stewards
Permission	Allows user(s) to…	All users	Registered accounts	Autoconfirmed and Confirmed	Bots	Administrators	Bureaucrats	other groups
nuke	Mass delete pages					Y
oathauth-enable	Enable two-factor authentication					Y	Y	CU, EFM, Founder, IMP, IA, OS, TE, TWI
override-antispoof	Allows the creation of accounts with mixed-script, confusing and similar usernames					Y	Y	ACCP
pagetriage-copyvio	Tag pages in the Special:NeMPagesFeed as likely copyright violations, through the pagetriage-tagcopyvio API							Copyright violation bots
patrol	State that they have checked a page that appeared in Special:NeMPages					Y		New page reviewers
protect	Change protection levels, edit and move protected pages, and edit cascade-protected pages					Y		IE
purge	Purge a page by adding &action=purge to the URL		Y
read	Read pages	Y	Y
renameuser	Change the name of an existing account							Stewards
reupload	Overwrite an existing unprotected file			Y		Y
reupload-own	Overwrite existing files uploaded by oneself		Y
reupload-shared	Override files on the shared media repository locally					Y
review	Mark revisions as being "accepted"					Y		PCR
rollback	Use a special link to more easily revert a bad edit					Y		RBK
sendemail	E-mail a user (using Special:EmailUser/username) who have associated an email address with themselves		Y
skipcaptcha	Perform CAPTCHA-triggering actions without having to go through the CAPTCHA			Y	Y	Y
spamblacklistlog	View the spam blacklist log		Y					EFH
stablesettings	Configure how the latest accepted revision is selected and displayed					Y
suppressionlog	View private logs							OS
suppressredirect	Not create a redirect from the old name when moving a page				Y	Y	Y	PMR, IE
suppressrevision	Access the RevisionDelete tool and change the public and administrator visibility of edit revisions and logs							OS
tboverride	Override the title blacklist					Y	Y	TE, PMR, IE
tboverride-account	Override the username blacklist							ACCP
templateeditor	Edit pages under template protection					Y		TE, IE
titleblacklistlog	View title blacklist log					Y
torunblocked	Bypass automatic blocks of Tor exit nodes							IPBE
transcode-reset	Reset failed or transcoded videos so they are inserted into the job queue again			Y		Y
transcode-status	View information about the current transcode activity					Y
undelete	Undelete a previously deleted page or specific revisions from it, view deleted revisions					Y
unwatchedpages	View a list of pages which are not on anyone's watchlist					Y
upload	Upload a media file			Y		Y
urlshortener-create-url	Create short URLs	Y				Y
userrights	Edit all user rights							Stewards, Jimbo Wales
viewmyprivateinfo	View your own private data (e.g. email address, real name)	Y
viewmywatchlist	View your own watchlist	Y
viewsuppressed	View revisions hidden from any user							OS
vipsscaler-test	Use the VIPS scaling test interface	Y
writeapi	Use of the write API	Y	Y		Y
Permission	Allows user(s) to…	All users	Registered accounts	Autoconfirmed and Confirmed	Bots	Administrators	Bureaucrats	other groups

• The userright proxyunbannable is assigned to administrators but has no effect since WMF wikis use mw:Extension:TorBlock instead of the default MediaWiki proxy blocker. Administrators are not exempt from tor blocks, only users in the IP block exemptions usergroup are, due to the torunblocked userright.
• IPs and new users are limited to 8 edits per minute. Autoconfirmed or confirmed users who are in no usergroup with the noratelimit userright are limited to 8 moves per minute. Rollbackers in the same situation are limited to 100 rollbacks per minute. Account creations are subject to an IP based limit, set at 6 for our wikis, but users with noratelimit are unaffected.

User access level changes

Key to Rights

Yes	No
Y	N

Key to Project

Local	Global	Restricted

		Event coord.	Administrator	Bureaucrat	Steward	Dev
Confirmed	give	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
	take	N
Extended confirmed			Y		Y	Y
New page reviewer			Y		Y	Y
Rollbacker			Y		Y	Y
Autopatrolled			Y		Y	Y
Edit Filter helper, Edit Filter manager			Y		Y	Y
Event coordinator			Y		Y	Y
Page mover, File mover			Y		Y	Y
Template editor			Y		Y	Y
Mass message sender			Y		Y	Y
IP Block Exempt	give		Y	N	Y	Y
	take			Y
Pending changes reviewer			Y	Y	Y	Y
Account Creator			Y	Y	Y	Y
Bot, Copyright violation bot				Y	Y	Y
Administrator, Interface Administrator				Y	Y	Y
Bureaucrat	give			Y	Y	Y
	take			N
Checkuser, Oversight					Y	Y
Import					Y	Y
		Event coord.	Administrator	Bureaucrat	Steward	Dev

Because bureaucrats enjoy the ability to do this, stewards would refer most ordinary requests for removal of the sysop permission to them, but retain the right to remove the sysop permission when appropriate (such as emergencies or requests from the Staff).

Former levels

• Course coordinator, instructor, online and campus volunteer

  Enabled users to manage course pages in the "Education Program:" namespace, which was shutdown in June 2018

• Afttest and Afttest-hide

  Only granted by WMF staff, these enabled users to delete and/or hide article feedback. Removed in March 2014 after a one-year run.

• EP staff, administrator, campus-ambassador, online-ambassador, and instructor

  Used by users to coordinate and work with students, instructors, and institutions as part of the education program. Deprecated since 2013.

See also

• Manual:User rights on MediaWiki
• Special:ListGroupRights
• See what usergroup a user is in
• MP:Editorial oversight and control (explains the access structure from the perspective of quality control on Masticationpedia)
• Masticationpedia User permissions API