User talk:Geometry guy/Archive 35
Administrators' newsletter – June 2020
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2020).
Administrator changes
CaptainEek • Creffett • Cwmhiraeth
Anna Frodesiak • Buckshot06 • Ronhjones • SQL
CheckUser changes
Guideline and policy news
- A request for comment asks whether the Unblock Ticket Request System (UTRS) should allowed any unblock request or just private appeals.
- The Wikimedia Foundation announced that they will develop a universal code of conduct for all WMF projects. There is an open local discussion regarding the same.
Arbitration
Administrators' newsletter – July 2020
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2020).
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Guideline and policy news
- A request for comment is in progress to remove the T2 (template that misrepresents established policy) speedy deletion criterion.
Technical news
- Protection templates on mainspace pages are now automatically added by User:MusikBot II (BRFA).
Arbitration
- Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold an
RfC regarding on-wiki harassment
. The RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC and is open to comments from the community. - The Medicine case was closed, with a remedy authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for
all discussions about pharmaceutical drug prices and pricing and for edits adding, changing, or removing pharmaceutical drug prices or pricing from articles
.
- Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold an
Administrators' newsletter – August 2020
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2020).
Administrator changes
Oversight changes
Guideline and policy news
- There is an open request for comment to decide whether to increase the minimum duration a sanction discussion has to remain open (currently 24 hours).
- Speedy deletion criterion T2 (template that misrepresents established policy) has been repealed following a request for comment.
- Speedy deletion criterion X2 (pages created by the content translation tool) has been repealed following a discussion.
- There is a proposal to restrict proposed deletion to confirmed users.
Administrators' newsletter – September 2020
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2020).
Administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following a request for comment, the minimum length for site ban discussions was increased to 72 hours, up from 24.
- A request for comment is ongoing to determine whether paid editors
must
orshould
use the articles for creation process. - A request for comment is open to resolve inconsistencies between the draftification and alternative to deletion processes.
Arbitration
- A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2020 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
- An open request for comment asks whether active Arbitrators may serve on the Trust and Safety Case Review Committee or Ombudsman commission.
Administrators' newsletter – October 2020
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2020).
Administrator changes
- Ajpolino • LuK3
Jackmcbarn- Ad Orientem • Harej • Lid • Lomn • Mentoz86 • Oliver Pereira • XJaM
There'sNoTime → TheresNoTime
Guideline and policy news
- A request for comment found consensus that incubation as an alternative to deletion should generally only be recommended when draftification is appropriate, namely
1) if the result of a deletion discussion is to draftify; or 2) if the article is newly created
.
- A request for comment found consensus that incubation as an alternative to deletion should generally only be recommended when draftification is appropriate, namely
Technical news
- The filter log now provides links to view diffs of deleted revisions (phab:T261630).
Arbitration
- The 2020 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place from September 27th to October 7th.
- Following a request for comment, sitting Committee members may not serve on either the Ombuds Commission or the WMF Case Review Committee. The Arbitration Committee passed a motion implementing those results into their procedures.
Miscellaneous
- The Universal Code of Conduct draft is open for community review and comment until October 6th, 2020.
- Office actions may now be appealed to the Interim Trust & Safety Case Review Committee.
Administrators' newsletter – November 2020
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2020).
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Guideline and policy news
- Community sanctions now authorize administrators to place under indefinite semiprotection
any article on a beauty pageant, or biography of a person known as a beauty pageant contestant, which has been edited by a sockpuppet account or logged-out sockpuppet
, to be logged at WP:GS/PAGEANT.
- Community sanctions now authorize administrators to place under indefinite semiprotection
Technical news
- Sysops will once again be able to view the deleted history of JS/CSS pages; this was restricted to interface administrators when that group was introduced.
- Twinkle's block module now includes the ability to note the specific case when applying a discretionary sanctions block and/or template.
- Sysops will be able to use Special:CreateLocalAccount to create a local account for a global user that is prevented from auto-creation locally (such as by a filter or range block). Administrators that are not sure if such a creation is appropriate should contact a checkuser.
Arbitration
- The 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections process has begun. Eligible editors will be able to nominate themselves as candidates from November 8 through November 17. The voting period will run from November 23 through December 6.
- The Anti-harassment RfC has concluded with a summary of the feedback provided.
Miscellaneous
- A reminder that
standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people.
(American Politics 2 Arbitration case).
- A reminder that
A tag has been placed on Category:History of subject mathematics articles requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Liz Read! Talk! 16:25, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – December 2020
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2020).
Administrator changes
- Andrwsc • Anetode • GoldenRing • JzG • LinguistAtLarge • Nehrams2020
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- There is a request for comment in progress to either remove T3 (duplicated and hardcoded instances) as a speedy deletion criterion or eliminate its seven-day waiting period.
Technical news
- Voting for proposals in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey, which determines what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year, will take place from 8 December through 21 December. In particular, there are sections regarding administrators and anti-harassment.
Arbitration
- Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 7 December 2020 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.
Greetings of the season
edit| Happy holidays | ||
| Dear Geometry guy, For you and all your loved ones, "Let there be mercy".
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Administrators' newsletter – January 2021
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2020).
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Guideline and policy news
- Speedy deletion criterion T3 (duplication and hardcoded instances) has been repealed following a request for comment.
Technical news
- You can now put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time.
Arbitration
- By motion, standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarily authorized
for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes)
. The effectiveness of the discretionary sanctions can be evaluated on the request by any editor after March 1, 2021 (or sooner if for a good reason). - Following the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, BDD, Bradv, CaptainEek, L235, Maxim, Primefac.
- By motion, standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarily authorized
Administrators' newsletter – February 2021
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2021).
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Arbitration
- The standard discretionary sanctions authorized for American Politics were amended by motion to cover
post-1992 politics of United States and closely related people
, replacing the 1932 cutoff.
- The standard discretionary sanctions authorized for American Politics were amended by motion to cover
Miscellaneous
- Voting in the 2021 Steward elections will begin on 05 February 2021, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2021, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
- Wikipedia has now been around for 20 years, and recently saw its billionth edit!
Administrators' newsletter – March 2021
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2021).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- A request for comment is open that proposes a process for the community to revoke administrative permissions. This follows a 2019 RfC in favor of creating one such a policy.
- A request for comment is in progress to remove F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a, which covers immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
- A request for comment seeks to grant page movers the
delete-redirectuserright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target. The full proposal is at Wikipedia:Page mover/delete-redirect. - A request for comment asks if sysops may
place the General sanctions/Coronavirus disease 2019 editnotice template on pages in scope that do not have page-specific sanctions
? - There is a discussion in progress concerning automatic protection of each day's featured article with Pending Changes protection.
Technical news
- When blocking an IPv6 address with Twinkle, there is now a checkbox with the option to just block the /64 range. When doing so, you can still leave a block template on the initial, single IP address' talkpage.
- When protecting a page with Twinkle, you can now add a note if doing so was in response to a request at WP:RfPP, and even link to the specific revision.
- There have been a number of reported issues with Pending Changes. Most problems setting protection appear to have been resolved (phab:T273317) but other issues with autoaccepting edits persist (phab:T275322).
Arbitration
- By motion, the discretionary sanctions originally authorized under the GamerGate case are now authorized under a new Gender and sexuality case, with sanctions
authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, any gender-related dispute or controversy and associated people.
Sanctions issued under GamerGate are now considered Gender and sexuality sanctions. - The Kurds and Kurdistan case was closed, authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for
the topics of Kurds and Kurdistan, broadly construed
.
- By motion, the discretionary sanctions originally authorized under the GamerGate case are now authorized under a new Gender and sexuality case, with sanctions
Miscellaneous
- Following the 2021 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AmandaNP, Operator873, Stanglavine, Teles, and Wiki13.
Administrators' newsletter – April 2021
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2021).
Administrator changes
- Alexandria • Happyme22 • RexxS
Guideline and policy news
- Following a request for comment, F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a has been deprecated; it covered immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
- Following a request for comment, page movers were granted the
delete-redirectuserright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target.
Technical news
- When you move a page that many editors have on their watchlist the history can be split and it might also not be possible to move it again for a while. This is because of a job queue problem. (T278350)
- Code to support some very old web browsers is being removed. This could cause issues in those browsers. (T277803)
Arbitration
- A community consultation on the Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions procedure is open until April 25.
Nomination for deletion of Template:Mathematician entry
edit
Template:Mathematician entry has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:44, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – May 2021
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2021).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, consensus was found that third party appeals are allowed but discouraged.
- The 2021 Desysop Policy RfC was closed with no consensus. Consensus was found in a previous RfC for a community based desysop procedure, though the procedure proposed in the 2021 RfC did not gain consensus.
Technical news
- The user group
oversightwill be renamed tosuppress. This is for technical reasons. You can comment at T112147 if you have objections.
- The user group
Arbitration
- The community consultation on the Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions procedure was closed, and an initial draft based on feedback from the now closed consultation is expected to be released in early June to early July for community review.
A little help with the Laplace–Runge–Lenz vector?
editDear G-guy,
If you can spare the time, could you please help out a bit on the Laplace–Runge–Lenz_vector, perhaps by adding a few citations or otherwise improving it? I'm not sure if you ever saw the article; it was an early FA of mine, from a time even before we two met on Wikipedia. The article is now under review as a Featured Article, and your comments/suggestions/contributions would be most welcome, no matter how critical.
Thanks muchly, Willow (talk) 09:13, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
- Sorry that I missed that boat - I have had some busy years - but am glad to see it remains an FA, surely thanks to your efforts. Geometry guy 22:50, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – June 2021
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2021).
Administrator changes
- Ashleyyoursmile • Less Unless
- Husond • MattWade • MJCdetroit • Carioca • Vague Rant • Kingboyk • Thunderboltz • Gwen Gale • AniMate • SlimVirgin (deceased)
Guideline and policy news
- Consensus was reached to deprecate Wikipedia:Editor assistance.
- Following a Request for Comment the Book namespace was deprecated.
Technical news
- Wikimedia previously used the IRC network Freenode. However, due to changes over who controlled the network with reports of a forceful takeover by several ex-staff members, the Wikimedia IRC Group Contacts decided to move to the new Libera Chat network. It has been reported that Wikimedia related channels on Freenode have been forcibly taken over if they pointed members to Libera. There is a migration guide and Wikimedia discussions about this.
Arbitration
- After a Clarification request, the Arbitration Committee modified Remedy 5 of the Antisemitism in Poland case. This means sourcing expectations are a discretionary sanction instead of being present on all articles. It also details using the talk page or the Reliable Sources Noticeboard to discuss disputed sources.
GAN Backlog Drive - July 2021
edit| Good article nominations | July 2021 Backlog Drive |  |
July 2021 Backlog Drive:
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Administrators' newsletter – July 2021
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2021).
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Guideline and policy news
- Consensus has been reached to delete all books in the book namespace. There was rough consensus that the deleted books should still be available on request at WP:REFUND even after the namespace is removed.
- An RfC is open to discuss the next steps following a trial which automatically applied pending changes to TFAs.
Technical news
- IP addresses of unregistered users are to be hidden from everyone. There is a rough draft of how IP addresses may be shown to users who need to see them. This currently details allowing administrators, checkusers, stewards and those with a new usergroup to view the full IP address of unregistered users. Editors with at least 500 edits and an account over a year old will be able to see all but the end of the IP address in the proposal. The ability to see the IP addresses hidden behind the mask would be dependent on agreeing to not share the parts of the IP address they can see with those who do not have access to the same information. Accessing part of or the full IP address of a masked editor would also be logged. Comments on the draft are being welcomed at the talk page.
Arbitration
- The community authorised COVID-19 general sanctions have been superseded by the COVID-19 discretionary sanctions following a motion at a case request. Alerts given and sanctions placed under the community authorised general sanctions are now considered alerts for and sanctions under the new discretionary sanctions.
Administrators' newsletter – July 2021
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2021).
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Guideline and policy news
- An RfC is open to add a delay of one week from nomination to deletion for G13 speedy deletions.
Technical news
- Last week all wikis were very slow or not accessible for 30 minutes. This was due to server lag caused by regenerating dynamic lists on the Russian Wikinews after a large bulk import. (T287380)
Arbitration
- Following an amendment request, the committee has clarified that the Talk page exception to the 500/30 rule in remedy 5 of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 case does not apply to requested move discussions.
Miscellaneous
- You can vote for candidates in the 2021 Board of Trustees elections from 4 August to 17 August. Four community elected seats are up for election.
Administrators' newsletter – September 2021
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2021).
Administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- Feedback is requested on the Universal Code of Conduct enforcement draft by the Universal Code of Conduct Phase 2 drafting committee.
- A RfC is open on whether to allow administrators to use extended confirmed protection on high-risk templates.
- A discussion is open to decide when, if ever, should discord logs be eligible for removal when posted onwiki (including whether to oversight them)
- A RfC on the next steps after the trial of pending changes on TFAs has resulted in a 30 day trial of automatic semi protection for TFAs.
Technical news
- The Score extension has been re-enabled on public wikis. It has been updated, but has been placed in safe mode to address unresolved security issues. Further information on the security issues can be found on the mediawiki page.
Arbitration
- A request for comment is in progress to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules. Comments and new proposals are welcome.
Miscellaneous
- The 2021 RfA review is now open for comments.
Administrators' newsletter – October 2021
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2021).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, extended confirmed protection may be used preemptively on certain high-risk templates.
- Following a discussion at the Village Pump, there is consensus to treat discord logs the same as IRC logs. This means that discord logs will be oversighted if posted onwiki.
Technical news
- DiscussionTools has superseded Enterprisey's reply-link script. Editors may switch using the "Discussion tools" checkbox under Preferences → Beta features.
Arbitration
- A motion has standardised the 500/30 (extended confirmed) restrictions placed by the Arbitration Committee. The standardised restriction is now listed in the Arbitration Committee's procedures.
- Following the closure of the Iranian politics case, standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, post-1978 Iranian politics, broadly construed.
- The Arbitration Committee encourages uninvolved administrators to use the discretionary sanctions procedure in topic areas where it is authorised to facilitate consensus in RfCs. This includes, but is not limited to, enforcing sectioned comments, word/diff limits and moratoriums on a particular topic from being brought in an RfC for up to a year.
Miscellaneous
- Editors have approved expanding the trial of Growth Features from 2% of new accounts to 25%, and the share of newcomers getting mentorship from 2% to 5%. Experienced editors are invited to add themselves to the mentor list.
- The community consultation phase of the 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process is open for editors to provide comments and ask questions to candidates.
Administrators' newsletter – November 2021
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2021).
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Guideline and policy news
- Phase 2 of the 2021 RfA review has commenced which will discuss potential solutions to address the 8 issues found in Phase 1. Proposed solutions that achieve consensus will be implemented and you may propose solutions till 07 November 2021.
Technical news
- Toolhub is a catalogue of tools which can be used on Wikimedia wikis. It is at https://toolhub.wikimedia.org/.
Arbitration
- GeneralNotability, Mz7 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections. Ivanvector and John M Wolfson are reserve commissioners.
- Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves to stand in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections from 07 November 2021 until 16 November 2021.
Miscellaneous
- The 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process has concluded with the appointment of five new CheckUsers and two new Oversighters.
Nomination for merger of Template:Hidden section bottom
edit
Template:Hidden section bottom has been nominated for merging with Template:Hidden end. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 18:44, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:PREVIOUSMONTH.YEAR
edit Template:PREVIOUSMONTH.YEAR has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Did Q28 make a mess today? 04:54, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – December 2021
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2021).
Administrator changes
Technical news
- Unregistered editors using the mobile website are now able to receive notices to indicate they have talk page messages. The notice looks similar to what is already present on desktop, and will be displayed on when viewing any page except mainspace and when editing any page. (T284642)
- The limit on the number of emails a user can send per day has been made global instead of per-wiki to help prevent abuse. (T293866)
Arbitration
- Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections is open until 23:59, 06 December 2021 (UTC).
- The already authorized standard discretionary sanctions for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes), broadly construed, have been made permanent.
Administrators will no longer be autopatrolled
editA recently closed Request for Comment (RFC) reached consensus to remove Autopatrolled from the administrator user group. You may, similarly as with Edit Filter Manager, choose to self-assign this permission to yourself. This will be implemented the week of December 13th, but if you wish to self-assign you may do so now. To find out when the change has gone live or if you have any questions please visit the Administrator's Noticeboard. 20:06, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
GAN Backlog Drive – January 2022
edit| Good article nominations | January 2022 Backlog Drive | |
January 2022 Backlog Drive:
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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles at 21:18, 31 December 2021 (UTC).
Administrators' newsletter – January 2022
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2021).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following consensus at the 2021 RfA review, the autopatrolled user right has been removed from the administrators user group; admins can grant themselves the autopatrolled permission if they wish to remain autopatrolled.
- Additionally, consensus for proposal 6C of the 2021 RfA review has led to the creation of an administrative action review process. The purpose of this process will be to review individual administrator actions and individual actions taken by users holding advanced permissions.
Arbitration
- Following the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Cabayi, Donald Albury, Enterprisey, Izno, Opabinia regalis, Worm That Turned, Wugapodes.
Miscellaneous
- The functionaries email list (functionaries-en
lists.wikimedia.org) will no longer accept incoming emails apart from those sent by list members and WMF staff. Private concerns, apart from those requiring oversight, should be directly sent to the Arbitration Committee.
How we will see unregistered users
editHi!
You get this message because you are an admin on a Wikimedia wiki.
When someone edits a Wikimedia wiki without being logged in today, we show their IP address. As you may already know, we will not be able to do this in the future. This is a decision by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department, because norms and regulations for privacy online have changed.
Instead of the IP we will show a masked identity. You as an admin will still be able to access the IP. There will also be a new user right for those who need to see the full IPs of unregistered users to fight vandalism, harassment and spam without being admins. Patrollers will also see part of the IP even without this user right. We are also working on better tools to help.
If you have not seen it before, you can read more on Meta. If you want to make sure you don’t miss technical changes on the Wikimedia wikis, you can subscribe to the weekly technical newsletter.
We have two suggested ways this identity could work. We would appreciate your feedback on which way you think would work best for you and your wiki, now and in the future. You can let us know on the talk page. You can write in your language. The suggestions were posted in October and we will decide after 17 January.
Thank you. /Johan (WMF)
18:14, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – February 2022
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2022).
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Guideline and policy news
- The Universal Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines have been published for consideration. Voting to ratify this guideline is planned to take place 7 March to 21 March. Comments can be made on the talk page.
Technical news
- The user group
oversightwill be renamedsuppressin around 3 weeks. This will not affect the name shown to users and is simply a change in the technical name of the user group. The change is being made for technical reasons. You can comment in Phabricator if you have objections. - The Reply Tool feature, which is a part of Discussion Tools, will be opt-out for everyone logged in or logged out starting 7 February 2022. Editors wishing to comment on this can do so in the relevant Village Pump discussion.
- The user group
Arbitration
- Community input is requested on several motions aimed at addressing discretionary sanctions that are no longer needed or overly broad.
- The Arbitration Committee has published a generalised comment regarding successful appeals of sanctions that it can review (such as checkuser blocks).
- A motion related to the Antisemitism in Poland case was passed following a declined case request.
Miscellaneous
- Voting in the 2022 Steward elections will begin on 07 February 2022, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2022, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
- Voting in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey is open until 11 February 2022.
Administrators' newsletter – March 2022
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2022).
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Guideline and policy news
- A RfC is open to change the wording of revision deletion criterion 1 to remove the sentence relating to non-infringing contributions.
- A RfC is open to discuss prohibiting draftification of articles over 90 days old.
Technical news
- The deployment of the reply tool as an opt-out feature, as announced in last month's newsletter, has been delayed to 7 March. Feedback and comments are being welcomed at Wikipedia talk:Talk pages project. (T296645)
- Special:Nuke will now allow the selection of standard deletion reasons to be used when mass-deleting pages. This was a Community Wishlist Survey request from 2022. (T25020)
- The ability to undelete the talk page when undeleting a page using Special:Undelete or the API will be added soon. This change was requested in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey. (T295389)
Arbitration
- Several unused discretionary sanctions and article probation remedies have been rescinded. This follows the community feedback from the 2021 Discretionary Sanctions review.
Miscellaneous
- The 2022 appointees for the Ombuds commission are Érico, Faendalimas, Galahad, Infinite0694, Mykola7, Olugold, Udehb and Zabe as regular members and Ameisenigel and JJMC89 as advisory members.
- Following the 2022 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AntiCompositeNumber, BRPever, Hasley, TheresNoTime, and Vermont.
- The 2022 Community Wishlist Survey results have been published alongside the ranking of prioritized proposals.
Administrators' newsletter – April 2022
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2022).
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Guideline and policy news
- An RfC is open proposing a change to the minimum activity requirements for administrators.
Technical news
- Access to Special:RevisionDelete has been expanded to include users who have the
deletelogentryanddeletedhistoryrights. This means that those in the Researcher user group and Checkusers who are not administrators can now access Special:RevisionDelete. The users able to view the special page after this change are the 3 users in the Researcher group, as there are currently no checkusers who are not already administrators. (T301928) - When viewing deleted revisions or diffs on Special:Undelete a back link to the undelete page for the associated page is now present. (T284114)
Arbitration
- Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures § Opening of proceedings has been updated to reflect current practice following a motion.
- A arbitration case regarding Skepticism and coordinated editing has been closed.
- A arbitration case regarding WikiProject Tropical Cyclones has been opened.
Miscellaneous
- Voting for the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines has closed, and the results were that 56.98% of voters supported the guidelines. The results of this vote mean the Wikimedia Foundation Board will now review the guidelines.
Administrators' newsletter – May 2022
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2022).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, a change has been made to the administrators inactivity policy. Under the new policy, if an administrator has not made at least 100 edits over a period of 5 years they may be desysopped for inactivity.
- Following a discussion on the bureaucrat's noticeboard, a change has been made to the bureaucrats inactivity policy.
Technical news
- The ability to undelete the associated talk page when undeleting a page has been added. This was the 11th wish of the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey.
- A public status system for WMF wikis has been created. It is located at https://www.wikimediastatus.net/ and is hosted separately to WMF wikis so in the case of an outage it will remain viewable.
Arbitration
- Remedy 2 of the St Christopher case has been rescinded following a motion. The remedy previously authorised administrators to place a ban on single-purpose accounts who were disruptively editing on the article St Christopher Iba Mar Diop College of Medicine or related pages from those pages.
June 2022 Good Article Nominations backlog drive
edit| Good article nominations | June 2022 Backlog Drive | |
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Administrators' newsletter – July 2022
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2022).
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Technical news
user_global_editcountis a new variable that can be used in abuse filters to avoid affecting globally active users. (T130439)
Arbitration
- An arbitration case regarding conduct in deletion-related editing has been opened.
Miscellaneous
- The New Pages Patrol queue has around 10,000 articles to be reviewed. As all administrators have the patrol right, please consider helping out. The queue is here. For further information on the state of the project, see the latest NPP newsletter.
Administrators' newsletter – August 2022
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2022).
Administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- An RfC has been closed with consensus to add javascript that will show edit notices for editors editing via a mobile device. This only works for users using a mobile browser, so iOS app editors will still not be able to see edit notices.
- An RfC has been closed with the consensus that train stations are not inherently notable.
Technical news
- The Wikimania 2022 Hackathon will take place virtually from 11 August to 14 August.
- Administrators will now see links on user pages for "Change block" and "Unblock user" instead of just "Block user" if the user is already blocked. (T308570)
Arbitration
- The arbitration case request Geschichte has been automatically closed after a 3 month suspension of the case.
Miscellaneous
- You can vote for candidates in the 2022 Board of Trustees elections from 16 August to 30 August. Two community elected seats are up for election.
- Wikimania 2022 is taking place virtually from 11 August to 14 August. The schedule for wikimania is listed here. There are also a number of in-person events associated with Wikimania around the world.
- Tech tip: When revision-deleting on desktop, hold ⇧ Shift between clicking two checkboxes to select every box in that range.
Administrators' newsletter – September 2022
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2022).
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Guideline and policy news
- A discussion is open to define a process by which Vector 2022 can be made the default for all users.
- An RfC is open to gain consensus on whether Fox News is reliable for science and politics.
Technical news
- The impact report on the effects of disabling IP editing on the Persian (Farsi) Wikipedia has been released.
- The WMF is looking into making a Private Incident Reporting System (PIRS) system to improve the reporting of harmful incidents through easier and safer reporting. You can leave comments on the talk page by answering the questions provided. Users who have faced harmful situations are also invited to join a PIRS interview to share the experience. To sign up please email Madalina Ana.
Arbitration
- An arbitration case regarding Conduct in deletion-related editing has been closed. The Arbitration Committee passed a remedy as part of the final decision to create a request for comment (RfC) on how to handle mass nominations at Articles for Deletion (AfD).
- The arbitration case request Jonathunder has been automatically closed after a 6 month suspension of the case.
Miscellaneous
- The new pages patrol (NPP) team has prepared an appeal to the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) for assistance with addressing Page Curation bugs and requested features. You are encouraged to read the open letter before it is sent, and if you support it, consider signing it. It is not a discussion, just a signature will suffice.
- Voting for candidates for the Wikimedia Board of Trustees is open until 6 September.
Administrators' newsletter – October 2022
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2022).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, consensus was found that if the rationale for a block depends on information that is not available to all administrators, that information should be sent to the Arbitration Committee, a checkuser or an oversighter for action (as applicable, per ArbCom's recent updated guidance) instead of the administrator making the block.
- Following an RfC, consensus has been found that, in the context of politics and science, the reliability of FoxNews.com is unclear and that additional considerations apply to its use.
- Community comment on the revised Universal Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines is requested until 8 October.
Technical news
- The Articles for creation helper script now automatically recognises administrator accounts which means your name does not need to be listed at WP:AFCP to help out. If you wish to help out at AFC, enable AFCH by navigating to Preferences → Gadgets and checking the "Yet Another AfC Helper Script" box.
Arbitration
- Remedy 8.1 of the Muhammad images case will be rescinded 1 November following a motion.
- A modification to the deletion RfC remedy in the Conduct in deletion-related editing case has been made to reaffirm the independence of the RfC and allow the moderators to split the RfC in two.
- The second phase of the 2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Review closes 3 October.
Miscellaneous
- An administrator's account was recently compromised. Administrators are encouraged to check that their passwords are secure, and reminded that ArbCom reserves the right to not restore adminship in cases of poor account security. You can also use two-factor authentication (2FA) to provide an extra level of security.
- Self-nominations for the electoral commission for the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections open 2 October and close 8 October.
- You are invited to comment on candidates in the 2022 CUOS appointments process.
- An RfC is open to discuss whether to make Vector 2022 the default skin on desktop.
- Tech tip: You can do a fuzzy search of all deleted page titles at Special:Undelete.
Administrators' newsletter – November 2022
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2022).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- The article creation at scale RfC opened on 3 October and will be open until at least 2 November.
- An RfC is open to discuss having open requests for adminship automatically placed on hold after the seven-day period has elapsed, pending closure or other action by a bureaucrat.
Arbitration
- Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 13 November 2022 until 22 November 2022 to stand in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections.
- The arbitration case request titled Athaenara has been resolved by motion.
- The arbitration case Reversal and reinstatement of Athaenara's block has entered the proposed decision stage.
- AmandaNP, Mz7 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2022 Arbitration Committee Elections. Xaosflux and Dr vulpes are reserve commissioners.
Miscellaneous
- The 2022 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process has concluded with the appointment of two new CheckUsers.
- You can add yourself to the centralised page listing time zones of administrators.
- Tech tip: Wikimarkup in a block summary is parsed in the notice that the blockee sees. You can use templates with custom options to specify situations like
{{rangeblock|create=yes}}or{{uw-ublock|contains profanity}}.
Administrators' newsletter – December 2022
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2022).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- Consensus has been found in an RfC to automatically place RfAs on hold after one week.
- The article creation at scale RfC has been closed.
- An RfC on the banners for the December 2022 fundraising campaign has been closed.
Technical news
- A new preference named "Enable limited width mode" has been added to the Vector 2022 skin. The preference is also shown as a toggle on every page if your monitor is 1600 pixels or wider. When disabled it removes the whitespace added by Vector 2022 on the left and right of the page content. Disabling this preference has the same effect as enabling the wide-vector-2022 gadget. (T319449)
Arbitration
- Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 12, 2022 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.
- The proposed decision for the 2021-22 review of the discretionary sanctions system is open.
- The arbitration case Reversal and reinstatement of Athaenara's block has been closed.
- The arbitration case Stephen has been opened and the proposed decision is expected 1 December 2022.
- A motion has modified the procedures for contacting an admin facing Level 2 desysop.
Miscellaneous
- Tech tip: A single IPv6 connection usually has access to a "subnet" of 18 quintillion IPs. Add
/64to the end of an IP in Special:Contributions to see all of a subnet's edits, and consider blocking the whole subnet rather than an IP that may change within a minute.
Administrators' newsletter – January 2023
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2022).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Oversighter changes
Guideline and policy news
- Speedy deletion criterion A5 (transwikied articles) has been repealed following an unopposed proposal.
Arbitration
- Following the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, CaptainEek, GeneralNotability, Guerillero, L235, Moneytrees, Primefac, SilkTork.
- The 2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Review has concluded with many changes to the discretionary sanctions procedure including a change of the name to "contentious topics". The changes are being implemented over the coming month.
- The arbitration case Stephen has been closed.
Miscellaneous
- Voting for the Sound Logo has closed and the winner is expected to be announced February to April 2023.
- Tech tip: You can view information about IP addresses in a centralised location using bullseye which won the Newcomer award in the recent Coolest Tool Awards.
Administrators' newsletter – February 2023
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2023).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, the administrator policy now requires that prior written consent be gained from the Arbitration Committee to mark a block as only appealable to the committee.
- Following a community discussion, consensus has been found to impose the extended-confirmed restriction over the topic areas of Armenia and Azerbaijan and Kurds and Kurdistan.
Technical news
- The Vector 2022 skin has become the default for desktop users of the English Wikipedia.
Arbitration
- The arbitration case Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 has been opened and the proposed decision is expected 24 February 2023.
- In December, the contentious topics procedure was adopted which replaces the former discretionary sanctions system. The contentious topics procedure is now in effect following an initial implementation period. There is a detailed summary of the changes and administrator instructions for the new procedure. The arbitration clerk team are taking suggestions, concerns, and unresolved questions about this new system at their noticeboard.
Miscellaneous
- Voting in the 2023 Steward elections will begin on 05 February 2023, 21:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2023, 21:00 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
- Voting in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey will begin on 10 February 2023 and end on 24 February 2023. You can submit, discuss and revise proposals until 6 February 2023.
- Tech tip: Syntax highlighting is available in both the 2011 and 2017 Wikitext editors. It can help make editing paragraphs with many references or complicated templates easier.
Administrators' newsletter – March 2023
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2023).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following a request for comment, F10 (useless non-media files) has been deprecated.
- Following a request for comment, the Portal CSD criteria (P1 (portal subject to CSD as an article) and P2 (underpopulated portal)) have been deprecated.
- A request for comment is open to discuss making the closing instructions for the requested moves process a guideline.
Technical news
- The results of the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey have been posted.
Arbitration
- Remedy 11 ("Request for Comment") of the Conduct in deletion-related editing case has been rescinded.
- The proposed decision for the Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 case is expected 7 March 2023.
- A case related to the Holocaust in Poland is expected to be opened soon.
Miscellaneous
- The 2023 appointees for the Ombuds commission are AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, JJMC89, MdsShakil, Minorax and Renvoy as regular members and Zabe as advisory members.
- Following the 2023 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Mykola7, Superpes15, and Xaosflux.
- The Terms of Use update cycle has started, which includes a
[p]roposal for better addressing undisclosed paid editing
. Feedback is being accepted until 24 April 2023.
Administrators' newsletter – April 2023
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2023).
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Guideline and policy news
- A community RfC is open to discuss whether reports primarily involving gender-related disputes or controversies should be referred to the Arbitration enforcement noticeboard.
Technical news
- Some older web browsers will not be able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis starting this week. This mainly affects users of Internet Explorer 11. (T178356)
- The rollback of Vector 2022 RfC has found no consensus to rollback to Vector legacy, but has found rough consensus to disable "limited width" mode by default.
- A link to the user's Special:CentralAuth page will now appear in the subtitle links shown on Special:Contributions. This was voted #17 in the Community Wishlist Survey 2023.
Arbitration
- The Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 case has been closed.
- A case about World War II and the history of Jews in Poland has been opened, with the first evidence phase closing 6 April 2023.
Pending suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity
edit
Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions will be removed if you do not return to activity within the next month.
Inactive administrators are encouraged to rejoin the project in earnest rather than to make token edits to avoid loss of administrative permissions. Resources and support for reengaging with the project are available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/administrators. If you do not intend to rejoin the project in the foreseeable future, please consider voluntarily resigning your administrative permissions by making a request at the bureaucrats' noticeboard.
Thank you for your past contributions to the project. — JJMC89 bot 00:06, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
- This policy is stupid because you are throwing away goodwill. And you deliver the message via bot? Have you no consideration for people? Geometry guy 22:59, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
New administrator activity requirement
editThe administrator policy has been updated with new activity requirements following a successful Request for Comment.
Beginning January 1, 2023, administrators who meet one or both of the following criteria may be desysopped for inactivity if they have:
- Made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least a 12-month period OR
- Made fewer than 100 edits over a 60-month period
Administrators at risk for being desysopped under these criteria will continue to be notified ahead of time. Thank you for your continued work.
22:52, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
Imminent suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity
edit
Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions will be removed if you do not return to activity within the next several days.
Inactive administrators are encouraged to rejoin the project in earnest rather than to make token edits to avoid loss of administrative permissions. Resources and support for reengaging with the project are available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/administrators. If you do not intend to rejoin the project in the foreseeable future, please consider voluntarily resigning your administrative permissions by making a request at the bureaucrats' noticeboard.
Thank you for your past contributions to the project. — JJMC89 bot 00:02, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
Suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity
edit
Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions have been removed.
Subject to certain time limits and other restrictions, your administrative permissions may be returned upon request at WP:BN.
Thank you for your past contributions to the project. — xaosflux Talk 00:24, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you for putting a glove on your foot before kicking me in the teeth. Geometry guy 00:40, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
GA reassessment for Homotopy groups of spheres
editHomotopy groups of spheres has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. -- Beland (talk) 07:54, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
- I love this article, and one day, I will bring it back to GA. Geometry guy 23:02, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – June 2022
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2022).
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Guideline and policy news
- Several areas of improvement collated from community member votes have been identified in the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines. The areas of improvement have been sent back for review and you are invited to provide input on these areas.
Technical news
- Administrators using the mobile web interface can now access Special:Block directly from user pages. (T307341)
- The IP Info feature has been deployed to all wikis as a Beta Feature. Any autoconfirmed user may enable the feature using the "IP info" checkbox under Preferences → Beta features. Autoconfirmed users will be able to access basic information about an IP address that includes the country and connection method. Those with advanced privileges (admin, bureaucrat, checkuser) will have access to extra information that includes the Internet Service Provider and more specific location.
Arbitration
- Remedy 2 of the Rachel Marsden case has been rescinded following a motion. The remedy previously authorised administrators to delete or reduce to a stub, together with their talk pages, articles related to Rachel Marsden when they violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy.
- An arbitration case regarding WikiProject Tropical Cyclones has been closed.
April 2023
edit
{{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. Barkeep49 (talk) 23:05, 8 April 2023 (UTC)Wow. This is the first time I have been blocked. You guys must be scared that I am making reasoned arguments and calling out your censorship. You should apply for jobs with the Chinese Communist Party. Geometry guy 23:25, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
- I understand being upset about losing your bit. I wasn't exactly happy when it happened to me, either . The way you are behaving now isn't helping the situation at all. Please take a step back, I'm afraid you're going to end up with a full block at this rate. SQLQuery Me! 23:33, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
- Don't treat me like a child: I have extensive experience of conflict on Wikipedia. Losing my "bit" is meh, I never used it much anyway. But the process and the way I have been treated for daring to comment on it... reflect on this. Geometry guy 23:41, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
- If you wish people would avoid treating you like a child, you shouldn't act like one. I was trying to be nice as I've had the same experience. SQLQuery Me! 02:25, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
- Apologies - I appreciate you meant well. Geometry guy 12:24, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
- If you wish people would avoid treating you like a child, you shouldn't act like one. I was trying to be nice as I've had the same experience. SQLQuery Me! 02:25, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
- Don't treat me like a child: I have extensive experience of conflict on Wikipedia. Losing my "bit" is meh, I never used it much anyway. But the process and the way I have been treated for daring to comment on it... reflect on this. Geometry guy 23:41, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
- Geometry guy, as the one who initially reverted your edits, I did so not because I wish to silence you or because I am "scared" of you, but because the discussion had been closed; I even said in my edit summary that I had no problems with the issue being discussed further, it just had to be done in a new thread or at a different venue. You are still welcome to do so, though as SQL states above, I would try to avoid some of the rhetoric you have been using recently as it tends to put people off from wanting to engage. Primefac (talk) 06:09, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
- I appreciated you taking the time to reply, Primefac. And I mean that sincerely, it was polite of you to do so. I think perhaps that the 'crats were right, that I am out of date with community norms: to close and hide discussions, to delete complaints, and to block further complaints. I would not be a good admin in this regime, so you did the right thing. Geometry guy 22:33, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
Hi Geometry guy. I've been on holiday for a week so I missed the drama. It's great to see you back - as you know, I have long held you to be one of the good folk on Wikipedia - you were a model to me back in the day, so it's sad to see that you have been desysopped, and especially your reaction to that desysopping. You are not the first to be upset regarding the admin activity process. Some, when getting the notices, accept the process and volunteer their resignation. When that happens I give them a special barnstar:
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Job Done | |
| Awarded to User:Example for good services as an admin, and for resigning the tools in a noble manner. |
I kind of like the sense of there being some kind of mark of respect for an admin when the admin role has come to an end. I'd like to find some way that all users who are admins can come to the end of their role with dignity with or without needing to resign. As it clearly does upset some folks when the tools are taken away without their own involvement in such a way that it feels like a disgrace. Do you have a suggestion as to a better way to inform users that their admin function is going to be removed / has been removed? SilkTork (talk) 15:38, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
- Hi SilkTork, great to hear from you after so long. I remember when you were on ArbCom and I thought "poor guy" - that was serious hard work. A lot of editors are imagining my emotions, but they have no clue how I feel. If I punctured some bubbles, I am happy about that. But I think I just discovered that Wikipedia is slowly rotting. Geometry guy 22:39, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
And so it is
editNomination for deletion of Template:GA nominee/GA1
edit Template:GA nominee/GA1 has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 11:11, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
Speedy deletion nomination of Category:General peer reviews
edit A tag has been placed on Category:General peer reviews indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz Read! Talk! 03:17, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
Speedy deletion nomination of Category:General peer reviews
edit A tag has been placed on Category:General peer reviews indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz Read! Talk! 01:13, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
Always precious
edit
Ten years ago, you were found precious. That's what you are, always. I remember you for explaining with unbelievable patience. - Sorry, we didn't have "your" day this year, so I missed it, on top of being absorbed in Prayer for Ukraine. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:38, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- It is you that are precious, Gerda, for always remembering and caring about the people element of Wikipedia. Geometry guy 22:55, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
- also, yes, - happy to see you here! flowers to come but now I'm hungry --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:50, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
Miss you
editI hope all's well with you and yours these days. I wonder if you'd like to un-subscribe from the admins' newsletter? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:15, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- Hi WhatamIdoing, I remember working with you. The admin newsletter helped me to know whether I was still an admin or not. Apparently now I am not, but was kicked out for doing nothing when I was busy with life. Well, if that is how Wikipedia treats its most dedicated contributors when they have a break from contributing, then I think you will have to get used to missing me. Geometry guy 23:12, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
- I am delighted to see your name on my watchlist! Wikipedia seems to think that inactive admins loose there skills, - just tell the bureauctrats that it's not true for you, and you will be reappointed without major effort (no RfA, I mean), - I've seen that happen, and would happily support. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:48, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
- I haven't followed the re-sysopping, but I suspect that it's easier if you made ten thousand edits a year, missed the inactivity for a year and a day, and then reapply, than if you've been mostly off wiki for several years. I know another long-time editor who makes one or two edits a year just to avoid this (they've told me that this is their plan for the foreseeable future, and that if they ever loose admin rights, they will never re-apply).
- Although I've been active throughout, I feel like there have been some pretty big changes in the community during the last few years. I don't think it can all be put down to the pandemic, though there are certainly some new names now, and some old ones missing. I think there's more desire to follow rules rigidly. There's more of that feeling that you're not just having a conversation with another human; instead, you're playing a kind of virtual card game, and using different WP:ALLCAPS shortcuts in the discussion scores points for your side. (The problem that Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions still exists; we will always have people who cite SOMETHING without realizing that they've linked to a discredited userspace essay, or that they've linked to a page that bans that thing, instead of supporting it. As an example, there is a pretty extensive problem with people, especially editors who started in the last couple of years, believing that uncited is an exact synonym for unverifiable. I had a chat with one of these editors a couple of years ago about "The capital of France is Paris", and he didn't appear to realize that I quoted the example straight out of the Wikipedia:No original research policy. He claimed that any fact added without a citation would be a NOR violation, despite that exact example being explicitly authorized as non-NOR in the policy itself.)
- There's maybe a bit more sense that we have enough content, and the primary job is to exclude new contributions. As an example, I know several editors whose net contribution to the mainspace is a negative number of bytes. All they do is revert other people's contributions and then argue about it on the talk pages. These aren't RecentChanges patrollers looking for obvious vandalism; these are people who have picked a subject and police the articles to make sure that nobody adds the Wrong™ POV. Wikipedia:Ownership of content isn't new (after all, that page was written in 2003), but back in the day, I didn't know editors who only rejected other editors' contributions from a set of articles, without trying to add their own.
- With all of that in mind, maybe if you've got some time again, the thing to do is to improve some article content. So long as every new paragraph contains an inline citation, you're unlikely to run into any drama, and it's the content that ultimately matters. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:12, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you so much for writing to me at such great length. You really understand the system, and I would trust a GA review written by you. It does not matter to me much if I am banned: my spirit survives in GA Geometry guy 00:31, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
- I am delighted to see your name on my watchlist! Wikipedia seems to think that inactive admins loose there skills, - just tell the bureauctrats that it's not true for you, and you will be reappointed without major effort (no RfA, I mean), - I've seen that happen, and would happily support. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:48, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
Recognition
editToo often our processes can feel so impersonal, and even if canned thanks responses weren't used on BN or the pre-notifications were delivered by a real person instead of a bot, it would still probably be impossible to avoid the appearance that it's all merely pro forma.
It hurts to let some things go, that's true even when there's time to prepare for what inevitably happens to all good things. Making people feel treated like spreadsheet entries instead of individuals certainly doesn't help either.
Anyway, there aren't all that many editors who can contribute as extensively as you have at say Penrose tiling, and you've also done some excellent work behind the scenes with reviews and assessments that has not been forgotten, it's a quite tedious area and not many have the time or experience needed to help out that area. Whatever happens, your assistance will always be appreciated.
I hope this helps in some small way at least. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 04:23, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
- I've heard of you, Geometry guy, because you used to do great work with good article reviews, that made sure people read the article and made sure it met the right criteria. You don't have to be an admin to write articles, and actually writing lots of GAs and FAs is far harder than going into AIV and blocking a vandal. Substantially and significantly harder, in fact. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:34, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you both for your kind words. My philosophy as an admin was always to use the tools as little as possible, and I believe this was part of the reason I was trusted to use them wisely. I think Wikipedia is making a mistake to make blanket removal of admin tools for inactivity, but there are worse things going on in the world. I'm happy about the path I help GA create. Perhaps one day I will work a bit more on Penrose tiling. Geometry guy 23:17, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
- I ultimately think the reason for the increased inactivity policy is to weed out the "bad apples"; there have been several Arbcom cases over the past year or two when somebody who passed RfA before 2008 used the tools in a way that flatly contradicted day to day practice, and then either doubled down or stopped responding, leading a desysop but only after a lot of discussion and disgruntled editors. I think it will weed out some "good apples" too, but I would suspect that if they ever got back into regular editing, they would pass RfA again eg: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jackmcbarn 2.
- Also, I know a couple of longstanding editors who have no interest in becoming admins, and who wouldn't pass RfA because of a complete lack of activity in the maintenance areas - and yet it would be these editors who I would greatly miss as they make enormous contributions to the encyclopedia. And, for the record, I don't think people would be able to guess these editors unless they looked closely at what articles we both contributed to. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:32, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
- This is a trend that I have increasingly noticed in our society. Because it is difficult to sanction individuals for breaking some rules, it is easier to make a mass sanction so no one can break the rules. Such authoritarian behaviour needs to be opposed, which is one reason that I did not accept my current situation gracefully. Geometry guy 23:31, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
- PS. My experience of Rfa is that it is not a good selection process. Geometry guy 23:41, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
- This is a trend that I have increasingly noticed in our society. Because it is difficult to sanction individuals for breaking some rules, it is easier to make a mass sanction so no one can break the rules. Such authoritarian behaviour needs to be opposed, which is one reason that I did not accept my current situation gracefully. Geometry guy 23:31, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
April songs
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| my story today |
As promised: flowers and personal links. - I made an exception from my DYK abstinence for Good Friday, - see my story today. Interesting to compare a hook 2023 style to one in 2012 (they don't want to pass knowledge these days, just hook by something that can be tangential to the subject, - in this case it is not tangential, but that is also an exception). - I sang, including chorales from Bach's greatest Passion. I recently listened to one by Homilius: a discovery! - For a long time I had your "Every editor is a human being" in my edit notice, until Raymond died, and I needed his advice even more strongly - myself. -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:13, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
- Gerda, thank you, you are one of the warmest human beings I have ever met, both in real life and on Wikipedia. Any wise person who meets you should marry you in a second. I can be a bit more strident and confrontational, but sometimes it is important to tell people that they are fucking things up. Geometry guy 23:35, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
- (blushing) - My story today, Messiah (Handel), was my first dip into the FA ocean, thanks to great colleagues. - a few pics added, one day missing --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:03, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
- Today is the 80th birthday of John Eliot Gardiner. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:03, 20 April 2023 (UTC)