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Santamoly AE

I am not sure I understand what you mean in the closing statement [1], I must be missing something. The alert was given on 20 February and not by me. All other diffs are later. After I suggested that the user should not edit articles related to Ukrainian topics they first kept to talk pages, but then they started editing articles, and this is why I filed the AE request.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:59, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

After editing thousands articles since the first days of Wikipedia, I was a bit non-plussed after running into my first aggressive political censorship attempts by Ukrainian activists in the Crimean article. I was only interested in the bridge structure, not the politics. Even on the Talk pages, where the edit supporters outnumbered the Ukrainian Activists, the activists can actually succeed in controlling the article. I had not seen this before in Wikipedia, and I'm still amazed that the activists can create fictitious content. Now I need to find out the limits of the censorship ban. Are you able to direct me to discussion on the limits of a "topic ban, broadly interpreted"? In other words, how to edit without unleashing partisan censorship? Santamoly (talk) 01:12, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
Hello AGK: You had me indefinitely topic banned from eastern europe and not sure how this type of ban works. Are you able to explain? I found this template on the appeal page, but I'm not sure how to use it and the instructions aren't clear:
This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

==Arbitration enforcement action appeal by <Username>== <small>''Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found [[Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Procedures#Enforcement|here]]. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.''</small> <p><small>''To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see [[WP:UNINVOLVED]]).''</small></p> ; Appealing user : {{userlinks|<Username>}} – [[User:Santamoly|Santamoly]] ([[User talk:Santamoly|talk]]) 07:19, 22 September 2018 (UTC) ; Sanction being appealed : <Text> ; Administrator imposing the sanction : {{admin|<Username>}} ; Notification of that administrator : ''The appealing editor is asked to notify the administrator who made the enforcement action of this appeal, and then to replace this text with a [[WP:DIFF|diff]] of that notification. The appeal may not be processed otherwise. If a block is appealed, the editor moving the appeal to this board should make the notification.'' ===Statement by <Username>=== <Your text> ===Statement by <Username>=== ===Statement by (involved editor 1)=== ===Statement by (involved editor 2)=== ===Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by <Username> === ===Result of the appeal by <Username>=== :''This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.'' <!-- When closing this request (once there is a consensus) use {{hat|Result}} / {{hab}} if at AE, or an archive/discussion box template if on AN, inform the user on their talk page and note it in the discretionary sanctions log below where their sanctions is logged. --> *

My question is: where do I submit the questions or appeal regarding the topic ban? The ban is quite vague and large (it appears to be a ban on editing anything to do with half the world!) Any suggestions gratgefully feceived, Thanks, Santamoly Santamoly (talk) 07:19, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Warning might be logged

Hello AGK. Your warning to ContentEditman might be logged in WP:DSLOG/2018 so that it's not overlooked by future closers. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 18:47, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

@EdJohnston: I didn't log because I suppose it is not an enforcement action. Warnings about conduct on the noticeboard itself are a meta or housekeeping matter, whereas DSLOG is for matters relating to arbitration decisions. To quote the log's preface (emphasis mine):

This is the central log for all sanctions issued pursuant to an Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions remedy

What do you think? Perhaps we ought to create a section at the end ("Noticeboard matters") or a separate log, sitting alongside those for each calendar year. I agree that these things need to be easily found by future closers, and do not want to seem like I am asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? AGK ■ 19:43, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
@EdJohnston: Something of this sort came up again – I logged it like so. AGK ■ 17:40, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
Noticed your warning, and I agree. The wording of WP:AC/DS is quite broad, and you might think that a warning about misuse of AE is one of the things that an admin might do, to help fix a situation in one of the contested areas. ("..any sanction, restriction, or other remedy placed under this procedure".) Though it is funny to think of a warning as a 'sanction'. Perhaps some day the committee might tweak the wording to make it sound more natural. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 17:51, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Appeal to the topic ban with reason

Hello. I was recently topic banned after an AE sanction was applied on me. I wish to request that this sanction be overturned because I acted in all good faith. There might have been issues in the past that some of you think are not a good way to edit but when the editor gave me a notification that the topic area was under sanctions, on my talk page. I did take notice of it and did proceed with even more caution. This can be better understood from the fact that I also added a talk page comment. I did not repeatedly recreate it. Infact, I first had a discussion with the editor. You can see my talk page comment on the creation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Khafd

Infact, long before creating the page, I started a talk page discussion on that page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Khafd&oldid=828993431

It was reverted by User:SlimVirgin and the talk page turned into a redirect. My comment wasn't moved as far as I remember. Infact I was told that I should go and comment on the main topic's talk page. I asked for a self revert which wasn't made: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Muffizainu#Discretionary_sanctions_alert ... I did not create a disturbance over breaking of these rules of editing out others' comments and and went ahead to add the the talk page discussion to the page asked again ( https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Religious_views_on_female_genital_mutilation&diff=prev&oldid=829409243 ).

Now if you look at the Khafd comment, it got archived, no one objected or cared (to me it appeared that I was only being filibustered, but I followed rules): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Religious_views_on_female_genital_mutilation/Archive_2

So you can see that I created the Khafd article in all good faith and would have been more than happy to follow wikipedia rules and discuss if some one choose to take this article to AFD ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Khafd ) as I clearly said. If some one felt I was in the wrong, I would totally respect consensus. But - instead of getting consensus, an AE sanction was requested. Then, instead of AFD, the article was redirected back in a revert: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Khafd&action=history - it is wrong ot by pass consensus and due process by getting the opposing editor sanctioned and then reverting the article single handedly. Given that I was not banned while the article was created, it should still have been taken to AFD instead of a revert. I hope that shows you atleast a bit that there's been some presumptuous behaviour and not fair discussion.

I'm certain that you agree that it is not right to get your opponents blocked/banned than to discuss. If they were finding it difficult to discuss with me alone, they could have simple started an AFD.

As you were the blocking admin, I respect your standing and am bringing this issue to you before I take this to WP:AN to appeal as I feel that in all fairness, you can revert my ban and instead allow me to discuss the article at AFD. If neutral editors disagree, I will not be the one to edit war. I will go back to research references. Muffizainu (talk) 11:40, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

First, ping SlimVirgin. It is good etiquette these days to ping an editor you are mentioning. Whilst SV is welcome to comment here, I do not expect input.

@Muffizainu: I sanctioned you because your edits seriously damaged the integrity of our articles. Whether consensus existed, or whether you first sought consensus, to make those edits is irrelevant. There are some things that consensus cannot override. Your motivation for making the edits you did – your acting in good faith, as you say – is also not immediately relevant. The only questions put to me in any enforcement request are (A) whether your conduct disrupts Wikipedia, and (B) if so, whether you can be prevented from doing so again without a sanction. A great many would-be participants of Wikipedia act, to their mind, with the best of intentions. See WP:Righting great wrongs. AGK ■ 17:52, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

@AGK: I completely understand. And if editors disagreed, I would completely abide by consensus. I'm only saying that it is not right for admins to enforce content as editors are supposed to enforce content, admins are only supposed to keep editors in line. I or another editor should at least have the right to create an article (or make an edit) and have it rejected by another set of editors before it is even though to be disruptive. This is especially with the fact that I'm ready to accept any consensus. But is it right not to let an editor even seek consensus, by the way of sanction?
I hope that has some logic and you would allow me to recreate the article (and go through an AFD if you wish), by lifting the sanction at least temporarily. If not, I will have to request at WP:AN, but I do feel you should entertain a reasonable request? Muffizainu (talk) 07:41, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
@Muffizainu: No, sorry: I deny that request to be temporarily exempted from the sanction and I deny the broader appeal.
If you post at AN, it must be solely to further appeal sanctions in the prescribed way. You may not argue your views on the underlying real-life issues under the auspices of an administrative discussion. You may not seek an editorial consensus in support of your preferred viewpoint.
Finally, I am going to remind you one last time, because what I just said doesn't seem to have fully landed. Whether or not you are accepting of consensus is irrelevant. Wikipedia does not conceive of a consensus that excuses the selective use of sourcing to manipulate the neutrality of articles. That you would think to look for one rather illustrates the type of misconduct that resulted in enforcement action. AGK ■ 10:22, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
AGK, I have mentioned the ban of Muffizainu in this thread at AN, where another editor is asking to have his own FGM ban lifted. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 18:06, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Html tags vs. wikitext

Hello AGK,

If you're going to use HTML tags as you did here at WT:CIVIL, then please understand how the HTML syntax works. In particular, each opening element, like a <p> element requires a matching </p> element at the end of the paragraph. However, using the p-tag is not advisable, as it's too easy to forget to add the ending tag, as you did twice in that edit (I've fixed them for you). However, you can achieve the same result more easily via wikitext by simply inserting an empty line to generate a new paragraph. HTH, Mathglot (talk) 11:08, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

@Mathglot: I understood that Sanitizer.php closes the tag in use cases like this. Why would my unclosed <p> matter, if you know? AGK ■ 13:27, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
It breaks syntax coloring, which is helpful, when it works. I didn't know about Sanitizer; if that really works, then based on the timestamp of your change, and when I posted the comment above, perhaps I just didn't wait long enough. Same thing with "<br>" (should be: "<br />"). Either way though, nbd. Mathglot (talk) 10:16, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

R. Crawford article deletion

Hi AGK -

I wanted to reach out and explain the backstory to the 2018 Rah Crawford wikipedia creation - I would like to post this on the record related to this article, but the deletion discussion / history has been closed. If you could direct me to the best way to post it, I would appreciate it!


Here's the back story. This user account WO1977 has had 2 editors using it (I reached out to editors because I have little wiki experience).

1st Editor -Hired an editor to create bio for Rah Crawford. -User WO1977 was created. -We worked with this editor June 21, 2017 - September 28, 2017 -The editor wrote a bio and submitted the bio to Art History Archive and Wikipedia in June/July of 2017. -When the article in Wikipedia was flagged for plagiarism because of the art history archive entry we mentioned that it was the same author, but also made some updates to the Wikipedia entry so as to not look like an article on Wikipedia was plagiarized. -This was the first article that this editor created for Wikipedia.


2nd Editor -Over 6 months passed, a new editor reached out to us via email saying that they could update the article so it would meet Wikipedia guidelines. -The second editor worked through April 26, 2018 - September 18, 2018 -This editor asked to use the user WO1977 for the changes and updates. -The editor made changes and updates, and unfortunately it seems the methods in which the editor used to try to get the article accepted were not in compliance with Wikipedia guidelines.

Now, the article has since been deleted, and has a creation protection on it.


I've learned a lot through this process, and have only responded until now because I was working on the latest project with Rah Crawford. A film that was created about his new art period was accepted into an international film festival.

Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).https://www.bushwickfilmfestival.com/11th-annual-bushwick-film-festival/2018/9/12/blockchain-and-sharing-the-financial-load-for-your-passion-projectCite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).

Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).https://thecreativecrypto.com/showing-of-neo-now-bushwick-film-festival-nyc/Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).

The deletion discussion seemed to be very heated (but some said it met the notability guidelines) so I wanted to respond on behalf of Rah Crawford's team, we wanted to note the things that have happened in his 14 year art career and community engagement.

AGK - If you have any advice on going forward, or where or who it would make sense to direct these comments too - I would appreciate it!

This talk page meets the talk page guidelines to the best of my knowledge, my apologies if I missed a step.

Michelle WO1977 (talk) 18:56, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Today's Wikipedian 10 years ago

Awesome
Ten years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:31, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Recent WP:AE action

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I thought you were extremely fast in closing the request against Onceinawhile here, less than 2 hours after it was opened. As I stated here, I started this mess, which led to this rule...and I am not happy about the result, at all. The IP area is difficult, we all know, but it is not getting better by having rules most of us simply don't understand. It is not getting better being banned (or topic banned) under these Byzantine rules, Huldra (talk) 22:13, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

There are methods of writing a Wikipedia article that do not involve every sentence being furiously upended by a dozen users in quick succession. I suppose that restrictions on the frequency of reverts are less dangerous and cumbersome to users whose "go-to" is not reverting… AGK ■ 22:26, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
Your reply is about as clear to me as the rules in the IP area. IE, clear ...as ink, Huldra (talk) 22:36, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Onceinawhile

I don't understand how I can be blamed for something that happened after I edited? Above you explained your decision writing "every sentence being furiously upended by a dozen users in quick succession". On the AE you explained in a similar way: "Enclave law was in the throes of an edit war. Onceinawhile contributed to disruption of this article when they reverted." These descriptions are incorrect representations of the situation when I edited the article.

I last edited the article on 29 Oct. Then Icewhiz edited on 2 Nov, then I reverted. No-one else had edited. There was no edit war.

I am not and have never been an edit warrior. Whenever I see one I run a mile, because I know what discretionary sanctions are like.

Please could you kindly clarify what you think I personally did wrong?

Onceinawhile (talk) 22:41, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Onceinawhile. The restriction can be read in full at WP:A/I/PIA § General 1RR restriction. It restricts all editors of pages relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict from "reverting a revert", which historically has been a serious problem in this topic area. Your breach was of this restriction; "discretionary sanctions" is actually a different system of restrictions. AGK ■ 22:48, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
Hi AGK. At the AE you wrote "I accept Onceinawhile's submission that, wrongly, they did not think ARBPIA § General 1RR Restriction is counted from the most recent revert". I read that to mean that we both accepted that that was an inadvertent error, regarding a rule that I had not been notified of. From your closing statement it didn't feel like this was what I was being punished for.
I took another cold look at the events. I understood it as simply WP:BRD. A big bold set of edits, followed by a single revert, followed by a discussion. Of course sometimes bold edits in BRD can be considered to also be reverts; that inherent subjectivity is exactly why the "one revert per editor per article per 24-hour period" needs to exist. In this case, the bold edit was a major undiscussed change to the scope of the article (it literally changed the entire topic of the article to make it about terminology not about a legal concept), and came after a period of many days of stability and article building, so by no means a classic revert. Either way, throughout my 8.5 years here I have seen and heard that BRD, with the 24 hour-per-editor rule, represents normal course. I behaved exactly as I have always seen and heard is acceptable.
I park my car in the same parking spot every day. If next week the local authorities subtly tweaked the wording of the parking regulations, and didn't make the change clear or notify me, I would go ahead and park there again. If I got a parking ticket, I would appeal it. But if I was instead banned from driving for three months?
Separately, to illustrate what kind of editor I am, please see the only two other posts on my talk page today. It started as a good Wikipedia day for me this morning. I hope that my long history of hard work, diligence and good citizenship here can count for something.
One final note. I don't feel great about taking your time asking to you to look at it all over again, as you are volunteering to spend your free time working to keep our project administration functioning and as individual editors we should be making your life easier not harder. If you agree to spend the time to take another look, and I can do anything to balance the effort, I will.
Onceinawhile (talk) 00:58, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
I don't mean to sound cold, but none of what you're saying makes a difference. Editing that article means you are required to pare back Bold – Revert – Discuss. This happens to almost no other Wikipedia articles. You breached that requirement and have been excluded from the topic for a time. Any other editor who breaches the requirement will be excluded too, in their turn. As a community, we tolerate firmer standards on these articles because topic areas like PIA are charged and unpleasant. Thank you for your comments, but I don't think letting you back into this article would be the right outcome. AGK ■ 14:58, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
Ok. You have made your decision. I am not clear which specific requirement you are talking about (your first post above referred to the entire revert restriction regime, which includes many sub-rules), as we have talked loosely about a few. You have stated that your decision was not related to the discretionary sanctions regime. Please could you clarify two questions: (1) is the ban only because I breached the “original author” 24-hour-from-revert rule? (2) if the answer to 1 is no, which specific other part of rule do you consider I breached?
I would appreciate if you could do me the courtesy of being precise about this, so we can all move on. I need to assess how I feel about this, but I can’t do that without a very clear understanding of your decision. I appreciate it must be irritating having editors who you have enforced sanctions against come and take up your time here. As I said above, if I can mitigate this I will. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:34, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
While awaiting your response, I found a sentence under Community Sanctions at WP:GS which states: “Administrators may not impose sanctions unless an editor has previously been made aware of the existence of these sanctions.”
In your closing statement you explicitly accepted that I was not aware. To say more clearly what I have been making a meal of above, I am 100% certain that I did not breach any rule except the single new one that I was not aware of.
Onceinawhile (talk) 22:16, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

It is distressing to see one of the best editors in the IP area, who wrote this article almost single-handedly, being hit with a severe penalty. Now the tag-team who started deleting everything on the non-policy excuse that sources must contain the exact words that appear in the article title (rather than merely being about the same subject) can proceed to destroy it without opposition. None of this is to the benefit of the encyclopedia. Concerning the obligation of editors to know the rules, it is unarguable but you should know that you (AGK) got the rule wrong too. It does not say that the General 1RR restriction "is counted from the most recent revert", but rather from "the first revert made to their edit". Oncenawhile indeed violated the real rule in this case, but the fact that his confusion derived from the unwise assumption that the rules make good sense calls for leniency in my opinion. Zerotalk 02:36, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

You are quite welcome to use my page to talk until you're blue in the face. I don't mind. But it would be more useful to read about this tag-team in an enforcement request. If you do not submit a request, I shall need to presume that much of your description is exaggerated. AGK ■ 14:42, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

The user was well aware of more stricter version of the prohibitions see their post "gain_consensus"_ARBPIA_requirement_working?(which was amended latter).But he didn't abide to the current version that less stricter .If we assume that he forgot about the sanctions then are probably some WP:CIR issue here and he shouldn't edit the topic area at all. --Shrike (talk) 07:31, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that was a long time ago, and because the discussion to unwind that sanction was posted just three days after my post by Huldra on the same page (at WP:IPCOLL, which I have on my watchlist), I also knew of (and was involved in, from memory) its quick demise.
There is a reason for my username - I only edit once in a while (or at least I try to). Which is why it’s not practical to spend my time searching byzantine ARCA pages every time to ensure I am aware of new rules. To use my parking analogy above, drivers are not expected to search the parking regulations rulebook every time they take the car for a spin. Changes to parking regulations are usually publicized in an obvious way. The fact that changes are not publicized clearly here is presumably why the awareness requirement exists.
Two other points for reflection. I personally built the table at Wikipedia:ARBPIAINTRO in order to make it easier for editors to follow these rules. Unfortunately it gets updated very rarely (you’ll see it still doesn’t include this original author rule). I now see - from AGK’s link above - that the issue of overly complex ARBPIA pages was acknowledged through the creation of Wikipedia:A/I/PIA a few months ago. I have now added this to my watchlist. I would also suggest that the table at ARBPIAINTRO is replaced by a link to this new page. And perhaps we could all agree that any changes to ARBPIA going forward are publicized and explained clearly at the three wikiproject noticeboards (Israel, Palestine, and IPCOLL).
Onceinawhile (talk) 08:48, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
@Shrike: I just realized that you are the 17th most active user of WP:AE, ever, including the admins who work there, and have the highest AE-to-overall edit ratio (1 in 30 of your entire edit history has been at AE). You have made almost six times as many contributions to AE than you have to your most edited article. You might consider, going forward, using that great interest and dedication to help the community understand the evolving ARBPIA rules. Onceinawhile (talk) 10:37, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

There are three points to be made.

  1. The rule is extremely confusing, and nobody (not even admins) understands it. Several admins at AE have said so explicitly. Also see this entire AE request, where everybody, including Shrike, shows that they don't understand the rule. Not to toot my own horn, but I was the only one who had the correct interpretation. It is unclear to me that AGK even knows how confusing this rule is and how it has been treated at AE, since I don't recall them ever weighing in on a dispute on this rule.
  2. Onceinawhile stated explicitly that they would be happy to self-revert. It is very common for people to break 1RR by mistake. I have done so many times. Here is one of many examples.
  3. AGK decided (based on what criteria, it isn't clear), that a single infraction of this unclear rule deserves a three-month topic ban. How did AGK get to this conclusion? Do they hand out 3-month topic bans for isolated 3RR violations on the edit-warring noticeboard? Perhaps all the work Onceinawhile put in to get Balfour Declaration to FA clearly shows to AGK that the former isn't qualified to edit in this area. That was sarcasm. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 01:35, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
Kingsindian, thank you for your support. On your second point, how frequent it is to accidentally cross the 1RR rule, and how most editors allow opposing editors a chance to recant before running to WP:AE, I have been discussing with another editor the merits of a proposed amendment to the ARBPIA rules (for 1RR only) along the lines of “Administrators may not impose 1RR sanctions if an editor was not given a warning about the violation 24 hours prior to the AE submission”. If the AE is still filed after the wait period, the behavior of the editor during that 24 hour period can be used to assess if the editor was being disruptive or just made a single mistake. The idea is to introduce a safety valve to reduce the burden on WP:AE, create a more positive editing environment, and remove the structural advantage that aggressive editors currently have over collegiate editors.
On your third point, I would note that the strength of the ban is lighter than all of AGK's four other AE bans this year (his last AE ban prior to that was back in 2011). Also WP:BANLENGTH is clear that topic bans are not supposed to be short term. So I cannot fault AGK for consistency with his own criteria.WP:BLOCK is shorter of course.
Where I feel aggrieved is that WP:TBAN states that "The purpose of a topic ban is to forbid editors from making edits related to a certain topic area where their contributions have been disruptive." AGK is therefore interpreting the word "disruptive" in this context to apply to technical / accidental oversights, which I doubt it was intended for. But this is not clarified in the policy, so I imagine admins are free to interpret in whichever way they choose.
I would like AGK to reconsider the sanction on the basis of his prior acceptance that I was unaware of the rule, per WP:GS (“Administrators may not impose sanctions unless an editor has previously been made aware of the existence of these sanctions.”) Onceinawhile (talk) 09:02, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@Onceinawhile: I should explain that my gap in AE actions is because I sat on the committee itself between 2012 and 2016. After leaving the committee, I took a short wikibreak.

You have made two submissions to me:

  1. WP:GS states that you need to have prior awareness of 1RR or another general restriction. You were not aware of ARBPIA 1RR, and my topic ban was therefore procedurally improper.
  2. You are a productive editor who made one revert more than they should have. I should consider leniency.

On the first point, your quotation from Wikipedia:General sanctions is one relating to a different set of restrictions (those imposed by the community). The paragraph is irrelevant. Also, in any event, Wikipedia is not governed by written rules and has no statute.

On the second point, I would again explain that these restrictions exist because we – plural, Wikipedia, its community, whatever – have decided the usual approach to collaborative editing (Bold – Revert – Discuss) is not working. Reverting more than once in a short period is therefore ipso facto disruptive, for any pages in the topic. Any impartial observer would agree with both these policies, particularly having watched Wikipedia open multiple arbitration cases about the Arab–Israeli conflict. I agree. And I do not accept that permitting you back onto Enclave law or any related article would be helpful, because I know from experience that these topic areas can only come close, in the long run, to becoming stable and controlled only if we consistently act to quickly exclude any editor who fails to edit cautiously (ie who breaches 1RR or another restriction on Bold – Revert – Discuss).

I am not usually asked to explain the theory behind why general restrictions exist, but I hope this gives some insight into your own case. I hope it is clear that I have not mindlessly slammed down a hammer on you. I do appreciate the courteous way you have phrased your comments here and elsewhere. But, I am sorry – I deny your appeal to me. AGK ■ 13:53, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

OK, thank you for the explanation. I have accepted that you are not going to change your mind. So why am I posting another wall of text here? Because having reflected on your last post, I am now worried about the bigger picture. You voluntarily serve our community in a very significant way, you are a highly respected part of the Wikipedia system, and you are nothing if not consistent. And yet your good faith theory is going to damage this encyclopedia which we both care deeply about.
You might think who the hell am I to suggest that. We may both be veterans, but your rank is higher than mine; I am just a foot soldier fighting for our encyclopaedia on the front lines of one of our two most contested battlegrounds. I don’t see anywhere near as many Arb cases as you have done. I just see what happens in the trenches (please forgive the WWI references - it’s almost the centenary...)
I am worried because the project-wide enforcement approach you are advocating here is extreme. This extremity is also visible in practice. For all your comments above about community consensus when discussing my case, there is in fact no consensus on enforcement of this particular sub-rule. You have set a new precedent. This new and unusual rule was implemented earlier this year. Since then it has come to AE nine times, of which most resulted in no action, one came together with other issues and had a 72 hour block, and two (both yours) had 12 month and 3 month topic bans (the latter being mine). You’ll see that what you termed “disruption” in my case is referred to by some other admins as “accidental oversight” or similar:
Moving back to the bigger picture, you stated that the purpose of your zero-tolerance approach was to “come close, in the long run, to becoming stable and controlled”. This goal is important but is not stated anywhere in WP:AIM. Your extreme approach will achieve the goal you set out, but to the detriment of Wikipedia’s overall purpose. A more balanced approach will help achieve both.
When considering how we will achieve our WP:AIM in Wikipedia’s battleground areas, the most important “typology” of the editors who work on these topics is not pro-Israel vs pro-Palestinian, or Republicans vs Democrats. It is “collegiate editors” (those who wish to collaborate with those who hold opposing views) vs “battleground editors” (those who wish to fight against opposing views).
In these contested areas, our project’s success in the long term is reliant on ensuring the “collegiate editors” are able to get on with the job. The ability for people from opposing sides to collaborate here is what makes this project so valuable and so unique (see e.g. WP:IPCOLL, which I rewrote most of a few years ago).
On the other hand, some “battleground editors” have become specialists, rarely building anything, but instead walking the line carefully, pushing and prodding well-meaning editors until someone loses their cool, trips over a bright line, or frankly gives up from sheer exhaustion. They also enjoy the game of “admin roulette”, throwing up an AE or ANI and hoping they strike lucky.
There is lots of research stating that zero tolerance policies in general are counterproductive in the long run (our own article states “little evidence supports [its] claimed effectiveness”). In our world, zero tolerance on these matters advantages the “battleground editors” against the “collegiate editors”.
I continue to believe in the project, unlike too many others before me who have been hit with the iron fist, precisely because of these types of reasoned discussions. I failed to convince you about my own personal case, but there is still a chance to convince you to notice that your are unwittingly favoring those who game the system over those who build the encyclopedia.
PS - one small comment on my specific case. I can’t help but notice that, whilst I am 90% certain you are very clear in your mind about the case, all four of your posts on this question (including the AE close) incorrectly describe my actual infraction. In your most recent post you wrote “one revert more than they should have” and “reverting more than once in a short period”, when I made just one revert in total. I know this is academic now, but I had hoped at some point your rationale would be stated in a post which also describes accurately what I actually did. Maybe it’s cathartic more than anything else.
Onceinawhile (talk) 01:50, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi there. In case you weren't aware, Onceinawhile regularly reports other editors to AE for the most trivial procedural errors without a customary warning. He uses AE as a tool to get rid of his ideological opponents. He is a classic civil POV pusher and the whole wall of text above is an attempt to manipulate. FYI. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 17:45, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

There is nothing technical about no “attempt to establish consensus” and ”keep on reverting many different editors” (both admin quotes). As to the use of “regularly” in your post, I am unaware of a single other AE I made in the last few years. If you are, please let us know. Note that you have three times more edits to AE than me.
Either way, I note the regularity of your contributions here has gone down. I hope you come back properly soon.
Sorry to AGK for having this conversation here.
Onceinawhile (talk) 22:24, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
Did you give warnings before submitting those AE requests? Are you now claiming all over the place that not giving a warning is unfair? QED. If AGK is interested he can check if those were trivial things or not, or if you were "pushing and prodding well-meaning editors until someone loses their cool, trips over a bright line, or frankly gives up from sheer exhaustion" (without warning before running to the admins). No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 03:53, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Onceinawhile (talk) 22:08, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018

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

Guideline and policy news

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-en@wikimedia.org. Other email lists, such as functionaries-en and clerks-l, remain unchanged.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:18, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
Congratulations on getting the the CU bit back! -- Luk talk 13:25, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
@Luk: Thanks Luk – good to see you still around! AGK ■ 13:26, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Deletion for TheOdd1sOut.

Hey. I noticed the page for TheOdd1sOut was deleted. I was just wondering why. Can you give me a reason why the page was put up for deletion in the first place? Parttime18 (talk) 20:52, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

@Parttime18: Hi there. I deleted the article to implement a consensus at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/TheOdd1sOut that its subject was not notable and the page accordingly should be deleted. Please let me know if you have any more questions about that deletion discussion. AGK ■ 23:14, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Topic ban?

Here Shrike says that it is a topic ban violation to comment on WP:ARCA. Is he correct? Huldra (talk) 21:09, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@Huldra: In my view, it is not a violation. AGK ■ 21:23, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
Ok, thanks, Huldra (talk) 21:24, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Hello there

Hi AGK, hope you're well. Just wanted to pop by and wave, as I recently popped into Wikipedia and saw you active again - which I'm very pleased about :-). Hope to see you around old friend :) Steven Crossin 23:49, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

P.S. If MedCom is indeed closed, would love to work with you on DR ideas going forward as DRN may not be robust enough to deal with all disputes IMO. Steven Crossin 23:49, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks Steven Crossin, and good to see that you are still active. I will look into DRN as I don't know much about how it has been doing. AGK ■ 10:10, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom Timeliness

While I agree with the spirit of your answer to Collect about adequate time, I want to point out that there is a cost to editors (and thus the project) in having cases drag on beyond their deadlines. I believe this was most recently noted by both arbitrators and participants in the German war effort case. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:43, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Barkeep49. I think my answer is the best approach, both in theory and with respect to timeliness.
There is a cost if cases drag on significantly past deadline or in a way that delays the draft decision. Neither happened in the hypothetical case within the Election question. Often, a couple of days is less significant where (as in this case) the proceedings are moving from Evidence into Proposed Decision. This is because, in most cases, an arbitrator will not begin drafting the final decision until Evidence closes – and a number of days are scheduled in which to do so. Therefore, the specific impact of the extension would be to give the drafting arbitrator fewer days before the draft decision was due to be published. In other words, editors should not overall see a delay – merely a shifting of the interim deadlines.
Nb. the Election question did not name a specific case, and my answer is not an evaluation of any specific delays that occurred during German war effort or any other recent arbitration case. AGK ■ 16:56, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
I'm not sure I disagree with any of what you just wrote (and know you were speaking in the abstract), but rather than give a different hypothetical showing the cost of cases dragging out, rather than the benefit, I thought I would just directly say it here with an example. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:02, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

optional parameters

Hey, I noticed that you made this edit [3] today with the edit summary "per clerks". I was wondering:

  1. What do you mean by "per clerks"? Is there a clerk discussion somewhere where that change was proposed? Could you point me to it?
  2. I'm wanting to make a similar change to a similar (actually nearly identical) template. See Template_talk:American_politics_AE#Add_parameters_for_optional_individual_sanctions. Might you be willing to help me out with that?

It was only after I made that proposal that I realized you had only just made the change to the other template. ~Awilley (talk) 21:08, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Chair/Nom result

Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Chair/Nom result, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Chair/Nom result and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Chair/Nom result during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Legacypac (talk) 04:58, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Arbcom, really?

Hello again old friend. Just saw this. Are you sure? I mean, I know you'd be good at it no doubt, but, well, I wish you good luck my friend :) Glutton for punishment, hehe. Steven Crossin 06:02, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Your essay on functus officio

Hi there. This essay is very misleading. The term does not mean that there is nothing more for an officeholder/body to do, so they can be made redundant/dissolved. It means that as regards a particular decision, having exercised his/her/its powers there is nothing more he/she/it can do (that's what appeal courts are for). Also, when a matter is dealt with in someone's absence the term is in absentia. In abstentia, if it means anything, means something different. Best wishes with your candidacy. 82.69.5.58 (talk) 12:12, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

That's one use of the term; the essay uses the broader definition. I suppose I could move the page so it has a horrid title like User:AGK/Thoughts on how Wikipedia's need for the committee seems to be changing, but a shorter name is easier to remember and find later. You're very welcome to correct the typo – it's a wiki! AGK ■ 19:55, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-46

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • Some old mobile browsers can use the watchlist again. This has not worked for a while. These browsers are called grade C browsers. This helps for example Windows Phone 8.1 with Internet Explorer and Lumia 535 with Windows 10. [4]

Problems

  • You can choose to see edit conflicts in a two-column view. This is a beta feature. You can find it in your preferences. Users who use this view saw the edit conflict resolution page when they wanted to see a preview. This has been fixed. [5][6][7]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 November. It will be on all wikis from 15 November (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • You can use the content translation tool to translate articles. The developers are working on a new version. One of the changes will be a maintenance category. Articles where users add a lot of text from machine translation without changing it will be in that category. This is so the community can review it. The users will also have been warned before they publish the article that it has a lot of unchanged text from machine translations. [8]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

19:22, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Mediation Committee

Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Mediation Committee has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 20:09, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia functionary statistics

What is the purpose of Category:Wikipedia functionary statistics? Is it a category page, in which case it doesn't need all of the text at the top, and definitely should not be placed inside itself. Or is it documentation for a template, in which case it belongs in Template: space as a /doc subpage. Perhaps it's a how-to guide, in which case it should be either in Help: or Wikipedia: space. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:16, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Redrose64. I've just rewrote the description, and stripped out {{fst/doc}} which should not have been used on that page. Some broader context on the statistics is at WP:AUSC/STATS and Template:Fst. AGK ■ 18:17, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
I added |tracking=yes so that the page is not uncategorised. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:41, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:FTMCR

Template:FTMCR has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Pkbwcgs (talk) 18:40, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Unblock review

Hi. I'm just looking through our oldest unblock requests, and I'm wondering if you've made any progress with the one at User talk:Pentaquark that you have on hold? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:44, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

@Boing! said Zebedee: In the first instance I was looking for an OK to consider from the blocking checkuser. I've directly asked Bbb23 to review or grant me the mandate, as I think they missed the first ping. AGK ■ 17:30, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
Ah, OK, thanks. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:57, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Just for clarity, please...

I've already closed my question section on your Q page, but I need some clarity regarding your response here: "The use of biased sourcing and other verifiability problems is the other problem." Considering WP:BIASEDSOURCES are perfectly acceptable and used all the time, to what were you referring? I understand verifiability is an issue when using unreliable sources, but that isn't the same as biased sources. Atsme✍🏻📧 01:49, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Some are so biased or questionable as to be a verifiability problem. Take a look at WP:RSN or an article talk archive in the topic area of that question for a better idea of the kind of thing I'm talking about. Hope this helps, AGK ■ 10:18, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Arbitration CA notice

You are involved in a recently-filed request for clarification or amendment from the Arbitration Committee. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Clarification request: Genetically modified organisms and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the Wikipedia:Arbitration guide may be of use.

Thanks, petrarchan47คุก 07:27, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-47

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can vote until 30 November.
  • Advanced item There is an A/B test for sameAs data. This is to make it easier to find the right information with a search engine. This changes the metadata for a wiki page. It doesn't change how the page looks. [9]

Changes later this week

  • There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

Future changes

  • The Wikimedia wikis use templates to show readers there are problems with the content on some pages. For example if there are no sources or the page needs to be rewritten. The mobile website will soon show more information when you use these templates. Some templates may need to be updated. [10]
  • The Education Program extension was removed from all Wikimedia projects. The database tables used by the extension will be archived. This will happen in a month. If you want the information on your wiki you should move it to a normal wiki page. [11]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

23:28, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, AGK. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 2 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)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, AGK. 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)

Quick prod (no, not that kind of prod, the other kind...)

Hi AGK. I've just been patrolling old unblock requests, and it looks like you've got three on hold that may need you to re-review them - the relevant talkpages are User talk:Herald 2005, User talk:Orangemessi and User talk:Pentaquark. If you'd rather not deal with 'em, let me know and I'll close them off. Yunshui 雲水 15:18, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Yunshui – now all handled. AGK ■ 19:22, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Arbitration clarification request archived

Hi AGK, the Genetically modified organisms arbitration clarification request, which you were listed as a party to, has been archived to Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Genetically modified organisms#Clarification request: Genetically modified organisms (November 2018). For the Arbitration Committee, --Cameron11598 (Talk) 06:40, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Move help

Can you move this page back to Deaths in 2018? It is obviously a vandalism edit. --Stephen"Zap" (talk) 17:59, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

 Already done by Amorymeltzer. Thanks, AGK ■ 18:09, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-48

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • On wikis with translatable pages you could create a mess when you moved a page that had translatable subpages. A subpage is when you use / to create a new page: /wiki/Page/Subpage. The subpages would be moved but not the translations. The subpages are no longer automatically be moved. This is to make it safer to move pages. [12]

Changes later this week

  • The advanced search interface will be available by default on all Wikimedia wikis. It makes it easier to use some of the special search functions that most editors don't know exist. It's already active on German, Farsi, Arabic and Hungarian Wikipedia. [13]
  • Special:UnusedCategories show empty categories with no files or other categories. You can soon choose to not show soft redirect categories or some maintenance categories there. You can do this with the magic word __EXPECTUNUSEDCATEGORY__. [14]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 November. It will be on all wikis from 29 November (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • Advanced item The mw.util.jsMessage() function was deprecated in 2012. It will be removed next week. Look for the warning Use of "mw.util.jsMessage" is deprecated in the JavaScript console to know if you use an affected script or gadget. If you are a gadget maintainer you should check if your JavaScript code contains mw.util.jsMessage. There is a migration guide. It explains how to use mw.notify instead. [15]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

22:22, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

Have a very happy birthday on your special day!
Best wishes, A 10 fireplane (talk) 15:12, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
A 10 fireplane (talk) 15:12, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

A cupcake for you!

Happy Birthday! KCVelaga (talk) 17:32, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Could you please guide me with some help

Hi ::@AGK: I am sorry for disturbing you. I was hoping If you could help me out with wikiedu.org. I am new to wikiedu.org Will that be possible. If not can you recommend an Instructor who could help me. (Purplecart (talk) 10:54, 28 November 2018 (UTC))

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

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

Administrator changes

readded Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz
removed Boson • Daniel J. Leivick • Efe • Esanchez7587 • Fred Bauder • Garzo • Martijn Hoekstra • Orangemike

Interface administrator changes

removedDeryck 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

Arbitration

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

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

Tech News: 2018-49

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • Admins will not be able to unblock themselves if they are blocked by someone other than themselves. This is because it can cause damage if someone else takes over an admin account and other admins can't block them. If this is a problem for your community you can report it on Phabricator. You can also ask questions on Meta. There is a discussion on Phabricator about how to solve this if two admins fight with each other on a small wiki. [16]
  • Small SVG images are now bigger when you see them in MediaViewer. [17]
  • You can go to a section from the edit summary by clicking on the section name. Before this you had to click on the arrow. [18]
  • When you jumped to a footnote that was referenced several times in an article it could be difficult to see where you were in the text. Now there are jump marks and highlights to help you find your way back. [19][20]

Changes later this week

  • There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:12, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

December 2018 GOCE newsletter

Guild of Copy Editors December 2018 Newsletter

Hello and welcome to the December 2018 GOCE newsletter. Here is what's been happening since the August edition.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the August blitz (results), which focused on Requests and the oldest backlog month. Of the twenty editors who signed up, eleven editors recorded 37 copy edits.

For the September drive (results), of the twenty-three people who signed up, nineteen editors completed 294 copy edits.

Our October blitz (results) focused on Requests, geography, and food and drink articles. Of the fourteen people who signed up, eleven recorded a total of 57 copy edits.

For the November drive (results), twenty-two people signed up, and eighteen editors recorded 273 copy edits. This helped to bring the backlog to a six-month low of 825 articles.

The December blitz will run for one week, from 16 to 22 December. Sign up now!

Elections: Nominations for the Guild's coordinators for the first half of 2019 will be open from 1 to 15 December. Voting will then take place and the election will close on 31 December at 23:59 UTC. Positions for Guild coordinators, who perform the important behind-the-scenes tasks that keep our project running smoothly, are open to all Wikipedians in good standing. We welcome self-nominations, so please consider nominating yourself if you've ever thought about helping out; it's your Guild and it doesn't run itself!

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators; Reidgreg, Baffle gab1978, Jonesey95, Miniapolis and Tdslk.

>>> Sign up for the December blitz! <<<
>>> Participate in the Coordinator elections! <<<
To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:04, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Archiving SPIs

The "rule" is that you are not supposed to archive reports that you've closed. At Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Chuckcanton you skipped closing and went directly to archiving. The procedural rule exists to allow another member of the SPI team to double-check the closer's work and to make sure there was nothing else that needed doing. Disclaimer: I've broken the rule but only in exceptional circumstances.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:22, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-50

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 December. It will be on all wikis from 13 December (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • New accounts will need passwords that are at least 8 characters long. Admins, interface admins, bureaucrats, oversighters, CentralNotice admins, global renamers, check users, stewards and some other user groups will need passwords that are at least 10 characters long. This is because an attacker could cause damage to the wikis if they took over these accounts. [21][22]
  • When you hover over a footnote it will show you the reference as a pop-up. This is so you don't have to jump down to the bottom of the page to see a reference. This will happen in 2019. Some wikis already have gadgets that do this. You will be able to turn it off. [23]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:33, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Welcome back

Hi AGK. Congratulations on your success in the elections and welcome to the 2019 Arbitration Committee. Sorry to be a pain, but we'll need to go through the formalities.

Please use the EmailUser function to indicate:

  • the email address you'd like to use for ArbCom and functionary business, and
  • if you wish to assigned oversight for your term.

Over the coming days, you will receive a small of emails as part of the induction process. Please carefully read them. If they are registration emails, please follow any instructions in them to finalise registration. You can contact me or any other arbitrator directly if you have difficulty with any of these formalities.

Thank you for volunteering to serve on the committee. We very much look forward to introducing ourselves to you on the mailing list and to working with you this term.

For the Arbitration Committee,
WormTT(talk) 10:51, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

BLP

Thank you very much! You may wish to trim Red Deer Curling Classic and Jamie Koe articles as well. 96.55.104.236 (talk) 00:27, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Yo Ho Ho

Liz Read! 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/Dec15b}} to your friends' talk pages.

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019

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

Guideline and policy news

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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}}.

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:
  1. At least 8 characters in length
  2. Not in the 100,000 most popular passwords (defined by the Password Blacklist library)
  3. 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

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) 21:38, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Crouch, Swale

That is a very, very fine piece of work you did there. In the finest traditions of the project. Guy (Help!) 22:25, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Many thanks Guy. AGK ■ 12:33, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Please recuse from the GiantSnowman arbcom case

I have made my misgivings about your objectivity clear at the case talk page, but of course I'm not an objective bystander either. However, serious similar concerns have been raised by User:Kcowolf ("unnecessarily negative", "makes me wonder whether this case will be handled fairly.", "The word "inflammatory" even comes to mind."), User:Guy Macon ("I also found the "questions" to be inappropriate."), User:Beyond My Ken ("its easy to get the impression that you are pre-judging the evidence", "can easily be read, again, as prejudicial", " I think you may have inadvertently tainted the outcome of the case") and User:Lourdes ("AGK, I second Beyond My Ken's assessment about this; in fact, I feel it may represent that you have already adjudged GS even before this particular stage is over. I would suggest you withdraw from the case or at least as the drafting representative, to avoid questions of impropriety cropping up. I'm not saying that this is why you did it, but the impression is quite negative.")

I'm not claiming they all want you to recuse (I linked to them so they are alerted about this conversation), but it seems clear that the trust in your impartiality in this case has been seriously damaged, and it would be best if you recused as arb (and drafting arb at that) from this case, and participated as a regular editor instead. Fram (talk) 09:24, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

When I read the above, my first though was "Hmmm. I did think that the questions were leading, but was it enough for me to support recusal? Not so sure about that one". So I reviewed Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GiantSnowman again. One thing that sort of jumped out at me was the following:
"Positing these possibilities is unpleasant, but necessary in examining the full dispute"
Really? Is it "necessary" to posit those possibilities in a section that is for listing the parties and scope?
Those who are subject to possible sanctions by arbcom have a right to expect that all arbs follow the normal procedures, both those codified in the written rules and the "this is how we usually do it, so a discussion should occur before doing it in a radically different way" de-facto rules.
Yes, it is indeed the job of arbs to ask pointed -- even accusatory -- questions. But not in the Drafter's statement as to parties and scope. The evidence has not been presented. The accused has not had a chance to respond. The venue is wrong. It is not a discussion area where if an arb writes something other arbs who are are participating have a convenient place to agree or disagree. It also isn't a venue where there is an open discussion about the behavior of all of the parties to the case. Instead it is one arb asking pointed questions about one named party on a page that should have simply listed the parties and defined the scope in a neutral way.
Your behavior gives the appearance that you have decided part of this case before the evidence has been posted and the accused have responded. The reality may very well be different, but that's the appearance. For this reason I call on you to recuse yourself in this case and in the future to make all of your communications about pending cases bland and neutral until you get to the right time and place to ask pointed questions and then to make a decision based upon the evidence before you. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:18, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Just a holding reply to your request: I had planned to not be online due to a busy few IRL days, but I will provide a fuller answer as soon as possible. Thanks in the meantime for your patience. Regards, AGK ■ 16:46, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
  • The complaint is that I have prejudged the case, or created that appearance. It is clear that drafting arbitrators ought to spell out their questions clearly. Drafts can't be effectively prepared if questions cannot be put to parties. The community has made clear its dissatisfaction with decisions being prepared in secret. And I was elected as an arbitrator whose record is one including clear, plain questions like the ones I asked you. It is also widely accepted that recusal requests are easily (and frequently) made during cases (when tensions are high), but should be denied without very good cause. Our only interaction has been while I've acted in capacity of arbitrator. For these reasons, I must decline your request for recusal. AGK ■ 11:56, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-02

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News writers, editors and translators wish you a pleasant 2019 year.

Recent changes

  • RelatedSites extension has been undeployed. It was used to create interwiki links on Wikivoyage, now handled by Wikidata. [24]
  • Advanced item MediaWiki logstash logging is moving to a new infrastructure. This is an ongoing deployment. [25]
  • Advanced item codesearch.wmflabs.org has been updated, with new and updated repositories and a new search options for code. [26]
  • Advanced item On several wikis, an account named "Edit filter" has been created on December 17 to perform some technical maintenance on AbuseFilter. This account has sysop rights but it's a system user and no human can use it. The account already existed on wikis where AbuseFilter can perform blocks, which are issued using this account. See T212268 for more information and future plans.

Problems

  • Advanced item In AbuseFilter, the "Throttle" action takes three parameters: count, period and groups. They must now strictly respect the requirements listed on mediawiki.org. A list of broken filters is on Phabricator. If you're familiar with AbuseFilter, please take a look and fix them. [27]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from January 8. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from January 9. It will be on all wikis from January 10 (calendar).

Meetings

  • Search Platform Office Hours is rescheduled to January 9. Check the details for time and date.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:30, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Arbitration Request - Dispute Resolution - Please Help - 10 January 2019

Good Day,

This arbitration request is for the Hexagonal Water page. You will find my recent article in the edits. 1/9/19 as well as my previous comments requesting an accurate article. The user McSly continues to revert edits back to his 'scam' claim for this subject with minimal content, semi-relevant info. and dead links, and is ignoring a vast amount of research from leading experts that have verified the existence and importance of hexagonal water some of whom are cited in my article.

There are also numerous comments, that are requesting real info. for the page.

This user McSly, uses software to monitor and mass revert and control many pages, and is not an expert or well educated in this subject.

Please intervene. His article does not provide the information people are seeking when researching this topic.

Please review my edits to verify credibility, and ban McSly from this topic. He is clearly not unbiased and clearly not an expert or knowledgable in this field, and is doing Wiki and the public a great disservice.

He has

Thank you for your time with this important topic.

Jason TimeTells (talk) 15:05, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-03

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can now use Google Translate in the content translation tool. [28][29]
  • You can now add captions to files on Commons. Captions are short descriptions of the file. They can be translated to all languages we use. They can't use wikitext markup.
  • Earlier a quoted HTML attribute had to be followed by a space. Now it doesn't. This means that some pages could look different when you save them even if you didn't edit that part of the text. [30][31]
  • Advanced item Templates with <templatestyles> could not show the difference between the live template and the sandbox version when they were tested. This has now been fixed. <templatestyles> has a new wrapper parameter now. You can use it for selectors like .mw-parser-output <wrapper parameter value> <selector from CSS page>. [32]

Problems

  • When you see an edit in the recent changes feed or in the history of a page some of them have tags. Some tags are added automatically. You can also add tags manually. Tags for edits that have been added manually can be edited. This didn't work for a little while. This has now been fixed. [33]

Changes later this week

  • You can move files from your wiki to Wikimedia Commons and keep the file history with the new FileExporter. It will be a beta feature on all wikis from 16 January. If you want to test it you activate it and check your wiki's configuration file.
  • Users who could cause more damage to the wikis if someone took over their account have to have more secure passwords. This includes administrators and other user groups. They can't use passwords that are in a list of common passwords. Accounts with common passwords are easy to take over. The list of common passwords was made longer a few weeks ago and has a different error message. Some user groups have been added to those who can't use common passwords. This is to protect all accounts with user rights that could cause damage. [34]
  • Advanced item The AbuseFilter variable minor_edit has been removed. It was deprecated in 2016. Now you can't use it. You can fix the filters using it. You can find them if you use the search bar on Special:AbuseFilter.
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from January 15

17:55, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!
May your winter holidays be filled with joy, laughter and good health. Wishing you all the best in 2019 and beyond.

--Cameron11598 (Talk) 04:44, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi AGK - I'm a Stanford student working on a project on how to improve Wikipedia edit abuse filtering. Would you be willing to talk for 20-30 minutes about your experience working with Wikipedia over the years? Anything you can share would be incredibly helpful! You can contact me at dlevine2@stanford.edu. Thank you and apologies if I misused your page in any way! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:681:4D00:8BA0:D871:9D55:1510:36F (talk) 23:21, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

GOCE 2018 Annual Report

Guild of Copy Editors 2018 Annual Report
Our 2018 Annual Report is now ready for review.

Highlights:

  • Overview of Backlog-reduction progress;
  • Summary of Drives, Blitzes, and the Requests page;
  • Membership news and results of elections;
  • Annual leaderboard;
  • Plans for 2019.
– Your project coordinators: Miniapolis, Baffle gab1978, Jonesey95, Reidgreg and Tdslk.
To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.


MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:30, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

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

Administrator changes

added Enterprisey • JJMC89
readded BorgQueen
removed Harro5 • Jenks24 • Graft • R. Baley

Interface administrator changes

removedEnterprisey

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) 02:15, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-06

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

  • It was easy to untick a box by accident in Special:Preferences. This will now be fixed. [35]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 February. It will be on all wikis from 7 February (calendar).

Meetings

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:12, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

AE appeal

I am notifying you on behalf of @Muffizainu: that they have made an appeal against a sanction you levied at the AE noticeboard. Strictly they should have made this notification themselves, but the refiling of requests due to defects of process is getting tiring. GoldenRing (talk) 08:54, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-08

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • When you thank someone on the mobile web you will now have two seconds to cancel the thank. This is in case you clicked on the thank button by accident. [36]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 February. It will be on all wikis from 21 February (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • There is a proposal to add a red link to mobile search results if there is no page with that name. This is how it works on desktop. You can leave feedback. [37]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

23:13, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.44.169.139 (talk) 08:05, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Talk to us about talking

" icon depicting two speech Bubbles"

The Wikimedia Foundation is planning a global consultation about communication. The goal is to bring Wikimedians and wiki-minded people together to improve tools for communication.

We want all contributors to be able to talk to each other on the wikis, whatever their experience, their skills or their devices.

We are looking for input from as many different parts of the Wikimedia community as possible. It will come from multiple projects, in multiple languages, and with multiple perspectives.

We are currently planning the consultation. We need your help.

We need volunteers to help talk to their communities or user groups.

You can help by hosting a discussion at your wiki. Here's what to do:

  1. First, sign up your group here.
  2. Next, create a page (or a section on a Village pump, or an e-mail thread – whatever is natural for your group) to collect information from other people in your group. This is not a vote or decision-making discussion: we are just collecting feedback.
  3. Then ask people what they think about communication processes. We want to hear stories and other information about how people communicate with each other on and off wiki. Please consider asking these five questions:
    1. When you want to discuss a topic with your community, what tools work for you, and what problems block you?
    2. What about talk pages works for newcomers, and what blocks them?
    3. What do others struggle with in your community about talk pages?
    4. What do you wish you could do on talk pages, but can't due to the technical limitations?
    5. What are the important aspects of a "wiki discussion"?
  4. Finally, please go to Talk pages consultation 2019 on Mediawiki.org and report what you learned from your group. Please include links if the discussion is available to the public.

You can also help build the list of the many different ways people talk to each other.

Not all groups active on wikis or around wikis use the same way to discuss things: it can happen on wiki, on social networks, through external tools... Tell us how your group communicates.

You can read more about the overall process on mediawiki.org. If you have questions or ideas, you can leave feedback about the consultation process in the language you prefer.

Thank you! We're looking forward to talking with you.

Trizek (WMF) 15:08, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-09

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

Changes later this week

  • When you look at your watchlist or the recent changes page you can use the new filters for edit review. There you can choose tags to filter different edits. Empty tags will no longer be shown. [39]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 February. It will be on all wikis from 28 February (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • The Wikipedia app for Android will invite users to add Wikidata descriptions to Wikidata objects that have Wikipedia articles but no Wikidata descriptions. It will only invite users who have added a number of Wikidata descriptions in the app without being reverted. This is to avoid spam and bad edits. You can read more and leave feedback.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

21:17, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!

Happy First Edit Day!

Have a very happy first edit anniversary!
From the Birthday Committee, CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 19:16, 27 February 2019 (UTC)


Just in case you've got pinging turned off

SheriffIsInTown is appealing the i-ban and t-ban you imposed here: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Interaction and topic ban appeal. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:24, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2019

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

Guideline and policy news

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-wp@wikipedia.org has been set up to receive private evidence related to abusive paid editing.
    • checkuser-en-wp@wikipedia.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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:12, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Reverted you

By mistake thanks to mobile WP. Sorry about that. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:23, 5 March 2019 (UTC)(142.0.72.120 (talk) 05:13, 13 March 2019 (UTC))

A SAMLL DOUBT

I am requesting you please inform me ,weather god names related to a religion can be my user name? I want to change my user name to a god name , is it against user name policy ? Waiting for your reply

(Lordiolis (talk) 11:18, 11 March 2019 (UTC))

While not an expert on our Username policy or enforcement instructions, I think you are permitted to use that kind of terminology. You can use this category to view usernames the Wikipedia community has disallowed. AGK ■ 19:35, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
Thanq for your reply. With your information , I verified various user names related to god. The usernames related to GOD are against Wikipedia username policy .

Hidden comments

I had thought that asking comments in other people's statements during Arbcom case requests diff, was explicitly against the guidelines. I doubt anyone thought it necessary to spell out that hidden text was still covered by this policy.

Would you like to revisit that, or am I mistaken and this has been accepted by precedent? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 22:39, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

I do not think you need the rules clarified: if you feel you must respond to any request or to comments made by others in any request, then you may make a statement on the case page (Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide_to_arbitration#Responding_to_requests). AGK ■ 22:44, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Case comment

Hi AGK. I'm not sure how regularly you check case requests after you've commented, I just wanted to check in to see if you wanted to comment on the WP:ASPERSIONS principle we specifically crafted for GMO or pesticide related topics as mentioned in my comment. Some people aren't aware of that principle unless they've been in the topic, so just wanted to make sure since you already commented. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:00, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes, as I voted to pass the principle. Are you asking me to conclude that the filing party is casting aspersions against you? If you want the whole submission treated as made in bad faith, please come out directly saying that. AGK ■ 11:19, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
Sorry for missing this comment until now. I've been pretty clear that those were aspersions with regards to the pro-corporate, pro-pesticide stuff (not ok even if I were saying pesticides were not the problem, but all the content I've been working on has been saying they are), so I thought that would have been apparent in my intent, especially including my comment at the case request. There are a lot of other things in that case request directly misrepresenting me aside from the shill-like comments, but I haven't had the space or venue to adequately address all of them (nor should I have to when it comes to aspersions). My focus has been on the "pro-pesticide" aspersions as they are the most straightforward. The main intent in my request here was that it didn't appear arbs were aware of the principle in most of their comments, which is why I was hoping you could bring it up as part of arb discussion as the first to comment. It's kind of a moot point as the case has been declined though. At Joe Roe's advice though, I did open an AE asking for enforcement of the principle.
We'll see where that goes, but there is a high risk of this recent problem circling back to arbs soon due to broader issues. We've had a string of AEs where admins actively chose to ignore the principle essentially saying casting such aspersions were not a serious problem, which the principle was supposed to prevent. You got a little taste of this when you were at this AE, and this one shows hesitance by admins on how problematic the behavior was until you read some of MastCell's comments. Those ones worked out in the end, but we've had others, especially recently like this where pretty blatant aspersions like Fringe pro pesticide POV were outright dismissed in terms of the DS and emboldened the battleground behavior to what you saw at the case request. That's leaving those of us following the DS is a bind because now it's resulting in others accusing us of "weaponizing" the DS, which stirs the pot even more.
So that said, do you have any suggestions to amending the GMO/pesticide aspersions principle if the ARCA route is taken to take care of these broader issues? I've been discussing that with another editor here on how to get the point across better to admins that even a little bit of that behavior almost always leads to the editor creating a toxic atmosphere like we've seen in this recent incident. Would having an actual remedy essentially saying "No aspersions, especially related to pesticides or GMOs" linking back to the principle do anything more? Basically, something that ArbCom can actually say without stepping out of bounds demanding admins take a specific action, but making it clear it's a very real problem that can't be dismissed so easily. It's just the gathering ideas phase right now, but given recent problems, I'd like to find some way to cut down on this disruption in the topic. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:23, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-12

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

  • When you use rollback you will be able to get a confirmation prompt on most wikis. It asks you if you wanted to do the rollback. This is to avoid misclicks. You will have to opt in to get it. On German Wikipedia it will be an opt-out feature from 28 March. [40][41]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 March. It will be on all wikis from 21 March (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 20 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • Admins will be able to block someone from editing a page or a namespace. This already works on a few Wikimedia wikis. You can read more. If your wiki wants to be an early tester of this, you can tell the developers. [42]
  • Advanced item Toolforge will shut down the Ubuntu Trusty job grid. This will happen the week of 25 March. Tools that use this grid needs to be moved to the new Debian Stretch job grid. If they haven't, they will be taken offline. Maintainers can restart the tools later. Users may not be able to use them in the meanwhile. You can see a list of affected tools.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

19:44, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

March GOCE newsletter

Guild of Copy Editors March 2019 Newsletter

Hello and welcome to the March newsletter, a brief update of Guild activities since December 2018. All being well, we're planning to issue these quarterly in 2019, balancing the need to communicate widely with the avoidance of filling up talk pages. Don't forget you can unsubscribe at any time; see below.

January Drive: Thanks to everyone for the splendid work in January's Backlog Elimination Drive. We removed copyedit tags from all of the articles tagged in our original target months of June, July and August 2018, and by 24 January we ran out of articles. After adding September, we finished the month with 8 target articles remaining and 842 left in the backlog. GOCE copyeditors also completed 48 requests for copyedit in January. Of the 31 people who signed up for this drive, 24 copyedited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

Blitz: Thanks to everyone who participated in the February Blitz. Of the 15 people who signed up, 13 copyedited at least one article. Participants claimed 32 copyedits, including 15 requests. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

Progress report: As of 23:39, 18 March 2019 (UTC), GOCE copyeditors have completed 108 requests since 1 January and the backlog stands at 851 articles.

March Drive: The month-long March drive is now underway; the target months are October and November 2018. Awards will be given to everyone who copyedits at least one article from the backlog. Sign up here!

Election reminder: It may only be March but don't forget our mid-year Election of Coordinators opens for nominations on 1 June. Coordinators normally serve a six-month term and are elected on an approval basis. Self-nominations are welcome. If you've thought of helping out at the Guild, or know of another editor who would make a good coordinator, please consider standing for election or nominating them here.

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Miniapolis, Baffle gab1978, Jonesey95, Reidgreg and Tdslk.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:12, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-13

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • The new version of the content translation tool will be used for all new translations. The older version will still be used for translations that were started with it. Most users won’t see any change. More than 80% of the published translations are already using the new version. [43]

Problems

  • There was a problem with editing with Safari on iOS. When you wrote an edit summary you couldn't save the edit. This has now been fixed. [44]
  • The editing toolbar sometimes disappears when you scroll on iOS devices. This will be fixed soon. [45]
  • Wikis can over-ride interface messages on-wiki. A problem meant that sometimes an old versions of any changed messages were shown instead. This included the sitenotice and other important parts of the interface. This was fixed at around 2019-03-22 16:00 (UTC). Logged-out users may still get the wrong message. Purging the page should fix it for them. [46]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 March. It will be on all wikis from 28 March (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 27 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:05, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Question

Hi, can you tell me where I can find the details of the decision to ban Special:Contributions/Deleet ? (There are so many noticeboards I lose track.) Thanks in advance. NPalgan2 (talk) 19:55, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Hide IP address ASAP

Hi please hide my Ip address: [REDACTED - Oshwah] from this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaled_Juffali without removing content added if possible — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quantom122 (talk • contribs) 14:03, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Question

Hi, can you tell me where I can find the details of the decision to ban Special:Contributions/Deleet ? (There are so many noticeboards I lose track.) Thanks in advance. NPalgan2 (talk) 19:55, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @NPalgan2: Deleet was site banned by the Arbitration Committee. The details are not public. – Joe (talk) 07:41, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2019

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

Technical news

Arbitration

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) 21:56, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-15

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

Problems

  • You will be able read but not edit most wikis for 30 minutes on 11 April at 05:00 (UTC). This is because of a hardware problem. You can see a list of the affected wikis. [49]
  • A map update caused some problems on 29 March and 30 March. It was rolled back. [50]
  • Pages on some Wikivoyages had problems with the top headline. This has been fixed. [51]

Changes later this week

  • When you add an edit summary the VisualEditor will search your recent edit summaries in case you want to re-use one. This works in both the visual and wikitext modes on desktop. It also works on the mobile site. [52]
  • The Wikimedia wikis will get a URL shortener. This will work from 11 April. You can read more. [53]
  • Advanced item The {{REVISIONID}} magic word will no longer work. This is for performance reasons. When you preview a page it will return "" (empty string). When you read a page it will return "-" (dash). For now this will only affect content namespaces. [54]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 April. It will be on all wikis from 11 April (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 10 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • You will be able to preview references. This means that when you hover over the link you will get a popup that shows you a preview of the reference. It will work much like page previews. This is so you don't have to go to the bottom of the page to see a reference. This will now be available as a beta feature on German and Arabic Wikipedia. [55][56]
  • Advanced item The Wikidata JSON output will change. Empty containers will be serialised as empty objects. This is a breaking change that will affect tools that use JSON outputs and APIs. It will happen on 30 April. You can read more and see how to test your code.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:24, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Jerry Rescue

Not to be obnoxious and confrontational, but how is this not a copyvio? Is it a mirror os something?💵Money💵emoji💵💸 23:13, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

No worries. I think you were correct that some of it obviously is close paraphrasing. However, in my judgement the text did not meet the test under RD1: blatant violations that justify impeding the right to attribution of subsequent editors (of whom there were many). In other words – you were right to tackle this text, but rev-deleting it would have been overkill. Regards, AGK ■ 23:21, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Vip

Vip — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.138.87.75 (talk) 10:03, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

As a heads-up after your closure of Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_153#RfC:_Switch_to_using_Wikidata_for_interwiki_links_to_Wikimedia_Commons, I've started drafting the next RfC on the topic at User:Mike Peel/sandbox. It still needs some work before I post it, but please let me know if you have any feedback on the draft! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:17, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi Mike. It looks good to me. AGK ■ 15:20, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Mediation and DRN

There is a discussion at WP:AN that you might be interested in (I mentioned you). jps (talk) 15:06, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Answered. Many thanks, AGK ■ 15:20, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-17

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • The advanced search function URL now shows which namespaces you search in. The namespace field is collapsed by default on the search page. You can also add new fields to the search interface through a hook. [57][58][59]
  • The wikis now look slightly different in the mobile web version. [60]

Changes later this week

  • There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • Wikipedia articles will have the sameAs meta property. It adds structured data. This makes it easier for search engines to find Wikipedia articles. It also makes it easier to reuse content. There will an A/B test. [61][62]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

19:08, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

How to request for remove admin

If admin doing partiality and continue tell you he will block you so how to remove him from admin position. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajnabh (talk • contribs) 05:30, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-20

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 May. It will be on all wikis from 16 May (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 15 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

00:48, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-22

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

  • Advanced item Big changes to the replica database will happen on 3 June. Some tools on Cloud Services will stop working if the maintainers do not update them to use the new schema. This probably affects tools that query for revisions or log entries made by a user. [63][64]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 May. It will be on all wikis from 30 May (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 29 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:33, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-22

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

  • Advanced item Big changes to the replica database will happen on 3 June. Some tools on Cloud Services will stop working if the maintainers do not update them to use the new schema. This probably affects tools that query for revisions or log entries made by a user. [65][66]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 May. It will be on all wikis from 30 May (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 29 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:33, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Re Mail

Hi AGK, I noticed just now your message on my talk page concerning mail you sent me. I'm traveling for the next two weeks, and do not, at the moment, have easy access to my email. If there is any urgency please let me know, otherwise I may not be able to answer until I get back home. Paul August ☎ 09:41, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

No problem, Paul. It can wait until you are home. Happy travels! AGK ■ 10:35, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Great ;-) Paul August ☎ 06:52, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you

For this comment. I've been somewhat distressed over the past few months of the current climate on the project that tends to value expanding coverage without thinking too much about the impacts that said expansion might have on living people. It is nice to see this principle reenforced in the case and in comments from arbs. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:30, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

TonyBallioni, I hope you received my Thank. I didn't want to engage in too much discussion while the proposed decision was still open for voting. Discussions on the sidelines can distract or distort.
It now seems to ask: wouldn't it be great to get more users participating at WP:BLP/N? Even better would be more proactive clerking of the noticeboard, so that every open thread on it is actually valuable and open for admins to dive into. There is a lot of nonsense posted to it. At the moment it seems like struggling BLPs need to fight for the attention they need to be fixed. I share your passion for this topic and I commend your bias to action on it. AGK ■ 22:12, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom e-mail query

According to WP:Arbitration Committee#What happens to incoming ArbCom email?, "[m]essages are normally acknowledged by an arbitrator within 48 hours." I sent my two messages almost a week ago and I still haven't received any acknowledgment. As one of the small handful of people able to assist me with this matter, would you be so kind as to look through ArbCom's mail and confirm that the messages have been received and have not been deleted as spam? They both have "CheckUser Block Appeal" in the subject and my username (Iaritmioawp) in the body. The matter isn't too urgent but I'd appreciate it if it could be dealt with before the end of the month. Thank you. Iaritmioawp (talk) 03:04, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

I've sent you a holding response and of course I confirm that we now have your emails. We'll be back in touch with you in due course. If you need to ask for any further updates on-wiki, you are best asking at WT:AC where the other arbitrators will also see your message. AGK ■ 22:05, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Cool graph

Saw what you did here - nice to see this visually represented. Thanks for adding that. It would be really interesting to see the variations year over year. Risker (talk) 19:19, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Risker. It's a neat template because it allows more analysis than the basic, rolling 6-month tables. You'll probably remember Thatcher first introducing those tables. They remain unchanged to this day, which is not good.
You sure can see the variations year on year. You'd just adapt the code you see at WP:AUDIT/STATS so that it includes the earlier periods too:
Voila! AGK ■ 21:53, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Email

Hey, AGK; I'm posting here to confirm you've received the two emails I've sent you. All the best, TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 05:10, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Got it; replied. Thanks for the nudge. Regards, AGK ■ 08:18, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:TRUSA listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wikipedia:TRUSA. Since you had some involvement with the Wikipedia:TRUSA redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Abote2 (talk) 09:52, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

  • I regret not seeing this notification earlier. There were a number of points that I could have clarified that may have swayed people's views. Now… there are probably more important things to be getting on with. AGK ■ 20:27, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
[Surprised you've never been given this one before]

I cannot even begin to tell you how much I appreciate this sea of red. Despite being in the middle of reviewing one of arbcom's toughest cases right now (you know the one), you still managed to take time out of your day to do that critical task of keeping the proceedings productive.

Thank you for your hard work! –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 04:34, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Not very clever

The way this Fram matter has been handled was not very clever. If Fram was being rude and throwing around too many naughty words, ArbCom should have started a case and dealt with it. Fobbing this off on WMF has generated 10x drama. WMF has bunglingly not handled this matter with great discretion. I think an increase in transparency would help quell the drama. Whoever instigated this debacle should step forward and own it. Jehochman Talk 19:35, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

I think you should make the same comment to BU Rob13. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:17, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Fair enough. It's unfortunate that ArbCom didn't take notice of the harassment against LauraHale that was ongoing from 2016-2018. Please look at the evidence I posted. Had that evidence been posted in 2018, I suspect a case would have been accepted and Fram would have been de-sysopped. I am a firm believe in "better late than not at all". Fram did not change their style after 2018. They may have stopped hounding LauraHale, but they posted hostile, toxic comments targeting Katherine Maher and you. I think it can be reasonable argued that this constitutes an ongoing pattern. I'd like ArbCom to investigate and confirm or deny the facts and then generate a list of the relevant principles and apply any sanction necessary. This sanction can overlap or run concurrently with whatever WMF did. It will be instructive to other users and to WMF. I think on balance it's worth the investment of time and will make our community stronger. Jehochman Talk 17:53, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
I agree with this sentiment. I don't know if Fram harassed anyone, but as an observer I've come away with only one side of the story, namely, Fram's denial of doing anything that would rise anywhere close to the level harassment. WMF evidently disagrees but refuses to share any details, leaving me and many others with the impression that they acted arbitrarily and capriciously. This would be an excellent opportunity to ArbCom to step in and resolve the finger-pointing going on in multiple directions. R2 (bleep) 18:04, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Question about my topic ban

Do you know whether my linking to the T-ban AE would be in violation of it? It has been mentioned here in a blatant misrepresentation. I'd like to post the link in reply to this comment. petrarchan47คุก 18:00, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

If you're worried about misunderstandings concerning your topic ban, why not post a link to it at User:Petrarchan47 or User talk:Petrarchan47? R2 (bleep) 20:19, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
I have no problem with that and consider it a good idea, however as you can see, it isn't clear whether my t-ban prevents me from linking to it (see beginning of this thread). petrarchan47คุก 20:25, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Hi, Petrarchan47. Sorry to evade your question, but I shall advise more directly about what you should do. Ignore the comment. Unless somebody actually raises an enforcement request against you, your ban is not going to be "extended". I am actually going to point this out directly to the user. AGK ■ 20:21, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Alrighty, thank you. I do have a follow up question. In my opinion, this was an attack on my character disguised as an !vote. It's the latter issue that seems most problematic, as the RfC process is considered somewhat sacred around here. There must be some rule against using an !vote to mention my very-unrelated t-ban instead of making an argument related to the RfC, no? petrarchan47คุก 22:50, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Sorry, AGK, I see now that my question above was unnessesary, your comment at the talk page was perfect. It seems that the reason my t-ban is misrepresented started with this edit. Do you have any suggestions for how I can get this user to stop falsely stating that I have issues with pushing pseudoscience (this is the second occurrence)? Would a one-way I-ban be a good idea? Or perhaps if you reminded him of the reason for the ban, adding that if he needs to bring it up again, he must stick with "casting aspersions" and not rewrite history by tacking on new claims. I cannot defend myself or correct the record under this ban, which is a strange situation, and unfortunately means I have to bother you again. petrarchan47คุก 18:19, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
I realize your inquiry isn't directed at me, but often the best way to handle criticism is to ignore it. Ask yourself, what would you gain from a response? So there are some people who have misplaced concerns about your past behavior. Prove them wrong. R2 (bleep) 19:55, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
The best way to deal with vandalism is to ignore it. It doesn't work that way when the intention of criticism is to discredit the opposition, then it becomes a PA. There is also the issue of WP:CONDUCTTOBANNED which is policy. Atsme Talk 📧 20:07, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Impressed

I am surprised and impressed that you have proposed an independent investigation of Fram and a discussion about harassment in general. Thank you. Jehochman Talk 21:51, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

It’s a shame your proposal went no further than mine. Before people resign and shutdown bots, etc the question to answer is whether Fram did anything seriously wrong. We ought to inspect that question for ourselves. The next move is to ask WMF to release their sanction and refer the matter to ArbCom. It’s a horror that so much damage was done through ignorance. Jehochman Talk 10:53, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2019

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

Administrator changes

removed 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.

Guideline and policy news

  • In a related matter, the account throttle has been restored to six creations per day as the mitigation activity completed.

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:19, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-29

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • The mobile web will get more advanced editing tools. Seven more Wikipedias can use them now. This works for Arabic, Indonesian, Italian, Persian, Japanese, Spanish and Thai Wikipedia. You can try the tools on the mobile web and give feedback. [67]

Changes later this week

  • Advanced item The abuse filter system user will soon do maintenance edits on broken abuse filters. This user is called Edit filter and has administrator rights. This is meant to fix technical problems. It will not do any other changes. You can read more.
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 July. It will be on all wikis from 18 July (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 17 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • The Wikipedia app for Android will invite users to add image captions to images on Commons. It will only invite users who have added a number of edits in the app without being reverted. This is to avoid spam and bad edits. You can read more and leave feedback. [68]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:29, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-30

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

Problems

  • The release of the last version of MediaWiki (1.34.0-wmf.14) has been blocked for groups 1 and 2. [70]

Changes later this week

  • Phabricator database will be moved to a different server. Writes will be blocked on Thursday 25 July, between 05:30 and 06:00 AM UTC. Reads will remain unaffected. [71]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 July. It will be on all wikis from 25 July (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 24 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

13:07, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-31

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

  • Wikidata will be in read-only mode on 30 July from 05:00 to 05:30 UTC because of a server switch. [76]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 July. It will be on all wikis from 1 August (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 31 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

21:42, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2019

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

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

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) 19:23, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-33

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • 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. Feedback on the discussion page is appreciated. [77]
  • Due to the absence of volunteer maintenance of Cologne Blue skin, the link to activate it will be hidden. The skin will still work, but editors using it are encouraged to switch to another skin. [78]

Changes later this week

  • Due to Wikimania, there is no deployment this week. [79]

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 13 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • The "Wikidata item" link will be moved from "Tools" to "In other projects" section on all Wikimedia projects, starting on August 21. Full announcement, Phabricator task.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:19, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious
Seven years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:19, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-34

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News

  • There will be no Tech News issue next week. The next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 2 September 2019.

Problems

  • Advanced item Some abuse filters stopped working because of a code change. Only variables for the current action will work. Variables defined inside a branch may not work outside of that branch. You can read more to see how to fix the filters.
  • Only six accounts can be created from one IP address per day. Between 12 August and August 15 this was two accounts per day. This was because of a security issue. It is now six accounts per day again. [80]

Changes later this week

  • Only a limited number of accounts can be created from one IP address. An IP address can be whitelisted so that it can create as many accounts as needed. This is useful at events where many new persons learn to edit. IP addresses that are whitelisted for this reason will also not show CAPTCHAs when you create accounts. This will happen on Wednesday. [81]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 August. It will be on all wikis from 22 August (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 21 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • There is an RFC about creating a new global user group with the right to edit abuse filters. This will be used to fix broken filters and make sure all filters will still work when software changes happen. You can read more and comment.
  • Special:Contributions/newbies will no longer be working. This is because of performance reasons. It showed edits by new accounts. You can see this in the recent changes feed instead. [82]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:20, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Antisemitism in Poland Proposed decision (DS)

I've already applied DS to some of these articles (example) vis-a-vis RfAR/Eastern Europe. Do you consider that approach to have been in error on my part? El_C 06:16, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

For your consideration, AGK, I have suggested [83] that the Poland case proposed decision be due one week after the Fram case is over. This will help reduce the limbo by establishing a timeline. starship.paint (talk) 00:02, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-36

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can use the new termbox interface if you edit Wikidata on a mobile device. This is to edit labels, descriptions and aliases easier on the mobile pages. [84]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki has been deployed during the last week.
  • The previously announced change of positions of the "Wikidata item" link on all wikis has been rollbacked due to unexpected cache issues. [85]
  • The limit for rollbacks has been increased from 10 to 100 rollbacks per minute. [86]
  • The advanced version of the edit review pages (Recent Changes, Watchlist, and Related Changes) now include two new filters. These filters are for "All contents" and "All discussions". They will filter the view to just those namespaces. However the "All discussions" filter does not include pseudo talk pages, like discussions that are in the Project: or Wikipedia: namespaces. But it will include changes happening on Project talk: or the Wikipedia talk:. [87]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 September. It will be on all wikis from 5 September (calendar).
  • When you log in, the software checks your password to see if it follows the Password policy. From this week, it will also complain if your password is one of the most common passwords in the world. If your password is not strong enough, please consider to change your password for a stronger password. [88]

Meetings

Future changes

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:07, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2019

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

Administrator changes

added Bradv • Chetsford • Izno
readded Floquenbeam • Lectonar
removed DESiegel • Jake Wartenberg • Rjanag • Topbanana

CheckUser changes

removed Callanecc • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

removed 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

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:36, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

September 2019 GOCE Newsletter

Guild of Copy Editors September 2019 Newsletter

Hello and welcome to the September newsletter, a brief update of Guild activities since June 2019.

June election: Reidgreg was chosen as lead coordinator, and is being assisted by Baffle gab1978, Miniapolis, Tdslk, and first-time coordinator Twofingered Typist. Jonesey95 took a respite after serving for six years. Thanks to everyone who participated!

June Blitz: From 16 to 22 June, we copy edited articles on the themes of nature and the environment along with requests. 12 participating editors completed 35 copy edits. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

July Drive: The year's fourth backlog-elimination drive was a great success, clearing all articles tagged in January and February, and bringing the copy-editing backlog to a low of five months and a record low of 585 articles while also completing 48 requests. Of the 30 people who signed up, 29 copyedited at least one article, a participation level last matched in May 2015. Final results and awards are listed here.

August Blitz: From 18 to 24 August, we copy edited articles tagged in March 2019 and requests. 12 participating editors completed 26 copy edits on the blitz. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

Progress report: As of 03:00, 23 September 2019 (UTC), GOCE copyeditors had processed 413 requests since 1 January. The backlog of tagged articles stood at 599 articles, close to our record month-end low of 585.

Requests page: We are experimenting with automated archiving of copy edit requests; a discussion on REQ Talk (permalinked) initiated by Bobbychan193 has resulted in Zhuyifei1999 writing a bot script for the Guild. Testing is now underway and is expected to be completed by 3 October; for this reason, no manual archiving of requests should be done until the testing period is over. We will then assess the bot's performance and discuss whether to make this arrangement permanent.

September Drive: Our current backlog-elimination drive is open until 23:59 on 30 September (UTC) and is open to all copy editors. Sign up today!

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators, Baffle gab1978, Miniapolis, Reidgreg, Tdslk and Twofingered Typist.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:58, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-40

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

  • Last week's Tech News had delivery problems. Some did not get the newsletter. Some got it more than one time. The problem where some pages got it three times should now be fixed. [93]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 October. It will be on all wikis from 3 October (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 2 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:49, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2019

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

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

Miscellaneous

  • The Community Tech team has been working on a system for temporarily watching pages, and welcomes feedback.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:54, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-41

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

Problems

  • There is a problem in the visual editor when you copy or delete text with footnotes. It will be fixed soon. [96]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 October. It will be on all wikis from 10 October (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 9 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • The Community Wishlist Survey has a new format. It will focus on wikis that typically get less support. It will probably go back to the normal format next year. It is not decided exactly how it will work this year. You can leave feedback.
  • The URL of the Wikimedia wiki main pages could be changed. This is because the current URLs cause several problems. For example https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page would be https://www.wikidata.org/ instead. You can tell the developers if this would cause problems for your wiki.
  • There is a new technical community newsletter. You can read more about the work of Wikimedia's technical community. Subscribe to get the information in the future.
  • Advanced item Outreachy is an internship program for groups who are underrepresented in free and open-source software. There are seven Wikimedia projects about coding, documentation and quality assurance in the next round. Persons who fit the criteria can apply. The last day to apply is 5 November.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:35, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-42

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 October. It will be on all wikis from 17 October (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • Internet Explorer 6 and 7 are no longer supported. This means the browsers might start looking a bit weird. They will not get security support. You can't read Wikimedia wikis in Internet Explorer on Windows XP or Windows versions that are older than Windows XP. This is because almost no one uses the browsers anymore. Supporting them made the wikis less secure for everyone else. [98]
  • In the future section headings might have a share link. This is to make it easier to link to the section. You can read more and discuss.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

23:33, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-43

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. The API sandbox and help pages now show more clearly when API modules are marked as internal. API modules marked as internal were probably internal before. It was easier to miss. You should look for non-internal alternatives. [99]

Problems

  • There is a translation tool we use on wikis with more than one language. For a few days it did not create pages for new languages when someone translated a page. The languages did not show in the language bar. This has been fixed. [100]
  • The history and diffs can show wrong content. This is because of a cache problem. It will soon be fixed. [101]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 October. It will be on all wikis from 24 October (calendar).
  • Reference Previews will be a beta feature on all Wikipedias and some Wikivoyages. It shows you a preview of the footnote when you hover over or click on the number. It has been a beta feature on German and Arabic Wikipedia since April.

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 October. See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

14:27, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-44

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can post proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals until 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 20 November to 2 December. This year the wishlist will focus on Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikispecies, Wikivoyage and Wikinews. You can read more about the format for this year.
  • Mobile users now have a specific design for their Watchlist. [102][103]
  • You can share feedback and ideas on the Desktop Improvements project. The goal is to make the interface easier to use for readers and editors without removing any functionality. The Foundation's Readers Web team will work on this over the next two years.
  • Advanced item OOUI now allows using px (pixels) instead of em (em) for some specific cases. [104][105]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 October. It will be on all wikis from 31 October (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • There will be no software changes from 19 December to 2 January. The first MediaWiki version next year will come the week of 6 January. [106]
  • Advanced item Gadgets and user scripts can access variables about the current page in JavaScript. In 2015, this information was moved from global variables named wg* to mw.config. The old global variables will be removed later this year. You can know more about it and tell the developers if you want to try this out on your wiki first.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:11, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2019

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

Guideline and policy news

  • A related RfC is seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure.

Arbitration

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

Tech News: 2019-45

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • At Special:Contributions you could see up to 5000 edits at the same time if you edited the URL. This has been lowered to 500. This is to stop requests which break the sites. [107]

Changes later this week

  • MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry can set the default length to block a user for your wiki. You will be able to use MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry-ip to set a different default block length for IP editors. [108]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 November. It will be on all wikis from 7 November (calendar).

Meetings

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16:47, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Eric Corbett

I note you have recently decided to suppress evidence of Eric Corbett’s thousands of edits and details of the huge amount of pages he raised to FA and GA status. Doubtless, your own work far surpasses this. However, if you could add these to your own watchlist, and help maintain them, that would be good. Many thanks Giano (talk) 21:05, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Manchester Mummy

Robert Tatton

Samlesbury witches

The Green Child

Tickle Cock Bridge

What do you mean? I am probably behind the times (I was inactive for a few weeks recently). AGK ■ 21:48, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-47

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

Changes later this week

  • You can soon vote on proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can vote on proposals from 20 November to 2 December. This year the wishlist will focus on Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikispecies, Wikivoyage and Wikinews. You can read more about the format for this year.
  • There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:16, 18 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) 00:07, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Google Code-In 2019 is coming - please mentor some documentation tasks!

Hello,

Google Code-In, Google-organized contest in which the Wikimedia Foundation participates, starts in a few weeks. This contest is about taking high school students into the world of opensource. I'm sending you this message because you recently edited a documentation page at the English Wikipedia.

I would like to ask you to take part in Google Code-In as a mentor. That would mean to prepare at least one task (it can be documentation related, or something else - the other categories are Code, Design, Quality Assurance and Outreach) for the participants, and help the student to complete it. Please sign up at the contest page and send us your Google account address to google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org, so we can invite you in!

From my own experience, Google Code-In can be fun, you can make several new friends, attract new people to your wiki and make them part of your community.

If you have any questions, please let us know at google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org.

Thank you!

--User:Martin Urbanec (talk) 21:58, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-48

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

  • The mobile beta mode will be disabled to have less maintenance. The developers will focus on the desktop improvements project. You can turn on advanced mobile contributions mode if you want to see the categories. You could also jump back to the top. This can instead be done with a gadget or user script. [110]
  • Parsoid is software we use for the visual editor, content translation, Flow and the Android app. This has been rewritten. It will come to the wikis gradually over the next two weeks. It has been tested, but there could be some diffs or previews that don't look right. If you see any you can report them. [111]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 November. It will be on the other wikis next week (calendar). This is because of holidays.

Meetings

Future changes

  • You will switch between the article and the talk page in a new way in the mobile view in the future. It will use tabs. This is more like in the desktop view. [112]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:51, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Hope you are OK

Hey AGK. I noticed this edit that you made a few days ago. I'd also noticed the break that you took earlier and the reason you gave there. I hope it is not prying too much to infer that something may have happened in the intervening period. I hope you and your family are OK. Carcharoth (talk) 18:00, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi Carcharoth. My earlier break ended after the family member made a return to good health. And all is well to this day, though thank you indeed for thinking to ask. It was nice reading your message. The quotation on my userpage is actually from the writings of Marcus Aurelius, who ruled during the Nerva–Antonine dynasty and wrote down interesting things during his lifetime. Users in our community may find benefit from occasionally encountering something that reminds them to keep a sense of proportion. AGK ■ 21:47, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
That is good to hear. Agree with the sentiment of your quote (though also tempted to debate the various ways it has been translated!). Sorry to be so brief, just checking in from time to time these days. Carcharoth (talk) 15:11, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Protection level for Template:Infobox Australian Electorate

Can you reduce the move level you set in 2012, to Template editor. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:59, 30 June 2019 (UTC).

 Done: AGK ■ 04:28, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Arbcom open letter

Hello AGK. I notice that you did not sign Arbcom's open letter to the WMF. Could you explain, to the extent that you are able to do so, why you chose not to sign? Cheers, Tazerdadog (talk) 00:06, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I did not oppose the letter as such, but rather I believed the committee ought to be voting publicly to address the Board in that way in the form of a motion on its case request. Generally, the committee tries to act on business brought expressly before it as an arbitration request. For that reason I commented in the discussion that we should be voting on a motion, but I did not support or oppose the letter prior to its publication. I am heartened that the letter seems to have united all parties, which I do not think anybody predicted or could have expected. I hope this clarifies. AGK ■ 04:27, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Recusal

Please will you consider recusing from the upcoming arbitration case about Fram? Thank you — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:02, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

As an observer I don’t understand why you ask. Jehochman Talk 13:18, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Would you please elaborate? I do not consider myself unable to render a judgement about that matter, but rather than dismissing your request out of hand I should like to first give you a chance to detail your thinking. AGK ■ 18:08, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Hello/RFP

Thanks for taking care of my RFP request. Nice to see you’re still around here, hope you are doing well. It’s been too long. Al the best, Steven Crossin 07:51, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

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