User talk:Espresso Addict/archive12

Books and Bytes - Issue 25

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 25, October – November 2017

• OAWiki & #1Lib1Ref
• User Group update
• Global branches update
• Spotlight: Research libraries and Wikimedia
• Bytes in brief

Arabic, Korean and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:57, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2017).

Administrator changes

Muboshgu

Anetode • Laser brain • Worm That Turned

None

Bureaucrat changes

Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the administrator policy should be amended to require disclosure of paid editing activity at WP:RFA and to prohibit the use of administrative tools as part of paid editing activity, with certain exceptions.

Technical news

• The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey results have been posted. The Community Tech team will investigate and address the top ten results.
• The Anti-Harassment Tools team is inviting comments on new blocking tools and improvements to existing blocking tools for development in early 2018. Feedback can be left on the discussion page or by email.

Arbitration

• Following the results of the 2017 election, the following editors have been (re)appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Alex Shih, BU Rob13, Callanecc, KrakatoaKatie, Opabinia regalis, Premeditated Chaos, RickinBaltimore, Worm That Turned.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:37, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 26

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 26, December – January 2018

• #1Lib1Ref
• User Group update
• Global branches update
• Spotlight: What can we glean from OCLC’s experience with library staff learning Wikipedia?
• Bytes in brief

Arabic and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:36, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

Blurpeace • Dana boomer • Deltabeignet • Denelson83 • Grandiose • Salvidrim! • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC has closed with a consensus that candidates at WP:RFA must disclose whether they have ever edited for pay and that administrators may never use administrative tools as part of any paid editing activity, except when they are acting as a Wikipedian-in-Residence or when the payment is made by the Wikimedia Foundation or an affiliate of the WMF.
• Editors responding to threats of harm can now contact the Wikimedia Foundation's emergency address by using Special:EmailUser/Emergency. If you don't have email enabled on Wikipedia, directly contacting the emergency address using your own email client remains an option.

Technical news

• A tag will now be automatically applied to edits that blank a page, turn a page into a redirect, remove/replace almost all content in a page, undo an edit, or rollback an edit. These edits were previously denoted solely by automatic edit summaries.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee has enacted a change to the discretionary sanctions procedure which requires administrators to add a standardized editnotice when placing page restrictions. Editors cannot be sanctioned for violations of page restrictions if this editnotice was not in place at the time of the violation.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:51, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 11

Newsletter • February 2018

Check out this month's issue of the WikiProject X newsletter, with plans to renew work with a followup grant proposal to support finalising the deployment of CollaborationKit!

-— Isarra ༆ 21:26, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2018

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

Administrator changes

Lourdes†

AngelOfSadness • Bhadani • Chris 73 • Coren • Friday • Midom • Mike V

† Lourdes has requested that her admin rights be temporarily removed, pending her return from travel.

Guideline and policy news

• The autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) is scheduled to end on 14 March 2018. The results of the research collected can be read on Meta Wiki.
• Community ban discussions must now stay open for at least 24 hours prior to being closed.
• A change to the administrator inactivity policy has been proposed. Under the proposal, if an administrator has not used their admin tools for a period of five years and is subsequently desysopped for inactivity, the administrator would have to file a new RfA in order to regain the tools.
• A change to the banning policy has been proposed which would specify conditions under which a repeat sockmaster may be considered de facto banned, reducing the need to start a community ban discussion for these users.

Technical news

• CheckUsers are now able to view private data such as IP addresses from the edit filter log, e.g. when the filter prevents a user from creating an account. Previously, this information was unavailable to CheckUsers because access to it could not be logged.
• The edit filter has a new feature contains_all that edit filter managers may use to check if one or more strings are all contained in another given string.

Miscellaneous

• Following the 2018 Steward elections, the following users are our new stewards: -revi, Green Giant, Rxy, There'sNoTime, علاء.

Obituaries

• Bhadani (Gangadhar Bhadani) passed away on 8 February 2018. Bhadani joined Wikipedia in March 2005 and became an administrator in September 2005. While he was active, Bhadani was regarded as one of the most prolific Wikipedians from India.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:00, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Dr. A. R. Kemal ‎

I had tagged this page for CSD because it looked like a self written autobiography to me and now it is deleted by an admin with the comment "(G11: Unambiguous advertising or promotion: no independent sources, self-written vanity page, see WP:YTA, WP:Autobiography)" .... yesterday also you tried to defend the article Lokeswara Rao Sajja which i had tagged for speedy because it was also a autobio... strangly, after you declined speedy, another admin deleted it on the same grounds.... now, honestly, your actions have confused me... should i stop tagging self- promotional autobiographies or not?? you say something and other admin's actions are directly opposite to yours... what do i do now? Stop reviewing new pages?? -- Adamstraw99 (talk) 06:59, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

You walked into a test

You are not one of the admins I ever recall processing my thousands of CSDs before the other day and I've never seen you at AfC discussing how to improve it. Therefore I'm surprised you are pushing about AfC at the ACREQ RfC. You stumbled into a little test where I speedied a batch of pages marked by AfC reviewers as Blatant Adverts without regard to age or who tagged them as such. I selected the pages randomly by hitting all pages starting with several random letters of the alphabet, and doing enough at once to get a cross section of Admins, not just one or two. I wanted to see if the AfC version of promo matched with the CSD standard. The answer is it's close, but a bit stricter at AfC, which matched my perception.

I've long believed that AfC is a bit too hard on Drafts in some ways and way too easy in others. Presently most pages get declined, often multiple times, but no effort is made to remove the unsuitable before 6 months absolutely unedited passes and they come up on the G13 list. We also decline a few pages in notable topics that should be accepted.

There are far to many problematic pages in Deaft that could be fixed with significant effort, but are unlikely to be adopted, so yes, we lose some stuff with potential but that the creator abandoned or lacke the knowhow to get into a mainspace ready form. That's just life - and had the pages been placed directly in mainspace many would have been deleted. Truly good topics will get crated by a compotent editor anyway and often the draft is not muslch to work with anyway (no refs, OR etc) Legacypac (talk) 06:48, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I usually work on A7s, with a side of A1, A3, G11 as needed, so if you don't work in those areas we won't have interacted. I first came across AfC as a Teahouse helper, long before ACTRIAL, where it swiftly became apparent that the last thing any good-faith contributor should do is submit anything to AfC. "Toxic" was a word often bandied around.

Thanks for the explanation of the odd behaviour the other day. If you want a selection of the usual admins you should only speedy about 40 at a time, otherwise it starts looking like a backlog and everyone rolls in to do their bit. It's well known that different admins have very different settings for what is an acceptable G11. I generally won't delete a page G11 unless it's also A7 worthy -- which is very often true -- or it's the kind of eye-searing nonsense that occurs quite often from NPP. Others are more stringent.

I'm surprised there's no A7 for drafts; it might save some time if you could get rid of the truly non-notable before 6 months.

There are lots of problems with abandoning plausible content and letting it rot until G13 cuts in. If you moved it into mainspace with appropriate tagging someone might well try to take it up; WikiProject Women does a lot of work trying to salvage articles about women, for example. Sometimes an AfD nomination stimulates improvement. Perhaps most importantly, if you did it swiftly enough, the creator would get the chance to interact with the live encyclopedia and might learn & develop in consequence.

I think it's easy to lose sight of how offensive it is if an editor rejects an article about a person who is clearly highly notable with comments such as "The article subject may very well be Notable, but this draft, with its weak sourcing and decidedly non-neutral tone, does not demonstrate that." No doubt that goes double if you're writing about your parent/PhD supervisor/head of department... Espresso Addict (talk) 07:27, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I missed this - was not watching your talk. I agree we need A7 for Drafts but there is a vocal group (SoWhy being the loudest) that opposes any new CSDs or any move to subject any Draft to any notability test. They quote WP:NMFD and regularly try to stop us from deleting drafts that have been submitted over and over but will never meet notability tests. I've watchlisted you page now. I appreciate the collaboration.

I came here to point you at the data we were looking for Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Submissions Legacypac (talk) 10:21, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@Legacypac: Thanks -- I need to learn to use the ping function more consistently but I hate the "@" symbol. Some days I feel like a dinosaur here. On A7 for drafts I figure if I bang on about it often enough, sensible people will eventually change their minds. That might be another symptom of geological age :) Espresso Addict (talk) 04:03, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

@Legacypac: Looking at the page you link it includes both new drafts & resubmissions for review so it's going to be hard to interpret what the figures represent. I've just clicked on something DGG accepted that had been hanging around since July 2103! Espresso Addict (talk) 08:08, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2018

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

Administrator changes

331dot • Cordless Larry • ClueBot NG

Gogo Dodo • Pb30 • Sebastiankessel • Seicer • SoLando

Guideline and policy news

• Administrators who have been desysopped due to inactivity are now required to have performed at least one (logged) administrative action in the past 5 years in order to qualify for a resysop without going through a new RfA.
• Editors who have been found to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block, for whatever reason, are now automatically considered banned by the community without the need to start a ban discussion.
• The notability guideline for organizations and companies has been substantially rewritten following the closure of this request for comment. Among the changes, the guideline more clearly defines the sourcing requirements needed for organizations and companies to be considered notable.
• The six-month autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) ended on 14 March 2018. The post-trial research report has been published. A request for comment is now underway to determine whether the restrictions from ACTRIAL should be implemented permanently.

Technical news

• There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee is considering a change to the discretionary sanctions procedures which would require an editor to appeal a sanction to the community at WP:AE or WP:AN prior to appealing directly to the Arbitration Committee at WP:ARCA.

Miscellaneous

• A discussion has closed which concluded that administrators are not required to enable email, though many editors suggested doing so as a matter of best practice.
• The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team has released the Interaction Timeline. This shows a chronologic history for two users on pages where they have both made edits, which may be helpful in identifying sockpuppetry and investigating editing disputes.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

A goat for you!

Dear Espresso Addict You deleted my WIKI page. This was my first edit on WIKI, I am from Cheshire :-) originally and all is factual, please can you help me write the article correctly? Thank you. John Falcon ps The Goat is my Chinese Zodiac sign...

WikiKn2018 (talk) 03:08, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 6, 2018

Hi EA, good to see you around TFA. It's not important enough to revert, but one of the rules at FAC is that we have to follow the MOS pages ... including MOS:NOPIPE (and WP:NOPIPE, although that's not strictly a MOS page). I'm aware that some prefer to pipe instead of using redirects at the Main Page, but we never have at TFA, and it hasn't been a problem so far. - Dank (push to talk) 03:40, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi @Dank:. The problem with the text was that it didn't have an en rule. I piped it while I was there from habit, sorry; I seem to recall we've had this discussion before. But... I don't really see why it's a good idea anywhere on the main page to link to a relatively unwatched page (the redirect; 4 vs 34 editors checked changes) which is open to clever vandalism? It just seems to be asking for trouble for a point of MoS that has no purpose for transient material such as the TFA blurb. I note the section of MoS that you link explicitly excludes DYK these days. Cheers, Espresso Addict (talk) 03:53, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Okay, I'll sleep on it. - Dank (push to talk) 04:09, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

I'll mention this issue the next time we've got a general discussion at FAC or TFA about prose or MOS, and see what people want to do. Thanks for the edit, I think it's worth talking about it. - Dank (push to talk) 12:43, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Hmm..

WP:BOGOF is an interesting read and my considerably increased purview of G11 is quasi-derived from it.Best,~ Winged Blades^Godric 06:20, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Additionally, this was a bad decline.See this discussion.Best,~ Winged Blades^Godric 06:25, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Hello Winged Blades of Godric. I think we need to accept that we come at deletion from opposite ends of the spectrum. Both are well supported by policy. I've read BOGOF, of course, but it's an opinion, not a guideline. I don't agree with it, but I am annoyed at having to clean articles of promotion, which is something I've spent time over, so I can understand how others have become less tolerant.

I don't limit speedy to recent articles but where the article is well formed, with references outside Facebook, and has had multiple edits over the years by multiple good-faith editors, speedy rarely seems the correct answer. In terms of promotional/copyvio articles where there's a better version in the edit history, it seems definitely against policy. I don't see any policy forcing me to delete something just because it might be considered to meet A7 or G11.

As to Ataf Khawaja, it was speedied without an edit summary by an IP who looks to have failed to notify anyone. Such speedies of long-standing articles with at least a few reliable references are usually in bad faith. In this case the article does look poor quality. With one or two exceptions around copyright vio & BLP concerns, I don't think it's out of policy to suggest taking an article to AfD? Espresso Addict (talk) 12:20, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply:)

I appreciate your's being on the more conservative end of the spectrum, than me and some other sysops are.Afterall, they are subjective criterion and I don't have much qualms as to your's declining the G11.Whilst, the subject is notable, my patience has considerably grown thinner, with the ever-increasing extent of promo-spamming this place is witness to.

I will agree to disagree on the later case.Barring IP-edits, all were typical gnoming--slapping maintenance tags, AWB-runs, typos, cat-fixes and alike.Also, I don't have much faith that a person who last edited in 2007, checks his t/p:) Anyways, post a deeper search, I will evaluate chances of an AFD.

On a side-note, you raise an interesting query as to whether you're forced to delete anything? The answer is an obvious no but, once you're declining a speedy, you're restraining other sysops from unilaterally deleting it,In that case, the de-tagging shall be good-enough, for we have examples of prolific de-taggers who were T-Banned and/or compelled to accept voluntary restriction, from the area.(I'm not hinting that your de-taggings were so bad, just an interesting example.)

At any case, it's quite pleasurable to see new faces at NPP/AFC related workflow and your work has been commendable enough:)Best, ~ Winged Blades^Godric 12:47, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Books & Bytes - Issue 27

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 27, February – March 2018

• #1Lib1Ref
• New collections
  • Alexander Street (expansion)
  • Cambridge University Press (expansion)
• User Group
• Global branches update
  • Wiki Indaba Wikipedia + Library Discussions
• Spotlight: Using librarianship to create a more equitable internet: LGBTQ+ advocacy as a wiki-librarian
• Bytes in brief

Arabic, Chinese and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:50, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

Chochopk • Coffee • Gryffindor • Jimp • Knowledge Seeker • Lankiveil • Peridon • Rjd0060

Guideline and policy news

• The ability to create articles directly in mainspace is now indefinitely restricted to autoconfirmed users.
• A proposal is being discussed which would create a new "event coordinator" right that would allow users to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit.

Technical news

• AbuseFilter has received numerous improvements, including an OOUI overhaul, syntax highlighting, ability to search existing filters, and a few new functions. In particular, the search feature can be used to ensure there aren't existing filters for what you need, and the new equals_to_any function can be used when checking multiple namespaces. One major upcoming change is the ability to see which filters are the slowest. This information is currently only available to those with access to Logstash.
• When blocking anonymous users, a cookie will be applied that reloads the block if the user changes their IP. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. This currently only occurs when hard-blocking accounts.
• The block notice shown on mobile will soon be more informative and point users to a help page on how to request an unblock, just as it currently does on desktop.
• There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee is seeking additional clerks to help with the arbitration process.

Obituaries

• Lankiveil (Craig Franklin) passed away in mid-April. Lankiveil joined Wikipedia on 12 August 2004 and became an administrator on 31 August 2008. During his time with the Wikimedia community, Lankiveil served as an oversighter for the English Wikipedia and as president of Wikimedia Australia.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:05, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

2600:1008:B120:1EC1:2C30:E0A:8A9A:28C3

May I please request an immediate block on user:2600:1008:B120:1EC1:2C30:E0A:8A9A:28C3 because they are constantly violating the sandbox rules even after being reported to AIV. CLCStudent (talk) 01:48, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't generally work on blocks; if the IP has been reported then it will be blocked in due course if that's appropriate. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:50, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Sanaz Shirazi Collection - possible sockpuppetry?

Hi,

I am contacting you as you were the deleting admin for Sanaz Shirazi Collection. I ran across User:NickiBecky/sandbox when reviewing new user pages. Based on a Google cache of the deleted article, this appears to be a copy of the deleted material. This seems rather fishy as the user who created the article is Rareamericana and not NickiBecky as far as I can tell. Possible sockpuppetry or handoff of paid editting or advertising? Also @Razer2115: who tagged the original article for deletion for their opinion. -- Whpq (talk) 03:38, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi Whpq -- the articles were indeed the same earlier, except that the one deleted from mainspace had a bunch of urls at the bottom. There's also an overlapping declined draft at Draft:Sanaz Shirazi and another mainspace version at Sanaz Shirazi, which was created in 2009 by a different set of editors, and deleted in March by DESiegel. The talk page of the deleted article contained repeated pleas from Rareamericana about the notability of topic of eco-furs together with a request for help creating an acceptable article -- it's possible that NickiBecky is simply trying to create a usable version because s/he agrees the topic is notable. The edited version currently in the sandbox is much less promotional. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:58, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

If we make the assumption they are just trying to make a better article from somebody else, we still have an attribution problem as they copied the material and it no longer carries the history needed for compliance with the creative commons license. I just find it rather suspicious that a brand new account appears and has a copy of an article that has been deleted for being overtly promotional. -- Whpq (talk) 12:11, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Whpq, while it is surely possible that this is sockpuppetry, I don't think this is enough to even strongly suspect it, and see no need to take action about that if the article i being improved. On the attribution, my thought is to undelete the version that the draft is derived from and do a history merge, but it would also be possible to include a list of authors on the talk page with a note in an edit summary of a dummy edit. That is technically enough to comply with Wikipedia's license. Any views by either of you? DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 12:46, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree there isn't enough here to open a sock puppet investigation. With respect to attribution, what I've seen in other instances where attribution is an issue is that a history merge is done. If that is considered standar or best practice these days, I'd say that is what should be done otherwise, whatever ensures attribution compliance is fine. -- Whpq (talk) 13:13, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Espresso Addict , as the deleting admin, what do you think of the idea of a history merge at this point? DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 23:30, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

@DESiegel: A history merge would be absolutely fine, but I feel the attribution is all a bit moot, as the copy is fairly similar to the version deleted in March. I'm guessing that originated in online PR sources. The fundamental question seems to be whether, underneath all this promotional language, the company/brand is actually notable. I did wonder about suggesting undeleting the original version and running it through AfD. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:15, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

As long as the page exists, attribution is not moot. In my view a userspace copy of content deleted for G11 that is being improved to be less promotional should not be deleted. It may wind up ready for mainspace, it may not. In my further opinion, undeleting an article with the intent of running it through AfD would be improper, unless you sincerely felt that the G11 delete was a mistake, and the page did not in fact qualify for a speedy deletion. Otherwise it would fall afoul of both WP:POINT and WP:GAME as i see it. Moreover, such an AfD would still not provide valid grounds to delete the userspace copy if it is being improved to deal with whatever AfD concerns there might be. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 03:28, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Since you have said you are fine with the history merge, I am going to do that now. Thanks for your views. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 03:28, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

AfD Notice

Just wanted to drop by and notify you about an AfD discussion for an article that you have contributed too. Ajpolino (talk) 19:21, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Darshan Academy

Kindly let me know what makes you feel that the Darshan Academy page that you deleted, was portraying any sort of promotional content because according to me it just told the very basic aspects of any school like the overview, motto of the school adopted and its branches.

Moreover, all the points mentioned were properly backed up with reliable citations from newspapers and websites.

All the information and statists added were factual.

You are kindly requested to help me build the page in a more unpromotional way instead of nominating it for speedy deletion or deleting it. Please suggest changes so that the seemingly promotional content can be removed from the page instead of deleting it. I will be waiting for your suggestions to help me improve the abovesaid. --sheenamalhotra182 (talk) 12:00, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

@Sheena Malhotra: The organisation is probably notable. Focus on facts. It's fine to write that the organisation operates 20 schools but all of the rest of the article was promotional. Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines might be helpful, but private schools must follow the guidelines for companies. You could start an article in draft space and ask members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools to help you develop it. Espresso Addict (talk) 13:19, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice. I will keep this in mind--sheenamalhotra182 (talk) 13:27, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Michiko Hirayama has been accepted

Michiko Hirayama, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.
The article has been assessed as Stub-Class, which is recorded on the article's talk page. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article.

You are more than welcome to continue making quality contributions to Wikipedia. If your account is more than four days old and you have made at least 10 edits you can create articles yourself without posting a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for Creation if you prefer.

• If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the help desk.
• If you would like to help us improve this process, please consider .

Thank you for helping improve Wikipedia!

Espresso Addict (talk) 22:14, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington

Guideline and policy news

• Following a successful request for comment, administrators are now able to add and remove editors to the "event coordinator" group. Users in the event coordinator group have the ability to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit. Users will no longer need to be in the "account creator" group if they are in the event coordinator group.
• Following an AN discussion, all pages with content related to blockchain and cryptocurrencies, broadly construed, are now under indefinite general sanctions.

Technical news

• IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in June. This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.
• The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team will build granular types of blocks in 2018 (e.g. a block from uploading or editing specific pages, categories, or namespaces, as opposed to a full-site block). Feedback on the concept may be left at the talk page.
• There is now a checkbox on Special:ListUsers to let you see only users in temporary user groups.
• It is now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked.

Arbitration

• A recent technical issue with the Arbitration Committee's spam filter inadvertently caused all messages sent to the committee through Wikipedia (i.e. Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee) to be discarded. If you attempted to send an email to the Arbitration Committee via Wikipedia between May 16 and May 31, your message was not received and you are encouraged to resend it. Messages sent outside of these dates or directly to the Arbitration Committee email address were not affected by this issue.

Miscellaneous

• In early May, an unusually high level of failed login attempts was observed. The WMF has stated that this was an "external effort to gain unauthorized access to random accounts". Under Wikipedia policy, administrators are required to have strong passwords. To further reinforce security, administrators should also consider enabling two-factor authentication. A committed identity can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:59, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

G13

You can mine the occasional useful gem out of the G13 pile. I've saved a few of the best pages but then get grief for promoting "crud". More pages could be the idea for building something, with a lot of work. The question is why bother? The creator could not be bothered to get it into mainspace. The topic is likely something you have no knowledge or frame of reference to work from. At least AfC submissions are on average much higher quality and have an editor who cares behind them, if they don't wander off because of a 8 week backlog, Most of the deleted pages wouod be easier to redo properly from scratch where you use proper sources and know there is no copyvio because you wrote it. Legacypac (talk) 03:06, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

@Legacypac: I've successfully saved a handful, but agree it would often be easier to start from scratch, not to mention probably more pointful to work on articles that I actually know a little about. I've not met many that one could just move to mainspace without significant effort. I've learned to do the copyvio check and the is it in mainspace already? check upfront... I've even had one I'd postponed and started working on, only to find that the creator woke up and got annoyed that I'd started hacking around 'their' draft. Lately I've taken to hawking them around wikiprojects but there's often little/no interest.

Getting the backlog down to ~5 days (I know, I know) might increase the creator retention rate a bit, if reviewers could only give clear enough instructions that a newbie can realistically follow.

As to why bother, for me it's the philosophical principle underlying Wikipedia, the idea that a million typing monkeys might somehow produce an encyclopedia together, that is probably the ultimate driver. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:49, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

are you starting to see the idea that scores of wonderful pages are being deleted may be detached from reality? Legacypac (talk) 04:01, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

@Legacypac: Heh, one of my proudest actions from this year is saving Florence MacMichael, a minor actress from a soap about a talking horse that I'm an ocean and a bit of time travel away from ever having watched... We've got to get a way of making some sort of promising draft concept actually work in practice. Get some experienced reviewers to sit on the new subs and triage into 'got legs' vs 'crud' so that reviewers don't waste time on the latter? Hard & soft declines? Indexing by subject? Reviewer profiles noting language fluency so that Chinese sources can get assessed by someone who can read them? The AfC project needs to brainstorm the problem, not get at each others' throats over it. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:16, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

If AfC was a holding pen for incubating promising drafts sure. But most pages either pass N or not. Not much question. In order to focus energy on the promising we need to improve the junk disposal system. Making it a war to delete the junk is not a good use of time. Legacypac (talk) 04:21, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Main page

I appreciate it but usually it's better to get rid of an OTD rather than an ITN item. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:01, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man:: We live to serve... Espresso Addict (talk) 21:11, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Indeed we do. I'd have done it all myself without disturbing a soul, but hey. Such is life. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:14, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd suggest you ran for adminship but you'd probably think I meant it ironically. Espresso Addict (talk) 21:16, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

No, you're not alone. And thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:17, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Bryn Williams-Jones

Hi, I see you edited this article which, I think, is an autobio. I have tagged it as such for the moment, even though it looks reasonably neutral to me. Perhaps you can have a look, too (the subject has edited the article since your last edits) and if justified, remove the tag. Thanks! --Randykitty (talk) 13:45, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

@Randykitty: I assume it is an autobiography, yes. I placed the connected contributor template on the talk page and asked the creator to remove it if he wasn't connected to the subject, and he's subsequently edited the article, so that seems a passive declaration. I thought the version I accepted at AfC was acceptably factual and he hasn't restored the slightly promotional wording I removed in the recent edit. Have you any thoughts on his journal, by the way (Draft:Canadian Journal of Bioethics)? It was briefly indexed in Scopus but doesn't seem to be at the moment, and I'm not seeing any other selective indexing/abstracting. Thanks, Espresso Addict (talk) 14:13, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Oops, should have looked better at the talk page. I've removed the autobio tag. The journal really is borderline. It was in Scopus under the old name. When a journal changes names, this sometimes leads to delisting. At this point it's not clear whether it will remain listed but now under the new name. It doesn't help that the new version has a different ISSN from the old one, so my bet is that it will have to apply for listing in Scopus again. As you say, there isn't anything else for the moment, so to me this looks like a case of WP:TOOSOON. --Randykitty (talk) 14:48, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, that was broadly what I thought but it's very helpful to have expert confirmation. Espresso Addict (talk) 15:07, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Queue 5

I have no time to search where it was discussed that one hook needs "poet" twice and "poem" twice. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:24, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt:: Hi Gerda -- It's at main-page errors -- it all got confusingly interleaved with the ongoing discussion of Güzide Alçu, and has since been removed as solved, so you'll have to look in the history. (ETA this version has the discussion: [1].) I agree the repetition isn't ideal but the original was grammatically weird to two English speakers as it stood. By the way, TRM questions around half the hooks every day and never pings anyone or notifies DYK, so if you've got something running or are otherwise interested it's wise to watch Errors the previous evening. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:16, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

By the way, people who have items on the main page with such regularity should know to watch ERRORS. And if there weren't so many errors, I wouldn't need to question around half the hooks every day. It'd be better if you all just dealt with it before it got to within hours of the main page, dontchathink? P.S. It was never interleaved, "confusingly" or otherwise, that's just untrue. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:21, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man: Well it confused poor simple me. I definitely didn't see Gato's response to you before I made my edits. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:28, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Marusic

My bad. I've clearly declined based on the thin referencing, but happy to be proved wrong in this case - I lean inclusionist on scientists/academics/etc, so if retaining this stuff can be justified, that's great news. The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:59, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Books & Bytes – Issue 28

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 28, April – May 2018

• #1Bib1Ref
• New partners
  • Rock's Backpages
  • Invaluable
  • Termsoup
• User Group update
• Global branches update
  • Wikipedia Library global coordinators' meeting
• Spotlight: What are the ten most cited sources on Wikipedia? Let's ask the data
• Bytes in brief

Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Italian and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:33, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2018

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

Administrator changes

Pbsouthwood • TheSandDoctor

Gogo Dodo

Andrevan • Doug • EVula • KaisaL • Tony Fox • WilyD

Bureaucrat changes

Andrevan • EVula

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC about the deletion of drafts closed with a consensus to change the wording of WP:NMFD. Specifically, a draft that has been repeatedly resubmitted and declined at AfC without any substantial improvement may be deleted at MfD if consensus determines that it is unlikely to ever meet the requirements for mainspace and it otherwise meets one of the reasons for deletion outlined in the deletion policy.
• A request for comment closed with a consensus that the {{promising draft}} template cannot be used to indefinitely prevent a WP:G13 speedy deletion nomination.

Technical news

• Starting on July 9, the WMF Security team, Trust & Safety, and the broader technical community will be seeking input on an upcoming change that will restrict editing of site-wide JavaScript and CSS to a new technical administrators user group. Bureaucrats and stewards will be able to grant this right per a community-defined process. The intention is to reduce the number of accounts who can edit frontend code to those who actually need to, which in turn lessens the risk of malicious code being added that compromises the security and privacy of everyone who accesses Wikipedia. For more information, please review the FAQ.
• Syntax highlighting has been graduated from a Beta feature on the English Wikipedia. To enable this feature, click the highlighter icon () in your editing toolbar (or under the hamburger menu in the 2017 wikitext editor). This feature can help prevent you from making mistakes when editing complex templates.
• IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in July (previously scheduled for June). This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.

Miscellaneous

• Currently around 20% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 17% a year ago. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless if you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:22, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2018

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

Administrator changes

Sro23

KaisaL • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

• After a discussion at Meta, a new user group called "interface administrators" (formerly "technical administrator") has been created. Come the end of August, interface admins will be the only users able to edit site-wide JavaScript and CSS pages like MediaWiki:Common.js and MediaWiki:Common.css, or edit other user's personal JavaScript and CSS. The intention is to improve security and privacy by reducing the number of accounts which could be used to compromise the site or another user's account through malicious code. The new user group can be assigned and revoked by bureaucrats. Discussion is ongoing to establish details for implementing the group on the English Wikipedia.
• Following a request for comment, the WP:SISTER style guideline now states that in the mainspace, interwiki links to Wikinews should only be made as per the external links guideline. This generally means that within the body of an article, you should not link to Wikinews about a particular event that is only a part of the larger topic. Wikinews links in "external links" sections can be used where helpful, but not automatically if an equivalent article from a reliable news outlet could be linked in the same manner.

Technical news

• The WMF Anti-Harassment Tools team is seeking input on the second set of wireframes for the Special:Block redesign that will introduce partial blocks. The new functionality will allow you to block a user from editing a specific set of pages, pages in a category, a namespace, and for specific actions such as moving pages and uploading files.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:31, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Books & Bytes – Issue 29

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 29, June – July 2018

• New partners
  • Economic & Political Weekly–10 accounts
• Wikimania
• Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
• Global branches update
• Bytes in brief

Hindi, Italian and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:02, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

George Frampton

The page for Draft:GEORGE FRAMPTON is ready to re-submit, with notability clarified.Bjhillis (talk) 18:44, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 12

Newsletter • August 2018

This month: WikiProject X: The resumption

Work has resumed on WikiProject X and CollaborationKit, backed by a successfully funded Project Grant. For more information on the current status and planned work, please see this month's issue of the newsletter!

-— Isarra ༆ 22:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

Asterion • Crisco 1492 • KF • Kudpung • Liz • Randykitty • Spartaz

Optimist on the run → Voice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

Amorymeltzer • Mr. Stradivarius • MusikAnimal • MSGJ • TheDJ • Xaosflux

Guideline and policy news

• Following a "stop-gap" discussion, six users have temporarily been made interface administrators while discussion is ongoing for a more permanent process for assigning the permission. Interface administrators are now the only editors allowed to edit sitewide CSS and JavaScript pages, as well as CSS/JS pages in another user's userspace. Previously, all administrators had this ability. The right can be granted and revoked by bureaucrats.

Technical news

• Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour.
• Some abuse filter variables have changed. They are now easier to understand for non-experts. The old variables will still work but filter editors are encouraged to replace them with the new ones. You can find the list of changed variables on mediawiki.org. They have a note which says Deprecated. Use ... instead. An example is article_text which is now page_title.
• Abuse filters can now use how old a page is. The variable is page_age.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee has resolved to perform a round of Checkuser and Oversight appointments. The usernames of all applicants will be shared with the Functionaries team, and they will be requested to assist in the vetting process. The deadline to submit an application is 23:59 UTC, 12 September, and the candidates that move forward will be published on-wiki for community comments on 18 September.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:23, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018

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

Administrator changes

Justlettersandnumbers • L235

Bgwhite • HorsePunchKid • J Greb • KillerChihuahua • Rami R • Winhunter

Interface administrator changes

Cyberpower678 • Deryck Chan • Oshwah • Pharos • Ragesoss • Ritchie333

Oversight changes

Guerillero • NativeForeigner • Snowolf • Xeno

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, the process for appointing interface administrators has been established. Currently only existing admins can request these rights, while a new RfC has begun on whether it should be available to non-admins.
• There is an open request for comment on Meta regarding the creation a new user group for global edit filter management.

Technical news

• Partial blocks should be available for testing in October on the Test Wikipedia and the Beta-Cluster. This new feature allows admins to block users from editing specific pages and in the near-future, namespaces and uploading files. You can expect more updates and an invitation to help with testing once it is available.
• The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team is currently looking for input on how to measure the effectiveness of blocks. This is in particular related to how they will measure the success of the aforementioned partial blocks.
• Because of a data centre test, you will be able to read but not edit the Wikimedia projects for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee has, by motion, amended the procedure on functionary inactivity.
• The community consultation for 2018 CheckUser and Oversight appointments has concluded. Appointments will be made by October 11.
• Following a request for comment, the size of the Arbitration Committee will be decreased to 13 arbitrators, starting in 2019. Additionally, the minimum support percentage required to be appointed to a two-year term on ArbCom has been increased to 60%. ArbCom candidates who receive between 50% and 60% support will be appointed to one-year terms instead.
• Nominations for the 2018 Arbitration Committee Electoral Commission are being accepted until 12 October. These are the editors who help run the ArbCom election smoothly. If you are interested in volunteering for this role, please consider nominating yourself.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:13, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Books & Bytes, Issue 30

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 30, August – Septmeber 2018

• Library Card translation
• Spotlight: 1Lib1Ref spreads to the Southern Hemisphere and beyond
• Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
• Global branches update
• Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:43, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Five years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:42, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018

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

Administrator changes

Sir Sputnik

Kudpung • Liz • Lourdes

Everyking • Jackmcbarn

Interface administrator changes

Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes

AGK • Ivanvector • Stwalkerster • TonyBallioni

Oversight changes

Amorymeltzer • Oshwah • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Keilana

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment determined that non-administrators will not be able to request interface admin access.
• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the Mediation Committee should be closed and marked as historical.
• A village pump discussion has been ongoing about whether the proposed deletion policy (PROD) should be clarified or amended.
• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether pending changes protection should be applied automatically to today's featured article (TFA) in order to mitigate a recent trend of severe image vandalism.

Technical news

• Partial blocks is now available for testing on the Test Wikipedia. The new functionality allows you to block users from editing specific pages. Bugs may exist and can be reported on the local talk page or on Meta. A discussion regarding deployment to English Wikipedia will be started by community liaisons sometime in the near future.
• A user script is now available to quickly review unblock requests.
• The 2019 Community Wishlist Survey is now accepting new proposals until November 11, 2018. The results of this survey will determine what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year. Voting on the proposals will take place from November 16 to November 30, 2018. Specifically, there is a proposal category for admins and stewards that may be of interest.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors will be invited to nominate themselves as candidates in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 4 until November 13. Voting will begin on November 19 and last until December 2.
• The Arbitration Committee's email address has changed to arbcom-enwikimedia.org. Other email lists, such as functionaries-en and clerks-l, remain unchanged.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:18, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

West Africa Ebola virus epidemic

Hi this is to inform you that West African Ebola virus epidemic which you edited will be submitted for WikiJournal of Medicine...The objective of this message is to invite the contributors to collaboratively submit the article for review through Wiki.J.Med, and if possible, to help in further betterment of the article in accordance to the suggestions of the reviewers. Wikipedia articles are collaboratively authored. So, it is very important to make the authors aware of such a process that the article is currently undergoing[2] thanks--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:28, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, Espresso Addict. 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.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

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

Administrator changes

Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz

Boson • Daniel J. Leivick • Efe • Esanchez7587 • Fred Bauder • Garzo • Martijn Hoekstra • Orangemike

Interface administrator changes

Deryck Chan

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, the Mediation Committee is now closed and will no longer be accepting case requests.
• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether members of the Bot Approvals Group should satisfy activity requirements in order to remain in that role.
• A request for comment is in progress regarding whether to change the administrator inactivity policy, such that administrators "who have made no logged administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped". Currently, the policy states that administrators "who have made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped".
• A proposal has been made to temporarily restrict editing of the Main Page to interface administrators in order to mitigate the impact of compromised accounts.

Technical news

• Administrators and bureaucrats can no longer unblock themselves unless they placed the block initially. This change has been implemented globally. See also this ongoing village pump discussion (permalink).
• To complement the aforementioned change, blocked administrators will soon have the ability to block the administrator that placed their block to mitigate the possibility of a compromised administrator account blocking all other active administrators.
• Since deployment of Partial blocks on Test Wikipedia, several bugs were identified. Most of them are now fixed. Administrators are encouraged to test the new deployment and report new bugs on Phabricator or leave feedback on the Project's talk page. You can request administrator access on the Test Wiki here.

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 3 December 2018. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

Miscellaneous

• In late November, an attacker compromised multiple accounts, including at least four administrator accounts, and used them to vandalize Wikipedia. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. Sharing the same password across multiple websites makes your account vulnerable, especially if your password was used on a website that suffered a data breach. As these incidents have shown, these concerns are not pure fantasies.
• Wikipedia policy requires administrators to have strong passwords. To further reinforce security, administrators should also consider enabling two-factor authentication. A committed identity can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

Obituaries

• Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (Raymond Arritt) passed away on 14 November 2018. Boris joined Wikipedia as Raymond arritt on 8 May 2006 and was an administrator from 30 July 2007 to 2 June 2008.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:36, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Blair Aldridge Ruble

Hi, I have added book reviews and references can you please review again.Fsucloriejan (talk) 06:52, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 13

Newsletter • December 2018

This month: A general update.

The current status of the project is as follows:

• Progress of the project has been generally delayed since September due to development issues (more bitrot than expected, some of the code just being genuinely confusing, etc) and personal injury (I suffered a concussion in October and was out of commission for almost two months as a result).
• I currently expect to be putting out a proper call for CollaborationKit pilots in January/February, with estimated deployment in February/March if things don't go horribly wrong (they will, though, don't worry). As a part of that, I will properly update the page and send out announcement and reach out to all projects already signed up as pilots for WikiProject X in general, at which point those (still) interested can volunteer specifically to test the CollaborationKit extension.
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Pilots was originally created for the first WikiProject X prototype, and given this is where the project has since gone, it's only logical to continue to use it. While I haven't yet updated the page to properly reflect this:
  • If you want to add your project to this page now, feel free. Just bear in mind that more information what to actually expect will be added later/included in the announcement, because by then I will have a much better idea myself.
• Until then, you can find me in my corner working on making the CollaborationKit code do what we want and not just what we told it, per the workboard.

Until next time,

-— Isarra ༆ 22:44, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Books & Bytes, Issue 31

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 31, October – Novemeber 2018

• OAWiki
• Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
• Global branches update
• Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available on meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:34, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

TheSandDoctor ^Talk is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas6}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019

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

Administrator changes

Galobtter

Orangemike

BorgQueen • Davidruben • Ocee • Revolving Bugbear • Theda • There'sNoTime • Timc • Tijuana Brass • Tristessa de St Ange

Bureaucrat changes

Addshore

CheckUser changes

Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

AGK • Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Guideline and policy news

• There are a number of new or changed speedy deletion criteria, each previously part of WP:CSD#G6:

1. G14 (new): Disambiguation pages that disambiguate only zero or one existing pages are now covered under the new G14 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-disambig}}; the text is unchanged and candidates may be found in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as unnecessary disambiguation pages.
2. R4 (new): Redirects in the file namespace (and no file links) that have the same name as a file or redirect at Commons are now covered under the new R4 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-redircom}}; the text is unchanged.
3. G13 (expanded): Userspace drafts containing only the default Article Wizard text are now covered under G13 along with other drafts (discussion). Such blank drafts are now eligible after six months rather than one year, and taggers continue to use {{db-blankdraft}}.

• The Wikimedia Foundation now requires all interface administrators to enable two-factor authentication.
• Members of the Bot Approvals Group (BAG) are now subject to an activity requirement. After two years without any bot-related activity (e.g. operating a bot, posting on a bot-related talk page), BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice.

Technical news

• Starting on December 13, the Wikimedia Foundation security team implemented new password policy and requirements. Privileged accounts (administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, oversighters, interface administrators, bots, edit filter managers/helpers, template editors, et al.) must have a password at least 10 characters in length. All accounts must have a password:

1. At least 8 characters in length
2. Not in the 100,000 most popular passwords (defined by the Password Blacklist library)
3. Different from their username

User accounts not meeting these requirements will be prompted to update their password accordingly. More information is available on MediaWiki.org.

• Blocked administrators may now block the administrator that blocked them. This was done to mitigate the possibility that a compromised administrator account would block all other active administrators, complementing the removal of the ability to unblock oneself outside of self-imposed blocks. A request for comment is currently in progress to determine whether the blocking policy should be updated regarding this change.
• {{Copyvio-revdel}} now has a link to open the history with the RevDel checkboxes already filled in.

Arbitration

• Following the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: AGK, Courcelles, GorillaWarfare, Joe Roe, Mkdw, SilkTork.

Miscellaneous

• Accounts continue to be compromised on a regular basis. Evidence shows this is entirely due to the accounts having the same password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately.
• Around 22% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 20% in June 2018. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless of whether you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:38, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

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

Administrator changes

Enterprisey • JJMC89

BorgQueen

Harro5 • Jenks24 • Graft • R. Baley

Interface administrator changes

Enterprisey

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is currently open to reevaluate the activity requirements for administrators.
• Administrators who are blocked have the technical ability to block the administrator who blocked their own account. A recent request for comment has amended the blocking policy to clarify that this ability should only be used in exceptional circumstances, such as account compromises, where there is a clear and immediate need.
• A request for comment closed with a consensus in favor of deprecating The Sun as a permissible reference, and creating an edit filter to warn users who attempt to cite it.

Technical news

• A discussion regarding an overhaul of the format and appearance of Wikipedia:Requests for page protection is in progress (permalink). The proposed changes will make it easier to create requests for those who are not using Twinkle. The workflow for administrators at this venue will largely be unchanged. Additionally, there are plans to archive requests similar to how it is done at WP:PERM, where historical records are kept so that prior requests can more easily be searched for.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2019 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2019, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2019, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• A new IRC bot is available that allows you to subscribe to notifications when specific filters are tripped. This requires that your IRC handle be identified.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:15, 4 February 2019 (UTC)