User talk:PGWG/Archives/2017/February
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Administrators' newsletter - February 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.
Administrator changes
NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67
Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13
Guideline and policy news
- A discussion to workshop proposals to amend the administrator inactivity policy at Wikipedia talk:Administrators has been in process since late December 2016.
- Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2016 closed with no consensus for implementing Pending changes level 2 with new criteria for use.
- Following an RfC, an activity requirement is now in place for bots and bot operators.
Technical news
- When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. (T34950)
- Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. (T156448)
- The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.
Arbitration
- The Arbitration Committee released a response to the Wikimedia Foundation's statement on paid editing and outing.
Obituaries
- JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.
13:38, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
New Page Review - newsletter No.2
- A HUGE backlog
We now have 814 New Page Reviewers!
Most of us requested the user right at PERM, expressing a wish to be able to do something about the huge backlog, but the chart on the right does not demonstrate any changes to the pre-user-right levels of October.
The backlog is still steadily growing at a rate of 150 a day or 4,650 a month. Only 20 reviews a day by each reviewer over the next few days would bring the backlog down to a managable level and the daily input can then be processed by each reviewer doing only 2 or 3 reviews a day - that's about 5 minutes work!
It didn't work in time to relax for the Xmas/New Year holidays. Let's see if we can achieve our goal before Easter, otherwise by Thanksgiving it will be closer to 70,000.
- Second set of eyes
Remember that we are the only guardians of quality of new articles, we alone have to ensure that pages are being correctly tagged by non-Reviewer patrollers and that new authors are not being bitten.
- Abuse
This is even more important and extra vigilance is required considering Orangemoody, and
- this very recent case of paid advertising by a Reviewer resulting in a community ban.
- this case in January of paid advertising by a Reviewer, also resulting in a community ban.
- This Reviewer is indefinitely blocked for sockpuppetry.
Coordinator election
Kudpung is stepping down after 6 years as unofficial coordinator of New Page Patrolling/Reviewing. There is enough work for two people and two coords are now required. Details are at NPR Coordinators; nominate someone or nominate yourself. Date for the actual suffrage will be published later.
Discuss this newsletter here. If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:11, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 6 February 2017
- Arbitration report: WMF Legal and ArbCom weigh in on tension between disclosure requirements and user privacy
- WikiProject report: For the birds!
- Technology report: Better PDFs, backup plans, and birthday wishes
- Traffic report: Cool It Now
- Featured content: Three weeks dominated by articles
Please comment on Talk:Melania Trump
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Melania Trump. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
New Page Review-Patrolling: Coordinator elections
Your last chance to nominate yourself or any New Page Reviewer, See Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Coordination. Elections begin Monday 20 February 23:59 UTC. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:17, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
New Page Review - newsletter No.3
Voting for coordinators has now begun HERE and will continue through/to 23:59 UTC Monday 06 March. Please be sure to vote. Any registered, confirmed editor can vote. Nominations are now closed.
- Still a MASSIVE backlog
We now have 814 New Page Reviewers but despite numerous appeals for help, the backlog has NOT been significantly reduced.
If you asked for the New Page Reviewer right, please consider investing a bit of time - every little helps preventing spam and trash entering the mainspace and Google when the 'NO_INDEX' tags expire.
Discuss this newsletter here. If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:35, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 27 February 2017
- From the editors: Results from our poll on subscription and delivery, and a new RSS feed
- Recent research: Special issue: Wikipedia in education
- Technology report: Responsive content on desktop; Offline content in Android app
- In the media: The Daily Mail does not run Wikipedia
- Gallery: A Met montage
- Special report: Peer review – a history and call for reviewers
- Op-ed: Wikipedia has cancer
- Featured content: The dominance of articles continues
- Traffic report: Love, football, and politics