Request on 11:49:32, 13 September 2016 for assistance on AfC submission by 58.2.236.190

58.2.236.190 (talk · contribs)
- Draft:Bollywood Galiyara (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Need Assistance to update infromation about Bollywood Galiyara, I tried to create a article Draft:Bollywood Galiyara but t how rejected, now I dont know to re work with the feedback and re submit. can any one help me for that.

58.2.236.190 (talk) 11:49, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Responded on the IP's talk page. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 12:04, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Michael Hardy closed

This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

Michael Hardy is reminded that:
1. Administrators are expected to set an example with their behavior, including refraining from incivility and responding patiently to good-faith concerns about their conduct, even when those concerns are expressed suboptimally.
2. All administrators are expected to keep their knowledge of core policies reasonably up to date.
3. Further misconduct using the administrative tools will result in sanctions.
MjolnirPants is reminded to use tactics that are consistent with Wikipedia policies and guidelines, and the 4th Pillar when dealing with other users they are in dispute with.
The Arbitration Committee is reminded to carefully consider the appropriate scope of future case requests. The committee should limit "scope creep" and focus on specific items that are within the scope of the duties and responsibilities outlined in Arbitration Policy.

For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:56, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Michael Hardy closed

Sarcasm doesn't always come through clearly

I think there may have been a misunderstanding. My edit here was intended as biting sarcasm directed at Wordsmith's incredibly blinkered attitude towards racist content. I'm extraordinarily pissed off at his casual shrug-it-off approach to conspicuously anti-semitic material. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:34, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

@TenOfAllTrades: Sorry, I misinterpreted it, it doesn't work that well in text (for me, anyway). I think The Wordsmith is a good admin, but he sometimes can tolerate something too much, or not tolerate something enough. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 14:37, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

(ec) I generally think he's a good admin too, but he dropped the ball hard in this case. I was just really disappointed to see someone who normally seems reasonable get so far off track. And he kept digging himself deeper in as additional evidence came to light. Reading the "widespread offence" clause of the userpage policy as meaning that thinly-veiled racism is okay because it's not immediately obvious to everyone...is not okay. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:47, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

@TenOfAllTrades: I understand how the rest of the material is related to Nazism, but how does "1488" relate to it? (Probably missing something glaringly obvious). ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 14:43, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

To be honest, I didn't recall that one off the top of my head either and had to Google it. I knew 88 by itself as a symbol; the letter 'H' is the eighth letter of the alphabet, and 88 is supposed to represent "Heil Hitler". (Yes, it is a bit subtle; that's the point of a dog whistle—to allow someone to signal racist views in public without getting called out.) The 14 comes from the Fourteen Words; that article has the explanation. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:47, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

@TenOfAllTrades: Well, that's glaringly obvious, if you know what it means. At least the user's indeffed now. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 15:09, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

@TenOfAllTrades: My response wasn't quite as casual as it came across. I just hadn't had my coffee yet, so wasn't articulating myself well. When I said "that may be a different story", I intended that to be taken as "yeah, that changes things". Of course, once you found the 1488, that puts his intent well beyond reasonable doubt. I agree with the indef in that case. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 15:19, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
@The Wordsmith: Fundamentally, the problem was that you refused to see the editors' user page as problematic until he nearly-literally scrawled I am a neo-Nazi across his edit summaries. The casual-sounding response wasn't where I took issue with your position; it was your overall willingness to bend over backwards to endorse the use of (semi-, not-very-) subtle racist messages on user pages. I hope you're willing to recalibrate your sensitivity to that sort of dog-whistle message in the future, because not every neo-Nazi will be quite as conveniently obliging. You're far from the only editor, unfortunately, who chooses to be wilfully blind to this sort of thing, but that doesn't make it okay. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:37, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

@TenOfAllTrades: I tend to give some latitude when things could potentially be interpreted one way or another, at least until doubt is removed or the user explains himself. This is especially true when the editor does actually contribute to the encyclopedia. If I were Jewish or European I might have a different understanding of the statue (which I hadn't seen before and thus had no context) or Wagner (who to me is just a composer who had attitudes not uncommon in the 19th century). Even the Bible verse has multiple purposes, and I particularly bristled at the idea of blocking someone for putting a Bible verse on their userpage. As an American who hadn't encountered those particular symbols in context before, I just wasn't seeing it. Once the 1488 was discovered, a symbol I do (unfortunately) have experience recognizing, the rest of the pieces fell into place. I'll admit I missed the signalling until that last piece of the puzzle. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 15:47, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
@The Wordsmith: That was part of why I took a significant amount of time to place each of the symbols in context, for editors who might review the user page and not be familiar with their role as Nazi, neo-Nazi, and/or anti-semitic references. I'm disappointed – but not surprised, based on my general experience with Wikipedia – that you're pleading ignorance even when the explanation of why those symbols together, in that context were problematic. (Instead, you chose to explicitly and deliberately dismiss the significance of them being placed together: "As it is, though, we have a statue, an interest in a composer, and a Bible verse. None of these things are evil, separately or together. ")

And, incidentally, I am neither European nor Jewish. I do, however, make a point of paying attention when members of ethnic or religious minorities say uhhh, hey... about stuff. Pulling out the "widespread offence" clause to justify leaving subtle racism on a userpage isn't cool. It's easier on a case-by-case basis to ignore this stuff, but it's bad for the long-term health of the project. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:05, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) My goodness, I feel like a dunce here. I had never even heard about 1488 previously. Just read Fourteen Words now and understood some of the context. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 15:28, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) New essay being created User:ThePlatypusofDoom/Don't edit until you've had your coffee. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 15:29, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) The 1488 was a dead giveaway to their intentions. I've seen that before (usually written 14/88) and yeah that's a red flag (how ironic). RickinBaltimore (talk) 16:07, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

October 2016

		The Anti-Spam Barnstar
		Thanks for helping keep Wikipedia clear of spam! MordeKyle (talk) 20:41, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

@MordeKyle: Thanks! ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 20:42, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Disheartening

Hi Plat - first of all thank you for all the great work you do around here. You are a net positive to the project, and we'd hate to see you go. I understand your poll at WP:RFACP is probably disheartening to read, but I'd urge you to try to see the positive side of the comments. No one there thinks you're an awful Wikipedian - they just think that, right now, you wouldn't make a good administrator. There's plenty of things you can do to help us without those extra pixels. I'd be more than happy to elaborate on my (now highly optimistic) review, but the key element to take away is to get back into focusing on what you enjoy doing here and at some point you'll find yourself in a position where another editor says 'hey, you need the tools'. As always, my talk page and email inbox are always open -- samtar ^{talk or stalk} 11:19, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

15:27:00, 12 October 2016 review of submission by Cloar1

Cloar1 (talk · contribs)
- Draft:Charles Robert Mcpherson (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Hello ThePlatypusofDoom,

Can you please help me understand why you declined this article? I appreciate your help as this is my first article.

We have been researching this individual for a while. There are media articles (referenced), old historic photos, etc. What more do I need to show "notability"?

Where is the promotional material? I am not trying to promote anything.

Thank you again!

Chris

@Cloar1: See here and here. 1 source isn't good enough. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 15:58, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Request on 18:31:48, 13 October 2016 for assistance on AfC submission by 5.80.185.189

5.80.185.189 (talk · contribs)
- Draft:Malawi24 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Hi, I wrote you a private message. I just wanted to know whether being cited by verified media/well known media and being referred to as a publication by these cerebrated papers is not enough to prove notability? And possible to refer us to someone conversant with SSA and the media in this ends?

5.80.185.189 (talk) 18:31, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Please revert the changes made by my son whom I caught playing with the computer.

It would appear that he edited a Ministry of Transportation article.

WikiCup 2016 November newsletter: Final results

The final round of the 2016 WikiCup is over. Congratulations to the 2016 WikiCup top three finalists:

First Place - Cas Liber (submissions)
Second Place - MPJ-DK (submissions)
Third Place - Adam Cuerden (submissions)

In addition to recognizing the achievements of the top finishers and everyone who worked hard to make it to the final round, we also want to recognize those participants who were most productive in each of the WikiCup scoring categories:

Featured Article – Cas Liber (actually a three-way tie with themselves for two FAs in each of R2, R3, and R5).
Good Article – MPJ-DK had 14 GAs promoted in R3.
Featured List – Calvin999 (submissions) produced 2 FLs in R2
Featured Pictures – Adam Cuerden restored 18 images to FP status in R4.
Featured Portal – SSTflyer (submissions) produced the only FPO of the Cup in R2.
Featured Topic – Cyclonebiskit (submissions) and Calvin were each responsible for one FT in R3 and R2, respectively.
Good Topic – MPJ-DK created a GT with 9 GAs in R5.
Did You Know – MPJ-DK put 53 DYKs on the main page in R4.
In The News – Dharmadhyaksha (submissions) and Muboshgu (submissions), each with 5 ITN, both in R4.
Good Article Review – MPJ-DK completed 61 GARs in R2.

Over the course of the 2016 WikiCup the following content was added to Wikipedia (only reporting on fixed value categories): 17 Featured Articles, 183 Good Articles, 8 Featured Lists, 87 Featured Pictures, 40 In The News, and 321 Good Article Reviews. Thank you to all the competitors for your hard work and what you have done to improve Wikipedia.--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:53, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

We will open up a discussion for comments on process and scoring in a few days. The 2017 WikiCup is just around the corner! Many thanks from all the judges. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs · email), and Godot13 (talk · contribs · email)

WikiProject Good Articles's 2016-2017 GA Cup

WikiProject Good Articles's 2016-2017 GA Cup

Greetings, all!

We would like to announce the start of the 4th GA Cup, a competition that seeks to encourage the reviewing of Good article nominations! Thus far, there have been three GA Cups, which were successful in reaching our goals of significantly reducing the traditionally long queue at GAN, so we're doing it again. Currently, there are over 400 nominations listed. We hope that we can again make an impact this time.

The 4th GA Cup will begin on November 1, 2016. Four rounds are currently scheduled (which will bring the competition to a close on February 28, 2017), but this may change based on participant numbers. We may take a break in December for the holidays, depending on the results of a poll of our participants taken shortly after the competition begins. The sign-up and submissions process will remain the same, as will the scoring.

Sign-ups for the upcoming competition are currently open and will close on November 14, 2016. Everyone is welcome to join; new and old editors, so sign-up now!

If you have any questions, take a look at the FAQ page and/or contact one of the judges.

Cheers from 3family6, Figureskatingfan, Jaguar, MrWooHoo, and Zwerg Nase. We apologize for the delay in sending out this message until after the competition has started. Thank you to Krishna Chaitanya Velaga for aiding in getting this message out.

To subscribe or unsubscribe to future GA Cup newsletters, please add or remove your name to our mailing list. If you are a participant, you will be on the mailing list no matter what as this is the easiest way to communicate between all participants.

--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:41, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Fair play on your user page !

New Page Review needs your help

Hi ThePlatypusofDoom,

As an AfC reviewer you're probably aware that a new user right has been created for patrolling new pages (you might even have been granted the right already, and admins have it automatically).

Since July there has been a very serious backlog at Special:NewPagesFeed of over 14,000 pages, by far the worst since 2011, and we need an all out drive to get this back down to just a few hundred that can be easily maintained in the future. Unlike AfC, these pages are already in mainspace, and the thought of what might be there is quite scary. There are also many good faith article creators who need a simple, gentle push to the Tea House or their pages converted to Draft rather than being deleted.

Although New Page Reviewing can occasionally be somewhat more challenging than AfC, the criteria for obtaining the right are roughly the same. The Page Curation tool is even easier to use than the Helper Script, so it's likely that most AfC reviewers already have more than enough knowledge for the task of New Page Review.

It is hoped that AfC reviewers will apply for this right at WP:PERM and lend a hand. You'll need to have read the page at WP:NPR and the new tutorial.

(Sent to all active AfC reviewers) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:33, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

New page reviewer granted

Hello ThePlatypusofDoom. Your account has been added to the "New page reviewers" user group, allowing you to review new pages and mark them as mark pages as patrolled, tag them for maintenance issues, or in some cases, tag them for deletion. The list of articles awaiting review is located at the New Pages Feed. New page reviewing is a vital function for policing the quality of the encylopedia, if you have not already done so, you must read the new tutorial at New Pages Review, the linked guides and essays, and fully understand the various deletion criteria. If you need more help or wish to discuss the process, please join or start a thread at page reviewer talk.

Be nice to new users - they are often not aware of doing anything wrong.
You will frequently be asked by users to explain why their page is being deleted - be formal and polite in your approach to them too, even if they are not.
Don't review a page if you are not sure what to do. Just leave it for another reviewer.
Remember that quality is quintessential to good patrolling. Take your time to patrol each article, there is no rush. Use the message feature and offer basic advice.

The reviewer right does not change your status or how you can edit articles. If you no longer want this user right, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. In case of abuse or persistent inaccuracy of reviewing, the right can be revoked at any time by an administrator. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:00, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Editor of the Week [19 November 2016]

		Editor of the Week
		Your ongoing efforts to improve the encyclopedia have not gone unnoticed: You have been selected as Editor of the Week for diligent diverse work across multiple areas. Thank you for the great contributions! (courtesy of the Wikipedia Editor Retention Project)

User:WikiPancake submitted the following nomination for Editor of the Week:

I nominate ThePlatypusofDoom to be Editor of the Week! A WikiPlatypus if there was ever one, he has thrown great work and effort into several types of articles, having almost 8,000 in only 6 months. He also participates actively in discussions related to block users and WP:ANI. He also humors edits and makes Wikipedia more enjoyable. He's been a great help in the AfC process and has done loads of vandalism reverting with Twinkle and Huggle. Finally, he is a great example of WP:BOLD for newcomers to follow.

You can copy the following text to your user page to display a user box proclaiming your selection as Editor of the Week:

{{subst:Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Editor of the Week/Recipient user box}}

Thanks again for your efforts! Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 17:22, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Thank you to help me for the article Ficquelmont Palace

Hi ThePlatypusofDoom,

I'm realy sorry I thought that my explanation was understandable. In fact I removed fake statements that were not confirmed by any source and replaced them by statements confirmed by the book Simon Dixon, Personality and Place in Russian Culture, MHRA, 2010, pages 331 à 335. that contains a lot of informations concerning the Saltykov Mansion that was never named "Ficlquemont Palace". These fakes informations are a hoax written by a descendant of the Ficquelmont Family.

You can consult the Wikipedia page in French about the Saltykov Mansion : [[1]]

English is not my language, so if you can help me I would be very grateful.--Elmerav (talk) 03:20, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, ThePlatypusofDoom. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 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)

Beyhadh

Either Cast or Character/s section will be there, not both as per Wikipedia policy, that's the reason. From next time when I will edit I will give reasons for it. Thanks. 122.172.19.254 (talk) 16:27, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

New Page Review - newsletter

Hello ThePlatypusofDoom,

Breaking the back of the backlog

We now have 805 New Page Reviewers! Most of you requested the user right to be able to do something about the huge backlog. Now it's time for action.

If each reviewer does only 10 reviews a day over five days, the backlog will be down to zero and the daily input can then be processed by each reviewer doing only 2 or 3 reviews a day - that's about 5 minutes work!
Let's get that over and done with in time to relax for the holidays.

Second set of eyes

Not only are New Page Reviewers the guardians of quality of new articles, they are also in a position to ensure that pages are being correctly tagged for deletion and maintenance and that new authors are not being bitten. This is an important feature of your work. Read about it at the new Monitoring the system section in the tutorial.

Getting the tools we need - 2016 WMF Wishlist Survey: Please vote

With some tweaks to their look, and some additional features, Page Curation and New Pages Feed could easily be the best tools for patrollers and reviewers. We've listed most of what what we need at the 2016 WMF Wishlist Survey. Voting starts on 28 November - please turn out to make our bid the Foundation's top priority. Please help also by improving or commenting on our Wishlist entry at the Community Wishlist Survey. Many other important user suggestions are listed at at Page Curation.

Sent to all New Page Reviewers. Discuss this newsletter here. If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:16, 26 November 2016 (UTC) .

Question in the Arbitration Comittee election

		The Original Barnstar
		Just a short note to tell you that the question you submitted in the recent Arbitration Committee election reminded me of the value of your work in Wikipedia. Caballero/Historiador^⎌ 04:49, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Why?

Why wouldn't the edit be accepted? Please explain. 101.182.161.253 (talk) 01:14, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Similar edits have been reverted on other pages. My suggested edit is consistent with those edits. 101.182.161.253 (talk) 01:17, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Patient Zero reverted it because of block evasion. This is trolling. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 01:19, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

No it's not it's a legit concern. See the History of Asperger syndrome for example. 101.182.161.253 (talk) 01:20, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I still stand by my decision to revert. Patient Zero^talk 09:32, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

December 2016

<removed, WP:DTTR> Qed237 (talk) 15:17, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

@Qed237: Yeah, I messed up. But please don't template me. Also, a lvl 2 warning is too high in this case. Only go to lvl 2 when you're sure that the edit was malicious. As I have had thousands of non-malicious contribs, lvl 2 is too harsh of a warning. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 17:12, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

BBC 12-hour Editathon - large influx of new pages & drafts expected

AfC Reviewers are asked to be especially on the look out 08:00-20:00 UTC (that's local London time - check your USA and AUS times) on Thursday 8 December for new pages. The BBC together with Wikimedia UK is holding a large 12-hour editathon. Many new articles and drafts are expected. See BBC 100 Women 2016: How to join our edit-a-thon. Follow also on #100womenwiki, and please, don't bite the newbies :) (user:Kudpung for NPR. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:02, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Your Good Faith Revert on John Dalli

Hello,i just wanted to inform you that your Recent edit on John Dalli was not appropriate as the Website is a dead link.You might have been confused like me initially as no edit summary was added but when i followed that link it was dead. Actually no issue, i will just delete that link myself.My Motive was just to inform you about this.Thank you for your cooperation.Regards.--Param Mudgal ^talk? 16:22, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Deus Vult Article

Hi, I am not engaging in disruptive editing. You are falsely accusing me of a wrongdoing. I have offered my explanation in the summary, to the extent of character count limitation. You did not consider my argument at all, it is you who is failing at maintaining Wikipedia's standard. It is clear to any sane person that the internet meme regarding Deus Vult is nothing more than an insignificant meme, and calling it anti-Muslim rallying call is just as ridiculous as calling a green cartoon frog the symbol of white supremacy.

List of Joseph Smith's Wives

I was told: "This page appears to be a direct copy from mit.irr.org/chart-of-joseph-smiths-plural-wives". However, if you look at the website it sites Wikipedia. It was a direct copy of wikipedia! We can't get in trouble for copying something that says it was a copy from wikipedia! It says: "Information derived primarily from Todd Compton's book In Sacred Loneliness - chart from Wikipedia, edited by Joel B Groat" here: http://mit.irr.org/chart-of-joseph-smiths-plural-wives. myclob (talk) 22:29, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

@Myclob: Whoops, didn't notice that. Sorry. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 22:30, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

WikiCup December newsletter: WikiCup 2017

On 1 January 2017, WikiCup 2017 (the 10th Annual WikiCup) will begin. This year we are trying something a little different – monetary prizes.

For the WC2017 the prizes will be as follows (amounts are based in US$ and will be awarded in the form of an online Amazon gift certificate):

First place – $200
Second & Third place – $50 each
Category prizes – $25 per category (which will be limited to FA, FL, FP, GA, and DYK for 2017). Winning a category prize does not require making it to the final round.

Note: Monetary prizes are a one-year experiment for 2017 and may or may not be continued in the future. In order to be eligible to receive any of the prizes above, the competing Wikipedia account must have a valid/active email address.

After two years as a WikiCup judge, Figureskatingfan is stepping down. We thank her for her contributions as a WikiCup judge. We are pleased to announce that our newest judge is two-time WikiCup champion Cwmhiraeth.

The judges for the 2017 WikiCup are Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), and Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email).

Signups are open now and will remain open until 5 February 2017. You can sign up here.

If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:03, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Reviewer

How could you possibly accept this change?--Bbb23 (talk) 15:51, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

@Bbb23: Sorry! Clicked on the accept button instead of the revert button, I was intending to click on the revert button. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 15:54, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Misclicks happen to all of us. Thanks for the explanation.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:57, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Stingrays

Hallo, When you add a bolded alternative name... please don't forget to then make a redirect (or dab page entry or hatnote) from that name. I've just created the redirect Tiger river stingray for you! PamD 17:07, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

@PamD: Thanks! I'm new to the process of article creation (I mostly did anti-vandalism work and stuff before), but I'll get the hang of it soon. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 17:37, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Athletics edits

Hi,

You were rather quick to infer disruptive editing on my part.

If you check my history in detail, you will see my recent edits to athletics articles are replacements of medallist tables with templates that contain the same information (thereby allowing a reduction in article size without removing visible content). Courtesy of John "Hannibal" Smith, I have sought to avoid mistaken (unintentionally or otherwise) reversions by providing edit summaries for the last few articles I've edited, including the 50 kilometres race walk.

Hope that clears up any misunderstandings. Regards, 82.15.89.239 (talk) 18:21, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Amah Mutsun

Hi, I was flagged as I was attempting the edit the Amah Mutsun page. The page was created at first as a project with the Amah Mutsun tribe but they do not like our formatting, as a result we would like to request the page to be removed from Wikipedia.

Thank you,

Ken — Preceding unsigned comment added by Executionerken (talk • contribs) 01:44, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Merry Merry

Season's Greetings, ThePlatypusofDoom!
At this wonderful time of year, I would like to give season’s greetings to all the fellow Wikipedians I have interacted with in the past! May you have a wonderful holiday season! MarnetteD|Talk 19:40, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection policy RfC

You are receiving this notification because you participated in a past RfC related to the use of extended confirmed protection levels. There is currently a discussion ongoing about two specific use cases of extended confirmed protection. You are invited to participate. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk (sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:31, 22 December 2016 (UTC))

Merry Christmas

Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

--Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 19:17, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

Hello ThePlatypusofDoom: Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice if it's occurring in your area of the world, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 15:17, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

Season's Greetings =

Hello ThePlatypusofDoom: Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice if it's occurring in your area of the world, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, GAB^gab 03:48, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

Seasons Greetings

Hello ThePlatypusofDoom: Enjoy the holiday season, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, -- Dane ^talk 08:16, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings1}} to send this message

Yo Ho Ho

Doug Weller talk is wishing you Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Christmas, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:WereSpielChequers/Dec16a}} to your friends' talk pages.

Your (seasonal) signature

Looks great. Green is dignified, strong and aesthetic. ;) MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:34, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Happy New Year, ThePlatypusofDoom!

Happy New Year!

ThePlatypusofDoom,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia. -- Dane ^talk 02:23, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Happy New Year ThePlatypusofDoom!

Happy New Year!

ThePlatypusofDoom,
Have a prosperous, productive and wonderful New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.

--Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 20:32, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks

I just wanted to stop by and thank you for your revert of my edit on this page. I did not in any way intend to blank the page. While I was attempting to make the changes I intended, my Wikipedia session expired, and the changes were not put through. Instead, the page was blanked. Thanks so much for catching this unintentional error. Today when I realized what I had done, I felt so stupid about it. But I was able to go back in today and make the changes I wanted to make without making the same mistake again. Sorry for the inconvenience, thanks again for catching my error, and best wishes for your continued editing success here on Wikipedia! --Jgstokes (talk) 03:23, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Re:January 2017

My edit on List of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episodes isn't a vandalic act but a restored edit, because it's not necessary to insert that "Story" in the Writers sections. It must remain faithful in the way as shown on the original TV presentation of all episodes. Luigi1090 (talk) 21:15, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Counter Vandalism Unit Academy

Hi! I'm starting to remove vandalism from Wikipedia. Since you're a CVUA trainer, could you train me to fight vandalism? I noticed you are in the Eastern Time Zone, however, I'm in the Mountain Time Zone. What hours are you available for? I'm available from around 3PM to 9PM MST. Anyway, if you consider it, thanks! XboxGamer22408 (talk) 22:34, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

@XboxGamer22408: Sure, I'd be happy to help! I'm able to edit from 7:30 to 8 AM (in ET or EST), and pretty much whenever on weekends. I've created your page here. Thanks! ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 00:21, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@ThePlatypusofDoom:OK, I've finished the first assignment. If I am doing everything wrong though, please explain what exactly I'm doing wrong. It just helps immensely if I'm told specifically what I'm doing wrong. XboxGamer22408 (talk) 03:06, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@AWMSSilent:I was wondering if you could train me too. I am in the central time zone. I am available from 8:30am to 9:15am and 10:20am to 11:00am CST, Monday thru Friday. Would that work for you?AWMSSilent (talk) 14:56, 6 January 2017 (UTC)AWMSSilent

@AWMSSilent: Hi, the requirement at WP:CVUA says that you need at least 200 mainspace edits to start training. When you've got that many, message me, and I'll be happy to help! ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 16:40, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@AWMSSilent:I don't know what is a quicker way to get mainspace edits, editing or creating an article. And I was hoping that doing counter - vandalism work, I could get quite a bit of contributions.AWMSSilent (talk) 22:40, 6 January 2017 (UTC)AWMSSilent

@AWMSSilent: You should get some knowledge of Wikipedia's policies, as well, read this to start off. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 22:45, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@ThePlatypusofDoom: Hey I've had this account for a while and I was wondering if I could start counter vandalism training now?AWMSSilent (talk) 16:30, 27 February 2017 (UTC)AWMSSilent

@AWMSSilent: I can't. You still don't have the required number of edits (you need 200 mainspace edits), and I'm too busy right now to train another person. Come back when you have 200 mainspace edits. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 22:12, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Re: Hello

It was a bug. The Content Translator tool was set to translate that page to Portuguese, but my work was published in the English Wikipedia article, replacing its content. I would normally realize that within minutes and revert it (like a did here, for example), but you got it faster. Last time I translated a page from EN to PT, it all worked well, though (and that was yesterday). I'll report this bug again in the same place I reported it last time it happened. Sorry for any inconvenience. Victão Lopes ^Fala! 01:33, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

CVU Academy training

Hello there, I was wondering if you could train me on counter-vandalism, as I saw that you had open student slots over at Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit/Academy. I've been editing for a few months now, and been reverting vandalism for a while, but I'm not quite certain that my fundamentals are as in-shape as they should be, and that my understanding of the process is as strong as it should be. If you could mentor me, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm available from 4 PM to 9 PM PST on weekdays, and pretty much whenever on the weekends. Zupotachyon _{Ping me} (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:30, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

@Zupotachyon: Sure! I've created your page here: User:ThePlatypusofDoom/CVUA/Zupotachyon ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 12:53, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Alright, thanks. Zupotachyon _{Ping me} (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:28, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Could you help me, please?

Hi, im User:ilovehorrorstories, I'm here to ask you if could help me add categories into my user page? —Preceding undated comment added 20:18, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Firstly, sign your name after posts. Put 4 tildes (~~~~) at the end of your post to sign. Secondly, you don't need to put categories on your user page. For info about categories, see here. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 21:37, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

A beer for you!

Cheers! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:06, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Pioneer Zephyr

Fear not, I only deleted what I was attempting to enter but could not successfully format. BTW, if you are able to take the content box I was attempting to enter and make it work, that would solve the problem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.208.11.42 (talk) 23:45, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Old news

...but still: this is a copyvio. Drmies (talk) 20:13, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

@Drmies: Sorry about that. I think that was a semi-protected edit request, I should have checked it first. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 20:16, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I am not revdeleting a few hundred edits because of that one sentence, though other admins may disagree. There's a bit of to-do about that article and I don't want to lose the history--tell you what, I'm pinging Moonriddengirl. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 20:21, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

@Drmies: Sorry to make so much work! I don't know what I was thinking when I made that edit. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 20:23, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

It's OK--shit happens. Let's see what MRG says. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 01:49, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Senpai?

I wish to join the CVU and you are listed as an available trainer? Will you be my sensei in this fight against vandals? -Arkhaminsanity (talk) 16:21, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

@Arkhaminsanity: Firstly, post stuff on the bottom of talk pages, not the top. Secondly, at WP:CVUA, it says "Check that you have already made sufficient mainspace edits (generally around 200)". You only have 79 mainspace edits, wait until you get 200 and I'll be happy to train you. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 20:12, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I'd like to join the CVUA now. Will you teach me the ways of the force? Arkhaminsanity (talk) 09:06, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

@Arkhaminsanity: I'm too busy, sorry. I've already promised someone else that they can be my next trainee, so I don't think I'll be able to train you for over a month. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 16:05, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Fear not sire, I will learn the ways of the force elsewhere. Thy time is appreciated. Arkhaminsanity (talk) 16:19, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Willy Munyeta

Yeah I'm not sure what to do with this, its a messy bit of POV pushing to be sure. There do appear to be quite a few sources, though I haven't looked too hard at them. Insert CleverPhrase Here 13:06, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

@Insertcleverphrasehere: Yeah, it's a mess. I posted at the fringe theories noticeboard about it, and Chrissymad's working on it. I'll work on it later (I'm currently busy). ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 13:09, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Yeah I didn't have time to work on it either, it seems I've been the only patroller on the New Page Feed for the past 2 hours, and there have been quite a few shockers. Off to bed now, 2 AM here. Good to know somebody else has it handled. Insert CleverPhrase Here 13:12, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

That Pun Generator is brilliant BTW, I've copied it onto my user page "The roundest knight at King Arthur's table was Sir Cumference. He gained his size from too much pi." >_< Insert CleverPhrase Here 13:14, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

CVUA teacher needed.

Could you please help me improve my anti vandal skills? FriyMan ^talk 14:25, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

@Friyman: I'd be happy to help. Your page is here. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 14:58, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

@FriyMan: Pinging you again as I broke the first one. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 14:19, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Re: A barnstar for you!

Thank you for the barnstar! It is an honor to receive one from you. =) -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 05:12, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

@bubblefett: what??/a pun generator and illuminati kittens..AWSOME!!! but i came to talk about the bage awarded by you to robert, the anti-vandilism bage, im wondering if there are any others, just edit me back on my page or here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bubblefett (talk • contribs) 15:49, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @Bubblefett: A word in your shell-like, but you should probably focus more on avoiding making edits like this and less on barnstars. Happy editing. O Fortuna!^{...Imperatrix mundi.} 15:55, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

@bubblefett: what who are you talking about i dont understand..... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bubblefett (talk • contribs) 16:30, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

@bubblefett:why did you flagg my page, ive talked to the wikipedia authorities.my reason is that it states in the wikipedia guidelines that a user may put whatever they want in thier talkpage/homepage, bu it can not be mall intented, my page had a few illuminati mentions, but i was on my way to clean it up after deciding someone may bann me for it, when my page got flagged. And mypage specifically doent promote lluminati or its ideals or iffiliates, i dont praise it whatso ever, and my unhelpfull edits o cabildo counsel and others, i was already punished for majorly, and i learned. so it is in goodwill that i nicely ask that the wise wikipedia admin please correct the flagging of my page. i worke for 4 hours straight hours so please consider a lesser punishment. like a 5 day user page ban at MAX. I really just want to inform people like other wikipedia users, and when i get to my page ill remove all disrespectfull content. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bubblefett (talk • contribs) 16:44, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Huh? This looks to be incoherent rambling to me. Also, why is this conversation on my talk page? ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 17:07, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

CVUA

I can see that you are a teacher at the Counter-Vandalism academy. I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to be trained by you. Please consider my application and I hope to talk to you soon! Qaei ☎ 17:39, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

@Qaei: I'm a little too busy right now, so I can't train anyone else, but one of my students is graduating soon. Come back in a couple weeks and I'll train you. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 18:17, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

@ThePlatypusofDoom: Sure, it's fine. All the other trainers are inactive or don't respond XD. Thanks Qaei ☎ 18:25, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

@Qaei: I'll ask a couple other patrollers about mentorship, to see if I can find anyone that'll mentor you. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 18:28, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

@ThePlatypusofDoom:Thanks, that's really kind Qaei ☎ 18:30, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

@Qaei: I can mentor you now, if you want. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 00:14, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

@ThePlatypusofDoom: Fantastic, thanks. Can't wait to get started Qaei ☎ 00:26, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Counter-Vandalism

Hello, I was wondering if you could train me in the Counter-Vandalism Academy. I would really appreciate it since I'm trying to become a better editor of Wikipedia. So completing these courses would be very helpful.

Bel-Shamharoth (talk) 21:34, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

@Bel-Samharoth: I'm sorry, but I'm already training 3 people, and I'm fairly busy, so I can't train you right now. I'll ask some other patrollers if they would be willing to mentor you. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 22:04, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

@Bel-Shamharoth: If that doesn't work, I'll be able to train you in a month or so. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 22:05, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

@ThePlatypusofDoom: Alright, that'll work. Thanks anyways. Bel-Shamharoth (talk) 00:10, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Help request

Hi! I have been asked to write up an editorial for The Signpost. It is at User:Guy Macon/Draft of Signpost Editorial. If you have time, could you give it a quick look and correct any glaring errors you spot? Thanks! --Guy Macon (talk) 04:04, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Rollback rights question

Hi! If I was to apply for rollback rights now, how would I fare? By the way, I finished my last assignment ;P Qaei ☎ 20:58, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

@Qaei: I wouldn't apply now, we'll get to that later in the assignment.ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 21:11, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

@ThePlatypusofDoom: Ok, cool! Qaei ☎ 21:13, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

@ThePlatypusofDoom: After you left IRC this morning, Samtar and I were discussing rollback rights. He said that he would be happy to grant them to me if he got your consent. I wondered what you thought :P Qaei ☎ 22:02, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

@Qaei: Sure, go ahead. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 22:03, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion Nomination

Hi! I've been contributing my work to Wiki since long time. This page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalyan_choudhury) is not based on any promotion, but a reference to who the one is, who has been contributing. I don't think it's a violation, but if it is, please let me know. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kalyan Choudhury (talk • contribs) 17:53, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

@Kalyan Choudhury: It seemed promotional, but that was just one of the reasons I tagged it. "Contributing to Wikipedia" isn't a claim of significance, therefore I tagged it under CSD criterion A7. Also read WP:AUTOBIO. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 19:09, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Monitoring period

@ThePlatypusofDoom: Hi, isn't my 5 day monitoring period done? I am really excited about the final test! FriyMan ^talk 20:20, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

@FriyMan: Thanks for reminding me, I forgot. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 22:24, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

CVUA

I'd like to be trained on anti-vandalism. Most of my edits are trying to revert vandalism on the Recent Changes page, if you look through my contribs it becomes apparent. Thanks :) Weegeeweeg (talk) 05:06, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

@Weegeeweeg: I'm too busy right now to mentor another user. Ask again in a month or so, I might be able to mentor you then. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 14:33, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

@ThePlatypusofDoom: Alrighty. Thanks for the reply Weegee^{(talk) (contribs)} 14:52, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Sudeep's Marital Status

No no, I'm not asking You to contact the Actor Himself. I was asking whether if You could contact His Personal manager. AradhanaSharon (talk) 07:47, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

@AradhanaSharon: That would still be a primary source, so no. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 14:34, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Then what should I do so that you could believe.. He is not divorced Sir. Please try to understand. How would people feel reading His biography on Wikipedia. How could newspapers write unless that the court hearings took place. That too, for two times. Why are you not believing. Sudeep's personal manager himself told me that He's not divorced Sir. Those links which I provided you earlier. Aren't those enough for you to believe Sir. What more should I do so that you would believe?! AradhanaSharon (talk) 16:16, 20 February 2017 (UTC)AradhanaSharonAradhanaSharon (talk) 16:16, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

@AradhanaSharon: Provide sources that other editors agree is reliable. That's the only solution in this case. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 16:40, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Here is the link from Times of India(Certified site) http://m.timesofindia.com/entertainment/kannada/movies/news/sudeep-not-to-divorce-wife/articleshow/56435284.cms

http://www.ibtimes.co.in/sudeep-priya-divorce-couple-trying-save-their-marriage-711701

http://www.ibtimes.co.in/kiccha-sudeeps-marriage-back-track-reunite-wife-priya-684861

Please go through those and take them unto consideration. Thank you. AradhanaSharon (talk) 12:47, 21 February 2017 (UTC)AradhanaSharonAradhanaSharon (talk) 12:47, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Final Exam

Finished the monitoring period! Can't wait to finish the course. Qaei ☎ 18:23, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you so much!

		Qaei's Award of Excellence with distinction
		I don't know how to thank you enough for teaching me through the CVUA Course, I honestly am extremely grateful for helping me out. I decided that the best way to thank you was my own personal touch, so here you go! Qaei ☎ 17:16, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Apologies

Hey there,

Sorry for this edit. I accidentally clicked the rollback button, and I have self-reverted my accidental use of rollback. Thanks for your understanding. --Dps04 (talk) 03:45, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Don't forget about my course!

Hi! I am done with my test. Can you check it? FriyMan ^talk 19:57, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2017

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

Administrator changes

Amortias • Deckiller • BU Rob13

Ronnotel • Islander • Chamal N • Isomorphic • Keeper76 • Lord Voldemort • Shereth • Bdesham • Pjacobi

Guideline and policy news

A recent RfC has redefined how articles on schools are evaluated at AfD. Specifically, secondary schools are not presumed to be notable simply because they exist.
AfDs that receive little participation should now be closed like an expired 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.

Technical news

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:14, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

My RfA chances.

Hi! After finishing my CVUA course I have a few questions to ask you. Do you consider, that I will have a good chance of becoming an admin in approximately in visible future? P. S. Would you consider me capable to start designing my teaching course for CVUA? FriyMan ^talk 06:51, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

@FriyMan: I'm sorry, but you wouldn't have much of a chance at RfA. You would need at least a year of editing, and you'd need to show that you'd be a good admin. Also, I don't think you should start a CVUA training course just yet, wait until you've been on for 6-10 months.ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 18:19, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

@FriyMan: Pinging again as the first ping didn't work. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 18:19, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I agree, I do not have much chances in RfA, but I will start writing my CVUA guide. FriyMan ^talk 18:21, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

@FriyMan: I wouldn't start writing a guide.. I'd wait until you had around 6000 edits or so. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 18:22, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

March 2017 WikiCup newsletter

And so ends the first round of the competition, with 4 points required to qualify for round 2. It would have been 5 points, but when a late entrant was permitted to join the contest in February, a promise was made that his inclusion would not result in the exclusion of any other competitor. To achieve this, the six entrants that had the lowest positive score of 4 points have been added to the 64 people who otherwise would have qualified. As a result, some of the groups have nine contestants rather than eight. Our top four scorers in round 1 were:

Cas Liber, last year's winner, led the field with two featured articles on birds and a total score of 674.
Iry-Hor, a WikiCup newcomer, came next with a featured article, a good article and a tally of 282 bonus points for a score of 517. All these points came from the article Nyuserre Ini, an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh,
1989, another WikiCup newcomer, was in joint third place at 240. 1989 has claimed points for two featured lists and one good article relating to anime and comedy series, all of which were awarded bonus points.
Peacemaker67 shared third place with five good articles and thirteen good article reviews, mostly on naval vessels. He is also new to the competition.

The largest number of DYKs have been submitted by Vivvt and The C of E, who each claimed for seven, and MBlaze Lightning achieved eight articles at ITN. Carbrera and Peacemaker67 each claimed for five GAs and Krishna Chaitanya Velaga was well out in front for GARs, having reviewed 32. No featured pictures, featured topics or good topics yet, but we have achieved three featured articles and a splendid total of fifty good articles.

So, on to the second round. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 1 but before the start of round 2 can be claimed in round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points equally.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is a good article candidate, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 13:52, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

WON Awards editing

There's a mess with tables, so I'm fixing them. Yes, you did a mistake, but I also made one mistake. No I'll "fix 'em all".176.36.57.234 (talk) 22:37, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
	Your CVUA course is amazing. You are an amazing vandal fighter. Cheers, FriyMan ^talk 19:19, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

March 2017

I was reverting Tataral who wants to add a disputed label in first sentence when there's no consensus for it, and probably also constitutes a violation of WP:BLP. Next time please be more careful.--Ganafyj (talk) 00:57, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Delotrooladoo. Sro23 (talk) 01:03, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Sea Silk

Hi. Thanks for pointing out the error I made. I was trying to reformat the note into an actual note and forgot that there was a second auto generated note in the main body of the text. I re-edited the page and hopefully, everything looks fine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ehgarrick (talk • contribs) 21:58, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2017

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

Administrator changes

TheDJ

Xnuala • CJ • Oldelpaso • Berean Hunter • Jimbo Wales • Andrew c • Karanacs • Modemac • Scott

Guideline and policy news

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 RfC has closed with consensus to allow proposed deletion of files. The implementation process is ongoing.
After an unsuccessful proposal to automatically grant IP block exemption, consensus was found to relax the criteria for granting the user right from needing it to wanting it.

Technical news

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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:55, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Block notice (JOKE)

You have been blocked from editing for a period of OVER 9000 YEARS for being so sarcastic, way too girly and crashed on Capital Beltway on Washington DC. Oh F****ing stop on this s***** interstate!! it's funny LOL. :D Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful driving. If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you may get off the highway by first reading the guide to being a girl driving on I-44, then adding the following text to the bottom of your talk page:

Hey! I'm on Australia, get me back on Northern Virginia by plane and get me in I-66! Perhaps I'm a a sock of Supreme Genghis Khan and unblock me lol :D

(Note: Even if you're male, this is not intended to offend you and your fine.) ^{[April Fools!]} KGirlTrucker81^{huh? what I've been doing} 18:46, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

April 2017

Hello, I'm ThePlatypusofDoom. I wanted to let you know that I reverted one of your recent contributions —the one you made with this edit to Indoline— because it did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 21:42, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

SFUO edits

I am a student from the University. Not affiliated with the SFUO. The information found in that section can be found in the two citations I used.

Please stop inappropriately deleting the entire section.

@Dvasq090: Firstly, sign your name by putting 4 tildes at the end of your post. Secondly, that section is only cited to one source, and that is discouraged, as it does not confirm the notability of the event. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 01:33, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

I have now added 2 additional sources. Both from the Student newspapers. Sorry about forgetting the signature- Dvasq090 Dvasq090 (talk) 01:41, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Dispute Resolution Noticeboard Volunteer Roll Call

This is a volunteer roll call sent to you on behalf of the current Dispute Resolution Noticeboard Coordinator, Robert McClenon, and is being sent to you because you have listed yourself as a volunteer at DRN. If you remain interested in helping at DRN and are willing to actively do so by taking at least one case (and seeing it through) or helping with administrative matters at least once per calendar month, please add your name to the roll call list. Those who do not add their name on the roll call list will be removed from the principal volunteer list after May 31, 2017 unless the DRN Coordinator chooses to retain their name for the best interest of DRN or the encyclopedia. Individuals whose names are removed after May 31, 2017, should feel free to re-add their names to the principal volunteer list, but are respectfully requested not to do so unless they are willing to take part at DRN at least one time per month as noted above. No one is going to be monitoring to see if you live up to that commitment, but we respectfully ask that you either live up to it or remove your name from the principal volunteer list.

Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:54, 27 April 2017 (UTC) (Not watching this page)

May 2017 WikiCup newsletter

The second round of the competition has now closed, with just under 100 points being required to qualify for round 3. YellowEvan just scraped into the next round with 98 points but we have to say goodbye to the thirty or so competitors who didn't achieve this threshold; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia. Our top scorers in round 2 were:

Cas Liber, led the field with five featured articles, four on birds and one on astronomy, and a total score of 2049, half of which came from bonus points.
1989 was in second place with 826 points, 466 of which were bonus points. 1989 has claimed points mostly relating to anime and Japanese-related articles.
Peacemaker67 took third place with two FAs, one GA and seven GARs, mostly on naval vessels or military personnel, scoring 543 points.
Other contestants who scored over 400 points were Freikorp, Carbrera, and Czar. Of course all these points are now wiped out and the 32 remaining contestants start again from zero in round 3.

Vivvt submitted the largest number of DYKs (30), and MBlaze Lightning achieved 13 articles at ITN. Carbrera claimed for 11 GAs and Argento Surfer performed the most GARs, having reviewed 11. So far we have achieved 38 featured articles and a splendid 132 good articles. Commendably, 279 GARs have been achieved so far, more than double the number of GAs.

So, on to the third round. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points equally.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 13:16, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2017

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

Administrator changes

Karanacs • Berean Hunter • GoldenRing • Dlohcierekim

Gdr • Tyrenius • JYolkowski • Longhair • Master Thief Garrett • Aaron Brenneman • Laser brain • JzG • Dragons flight

Guideline and policy news

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.

Technical news

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)

Miscellaneous

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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:19, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Counter Vandalism Training

I notice that you have slots open for counter vandalism training. May I please occupy one of these. I will really find the training useful. Thank you. I am at UTC+1 (UTC+0 in winter). Pablothepenguin (talk) 22:29, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

@Pablothepenguin: I'm currently not very active, as I am busy, so I can't train you right now. I might be able to in a couple of months. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 23:45, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Very well, I'll try someone else. Pablothepenguin (talk) 23:46, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2017

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

Administrator changes

Doug Bell • Dennis Brown • Clpo13 • ONUnicorn

ThaddeusB • Yandman • Bjarki S • OldakQuill • Shyam • Jondel • Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

An RfC proposing an off-wiki 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 clarifications have been made to the community banning and unblocking policies that effectively sync them with current practice. Specifically, the community has reached a consensus that when blocking a user at WP:AN or WP:ANI, it is considered a "community sanction", and administrators cannot unblock unilaterally if the user has not successfully appealed the sanction to the community.
An RfC regarding the bot policy has closed with changes to the section describing restrictions on cosmetic changes.

Technical news

Users will soon be able to blacklist specific users from sending them notifications.

Miscellaneous

Following the 2017 elections, the new members of the Board of Trustees include Raystorm, Pundit and Doc James. They will serve three-year terms.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:40, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

WikiCup 2017 July newsletter

The third round of the competition has finished in a flurry of last minute activity, with 288 points being required to qualify for round 4. It was a hotly competitive round with all but four of the contestants exceeding the 106 points that was necessary to proceed to round 4 last year. Coemgenus and Freikorp tied on 288, and both have been allowed to proceed, so round 4 now has one pool of eight competitors and one of nine.

Round 3 saw the achievement of a 26-topic Featured topic by MPJ-DK as well as 5 featured lists and 13 featured articles. PanagiotisZois and SounderBruce achieved their first ever featured articles. Carbrera led the GA score with 10, Tachs achieved 17 DYKs and MBlaze Lightning 10 In the news items. There were 167 DYKs, 93 GARs and 82 GAs overall, this last figure being higher than the number of GAs in round 2, when twice as many people were taking part. Even though contestants performed more GARs than they achieved GAs, there was still some frustration at the length of time taken to get articles reviewed.

As we start round 4, we say goodbye to the fifteen or so competitors who didn't quite make it; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them (some people have fallen foul of this rule and the points have been removed).

If you are concerned that your nomination, whether it be for a good article, a featured process, or anything else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 05:38, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2017

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

Administrator changes

Happyme22 • Dragons flight

Zad68

Guideline and policy news

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.

Technical news

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.

Miscellaneous

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 request resysop. Please practice appropriate account security by using a unique password for Wikipedia, and consider enabling 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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:59, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Sunday July 16: New England Wiknic @ Cambridge, MA

Sunday July 16, 1-5pm: New England Wiknic

You are invited to join us the "picnic anyone can edit" at John F. Kennedy Park, near Harvard Square, Cambridge, as part of the Great American Wiknic celebrations being held across the USA. Remember it's a wiki-picnic, which means potluck.

Sunday July 16 New England Wiknic (also on Facebook)

1–5pm - come by any time!

Look for us by the Wikipedia / Wikimedia banner!

We hope to see you there! --Phoebe (talk) 16:33, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for Boston-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

CVUA

Hi, Platypus! Remember that conflict we had, when I took a user under my wing and tried to teach him Anti-Vandalism? Well, you told me that I have to wait a bit before doing this? Would you say, that I am ready to do it now? Sincerely, your Cheers, FriyMan ^talk 19:53, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Never mind. Cheers, FriyMan ^talk 19:54, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2017

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

Administrator changes

Anarchyte • GeneralizationsAreBad • Cullen328 ^{(first RfA to reach WP:300)}

Cprompt • Rockpocket • Rambo's Revenge • Animum • TexasAndroid • Chuck SMITH • MikeLynch • Crazytales • Ad Orientem

Guideline and policy news

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 RfC (permalink) is currently open that proposes expanding WP:G13 to include all drafts, even if they weren't submitted through Articles for Creation.

Technical news

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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:11, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

WikiCup 2017 September newsletter

Round 4 of the WikiCup has ended and we move forward into the final round. In round 4, a total of 12 FAs, 3 FLs, 44 GAs, 3 FLs, 79 DYKs, 1 ITN and 42 GARs was achieved, with no FPs or FTs this time. Congratulations to Peacemaker67 on the Royal Yugoslav Navy Good Topic of 36 items, and the 12 featured articles achieved by Cas Liber (5), Vanamonde93 (3), Peacemaker67 (2), Adityavagarwal (1) and 12george1 (1). With a FA scoring 200 points, and bonus points available on top of this, FAs are likely to feature heavily in the final round. Meanwhile Yellow Evan, a typhoon specialist, was contributing 12 DYKs and 10 GAs, while Adityavagarwal and Freikorp topped the GAR list with 8 reviews each. As we enter the final round, we are down to eight contestants, and we would like to thank those of you who have been eliminated for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia. The lowest score needed to reach round 5 was 305, and I think we can expect a highly competitive final round.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to reduce the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck, and let the best man (or woman) win! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 06:25, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2017

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

Administrator changes

Nakon • Scott

Sverdrup • Thespian • Elockid • James086 • Ffirehorse • Celestianpower • Boing! said Zebedee

Guideline and policy news

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 trial is probably the best venue for general discussion.
Following an RfC, WP:G13 speedy deletion criterion now applies to any page in the draftspace that has not been edited in six months. There is a bot-generated report, updated daily, to help identify potentially qualifying drafts that have not been submitted through articles for creation.

Technical news

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.

Arbitration

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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:35, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

BLP

Hey man, I noticed this edit you made - why no source? ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 06:46, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

@Oshwah: Sorry about that. I was planning to get to that later, but forgot about it. I'll revert my edit. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 13:07, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

No apologies needed - someone just noted it and I thought it was strange. Thanks :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 13:29, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

CVUA?

Heya! I was wondering if you have time to train me in counter-vandalism, but I notice you've been busy in past months, so if you're still busy no worries! Thanks for your time, MapleSyrupRain (talk) 19:26, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

@MapleSyrupRain: Sorry, I'm not able to right now. I'll probably be back on in a month, and if you haven't found a mentor then, contact me. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 20:07, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2017

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

Administrator changes

Boing! said Zebedee • Ansh666 • Ad Orientem

Tonywalton • AmiDaniel • Silence • BanyanTree • Magioladitis • Vanamonde93 • Mr.Z-man • Jdavidb • Jakec • Ram-Man • Yelyos • Kurt Shaped Box

Guideline and policy news

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.

Technical news

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.

Arbitration

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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:23, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Red categories

Hello odd-looking, venomous Creature of Doom,

Would you please purge the red categories on your user page? The trouble with categories is that they don't affect just your user page. Red categories create an error in the category system, and they interfere with the work of editors who perform category maintenance tasks at Special:WantedCategories—see WP:REDNOT for further details.

I would be grateful if you would remove the category code, or at least insert a column ([[:Category), so that they will not clutter up Special:WantedCategories forever.

Thanks, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 05:25, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I was extremely close to requesting the same thing, I'm glad you said something. It will help those of us that like to work with categories if these were removed. Thanks, VegaDark (talk) 05:49, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

@VegaDark: @Black Falcon: Hi, thanks for pointing this out. I would prefer to keep these categories on my userpage, though. The issue is that these categories can't be actually created, per WP:USERCAT. I don't want to hold an RfC, and inserting a colon makes it all clutter up the bottom of my userpage. Is there another option? ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 14:53, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. The challenge is that categories are not on your userpage; instead, the category code generates a category that includes your userpage. You could switch to a display-only format by inserting the following text on your userpage (you could have more or fewer bullets as you wish):

{{fmbox
| image = none
| textstyle = text-align:left; margin:1em 0em;
| text  = {{flatlist|
* [[:Category:Wikipedians who are bored with life and need something better to do, so they choose to edit Wikipedia|Wikipedians who are bored with life and need something better to do, so they choose to edit Wikipedia]]
* [[:Category:Wikipedians who only have imaginary friends|]]
* [[:Category:Wikipedians that something is wrong with|]]
* [[:Category:Wikipedians who add far to many categories to their user page|]]
* [[:Category:Wikipedians who are zombies|]]
* [[:Category:Wikipedians who seriously need to stop adding categories right now|]]
* [[:Category:Wikipedians who are being investigated for abuse of categories|]]
* [[:Category:Wikipedians who pointlessly add long categories to their user page, because the user is bored|Wikipedians who pointlessly add long categories to their user page, because the user is bored]]
* [[:Category:Hi! You just looked at this pointless category!|]]
* [[:Category:Wikipedians who.... Crap, I forgot what the category was|Wikipedians who.... Crap, I forgot what the category was]]
* [[:Category:Wikipedians who might be Wikipedians|]]
* [[:Category:User pages that have more than half of their categories red-linked|]]}}
}}

This would produce:

-- Black Falcon ^(talk) 03:35, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

@Black Falcon: Okay, I'll try that out. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 11:17, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate it! -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 04:27, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

CVUA

Greetings I am Bobherry I am a mostly experienced editor but was wanting to catch up on stuff via the CVUA and was wondering if you would be my instructor. Thanks Bobherry Talk Edits 19:18, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

@Bobherry: Sorry, but I'm too busy right now to train anyone in anti-vandalism. I might be able to in a few months, but I'm not sure. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 21:46, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

ani/i comment spoton

Fukin' A, Bubba--Dlohcierekim (talk) 17:15, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

WikiCup 2018 May newsletter

The second round of the 2018 WikiCup has now finished. Most contestants who advanced to the next round scored upwards of 100 points, but two with just 10 points managed to scrape through into round 3. Our top scorers in the last round were:

Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with three featured articles
Iazyges, with nine good articles and lots of bonus points
Yashthepunisher, a first time contestant, with two featured lists
SounderBruce, a finalist last year, with seventeen good topic articles
Usernameunique, a first time contestant, with fourteen DYKs
Muboshgu, a seasoned competitor, with three ITNs and
Courcelles, another first time contestant, with twenty-seven GARs

So far contestants have achieved twelve featured articles between them and a splendid 124 good articles. Commendably, 326 GARs have been completed during the course of the 2018 WikiCup, so the backlog of articles awaiting GA review has been reduced as a result of contestants' activities. As we enter the third round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met; most of the GARs are fine, but a few have been a bit skimpy.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:10, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Re,

This...odd indeed. Esp. since they are an editor of ten-years' tenure. Although, likewise, this is perhaps the footprint that says, simply, "never learns" :) What say ye? —SerialNumber54129^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 18:29, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129: Yeah, I have no idea what to do about that editor. I haven't edited in around a year, and am only really starting to get back into editing, so I'll let you decide what to do. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 18:34, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Welcome back—yeah, I see you was away, hope all's well? It's like riding a bike—you never forget! Well, it's Drmies* talkpage, perhaps he has special knowledge. In the meantime, footsoldiers do wot they gotta do :) Take care! —SerialNumber54129^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 18:38, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

*Note the deliberate ping, awaken the Kraken!

Ha, the old platypus is back! I sensed a little...existential anxiety? on your user page so I took the liberty of offering a quick fix. A-Day was well attended, and of course you know 12 Alabama players were drafted, an all-time record (some other school once had 14 but I prefer not to name them). Yes, ah, Factchecker--lovely. Thanks. Later folks, Drmies (talk) 21:21, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2018).

Administrator changes

None

Chochopk • Coffee • Gryffindor • Jimp • Knowledge Seeker • Lankiveil • Peridon • Rjd0060

Guideline and policy news

The ability to create articles directly in mainspace is now indefinitely restricted to autoconfirmed users.
A proposal is being discussed which would create a new "event coordinator" right that would allow users to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit.

Technical news

AbuseFilter has received numerous improvements, including an OOUI overhaul, syntax highlighting, ability to search existing filters, and a few new functions. In particular, the search feature can be used to ensure there aren't existing filters for what you need, and the new equals_to_any function can be used when checking multiple namespaces. One major upcoming change is the ability to see which filters are the slowest. This information is currently only available to those with access to Logstash.
When blocking anonymous users, a cookie will be applied that reloads the block if the user changes their IP. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. This currently only occurs when hard-blocking accounts.
The block notice shown on mobile will soon be more informative and point users to a help page on how to request an unblock, just as it currently does on desktop.
There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

The Arbitration Committee is seeking additional clerks to help with the arbitration process.

Obituaries

Lankiveil (Craig Franklin) passed away in mid-April. Lankiveil joined Wikipedia on 12 August 2004 and became an administrator on 31 August 2008. During his time with the Wikimedia community, Lankiveil served as an oversighter for the English Wikipedia and as president of Wikimedia Australia.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:05, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Russkaya Reklama concern

Hi there, I'm HasteurBot. I just wanted to let you know that Draft:Russkaya Reklama, a page you created, has not been edited in 5 months. The Articles for Creation space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for articlespace.

If your submission is not edited soon, it could be nominated for deletion. If you would like to attempt to save it, you will need to improve it.

You may request Userfication of the content if it meets requirements.

If the deletion has already occured, instructions on how you may be able to retrieve it are available at WP:REFUND/G13.

Thank you for your attention. HasteurBot (talk) 01:32, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2018).

Administrator changes

None

Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington

Guideline and policy news

Following a successful request for comment, administrators are now able to add and remove editors to the "event coordinator" group. Users in the event coordinator group have the ability to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit. Users will no longer need to be in the "account creator" group if they are in the event coordinator group.
Following an AN discussion, all pages with content related to blockchain and cryptocurrencies, broadly construed, are now under indefinite general sanctions.

Technical news

IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in June. This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.
The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team will build granular types of blocks in 2018 (e.g. a block from uploading or editing specific pages, categories, or namespaces, as opposed to a full-site block). Feedback on the concept may be left at the talk page.
There is now a checkbox on Special:ListUsers to let you see only users in temporary user groups.
It is now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked.

Arbitration

A recent technical issue with the Arbitration Committee's spam filter inadvertently caused all messages sent to the committee through Wikipedia (i.e. Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee) to be discarded. If you attempted to send an email to the Arbitration Committee via Wikipedia between May 16 and May 31, your message was not received and you are encouraged to resend it. Messages sent outside of these dates or directly to the Arbitration Committee email address were not affected by this issue.

Miscellaneous

In early May, an unusually high level of failed login attempts was observed. The WMF has stated that this was an "external effort to gain unauthorized access to random accounts". Under Wikipedia policy, administrators are required to have strong passwords. To further reinforce security, administrators should also consider enabling two-factor authentication. A committed identity can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:00, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2018).

Administrator changes

Pbsouthwood • TheSandDoctor

Gogo Dodo

Andrevan • Doug • EVula • KaisaL • Tony Fox • WilyD

Bureaucrat changes

Andrevan • EVula

Guideline and policy news

An RfC about the deletion of drafts closed with a consensus to change the wording of WP:NMFD. Specifically, a draft that has been repeatedly resubmitted and declined at AfC without any substantial improvement may be deleted at MfD if consensus determines that it is unlikely to ever meet the requirements for mainspace and it otherwise meets one of the reasons for deletion outlined in the deletion policy.
A request for comment closed with a consensus that the {{promising draft}} template cannot be used to indefinitely prevent a WP:G13 speedy deletion nomination.

Technical news

Starting on July 9, the WMF Security team, Trust & Safety, and the broader technical community will be seeking input on an upcoming change that will restrict editing of site-wide JavaScript and CSS to a new technical administrators user group. Bureaucrats and stewards will be able to grant this right per a community-defined process. The intention is to reduce the number of accounts who can edit frontend code to those who actually need to, which in turn lessens the risk of malicious code being added that compromises the security and privacy of everyone who accesses Wikipedia. For more information, please review the FAQ.
Syntax highlighting has been graduated from a Beta feature on the English Wikipedia. To enable this feature, click the highlighter icon () in your editing toolbar (or under the hamburger menu in the 2017 wikitext editor). This feature can help prevent you from making mistakes when editing complex templates.
IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in July (previously scheduled for June). This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.

Miscellaneous

Currently around 20% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 17% a year ago. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless if you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:22, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2018).

Administrator changes

Sro23

KaisaL • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

After a discussion at Meta, a new user group called "interface administrators" (formerly "technical administrator") has been created. Come the end of August, interface admins will be the only users able to edit site-wide JavaScript and CSS pages like MediaWiki:Common.js and MediaWiki:Common.css, or edit other user's personal JavaScript and CSS. The intention is to improve security and privacy by reducing the number of accounts which could be used to compromise the site or another user's account through malicious code. The new user group can be assigned and revoked by bureaucrats. Discussion is ongoing to establish details for implementing the group on the English Wikipedia.
Following a request for comment, the WP:SISTER style guideline now states that in the mainspace, interwiki links to Wikinews should only be made as per the external links guideline. This generally means that within the body of an article, you should not link to Wikinews about a particular event that is only a part of the larger topic. Wikinews links in "external links" sections can be used where helpful, but not automatically if an equivalent article from a reliable news outlet could be linked in the same manner.

Technical news

The WMF Anti-Harassment Tools team is seeking input on the second set of wireframes for the Special:Block redesign that will introduce partial blocks. The new functionality will allow you to block a user from editing a specific set of pages, pages in a category, a namespace, and for specific actions such as moving pages and uploading files.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:31, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2018).

Administrator changes

None

Asterion • Crisco 1492 • KF • Kudpung • Liz • Randykitty • Spartaz

Optimist on the run → Voice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

Amorymeltzer • Mr. Stradivarius • MusikAnimal • MSGJ • TheDJ • Xaosflux

Guideline and policy news

Following a "stop-gap" discussion, six users have temporarily been made interface administrators while discussion is ongoing for a more permanent process for assigning the permission. Interface administrators are now the only editors allowed to edit sitewide CSS and JavaScript pages, as well as CSS/JS pages in another user's userspace. Previously, all administrators had this ability. The right can be granted and revoked by bureaucrats.

Technical news

Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour.
Some abuse filter variables have changed. They are now easier to understand for non-experts. The old variables will still work but filter editors are encouraged to replace them with the new ones. You can find the list of changed variables on mediawiki.org. They have a note which says Deprecated. Use ... instead. An example is article_text which is now page_title.
Abuse filters can now use how old a page is. The variable is page_age.

Arbitration

The Arbitration Committee has resolved to perform a round of Checkuser and Oversight appointments. The usernames of all applicants will be shared with the 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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:23, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2018).

Administrator changes

Justlettersandnumbers • L235

Bgwhite • HorsePunchKid • J Greb • KillerChihuahua • Rami R • Winhunter

Interface administrator changes

Cyberpower678 • Deryck Chan • Oshwah • Pharos • Ragesoss • Ritchie333

Oversight changes

Guerillero • NativeForeigner • Snowolf • Xeno

Guideline and policy news

Following a request for comment, the process for appointing interface administrators has been established. Currently only existing admins can request these rights, while a new RfC has begun on whether it should be available to non-admins.
There is an open request for comment on Meta regarding the creation a new user group for global edit filter management.

Technical news

Partial blocks should be available for testing in October on the Test Wikipedia and the Beta-Cluster. This new feature allows admins to block users from editing specific pages and in the near-future, namespaces and uploading files. You can expect more updates and an invitation to help with testing once it is available.
The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team is currently looking for input on how to measure the effectiveness of blocks. This is in particular related to how they will measure the success of the aforementioned partial blocks.
Because of a data centre test, you will be able to read but not edit the Wikimedia projects for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time.

Arbitration

The Arbitration Committee has, by motion, amended the procedure on functionary inactivity.
The community consultation for 2018 CheckUser and Oversight appointments has concluded. Appointments will be made by October 11.
Following a request for comment, the size of the Arbitration Committee will be decreased to 13 arbitrators, starting in 2019. Additionally, the minimum support percentage required to be appointed to a two-year term on ArbCom has been increased to 60%. ArbCom candidates who receive between 50% and 60% support will be appointed to one-year terms instead.
Nominations for the 2018 Arbitration Committee Electoral Commission are being accepted until 12 October. These are the editors who help run the ArbCom election smoothly. If you are interested in volunteering for this role, please consider nominating yourself.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:13, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2018).

Administrator changes

Sir Sputnik

Kudpung • Liz • Lourdes

Everyking • Jackmcbarn

Interface administrator changes

Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes

AGK • Ivanvector • Stwalkerster • TonyBallioni

Oversight changes

Amorymeltzer • Oshwah • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Keilana

Guideline and policy news

A request for comment determined that non-administrators will not be able to request interface admin access.
A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the Mediation Committee should be closed and marked as historical.
A village pump discussion has been ongoing about whether the proposed deletion policy (PROD) should be clarified or amended.
A request for comment is in progress to determine whether pending changes protection should be applied automatically to today's featured article (TFA) in order to mitigate a recent trend of severe image vandalism.

Technical news

Partial blocks is now available for testing on the Test Wikipedia. The new functionality allows you to block users from editing specific pages. Bugs may exist and can be reported on the local talk page or on Meta. A discussion regarding deployment to English Wikipedia will be started by community liaisons sometime in the near future.
A user script is now available to quickly review unblock requests.
The 2019 Community Wishlist Survey is now accepting new proposals until November 11, 2018. The results of this survey will determine what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year. Voting on the proposals will take place from November 16 to November 30, 2018. Specifically, there is a proposal category for admins and stewards that may be of interest.

Arbitration

Eligible editors will be invited to nominate themselves as candidates in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 4 until November 13. Voting will begin on November 19 and last until December 2.
The Arbitration Committee's email address has changed to arbcom-enwikimedia.org. Other email lists, such as functionaries-en and clerks-l, remain unchanged.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:19, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, ThePlatypusofDoom. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 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).

Administrator changes

Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz

Boson • Daniel J. Leivick • Efe • Esanchez7587 • Fred Bauder • Garzo • Martijn Hoekstra • Orangemike

Interface administrator changes

Deryck Chan

Guideline and policy news

Following a request for comment, the Mediation Committee is now closed and will no longer be accepting case requests.
A request for comment is in progress to determine whether members of the Bot Approvals Group should satisfy activity requirements in order to remain in that role.
A request for comment is in progress regarding whether to change the administrator inactivity policy, such that administrators "who have made no logged administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped". Currently, the policy states that administrators "who have made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped".
A proposal has been made to temporarily restrict editing of the Main Page to interface administrators in order to mitigate the impact of compromised accounts.

Technical news

Administrators and bureaucrats can no longer unblock themselves unless they placed the block initially. This change has been implemented globally. See also this ongoing village pump discussion (permalink).
To complement the aforementioned change, blocked administrators will soon have the ability to block the administrator that placed their block to mitigate the possibility of a compromised administrator account blocking all other active administrators.
Since deployment of Partial blocks on Test Wikipedia, several bugs were identified. Most of them are now fixed. Administrators are encouraged to test the new deployment and report new bugs on Phabricator or leave feedback on the Project's talk page. You can request administrator access on the Test Wiki here.

Arbitration

Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 3 December 2018. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

Miscellaneous

In late November, an attacker compromised multiple accounts, including at least four administrator accounts, and used them to vandalize Wikipedia. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. Sharing the same password across multiple websites makes your account vulnerable, especially if your password was used on a website that suffered a data breach. As these incidents have shown, these concerns are not pure fantasies.
Wikipedia policy requires administrators to have strong passwords. To further reinforce security, administrators should also consider enabling two-factor authentication. A committed identity can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

Obituaries

Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (Raymond Arritt) passed away on 14 November 2018. Boris joined Wikipedia as Raymond arritt on 8 May 2006 and was an administrator from 30 July 2007 to 2 June 2008.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:36, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

	Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year 2019!
	Hi ThePlatypusofDoom! Thank you for all the hard work and effort you put into Wikipedia. God bless! Onel5969 ^{TT me} 14:36, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2018).

Administrator changes

Galobtter

Orangemike

BorgQueen • Davidruben • Ocee • Revolving Bugbear • Theda • There'sNoTime • Timc • Tijuana Brass • Tristessa de St Ange

Bureaucrat changes

Addshore

CheckUser changes

Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

AGK • Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Guideline and policy news

There are a number of new or changed speedy deletion criteria, each previously part of WP:CSD#G6:

G14 (new): Disambiguation pages that disambiguate only zero or one existing pages are now covered under the new G14 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-disambig}}; the text is unchanged and candidates may be found in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as unnecessary disambiguation pages.
R4 (new): Redirects in the file namespace (and no file links) that have the same name as a file or redirect at Commons are now covered under the new R4 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-redircom}}; the text is unchanged.
G13 (expanded): Userspace drafts containing only the default Article Wizard text are now covered under G13 along with other drafts (discussion). Such blank drafts are now eligible after six months rather than one year, and taggers continue to use {{db-blankdraft}}.

The Wikimedia Foundation now requires all interface administrators to enable 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.

Technical news

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.
{{Copyvio-revdel}} now has a link to open the history with the RevDel checkboxes already filled in.

Arbitration

Following the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: AGK, Courcelles, GorillaWarfare, Joe Roe, Mkdw, SilkTork.

Miscellaneous

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 two-factor authentication, up from 20% in June 2018. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless of whether you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:39, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

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

Administrator changes

Enterprisey • JJMC89

BorgQueen

Harro5 • Jenks24 • Graft • R. Baley

Interface administrator changes

Enterprisey

Guideline and policy news

A request for comment is currently open to reevaluate the activity requirements for 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.

Technical news

A discussion regarding an overhaul of the format and appearance of Wikipedia:Requests for page protection is in progress (permalink). The proposed changes will make it easier to create requests for those who are not using Twinkle. The workflow for administrators at this venue will largely be unchanged. Additionally, there are plans to archive requests similar to how it is done at WP:PERM, where historical records are kept so that prior requests can more easily be searched for.

Miscellaneous

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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:16, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2019

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

Administrator changes

Evad37

There'sNoTime

Alex Shih • Brian • Mushroom • Nakon • Oscarthecat • PeruvianLlama • Ragib • Reaper Eternal • Rossami • Tom

Interface administrator changes

Evad37 • Galobtter

Ritchie333

CheckUser changes

There'sNoTime

Keegan • Ks0stm

Oversight changes

There'sNoTime

Ks0stm • Sphilbrick

Guideline and policy news

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.

Technical news

A new tool is available to help determine if a given IP is an open proxy/VPN/webhost/compromised host.

Arbitration

The Arbitration Committee announced two new OTRS queues. Both are meant solely for cases involving private information; other cases will continue to be handled at the appropriate venues (e.g., WP:COIN or 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.

Miscellaneous

Following the 2019 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Base, Einsbor, Jon Kolbert, Schniggendiller, and Wim b.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:13, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Please participate to the talk pages consultation

Hello

Our team at the Wikimedia Foundation is working on a project to improve the ease-of-use and productivity of wiki talk pages. As a Teahouse host, I can imagine you’ve run into challenges explaining talk pages to first-time participants.

We want all contributors to be able to talk to each other on the wikis – to ask questions, to resolve differences, to organize projects and to make decisions. Communication is essential for the depth and quality of our content, and the health of our communities. We're currently leading a global consultation on how to improve talk pages, and we're looking for people that can report on their experiences using (or helping other people to use) wiki talk pages. We'd like to invite you to participate in the consultation, and invite new users to join too.

We thank you in advance for your participation and your help.

Trizek (WMF), 08:37, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Please participate to the talk pages consultation - link update

The previous message about the talk pages consultation has a broken link.

The correct link has been misinterpreted by the MassMessage tool. Please use the following link: Wikipedia:Talk pages consultation 2019.

Sorry for the inconvenience, Trizek (WMF), 08:48, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2019

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

Administrator changes

Reaper Eternal • ThaddeusB

Bogdangiusca • Christopher Parham • Necrothesp • Schneelocke • Siroxo • Sarah

Mentifisto → Lofty abyss

Interface administrator changes

Mr. Stradivarius

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad

Kingturtle

Technical news

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.

Arbitration

The Arbitration Committee clarified that the General 1RR prohibition for Palestine-Israel articles may only be enforced on pages with the {{ARBPIA 1RR editnotice}} edit notice.

Miscellaneous

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 secure and unique to Wikimedia.
As a reminder, according to WP:NOQUORUM, administrators looking to close or relist an AfD should evaluate a nomination that has received few or no comments as if it were a proposed deletion (PROD) prior to determining whether it should be relisted.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:57, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2019

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

Administrator changes

HickoryOughtShirt?4 • RexxS

Necrothesp

Bratsche • Kyle Barbour • Kzollman • Madman

Interface administrator changes

Pharos

Bureaucrat changes

Primefac

CheckUser changes

Reaper Eternal

Guideline and policy news

A request for comment concluded that creating pages in the portal namespace should be restricted to autoconfirmed users.
Following a request for comment, the subject-specific notability guideline for pornographic actors and models (WP:PORNBIO) was removed; in its place, editors should consult WP:ENT and WP:GNG.

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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.

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

Administrators' newsletter – June 2019

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

Administrator changes

Andonic • Consumed Crustacean • Enigmaman • Euryalus • EWS23 • HereToHelp • Nv8200pa • Peripitus • StringTheory11 • Vejvančický

CheckUser changes

Ivanvector

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:49, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2019

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

Administrator changes

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.

Bureaucrat changes

28bytes • WJBscribe • Wizardman

Interface administrator changes

MSGJ • TheDJ

CheckUser changes

Beeblebrox • BU Rob13 • DoRD

Oversight changes

Beeblebrox • BU Rob13 • DoRD • GB fan

Guideline and policy news

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 tightened such 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 slightly to 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.

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

In February 2019, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) changed its office actions policy to include temporary and project-specific bans. The WMF exercised this new ability for the first time on the English Wikipedia on 10 June 2019 to temporarily ban and desysop Fram. This action has resulted in 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.

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

Administrators' newsletter – August 2019

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

Administrator changes

Johnuniq • Kosack • Valereee

Ad Orientem • Ched • Gadfium • Jonathunder • Nick • Yelyos

Bald Zebra • Beetstra • Doug Bell • Journalist • Ruud Koot • Splash • Voice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes

RickinBaltimore

Oversight changes

Beeblebrox

RickinBaltimore

Guideline and policy news

Following a request for comment, the page Wikipedia:Office actions has been changed from a policy page to an information page.
A request for comment (permalink) is in progress regarding the administrator inactivity policy.

Arbitration

Editors may now use the template {{Ds/aware}} to indicate that they are aware that discretionary sanctions are in force for a topic area, so it is unnecessary to alert them.

Miscellaneous

Following a research project on masking IP addresses, the Foundation is starting a new project to improve the privacy of IP editors. The result of this project may significantly change administrative and counter-vandalism workflows. The project is in the very early stages of discussions and there is no concrete plan yet. Admins and the broader community are encouraged to leave feedback on the talk page.
The new page reviewer right is bundled with the admin tool set. Many admins regularly help out at Special:NewPagesFeed, but they may not be aware of improvements, changes, and new tools for the Curation system. Stay up to date by subscribing here to the NPP newsletter that appears every two months, and/or putting the reviewers' talk page on your watchlist.
Since the introduction of temporary user rights, it is becoming more usual to accord the New Page Reviewer right on a probationary period of 3 to 6 months in the first instance. This avoids rights removal for inactivity at a later stage and enables a review of their work before according the right on a permanent basis.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:24, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2019

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

Administrator changes

Bradv • Chetsford • Izno

Floquenbeam • Lectonar

DESiegel • Jake Wartenberg • Rjanag • Topbanana

CheckUser changes

Callanecc • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

Callanecc • Fox • HJ Mitchell • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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.

Miscellaneous

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.

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

Administrators' newsletter – October 2019

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

Administrator changes

Barkeep49

Beetstra • KillerChihuahua • Kusma

Arcadian • Extraordinary Machine • Xeno

JamesBWatson → JBW

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

CheckUser changes

Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Oversight changes

Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

The 2019 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place October 4th to 10th.
The arbitration case regarding Fram was closed. While there will be a local RfC focus[ing] on how harassment and private complaints should be handled in the future, there is currently a global community consultation on partial and temporary office actions in response to the incident. It will be open until October 30th.

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – November 2019

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

Administrator changes

GermanJoe • Girth Summit • Kees08 • Nosebagbear

DESiegel • GB fan • MSGJ • Voice of Clam • WilyD

DeltaQuad • Fang Aili • Pakaran

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad • Pakaran

Interface administrator changes

MSGJ

CheckUser changes

L235 • Mz7 • SQL • ST47

Ivanvector

DeltaQuad

Oversight changes

L235 • Mz7 • ST47 • Stwalkerster • The Blade of the Northern Lights • Xaosflux

DeltaQuad • DGG • Julia W

Guideline and policy news

An RfC was closed with the consensus that the resysop criteria should 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.

Arbitration

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.

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

A survey to improve the community consultation outreach process

Hello!

The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking to improve the community consultation outreach process for Foundation policies, and we are interested in why you didn't participate in a recent consultation that followed a community discussion you’ve been part of.

Please fill out this short survey to help us improve our community consultation process for the future. It should only take about three minutes.

The privacy policy for this survey is here. This survey is a one-off request from us related to this unique topic.

Thank you for your participation, Kbrown (WMF) 10:45, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019 election voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:20, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Of red pens and platypuses

Are you of any relation? Would a SPI filing be a misstep? --Pudeo (talk) 19:26, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@Pudeo: I'm unconnected to that account. You can file an spi if you want, though. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 03:02, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2019

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

Administrator changes

EvergreenFir • ToBeFree

Akhilleus • Athaenara • John Vandenberg • Melchoir • MichaelQSchmidt • NeilN • Youngamerican • 😂

CheckUser changes

Beeblebrox

Deskana

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

Guideline and policy news

An RfC on the administrator resysop criteria was closed. 18 proposals have been summarised with a variety of supported and opposed statements. The inactivity grace period within which a new request for adminship is not required has been reduced from three years to two. Additionally, Bureaucrats are permitted to use their discretion when returning administrator rights.
Following a proposal, the edit filter mailing list has been opened up to users with the Edit Filter Helper right.

Technical news

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)

Arbitration

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.

Miscellaneous

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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:48, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Edits at Richard Benjamin Harrison article

You seem to have attended that article, for edit approvals from non-loggers, and to take that job thoughtfully and seriously, and so I wanted to call your attention to the pile of serious, move-toward-encyclopedic edits I made today. I also created a Talk page entry to mention the observations made. Cheers. 2601:246:C700:9B0:258D:AF9C:CCA9:24A4 (talk) 19:52, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Cheers

Damon Runyon's short story "Dancing Dan's Christmas" is a fun read if you have the time. Right from the start it extols the virtues of the hot Tom and Jerry

This hot Tom and Jerry is an old-time drink that is once used by one and all in this country to celebrate Christmas with, and in fact it is once so popular that many people think Christmas is invented only to furnish an excuse for hot Tom and Jerry, although of course this is by no means true.

No matter what concoction is your favorite to imbibe during this festive season I would like to toast you with it and to thank you for all your work here at the 'pedia this past year. Best wishes for your 2020 as well TPoD. MarnetteD|Talk 21:42, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Cheers

Merry Christmas, ThePlatypusofDoom!
Or Season's Greetings or Happy Winter Solstice! As the year winds to a close, I would like to take a moment to recognize your hard work and offer heartfelt gratitude for all you do for Wikipedia. May this Holiday Season bring you nothing but joy, health and prosperity. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 11:12, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2020

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

Administrator changes

Dreamy Jazz • Newslinger • Rosguill

Deor • Spartaz • Xeno

Angusmclellan • clpo13 • Edgar181 • Matthewedwards • NCurse

CheckUser changes

Bradv • Casliber • David Fuchs • Maxim • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy • Xeno

Oversight changes

Bradv • Casliber • DGG • David Fuchs • Maxim • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy • Xeno

Someguy1221

Guideline and policy news

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 successful RfC, a whitelist is now available for users whose redirects will be autopatrolled by a bot, removing them from the new pages patrol queue. Admins can add such users to Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist after a discussion following the guidelines at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist.

Arbitration

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 than reasonably 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.

Miscellaneous

This issue marks three full years of the Admin newsletter. Thanks for reading!

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:07, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2020

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

Administrator changes

Ergo Sum • Nick Moyes • QEDK • Wugapodes

Dennis Brown

Aude • BrownHairedGirl • CALR • Jengod • John Reaves • J.smith • Kim Dent-Brown • K1Bond007 • MECU • Refdoc • RHaworth

CheckUser changes

Opabinia regalis • Premeditated Chaos

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

Guideline and policy news

Following a request for comment, partial blocks are now enabled on the English Wikipedia. This functionality allows administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces rather than the entire site. A draft policy is being workshopped at Wikipedia:Partial blocks.
The request for comment seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure closed with wide-spread support for an alternative desysoping procedure based on community input. No proposed process received consensus.

Technical news

Twinkle now supports partial blocking. There is a small checkbox that toggles the "partial" status for both blocks and templating. There is currently one template: {{uw-pblock}}.
When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title. [2]

Arbitration

Following a recent arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee reminded administrators that checkuser and oversight blocks must not be reversed or modified without prior consultation with the checkuser or oversighter who placed the block, the respective functionary team, or the Arbitration Committee.

Miscellaneous

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!

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:06, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2020

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

Administrator changes

Money emoji

Athaenara • DeltaQuad

Fishhead64 • Kudpung • Mikaey

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad

CheckUser changes

DeltaQuad

Oversight changes

DeltaQuad

Guideline and policy news

Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops must not undo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather than should not.
A request for comment confirmed that sandboxes of established but inactive editors may not be blanked due solely to inactivity.

Technical news

Following a discussion, Twinkle's default CSD behavior will soon change, most likely this week. After the change, Twinkle will default to "tagging mode" if there is no CSD tag present, and default to "deletion mode" if there is a CSD tag present. You will be able to always default to "deletion mode" (the current behavior) using your Twinkle preferences.

Miscellaneous

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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:21, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2020

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

Administrator changes

Cabayi • Lee Vilenski

Boing! said Zebedee

Jonny-mt • MarkGallagher • PeaceNT

Money emoji → Moneytrees

Bureaucrat changes

SilkTork • WereSpielChequers

CheckUser changes

NativeForeigner

Oversight changes

Someguy1221

Daniel Case

Guideline and policy news

There is an ongoing request for comment to streamline the source deprecation and blacklisting process.

Technical news

There is a plan for new requirements for user signatures. You can give feedback.

Arbitration

Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold a Arbcom RfC regarding on-wiki harassment. A draft RfC has been posted at 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.

Miscellaneous

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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:00, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!

Have a very happy first edit anniversary!

From the Birthday Committee, CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 00:43, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2020

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

Administrator changes

Gnangarra • Kaisershatner • Malcolmxl5

CheckUser changes

Callanecc

Oversight changes

HJ Mitchell

Guideline and policy news

Discretionary sanctions have been authorized for all pages and edits related to COVID-19, to be logged at 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.

Technical news

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.

Miscellaneous

A request for comment closed with consensus to create a Village Pump-style page for communication with the Wikimedia Foundation.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:19, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2020

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

Administrator changes

CaptainEek • Creffett • Cwmhiraeth

Anna Frodesiak • Buckshot06 • Ronhjones • SQL

CheckUser changes

SQL

Guideline and policy news

A request for comment asks whether the 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.

Arbitration

A motion was passed to enact a 500/30 restriction 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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:28, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

WikiLoop Battlefield new name vote

Dear ThePlatypusofDoom,

Thank you for your interest and contributions to WikiLoop Battlefield. We are holding a voting for proposed new name. We would like to invite you to this voting. The voting is held at m:WikiProject_WikiLoop/New_name_vote and ends on July 13th 00:00 UTC.

xinbenlv ^{Talk, Remember to "ping" me} 05:16, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2020

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

Administrator changes

Malcolmxl5

John • TheCoffee • Tim!

Creffett → GeneralNotability

DeltaQuad → AmandaNP

CheckUser changes

Bbb23

Interface administrator changes

TonyBallioni

Guideline and policy news

A request for comment is in progress to remove the T2 (template that misrepresents established policy) speedy deletion criterion.

Technical news

Protection templates on mainspace pages are now automatically added by User:MusikBot II (BRFA).

Arbitration

Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold an RfC regarding on-wiki harassment. The RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC and is open to comments from the community.
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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:26, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Announcing WikiLoop DoubleCheck

Dear Wikipedians and contributors, the open source Wikipedia review tool, previously "WikiLoop Battlefield" has completed its name vote and is announcing its new name: WikiLoop DoubleCheck. Read the full story on the program page on Meta-wiki, learn about ways to support this tool, and find out what future developments are coming for this tool.

Thank you to everyone who took part in the vote!

xinbenlv ^{Talk, Remember to "ping" me} 18:29, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2020

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

Administrator changes

Red Phoenix

Euryalus • SQL

Jujutacular • Monty845 • Rettetast • Madchester

Oversight changes

GB fan

Keegan • Opabinia regalis • Premeditated Chaos

Guideline and policy news

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).
Speedy deletion criterion 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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:21, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Join the RfC to define trust levels for WikiLoop DoubleCheck

Hi ThePlatypusofDoom/Archive4,
you are receiving this message because you are an active user of WikiLoop DoubleCheck. We are currently holding a Request for Comments to define trust levels for users of this tool. If you can spare a few minutes, please consider leaving your feedback on the RfC page.
Thank you in advance for sharing your thoughts. Your opinion matters greatly!
María Cruz

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:59, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
If you would like to modify your subscription to these messages you can do so here.

Administrators' newsletter – September 2020

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

Administrator changes

Eddie891

Angela • Jcw69 • Just Chilling • Philg88 • Viajero

CheckUser changes

SQL

Guideline and policy news

Following a request for comment, the minimum length for site ban discussions was increased to 72 hours, up from 24.
A request for comment is ongoing to determine whether paid editors must or should use the articles for creation process.
A request for comment is open to resolve inconsistencies between the draftification and alternative to deletion processes.

Arbitration

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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:57, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2020

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

Administrator changes

Ajpolino • LuK3

Jackmcbarn

Ad Orientem • Harej • Lid • Lomn • Mentoz86 • Oliver Pereira • XJaM

There'sNoTime → TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

A request for comment found consensus that incubation as an alternative to deletion should generally only be recommended when draftification is appropriate, namely 1) if the result of a deletion discussion is to draftify; or 2) if the article is newly created.

Technical news

The filter log now provides links to view diffs of deleted revisions (phab:T261630).

Arbitration

The 2020 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has 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.

Miscellaneous

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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:43, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2020

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

Administrator changes

John M Wolfson

Bduke • Nilfanion • Philosopher • Rspeer • Yunshui

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

TonyBallioni

CheckUser changes

EdJohnston • Oshwah • Yamla

Yunshui

Oversight changes

Anarchyte

Yunshui

Guideline and policy news

Community sanctions now authorize administrators to place under indefinite semiprotection any article on a beauty pageant, or biography of a person known as a beauty pageant contestant, which has been edited by a sockpuppet account or logged-out sockpuppet, to be logged at WP:GS/PAGEANT.

Technical news

Sysops will once again be able to view the deleted history of JS/CSS pages; this was restricted to interface administrators when that group was introduced.
Twinkle's block module now includes the ability to note the specific case when applying a discretionary sanctions block 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.

Arbitration

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.

Miscellaneous

A reminder that standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people. (American Politics 2 Arbitration case).

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:53, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

New, simpler RfC to define trust levels for WikiLoop DoubleCheck

HI ThePlatypusofDoom/Archive4,
I'm writing to let you know we have simplified the RfC on trust levels for the tool WikiLoop DoubleCheck. Please join and share your thoughts about this feature! We made this change after hearing users' comments on the first RfC being too complicated. I hope that you can participate this time around, giving your feedback on this new feature for WikiLoop DoubleCheck users.
Thanks and see you around online,
María Cruz
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:06, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
If you would like to update your settings to change the wiki where you receive these messages, please do so here.

ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:49, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2020

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

Administrator changes

Andrwsc • Anetode • GoldenRing • JzG • LinguistAtLarge • Nehrams2020

Interface administrator changes

Izno

Guideline and policy news

There is a request for comment in progress to either remove T3 (duplicated and hardcoded instances) as a speedy deletion criterion or eliminate its seven-day waiting period.

Technical news

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.

Arbitration

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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:37, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2021

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

Administrator changes

Hammersoft

Andres • Brion VIBBER • Rkitko • Thatcher

CheckUser changes

Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek • Primefac

Oversight changes

Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek

Joe Roe

Guideline and policy news

Speedy deletion criterion T3 (duplication and hardcoded instances) has been repealed following a request for comment.

Technical news

You can now put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time.

Arbitration

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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:08, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2021

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

Administrator changes

Hog Farm

Mattflaschen • Nandesuka • Savidan • Wangi

CheckUser changes

Berean Hunter • Xeno

Oversight changes

Someguy1221 • Xeno

Arbitration

The standard discretionary sanctions authorized for American Politics were amended by motion to cover post-1992 politics of United States and closely related people, replacing the 1932 cutoff.

Miscellaneous

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!

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:10, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Long time no chat!

I hope you're doing well! I just wanted to leave you a message and let you know that I was thinking about you... ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 04:42, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

@Oshwah: Hello! I haven't been editing that much, but I'm still occasionally around. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 03:02, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Hey, it's good to talk to you. It's all good - I'm happy to see you around! ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:04, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2021

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

Administrator changes

TJMSmith

Boing! said Zebedee • Hiberniantears • Lear's Fool • Only • WGFinley

Interface administrator changes

AmandaNP

Guideline and policy news

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 request for comment is in progress to remove F7 (invalid fair-use claim) 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 comment asks 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 discussion in progress concerning automatic protection of each day's featured article with Pending Changes protection.

Technical news

When blocking an IPv6 address with Twinkle, there is now a checkbox with the option to just block the /64 range. 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 a number of reported issues with Pending Changes. Most problems setting protection appear to have been resolved (phab:T273317) but other issues with autoaccepting edits persist (phab:T275322).

Arbitration

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.

Miscellaneous

Following the 2021 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AmandaNP, Operator873, Stanglavine, Teles, and Wiki13.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:15, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

WikiLoop 2020 Year in Review

Dear editors, developers and friends:

Thank you for supporting Project WikiLoop! The year 2020 was an unprecedented one. It was unusual for almost everyone. In spite of this, Project WikiLoop continued the hard work and made some progress that we are proud to share with you. We also wanted to extend a big thank you for your support, advice, contributions and love that make all this possible.

Head over to our project page on Meta Wikimedia to read a brief 2020 Year in Review for WikiLoop.

Thank you for taking the time to review Wikipedia using WikiLoop DoubleCheck. Your work is important and it matters to everyone. We look forward to continuing our collaboration through 2021!

María Cruz
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:35, 25 March 2021 (UTC)