User talk:MBisanz/Archive 21

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Outstanding contributions recognition

Outstanding Contributions Award

MBisanz, I'm quite active in the Afd space and over time have noticed the absolutely stellar work you have been undertaking for ages. To say I'm impressed by what you contribute at the Afd desk selflessly, day after day, is to say the least. I would tend to believe the the community too perceives your contributions in the same way, or better. Thank you for being a great role model for new editors to follow. As the legend in this award goes: Your work and contributions are exemplary. With intelligent and most helpful inputs, MBisanz, you truly are an outstanding contributor. Thank you for being a great role model for new editors to follow. Lourdes

22:04, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Page you deleted has reappeared

Anbu Paalam P. Kalyanasundaram appears to be a resurrection of Kalyanasundaram. PamD 16:31, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Looking at it further, an interesting collection of ghits etc - does this look like a WP:RS? If you think the article is now worth keeping, please move to Palam Kalyanasundaram as it seems his most common name, with redirect from Palaam Kalyanasundaram as another common spelling. Thanks. PamD 16:58, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

And this looks quite plausible too. PamD 17:01, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

• @MelanieN: as someone who commented a lot at the AfD. PamD 17:03, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

I see this was handled. Thanks! MBisanz ^talk 22:04, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Deletion review for Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. 22:05, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Cyber Nations Deletion

Hi! I've just noticed that the Cyber Nations Wikipedia page has been deleted. I happen to have played this game at the height of its popularity (around 2007-2008). At that time it had ~40,000 active players, hundreds of alliance forums, and gave rise to an extensive wiki. The game is dying now, but it seems unfortunate that it may simply fade away without any record on Wikipedia. Is there any way that this page could be recovered? I am not knowledgeable about the protocols surrounding page deletion so I'm not sure what sort of sources are needed to sufficiently legitimise the game's existence to justify a wikipedia page. Ishmael7

You would need to find third party articles discussing the game to show it is notable. MBisanz ^talk 18:48, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

How about these sources, are they sufficient?

https://www.gamefaqs.com/WEB/630101-cyber-nations/reviews/146857

http://ie.ign.com/blogs/manis_b/2014/01/14/an-honest-cyber-nations-review

https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1000667/norwegians-crack-role-playing-nazis

http://www.popmatters.com/review/cyber-nations/

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/cyber-nations-free-to-play--browser-based-nation-sim-goes-nuclear

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/interviews/1217-The-League-of-Cyber-Nations

http://mapshole.com/2015/05/04/cyber-nations-review/

Ishmael7 20:24, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Try the video game reliable sources custom Google search—the coverage isn't significant. Per the video game project's vetting, those GameFAQs and IGN reviews are user-submitted, the Inquirer is a tabloid, PopMatters & GamesIndustry.biz are fine, Escapist is situational, and Mapshole is patently unreliable. While there are a few dev interviews, I'd try to merge this content elsewhere before creating a dedicated article, as there is relatively little independent coverage/review of the game itself.  czar 21:59, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

August 30: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

Wednesday August 30, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan. We will include a look at the organization and planning for our chapter, and expanding volunteer roles for both regular Wikipedia editors and new participants. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities. We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from all educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery! Wednesday August 30 WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 145 West 14th Street (note the new address, a couple of doors down from the former Babycastles location) We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 12:03, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

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Administrators' newsletter – September 2017

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

Administrator changes

Nakon • Scott

Sverdrup • Thespian • Elockid • James086 • Ffirehorse • Celestianpower • Boing! said Zebedee

Guideline and policy news

• ACTRIAL, a research experiment that restricts article creation to autoconfirmed users, will begin on September 7. It will run for six months. You can learn more about the research specifics at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial, while Wikipedia talk:Autoconfirmed article creation trial is probably the best venue for general discussion.
• Following an RfC, WP:G13 speedy deletion criterion now applies to any page in the draftspace that has not been edited in six months. There is a bot-generated report, updated daily, to help identify potentially qualifying drafts that have not been submitted through articles for creation.

Technical news

• You will now get a notification when someone tries to log in to your account and fails. If they try from a device that has logged into your account before, you will be notified after five failed attempts. You can also set in your preferences to get an email when someone logs in to your account from a new device or IP address, which may be encouraged for admins and accounts with sensitive permissions.
• Syntax highlighting is now available as a beta feature (more info). This may assist administrators and template editors when dealing with intricate syntax of high-risk templates and system messages.
• In your notification preferences, you can now block specific users from pinging you. This functionality will soon be available for Special:EmailUser as well.

Arbitration

• Applications for CheckUser and Oversight are being accepted by the Arbitration Committee until September 12. Community discussion of the candidates will begin on September 18.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:35, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Matt Fellowes Redirect

Hi MBisanz,

I wanted to ask about the entry for American Tech CEO Matt Fellowes, which you redirected to his former company, HelloWallet, in July of 2015. The redirect decision was made based on the notability of the subject, and I think that recent developments have brought him to a sufficient level of notability to re-examine the decision. Here's my case:

1. He has since been profiled in Forbes twice ( December 2015 and July 2016), The Washington Business Journal (June 2016), and Workforce (October 2015).

2. His latest research on retiree spending habits (May 2017) was featured in The Wall Street Journal, Time, CNBC, USA Today, and CBS.

3. The article survived two other deletion discussions (1 2), and pre-July 2015 evidence of notability from these discussions was largely absent from the third and final discussion. For his role as founder of HelloWallet, he was named one of 100 Ultimate Game Changers by the Huffington Post in 2010 and a Tech Titan by the Washingtonian in 2013. He was profiled in VentureBeat (2010), and garnered a significant mention in this Bloomberg column (2009). He was also a fellow at the Brookings Institution from 2004-2008, with significant contributions to the field of consumer finance. His work on studying the Ghetto Tax spurred a New York Times article on his findings.

Full disclosure: I have a significant conflict of interest in this argument, as I'm an employee of Matt Fellowes' current company, United Income, Inc. I have great respect for the neutral tone of Wikipedia, and I have no intention of editing the article for promotional purposes. I do, however, think his notability is sufficient to warrant an entry, and I wanted to run this by you before opening up a deletion review. Thanks! LRPRA (talk) 22:16, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

You can certainly feel free to take it to WP:DRV, but I think it will be a tough case to argue because the sources in 1 and 2 are similar to what was said before. There hasn't been a new "burst" of news coverage since then. MBisanz ^talk 11:42, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 6 September 2017

• From the editors: What happened at Wikimania?

• News and notes: Basselpedia; WMF Board of Trustees appointments

• Featured content: Warfighters and their tools or trees and butterflies

• Traffic report: A fortnight of conflicts

• Special report: Biomedical content, and some thoughts on its future

• Recent research: Discussion summarization; Twitter bots tracking government edits; extracting trivia from Wikipedia

• In the media: Google's Ideological Echo Chamber; What makes someone successful?

• WikiProject report: WikiProject YouTube

• Technology report: Latest tech news

• Wikicup: 2017 WikiCup round 4 wrap-up

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September 27: WikiWednesday Salon / Wikimedia NYC Annual Meeting

Wednesday September 27, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon / Wikimedia NYC Annual Meeting

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan. This month will also feature on our agenda, upcoming editathons, the organization's Annual Meeting, and Chapter board elections. We will include a look at the organization and planning for our chapter, and expanding volunteer roles for both regular Wikipedia editors and new participants. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities. We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from all educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery! Wednesday September 27 WikiWednesday Salon / Wikimedia NYC Annual Meeting (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 145 West 14th Street (note the new address, a couple of doors down from the former Babycastles location) We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 00:42, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

• P.S. On the weekend before the annual meeting, you can join: Action=History @ Ace Hotel (Sunday, September 24, 2017)

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regarding the deleted page Bobble keyboard

The is regarding the page Bobble Keyboard which I created some time back but some IP users aggressively edit the content and get deleted.Bobble keyboard is well known mobile application which widely used and recommended by many mobile companies including iPhone. Please help me to recover the page Bullus 09:22, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

You would need to submit a request to WP:DRV. MBisanz ^talk 21:22, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 September 2017

• News and notes: Chapter updates; ACTRIAL

• In the media: Monkey settlement; Wikipedia used to give AI context clues

• Humour: Chickenz

• Recent research: Wikipedia articles vs. concepts; Wikipedia usage in Europe

• Technology report: Flow restarted; Wikidata connection notifications

• Gallery: Chicken mania

• Special report: Two steps forward, one step backward: The Sustainability Initiative

• Traffic report: Fights and frights

• Featured content: Flying high

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:20, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Meta templates

You may find this very hard to believe, but I just listened to your 2008 interview.

You happen to be talking there about how hard it is to go to another project and find that it doesn't have a template library, and how Meta should be a central place for templates.

It's amazing that we're in 2017, and we still have the same problems :(

I'm trying to think of ways to finally address this disaster. Maybe you could chime in at meta:Which templates should be global?.

Thanks! --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 08:18, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Haha! I'm glad you found it enjoyable. MBisanz ^talk 01:09, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Relisting AfDs..

Hi, MBisanz, Greetings:) Please review WP:NOQUORUM before relisting further AfDs.Thank you!Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 17:32, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

I'll keep that in mind. Thanks. MBisanz ^talk 01:09, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2017

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

Administrator changes

Boing! said Zebedee • Ansh666 • Ad Orientem

Tonywalton • AmiDaniel • Silence • BanyanTree • Magioladitis • Vanamonde93 • Mr.Z-man • Jdavidb • Jakec • Ram-Man • Yelyos • Kurt Shaped Box

Guideline and policy news

• Following a successful proposal to create it, a new user right called "edit filter helper" is now assignable and revocable by administrators. The right allows non-administrators to view the details of private edit filters, but not to edit them.
• Following a discussion about mass-application of ECP and how the need for logging and other details of an evolving consensus may have been missed by some administrators, a rough guide to extended confirmed protection has been written. This information page describes how the extended-confirmed aspects of the protection policy are currently being applied by administrators.

Technical news

• You can now search for IP ranges at Special:Contributions. Some log pages and Special:DeletedContributions are not yet supported. Wildcards (e.g. 192.168.0.*) are also not supported, but the popular contribsrange gadget will continue to work.

Arbitration

• Community consultation on the 2017 candidates for CheckUser and Oversight has concluded. The Arbitration Committee will appoint successful candidates by October 11.
• A request for comment is open regarding the structure, rules, and procedures of the December 2017 Arbitration Committee election, and how to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:23, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Sunday October 15: Wikipedia @ Open House New York / Weekend Photo Competition

Sunday October 15: Wikipedia @ Open House New York / Weekend Photo Competition

This event is the concluding "upload party" to the Wikipedia @ Open House New York Weekend photo scavenger hunt, and an accompanying Wikimedia Commons tutorial and multimedia hackathon, Learn how to work with your photos to illustrate New York City articles! Note that this is part of the larger Open House New York Weekend activities on Saturday and Sunday, when sites normally closed to the public are open for public visits and photography. If you can, bring your camera/photos to the event, and a laptop if you'd like to engage in adding photos to articles. But this is not necessary. For photos from last year's event, see the OHNY campaign 2016 on Wikimedia Commons. Wikipedia @ Open House New York / Weekend Photo Competition Date: Sunday October 15 Time: 4:00 pm - 8:00 pm Location: Ace Hotel New York. 20 West 29th Street, Manhattan. Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 15:33, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

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October 18: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

Wednesday October 18, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan. We will include a look at the organization and planning for our chapter, and expanding volunteer roles for both regular Wikipedia editors and new participants. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities. We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from all educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery! Wednesday October 18 WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 145 West 14th Street (note the new address, a couple of doors down from the former Babycastles location) We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 13:22, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

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The Signpost: 23 October 2017

• News and notes: Money! WMF fundraising, Wikimedia strategy, WMF new office!

• Featured content: Don, Marcel, Emily, Jessica and other notables

• Humour: Guys named Ralph

• In focus: Offline Wikipedia developed at OFF.NETWORK Content Hackathon

• Blog: The future of offline access to Wikipedia: The Kiwix example

• In the media: Facebook and poetry

• Special report: Working with GLAMs in the UK

• Traffic report: Death, disaster, and entertainment

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:36, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Kritik

Last year at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Kritik you (correctly) deleted this. I'm merging a bunch of low-utility policy debate terms into Glossary of policy debate terms and would like to include that one as well. Can you restore it so I can merge the contents there? power~enwiki (π, ν) 17:48, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

 Done MBisanz ^talk 15:27, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Halloween cheer!

Happy Halloween!

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Hello MBisanz:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
    – North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 14:16, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Send Halloween cheer by adding {{subst:Happy Halloween}} to user talk pages with a friendly message.

Metropolitan Museum of Art Edit-a-thon (Nov 19) and global online Wikipedia Asian Art Month (Nov 1-30)

Sunday November 19, 10:30 am - 4:00pm: Metropolitan Museum of Art Edit-a-thon

The Wikipedia Asian Month Edit-a-thon @ The Met will be the Metropolitan Museum of Art's second edit-a-thon, hosted on Sunday November 19, 2017 in the Bonnie Sacerdote Classroom, Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education (81st Street entrance) at The Met Fifth Avenue in New York City. Following the first Met edit-a-thon in May 2017, the museum is excited to work with Wikipedia Asian Month for the potential to seed new articles about Asian artworks, artwork types, and art traditions, from any part of Asia. These can be illustrated with thousands of its recently-released images of public domain artworks available for Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons from the museum’s collection spanning 5,000 years of art. The event is an opportunity for Wikimedia communities to engage The Met's diverse Asian collections onsite and remotely. Sunday November 19 Wikipedia Asian Month Edit-a-thon @ The Met (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 10:30 am - 4:00 pm in Bonnie Sacerdote Classroom, Uris Center for Education 81st Street entrance, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue Attendees should bring their own laptops and power cords. Light snacks, drinks and cake will be provided. We also welcome remote participation for the global online Wikipedia Asian Art Month, running November 1-30. Thanks, and hope to see you at the museum, and/or as part of the online Wikipedia Asian Month contest!--Pharos (talk) 16:36, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

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Administrators' newsletter – November 2017

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

Administrator changes

Longhair • Megalibrarygirl • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Allen3 • Eluchil404 • Arthur Rubin • Bencherlite

Technical news

• The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team is creating an "Interaction Timeline" tool that intends to assist administrators in resolving user conduct disputes. Feedback on the concept may be posted on the talk page.
• A new function is now available to edit filter managers that will make it easier to look for multiple strings containing spoofed text.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors will be invited to submit candidate statements for the 2017 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 12 until November 21. Voting will begin on November 27 and last until December 10.
• Following a request for comment, Ritchie333, Yunshui and Ymblanter will serve as the Electoral Commission for the 2017 ArbCom Elections.

Obituaries

• The Wikipedia community has recently learned that Allen3 (William Allen Peckham) passed away on December 30, 2016, the same day as JohnCD. Allen began editing in 2005 and became an administrator that same year.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:50, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Stratajet

In April you deleted Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stratajet (2nd nomination) and, reading the feedback on the style of copy I now understand the reasoning behind this. Can you please restore it as I would like to redraft the page accordingly? I'm very sorry but I'm new to this and would very much appreciate your help in getting this up and running again with non-press release-related material. Many thanks.

Yes, see User talk:Jamesgwinnett/Stratajet. MBisanz ^talk 14:57, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Rhian Brewster

You deleted this page two days ago, following this afd, only for it to be promptly re-created. Could I get you to review it per WP:G4. Thanks in advance. Sir Sputnik (talk) 02:51, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Another admin declined a G4, so I will defer to them. MBisanz ^talk 18:30, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Your assistance please...

I recently discussed Jmvkrecords's decision to accede to a courtesy renaming of someone who I thought had been wikistalking my contributions.

They wrote, in part: "If you think there is any misuse of my global renamer permission, you can contact a steward to ask for details about the problematic request."

I don't know whether they exercised their permissions properly, as I don't know what standards renamers are expected to follow.

WP:RTL says renaming is not automatically granted. Since almost seventy-five percent of this individual's edits targeted my contributions, I don't believe they were complying with WP:BATTLEGROUND or WP:WIKISTALKING, and that permission to obfuscate their contribution history should have been withheld.

Jmvkrecords offered in defense of their decision to accede to the request that "The last message on the user's talk page about what you are saying is old from two weeks ago."

First, it seems to me that two weeks is not that stale, given that they hadn't made any subsequent edits, using that wiki-ID. Second, my last comment included diffs to the four previous warnings I had left on their talk page.

I initiated a request for a sockpuppet investigation on this individual. Finding diffs for it was complicated by the decision to accede to their request.

Do Stewards, like yourself, have the authority to reverse renamings, like this one? If so, is it necessary to make a request that meets particular criteria?

I told Jmvkrecords almost three quarters of their edits were connected to my contributions, and that it was simpler to list the 12 edits that weren't connected to my edits, than to list the remainder that were. They follow: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12] Geo Swan (talk) 11:44, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Deirdre Costello

I note that there was little support for deletion, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Deirdre Costello (actress). Please restore the article, so that I and others may continue to improve it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:08, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but KM and Clarity cited valid reasons for deletion and engaged Astronomy on his contrary comments. You'll need to go to WP:DRV to have it restored. MBisanz ^talk 04:41, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Kush Patel

Currently this page is fully protected but I would like you to remove protection or reduce it to semi protected because I don't see any reason why this 8-year old protection should be kept. Also, there is a double redirect to American Red Cross from this page so I would like to fix this. Pkbwcgs (talk) 18:00, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

 Done MBisanz ^talk 04:42, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 November 2017

• News and notes: Cons, cons, cons

• Arbitration report: Administrator desysoped; How to deal with crosswiki issues; Mister Wiki case likely

• Technology report: Searching and surveying

• Interview: A featured article centurion

• WikiProject report: Recommendations for WikiProjects

• In the media: Open knowledge platform as a media institution

• Traffic report: Strange and inappropriate

• Featured content: We will remember them

• Recent research: Who wrote this? New dataset on the provenance of Wikipedia text

• Humour: Good faith (but still incomprehensible)

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:39, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Your expertise needed:

Could you take a quick look at the section on Colonies Chris' editing here please. Just your opinion on if it is/or is not covered by BOTPOL. User appears to be making lots of either fully or semi-automated changes to articles removing info. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:05, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, MBisanz. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 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 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Reaching out regarding a deleted page from Jan 2013

Hello, I recently worked on an article on Rah Crawford that is under review - I'm new to Wikipedia but wanted to reach out to ask if you could help. Mainly, I just want to make sure that since you deleted a previous page under the name of Rah Crawford, that won't hinder this draft from getting approved. Please let me know, thank you! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Rah_Crawford

WO1977 (talk) 21:53, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

No, if someone else approves the draft, it will be fine. MBisanz ^talk 04:20, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2017

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

Administrator changes

Joe Roe

JzG

Ericorbit • Perceval • Thingg • Tristanb • Violetriga

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, a new section has been added to the username policy which disallows usernames containing emoji, emoticons or otherwise "decorative" usernames, and usernames that use any non-language symbols. Administrators should discuss issues related to these types of usernames before blocking.

Technical news

• Wikimedians are now invited to vote on the proposals in the 2017 Community Wishlist Survey on Meta Wiki until 10 December 2017. In particular, there is a section of the survey regarding new tools for administrators and for anti-harassment.
• A new function is available to edit filter managers which can be used to store matches from regular expressions.

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is open until Sunday 23:59, 10 December 2017 (UTC). There are 12 candidates running for 8 vacant seats.

Miscellaneous

• Over the last few months, several users have reported backlogs that require administrator attention at WP:ANI, with the most common backlogs showing up on WP:SPI, WP:AIV and WP:RFPP. It is requested that all administrators take some time during this month to help clear backlogs wherever possible. It should be noted that AIV reports are not always valid; however, they still need to be cleared, which may include needing to remind users on what qualifies as vandalism.
• The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative is conducting a survey for English Wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works (i.e. which problems it deals with well and which problems it struggles with). If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be emailed to you via Special:EmailUser.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:58, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

December 13: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

Wednesday December 13, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan. We will include a look at the organization and planning for our chapter, and expanding volunteer roles for both regular Wikipedia editors and new participants. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities. We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from all educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery! Wednesday December 13 WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 145 West 14th Street (note the new address, a couple of doors down from the former Babycastles location) We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 18:43, 11 December 2017 (UTC) P.S. You are also invited to AfroCROWD Street Culture Wikipedia Edit-a-thon and Year End Celebration on Saturday December 16!

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Regarding Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Evroniani

You recently closed the discussion with a redirect, but there is no such section in the article to be redirected to. Due to that I think delete would be the correct move as clearly the article cannot remain in its current state._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 05:43, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

I changed the redirect. MBisanz ^talk 23:50, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 December 2017

• Special report: Women in Red World Contest wrap-up

• Blog: Close encounters of the Wikipedia kind

• Featured content: Featured content to finish 2017

• In the media: Stolen seagulls, public domain primates and more

• Arbitration report: Last case of 2017: Mister Wiki editors

• Gallery: Wiki loving

• Interview: Interview with Charlesjsharp, regular contributor of Wikipedia's Featured Pictures

• Recent research: French medical articles have "high rate of veracity"

• Technology report: Your wish lists and more Wikimedia tech

• Traffic report: Notable heroes and bad guys

• Humour: On their way to the WMF Incubator

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:28, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Gulf and Western logo assets

Regarding these assets, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gulf%2BWestern_G%2BW_logo.jpg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gulf%2BWestern.png, they have been replaced. Would you be able to delete the poor quality variants and replace them with the one that's currently being use din the article? Iftekharahmed96 (talk) 18:14, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

The poor variants are free images on commons and the new image is a nonfree image on en.wiki. I can't delete the poor quality variants because they are being used on other projects that do not allow nonfree images. MBisanz ^talk 17:02, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Sunday January 14: Wikipedia Day NYC Celebration and Mini-Conference

Sunday January 14: Wikipedia Day NYC 2018

You are invited to join us at Ace Hotel for Wikipedia Day NYC 2018, a Wikipedia celebration and mini-conference as part of the project's global 16th birthday festivities. In addition to the party, the event will be a participatory unconference, with keynotes, plenary panels, lightning talks, and of course open space sessions. And there will be cake. We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. Sunday January 14 Wikipedia Day NYC 2018 (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 10:00am - 6:30 pm at Ace Hotel, 20 West 29th Street in Manhattan We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 18:41, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2018

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

Administrator changes

Muboshgu

Anetode • Laser brain • Worm That Turned

None

Bureaucrat changes

Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the administrator policy should be amended to require disclosure of paid editing activity at WP:RFA and to prohibit the use of administrative tools as part of paid editing activity, with certain exceptions.

Technical news

• The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey results have been posted. The Community Tech team will investigate and address the top ten results.
• The Anti-Harassment Tools team is inviting comments on new blocking tools and improvements to existing blocking tools for development in early 2018. Feedback can be left on the discussion page or by email.

Arbitration

• Following the results of the 2017 election, the following editors have been (re)appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Alex Shih, BU Rob13, Callanecc, KrakatoaKatie, Opabinia regalis, Premeditated Chaos, RickinBaltimore, Worm That Turned.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:37, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Bevill Bear-AL.gif

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Bevill Bear-AL.gif. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 18:16, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Bscc-AL-crestlogo.gif

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Thanks for uploading File:Bscc-AL-crestlogo.gif. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 18:21, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

This Sunday! Wikipedia Day NYC Celebration and Mini-Conference (updated speakers + schedule)

Sunday January 14: Wikipedia Day NYC 2018

Part of Wikipedia's global 17th birthday celebration, Wikipedia Day NYC 2018 at Ace Hotel will include a mini-conference of scheduled panels as well as unconference style talks and discussions proposed by attendees on the day of the event. We are very excited to announce speakers such as Jason Scott (Internet Archive), Jackie Koerner (Visiting Scholar, Wiki Ed), and Andrew Lih (Wikimedia DC), as well as a fantastic line-up of panels that highlight projects and issues of relevance to the Wikimedia NYC community. See Wikipedia Day NYC 2018 speakers + schedule And there will be cake. We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. Sunday January 14 Wikipedia Day NYC 2018 (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 10:00am - 6:30 pm at Ace Hotel, 20 West 29th Street in Manhattan We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Megs (talk) 02:22, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 January 2018

• News and notes: Communication is key

• In the media: The Paris Review, British Crown and British Media

• Featured content: History, gaming and multifarious topics

• Interview: Interview with Ser Amantio di Nicolao, the top contributor to English Wikipedia by edit count

• Technology report: Dedicated Wikidata database servers

• Humour: Why don't we have an article about _________?

• Arbitration report: Mister Wiki is first arbitration committee decision of 2018

• Traffic report: The best and worst of 2017

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:27, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Phillip Stutts

I would like an inquiry about the Phillip Stutts page that was deleted over a year ago. My basic retort to the argument that Phillip Stutts does not qualify as a notable person is that Phillip Stutts is a political operative who has worked on 3 presidential campaigns and a multitude of gubenetorial, senate, and congressional campaigns. He has founded two major marketing companies and is the author of a book to be released in February. Phillip has written dozens of op-eds published in reputable outlets such as Inc., The Hill, and Fox News. He's made over 200+ television appearances in the last cycle. There are many political operatives with Wikipedia pages and Phillip Stutts certainly should qualify as notable for inclusion. While I understand that the article may not have had enough outside sourcing and information to qualify Phillip as notable in 2016, I am willing to provide enough materials to verify him as notable if his page is restored. Bassalid (talk) 22:40, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Note, as indicated by the WP:REFUND request that was declined, this user apparently has a COI, and the account may be operated by more than one person. If the article is restored, it should be restored to draft space and submitted for review via WP:AFC, not restored to main space. ~Anachronist (talk) 00:16, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

This account is only operated by one person. I am more than happy to have a draft space that I will submit a new article that can be reviewed.Bassalid (talk) 15:18, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

The way to get the article restored is to submit the new sources that have developed since 2017 to WP:DRV or to submit a new draft of the article containing those sources to WP:AFC. MBisanz ^talk 14:06, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

Blurpeace • Dana boomer • Deltabeignet • Denelson83 • Grandiose • Salvidrim! • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC has closed with a consensus that candidates at WP:RFA must disclose whether they have ever edited for pay and that administrators may never use administrative tools as part of any paid editing activity, except when they are acting as a Wikipedian-in-Residence or when the payment is made by the Wikimedia Foundation or an affiliate of the WMF.
• Editors responding to threats of harm can now contact the Wikimedia Foundation's emergency address by using Special:EmailUser/Emergency. If you don't have email enabled on Wikipedia, directly contacting the emergency address using your own email client remains an option.

Technical news

• A tag will now be automatically applied to edits that blank a page, turn a page into a redirect, remove/replace almost all content in a page, undo an edit, or rollback an edit. These edits were previously denoted solely by automatic edit summaries.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee has enacted a change to the discretionary sanctions procedure which requires administrators to add a standardized editnotice when placing page restrictions. Editors cannot be sanctioned for violations of page restrictions if this editnotice was not in place at the time of the violation.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:52, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 5 February 2018

• Op-ed: Do editors have the right to be forgotten?

• Featured content: Wars, sieges, disasters and everything black possible

• Recent research: Automated Q&A from Wikipedia articles; Who succeeds in talk page discussions?

• Blog: New monthly dataset shows where people fall into Wikipedia rabbit holes

• Interview: Interview with The Rambling Man, Wikipedia's top contributor of Featured Lists

• Traffic report: TV, death, sports, and doodles

• Special report: Cochrane–Wikipedia Initiative

• Arbitration report: New cases requested for inter-editor hostility and other collaboration issues

• In the media: Solving crime; editing out violence allegations

• Humour: You really are in Wonderland

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:13, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Stratajet

Hello Matthew, I would like to enquire about restoring the Stratajet page, which you deleted on 15th April 2017. I have spotted that the page was temporarily restored on 6th November 2017 but it was then moved to a dedicated 'User talk' page. I have additional sources to support the credibility of the company and would appreciate your advice on getting these considered. Thank you.Jamesgwinnett Jamesgwinnett (talk) 13:53, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

I suggest you add the sources to the dedicated "user talk" page, and then submit the article at WP:AFC once you think it passes the inclusion guidelines. MBisanz ^talk 13:09, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Digital Agency

Hi MBisanz, I noticed that you were part of the team that deleted the Digital Agency article. At its previous state, I would have as well.

I'm going to put some time into making it Wikipedia (Encyclopedia) worthy; would you be willing to look over the draft and/or lend a helping hand?

Thank you! James Knoll (talk) 00:35, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

I am not an expert in that topic area, but think you should submit the draft to WP:AFC so that others can review it. MBisanz ^talk 13:09, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Will do - thank you for your suggestion John Scrugham (talk) 23:07, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Slickdeals LLC

Hello MBisanz,

I would like to open a discussion about restoring the Slickdeals LLC Wikipedia page which was deleted on 18 August 2016. I would like to provide reliable references and sources for the undeletion process:

- http://techland.time.com/2012/03/15/slickdeals-front-page-now-lets-you-hide-the-pants/ - https://www.forbes.com/sites/tompopomaronis/2017/11/16/how-to-find-the-best-black-friday-and-cyber-monday-deals-from-home/#425b903f71f5 - http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-bing-black-friday-flyer-repository-2017-11 - http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/31/technology/super-bowl-tv-deals-2018/index.html - https://digit.hbs.org/submission/slickdeals-monetizing-frugality/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.254.54.170 (talk) 22:22, 9 February 2018 (UTC) - http://www.fox7austin.com/entertainment/finding-the-hot-black-friday-tech-deals-with-slickdealsnet - http://ktla.com/2017/11/20/best-black-friday-deals-2017/ - http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/3582770490001/?#sp=show-clips - http://news3lv.com/news/local/slickdeals-helps-navigate-shoppers-through-black-friday-deals - http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4637782690001/?#sp=show-clips - https://www.today.com/money/where-find-best-cyber-monday-deals-today-t58501 - https://www.socaltech.com/slickdeals_how_an_la_team_is_polishing_up_a_diamond_in_the_rough/s-0055914.html - https://usaopen.com/savvy-shoppers-turning-slick-deals/ - https://www.similarweb.com/website/slickdeals.net

I hope these provides the necessary information to get Slickdeals up and running on Wikipedia again. Please let me know if there is anything else I can provide.

Thank your time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.254.54.170 (talk) 22:20, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Some of those sources look a bit off to me. I suggest you submit a new version of the article at WP:AFC that incorporates those sources. That will allow an independent party to evaluate their reliability. MBisanz ^talk 02:46, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Hi Mbisanz,

I have a couple more sources for you to take a look at.

https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/why-slickdeals-thinks-20-employees-is-just-enough/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-credit-cards-howmany/can-you-have-too-many-credit-cards-idUSBRE83H0U620120418 http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/11/postpoints_tip_have_you_bargai.html http://www.howtoinvesthq.com/sell-groupon-grpn-2014/ https://www.pcmag.com/feature/346975/the-10-best-deal-tracking-sites https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/slickdeals.net https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/slickdeals-announces-winners-of-inaugural-slickdeals-gives-back-program-and-launch-of-new-2017-program-300467009.html https://www.wired.com/2010/11/ff_hackingretail/

https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/us-tmt-fast500-2014-ranking-list.pdf https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/slickdeals-named-deloitte-technology-fast-500-282702571.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.254.54.170 (talk) 00:43, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your time and feedback. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.254.54.170 (talk) 00:36, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

February 21: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

Wednesday February 21, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan. We will include a look at the organization and planning for our chapter, and expanding volunteer roles for both regular Wikipedia editors and new participants. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities. We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from all educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery! Wednesday December 13 WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 145 West 14th Street (note the new address, a couple of doors down from the former Babycastles location) We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Megs (talk) 22:19, 16 February 2018 (UTC) P.S. You are also invited to Africa and the Diaspora Edit-a-thon @ Schomburg Center for Black Culture on Saturday February 24!

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Patricia Jorge

You relisted Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Patricia Jorge for another week of discussion yesterday due to insufficient consensus — but it turns out that when the nominator added the nomination template, they altered the subject's notability claim to something less than it really was. She's actually a state legislator, which is a straight WP:NPOL pass, but the nominator changed that to misrepresent her as a mere municipal councillor in the state's capital city. I cast the sole delete vote on that inaccurate basis, but the article's since been reverted back to its original text and a source has been added to properly verify it, so I've now withdrawn my vote and switched to a keep. As well, the nominator has actually been blocked as a sockpuppet of a known problem editor.

So now that the discussion is all keep and the nominator's been kicked out as a lying liar who lies, would you be willing to come back and just close the discussion on WP:SNOW grounds now that there's no way it's going anywhere? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 21:32, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

 Done MBisanz ^talk 01:23, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 February 2018

• News and notes: The future is Swedish with a lack of administrators

• Recent research: Politically diverse editors write better articles; Reddit and Stack Overflow benefit from Wikipedia but don't give back

• Arbitration report: Arbitration committee prepares to examine two new cases

• Traffic report: Addicted to sports and pain

• Featured content: Entertainment, sports and history

• Technology report: Paragraph-based edit conflict screen; broken thanks

• Humour: Impossible and unexplained traffic report

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:12, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Thrice-Relisted AfD

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vale of Pnath (band), thrice-relisted and possibly because of me. New comment from me might clear things up. Thanks. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 21:00, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Closed. MBisanz ^talk 19:24, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Deletion review for The International Press and Media Group

An editor has asked for a deletion review of The International Press and Media Group. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Dr. James Harrison, Ph.D. (talk) 09:44, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Omar Passons

There were 4 deletes(3+1nom) and the article creator who said keep(twice). Was relisting because it looked like two separate keeps or that you felt it needed more contributors? Just checking, thanks. WikiVirusC^(talk) 03:23, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

I relisted because the last comment was a "keep" comment that had not been responded to. I was trying to avoid a follow-up of "why did you close it? no one had responded to my latest comment." MBisanz ^talk 19:23, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Okay, I understand. The comment was same argument he made with his first comment about significant coverage. I only never bothered responding to it because I already mentioned in nom that there was only minor local coverage, and he just posted more local San Diego coverage. WikiVirusC^(talk) 20:15, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Barzini family

Can you userfy this page + talk, I don't believe it is notable enough for a standalone article, but some information could be merge with Emilio Barzini, the page could be restore as a redirect to that per WP:PRESERVE. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 17:43, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Sure, done at User:Valoem/Barzini family. MBisanz ^talk 12:54, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2018

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

Administrator changes

Lourdes†

AngelOfSadness • Bhadani • Chris 73 • Coren • Friday • Midom • Mike V

† Lourdes has requested that her admin rights be temporarily removed, pending her return from travel.

Guideline and policy news

• The autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) is scheduled to end on 14 March 2018. The results of the research collected can be read on Meta Wiki.
• Community ban discussions must now stay open for at least 24 hours prior to being closed.
• A change to the administrator inactivity policy has been proposed. Under the proposal, if an administrator has not used their admin tools for a period of five years and is subsequently desysopped for inactivity, the administrator would have to file a new RfA in order to regain the tools.
• A change to the banning policy has been proposed which would specify conditions under which a repeat sockmaster may be considered de facto banned, reducing the need to start a community ban discussion for these users.

Technical news

• CheckUsers are now able to view private data such as IP addresses from the edit filter log, e.g. when the filter prevents a user from creating an account. Previously, this information was unavailable to CheckUsers because access to it could not be logged.
• The edit filter has a new feature contains_all that edit filter managers may use to check if one or more strings are all contained in another given string.

Miscellaneous

• Following the 2018 Steward elections, the following users are our new stewards: -revi, Green Giant, Rxy, There'sNoTime, علاء.

Obituaries

• Bhadani (Gangadhar Bhadani) passed away on 8 February 2018. Bhadani joined Wikipedia in March 2005 and became an administrator in September 2005. While he was active, Bhadani was regarded as one of the most prolific Wikipedians from India.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:00, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Delete v redirect

Hi, I'm just curious what makes a closer decide to delete an article instead of redirect? This is in particular to KSI vs Joe Weller since there is already a relevant subsection, namely KSI (entertainer)#Amateur boxing. I added some further readings to the now-deleted article to show coverage (it is false that the only non-social media coverage was Metro, btw), but since the article's history has been deleted, I can't go back to see what I had found. Just trying to figure out the distinction for the future, thanks. Umimmak (talk) 02:58, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

People after the one comment supporting a redirect said delete and no one else seemed to support a redirect. It was a close call and I wouldn't object to a redirect, I just didn't see it as the close. MBisanz ^talk 02:57, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Bots Newsletter, March 2018

Bots Newsletter, March 2018

Greetings!

Here is the 5th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.

Highlights for this newsletter include:

ARBCOM

• Magioladitis 2 happened, leading to further restrictions on Magioladitis (decision, summary).
• Betacommand 3 was proposed to be amended to lift the indefinite ban on Δ, but was unsuccessful (decision).
• A motion concerning Crosswiki issues (mostly concerning Wikidata) was passed (see discussion).

BAG

• Hersfold was removed from the BAG due to long term inactivity.

BRFAs

We currently have 6 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing!

Discussions

While there were no large-scale bot-related discussion in the past few months, you can check WP:BOTN and WT:BOTPOL (and their corresponding archives) for smaller issues that came up.

New things

• WP:BOTDICT, a dictionary of common bot-related terms (see discussion).
• 6 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion).
• The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey happened. Two bot-related proposal passed, #6 deploy Article Alerts to other languages and #10 Commons deletion notification bot, although other entries may affect bots as well.
• Category:Wikipedia bots and its subcategories has had some cleanup. Bot-related pages that were historically important but are no longer of interests can be found in Category:Wikipedia bots (historical)
• The edit summary limit has been increased to 1000 characters (see T6715). If a bot you operate relied on the old truncation limit (255 characters), please review/update your code, as overly long summaries can be disruptive/annoying. If you want to use extra characters to have more information in your edit summary, please do so intelligently.
• You will soon be able to ping users from the edit summary (see T188469). If you wish to use this feature in your bot, please do so intelligently.

Upcoming

• HTML Tidy will be phased out in June 2018, or possibly earlier. This may affect some bots (see FAQ).

Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 03:11, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

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Deletion Review for Slickdeals

Hello MBisanz,

I want to reopen the discussion about restoring the Slickdeals LLC Wikipedia page which was deleted on 18 August 2016. I have read over the comments and these sources are not conflicts of interests. Below is a list of references and sources that refer to Slickdeals:

https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/why-slickdeals-thinks-20-employees-is-just-enough/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-credit-cards-howmany/can-you-have-too-many-credit-cards-idUSBRE83H0U620120418 http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/11/postpoints_tip_have_you_bargai.html http://www.howtoinvesthq.com/sell-groupon-grpn-2014/ https://www.pcmag.com/feature/346975/the-10-best-deal-tracking-sites https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/slickdeals.net https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/slickdeals-announces-winners-of-inaugural-slickdeals-gives-back-program-and-launch-of-new-2017-program-300467009.html https://usaopen.com/savvy-shoppers-turning-slick-deals/ http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2017/sep/28/best-places-work-2017-medium-sized-companies/?page=2& http://techland.time.com/2012/03/15/slickdeals-front-page-now-lets-you-hide-the-pants/

I hope these provides the necessary information to get Slickdeals up and running on Wikipedia again. Thank you so much for your time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.254.54.170 (talk) 18:30, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Please submit a new copy of the article at WP:AFC. MBisanz ^talk 02:57, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Hello MBisanz,

In your opinion, is it better if I proceed with the deletion review process? I was hoping to avoid that if possible. I will submit the articles, but what should we do after?

Thank you for your input! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quannieqt (talk • contribs) 22:41, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I would just submit it to AFC. The deletion review process will be harder. MBisanz ^talk 19:01, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Happy Birthday

Wishing MBisanz a very happy birthday on behalf of the Birthday Committee! Chris Troutman (talk) 15:20, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! MBisanz ^talk 19:02, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Andrea Ribeca (re-open)

Hello TonyBallioni and MBisanz, I would like to re-open the page of Andrea Ribeca again. Actually his page is merged with Nu NRG, but in fact he is doing a solo career. Nu NRG was just a project 2001 to 2005. Andrea produced before and especially after this project successful and also headlining some club-nights globally. He deserves an own entry. Tolya (talk) 21:41, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

You need to bring it to WP:AFC or WP:DRV. MBisanz ^talk 19:01, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Now at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 March 18. —Cryptic 00:57, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Signpost issue 4 – 29 March 2018

• Op-ed: Death knell for The Signpost?

• News and notes: Wiki Conference roundup and new appointments.

• Arbitration report: Ironing out issues in infoboxes; not sure yet about New Jersey; and an administrator who probably wasn't uncivil to a sockpuppet.

• In the media: The media on Wikipedia's workings: the good and not-so-good

• Traffic report: Real sports, real women and an imaginary country: what's on top for Wikipedia readers

• Featured content: Animals, Ships, and Songs

• Technology report: Timeless skin review by Force Radical.

• Special report: ACTRIAL wrap-up.

• Humour: WikiWorld Reruns

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:49, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Toptal

Hey! I just noticed that you removed [Toptal] page? Somehow it slipped my radar. I was working on this page and have no chance to vote for non-deletion, while I was part of the first discussion. Not sure why I didn't get any message that page was nominated for deletion, how it happened in the past to the pages I edited. How can we restore this page so I can continue working on this? Regards --Pkuczynski (talk) 17:07, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

You would need to demonstrate that there are reliable sources discussing it as directory. Then it would need to go through WP:DRV or WP:AFC. MBisanz ^talk 19:20, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2018

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

Administrator changes

331dot • Cordless Larry • ClueBot NG

Gogo Dodo • Pb30 • Sebastiankessel • Seicer • SoLando

Guideline and policy news

• Administrators who have been desysopped due to inactivity are now required to have performed at least one (logged) administrative action in the past 5 years in order to qualify for a resysop without going through a new RfA.
• Editors who have been found to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block, for whatever reason, are now automatically considered banned by the community without the need to start a ban discussion.
• The notability guideline for organizations and companies has been substantially rewritten following the closure of this request for comment. Among the changes, the guideline more clearly defines the sourcing requirements needed for organizations and companies to be considered notable.
• The six-month autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) ended on 14 March 2018. The post-trial research report has been published. A request for comment is now underway to determine whether the restrictions from ACTRIAL should be implemented permanently.

Technical news

• There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee is considering a change to the discretionary sanctions procedures which would require an editor to appeal a sanction to the community at WP:AE or WP:AN prior to appealing directly to the Arbitration Committee at WP:ARCA.

Miscellaneous

• A discussion has closed which concluded that administrators are not required to enable email, though many editors suggested doing so as a matter of best practice.
• The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team has released the Interaction Timeline. This shows a chronologic history for two users on pages where they have both made edits, which may be helpful in identifying sockpuppetry and investigating editing disputes.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Nirmal Jain

I was about to start an article for Nirmal Jain, until I saw that you deleted it last July: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Nirmal_Jain

He is the founder and chairman of India Infoline, and now a billionaire: Billionaire Manages Fortunes for Burgeoning New Rich

Would you have any issues with me creating this? Edwardx (talk) 20:46, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

No, I don't object to its recreation. MBisanz ^talk 04:04, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt reply. Article now live. Edwardx (talk) 11:48, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Deletion of my page

I'm the guy who created the (Full Noise aircraft) page, and I recently discovered you deleted it, why? Spitfirepilot19 (talk) 08:55, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

There was a discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Full Noise (aircraft), which resulted in its deletion. MBisanz ^talk 14:23, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 April 2018

• From the editors: The Signpost's presses roll again

• Signpost: Future directions for The Signpost

• News and notes: Photo of Kim Jong-un. Stephen Hawking death tops hits on many Wikipedias.

• In the media: The rise of Wikipedia as a disinformation mop

• In focus: Admin reports board under criticism

• Special report: ACTRIAL results adopted by landslide

• Opinion: Guideline for Organization Notability revised

• Op-ed: World War II Myth-making and Wikipedia

• Community view: It's time we look past Women in Red to counter systemic bias

• Discussion report: The future of portals

• Arbitration report: No new cases, and one motion on administrative misconduct

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Military History

• Blog: Why the world reads Wikipedia

• Humour: Our Favorite Places to Whine About Stuff

• Traffic report: A quiet place to wrestle with the articles of March

• Technology report: Coming soon: Books-to-PDF, interactive maps, rollback confirmation

• Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

• Gallery: A look at some famous and not as well-known border tripoints

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:51, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Deletion review for Toptal

Pkuczynski has asked for a deletion review of Toptal. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. —Cryptic 21:00, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

• Could you please userify this articlew for me, so I can work on it and then at some point move it back to the main scope? --Pkuczynski (talk) 10:26, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
• I have placed it at User:Pkuczynski/Toptal. MBisanz ^talk 04:43, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Thanks! Once I am done, how do I request of moving it back to the main space? Sorry if this is a silly question... --Pkuczynski (talk) 12:48, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
    • I would suggest the WP:AFC process. MBisanz ^talk 23:51, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Precious six years!

Precious

Six years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:27, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

Chochopk • Coffee • Gryffindor • Jimp • Knowledge Seeker • Lankiveil • Peridon • Rjd0060

Guideline and policy news

• The ability to create articles directly in mainspace is now indefinitely restricted to autoconfirmed users.
• A proposal is being discussed which would create a new "event coordinator" right that would allow users to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit.

Technical news

• AbuseFilter has received numerous improvements, including an OOUI overhaul, syntax highlighting, ability to search existing filters, and a few new functions. In particular, the search feature can be used to ensure there aren't existing filters for what you need, and the new equals_to_any function can be used when checking multiple namespaces. One major upcoming change is the ability to see which filters are the slowest. This information is currently only available to those with access to Logstash.
• When blocking anonymous users, a cookie will be applied that reloads the block if the user changes their IP. 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. This currently only occurs when hard-blocking accounts.
• The block notice shown on mobile will soon be more informative and point users to a help page on how to request an unblock, just as it currently does on desktop.
• There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee is seeking additional clerks to help with the arbitration process.

Obituaries

• Lankiveil (Craig Franklin) passed away in mid-April. Lankiveil joined Wikipedia on 12 August 2004 and became an administrator on 31 August 2008. During his time with the Wikimedia community, Lankiveil served as an oversighter for the English Wikipedia and as president of Wikimedia Australia.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:05, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

May 23: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

Wednesday May 23, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan. We will include a look at the organization and planning for our chapter, and expanding volunteer roles for both regular Wikipedia editors and new participants. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities. We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from all educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery! Wednesday May 23 WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 145 West 14th Street (note the new address, a couple of doors down from the former Babycastles location) We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 03:12, 23 May 2018 (UTC) P.S. You are also invited to Action = History: Wikipedia Edit-a-thon for Asian American Literature on Sunday May 27!

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

The Signpost: 24 May 2018

• From the editor: Another issue meets the deadline

• Op-ed: Has the wind gone out of the AdminShip's sails?

• Opinion: Integrating my many lives on Wikipedia

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Portals

• Discussion report: User rights, infoboxes, and more discussion on portals

• Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

• Arbitration report: Managing difficult topics

• News and notes: Lots of Wikimedia

• In the media: Wikipedia in Turkish politics; COI politics in Wikipedia; most cited work

• Traffic report: We love our superheroes

• Technology report: A trove of contributor and developer goodies

• Blog: Why I write about women on Wikipedia

• Recent research: Why people don't contribute to Wikipedia; using Wikipedia to teach statistics, technical writing, and controversial issues

• Humour: Play with your food

• Gallery: Wine not?

• From the archives: The Signpost scoops The Signpost

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:25, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 May 2018

• From the editor: Another issue meets the deadline

• Op-ed: Has the wind gone out of the AdminShip's sails?

• Opinion: Integrating my many lives on Wikipedia

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Portals

• Discussion report: User rights, infoboxes, and more discussion on portals

• Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

• Arbitration report: Managing difficult topics

• News and notes: Lots of Wikimedia

• In the media: Wikipedia in Turkish politics; COI politics in Wikipedia; most cited work

• Traffic report: We love our superheroes

• Technology report: A trove of contributor and developer goodies

• Blog: Why I write about women on Wikipedia

• Recent research: Why people don't contribute to Wikipedia; using Wikipedia to teach statistics, technical writing, and controversial issues

• Humour: Play with your food

• Gallery: Wine not?

• From the archives: The Signpost scoops The Signpost

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:19, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington

Guideline and policy news

• Following a successful request for comment, administrators are now able to add and remove editors to the "event coordinator" group. Users in the event coordinator group have the ability to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit. Users will no longer need to be in the "account creator" group if they are in the event coordinator group.
• Following an AN discussion, all pages with content related to blockchain and cryptocurrencies, broadly construed, are now under indefinite general sanctions.

Technical news

• IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in 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.
• The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team will build granular types of blocks in 2018 (e.g. a block from uploading or editing specific pages, categories, or namespaces, as opposed to a full-site block). Feedback on the concept may be left at the talk page.
• There is now a checkbox on Special:ListUsers to let you see only users in temporary user groups.
• It is now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked.

Arbitration

• A recent technical issue with the Arbitration Committee's spam filter inadvertently caused all messages sent to the committee through Wikipedia (i.e. Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee) to be discarded. If you attempted to send an email to the Arbitration Committee via Wikipedia between May 16 and May 31, your message was not received and you are encouraged to resend it. Messages sent outside of these dates or directly to the Arbitration Committee email address were not affected by this issue.

Miscellaneous

• In early May, an unusually high level of failed login attempts was observed. The WMF has stated that this was an "external effort to gain unauthorized access to random accounts". Under Wikipedia policy, administrators are required 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.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:00, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

New Page

Hi, I'm going to contribute by creating a page for Games2Win, one of the top mobile gaming companies. Noticed that the company had a page in past and it was deleted by you. Could you please help me create this page or share the reasons as in why it was deleted earlier? Thanks in advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saikatblogger (talk • contribs) 07:40, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

It was deleted for these reasons: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Games2win. MBisanz ^talk 02:21, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

namespace request

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kids Suite would it be possible to have that moved to my namespace? ScratchMarshall (talk) 01:01, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

 Done at User:ScratchMarshall/Kids Suite. MBisanz ^talk 02:22, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

Wednesday April 25th, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly WikiWednesday evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery. We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from all educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. Is there a project you'd like to share? A question you'd like answered? A Wiki* skill you'd like to learn? Let us know by adding it to the agenda! After the main meeting, pizza and video games in the gallery. Wednesday April 25th WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki). 7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 145 West 14th Street (note the new address, a couple of doors down from the former Babycastles location) We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our agenda, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Megs (talk)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

{{Dear MBisanz, I see you were the admin that deleted page of our association (AIMS International). AIMS International is worldwide association of executive search companies with presence in over 50 countries, established on 24 May 2000 and headquartered in Vienna. The association was first registered as AIMS – Associates for International Management Search. The decision to change the association’s name to AIMS International was taken by the General Assembly in 2008. It is recognised as one of top5 biggest networks of executive search companies. You can find detailed information in our website: https://aimsinternational.com/. Therefore I would kindly ask to reconsider and re-listing AIMS International in Wikipedia. If there should be more precise or thorough information in the article, could you please let us know. Sarunas Dyburis, managing partner of AIMS International Lithuania. sarunas.dyburis@aims.lt}}

I'm sorry, but you would need to resubmit it for inclusion at WP:AFC. MBisanz ^talk 02:23, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

June 20: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (and Pratt Women Wikipedia Design this Saturday June 16)

Wednesday June 20, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan. Is there a project you'd like to share? A question you'd like answered? A Wiki* skill you'd like to learn? Let us know by adding it to the agenda. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities. Wednesday June 20 WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 145 West 14th Street (note the new address, a couple of doors down from the former Babycastles location) We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 19:12, 14 June 2018 (UTC) P.S. You are also invited to Wikiproject Women Wikipedia Design @ Pratt Institute School of Architecture, Saturday, June 16!

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Discussion at User:Kudpung/What do admins do?

 You are invited to join the discussion at User:Kudpung/What do admins do?. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:27, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 June 2018

• From the editor: The Admin Ship is still barely afloat, while a Foundation project risks sinking

• Special report: NPR and AfC – The Marshall Plan: an engagement and a marriage?

• Op-ed: What do admins do?

• Opinion: Google isn't responsible for Wikipedia's mistakes

• News and notes: Money, milestones, and Wikimania

• In the media: Much wikilove from the Mayor of London, less from Paekākāriki or a certain candidate for U.S. Congress

• Discussion report: Deletion, page moves, and an update to the main page

• Featured content: New promotions

• Arbitration report: WWII, UK politics, and a user deCrat'ed

• Traffic report: Endgame

• Technology report: Improvements piled on more improvements

• Gallery: Wiki Loves Africa

• Blog: Wikipedia should be open for editors in Turkey

• Recent research: How censorship can backfire and conversations can go awry

• Humour: Television plot lines

• Wikipedia essays: This month's pick by The Signpost editors

• From the archives: Wolves nip at Wikipedia's heels: A perspective on the cost of paid editing

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:29, 30 June 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)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glamour Solos (2nd nomination)

I created this article, and I wasn't able to participate in the AfD discussion because the nominator never notified me. Erpert ^{blah, blah, blah...} 17:51, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but the consensus was quite clear. If you feel that there were important facts not considered in the discussion, you may take it to WP:DRV. MBisanz ^talk 22:20, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

What I'm getting at is, I could have improved upon the article had I known about the discussion. Erpert ^{blah, blah, blah...} 02:49, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Thursday July 12: Wiki Loves Pride Edit-a-thon @ Jefferson Market Library

Thursday July 12, 5-8pm: Wiki Loves Pride Edit-a-thon @ Jefferson Market Library

Wikimedia NYC invites you to attend a Wiki Loves Pride Edit-a-thon on Thursday, July 12th at Jefferson Market Library! Wiki Loves Pride is a global campaign to expand and improve LGBT-related content across all Wikimedia projects, in all languages. We are holding this year's event in July in order to support folx who want to contribute a photograph they took at one of NYC's many Pride events or edit an article about something they learned this June. Not sure what to contribute? No problem! We will have a list of articles that need your help. Thursday July 12 Wiki Loves Pride Edit-a-thon (RSVP on-wiki or at Eventbrite). 5:00pm - 8:00 pm at Jefferson Market Library, 425 6th Ave --Megs (talk) 14:57, 10 July 2018 (UTC) P.S. You are also invited to the "picnic anyone can edit", the Great American Wiknic NYC @ Prospect Park, Sunday, July 29!

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User rename

2009-09-23 16:11:25 you renamed user:Jhsteel to user:Chipsaunt (2 edits). Was this done "correctly"? Surely all the edits of Jhsteel should have been re-attributed to Chipsaunt? Also the move now hides the fact that this user has uploaded 361 images as commons:user:jhsteel. Is this normal? — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 11:02, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

He re-created the account after I did the rename and did the subsequent edits under the new name. This is normal for older accounts that were renamed and then re-registered. MBisanz ^talk 22:13, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day

Hey, MBisanz. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! TheDoctorWho (talk) 01:14, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Big

On User talk:MBisanz/Archive 17#Books_and_Bytes:_The_Wikipedia_Library_Newsletter there are some tags that should be fixed like this (my bot can't edit your page). regards, -- GreenC 13:16, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Sunday July 29: Annual Wiki-Picnic @ Prospect Park

Sunday July 29, 2-7pm: Annual Wiki-Picnic

You are invited to join us the "picnic anyone can edit" in Brooklyn's green Prospect Park, as part of the Great American Wiknic celebrations being held across the USA. Remember it's a wiki-picnic, which means potluck. Sunday July 29 Annual Wik-Picnic (RSVP) (also on meetup.com) 2–7pm - come by any time! Our reserved picnicking area is by Bartel-Pritchard Square entrance, located at Prospect Park West and 15th Street. The picnic will be held by the park's Bartel-Pritchard Square entrance immediately on the lawn to your right as you walk through the lovely lotus columns. Look for us by the Wikipedia / Wikimedia NYC banner! We hope to see you there! --Pharos (talk) 08:23, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

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July 2018

Which article were you asking about at my userpage? MBisanz talk 22:14, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

hi :-) the article: "Integrated Biotectural System". I redid it and think it is in alignment with the Wikistandards now. I`d also like to continue working on it according to the (new)standards, but before I put more time into it I`d like to know my work is not in vain... The article is linked to other, very important Wiki articles in the key-technology area of Desalination and is of real, technological and economical meaningfulness... I might have written the article missleading before ...so that the technology could be misunderstood for a visionary project, but it is not. The Integrated Biotectural System is a technology available on the market, not a visionary architectural design... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicol-André (talk • contribs) 17:46, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I would recommend you submit it at WP:AFC. MBisanz ^talk 23:45, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

An AfD should have been "No Consensus", not "Delete" - and now we've got a mess.

On 25.Sep.2017, you closed AfD:MDaemon as "Delete", but it should have been "No Consensus".
The article was deleted, and: It's since been created again (created 11.Jul.2018), and that new article got a AfD:MDaemon-2'nd ; it's not actually the 2'nd AfD, but is the 1'st AfD for the 2'nd (new) article.
It's no surprise that a new article was created, because the topic easily pass required notability, but what do we do from here?
- Maybe undelete the one which was deleted in Sept.2017, and splice the two articles together, or ... ?!?
DexterPointy (talk) 21:46, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi. Page-stalking admin here. I went ahead and restored the buried history under the blue link, so if you want to go ahead and dig up material from the previous version, you are welcome to it. However, this is not intended to comment on the previous close, or to forecast the outcome of the current process, but merely to provide a convenience for improving the article in light of the deficiencies proposed against it. Cheers! bd2412 T 22:02, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! and ROFL: "Page-stalking admin", that's a lovely & concise designator :-)
Anyway, I've located the previous version which most likely contains the most information, which is MDaemon#798596530(20:35, 2 September 2017) ; and it's awfully clear that it has deficiencies, so this is not going to be a simple splice job.
@BD2412: Would I be violating any WP policy or guideline if I copied that old version to a new user sub-page? (purpose & intention being to fix the existing MDaemon article.)
-- DexterPointy (talk) 12:11, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

If you are going to do that, I would just recommend that you provide attribution in the edit summary, and wherever the content was ultimately used. bd2412 T 12:39, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

@BD2412: OK, Got it, copied to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DexterPointy/OldMDaemon
Considering what state it's in, then attribution is probably going to be the least of the problems (I do fear I may have to re-write from scratch, using little more than facts and knowledge contained, but not doing any actual prose copying.)
Again, Thanks!
-- DexterPointy (talk) 19:43, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks BD!. MBisanz ^talk 23:45, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 July 2018

• From the editor: If only if

• Op-ed: The last leg of the Admin Ship's current cruise

• Opinion: Wrestling with Wikipedia reality

• News and notes: Another newspaper for Wikipedia; Wikimania 2018 ends; changes at NPR

• In the media: Blackouts in Europe; Wikipedia and capitalists; WMF Jet Set

• Discussion report: Wikipedias take action against EU copyright proposal, plus new user right proposals

• Featured content: Wikipedia's best content in images and prose

• Arbitration report: Status quo processes retained in two disputes

• Traffic report: Soccer, football, call it what you like – that and summer movies leave room for little else

• Technology report: New bots, new prefs

• Gallery: Independence days, national holidays, and football – all in July

• Blog: Motivation of two editors

• Recent research: Different Wikipedias use different images; editing contests more successful than edit-a-thons

• Humour: It's all the same

• Essay: Wikipedia does not need you

• From the archives: The pending changes fiasco: how an attempt to answer one question turned into a quagmire

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:51, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

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)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jbhunley/Bureaucrat chat

Hello fellow bureaucrats, in regards to a current RfA that has met its time, I would like your assistance in judging the community consensus presented in the discussion at Jbhunley's RfA. Your input would be most welcome at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jbhunley/Bureaucrat chat. Best regards, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:37, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Bots Newsletter, August 2018

Bots Newsletter, August 2018

Greetings!

Here is the 6th issue of the Bots Newsletter. You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.

Highlights for this newsletter include:

ARBCOM

• Nothing particular important happened. Those who care already know, those who don't know wouldn't care. The curious can dig ARBCOM archives themselves.

BAG

• There were no changes in BAG membership since the last Bots Newsletter. Headbomb went from semi-active to active.
• In the last 3 months, only 3 BAG members have closed requests - help is needed with the backlog.

BOTREQs and BRFAs

As of writing, we have...

• 24 active BOTREQs, please help if you can!
• 5 open BRFAs and 3 BRFAs in need of BAG attention (see live status).
• 54 approved bot tasks since the start of 2018. Of note, Community Tech bot 5 (the #10 Wish on the 2017 Community Survey) was approved to notify users concerning problematic images and files from Wikimedia Commons.

Also

• If you're a bot operator that can help with Tidy/Linter error cleanup (see discussion, discussion), please file a BRFA!
• 8 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion, discussion, discussion).

Discussions

These are some of the discussions that happened / are still happening since the last Bots Newsletter. Many are stale, but some are still active.

• Use of tags by bots – Exploring the use of a new 'bot' tag.
• Mass page moves – Bot policy question/clarification about mass moves.
• Creation of redirects – Bot policy question/clarification about the creation of redirects.
• Guidance on disruptive use of semi–automated tools? – Related to meatbots (see also MOS discussion, which resulted in small addition to MOS:VAR).
• Discussion concerning WP:BOTFLAG/WP:RC – A reminder that bots should use the bot flag when it makes sense to use it (see also VPT discussion and CREATEBOT update).
• Out of curiosity... (to all bot operators) – BotPasswords vs OAuth usage amongst bot operators.
• Introducing Toolhub – Toolhub is looking for feedback.

New things

• {{Automated tools}}, a new template linking to user-activated tools and scripts has been created. It can be used in articles previews, and can be placed on any non-mainspace page/template (e.g. {{Draft article}}) to provide convenient links to editors.
• AWB 5.10.0.0 is out, after nearly 20 months without updates. If you run an old version, you will be prompted to install the new version automatically. See the changelog for what's new. Note that the next version will require .NET Framework 4.5. Many thanks to Reedy and the AWB team.
• BotWatch, "a listing of editors that have made >2 edits per minute [without] a bot flag", is being developed by SQL (see discussion).
• Massive updates and improvements have been made to Citation bot in the past few months (see discussions, discussions, discussions). You can activate the bot here, amongst other methods.
• HTML Tidy has been phased out (see Tech News #28).
• {{Newbot}} has been reorganized a bit (diff). In particular, it links to previously approved BRFAs (see discussion).
• Wikipedia:Bots#See also has been reorganized a bit (diff).
• The bot dictionary has two new entries, context bot and context-sensitive edit.
• The bot request header has been updated to include better guidance (see discussion).
• The subcategories of Category:Wikipedia bot requests for approval have been sorted in a consistent manner to make past BRFAs easier to find.

Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 15:04, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

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Consideration of NetMeds Wikipedia Page

Hello MBisanz, An Indian business advocate, I researched and noticed that Netmeds, a key Indian ecommerce company, was removed from Wikipedia last year. However, I think that its page should be reposted and replaced with less promotional copy, just as 1mg and MedPlus Indian pharmacy companies are featured here. India's ecommerce market is growing steadily and deserves to be recognized, especially in the fast-changing Indian business environment that may bring improved and more affordable healthcare to many millions of people. Can you consider the following revised copy for Netmeds and respond with your comments. Warmly, சென்னை P.S. Pls forgive any formatting issues below. I am new to WIki.

{{Infobox company | name = Netmeds | type = Private | logo = Netmeds logo.jpg | founded = [[Chennai], 2015; 3 years ago | founders = Pradeep Dadha, Bruce Schwack | area_served = India | industry = Pharmacy Retail Stores, Online | location_city = Chennai | location_country = India | website = Netmeds.com NetMeds is a pharmacy services company based in Chennai, India. In 2015, the company was founded by Pradeep Dadha and Bruce Schwack. NetMeds operates an online pharmacy marketplace and retail pharmacies under the “NetMeds” name. Reference: Hindu Business Line, 100 Year old Pharma Company Hooks on to Net, 1 May 2015, retrieved 30 April 2018. History In early 2015, NetMeds was established by businessmen Pradeep Dadha and Bruce Schwack. Dadha’s family had led Tamilnadu Dadha Pharmaceuticals Ltd, a pharmaceutical firm that operated for over a century, and was merged with Sun Pharmaceutical in 1997. NetMeds has grown with $60 million from investors including MAPE Advisory Group ($5 million), private equity firm Orbimed ($50 million), and the Pradeep Dadha family investment fund. Reference: TechCircle, MAPE to Invest in Yet to Launch Online Pharmacy Start-up NetMeds, 4 May 2015, retrieved 30 April 2018, Business Standard, NetMeds Closes 50M in Tranched Financing, 26 October, 2015, retrieved 30 April 2018

In 2016, NetMeds bought drugs delivery app Pluss, which had a strong presence in Delhi and Hyderabad, to help it grow its operations in northern India. Reference: VC Circle, NetMeds buys IDG Ventures-backed rival Pluss in stock deal, 24 November 2016, retrieved 30 April 2018,

By 2017, NetMeds had served one million customers, who live in 800 cities across all 29 Indian states. It had more than 450 employees, including pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and customer service specialists nationwide. Orders are filled from eight fulfillment centres, located in Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad, Raipur and Kochi. By 2018, it was reported to fill more than 1000 orders per day. References: Financial Express, Chennai Based Online Medical Store Netmeds Revives Plan for Physical Stores,

BusinessWorld, NetMeds to Build More Fulfilment Centres, 2 January 2017, retrieved 30 April 2018, Economic Times, Driven by Funding, Online Pharmacies Step Up Hiring, 22 January 2018, Deccan Herald, NetMeds Opens 3 Fulfilment Centres, 4 January 2017, retrieved 30 April 2018,  

In 2017, NetMeds announced that it will open 10 brick and mortar pharmacy stores in Chennai, under its own name, and plans to open more stores in other major cities. Reference: Economic Times, NetMeds to Open 10 Stores in Chennai, 17 April 2017, retrieved 30 April 2018,

In 2018, the Patanjali Ayureved group announced that Netmeds would be its exclusive ecommerce portable for its ayurvedic medicine products. Food Marketing & Technology, Patanjali Selects Netmeds as Exclusive Ecom Medicine Portal, 23 January 2018, accessed 20 July 2018,

In 2018, Netmeds announced that star cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni will be its brand ambassador, and will be featured in its marketing campaigns. “Making important medicine more available and affordable is a great thing for the country, and Netmeds is one of the mainstays in the space," Dhoni said. New Indian Express, Netmeds Appoints MS Dhoni as Brand Ambassador, Economic Times, MS Dhoni to Endorse Online Pharmacy, Times of India, MS Dhoni is Netmeds Brand Ambassador, YouTube, Netmeds TV Ad Featuring MS Dhoni, accessed 20 July 2018,

Criticism Some Indian pharmacy professionals and consumers are hesitant to buy medicines from online pharmacies like Netmeds because of the lack of understanding about online shopping, and safety and other concerns. This has led it to emphasize the pharmacy’s high levels of safety, professional regulations, and convenience on its website and in marketing. Business Today, E-Pharmacies Grow Despite Governments Impending Regulations,

See also

• E-commerce in India
• Online pharmacy

Please submit this to WP:AFC. MBisanz ^talk 01:15, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

August 29: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

Wednesday August 29, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan. Is there a project you'd like to share? A question you'd like answered? A Wiki* skill you'd like to learn? Let us know by adding it to the agenda. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities. Wednesday August 29 WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 145 West 14th Street (note the new address, a couple of doors down from the former Babycastles location) We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 23:52, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

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The Signpost: 30 August 2018

• From the editor: Today's young adults don't know a world without Wikipedia

• Interview: 2018 Wikimedian of the Year, Farkhad Fatkullin

• News and notes: Flying high; low practice from Wikipedia 'cleansing' agency; where do our donations go? RfA sees a new trend

• In the media: Quicksilver AI writes articles

• Discussion report: Drafting an interface administrator policy

• Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

• Special report: Wikimania 2018

• Traffic report: Aretha dies – getting just 2,000 short of 5 million hits

• Technology report: Technical enhancements and a request to prioritize upcoming work

• Gallery: Leapfrog, historic Thai cave, and a rhythmic beat

• Recent research: Wehrmacht on Wikipedia, neural networks writing biographies

• Humour: Signpost editor censors herself

• Essay: Principle of Some Astonishment

• From the archives: Playing with Wikipedia words

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:03, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Open proxy request

Hi Matt

I recall that we may have interacted when I was more active several years ago. Looks like you have been very busy on the project.

I just tried doing a little updating and found that I was blocked from editing using my normal access to the Internet, which is via NordVPN. It appears that this sort of VPN access is caught up in the same net as other anonymous proxy access and tends to be subject to hard blocks.

I read WP:IPBLOCK and it appears that getting an exemption from this policy can be done on a per account (rather than per IP) basis. Since I connect to a different VPN server most every time I connect to the Internet, this would certainly seem the simplest way to permit me to edit (other than disconnect from my VPN each time I wish to make an edit, such as I am doing now—not ideal for hygiene!).

Is this remedy something I am eligible for?

Thanks ^Bongo_matic 15:50, 2 September 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)

Restore

Please restore "Office of the President (Austria)" as a user sub page on my account. Thanks Colonestarrice (talk) 10:30, 17 September 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)

September 26: WikiWednesday Salon / Wikimedia NYC Annual Meeting

Wednesday September 26, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon / Wikimedia NYC Annual Meeting

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan. Is there a project you'd like to share? A question you'd like answered? A Wiki* skill you'd like to learn? Let us know by adding it to the agenda. This month will also feature on our agenda, upcoming editathons, the organization's Annual Meeting, and Chapter board elections - you can add yourself as a candidate. We will include a look at the organization and planning for our chapter, and expanding volunteer roles for both regular Wikipedia editors and new participants. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities. Wednesday September 26 WikiWednesday Salon / Wikimedia NYC Annual Meeting (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 145 West 14th Street (note the new address, a couple of doors down from the former Babycastles location) We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 20:43, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

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Restore

Please restore "Office of the President (Austria)" as a user sub page on my account. Thanks Colonestarrice (talk) 10:30, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

See User:Colonestarrice/Office of the President (Austria) MBisanz ^talk 01:13, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Restore Luis Villanueva's page

MBisanz

Please restore Luis Villanueva's page. Luis Villanueva is a well known Media and Entertainment entrepreneur in many areas of the TV business and CEO of SOMOSTV (Pay TV in the United States, Mexico, Central America and The Caribbean), SOMOS Productions (TV Programming Productions for the US, Latin America), SOMOS Distribution (Content distribution worldwide) and SOMOS Next (New Media). He is launching SOMOS Films, having produced 3 films so far. He has more than 35 years of experience in reputable international Media conglomerates. It is a loss for industry people and for Wikipedia's mission not having this reference available. If you have any suggestions to improve the page, please do so.

Best, Jose Espinal170.55.60.42 (talk) 16:18, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 October 2018

• From the editor: Is this the new normal?

• News and notes: European copyright law moves forward

• In the media: Knowledge under fire

• Discussion report: Interface Admin policy proposal, part 2

• Arbitration report: A quiet month for Arbcom

• Traffic report: John McCain's death generates over 7 million hits, followed by historical low

• Technology report: Paying attention to your mobile

• Gallery: A pat on the back

• Blog: After a catastrophic fire at the National Museum of Brazil, a drive to preserve what knowledge remains

• Recent research: How talk page use has changed since 2005; censorship shocks lead to centralization; is vandalism caused by workplace boredom?

• Humour: Signpost Crossword Puzzle

• Essay: Expressing thanks

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:44, 1 October 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)

Sun October 14: Open House New York Weekend Upload Party @ NYU ITP and Indigenous People's Justice Edit-a-thon @ Interference Archive

You are invited to join two events supported by the Wikimedia NYC community on Sunday October 14: Open House New York Weekend Upload Party @ NYU ITP 2:00pm - 6:00 pm at ITP, Tisch School of the Arts. New York University (721 Broadway, New York, NY) The photo competition is at many sites all weekend, this is just the concluding event Indigenous People's Justice Edit-a-thon @ Interference Archive 2:00 - 5:00pm at Interference Archive (314 7th Street, Brooklyn, NY) Note the new Park Slope location for Interference Archive Have a WikiWonderful Weekend! --Pharos (talk) 04:55, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

October 24: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

October 24, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Triangle Arts Association in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn. Is there a project you'd like to share? A question you'd like answered? A Wiki* skill you'd like to learn? Let us know by adding it to the agenda. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities. Wednesday October 24 WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Triangle Arts Association (Suite 317 & 318) at 20 Jay Street, Brooklyn (note this month we will be meeting in DUMBO, Brooklyn, not at Babycastles) We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 01:29, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Sunday Oct 28: Wikidata Birthday Party

Sunday October 28: Wikidata Birthday Party

Wikidata, the newest project of the Wikimedia movement, went live on October 29, 2012. Please join Wikimedia New York City as we celebrate its sixth birthday at the Ace Hotel. There will be (optional) lightning talks, casual conversation, and, most importantly, CAKE! No experience with Wikidata? No problem. This event is open to all. Wikidata Birthday Party Date: Sunday October 28 Time: 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm Location: Ace Hotel New York. 20 West 29th Street, Manhattan. RSVP: on Meetup.com or on Wikipedia Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues on Sunday!--Wikimedia New York City Team 15:33, 25 October 2018 (UTC) Bonus edit-a-thons on Saturday The day before the Wikiata Birthday, on Saturday, you are also welcome to join Archtober Wikipedia Edit-a-thon @ Bard Graduate Center or Black Lunch Table @ Magnum Foundation. Please RSVP to those pages if you plan on joining.

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The Signpost: 28 October 2018

• From the editors: The Signpost is still afloat, just barely

• Op-ed: Wikipedia's Strickland affair

• News and notes: WMF gets a million bucks

• In the media: Bans, celebs, and bias

• Discussion report: Mediation Committee and proposed deletion reform

• Traffic report: Unsurprisingly, sport leads the field – or the ring

• Technology report: Bots galore!

• Special report: NPP needs you

• Special report 2: Now Wikidata is six

• In focus: Alexa

• Gallery: Out of this world!

• Recent research: Wikimedia Commons worth $28.9 billion

• Humour: Talk page humour

• Opinion: Strickland incident

• From the archives: The Gardner Interview

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:10, 28 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)

Leila George

Hello,

I was wondering if this article can be restored into draft. Thanks. Hayholt (talk) 18:35, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, MBisanz. 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)

Bin Tere

Hello respected admin @MBisanz: will you please do something for this article, i want to expand it thats why requesting undeletion. HumTum12 (talk) 08:25, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 December 2018

• From the editor: Time for a truce

• Op-ed: Looking back, looking forward: A beginner's experience on Wikipedia

• Special report: The Christmas wishlist

• Opinion: The blogosphere migrates to Galaxy WMF

• News and notes: Reviewer of the year, WikiCup winner, and the 2019 Wikimedia Summit

• Reflections: Wikipedia, history, and the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day

• In the media: Court-ordered article redaction, paid editing, and rock stars

• Discussion report: Farewell, Mediation Committee

• Arbitration report: A long break ends

• Traffic report: Queen reigns for four weeks straight

• Gallery: Intersections

• Recent research: Why do the most active Wikipedians burn out?; only 4% of students vandalize

• Essay: No one cares about your garage band

• Humour: The dark side of our favorite root vegetable

• From the archives: Ars longa, vita brevis

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:47, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Rasul Baksh Rais

Your closing statement says "The result was soft delete. WP:REFUND applies".[13] His book 'Imagining Pakistan' won the Best Non-Fiction Book Award at the 2018 Karachi Literature Festival.[14] The professor was awarded Pride of Performance[15] and Sitara-i-Imtiaz[16] thus seems notable. Any chance it'll be undeleted? The Donkey King (talk) 10:01, 2 December 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)

December 19: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

December 19, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus in Manhattan, near Columbus Circle. Is there a project you'd like to share? A question you'd like answered? A Wiki* skill you'd like to learn? Let us know by adding it to the agenda. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities. Wednesday December 19 WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus (South Lounge) at 113 W 60th Street, Manhattan (note this month we will be meeting in Manhattan, near Columbus Circle, not at Babycastles) We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Wikimedia New York City Team 03:22, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Nomination of List of unused highways in California for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of unused highways in California is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of unused highways in California until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Imzadi 1979 → 06:34, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 December 2018

• From the editors: Where to draw the line in reporting?

• Op-ed: Wikipedia not trumped by Trump appointee

• Special report: The Signpost got 380,000+ views in 2018, sounds reasonable enough, right?

• News and notes: Some wishes do come true

• In the media: Political hijinks

• Discussion report: A new record low for RfA

• WikiProject report: Articlegenesis

• Arbitration report: Year ends with one active case

• Traffic report: Queen dethroned by U.S. presidents

• Gallery: Sun and Moon, water and stone

• Blog: News from the WMF

• Humour: I believe in Bigfoot

• Essay: Requests for medication

• From the archives: Compromised admin accounts – again

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:35, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Ways to improve Maltese Italian

Hello, MBisanz,

Welcome to Wikipedia and thanks for creating Maltese Italian! I edit here too, under the username Onel5969 and it's nice to meet you :-)

I wanted to let you know that I have tagged the page as having some issues to fix, as a part of our page curation process and note that:-

Please provide a footnote for each assertion in the article. Uncited material may be removed at any time.

The tags can be removed by you or another editor once the issues they mention are addressed. If you have questions, leave a comment here and prepend it with {{Re|Onel5969}}. And, don't forget to sign your reply with ~~~~ . For broader editing help, please visit the Teahouse.

Delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.

Onel5969 ^{TT me} 16:32, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Nomination of List of unused highways in Canada for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of unused highways in Canada is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of unused highways in Canada until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Ajf773 (talk) 10:21, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Pakistani dramas

Please explain how your close as redirect here reflects consensus, given that, apart from the nominator's argument, which I would expect to be given no weight, only one contributor to the discussion favoured redirecting, with one in favour of keeping and three for merging. Thanks. --Michig (talk) 08:22, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

I found the redirect argument convincing because it makes the article consistent with another article of a similar title. Further, redirection without a deletion of the underlying page does not preclude merging, and I was concerned that others may have trouble redirecting to a category at a later date. MBisanz ^talk 14:08, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Nomination of List of unused highways in New Zealand for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of unused highways in New Zealand is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of unused highways in New Zealand until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Ajf773 (talk) 19:19, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Nomination of List of unused highways in Germany for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of unused highways in Germany is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of unused highways in Germany until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Ajf773 (talk) 19:19, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Nomination of List of unused roads in the United Kingdom for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of unused roads in the United Kingdom is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of unused roads in the United Kingdom until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Ajf773 (talk) 19:19, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019

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

Administrator changes

Galobtter

Orangemike

BorgQueen • Davidruben • Ocee • Revolving Bugbear • Theda • There'sNoTime • Timc • Tijuana Brass • Tristessa de St Ange

Bureaucrat changes

Addshore

CheckUser changes

Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

AGK • Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Guideline and policy news

• There are a number of new or changed speedy deletion criteria, each previously part of WP:CSD#G6:

1. G14 (new): Disambiguation pages that disambiguate only zero or one existing pages are now covered under the new G14 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-disambig}}; the text is unchanged and candidates may be found in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as unnecessary disambiguation pages.
2. R4 (new): Redirects in the file namespace (and no file links) that have the same name as a file or redirect at Commons are now covered under the new R4 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-redircom}}; the text is unchanged.
3. G13 (expanded): Userspace drafts containing only the default Article Wizard text are now covered under G13 along with other drafts (discussion). Such blank drafts are now eligible after six months rather than one year, and taggers continue to use {{db-blankdraft}}.

• The Wikimedia Foundation now requires all interface administrators to enable two-factor authentication.
• Members of the Bot Approvals Group (BAG) are now subject to an activity requirement. After two years without any bot-related activity (e.g. operating a bot, posting on a bot-related talk page), BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice.

Technical news

• Starting on December 13, the Wikimedia Foundation security team implemented new password policy and requirements. Privileged accounts (administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, oversighters, interface administrators, bots, edit filter managers/helpers, template editors, et al.) must have a password at least 10 characters in length. All accounts must have a password:

1. At least 8 characters in length
2. Not in the 100,000 most popular passwords (defined by the Password Blacklist library)
3. Different from their username

User accounts not meeting these requirements will be prompted to update their password accordingly. More information is available on MediaWiki.org.

• Blocked administrators may now block the administrator that blocked them. This was done to mitigate the possibility that a compromised administrator account would block all other active administrators, complementing the removal of the ability to unblock oneself outside of self-imposed blocks. A request for comment is currently in progress to determine whether the blocking policy should be updated regarding this change.
• {{Copyvio-revdel}} now has a link to open the history with the RevDel checkboxes already filled in.

Arbitration

• Following the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: AGK, Courcelles, GorillaWarfare, Joe Roe, Mkdw, SilkTork.

Miscellaneous

• Accounts continue to be compromised on a regular basis. Evidence shows this is entirely due to the accounts having the same password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately.
• Around 22% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 20% in June 2018. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless of whether 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) 21:38, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Today's Wikipedian 10 years ago

Awesome

Ten years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:56, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

January 13: Wikimedia NYC invites you to Wikipedia Day 2019

Sunday January 13: Wikipedia Day 2019 in NYC

You are invited to join us at Ace Hotel for Wikipedia Day 2019, a Wikipedia celebration and mini-conference as part of the project's global 18th birthday festivities. In addition to the party, the event features keynote presentations, panels, lightning talks, and, of course, open space sessions. And there will be cake. We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. Sunday January 13 Wikipedia Day 2019 (RSVP at Eventbrite). 9:30AM - 6:00PM at Ace Hotel, 20 West 29th Street in Manhattan We especially encourage folks to add your 3-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Wikimedia New York City Team 20:35, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Help:HELP listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Help:HELP. Since you had some involvement with the Help:HELP redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Steel1943 (talk) 17:07, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

November 15: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC @ NYU ITP

Wednesday November 15, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC @ NYU ITP

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at NYU ITP Tisch School of the Arts (4th floor) at 721 Broadway in Manhattan. We will include a look at the organization and planning for our chapter, and expanding volunteer roles for both regular Wikipedia editors and new participants. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities. We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from all educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery! Wednesday November 15 WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 7:00pm - 9:00 pm at NYU ITP Tisch School of the Arts (4th floor), 721 Broadway (note that we are not at Babycastles this month) We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) ~~~~~ P.S. You are also invited to Wikipedia Asian Month Edit-a-thon @ Metropolitan Museum of Art on Sunday November 19!

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.) 05:01, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

March 21: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

Wednesday March 21, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan. We will include a look at the organization and planning for our chapter, and expanding volunteer roles for both regular Wikipedia editors and new participants. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities. We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from all educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery! Wednesday March 21 WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 145 West 14th Street (note the new address, a couple of doors down from the former Babycastles location) We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Megs (talk) P.S. You are also invited to Art + Feminism Events in the New York Metropolitan Area continuing this month!

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.) 05:01, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

CANCELLED: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

CANCELLED: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC
Due to the winter storm warning, the WikiWednesday Salon & Skillshare scheduled for March 21st has been cancelled. Please consider attending one of the many edit-a-thons scheduled for this week. We look forward to editing with you soon! --Megs (talk)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.) 05:01, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 January 2019

• Op-Ed: Random Rewards Rejected

• In focus: The Collective Consciousness of Admin Userpages

• News and notes: WMF staff turntable continues to spin; Endowment gets more cash; RfA continues to be a pit of steely knives

• In the media: The Signpost's investigative story recognized, Wikipedia turns 18 and gets a birthday gift from Google, and more editors are recognized

• Discussion report: The future of the reference desk

• Featured content: Don't miss your great opportunity

• Arbitration report: An admin under the microscope

• Traffic report: Death, royals and superheroes: Avengers, Black Panther

• Technology report: When broken is easily fixed

• Gallery: Let us build a memorial fit for such pain and suffering

• News from the WMF: News from WMF

• Recent research: Ad revenue from reused Wikipedia articles; are Wikipedia researchers asking the right questions?

• Essay: How

• Humour: Village pump

• From the archives: An editorial board that includes you

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:50, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2019).

Administrator changes

Enterprisey • JJMC89

BorgQueen

Harro5 • Jenks24 • Graft • R. Baley

Interface administrator changes

Enterprisey

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is currently open to reevaluate the activity requirements for administrators.
• Administrators who are blocked have the technical ability to block the administrator who blocked their own account. A recent request for comment has amended the blocking policy to clarify that this ability should only be used in exceptional circumstances, such as account compromises, where there is a clear and immediate need.
• A request for comment closed with a consensus in favor of deprecating The Sun as a permissible reference, and creating an edit filter to warn users who attempt to cite it.

Technical news

• A discussion regarding an overhaul of the format and appearance of Wikipedia:Requests for page protection is in progress (permalink). The proposed changes will make it easier to create requests for those who are not using Twinkle. The workflow for administrators at this venue will largely be unchanged. Additionally, there are plans to archive requests similar to how it is done at WP:PERM, where historical records are kept so that prior requests can more easily be searched for.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2019 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2019, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2019, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• A new IRC bot is available that allows you to subscribe to notifications when specific filters are tripped. This requires that your IRC handle be identified.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:15, 4 February 2019 (UTC)