User talk:Wugapodes/Archive 18

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Okay, that's infinite, but w/re the DYK manual upate. There are multiple steps I'm confused by at Wikipedia:Did_you_know/Admin_instructions#Manually_posting_the_new_update_(if_the_bot_is_down), so maybe one at a time.

1. I've slightly clarified the first part of this one. The second part: If the image/file is on Commons and not protected, upload it to En and tag it with {{

@

WP:UAL and the technical manual at mw:Manual:Configuring file uploads). Using File:1959_Michigan_Wolverines.png as an example, the software will always check to see if File:1959_Michigan_Wolverines.png exists on EnWiki, and if so uses that version. If it doesn't exist locally, it then check to see if commons:File:1959_Michigan_Wolverines.png exists and if so uses the file from that project. So by downloading commons:File:1959_Michigan_Wolverines.png and uploading it here under the same name, you are guaranteeing that the MP will use the local copy instead of the commons version. Hopefully this helps, but if not let me know and I can try to explain more clearly. Personally, I've never had to do this as the commons bot is pretty reliable. — Wug·a·po·des

​ 22:31, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Ah, that's exactly what was confusing me, thank you! Yes, I haven't had to manually protect a file, either. And frankly, it's a good thing that bot is reliable because the only time you can check is when it's in the top two queues (IIRC), which is usually days after I've moved the prep to queue, done all the other checks, and moved on. :) Okay, I made a couple of minor clarifications to #2, 3, 4. #5 doesn't need clarification even for dummies, as anyone who has ever moved a prep to queue will understand that one. So that actually seems like it's what only admins can do and must be done asap after the bot has gone down?

The rest can be done by other people over the next few hours, I think? #6 is a non-admin task. 7 is an admin task but could be handled later. 8 and 9 non-admin, could be handled later. 10, admin, could be handled later. And why is #11 even included as part of these instructions? —valereee (talk) 12:57, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Imo #10 (clearing the promoted queue) should be done asap and ideally by the same admin. If it sits around, people might not realize it's a duplicate until it's too late, especially if we're on two sets a day. The process of clearing the queue is also a useful sanity check in case the admin moved the wrong queue or missed a hook or something. It's not the most important part of the process, but if we're gonna organize them by must do/should do, I would want clearing the queue in the must do camp. Also, for #11 (promote preps) I think it's there to encourage proactive promotion instead of waiting for a backlog to happen. It also serves as a nudge for admins who might be helping out in a pinch but don't usually admin the DYK area. I've got no strong feelings on whether it should stay. But beyond that I think everything you said is correct.

If you do some more substantial refactoring of the instructions, let me know when you're done. I've noticed that the instructions on the preps and queues aren't synced with the main instructions, so I'd like to set up

WP:section transclusion to keep the instructions all in one location. The downside is it makes the wikitext a bit more confusing so I'd rather wait for a stable version to keep the diffs tidy. — Wug·a·po·des

​ 20:26, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Your script successfully saved this edit. The script should not save this edit.--

IN, it's up to you to know what redirect categories should be applied and that incorrect addition being saved isn't the failure of the script. — J947 ‡ ^{message ⁓ edits}

18:56, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for closing the infobox RfC, a well-written, fair and informative close in my view. Unfortunately, the edit warring has moved on from having the infobox to what should be on it. I know you said "What counts as "relevant" should be determined through regular editing." but that does kind of imply if regular editing breaks down, then a talk page discussion is warranted. At the moment, I'm not going to take any action other than just keep an eye on it, and consider protection / blocking if there's more reverting without a corresponding discussion on the talk page. Although is technically reversing your unprotection, my understanding is this is acceptable per the advice given in

I think a bit of heat is normal, and should be just watched. The master of that house loves to communicate via edit summaries, - what can we do? The world will not collapse if we have an extra parameter, or one is missing, for a short while. - Compare Carmen. When the infobox was accepted (I tried for the first TFA run, but was slightly premature), of course there was discussion, in that case mostly about the lead image. But not much, and nothing incivil. See also Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-07-10/Dispatches. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:40, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, it was nice while it lasted I guess...anyway, I semi-protected the page indefinitely because the obvious sock is obvious and blocked the IP for a couple days for good measure. If that doesn't stop things, feel free to do what you need to. I'm too tired at the moment to formulate something better, but my position on how others should treat my admin actions is that anyone can undo them for any reason and if I get miffed about it I'll bring it up on your talk first. The goal is to limit damage to the encyclopedia, not my ego; plus, strict second-mover advantage can be dangerous if not attenuated by NOTBURO. (edit conflict)— Wug·a·po·des​ 09:50, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

17:50, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Hello, Wugapodes. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{

ygm}} template.BrxBrx(talk

)^{(please reply with {{SUBST:re}

Blocked from article space. See User talk:Mr Hall of England — Wug·a·po·des​ 01:26, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, sad but I think necessary. DuncanHill (talk) 18:19, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

for the Barnstar, although not always easy (and somewhat hostile) it was (is) a pleasure.

	The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
	Thank you for all the help, support and guidance you provided here — Amkgp 💬 04:36, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the COI username block template you just used, it needs fixing for redundant sentences - it repeats the example with '"Sara Smith at XYZ Foundation", "Mark at WidgetsUSA", or "FoobarFan87".' and like twice. I am not sure what's the name of the template, so I don't know where to report it. Could you? Or, since you are an admin, y ou can probably edit the protected template, wherever it is, and fix this issue yourself :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:09, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

How did you come to the conclusion that RFC was that consensus was AGAINST an infobox? From my count it’s clearly 4-3 FOR an infobox. Rusted AutoParts 02:28, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

@

the administrators' noticeboard. — Wug·a·po·des

​ 06:18, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf: You are correct that the RfC was only about listing in the lede section, so I don't have anything to add on whether the term should be discussed at all. As it stands in the Controversy section, the term is presented in context with similar names listed in The Verge. Based on the diff, it doesn't seem that Ladislav removed the term entirely from the article. According to Special:Permalink/1011854260#Controversy, the content in the controversy section was still there after LM's edit, so that may well be a viable consensus. Ultimately the decision needs to be made based on a new discussion not the RfC I closed. — Wug·a·po·des​ 06:43, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. Thank you! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 08:30, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

23:20, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Deprecate_linking_to_Wikipedia_books_in_templates_and_articles--Moxy- 14:40, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Dear User:Wugapodes

On February 22nd, you had blocked User:Hullaballoo Wolfowitz for six months (Per consensus at ANI (discussion); violation of civility-related editing restriction).

Prior to that he had made several disruptive changes on January 18th to pages Rubina Bajwa and Gurbaksh Chahal personal life. I was able to revert his changes on Rubina Bajwa but I ask your help to revert the changes on Gurbaksh Chahal.

Please see the post I had made on the user's and subject's talk page for more information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Hullaballoo_Wolfowitz#Gurbaksh_Chahal_and_Rubina_Bajwa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gurbaksh_Chahal#Disruptive_Editing

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.203.236.203 (talk) 15:46, 19 March 2021 (UTC) 

Happy First Edit Day!

Have a very happy first edit anniversary!

From the

Birthday Committee, CAPTAIN RAJU^(T)

19:54, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Ooh, 5 years! Here's to another 5 more! — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:13, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

16:51, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for having taken the courage to close the IF RfC. I was determined not to take part and managed ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:33, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

I guess I've been out of the loop, lots of people have pointed it out the close to me, but it struck me as pretty run-of-the-mill as far as contentious discussions go (well, besides the obvious duck). I honestly don't know much about the InfoboxWars^TM so I was actually excited to close the discussion: I get to learn about the history of the dispute and everyone else gets to have their issue settled. I might start closing more content discussions; I always wind up learning something new. I didn't know Fleming wrote Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang despite loving that movie as a child. Another is when I closed the Kyiv naming discussion and learned about Chicken Kiev. So from my perspective, it seems like we're making progress on improving the tone of these discussions. Hopefully we can improve to the point that you feel comfortable adding your voice again! — Wug·a·po·des​ 21:31, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, makes sense. My hope is different: that these discussions stop. I just read the one for

simple-dream-page, - hope you don't mind. --Gerda Arendt (talk

) 21:48, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

{{Gerda HOUND}} Wow, Wugapodes, you're on a roll today! I can't believe that's the last I'll be hearing about Ian Fleming from a certain someone (poke-poke), though now I've probably just jinxed it!¯\_(ツ)_/¯ El_C 22:48, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

That's very sad to hear. Truly, wikis work best when we're kind to each other, and if there's anyone synonymous with kindness in my mind, it's you. I'm glad you're enjoying editing elsewhere; you're obviously not short on quality contributions! But it's sad to see how poorly equipped we are as a community to handle conduct problems like this. I wish we could do better because we lose valuable perspectives on all fronts. I still think about a topic that came up in the anti-harassment RfC: have the WMF train volunteers in things like bystander intervention (see also Green Dot Bystander Intervention and meatball:DefendEachOther) and de-escalation methods so that the community has the resources to address and respond to abuse before we get to a point-of-no-return. While RfCs are part of the solution, if no one knows how to de-escalate we're just adding more fuel and hoping it doesn't get sparked. That's something that I really appreciated in the Fleming RfC, someone had been collapsing threads (maybe Ritchie but I didn't check) which not only helped as a closer, but set clear boundaries for participants about what behavior would and would not be tolerated. Working to head off problems pays off, and I wish we focused more of our energy there. I still lean towards meatball:RadicalInclusiveness, but that essay points out serious problems that I'm only starting to appreciate personally. By my impression, we're somewhere between stages 15 and 20 in the meatball:WikiLifeCycle and that's terrifying (I'd say 20 but I'm obviously in a mood). But no other wiki has had our community, its ingenuity, or our material resources; hope springs eternal. I believe you said it best though, "reformation is a work in progress". — Wug·a·po·des​ 08:43, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

What future bliss, He gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast

— Alexander Pope (1891), Essay on Man

That's lovely. Thank you! Some of the things we tried to reform in 2013 are actually happening right now. Yes to hope springing ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:32, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

I was just thinking about this, and trying to work out what triggers incivility. Part of the problem is, as mentioned on meatball:WikiLifeCycle, we don't really know each other. Although I've socialised with a couple of Wikipedians such as ClemRutter and Whispyhistory to the extent they've both spent time with my kids and not talking about WP at all, they're the exception rather than the rule. I suspect some editors don't have any proper friendships with fellow Wikipedians at all, and might even consider that to be a good thing.

The easiest example I can think of is when somebody edits an article on my watchlist that I've improved to GA standard. That implies I want the overall quality of each subsequent edit to be raised, and if somebody adds something that I believe doesn't meet that threshold, I will get irritated at being thrown some work in order to get it back there. I can't just revert because eg: if something is true and missing from the article, but unsourced, the other editor can justifiably claim that I could have got the source and add it myself. When my patience really comes under test is where I (or the other party) only slightly has the upper hand - I don't care if somebody wants to change the genre on an infobox from "Rock" to "Hard rock", but if somebody complains that a claim cited to three broadsheet newspapers still fails BLP, and doesn't come round to my point of view within a couple of discussion posts, I'm going throw my hands up in despair. Worked example - on posts 1 and 2, I'm talking about content, come to point 3 and I'm starting to

use "you"

- that's a warning sign right there.

However, if somebody who I know and get on with edits an article on my watchlist, I won't touch it. JG66 has edited plenty of articles I've done major work in, but I've worked alongside him in enough cases to trust that any edit he makes on those articles will be an unambiguous improvement. I think there's a lot to be said about people disdaining that which they do not know - it explains why some of the most strongest support for Remain in the Brexit Referendum was in areas that have a large immigrant population such as Inner London. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:26, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

I think I can follow. My personal case with this particular editor is different and too long for here. I declared him Precious eight years ago (before I even knew what an infobox is), and said so on his talk - as I routinely do -, and he took it as grave-dancing and reverted. I thanked him for the TFA - as I do every day, routinely - and he replied "not wanted" when reverting. That even was an article with an infobox. The next one will come soon, and I will hopefully remember to suppress my eagerness to thank. Why that is I don't know. - Some day in 2016, I woke up to the worst experience on Wikipedia so far: that Tim riley retired, and Ssilvers declared that was my work. I had no intention - ever - to drive anybody away, and now the one I had written FA and GA with, and without a clue what it was, allegedly. I had made - in defense for arbcom, beginning in 2013 and updating - a list of articles where infobox were reverted, which also included

Kafka. Just for background. - I have no secret army, just the community seems to want accessibility as I do. --Gerda Arendt (talk

) 11:53, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Gerda, not to be a jerk face, but to reiterate: please do suppress, with some vigor, even. Who knows why they view you with animus (I'm unable to tell the reasons for that, at least), but the fact is that they do. So, again, best to just leave them be as far as thanks go and so on. El_C 15:52, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

There's a wonderful quote from Vonnegut that I find myself muttering every so often: "Busy, busy, busy, is what we

Bokononists

whisper whenever we think of how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is." But yes, I think you're onto something...

Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind;
That never passion discompos'd the mind.
But ALL subsists by elemental strife;
And passions are the elements of life.
The gen'ral order, since the whole began,
Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.

— Alexander Pope (1891), Essay on Man

There's an interesting perspective at meta:Community#Body risk that you reminded me of (how rarely I cite meta), and an essay I've considered righting at the title Wikipedia:Using "real life" considered harmful. We are in the real world right now, and we are at risk. The stories at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#On abuse of administrators are heartbreaking, and only represent a fraction of perspectives. The abuse that non-sysops have told me they've endured for their on-wiki activity can be sickening---I had to decline involving myself publicly in a problem a user raised because I was already receiving threats due to my day-job and didn't want to invite more (I directed them to T&S and I hear they have been very helpful). Imagine what casual editors must endure! The idea that what we do here is disconnected from our or other activities is dangerous. It allows us to compartmentalize and rationalize behavior we would (hopefully) never inflict on each other in MeatSpace. Meeting other WikiMedians like you say is rare for many people---I didn't until I left rural New York---but I think eye opening due to the recognition that our CyberSpace and MeatSpace selves are in fact connected and mutually impactful. Aside from the various newbies that I work with at edit-a-thons, I think I've met very few established Wikipedians. I run into Kevin on campus every so often, and I chatted with Legoktm at a meetup once, but beyond that, if someone said they met me at the FooBar event it would still be like meeting a stranger (Sorry if you're reading this).

With a nod to Gerda, this place is Kafka-esque and inscrutible to nearly everyone. It is unkind from the start. This coming Monday I'm providing admin support for an edit-a-thon run by Ljdowning and seeing how hard it was for a professor to interact with us was heartbreaking. I archived it (see User_talk:Ljdowning/Archive_1) partly out of courtesy for when new editors start finding her talk page, but mostly out of embarrassment for our community. One of her first interactions with the community resulted in I think it is completely unfair of you to remove this entry so quickly. I am not online 24 hours a day. I stopped working yesterday evening, and I was going to polish and rework the entry today...Does no one review the reviewers? and the interactions barely got more welcoming from there. That she wants to recruit editors for us after those experiences is heroic. Imagine how hard it must be for editors without a PhD! It's why I think meatball:WelcomeNewcomer is so important: we need to show new editors that we are alive and kind, and hopefully remind our regulars that there is a human behind that name. One of the things I'm most proud of and that never fails to bring me joy is Wikipedia talk:20th anniversary/Birthday wishes where readers left kind messages for us all, and editors worked together to make sure a warm welcome turned redlinked user talks blue.

While

WP:MASTODON a great essay...we are real people with things going on in our lives and emotions and beliefs. Asking someone to completely disconnect from that is big especially when they gift us their time and labor. It's why I have issues with the current discourse around "not enough content creation" at RfA---the rationale can be misused but the intuition is spot on: you have a connection with and pride in the content you create, and proper administration requires being sensitive to that fact. You're right, people fear what they don't know, and it's sad that they don't know how vibrant our community can be when we're vulnerable. — Wug·a·po·des

​ 21:16, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:57, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Infobox opera

I just came from

Not sure I appreciate the full context, but I'd say it's a case of the

don't edit war over the color of templates covers this a bit more, and I think it's right that the wiki system probably makes the problem worse. Unlike a town council where the board can ultimately ignore everyone complaining about the color of the bikeshed, we have a hard time overcoming community disagreement and imposing a standard from above. This means we constantly have the same discussion which leads to unhealthy conflict and eventually people break. It's why, in general, I try to stay away from the more stylistic and aesthetic parts of the project: design by committee is usually terrible (when it comes to aesthetics). — Wug·a·po·des

​ 03:29, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, but I think we are not yet together, and you don't even need to know what an opera is. We don't discuss the colour of the bikesheds, but if there may be a bikeshed even if the owner of the property next to it doesn't like it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:14, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

music for today

Bach's cantata composed for today, - perhaps listen. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:04, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mr Hall of England. DuncanHill (talk) 10:40, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

17:29, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Please would you place (

@BushelCandle: Could you be more specific? Off the top of my head, I'm not sure what pages or situations you're referring to. — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:12, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately you did not provide a useful lasting diff to the harsh and unreasonable "community" sanction when you posted the result of your close to the alleged miscreant: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ALoves_Woolf1882&type=revision&diff=998389486&oldid=998111385. BushelCandle (talk) 23:23, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Ah, well, as I said on their user talk, it's a community sanction, not a discretionary sanction. You can read the discussion and close at Special:Diff/998388191. Loves Woolf1882 didn't fall afoul of the HoA DS regime, they behaved inappropriately, and the community imposed a topic ban that happens to have the same scope. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:33, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

So other users don't have to tiptoe around Horn of Africa articles?

Isn't it a bit of a stretch to call it a "community sanction" when there was input from such a tiny handful of Wikipedians [most of whom couldn't be bothered to actually analyse the alleged miscreant's (prolific) edits because of the ongoing blizzard of sock/meat puppet edits in that particular geographical region] ?

Thanks for providing the more precise lasting diff ! BushelCandle (talk) 00:10, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't know much about the Horn of Africa sanctions, so to your first question, I don't really have much to say. Be civil, assume good faith, abide by NPOV, and don't edit war. Don't edit against policy and you'll be fine. If that's what you call "tiptoe"-ing, then you should be tiptoeing around every article.

To your second point: in the discussion, participants explicitly disregarded the discretionary sanctions, which at the time were very new. For example, Drmies said DS set aside, we can decide here on a topic ban., and Lindsay said They are, at the very least, aware of the fact that the Horn of Africa is a problematic area, even if not specifically of the DS. The participants explicitly rejected the idea that this was a discretionary sanction. While participation in that discussion was not record-setting, it was unanimous. Beyond that, Lindsay pointed to

WP:ROPE). I said this explicitly in my close: they were unblocked with the understanding that behavior like this would not occur again. Based on the two discussions, I saw sufficient consensus to impose a topic ban or a block, and chose a topic ban given the unanimous agreement for it in the most recent discussion. If you still believe my close was incorrect, I would point you to the discussion where the restriction was appealed and denied. There I say more about the close, which might answer further questions. — Wug·a·po·des

​ 01:08, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for answering all my points so quickly and in adequate detail - it's much appreciated.

Nevertheless and as an established (and, so far, unsanctioned editor in these controversial and combative areas) it doesn't change my deeply held opinion expressed elsewhere that "Personally I consider it a tragedy that we have lost for so long the input of an editor that should have been cherished and educated. We have too few editors that are knowledgeable in this geographic area and are prepared to hunt down and interpret reliable sources in non-European languages. A missed opportunity. Reminds me of the situation with the existence of the Nazi concentration camps where the truth was efficiently censored and covered up for so long." (1933-1944) BushelCandle (talk) 02:10, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

That's fair, and I will say that sanctioning editors is one of my least favorite tasks (it's why I'm so rarely at ANI). Our coverage of the global south and especially Africa needs more contributors, and I do hope that LW takes some time to reflect on the concerns and comes back to contribute in a way that doesn't cause disruption. You might want to consider posting on their talk page and offering to

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions/2021 review where the Arbitration Committee is taking comments on what aspects of discretionary sanctions are working and which are not. Based on what you've said here, I think your perspective would be valuable in making improvements. — Wug·a·po·des

​ 22:34, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Sike. jp×g 03:21, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

😿 — UwU wug's this? 03:22, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

	The Original Barnstar
	I have no sense of humor, thanks for deleting my nonsense RedCrab 11:07, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2021).

Administrator changes

Alexandria • Happyme22 • RexxS

Guideline and policy news

• Following a
  subcriterion a
  has 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.

Technical news

• 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)

Arbitration

• A
  discretionary sanctions procedure
  is open until April 25.

Not just because I largely agree with it, but because it is a clear and complete close. It's well explained and touches on all the relevant issues, including some I'd not really thought about before. Nicely done. Hobit (talk) 13:31, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm glad it was helpful! The whole thing read like a series of misunderstandings, so hopefully getting everyone on the same page will keep future discussions focused. To borrow from the allegory on your userpage, I think KoH embodies the "children building sandcastles" ethos of the early encyclopedia, but we've now got lifeguards on the beach protecting the sculptures and builders. We now have a rather noticeable power disparity between sysops and non-sysops, so process serves to prevent abuse. I think people are rightly concerned when those processes are ignored (see Wikipedia:Process is important), but I wonder how a focus on process might make the power disparity worse? Or put another way, how might BOLDly using admin tools help reduce the gap between sysops and non-sysops? One thing I like to do is hand out user rights to editors I think could use them, even if they didn't ask. It's within policy, but goes around the typical process at PERM. No one has made a fuss about it so far, but reading the discussion, the use of undelete seemed in a similar spirit. If someone wants the edit history to improve the encyclopedia, policy generally lets admins give it to them. The problem in the AN discussion was that a series of misunderstandings wrapped the whole thing up in red tape. I think the discussion showed there's still room for admins to boldly cut through it when needed, but that the compromise at be careful needs to be taken very seriously. The sand sculptures are beautiful but fragile; it's okay to use your powertools to help newbies build their first mound castle, but people will get nervous if it looks like you might bump into something. Framing the discussion in that way, I think, would have been more productive though it's more meta than the issue at hand. Food for thought (a standard hazard of posting to my talk page is getting an unsolicited essay in response, sorry!) — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:27, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

One thing I like to do is hand out user rights to editors I think could use them, even if they didn't ask. It's within policy, but goes around the typical process at PERM. I dislike the PERM process. From what I see, it's aimed at getting requests off the board as quickly as possible, not giving helpful feedback for one to improve (eg for rollbacker, some tips on how to improve their anti-vandalism patrolling; similar for TE + alternatives on how to edit templates without the rights), and sometimes the decline rationales I see are downright spurious.

More generally: it's rather awkward to ask for rights on here. IMHO: rights should be granted out freely if an admin sees an editor either: competent, or able to gain competence. The only downside is perhaps that the editor may not feel ready, e.g. good template editors who don't feel like they're able to edit highly visible templates (granted I don't know of a specific editor fitting this descriptor, but it seems feasible, as technical aptitude to do something and the skills to design it well are separate from ability to garner consensus for it or willingness to accept 'no'). There's a weird feeling around rights that just seems illogical from its core. In particular, I don't particularly like that needing/asking for them can give off a hat collecting vibe, or that people with them believe it signifies anything other than less technical restrictions (this is also why I dislike topicons and userboxes for user-rights, and if I didn't know it would SnOW I would TfD them all right now). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:59, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

When autopatrol first came out, we were creating lists and bots to figure out who to give the right to without their asking. A somewhat radical idea I had many years ago (never presented) was to permit bureaucrats to create provisional admins in a lightweight reversible process. –xeno^talk 13:10, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

it's rather awkward to ask for rights on here. Understatement of the year. For all the talk about getting people to request admin, I don't think much attention is given to PERM. As wary as I am to make extended-confirmed bigger than it's original purpose, I think an opportunity might exist to start bundling tools with that access level (if not autoconfirmed). Rollback, for example, might be a good candidate since it's pretty redundant with Twinkle at this point and unlikely to cause truly serious damage. The file mover and page mover groups are more dangerous, but still wildly useful to anyone that's been around for long enough without getting indef'd. There's a serious cost to not giving people tools they need, and if we have a culture of

anti-hat collecting that ultimately harms the encyclopedia more than it helps prevent tool misuse. As interesting as I find the "provisional admin" idea, I think the WMF would shut down any proposal to grant view-deleted without an RfA. — UwU wug's

this? 23:01, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

⁽ Buttinsky) IMO view-deleted and the associated rights should be unbundled from the page protection and blocking rights. That would create two classes of admin: a sort of oversighter-lite that could delete pages and revdel (and view deleted content), and then a "hall monitor" admin (need a better name) that would stop disruption by protecting pages and blocking editors. The OS-lite admin would need an RFA per WMF Legal (as I understand it, based on an email I read from 15 years ago), but the hall monitor admin we could be creative with, including replacing RFA with some automatic or semi-automatic criteria. Levivich ^harass/_hound 23:48, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

For 5 years I've deliberately avoided having a user page.

Unfortunately while completing a tutorial I inadvertently created one !

Please, please, please could you delete my user page ? BushelCandle (talk) 14:59, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

BushelCandle, (talk page stalker) I've deleted for you. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 16:06, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt and effective action, Moneytrees🏝️ - it's much appreciated. BushelCandle (talk) 23:50, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

19:39, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi me again, could you propose for me that the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party (UK) has the right grammar, Deputy leader looks poor grammar on the article. Hope this helps. Just had a break from Women Lords at the moment. Back on it soon. Mr Hall of England (talk) 18:42, 7 April 2021 (UTC)