PBC:User access levels
A contributor's ability to perform certain actions in PBC depends on their user access level. This is determined by whether the editor is logged in to an account, whether the account has a sufficient age and number of edits, and what additional rights ("user groups", also called "flags" or "bits") have been assigned manually to the account.
Everyone is able to read PBC. Being logged in gives users a number of advantages including the ability to create and edit pages. Accounts more than a certain number of days old with more than a certain number of edits automatically become autoconfirmed. Further access levels need to be assigned manually by a user with the appropriate authority. An editor with more experience and good standing can attempt to become an administrator (sysop), which provides a large number of advanced permissions. A number of 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 users are also part of the 'user' group. Users are automatically promoted into the Autoconfirmed/Established users pseudo-group when their account is more than four days old and has ten edits. Other flags are only given upon request; some, such as 'rollbacker' or 'bot', are granted unilaterally if the user demonstrates a need for them (see PBC:Requests for permissions and PBC:Bots/Requests for approval). Others, such as 'sysop' and 'bureaucrat', are given only after community discussion and consensus at PBC:Requests for adminship. Users are only made members of groups such as 'oversight' and 'checkuser' with the approval of the Arbitration Committee and after confirming their identity with the Pornogaphic Central.
User groups
The system-generated technical permissions are listed at Special:ListGroupRights.
Unregistered users
Contributors who have not created an account or logged in are identified by their IP address rather than a user name, and may read all PBC pages (except restricted special pages). They may create talk pages in any talk namespace but may need to ask for help to create pages in some parts of the wiki. They cannot create and edit content pages, upload files or images.
New users
Users who edit through an account they have registered may immediately create pages in any namespace (except the MediaWiki namespace, and limited to eight per minute) and may also 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 save books to their userspace but not the Books namespace. They may also customize their Wikimedia interface and its options as they wish, via Special:Preferences or by adding personal CSS or JavaScript rules to their vector.css or vector.js files.
Autoconfirmed and confirmed users
Several actions on the PBC are restricted to user accounts that have been created for a certain number of days and which have made a certain number of edits. Users who meet these requirements are considered part of the pseudo-group 'autoconfirmed'. Autoconfirmed status is checked every time a user performs a restricted action: it is then granted automatically by the software. Although the precise requirements for autoconfirmed status vary according to circumstances, most PBC user accounts that are more than four days old and have made at least 10 edits are considered autoconfirmed.
Autoconfirmed or confirmed status is required to move pages, edit semi-protected pages, and upload files or upload a new version of an existing file. They may mark pages created by others as patrolled in Special:NewPages and save books to the Books namespace. In addition, the Edit filter has a number of warning settings that only affect editors who are not autoconfirmed.
In some situations, it is necessary for accounts to be exempted from the customary confirmation period. The 'confirmed' group contains the same rights as the 'autoconfirmed' pseudo-group, but can be granted by administrators as necessary. There is no point in giving this right to a user whose account is already autoconfirmed, because it provides exactly the same abilities. To request this permission see PBC:Requests for permissions/Confirmed.
See Special:ListUsers/confirmed for a list of the 0 confirmed users.
Administrators and bureaucrats
Administrators
Administrator rights are granted by the community at Requests for Adminship (RfA). The RfA process involves considerable discussion and examination of their activities as an editor. Users who are members of this user group have 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, access to modify fully protected pages and the Mediawiki interface. Administrators also have the ability to grant and remove account creator, rollback, ipblock-exempt, confirmed user, file mover, pending changes reviewer, autopatrolled, template editor and edit filter manager rights to other users, 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 special editorial control over article content.
See Special:ListUsers/sysop for a list of the 6 administrators, also known as "sysops" (system operators). The two terms are used interchangeably.
Bureaucrats
Bureaucrat rights are granted by the community at Requests for Bureaucratship (RfB) to exceptionally trusted users who are allowed to perform certain actions on other users' accounts.
Bureaucrats have extended access to Special:UserRights, enabling them to add users to the 'bureaucrat' group (but not remove them), and both add users to and remove users from the 'administrator' and 'bot' user groups. Bureaucrats who are also Global renamers can use GlobalRenameUser to rename users (including themselves).
See Special:ListUsers/bureaucrat for a list of the 6 bureaucrats.