Administrators' newsletter – January 2019

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

  Guideline and policy news

  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}}.

  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

  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.

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

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

 

  Administrator changes

  EnterpriseyJJMC89
  BorgQueen
  Harro5Jenks24GraftR. 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.

Administrators' newsletter – March 2019

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

  Guideline and policy news

  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-wp wikipedia.org has been set up to receive private evidence related to abusive paid editing.
    • checkuser-en-wp wikipedia.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


Nomination for deletion of Template:Editnotices/Page/MediaWiki:Editnotice-8

 Template:Editnotices/Page/MediaWiki:Editnotice-8 has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 20:58, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2019

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

  Technical news

  Arbitration

  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.

ArbCom 2019 special circular

 
Administrators must secure their accounts

The Arbitration Committee may require a new RfA if your account is compromised.

View additional information

This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:53, 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).

  Guideline and policy news

  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


Hola me ayudas con una página wiki es que desapareció

Sabes donde puedo buscar ayuda para saber por qué borraron esa página plis la página era FOX VFX LABS una compañía de efectos visuales y demás cosas que era de la Fox pero un día fui a ver la Página y no estaba más me ayudas? Hujulin (talk) 22:06, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't speak Spanish. Stifle (talk) 14:24, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Faisal Rahman (2nd nomination)

is a snow-keep. Not a NC, mis-clicked? WBGconverse 14:16, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

I guess so. Stifle (talk) 09:00, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
 usernamekiran(talk) 20:35, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2019

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

 

  Administrator changes

  AndonicConsumed CrustaceanEnigmamanEuryalusEWS23HereToHelpNv8200paPeripitusStringTheory11Vejvančický

  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


Administrators' newsletter – July 2019

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

 

  Administrator changes

  28bytesAd OrientemAnsh666BeeblebroxBoing! said ZebedeeBU Rob13Dennis BrownDeorDoRDFloquenbeam1Flyguy649Fram2GadfiumGB fanJonathunderKusmaLectonarMoinkMSGJNickOd MishehuRamaSpartazSyrthissTheDJWJBscribe
1Floquenbeam's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.
2Fram's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.

  Guideline and policy news

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

  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


User talk:Hemantlead

An entire user talk page dedicated to advertising for an unsanctioned, third party visa application website certainly would qualify as advertisement to me. Frankly, I am baffled you see it as "isn't advertising, but it's fairly incomprehensible". The content is actually very intelligible, but the links are purely advertising. --Cahk (talk) 11:34, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

  • I don't see it that way, just a pile of nonsense about visa applications. It is, however, a copyvio and will be deleted for that reason. Stifle (talk) 11:37, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2019

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

  Guideline and policy news

  Arbitration

  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.


Deletion review for Joe Loughmuller

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Joe Loughmuller. 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. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 10:28, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

James Chater AfD

I saw that you closed this AfD as no consensus today. This is certainly reasonable, given that the AfD has already been relisted once. However, until my comment, which came pretty late, neither the nominator nor any of the participants for this AfD mentioned that this is a WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY case. So I am thinking that maybe it is worth relisting the AfD for another week to see if anyone else chimes in, and a clearer consensus might emerge. Anyway, just a thought. Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 14:27, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

List of stakes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Well, if Wikipedia is not a directory of everything in the Universe that exists or has existed, then how am I supposed to find out which stakes exist or have existed or the dates when they were formed or discontinued, without that page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by RobThomas15 (talkcontribs) 00:52, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @RobThomas15: the answer to your question is that having this information freely available on the Internet would indeed be a valuable thing. It's simply not within our remit as an encyclopedia. I assume the church would want to publish this type of information on one of their web servers. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:52, 19 August 2019 (UTC)


request for text of deleted articles

Hello, you are listed as an administrator who may be willing to provide the text of deleted articles. Could you provide me with the text of "List of political figures of Upstate New York" and "List of emigrants from Upstate New York" for my own records? Thank you very much, Don Argus jr

  Done Stifle (talk) 14:12, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mariam Anwar

Hello! I am not sure a no consensus was a good enough close here. Like Pontificabus mentioned WP:ATH says (which CRIC is a part of "subjects of standalone articles should meet the General Notability Guideline. The guideline on this page provides bright-line guidance to enable editors to determine quickly if a subject is likely to meet the General Notability Guideline." There were no sources presented, and there was some agreement that it fails WP:GNG. Because it doesn't meet WP:GNG, therefore a delete close is valid. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 12:15, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Deletion review for Mariam Anwar

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Mariam Anwar. 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. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 12:31, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2019

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

 

  Administrator changes

  BradvChetsfordIzno
  FloquenbeamLectonar
  DESiegelJake WartenbergRjanagTopbanana

  CheckUser changes

  CallaneccLFaraoneThere'sNoTime

  Oversight changes

  CallaneccFoxHJ MitchellLFaraoneThere'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

  Miscellaneous


Administrators' newsletter – October 2019

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

  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

  Miscellaneous

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

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Laura Myntti

I think you may have made a error here, The article not only did not show notability , the key claims could not even be verified. I consider all my deletion decisions carefully also, but I always reconsider them on request. This both offers further explanation to the editor inquiring in case I'm right, and let's me fix my own errors when I'm wrong. If I were a bot, then I'd have no way to do this, and would need to send them to DRV. We admins need to prove we are human, because an increasing number of editors seem to think otherwise. DGG ( talk ) 06:00, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

I don’t normally do this but I have vacated my closure and Relisted the discussion. Stifle (talk) 15:46, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
much appreciated. DGG ( talk ) 16:22, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2019

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

  Guideline and policy news

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

  Arbitration


commons issue

Hi Stifle, could you have a quick look at this section and the attending "ban" subthread? There are some issues which may pertain to commons, and I think you're an admin there as well. Thank you. — Ched (talk) 22:51, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

I am, and I'll look into it. Stifle (talk) 10:32, 4 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

  EvergreenFirToBeFree
  AkhilleusAthaenaraJohn VandenbergMelchoirMichaelQSchmidtNeilNYoungamerican😂

  CheckUser changes

  Beeblebrox
  Deskana

  Interface administrator changes

  Evad37

  Guideline and policy news

  Technical news

  Arbitration

  Miscellaneous


Orphaned non-free image File:Batzarro.jpg

 

Thanks for uploading File:Batzarro.jpg. 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) 18:25, 6 December 2019 (UTC)