User talk:Caknuck/Archive 9

This is an archive of past discussions with Caknuck. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Disputed non-free use rationale for File:Samantha Taylor.jpg

Thank you for uploading File:Samantha Taylor.jpg. However, there is a concern that the rationale provided for using this file on Wikipedia may not meet the criteria required by Wikipedia:Non-free content. This can be corrected by going to the file description page and adding or clarifying the reason why the file qualifies under this policy. Adding and completing one of the templates available from Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your file is in compliance with Wikipedia policy. Please be aware that a non-free use rationale is not the same as an image copyright tag; descriptions for files used under the non-free content policy require both a copyright tag and a non-free use rationale.

If it is determined that the file does not qualify under the non-free content policy, it might be deleted by an administrator within a few days in accordance with our criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions, please ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thank you. — JJMC89 (T·C) 23:57, 31 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter - February 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.

Administrator changes

NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67

Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13

Guideline and policy news

A discussion to workshop proposals to amend the administrator inactivity policy at Wikipedia talk:Administrators has been in process since late December 2016.
Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2016 closed with no consensus for implementing Pending changes level 2 with new criteria for use.
Following an RfC, an activity requirement is now in place for bots and bot operators.

Technical news

When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. (T34950)
Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. (T156448)
The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.

Arbitration

The Arbitration Committee released a response to the Wikimedia Foundation's statement on paid editing and outing.

Obituaries

JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.

Discuss this newsletter • Subscribe • Archive

13:37, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

March 2017 WikiCup newsletter

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

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

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

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

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

Disambiguation link notification for March 11

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Disambiguation link notification for March 18

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited List of players selected to the Pro Bowl, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Earl Thomas. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 10:11, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Respond

My edit was based on Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality, which cited: Categories regarding religious beliefs or lack of such beliefs of a living person should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief in questionand WP:NONDEF: which cited Categorization by non-defining characteristics should be avoided. It is sometimes difficult to know whether or not a particular characteristic is "defining" for any given topic, and there is no one definition that can apply to all situations. However, the following suggestions or rules-of-thumb may be helpful:. Hope my edit wasn't a controversial. It can be verified that the subject was an atheist, but it should also be that key defining trait that the subject was prominently noted for or defining characteristic, Thanks for your concern and have a nice day.--Jobas (talk) 05:00, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If in several of the articles, that criteria was met, and the WP:NONDEF would not apply, feel more than free to revert or undo my edit. Have a nice day.--Jobas (talk) 05:09, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In several of the articles, like Matt Kirshen and Keira Knightley, it is plainly stated, with WP:RS, that the subject is an atheist. WP:NONDEF does not apply in these circumstances. Also, considering the speed of the edits (approx. 2/min), it seems doubtful that you took the time to read the entire article or verify the sources in question. That is not indicative of constructive editing. I'll be reviewing the edits and reverting as needed. Thank you, caknuck _° needs to be running more often 05:12, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well i readed it, for example in Keira Knightley article, it's only instances "atheist" once inside the article. I don't deny that she is atheist, but it isn't a key defining trait that Keira Knightley was prominently noted for i guess, same for Matt Kirshen, yet I'm not terribly against categorisation, so you can reviewing the edits and reverting as needed, I will not going to persists, Have a nice day.--Jobas (talk) 05:32, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Look at Martin Folkes; he founded an atheist society in 18th Century England. That's pretty damn defining. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 05:36, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes i do agree about him, i think it was by mistake or unintentional, I will revert it, Thanks for letting me know.--Jobas (talk) 05:38, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Anti-Islamic hate sentiments

Hi, I'm not sure where to post this as the intervention against vandalism page bot automatically archives it. The user responsible for the following diffs has been blocked; several of his edit summaries have already been obscured but these offensive ones remain. They are directed at Muslim users and accuse us of having an "agenda", committing "vandalism", and being "monsters". I would be most grateful if they could be obscured. Thank you. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] 159.148.89.162 (talk) 10:26, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have struck two of the remaining edit summaries that were particularly offensive. I would rather leave the ones marked along the lines of "Rv pro-Islamic vandalism", because they help non-Admins to understand the kinds of edit-warring this user was engaged in. Thank you, caknuck _° needs to be running more often 16:15, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Undergarment

Hey there, I see you protected Undergarment with {{pp-dispute}}. I thought I should let you know there is no dispute, just one relentlessly persistent editor, Fangusu, who has been using a string of sockpuppets and IPs to disrupt a number of articles for nearly a decade, and this is one of her favourite targets. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Fangusu/Archive or Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Fangusu for more info if you like. Cheers. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:55, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the context. I'll update the template to {{pp-sock}}. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 19:06, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I also updated the protection on the pages (also Toe socks) to reflect the correct reason. Thanks again, caknuck _° needs to be running more often 19:14, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your comment about forum shopping

How exactly is bringing a case to the admin's attention forum shopping? did you even look at the page and the history? It's not a content dispute at all. Liftam is being disruptive. You also violated AGF by calling my report an attempt to forum shop. What else am I supposed to do if not contact an admin? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 19:37, 4 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Sir Joseph:, it's forum shopping because you twice reported @Liftarn: at WP:AN3, and were instructed to bring it to WP:ANI, and not WP:AIV. Going to WP:AIV makes it look like you are trying to have him blocked, and not trying to build consensus or resolve the dispute. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 19:43, 4 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So an admin board about vandalism should not be used about vandalism? And I have no intention of bringing him to ANI. Unfortunately, ANI is a horrible place. If I bring him there, someone will dig through my history, find a post where I once posted something and then do crazy stuff. I have no interest in mob rule. But I guess you are OK with a POV pusher ruining an article. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 20:33, 4 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your situation is a content dispute and not vandalism. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 20:43, 4 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Suzanne Olsson

Minor comment, the editor turned out to be one of the real Suzanne Olsson's socks. Doug Weller talk 13:25, 12 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Doug Weller: I saw that. The sock block went through right after I placed my warning on their talk page. Thanks! caknuck _° needs to be running more often 13:27, 12 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of Art Spaces- Outdoor Sculpture Collection, Inc Article

Hello, I'm a current intern with the organization listed above. As I was updated out wki page to reflect the changes the organizations have had as well as added some more detail information (including a name change) it seems your account contested the page for speedy deletion. As I was not in the office to check and contest the nomination for speedy deletion all of my hard work was removed. Though it mat seem like copyright infringement, because as an organization we would like to keep the language we use across the board as consisted as we can as you can imagine. I am not totally sure where to go form here, I don't particularly want to through the process of re updating all of the information that I have already once updated. If we could resolved this I would be very appreciative. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wlawson3 (talk • contribs) 19:45, 12 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Wlawson3: As you are an employee of the organization, you should not be editing its article. Please review the policy on conflict of interest for more detail. Furthermore, no one editor gets to control the wording of an article, as this is a collaborative project. Thank you, caknuck _° needs to be running more often 02:21, 13 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Mount Tabor (1799)

Bit confused by your protection. How is this in the ARBPIA topic area? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:51, 14 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Battle of Mount Tabor (biblical) as well. Note that the Arab-Israeli conflict started in the 20th century. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:52, 14 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@BU Rob13:, I was confused about the WP:RFPP request at first. I thought for a moment that the wrong article had been linked in the request, so I EC'ed the biblical one. Once I delved into the edit history of the 1799 article, I saw some edit warring over casualties, location (Palestine vs. Israel), so I saw the reasoning. I guess the decision was made to cast the "Arab-Israeli ArbCom decision net" a bit wider in this instance. I left the EC protection on the biblical article for the time being, but I see no problem with removing it. Let me know.

--Thanks, caknuck _° needs to be running more often 22:01, 14 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The actual WP:ARBPIA3#500/30 remedy applies only to pages in the topic area, not edits, so we typically don't use that as a rationale for protecting pages which are only tenuously (at best) related to the topic area. Note also that the standard is "reasonably construed" to be in the topic area, not "broadly construed". On the other hand, you can place discretionary sanctions related to WP:ARBPIA, which is broadly construed. That doesn't support indefinite ECP, in my opinion, but you could use that to justify a finite protection time as an arb enforcement action related to edits associated with the topic area. Hope that's helpful. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 23:47, 14 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. I saw the request at WP:RPP with the message "Arbitration enforcement", so I took it at face value. I'll reduce the duration at 1799 and remove the protection at "biblical". Thanks, caknuck _° needs to be running more often 00:01, 15 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiproject!

Hello, Caknuck! I saw you recently edited a page related to the Green party and green politics. There is a WikiProject that has been formed - WikiProject Green Politics and I thought this might be something you'd be interested in joining! So please head on over to the project page and take a look! Thanks for your time. Me-123567-Me (talk) 18:30, 26 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

May 2017 WikiCup newsletter

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

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

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

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – May 2017

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

Administrator changes

Karanacs • Berean Hunter • GoldenRing • Dlohcierekim

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

Guideline and policy news

An RfC has clarified that user categories should be emptied upon deletion, but redlinked user categories should not be removed if re-added by the user.
Discussions are ongoing regarding proposed changes to the COI policy. Changes so far have included clarification that adding a link on a Wikipedia forum to a job posting is not a violation of the harassment policy.

Technical news

You can now see a list of all autoblocks at Special:AutoblockList.
There is a new tool for adding archives to dead links. Administrators are able to restrict other user's ability to use the tool, and have additional permissions when changing URL and domain data.
Administrators, bureaucrats and stewards can now set an expiry date when granting user rights. (discuss, permalink)

Miscellaneous

Following an RfC, the editing restrictions page is now split into a list of active restrictions and an archive of those that are old or on inactive accounts. Make sure to check both pages if searching for a restriction.

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

WTDY-FM

Hello there! My name is Alex jirgens (talk) 20:09, 12 May 2017 (UTC) , and I am an editor of mostly radio station pages. For the last several months, WTDY-FM has had their page hijacked by persistent vandalism from what appears to be random IP addresses and/or spambots (typically 2 of them). During the months of March and April, I have requested temporary protection status, which was granted, and would expire after 30 days. This seems to do the trick; however, once that protection is gone, it goes right back to being vandalized. It is getting out of hand, as I and another user would try to revert their edits, but would more or less reappear the next day. Is there a way that the page can receive permanent protection? So far, I have requested another protection status. Thank you.[reply]

(Alex jirgens (talk) 20:09, 12 May 2017 (UTC))[reply]

@Alex jirgens:, I have semi-protected the page for 6 months. If the vandalism resumes in November, then indef protection may be in order. Thanks, caknuck _° needs to be running more often 22:02, 12 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Please unprotect this page

Please decrease the semi-protection expiry time for "San Francisco (sans-serif typeface)" from August 15, 2017 to May 22, 2017. I am sorry I will not make any disruptive edits to that page. Thanks! 64.237.236.136 (talk) 14:06, 16 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page watcher) @64.237.236.136: if you would like to request an edit to the page while it is protected, please use the {{edit semi-protected}} template. See the link for instructions. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:15, 16 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@anon -- Ain't gonna happen. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 14:22, 16 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Please decrease the protection time to 1 week, I promise i will not make any disruptive edits to this page. 64.237.236.136 (talk) 14:35, 16 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As stated previously, please use the {{edit semi-protected}} template to make such requests on the article talk page. Thank you. --‖ Ebyabe ^talk - Opposites Attract ‖ 17:15, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

66.242.67.110

66.242.67.110 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

Hi,

I was just curious if you saw the block log for this IP address when you blocked them. I know that most admins generally escalate block durations overtime, and considering the very long negative/bad editing history of this IPs edits, it's probably a lot more likely that many vandals will have access this IP address rather than constructive editors. Regards. 172.58.24.68 (talk) 20:53, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I did. While most of the anon's edits have been nonconstructive, there's no real pattern to their vandalism (targets, types of edits, POV pushing, etc.) I'm usually against long-term blocks of IPs, unless the vandalism is non-stop or it's a known static IP. I'll have a look at the IP's contributions early next week, and if the vandalism resumes, I'll slap a longer block on them. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 21:00, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – June 2017

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

Administrator changes

Doug Bell • Dennis Brown • Clpo13 • ONUnicorn

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

Guideline and policy news

An RfC proposing an off-wiki LTA database has been closed. The proposal was broadly supported, with further discussion required regarding what to do with the existing LTA database and defining access requirements. Such a tool/database formed part of the Community health initiative's successful grant proposal.
Some clarifications have been made to the community banning and unblocking policies that effectively sync them with current practice. Specifically, the community has reached a consensus that when blocking a user at WP:AN or WP:ANI, it is considered a "community sanction", and administrators cannot unblock unilaterally if the user has not successfully appealed the sanction to the community.
An RfC regarding the bot policy has closed with changes to the section describing restrictions on cosmetic changes.

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

KUDL

Hey, Caknuck! I have a question to ask. On the KUDL/Sacramento page, user ViperSnake151 (who I've had issues with in the past and have brought in NeutralHomer to revert some of the things he has done) keeps deleting information (such as final song on when the station was on KDND, final song on Star and the first on the new 106.5 the End, and the actual audio sources from those (which NeutralHomer has pointed out in the past that you can't copyright over-the-air audio and is therefore free to use)). He has done this several times since February of this year on the page alone, and its aggravating to keep having to re-add factual information he insists on deleting (under the basis of "useless/random trivia", which actually adds to something). Is there a way that he can be warned about consistent deleting or some other action? Thank you.

(Alex jirgens (talk) 01:03, 3 June 2017 (UTC))[reply]

The Signpost: 23 June 2017

News and notes: Departments reorganized at Wikimedia Foundation, and a month without new RfAs (so far)

In the media: Kalanick's nipples; Episode #138 of Drama on the Hill

Op-ed: Facto Post: a fresh take

Featured content: Will there ever be a break? The slew of featured content continues

Traffic report: Wonder Woman beats Batman, The Mummy, Darth Vader and the Earth

Recent research: Utopian bubbles: Can Wikipedians create value outside of the capitalist system?

Technology report: Improved search, and WMF data scientist tells all

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:31, 23 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2017 July newsletter

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

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

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

If you are concerned that your nomination, whether it be for a good article, a featured process, or anything else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 05:37, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – July 2017

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

Administrator changes

Happyme22 • Dragons flight

Zad68

Guideline and policy news

The RFC discussion regarding WP:OUTING and WMF essay about paid editing and outing (see more at the ArbCom noticeboard archives) is now archived. Milieus #3 and #4 received support; so did concrete proposal #1.

Technical news

Fuzzy search will soon be added to Special:Undelete, allowing administrators to search for deleted page titles with results similar to the search query. You can test this by adding ?fuzzy=1 to the URL, as with Special:Undelete?fuzzy=1. Currently the search only finds pages that exactly match the search term.
A new bot will automatically revision delete unused file versions from files in Category:Non-free files with orphaned versions more than 7 days old.

Miscellaneous

A newly revamped database report can help identify users who may be eligible to be autopatrolled.
A potentially compromised account from 2001–2002 attempted to request resysop. Please practice appropriate account security by using a unique password for Wikipedia, and consider enabling two-factor authentication. Currently around 17% of admins have enabled 2FA, up from 16% in February 2017.
Did you know: On 29 June 2017, there were 1,261 administrators on the English Wikipedia – the exact number of administrators as there were ten years ago on 29 June 2007. Since that time, the English Wikipedia has grown from 1.85 million articles to over 5.43 million.

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

Disruption from single IP that you blocked earlier

You blocked the IP in this AIV you responded to. The IP is continuing to post frivolous edit requests at Talk:List of programs broadcast by TV Land (review the history for the 4 July and 11 July edits). Could you block for a longer period? --Izno (talk) 01:01, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Izno:

Done Range block reapplied, for 3 months this time. Thanks! caknuck _° needs to be running more often 06:08, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 15 July 2017

News and notes: French chapter woes, new affiliates and more WMF team changes

Featured content: Spectacular animals, Pine Trees screens, and more

In the media: Concern about access and fairness, Foundation expenditures, and relationship to real-world politics and commerce

Recent research: The chilling effect of surveillance on Wikipedia readers

Op-ed: Why Task Forces are Dying in 2017

Gallery: A mix of patterns

Humour: The Infobox Game

Traffic report: Film, television and Internet phenomena reign with some room left over for America's birthday

Technology report: New features in development; more breaking changes for scripts

Wikicup: 2017 WikiCup round 3 wrap-up

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:48, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – August 2017

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

Administrator changes

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

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

Guideline and policy news

Following a series of discussions around new pages patrol, the WMF is helping implement a controlled autoconfirmed article creation trial as a research experiment, similar to the one proposed in 2011. You can learn more about the research plan at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial. The exact start date of the experiment has yet to be determined.
A new speedy deletion criterion, regarding articles created as a result undisclosed paid editing, is currently being discussed (permalink).
An RfC (permalink) is currently open that proposes expanding WP:G13 to include all drafts, even if they weren't submitted through Articles for Creation.

Technical news

LoginNotify should soon be deployed to the English Wikipedia. This will notify users when there are suspicious login attempts on their account.
The new version of XTools is nearing an official release. This suite of tools includes administrator statistics, an improved edit counter, among other tools that may benefit administrators. You can report issues on Phabricator and provide general feedback at mw:Talk:XTools.

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

The Signpost: 5 August 2017

News and notes: Non-English special edition! 99% no news about English-based wiki communities!

Recent research: Wikipedia can increase local tourism by +9%; predicting article quality with deep learning; recent behavior predicts quality

WikiProject report: Comic relief

In the media: Wikipedia used to judge death penalty, arms smuggling, Indonesian governance, and HOTTEST celebrity

Traffic report: Swedish countess tops the list

Blog: Canadian Supreme Court rules against Google in favor of worldwide court orders

Special report: Sharing Wikipedia offline medical information in the Dominican Republic

Featured content: Everywhere in the lead

Technology report: Introducing TechCom

Humour: WWASOHs and ETCSSs

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On this day, 11 years ago...

Hey, Caknuck. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee!
Have a great day! Lepricavark (talk) 11:56, 5 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2017 September newsletter

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – September 2017

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

Administrator changes

Nakon • Scott

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

Guideline and policy news

ACTRIAL, a research experiment that restricts article creation to autoconfirmed users, will begin on September 7. It will run for six months. You can learn more about the research specifics at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial, while Wikipedia talk:Autoconfirmed article creation trial is probably the best venue for general discussion.
Following an RfC, WP:G13 speedy deletion criterion now applies to any page in the draftspace that has not been edited in six months. There is a bot-generated report, updated daily, to help identify potentially qualifying drafts that have not been submitted through articles for creation.

Technical news

You will now get a notification when someone tries to log in to your account and fails. If they try from a device that has logged into your account before, you will be notified after five failed attempts. You can also set in your preferences to get an email when someone logs in to your account from a new device or IP address, which may be encouraged for admins and accounts with sensitive permissions.
Syntax highlighting is now available as a beta feature (more info). This may assist administrators and template editors when dealing with intricate syntax of high-risk templates and system messages.
In your notification preferences, you can now block specific users from pinging you. This functionality will soon be available for Special:EmailUser as well.

Arbitration

Applications for CheckUser and Oversight are being accepted by the Arbitration Committee until September 12. Community discussion of the candidates will begin on September 18.

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

The Signpost: 6 September 2017

From the editors: What happened at Wikimania?

News and notes: Basselpedia; WMF Board of Trustees appointments

Featured content: Warfighters and their tools or trees and butterflies

Traffic report: A fortnight of conflicts

Special report: Biomedical content, and some thoughts on its future

Recent research: Discussion summarization; Twitter bots tracking government edits; extracting trivia from Wikipedia

In the media: Google's Ideological Echo Chamber; What makes someone successful?

WikiProject report: WikiProject YouTube

Technology report: Latest tech news

Wikicup: 2017 WikiCup round 4 wrap-up

Humour: Bots

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:44, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation to Admin confidence survey

Hello,

Beginning in September 2017, the Wikimedia Foundation Anti-harassment tool team will be conducting a survey to gauge how well tools, training, and information exists to assist English Wikipedia administrators in recognizing and mitigating things like sockpuppetry, vandalism, and harassment.

The survey should only take 5 minutes, and your individual response will not be made public. This survey will be integral for our team to determine how to better support administrators.

To take the survey sign up here and we will send you a link to the form.

We really appreciate your input!

Please let us know if you wish to opt-out of all massmessage mailings from the Anti-harassment tools team.

For the Anti-harassment tools team, SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 19:52, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 25 September 2017

News and notes: Chapter updates; ACTRIAL

In the media: Monkey settlement; Wikipedia used to give AI context clues

Humour: Chickenz

Recent research: Wikipedia articles vs. concepts; Wikipedia usage in Europe

Technology report: Flow restarted; Wikidata connection notifications

Gallery: Chicken mania

Special report: Two steps forward, one step backward: The Sustainability Initiative

Traffic report: Fights and frights

Featured content: Flying high

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Administrators' newsletter – October 2017

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

Administrator changes

Boing! said Zebedee • Ansh666 • Ad Orientem

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

Guideline and policy news

Following a successful proposal to create it, a new user right called "edit filter helper" is now assignable and revocable by administrators. The right allows non-administrators to view the details of private edit filters, but not to edit them.
Following a discussion about mass-application of ECP and how the need for logging and other details of an evolving consensus may have been missed by some administrators, a rough guide to extended confirmed protection has been written. This information page describes how the extended-confirmed aspects of the protection policy are currently being applied by administrators.

Technical news

You can now search for IP ranges at Special:Contributions. Some log pages and Special:DeletedContributions are not yet supported. Wildcards (e.g. 192.168.0.*) are also not supported, but the popular contribsrange gadget will continue to work.

Arbitration

Community consultation on the 2017 candidates for CheckUser and Oversight has concluded. The Arbitration Committee will appoint successful candidates by October 11.
A request for comment is open regarding the structure, rules, and procedures of the December 2017 Arbitration Committee election, and how to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.

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

The Signpost: 23 October 2017

News and notes: Money! WMF fundraising, Wikimedia strategy, WMF new office!

Featured content: Don, Marcel, Emily, Jessica and other notables

Humour: Guys named Ralph

In focus: Offline Wikipedia developed at OFF.NETWORK Content Hackathon

Blog: The future of offline access to Wikipedia: The Kiwix example

In the media: Facebook and poetry

Special report: Working with GLAMs in the UK

Traffic report: Death, disaster, and entertainment

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:36, 23 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – November 2017

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

Administrator changes

Longhair • Megalibrarygirl • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Allen3 • Eluchil404 • Arthur Rubin • Bencherlite

Technical news

The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team is creating an "Interaction Timeline" tool that intends to assist administrators in resolving user conduct disputes. Feedback on the concept may be posted on the talk page.
A new function is now available to edit filter managers that will make it easier to look for multiple strings containing spoofed text.

Arbitration

Eligible editors will be invited to submit candidate statements for the 2017 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 12 until November 21. Voting will begin on November 27 and last until December 10.
Following a request for comment, Ritchie333, Yunshui and Ymblanter will serve as the Electoral Commission for the 2017 ArbCom Elections.

Obituaries

The Wikipedia community has recently learned that Allen3 (William Allen Peckham) passed away on December 30, 2016, the same day as JohnCD. Allen began editing in 2005 and became an administrator that same year.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:50, 2 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2017 November newsletter: Final results

The final round of the 2017 WikiCup is over. Congratulations to the 2017 WikiCup top three finalists:

First Place - Adityavagarwal (submissions)
Second Place - Vanamonde (submissions)
Third Place - Cas Liber (submissions)

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

Featured Article – Cas Liber (actually a two-way tie with themselves for an astonishing five FAs in R2 and R4).
Good Article – Adityavagarwal had 14 GAs promoted in R5.
Featured List – Bloom6132 (submissions) and 1989 (submissions) both produced 2 FLs in R2
Featured Pictures – SounderBruce (submissions) improved an image to FP status in R5, the only FP this year.
Featured Topic – MPJ-DK (submissions) has the only FT of the Cup in R3.
Good Topic – Four different editors created a GT in R2, R3 and R4.
Did You Know – Adityavagarwal had 22 DYKs on the main page in R5.
In The News – MBlaze Lightning (submissions) had 14 ITN on the main page in R2.
Good Article Review – Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (submissions) completed 31 GARs in R1.

Over the course of the 2017 WikiCup the following content was added or improved on Wikipedia: 51 Featured Articles, 292 Good Articles, 18 Featured Lists, 1 Featured Picture, 1 Featured Topics, 4 Good Topics, around 400 Did You Knows, 75 In The News, and 442 Good Article Reviews. Thank you to all the competitors for your hard work and what you have done to improve Wikipedia.

Regarding the prize vouchers - @Adityavagarwal, Vanamonde93, Casliber, Bloom6132, 1989, and SounderBruce: please send Godot13 (talk · contribs · email) an email from the email address to which you would like your Amazon voucher sent. Please include your preference of global Amazon marketplace as well. We hope to have the electronic gift cards processed and sent within a week.

We will open up a discussion for comments on process and scoring in a few days. The 2018 WikiCup is just around the corner! Many thanks from all the judges. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email), and Godot13 (talk · contribs · email) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:41, 2 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2018

So the 2017 WikiCup has come to an end. Congratulations to the winner, to the other finalists and to all those who took part. 177 contestants signed up, more than usual, but not all of them submitted entries in the first round. Were editors attracted by the cash prizes offered for the first time this year, or were these irrelevant? Do the rules and scoring need changing for the 2018 WikiCup? If you have a view on these or other matters, why not join in the WikiCup discussion about next year's contest? Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:59, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Use of RadioInsight and Format Change Archive as credible sources

Hello, Caknuck! I have updated many pages over the last ten years with sources from radio industry website RadioInsight and its sister site Format Change Archive, which has airchecks of when stations change formats. Recently, however, whenever I've added some of these to different pages, user Vipersnake151 has quickly deleted them, claiming that they're not credible because he believes "they're blogs" and have "useless random trivia". While they appear to be user-generated content (which Wiki has rules regarding that), they do follow Wiki's guidelines on exceptions, particularly, "Self-published material may sometimes be acceptable when its author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications". The site's creators, Lance Venta, is a well-respected and knowledgeable person in the industry, and has worked in the media for decades; when he uses company press releases in his posts, they are cited and quoted word-for-word from their respective company. I have talked with user NeutralHomer about this last year, regarding a format change at CKQB-FM. Viper would delete the sites and also first/last songs that would be displayed in an aircheck, and would also claim that airchecks are considered copyright violations, which almost resulted in an edit war. I visited with user NeutralHomer, and he would respond with this on Viper's talk page (dated 30 August 2016):

"Your revisions to the CKQB-FM page (and talk page posts) have been called to my attention, specifically this edit and this edit. Neither of these edits are "trivia" nor are they "original research". You also state here that you believe that FormatChange.com is a "practically a blog". What you believe to be a blog isn't necessary what the community believes to be one. FormatChange.com and it's sister sites Fybush.com and RadioInsight.com are highly reliable sources and are used on hundreds of pages. If you believe something to be unreliable, an edit war isn't the answer. Talking it out on the talk page is. You stated that FormatChange.com has a WP:COPYVIOEL issue. This is just silly. An aircheck is was recording of radio broadcast taken from an actual radio, not a webstream. An over-the-air radio broadcast can not be copyrighted. If there is a program, such as a newscast (CBS, Fox, etc.) or a sports broadcast (NFL, MLB, NCAA, etc.), then that can be copyrighted. But an aircheck of the launch of a new station or new format is not copyrightable. If you are in doubt when it comes to this, ask at WP:WPRS. We'll be glad to set you straight regarding anything radio and copyrights. When it comes to the CKQB-FM page, User:Alex jirgens's edits are properly sourced and I can see no issues with them. I advise you to re-read WP:OWN because I believe that's what you are doing here. I also advise you to ask before claiming certain sites are "blogs" or "original research" or even copyright violations. You are wrong on each of these. Slow down, take your time, don't edit war and read up on the rules. If you continue down the path you are on, you are likely to be on the business end of a block. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 04:17 on August 30, 2016 (UTC)"

Recently, on the KKLQ (FM) and WBMP (FM) pages (and probably others), he's been at it again, deleting information from RadioInsight/FCA that would otherwise enhance an article. I do have a feeling this is a rampant problem, and also believe he's WP:OWN pages. Is there a way to curb this or make it known that what he's doing is not appropriate?

(I do apologize if me describing all of this sounds a bit wordy. It's frustrating when you spend time editing an article, making sure information is properly sourced (and to get as many sources as possible), and then to have it all deleted. I don't want to ask for vandalizing protections, but I feel that something has to be done. I'm trying to follow the rules as closely as possible.)

Thanks,

(Alex jirgens (talk) 21:57, 19 November 2017 (UTC))[reply]

The Signpost: 24 November 2017

News and notes: Cons, cons, cons

Arbitration report: Administrator desysoped; How to deal with crosswiki issues; Mister Wiki case likely

Technology report: Searching and surveying

Interview: A featured article centurion

WikiProject report: Recommendations for WikiProjects

In the media: Open knowledge platform as a media institution

Traffic report: Strange and inappropriate

Featured content: We will remember them

Recent research: Who wrote this? New dataset on the provenance of Wikipedia text

Humour: Good faith (but still incomprehensible)

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ANI Experiences survey

The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative (led by the Safety and Support and Anti-Harassment Tools team) is conducting a survey for en.wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with the Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works - which problems it deals with well, and which problems it struggles with.

The survey should take 10-20 minutes to answer, and your individual responses will not be made public. The survey is delivered through Google Forms. The privacy policy for the survey describes how and when Wikimedia collects, uses, and shares the information we receive from survey participants and can be found here:

https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2017_AN/Incidents_Survey_Privacy_Statement

If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be mailed to you via Special:Emailuser.

Sign up here to receive a link to a survey

Thank you on behalf of the Support & Safety and Anti-Harassment Tools Teams, Patrick Earley (WMF) talk 18:24, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – December 2017

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

Administrator changes

Joe Roe

JzG

Ericorbit • Perceval • Thingg • Tristanb • Violetriga

Guideline and policy news

Following a request for comment, a new section has been added to the username policy which disallows usernames containing emoji, emoticons or otherwise "decorative" usernames, and usernames that use any non-language symbols. Administrators should discuss issues related to these types of usernames before blocking.

Technical news

Wikimedians are now invited to vote on the proposals in the 2017 Community Wishlist Survey on Meta Wiki until 10 December 2017. In particular, there is a section of the survey regarding new tools for administrators and for anti-harassment.
A new function is available to edit filter managers which can be used to store matches from regular expressions.

Arbitration

Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is open until Sunday 23:59, 10 December 2017 (UTC). There are 12 candidates running for 8 vacant seats.

Miscellaneous

Over the last few months, several users have reported backlogs that require administrator attention at WP:ANI, with the most common backlogs showing up on WP:SPI, WP:AIV and WP:RFPP. It is requested that all administrators take some time during this month to help clear backlogs wherever possible. It should be noted that AIV reports are not always valid; however, they still need to be cleared, which may include needing to remind users on what qualifies as vandalism.
The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative is conducting a survey for English Wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works (i.e. which problems it deals with well and which problems it struggles with). If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be emailed to you via Special:EmailUser.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:57, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 18 December 2017

Special report: Women in Red World Contest wrap-up

Blog: Close encounters of the Wikipedia kind

Featured content: Featured content to finish 2017

In the media: Stolen seagulls, public domain primates and more

Arbitration report: Last case of 2017: Mister Wiki editors

Gallery: Wiki loving

Interview: Interview with Charlesjsharp, regular contributor of Wikipedia's Featured Pictures

Recent research: French medical articles have "high rate of veracity"

Technology report: Your wish lists and more Wikimedia tech

Traffic report: Notable heroes and bad guys

Humour: On their way to the WMF Incubator

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Your signature

Please be aware that your signature uses deprecated <font> tags, which are causing Obsolete HTML tags lint errors. Your signature is also causing Tidy bug affecting font tags wrapping links.

You are encouraged to change

<b><font color="FF6600">[[User:Caknuck|caknuck]]</font> <sub><font color="black">[[User talk:Caknuck|°]]</font></sub> <font color="FF6600">needs to be running more often</font></b>

: caknuck _° needs to be running more often

to

<b>[[User:Caknuck|<span style="color: #FF6600;">caknuck</span>]] <sub>[[User talk:Caknuck|<span style="color: black;">°</span>]]</sub> <span style="color: #FF6600;">needs to be running more often</span></b>

: caknuck _° needs to be running more often

—Anomalocaris (talk) 07:10, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Anomalocaris:

Done caknuck _° needs to be running more often 07:18, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! —Anomalocaris (talk) 07:20, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – January 2018

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

Administrator changes

Muboshgu

Anetode • Laser brain • Worm That Turned

None

Bureaucrat changes

Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the administrator policy should be amended to require disclosure of paid editing activity at WP:RFA and to prohibit the use of administrative tools as part of paid editing activity, with certain exceptions.

Technical news

The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey results have been posted. The Community Tech team will investigate and address the top ten results.
The Anti-Harassment Tools team is inviting comments on new blocking tools and improvements to existing blocking tools for development in early 2018. Feedback can be left on the discussion page or by email.

Arbitration

Following the results of the 2017 election, the following editors have been (re)appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Alex Shih, BU Rob13, Callanecc, KrakatoaKatie, Opabinia regalis, Premeditated Chaos, RickinBaltimore, Worm That Turned.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:37, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for January 4

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that when you recently edited List of Pro Bowl players, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page C. J. Mosley (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are usually incorrect, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of unrelated topics with similar titles. (Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.)

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:13, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for January 16

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited List of Pro Bowl players, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Greg Zuerlein (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:11, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 16 January 2018

News and notes: Communication is key

In the media: The Paris Review, British Crown and British Media

Featured content: History, gaming and multifarious topics

Interview: Interview with Ser Amantio di Nicolao, the top contributor to English Wikipedia by edit count

Technology report: Dedicated Wikidata database servers

Humour: Why don't we have an article about _________?

Arbitration report: Mister Wiki is first arbitration committee decision of 2018

Traffic report: The best and worst of 2017

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:27, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for January 24

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited List of Pro Bowl players, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Anthony Barr (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:20, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for February 3

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited List of Pro Bowl players, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Micah Hyde (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:50, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – February 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

Blurpeace • Dana boomer • Deltabeignet • Denelson83 • Grandiose • Salvidrim! • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

An RfC has closed with a consensus that candidates at WP:RFA must disclose whether they have ever edited for pay and that administrators may never use administrative tools as part of any paid editing activity, except when they are acting as a Wikipedian-in-Residence or when the payment is made by the Wikimedia Foundation or an affiliate of the WMF.
Editors responding to threats of harm can now contact the Wikimedia Foundation's emergency address by using Special:EmailUser/Emergency. If you don't have email enabled on Wikipedia, directly contacting the emergency address using your own email client remains an option.

Technical news

A tag will now be automatically applied to edits that blank a page, turn a page into a redirect, remove/replace almost all content in a page, undo an edit, or rollback an edit. These edits were previously denoted solely by automatic edit summaries.

Arbitration

The Arbitration Committee has enacted a change to the discretionary sanctions procedure which requires administrators to add a standardized editnotice when placing page restrictions. Editors cannot be sanctioned for violations of page restrictions if this editnotice was not in place at the time of the violation.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:51, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Tom Chilton (Game developer) listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Tom Chilton (Game developer). Since you had some involvement with the Tom Chilton (Game developer) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 05:52, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 5 February 2018

Op-ed: Do editors have the right to be forgotten?

Featured content: Wars, sieges, disasters and everything black possible

Recent research: Automated Q&A from Wikipedia articles; Who succeeds in talk page discussions?

Blog: New monthly dataset shows where people fall into Wikipedia rabbit holes

Interview: Interview with The Rambling Man, Wikipedia's top contributor of Featured Lists

Traffic report: TV, death, sports, and doodles

Special report: Cochrane–Wikipedia Initiative

Arbitration report: New cases requested for inter-editor hostility and other collaboration issues

In the media: Solving crime; editing out violence allegations

Humour: You really are in Wonderland

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:12, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 20 February 2018

News and notes: The future is Swedish with a lack of administrators

Recent research: Politically diverse editors write better articles; Reddit and Stack Overflow benefit from Wikipedia but don't give back

Arbitration report: Arbitration committee prepares to examine two new cases

Traffic report: Addicted to sports and pain

Featured content: Entertainment, sports and history

Technology report: Paragraph-based edit conflict screen; broken thanks

Humour: Impossible and unexplained traffic report

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:12, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – March 2018

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

Administrator changes

Lourdes†

AngelOfSadness • Bhadani • Chris 73 • Coren • Friday • Midom • Mike V

† Lourdes has requested that her admin rights be temporarily removed, pending her return from travel.

Guideline and policy news

The autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) is scheduled to end on 14 March 2018. The results of the research collected can be read on Meta Wiki.
Community ban discussions must now stay open for at least 24 hours prior to being closed.
A change to the administrator inactivity policy has been proposed. Under the proposal, if an administrator has not used their admin tools for a period of five years and is subsequently desysopped for inactivity, the administrator would have to file a new RfA in order to regain the tools.
A change to the banning policy has been proposed which would specify conditions under which a repeat sockmaster may be considered de facto banned, reducing the need to start a community ban discussion for these users.

Technical news

CheckUsers are now able to view private data such as IP addresses from the edit filter log, e.g. when the filter prevents a user from creating an account. Previously, this information was unavailable to CheckUsers because access to it could not be logged.
The edit filter has a new feature contains_all that edit filter managers may use to check if one or more strings are all contained in another given string.

Miscellaneous

Following the 2018 Steward elections, the following users are our new stewards: -revi, Green Giant, Rxy, There'sNoTime, علاء.

Obituaries

Bhadani (Gangadhar Bhadani) passed away on 8 February 2018. Bhadani joined Wikipedia in March 2005 and became an administrator in September 2005. While he was active, Bhadani was regarded as one of the most prolific Wikipedians from India.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:00, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2018 March newsletter

And so ends the first round of the competition, with 4 points required to qualify for round 2. With 53 contestants qualifying, the groups for round 2 are slightly smaller than usual, with the two leaders from each group due to qualify for round 3 as well as the top sixteen remaining users.

Our top scorers in round 1 were:

Aoba47 led the field with a featured article, 8 good articles and 42 GARs, giving a total of 666 points.
FrB.TG , a WikiCup newcomer, came next with 600 points, gained from a featured article and masses of bonus points.
Ssven2, another WikiCup newcomer, was in third place with 403 points, garnered from a featured article, a featured list, a good article and twelve GARs.
Ceranthor, Numerounovedant, Carbrera, Farang Rak Tham and Cartoon network freak all had over 200 points, but like all the other contestants, now have to start again from scratch. A good achievement was the 193 GARs performed by WikiCup contestants, comparing very favourably with the 54 GAs they achieved.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 1 but before the start of round 2 can be claimed in round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.

If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk) and Vanamonde (talk) 15:27, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for March 22

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited List of Pro Bowl players, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Jason Taylor (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:14, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Signpost issue 4 – 29 March 2018

Op-ed: Death knell for The Signpost?

News and notes: Wiki Conference roundup and new appointments.

Arbitration report: Ironing out issues in infoboxes; not sure yet about New Jersey; and an administrator who probably wasn't uncivil to a sockpuppet.

In the media: The media on Wikipedia's workings: the good and not-so-good

Traffic report: Real sports, real women and an imaginary country: what's on top for Wikipedia readers

Featured content: Animals, Ships, and Songs

Technology report: Timeless skin review by Force Radical.

Special report: ACTRIAL wrap-up.

Humour: WikiWorld Reruns

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:49, 29 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – April 2018

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

Administrator changes

331dot • Cordless Larry • ClueBot NG

Gogo Dodo • Pb30 • Sebastiankessel • Seicer • SoLando

Guideline and policy news

Administrators who have been desysopped due to inactivity are now required to have performed at least one (logged) administrative action in the past 5 years in order to qualify for a resysop without going through a new RfA.
Editors who have been found to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block, for whatever reason, are now automatically considered banned by the community without the need to start a ban discussion.
The notability guideline for organizations and companies has been substantially rewritten following the closure of this request for comment. Among the changes, the guideline more clearly defines the sourcing requirements needed for organizations and companies to be considered notable.
The six-month autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) ended on 14 March 2018. The post-trial research report has been published. A request for comment is now underway to determine whether the restrictions from ACTRIAL should be implemented permanently.

Technical news

There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

The Arbitration Committee is considering a change to the discretionary sanctions procedures which would require an editor to appeal a sanction to the community at WP:AE or WP:AN prior to appealing directly to the Arbitration Committee at WP:ARCA.

Miscellaneous

A discussion has closed which concluded that administrators are not required to enable email, though many editors suggested doing so as a matter of best practice.
The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team has released the Interaction Timeline. This shows a chronologic history for two users on pages where they have both made edits, which may be helpful in identifying sockpuppetry and investigating editing disputes.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 26 April 2018

From the editors: The Signpost's presses roll again

Signpost: Future directions for The Signpost

News and notes: Photo of Kim Jong-un. Stephen Hawking death tops hits on many Wikipedias.

In the media: The rise of Wikipedia as a disinformation mop

In focus: Admin reports board under criticism

Special report: ACTRIAL results adopted by landslide

Opinion: Guideline for Organization Notability revised

Op-ed: World War II Myth-making and Wikipedia

Community view: It's time we look past Women in Red to counter systemic bias

Discussion report: The future of portals

Arbitration report: No new cases, and one motion on administrative misconduct

WikiProject report: WikiProject Military History

Blog: Why the world reads Wikipedia

Humour: Our Favorite Places to Whine About Stuff

Traffic report: A quiet place to wrestle with the articles of March

Technology report: Coming soon: Books-to-PDF, interactive maps, rollback confirmation

Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

Gallery: A look at some famous and not as well-known border tripoints

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:50, 26 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2018 May newsletter

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

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

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Obituaries

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

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

The Signpost: 24 May 2018

From the editor: Another issue meets the deadline

Op-ed: Has the wind gone out of the AdminShip's sails?

Opinion: Integrating my many lives on Wikipedia

WikiProject report: WikiProject Portals

Discussion report: User rights, infoboxes, and more discussion on portals

Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

Arbitration report: Managing difficult topics

News and notes: Lots of Wikimedia

In the media: Wikipedia in Turkish politics; COI politics in Wikipedia; most cited work

Traffic report: We love our superheroes

Technology report: A trove of contributor and developer goodies

Blog: Why I write about women on Wikipedia

Recent research: Why people don't contribute to Wikipedia; using Wikipedia to teach statistics, technical writing, and controversial issues

Humour: Play with your food

Gallery: Wine not?

From the archives: The Signpost scoops The Signpost

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:18, 24 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:59, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 June 2018

From the editor: The Admin Ship is still barely afloat, while a Foundation project risks sinking

Special report: NPR and AfC – The Marshall Plan: an engagement and a marriage?

Op-ed: What do admins do?

Opinion: Google isn't responsible for Wikipedia's mistakes

News and notes: Money, milestones, and Wikimania

In the media: Much wikilove from the Mayor of London, less from Paekākāriki or a certain candidate for U.S. Congress

Discussion report: Deletion, page moves, and an update to the main page

Featured content: New promotions

Arbitration report: WWII, UK politics, and a user deCrat'ed

Traffic report: Endgame

Technology report: Improvements piled on more improvements

Gallery: Wiki Loves Africa

Blog: Wikipedia should be open for editors in Turkey

Recent research: How censorship can backfire and conversations can go awry

Humour: Television plot lines

Wikipedia essays: This month's pick by The Signpost editors

From the archives: Wolves nip at Wikipedia's heels: A perspective on the cost of paid editing

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:29, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2018 July newsletter

The third round of the 2018 WikiCup has now come to an end. The 16 users who made it to the fourth round had at least 227 points. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

Courcelles, a first time contestant, with 1756 points, a tally built largely on 27 GAs related to the Olympics
Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with two featured articles and three GAs on natural history and astronomy topics
SounderBruce, a finalist last year, with a variety of submissions related to transport in the state of Washington

Contestants managed 7 featured articles, 4 featured lists, 120 good articles, 1 good topic, 124 DYK entries, 15 ITN entries, and 132 good article reviews. Over the course of the competition, contestants have completed 458 GA reviews, in comparison to 244 good articles submitted for review and promoted. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process; several submissions, particularly in abstruse or technical areas, have needed additional work to make them completely verifiable.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk), Vanamonde (talk) 04:55, 2 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – July 2018

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

Administrator changes

Pbsouthwood • TheSandDoctor

Gogo Dodo

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

Bureaucrat changes

Andrevan • EVula

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

The Signpost: 31 July 2018

From the editor: If only if

Op-ed: The last leg of the Admin Ship's current cruise

Opinion: Wrestling with Wikipedia reality

News and notes: Another newspaper for Wikipedia; Wikimania 2018 ends; changes at NPR

In the media: Blackouts in Europe; Wikipedia and capitalists; WMF Jet Set

Discussion report: Wikipedias take action against EU copyright proposal, plus new user right proposals

Featured content: Wikipedia's best content in images and prose

Arbitration report: Status quo processes retained in two disputes

Traffic report: Soccer, football, call it what you like – that and summer movies leave room for little else

Technology report: New bots, new prefs

Gallery: Independence days, national holidays, and football – all in July

Blog: Motivation of two editors

Recent research: Different Wikipedias use different images; editing contests more successful than edit-a-thons

Humour: It's all the same

Essay: Wikipedia does not need you

From the archives: The pending changes fiasco: how an attempt to answer one question turned into a quagmire

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:51, 31 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – August 2018

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

Administrator changes

Sro23

KaisaL • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

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

The Signpost: 30 August 2018

From the editor: Today's young adults don't know a world without Wikipedia

Interview: 2018 Wikimedian of the Year, Farkhad Fatkullin

News and notes: Flying high; low practice from Wikipedia 'cleansing' agency; where do our donations go? RfA sees a new trend

In the media: Quicksilver AI writes articles

Discussion report: Drafting an interface administrator policy

Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

Special report: Wikimania 2018

Traffic report: Aretha dies – getting just 2,000 short of 5 million hits

Technology report: Technical enhancements and a request to prioritize upcoming work

Gallery: Leapfrog, historic Thai cave, and a rhythmic beat

Recent research: Wehrmacht on Wikipedia, neural networks writing biographies

Humour: Signpost editor censors herself

Essay: Principle of Some Astonishment

From the archives: Playing with Wikipedia words

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:03, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2018 September newsletter

The fourth round of the 2018 WikiCup has now come to an end. The eight users who made it to the final round had to score a minimum of 422 points to qualify, with the top score in the round being 4869 points. The leaders in round 4 were:

Courcelles scored a magnificent 4869 points, with 92 good articles on Olympics-related themes. Courcelles' bonus points alone exceeded the total score of any of the other contestants!
Kees08 was second with 1155 points, including a high-scoring featured article for Neil Armstrong, two good topics and some Olympics-related good articles.
Cas Liber, with 1066 points, was in third place this round, with two featured articles and a good article, all on natural history topics.
Other contestants who qualified for the final round were Nova Crystallis, Iazyges, SounderBruce, Kosack and Ceranthor.

During round four, 6 featured articles and 164 good articles were promoted by WikiCup contestants, 13 articles were included in good topics and 143 good article reviews were performed. There were also 10 "in the news" contributions on the main page and 53 "did you knows". Congratulations to all who participated! It was a generally high-scoring and productive round and I think we can expect a highly competitive finish to the competition.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck, and let the best editor win! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:31, 1 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – September 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

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

Optimist on the run → Voice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

The Arbitration Committee has resolved to perform a round of Checkuser and Oversight appointments. The usernames of all applicants will be shared with the Functionaries team, and they will be requested to assist in the vetting process. The deadline to submit an application is 23:59 UTC, 12 September, and the candidates that move forward will be published on-wiki for community comments on 18 September.

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

The Signpost: 1 October 2018

From the editor: Is this the new normal?

News and notes: European copyright law moves forward

In the media: Knowledge under fire

Discussion report: Interface Admin policy proposal, part 2

Arbitration report: A quiet month for Arbcom

Traffic report: John McCain's death generates over 7 million hits, followed by historical low

Technology report: Paying attention to your mobile

Gallery: A pat on the back

Blog: After a catastrophic fire at the National Museum of Brazil, a drive to preserve what knowledge remains

Recent research: How talk page use has changed since 2005; censorship shocks lead to centralization; is vandalism caused by workplace boredom?

Humour: Signpost Crossword Puzzle

Essay: Expressing thanks

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:44, 1 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Paxton Media Group

I need some advice. I recently edited an article (Paxton Media Group), thereby bringing the article more up to date with the inclusion regarding a movement to boycott Paxton Media. Members of the movement built a website (www.PaxtonMedia.Group) thoroughly demonstrating their rationale for said movement. An appropriate reference was made to their site. I feel the deletion of my simple and short edit constitutes undue censorship brought on by oversensitivity in this era of exposed: corrupt, fake... news outlets. My question to you is: how can I bring this article up to date without being considered "disruptive".

James.Samples7 (talk) 08:46, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@James.Samples7:, I see three issues with your edits.

Firstly, you need to provide reliable, independent sources for the proposed edits. Using the Web site of the group itself is not sufficient, especially since the site seems focused on James Samples' arrest record.
Secondly, the sources need to demonstrate the notability of the event itself. At this time, a proposed boycott of a regional media company may not be sufficient. Your sources need to provide non-trivial coverage of the event. I looked, and could find none.
Finally, and most importantly, if you are James Samples (as indicated by your user name), then you have a clearly-defined conflict of interest. This, in effect, prohibits you from editing articles related to PMG, as the boycott seemingly stems from Samples' arrest record and ongoing civil disputes.

This has nothing to do with censorship. I would recommend reading WP:SOAPBOX, as that policy clearly explains why you may not continue to push your views. Thank you, caknuck _° needs to be running more often 09:54, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018

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

Administrator changes

Justlettersandnumbers • L235

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

Interface administrator changes

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

Oversight changes

Guerillero • NativeForeigner • Snowolf • Xeno

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Jinx

Jinx! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 20:45, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Anna Frodesiak: IKR!?! caknuck _° needs to be running more often 20:48, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for October 14

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Gern Nagler, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Marysville High School (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:38, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

DYK nomination of Gern Nagler

Hello! Your submission of Gern Nagler at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Giants2008 (Talk) 01:27, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for October 28

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The Signpost: 28 October 2018

From the editors: The Signpost is still afloat, just barely

Op-ed: Wikipedia's Strickland affair

News and notes: WMF gets a million bucks

In the media: Bans, celebs, and bias

Discussion report: Mediation Committee and proposed deletion reform

Traffic report: Unsurprisingly, sport leads the field – or the ring

Technology report: Bots galore!

Special report: NPP needs you

Special report 2: Now Wikidata is six

In focus: Alexa

Gallery: Out of this world!

Recent research: Wikimedia Commons worth $28.9 billion

Humour: Talk page humour

Opinion: Strickland incident

From the archives: The Gardner Interview

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:09, 28 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2018 November newsletter

The WikiCup is over for another year! Our Champion this year is Courcelles (submissions), who over the course of the competition has amassed 147 GAs, 111 GARs, 9 DYKs, 4 FLs and 1 ITN. Our finalists were as follows:

All those who reached the final win awards, and awards will also be going to the following participants:

Cas Liber (submissions) wins the FA prize, for three featured articles in round 2.
Courcelles (submissions) wins the GA prize, for 92 good articles in round 3.
Kosack (submissions) wins the FL prize, for five featured lists overall.
Cartoon network freak (submissions) wins the topic prize, for 30 articles in good topics overall.
Usernameunique (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 24 did you know articles in round 3.
Zanhe (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 17 in the news articles overall.
Aoba47 (submissions) wins the GAR prize, for 43 good article reviews in round 1.

Awards will be handed out in the coming weeks. Please be patient!

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether you made it to the final rounds or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup who have achieved much this year. Thanks to all who have taken part and helped out with the competition.

Next year's competition begins on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; it is open to all Wikipedians, new and old. The WikiCup judges will be back in touch over the coming months, and we hope to see you all in the 2019 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email) and Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · email).

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018

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

Administrator changes

Sir Sputnik

Kudpung • Liz • Lourdes

Everyking • Jackmcbarn

Interface administrator changes

Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes

AGK • Ivanvector • Stwalkerster • TonyBallioni

Oversight changes

Amorymeltzer • Oshwah • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Keilana

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:18, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Incomplete DYK nomination

Hello! Your submission of Template:Did you know nominations/Gern Nagler at the Did You Know nominations page is not complete; if you would like to continue, please link the nomination to the nominations page as described in step 3 of the nomination procedure. If you do not want to continue with the nomination, tag the nomination page with {{db-g7}}, or ask a DYK admin. Thank you. DYKHousekeepingBot (talk) 17:29, 21 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Article Your Cleared For Creation Has been Deleted

Hello Caknuck,

I thought I should notify you that my first article draft I made about a month ago, which an editor requested that you take if restriction on after you certified that it has passed AFC was just deleted some few hours ago by another admin, Glenn Mena is the name of the article, did the deleting admin add you to the loop? Thanks!

Kareemarh (talk) 13:14, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Kareemarh: it was deleted under G4 of speedy deletion. That applies to articles that were substantially similar to those previously deleted at AFD. I don't have the tools to check that, but if that is not the case, you should be able to request a Deletion review. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 13:22, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Bellezzasolo: Yes, I noticed it was deleted under G4 per the deleting admin, however before I picked on this topic, I did two things 1. I drafted my article without seeing the previously deleted one and I asked for help from other experienced editors at Wikipedia Kiwi Live Help 🥝 we where on this article for 2 days and about 3 experience editors/admin offered their inconditional help, there they also brought to my noticed that the article was similar to the one somebody else earlier created when the subject was notable, i was asked to state my connection and I clarified my part as not having anything todo with the initial writer, they clarified and helped me make changes, and even suggested I pick some points from the former, after which it was prof read by the creating admin and he created the article, unfortunately I still do not understand what todo anymore, so I’d be needing some help.

Thanks!

Kareemarh (talk) 13:32, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 1 December 2018

From the editor: Time for a truce

Op-ed: Looking back, looking forward: A beginner's experience on Wikipedia

Special report: The Christmas wishlist

Opinion: The blogosphere migrates to Galaxy WMF

News and notes: Reviewer of the year, WikiCup winner, and the 2019 Wikimedia Summit

Reflections: Wikipedia, history, and the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day

In the media: Court-ordered article redaction, paid editing, and rock stars

Discussion report: Farewell, Mediation Committee

Arbitration report: A long break ends

Traffic report: Queen reigns for four weeks straight

Gallery: Intersections

Recent research: Why do the most active Wikipedians burn out?; only 4% of students vandalize

Essay: No one cares about your garage band

Humour: The dark side of our favorite root vegetable

From the archives: Ars longa, vita brevis

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:46, 1 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

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

Administrator changes

Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz

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

Interface administrator changes

Deryck Chan

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

Obituaries

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

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

DYK for Gern Nagler

On 10 December 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Gern Nagler, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Gern Nagler and Billy Howton successfully used a draft antitrust lawsuit to convince NFL Commissioner Bert Bell to create the league's player pension? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Gern Nagler. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Gern Nagler), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.