Administrators' newsletter – April 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2017).

  Administrator changes

  TheDJ
  XnualaCJOldelpasoBerean HunterJimbo WalesAndrew cKaranacsModemacScott

  Guideline and policy news

  • Following a discussion on the backlog of unpatrolled files, consensus was found to create a new user right for autopatrolling file uploads. Implementation progress can be tracked on Phabricator.
  • The BLPPROD grandfather clause, which stated that unreferenced biographies of living persons were only eligible for proposed deletion if they were created after March 18, 2010, has been removed following an RfC.
  • An RfC has closed with consensus to allow proposed deletion of files. The implementation process is ongoing.
  • After an unsuccessful proposal to automatically grant IP block exemption, consensus was found to relax the criteria for granting the user right from needing it to wanting it.

  Technical news

  • After a recent RfC, moved pages will soon be featured in a queue similar to Special:NewPagesFeed and require patrolling. Moves by administrators, page movers, and autopatrolled editors will be automatically marked as patrolled.
  • Cookie blocks have been deployed. This extends the current autoblock system by setting a cookie for each block, which will then autoblock the user if they switch accounts, even under a new IP.

17:53, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Hey Legoktm. Re Are we waiting on approval for a trial? Yes. Also, I'm willing to run Magic links bot on any projects that want it. — JJMC89(T·C) 20:19, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

18:35, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Bots Newsletter, April 2017

Bots Newsletter, April 2017
 

Greetings!

The BAG Newsletter is now the Bots Newsletter, per discussion. As such, we've subscribed all bot operators to the newsletter. You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.

Highlights for this newsletter include:

Arbcom

Magioladitis ARBCOM case has closed. The remedies of the case include:

  • Community encouraged to review common fixes
  • Community encouraged to review policy on cosmetic edits
  • Developers encouraged to improve AWB interface
  • Bot approvals group encouraged to carefully review BRFA scope
  • Reminders/Restrictions specific to Magioladitis
BRFAs

We currently have 27 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing!

Discussions

There are multiple ongoing discussions surrounding bot-related matters. In particular:

New things

Several new things are around:

Wikimania

Wikimania 2017 is happening in Montreal, during 9–13 August. If you plan to attend, or give a talk, let us know!

Thank you! edited by:Headbomb 11:35, 12 April 2017 (UTC)


(You can unsubscribe from future newsletters by removing your name from this list.)

The Center Line: Spring 2017

 
Volume 9, Issue 1 • Spring 2017 • About the Newsletter

—delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of Imzadi1979 on 01:04, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

19:32, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Taher Shabbir Mithaiwala

IMDB is controversial [16], so quoting it doesn't solve the BLP problem. It's the shortest biography here. Do we need such subsubsubstubs?Xx236 (talk) 06:00, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

IMDB says Taher Shabbir. What is your source to write Mithaiwala?Xx236 (talk) 06:12, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
From WP:BLPPROD: "To be eligible for a BLPPROD tag, the entry must be a biography of a living person and contain no sources in any form (as references, external links, etc., reliable or otherwise) supporting any statements made about the person in the biography". In this case the IMDB link is technically a source. The policy explicitly states that unreliable sources do count for this case. So it wasn't eligible for BLPPROD. However another editor has put it up for AfD, you may want to comment there. Legoktm (talk) 07:54, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
There's an RfC in progress which concerns the use of WP:BLPPROD when the only sources are IMDb. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:40, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

16:40, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Legobot Task 15: HBC Archive Indexer Bot not running on my talk page

Hi there. Sorry to bother you with something that is probably trivial but I cannot figure out what's wrong. I have placed User:HBC Archive Indexerbot/OptIn on my talk page's header (which I have outsourced to User talk:SoWhy/Talkheader to avoid clutter on my talk page). Back in 2011, it worked to create User talk:SoWhy/Archive Index but now it does not update despite changing the HTML comment as described [22]. Can you help me figure out why? Regards SoWhy 09:09, 25 April 2017 (UTC)