User talk:Fayenatic london/Archive20

Ichthus: July 2018

ICHTHUS

July 2018

The Top 7 report
By Lionelt

The big news was the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The Top 7 most popular articles in WikiProject Christianity were:

1. Elizabeth I of England – legendary monarch who ushered in the Elizabethan Era over the dead body of her half-sister (#5)
2. Henry VIII of England – on his deathbed the last words of the king who founded the English Reformation were "Monks! Monks! Monks!"
3. Martin Luther King Jr. – can't wait to see the new US$5 bill featuring the "I Have a Dream" speech
4. Seven deadly sins – surprisingly "original research" is not one of the Seven deadly sins
5. Mary, Queen of Scots – arrested for Reigning While Catholic (RWC)
6. Michael Curry (bishop) – our article says that he upstaged Meghan at her wedding. Did you see her wedding pictures? All I can say is {{dubious}}
7. Robert F. Kennedy – when informed that missiles were being installed in Cuba he famously quipped, "Can they hit Oxford, Mississippi?"

Did you know
Nominated by The C of E

... that the little-known 1758 Methodist hymn "Sun of Unclouded Righteousness" asks God to send the doctrine of the "Unitarian fiend ... back to hell", referring to both Islam and Unitarianism?

Our newest Featured list
Nominated by Freikorp

[[File:|200px|The Last Judgment by painter Hans Memling. ]]

The Last Judgment by painter Hans Memling.

List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events. Predictions of apocalyptic events that would result in the extinction of humanity, a collapse of civilization, or the destruction of the planet have been made since at least the beginning of the Christian Era. Most predictions are related to Abrahamic religions, often standing for or similar to the eschatological events described in their scriptures. Christian predictions typically refer to events like the Rapture, Great Tribulation, Last Judgment, and the Second Coming of Christ.

Polls conducted in 2012 across 20 countries found over 14% of people believe the world will end in their lifetime, with percentages raging from 6% of people in France to 22% in the US and Turkey. In the UK in 2015, the general public believed the likeliest cause would be nuclear war, while experts thought it would be artificial intelligence. Between one and three percent of people from both countries thought the apocalypse would be caused by zombies or alien invasion. (more...)

Help wanted

We're looking for writers to contribute to Ichthus. Do you have a project that you'd like to highlight? An issue that you'd like to bring to light? Post your inquiries or submission here.

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Ichthus is published by WikiProject Christianity • Get answers to questions about Christianity here
Discuss any of the above stories here • For submissions contact the Newsroom • Unsubscribe here
Delivered: 06:39, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2018).

Administrator changes

Pbsouthwood • TheSandDoctor

Gogo Dodo

Andrevan • Doug • EVula • KaisaL • Tony Fox • WilyD

Bureaucrat changes

Andrevan • EVula

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC about the deletion of drafts closed with a consensus to change the wording of WP:NMFD. Specifically, a draft that has been repeatedly resubmitted and declined at AfC without any substantial improvement may be deleted at MfD if consensus determines that it is unlikely to ever meet the requirements for mainspace and it otherwise meets one of the reasons for deletion outlined in the deletion policy.
• A request for comment closed with a consensus that the {{promising draft}} template cannot be used to indefinitely prevent a WP:G13 speedy deletion nomination.

Technical news

• Starting on July 9, the WMF Security team, Trust & Safety, and the broader technical community will be seeking input on an upcoming change that will restrict editing of site-wide JavaScript and CSS to a new technical administrators user group. Bureaucrats and stewards will be able to grant this right per a community-defined process. The intention is to reduce the number of accounts who can edit frontend code to those who actually need to, which in turn lessens the risk of malicious code being added that compromises the security and privacy of everyone who accesses Wikipedia. For more information, please review the FAQ.
• Syntax highlighting has been graduated from a Beta feature on the English Wikipedia. To enable this feature, click the highlighter icon () in your editing toolbar (or under the hamburger menu in the 2017 wikitext editor). This feature can help prevent you from making mistakes when editing complex templates.
• IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in July (previously scheduled for June). This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.

Miscellaneous

• Currently around 20% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 17% a year ago. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless if you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:22, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Wikibreak

@Marcocapelle, Timrollpickering, Armbrust, Nyttend, and Explicit: I'm signing off Wikipedia for two weeks, and am notifying you as other editors who have been active at CFD lately. If anything comes up that you think could really do with my attention before the end of July, email me and I'll probably pick it up. Best wishes – Fayenatic London 19:50, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Invitation

Dear Fayenatic,

You are cordially invited to join the Portals WikiProject.

This is a very active project. We are in the process of completely revamping the entire portal system, and cleaning up the portal namespace. After these are done, we'll be greatly expanding the collections of portals. We have many design discussions going on, and many task types to choose from.

We also have a newsletter, that covers the progress of portal development, and the latest toys.

If you are interested, please feel welcome to sign-up at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Portals#Project_participants.

By the way, I'm very interested in what you think of portals. What do you like most about them? What do they lack that they should have? What can't they do, that you would like them to be able to do?

I look forward to your replies.    — The Transhumanist   09:10, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

P.S.: Please {{ping}} me in your reply. Thank you. -TT

@The Transhumanist: Thanks. I've never really used portals myself, but I have done work to improve navigation to them, especially by adding them to category pages, sometimes by incorporating {{portal}} in other templates. I don't have time to join the project, but I wish you all well. – Fayenatic London 08:25, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I understand about the time thing; it seems like there is so very little of it these days. Pertaining to the never-having-really-used-portals issue, there is a type of portal that you might be interested in looking at: it's a prototype of a new design, using slide shows not only for images, but also for content, to present far more material than previous portals ever could (and more than regular articles too), while always being as up-to-date as the encyclopedia pages it was excerpted from. The selection of material displayed is also automatically updated so as not to fall out-of-date. I would be interested in whether or not you would be inclined to use portals designed like this: Portal:Lithuania. Keep in mind that it is a prototype, and that we don't have all the bugs worked out yet, and the whole concept is likely to be improved upon further. If you find this new portal concept worth commenting on, I'd be interested in learning what you think of it. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   08:51, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

P.S.: Please {{ping}} me if you reply. Thank you. -TT

Administrators' newsletter – August 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2018).

Administrator changes

Sro23

KaisaL • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

• After a discussion at Meta, a new user group called "interface administrators" (formerly "technical administrator") has been created. Come the end of August, interface admins will be the only users able to edit site-wide JavaScript and CSS pages like MediaWiki:Common.js and MediaWiki:Common.css, or edit other user's personal JavaScript and CSS. The intention is to improve security and privacy by reducing the number of accounts which could be used to compromise the site or another user's account through malicious code. The new user group can be assigned and revoked by bureaucrats. Discussion is ongoing to establish details for implementing the group on the English Wikipedia.
• Following a request for comment, the WP:SISTER style guideline now states that in the mainspace, interwiki links to Wikinews should only be made as per the external links guideline. This generally means that within the body of an article, you should not link to Wikinews about a particular event that is only a part of the larger topic. Wikinews links in "external links" sections can be used where helpful, but not automatically if an equivalent article from a reliable news outlet could be linked in the same manner.

Technical news

• The WMF Anti-Harassment Tools team is seeking input on the second set of wireframes for the Special:Block redesign that will introduce partial blocks. The new functionality will allow you to block a user from editing a specific set of pages, pages in a category, a namespace, and for specific actions such as moving pages and uploading files.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:31, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

SoP vs. Palestinian Territories

Hi. I reverted a bunch of category changes to terrorism cats you've made since, to the best of my understanding, while we do refer to areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority as State of Palestine - we generally do not classify Jewish settlements (under full Israeli control) as such - and most of the incidents you changes were in and around Israeli settlements.Icewhiz (talk) 14:47, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

@Icewhiz: thank you for explaining your rationale for reverting those edits.

I set up Category:Terrorist incidents in the State of Palestine following consensus at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2018_July_9#Palestinian_territories. I apologise for not linking to that discussion in the edit summaries when I populated the category.

Once you have looked at the CFD discussion, please let me know whether you still think the sub-categories and pages for 2013 onward should stay in Category:Terrorist incidents in the Palestinian territories rather than Category:Terrorist incidents in the State of Palestine. – Fayenatic London 22:01, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

My 2 cents is that they should stay in the Palestinian territories as the state of Palestine has no de facto control over these areas. I see how moving stuff under the PA (areas A and B) makes sense - area C makes less sense to me. However - I do not have a strong opinion here. Would be useful if we have some wider RfC here rather than doing this piecemeal cat by cat.Icewhiz (talk) 06:51, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

@Icewhiz: The CFD envisages a further discussion being necessary re politics and history categories. Meanwhile I suggest that your point be side-stepped by

1. moving Category:Terrorist incidents in the West Bank in 2013 and later years from PT to SoP,
2. not categorising articles directly in PT/SoP if they are in a West Bank category.

Is that acceptable to you? – Fayenatic London 07:44, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

That's OK.Icewhiz (talk) 07:53, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Well done!

It's not often that someone takes the time to fix an 11+ year old wiki-syntax typo like you found on my edit (diff ) to WP:ODM. Back in the day we edited raw syntax uphill both ways and the visual editor was a pipe dream. Great job and attention to detail, WP:Gnome! — MrDolomite • Talk 00:20, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Civility Barnstar
	Amen from this multi-generation Presbyterian to User:Fayenatic london § Origin and destination! Go out into the world and all that, but from a chair... Still, being there is being there, wherever we apply our earnest efforts! Thank you very much! Geekdiva (talk) 12:18, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

@Geekdiva: Thanks for your greeting, and for the star!

I hadn't checked that link for a while, and it was redirecting to something rather different from what I chose before, so I have replaced it with a link to a more direct web page. – Fayenatic London 14:54, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

College of Preceptors

Hi Fayenatic, How are you? We worked on the Institute of Financial Accountants previously if you could recall. If you have the time, could I trouble you to take a look at the comments here? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_Preceptors. I would appreciate your views and input. My edits were for the sake of accuracy and have placed my comments on the talkpage and am open to any suggestions. Thanks in advance for any help! Audit Guy (talk) 03:47, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Hello Fayenatic London, Many thanks for responding to my request and for all your assistance with this article. My apologies for the inconvenience caused with the DRN. I hope we can work together again in the future. Audit Guy (talk) 02:31, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip!

On the Wallonia stub template nom. I admit I've never been good at that particular aspect of adminity. Her Pegship (speak) 23:20, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

@Pegship: CFD discussions on stubs are generally not clear on what to do with the template, so as the closer I do with it what I think is best, stating this action in the close.

Ooh, I just noticed that you closed that discussion as well as participating in it. Best not to do that. Having said that, I have occasionally done it myself when there was a long backlog at CFD, but drew attention to it with "Disclosure:..." at the end of my closing rationale. I would only do it where there is a very clear consensus – which there was in this case, so don't worry about it this time. – Fayenatic London 23:29, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Category:Advocates of the Fourteen Words

Regarding this close, I see in your closing statement that you observed that all members of the category are all otherwise categorized as alt-right. That's not the case, the members of the category generally do not have any other single category in common. I realize that the early discussion weighted heavily in favour of deletion, but I added a late comment after discussion tapered off which I believe challenged the presumptions of the earlier commenters. I wonder if you'd consider relisting this discussion for further input instead? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:51, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

@Ivanvector: I did review the contents that PetScan showed were not within White nationalists by nationality; you're right that they don't have a category in common, but that wasn't what was stated. I weighed your comments but was not persuaded that endorsing a specific formulation of political views was WP:DEFINING, and I did not find that you had set aside the policy reasons especially WP:OPINIONCAT; it's not as if they are "Fourteen Words activists". IMHO the existing list is better anyway; see WP:CLT. – Fayenatic London 14:08, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't entirely agree, some of them are fairly uniquely notable for being Fourteen Words activists. But thanks for explaining, I agree with your rationale for the most part, and otherwise I defer to consensus. Thanks for taking the time. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:19, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2018).

Administrator changes

None

Asterion • Crisco 1492 • KF • Kudpung • Liz • Randykitty • Spartaz

Optimist on the run → Voice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

Amorymeltzer • Mr. Stradivarius • MusikAnimal • MSGJ • TheDJ • Xaosflux

Guideline and policy news

• Following a "stop-gap" discussion, six users have temporarily been made interface administrators while discussion is ongoing for a more permanent process for assigning the permission. Interface administrators are now the only editors allowed to edit sitewide CSS and JavaScript pages, as well as CSS/JS pages in another user's userspace. Previously, all administrators had this ability. The right can be granted and revoked by bureaucrats.

Technical news

• Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour.
• Some abuse filter variables have changed. They are now easier to understand for non-experts. The old variables will still work but filter editors are encouraged to replace them with the new ones. You can find the list of changed variables on mediawiki.org. They have a note which says Deprecated. Use ... instead. An example is article_text which is now page_title.
• Abuse filters can now use how old a page is. The variable is page_age.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee has resolved to perform a round of Checkuser and Oversight appointments. The usernames of all applicants will be shared with the Functionaries team, and they will be requested to assist in the vetting process. The deadline to submit an application is 23:59 UTC, 12 September, and the candidates that move forward will be published on-wiki for community comments on 18 September.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:23, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Category deletion

Category:Newspapers and magazines with Irish names and possibly other similar related categories are being nominated for deletion. Thought you might be interested. Djln (talk) Djln (talk) 16:28, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Ghana library stub cat

Hi there, and thanks for asking. I'm sure the template and category were formed in good faith, but they're not needed and they don't really follow the library stub hierarchy. I think you could nominate both for deletion (imho). Cheers! Her Pegship (speak) 23:00, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Category:Timelines has been nominated for discussion

Category:Timelines, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Marcocapelle (talk) 08:35, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2018).

Administrator changes

Justlettersandnumbers • L235

Bgwhite • HorsePunchKid • J Greb • KillerChihuahua • Rami R • Winhunter

Interface administrator changes

Cyberpower678 • Deryck Chan • Oshwah • Pharos • Ragesoss • Ritchie333

Oversight changes

Guerillero • NativeForeigner • Snowolf • Xeno

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, the process for appointing interface administrators has been established. Currently only existing admins can request these rights, while a new RfC has begun on whether it should be available to non-admins.
• There is an open request for comment on Meta regarding the creation a new user group for global edit filter management.

Technical news

• Partial blocks should be available for testing in October on the Test Wikipedia and the Beta-Cluster. This new feature allows admins to block users from editing specific pages and in the near-future, namespaces and uploading files. You can expect more updates and an invitation to help with testing once it is available.
• The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team is currently looking for input on how to measure the effectiveness of blocks. This is in particular related to how they will measure the success of the aforementioned partial blocks.
• Because of a data centre test, you will be able to read but not edit the Wikimedia projects for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee has, by motion, amended the procedure on functionary inactivity.
• The community consultation for 2018 CheckUser and Oversight appointments has concluded. Appointments will be made by October 11.
• Following a request for comment, the size of the Arbitration Committee will be decreased to 13 arbitrators, starting in 2019. Additionally, the minimum support percentage required to be appointed to a two-year term on ArbCom has been increased to 60%. ArbCom candidates who receive between 50% and 60% support will be appointed to one-year terms instead.
• Nominations for the 2018 Arbitration Committee Electoral Commission are being accepted until 12 October. These are the editors who help run the ArbCom election smoothly. If you are interested in volunteering for this role, please consider nominating yourself.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:13, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2018).

Administrator changes

Sir Sputnik

Kudpung • Liz • Lourdes

Everyking • Jackmcbarn

Interface administrator changes

Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes

AGK • Ivanvector • Stwalkerster • TonyBallioni

Oversight changes

Amorymeltzer • Oshwah • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Keilana

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment determined that non-administrators will not be able to request interface admin access.
• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the Mediation Committee should be closed and marked as historical.
• A village pump discussion has been ongoing about whether the proposed deletion policy (PROD) should be clarified or amended.
• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether pending changes protection should be applied automatically to today's featured article (TFA) in order to mitigate a recent trend of severe image vandalism.

Technical news

• Partial blocks is now available for testing on the Test Wikipedia. The new functionality allows you to block users from editing specific pages. Bugs may exist and can be reported on the local talk page or on Meta. A discussion regarding deployment to English Wikipedia will be started by community liaisons sometime in the near future.
• A user script is now available to quickly review unblock requests.
• The 2019 Community Wishlist Survey is now accepting new proposals until November 11, 2018. The results of this survey will determine what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year. Voting on the proposals will take place from November 16 to November 30, 2018. Specifically, there is a proposal category for admins and stewards that may be of interest.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors will be invited to nominate themselves as candidates in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 4 until November 13. Voting will begin on November 19 and last until December 2.
• The Arbitration Committee's email address has changed to arbcom-enwikimedia.org. Other email lists, such as functionaries-en and clerks-l, remain unchanged.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:18, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Category:NASCAR teams established in 2005

The editor who created this category, not me who started the CFD or tagged it as empty, removed the category's one entry.[1] Which seems like a case of WP:G7 to me since the creator knows the category is at CFD now....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 23:46, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

@WilliamJE: Fair comment. I hadn't realised that the editor who emptied the category was the one who had created it. If I'd noticed that, I would have done better to speedily close the CFD discussion under G7.

As it was, I reverted him on one day, having navigated via the 2018 category. I only undid your C1 tag on the 2005 category when I noticed it from Empty categories awaiting deletion the next day. I didn't mean this as a rebuke, merely a notification to you.

Thanks for your work here and your attention to detail. – Fayenatic London 10:16, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

@WilliamJE: another thing, though – when nominating categories for merger, please look at all the parents, in case the category should be merged to more than one, e.g. the top one at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 November 7. – Fayenatic London 23:43, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

You goofed again. In the rationale section I said to merge it to Mayors of places in Illinois not just People from Aurora, Illinois....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 11:13, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

​Ha ha, self-TROUT! Right, you did.

For future reference, it would be clearer if you would amend the default "Propose merging…" line. If I was closing a discussion, I might just copy that line without noticing additional recommendations in the rationale. But you're quite right, you did say it – well done and thanks. – Fayenatic London 15:02, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Container categories

Hello, Fayenatic london,

I have a category question on you. Should container categories have Template:Possibly empty category or another empty category tag on them? Because I am running into some container categories that are empty but I don't know if they are eligible for speedy deletion. None of them are tagged saying to keep them even if they are empty. Looking for answers, all I could find is Wikipedia:Container category which had no guidance on this question.

So, what's your opinion? If you can point me to any policy page, that would be awesome. Thanks! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:05, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi @Liz: Short answer – no, delete them.

I don't have explicit guidance to point you to, but I'll tell you what I do, which has changed.

When intersection categories were deleted, leaving empty parent container categories, I used to patiently tag them as empty, and then go back a week later and tag their now-empty parents, etc.

Now, for instance, I found Category:Lists of Bangladeshi television series episodes empty after its only former member was deleted, and I tagged both it and its otherwise-empty parent Category:Lists of Bangladeshi television series for deletion, at the same time. That example was not a container category, but the same would have applied if there had been a container parent e.g. "Bangladeshi television lists by series".

This may be a better one. Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2018_October_21#Category:Retail_companies_established_in_1670 agreed to upmerge Category:Retail companies established in 1670 to Category:Companies established in 1670. This left an empty parent Category:Retail companies established in the 1670s. In the past I would have tagged it as empty; but now I'm summarily deleting it as WP:G6, giving a link to the CFD in my deletion rationale. – Fayenatic London 10:07, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

This is awesome advice, thanks Fayenatic london! These are the kind of categories I'm coming across, too.

I might come back to you with additional questions as they come up as I'm reacquainting myself with editing. Thank you for taking the time to give me a thoughtful answer. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:55, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I'll make it official

Whack! You've been whacked with a wet trout. Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

I did work that you ask for.

@Fayenatic london: I connected Category:American Seventh-day Adventist clergy to Category:Seventh-day Adventist clergy. And Seventh-day Adventist ministers born in the United States have been moved back to Category:American Seventh-day Adventist clergy. I hope this what you wanted me to do.Catfurball (talk) 18:34, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, Fayenatic london. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2018).

Administrator changes

Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz

Boson • Daniel J. Leivick • Efe • Esanchez7587 • Fred Bauder • Garzo • Martijn Hoekstra • Orangemike

Interface administrator changes

Deryck Chan

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, the Mediation Committee is now closed and will no longer be accepting case requests.
• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether members of the Bot Approvals Group should satisfy activity requirements in order to remain in that role.
• A request for comment is in progress regarding whether to change the administrator inactivity policy, such that administrators "who have made no logged administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped". Currently, the policy states that administrators "who have made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped".
• A proposal has been made to temporarily restrict editing of the Main Page to interface administrators in order to mitigate the impact of compromised accounts.

Technical news

• Administrators and bureaucrats can no longer unblock themselves unless they placed the block initially. This change has been implemented globally. See also this ongoing village pump discussion (permalink).
• To complement the aforementioned change, blocked administrators will soon have the ability to block the administrator that placed their block to mitigate the possibility of a compromised administrator account blocking all other active administrators.
• Since deployment of Partial blocks on Test Wikipedia, several bugs were identified. Most of them are now fixed. Administrators are encouraged to test the new deployment and report new bugs on Phabricator or leave feedback on the Project's talk page. You can request administrator access on the Test Wiki here.

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 3 December 2018. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

Miscellaneous

• In late November, an attacker compromised multiple accounts, including at least four administrator accounts, and used them to vandalize Wikipedia. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. Sharing the same password across multiple websites makes your account vulnerable, especially if your password was used on a website that suffered a data breach. As these incidents have shown, these concerns are not pure fantasies.
• Wikipedia policy requires administrators to have strong passwords. To further reinforce security, administrators should also consider enabling two-factor authentication. A committed identity can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

Obituaries

• Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (Raymond Arritt) passed away on 14 November 2018. Boris joined Wikipedia as Raymond arritt on 8 May 2006 and was an administrator from 30 July 2007 to 2 June 2008.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:36, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Request

You were kind enough to welcome me to Wikipedia, way back when I first started. Since you took time to do that, I'm hoping that you might not mind giving a bit of follow up advice. It has to do with an article I've recently edited, a few times. It concerns a governor of Georgia, during the period of the American Civil War. The man was a slave owner, and is known to have said that he believed in slavery. Another editor wants to expand on that by stating that the man believed in white supremacy. That, almost, sounds logical. Except we have no statements saying that he believed in white supremacy, and there is that troubling fact that a number of black land owners during that period also owned slaves. For them, and perhaps for our governor, it was a matter of economics. So either the black slave owners also believers in white supremacy (by virtue of being slave owners) or there is the possibility of simple economics at play which serves to contradict (or at least draw into question) the logic that slave ownership = white supremacy. I really don't want to get into a slow-motion edit war with the fellow, since that is obviously wrong, but it's also such a small matter that some other process seems like massive overkill. Any suggestions? The article is Joseph E. Brown. Gulbenk (talk) 20:04, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

@Gulbenk: I found an additional justification for removing the category, as the article is in a WP:SUBCAT. ([2]) This may prove sufficient.

If not… I found some interesting background discussion at Talk:White_supremacy/Archive_1#Flawed and Talk:White_supremacy/Archive_1#Lincoln. – Fayenatic London 14:10, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

THANK YOU for that thoughtful response to the situation I described. You bring a higher order of reasoning to the situation than either I or the other editor were capable of. I was just reading the link you provided, and shaking my head at the quagmire this topic can drag one into. It becomes all consuming for some folks. Again, my thanks for your help, and know that I have always appreciated the small gesture you made many years ago. Gulbenk (talk) 18:27, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Thanks for guiding me.

Fylindfotberserk (talk) 15:06, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

redirects for alt spellings of org

I've been deleting categories where I have misspelled organis/zation. Would it be better to leave them all, or even populate them - assuming we are not going to be able to standardiz/se the spelling? Rathfelder (talk) 09:28, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

@Rathfelder: According to Wikipedia:Category redirects that should be kept, they are useful and should be kept. That's only an essay, and a recent one at that, and by me... so take it or leave it. But since you're asking me: yes, leave all redirects, and populate cases that you think might be useful. – Fayenatic London 21:06, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

If you're the one who added this URL to Humane Society page, fyi:

See this link --Sincerely, Vid2vid (talk) 09:40, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

@Vid2vid: It wasn't me, but I reinstated the link using an archived version at archive.org. Well spotted; it looks as if their domain registration expired and is being cyber-squatted. – Fayenatic London 14:58, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Happy holidays!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2019!

Hello Fayenatic london, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2019. Happy editing, Dreamy Jazz 🎷 talk to me | my contributions 21:47, 23 December 2018 (UTC) Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Merry Christmas!

Hello Fayenatic london: Enjoy the holiday season, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, Fylindfotberserk (talk) 15:22, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

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