User talk:JoJan/Archive 23

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
  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.

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)[reply]

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
  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
  automatic edit summaries
  .

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee
  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.

Dear JoJan,

I would be glad to add my "2 cents" worth, but the discussion appears to be closed now and archived. I do agree that an scientific author with many publications who has named several new species and has been recognized by his peers and had species named after him is in fact notable. Invertzoo (talk) 17:01, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The original deletion discussion is closed but the deletion review is still open Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 February 3 . JoJan (talk) 17:05, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I put something in. Invertzoo (talk) 22:22, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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.

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
  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.

Hey, JoJan. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! Chris Troutman (talk) 19:36, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. JoJan (talk) 14:50, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

Hi @JoJan: I was hoping you might be able to help me. I checked the Calystegia page and it looked like you might have written the etymology (The name is derived from two Greek words kalux, "cup", and stegos, "a covering", meaning "a covering cup".) That bit is unreferenced and when I checked out Robert Brown's protologue I couldn't find the reason for the name... I was hoping you might pop in the reference (Nor could I find it in the eflora of China which was the only reference in the article) Thanks, MargaretRDonald (talk) 21:35, 24 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That was a long time ago I ever wrote something in this article. Anyway, the etymology can be found in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary [1]. I added a reference in the text. Hope this helps. JoJan (talk) 13:13, 25 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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.

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
  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
  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.

Dear JoJan, These two article on the same species existed separately and a merge was proposed. The second name is indeed the currently recognized correct name, according to WoRMS. I tried to carry out the merge this morning NYC time, not realizing that a bot had previously merged them in the opposite direction. I think I lost the edit history on what is now the main article, and the talk pages are still a mess. Do you know how to sort this out? Sorry -- I should not attempt to do merges before breakfast while my brain cells are short of glucose! Invertzoo (talk) 11:16, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This has been handled already by someone else. I've made some corrections to the article. JoJan (talk) 14:32, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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
  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
  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
  doing so. Regardless if you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure
  and unique to Wikimedia.

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
  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.

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)[reply]

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
  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.

Hello, move request: Ba (gastropod) -> Ba humbugi. Thanks. --Snek01 (talk) 22:25, 17 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I understand why you request this move. But it would disrupt the template:taxonomy and wikidata. The genus and the species have different taxon identifiers in WoRMS and other data bases. Therefore it is better to leave it this way. JoJan (talk) 14:28, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@

WP:MONOTYPICFAUNA. So the article should be moved as requested. I haven't done it yet, but will do so when you've had a chance to see this note. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:43, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply

]

I've moved the article to Ba humbugi as per convention. JoJan (talk) 12:51, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks; however I hadn't at first noticed that by mistake you moved it to "Ba humbugi." not "Ba humbugi". I've now sorted this out (not without some errors of my own on the way!). I think Ba humbugi. can now be deleted. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:28, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've deleted Ba humbugi. I hadn't noticed the typographical error. Thanks for pointing this out. JoJan (talk) 12:21, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You uploaded, File:Ophrys-bombyliflora.web.jpg, where you either stated or implied that you had permission of a third party to upload it; or that evidence of such permission would be provided on request.

Unless there's some record of that permission, it's harder to confirm if any given permission is genuine. Wikipedia currently needs the permission to be explicitly proven at the time of upload, and recorded in the OTRS permission queue, for this reason.

Please read Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission, which advises on how to confirm permissions you obtained from a third party.

It is also advisable to ask the third-party what source attribution they desire, as opposed to marking the image as having been "sent personally".

If permission is not confirmed, and recorded as detailed above, the media may have to be removed so that Wikipedia stays in compliance with copyright law and policy in some jurisdictions.

ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:08, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@ShakespeareFan00: This image was uploaded in 2004, in a time when the rules were not so strict as now. Permission was obviously given in an email, lost when I got a new computer. The template {{LicenseReview}} didn't exist yet. The original website doesn't exist anymore and I won't put my spare available time in search of an admitted upload license. I have no idea how many such uploads were made in those years. That is why I always use now the template {{LicenseReview}} for such cases. If you really see the need to delete, just delete then. JoJan (talk) 13:23, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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.

Thanks for your guidance on "turrited"; the typo team also came across sinous. See Wikipedia:Typo_Team/moss#Likely misspellings by frequency (n-z). The first hit is on the gastropod Aforia staminea; the remainder on that page are moths. The word also appears in the description of an ammonite and an extinct nautiloid. Any idea if that is a valid term of art? It could be a consistent typo for "sinuous", but that feels too convenient an explanation. David Brooks (talk) 20:45, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Typo for "sinuous" JoJan (talk) 13:30, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. David Brooks (talk) 17:07, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

Denied. JoJan (talk) 12:33, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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
  proposed deletion policy
  (PROD) should be clarified or amended.
• A
  today's featured article
  (TFA) in order to mitigate a recent trend of severe image vandalism.

Technical news

• 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.

Hello, JoJan. 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

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)[reply]

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
  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
  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.

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)[reply]