How to Act As a wikiHow Admin

Be kind in all situations. One of the things that brings users back to wikiHow after making mistakes is that the members of wikiHow are understanding and give second chances. You can't control whether or not other users do this, but as a wikiHow admin, you should always be polite and kind to other users, even when they're clearly out to cause trouble. Assume good faith. Who knows - maybe a troll that you end up coaching will turn out to be a wonderful contributor because you approached them kindly! It's understandable to get frustrated with a user who's continuously causing trouble or not listening to coaching, but never say this where they can see it. It's okay to vent to other users privately, but avoid stating your frustration on wikiHow.

Remain cool when personally attacked. When carrying out administrator duties, you may anger others who don't understand why you reverted their edits, merged their page, or so forth. When this happens, listen carefully to the complaint and then respond in a fair, calm and civil manner. You are entitled to seek assistance from other admins, and you are also entitled to ignore or seek help for trolling, baiting and abuse.

Approve or reject suggested topics. It's important to make sure that junk doesn't get into the requested articles! Additionally, if you come across an article title in the article requests that's a clear violation of wikiHow's Deletion Policy or find one on the page of Suggested Topics to Delete, delete it using the Manage Suggestions tool.

Delete problem articles. You should exercise caution doing this. While spam, profanity, and nonsense pages can be deleted immediately, borderline cases should be simply nominated for deletion by writing {{nfd|reason for deletion}} on the page and the edit summary. Leave a comment on the discussion page explaining whether you think the article should or shouldn't be deleted. If an article has been tagged as {{speedy}}, it's often a courtesy to notify the article starter; however, this isn't a necessity. To delete an article immediately, check under the Admin tab for a button that says "Delete"; click on it, enter the reason for deleting the article, and confirm the article deletion.

Block users who are repeatedly attempting malicious acts like vandalism and harassment. While a short block lasting a few hours is often sufficient to discourage a person, longer blocks may be necessary in some cases. Feel free to block users for up to one month at your discretion. Even longer blocks are acceptable for repeat offenders and spambots. When spam is posted on wikiHow, see How to Add a Website to the wikiHow Spam Blacklist. Aim to avoid blocking users. Coaching is a better approach. Only block a user if multiple coaching attempts haven't worked or if they've been continuously severely disrupting the site (e.g. creating multiple offensive speedy articles, and recreating them after they get deleted). Don't block someone without warning unless they're a malicious sockpuppet. Check the user's Talk page and its history; if the user has not been warned, warn them by sending an appropriate template such as {{warning}}. If the behavior persists, then you may want to consider blocking them. Blocking is meant to prevent people from making continuous disruptive edits to the site. Blocking someone as a punishment or because you don't like them is unacceptable.

Retitle articles that need a new one. Rename or move popular pages carefully. In general, we want page names to be the simplest, most commonly searched way to describe the activity. That said, don't simplify titles to the point of subtracting meaning from the title.

Apply protection on certain articles. Protection is usually necessary for pages that are under vandalism attacks, are vandal-prone due to being a controversial topic or because they've been posted onto social media, and to stop edit wars. Try to remember to unprotect these pages once the attack has passed, or set a time for when the protection will expire. There are two levels of protection: semi-protection (only autoconfirmed users and admins can edit), and full protection (only admins can edit). Use discretion and good judgment to decide which level of protection to apply. Try to aim for only semi-protection if protection is even necessary. The most extreme type of protection, cascading protection, should rarely, if ever, be used. This kind of protection fully locks not just the page you are protecting but also any pages transcluded on that page.

Learn how to use the Administrator Notice Board. You probably used the ANB to report troublemakers before you became an admin, but now, as an admin, you're part of the team that's expected to handle those troublemakers. Learn how to use the ANB as an administrator, and when to step back and let another administrator (such as a checkuser) deal with the situation. Being an administrator doesn't mean you have to handle every report, but try to tackle the ones you can. If you're ever confused on what to do about a situation, don't be afraid to ask a more experienced administrator or a staff member. They'd be happy to help guide you.