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Janitor Powers

Note: For historical reasons, janitors are also sometimes known as editors.

See also: Janitors' Guidelines.

Wiki

The janitors have a wiki for their own use, in which to discuss janitorial issues. It is one place where the scope of janitorial powers is hashed out. It is accessible only to janitors.

The editors wiki is periodically archived. (The archives are also only accessible to janitors.)

Janitor's Message Inbox

Users can send a private message to the whole janitors group at once: /msg janitors.
Such messages go into the Janitors' Message Inbox. All janitors can read, reply to, archive, and delete these messages, like their own private message inbox.

Editors Nodelet

The Editors Nodelet typically appears as follows, for nodes that are (or may be*) editable by janitors:

Editors Nodelet
display edit | retitle reparent promote | wiki /msgs(25) | ntc nre er rje | guide tools
* The "edit" link still appears in the Editors Nodelet for certain non-editable node types. In these cases, you won't know for certain that the node is non-editable until you click the "edit" link and you get a "Not an editor editable type" message.

Nodes Requiring Editing

Nodes Requiring Editing lists those nodes which have been "approved" by popular acclamation to be acted upon by janitors (via the consideration process).

Nodes which have been sent to ntc and given two "edit" votes appear in this janitors-only list.

Note that janitors are not required to wait until a node appears in nre before editing it.

This tool includes a "Resolved" checkbox for each node, which, when checked, will take the node off both ntc and nre. The node may be re-considered at any time thereafter with a new reason. Editing the node is not required in order for it to show up on nre or for it to be "resolved". Janitors will often vote "edit" on a node that was considered accidentally or nodes that just shouldn't be in ntc, just to get the node to nre so it can be resolved.

Nodes Requiring Editing typically looks like the following (example):

Edit Title Reason Votes Done
Edit Beginner needs more help (kudra) move as a reply to parent 88344 54
Edit Some other things to check (crazyinsomniac) replied to the wrong node (supposed to be the thread, not my reply) 36
Edit Paranoia, NIH, and Beyond misplaced. should be a response to A Fit on NIH 23

Nodes To Consider

See What is consideration? and How does Nodes to Consider work?.

Nodes To Consider is a list of nodes under active consideration, meaning monks can vote on their disposition. Janitors can look at this to see what actions might be hitting nre soon.

Janitors have no special powers in ntc itself. However, janitors do have the power to unconsider a node via the Approval Nodelet.

Note that janitors are not required to wait until a node appears in ntc before editing it.

Moving Nodes

There are essentially two distinct types of node moving:

  1. Moving a root post from one section to another
  2. Putting a node under another node as a reply

Moving root posts between sections

For root posts in the "normal" sections, which are all mutually conversion-compatible, moving can be done with the Approval Nodelet. See the Janitor's Guidelines for instructions. The "normal" sections are:

If the current node is a root post in one of the three "strange" sections, a special link appears in the Editors Nodelet, as follows:
Current node typeSpecial link text
review (bookreview or modulereview) "Move review"
code (in the Code Catacombs section) "Move sourcecode"
snippet "Move snippet"
These special links allow the janitor to move the node to another section.

If the current node is a note (that is, a reply), a special link labeled "Promote to root node" appears in the Editors Nodelet. Executing this link yanks the node out from under its parent and makes it a root node in its current section.

Making a node be a reply to another node

This second kind of move, called "reparenting", is done with a special tool called "The editors' hall of mirrors and trickery" (abbreviated "ehomat").

The operation of ehomat is to make node N be a reply to node P — that is, to make P the parent of N.

Upon the successful completion of ehomat, N will always be a note. If it is a note already, good. If not, it must be of a type which is conversion-compatible with note. Note is conversion-compatible with the "normal" section root post types, listed above.

The other requirement is that P must be of a node type which is allowed to have replies. The node types which fit this requirement are:

If any of the above restrictions are not met by (N,P), the ehomat operation is denied.


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