User talk:ScottDavis/Archive 17
 | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
| Archive 10 | ← | Archive 15 | Archive 16 | Archive 17 | Archive 18 | Archive 19 | Archive 20 |
Administrators' newsletter – January 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2018).
|
|
|
Guideline and policy news
- There are a number of new or changed speedy deletion criteria, each previously part of WP:CSD#G6:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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:
- At least 8 characters in length
- Not in the 100,000 most popular passwords (defined by the Password Blacklist library)
- 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.
More info predating 1943.
Hi Scott,
Great page on VP-4. Would you mind updating your page to include the inception of the squad in 1928. Here's a link to pull info from http://www.vp4.navy.mil/history/history_of_the_skinny_dragons.htm
Hopefully it's a good source.
47.209.29.53 (talk)Samantha Nelson —Preceding undated comment added 20:23, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
- @47.209.29.53: Thank you. I have no particular connection to that page (I just reverted some vandalism). I have copied your message to the the talk page for the article. You are welcome to update the article yourself or someone else might pick up info from that page. Regards. --Scott Davis Talk 23:24, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
Cheers
Thanks for the update on those stations, good thing you had your eyes on the ball. Cheers. Hughesdarren (talk) 10:03, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
- @Hughesdarren: To be honest, this one was pure fluke. I was making wikilinks for Eyre Creek (Lake Eyre basin) and left Clifton Hills Station open for long enough to actually read it and notice that it named the vendor but not the buyer for a sale, so went looking for a source to finish it. The source I found named several other stations so I used it on three of those. Many of the station articles seem to have big gaps in the ownership provenance.
- Eyre Creek only became interesting in trying to sort out the links to Eyre Creek (South Australia) that seemed to be in two different places. --Scott Davis Talk 10:55, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
Encounter Bay
Just saw your edit summary when you restored this article about working through the most populous suburbs of SA without an article - do you have a list you're working off? Would be happy to chip in and do some. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:00, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
- @The Drover's Wife: I found a use for Wikidata :-) I have been working from a query for subclasses of human settlement in South Australia and the URL of their English Wikipedia article.[2] Click the sort button at the top of the article list and it sorts the rows with no article to the top and keeps them in population order, so I've picked a few off the list (the largest are presently on page 2). It turns out that many of the articles were created by User:Kyle1278 in 2009 as not much more than a one-liner, then deleted by User:Orderinchaos a few days later. I advised him what I am doing when did three suburbs of Whyalla a couple of days ago. You're welcome to a few more. I think I am done for a day or two as I have some family history items to explore. Wikitree can attract interesting contacts at unexpected times. I've contacted User:Canley on Wikidata about the Cowell entry and the Whyalla items are subject to a recent discussion on WP:AWNB. --Scott Davis Talk 11:26, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
- Thanks for that - that's really useful. I will try and pick a few out. I avoided that AWNB discussion because it was getting way too complicated for me - I feel like there was at least one case in one of these country-towns-with-suburbs that I dealt with by adding both a SSC and a whatever-the-larger-one-is figure in the population field, but I can't find it now. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:37, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
- @The Drover's Wife: I've generally avoided population figures as being too complex, but now that someone has done the hard work and set up easy to use templates (and maybe the census website is easier too) have started reporting current populations at least. I'm also trying to get more familiar with Wikidata so discovered that there was useful data. I'm not sure I want to learn about infobox tracking categories to fill a hypothetical category:Population different in infobox and wikidata. That looks like it would catch every wikipeida article that has used urban area data instead of suburb data for the population. I hope we don't have to end up splitting all the towns into a central district/suburb article and a larger town article. --Scott Davis Talk 12:39, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
- I think your Wikidata query will probably also drag in the umpteen thousand articles with outdated population figures from long ago censuses, alas. I don't think we need to split all the towns into a central suburb/larger town article as long as we use the two figures where necessary: e.g. at Moonta (I knew I'd done it somewhere), I explained in prose that there was one figure for the CBD and one incorporating all the surrounding suburbs (and naming them) so people could find whichever they were looking for. The Drover's Wife (talk) 19:11, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
- That sounds like a good decision. The AWNB conversation was rooted in the other end of this query result - I was puzzled that Whyalla and Port Pirie did not feature near the top of a wikidata query for the most populous towns in SA. Most of the places I've added in the last few days are residential suburbs of places with much higher urban populations than their "state suburb" suggests. --Scott Davis Talk 03:44, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
- I think your Wikidata query will probably also drag in the umpteen thousand articles with outdated population figures from long ago censuses, alas. I don't think we need to split all the towns into a central suburb/larger town article as long as we use the two figures where necessary: e.g. at Moonta (I knew I'd done it somewhere), I explained in prose that there was one figure for the CBD and one incorporating all the surrounding suburbs (and naming them) so people could find whichever they were looking for. The Drover's Wife (talk) 19:11, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
- @The Drover's Wife: I've generally avoided population figures as being too complex, but now that someone has done the hard work and set up easy to use templates (and maybe the census website is easier too) have started reporting current populations at least. I'm also trying to get more familiar with Wikidata so discovered that there was useful data. I'm not sure I want to learn about infobox tracking categories to fill a hypothetical category:Population different in infobox and wikidata. That looks like it would catch every wikipeida article that has used urban area data instead of suburb data for the population. I hope we don't have to end up splitting all the towns into a central district/suburb article and a larger town article. --Scott Davis Talk 12:39, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
- Thanks for that - that's really useful. I will try and pick a few out. I avoided that AWNB discussion because it was getting way too complicated for me - I feel like there was at least one case in one of these country-towns-with-suburbs that I dealt with by adding both a SSC and a whatever-the-larger-one-is figure in the population field, but I can't find it now. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:37, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
Disambiguation link notification for January 16
An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Wool Bay, South Australia, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Snook (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).
(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:39, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
- This one was deliberate and tagged, as I had no idea what it is meant to be. Anyone looking here is welcome to help please. --Scott Davis Talk 13:16, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – February 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2019).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
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.
Fixes required to Australian Country Party (2004) Page
Dear Scott,
Please find below the fixes required to bring our page up to date and reflect who and what we now are.
Thank You,
Glenn O'Rourke
Required updates to ensure Wiki Page Reflects the truth of who the Australian Country Party is from December 2018
Below are reverted edits that I believe should be reintroduced based on the factual information included and cited. I have provided the coded text, including cites to make the job easier for whoever takes on the fixing of our Page to bring it up to date and reflect who we are in 2019.
I note that I have a conflict of Interest as the New Federal Chairman of the Party and so I require someone to review and confirm the facts being presented, so they can be updated on the page.
Please note the additions to the Cate Speaks reference placed by one of your editors. There are notes there after I communicated directly with Cate.
1. Ideology - Grassroots Democracy, Australian Nationalism, Economic Nationalism
We do not believe that our patriotic positions are actually - Australian Nationalism and Economic Nationalism, but a broad patriotic position that is embraced by the majority of Australians of all nationality backgrounds and definitely not right wing.
We are definitely not social conservative.
| ideology = Grassroots democracy
Australian nationalism
Economic nationalism[1][2][3]
2. Political Position - Broad-Center
| position = broad-center[4][2][5]
3. Opening Paragraph
We are not a Victorian only Based Party and further, we are not "dedicated solely to the interests of regional communities", and was created to provide an alternative to the National Party in country Victoria. That Statement is historic and the Parties National Focus Commenced mid-2018.
The Suggested opening statements for the page are:
The Australian Country Party (ACP) is a Federaly Registered political party[6], headquartered and also registered in the Australian state of Victoria.[7] It has previously been named the Country Alliance and the Australian Country Alliance.
The party is focused on grassroots national issues, describing itself as a "Truly Democratic, Grass Roots Political Party for Australia", and provides an alternative to the Australian Labor Party, Liberal Party of Australia and National Party of Australia as a voice for all Australians.[8]
The Australian Country Party has commenced its national expansion with the application for registration in the Northern Territory.[9]
In closing, I believe there should be some reflection to the complete change of Ideology, Positioning and direction the Party has embarked on in line with the Party Media Release widely distributed on January 15. A link to the media release is here - [10]
Thank you to whoever fixes our Page.
Regards, Glenn O'Rourke
Glennstapo (talk) 12:16, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
References
- ^ https://catespeaks.wordpress.com/2018/11/12/victorian-state-election-2018-meet-the-australian-country-party-give-it-back/
- ^ a b Sinnott, Alex (22 January 2019). "Australian Country Party in the re-name game". The Weekly Times. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
- ^ https://influencing.com/au/prwire/australian-country-party-announces-its-national-expansion-as-the-first-truly-democratic-grass-roots-political-party-in-australia
- ^ https://catespeaks.wordpress.com/2018/11/12/victorian-state-election-2018-meet-the-australian-country-party-give-it-back/
- ^ https://influencing.com/au/prwire/australian-country-party-announces-its-national-expansion-as-the-first-truly-democratic-grass-roots-political-party-in-australia
- ^ "Australian Electoral Commission: Registered parties". Retrieved 2019-02-06.
- ^ "Victorian Electoral Commission: Currently registered parties". Archived from the original on 1 May 2007. Retrieved 2007-06-03.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - ^ [1] Archived 16 January 2019 at the Wayback Machine – Australian Country Party. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
- ^ https://ntec.nt.gov.au/media/news-items/news-items-list/news-items/2019/notice-of-application-for-registration-of-a-political-party
- ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20190116024229/https://australiancountryparty.org.au/australian-country-party-announces-its-national-expansion-as-the-first-truly-democratic-grass-roots-political-party-in-australia/
- To assist anyone trawling my talk page or its archives in future, I addressed this at Talk:Australian Country Party (2004)#Required updates to ensure Wiki Page Reflects the truth of who the Australian Country Party is from December 2018. --Scott Davis Talk 09:11, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
Bluestsky99
Hi there, I suspect user:Bluestsky99 has COI for page Singapore Management University. His comments on edits seems emotionally charged.Seriouzscholar (talk) 12:02, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – March 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2019).
|
|
|
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-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.
- paid-en-wp
- 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).
Miscellaneous
- Following the 2019 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Base, Einsbor, Jon Kolbert, Schniggendiller, and Wim b.
Sustainable Australia
Re: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Australia
Citations that you added regarding registration for 2018 Victorian and 2019 NSW state elections (replacing one valid link that I at one time inserted and which got removed as part of the edit warring, and one link needing to be made better) will I think have built-in obsolescence. The register of *current* parties will not support the historical record as time goes by. Hence why I preferred a different link into the relevant state electoral commission that will continue to work "indefinitely". Right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.167.161.149 (talk) 03:31, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
- @59.167.161.149: The only link I saw was to the party's own Facebook page, and the claims had not endured there either. The citations I added include access dates to enable the record to be checked in future. --Scott Davis Talk 03:47, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
William John Wills' father
The discussion was about improving one article, William John Wills, so has been moved to Talk:William John Wills#William John Wills' father to be visible to a wider audience as the relevant section of the article will be updated soon. --Scott Davis Talk 05:22, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
Verifiability at Northfield railway line
Hi, back in 2015, with Special:Diff/651881146, an internet forum link has been added to Northfield railway line. It had later been removed in Special:Diff/883522902 and re-inserted with Special:Diff/883584492. I have asked Alex Sims for clarification at User_talk:Alex_Sims#Verifiability_at_Northfield_railway_line, but seem to have received no response.
Could you clarify, ideally using a dummy edit to the article, that you had access to the actual journal and used it as the reference?
The forum post has at least one typo that I can assume without knowing the original article: the lack of capitalization at "in its early years". I assume that it is a manually typed copy of a printed article and may contain more, less obvious, errors. I personally would prefer removing the URL because it lacks the reliability that the huge automated Internet Archive has. Citing the journal seems fine to me, but should probably be done without the URL. There may even be copyright issues with such a large quote. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 08:14, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
- @ToBeFree: No, I am pretty sure I would not have had the paper journal in front of me in 2015. I used to buy them, so may have once owned that edition (I think I stopped regularly buying them before that), but I threw out or gave away my collection when I moved house earlier in this decade. It does not appear to have been scanned for public access at Trove. The State Library and National Railway Museum probably both have full sets. I would have included the URL in the citation as that copy is what I would have actually read. --Scott Davis Talk 13:32, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
- Ah, okay. Thank you very much for the clarification. Hmm. I think I'll add a message at Talk:Northfield railway line, hoping that someone with access to the journal, the library or the museum may be watching. After a week or so I may remove it from the article, pointing to the talk page section. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:21, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – April 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2019).
|
|
|
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.
2016 Senate electoral fraud
Hi Scott, would you mind offering your opinion in this talk page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Derryn_Hinch#3_year_senate_term
Timroll Pickering is deleting all references to the controversy and refusing to explain why, other than a personal issue with me, and appears to have taken the stance of automatically deleting every edit I make unless I get other editors involved.
Our previous discussion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Members_of_the_Australian_Senate,_2016%E2%80%932019
Oz freediver (talk) 00:44, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
Move 'Red Gum' to 'Red gum'
I have requested at Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests that the disambiguation page Red Gum be moved to Red gum, as most of the pages disambiguated are not proper names requiring Upper Case. I assume this is uncontroversial, but if you object for any reason, you can move the request to the 'Controversial requests' section. Happy editing, Cnilep (talk) 09:35, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
- No problem. Thanks for checking, on a page I last edited in 2006! I noticed that the plants were all Red Gum (capital G) until 2017. Before that, the capital G was appropriate. --Scott Davis Talk 14:08, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
ArbCom 2019 special circular
 |
Administrators must secure their accounts
The Arbitration Committee may require a new RfA if your account is compromised.
|
This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:24, 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
- 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 sowill 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.
- 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,
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.
Hi Scott. By a remarkable coincidence, you and I were looking at "arch. rare" in the Assessment of significance as "architecturally rare" made no sense. Never thought of "archaelogically rare" but that makes no sense either. Whoever started the article probably thought the same and thought you can't go wrong quoting verbatim, which was my thought too. I also can't see how it would be affected by the inland rail project (which involves a new line Illapo to Stockinbingal) or how an 8km loop adds 2km to a line, but I'm just a simple Adelaide boy. Doug butler (talk) 01:38, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
- @Doug butler: I assume it is supposed to be "architectural" and has something to do with the structure of either the bridge or the tunnel, but have not found a detailed description to confirm that. As you said, the citation is no help as it is quoted verbatim. I found both Architectural and Archaeological in footnote 2 of the assessment criteria linked from the item details cited.
- The map for that section of Inland Railway shows that the new route will stay west of the hills instead of up to Cootamundra and down again. Cootamundra must have been a significant railway town with tracks in four directions. Modern trains don't stop in these places.
- The difference between 8.9km total length and 2km extra distance is that the end points of the deviation must be about 6 route kilometres apart on the old alignment. --Scott Davis Talk 02:29, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:Scott Morrison sidebar
Template:Scott Morrison sidebar has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 14:18, 28 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
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.
inquiry regarding your photos
Hi there, the committee planning the centenary celebration of Captain Harry Butler's historic air mail flight over Gulf Saint Vincent would like to use one of your photographs. Can you please email me at cathy.glazbrook@gmail.com so that we can contact you privately. Cheers, Cathy Wordpixie (talk) 12:05, 25 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.
|
|
|
|
|
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.
Administrators' newsletter – August 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2019).
|
|
|
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.