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Administrators' newsletter – May 2019

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

  Guideline and policy news

  Technical news

  • XTools Admin Stats, a tool to list admins by administrative actions, has been revamped to support more types of log entries such as AbuseFilter changes. Two additional tools have been integrated into it as well: Steward Stats and Patroller Stats.

  Arbitration

  • In response to the continuing compromise of administrator accounts, the Arbitration Committee passed a motion amending the procedures for return of permissions (diff). In such cases, the committee will review all available information to determine whether the administrator followed "appropriate personal security practices" before restoring permissions; administrators found failing to have adequately done so will not be resysopped automatically. All current administrators have been notified of this change.
  • Following a formal ratification process, the arbitration policy has been amended (diff). Specifically, the two-thirds majority required to remove or suspend an arbitrator now excludes (1) the arbitrator facing suspension or removal, and (2) any inactive arbitrator who does not respond within 30 days to attempts to solicit their feedback on the resolution through all known methods of communication.

  Miscellaneous


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:37, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Whisperback

  Hello. You have a new message at Kudpung's talk page. 05:51, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Books & Bytes, Issue 33

  The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 33, March – April 2019

  • #1Lib1Ref
  • Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Bytes in brief

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:40, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2019

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

 

  Administrator changes

  AndonicConsumed CrustaceanEnigmamanEuryalusEWS23HereToHelpNv8200paPeripitusStringTheory11Vejvančický

  CheckUser changes

  Ivanvector

  Guideline and policy news

  • An RfC seeks to clarify whether WP:OUTING should include information on just the English Wikipedia or any Wikimedia project.
  • An RfC on WT:RfA concluded that Requests for adminship and bureaucratship are discussions seeking to build consensus.
  • An RfC proposal to make the templates for discussion (TfD) process more like the requested moves (RM) process, i.e. "as a clearinghouse of template discussions", was closed as successful.

  Technical news

  • The CSD feature of Twinkle now allows admins to notify page creators of deletion if the page had not been tagged. The default behavior matches that of tagging notifications, and replaces the ability to open the user talk page upon deletion. You can customize which criteria receive notifications in your Twinkle preferences: look for Notify page creator when deleting under these criteria.
  • Twinkle's d-batch (batch delete) feature now supports deleting subpages (and related redirects and talk pages) of each page. The pages will be listed first but use with caution! The und-batch (batch undelete) option can now also restore talk pages.

  Miscellaneous


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:48, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

How to make a new article for someone named as another person who already has a wikipedia article

Hi! I'm a motorcycle fan from Argentina living in Doha, Qatar. There's a biker here who went all around the world with this bike and I admire him deeply. Sadly, when you go to wikipedia, there's a professor there called alike, but nothing on him, so I wanted to create a new article. I was not allowed because he already exists in the English Wikipedia. I tried to create it anyway in spanish but it was deleted cause it was English (my bad). So since then I've been trying to create a disambiguation (here you came into) so anyone who looks for this name can find both of them, but I have no idea how to do it! Can you please help me! thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noparo (talkcontribs) 15:37, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

@Noparo: Writing a whole new article is actually pretty advanced stuff for someone new to Wikipedia. The best thing to do would be to spend some time making small edits to already existing articles, learn how the community here works, and gain experience. Your motorcycle rider may or may not be notable enough for an article, also. The best place to get started with editing is at the Teahouse. It’s staffed by experienced and helpful editors. Good luck! — Gorthian (talk) 23:25, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Latin

I didn't actually enrol for a Latin course (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#A question for those who know Latin). Until the early 1960s (I think), O-Level Latin was, quaintly, an entry requirement for Oxbridge; so if you showed any academic ability, you got landed with the subject from the age of about 8 or 10. I dropped it as soon as I could, as hopelessly irrelevant for a scientist.

Then 50-some years later, I found myself writing Carlo Antonio Fornasini (note the sources, all of which I read; Italian is a really easy language to pick up if you have some Latin). Narky Blert (talk) 06:43, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

List of downloadable PlayStation 3 games

Thanks for the correction on List of downloadable PlayStation 3 games. I didn't know that there was a list of lists for PlayStation! Leschnei (talk) 11:15, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

64.202.95.230

Gorthian, did you seriously just give this user the {{Uw-vandalism2}} template? Mind justifying that for me? –MJLTalk 03:21, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

I got mad concerns about [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]MJLTalk 03:32, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
What I saw was a dab page replaced with an article; I often run across this occurrence, and it’s usually vandalism. They had already been given a level 4 warning this month, so I thought I was being lenient. However, I’m not in great shape this evening, and maybe I overreacted. I can tell I didn’t check out any of the reasoning in the other edits. I kept thinking they were acting on an agenda. My brain is half-awake, and I should stop editing for the day. Please, feel free to revert my reverts if they don’t make sense to you. — Gorthian (talk) 03:57, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, that was a level three warning for this.[6][7][8] I'll just revert your talk page message for now and replace it with a different template. Please get some rest, though. Also, make sure to drink water! That's critical for a healthy body.  MJLTalk 04:16, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2019

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

 

  Administrator changes

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

  Guideline and policy news

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

  Technical news

  • The Wikimedia Foundation's Community health initiative plans to design and build a new user reporting system to make it easier for people experiencing harassment and other forms of abuse to provide accurate information to the appropriate channel for action to be taken. Community feedback is invited.

  Miscellaneous


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:20, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Thomas Neville

There appears to have been some confusion surrounding your request at WP:RM/TR. I assume you intended to request Thomas Neville (disambiguation) be moved to Thomas Neville per WP:MALPLACED. If so, it appears to be correct now. However, there was a RM discussion started at Talk:Thomas Neville. Assuming it to be a mistake, I closed it. But if for any reason that was not the right thing to do on my part, please feel free to simply revert my edit there. Station1 (talk) 17:26, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

@Station1: The pages are the right way around now, thank you. I didn’t expect a contested technical move, and only now saw that RM. It’s a legitimate question, but not the answer to the malplaced situation. I trust that someone with more knowledge of the Thomas Nevilles of history than I will bring it up again if it’s necessary. — Gorthian (talk) 23:33, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for July 10

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Syrian government (disambiguation), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Syrian government (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are usually incorrect, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of unrelated topics with similar titles. (Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.)

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 19:54, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Talk:Superbrickbro

Dear Gorthian, It's Superbrickbro, thank you so much for letting Vidya Shankar stay on the Vidya disambiguation page. Because of your kind words, I will hopefully try to create a wiki page for Vidya Shankar. Thank you very very much. ----Superbrickbro — Preceding unsigned comment added by Superbrickbro (talkcontribs) 01:25, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Books & Bytes Issue 34, May – June 2019

  The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 34, May – June 2019

  • Partnerships
  • #1Lib1Ref
  • 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) 14:20, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

UCCI

See Talk:UCCI. Aymatth2 (talk) 23:08, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2019

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

  Guideline and policy news

  Arbitration

  Miscellaneous

  • Following a research project on masking IP addresses, the Foundation is starting a new project to improve the privacy of IP editors. The result of this project may significantly change administrative and counter-vandalism workflows. The project is in the very early stages of discussions and there is no concrete plan yet. Admins and the broader community are encouraged to leave feedback on the talk page.
  • The new page reviewer right is bundled with the admin tool set. Many admins regularly help out at Special:NewPagesFeed, but they may not be aware of improvements, changes, and new tools for the Curation system. Stay up to date by subscribing here to the NPP newsletter that appears every two months, and/or putting the reviewers' talk page on your watchlist.

    Since the introduction of temporary user rights, it is becoming more usual to accord the New Page Reviewer right on a probationary period of 3 to 6 months in the first instance. This avoids rights removal for inactivity at a later stage and enables a review of their work before according the right on a permanent basis.


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:23, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Your help desk question

Did you find an answer to this question? Maybe WP:VPT can help.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:33, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

@Vchimpanzee: No answer yet, but my offline life just got way busier and I haven’t had time to pursue it. I’ll try your suggestion when I have a moment to breathe. Thank you! — Gorthian (talk) 04:19, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Invitation to project revival

Dear user, I, with Willbb234, are a attempting to revive the Wikiproject Requested Articles, of which you are a member. If you wish to be a part of our effort, feel free to add your signature in it's talk page. Best regards, Eni vak (speak) 16:24, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2019

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

 

  Administrator changes

  BradvChetsfordIzno
  FloquenbeamLectonar
  DESiegelJake WartenbergRjanagTopbanana

  CheckUser changes

  CallaneccLFaraoneThere'sNoTime

  Oversight changes

  CallaneccFoxHJ MitchellLFaraoneThere'sNoTime

  Technical news

  • Editors using the mobile website on Wikipedia can opt-in to new advanced features via your settings page. This will give access to more interface links, special pages, and tools.
  • The advanced version of the edit review pages (recent changes, watchlist, and related changes) now includes two new filters. These filters are for "All contents" and "All discussions". They will filter the view to just those namespaces.

  Arbitration

  Miscellaneous


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:37, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2019

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

  Guideline and policy news

  • Following a discussion, a new criterion for speedy category renaming was added: C2F: One eponymous article, which applies if the category contains only an eponymous article or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories.

  Technical news

  • As previously noted, tighter password requirements for Administrators were put in place last year. Wikipedia should now alert you if your password is less than 10 characters long and thus too short.

  Arbitration

  Miscellaneous

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:55, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2019

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

  Guideline and policy news

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

  Arbitration


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:15, 3 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) 00:14, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Google Code-In 2019 is coming - please mentor some documentation tasks!

Hello,

Google Code-In, Google-organized contest in which the Wikimedia Foundation participates, starts in a few weeks. This contest is about taking high school students into the world of opensource. I'm sending you this message because you recently edited a documentation page at the English Wikipedia.

I would like to ask you to take part in Google Code-In as a mentor. That would mean to prepare at least one task (it can be documentation related, or something else - the other categories are Code, Design, Quality Assurance and Outreach) for the participants, and help the student to complete it. Please sign up at the contest page and send us your Google account address to google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org, so we can invite you in!

From my own experience, Google Code-In can be fun, you can make several new friends, attract new people to your wiki and make them part of your community.

If you have any questions, please let us know at google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org.

Thank you!

--User:Martin Urbanec (talk) 21:58, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2019

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

 

  Administrator changes

  EvergreenFirToBeFree
  AkhilleusAthaenaraJohn VandenbergMelchoirMichaelQSchmidtNeilNYoungamerican😂

  CheckUser changes

  Beeblebrox
  Deskana

  Interface administrator changes

  Evad37

  Guideline and policy news

  Technical news

  Arbitration

  Miscellaneous


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:47, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2020

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

  Guideline and policy news

  Arbitration

  Miscellaneous


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:06, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2020

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

  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. [9]

  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



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

Administrators' newsletter – March 2020

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

  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



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

"Holdfast Bay (disambigation)" listed at Redirects for discussion

 

A discussion is taking place as to whether the redirect Holdfast Bay (disambigation) should be deleted, kept, or retargeted. It will be discussed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 March 23#Holdfast Bay (disambigation) until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 19:48, 23 March 2020 (UTC)