February 2017 & March 2017

Administrators' newsletter - February 2017

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.

  Administrator changes

  NinjaRobotPirateSchwede66K6kaEaldgythFerretCyberpower678Mz7PrimefacDodger67
  BriangottsJeremyABU Rob13

  Guideline and policy news

  Technical news

  • When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. (T34950)
  • Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. (T156448)
  • The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.

  Arbitration

  Obituaries

  • JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.

13:36, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

TWL issue

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Hey Sam! I ran into an issue while trying to email users tonight to send out the google doc to get them new accounts. Apparently there is a rate limit for the email this user function. I've been told the only war around the throttle is to be an Administrator or to have the ACC flag. Any ideas for a possible work around for the future? Perhaps a user right like the education program but for TWL? Just my thoughts, I'll try to catch you on IRC --Cameron11598 (Talk) 08:03, 4 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

RfC on "No paid editing for Admins" at WT:COI

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I've relisted an RfC that was run at WT:Admin in Sept. 2015. It is at Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest#Concrete proposal 3 as there are a number of similar proposals going on at the same place. Better to keep them together. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:18, 5 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

The Signpost: 6 February 2017

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19:46, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Deletion review for Daniel A. Norman

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An editor has asked for a deletion review of Daniel A. Norman. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review.

Thanks for the invite

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Hi, thanks for the invite..really happy to be part of this team.. Anyway, I will like you to please check my first article I create cece maintain and see how it's like. You can please help make corrections with any will be needed.Eddypep (talk) 16:34, 7 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Can I ask you...

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Why one wikipedia bot delete upload files by ME? I shot the pics! 3 Tarja Turunen files/ 1 Myrath (band) file / 1 Sully Erna file and 1 Therion file!! THEY ARE NOT COPY! — Preceding unsigned comment added by KrisBlack123 (talkcontribs) 14:53, 12 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

@KrisBlack123: Hi. Those images were deleted from Wikimedia Commons, not Wikipedia, so I can't help you as I don't know what the images were of. You should leave a message at the talk page of one of the users who flagged those images for deletion, such as Denniss. Sam Walton (talk) 14:57, 12 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Nikkimaria

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Hi Samwalton, I got a message that an edit thanking Nikkimaria for answering a question regarding WP:NARA was reverted. Why would that be? scope_creep (talk) 12:21, 13 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Scope creep: Sorry, I hit the rollback button accidentally while scrolling down my watchlist on my phone. I immediately reverted my revert :) Sam Walton (talk) 12:22, 13 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Addition of un-redirected pages to Special:NewPages and Special:NewPagesFeed

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I'm contacting you because you participated in this proposal discussion. While the proposal was approved, it has not received developer action. The request is now under consideration as part of the 2017 Developer Wishlist, with voting open through the end of day on Tuesday (23:59 UTC). The latter link describes the voting process, if you are interested. —swpbT 18:02, 13 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

18:06, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Speedy deletion criteria - Article deleted

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Hi, my article Fluendo S.A. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluendo_S.A. has been categorized as speedy deletion, mainly because " it does not credibly indicate how or why the subject is important or significant". I believe the wiki entry is relevant because it is explaining what the company does: it is a provider of legal multimedia solutions based on GStreamer, an open and cross-platform framework. As such the company actively contributes to the GStreamer community growth. GStreamer is a development framework that enables the creation of applications like media players, video editors, streaming media broadcasters, etc. as well as other software components like codecs, filters, muxers or demuxers. Using this framework, Fluendo provides a complete set of codecs for audio and video and delivered to the client with its corresponding patent licenses for distribution. There are multiple companies and end users who use these solutions.

I would like to know if there is any way I can solve this problem and keep the article. Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Diagonal579 (talkcontribs) 17:22, 15 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Diagonal579: On Wikipedia articles can only be written about subjects which are notable. In short, notability means that the subject has been covered to a significant level in reliable sources of information. We also have a set of speedy deletion criteria, and your article has been tagged with one of these, namely A7. A7 states that if an article doesn't even make a believable claim that the subject is notable, it can be deleted immediately. To solve this issue you would need to show that the company is important in some way, and add independent reliable source coverage in the form of citations to sources like news articles (not press releases) or books. Let me know if you have any more questions. Sam Walton (talk) 17:49, 15 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Adminship nomination

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Hello, I nominated myself to become an administrator one this page. I was wondering if something went wrong since it didn't show up on the requests page. Do users have to vote first? This is in no way an attempt to canvass either, I haven't interacted with you before.--ZiaLater (talk) 21:06, 16 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

@ZiaLater: Per the nomination guidance page, which you should have been following, you are also required to take the final step of transcluding your RfA to the main requests for adminship page. Since you didn't do that, no one has noticed your request page. Given this initial stumbling block, I don't think it would be a good idea for you to transclude now - voters are likely to see this as an inability to fully read instructions and thus oppose your request. More generally, I would note that your rate of editing is less than is typical for good administrator candidates (who generally have 10,000+ edits), and while your article contributions are great, you don't have much experience in administrative areas such as deletion discussions, anti-vandalism, or page patrol. RfA voters tend to look for experience in those areas to judge your behaviour when deciding whether you would make a good administrator. Thank you for your interest in being an administrator, but I think this RfA would fail if transcluded, and I don't suggest that you attempt to run again until you have more experience here. If you would like that request to be deleted you can do so by tagging it with {{db-g7}}. Sam Walton (talk) 21:53, 16 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Ok, thank you and I agree with putting this move on hold, for now. I was looking forward to bringing more to Wikipedia and that is why I nominated myself. As for the directions, I read them and thought that I had placed the nomination on the page. Thanks for your help and I will start participating in administrative areas. Hopefully this will fulfill my urge to do more for Wikipedia until then.--ZiaLater (talk) 01:01, 17 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

A beer for you!

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  For your support (and bravery) on the nomination front! Amortias (T)(C) 23:17, 19 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Amortias: I didn't have a good internet connection when your RfA was closed so apologies for the delay. Congratulations! I hope you're putting the tools to good use already. Check out the new admin guide if you haven't already, and let me know if you have any questions :) Sam Walton (talk) 13:18, 3 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

19:25, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Page review request

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Hi, I created a page called Joel Orleans Amponsah and a tag was place on it to add more links which i have done. i will like you to please review it for me and notify me if error....thanksEddypep (talk) 09:47, 21 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

A cupcake for you!

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  sweetie_olsen LouieMiuMui (talk) 23:33, 21 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

19:56, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 February 2017

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Administrators' newsletter – March 2017

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

  Administrator changes

  AmortiasDeckillerBU Rob13
  RonnotelIslanderChamal NIsomorphicKeeper76Lord VoldemortSherethBdeshamPjacobi

  Guideline and policy news

  Technical news

  • A recent query shows that only 16% of administrators on the English Wikipedia have enabled two-factor authentication. If you haven't already enabled it please consider doing so.
  • Cookie blocks should be deployed to the English Wikipedia soon. This will extend the current autoblock system by setting a cookie for each block, which will then autoblock the user after they switch accounts under a new IP.
  • A bot will now automatically place a protection template on protected pages when admins forget to do so.

Wikipedia:Password strength requirements

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Hi Sam,

I hadn't seen the previous discussion on the "bytes" versus "characters" matter so I had no idea this had been mentioned before. Still, isn't the criteria somewhat odd in its current wording? If we take the policy literally and use the mentioned em dash (—) as an example we would consider a password build out of three em-dashes a 9 byte password thus passing the criteria. Yet a 3 character password can hardly be considered secure and could be brute forced in seconds if one would just bombard the login form with progressive random attempts. Beyond that calculating a password length in bytes while accounting for various types of encoding just feel so... vague and needlessly complex to me (I doubt all of our editors even know what a byte is, let along understand that different encoding can require different amounts of storage).

Honestly I don't mind either variant of the line too much but I do admit that the wording piqued my interest. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 00:32, 4 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Excirial: I don't understand the topic in all its complexity, but my understanding is that 'characters' doesn't have a comparable meaning for many alphabets, with some 'characters' made up of many components, and so to write a policy with all the Wikipedia-demanded preciseness requires us to write bytes rather than characters. I agree though that the three dashes example is a little silly. Sam Walton (talk) 21:25, 4 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Help me with my user page please.

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So I recently registered an account to wikipedia and I created a user page without knowing the restrictions to it. The page got deleted and now I don't know what to do. Could you please help me with building my user page? That would be much appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theoriental (talkcontribs) 17:56, 6 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Theoriental: Hi :) Your user page is intended to be an overview of your interests and activity on Wikipedia. While some personal information may be relevant, the focus should be on content that helps other users understand and appreciate your contributions here, rather than lengthy information about your personal life. You can read more at WP:UP. Sam Walton (talk) 18:10, 6 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theoriental (talkcontribs) 19:53, 6 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

23:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

How to Create a Page On Wikipedia

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So how do I create a wikipedia page that everyone can see?

JaneDoe to JaneDoeporn

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Thanks for your valuable input yesterday. I've opened Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Pornactress.

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:36, 8 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Rhea Scott Article Deletion

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Hello. I have an update to an article that was recently deleted. I have cited many sources and feel the information is a valuable research resource. What is the best way to provide this information so that I may get the article updated and undeleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rpsavory (talkcontribs) 22:22, 9 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Rpsavory: The article was only a copy of the - copyrighted - IMDB profile. You can just start again at Rhea Scott. Sam Walton (talk) 22:28, 9 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for inviting me and I'd like to ask for help to edit a semi-protect page

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Hello, I totally embrace the 5 pillars of wikipedia and reading the page of the actor Johnny Depp I checked that some excerpts that cite legal disputes should be structured in a more neutral way to be fair with all the parties involved.
I'll paste these 4 (four) excerpts and at the same time present my motion for editing them

Personal life
Family, relationships and domestic violence allegations

1) "She stated that the latest incident of violence had taken place on May 21, and provided statements by two witnesses—her and Depp's mutual friend iO Tillett Wright and neighbor Raquel Pennington—and photographs of her battered face as evidence"

The motive: Raquel Pennington and iO Tillet are only Heard's friends, if a reader doesn't know it, he/she can deduce that they're neutral witnesses, then I present this motion;

"She stated that the latest incident of violence had taken place on May 21, and provided statements by two witnesses, her friends iO Tillett Wright and Raquel Pennington, who was Depp and Heard's neighbor—and photographs of her battered face as evidence"

2) "Wright had called the LAPD during the incident,[96] but Heard, wishing to protect Depp, stated to them that it was a "verbal dispute only", and the officers saw "no evidence of a crime at that time".[93][96][97]

In response, Depp's lawyers said that Heard was "attempting to secure a premature financial resolution by alleging abuse".[93][98] On May 31, Heard gave a statement to the LAPD on the incident on May 21; her lawyers stated that she had initially been reluctant to involve law enforcement in the case in order to "protect her privacy and Johnny's career","

The motive: From the sources presented I have seen that the same argument is presented twice and that one of the times is arranged in a way that may suggest a wrong interpretation, then my motion is;

"Wright had called the LAPD during the incident,[96]but Heard stated to them that it was a "verbal dispute only", and the Capt. Don Graham, who oversees the LAPD’s Central Division told that the officers saw "no evidence of a crime at that time" [93][96][97]

In response, Depp's lawyers said that Heard was "attempting to secure a premature financial resolution by alleging abuse".[93][98] On May 31, Heard gave a statement to the LAPD on the incident on May 21; her lawyers stated that she had initially been reluctant to involve law enforcement in the case "stemmed from a wish to protect her own privacy and Depp’s career","

3) "but was forced to do so "to set the record straight as to the true facts, as she cannot continue to leave herself open to the vicious false and malicious allegations [by Depp's team] that have infected the media".[99] The following day, People published images of Heard's injuries from an alleged earlier incident of domestic violence,[93] and on June 4,"

The motive: Checking the source quoted, I realized that changing the position of the arguments may suggest a new misinterpretation, so my motion is keep the quote exactly as it is in the source;

“Johnny’s team has forced Amber to give a statement to the LAPD to set the record straight as to the true facts, as she cannot continue to leave herself open to the vicious false and malicious allegations that have infected the media.”

Legal problems

4) "In March 2016, Depp cut ties with his management company The Management Group and accused them of improperly managing his money. The Management Group later sued Depp for unpaid fees and countersued him for damages.[119] The lawsuit revealed that Depp was responsible for his own fiscal mismanagement, in opposition to his claim"

The motive: The lawsuit has not revealed anything yet, since it is still in transit. I'd like to add two new sources and add new information;

"In March 2016, Depp cut ties with his management company The Management Group and accused them of improperly managing his money. The Management Group later sued Depp for unpaid fees and countersued him for damages alleging that Depp was responsible for his own fiscal mismanagement.[119] Depp's lawyer has now filed new papers in the dispute in a bid to have the countersuit dismissed. In the documents, the actor provides a string of receipts from America's Internal Revenue Service (IRS) detailing the tax troubles he found himself in from 2000 to 2015 as a result of TMG's alleged "negligence and misconduct". Johnny Depp has accused his former managers of costing him more than $6 million in tax penalties and fines for failing to file his taxes in a timely manner. His lawyer stated "Mr. Depp did not sue his former business managers for his own personal investment decisions or the 'financial distress' they wildly allege - Mr. Depp sued them for fraud and multiple breaches of their fiduciary duty, among other claims. Gaslighting the public with global press releases will not save the defendants in court from their gross misconduct set forth in the complaint.""

And the new sources are:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/johnny-depp-sues-business-managers-accuses-them-of-fraud-1484354022

http://www.film-news.co.uk/news/UK/44595/Johnny-Depp-blames-years-of-tax-problems-on-ex-managers

I would also suggest to change the subtitle Legal Problems to a new one that is less cumbersome

Thank you
Babyallis (talk) 00:40, 10 March 2017 (UTC)BabyallisReply

Nuances

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Your tact and depth of intelligence revealed on the discussion WP:1 Rule is admirable and well received. You seemed to truly understand the premise of the Rule. I thank you for your contributions there as they have enlightened me onto certain things, my depth of appreciation can not be understated. I conclude my fair wishes with a departing saying: "The voice of the intelligence is drowned out by the roar of fear. It is ignored by the voice of desire. It is contradicted by the voice of shame. It is biased by hate and extinguished by anger. Most of all it is silenced by ignorance." You are further from ignorance than I have been by making that policy request, I am humbled by your honest insight. Thank you. ὦiki-Coffee(talk to me!) (contributions) 01:32, 11 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

15:26, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

22:03, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

How to sort out page issues: orphan page and advertisement page

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Thanks for inviting me to join the teahouse. I have been updating a page following the guidelines provided on wikipedia in order to create a encyclopedic page but on the page still are displayed issues.

Kind Regards Writer4change (talk) 17:04, 24 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

This is the page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaruk_Kayshapanta Writer4change (talk) 17:11, 24 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Writer4change: Hi! Orphan means that no other pages currently contain a link to this page. You can fix that by adding wikilinks from other relevant Wikipedia articles to this one. As for advertising, content on Wikipedia should be written neutrally, without trying to make the subject sound amazing, simply reporting facts. Sam Walton (talk) 15:53, 28 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

14:47, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Central discussion

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You reverted a discussion topic I posted, and said that ideas don't go on there.

Can you point me to the guideline or policy that states that discussions about ideas cannot be posted on that template?

The idea seems to be mainstream and thought-provoking enough to warrant a central notification. The Transhumanist 20:43, 27 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

@The Transhumanist: Sure no problem. Wikipedia:Centralized discussion states that Template:CENT is for "matters that have a wide impact and on which a broad consensus is needed", and not for "General ideas or proposals". Practically, it's for getting people to join WP:RfCs with wide impact, not for getting opinions on an idea. Sam Walton (talk) 20:49, 27 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
I see, later in the process, once a project has actually been started and needs input on direction. Thank you for the clarification. The Transhumanist 21:15, 27 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Disagreement concerning article about Tom O'Carroll

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I would like to draw your attention to an issue regarding Tom O'Carroll which you recently edited.

On March 18 you deleted a sentence from part of the article about O'Carroll's conviction in 2006 which read 'The cache of images featured children aged 6 and over being raped and tortured', citing the lack of evidence for this in any of the available sources.

The sentence was then restored by Philip Cross very shortly afterwards.

Then on March 22 a user purporting to be Tom O'Carroll himself provided, on the talk page for the article, a detailed rebuttal of the claim in question, describing it as 'seriously defamatory'. A crucial aspect of his case was an extract from the official transcript of the judge's ruling which made it clear (if we accept its genuineness) that the images involved were not of the most serious kind, which would of course directly contradict the contested claim.

Later the same day, NeilN deleted this posting from the user purporting to be Tom O'Carroll, stating that he is 'not allowed to edit here' (though of course this material is still available in the history).

On March 23, the contested sentence was again deleted from the article, this time by me, as I assumed that the information purporting to come from Tom O'Carroll was indeed genuine and I felt that if so, it made a virtually unanswerable case for the falsity of the sentence, in which case Wikipedia would be in danger of committing libel if it retained the sentence.

Very shortly afterwards, Philip Cross restored the sentence saying 'Multiple sources cited, O'Carroll is blocked & these published citations have around (sic) for a decade.'

I notice that you have not further intervened in the matter since your deletion of the sentence on March 18 and I wonder why this is the case. I also wonder why the user claiming to be Tom O'Carroll has been blocked. Has he been unable to convince Wikipedia that he is genuine? Or perhaps, on the contrary, it has been decided that he is genuine and the reason for his being blocked is that it would be a violation of WP: ChildProtect to continue to let him edit on Wikipedia. Or maybe there is some other reason. I suppose you are under no obligation to discuss such things with me, but I am very concerned, since his case did seem to be very well argued and if Wikipedia is going to ignore such evidence in relation to what is potentially such a serious matter, I hope that it has exceptionally good reasons for doing so.

I would ask you as an administrator who has been involved with this article to give me your assurance that the correct decision has been taken in this matter. TruthSerum1 (talk) 09:23, 28 March 2017 (UTC)Reply