User talk:Nick/Archive19

Nick is busy in real life and may not respond swiftly to queries. Please use e-mail to make contact urgently if you need to do so.

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) 21:39, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Advice welcomed

I have come across Draft:Spike Viper which is very clearly a collaborative effort, preumably orchestreated from another site (social media, gaming site, whatever) and, if it was a user page, would be speedily deleted as blatant not web-host. This is clearrly neither notable nor pertinent to Wikipedia and I would flag it for speedy deletion, if a suitable category presented itself. Any thoughts ? Many thanks  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   00:07, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

@Velella: you should reach out to the contributors first and double check if they're likely to actually be drafting something that will be submitted to Wikipedia, if not, then it'll have to be a Miscellany for Deletion nomination. Nick (talk) 00:19, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Admin's Barnstar
	Thank you for your assistance in handling the situation with the hoax articles. I was having a rough time trying to handle the user's disruptive behavior myself. Jalen D. Folf (talk) 21:15, 27 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)

Procedural inaccuracies

What basis did you have for closing this as "Procedural G12 Deletion: Copyright Violation". Consensus was to keep, and did not establish that criteria as accurate. Direct quotations are not COPYVIO. Had you given the copyvio team enough time to investigate the draft page, they would've indicated likewise. Homeostasis07 (talk) 01:28, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Deletion review for Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2019 February 18

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2019 February 18. 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. Red marquis (talk) 03:15, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

@Homeostasis07 and Red marquis: I'm sorry that deletion was required, but copyright policy takes precedence over any other deletion discussion. Consensus at XfD cannot be used to retain material which violates copyright and breaches our copyright policy. This was a page which Oshwah had already had to hide 223 revisions because of one single piece of content which was copied and pasted into the sandbox, there were subsequently seven other sources of the information which had been copied and pasted into the sandbox.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] The way in which so many sources had been copied and pasted made it impossible to delete individual revisions of the page, in the way Oshwah had done. It would be useful if you would both please read our copyright violation policy before undertaking further edits to Wikipedia, so you can both make edits which we don't need to delete (none of us take pleasure in having to delete material in this way). Nick (talk) 09:36, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2019

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

Administrator changes

Evad37

There'sNoTime

Alex Shih • Brian • Mushroom • Nakon • Oscarthecat • PeruvianLlama • Ragib • Reaper Eternal • Rossami • Tom

Interface administrator changes

Evad37 • Galobtter

Ritchie333

CheckUser changes

There'sNoTime

Keegan • Ks0stm

Oversight changes

There'sNoTime

Ks0stm • Sphilbrick

Guideline and policy news

• The RfC on administrator activity requirements failed to reach consensus for any proposal.
• Following discussions at the Bureaucrats' noticeboard and Wikipedia talk:Administrators, an earlier change to the restoration of adminship policy was reverted. If requested, bureaucrats will not restore administrator permissions removed due to inactivity if there have been five years without a logged administrator action; this "five year rule" does not apply to permissions removed voluntarily.

Technical news

• A new tool is available to help determine if a given IP is an open proxy/VPN/webhost/compromised host.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee announced two new OTRS queues. Both are meant solely for cases involving private information; other cases will continue to be handled at the appropriate venues (e.g., WP:COIN or WP:SPI).
  • paid-en-wpwikipedia.org has been set up to receive private evidence related to abusive paid editing.
  • checkuser-en-wpwikipedia.org has been set up to receive private requests for CheckUser. For instance, requests for IP block exemption for anonymous proxy editing should now be sent to this address instead of the functionaries-en list.

Miscellaneous

• Following the 2019 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Base, Einsbor, Jon Kolbert, Schniggendiller, and Wim b.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:13, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

ImmortalWizard cleared ANI...

...and so will be back with us after the one week block expires. May bear watching, as even while blocked, continued to post heavily on own Talk, and not at all clear if understands why upsetting so many editors. May resume offend/apologize cycle. David notMD (talk) 11:57, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

AN3

"keep Bbb23 happy" Your entire life should be dedicated to that sentiment. That summary gave me the biggest laugh I've had all weekend!--Bbb23 (talk) 23:36, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Mail

Hello, Nick. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

.--AldNon^Ucallin?☎ 20:41, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2019

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

Administrator changes

Reaper Eternal • ThaddeusB

Bogdangiusca • Christopher Parham • Necrothesp • Schneelocke • Siroxo • Sarah

Mentifisto → Lofty abyss

Interface administrator changes

Mr. Stradivarius

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad

Kingturtle

Technical news

• In Special:Preferences under "Appearance" → "Advanced options", there is now an option to show a confirmation prompt when clicking on a rollback link.
• The Wikimedia Foundation's Community health initiative plans to design and build a new user reporting system to make it easier for people experiencing harassment and other forms of abuse to provide accurate information to the appropriate channel for action to be taken. Please see meta:Community health initiative/User reporting system consultation 2019 to provide your input on this idea.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee clarified that the General 1RR prohibition for Palestine-Israel articles may only be enforced on pages with the {{ARBPIA 1RR editnotice}} edit notice.

Miscellaneous

• Two more administrator accounts were compromised. Evidence has shown that these attacks, like previous incidents, were due to reusing a 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. All admins are strongly encouraged to enable two-factor authentication, please consider doing so. Please always practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.
• As a reminder, according to WP:NOQUORUM, administrators looking to close or relist an AfD should evaluate a nomination that has received few or no comments as if it were a proposed deletion (PROD) prior to determining whether it should be relisted.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:57, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Fylbecatulous

Hi Nick. I was very shocked to see this. Is there any information you can share with me about this? She was always very kind to me. 28bytes (talk) 13:47, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

@28bytes: not really, I was informed by a Simple Wikipedia admin that Fylbecatulous had passed away. There was some further discussion at [8] and [9] with the result that the account was globally locked by DerHexer. Nick (talk) 14:33, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Nick. Sounds like she'd been battling that for a while. So sad. 28bytes (talk) 14:55, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, Nick. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template. Jani Asia (talk) 16:42, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Rama Arbitration Case

You were recently listed as a party to a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rama. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rama/Evidence. Please add your evidence by May 10, 2019, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rama/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, -- Amanda (aka DQ) 19:41, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:41, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Previous listing as a party

My apologies for the above section stating that you are a party. You are not, I made a mistake with the template. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 19:51, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019 special circular

Administrators must secure their accounts The Arbitration Committee may require a new RfA if your account is compromised. Use strong, unique passwords for your Wikipedia account and associated email Change your password now if your Wikipedia account password or email password is reused on another website, exposed, or weak Enable two-factor authentication now for improved security

View additional information

Why have I received this message? All administrators are receiving it. What prompted you to send this message? Recently, several Wikipedia admin accounts were compromised. The admin accounts were desysopped on an emergency basis. In the past, the Committee often resysopped admin accounts as a matter of course once the admin was back in control of their account. The committee has updated its guidelines. Admins may now be required to undergo a fresh Request for Adminship (RfA) after losing control of their account. What do I need to do? Only to follow the instructions in this message. Check that your password is unique (not reused across sites). Check that your password is strong (not simple or guessable). Enable Two-factor authentication (2FA), if you can, to create a second hurdle for attackers. How can I find out more about two-factor authentication (2FA)? You can find out more about 2FA at m:2FA.

This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 03:02, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)

ArbCom would like to apologise and correct our previous mass message in light of the response from the community.

Since November 2018, six administrator accounts have been compromised and temporarily desysopped. In an effort to help improve account security, our intention was to remind administrators of existing policies on account security — that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." We have updated our procedures to ensure that we enforce these policies more strictly in the future. The policies themselves have not changed. In particular, two-factor authentication remains an optional means of adding extra security to your account. The choice not to enable 2FA will not be considered when deciding to restore sysop privileges to administrator accounts that were compromised.

We are sorry for the wording of our previous message, which did not accurately convey this, and deeply regret the tone in which it was delivered.

For the Arbitration Committee, -Cameron11598 21:04, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2019

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

Administrator changes

HickoryOughtShirt?4 • RexxS

Necrothesp

Bratsche • Kyle Barbour • Kzollman • Madman

Interface administrator changes

Pharos

Bureaucrat changes

Primefac

CheckUser changes

Reaper Eternal

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment concluded that creating pages in the portal namespace should be restricted to autoconfirmed users.
• Following a request for comment, the subject-specific notability guideline for pornographic actors and models (WP:PORNBIO) was removed; in its place, editors should consult WP:ENT and WP:GNG.

Technical news

• XTools Admin Stats, a tool to list admins by administrative actions, has been revamped to support more types of log entries such as AbuseFilter changes. Two additional tools have been integrated into it as well: Steward Stats and Patroller Stats.

Arbitration

• In response to the continuing compromise of administrator accounts, the Arbitration Committee passed a motion amending the procedures for return of permissions (diff). In such cases, the committee will review all available information to determine whether the administrator followed "appropriate personal security practices" before restoring permissions; administrators found failing to have adequately done so will not be resysopped automatically. All current administrators have been notified of this change.
• Following a formal ratification process, the arbitration policy has been amended (diff). Specifically, the two-thirds majority required to remove or suspend an arbitrator now excludes (1) the arbitrator facing suspension or removal, and (2) any inactive arbitrator who does not respond within 30 days to attempts to solicit their feedback on the resolution through all known methods of communication.

Miscellaneous

• A request for comment is currently open to amend the community sanctions procedure to exclude non XfD or CSD deletions.
• A proposal to remove pre-2009 indefinite IP blocks is currently open for discussion.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:37, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Portal:UK railways

Portal:UK railways, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:UK railways and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Portal:UK railways during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:43, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2019

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

Administrator changes

Andonic • Consumed Crustacean • Enigmaman • Euryalus • EWS23 • HereToHelp • Nv8200pa • Peripitus • StringTheory11 • Vejvančický

CheckUser changes

Ivanvector

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC seeks to clarify whether WP:OUTING should include information on just the English Wikipedia or any Wikimedia project.
• An RfC on WT:RfA concluded that Requests for adminship and bureaucratship are discussions seeking to build consensus.
• An RfC proposal to make the templates for discussion (TfD) process more like the requested moves (RM) process, i.e. "as a clearinghouse of template discussions", was closed as successful.

Technical news

• The CSD feature of Twinkle now allows admins to notify page creators of deletion if the page had not been tagged. The default behavior matches that of tagging notifications, and replaces the ability to open the user talk page upon deletion. You can customize which criteria receive notifications in your Twinkle preferences: look for Notify page creator when deleting under these criteria.
• Twinkle's d-batch (batch delete) feature now supports deleting subpages (and related redirects and talk pages) of each page. The pages will be listed first but use with caution! The und-batch (batch undelete) option can now also restore talk pages.

Miscellaneous

• The previously discussed unblocking of IP addresses indefinitely-blocked before 2009 was approved and has taken place.
• The 2019 talk pages consultation produced a report for Phase 1 and has entered Phase 2.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:48, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Your comment

Nick, that hurts, and it was not helpful. I don't think asking for a clarification should result in such a personal attack. starship.paint (talk) 08:41, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

@Starship.paint: You're not asking for a clarification, you're harassing Rob. He cannot answer your question without either legitimising your line of questioning, which is entirely inappropriate both in this case and in any future cases, or making himself a target for idiots like you. You need to strike your moronic question, apologise to Rob, and ignore the Fram debacle for the foreseeable future. You've allowed your judgement to not just be clouded, but completely fucking drowned here, you're making yourself look like a fucking imbecile which is a tad unfortunate given some of your more sensible interventions previously. Nick (talk) 08:45, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

I meant I was asking stwalkerster for a clarification. I asked Rob a question, yes, I didn't mean to harass him at all. Your comment is so heated that it is hard to process. It appears that you are acutely aware of the consequences of my question. Could you elaborate on either legitimising your line of questioning, which is entirely inappropriate both in this case and in any future cases, or making himself a target for idiots like you? starship.paint (talk) 09:00, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

I have struck the question, but without further explanation from you, I have not learnt much other than something along the lines of 'I'm stupid, an idiot, a fucking imbecile and a harasser'. I have decided not to disengage since I am still updating the summary. starship.paint (talk) 09:30, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

In the hope it provides some education - you should not be asking anybody whether or not they have reported a user to WMF, the reasons why any one user may report any other user to WMF are many and varied, but could include some extremely serious legal issues, deeply problematic behaviour not readily apparent on-wiki (particularly to non-administrators, non-oversighters and/or non-checkusers) or other issues which may be connected to real-life events, and are otherwise entirely unconnected to on-wiki conduct. If Rob replies, whether or not he reported Fram to WMF, you legitimise the act of uninformed idiots demanding answers from anybody they perceive (most likely wrongly) to have been responsible for a WMF ban or sanction. If Rob chooses not to reply, he's only ever going to be accused of avoiding the question and will be presumed guilty by the uninformed. I don't know how much clearer I can be, but there is nothing Rob can do here, your question puts him in an impossible situation. Stwalkerster explained at quite some length and I don't really know how I can make his already clear response to your clearer, but what I will add, totally separate to the Fram case, is the act of victim blaming, which is ultimately what your question boils down to, is wholly inappropriate and in some cases, probably not in Fram's, but potentially in future cases, could result in a risk to privacy and in very limited circumstances, a danger to life. If we have events where someone is outed as a homosexual because of a witch-hunt much like the one you were trying to start on Rob's talk page today, in certain countries, the results would be unimaginable. Nick (talk) 10:31, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Nick, I understand much more about the ramifications from your latest explanation, which I did not know before. I must say my question was not intended to victim-blame. I will apologize to Rob. starship.paint (talk) 11:44, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Six years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:50, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2019

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

Administrator changes

28bytes • Ad Orientem • Ansh666 • Beeblebrox • Boing! said Zebedee • BU Rob13 • Dennis Brown • Deor • DoRD • Floquenbeam¹ • Flyguy649 • Fram² • Gadfium • GB fan • Jonathunder • Kusma • Lectonar • Moink • MSGJ • Nick • Od Mishehu • Rama • Spartaz • Syrthiss • TheDJ • WJBscribe

¹Floquenbeam's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.

²Fram's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.

Bureaucrat changes

28bytes • WJBscribe • Wizardman

Interface administrator changes

MSGJ • TheDJ

CheckUser changes

Beeblebrox • BU Rob13 • DoRD

Oversight changes

Beeblebrox • BU Rob13 • DoRD • GB fan

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment seeking to alleviate pressures on the request an account (ACC) process proposes either raising the account creation limit for extended confirmed editors or granting the account creator permission on request to new ACC tool users.

• In a related matter, the account throttle has been restored to six creations per day as the mitigation activity completed.

• The scope of CSD criterion G8 has been tightened such that the only redirects that it now applies to are those which target non-existent pages.
• The scope of CSD criterion G14 has been expanded slightly to include orphan "Foo (disambiguation)" redirects that target pages that are not disambiguation pages or pages that perform a disambiguation-like function (such as set index articles or lists).
• A request for comment seeks to determine whether Wikipedia:Office actions should be a policy page or an information page.

Technical news

• The Wikimedia Foundation's Community health initiative plans to design and build a new user reporting system to make it easier for people experiencing harassment and other forms of abuse to provide accurate information to the appropriate channel for action to be taken. Community feedback is invited.

Miscellaneous

• In February 2019, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) changed its office actions policy to include temporary and project-specific bans. The WMF exercised this new ability for the first time on the English Wikipedia on 10 June 2019 to temporarily ban and desysop Fram. This action has resulted in significant community discussion, a request for arbitration (permalink), and, either directly or indirectly, the resignations of numerous administrators and functionaries. The WMF Board of Trustees is aware of the situation, and discussions continue on a statement and a way forward. The Arbitration Committee has sent an open letter to the WMF Board.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:20, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Sorry that you had to leave. You were so much help over the years.

Bearian (talk) 15:03, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2019

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

Administrator changes

Johnuniq • Kosack • Valereee

Ad Orientem • Ched • Gadfium • Jonathunder • Nick • Yelyos

Bald Zebra • Beetstra • Doug Bell • Journalist • Ruud Koot • Splash • Voice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes

RickinBaltimore

Oversight changes

Beeblebrox

RickinBaltimore

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, the page Wikipedia:Office actions has been changed from a policy page to an information page.
• A request for comment (permalink) is in progress regarding the administrator inactivity policy.

Arbitration

• Editors may now use the template {{Ds/aware}} to indicate that they are aware that discretionary sanctions are in force for a topic area, so it is unnecessary to alert them.

Miscellaneous

• Following a research project on masking IP addresses, the Foundation is starting a new project to improve the privacy of IP editors. The result of this project may significantly change administrative and counter-vandalism workflows. The project is in the very early stages of discussions and there is no concrete plan yet. Admins and the broader community are encouraged to leave feedback on the talk page.
• The new page reviewer right is bundled with the admin tool set. Many admins regularly help out at Special:NewPagesFeed, but they may not be aware of improvements, changes, and new tools for the Curation system. Stay up to date by subscribing here to the NPP newsletter that appears every two months, and/or putting the reviewers' talk page on your watchlist.

  Since the introduction of temporary user rights, it is becoming more usual to accord the New Page Reviewer right on a probationary period of 3 to 6 months in the first instance. This avoids rights removal for inactivity at a later stage and enables a review of their work before according the right on a permanent basis.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:24, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Happy to see you back as admin

I am glad to see you getting back the admin bits. --DBigXrayᗙ 10:29, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Commons Q

Hi Nick--hope you can help me with a query. I've uploaded other folks' photos to Commons before, accompanied by an email from the copyright holder, and they were accepted. I liked that, because I don't want to tell people who know nothing about that technical stuff but want to donate their images that they should go to this or that link on Commons, fill this out, choose this license, etc. I think that was done through OTRS at the time, but I'm not sure. Can we still do that? Is there a procedure? Is there maybe a template for what such an email message should contain? Thanks, Drmies (talk) 14:03, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

@Drmies: I've not worked on OTRS for quite a number of years now, but that's exactly how I would have handled permission tickets in the past. I know that some OTRS members will not accept permissions that have been directed via a third person, expecting the copyright holder to upload files directly themselves. If the copyright holder can't manage this, sometimes OTRS agents will accept files being e-mailed together with the permissions. Nick (talk) 21:31, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks--I appreciate it. Do you happen to know who is active in that area now? Thanks, Drmies (talk) 21:36, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

@Drmies: Apologies for the delay, I've asked around and Praxidicae and AntiCompositeNumber handle OTRS permission requests, and are well versed in more complex licensing tasks. Nick (talk) 20:43, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Drmies, It doesn't matter who uploads the file, but the email must come from the copyright holder or their legal representative directly. If someone wants a photo uploaded, they can send it along with a standard release to photosubmissionwikimedia.org. If you're going to upload the file or it is already uploaded, the permission should go to permissions-commonswikimedia.org for commons files (with the same release text). The interactive release generator can also be used to generate release text. It is important to make sure that the email identifies the image that is being released with the URL. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 20:51, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

That's helpful, though still complicated. I think that's workable, though--I'll have a look at the standard release. Thanks. Drmies (talk) 23:41, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

AntiCompositeNumber, you don't have email enabled but I'd like to send you the email I got from the copyright owner. Nick, anytime you're bored with this, tell me, but it's nice to have a bunch of comments from different people in one place. Thanks for indulging us, and for the delicious pastries you serve. You're a fine host. Drmies (talk) 14:50, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Drmies, fixed, had it off to test something and never turned it back on. It's my username at gmail anyway. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 15:15, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Drmies we can't accept forwarded permissions generally but they don't need to actually be the uploader, if it's already there, that's fine but they need to be the one to send the actual permission. Praxidicae (talk) 20:45, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Listen

I honestly don't really care you think I should be blocked for CIR at this point. I'll always work with you and respect you as an editor. All I ask is you use the correct pronouns for referring to me. Can you please amend your statement to reflect this? –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:19, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

@MJL: I hope that meets your requirements, though you've not specified what pronouns you would prefer here or on your user page, so I've had to guess. Nick (talk) 18:26, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

The WP:SIG of early contribs gives an indication - although apparently that's not what they prefer. — Ched :  ?  — 18:44, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

The template {{gender}} is good for that kind of thing. PackMecEng (talk) 18:53, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

thank you for the ping. Check my user page again, section More User boxes, and click show. Also, Ched I changed my name to make easier for people to get it (and privacy reasons). You may notice that MJL is not exactly a gendered username. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:06, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

@MJL: I'm sorry I didn't see something that was deliberately hidden. That you choose to hide. Nick (talk) 19:13, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't know what you expect from me. I know when I'm being baited, so I will just refer you to PackMecEng's comment above. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 20:05, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Darkfrog AN

Saw your comment here. Do you think if they were confined to working on things in their userspace (say articles) for a period of time, and somehow did show they'd improved their behaviour, you think down the road they might be able to have such conditions relaxed? (e.g. be allowed to edit mainspace). I take your point on about them having showed no evidence they're willing to take direction from past experience, so this might allow them to show they can, perhaps.Steven Crossin ^{Help resolve disputes!} 09:24, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

@Steve Crossin: I don't honestly know. If I'm being brutally honest, I'd prefer DarkFrog stays away until they can edit in exactly the same way as any other editor - no topic ban, no other sanctions, no restrictions. I don't know if/when that will occur, I just don't think we're at that stage quite yet, from the behaviour I've seen relatively recently. Nick (talk) 09:54, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Fair enough. Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but I've worked with editors like this before, and they turned things around. From all I can see, I think they perhaps do maybe realise if they were given a chance, squandering it would likely leave them perma-banned. If they were to get unblocked and screwed up again, I'd be one of the first to haul them to ANI/ArbCom. Appreciate that the community does see this editor as a time sink, but if they're willing to stick to user space and edit away at articles until further notice, then I don't see how a lot of harm could be done. Steven Crossin ^{Help resolve disputes!} 10:29, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2019

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

Administrator changes

Bradv • Chetsford • Izno

Floquenbeam • Lectonar

DESiegel • Jake Wartenberg • Rjanag • Topbanana

CheckUser changes

Callanecc • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

Callanecc • Fox • HJ Mitchell • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Technical news

• Editors using the mobile website on Wikipedia can opt-in to new advanced features via your settings page. This will give access to more interface links, special pages, and tools.
• The advanced version of the edit review pages (recent changes, watchlist, and related changes) now includes two new filters. These filters are for "All contents" and "All discussions". They will filter the view to just those namespaces.

Arbitration

• A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2019 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.

Miscellaneous

• A global request for comment is in progress regarding whether a user group should be created that could modify edit filters across all public Wikimedia wikis.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:37, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

List of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? top prize winners

Hello—you deleted List of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? top prize winners on 8 October 2018 per CSD after it was recreated following the original discussion. It was recreated again 3 August 2019‎ and I have submitted it again for CSD. Can WP:SALT be applied to this? Should I redirect this question to another noticeboard? Thank you for your help. AldezD (talk) 12:33, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2019

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

Administrator changes

Barkeep49

Beetstra • KillerChihuahua • Kusma

Arcadian • Extraordinary Machine • Xeno

JamesBWatson → JBW

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

CheckUser changes

Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Oversight changes

Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Guideline and policy news

• Following a discussion, a new criterion for speedy category renaming was added: C2F: One eponymous article, which applies if the category contains only an eponymous article or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories.

Technical news

• As previously noted, tighter password requirements for Administrators were put in place last year. Wikipedia should now alert you if your password is less than 10 characters long and thus too short.

Arbitration

• The 2019 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place October 4th to 10th.
• The arbitration case regarding Fram was closed. While there will be a local RfC focus[ing] on how harassment and private complaints should be handled in the future, there is currently a global community consultation on partial and temporary office actions in response to the incident. It will be open until October 30th.

Miscellaneous

• The Community Tech team has been working on a system for temporarily watching pages, and welcomes feedback.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:55, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2019

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

Administrator changes

GermanJoe • Girth Summit • Kees08 • Nosebagbear

DESiegel • GB fan • MSGJ • Voice of Clam • WilyD

DeltaQuad • Fang Aili • Pakaran

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad • Pakaran

Interface administrator changes

MSGJ

CheckUser changes

L235 • Mz7 • SQL • ST47

Ivanvector

DeltaQuad

Oversight changes

L235 • Mz7 • ST47 • Stwalkerster • The Blade of the Northern Lights • Xaosflux

DeltaQuad • DGG • Julia W

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC was closed with the consensus that the resysop criteria should be made stricter.

• The follow-up RfC to develop that change is now open at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2019 Resysop Criteria (2).

• A related RfC is seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors may now nominate themselves as candidates for the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections. The self-nomination period will close November 12, with voting running from November 19 through December 2.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:15, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

A survey to improve the community consultation outreach process

Hello!

The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking to improve the community consultation outreach process for Foundation policies, and we are interested in why you didn't participate in a recent consultation that followed a community discussion you’ve been part of.

Please fill out this short survey to help us improve our community consultation process for the future. It should only take about three minutes.

The privacy policy for this survey is here. This survey is a one-off request from us related to this unique topic.

Thank you for your participation, Kbrown (WMF) 10:45, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019 election voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed 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 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:05, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2019

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

Administrator changes

EvergreenFir • ToBeFree

Akhilleus • Athaenara • John Vandenberg • Melchoir • MichaelQSchmidt • NeilN • Youngamerican • 😂

CheckUser changes

Beeblebrox

Deskana

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC on the administrator resysop criteria was closed. 18 proposals have been summarised with a variety of supported and opposed statements. The inactivity grace period within which a new request for adminship is not required has been reduced from three years to two. Additionally, Bureaucrats are permitted to use their discretion when returning administrator rights.
• Following a proposal, the edit filter mailing list has been opened up to users with the Edit Filter Helper right.

Technical news

• Wikimedia projects can set a default block length for users via MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry. A new page, MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry-ip, allows the setting of a different default block length for IP editors. Neither is currently used. (T219126)

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 2 December 2018 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

Miscellaneous

• The global consultation on partial and temporary office actions that ended in October received a closing statement from staff concluding, among other things, that the WMF will no longer use partial or temporary Office Action bans... until and unless community consensus that they are of value or Board directive.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:48, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Happy Holidays

	Happy Holidays! May your winter holidays be filled with joy, laughter and good health. Wishing you all the best in 2020 and beyond.

--Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 21:21, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2020

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

Administrator changes

Dreamy Jazz • Newslinger • Rosguill

Deor • Spartaz • Xeno

Angusmclellan • clpo13 • Edgar181 • Matthewedwards • NCurse

CheckUser changes

Bradv • Casliber • David Fuchs • Maxim • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy • Xeno

Oversight changes

Bradv • Casliber • DGG • David Fuchs • Maxim • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy • Xeno

Someguy1221

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment asks whether partial blocks should be enabled on the English Wikipedia. If enabled, this functionality would allow administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces, rather than the entire site.
• A proposal asks whether admins who don't use their tools for a significant period of time (e.g. five years) should have the toolset procedurally removed.
• Following a successful RfC, a whitelist is now available for users whose redirects will be autopatrolled by a bot, removing them from the new pages patrol queue. Admins can add such users to Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist after a discussion following the guidelines at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist.

Arbitration

• The fourth case on Palestine-Israel articles was closed. The case consolidated all previous remedies under one heading, which should make them easier to understand, apply, and enforce. In particular, the distinction between "primary articles" and "related content" has been clarified, with the former being the entire set of articles whose topic relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted rather than reasonably construed.
• Following the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Bradv, Casliber, David Fuchs, DGG, KrakatoaKatie, Maxim, Newyorkbrad, SoWhy, Worm That Turned, Xeno.

Miscellaneous

• This issue marks three full years of the Admin newsletter. Thanks for reading!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:06, 4 January 2020 (UTC)