User blog:Ursuul/Interns

Welcome to the Best You Can Be blog series. This is the first of about half a dozen posts detailing how to be the ideal member of the Staff, & of the Wikia in general. Sure, we have that tell you All The Things You Must Not Do™, but what about all the things you should do? What about all the ways you can be proactive & help out? That’s what this blog series is all about. Since you have to start somewhere, we might as well start at the bottom;.


 * -|Introduction=

What are Interns?
Interns are users who have requested to join, but who have only been given temporary rights in a form of trial period in order to prove that they both deserve to have Staff rights, & that the Wikia needs to have them on Staff.

So how do you prove such a thing?
Put simply; you must fill a void. Find an area where the Wikia is lacking, where the Wikia needs improvement, & be the positive change we all want to see. There are many ways to do that, listed in the following Tabs, but you might need to get a little inventive.
 * -|The Best Intern You Can Be=

Proving that you deserve Staff rights
To do this, you have to use your rights, so that we can see if your usage of the rights are acceptable. Simply doing nothing won’t do, so go ahead & dig in; just do so sensibly. If you plan to moderate Chat, then do not hesitate to kick people who are disruptive, but don’t kick random people just to rack up a kill streak. If you use your rights & use them fairly, then that shows that you deserve to keep them.

Proving that the Wikia needs you to have Staff rights
Proving that you can hold rights responsibly is only half the battle; you have to prove that other people will benefit by you holding those rights. To do this, you need to be productive. You need to find a niche, such as with ; even before he acquired Staff rights, he was working to clean up Fanon namespace pages by moving low quality pages into the  by the hundreds. He was already productive, & giving him Staff rights did the only thing it’s supposed to do; it enabled him to do his job more easily. Now, moving hundreds of pages may not be your forte, & there are certainly other ways to be helpful around the Wikia. The last Tab, as will typically be the case, is the largest; it has a list of practical examples of things you can do to help out directly, but it is by no means complete.
 * -|Practical Applications=

Moderating
If you’re an Intern aiming for permanent Moderator rights, then use them in any of these ways:
 * 1) Be a helpful influence in Discussions
 * 2) *As our largest & most vital conversational area, which is a crossroads for all platforms (Desktop, Mobile, App) it is the most important place to watch over. Check it each day.
 * 3) *Create good posts; the more people create, the more users will come to join the conversation, until we reach a critical mass.
 * 4) *Do not permit nonsense. Discussions is meant to be a place of high-quality conversation that people want to be a part of, so do not allow 100% off-topic posts.
 * 5) *When deleting posts, delete all replies on them, lock them, & move them to the Archive Category.
 * 6) *Join the discussion! By adding to each conversation, you not only increase traffic, but you are patrolling the posts by virtue of being able to see what goes down in each post.
 * 7) Engage in the Forum
 * 8) *Keep threads on-topic; remove posts that could lead it astray, & guide users back on track.
 * 9) *Make threads as well as moderating them; start up quality conversations that keeps Forum healthy.
 * 10) *Set an example; be civil & encourage others to be so as well.
 * 11) Patrol Message Walls
 * 12) *Message Walls are usually handled by their owners, but if you see harassment, remove the posts.
 * 13) *Unless the owner expressly permits necroposting, watch for old posters & lock the threads when found.
 * 14) Keep an eye on Blogs
 * 15) *Blog Comments lock by themselves, unless owners expressly keep them open, but spam & harassment can occur; remove any you find.
 * 16) *Create your own high quality blogs & set an example!
 * 17) Make yourself available!
 * 18) *Often, your fellow Staff members may need to edit Comments or Replies in order to clear out . Offer to help them in their jobs!
 * 19) *Be helpful; Moderating isn’t all about keeping people in line, it’s about offering assistance, advice, & helping others to follow the rules. Have the rules memorized so that you can explain them to new users.

Sentinels
If you’re an Intern aiming for permanent Sentinel rights, then use them in any of these ways:
 * 1) Patrol.
 * 2) *Review edits for their quality & rollback them if necessary.
 * 3) *Block spammers & vandals if you discover them becoming active.
 * 4) Review Fanon Pages
 * 5) *If they do not meet the, move them to user space without using a redirect (be sure to check ).
 * 6) *Categorize them if they are not properly categorized.
 * 7) *Add appropriate templates where necessary.
 * 8) CLEAR FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST! (only when they shouldn’t link to a given page of course)
 * 9) *Go through & change links to lead directly to the main page instead of to their redirect pages via.
 * 10) *Go through &  & fix them!
 * 11) *Clean by removing links to items in those lists!
 * 12) * is your friend!

For both prospective Moderators & prospective Sentinels
Be a leader in Chat!
 * While not as active as once it was, it can remain active as long as people still show up; as long as one person is in Chat, others may come to talk to them, but no one wants to love-talk the Bot (except Ursuul).
 * Encourage productive conversation by, well, talking!
 * Keep the conversation unimpeded; do not ever hesitate to use the kick button, since kicks are the equivalent of warnings.
 * If you have to keep kicking the same person numerous times, do not hesitate to ban them. Chat bans & chat kicks are much less serious than full Wiki blocks.

General
Talk with fellow Staff members, ask them for advice on where you can help out the most. As an Intern, the who sponsored your Résumé/Internship is your best point of contact to find ways to help out. Get involved in the, with your fellow users, be present.

Conclusion
There are a great many ways you can get involved as an Intern, & not all of them have been listed here, so just pick whichever you like best & dive in! If you use your rights fairly, & you are actively helping the Wikia, you will get permanent Staff rights in no time.