User talk:Beetstra/Archive 20

Blacklists

Hello again. I'd just like to make sure I understand which blacklist to submit to:

• WT:SBL - local blacklist, obvious spam by multiple users/addresses
• M:WM:SBL - global blacklist, obvious spam on multiple wikis
• WT:WPSPAM - WP page, defer there when ambigious/unsure, but usually poking COIBot avoids the need
• User talk:XLinkBot/RevertList (I found no shortcut for this one) - unlinkbot, for domains/links that shouldn't be blacklisted but which are commonly misused by new users

Anything that I've missed? Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 13:21, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: That is about it. For blacklisting generally one needs warned users (where XLinkBot can sometimes help in issuing those), unless it involves many IPs (where you can expect that warnings will never arrive anyway). WT:WPSPAM is often a good place to make a record, then you know that someone saw it in the past. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:00, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Super, thanks again, —PaleoNeonate – 20:09, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for September 28

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Iadmin

Hello Beetstra the normal WP:INTADMIN policy and request process has finalized with a less stringent set of access requirements from the temporary stop-gap process. If you still require this access, please review the new process for requesting on the INTADMIN policy page. Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 02:25, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: I disagree that anything there had consensus (let alone a supermajority), and with a 48 hr waiting period the elite will jump in and oppose (and there is no reason for supporters to support), or do it for you. Moreover, no-one soon can show relevant experience anymore but a bit of work in their own userspace. Noone needs indefinite access. Another broken process. Soit.

I may request if/when I turn my gadget into a sitewide gadget. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:36, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

I do think it will be "easier" under the new process to gain access than under the stop-gap one. You may of course challenge the RfC closure at WP:AN if you think it was bad. I just wanted to give you a heads up due to your prior request, apologies if this was antagonistic. Best wishes, — xaosflux ^Talk 04:19, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: No apologies needed, it is just typical for Wikipedia. Problem is that I agree with others, we needed a process there. Now we have the process, we need to see how we fine tune it. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:57, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Embedded external links in MAC OS articles

Hi Dirk Beetstra. What you think about the embedded links in Mac OS X 10.0#Release history and Mac OS X 10.1#Release history? It seems as if this would not be allowed per WP:CS#Avoid embedded links and WP:ELLIST. I'm also not sure if the links have any value as a citation since they seem to be more like links to external websites of WP:NOTHOWTO type, than a citation to a reliable source. If these are a problem, then other similar articles might need to be checked as well. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:43, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: I don't really see the use of these links. They are at best a primary source for the existance of the release. Did you try a bold removal, and if there is resistance a talkpage discussion? Or directly a ELN discussion? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:28, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look. I came across the links while checking on some images. I didn't try and remove them yet; I just wanted to get another opinion before doing so. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:19, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Just to update, I've gone through and removed the aforementioned links for a number of articles. The link use in some such as OS X El Capitan was quite pevasive with the section looking more like an Apple support page than a Wikipedia article. I can see how it might be beneficial to provide some sourced content about a new software revision, but I don't think simply providing links to download pages, etc. is suitable for Wikipedia per WP:LINKFARM. Anyway, I was bold, so now it's just wait and see I guess. From the respective page histories, it looks like many of the links were added by IP accounts only used to add the links. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:59, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Ding!

Hello, Beetstra. 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.— DMacks (talk) 07:21, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

OR?

A class is recently starting up again that does article improvement, obviously a good thing. The aspect that I question is that the students conduct and report electronic structure calculations. Eg. from last year stannylene. From this fall tellurophene. These calculations no doubt give the students great experience but the question is are they are appropriate for Wikipedia? --Smokefoot (talk) 11:08, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

@Smokefoot: I indeed think this is OR. Such calculations should be from peer-reviewed journals. It is the all time favourite '3D model' story, where for most molecules there are so many configurations possible that it is basically senseless to show them. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:18, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Dirk, thanks would you please attend to the artwork in tellurophene and suffer the consequences? I will follow. --Smokefoot (talk) 11:29, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

@Smokefoot: Done. Text may need further pruning and more references. This looks like all primary referenced ... not sure if this should be there at all. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:00, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

XLinkBot List

Dear Mr.Beetstra

- In 2007 I started to publish articles in the Open Directory Project(dmoz)at www.socrethics.com.

- Later I proposed EXTERNAL LINKS to the same articles in Wikipedia. First some were accepted, so that I felt encouraged and added more. At some point they were all removed without an explanation.

- In 2014 I learned the reason for the rejection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:31.164.105.158

My question:

- Why was I not given an instruction or warning BEFORE putting my website on the XLinkBot list?

- What can I do to have www.socrethics.com removed from the XLinkBot list?

Yours sincerely,

Bruno Contestabile

Email: bconte@sunrise.ch

Bconte (talk) 08:41, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

List of manual image annotation tools

Dear Mr.Beetstra,

Below are some of the new article mentioning Dataturks, does any of these qualify as "independent, reliable sources"

https://www.theindianwire.com/startups/axilors-summer-2018-accelerator-program-startups-62856/

https://inc42.com/buzz/meet-the-19-startups-selected-for-the-summer-2018-accelerator-cohort-of-axilor/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mohangupta13 (talk • contribs) 10:04, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

@Mohangupta13: I would discuss that with people on talk:List of manual image annotation tools. I already started a thread there. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:18, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

And no, they are not independent, you yourself applied for it, you just got selected. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:21, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Links to wikis

m:Talk:Interwiki map#Wikia might interest you. It sounds like there are a bunch of semi-broken templates for external links. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:33, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Grmpf. Wikia. Some of their wikis are fine, but most material should not be linked to in the first place. Nothing for me there, but I will need to see what we have here (XLinkBot/Blacklist). Does the blacklist blocked these interwiki-links when added? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:06, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

No clue. The blacklist is your territory. ;-)

It sounds like a number of these are being called through templates. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:28, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: I will need to check my bots for this then. I still don't understand why external material has to be linked this way ... --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:16, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

How does XLinkBot get some and miss others

Hi there. Thank you for your valuable work with spam. Or, rather, against it. I was concerned about the some or all of the edits of this user and I see that you had added the site ancient hyphen origins dot net to XLinkBot's list here. Looking, though, at the user's edits I see that XLinkBot got some but not others and I wondered how this worked and whether it will continue to get them if there is then a rash of similar additions. It may be, of course, that I am entirely missing the point here, in which case do please educate me and accept my apologies. Thanks and best wishes DBaK (talk) 19:11, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

@DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered: it should in principle have done all of them .. and I was curious to see that as well. I need to go through the logs. It does have a tendency to lag, XLinkBot has some reasonably fast reversions, and others are slow, maybe there is something in the queue system that is not working properly.

The user in question is taunting ... one more addition by a new account/IP and I will blacklist the whole stuff. XLinkBot did its job basically, it warned and the user did not seem to care. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:21, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Fascinating! Many thanks for the interesting explanation – I really appreciate your taking the time. I can see that the user is not to be with us too long unless they sort themselves out a bit ... With best wishes DBaK (talk) 10:57, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

COIBot list

• socrethics.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Dear Mr.Beetstra

In 2017 my website www.socrethics.com was on the XLinkBot list.

On October 16,2018 I asked you (in this user talk) to remove my website from the XLinkBot list.

Today I noted that my website is now on the COIBot list.

Could you please remove www.socrethics.com from the COIBot list.

Thank you

Bruno Contestabile— Preceding unsigned comment added by Bconte (talk • contribs)

@Bconte: Yes, it is rightfully being monitored and controlled. The COIBot reports are not a 'list', they are reports to see by who and how a link has been/is being used. You have a conflict of interest, and have been editing in violation of m:Terms of use, and I see that you continued to add links to your own site after it was added to XLinkBot (and XLinkBot has issued warnings as to their inclusion). I also note that you have performed these edits cross-wiki.

Please read the applicable policies and guidelines and please follow those - do not extensively cite your own work, and certainly not your own website. We generally do not remove links from XLinkBot or spam-blacklists when requested by editors with a direct relation with the links. Here on en.wikipedia I do not see anyone else (let alone, established / long term editors) use the link. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:22, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Dear Mr.Beetstra,

Thanks for your information.

I have nothing to do with the author who published at https://socrethics.wordpress.com

Sorry, if I violated the terms of use.

The problem with the conflict of interest is solved, but I do not mind, if you continue monitoring.

Kind regards,

Bruno Contestabile 14:29, 29 October 2018 (UTC)Bconte (talk)

Hey

Can you please add me to COIBot/LinkWatcher's trusted list. My IRC nick is [1997kB]. ‐‐1997kB (talk) 17:26, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

@1997kB: Sure, I will do that one of these days. I will mark this post as unread to remember me (I need to go on IRC and do not have continuous access due to firewalls). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:22, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

@1997kb: I've done that. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:40, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@1997kB: reping. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:41, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, Beetstra. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

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Marilynn Hughes

Dear Beetstra, i just undid your one edit on Marilynn Hughes page. You said https://www.outofbodytravel.org is not her website while i checked in depth and found this is exactly her website. You should check again. I appreciate if you could help me to make the article clean and better.WFE24 (talk) 09:57, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

@WFE24: No,I dispute that. It is the website of the Out-Of-Body Travel Foundation, the subject of the website is 'out of body travel '. It is a website that is maintained by her, but not about her. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:14, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

OK, i got your point. You mean this website is her foundation's website but my question is Out-Of-Body Travel Foundation is founded and run by 'Marilynn Hughes' then why we can't use this website on her wikipedia article?WFE24 (talk) 10:23, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

@WFE24: Since it is indirect. That is like linking all individual language wikis on Jimbo Wales, since he is (one of the) founder(s) and his organisation is running the site ... --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:37, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

"Official links (if any) are provided to give the reader the opportunity to see what the subject says about itself" - this tells more about her books, selling her books. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:44, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Chembox

Howdy! As the maintainer of CheMoBot I wanted to make sure you were aware of a project I'm working on. Basically I'm working on converting {{chembox}} to use {{Infobox}} as a base. There are a number of reasons for the conversion which I'm happy to elaborate on. The good news is that on the front end, there is almost no change to how the template is implemented. All parameters will remain the same. The only difference is that the templates will have new names. {{Chembox Identifiers}} → {{Infobox chemical/identifiers}} for example. Anyway, I wanted to see what affect this would have on your bot and how I can be helpful with making sure the bot still works. The working new template is at {{Infobox chemical}}. Let me know if you have any questions! --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 19:18, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@Zackmann08: you clearly do not have the decency to discuss, nor wait, you just do things your way. So there is no need to answer this. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:33, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

@Beetstra: seriously? It is still a work in progress... If I didn't want your input why would I have come to you? If you don't want to contribute that's fine... --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 03:36, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

@Zackmann08: no, it is not a work in process, you stuff it down throats. You don't want input, you are just keeping up appearances (as is clear already from the wording and subsequent withdrawal of the RfC you started, and from you enforcing a switchover NOW by enforcing deletion and 1000s and 1000s of follow up edits). You have, in no form, listened to concerns of local communities, nor whether a changeover is needed, wanted, possible, or wait for input whether it breaks stuff, nor tested it sufficiently.

Again, you don't give people time to consider, or whether they want to help, so yor remark is rather hollow. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:49, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

[1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13] and the list goes on. One last time. I'm here asking for your feedback and your concerns. If you want to continue accusing me of not being interested in your feedback, the evidence will speak for itself. --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 03:54, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

@Zackmann08: you conveniently left out the original discussion and the RfC you started and then deleted. You only addressed me (for me) yesterday. Are you serious? You hardly give people chance to respond. 5 days over black Friday/thanksgiving weekend, where the majority of these posts are just in these last 3 days. Your editing is utterly, completely disruptive. It is good that we now have a working example to test, and it is now time to wait for major input of the major contributors of the template and the Wikiproject(s) involved. Withdraw your pointy and disruptive TfD, and post a neutral RfC to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals and give it time ... Convincing us works better than disruptively stuffing it down our throats over Thanksgiving. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:08, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

For what is is worth, do want to apologize again. Believe it or not, there was NO attempt by me to shove this down anyone's throat or force things through. I just got overly excited. I realize there is a difference between intentions and perceptions, but hope my intent counts for something. Anyway, hopefully the work I've done will be useful to you all. Best, --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 05:50, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

@Zackmann08: I appreciate your apology, and accept it.

I do think that we now need to take it slow, run through testcases and live versions (with {{chembox}} we also ran testcases, but when going live sometimes things still went awry). Discuss whether we 'like' everything (there are some points where I have question marks that I saw in one of the testcases - alignment of multi-line properties within the set). Then we can have a short discussion whether we really want to move forward or 'shelve' it. At this time I do not see any urgent need to move to {{infobox}}, 'just' to be in line with development etc. Again, I do not see any problems with the current {{chembox}} (but please show me if there are), and do not see advantages on {{infobox}}. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:20, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

There are a couple of issues with {{Chembox}} but none of them require a lightning quick fix. The bottom line is that Chembox fails WP:ACCESS with the way that it is laid out. It also is a nightmare to maintain. The number of sub-templates is ridiculous. That isn't a criticism of anyone!! There was a time when all infoboxes were done this way. All infoboxes are moving towards using Lua modules as a base for a number of technical reasons. The bottom line is that by using {{Infobox}} as a base, the template is automatically reformatted for proper layout on mobile devices. It also has built in functionality for people with disabilities, etc. So there are some definite improvements here, but the key thing that I need to remember, is that NOTHING about these improvements requires overnight implementation.

I had a thought that I wanted to run by you and DMacks. With your approval, I would like to archive some of the threads at Template talk:Chembox and restate my case. I DO NOT want to hide or suppress anything that has previously been stated. Let me be clear... This is NOT about hiding my mistakes. My concern is that I don't want to get bogged down in a debate over where I went wrong on a personal level. I would like the discussion moving forward to focus on the technical side of things and making sure that the template works for everyone from a technical standpoint, regardless of the may failures I made in communicating. Lord knows I've earned a trout from you both and if you have further criticisms of me, I welcome you to state them. My hope, however, is that moving forward we can debate the merits of the template regardless of the fact that it was I who created them. I think that you will find that the new template has a number of improvements (including a few things that we found were broken on {{Chembox}}).

So with your ok, I would like to archive a couple of threads on the talk page and restate my case. Outline the work that has been done and formally request the chemistry community to review the template. Let me know your thoughts and thanks for giving me a second chance. --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 18:05, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

@Zackmann08: just give it time. You are starting to push again. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:47, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

@Beetstra: not trying to push, just trying to give context... --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 04:29, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

@Zackmann08: It can wait out the regular archiving. Manually/enforced archiving (by you) still looks like you want it done ASAP. I really suggest you step away for a bit. You have upset me and User:DMacks quite a bit this weekend (as you noticed - I was close to bringing this to AN or AN/I), some others that did comment were not too happy either. I am sure that some of the editors who did not comment this weekend (but in earlier situations) will not look favourable on the situation of this weekend either. As I suggested also earlier - step away from implementation (completely, or at least for a couple of weeks). If you would make your case now, I would strongly oppose implementation anyway, as it is not thoroughly tested, it is not checked whether material is displaying properly, it is not checked if everything works, I haven't checked whether CheMoBot would work with the system. That alone will take weeks to complete. And even then, I am not sure whether I will support.

It is fine if you do some more testing, even with edits and self-reverts in mainspace (though preview should do a lot) to check. There are so many parameters and so many pages with strange situations (DePiep has done a great job in capturing most in the current testcases, but a major overhaul may result in many new things popping up - and I want him to comment on the code as well, he is currently the person who is most knowledgeable in the code of {{chembox}}). I would now let the implementation rest for a couple of weeks (really!), and then probably s.o. should start an RfC on the chemicals (best?) or chemistry wikiproject for implementation (and notify other tangential WikiProjects and probably involved editors). As I already gave as feedback, there are things 'I don't like' (i.e., which I think are not as clear as in the past (but I have to have a second look)), and that needs a calm discussion where people get time to chime in. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:54, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Poke access to User:Longhair

Hi Beetstra. Would you mind giving access to Longhair so they can edit User:COIBot/Poke (w:en:special:permalink/872727043), the css config changes prevent my doing so now. Thanks. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:43, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Chembox

How goes it? Hope you had a good week. Wanted to see if you might have some time this weekend for a conversation about that template? Not pushing or rushing anything. Just interested in feedback if you have some time. Now that things have cooled off a bit, I'm hopeful we might be able to have a constructive conversation about the template. I don't want to take ANY further action without some comment from you and/or DMacks. There was talk in some of the exchanges about opening an RFC for the template I created, do you think that would be a good next step? If so I am more than happy to start that. I want to be crystal clear here, not looking to rush anything. I made a number of mistakes in this process and was tempted to just walk away, but I'd like to try to salvage the work and contribute. I truly believe that this template will be of use to the project. This isn't going to happen overnight and there is no rush or deadline. Whenever you get a chance, let me know what you think the best next step would be and I'll be happy to make it happen. Hoping you are well. --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 21:34, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

@Zackmann08: Sorry, this still doesn't have my priority. We have time. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:18, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

All good! Was just curious. --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 18:54, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Been another 2 weeks... Do you have any feedback at all? --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 19:04, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

I'll try to find some time. It is on my list. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:54, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

COIBot posting broken links

Hi, COIBot is posting links of reports which doesn't exist.

<+COIBot> Saved a local report for eatmepls.com (Local spam on en.wikipedia.org by 188.64.173.24). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:COIBot/Local/eatmepls.com

<+COIBot> Saved a local report for mssetup.com (Local spam on en.wikipedia.org by Mytechnation). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:COIBot/Local/mssetup.com

<+COIBot> Saved a local report for rvpfilms.net (Local spam on en.wikipedia.org by 106.207.130.160 106.76.145.12 106.76.146.2 42.107.224.0 42.107.234.183 42.107.247.220 106.76.153.168). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:COIBot/Local/rvpfilms.net

‐‐1997kB (talk) 09:13, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

@1997kB: .. interesting. The reports on en.wikipedia are under Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/eatmepls.com, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/mssetup.com, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/rvpfilms.net (of which two don't exist either). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:49, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

@1997kB: COIBot was confused. I restarted the LinkSaving module, it was throwing error messages. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:28, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Looks like it is working now, last two link reports are fine. ‐‐1997kB (talk) 17:34, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Kennyalley

If you see any more Slowking4 socks, let me know. Thanks, Black Kite (talk) 01:02, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

@Black Kite: I will ping you. Many of the previous incarnations I blocked as ducks, this one was, at the time of SPI, about 97%. If I would have been around, they would likely not even have made it to AN/I before getting blocked. They has so many tell-tale edits, that I can make them out with >95% certainty as soon as they hit 15 edits. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:13, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Your bot's issue

Why your bot made an edit[14] which removed my modifications that were made for erasing promotional stuff? — Preceding unsigned comment added by NavjotSR (talk • contribs) 06:48, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

@NavjotSR: and you added a handful of external links, some of them questionable. Please follow the remarks that were left on your talkpage. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:14, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Accidentally restored a wordpress link which I was actually removing.[15] Nothing like I am planning to add but still want to know if your bot removes all wordpress links? NavjotSR (talk) 04:51, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

@NavjotSR: It removes external links to wordpress as it is an open blog. Most (though not all) of these are inappropriate as external links. For new users (who are generally unaware of the inclusion standards for external links, we decided that it is beneficial to revert and leave a note to the user. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:37, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

User page

You've got a template on top from 2012. Might be time to take it off. :) Gaelan 💬✏️ 03:15, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

@Gaelan: heh .. I never look at that page. Like remembering your own telephone number in the old days .. I never call that person! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:21, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Current poke for fintrx.com

Hello Beetstra, when you got some time could you check please why the latest poke for fintrx.com from 11th January isn't processed by COIBot? I have left the original situation as is without a re-try for now. GermanJoe (talk) 14:04, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

@GermanJoe: I tried to repoke. If it doesn'tcome I will kick the bot tomorrow. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:59, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Thank you - no need to kick the poor bot, the retry worked :). GermanJoe (talk) 21:52, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

blogspot

With much difficulty I found out original links of that post and updated it. I dont understand why you have reverted all those external links with 404 pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Indianbeauty (talk • contribs) 04:10, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

@Indianbeauty: did you even look at the warnings that XLinkBot left you? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:58, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Cluebot III archiving on MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist?

Hello Beetstra, seems like Cluebot III hasn't archived whitelist talk since 26 October 2018. I briefly checked its configuration and bot activity, but don't see an obvious change or other reason for it stopping. Do you have any idea about possible causes or should we bother the bot operator for some help? Of course it's possible that some recent content or code changes on the talkpage or in an embedded template disturb the bot, but such issues are a pain to locate. GermanJoe (talk) 19:24, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

@GermanJoe: Maybe some problem with a blacklisted link, archiving bots do not seem to like those. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:49, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

yep - infowars link. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:51, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Disabled links, should work now. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:52, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a likely problem. Let's see if Cluebot is happy now with your fixed version. GermanJoe (talk) 05:56, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

@GermanJoe: I used to have a look at the spam blacklist to solve such problems (also to keep the blacklist more 'readable' and to eliminate false positives). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:58, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Tech/acceptability question regarding an edit filter you updated

Hello Beetstra, when you have a moment please review the discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Proxy_filter_blocking_a_URL. I'm hoping you can provide some background or insight. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 01:15, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/sibsabah.org.my

Hello COIBot,

I wanted to let you know that I just tagged WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/sibsabah.org.my for deletion, because it seems to be inappropriate for a variety of reasons.

If you feel that the article shouldn't be deleted and want more time to work on it, you can contest this deletion, but please don't remove the speedy deletion tag from the top.

You can leave a note on my talk page if you have questions. Ishdarian 23:11, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Deletion discussion about WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/sibsabah.org.my

Hello, COIBot,

I wanted to let you know that there's a discussion about whether WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/sibsabah.org.my should be deleted. Your comments are welcome at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/sibsabah.org.my .

If you're new to the process, articles for deletion is a group discussion (not a vote!) that usually lasts seven days. If you need it, there is a guide on how to contribute. Last but not least, you are highly encouraged to continue improving the article; just be sure not to remove the tag about the deletion nomination from the top.

Thanks, Ishdarian 23:56, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

COIBot

Hey, From 2-3 days COIBot is constantly leaving channels on IRC, could you please look what's the issue? ‐‐1997kB (talk) 17:34, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Seems it needs a kick. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:51, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Hello, sorry to bother you again but COIBot seems still down (no edits since 15 February). Could you have a second look please when you got some time? GermanJoe (talk) 14:08, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

I likely need hours of console time to solve this.  server moved on toolserver.  --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:16, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

User talk:Legoktm

I'm confused... -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 03:53, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Black Falcon, I just have thick fingers I guess. —Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:03, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Ha, no worries. I thought perhaps you were just protective of Legoktm. :P Cheers, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 04:12, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

@Black Falcon: Nah, to properly protect Legoktm I would block ALL of the other editors on Wikipedia :-) ..--Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:35, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Special:AbuseFilter/933

Is Special:AbuseFilter/933 still needed? No hits since September. Kind regards, — MusikAnimal ^talk 21:43, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: he is an escape artist, but the filter does not catch them at the moment (nor did I notice them). I turned it off for now. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:29, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

List of schools of the Dallas Independent School District

Hi Beetstra. Could you take a look at this article? All of the embedded links and websites in the article seem wrong per WP:LINKFARM, WP:ELLIST and WP:EL#cite_note-7. I’m away from my computer for a few days and a big cleanup such as this is probably something I shouldn’t try doing on my phone. Anyway, I thought I’d ask for your opinion on this in the meantime. If my assessment is correct, I can clean things up later. If not, then I’ve saved myself the time and effort trying to do it. — Marchjuly (talk) 11:19, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: I would first reorganize all tables so they look as the first one. The question is whether the external link is needed when all schools are (by definition) notable and have the link on their 'own' Wikipedia page. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:29, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look. I agree with the ELs not being needed for those schools with articles, but also think they shouldn’t be being embedded for school which don’t have articles as well. — Marchjuly (talk) 04:59, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

I think that is the general consensus on that, they should actually be redlinks as schools are apparently by definition notable. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:42, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

COIBot poke status

Hello Beetstra, is the poke functionality useable again? A bit of a dumb question I know, but there are several reports with broken formatting in the queue (competera.net and several others). They could probably be simply re-poked if the feature is fully functional again. Just making sure I am not interrupting your tests or work on the bot. If you are still working on it, I'll leave you alone :) - just post somewhere when the fixes are finished please. GermanJoe (talk) 10:19, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

@GermanJoe: Poking works fine. The bot throws some errors because of some off-wiki monitoring rules which a newer version of Perl deems broken (and which are in fact broken). I will try soon to resolve those issues. Use it at will (the bot has some curious quirks at the moment, which I may be able to handle somewhere end of next week). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:22, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the info - and all of your work with this bot and spam in general of course. GermanJoe (talk) 10:23, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Slowking4

Cleaning up the sock contribs I came across Template:France 2006 Women's Rugby World Cup Squad created by Peavyeavy (talk · contribs), transcluded just once, into Fanny Gelis, created by Muleshoemoment (talk · contribs) who seems to share the same focus of editing. I'll leave it to your opinion. Regards, Cabayi (talk) 12:28, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

@Cabayi: similar enough to warrant a check. Thanks. There likely are more as I pointed out in the previous case, the gaps are too big. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:42, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Including links to athletic website in college and university articles

I found where a few editors explicitly discussed whether links to athletic websites in college and university articles was an issue that should be addressed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Universities/Archive_10#Thinking_of_proposing_the_removal_of_%22Official_athletics_website%22_links_from_main_college/university_articles. It wasn't an extensive discussion and it may be worth revisiting in perhaps a broader context with more editors. In the meantime, I don't think it's a good idea to try to remove these links given (a) there has been explicit discussion in favor of keeping them and (b) they're extremely widespread further indicating widespread acceptance among editors. ElKevbo (talk) 12:17, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

@ElKevbo: ... and to the library, their alumni, and their student organisations .. those links plainly fail our long-standing inclusion standards. The athletics group, if notable enough, is already linked from the college website, and if it is independently notable it has an own wikipedia article. I don't believe that local consensus has priority over long-standing global consensus. Regarding the second part: twitter links are extremely widespread, and that does not show that they have widespread acceptance among editors, it shows that our global policies and guidelines are not followed. If I get challenged, I will take it to WT:EL/WP:ELN (I recall a similar discussion there about this type of linking, but can't find it back). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:45, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I think I was thinking about Wikipedia_talk:External_links/Archive_37#WP:ELOFFICIAL. Noting here that a univerity would likely not claim notability based on their sports-team. I find the arguments in that discussion rather weak, by the way, and the discussion does not give a clear consensus. If people would find universities by their sport team, then the article should discuss the sport team(s) by name, or it should have an article spun off to that effect (and there the website of 'B' is appropriate, though). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:51, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

To take out an example, you may be talking about this diff, where I remove the link to calbears.com. That is the website of the California Golden Bears, linked from the infobox, as a nickname discussion, as a mascotte discussion, and as a special section (again linking to the main article) for the athletics team. I cannot see how that link in any form would ever pass the bar of WP:EL to be also linked from the parent-organisation page. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:01, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

That is all legitimate and I would support opening a larger discussion on this issue. I'm just really uncomfortable with one editor overturning a long-standing consensus among many editors especially without opening a discussion beforehand.

I would just reject the idea that there is a consensus or even a common practice to link to "the library, their alumni, and their student organisations." That is an unfair and inaccurate characterization of both the discussion and the common practice carried out in hundreds and perhaps thousands of articles. The one exception that I know about is that a handful of articles have links to the student newspaper and we've been very inconsistent in handling that. ElKevbo (talk) 13:51, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

@ElKevbo: 'one editor overturning a long-standing consensus' .. where is thát consensus, and is that longer standing than WP:ELOFFICIAL? We have wording like this for more than 9 years ([16]: "The linked content is controlled by the subject (organization or individual person) of the Wikipedia article." I am uncomfortable with a WikiProject locally 'overturning' a long standing global consensus, I mean, this is wording that is there for so many years and no-one has managed (or bothered) to overturn it globally? And it is then again similar to twitter links, you can say that we have a long-standing common practice carried out to add twitter links. But every time that I end up in discussion because I remove twitters, we still come to the conclusion that 'yes, that is what we say in our policies and guidelines, that material is not appropriate. And it is not only WP:ELOFFICIAL, it is also WP:ELNO #13 - this is exactly a "website on a specific subject should usually not be linked from an article about a general subject." - the athletics club is a specific subject within the general university subject (more than 10 years ...).

I agree, but those are links that I sometimes see on universities (OK, not a university, and not a university either). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:16, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I have opened a discussion on WT:EL: Wikipedia_talk:External_links#Indirect_links_on_university_pages. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:40, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Link removals Medalcheck

Good evening Dirk,

Having read through the excellent explanation on your page as to external link policies (people should not be encouraged to leave wikipedia to outside resources) I can see very clearly why the two links posted by myself (Infantry Assault badge and Ukraine Motherland medal) were removed. I see a third link to the site was also removed but that had nothing to do with medalcheck.com. Please accept my apologies for the posting of external links, the contravention of Wiki rules was done through ignorance and with the sole purpose of providing additional information, not covered by and imposible ever to be covered by wikipedia (Some Antiques of no other known examples except for those in my possession). Therefore to summarise -> Collectors of the antiques listed can find general information on Wikipedia and specific information on medalcheck, I agree that visitors looking for general information do not need to be linked to a site with the specific information. If they are that interested in the topic they will find medalcheck by themselves and vice versa.

My thanks to your for the work you / your bot does and again a "sorry" for the non compliance.

Angus--82.158.232.246 (talk) 20:32, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

victor-mochere.com

I saw you added this site to the blacklist. The issued was as a result of a shared computer that initiated the persistent changes, that has been resolved and won't happen again. I apologize for the problems caused. The site has information that is very useful. I pray that it can get unblacklisted. Kevinwanzira (talk) 17:50, 12 April 2019 (UTC) Kevinwanzira

@Kevinwanzira: it does not matter how and by whom the links were added ... the blacklist is only there to stop it. And this certainly involved more than one shared computer. You will have to convince people at WT:SBL that it is of future use, saying it will not happen again is not enough. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:18, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Pubchemcite

Template:Pubchemcite has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Gonnym (talk) 11:21, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Edit requests

Hi, could you perform the edit requests for chembox, drugbox? Would be nice for ChemConnector. -DePiep (talk) 12:53, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

@DePiep: sure,  Done. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:39, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

@DePiep and Beetstra: Can one of you please have a second look at this? Something is not quite right with this edit. Where this identifier is used, "{{{1}}}" appears in the infobox. See erythrosine, where I noticed it. Thank you. -- Ed (Edgar181) 16:26, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

On this. -DePiep (talk) 20:07, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Incidental, not disrupting IMO. So no need to revert. -DePiep (talk) 20:20, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

... but it is everwhere (sad face) -DePiep (talk) 20:26, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Looks like solved, but I did not get the true cause (a span causing this?) [17]?. erythrosine, carbon monoxide ok now. pls ping me any time the ussue reappears. -DePiep (talk) 20:39, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

OK, seems resolved. Ping me if you need to overwrite the template again. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:35, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Better: here {{longitem}} requires |1= for parameter [18]. -DePiep (talk) 17:31, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Unblock channel bot

Hi, your bot is resetting at what feels like about 4 times a day. I get pinged each and every time with each unblock with my name on it. I have silenced the bot for now, is there any way to fix the connection? -- Amanda (aka DQ) 18:04, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

@DeltaQuad: block less people that may complain later? ;-p

No, serious, I have to check that bot, see why it restarts so often. But I won't get to that before summer unfortunately. But on the other side, the pinging is also a feature to alert the blocking admin. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:16, 1 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 02:41, 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 21:03, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Uncyclopedia

The editing war between the two English-language forks has flared back up, and the 2013 fork (en.uncyclopedia.co) seems again to be using Wikipedia as a battleground to goose traffic. Wikia has ceased to host the original Uncyclopedia and (as the article states, at the moment) we removed to "uncyclopedia.ca". One guy on the talk page admits that there is no independent coverage of either website, but the fork has posted a press release, cited at Wikipedia, with the party line that they are Uncyclopedia and there is no other.

Would you please keep an eye on this site and help enforce the prior consensus of a balanced treatment of both sites? Spike-from-NH (talk) 22:09, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

@Spike-from-NH: I am very tempted to fully protect that page for a year or two, likely at the wrong version. Two groups of editors with a COI, I could easily block a handful of them for not considering that advice. I guess that we cannot expect neutral editing from editors with a neutered point of view. I'll endure the following shitstorm. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:26, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I would like to see our new home of uncyclopedia.ca stated in the text, versus the Fork's party line that we were/are a "mirror site" with no new content. But that's equally COI. I don't know of any independent media coverage since the Greggs episode. Spike-from-NH (talk) 11:56, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Frankly/rudely/directly I don't care what is beingreflected and how. I just want the edit warring to stop and people to discuss on the talkpage and come to consensus. What I now saw in the last 100 or so edits in 10 minutes looking through the history makes me want to fully protect it for a year with obvious COI editors on each side. That shit can be fought over elsewhere, and then reflected here when it is clear. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:57, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm all for that, and I'm the host of the .co site. I think it'd be great if folks were actually forced to discuss things, because not talking to each other is how it all started (and went on, and on), though it is unfortunate how this will also impair the contributions of anyone who is genuinely uninvolved. And it's not just here, either - apparently at least one user has been going through several other languages and changing the links there, too. I've mostly been staying out of all of this as a generally involved user, but when the other users don't abide by this principle, what options are there? When it's across multiple projects, what can we do then? -— Isarra ༆ 07:07, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

@Isarra: that is up to other wikis, though if people want to push it, something like global filters, global (b)locks do exist for a reason. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:47, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Aye. Hopefully it won't come to that. -— Isarra ༆ 07:59, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Well, they're all the wrong version :) While this isn't what I and others would have personally hoped for, I understand that ending the disruption must come first. Thank you for doing your (unpaid, thankless) job, and sorry you're getting trolled. People like that don't represent us and are probably false flags from .co. ♫9cfilorux (talk)❀ 19:22, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

159

Hi, onefivenine seems to have been archived without action at WP:BLACKLIST. Is this a misreading on my part? I've cleared at least a dozen additions of it in the last week and the second WP:RSN thread, mentioned in the proposal, returned the same outcome as the original thread. - Sitush (talk) 09:27, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

@Sitush: I intended to wait for the RSN to finish, and then, likely, pull the trigger. If you unarchive I will try to remember to do this later ... --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:44, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

No problem, thanks - I've done that thing. - Sitush (talk) 09:49, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

cut-urls

Hello again Beetstra. I remember a discussion here about most short url sites being blacklisted and noticed a recent use of cut-urls.com which appears to be one. I'm not sure if it's worth reporting or to which blacklist, so I leave it here (noticed here). Thank you, —PaleoNeonate – 13:19, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: @meta, please! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:38, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 00:05, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Ok, I see that both I wanted to report were already recently added. Super, —PaleoNeonate – 00:07, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: I answered first, then looked. It has a payment scheme attached, so I decided not to wait for you. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 01:17, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Happy Admin Day!!

	Happy Adminship	from the Birthday Committee
	Wishing Beetstra a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! -- Mjs1991 (talk) 12:51, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

• Cheers, —PaleoNeonate – 14:04, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Draft talk:Bettina Vollath‎

Hi,

Just a heads up you deleted the main draft page but not the talk page I've requested it to be deleted under G8 category. Wondered why you hadn't gotten round to removing that talk page yet? ImpWarfare (talk) 17:27, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

@ImpWarfare: no clue, generally Twinkle takes care of that. But there is still a lot of material to nuke. Thanks for the heads up! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:38, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

COIBot down?

Hello Beetstra, could you look into COIBot's status please when you got some time? Seems like the last successful poke was on early 15 June, and most other log entries end at 16 June (except a few "IRC commanded ..." lines). Thank you for your help. GermanJoe (talk) 07:28, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

GermanJoe, hopefully solved (do you have experience with VMs.). —Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:01, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, I have just re-poked the stale 4 requests. About VM: general administration, basic setup and concept: yes (years ago though), complex technical background details: unfortunately not. GermanJoe (talk) 09:11, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

COIBot

Perhaps you should shut down COIBot too. 2001:4898:80E8:9:8982:6499:5069:211A (talk) 23:04, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

I hope not... —PaleoNeonate – 00:46, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: but I am considering that, WMF is not creating a better environment here. That first has to be solved. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:27, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Please do not do that. The bot performs a helpful operation, and actively attempting to hurt the English Wikipedia is not a good thing, regardless of your feelings towards the WMF. Primefac (talk) 22:34, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

And not just enwiki, all across the wikimedia network. — regards, Revi 23:27, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

@Primefac and -revi: remember, it is the spammers who actively hurt Wikipedia, I am actively not stopping others from hurting Wikipedia. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 00:59, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

If you want to do that, we can't stop you from doing it. Take care. — regards, Revi 02:32, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

@-revi: COIBot is still running. I expect that editors will send any spammers they find to WMF. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:32, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

I would argue that by turning off an anti-spam device, even one you created yourself ("it's not my fault" or something like that) that's a rather POINTY move. True, we cannot stop you, but you are actively hurting Wikipedia by denying users the tools they use to combat people who are actively seeking to hurt Wikipedia. And if you really feel like you don't want to run and/or maintain the bots you've started, at least let someone else take over the reins before you shut off your bots. Primefac (talk) 02:42, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

@Primefac: Yes, I AM making a point. A point that the WMF has completely lost. And that is in response to a point that WMF failed to make. I (and others) have endured a lot of harassment by spammers, we haveasked actively to give us better tools to fight it. WMF has told me that they are not willing to make time to improve that tool. And now we get this shit? Yes, sometimes it needs someone to climb the Reichstag in a spiderman suit. But that point is not different than what all those admins made when they handed in their bit and those volunteers that stopped editing.

Handing over the bot is rather useless, isn't it? 'I'm shutting downmy bot to show that I am not maintaining mainspace, but will give it to someone else so there is no difference'.

The tools are however fully accessible to you, you canremove all of that by hand (the feeds are still on freenode), or report all of them to the good people at WMF by email. Or maybe you wait until the next statement from WMF, maybe they got the point. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:29, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

I noticed the desysop request and am sorry about that. But it is your call, that I respect. I would like to thank you for all you've done, including sometimes temporarily resurecting COIBot since the strike statement. —PaleoNeonate – 07:22, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: I am not planning on taking down COIBot/LiWa3, the spam will be made visible to WMF, they can decide what to do with it. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:39, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you

For all your work over the years. The proof of the board's statement will be in 1) the WMF giving arbcom the full ability to review and fairly determine the outcome of the Fram case and 2) not repeating any similar bans with the next steps being community consensus on how we move forwards. From what I understand arbcom is willing to take on the case. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:47, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Doc James, thank you for personal note and kind words. Things have significantly changed since the statement from the board and from Katherine.

Lets now see the proof that things go forward. I hope this is also a turning point for ALL of WMF. I am looking forward to take up editing again, and to turn on the bot. —Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:26, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

I'll second this. Dealing with spammers, paid editors and people who actively try to get harmful links into Wikipedia is a nightmare, and you do more than just about anyone. Thank you for your patience in working with folks and willingness to draw lines that need to be drawn. Ravensfire (talk) 21:45, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

I'll third this. Not downplaying other editors' contributions, but you would leave a huge gap if you'd permanently step down. Let's hope this whole debacle can initiate some positive changes and you'll be able to reconsider in due time. Thank you for your countless constructive contributions and helpful advice. GermanJoe (talk) 22:32, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Dirk for the enormous benefits you have provided the English Wikipedia and other projects for many years. The WMF runs a beauty competition that won't support infrastructure tools because they aren't sexy enough. The WMF spends large amounts on poorly planned trust and safety but ignores essentials such as the spam blacklist + linksearch + anti-spam. Johnuniq (talk) 01:39, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

@Johnuniq, GermanJoe, and Ravensfire: Thank you all for the kind words. I am still here, and as my statement on WP:BN suggested, I am not completely retired (if/when this situation resolves I will ask for the bit back). I just feel that I have seen enough of empty shell remarks that I do not feel comfortable to contribute/maintain mainspace. And seen the last case request to ArbCom, I am not convinced there either that even User:Jimbo Wales' promise that ArbCom has full authority is not an empty shell either - if WMF cannot or will not transfer the private information, then I doubt that ArbCom can even have a case. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:02, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, that was unexpected

I wondered "what the heck?" when you reverted my edit to the spam list page. Thanks for reinstating my self-undo; your reasoning makes a lot of sense to me. Risker (talk) 05:05, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

@Risker: (yeah, I know, I was thinking the same when I was undoing the edit of an Arb) we do get a lot of 'why the heck did you blacklist this/my site'-type of delisting requests, it is better to have as much information as possible. And any endorsement helps.

I am actually wondering in this case whether this should not be on meta directly. Phishing and malware is something that we have to protect the readers of the project against. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:16, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

A bowl of strawberries for you!

Thank you Nick Beetstra for your efforts in the Fram workshop! :) starship.paint (talk) 02:42, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

@Starship.paint: Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:14, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Recommended reading on 3 July

Franz Kafka: Das Schloss
... about about alienation, unresponsive bureaucracy, the frustration of trying to conduct business with non-transparent, seemingly arbitrary controlling systems ...

Thank you for your clear words! Franz Kafka today. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:11, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt: For me or for the Foundation? (Thanks, I will see if I can get a copy here). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:19, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

More for the foundation, of course, - I will perhaps get there eventually. - Today is Kafka's birthday, and having contributed to his article is one of the things I am most proud of here. He had a gift for saying things both well and short, - sadly not given to the foundation nor the board, nor most of the commentators - but you! - The last time I commented on our founder's talk was in 2014, when a Wikimania speech was about "toxic personalities", in the name of kindness. Now it's "toxic behaviour" which is not much kinder. See my talk for advice from a much-missed user whose last words to me were: "We are all grown ups here" .... - It will take some change to grow up to respectful and kind behaviour. - I am a woman, I had encounters with Fram, was not always happy but he was right more often than I was, and he worked miracles in identifying both copyright violations and wrong claims in DYK statements. The project is much poorer without that, without him that is. Unbanning, as reverting an obvious mistake, and then seeing if anybody has arbitration requests, seems such a (too?) simple solution. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:51, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt: It is a simply solution, indeed. Unfortunately, it will leave the targets of harassment (I am still not sure if target is the right word, victim is also not right, it is something in between - I don't know if Fram was targeting the targets, or that the targets felt that they were the target/victim) feeling that WMF again has not done anything to make a statement. Which is, probably, unfair.

I have, throughout this episode on Wikipedia, argued that harassment is often a two-way street. Us keeping on following sockpuppets, spam-companies, POV editors, repeat copyright violators is from the eye of the target 'harassment' ('how do you dare to call my link spam!'). And on the other hand, the rightful addition of '{{fact}} to a sentence you wrote, can feel as a victim of harassment. Heck, me liking an edit you made can make you feel as a victim of harassment. Harassment (and civility) is, so much less than posting a legal threat, a copyvio article or uploading a pornographic picture involving kids, a very grey area.

There is harassment, there is perception of harassment, the abuse of an implication of harassment, and cases where some editors need all they do scrutinized. And of the latter group, if you don't take care, you're not allowed to scrutinize someone because they can argue that they belong to a certain discriminated group. We have the unblockables, and we have the unscritinizables?

With Fram, we have little to go with. When we would have a full ArbCom case with 1000+ diffs of 'edits which may be, or could be perceived as, harassment', you could do a statistical analysis on the targets - how many of the 'target editors' have identified as woman, man, LGBT, coloured skin, people with Frysian ancestry, etc. and is there a statistical discrepancy between those numbers when compared with the group that has not specified anything.

I am afraid that with Fram, WMF has screwed up so much that there is nowhere to go anymore. I feel sorry for the targets, but Fram cannot be independently scrutinized anymore, and we cannot collect uncontaminated evidence (anything between the true harassment at the time of the edit and anything that looks like harassment can be used). On the other hand, Fram is now tainted, and even if they were to return, they would not be treated the same, and anything they say can be used against them. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:54, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, and you are right. I sometimes get criticised for whom I thank per click, and feel observed in an unpleasant way. Other viewpoint: I am also German, and wish any Wiki-related unit would avoid to be compared to the Gestapo, but the secret police action with no appeal certainly invited to do just that. The secrecy causes casting aspersions not only of what the accused may have done, but also who accused him. When I saw the ban I immediately thought of this, but don't want to add to speculations. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:21, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Five years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:29, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt: thanks, I hope it is not my last Wikiversary ... things are turning grim. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:15, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree. Doing my round of thanks in the morning is my medicine. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:24, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

... but today, I had to make a comment about arbcom instead, on my talk. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:26, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Hello Dirk,

Oh my, where to start? I guess we could get re-acquainted. IIRC we shared some pretty common viewpoints in regards to Δ years ago.

Part 1

Well I don't want to pander to Dave's ego, but he does appear to have drawn the short straw on this/that case. The thing is that there really are enough diffs floating around out there to justify telling Fram to knock it off, and reminding him that there are other admins. who can address poor editing issues. It's also not kosher that he can fire off those tirades at Arbcom without getting called on it. But really that's just a minor problem that Arbcom brought on themselves for not taking one of the cases when they had the chance.

IMO there are 2 major problems here, and they are far too intertwined to separate them. The first being the way Fram was treated. It is contra to everything we have ever stood for as a community, and it's simply and undeniably wrong. That kind of "we have evidence, but you can't see it", and "No you don't have any recourse or chance of appeal" approach would be flat out illegal out in the real world in SO many countries. Including most of the English speaking ones that we (en) operate in.

Big problem number two is the end run around Arbcom, and by extension the community, that the WMF in general and T&S specifically pulled. It was sneaky, it was underhanded, and it was completely uncalled for. Now admittedly I am continuing to indulge myself in speculation - but I'm pretty sure that someone that collects a paycheck from donations for our volunteer work really deserves to be held accountable, and that doesn't seem to be happening. Even if that person was manipulated by someone else - OR - someone was trying to curry favor with the boss. Those people in their ivory tower really tipped their hand here in that they simply have no intention of being held accountable to the community that does the work, that earns the donations, that fund their paychecks... that burned the stick, that beat the dog, that bit the cat, that ate the goat... - well you get the point. I suppose I could go on and do a "Part 2", but I think I'll give my fingers a break for now. Feel free to continue the conversation though. :-) — Ched (talk) 23:03, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

@Ched: Indeed, we've had our earlier common viewpoints.

I don't know if WTT drew the short straw. The other drafters do seem to be standing at the sidelines. Nothing unusual in a Workshop-phase though. We're busy workshopping and coming to common grounds there, and then the Arbs draft a completely different set of Principles, FoFs and Remedies, vote and then leave the community wondering why there is a workshop in the first place.

Yes, Fram has been critical of WMF, and yes, also of ArbCom (but then, so am I, and we are not the only ones). But WMF (and ArbCom) has been bringing that around them since the beginning, and that is also how this case develops. And it is an elephant. It will recur in this discussion I think.

It is in the way a case is run, which is completely wrong. For years I have been hammering on the anchoring problem. And that is again shown here, but finally it seems (I hope) to backfire to them:

The case is named 'Fram'. The case is about Fram. (and still, if the case was named 'bullshit', then Fram is the named party). And that results in mudslinging. Anything goes. Everything, literally everything that is perceived by someone as what Fram did wrong will result in evidence. 'they misinterpreted me here', 'they was following <editor x> around', 'they was using ..', 'they were warned here'. Now, say that we look at that '<editor x>'. Was Fram the only person who was following <editor x> around? Were the edits of <editor x> of a nature that needed review? .. That does not matter. Things are completely ripped out of context, because ... someone complained about Fram, the evidence needs to be directed at Fram, we have to show that Fram did bad. Fram did not get a warning in February, but they are damned anyway because it was considered. Nothing shows that Fram did anything since the suggestion to Warn him in February. Where there is smoke, there is fire, right?

WMF just added a layer to that. They do not want to show evidence (bad faith: they do not even need evidence), they do not need to show a reason, they do not allow appeal. Someone complains .. warning .. someone (else?) complains ... warning ... someone (else?) complains. BAM. In the end that could just boil down to ... 'someone complained about you, you must be wrong'.

(don't get me wrong, maybe there is a case here .. but I am sure there is a context, and I am sure there is a timeline ... without the latter two, the case is no case). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:05, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

I completely agree with you on the anchoring thing - although I've only heard that term used to describe Arbcom cases recently. I don't know how it would backfire, but I can hope I guess. To be honest, I don't know Fram all that well (if at all really). I remember him from back in the 2008 - 2015 years, at least to know the name. He was on the admin boards a lot - and he could be pretty rough back then. I've heard he has mellowed quite a bit recently, I don't know first hand, but I'll assume that's correct. My biggest complaint is the WMF sticking their nose in here. Sure, if something really bad happens, then contact the WMF - but if it is something bad enough for them to get involved, then there damn well should be some sort of legal activity as well. Wikipedia was established on wp-en, so IMO our own rules and regulations are what should apply here. Sneaking in verbiage at WP:OA like they did was so far over the line that I can't even talk about it without getting pissed. If the WMF is the ultimate authority, then that is something that should have been made very clear at the start. It's something that anyone signing up and editing should know. It's something that should be listed prominently as the last resort at WP:DR, and "WMF" isn't even mentioned on that page.

IMO some of this uproar should be laid at Jimbo's doorstep. At one time he had the final say around here, and now he just side-steps any mention of that. He made such a show of handing power to "Arbcom" - but somewhere along the line he became a toothless figurehead. But confronting Jimbo directly comes at a high cost (and Bish can vouch for that. Can you imagine if it would have been you or I that called another editor toxic? Good grief, blocked before the sun went down.) But I'm getting off track again.

I understand that there needs to be a structure in place to deal with all the money that comes in - but basically letting them slide into our community's ultimate admin. position is something that should have been made quite clear once Jimbo decided he didn't want the responsibility any more.

Now I don't know how the other wiki projects are structured, although IIRC I may have seen that many of them don't even HAVE an Arbcom. In instances like that, then I can see situations where they would need to step in - and that is something that should be spelled out in the ToS. In fact I'm not even sure that there WAS a ToS page before 2012. How on Earth people who are not an active part of this community can pass judgment on someone who is escapes me. Can you imagine if an admin. got these supposed complaints had just stepped in and blocked Fram? Wouldn't have lasted a hour. But I'm getting away from the whole Fram case - and when it comes to anchoring ... then the whole "WP:FRAM" as a redirect is a HUGE violation IMO. OK - maybe not as much "BLP" as I'd like to say, but still it is wrong. Mostly I think we are all members of the same choir preaching the same thing to each other.

You make some very valid arguments about the issues IMO Dirk. And in fact it's sad that so much of the outcry has died down. — Ched (talk) 20:31, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

I am afraid that indeed it will die out. Even if nothing is done now by ArbCom probably there will be a bit of a revival at WP:FRAM and then it dies out. And then next year it will hit again, Fram making one remark and another block. And that is more so because they do not know what the reasons are.

The anchoring problem is there since years. Cases were (and are) held on the person, not on the situation. Case is about Fram, case is named Fram, evidence collection is to show that Fram is bad. And you can go back, Magioladitis, Betacommand, Rich Farmbrough, MZMcBride, Ryulong, .. and some of those are recurring and will be decided based on earlier decisions. You even see it here, remarks like: we tried to write an FoF and Remedy on Fram's behaviour which did not pass, but even the opposers were sympathetic to the idea behind it. Something was not bad enough, but still, we have that so we must have misinterpreted it and we need to do something. Anchoring.

(don't get me wrong, some named cases about editors are fully because the named party in question is almost completely in the wrong, but by far in most of the cases there are two that tango).

Regarding WMF, I don't know. Something here is completely wrong. The warnings that were issued to Fram were very much under a conflict of interest, Fram is anyway critical towards WMF and ArbCom. This should in any case have gone to an independent on-wiki forum. We may not have that, and that is an issue then, but that is how this should have been done. Find a handful of independent non-en.wikipedia editors (admins, stewards) with good command of English, and let them publicly handle the case. Maybe we need a 'global ArbCom'?

By the way, I can't believe that ALL of that 70-page document is so confidential but all on wiki. That concept does not make sense to me. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:08, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree - and I noticed that you questioned it on one of the case pages. I suspect that everything is pretty much set in stone however. — Ched (talk) 14:36, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

@Ched: That is what I expected, but Joe Roe replied that actually it are just verbatim copies of emails and some other stuff. It is, as what was earlier suggested, an inflated mouse, not an elephant. Not that that changes my concern though (is ALL of it of a secret? That almost suggests that it all pertains at most 2 editors as victims, even if it is provided by more than a dozen). Fact remains, if that is a mouse, and with the on-wiki mouse we seem to have way, way less than we have ever seen in any ArbCom case. My conclusion still remains the same. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:23, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity I went and had a look at the evidence page, and one piece in particular bothered me. I posted on the talk page here. It likely won't make one iota of difference, but I thought the way it was presented was wrong. Throwing it out there so simplistically makes it seem like much more than it actually was IMO. — Ched (talk) 05:35, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

(responding to ping) I think more of us noted that it was misrepresented. Some of the evidence is completely bogus, others are at least evidence (but for all, context matters strongly).

I do have the feeling that some of that point came through, though. WTT did comment on some of the workshop-evidence evaluation points that they did not see that as admissible, and I hope then that questions about the other points is similar. And I have been pushing hard on 'Fram did get an FoF and a Remedy drafted against them which did not pass, and there is nothing after that'/'There is a warning from T&S in March (by email) and the community does not show anything substantial after that (so we just have to believe on face-value that there is something in the document that the community did not see?)'. I can see that there is reason to say something official to Fram (though, a strong reminder or a weak admonishment at most based on on-wiki evidence) - point is that T&S issued 2 of those and .. the buck stops somewhere (T&S has limited capabilities to stop an editor). Problem then is, that those two warnings would need to be scrutinized, and I have the feeling that on-wiki the feeling there is that that would boomerang (back to LH) - the context on the community provided evidence (that sticks) shows that some of those discussions were heated, and all have significant context and sometimes even an ignored follow-up (Fram reflecting on themselves the next day, Fram apologizing, ... the appearance that Fram did take the non-warning in February at heart, etc.). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:08, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Arbcom FoF on community vs. secret information

Hello. I read your post at Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fram/Proposed_decision and I believe that the FoF ".. but does not reflect any conduct for which desysopping would be a proportionate response." was in the section titled "Evaluation of community-provided evidence", and does not appear in the section "Evaluation of Office-provided case materials". (Basing a decision on secret evidence is also problematic, but not hypocritical.)--Wikimedes (talk) 08:07, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

@Wikimedes: Yes, that is correct.

The 'Evaluation of Office-provided case materials' does not contain (IMHO rightly so) an evaluation whether the evidence supports or not a ban. The evidence that the Office provided is in defense of their decision to ban/desysop Fram. It should not be used as evidence as it is redacted (and hence may have been 'cherry picked' to look bad, but lets assume good faith) and also because Fram does not have a full possibility to defend themselves against it.

If find the remedy to desysop Fram a far overreach of ArbCom - the community has not given them a mandate to be harsher on civility, they are to test the edits against the current state of our policies. They do not take into account any response from Fram, and neither whether they have changed their behaviour after the initial reports. And as it stands currently, there are simply no findings of fact that support the remedy (but that has never stopped ArbCom), there are no community attempts to adapt Frams changes (no blocks, e.g., no community restrictions either), and there are no previous attempts from ArbCom. If they NOW decide to be stronger than ever before, then they are writing their own policy without being granted that power by the community. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:29, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

I understand what you mean now. Thanks for taking the time to explain it to me in more detail.--Wikimedes (talk) 08:43, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

@Wikimedes: Now, if you could explain me what ArbCom is actually doing .. :-D .. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:49, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

welcome back

• I think the project is better this way. — Ched (talk) 22:45, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

  Ched, thanks! Maybe ... but I think ArbCom is a biggerfactor now. I’m just a butterfly far far away. —Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:26, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

• agree! - just fyi: when you change a ping you must sign again or it won't work. I guess, however, the one will watch anyway. He answered my comment without a ping. I remember when I went to his talk in 2013, in distress (because he had added the vote needed to ban a friend of Ched and myself), but try hard not to think of it any more, - it was resolved by someone else who mercyfully changed his mind, not wanting to be the one vote banning a good content editor. I wish we had more of that kind of arbs right now, - Worm and Opabinia being the only ones thinking as I do. And no, I don't address them individually any more. I learned a bit when I was sentenced. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:04, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

  Gerda Arendt, thanks! The repaired ping is in the edit summary, that avoids the stupid double signing.

  What goes on now needs the personal address. Its not going well. I’ve called it wrong earlier, I still think so! Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:30, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

  I see about the ping ;) - Arbitration and I are two different worlds. Abolish it? - See one (AGK, remember?) - two (Ched, remember?) - three (quote "I am known for my dreams. How about amnesty?" - Opabinia regalis, remember?) - It hasn't been good for my health, ever. Life is too short. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:49, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Gerda - yes, I remember. Health is so very important - cherish it with every breath, and avoid anything that troubles you. — Ched (talk) 18:00, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

What bothered me then was you leaving (or buggering off, as Eric put it), - glad that it can be avoided now! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:04, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam

Just wanted to let you know that I have posted additional comments on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Large scale WP:CITESPAM usage Mtminchi08 (talk) 22:54, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

@Mtminchi08: I stand with the opinion that those columns should be removed and regenerated empty, and then references for the non-bluelinked items should be find. Being involved in the discussion I prefer that omeone else is doing this, though. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:57, 29 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.

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:54, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Some baklava for you!

Thanks, for providing the your introduction.I am happy to find you as my guide in Wikipedia. Thanks for correcting the where we had gone against the standard. Hope, you will help to me to understand the Wikipedia and increase its contributions With Thanks And Regards Prince Princehr999 (talk) 13:48, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Need Help

Can you please review my content written, so I can publish it on WIKI I am sharing my google link of the document : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gq2V3AIqnC8Rrk3svYpu9kCUdtxJiInV/view?usp=sharing [1] Reference link:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wj6wCj6Eacik2rXZHwBWGfmjiN47x-ze/view?usp=sharing

Please Help to review them! With Thanks And Regard Princehr999 (talk) 18:29, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Princehr999, please post it in an article in draft namespace, or in your sandbox and ask for review. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:38, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

COIBot hiccup

Hello Beetstra, seems like COIBot had some problems at the end of Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/ngosindia.com with several stray "User:COIBot/EditSummary" texts. Not a big deal, but I vaguely remember having seen this behaviour in the past on 1-2 occasions. Are special characters or textstrings causing some issues? GermanJoe (talk) 19:58, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

GermanJoe, that is not COIBot, but the mediawiki software. The page has too many templates and the bottom ones don’t display. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:39, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Duh, I forgot this limitation still exists (I wish the Wiki software could display a meaningful error message). Thanks for the tip, of course it's not a COIBot problem in this case - should have checked the source code first. GermanJoe (talk) 04:09, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

GermanJoe, actually, it is the spammers who do this :-D Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:00, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Sakuntala (Claudel)

Hello. I saw you deleted Sakuntala (Claudel) because it was written by a banned or blocked user. How old was the page? The page seems important to Wikipedia's Claudel collection, and I had edited the article and added links to other Claudel pages. There is an ongoing discussion about adequate articles written by banned users (was this a banned or blocked user?), and if they should be deleted. Can you maybe rethink the deletion? If not, can have a copy of the page it could be worked on and improved. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:45, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, will take a look at it later. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:52, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Randy Kryn, I've sent you the material that I deleted for your peruse. (well, you saw that already).

This editor was first blocked, started socking and is now banned. Note that the editor is banned/blocked on 2 other wikis as well. There is no requirement to delete material by banned or blocked editors, but this editor is using the pages as a trophy in defiance of their blocks (and the block reason was including copyright concerns). Therefore, to deny those trophies, it is better that the edits by this editor are deleted.

Can you point me to the ongoing discussion? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:56, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't realize there was no requirement, so maybe on this one, if improved by others and copyright concerns checked, could be reconsidered, and let them have their trophy (it's Claudel, so if a trophy is the price to pay...) I don't recall offhand where the discussion is taking place (there are so many backrooms/hallways/rooftops on Wikipedia that the locations run together) but will look and if found will get back with a link. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:02, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

My mistake, it's a discussion about removal of paid editing articles, but still interesting. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:09, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Maybe the Claudel too? There may have been substantial edits by others in the history, but maybe not (can't recall). Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:41, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

I prefer to keep things deleted, just use the last copy for a fresh rewrite. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:49, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Undelete request - Noam Cohen

Could you please put the Noam Cohen page which you WP:G5 deleted into a draft? Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:24, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: I have emailed you the last version of the article. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:49, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks received! Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:56, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Filter 1006

• 1006 (hist · log)

Did you disable that because it wasn't matching anything? Not sure how much I should say here per BEANS, but I can fix the bug if you like. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:49, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

@Suffusion of Yellow: I was trying something to match more specifically on another filter (935 (hist · log)/global 72). Decided it wasn't worth it (if ever set to block, the spambots would just go around it by changing the code, it stays a game of whack-a-mole). Thanks for having a look though! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:52, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

No problem. For future reference, norm() is probably not wanted what you wanted to use there. :-) An alternative to disallowing might be to leave it log-only, but have User:DatBot report to AIV/TB2 on the first hit. This won't be terribly from what humans are doing with 935 right now, and they haven't adapted. Actually, the big "tell" has been discussed many times, openly, for years and nothing has changed, so I wonder what's really going on here. Maybe they're just targeting every wiki on the net, and not even checking what makes it through? I don't know. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:21, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Undelete request

Hi there, Wondering if you could undelete the page Caoilinn Hughes, which was deleted (I'm not sure why) on Oct 23rd. Thank you.Caineh (talk) 08:13, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Caineh, it was created by a sockpuppet and deleted under G5. I can send you the latest version which you can use as a base to recreate. —Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:53, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

That would be great. Thanks. Caineh (talk) 08:56, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Caineh, email sent. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:01, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

The same for Victoria Pelova. It's a bit weird to mass delete items only because they were created by a sock puppet. I can not explain this to non-Wikimedia readers. What problem did we solve by G5 (is that G7 without Trump?) and isn't the problem we create with it much bigger? Edoderoo (talk) 14:22, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Same request for Lize Kop. These are both players from the Dutch NL soccer team that was second on the last world championship this august. Deleting these articles as punishment for a blocked user is not a benefit for Wikimedia as a whole. Edoderoo (talk) 14:37, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Edoderoo, what bigger problem? If the sockmaster (who is blocked on 3 wikis ...) would just stop you would not have had the articles either. There is no ‘problem’ created by deleting the articles ... stop the guy. Note that some articles created were containing wrong info, mistakes.

I’ll try to email you the latest revision text, I’m not willing to leave these trophies. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:42, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Emails sent. This is not a punishment, this is the utter discouragement to show their work is futile. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:46, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

I will check the details of the players you mailed me. For the Ajax girls there is hardly nothing that I can not check easily, so any mistakes are easy to fix then. On nl-wiki we never delete edits made by a sockpuppet, we only block them indefinitely. For deleting articles that do not meet the minimum quality we have other policies, that do not mention sockpuppeteering, obviously.

At first sight, the article for Lize Kop does not need any change. Are you sure that it was created recently and had no edits from other users? I'm surprised by that. Edoderoo (talk) 14:55, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Edoderoo, Lize Kop was created on June 6, handful of cleanup edits and categorisations since, nothing substantial. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:59, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

I'd like to make a similar request for Antonia Farzan. My only stake in the article's existence is that I'd linked to it in one of my own articles and I happened to notice it had become a red link. The subject is a current Washington Post reporter. I remember the article itself as reasonably well-constructed, at least at a glance. While I know little about the subject myself, I'd be happy to receive the last revision via email and then, if it seems worthwhile, attempt a reconstruction. —BLZ · talk 21:36, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Brandt Luke Zorn, fairly well constructed is maybe a bit too much, bt a sufficient coatrack/stub. I’ve emaileed a copy of the last revid. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:47, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Another potential Slowking id?

FYI, I found that User:Meenakshi nandhini (deliberately not linked) created a Malayalam (ml) translation of one of the Slowking articles, Anna Mazzucato, when I wrote a new English article for the subject and looked around on wikidata for other-language versions. The same user has many page creations on en. I don't know what you're doing to check whether an editor is a sock of Slowking, but you might want to run that check on this user. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:36, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

David Eppstein, hi, thanks. This editor is completely different.

Slowking4 is rather recognisable, he wants to undo the damage that has been done by the community to Sander van Ginkel, and undo damage done by e.g. Betacommand and me. His creations are generally people, or art, sometimes really sloppy (see revid). He has some very specific editing traits. The three I obliterated last week were clear ducks, but in any case I run them past the CheckUsers (who often find hidden editors).

They are now blocked on 2 other wikis as well. I’ve tried to talk them back into their main account but they refuse. The only way forward that I see is to ensure their effort is futile. Anything else is just enabling or encouraging him. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:33, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Ok, thanks, just a coincidence then. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:26, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Need Help

Can you please help to review the following Draft :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Brahmrishi_Shree_Kumar_Swami_Ji.

Also,please provide a way how it can be approved into a Wiki Page?

With Thanks And Regards, PrincePrincehr999 (talk) 06:58, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Princehr999, I have put a draft-tag at the top. That now contains a button 'Finished drafting? Submit for review!' Please press that and save the result. Then someone will come to review it and hopefully approve it. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:11, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Thankyou Beetstra Princehr999 (talk) 07:23, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

ANI

Heads up: WP:ANI#Any features mention in Retrospect (software) turns article into PR "advertisement", claims Guy.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:40, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Bbb23, yes, I saw. <sigh>. Thanks for the notification. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:53, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Penny Von Eschen

Just checking to see if it was OK to create the article on Penny Von Eschen recently deleted as being created by a blocked user. Thank you. Theroadislong (talk) 15:58, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Theroadislong, yes, creation from scratch is fine. —Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:48, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Problem with vandalous IP edits

I just want to mention this comment I inserted into a discussion in reaction to a comment of yours in case you missed my insertion. I wish I had a solution to suggest, but I don't. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:47, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Wtmitchell, thanks. I noticed the remark. I agree that a problem exists, but people seem to think that that problem is too small to be of interest, and that 'everyone can edit' and 'IP do good stuff' automatically means that IPs must be able to edit, forgetting that everyone can still edit after making an account, and that that IP editor could also have done their good stuff if they first make an account and then edit. Yes, you will lose some/a lot (?) who do not want to make an account, but that number is unknown to us. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:59, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Beating this dead horse just a bit more, take a look at some of these: { [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]}, which were among vandalous IP edits I reverted between 0815 and 0819 EST on 30 October. Edits like these, unless caught and promptly reverted by vandal patrollers, hang around for a while and go a long ways towards contributing to and justifying Wikipedia's image of unreliability. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 18:58, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Wtmitchell, “ ... but IPs do a lot of good, and we will loose ALL of that if you disallow them to edit ...” </sarcasm>. It is a dead horse indeed. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:12, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Sakuntala (Claudel) (2)

It seems to me as if this is now more or less OK even if there seems to be rather too much emphasis on recent auctions. Thanks, btw, for pointing to the links under references. They had bothered me too and I had already started working on them when you came along. I think I have now sorted them out. (They were not in fact external links but actual references to the details in the article itself. Once upon a time, this was a pretty standard approach to referencing.) As you seem to be a pretty competent admin and keen to support coverage of women and women's works, I was wondering if you could help me out with another problem I have been asked to deal with. One of the keen new contributors to Women in Red has asked me if she can write an article on Clarice Phelps. As you may remember, the biography was deleted on more than one occasion causing some pretty violent reactions from the press. There have however been important new developments as you will see from her nomination for the IUPAC Periodic Table and "ORNL engineer the first African American woman involved in discovery of an element". For me, these really seem to confirm her notability. Just as with Sakuntala we could create a completely new article but it has been suggested that in regard to Draft:Clarice E. Phelps we should "request a lifting of the salting". As I have absolutely no experience with salting or desalting I would appreciate your assistance. Otherwise you could perhaps let me know whether it is still permissible to create a completely new article along the lines of Sakuntala.--Ipigott (talk) 15:36, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Ipigott, I guess I would make sure that the draft is properly ready to be moved back, and then ping TonyBallioni to lift the protection (unless he doesn’t mind others to do so). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:04, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for you quick response but Tony has told me he doesn't want to be involved. If we work on the draft, can we rely on you to take it through desalting? If not, is it permissible to create a completely new article and ask you to see it through?--Ipigott (talk) 16:11, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Ipigott, I would then work on the draft and get that approved, otherwise we may get to merge the histories later. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:52, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind and understanding responses on Women in Red. I think we should see how the story evolves over the next day or two but in order to avoid copyvios, there might be a case for the userfication (add to new dictionary entries) of some of the deleted articles. No rush, let's just see how it all develops over the next few days. Tot ziens.--Ipigott (talk) 21:13, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Ipigott, again, I am very strongly against undeletion. Banned means banned. Banned = 'we don't want you to edit here'. Banned is not 'we don't want you to edit here, but we keep your stuff if you are editing anyway'. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:44, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Are you available for recall? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:02, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Ritchie333, I see no reason for that. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:44, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Ritchie333 You want to recall someone for following Wikipedia policy? In that case, you'd have to add everyone else that's taken part in deleting Slowking's restoration of SvG articles, which includes at least one Arb and a steward. Black Kite (talk) 22:32, 2 November 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)

Editor of the Week

		Editor of the Week
		Your ongoing efforts to improve the encyclopedia have not gone unnoticed: You have been selected as Editor of the Week in recognition of protecting the integrity of the encyclopedia. Thank you for the great contributions! (courtesy of the Wikipedia Editor Retention Project)

User:Newslinger submitted the following nomination for Editor of the Week:

I nominate Beetstra to be Editor of the Week for their herculean efforts to curtail spam and unwanted content on Wikipedia. Beestra's stewardship of the spam blacklist and whitelist over the years has been instrumental to safeguarding Wikipedia against external link spamming. Beetstra also maintains two anti-spam bots: COIBot, which monitors edits that may be affected by conflicts of interest, and XLinkBot, which reverts the addition of links to questionable sources that are frequently abused. On the content side, Beetstra has contributed to the Chemicals, Chemistry, and Pharmacology WikiProjects with CheMoBot, which audits the integrity of data in infoboxes. Overall, Beetstra has made a big difference in Wikipedia's reliability, ensuring that our articles are a trustworthy resource for our readers.

You can copy the following text to your user page to display a user box proclaiming your selection as Editor of the Week:

{{User:UBX/EoTWBox}}

A Technician

Beetstra

Editor of the Week for the week beginning November 10, 2019

Diligently works to curtail spam and other unwanted content. Instrumental in safeguarding Wikipedia against external link spamming. Maintains two anti-spam bots that monitor edits that may be affected by conflicts of interest. On the content side, Beetstra has contributed to the Chemicals, Chemistry, and Pharmacology. Wikipedia's reliability has benefitted from him ensuring the trustworthiness of our resource.

Recognized for

stewardship of the spam blacklist and whitelist, bots and COIBot

Submit a nomination

Thanks again for your efforts! ―Buster7 ☎ 06:44, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Goed Gadaan!! ―Buster7 ☎ 07:32, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Buster7, :-) Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:45, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

@Newslinger and Buster7: Thank you!! Much appreciated! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:12, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. Anti-spam measures tend to attract more criticism than praise, and it's good to have some balance here. — Newslinger talk 07:23, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Newslinger, well, that tends to be true for every anti-<whatever> actions that admins are involved in. But you're right, people do tend to complain when their favourite site is blacklisted .. it MUST be admin abuse to blacklist that, there is no way that this site is spam, it is all good content. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:26, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Wired

Just a head's up, as you are probably aware you have been written about in a Wired story here. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 22:46, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: Thanks for the heads up. I wasn't aware that the article was going to be published already, as I was still talking with Noam. In his last email I still had a feeling that he was making relations that were not there, but it now seems to be decent. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:55, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

SBHandler starting Visual Editor

Hello Beetstra, could you help me with another noob problem please? Clicking the "add BL" link at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#gesundheit-im-leben.com points me to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist?veaction=edit&section=8&fakesource=blacklist&fakeaction=bl_close_add which opens the Visual Editor instead of a source editor. All other spam-related links on top of the section also generate a "veaction..." link. Afaik I haven't changed anything in my settings since 3 November (when I last used SBHandler and it led me to the source editor as expected). Should the script also work using Visual Editor (I haven't tried this to avoid making a mess) or is there a way to force section editing into source mode in this case (aside from completely disabling VE)? GermanJoe (talk) 13:46, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

GermanJoe, I’ve made some changes to the code to circumvent a bug ... does that now result in opening VE? For me it doesn’t... I’ll try to test this next week. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:23, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Note: for me the link is https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist&action=edit&section=8&fakesource=blacklist&fakeaction=bl_close_add ... where does the 've' come from? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:25, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Good question. My editing preference to choose between VE and source editor is set to "Show me both editor tabs", and the regular edit button per section is still an "edit source" button with the correct pointer to the source editor (containing "&action=edit" as expected). It seems only the SBHandler buttons contain the 've' addition - no idea from where this change comes though. If you want me to disable some other user scripts that may interfer with yours (I have quite a few scripts in my common.js and vector.js), please let me know. I'd be glad to help with testing. GermanJoe (talk) 20:58, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

GermanJoe, looking through the code I can’t see how SBHandler did this? Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:09, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Did a bit of additional testing: none of the scripts seem to be interfering (disabled all scripts but SBHandler, bug still occurs). It seems like WMF's stupid "one key" solution to switch between VE and source editor is somehow involved here: Switching in my "Preferences" to "Source editor only" fixes the problem (kind of expected). As a workaround I have switched to "Remember your latest editor" in this setting for now. This seems to work OK (as long as I remember to explicitly switch to source editor first in my last edit). This is all very weird :). GermanJoe (talk) 10:20, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

GermanJoe, WMF ... again ... :-) Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:32, 16 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) 00:06, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

You've accused me of adding inappropriate external links

Just so you know, the links I added were to subject matter relevant to the content of the page. The link I provided was to an author's page who is an authority on the subject matter and was intended to be for soliciting purposes, only for additional source material. You should have checked the link prior to deleting it. I will put up the additional book once again as it does not conflict with Wikipedia standards. And by the way - the editing I did was for a college communications class assignment.— Preceding unsigned comment added by KDame24 (talk • contribs)

@KDame24: yes, there is no reason to link the name to their website. Linking the name to their website is promotional, even if not so intended. The books can be found through their ISBN. If anything, the name of the author could be linked to their wikipedia page. —Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:35, 22 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) 02:47, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Adding excessive external links?

I added 3 links to the external links part, the twitter and 2 facebook pages. Why do you feel the need to remove these? How is 3 links too many? Stop removing them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Trmusic123 (talk • contribs) 07:50, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

@Trmusic123: See WP:ELMINOFFICIAL. 1 is more than enough, we are not writing a replacement for Google. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:34, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Okay then go edit the Labour party UK page which has around 4 social media in their external links? 1 is not more than enough, they have 3 accounts. Okay lets remove the Britain one, then why are you removing twitter???? Their facebook page does not contain a link to Twitter, and so its appropriate to link Twitter on here. I'm going to report you if you continue.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Trmusic123 (talk • contribs)

@Trmusic123: See WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. And you already reported me, so please see WP:AGF. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:38, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

In line with WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS: thanks for the hint. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:40, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Park Seung#External links

Hi Beetstra. Would you mind taking a look at this? It seems like it might be better to provide one link (if possible) to a general page about Park’s speeches than listing individual links to certain speeches. It’s not clear why these speeches in particular have been selected. — Marchjuly (talk) 07:38, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Be well at Christmas

	Have a WikiChristmas and a PediaNewYear
	Be well. Keep well. Have a lovely Christmas. SilkTork (talk) 16:43, 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)

Weirdness

I ran into some ridiculous edits in Garry Shandling, from 2018; turns out they were made by IP 69.181.23.220, whom you blocked for messing around with Operation Infektion; apparently I had looked at that editor too. Anyway, I've been removing their verbal and templated excess from the Shandling article, and saw the Infektion stuff--there is another account in that history, User:DenverDynasty, which is probably the same person. I don't know if you ever found more incarnations, let alone started an SPI, but I thought it was worth bringing to your attention. Take it easy, Drmies (talk) 17:26, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Drmies, thanks for the note. I never did SPI (generally not useful on an IP ..). This looks like indeed a POV warrior who thinks that things that are only very strongly discouraged are therefore fully allowed and should be used as much as possible. I've ran before into such editors who thinks that IPs should have free reign (Slowking4 is thinking like that) - regular editors don't have free reign either, they get blocked for this behaviour as well. This is likely another user who is operating like that, regular who thinks that IP editing is of utmost importance and then logs out to show how bad IPs are being treated.

Of interest: diff and diff (with an attempt to sing in Sheena Easton's voice) .... After the PA I stepped away from this guy .. I prefer that uninvolved admins take care of them. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:31, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, Beetstra. 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.Kjpmi (talk) 22:21, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Hey there. I sent you an email about wanting to help validate chemical identifiers. Please get back with me. I’ve contacted you back in 2018 about the same issue. Please let me help!

@Kjpmi: Thank you for your offer. You can always help, but I have taken CheMoBot offline for the time being, it needs some work to be put online again. The bot will hence not update the tags at the moment.

That does not need to stop you to verify and update the tags. Make the values in the chemboxes more correct (or add more), and when you have the revid of the new version, add that to the index. If/when I then restart the bot they will eventually be updated to that (for now, you can update the tags manually when you correct them, the bot would then ignore them). Further 'instructions' are here. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:24, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

revertlist nada

Added askmeauto at special:diff/936448762 to user:COIBot/RevertList, however, no revert. Checked xlinkbot's syslog and no attempt to revert. <shrug> — billinghurst sDrewth 14:30, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Billinghurst, be aware that the linkwatchers have a lag on the on-wiki blacklist, they are not loading that list continuously. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:24, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Okie dokie. Approximately what timeframe? Can I kick it along, like I can with the blacklists? — billinghurst sDrewth 05:31, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

@Billinghurst:restart linkanalysers. I should check on the refresh-rate and a less intensive command to do so. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:44, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

My first edit - Recent change

Thanks for providing more information about the Wikipedia & how it works but why you mentioning me on spam section? I am not spamming Wikipedia. i am new to here & trying to edit a useful content, if you think content is not appropriate i can undo. Please inform if you have any complain about my editing instead of mentioning me on spam section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rrsrajeev (talk • contribs) 14:34, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

@Rrsrajeev: Thank you for your remark here. The first two edits you made link you deeply to the accounts mentioned here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#Credit_and_VPNs. I do not see much other reason for you to remove in your very first edit the comment from another IP on a 'random' talkpage and following that up in a second edit with a replacement of a low quality external link on a page which was just edited by an IP in close proximity of the one you removed the comment from, and where the link is pretty much of the same nature as the links added by that IP and a couple of other IPs than that you are in fact a person who is related to (if not the same as) the people who were using those IPs. The IPs are clearly spamming. As there seems that clear connection (no, it cannot be a coincidence) I decided to welcome you warning that that behaviour is here not accepted. Please see m:Terms of use for more information. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:26, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

@Beetstra: Hey, Hope your doing good today. i made only 1 changes to credit karma articles because i founded it more useful as it provide details comparison, tutorial, information about the product and services & i see someone undo my changes. Hope you understand getting listed in spam 1st day of editing is disappointment & de motivation, I request you to please remove my name from the spam page as i am not in mind of spamming and i am not related/responsible to any others changes which you comparing me with it. Rrsrajeev (talk) 05:49, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Rrsrajeev, that does not explain your very first edit which clearly removes a post by other editors who edit with a similar interest, and that you are editing the same page as another editor in that range. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:51, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

@Beetstra: Credit Karma article page is my 1st edit before i didn't edited any article and what you mean i am editing same article, a lot of peoples editing and you cannot compare other editing with me. Rrsrajeev (talk) 05:57, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

@Rrsrajeev:, that is blatantly untrue:

• (change visibility) 16:19, 26 January 2020 diff hist -22‎ m Credit Karma ‎ review update
• (change visibility) 17:11, 23 January 2020 diff hist -376‎ m User talk:MrOllie ‎

On the 23rd of January, about 3 days before you added a link to Credit Karma, you removed a post from User talk:MrOllie? What is your relation to freeecreditscore.co? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:03, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

@Beetstra: As i said before, i made 1 article editing credit karma page and if your talking about User talk:MrOllie Talk page because before signup there was a notification in my IP in contribution sections for the changes which i didn't made so i feel removing same like i removed spam list because i feel i shouldn't be there. I have no relation with the site, it a common source. If you feel it shouldn't be in Wikipedia that fine that the reason after undo i didn't made same change again. I came here to learn but it lot of de-motivation. Now totally disappointed with Wikipedia contribution can you give me the procedure to delete my account permanently and credit karma page going to be my first & last edit on Wikipedia. Teaching & Blaming is different, here i am getting blamed instead of mentoring from experienced contributor . Rrsrajeev (talk) 06:16, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Rrsrajeev, the problem is that it is not just freeecreditscore.co, it is also nordvpn.ga and hmavpn.ml - those three sites are directly related to each other, freeecreditscore.co added by you, and the other two added by the IP whose edit you removed. So you want to say that you are editing from the same IP as someone who added 2 links that are directly related to the link that you added, but that you have nothing to do with that person that used your IP (which seems a company IP), and that it is a pure coincidence. OK.

We cannot delete your account or erase the edits that have been performed with it. You can just abandon it and there is however nothing that stops you from performing a clean start - log out, make a new account, and edit subjects that are totally unrelated to these sites. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:38, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

@Beetstra: I don't want more argument on the topic. I checked article saying deletion is not possible but rename can be done. So i request you to rename this account to any different name so i can fresh start with new account with same username. (I am not responsible about other changes or any other junky domain name. It not a company IP, i'm using Act Fiber net broadband used for home/residence) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rrsrajeev (talk • contribs)

@Rrsrajeev: You'll have to request that at Wikipedia:Changing_username. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:50, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

You blacklisted my website

• ianring.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Hey, can you remove my website from the blacklist? I'm Ian Ring, the owner of ianring.com, where I host a huge and authoritative collection of resources related to music theory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.246.70.18 (talk) 20:39, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Others seemed to disagree. See here. —Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:58, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2020).

Administrator changes

Ergo Sum • Nick Moyes • QEDK • Wugapodes

Dennis Brown

Aude • BrownHairedGirl • CALR • Jengod • John Reaves • J.smith • Kim Dent-Brown • K1Bond007 • MECU • Refdoc • RHaworth

CheckUser changes

Opabinia regalis • Premeditated Chaos

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, partial blocks are now enabled on the English Wikipedia. This functionality allows administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces rather than the entire site. A draft policy is being workshopped at Wikipedia:Partial blocks.
• The request for comment seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure closed with wide-spread support for an alternative desysoping procedure based on community input. No proposed process received consensus.

Technical news

• Twinkle now supports partial blocking. There is a small checkbox that toggles the "partial" status for both blocks and templating. There is currently one template: {{uw-pblock}}.
• When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title. [31]

Arbitration

• Following a recent arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee reminded administrators that checkuser and oversight blocks must not be reversed or modified without prior consultation with the checkuser or oversighter who placed the block, the respective functionary team, or the Arbitration Committee.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2020 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2020, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2020, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• The English Wikipedia has reached six million articles. Thank you everyone for your contributions!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:05, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Reason of decline to white-list OneFiveNine.com

• onefivenine.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Hello. I noticed that you removed my request to white-list OneFiveNine.com but didn't provide any reason. If you provide a reason, it will be helpful. Regards--- (FlyJet777) (talk)

@FlyJet777: I did in the decline, and the page comes with clear instructions in the green box. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:56, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

@Beetstra: Okay fine. So, what should I do now given that it is the only website giving information about the demographics of Hunderman village in Ladakh, India? Anything you would like to suggest? Regards--- (FlyJet777) (talk)

@FlyJet777: What do you mean, what should I do now: Read the instructions in the green box and reply to my remark/decline accordingly. Indicate clearly why you think that reasons for blacklisting do not apply to this document of you specifically. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:39, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you sir

sorry for yelling. You are right. have a good day sir. thank you for the information. HE still is a boston red sox and awaiting medical attention. I have deleted all my material regarding the subject in his talk page because I am out of line. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jarmusic2 (talk • contribs) 10:09, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Jarmusic2, I have reverted it back in - but please see it as an open discussion. We include material by consensus, not because someone is sure that it is going to happen. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:20, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

again Thank you sir. Please do not block me. I only delete the content because it was pointed out to me that it was disruptive. Thank you again. I am not to skilled in Wikipedia. Jarmusic2 (talk) 10:24, 9 February 2020 (UTC)jarmusic2Jarmusic2 (talk) 10:24, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Abdullah El Sherif

Hi User:Beetstra how are you? 

you see this page and is accepted on En Wikipedia why it deletes? can you remove the template and thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ahmadqatari (talk • contribs) 10:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Ahmadqatari, I'm fine, cheers.

I would make sure that you make it sufficient to fail the deletion criteria. Alternatively, you can move it to Draft:Abdullah El Sherif the get it up to level and then ask it to be moved back. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:25, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

it's done

Hi User:Beetstra and what i can to do ?

This Egyptian person is a famous YouTuber Can I move the page again To Article He has a page on Arabic wiki — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ahmadqatari (talk • contribs) 10:36, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Ahmadqatari, you need to show he is famous according to en.wikipedia rules. That he is famous in the Arabic wiki (which may very well have different rules) is not a guarantee that he is famous enough for other wikis. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:45, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

sure User:Beetstra But you can see this Links https://www.youtube.com/abdullahelshrif https://twitter.com/AbdullahElshrif https://www.facebook.com/AbdullahELshrif https://www.facebook.com/AbdullahElshrif2/ https://arabic.cnn.com/middle-east/article/2020/01/23/wael-ghonaim-anas-hassan-hashtags-social watanserb.com/2020/01/23/عبدالله-الشريف-يتوعد-وائل-غانم-بكشف-حق/ http://mubasher.aljazeera.net/news/سجال-بين-وائل-غنيم-وعبد-الله-الشريف-على-تويتر-والأخير-يتوعده

Millions of people are following him 

and he is well-known in the Arab world i think he is accepting in english wiki what do you think ? --Ahmadqatari (talk) 10:53, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Ahmadqatari, make it abundantly clear in the prose, and submit the draft for review and see. Look through WP:N to see what is needed for an artist. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:07, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

OK User:Beetstra What do you think of the pages that I was created and My edits ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ahmadqatari (talk • contribs) 11:17, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for February 17

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Caloptilia

You are much more patient and AGFy than I. I see an indef block in their future as their only purpose seems to be adding their very important ex links. Cheers, Deepfriedokra (talk) 17:47, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Deepfriedokra, I think there may be value to the data ... but not discussing and continuing despite warnings is not the way. People with good stuff can be very thick. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:08, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Clarification

Hi Beetstra, Can you please help me understand more of why the technical information articles I added as Related Links or cited in the content would be considered advertising? I read through the guidelines and the info I added is not trying to sell anything - they are technical resources directly related to those topics. Is it because it goes to a company website?

For example, for the Portable Cord page, I added a Related Link to https://www.lapptannehill.com/resources/technical-information/portable-cordage-types. The Wikipedia page discusses each letter, but our resource takes it a step further by putting them together and explaining those.

Or on the cable glands page, the cord grip page is lacking in detail on what these products actually do. I expanded on what cord grips do in the content and sited our technical resource of https://www.lapptannehill.com/resources/technical-information/everything-you-need-to-know-about-cord-grips.

Or a Related Link to an ampacity chart on the Ampacity page https://www.lapptannehill.com/resources/technical-information/ampacity-chart.

Thank you for the clarification.

Kaitnelson37 (talk) 17:38, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Kaitnelson37, your site is promotional, only there to sell. We are not a linkfarm, we do not link to more information, we expand our document. And then we link to a reliable source for the information. Commercial sites that exist to sell the product they describe are not suitable for that. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:12, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2020).

Administrator changes

Money emoji

Athaenara • DeltaQuad

Fishhead64 • Kudpung • Mikaey

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad

CheckUser changes

DeltaQuad

Oversight changes

DeltaQuad

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops must not undo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather than should not.
• A request for comment confirmed that sandboxes of established but inactive editors may not be blanked due solely to inactivity.

Technical news

• Following a discussion, Twinkle's default CSD behavior will soon change, most likely this week. After the change, Twinkle will default to "tagging mode" if there is no CSD tag present, and default to "deletion mode" if there is a CSD tag present. You will be able to always default to "deletion mode" (the current behavior) using your Twinkle preferences.

Miscellaneous

• Following the 2020 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: BRPever, Krd, Martin Urbanec, MusikAnimal, Sakretsu, Sotiale, and Tks4Fish. There are a total of seven editors that have been appointed as stewards, the most since 2014.
• The 2020 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Ajraddatz and Uzoma Ozurumba; they will serve for one year.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:20, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

About Behindwoods

Hi Beetstra,
Was in the process of writing up this before you deleted the article:

This article was deleted in 2016 via Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Behindwoods. Its 2020 recreation arguably avoids WP:G4 deletion, as it its content is quite different in its text to the deleted article. WP:BEFORE done, the substantial issue is the same. In 2020 it is still a film fan-site, with no indication that it meets WP:WEBCRIT. Pete AU aka

Pete AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 11:39, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Shirt58, I see whole sets of deletions dating years back. I also compared the deleted version in the deletion discussion and the current deleted version, which are essentially completely the same (same external links, same sections, same references, same story of Alexa ranking. Some of the sentences are completely identical). The existing draft is slightly different, and actually worse than the 2 versions I discussed here. There were actually earlier versions (2015 and 2016 deletions) which are slightly more elaborate in text, but are still unsuitable. It is really time to flesh out a decent draft, which can then be moved back (over the salting I implemented now). Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:02, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Machine builder

Hello Beetstra,

Thanks for contacting me and your advice are really helpful.

I have left the link buy it should help many people to know more about the brands of CNC lik DMG Mori, Mazak. Could you kindly check again on the pages? It is all about relative information about the brand I posted.

About machine builder revise, we collect the data and post this article. It can help people to know about 10 biggest machine tool builders. If there are some advertisement concern. Could we remove the link but at least leave the content in Wiki? Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Machine_tool_builder&oldid=prev&diff=942526808

Thanks a lot and look forward to helping more on Wiki! Jamesbrk24 (talk) 14:03, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Jamesbrk24, as far as I can see you are the only editor who is using this link, and you do so since the beginning that you are here. As for the content, looking at the reviews it is clear that this is all user reviews and derived ratings. As for leaving the information without the reference: then it is just as unreliable as when referenced to a user review site. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:10, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

COIBot question

Hi Beetstra, quick question - is there a way I can manually request that COIBot monitor a given domain? I'm still familiarizing myself with COIBot's capabilities (it's awesome, by the way!), and there have definitely been a few times lately where it would have been useful to have the bot watching a suspicious domain for me to see if it's worth taking to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam. creffett (talk) 02:16, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Creffett, if you are on IRC, you can set alerts, but at the moment that does not automatically result in reports being saved.

Further capabilities:

• we have User:COIBot/Poke - LinkSummary, UserSummary and IPSummary templates added there result in COIBot saving the reports (or refreshing them). I can give you access there. You can run those on anything (responsibly .. the reports still need to be saved).
• WT:WPSPAM is mainly used as a collection point, things that are more suspicious. Also there, COIBot monitors for addition of the summary templates and saves the report. I also use it for 'building a case' if there are more links and users - make sure we have all in one report before we decide what to do.
• WT:SBL similar to WT:WPSPAM, but for cases where you from the beginning are quite sure it needs blacklisting.

LinkSummaries posted to SBL and WPSPAM also result in monitoring rules, but those do not result in COIBot refreshing reports on a regular basis. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:14, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Beetstra, thanks, that really helps. Would you mind giving me access to COIBot/Poke? Basically, what I'm thinking of is those times I see a website spammed by one user who I report for spamming - if they're the only one doing it and they don't come back it's not worth blacklisting, but if it comes back I want to know about it, so I would put a watch on it for a week or so. creffett (talk) 23:54, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Ah, I see that you've added me to the access list. Thank you very much! creffett (talk) 23:56, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Creffett, you’ll get the hang of it fast enough. You can have a look at my contribs, I’ve closed a number over the last weeks, and you can see how I handled them, and how I remarked. And there is nothing really that can go wrong, either you close one that turns out to be real spam (guys were lucky, or it will come back), or you suggest something genuine for blacklisting (and then an admin will review ...). Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:34, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Email from Kolega2357

Hello, Beetstra. 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.

Hello Sir,

Whitelisting of CEE

Hello, Beetstra. You have new messages at Lawrencekhoo's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Season's Greetings

Hello there! Shearonink (talk) wishes you & yours the very best of the season!

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa,
Festivus (for the rest of us!) or even the Saturnalia,
here's to
hoping your holiday time is wonderful
and that the New Year will be an improvement upon the old.
CHEERS!

Share these holiday wishes by adding {{subst:User:Shearonink/Holiday}} ~~~~ to your friends' talk pages.

User:Beetstra/common.js

I'd appreciate it if you could add a backlink to my script with // Backlink: [[User:Headbomb/unreliable.js]]. It helps with Special:WhatLinksHere stats. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:21, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Headbomb, Sure! Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:32, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!

CAPTAIN RAJU, thanks! I'll have a piece of (whatever we stocked up) and a can of (whatever we stocked up). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:39, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Odd COIBot behavior

Hi Beetstra, I've seen an odd behavior a couple times from COIBot where it's trying to search for "https" as a domain - see, for example, Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/vientriethoc.com.vn. I'm not sure exactly what caused it, but if it helps, I requested that report on IRC with the command "report xwiki vientriethoc.com.vn". creffett (talk) 16:10, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Creffett, That is caused by item 36 in that report. Somewhere a missing /i in my code I presume. I'll note it and try to find it when I review code. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:02, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Beetstra, thank you! creffett (talk) 18:37, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at WP:ELN#Citation link question

 You are invited to join the discussion at WP:ELN#Citation link question. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:56, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

UnblockBot issues

Hi Beetstra, on IRC, UnblockBot is constantly disconnecting, and reconnecting. Would you mind taking a look at it, please? SQL^{Query me!} 02:06, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

SQL, I will try one of these days .. maybe it is better to silence (ban?) it for now? Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:56, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

The bot has been banished to the confines of ##fix_your_connection ^connect. eir is set to unban it automatically on April 26. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 13:27, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

K6ka, thanks, I really hope I can find time to work on the bot one of these days .. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:39, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2020).

Administrator changes

Cabayi • Lee Vilenski

Boing! said Zebedee

Jonny-mt • MarkGallagher • PeaceNT

Money emoji → Moneytrees

Bureaucrat changes

SilkTork • WereSpielChequers

CheckUser changes

NativeForeigner

Oversight changes

Someguy1221

Daniel Case

Guideline and policy news

• There is an ongoing request for comment to streamline the source deprecation and blacklisting process.

Technical news

• There is a plan for new requirements for user signatures. You can give feedback.

Arbitration

• Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold a Arbcom RfC regarding on-wiki harassment. A draft RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC (Draft) and not open to comments from the community yet. Interested editors can comment on the RfC itself on its talk page.

Miscellaneous

• The WMF has begun a pilot report of the pages most visited through various social media platforms to help with anti-vandalism and anti-disinformation efforts. The report is updated daily and will be available through the end of May.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:00, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

cloudfront.net

• cloudfront.net: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Hey Beetstra. Do you know anything about this website? I'm seeing indications on the web that it is a malicious attack site. I ran across it (though haven't gone there; and won't) while looking at the Sam's Club article. Any insight? --Hammersoft (talk) 01:14, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Hammersoft, wow .. no. But it looks like a hosting site of some form, where the naming of files is utterly not understandable. I wonder what it hosts besides good material. The linkwatcher db has 20.000 additions it appears to be everywhere: Mc. Donalds 3M, DuPont, Same-sex marriage in France, Opinion polling for the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, 2017 opinion polling on the Donald Trump administration .... If this is one of those intermediate hosting services (where documents get hosted all over the world so download speeds go down), and people manage to use that .. then those documents are a fair reflection of what is available on the net, including attack pages, copyright violations .... things should be linked to the source, not to this. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:46, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Wikigap article creation

Hello Beetstra; i am currently participating in wikigap online challenge winch allows the creation of female Wikipedia articles into Wikipedia in various languages and currently working with the red linked lists from meta:WikiGap/Articles but i notice that almost all the articles i have been creating has previously being created by one user slowking but was deleted by you as a result of suck puppetry so this notification is only caveat that am not associated whatsoever with the user but rather just participating in the online challenge. Thanks again and best regards. Kaizenify (talk) 12:12, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Kaizenify, don't worry, there are many articles that are regenerated. Such editors are not automatically suspect. Thanks for the heads up. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:51, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

deleted article on Mildred Coughlin

Hi Beetstra, I see you have deleted an article on Mildred Coughlin because it was created by a banned user. I had been working on an article on Coughlin as she was included in the work list for DC Art and Feminism 2020 - Remote Work List. Before I could post it, an article was started in the main space by the banned user. I believe I contributed more to the stub than the banned user. May I post the article I had drafted? Best, WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 17:51, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Follow-up - reading your comment to the previous poster, I am going to go ahead and post my article. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 18:04, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Block requested

• 84.43.228.200 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

You offered a block if this IP keeps spamming. They did. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:03, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Bri, done, 1 month. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:49, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

COIBot's having issues on IRC

Howdy Beetstra, wanted to let you know that COIBot's being weird on IRC - it seems to be correctly posting reports, but isn't responding to manual commands from me or Praxidicae. creffett (talk) 15:13, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

YouTube links in Georgii Nelepp

Hi Beetsra. Would you mind taking a look at this article, in particular the Georgii Nelepp#Artistic achievement section? There are quite a number of YouTube links cited as "references" in that particular section which instead seem to be more of an WP:EL types of links to direct the reader to various YouTube channels where this composer's recordings or other content about him can be found than official YouTube channels being cited as sources. Moreover, many of the links might be problematic per WP:COPYLINK since much of the links are to non-official channels which was unlikely not uploaded by the relevant content's original copyright holders. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:07, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: prune it to the max. There is quite some inappropriate referencing in there: "IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0625051/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm#overview." - "By today’s standards, data on Nelepp are sparse. The account here draws upon portrayals of his life and music from two Russian documentaries, a periodical article from the 1930s, articles from three encyclopedias, essays on CD inserts, articles from the Bolshoi and Marinsky theaters’ websites, a DVD on Russian opera singers, a contemporary Russian opera singer's observations, the recollections of a co-star and two of Nelepp's directors, a monograph on the Stalin prize, performance reviews by professional historical and contemporary music critics, observations by a Russian historian, and social media discussions. So that readers can judge Nelepp’s performances for themselves, YouTube sites are provided." (WHAT?) - "The Nelepp article in Russian Wikipedia offers a more complete performance inventory. In Russian: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Нэлепп,_Георгий_Михайлович. English translation via Google: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%25D0%259D%25D1%258D%25D0%25BB%25D0%25B5%25D0%25BF%25D0%25BF,_%25D0%2593%25D0%25B5%25D0%25BE%25D1%2580%25D0%25B3%25D0%25B8%25D0%25B9_%25D0%259C%25D0%25B8%25D1%2585%25D0%25B0%25D0%25B9%25D0%25BB%25D0%25BE%25D0%25B2%25D0%25B8%25D1%2587&prev=search." - "In celebration of his 110 birthday, Bolshoi Digest presents several images of him in costume. See the larger collection of photographs at https://www.google.com/search?q=%D0%9E%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%B3%D0%B0+%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BF+%D0%93%D0%B5%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B3%D0%B8+%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BF%D0%BF&tbm=isch&tbs=rimg:Cd6VMpKAQmcKImAhAodC32c6psZUjOukNgNRpXPNFf8-Vg7lKoc3qIMEpQrXDdPOjJy_1_1nIko8JPwV9khSPDMSGLHuoBo11qSNOMqmNcjHo4GvZr_1MnBunPwwpSrpI1_1VU7oIaKyU-y1JlwqEgkhAodC32c6phFcyJCUdZWD1CoSCcZUjOukNgNREX1wHINH7Ng-KhIJpXPNFf8-Vg4RwK6hozuz8U8qEgnlKoc3qIMEpRGZnQ_1-EArM6SoSCQrXDdPOjJy_1EdA-MtASJaNZKhIJ_1nIko8JPwV8R4na56AGrZKEqEglkhSPDMSGLHhFKPhr2FAsOlioSCeoBo11qSNOMEZmdD_14QCszpKhIJqmNcjHo4GvYR0VC5NN0SLa0qEglr_1MnBunPwwhFjUSXKLvyUJSoSCZSrpI1_1VU7oEdf2ud8_12DF3KhIJIaKyU-y1JlwRmZ0P_1hAKzOlhCS8MJd5kc5E&tbo=u&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwig9c_5vsfmAhXDSt8KHQB5CBkQuIIBegQIARAv&biw=1920&bih=967&dpr=1#imgrc=KFsUXEkB172juM: Nelepp's performance in Boris Godunov is available at https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=boris+godunov+1954+film&&view=detail&mid=8CFF3A0B62D76435E0918CFF3A0B62D76435E091&FORM=VRDGAR For a 1 minute film clip of Nelepp singing Gherman in rehearsal with Alexander Melik-Pashayev, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GsiFAQ1y&list=PLc0PRBIQMz30jpwYNNpKJCWu3L8mlxNUz&index=7" (what, a google search, why don't we blacklist google searches and only allow specific cse's where they are needed) - "See the broad selection of Nelepp's music at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=georgi+nelepp. The following operas are available on YouTube: Sadko: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4YvcEjbN7w The Enchantress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD7C5OBeMcI&list=PLc0PRBIQMz30jpwYNNpKJCWu3L8mlxNUz&index=15 La Pique Dame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8BTfNR1sMU&index=17&list=PLc0PRBIQMz30jpwYNNpKJCWu3L8mlxNUz Carmen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pA0iqFB4CI&list=PLNUjtaiZ0Kp9ByRUfxKAegeux9ghTFCIf&index=10 The Maid of Pskov: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AzkZnOArU0 A Life for the Tsar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeOWl8DyYsY&list=PLPTk9SSxnsmlU-2egfPFEkqUYFvK9kzc4 For selections from The Decembrists, see https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nelepp+decembrist" .. a youtube search, maybe slightly better than google search, but intrinsically bad.

Then in text: "On ClassicalCDReview.com, a commentator appraised Nelepp's 1957 recording of Fidelio as follows" .. "On ArkivMusic.com, Dan Davis reviewed Nelepp's 1952 recording of Pique Dame, observing" .. "Givargizova considered Gherman in La Pique Dame to have been Nelepp's greatest role" .. cherries, anyone?

There are also peacocks in the cherry orchard .. "Nelepp was and still is known for the beautiful quality of his voice and for his memorable characterizations" (albeit referenced), "Against the odds, he ascended from farmhand to the heights of Russian celebrity". Maybe the whole article could use some editing for tone, one paragraph: "Nelepp is documented .... He has an aria .... He figures in .... He is one of ....". Nice mess you found :-). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:34, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for taking a look at this. I was mainly concerned about the YT links but I did notice some of the puffery and suspected there were other issues as well that would need to be addressed. I don't really know anything about opera and it looks like the article's going to need a fair amount of rewriting; so, I ask about it at WT:OPERA and see if anyone there might be interested in working on improving it. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:51, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

AN Discussion

I have started an AN discussion in your responses at the Spam-whitelist post I had started. You can find that here. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 15:13 on April 21, 2020 (UTC) • #StayAtHome

@Neutralhomer: (tl-dr) Now that this AN has been closed, I guess I need to explain where I was coming from. Within the spam/external links/references framework (with the extensions plain revert, blocking/page protecting, User:XLinkBot and the local and global spam blacklists) I do get my encounters with linking to copyright violating material regularly. That mostly expresses itself on YouTube, where people capture stuff (news items), record stuff (from TV), etc. and post that as material on YouTube. Others (or the same people) find that material and link to it. Those are copyright violations on YouTube. Now YouTube does only have a low amount of copyright violations (and many are taken down), but it does tend to be the more important information that turns out to be a copyright violation (no-one cares about grandma's birthday party, people do care about that CNN news report, the BBC documentary, and the official music video of Britney Spears. (I know, many of these are on the official channels of CNN, BBC and Vevo, where they are not copyright violations). Liveleak and similar sites fall also under this category. They host a lot of material which is plainly not copyrighted (I think that US government documentation is not under copyright 'by definition'), but there is quite some material that is under copyright. All those sites are to be used with due care.

I encounter that also outside of YouTube. A couple of years ago I reverted an admin who posted a reference to a newspaper clipping on a blogspot blog. They started to talk back to me, and I told them that that was a very likely copyright violation on blogspot. It turned out to be a recent newspaper article behind a paywall (with access to 5 articles for free, so we could see it).

Then there are sites which are plainly existing to repost material from others in countries where copyright violations are less hunted down. Often they plainly regurgitate information from official outlets and then those sites get spammed. It pays to get traffic to your site and the information is interesting. Then other people see the site and start using it as well. Win-win situation, more traffic to your site.

To me, it is a safe assumption that anything posted in the last 70 years is copyrighted, and a lot of the other 30 years going 100 years back is as well. People currently own copyright on material 50-100 years after they die. Before the '60-'70s that was different (copyrights needed to be registered and renewed), but before that a lot of material was copyrighted through and when that registered copyright went through the '70s it automatically renewed.

Myra T. Johnson, Harvey L. and Jean S. Gochros published that book in 1977. That is borderline, but there is no reason to assume that they did not register a copyright for it. After that, it is likely in this case 70 after they die. Assuming that they died shortly after their creation of the work, it is likely still valid for 27 years. The safe side of this is assume that such material is under copyright. That gets strengthened by a lack of online visibility (now not all public domain material is visible either, but the chances are bigger; copyrighted material is less visible online or then clearly marked), and only pay-per-view or pay to get the book (Amazon). To me it is very unlikely that there is no copyright on that book anymore. Remember, copyright is ".. the exclusive right given to the creator of a creative work to reproduce the work, usually for a limited time", and ".. duration of a copyright expires 50 to 100 years after the creator dies, depending on the jurisdiction" (see Copyright), it does not matter whether creators are dead, organisations don't exist anymore, the country has been sunk into the sea, if the creator created the material less than 50 to 100 years ago, it is very likely copyrighted.

My apologies if my post came over snarky or direct. But to me it was so blatantly clear that that was very likely a copyright violation. Your post did not allude to any consideration why that document would not be under copyright. I was honestly shocked that you even did not consider that the material is possibly copyrighted and that you were asking me (us, I do not own the whitelist) to whitelist what is very likely a copyright violation.

The remark to go to your library and look at the book was not 'tone deaf', we are all in the same boat. That material is verifiable does not mean that everyone should be able, on the spot, to check what you wrote. But seen that it is available on Amazon and in many libraries there will be people who can physically asses that document (even if that is not true at the moment). And, in line what I see people do on Wikipedia, we will vehemently defend material that is referenced, even if that reference is not visible. Such material can only be taken down if a) the referenced book physically does not exist, or b) that it can be shown that the material is wrongly cited/referenced.

Again, I am sorry for being too direct/snarky. Please next time when I do that, come to me directly. Stay safe, stay home! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:56, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I probably could have handled it differently too. I'm Autistic, I have Aspergers. I'm a "I want to see it" kinda person. So, when I can't see a copyright, for instance, I don't always take it on face value one exists. So I play it safe (again, using the example) and say "OK, it probably doesn't, until I see that it does". Probably my Mom's doing there too, she taught me to use my brain and always look for answers. :) Plus, after having a couple FAs under my belt, I wanted to source everything and I admit I got a little carried away. Having that one reference without a link is driving me nuts!

I'm also a literal interpreter of what people say. Give you an example. I was helping Mom the other day and she said to put the clothes from the washer into the dryer. She didn't say take a couple things out and hang them up (couldn't be dried). I put everything in the dryer. I did exactly what she said. So, when you said you wanted people to go to the library, I literally took it as you wanted me to go out into the insanity and go to a library and find a copy. Again, literal. Can't help it. Usually, I'm better at it, but not being around people is making me backslide.

Anyway, virtual shake on it. :) You stay safe as well. :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 16:29 on April 22, 2020 (UTC) • #StayAtHome

COIBot pages exceeding Post-expand include size limit

There are about 1,000 subpages of Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/ where the post-expand include size limit has been exceeded, meaning that new reports are not being displayed (you can see those pages starting here). I assume that substing {{User:COIBot/EditSummary}} would make the pages unweildy, but is there a way for COIBot to archive old reports to an archive page when the link reports are getting too long (e.g. pages like Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/2gis.ru.)? For some other pages, the limit was exceeded in a single edit (e.g. this edit) -- is it possible to have the bot not post every single non-blacklisted external link inside a template for very large pages? As it is, COIBot edits make up the vast majority of Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded, making maintenance of content pages in that category difficult. Thanks. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:30, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Ahecht, you could wipe everything in the additions section, pointing people to the history if they want it. The bot may however regenerate it at some point. There are cases where we need the info, but there is no harm in wiping it (as I see you’ve done). Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:27, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Regarding removal from blacklist

Hi Dirk, Hope you are keeping safe. I am one of the founders of NewsBytes. NewsBytes is India's first media company which has created an AI-engine that can create fact-based stories with minimal human intervention.

I am writing to you to ask for a favor. A couple of years back, our website www.newsbytesapp.com was included in the Spam-blacklist. Unbeknownst to us, we had flouted the guidelines of Wikipedia, and the inclusion was justified. It was our innocent mistake, albeit pretty foolish. But, it has been a few years since we made that mistake, and have paid a heavy price as penance since then. You’d appreciate a few years is a lot of time in the world of start-ups. We have now become one of the largest publishers in India with several million users. The ban hurts us bad. In times of pandemic when the whole world has turned upside down, your small help would mean a lot to us. Please accept my apology and this sincere request. I look forward to hearing from you. 171.79.28.221 (talk) 13:32, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Warm regards, Sumedh Chaudhry

You’ll have to go to WP:SBL. I will not help you from here, it needs more visibility. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:28, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2020).

Administrator changes

Gnangarra • Kaisershatner • Malcolmxl5

CheckUser changes

Callanecc

Oversight changes

HJ Mitchell

Guideline and policy news

• Discretionary sanctions have been authorized for all pages and edits related to COVID-19, to be logged at WP:GS/COVID19.
• Following a recent discussion on Meta-Wiki, the edit filter maintainer global group has been created.
• A request for comment has been proposed to create a new main page editor usergroup.
• A request for comment has been proposed to make the bureaucrat activity requirements more strict.

Technical news

• The Editing team has been working on the talk pages project. You can review the proposed design and share your thoughts on the talk page.
• Enterprisey created a script that will show a link to the proper Special:Undelete page when viewing a since-deleted revision, see User:Enterprisey/link-deleted-revs.

Miscellaneous

• A request for comment closed with consensus to create a Village Pump-style page for communication with the Wikimedia Foundation.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:19, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

@Doc James: thanks! —Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:52, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Blacklist edit

In this edit, are you intentionally targeting domain squatter breitbar.com? If you meant breitbart.com, that is already in the list. If you meant the domain squatter, could you add a hidden comment to make that clear? Mathglot (talk) 04:17, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Mathglot, yes, as requested there. Thanks for keeping an eye! Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:23, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2020).

Administrator changes

CaptainEek • Creffett • Cwmhiraeth

Anna Frodesiak • Buckshot06 • Ronhjones • SQL

CheckUser changes

SQL

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment asks whether the Unblock Ticket Request System (UTRS) should allowed any unblock request or just private appeals.
• The Wikimedia Foundation announced that they will develop a universal code of conduct for all WMF projects. There is an open local discussion regarding the same.

Arbitration

• A motion was passed to enact a 500/30 restriction on articles related to the history of Jews and antisemitism in Poland during World War II (1933–45), including the Holocaust in Poland. Article talk pages where disruption occurs may also be managed with the stated restriction.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:27, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Starter kit for smaller wikis

Hello, and greetings! As part of a Starter kit project for smaller wikis, there is a work-in-progress guide around Bots & Tools here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Small_wiki_toolkits/Starter_kit/Bots_and_Tools. I'm reaching out with a few questions, as there is a mention of the COIBot on this page in the list of useful bots section:

• Is it okay to have the bot listed in that section? Are there any concerns?
• Would you be okay with folks from smaller wikis reaching out to you for help, and would you be willing to list your preferred method of contact under "Bot owner contact"?
• Is there anything like a note or reminder related to the bot that you would like to add in the "description" column?

Additionally, if you have a suggestion for any other bots or tools currently on the list which should not be there and those that are not there and should be there, I would love to know about them—looking forward to your input! Srishti (talk) 08:00, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

SSethi (WMF), thanks for reaching out. COIBot is not really a protector bot. The m:user:COIBot/m:user:LiWa3 combo is monitoring, mainly aiming at external link additions. They are tools in fighting spam. I think it is good to have them listed, so that people know that also small wikis are monitored. You can add me as contact to that. My talkpage on meta is best for contact.

user:XLinkBot is only active on en.w (officially user:Versageek’s bot, but I run/maintain the code). It should technically be easy to enable it elsewhere, but I have never tried. You can also add my name there.

I’ll think about the description. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:47, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for willing to help! I have one question–I'm trying to place the COIBot in one of the categories listed here, and the closest that I can think of for the bot is "Protector" only. Could you propose another category for the bot from this list? Srishti (talk) 19:39, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

SSethi (WMF), for what there is currently that is the best. A category ‘monitoring’ or similar would however be better. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:47, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

COIbot handling categories

Hi. The COIbot code needs tweaking to handle categories better as at present it's using direct references to categories that has the side-effect of putting reports in non-existent categories. So for instance the likes of Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/safwa.pk is one of three reports currently in Category:Category:Clothing brands of Pakistan (sic) due to it including |namespace=Category|pagename=Category:Clothing brands of Pakistan whereas |namespace=:Category|pagename=Clothing brands of Pakistan fixes it (as long as the other namespace=Category has a colon inserted too a few lines before). There's been a couple of these finding their way to the Special:WantedPages backlog recently - could you fix it please? TIA Le Deluge (talk) 14:36, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Le Deluge, I guess it is the best done through the template: {{#if:|Category|:|}} or something similar in the right place. I'll see if that can be tweaked. Thanks, I never noticed this! Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:01, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Le Deluge, I applied some template correction for this and a related problem. Please let me know whether the problem persists after everything has been parsed again. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:48, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Great, cheers. I don't think it's a massive problem, it's just one of those things that really sticks out on the reports in my little world but I've only seen a few. Le Deluge (talk) 19:52, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Le Deluge, you’re welcome. If it can be solved we should, and the rendering mistakes in the report are also annoying to the users who use them. Thanks again for alerting me. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:33, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

sorry for message here

Hello I dont know if is ok to post here a message for you, i just see your username on the page where i want to ask something. Hello. I just searched on Google my website and appear my website on Google search on this link on wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#anime.me.uk . Why my website is here, is my first time on wikipedia, so i am very sure i not ever post my website on wikipedia pages. This website is pretty new, and sometime i search on google to see if appear on other websites like backlink. I wait a reply, thanks, David Welles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DavidWelles27 (talk • contribs) 14:02, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

DavidWelles27 can you respond to the thread there, I prefer to keep it all in one place. Thanks.

P.S. please also mention what search term you used in Google. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:21, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Happy Adminship Anniversary!

Berrely, Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:19, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Happy Adminship Anniversary!

@CAPTAIN RAJU: Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:40, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

gnews.org

• gnews.org: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

I'm not sure if I should take this to RSN or the spam blacklist or what. See Guo Wengui#GNews. Basically it seems to be a mouthpiece for Guo (as "Miles Guo) and Steve Bannon. The only place I've seen it used is Guo's article as a source and I've removed it when it's been used. I'm just thinking preemptively trying to make sure no one else does use it. What do you think? Please ping me as I might not notice your response otherwise. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 13:25, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Doug Weller, generally we do not blacklist unless it is spammed / abused. In all the other cases an independent discussion would be needed, e.g. an RfC on RSN. I've poked COIBot to save a report, that may help in the assessment. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:30, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I expected as much. We'll see what happens. Doug Weller talk 13:46, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: a couple of SPA-ish additions, but it seems not to be particularly spammed (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/gnews.org). I notice that it is still used here and there: Special:LinkSearch/https://*.gnews.org. Maybe the samples in the LinkReport will be suitable to make a case at RSN? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:39, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I tried a link search but just used "*.gnews.org" which usually works for me. Doug Weller talk 14:46, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Doug Weller, that will only show links that start with 'http://', the ones with 'https://' will not show in that search, for those you need to specify the protocol as in the LinkSearch I mentioned: Special:LinkSearch/https://*.gnews.org vs. Special:LinkSearch/*.gnews.org. They are also linked from the {{LinkSummary}} template above under 'en', '(https)', and more advanced '(insource)'. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:57, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

That's great, there's always something new to learn on Wikipedia. I went to RSN. Doug Weller talk 15:06, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Badly needed IP block exemption.

Hi, I am from Bangladesh. Here using free basics I can visit a lot of site including Wikipedia without carrier charge. Browsing with free basics I can contribute in Bangla Wikipedia, but I can't contribute in English wiki. So please give me IP block exemption so that I can contribute in English wiki also. Thanks. Emdad Tafsir (talk) 10:15, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Emdad Tafsir, you'll have to request that, please see Wikipedia:IP_block_exemption. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:56, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Editing

• iranvisa24.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Dear Beetstra,

I appreciate your comment on my editing, but there is one point which is important in two pages named 'visa policy of Iran' and 'Persian garden'. AS I and my team are specialists in tourism, we decided to add visa types on that page because it is the foremost factor in guidelines for getting Iran visas.

Best regards,

Khayatan — Preceding unsigned comment added by Khayatan (talk • contribs) 09:26, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Khayatan, I basically have two questions:

• are you involved with this site?
• You are talking in plurals ('I and my team', 'we') - are you operating this account as a team?

Both of these would be problematic on Wikipedia. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:38, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Beetstra, first, which site do you mean? Second, I wrote myself, there is no team! Third, I really don't know why you remove just my part on this page as visa type is an important part of visa policy and it is really useful for this page. if you know the content of this page, there are many unuseful parts you can focus on that..and really I want to know the reason — Preceding unsigned comment added by Khayatan (talk • contribs) 04:44, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Khayatan, the blog that you persistently add on iranvisa24.com Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:14, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Beetstra, These are rules and regulations of MFA(Iran ministry of foreing offairs) which I studied on them alot on different sites and other references, then I added them on wikipedia.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Khayatan (talk • contribs)

Khayatan OK, 'these are rules and regulations of MFA', so why do we use a blog as a reference on a site (iranvisa24.com) which is, obviously, not of the MFA. Secondly, I asked you a simple question: "are you involved with this site?", for which you ask 'first, which site do you mean?' .. on the second question you answer 'there is no team', while in your first comment here you state 'AS I and my team are specialists in tourism', which clearly shows that there is a team.

I am directing you to read m:Terms of use and Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and ask you to act accordingly. Then there is Wikipedia:Reliable sources to read, which does state things about blogs. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:28, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Beetstra,

I read the 'external guidelines' and I didn't any problem, for sure I will read the links sending for me and will ask you if I face any problem or question, I really appreciate it. for your questions: first I don't know why your statements show suspicious about me, and you sent a warning message for me which I really didn't understand the reason, I think your manner is not a polite way. Please let me know if I am wrong. Yes, there is no team and I wrote myself, I said the team on my first comment because I wanted to let you know that I asked, read, and searched about this section very much from many specialists, then complete and paraphrase it to be more understandable for travelers searching in Wikipedia as they asked me a lot about it and they had a lot of questions in this part (I think searching and asking about a subject is a primary way to make sure about the correctness). If you think I should refer the link to MFA site, It is ok, I will do it, but I made reference to Iranvisa24 because that was complete and more understandable. Thank you— Preceding unsigned comment added by Khayatan (talk • contribs)

@Khayatan: You are dodging the questions, and you are contradicting yourself:

• Are you involved with the site?
• You said "AS I and my team ... we decided ...". That means that you are working as a team. Did you mean "I am part of a team of specialists, and I decided ...", or did you mean "I am part of a team of specialists, and we decided that I was going to ...".

Thank you for your answers. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:56, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Beetstra,

I was not dodging the questions, I answered your question in the previous comment "Yes, there is no team and I wrote myself, I said the team on my first comment because I wanted to let you know that I asked, read, and searched about this section very much from many specialists, then complete and paraphrase it to be more understandable for travelers searching in Wikipedia as they asked me a lot about it and they had a lot of questions in this part...." I searched and wrote like other writers. these two sentences you wrote by the meaning that you got from my first sentence is totally wrong, please forget about the first sentence, I told you, maybe you misunderstood me or I expressed myself wrong. And I really didn't get your meaning about the involvement in the site. If you mean this is my own site. I should say no it is not. I think for more editing on Wikipedia, I should make no backlink to reduce these suspicions and warnings :), but I really have a question: why some contents which are not really useful for this page will not be edited? thank you— Preceding unsigned comment added by Khayatan (talk • contribs)

@Khayatan: OK, the answer to the second question I may have misunderstood, my apologies. 'Involvement' is wider than just being an owner. Do you work for the maintainers of the site, do you get paid to add those links to Wikipedia, are you working for a company that is hired by the people of iranvisa24.com, do you write yourself information on that site, or are you the owner of the site, etc. etc. See WP:COI and m:Terms of use. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:24, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Whitelist

Hi Dirk. I don't seem to have links on the whitelist talkpage as per the blacklist - is it a separate handler script ort do we do this the old way? Guy (help!) 14:12, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Never mind: found it. Thanks! Guy (help!) 14:22, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

JzG, :-) Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:31, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thank you for your help!

Sadly, the links for videos at Library of Congress are less stable than the YouTube links. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jane Cross (talk • contribs) 17:44, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Jane Cross, what do you mean with ‘less stable’? Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:25, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Jane Cross, and Jane, please do not use www.loc.gov for the library of congress, use the wikilink like in the example I linked you to. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:27, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

ShareBuyers

• sharebuyers.co.uk: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Hi, I understand ShareBuyers has been blacklisted and it's now showing on Wikipedia's spam list. Please can you review your stance on this (I have also contacted the user who requested this as guided by the Wikipedia volunteer team). The site has been called a 'dubious source' by a Wikipedia user, it certainly is not a dubious source, the source is the announcement from the company itself, just as the FT would report on it.

The markets and relevant information is moving quickly, so naturally some of the team will update Wikipedia where it felt relevant, it didn't think it was doing harm and was contributing in positive ways (some examples below).

- An acquisition of Oasis by Boohoo in which the entry was left intact but the source changed to FT.

- Highlighting that the Edinburgh Investment Trust had changed its portfolio manager and a new investment approach (this is like a new CEO taking over a company and changing strategy).

- Highlighting that the UK economy fell by its biggest amount in history recently.

- Highlighting a change in strategy by Greggs with a view to accelerating click & collect as its stores reopened following the lock down under an existing section titled coronavirus impact.

I hope you understand that this was just updating Wikipedia with timely, relevant information. The fact that much of it remains in some guise really does show it is not 'spam' and keeping people up-to-date with what's going on in the present day.

Again, please can I ask that you review the request to mark the site as spam and confirm how best to resolve this and avoid it from happening again in future.

Thank You

JXChurchi (talk) 17:04, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

JXChurchi, have you reviewed m:Terms of use and WP:COI? Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:33, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes. Have you reviewed WP:Defamation and WP:Plagiarism? A user saying this website is a dubious source is false. The same user contributing to a putting this website on a 'spam page' that is being indexed by Google is misguided. The same user leaving the words that someone else has produced and changing the link is not good behaviour. It is very frustrating to continue to hear these accusations of advertising, spam, conflicts of interest or whatever else. It is not addressing or resolving the issue.

Our contributors thought they were helping up-date pages with relevant information (which evidently they are) which are not up-to-date, it was an innocent move. If a mistake has indirectly been made, it is not fair to put the website on a spam list that is being indexed by Google and visible by others. Please confirm what exactly the deemed problem was so it doesn't happen again (there's many accusations being thrown about here) and look to remove the blacklist. JXChurchi (talk) 19:42, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

JXChurchi, google is not so stupid to index that page. And anyone who does is making a big mistake.

What would have avoided the issue is you telling your employees not to misuse wikipedia in violation of our terms of use. Undisclosed paid editing is strictly against our terms of use. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:52, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

After edit conflict: when editing your people were pointed to our rules, as are you now. You ignore that and by saving your first edit here violated our terms of use. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:54, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

JXChurchi, and if you read wp:defamation you know you are in the wrong place. And your accusation of plagiarism does not apply in any form, what was added can be attributed to the editor. They however do not own that material and hence all material can be edited/changed/moved/deleted by anyone. This is a wiki. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:58, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Again, you are making more unfounded accusations and retrospectively trying to justify... this time about 'paid editing'. So this website has now been accused of being dubious, spam, advertising, paid editing of links on Wikipedia. The Wikipedia spam page is being indexed by Google, that's how it was found and what the problem is here. This is what I call defamation (in addition to claiming its a 'dubious source') - associating a perfectly legitimate website with a page on spam that is publicly visible - Google is indexing it, I've told your volunteers this, have screenshots and look for yourself please. Whatever you think has happened, it was simply an innocent mistake (contributors had relevant news and updated a Wikipedia page sometimes where it was helpful). As civilized people, do we forgive if a mistake has been unknowingly been made or instead punish? Now please, remove the association of the website and Spam - none of our contributors will update Wikipedia again (if this is now the problem). JXChurchi (talk) 20:09, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

JXChurchi, it is your website right? Your people are paid by you right? They were adding the links without disclosing that they were paid by you right? That means that they were ‘undisclosed paid editors’ and hence not that it is a false accusation. And obviously blacklisting was necessary, the handed out blocks on the first three accounts did not stop the attempts to add more links.

Please show me the google search that you performed to figure out that it was blacklisted. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:27, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment - I'll reply here to keep everything in one place. As detailed here the links were being added by multiple usernames in short succession (3 listed there, there was another too). This can only have been due to a concerted effort to use Wikipedia to improve SEO of what is only a two month old website which as Dirk has already explained goes against out terms of use, as well as WP:PAID, WP:SOCK and WP:SPAM. It was not helpful and was an underhanded blackhat tactic that could not happen by accident. Ordinarily, the solution would be to warn and block the users, but given there were four active users within a week, blocking them was unlikely to change anything which is why I requested that it was blacklisted as it was the simplest solution to prevent further abuse. @Dirk - I had only just blocked the users when I requested the blacklisting, so they didn't carry on after warnings, but the concerted use of multiple accounts made me consider it very likely that this was paid for SEO rather than an employee innocently adding "useful" content. As to reliability, that's kind of a moot point given that the site was being spammed, but there's nothing at sharebuyers.co.uk/about-us/ to indicate that the site is a "reliable source" as defined by Wikipedia. Regarding your claim about this appearing in google searches, the only hit I get for "sharebuyers.co.uk" "spam" is this mirror, which has nothing to do with Wikipedia, being run by Cyberajah Pty Ltd. Dirk is far far more knowledgable about spam than I and I'm not sure what the options are on delisting it. I guess it could be removed and if, as you now claim to have understood, you don't pay anyone to add links to it shouldn't cause problems. If we find any similar behaviour again though, it would instantly be replaced on the list and would not be appealable for at least a year. @Dirk - before considering this though, we should ask a CU to check those accounts to see whether it is realistic that they are employees in the UK as claimed (i.e. WP:MEAT) or if they're obvious socks, because if they're socks, I think it should remain blacklisted for now. SmartSE (talk) 21:58, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

"ShareBuyers.co.uk" -site:shareBuyers.co.uk does bring up Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/sharebuyers.co.uk but with no information on the page available. This has info on how to fix it to not be indexed at all. SmartSE (talk) 22:33, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

But also we aren't the only site being spammed: https://slashdot.org/~Tinytimpson . I will ask a CU to take a look. SmartSE

Regarding this point specifically. This looks like one submission has been marked as 'spam' - not the whole website. In this context, it looks like news about an economy is probably not relevant to a technology website. It seems the rest of the submissions are related to technology. Websites such as that are based on user news submissions, they invite submission of articles, it's how they run - sometimes the articles user submit may not be approved (few are). Again, please can stop arguing about this and trying to find justification - it is like a vendetta and is concerning. Remove the link to the spam list page is all that is being asked. JXChurchi (talk) 04:40, 20 June 2020 (UTC) (talk) 22:41, 19 June 2020 (UTC) Hi both, thank you for the responses. This is a new independent website with a desire to help people learn about investing. We have contributors not paid employees. You will see there is not a single advert or affiliate link on this website. No one is getting 'paid' to add a link on Wikipedia. There has been a misunderstanding here. No contributor will post a link or reference to this website if this is the problem. But please can you remove the classification as spam and indexing on this: 'Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/sharebuyers.co.uk' - again, if you do see what looks like suspicious activity in future, then please take whatever steps you feel necessary. I would be happy with this resolution and I hope you deem it suitable too and we can move on! I'm not sure what you're expecting to find, but I do know a contributor made more than one account because they forgot their p/w and e-mail is not mandatory, so no way to reset it (stop pretending this is some elaborate scheme it's not). I do hope you take further reassurance that personally spending over 5-6 hours raising this (including with the volunteer team), shows that this is not malicious in any way. JXChurchi (talk) 22:28, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

JXChurchi, a team of volunteers? Your ‘sharebuyers editorial team’ (who are all anonymous specialists) is a team of volunteers? Keeping them anonymous makes it impossible to identify them as specialists and hence we cannot know whether they are specialists.

You dodged the question: where did you see where google shows you the site is blacklisted? Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:33, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Can you please stop this arguing and this endless vendetta. You will see Smartse confirmed the indexing of the spam page on Google (both directly on wikipedia and gpedia). I am not going to teach you how to search Google for a domain (but if you really aren't sure try a simple search time like Sharebuyers.co.uk Wikipedia). Remove the link associating Sharebuyers with spam that is being indexed and returned in results (Smartse also confirmed this was being indexed). The fact is some innocent submissions to relevant pages from our contributors (which have remained in places with references or some wording changed) has led to pages about our website being labelled as spam. You have said the usual action would be to warn and block users - just block these users and remove the pages that have this website associated with spam. As I've said our contributors will not add any reference to Wikipedia in future. If you see what you deem 'suspicious activity' in future, then feel free to add it to the list again. No contributor wants to update Wikipeda again. Stop being unreasonable and trying to defame a new, independent website. It will not be tolerated. JXChurchi (talk) 04:49, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

JXChurchi, that page was updated after your first remark that google indexes the spam blacklist. Before that there was no indication that your page was blacklisted, you cannot find the blacklisting discussion on google, and you did not find that page through that very odd search term.

The truth is that one day later yet one other one of your volunteers came here to try add more links and figured out it was blacklisted. 5 individuals in less than a week is plainly a coordinated attempt to use Wikipedia for adding these links, where the block on the first three did not get the message through. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:00, 20 June 2020 (UTC

Again, you are making stories up to suit your actions. Stop this now. 5 individuals in a week is not what you describe. I had looked further into this - it was actually the same user who forgot their password and made a new account (as Wikipedia doesn't require e-mail addresses they thought it was OK and didn't pay much attention when creating passwords). If there was a block / warning, would not have been aware. Your check user should actually show this. If this was some elaborate scheme as you describe, then it would be very foolish to create 5 accounts to get around a 'spam ban' - it obviously won't work. And about finding the page through the 'very odd search term', it can be found on a few pages down within Google just by searching for the domain, this is not an odd thing to search for.

Are you going to remove the page or not please? That's all I am asking. This is not about who is right or wrong - I can see why you would think some of this was suspicious, but it was innocent and there is clear explanation behind it. Because of a mistake, should not be left with pages being indexes classifying as spam. If there has been an innocent mistake make, it is wrong to continue to punish for it and publicly. This is very damaging, especially as a new and independent website. I am sure you understand this. JXChurchi (talk) 05:11, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

JXChurchi, they forgot their password 3 times. Sure. That remark is also in stark contrast with your earlier comments, clearly talking about multiple volunteers consistently. I have had enough of this. Ask for delisting on WT:SBL, and I will let an uninvolved admin decide. —Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:23, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I have had enough of this too and the endless and at times multiple unjustified accusations. I think if you check when the accounts were actually created, you will see they were done so before any ban may or may not have been in place. Have asked for something very simple here - remove the 'spam' page, the content being updated was also relevant (as it has been kept in instances). If in future you do see malicious activity then add it to the spam list, now there is some more understand on the issue. JXChurchi (talk) 05:29, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry you've had to deal with this. I won't pretend I've fully followed the back-and-forth — my involvement is taking on a ticket at OTRS, and providing information on how to address a blacklist decision. I trust you are aware that I have to treat the details in the OTRS ticket as confidential unless I get permission from the individual to share the discussion. I see that JXChurchi is blocked, and my intended next step·is to tell them that they need to to address the reasons for the block, but I normally tell people that the instructions for addressing the block are on their talk page. I don't see that in this instance. I thought blocking automatically added such a message – am I missing something?--S Philbrick(Talk) 12:30, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Sphilbrick thanks, but no need for apologies. My last suggestion to this user was to ask for removal on WT:SBL. I did not block this editor (that was user:Nick), nor did I block the 4th editor who tried to add this link but got stopped by the blacklist (after the first three were blocked and I added the link to the blacklist).

No, the message is not left automatically, nor is it mandatory. We could add a {{blocked}} to their userpage, or is there a manual somewhere? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:25, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I added it.--S Philbrick(Talk) 19:01, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Adeptinitiate question

QUESTION: Dear Beetstra, I am attempting to add John Anthony West work credit in the 2015 film series entitled Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools to John Anthony West wikipedia page under the WORK > VIDEO section. I included verified source, IMDB (International Movide Database) and article from 2015 publicizing his involvement in the video/film. I think you have made a mistake. I am trying to include a part of John Anthony West's body of work from 2015 that has not yet been included on his wikipedia page. How is this considered inappropriate for encylopedia or considered spam? Also, I noticed you have deleted my edits and citations on several archaeological sites in the Yucatan that are under-represented on wikipedia. I have enhanced the articles with more encyclopedic information along with references and citations. I feel like you are intentionally deleting my work. What exactly is the problem? Please advise.

Adeptinitiate (talk) 06:59, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Adeptinitiate, every single edit you have performed includes one website in a very spammy way. Moreover, I notice that your username, Adeptinitiate, overlaps with the website you are adding: adeptinitiates.com. Are you in any form related to this site?

Your last edit here includes two sources, primarily the commercial site, secondly imdb. IMDB is NOT a reliable source, it is mainly self-published information.

So, the likely exact problem is that you are spamming your own website in violation of our terms of use and our conflict of interest guidelines. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:18, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

I've given them a paid editing message. If they edit again before replying and you notice it, tell me and I'll block them. The Ancient Mystery Schools website seems to need a paid subscription by the way. Doug Weller talk 10:07, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Doug Weller, I would have also, I gave them a -4im. And likely I will blacklist the link as they were also editing as an IP. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:55, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

And I've given them a copyright warning. Doug Weller talk 11:20, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Dear Dirk Beetstra, I can understand your concern with respect to external links used as sources for the articles on archaeological sites. As a new editor, I appreciate the warning and information to help better educate me on wikipedias policies.

However, your claim that "every single edit" I performed "includes on website in a very spammy way" is note entirely accurate:

I included the video title, Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools to John Anthony West body of work under the work edit sections of the John Anthony West wikipedia article.

How does my adding John Anthony West's last known video body of work before his transition into death, entitled "Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools" to the work> video section of the John Anthony West wikipedia article constitute as "includes one website in a very spammy way"?

As I mentioned above, in the very first edit of this particular section, I did not include link for this section. I did include external links in addition to this and they were removed. I am okay with removing the external links, but the actual title was also removed in the process. So I entered it a second time with a link to IMDB (International Movie Database) and an additional link to the AdeptInitiates.com website where an article was published in 2015 publicizing the premiere of Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools with John Anthony West.

The links were used only as sources or references because the edit was previously removed. I don't mind if the external links are removed but as a fan and a student who wants to improve information on a particular topic of interest -- in this case add the last known video series attributed to John Anthony West before his transition into death to his wikipedia article -- because the information is currently missing from the article.

If John Anthony West body of work includes the video/film series 'Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools' why then is it being prevented from being added to his list of work category on the Wikipedia page?

I can see your point of view about my username which is purely speculative in nature. However, My chosen username should hold no weight. I could have just as easily chose Beestra as a username. An "Adept Initiate" is a common term and title used in the western esoteric tradition. I am simply paying homage. Adept Initiates is a Facebook community with over 200,000 members who share interest in the western esoteric tradition. AdeptInitiates.com is the official website and it features articles by various authors on the aforementioned matter. Please note that the site in question - AdeptInitiates.com - was not even added on my first attempt at editing the John Anthony West article. In fact, I did not include the AdeptInitiates.com on my second attempt to edit the article. Please note that it was not until a final attempt to edit that I provided a link to AdeptInitiates.com site after my original edit was removed from the WORK > VIDEO section but it was added only as a reference along with IMDB - which you have now disqualified. I take up no issue with removing the external links that I provided as sources. However, the video series, Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools was indeed the last video series with John Anthony West before his death and therefore should be included in his body of work.

The fact that the series entitled Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools can be purchased through a paid membership site, AncientEgyptMysterySchools.com should hold little significance. The current video series, Magical Egypt: A symbolist tour of egypt is hosted at MagicalEgypt.com which also offers a paid service to watch the video. Obviously his body of works - films, plays, videos and books - are being monetized by various platforms and organizations.

My only interest in including external links was a means to provide source or references which I thought was important for updating wikipedia information. The assumption that the exact problem is that I am spamming my own website in violation is incorrect.

The external links need not be included if you feel they are in violation. However, Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools does need to be added to John Anthony West's body of work because it was his last video series work. So then how do you propose I make (or someone else) makes that edit in the spirit of improving information on a particular topic of interest? --Adeptinitiate (talk) 16:09, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Adeptinitiate, you’re right, at least 15 spammy link additions, several promotional edits, and 9 copyvio edits (with partial overlap) out of 33 mainspace edits (and what isleft over is something like typo fixing in earlier edits. Add to that a number of similar edits from IP. Still, you have a conflict of interest and are in violation of our terms of use. Read up, and adapt your way of editing so it is in line with the policies and guidelines, or your next edit will result in an indef block. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:38, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Dear :::Doug Weller,

Please be advised that I am not a paid advocate. You are mistaken. I am not being directly or indirectly compensated for my edits.

Contrary to your assumption, I am not being compensated by a person, group, company or organization to use Wikipedia to promote their interests.

In fact, I’m currently unemployed and much of my work is performed as contribution, pro bono and philanthropic.

With all due respect, the allegations made against my account are purely speculative and I suspect they are reactionary.

I am a fan and a student who wants to improve information on particular topic of interest —in this case I would like to improve the Wikipedia article on John Anthony West to include his work on the series Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools, the last video series he worked on before his transition into death — because this information is missing and so I decided to become an editor in order to contribute to a source of free knowledge and improve the article with this information.

The fact that the series Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools is monetized at the website: AncientEgyptMysterySchools.com has no practical value. Most albums, books, and videos by most content creators are monetized on some platform. The prevailing video work currently listed on the John Anthony West article entitled Magical Egypt: A Symbolist Tour of Egypt is monetized on the website: MagicalEgypt similar to how the video series Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools is monetized on AncientEgyptMysterySchools.com. Just because a product is monetized on a site by the same name does not warrant removing that title from the authors wikipedia page. Further, I did not even include a link to AncientEgyptMysterySchools.com in my original edit. What is the practical value of including your point that the video series attributed to John Anthony West is monetized on a website by the same name?

In the interest of fairness, if John Anthony West body of work includes the video/film series, ‘Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools’, why then is it being prevented from being added to his work on the Wikipedia page? --Adeptinitiate (talk) 16:09, 23 June 2020 (UTC)