Most rights on OpenWiki are earned by simply being around, not granted by anybody. Two levels are automatic; the rest are given by an administrator.
| Level | Requirement | What it allows |
|---|---|---|
| Logged out | None | Reading, editing unprotected pages, posting in discussions |
| Registered | An account | The same, plus a name of your own, a watchlist, and the ability to edit your own discussion messages |
| Autoconfirmed | 4 days and 10 edits | Editing semi-protected pages; exemption from most edit filters |
| Extended-confirmed | 30 days and 500 edits | Editing extended-confirmed protected pages |
Both automatic levels need age and edits, which is what makes them useful: an account registered to get around a restriction has to wait, and one that waits still has to do real work.
| Group | What it allows |
|---|---|
| Patroller | Marking edits as checked in Special:RecentChanges and Special:NewPages |
| Reviewer | Accepting pending changes, so they become the version logged-out readers see |
| Administrator | Protecting and deleting pages, blocking accounts, rolling back edits, configuring filters, granting these rights |
Administrators are not editors-in-chief. The tools are for enforcing what the community has already decided, not for settling content disputes; an administrator in a dispute is just another editor.
The first account registered on a new OpenWiki becomes an administrator, because somebody has to be able to hand out the rest. See Special:ListUsers for who holds what.
An administrator can block an account from editing. Blocks apply to accounts only: page edits record no IP address to block a logged-out editor by, so the answer to persistent anonymous vandalism here is to protect the page. (Anonymous discussion messages do carry the address they were posted from, but that is for attribution, not enforcement.) Blocks are listed at Special:BlockList and logged at Special:Log.