User talk:SB Johnny
This user may have left Wikipedia. SB Johnny has not edited Wikipedia since September 30, 2021. As a result, any requests made here may not receive a response. If you are seeking assistance, you may need to approach someone else. |
Archive 1 (up to December, 2006) archive #2 archive #3 archive #4 (March '08-Feb '09) archive #5 (March '09-May '09) #7 (to March 2012)
Perhaps this
I had seen a question asked about a tool. Perhaps this would help.
Wizardman also may know of additional tools, I know he has helped me with some CCI stuff in the past. — Ched : ? 20:52, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks, that will help for the next one (Hex got a positive ID on that article and removed the section). BTW, let me know if you run across any more like that (articles sent to AfD for using the old "sources" section rather than the cite templates)... I'm still following that hunch. --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 11:37, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
Lifting the Gibraltar DYK restrictions
A couple of months ago, you opposed a proposal to lift the restrictions on Gibraltar-related DYKs, which were imposed in September 2012. Could you possibly clarify (1) under what conditions you would support a lifting of the restrictions, and (2) when you think it would be appropriate to lift the restrictions? Prioryman (talk) 20:08, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
Question
Hi, Am I a qualifying contributor, I mean to get paid, if I am one of the winners? Thanks. 76.126.142.59 (talk) 02:12, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
- You mean if you're not logged in? I don't know, but I'll pass the question along. --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 08:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, it is what I meant, but surely, if Wikipedia considers me a qualifying contributor, Wikipediocracy should too. By the by have you ever considered nominating the article for DYK? 76.126.142.59 (talk) 13:33, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
- Nothing firm yet, but if you're in this for the money, I think you should create an account. Wikipedia doesn't charge anything for making accounts, last I checked ;-). --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 22:09, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
- Of course I am in for the money mostly because it is fun to get payed for criticizing Wikipedia on Wikipedia. Yes, creating an account is free, but it is a hassle. I would not like to be attached to a user name, I prize my freedom. Besides I've already made most additions to the article as IP. 76.126.142.59 (talk) 00:07, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
- Nothing firm yet, but if you're in this for the money, I think you should create an account. Wikipedia doesn't charge anything for making accounts, last I checked ;-). --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 22:09, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, it is what I meant, but surely, if Wikipedia considers me a qualifying contributor, Wikipediocracy should too. By the by have you ever considered nominating the article for DYK? 76.126.142.59 (talk) 13:33, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
AE nit-picking
Yeah, you probably shouldn't be commenting in the uninvolved administrator section on that case. Someone is bound to blow a gasket. ;) --The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 01:53, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
- I don't see why... I have absolutely no interest in Scientology, though I'm aware that it's been a contentious topic on WP. --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 13:55, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
- I meant because of the specific article that was under discussion, but I guess it no longer matters.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 16:01, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Added to the wikipedia controversies article
Just letting you know so I can get the reward . Cheers, nerdfighter 00:52, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Please note: User talk pages User talk pages are rarely protected, and are semi-protected for short durations only in the most severe cases of vandalism from IP users. Users whose talk pages are semi-protected should have an unprotected user talk subpage linked conspicuously from their main talk page to allow good faith comments from non-autoconfirmed users.[2]
"Give it a rest" isn't a valid reason for protecting a user's talk page. Please undo your action or be prepared to explain why you took it upon yourself to make up new rules at
]- It's a perfectly valid reason per IAR (and in is case perhaps BLP as well). Leaving the poor guy be for a couple of days is the right thing to do, and hopefully can helm lower the drama level. I'm sure the wiser heads at AN/I will agree. --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 23:45, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Rklawton (talk) 00:41, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
2013 Philadelphia Wiki-Picnic: Saturday, June 22
Philadelphia's Great American Wiknic at Penn Park | ||
You are invited to the Philadelphia edition of the Great American Wiknic taking place in Penn Park, on Saturday, June 22, 2013! We would love to see you there!--User:Ocaasi (talk)|}} |
Howdy
You know, I had no idea that you were an admin here? Neato. —
Evidence phase open - Manning naming dispute
Dear SB Johnny.
This is just a quick courtesy notice. You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manning naming dispute. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manning naming dispute/Evidence. Please add your evidence by September 19, 2013, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manning naming dispute/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Seddon talk 23:31, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
GLAM Cafe invitation
Re Eric's talk page
I appreciate your judgement. It needed to be blocked for a short time to allow cooling off, 24 hours was too long but your timing was perfect. WormTT(talk) 08:04, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
- De nada. That's why you keep us old timers around hovering well over the fray, right? --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 12:20, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
FYI
your post was reverted by user:demiurge1000, but I have no idea why. 24.4.37.209 (talk) 15:36, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Ramtha's School of Enlightenment
Hi SB Johnny. I saw your comment on the Ramtha's discussion page and have added a summary of the key points from the longer message. You can see that on the discussion page. I hope you're still willing to be a helpful interloper. Calstarry (talk) 17:38, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
What's in a name?
Ya know, I'd been meaning to ask you what the significance of your user name is. —
Template:Hortibox has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. eh bien mon prince (talk) 19:40, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Precious
cultivating trust
Thank you, "Oldtimer" interested in "horticulture, landscape architecture, philosophy, and history", for cultivating plant stubs, real life ("spend time doing something more satisfying") and trust, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:00, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Adding "move like this, like this move" and the link to "awesomely weird", --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:50, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
- On the 28th: a blue duck attacks the German Main page, right now! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:09, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
- A year ago, you were the 708th recipient of my PumpkinSky Prize, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:41, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
- Three years ago, you were recipient no. 708 of Precious, a prize of QAI! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:30, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
- Six years now! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:09, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
UT:JIMBO
- (Protection log); 23:09 . . SB Johnny (talk | contribs) changed protection level of User talk:Jimbo Wales [edit=autoconfirmed] (expires 11:09, 4 January 2014 (UTC))[move=sysop] (indefinite) (throttle down, Jimmy has made it pretty clear that he wants IPs to be free to talk on his talk)
Your protection makes it impossible for IPs to edit the page. -mattbuck (Talk) 23:34, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
- For 12 hours, I know. It had been set to indefinite a little earlier, so I shortened it. Changed the move permissions too, because Hagger???? ;-) --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 23:53, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
- Thank you for taking an interest in this problem. The banned editor is Mbz1. She's very persistent about hopping to new IPs and is seeking a forum for grandstanding. If she returns, please lengthen the protection. I had shortened it previously, but she came right back so I had to re-protect, and used a longer duration. More eyes on the problem is good. Jehochman Talk 01:56, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
- Well, the problem is that if you set it to "indefinite", you never know when it's "worked", and like I mentioned in the log, Jimmy is a big believer in "IP editing and speech". It's easy enough for you to throw the rope up for another 12 hours if she's causing a major problem, though it's often even easier to skip over the R&B and go right to I. --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 02:45, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
- There're three possibilities: (1) It is her. (2) It is some other editor taking advantage of the situation to act just like her. (3) It's somebody completely unrelated who's acting just like her, but doesn't realize it. Given the lack of trust we have in her, created by her inability to get along with other editors resulting in a ban, and then by her continued violation of editing through her ban, I think her statement has no information value whatsoever. Thank you for keeping an eye on the situation and if there are further similar edits, please respond as you see fit or let me know if you think my response needs to be adjusted so that it would be more effective. I didn't mean to set the protection to indefinite! I had meant to select something like one or two weeks, which is the approximate length of time she's been editing of late. Jehochman Talk 17:04, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
- I'm nearly certain that it isn't her (lying isn't one of her faults). She feels rather insulted by you accusing her of being this other person (who she doesn't think resembles her at all), so if you can spare a "sorry about that" for her, she'd appreciate it.
- (And yes, Jehochman, I originally thought you had gotten the edit and move protection settings backwards, went to fix that, then realized the problem with having that length of protection on that particular page. We all have our senior moments, despite our youthful appearance and vigor.) ;-) --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 23:01, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Mbz1 was here. --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 01:21, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
Wikiversity
I was wondering if you would like to come back to Wikiversity ;) --
Petition
Thank you for that, I've signed. May I suggest that you remove the "Support" from your signature? I worry that people will start adding "Oppose" comments, as if it's an RfC, not a petition. Let them lynch-mob elsewhere. —
- Already did, good thinking :-). --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 23:41, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
- Well, we tried. "Dignity", what a joke. — talk 18:05, 11 January 2014 (UTC)]
- "I am unaware of any nondisclosure agreements and do not intend to intervene in a staff matter. Given that he was unaware that she was an employee, I'm not sure how much weight to put in that (though something in the signpost seems to suggest that there isn't an NDA, or at least that she's permitted to discuss the issue). --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 23:59, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
- Well, we tried. "Dignity", what a joke. —
Question About Kww and Phillippe
How did Kww use technical means to force the WMF on the Visual Editor mess? I know that the Visual Editor was not ready for prime time and that WMF, as the employer of the developers, was trying to ram it into production. What did Kww do? Was he heroic? Robert McClenon (talk) 23:06, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
- He modified the javascript, iirc, which effectively allowed VE to be disabled (as default?), which is what the WMF (including Philippe in particular) were refusing to do. Whether it's heroic depends on your perspective, I suppose, but the point is that (a) Phillipe and Kww have a history of personal animosity, and (b) this is actually a wider dispute between Phillipe's wing of the WMF and parts of the community that are not at all happy with the WMF. --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 14:08, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
Feb 11?
You said "See WP:DEADLINE to start. I think it's wonderful that there's a POTD and some DYKs available, but contorting everything else because Jimmy thinks it's a good idea is frankly a bad idea".
That comment really helped me. I've been getting a bit worked up over things, and I really needed to hear the words "WP:DEADLINE". Sometimes when you need to chill, a stranger shows up to say the magic words-- WP:NODEADLINE. So, I wanted to thank you for the advice-- it helped me. --HectorMoffet (talk) 08:50, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
- Also, I agree we shouldn't push FA at all or "contort" stuff; just on the the stuff we already have that meets our criteria, do you think it's appropriate to schedule them all on a theme day like Feb 11, or should we stagger them across multiple days? your opinion valued. --HectorMoffet (talk) 08:52, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
thanks
Thanks for the kind words :) this isn't the first time I've been mobbed over something where I believed I was primarily in the right, and I'm usually fairly good at dealing with it, the magnitude of this was just a bit more than I expected. The reason I posted a statement of the length that I did was because I had received multiple emails telling me to do so or they'd take it to ANI, and I figured my talk page would be less painful than ANI. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:56, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
Hi SB Johnny. I contribute to Wikipedia regularly with a conflict of interest, while following best practices and bringing most articles that qualify up to "Good Article" status to ensure I am meeting a high standard of compliance with Wikipedia's content policies.
I'm trying to spread myself around a little more, to avoid the allegation that I have a small posse of favorable editors, which will inevitably occur if I rely too heavily on just 2 or 3 editors, so I thought I would introduce myself and see if you have an interest in chipping in on an article where I am affiliated.
The article is Triumph International. The draft I've prepared is located at User:CorporateM/Triumph. It's been shared on the Talk page and at COIN, but I find even COIN posts often get archived without anything getting done, so I try to ping people individually and find someone willing to chip in.
Let me know if you have the time/interest to take a look. CorporateM (Talk) 15:07, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
Request for comment
Hello there, a proposal regarding pre-adminship review has been raised at Village pump by Anna Frodesiak. Your comments
DangerousPanda arbitation request opened
You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration and have not been listed as a party. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/DangerousPanda. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/DangerousPanda/Evidence. Please add your evidence by 3 December 2014, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/DangerousPanda/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 12:36, 19 November 2014 (UTC). Message delivered by MediaWiki message delivery
You recently recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Wifione. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Wifione/Evidence. Please submit your evidence before 16 January 2014, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Wifione/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration.
Please read this notice before submitting any material (evidence or workshop proposals or comments) on the case or talk pages.
From the statements so far, this case is either about an administrator editing in defiance of the neutral point of view policy or a group of editors unjustly making accusations of such. The committee takes no view at present.
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For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:03, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
You have mail. Go Phightins! 15:09, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
Hello!
I'm just wondering why this was undone?
The reason I protected it was because an editor made socks simply to target Jimbo. When they made one of their socks, they said that they were simply going to keep creating accounts to target his page. As indeed they did.--5 albert square (talk) 05:39, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
- I'm afraid to say that I have learned otherwise in dealing with his talk page. In any case I would have preferred that you'd have at least pinged me in the message that you left on Jimbo's talk page, if not left a message on my own talk page about it. All the best.--5 albert square (talk) 20:36, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
- Somehow I think they will be back. I hope I am proved wrong..............--5 albert square (talk) 19:51, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
Your thoughts?
Arbitration enforcement arbitration case opened
By motion, the committee authorises the following injunction effective immediately:
- The [Arbitration enforcement] case [request] is to be opened forthwith and entitled "Arbitration enforcement";
- During the case, no user who has commented about this matter on the Case Requests page, may take or initiate administrative action involving any of the named parties in this case.
- Reports of alleged breaches of (2) are to be made only by email to the Arbitration Committee, via the main contact page.
You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has, per the above, accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at
Change from announced time table for the Arbitration enforcement arbitration case
You are receiving this message either because you are a party to the
Motion passed in AE arbitration case granting amnesty and rescinding previous temporary injunction
This message is sent at 12:53, 5 July 2015 (UTC) by Arbitration Clerk User:Penwhale via MassMessage on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. You are receiving this message because your name appears on this list and have not elected to opt-out of being notified of development in the arbitration case.
On 5 July, 2015, the following motion was passed and enacted:
- Paragraphs (2) and (3) of the Arbitration Committee's motion of 29 June 2015 about the injunction and reporting breaches of it are hereby rescinded.
- The Arbitration Committee hereby declares an amnesty covering:
- the original comment made by Eric Corbett on 25 June 2015 and any subsequent related comments made by him up until the enactment of this current motion; and
- the subsequent actions related to that comment taken by Black Kite, GorillaWarfare, Reaper Eternal, Kevin Gorman, GregJackP and RGloucester before this case was opened on 29 June 2015.
I've sent you one. — Ched : ? 20:59, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Invitation to join the Ten Year Society
Dear SB Johnny,
I'd like to extend a cordial invitation to you to join the Ten Year Society, an informal group for editors who've been participating in the Wikipedia project for ten years or more.
Best regards, — Scott • talk 10:45, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
Time for a 15 year society eh? Happy New Year to you all. Peter Damian (talk) 14:53, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
Guess who%27s back!!!!
[[File:Jimmy_Wales_September_2015.jpg|thumb|2000px|MASSIVE Jimbo Wales]] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.239.103.66 (talk) 17:26, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
Wikipediocracy and COI
I thought I'd try to start a discussion here on my talk, Figureofnine, in the hopes that we can keep it on-topic and not-so-silly. Coretheapple, you are not welcome on my talk page.
Alison is a "co-founder" of WO in the same sense I am: we participated in an email discussion about whether to set it up, how to avoid some problems that made Wikipedia Review fail, etc. We were also among the first people to get accounts there, and we both have "advanced permissions" on the website.
Neither Alison or I have anything at stake in Wikipediocracy's success or failure, and therefore neither of us has a "conflict of interest" in the normal (i.e. non-wiki-lawyer) sense of the expression.
I put my name of the template because I'm interested in Wikipediocracy as a participant and fan (as is User:Alison, of course), but arguably no more interested than Mr. Coretheapple, which is why I added his name as well. The point is that none of us should be listed in the template, or all of us.
If you didn't mean to kick the hornet's nest here, I'm sorry if it's been a source of stress or annoyance. --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 00:17, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- I saw some of this discussion elsewhere - and I just don't understand the fuss. The two sites serve different purposes; and even if they have a thread in common, they aren't competitors. It all seems like a tempest in a teapot to me. — Ched : ? 01:52, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
It looks like this discussion may already be off-topic, into silly name calling, etc. So, I will only leave one comment and ask you to think on it: We should disclose to the readers about that article, those who declare founder with advance permissions status - that is information about the subject, and about the article. If you want to discuss this comment further, you are invited to my talk page. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:30, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
- Just saw the ping. I agree with Alanscottwalker and have nothing to add. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 14:25, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
Gamaliel and others arbitration case opened
You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gamaliel and others. The scope of this case is Gamaliel's recent actions (both administrative and otherwise), especially related to the Signpost April Fools Joke. The case will also examine the conduct of other editors who are directly involved in disputes with Gamaliel. The case is strictly intended to examine user conduct and alleged policy violations and will not examine broader topic areas. The clerks have been instructed to remove evidence which does not meet these requirements. The drafters will add additional parties as required during the case. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gamaliel and others/Evidence.
Please add your evidence by May 2, 2016, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gamaliel and others/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. This notification is being sent to those listed on the case notification list. If you do not wish to recieve further notifications, you are welcome to opt-out on that page. For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:39, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
An arbitration case regarding Gamaliel and others has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:
- Gamaliel is admonished for multiple breaches of Wikipedia policies and guidelines including for BLP violation.
- DHeyward and Gamaliel are indefinitely prohibited from usual exemptions.
- DHeyward (talk · contribs) is admonished for engaging in incivility and personal attacks on other editors. He is reminded that all editors are expected to engage respectfully and civilly with each other and to avoid making personal attacks.
- For conduct which was below the standard expected of an administrator — namely making an incivil and inflammatory close summary on ANI, in which he perpetuated the perceived BLP violation and failed to adequately summarise the discussion — JzG is admonished.
- Arkon is reminded that WP:CLOSECHALLENGE.
- The community is encouraged to hold an RfC to supplement the existing WP:BLPTALKpolicy by developing further guidance on managing disputes about material involving living persons when that material appears outside of article space and is not directly related to article-content decisions.
For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:38, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
- Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gamaliel and others closed
Join us this Saturday (July 30) at the Philadelphia Wiknic
Join us this Saturday (July 30) at the Philadelphia Wiknic, the "picnic anyone can edit". This is an opportunity to meet other local Wikipedians, have fun, and discuss potential projects.
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--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:21, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
As requested:
In this edit[3] you say
"I'm not seeing any abuse of privileges here, but I'll happily list them if someone can bring them to my attention: [...] If someone brings abuse to my attention, I'll note them above. I can even add more slots if there are more than 5. If not, please consider the lack of evidence to be evidence, since as we all know it's very hard to prove a negative."
Here are three examples:
- 2005 - MH is rebuked for protecting page that they are engaged in an editing dispute over
- 2007 - MH engages in wheelwarring against three other admins.
- 2009 - MH again wheelwars with other admins
Wheel warring is a very serious offense. See
I look forward to seeing you keep your "If someone brings abuse to my attention, I'll note them above" promise.
While your claim of no abuse of tools is demonstrably false, a claim of no recent abuse of tools would be fair an accurate. I don't think there has been any abuse of tools in the last five years. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:45, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks, I'll put those in when I have time to look over them. --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 11:45, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:Nspp
Template:Nspp has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:51, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
Extended confirmed protection
Hello, SB Johnny. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy.
In July and August 2016,
- Extended confirmed protection may only be used in cases where semi-protection has proven ineffective. It should not be used as a first resort.
- A bot will post a notification at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard of each use. MusikBot currently does this by updating a report, which is transcluded onto the noticeboard.
Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you.
This message was sent to the administrators' mass message list. To opt-out of future messages, please remove yourself from the list. 17:49, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins
Hello,
Please note that
A new user right for New Page Patrollers
Hi SB Johnny.
A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.
It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available
If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at
ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!
Hello, SB Johnny. Voting in the
The
If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:PrSpam
Template:PrSpam has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. KATMAKROFAN (talk) 03:45, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter - February 2017
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.
- NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67
- Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13
- A discussion to workshop proposals to amend the administrator inactivity policy at Wikipedia talk:Administrators has been in process since late December 2016.
- Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2016 closed with no consensus for implementing Pending changes level 2 with new criteria for use.
- Following an RfC, an activity requirement is now in place for bots and bot operators.
- 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.
- The Arbitration Committee released a response to the Wikimedia Foundation's statement on paid editing and outing.
- 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)
Administrators' newsletter – March 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2017).
- Amortias • Deckiller • BU Rob13
- Ronnotel • Islander • Chamal N • Isomorphic • Keeper76 • Lord Voldemort • Shereth • Bdesham • Pjacobi
- A evaluated at AfD. Specifically, secondary schools are not presumed to be notable simply because they exist.
- AfDs that receive little participation proposed deletion, following a deletion process RfC.
- Defender, HakanIST, Matiia and Sjoerddebruin are our newest stewards, following the 2017 steward elections.
- The 2017 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Góngora, Krd, Lankiveil, Richwales and Vogone. They will serve for approximately 1 year.
- A
- A 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.
- A
Administrators' newsletter – April 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2017).
- TheDJ
- Xnuala • CJ • Oldelpaso • Berean Hunter • Jimbo Wales • Andrew c • Karanacs • Modemac • Scott
- Following a discussion on the backlog of unpatrolled files, consensus was found to create a new user right for autopatrolling file uploads. Implementation progress can be tracked on Phabricator.
- The BLPPROD grandfather clause, which stated that unreferenced biographies of living persons were only eligible for proposed deletion if they were created after March 18, 2010, has been removed following an RfC.
- An proposed deletion of files. The implementation process is ongoing.
- After an unsuccessful proposal to automatically grant IP block exemption, consensus was foundto relax the criteria for granting the user right from needing it to wanting it.
- After a recent RfC, moved pages will soon be featured in a queue similar to Special:NewPagesFeed and require patrolling. Moves by administrators, page movers, and autopatrolled editors will be automatically marked as patrolled.
- Cookie blocks have been deployed. This extends the current autoblock system by setting a cookie for each block, which will then autoblock the user if they switch accounts, even under a new IP.
Administrators' newsletter – May 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2017).
- Karanacs • Berean Hunter • GoldenRing • Dlohcierekim
- Gdr • Tyrenius • JYolkowski • Longhair • Master Thief Garrett • Aaron Brenneman • Laser brain • JzG • Dragons flight
- An RfC has clarified that user categories should be emptied upon deletion, but redlinked user categories should not be removed if re-added by the user.
- Discussions are ongoing regarding proposed changes to the COI policy. Changes so far have included clarification that adding a link on a Wikipedia forum to a job posting is not a violation of the harassment policy.
- You can now see a list of all autoblocks at Special:AutoblockList.
- There is a new tool for adding archives to dead links. Administrators are able to restrict other user's ability to use the tool, and have additional permissions when changing URL and domain data.
- Administrators, bureaucrats and stewards can now set an expiry date when granting user rights. (discuss, permalink)
- Following an RfC, the editing restrictions page is now split into a list of active restrictions and an archive of those that are old or on inactive accounts. Make sure to check both pages if searching for a restriction.
Administrators' newsletter – June 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2017).
- Doug Bell • Dennis Brown • Clpo13 • ONUnicorn
- ThaddeusB • Yandman • Bjarki S • OldakQuill • Shyam • Jondel • Worm That Turned
- An LTA database has been closed. The proposal was broadly supported, with further discussion required regarding what to do with the existing LTA database and defining access requirements. Such a tool/database formed part of the Community health initiative's successful grant proposal.
- Some WP:ANI, it is considered a "community sanction", and administrators cannot unblock unilaterally if the user has not successfully appealedthe sanction to the community.
- An restrictions on cosmetic changes.
- An
- Users will soon be able to blacklist specific users from sending them notifications.
- Following the 2017 elections, the new members of the Board of Trustees include Raystorm, Pundit and Doc James. They will serve three-year terms.
Nomination for deletion of Template:Plantsclean
Template:Plantsclean has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 03:18, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:Copied howto
Template:Copied howto has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 01:21, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – July 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2017).
- The RFC discussion regarding WP:OUTING and WMF essay about paid editing and outing (see more at the ArbCom noticeboard archives) is now archived. Milieus #3 and #4 received support; so did concrete proposal #1.
- The RFC discussion regarding
- Fuzzy search will soon be added to Special:Undelete, allowing administrators to search for deleted page titles with results similar to the search query. You can test this by adding
?fuzzy=1
to the URL, as with Special:Undelete?fuzzy=1. Currently the search only finds pages that exactly match the search term. - A new bot will automatically revision delete unused file versions from files in Category:Non-free files with orphaned versions more than 7 days old.
- Fuzzy search will soon be added to Special:Undelete, allowing administrators to search for deleted page titles with results similar to the search query. You can test this by adding
- A newly revamped database report can help identify users who may be eligible to be autopatrolled.
- A potentially compromised account from 2001–2002 attempted to two-factor authentication. Currently around 17% of admins have enabled 2FA, up from 16% in February 2017.
- Did you know: On 29 June 2017, there were 1,261 administrators on the English Wikipedia – the exact number of administrators as there were ten years ago on 29 June 2007. Since that time, the English Wikipedia has grown from 1.85 million articles to over 5.43 million.
Administrators' newsletter – August 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2017).
- WP:300)
- Cprompt • Rockpocket • Rambo's Revenge • Animum • TexasAndroid • Chuck SMITH • MikeLynch • Crazytales • Ad Orientem
- Following a series of discussions around new pages patrol, the WMF is helping implement a controlled autoconfirmed article creation trial as a research experiment, similar to the one proposed in 2011. You can learn more about the research plan at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial. The exact start date of the experiment has yet to be determined.
- A new speedy deletion criterion, regarding articles created as a result undisclosed paid editing, is currently being discussed (permalink).
- An WP:G13 to include all drafts, even if they weren't submitted through Articles for Creation.
- LoginNotify should soon be deployed to the English Wikipedia. This will notify users when there are suspicious login attempts on their account.
- The new version of XTools is nearing an official release. This suite of tools includes administrator statistics, an improved edit counter, among other tools that may benefit administrators. You can report issues on Phabricator and provide general feedback at mw:Talk:XTools.
MfD nomination of User:SB Johnny/List of fictional expletives
Administrators' newsletter – September 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2017).
- Nakon • Scott
- Sverdrup • Thespian • Elockid • James086 • Ffirehorse • Celestianpower • Boing! said Zebedee
- ACTRIAL, a research experiment that restricts article creation to autoconfirmed users, will begin on September 7. It will run for six months. You can learn more about the research specifics at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial, while Wikipedia talk:Autoconfirmed article creation trialis probably the best venue for general discussion.
- Following an bot-generated report, updated daily, to help identify potentially qualifying drafts that have not been submitted through articles for creation.
- You will now get a notification when someone tries to log in to your account and fails. If they try from a device that has logged into your account before, you will be notified after five failed attempts. You can also set in your preferences to get an email when someone logs in to your account from a new device or IP address, which may be encouraged for admins and accounts with sensitive permissions.
- Syntax highlighting is now available as a beta feature (more info). This may assist administrators and template editors when dealing with intricate syntax of high-risk templates and system messages.
- In your notification preferences, you can now block specific users from pinging you. This functionality will soon be available for Special:EmailUser as well.
- Applications for CheckUser and Oversight are being accepted by the Arbitration Committee until September 12. Community discussion of the candidates will begin on September 18.
Administrators' newsletter – October 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2017).
- Boing! said Zebedee • Ansh666 • Ad Orientem
- Tonywalton • AmiDaniel • Silence • BanyanTree • Magioladitis • Vanamonde93 • Mr.Z-man • Jdavidb • Jakec • Ram-Man • Yelyos • Kurt Shaped Box
- Following a successful proposal to create it, a new user right called "edit filter helper" is now assignable and revocable by administrators. The right allows non-administrators to view the details of private edit filters, but not to edit them.
- Following a discussion about mass-application of ECP and how the need for logging and other details of an evolving consensus may have been missed by some administrators, a rough guide to extended confirmed protection has been written. This information page describes how the extended-confirmed aspects of the protection policy are currently being applied by administrators.
- You can now search for IP ranges at Special:Contributions. Some log pages and Special:DeletedContributions are not yet supported. Wildcards (e.g. 192.168.0.*) are also not supported, but the popular contribsrange gadget will continue to work.
- Community consultation on the 2017 candidates for CheckUser and Oversight has concluded. The Arbitration Committee will appoint successful candidates by October 11.
- A request for comment is open regarding the structure, rules, and procedures of the December 2017 Arbitration Committee election, and how to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
Administrators' newsletter – November 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2017).
- Longhair • Megalibrarygirl • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93
- Allen3 • Eluchil404 • Arthur Rubin • Bencherlite
- The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team is creating an "Interaction Timeline" tool that intends to assist administrators in resolving user conduct disputes. Feedback on the concept may be posted on the talk page.
- A new function is now available to edit filter managers that will make it easier to look for multiple strings containing spoofed text.
- Eligible editors will be invited to submit candidate statements for the 2017 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 12 until November 21. Voting will begin on November 27 and last until December 10.
- Following a request for comment, Ritchie333, Yunshui and Ymblanter will serve as the Electoral Commission for the 2017 ArbCom Elections.
- The Wikipedia community has recently learned that Allen3 (William Allen Peckham) passed away on December 30, 2016, the same day as JohnCD. Allen began editing in 2005 and became an administrator that same year.
Administrators' newsletter – December 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2017).
- Following a request for comment, a new section has been added to the username policy which disallows usernames containing emoji, emoticons or otherwise "decorative" usernames, and usernames that use any non-language symbols. Administrators should discuss issues related to these types of usernames before blocking.
- Wikimedians are now invited to vote on the proposals in the 2017 Community Wishlist Survey on Meta Wiki until 10 December 2017. In particular, there is a section of the survey regarding new tools for administrators and for anti-harassment.
- A new function is available to edit filter managers which can be used to store matches from regular expressions.
- Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is open until Sunday 23:59, 10 December 2017 (UTC). There are 12 candidates running for 8 vacant seats.
- Over the last few months, several users have reported WP:RFPP. It is requested that all administrators take some time during this month to help clear backlogs wherever possible. It should be noted that AIV reports are not always valid; however, they still need to be cleared, which may include needing to remind users on what qualifies as vandalism.
- The Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works (i.e. which problems it deals with well and which problems it struggles with). If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be emailed to you via Special:EmailUser.
- Over the last few months, several users have reported
ArbCom 2017 election voter message
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If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – January 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2017).
- Muboshgu
- Anetode • Laser brain • Worm That Turned
- None
- A WP:RFAand to prohibit the use of administrative tools as part of paid editing activity, with certain exceptions.
- A
- 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.
- 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.
Administrators' newsletter – February 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2018).
- None
- Blurpeace • Dana boomer • Deltabeignet • Denelson83 • Grandiose • Salvidrim! • Ymblanter
- An RfC Wikipedian-in-Residenceor 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.
- An RfC
- A automatic edit summaries.
- A
- The Arbitration Committee standardized editnoticewhen 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.
- The Arbitration Committee
Administrators' newsletter – March 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2018).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Following the 2018 Steward elections, the following users are our new stewards: -revi, Green Giant, Rxy, There'sNoTime, علاء.
- 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.
Administrators' newsletter – April 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2018).
- 331dot • Cordless Larry • ClueBot NG
- Gogo Dodo • Pb30 • Sebastiankessel • Seicer • SoLando
- 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.
- There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.
- The Arbitration Committee WP:ARCA.
- The Arbitration Committee
- 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.
Administrators' newsletter – May 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2018).
- None
- Chochopk • Coffee • Gryffindor • Jimp • Knowledge Seeker • Lankiveil • Peridon • Rjd0060
- 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.
- The ability to create articles directly in mainspace is now indefinitely
- 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.
- The Arbitration Committee is seeking additional clerks to help with the arbitration process.
- 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.
Administrators' newsletter – June 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2018).
- None
- Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- In early May, an two-factor authentication. A committed identitycan 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.
- In early May, an
Administrators' newsletter – July 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2018).
- Pbsouthwood • TheSandDoctor
- Gogo Dodo
- Andrevan • Doug • EVula • KaisaL • Tony Fox • WilyD
- 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 deletionoutlined in the deletion policy.
- A WP:G13speedy deletion nomination.
- An
- 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.
- Currently around 20% of admins have enabled doing so. Regardless if you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secureand unique to Wikimedia.
- Currently around 20% of admins have enabled
Administrators' newsletter – August 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2018).
- 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.
- 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.
Administrators' newsletter – September 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2018).
- 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
- 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.
- 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 isarticle_text
which is nowpage_title
. - Abuse filters can now use how old a page is. The variable is
page_age
.
- 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.
- The Arbitration Committee has resolved to perform a round of
Administrators' newsletter – October 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2018).
- Justlettersandnumbers • L235
- Bgwhite • HorsePunchKid • J Greb • KillerChihuahua • Rami R • Winhunter
Interface administrator changes
- Cyberpower678 • Deryck Chan • Oshwah • Pharos • Ragesoss • Ritchie333
- Guerillero • NativeForeigner • Snowolf • Xeno
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Administrators' newsletter – November 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2018).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
ArbCom 2018 election voter message
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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).
- Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz
- Boson • Daniel J. Leivick • Efe • Esanchez7587 • Fred Bauder • Garzo • Martijn Hoekstra • Orangemike
Interface administrator changes
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Voting in the
- 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 identitycan 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.
- 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.
Administrators' newsletter – January 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2018).
- There are a number of new or changed WP:CSD#G6:
- db-disambig}}; the text is unchanged and candidates may be found in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as unnecessary disambiguation pages.
- db-redircom}}; the text is unchanged.
- db-blankdraft}}.
- The Wikimedia Foundation 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.
- There are a number of new or changed
- 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:
- At least 8 characters in length
- Not in the 100,000 most popular passwords (defined by the Password Blacklist library)
- 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.
- {{RevDelcheckboxes already filled in.
- Following the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: AGK, Courcelles, GorillaWarfare, Joe Roe, Mkdw, SilkTork.
- 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 doing so. Regardless of whether you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secureand unique to Wikimedia.
Administrators' newsletter – February 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2019).
Interface administrator changes
- A activity requirementsfor 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.
- A
- A WP:PERM, where historical records are kept so that prior requests can more easily be searched for.
- A
- 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.
Administrators' newsletter – March 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2019).
Interface administrator changes
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- The RfC on administrator activity requirements failed to reach consensus for any proposal.
- Following discussions at the Bureaucrats' noticeboard and Wikipedia talk:Administrators, an earlier change to the restoration of adminship policy was reverted. If requested, bureaucrats will not restore administrator permissions removed due to inactivity if there have been five years without a logged administrator action; this "five year rule" does not apply to permissions removed voluntarily.
- A new tool is available to help determine if a given IP is an open proxy/VPN/webhost/compromised host.
- The Arbitration Committee announced WP:SPI).
- paid-en-wpwikipedia.org has been set up to receive private evidence related to abusive paid editing.
- checkuser-en-wpwikipedia.org has been set up to receive private requests for CheckUser. For instance, requests for IP block exemption for anonymous proxy editing should now be sent to this address instead of the functionaries-en list.
- paid-en-wpwikipedia.org has been set up to receive private evidence related to abusive
- The Arbitration Committee announced
- Following the 2019 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Base, Einsbor, Jon Kolbert, Schniggendiller, and Wim b.
Administrators' newsletter – April 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2019).
Interface administrator changes
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- In Special:Preferences under "Appearance" → "Advanced options", there is now an option to show a confirmation prompt when clicking on a rollback link.
- 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. Please see meta:Community health initiative/User reporting system consultation 2019 to provide your input on this idea.
- The Arbitration Committee ARBPIA 1RR editnotice}} edit notice.
- The Arbitration Committee
- Two more administrator accounts were compromised. Evidence has shown that these attacks, like previous incidents, were due to reusing a 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. All admins are strongly encouraged to enable two-factor authentication, please consider doing so. Please always practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secureand unique to Wikimedia.
- As a reminder, according to proposed deletion(PROD) prior to determining whether it should be relisted.
- Two more administrator accounts were compromised. Evidence has shown that these attacks, like previous incidents, were due to reusing a 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. All admins are strongly encouraged to enable
ArbCom 2019 special circular
Administrators must secure their accounts
The Arbitration Committee may require a new RfA if your account is compromised.
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This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:39, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)
ArbCom would like to apologise and correct our previous mass message in light of the response from the community.
Since November 2018, six administrator accounts have been compromised and temporarily desysopped. In an effort to help improve account security, our intention was to remind administrators of existing policies on account security — that they are
We are sorry for the wording of our previous message, which did not accurately convey this, and deeply regret the tone in which it was delivered.
For the Arbitration Committee, -Cameron11598 21:04, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – May 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2019).
- A request for comment concluded that creating pages in the portal namespace should be restricted to autoconfirmed users.
- Following a WP:GNG.
- 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.
- In response to the continuing compromise of administrator accounts, the Arbitration Committee 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 sowill not be resysopped automatically
. All current administrators have been notified of this change. - Following a 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.
- In response to the continuing compromise of administrator accounts, the Arbitration Committee
- A request for comment is currently open to amend the community sanctions procedure to exclude non XfD or CSD deletions.
- A proposal to remove pre-2009 indefinite IP blocks is currently open for discussion.
Administrators' newsletter – June 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2019).
- Andonic • Consumed Crustacean • Enigmaman • Euryalus • EWS23 • HereToHelp • Nv8200pa • Peripitus • StringTheory11 • Vejvančický
- An WP:OUTINGshould 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.
- An
- 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.
- The CSD feature of
- The previously discussed unblocking of IP addresses indefinitely-blocked before 2009 was approved and has taken place.
- The 2019 talk pages consultation produced a report for Phase 1 and has entered Phase 2.
Administrators' newsletter – July 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2019).
- 28bytes • Ad Orientem • Ansh666 • Beeblebrox • Boing! said Zebedee • BU Rob13 • Dennis Brown • Deor • DoRD • Floquenbeam1 • Flyguy649 • Fram2 • Gadfium • GB fan • Jonathunder • Kusma • Lectonar • Moink • MSGJ • Nick • Od Mishehu • Rama • Spartaz • Syrthiss • TheDJ • WJBscribe
- 1Floquenbeam's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.
- 2Fram's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.
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- A request for comment seeking to alleviate pressures on the request an account (ACC) process proposes either raising the account creation limit for extended confirmed editors or granting the account creator permission on request to new ACC tool users.
- In a related matter, the account throttle has been restored to six creations per day as the mitigation activity completed.
- The scope of CSD criterion G8 has been tightenedsuch that the only redirects that it now applies to are those which target non-existent pages.
- The scope of CSD criterion G14 has been expanded slightlyto include orphan "Foo (disambiguation)" redirects that target pages that are not disambiguation pages or pages that perform a disambiguation-like function (such as set index articles or lists).
- A request for comment seeks to determine whether Wikipedia:Office actions should be a policy page or an information page.
- 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.
- In February 2019, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) significant community discussion, a request for arbitration (permalink), and, either directly or indirectly, the resignations of numerous administrators and functionaries. The WMF Board of Trustees is aware of the situation, and discussions continue on a statement and a way forward. The Arbitration Committee has sent an open letter to the WMF Board.
- In February 2019, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF)
Administrators' newsletter – August 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2019).
Interface administrator changes
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- Following a request for comment, the page Wikipedia:Office actions has been changed from a policy page to an information page.
- A administrator inactivity policy.
- Editors alertthem.
- Editors
- 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 removal for inactivityat a later stage and enables a review of their work before according the right on a permanent basis.
Administrators' newsletter – September 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2019).
- Bradv • Chetsford • Izno
- Floquenbeam • Lectonar
- DESiegel • Jake Wartenberg • Rjanag • Topbanana
- Callanecc • Fox • HJ Mitchell • LFaraone • There'sNoTime
- 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.
- A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2019 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
- A global request for comment is in progress regarding whether a user group should be created that could modify edit filters across all public Wikimedia wikis.
Administrators' newsletter – October 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2019).
Interface administrator changes
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- Following 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
.
- Following
- 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.
- The 2019 CheckUser and Oversight appointment processhas begun. The community consultation period will take place October 4th to 10th.
- The incident. It will be open until October 30th.
- The
- The Community Tech team has been working on a system for temporarily watching pages, and welcomes feedback.
Administrators' newsletter – November 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2019).
Interface administrator changes
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- An resysop criteriashould be made stricter.
- The follow-up RfC to develop that change is now open at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2019 Resysop Criteria (2).
- A related RfC is seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure.
- An
- Eligible editors may now nominate themselves as candidates for the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections. The self-nomination period will close November 12, with voting running from November 19 through December 2.
ArbCom 2019 election voter message
Administrators' newsletter – December 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2019).
- EvergreenFir • ToBeFree
- Akhilleus • Athaenara • John Vandenberg • Melchoir • MichaelQSchmidt • NeilN • Youngamerican • 😂
Interface administrator changes
- An request for adminship is not required has been reduced from three years to two. Additionally, Bureaucratsare permitted to use their discretion when returning administrator rights.
- Following edit filter mailing listhas been opened up to users with the Edit Filter Helper right.
- An
- Wikimedia projects can set a default block length for users via MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry. A new page, MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry-ip, allows the setting of a different default block length for IP editors. Neither is currently used. (T219126)
- Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 2 December 2018 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.
- Voting in the
- The global consultation on partial and temporary office actions that ended in October received a closing statement from staff concluding, among other things, that the WMF
will no longer use partial or temporary Office Action bans... until and unless community consensus that they are of value or Board directive
.
- The global consultation on partial and temporary office actions that ended in October received a closing statement from staff concluding, among other things, that the WMF
Administrators' newsletter – January 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2019).
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- A request for comment asks whether partial blocks should be enabled on the English Wikipedia. If enabled, this functionality would allow administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces, rather than the entire site.
- A proposal asks whether admins who don't use their tools for a significant period of time (e.g. five years) should have the toolset procedurally removed.
- Following a Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist.
- The fourth case on Palestine-Israel articles was closed. The case consolidated all previous remedies under one heading, which should make them easier to understand, apply, and enforce. In particular, the distinction between "primary articles" and "related content" has been clarified, with the former being
the entire set of articles whose topic relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted
rather thanreasonably construed
. - Following the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Bradv, Casliber, David Fuchs, DGG, KrakatoaKatie, Maxim, Newyorkbrad, SoWhy, Worm That Turned, Xeno.
- The fourth case on Palestine-Israel articles was closed. The case consolidated all previous remedies under one heading, which should make them easier to understand, apply, and enforce. In particular, the distinction between "primary articles" and "related content" has been clarified, with the former being
- This issue marks three full years of the Admin newsletter. Thanks for reading!
- This issue marks three full years of the
Administrators' newsletter – February 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2020).
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Interface administrator changes
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- 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.
- 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. [4]
- 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.
- Following a recent arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee reminded administrators
- Voting in the 2020 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2020, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2020, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
- The English Wikipedia has reached six million articles. Thank you everyone for your contributions!
Administrators' newsletter – March 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2020).
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- Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops
must not
undo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather thanshould not
. - A request for comment confirmed that sandboxes of established but inactive editors may not be blanked due solely to inactivity.
- Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops
- Following a Twinkle preferences.
- Following a
- Following the 2020 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: BRPever, Krd, Martin Urbanec, MusikAnimal, Sakretsu, Sotiale, and Tks4Fish. There are a total of seven editors that have been appointed as stewards, the most since 2014.
- The 2020 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Ajraddatz and Uzoma Ozurumba; they will serve for one year.
Administrators' newsletter – April 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2020).
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- There is an ongoingrequest for comment to streamline the source deprecation and blacklisting process.
- There is an
- There is a plan for new requirements for user signatures. You can give feedback.
- Following the Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC (Draft)and not open to comments from the community yet. Interested editors can comment on the RfC itself on its talk page.
- Following the
- The WMF has begun a pilot report of the pages most visited through various social media platforms to help with anti-vandalism and anti-disinformation efforts. The report is updated daily and will be available through the end of May.
Administrators' newsletter – May 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2020).
- WP:GS/COVID19.
- Following a recent discussion on Meta-Wiki, the edit filter maintainer global group has been created.
- A request for comment has been proposed to create a new main page editor usergroup.
- A request for comment has been proposed to make the bureaucrat activity requirements more strict.
- The Editing team has been working on the talk pages project. You can review the proposed design and share your thoughts on the talk page.
- Enterprisey created a script that will show a link to the proper Special:Undelete page when viewing a since-deleted revision, see User:Enterprisey/link-deleted-revs.
- A request for comment closed with consensus to create a Village Pump-style page for communication with the Wikimedia Foundation.
Administrators' newsletter – June 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2020).
- CaptainEek • Creffett • Cwmhiraeth
- Anna Frodesiak • Buckshot06 • Ronhjones • SQL
- A Unblock Ticket Request System (UTRS)should allowed any unblock request or just private appeals.
- The Wikimedia Foundation announced that they will develop a universal code of conduct for all WMF projects. There is an open local discussion regarding the same.
- A
- A 500/30restriction on
articles related to the history of Jews and antisemitism in Poland during World War II (1933–45), including the Holocaust in Poland
. Article talk pages where disruption occurs may also be managed with the stated restriction.
- A
Administrators' newsletter – July 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2020).
- A speedy deletion criterion.
- A
- Protection templates on mainspace pages are now automatically added by User:MusikBot II (BRFA).
- Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold anand is open to comments from the community.
RfC regarding on-wiki harassment
. The RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC - The Medicine case was closed, with a remedy authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for
all discussions about pharmaceutical drug prices and pricing and for edits adding, changing, or removing pharmaceutical drug prices or pricing from articles
.
- Following the
Administrators' newsletter – August 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2020).
- There is an open request for comment to decide whether to increase the minimum duration a sanction discussion has to remain open (currently 24 hours).
- T2 (template that misrepresents established policy) has been repealed following a request for comment.
- Speedy deletion criterion X2 (pages created by the content translation tool) has been repealed following a discussion.
- There is a proposal to restrict proposed deletion to confirmed users.
Administrators' newsletter – September 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2020).
- Following a site bandiscussions was increased to 72 hours, up from 24.
- A process.
- A alternative to deletionprocesses.
- Following a
- A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2020 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
- An open request for comment asks whether active Arbitrators may serve on the Trust and Safety Case Review Committee or Ombudsman commission.
Administrators' newsletter – September 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2020).
- Ajpolino • LuK3
- Jackmcbarn
- Ad Orientem • Harej • Lid • Lomn • Mentoz86 • Oliver Pereira • XJaM
- There'sNoTime → TheresNoTime
- A draftificationis appropriate, namely
1) if the result of a deletion discussion is to draftify; or 2) if the article is newly created
.
- A
- The filter log now provides links to view diffs of deleted revisions (phab:T261630).
- The 2020 CheckUser and Oversight appointment processhas begun. The community consultation period will take place from September 27th to October 7th.
- Following a request for comment, sitting Committee members may not serve on either the Ombuds Commission or the WMF Case Review Committee. The Arbitration Committee passed a motion implementing those results into their procedures.
- The
- The Universal Code of Conduct draft is open for community review and comment until October 6th, 2020.
- Office actions may now be appealed to the Interim Trust & Safety Case Review Committee.
Administrators' newsletter – November 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2020).
Interface administrator changes
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- WP:GS/PAGEANT.
- Sysops will interface administratorswhen that group was introduced.
- discretionary sanctionsblock and/or template.
- Sysops will be able to use Special:CreateLocalAccount to create a local account for a global user that is prevented from auto-creation locally (such as by a filter or range block). Administrators that are not sure if such a creation is appropriate should contact a checkuser.
- Sysops will
- The 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections process has begun. Eligible editors will be able to nominate themselves as candidates from November 8 through November 17. The voting period will run from November 23 through December 6.
- The Anti-harassment RfC has concluded with a summary of the feedback provided.
- A reminder that American Politics 2 Arbitration case).
- A reminder that
Administrators' newsletter – December 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2020).
- Andrwsc • Anetode • GoldenRing • JzG • LinguistAtLarge • Nehrams2020
Interface administrator changes
- There is a speedy deletion criterionor eliminate its seven-day waiting period.
- There is a
- Voting for proposals in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey, which determines what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year, will take place from 8 December through 21 December. In particular, there are sections regarding administrators and anti-harassment.
- Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 7 December 2020 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.
- Voting in the
Precious anniversary
Seven years! |
---|
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:00, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – January 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2020).
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- T3 (duplication and hardcoded instances) has been repealed following a request for comment.
- You can now put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time.
- By motion, standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarily authorized
for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes)
. The effectiveness of the discretionary sanctions can be evaluated on the request by any editor after March 1, 2021 (or sooner if for a good reason). - Following the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, BDD, Bradv, CaptainEek, L235, Maxim, Primefac.
- By motion, standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarily authorized
Administrators' newsletter – February 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2021).
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- The standard discretionary sanctions authorized for American Politics were amended by motionto cover
post-1992 politics of United States and closely related people
, replacing the 1932 cutoff.
- The
- Voting in the 2021 Steward elections will begin on 05 February 2021, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2021, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
- Wikipedia has now been around for 20 years, and recently saw its billionth edit!
Administrators' newsletter – March 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2021).
Interface administrator changes
- A request for comment is open that proposes a process for the community to revoke administrative permissions. This follows a 2019 RfC in favor of creating one such a policy.
- A subcriterion a, which covers immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
- A request for comment seeks to grant page movers the
delete-redirect
userright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target. The full proposal is at Wikipedia:Page mover/delete-redirect. - A request for commentasks if sysops may
place the General sanctions/Coronavirus disease 2019 editnotice template on pages in scope that do not have page-specific sanctions
? - There is a protection.
- When blocking an IPv6 address with just block the /64range. When doing so, you can still leave a block template on the initial, single IP address' talkpage.
- When protecting a page with Twinkle, you can now add a note if doing so was in response to a request at WP:RfPP, and even link to the specific revision.
- There have been Pending Changes. Most problems setting protection appear to have been resolved (phab:T273317) but other issues with autoaccepting edits persist (phab:T275322).
- When blocking an IPv6 address with
- By motion, the discretionary sanctions originally authorized under the GamerGate case are now authorized under a new Gender and sexuality case, with sanctions
authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, any gender-related dispute or controversy and associated people.
Sanctions issued under GamerGate are now considered Gender and sexuality sanctions. - The Kurds and Kurdistan case was closed, authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for
the topics of Kurds and Kurdistan, broadly construed
.
- By motion, the discretionary sanctions originally authorized under the GamerGate case are now authorized under a new Gender and sexuality case, with sanctions
- Following the 2021 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AmandaNP, Operator873, Stanglavine, Teles, and Wiki13.
Administrators' newsletter – April 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2021).
- Alexandria • Happyme22 • RexxS
- Following a subcriterion ahas been deprecated; it covered immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
- Following a request for comment, page movers were granted the
delete-redirect
userright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target.
- Following a
- When you move a page that many editors have on their watchlist the history can be split and it might also not be possible to move it again for a while. This is because of a job queue problem. (T278350)
- Code to support some very old web browsers is being removed. This could cause issues in those browsers. (T277803)
- A discretionary sanctions procedureis open until April 25.
- A
Cool
Great to see your name back in the mix. Hope you stick around, I always appreciated your views on various threads. — Ched (talk) 03:03, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
- Hi Ched! I don't have a lot of free time these days but I'll pop in. --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 16:53, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – May 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2021).
Interface administrator changes
- Following an RfC, consensus was found that third party appeals are allowed but discouraged.
- Consensus was found in a previous RfCfor a community based desysop procedure, though the procedure proposed in the 2021 RfC did not gain consensus.
- The user group
oversight
will be renamed tosuppress
. This is for technical reasons. You can comment at T112147 if you have objections.
- The user group
- The discretionary sanctions procedurewas closed, and an initial draft based on feedback from the now closed consultation is expected to be released in early June to early July for community review.
- The
Request for peer review help
Hi SB Johnny. I hope you are doing well and staying safe during these times! Apologize to bother and posting a random request. I have just started to work on a stub (Fontainea Venosa)and had added some sections. Knowing your expertise, I would love if you can help me to review and left a comment on what I can do to improve my edits. Would you be able to help me to provide feedback and help me out to add a geographical distribution image in the infobox as it seems to be your expertise? But no pressure if you are busy. That is completely fine and understandable :) Hope to hear from you soon. The article is Fontainea Venosa
Thank you so much :) Sparklingkull (talk) 01:05, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – June 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2021).
- Ashleyyoursmile • Less Unless
- Husond • MattWade • MJCdetroit • Carioca • Vague Rant • Kingboyk • Thunderboltz • Gwen Gale • AniMate • SlimVirgin (deceased)
- Consensus was reached to deprecate Wikipedia:Editor assistance.
- Following a Request for Comment the Book namespace was deprecated.
- Wikimedia previously used the IRC network Freenode. However, due to changes over who controlled the network with reports of a forceful takeover by several ex-staff members, the Wikimedia IRC Group Contacts decided to move to the new Libera Chat network. It has been reported that Wikimedia related channels on Freenode have been forcibly taken over if they pointed members to Libera. There is a migration guide and Wikimedia discussions about this.
- After a Reliable Sources Noticeboardto discuss disputed sources.
- After a
Administrators' newsletter – July 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2021).
Interface administrator changes
|
|
- WP:REFUNDeven after the namespace is removed.
- An TFAs.
- IP addresses of unregistered users are to be hidden from everyone. There is a rough draft of how IP addresses may be shown to users who need to see them. This currently details allowing administrators, checkusers, stewards and those with a new usergroup to view the full IP address of unregistered users. Editors with at least 500 edits and an account over a year old will be able to see all but the end of the IP address in the proposal. The ability to see the IP addresses hidden behind the mask would be dependent on agreeing to not share the parts of the IP address they can see with those who do not have access to the same information. Accessing part of or the full IP address of a masked editor would also be logged. Comments on the draft are being welcomed at the talk page.
- The community authorised COVID-19 discretionary sanctions following a motionat a case request. Alerts given and sanctions placed under the community authorised general sanctions are now considered alerts for and sanctions under the new discretionary sanctions.
- The community authorised
Administrators' newsletter – July 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2021).
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- An G13speedy deletions.
- An
- Last week all wikis were very slow or not accessible for 30 minutes. This was due to server lag caused by regenerating dynamic lists on the Russian Wikinews after a large bulk import. (T287380)
- Following an requested move discussions.
- Following an
- You can vote for candidates in the 2021 Board of Trustees elections from 4 August to 17 August. Four community elected seats are up for election.
Administrators' newsletter – September 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2021).
- Feedback is requested on the Universal Code of Conduct enforcement draft by the Universal Code of Conduct Phase 2 drafting committee.
- A high-risk templates.
- A discussion is open to decide when, if ever, should discord logs be eligible for removal when posted onwiki (including whether to oversight them)
- A TFAshas resulted in a 30 day trial of automatic semi protection for TFAs.
- The Score extension has been re-enabled on public wikis. It has been updated, but has been placed in safe mode to address unresolved security issues. Further information on the security issues can be found on the mediawiki page.
- A request for comment is in progress to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules. Comments and new proposals are welcome.
- The 2021 RfA review is now open for comments.
Administrators' newsletter – October 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2021).
- Following high-risk templates.
- Following a discussion at the Village Pump, there is consensus to treat discord logs the same as IRC logs. This means that discord logs will be oversighted if posted onwiki.
- Following
- DiscussionTools has superseded Enterprisey's reply-link script. Editors may switch using the "Discussion tools" checkbox under Preferences → Beta features.
- A motion has standardised the 500/30 (extended confirmed) restrictions placed by the Arbitration Committee. The standardised restriction is now listed in the Arbitration Committee's procedures.
- Following the closure of the are authorizedfor all edits about, and all pages related to, post-1978 Iranian politics, broadly construed.
- The Arbitration Committee encourages uninvolved administrators to use the discretionary sanctions procedure in topic areas where it is authorised to facilitate consensus in RfCs. This includes, but is not limited to, enforcing sectioned comments, word/diff limits and moratoriums on a particular topic from being brought in an RfC for up to a year.
- Editors have approved expanding the trial of Growth Features from 2% of new accounts to 25%, and the share of newcomers getting mentorship from 2% to 5%. Experienced editors are invited to add themselves to the mentor list.
- The community consultation phase of the 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process is open for editors to provide comments and ask questions to candidates.
Nomination for deletion of Template:Twwp-c
Template:Twwp-c has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Here's 28 and did I make a mess? 04:50, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:Twwp
Template:Twwp has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Here's 28 and did I make a mess? 04:50, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – November 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2021).
- Phase 2 of the 2021 RfA review has commenced which will discuss potential solutions to address the 8 issues found in Phase 1. Proposed solutions that achieve consensus will be implemented and you may propose solutions till 07 November 2021.
- Toolhub is a catalogue of tools which can be used on Wikimedia wikis. It is at https://toolhub.wikimedia.org/.
- GeneralNotability, Mz7 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections. Ivanvector and John M Wolfson are reserve commissioners.
- Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves to stand in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections from 07 November 2021 until 16 November 2021.
- The 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments processhas concluded with the appointment of five new CheckUsers and two new Oversighters.
- The
ArbCom 2021 Elections voter message
Administrators' newsletter – December 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2021).
- Unregistered editors using the mobile website are now able to receive notices to indicate they have talk page messages. The notice looks similar to what is already present on desktop, and will be displayed on when viewing any page except mainspace and when editing any page. (T284642)
- The limit on the number of emails a user can send per day has been made global instead of per-wiki to help prevent abuse. (T293866)
- Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections is open until 23:59, 06 December 2021 (UTC).
- The already authorized standard discretionary sanctions for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes), broadly construed, have been made permanent.
Administrators will no longer be autopatrolled
A
Nomination for deletion of Template:No Copy to Wikibooks
Template:No Copy to Wikibooks has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. * Pppery * it has begun... 04:28, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
Precious anniversary
Eight years! |
---|
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:02, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – January 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2021).
Interface administrator changes
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|
- Following consensus at the 2021 RfA review, the autopatrolled user right has been removedfrom the administrators user group; admins can grant themselves the autopatrolled permission if they wish to remain autopatrolled.
- Additionally, consensus for advanced permissions.
- Following the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Cabayi, Donald Albury, Enterprisey, Izno, Opabinia regalis, Worm That Turned, Wugapodes.
- The functionaries email list (functionaries-enlists.wikimedia.org) will no longer accept incoming emails apart from those sent by list members and WMF staff. Private concerns, apart from those requiring oversight, should be directly sent to the Arbitration Committee.
How we will see unregistered users
Hi!
You get this message because you are an admin on a Wikimedia wiki.
When someone edits a Wikimedia wiki without being logged in today, we show their IP address. As you may already know, we will not be able to do this in the future. This is a decision by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department, because norms and regulations for privacy online have changed.
Instead of the IP we will show a masked identity. You as an admin will still be able to access the IP. There will also be a new user right for those who need to see the full IPs of unregistered users to fight vandalism, harassment and spam without being admins. Patrollers will also see part of the IP even without this user right. We are also working on better tools to help.
If you have not seen it before, you can read more on Meta. If you want to make sure you don’t miss technical changes on the Wikimedia wikis, you can subscribe to the weekly technical newsletter.
We have two suggested ways this identity could work. We would appreciate your feedback on which way you think would work best for you and your wiki, now and in the future. You can let us know on the talk page. You can write in your language. The suggestions were posted in October and we will decide after 17 January.
Thank you. /Johan (WMF)
18:13, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – February 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2022).
- The Universal Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines have been published for consideration. Voting to ratify this guideline is planned to take place 7 March to 21 March. Comments can be made on the talk page.
- The user group
oversight
will be renamedsuppress
in around 3 weeks. This will not affect the name shown to users and is simply a change in the technical name of the user group. The change is being made for technical reasons. You can comment in Phabricator if you have objections. - The Reply Tool feature, which is a part of Discussion Tools, will be opt-out for everyone logged in or logged out starting 7 February 2022. Editors wishing to comment on this can do so in the relevant Village Pump discussion.
- The user group
- discretionary sanctionsthat are no longer needed or overly broad.
- The Arbitration Committee has published a generalised comment regarding successful appeals of sanctions that it can review (such as checkuser blocks).
- A motion related to the Antisemitism in Poland case was passed following a declined case request.
- Voting in the 2022 Steward elections will begin on 07 February 2022, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2022, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
- Voting in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey is open until 11 February 2022.
Administrators' newsletter – March 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2022).
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- A RfC is open to change the wording of revision deletion criterion 1 to remove the sentence relating to non-infringing contributions.
- A RfC is open to discuss prohibiting draftification of articles over 90 days old.
- The deployment of the reply tool as an opt-out feature, as announced in last month's newsletter, has been delayed to 7 March. Feedback and comments are being welcomed at Wikipedia talk:Talk pages project. (T296645)
- Special:Nuke will now allow the selection of standard deletion reasons to be used when mass-deleting pages. This was a Community Wishlist Survey request from 2022. (T25020)
- The ability to undelete the talk page when undeleting a page using Special:Undelete or the API will be added soon. This change was requested in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey. (T295389)
- 2021 Discretionary Sanctions review.
- The 2022 appointees for the Ombuds commission are Érico, Faendalimas, Galahad, Infinite0694, Mykola7, Olugold, Udehb and Zabe as regular members and Ameisenigel and JJMC89 as advisory members.
- Following the 2022 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AntiCompositeNumber, BRPever, Hasley, TheresNoTime, and Vermont.
- The 2022 Community Wishlist Survey results have been published alongside the ranking of prioritized proposals.
Administrators' newsletter – April 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2022).
- An RfC is open proposing a change to the minimum activity requirements for administrators.
- Access to Special:RevisionDelete has been expanded to include users who have the
deletelogentry
anddeletedhistory
rights. This means that those in the Researcher user group and Checkusers who are not administrators can now access Special:RevisionDelete. The users able to view the special page after this change are the 3 users in the Researcher group, as there are currently no checkusers who are not already administrators. (T301928) - When viewing deleted revisions or diffs on Special:Undelete a back link to the undelete page for the associated page is now present. (T284114)
- Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures § Opening of proceedings has been updated to reflect current practice following a motion.
- A arbitration case regarding Skepticism and coordinated editing has been closed.
- A arbitration case regarding WikiProject Tropical Cyclones has been opened.
- Voting for the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines has closed, and the results were that 56.98% of voters supported the guidelines. The results of this vote mean the Wikimedia Foundation Board will now review the guidelines.
New administrator activity requirement
The administrator policy has been updated with new activity requirements following a successful Request for Comment.
Beginning January 1, 2023, administrators who meet one or both of the following criteria may be desysopped for inactivity if they have:
- Made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least a 12-month period OR
- Made fewer than 100 edits over a 60-month period
Administrators at risk for being desysopped under these criteria will continue to be notified ahead of time. Thank you for your continued work.
22:53, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – May 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2022).
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|
- Following an RfC, a change has been made to the administrators inactivity policy. Under the new policy, if an administrator has not made at least 100 edits over a period of 5 years they may be desysopped for inactivity.
- Following a bureaucrat's noticeboard, a change has been made to the bureaucrats inactivity policy.
- The ability to undelete the associated talk page when undeleting a page has been added. This was the 11th wish of the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey.
- A public status system for WMF wikis has been created. It is located at https://www.wikimediastatus.net/ and is hosted separately to WMF wikis so in the case of an outage it will remain viewable.
- Remedy 2 of the St Christopher case has been rescinded following a motion. The remedy previously authorised administrators to place a ban on single-purpose accounts who were disruptively editing on the article St Christopher Iba Mar Diop College of Medicine or related pages from those pages.
Administrators' newsletter – June 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2022).
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- Several areas of improvement collated from community member votes have been identified in the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines. The areas of improvement have been sent back for review and you are invited to provide input on these areas.
- Administrators using the mobile web interface can now access Special:Block directly from user pages. (T307341)
- The IP Info feature has been deployed to all wikis as a Beta Feature. Any autoconfirmed user may enable the feature using the "IP info" checkbox under Preferences → Beta features. Autoconfirmed users will be able to access basic information about an IP address that includes the country and connection method. Those with advanced privileges (admin, bureaucrat, checkuser) will have access to extra information that includes the Internet Service Provider and more specific location.
- Remedy 2 of the Rachel Marsden case has been rescinded following a motion. The remedy previously authorised administrators to delete or reduce to a stub, together with their talk pages, articles related to Rachel Marsden when they violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy.
- An arbitration case regarding WikiProject Tropical Cyclones has been closed.
Administrators' newsletter – July 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2022).
|
Interface administrator changes
|
user_global_editcount
is a new variable that can be used in abuse filters to avoid affecting globally active users. (T130439)
- An arbitration case regarding conduct in deletion-related editing has been opened.
- The New Pages Patrol queue has around 10,000 articles to be reviewed. As all administrators have the patrol right, please consider helping out. The queue is here. For further information on the state of the project, see the latest NPP newsletter.
Administrators' newsletter – August 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2022).
- An RfC has been closed with consensus to add javascript that will show edit notices for editors editing via a mobile device. This only works for users using a mobile browser, so iOS app editors will still not be able to see edit notices.
- An RfC has been closed with the consensus that train stations are not inherently notable.
- The Wikimania 2022 Hackathon will take place virtually from 11 August to 14 August.
- Administrators will now see links on user pages for "Change block" and "Unblock user" instead of just "Block user" if the user is already blocked. (T308570)
- The arbitration case request Geschichte has been automatically closed after a 3 month suspension of the case.
- You can vote for candidates in the 2022 Board of Trustees elections from 16 August to 30 August. Two community elected seats are up for election.
- Wikimania 2022 is taking place virtually from 11 August to 14 August. The schedule for wikimania is listed here. There are also a number of in-person events associated with Wikimania around the world.
- Tech tip: When revision-deleting on desktop, hold ⇧ Shift between clicking two checkboxes to select every box in that range.
Pending suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity
Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions will be removed if you do not return to activity within the next month.
Inactive administrators are encouraged to rejoin the project in earnest rather than to make token edits to avoid loss of administrative permissions. Resources and support for reengaging with the project are available at
Thank you for your past contributions to the project. — JJMC89 bot 00:04, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – September 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2022).
- A discussion is open to define a process by which Vector 2022 can be made the default for all users.
- reliablefor science and politics.
- The impact report on the effects of disabling IP editing on the Persian (Farsi) Wikipedia has been released.
- The WMF is looking into making a Private Incident Reporting System (PIRS) system to improve the reporting of harmful incidents through easier and safer reporting. You can leave comments on the talk page by answering the questions provided. Users who have faced harmful situations are also invited to join a PIRS interview to share the experience. To sign up please email Madalina Ana.
- An arbitration case regarding Conduct in deletion-related editing has been closed. The Arbitration Committee passed a remedy as part of the final decision to create a request for comment (RfC) on how to handle mass nominations at Articles for Deletion (AfD).
- The arbitration case request Jonathunder has been automatically closed after a 6 month suspension of the case.
- The new pages patrol (NPP) team has prepared an appeal to the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) for assistance with addressing Page Curation bugs and requested features. You are encouraged to read the open letter before it is sent, and if you support it, consider signing it. It is not a discussion, just a signature will suffice.
- Voting for candidates for the Wikimedia Board of Trustees is open until 6 September.
Imminent suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity
Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions will be removed if you do not return to activity within the next several days.
Inactive administrators are encouraged to rejoin the project in earnest rather than to make token edits to avoid loss of administrative permissions. Resources and support for reengaging with the project are available at
Thank you for your past contributions to the project. — JJMC89 bot 00:01, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
Suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity
Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions have been removed.
Subject to certain time limits and other restrictions, your administrative permissions may be returned upon request at
Thank you for your past contributions to the project. — xaosflux Talk 00:06, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – October 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2022).
- oversighter for action (as applicable, per ArbCom's recent updated guidance) instead of the administrator making the block.
- FoxNews.comis unclear and that additional considerations apply to its use.
- Community comment on the revised Universal Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines is requested until 8 October.
- The WP:AFCP to help out. If you wish to help out at AFC, enable AFCH by navigating to Preferences → Gadgetsand checking the "Yet Another AfC Helper Script" box.
- Remedy 8.1 of the Muhammad images case will be rescinded 1 November following a motion.
- A modification to the deletion RfC remedy in the Conduct in deletion-related editing case has been made to reaffirm the independence of the RfC and allow the moderators to split the RfC in two.
- The 2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Reviewcloses 3 October.
- An administrator's account was recently compromised. Administrators are encouraged to check that their reserves the right to not restore adminship in cases of poor account security. You can also use two-factor authentication(2FA) to provide an extra level of security.
- Self-nominations for the electoral commission for the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections open 2 October and close 8 October.
- You are invited to comment on candidates in the 2022 CUOS appointments process.
- An RfC is open to discuss whether to make Vector 2022 the default skin on desktop.
- Tech tip: You can do a fuzzy search of all deleted page titles at Special:Undelete.
Administrators' newsletter – November 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2022).
- The article creation at scale RfC opened on 3 October and will be open until at least 2 November.
- An bureaucrat.
- Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 13 November 2022 until 22 November 2022 to stand in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections.
- The arbitration case request titled Athaenara has been resolved by motion.
- The arbitration case Reversal and reinstatement of Athaenara's blockhas entered the proposed decision stage.
- AmandaNP, Mz7 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2022 Arbitration Committee Elections. Xaosflux and Dr vulpes are reserve commissioners.
- The 2022 CheckUser and Oversight appointments processhas concluded with the appointment of two new CheckUsers.
- You can add yourself to the centralised page listing time zones of administrators.
- Tech tip: Wikimarkup in a block summary is parsed in the notice that the blockee sees. You can use templates with custom options to specify situations like
{{rangeblock|create=yes}}
or{{uw-ublock|contains profanity}}
.
Administrators' newsletter – December 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2022).
- Consensus has been found in an RfC to automatically place RfAs on hold after one week.
- The article creation at scale RfC has been closed.
- An RfC on the banners for the December 2022 fundraising campaign has been closed.
- A new preference named "Enable limited width mode" has been added to the Vector 2022 skin. The preference is also shown as a toggle on every page if your monitor is 1600 pixels or wider. When disabled it removes the whitespace added by Vector 2022 on the left and right of the page content. Disabling this preference has the same effect as enabling the wide-vector-2022 gadget. (T319449)
- Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 12, 2022 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.
- 2021-22 review of the discretionary sanctions systemis open.
- The arbitration case Reversal and reinstatement of Athaenara's block has been closed.
- The arbitration case Stephen has been opened and the proposed decision is expected 1 December 2022.
- A Level 2 desysop.
- Tech tip: A single IPv6 connection usually has access to a "subnet" of 18 quintillion IPs. Add
/64
to the end of an IP inconsider blocking the whole subnetrather than an IP that may change within a minute.
Administrators' newsletter – January 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2022).
- A5 (transwikied articles) has been repealed following an unopposed proposal.
- Following the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, CaptainEek, GeneralNotability, Guerillero, L235, Moneytrees, Primefac, SilkTork.
- The discretionary sanctionsprocedure including a change of the name to "contentious topics". The changes are being implemented over the coming month.
- The arbitration case Stephen has been closed.
- Voting for the Sound Logo has closed and the winner is expected to be announced February to April 2023.
- Tech tip: You can view information about IP addresses in a centralised location using bullseye which won the Newcomer award in the recent Coolest Tool Awards.
Administrators' newsletter – February 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2023).
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- Following Arbitration Committeeto mark a block as only appealable to the committee.
- Following extended-confirmed restriction over the topic areas of Armenia and Azerbaijan and Kurds and Kurdistan.
- The Vector 2022 skin has become the default for desktop users of the English Wikipedia.
- The arbitration case Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 has been opened and the proposed decision is expected 24 February 2023.
- In December, the their noticeboard.
- Voting in the 2023 Steward elections will begin on 05 February 2023, 21:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2023, 21:00 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
- Voting in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey will begin on 10 February 2023 and end on 24 February 2023. You can submit, discuss and revise proposals until 6 February 2023.
- Tech tip: Syntax highlighting is available in both the 2011 and 2017 Wikitext editors. It can help make editing paragraphs with many references or complicated templates easier.
Administrators' newsletter – March 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2023).
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|
- Following a F10(useless non-media files) has been deprecated.
- Following a P2(underpopulated portal)) have been deprecated.
- A requested movesprocess a guideline.
- The results of the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey have been posted.
- Remedy 11 ("Request for Comment") of the Conduct in deletion-related editing case has been rescinded.
- The proposed decision for the Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 case is expected 7 March 2023.
- A case related to the Holocaust in Poland is expected to be opened soon.
- The 2023 appointees for the Ombuds commission are AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, JJMC89, MdsShakil, Minorax and Renvoy as regular members and Zabe as advisory members.
- Following the 2023 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Mykola7, Superpes15, and Xaosflux.
- The Terms of Use update cycle has started, which includes a
[p]roposal for better addressing undisclosed paid editing
. Feedback is being accepted until 24 April 2023.
Administrators' newsletter – April 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2023).
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- A Arbitration enforcement noticeboard.
- Some older web browsers will not be able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis starting this week. This mainly affects users of Internet Explorer 11. (T178356)
- The rollback of Vector 2022 RfC has found no consensus to rollback to Vector legacy, but has found rough consensus to disable "limited width" mode by default.
- A link to the user's Special:CentralAuth page will now appear in the subtitle links shown on Special:Contributions. This was voted #17 in the Community Wishlist Survey 2023.
- The Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 case has been closed.
- A case about World War II and the history of Jews in Poland has been opened, with the first evidence phase closing 6 April 2023.