Editing Administrator

==Overview==
The term '''Administrator''' or '''Admin''' is commonly used in the BZFlag community. It may refer to a [[BZFS]] Server owner or its associated staff, or one of the Project [[:Category:Developer|Developers]] or administration staff.

===Server Admins===
The owner of a server will often empower a group of users to assist in maintaining the desired order and play-style of a server. These users are often called Admins or Administrators. The most common way of identifying these users to the general player-base is to give the users permissions to use the /kick and/or /ban [[Slash_Commands|Commands]]. By default any user that has rights to use these commands will have the '''@''' symbol preceding there call-sign in the scoreboard. There are instances where a server uses a plug-in or is modified to show the '''@''' symbol for different reasons.

====Common Roles====
Server admins are commonly tasked with enforcing the specific rules of the server and making sure that the general player-base has an employable time. The most common act of an admin is to kick or ban players that are cheating or are using the chat system inappropriately (verbal abuse, profanity, etc..). These administrators are acting on the behalf of the server owner.

====Common Permissions====
Many server owners give admins additional [[Server Permissions|permissions]] such as;
*/kick
*/ban
*/banlist
*/mute
*/say
*/set
*/flag (reset,give/take)

====Administrator Recruitment====
How a server is administered is up to the the server owner. Users that wish to become administrators should talk to the owner in private to see if they are looking for additional staff members. It is common for users who ask to be included in a staff position to be automatically denied, as it is highly likely that the user simply wishes to get the position in order to abuse the permissions that it grants. The most successful server owners choose staff members from the players that they know and trust for a significant time.

====Communication====
Often the best way to contact a server admin to resolve an issue is to send them a private message on the [http://my.bzflag.org/bb/ BZFlag Project Forums]. Most servers use forum users-names as call-signs so the same name that is seen in game can be used on the forums. If an admin is unresponsive a user may be better served by contacting a server owner via the same system.

==Forum Administrators==
The [http://my.bzflag.org/bb/ BZFlag Project Forums] maintains a separate administration staff. These admins are tasked with enforcing the [http://my.bzflag.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=890| Forum rules] and maintaining the user group system that is used with [[Global_Registration|Global Registration]].

The best way to communicate with these admins is to send them a private message on the forums.

These administrators have no inherent permissions on any game server, although many do serve as staff on some game servers.

==Project Administrators==
The BZFlag open source project on [https://github.com/BZFlag-Dev | Github] has a set of administrators who are tasked with the management of development related issues including, patches, bug fixes, and releases.

Like forum admins these users do not have any inherent permissions on game servers.

Project administrators are often on [[BZFlag_on_IRC|The BZFlag IRC channel]].