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Archive 5Archive 7Archive 8Archive 9Archive 10

Editing for Women's History in March

Hello,

I am very excited to announce this month’s events, focused on Women’s History Month:

  • Sunday, March 8: Women in the Arts 2015 Edit-a-thon – 10 AM to 4 PM
    Women in the Arts and ArtAndFeminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Free coffee and lunch served!
    More informationRSVP on Meetup
  • Wednesday, March 11: March WikiSalon – 7 PM to 9 PM
    An evening gathering with free-flowing conversation and free pizza.
    More informationRSVP on Meetup (or just show up!)
  • Friday, March 13: NIH Women's History Month Edit-a-Thon – 9 AM to 4 PM
    In honor of Women’s History Month, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is organizing and hosting an edit-a-thon to improve coverage of women in science in Wikipedia. Free coffee and lunch served!
    More informationRSVP on Meetup
  • Saturday, March 21: Women in STEM Edit-a-Thon at DCPL – 12 PM
    Celebrate Women's History Month by building, editing, and expanding articles about women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields during DC Public Library's first full-day edit-a-thon.
    More informationRSVP on Meetup
  • Friday, March 27: She Blinded Me with Science, Part III – 10 AM to 4 PM
    Smithsonian Institution Archives Groundbreaking Women in Science Wikipedia Edit-a-thon. Free lunch courtesy of Wikimedia DC!
    More informationRSVP on Meetup
  • Saturday, March 28: March Dinner Meetup – 6 PM
    Dinner and drinks with your fellow Wikipedians!
    More informationRSVP on Meetup

Hope you can make it to an event! If you have any questions or require any special accommodations, please let me know.


Thanks,

James Hare

To unsubscribe from this newsletter, remove your name from this list. 02:25, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Quiet but still here

Hi Madman, I got the bot's notice of pending suspension of admin privs due to inactivity. I'm still here and have made some edits as proof, just wondering if I need to do more to prevent desysopping. Please let me know if you can, thanks, Kaisershatner (talk) 21:51, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Upcoming attractions in DC

Hello!

Here are some upcoming DC meetups in April and May:

  • Tuesday, April 14: National Archives Hackathon on Wikipedia Space with American University – 2:30-5pm
    See the latest work on the Wikipedia Space exhibit in the new NARA Innovation Hub and brainstorm on new ideas for a public exhibit about Wikipedia
  • Friday, April 17: Women in Tech Edit-a-thon with Tech LadyMafia – 5-9pm
    Team up with Tech LadyMafia to improve Wikipedia content on women in the history of technology.
  • Saturday, April 25: April Dinner Meetup – 6 PM
    Dinner and drinks with your fellow Wikipedians!
  • Friday, May 1: International Labour Day Edit-a-Thon – 1:30 PM to 4:30 PM
    An edit-a-thon at the University of Maryland

Hope to see you at these events! If you have any questions or require any special accommodations, please let me know.


Cheers,

James Hare

To remove yourself from this mailing list, remove your name from this list. 22:16, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Copyvio check bot

I think you run a bot that checks new articles for copyvio. On the Dutch Wikipedia we currently have a number of article groups (each running in the many thousands) where there is suspicion that a number of them have copyvio content. Manual checking is way to slow to work our way through. Do you think that your bot could be adjusted to either work off of a list of articles, or use a specific (hidden) category? I myself have no bot programming skills at all, but I know we have a couple of good programmers in the Dutch Wikipedia community. W\|/haledad (Talk to me) 22:02, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Inactive admins

Hello, MadmanBot hasn't updated the inactive admins page for August yet, nor has it sent out the second notifications for the admins to be desysopped in July. I know that Labs has been having problems lately, but could you please look into this? Thanks! Graham87 09:45, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

@Graham87: @Xeno: Thanks for the report. This was indeed due to the NFS crash on labs; the crontab was lost and restored with a different name. Everything should be set up now to update the list daily and send the second notification on the 25th. Thanks, — madman 18:24, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

It looks like the August notifications got sent out late. The last time this happened, Madmanbot went ahead and notified against at what would have been the imminent mark had the notes gone on time. Have you updated the code for this yet? If not, could you do so? (Perhaps have the bot check the pending message it left and add 27 days?) –xenotalk 18:12, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

It looks like notifications didn't get sent because memory usage went up again (resulting in the job crashing with nothing in qstat). I'm starting to seriously consider either rewriting the job or moving back to my own server. As far as sending the "imminent" notifications, looks like we got lucky (/s) because those didn't get sent out either. So here's the deal: the October report should be sent on the 1st as scheduled since I've increased the job parameters; adding a calendar entry for that to remember to check and for the 10th because I'll have to manually send out second notifications for September (the job as written will only look at the last report and we don't want it to do it for October at that time). I'm going to rewrite the job to use less memory and/or to take parameters so "one-offs" can be scheduled as well and the jobs aren't restricted to the latest report. I'd then be able to just set up dates for the rest of the year/next year and move then as needed. Thanks, — madman 17:52, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
Awesome =) Thanks! –xenotalk 18:27, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Bureaucrat activity table

How difficult would it be (and would you have time) to repurpose your bot's code to create a table of bureaucrat activity that would be updated once a month?

The table would a provide diff/log link of and show the date of current and former bureaucrats' last:

  • edit
  • log action
  • edit to BN
  • RfX edit (the latest edit to a subpage of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship or Wikipedia:Requests for bureaucratship - excluding comments that follow immediately after a non-indented "#" in the Support,Oppose,or Neutral sections
  • rename edit (last edit to Wikipedia:Changing username/Simple or Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations)
  • % enwiki rename (either last local rename or last global rename that had effect on enwiki)
  • % userright change ( + crat ; + / - sysop ; + / - bot )
  • % RfX close (the latest edit to a subpage of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship or Wikipedia:Requests for bureaucratship containing the text "archive of a '''successful'''" or "did not succeed'''" or transcluding the templates {{rfap}}; {{rfaf}}; {{rfbp}}; {{rfbf}}.
  • % edit to a bureaucrat discussion (the latest edit that does not contain the word 'recuse' to a subsubpage of a Wikipedia:Requests for adminship entitled 'Bureaucrat discussion')
  • % last RFBAG closure (edit to a subpage of Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group/nominations containing the text "request for Bot Approvals Group membership]] that '''did not succeed'''" or "'''successful''' [[Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group|request for Bot Approvals Group membership]]")
  • % other ; this column would be entered manually and not touched by the bot
  • latest bureaucrat activity (the most recent of of the items marked %)

Please use the bot's sandbox for now - I will let you know where the table should be go once we work out the kinks - I may have missed something (Graham87 can you give this a once-over?).

It won't need to send any notifications for this task. –xenotalk 18:12, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

  • It looks like you might be otherwise engaged, so I've posted the request also to WP:BOTREQ. Thanks in any case, –xenotalk 16:23, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
    • Was out of town; now back. Has Graham87 given this a once over? My worry is that's a lot of columns that are going to be nigh incomprehensible without a legend. Have you created a sample table to kind of work it over that I could look at as an example? Thanks, — madman 16:57, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
      • It doesn't have to be columns, it could split one bureaucrat's activity report in different rows also. I could make a mockup later but for now the output could just be a template which could be called to display the outputted line and then the display could be built separately. –xenotalk 17:36, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
        • That's a fair point. I'll look into it; it should be relatively easily to do as an offshoot of inactive-admins and it may be the impetus needed to write both jobs in something more efficient and flexible (as above). Luckily I happen to be on vacation from work this week (first time this year!), so I have some time. :) — madman 17:53, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Bot Q

Hi Madman. CorenSearchBot is offline and Coren appears to be on vacation or otherwise unreachable. Is MadmanBot still approved to do the copyright searches that CSB did? Could it be pressed into service briefly until Coren returns to kick his bot? Thanks! CrowCaw 19:38, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I can look into what this would entail (any changes to the bot or copyvio policies, any changes to Coren's source code to mirror, whether access to WMF's account has lapsed, any more pages on which to report or to watch, whether SCV has a backlog or actually has the need, etc.)... The point of the preceding is I can try, but it certainly won't be "briefly", I'm afraid. Thanks, — madman 22:24, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Coren has restarted his bot, so no need to do all that digging (unless you wish to of course), and thanks for being open to the possibility! CrowCaw 20:49, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

re: Bureaucrat activity table

Have you had any chance to work on this task? If you're too busy, I understand and can seek other codemonkeyswriters. –xenotalk 12:06, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

I've been a little distracted this month by my father and his fiancée having announced that their wedding would be this weekend; haven't had much time at all to prepare. I hope to get back to coding the second or third week of October. So I can do it but it'll be some time; if you'd like it done prior to that you can seek another op and there'll be no hard feelings on my part. :) Cheers, — madman 18:44, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
Just so you know, I've started working on this again, and am almost entirely done; the only part I'm still working on is conditionals e.g. "comments that follow immediately after a non-indented "#" in the Support,Oppose,or Neutral sections" since I don't have a parser in this language. On the other hand, running this report takes about 7 MB of memory vs. 512 MB and should therefore be a bit more reliable on Tools... and I assume someone will be checking the results before effecting any action items. — madman 05:08, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
Looking at my example there more closely, wouldn't it be right to say you're wanting any edits not in Support, Oppose, or Neutral for bureaucrats? Your criteria would include votes; as I see it, any edits in those sections aren't likely to be in "official capacity" whereas edits to section 0 are. Just checking to see if I can cheat myself out of some work. ;) — madman 05:39, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
awesome!
We are looking the latest edit to RFA or RFB that is not a vote. It may be a comment in the s/o/n section though. –xenotalk 23:35, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
Fair enough; just so you know, I'm still working on this. Was unexpectedly called out to another state for a job and was away from my home computer for that time, but am now back. Slogging through, but also having fun; learning a new programming language in the process. I've got most of the criteria now; just working on including URIs so all results can be checked over (you and I will both want to do that before the report is moved into any "production" space). Dealing with some edge cases which I think we'd both catch (e.g. "thanks" for a log event; the API and the wiki have changed a lot since I last looked at them).
There's a first draft of the report at User:Madman/Sandbox that includes all fields. Some of them are blank since I haven't added continue logic to the API library yet. I'll probably do that today, but as far as checking the fields right now, I figure if a log event or user contribution is blank then it's older than the other ones anyway and not as relevant. Cheers, — madman 20:33, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
Oh, this is excellent! How difficult would it be to have a lower section with data for former bureaucrats? (To be used in case of reinstatement request.) –xenotalk 14:44, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Whoops, yep, forgot about that. Report's running again but it takes a hot minute and I'm on my way out the door so I'll post it this afternoon. Cheers! — madman 16:09, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

My crappy Internet at home and server lag blocking the bot have been thwarting me. :( I've updated the report at User:Madman/Sandbox. You can obviously see with some of the former bureaucrats how lack of continue functionality is causing a problem, so my priorities are 1.) continue functionality 2.) timestamp parsing so we can get the last criterion (most recent activity of those criteria marked with %). Cheers, — madman 04:59, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:41, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the bureaucrat activity table!

Thanks very much for your hard work on special:Diff/691208262! You can see I've put it into production at Wikipedia:Bureaucrat activity/2015. Is there any way to make the log links more durable, i.e. by adding an offset value? –xenotalk 22:00, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't see this. I tried to find a way to do that, but there doesn't appear to be a very reliable way to do this. You can specify year or month, but not a particular timestamp when you want to start like you can with other parameters. I might be able to specify year, month, and offset, but especially when used with recent log actions this wouldn't remain constant so I wouldn't be able to specify limit=1. Maybe this is something for which it may be worth me actually opening a pull request against mediawiki/core. — madman 06:47, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

February events and meetups in DC

Greetings from Wikimedia DC!

February is shaping up to be a record-breaking month for us, with nine scheduled edit-a-thons and several other events:

We hope to see you at one—or all—of these events!

Do you have an idea for a future event? Please write to us at info@wikimediadc.org!

Kirill Lokshin (talk) 16:41, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

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March events and meetups in DC

Greetings from Wikimedia DC!

Looking for something to do in DC in March? We have a series of great events planned for the month:

Can't make it to an event? Most of our edit-a-thons allow virtual participation; see the guide for more details.

Do you have an idea for a future event? Please write to us at info@wikimediadc.org!

Kirill Lokshin (talk) 16:31, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

You're receiving this message because you signed up for updates about DC meetups. To unsubscribe, please remove your name from the list.

Following up on Special:Diff/695024478, you should be able to just add 1 second to the timestamp and use that as an offset. So here, 28bytes log action for example:

LogAction: 2015-11-15T21:12:17Z

LogActionURI: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&user=28bytes&limit=1&offset=20151115211218

Could you run a fresh table when you get a chance? You can post it to Wikipedia:Bureaucrat activity/report if you want to stop using your sandbox. Thanks again! –xenotalk 15:53, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

API change will break your bot

I noticed that MadmanBot has been using http:// to access the API, rather than https:// This is going to break soon, because of changes to the API. You can find more information in this e-mail message. If you need help updating your code to use https:// , then you might be able to find some help at w:en:Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard or on the mailing list. Good luck, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:25, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Just saw this and fixing now (right in time, it would seem)! — madman 02:23, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Bot messages in error

Your bot notified me of impending suspension on 2016 July 1 for being inactive for a year when my last logged-in edit had been on 2015 July 5, i.e. less than a year previous. It emailed me again today after I edited yesterday. What's up with that? —Ben Brockert (42) 07:31, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Request

Hi there Madman (no insult intended!), from Portugal.

You were the user that kindly helped out and templated all the ZEROZERO external links after I filled out a WP:FOOTY report (see for example here https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Litos_(Portuguese_footballer,_born_February_1974)&diff=485585114&oldid=475316975), with my previous account AlwaysLearning. Now, per this other report (please see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football#Portuguese_Football_Federation), and given I present one example with the old link and another with the current one, do you think your bot can revive all the crashed links?

Thank you very much in advance, happy editing/weekend --Be Quiet AL (talk) 18:53, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

  • Well? I ask this because I see your bot is active but you have not been since last month, if you have not seen the original message still, think nothing of this "well?" and sorry for my hastiness. --Be Quiet AL (talk) 20:12, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
    • Sorry, flagged this for follow-up in my e-mail client and never did since nothing was on fire. :) Currently I'm not taking any requests for additional bot work; if you post on WP:BOTREQ I'm sure you'll find someone willing and able to assist. Cheers, — madman 13:36, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

BN

Hi. Please visit this thread. Thanks --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:55, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Acknowledged. Will be there shortly after I've looked into things. — madman 12:18, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for checking it out and your ongoing work. If you have time, please take a look at User talk:Madman/Archive 9#Wikipedia:Bureaucrat activity redux also. –xenotalk 15:33, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
Ah, yeah, I can run another bureaucrat report; just have to track down the code. I may have thought it was a one-off. Cheers, — madman 16:43, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Inactive admins list

Hello, MadmanBot hasn't dealt with the inactive admins list for September yet, even though there are probably some admins who are scheduled to be on the list. Graham87 10:33, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm on it. Looks like a PHP version incompatibility issue. — madman 16:31, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, it seems to be workin again. However, you might want to take a look at this thread on my talk page. Graham87 07:14, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

BAG News

BAG News August 2016

Greetings Bot Approvals Group member!

  • Please take a moment to review and update your status at the membership page. If you have been semi-inactive, we would love to have you back in action!
  • If you have not already, you may want to consider adding Wikipedia:BAG/Status to your watchlist, it is a bot generated list of all in progress requests.

Thank you! xaosflux Talk 23:32, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

(You can unsubscribe from future BAG Spam by removing your name from this list.)

MadmanBot

Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard#Inactive admin

Hi. Looks like MadmanBot missed notifying this month's inactive admins - Wikipedia:Inactive administrators#September 2016. Could you please take a look at the issue? At this stage, there's probably no point sending out late notifications, we might as well just include the current batch with the next one that is due to receive notifications at the start of September. WJBscribe (talk) 09:56, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

And, as mentioned previously, the August list also missed FreeRangeFrog who's been inactive since August 2015. --IJBall (contribstalk) 05:14, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
Taking a look at both. Had a day long meeting yesterday (kill me), so missed this. — madman 13:36, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
Ohhh. If you look here, you'll see that the report hadn't run on time because the framework broke; none of the jobs were running. I submitted the job for the report myself, but forgot to submit the job for the first notification; that's totally my fault. My bots are better at this than I am. :| Looking into FreeRangeFrog (talk · contribs). — madman 13:45, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
@WJBscribe: Should I disable the "second" round of notifications for August 25th then? Second without a first would probably be confusing. — madman 13:46, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
Yes... Might as well just send all the first notes on Sept 1 and let it go from there. –xenotalk 16:17, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
Agreed. WJBscribe (talk) 10:04, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
@IJBall: Not sure about FreeRangeFrog (talk · contribs); he shows up correctly in a debug report run right now, so he should show up on the next report. I've added plenty of debug output, so if there's some other error I should be able to identify it then. — madman 14:31, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

Hello, Madman. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy.

Extended confirmed protection (also known as "30/500 protection") is a new level of page protection that only allows edits from accounts at least 30 days old and with 500 edits. The automatically assigned "extended confirmed" user right was created for this purpose. The protection level was created following this community discussion with the primary intention of enforcing various arbitration remedies that prohibited editors under the "30 days/500 edits" threshold to edit certain topic areas.

In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions:

  • Extended confirmed protection may only be used in cases where semi-protection has proven ineffective. It should not be used as a first resort.
  • A bot will post a notification at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard of each use. MusikBot currently does this by updating a report, which is transcluded onto the noticeboard.

Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you.
This message was sent to the administrators' mass message list. To opt-out of future messages, please remove yourself from the list. 17:47, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Bot fight!

So thinking your bot had failed out, we edit conflicted each other over at Wikipedia:Inactive administrators/2016 - how do you suggest proceeding? — xaosflux Talk 02:28, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Proposed Suspension

Please do not suspend my admin privileges. PedanticallySpeaking (talk) 13:31, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

A new user right for New Page Patrollers

Hi Madman.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

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

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

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Interview invitation from a Wikipedia researcher in the University of Minnesota

I am Weiwen Leung, a student at the University of Minnesota. I am currently conducting a study on how people on the LGBT+ Wikipedians group use and contribute to Wikipedia.

Would you be willing to answer a short 5 minute survey? If so, please email me at leung085@umn.edu. It would be helpful if you could include your Wikipedia username when emailing.

Thank you, Weiwen — Preceding unsigned comment added by Weiwensg (talkcontribs) 17:58, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Bureaucrat activity report for end of 2016

Hi Madman, hope all is well. Have you had a chance to track down the BAR code and run another report? Please see User_talk:Madman/Archive 9#Wikipedia:Bureaucrat activity redux and advise. Thanks, –xenotalk 16:36, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter - February 2017

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

Administrator changes

NinjaRobotPirateSchwede66K6kaEaldgythFerretCyberpower678Mz7PrimefacDodger67
BriangottsJeremyABU Rob13

Guideline and policy news

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

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.

13:36, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

BAG News

BAG News February 2017

Greetings Bot Approvals Group member!

  • 2017 has been busy, with 37 closed BRFA's so far this year.
  • If you have not already, you may want to consider adding Wikipedia:BAG/Status to your watchlist, it is a bot generated list of all in progress requests.
  • There are multiple discussions ongoing at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy regarding updates to portions of the bot policy. Please be sure to follow for any policy changes upcoming.

Thank you! 17:52, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

(You can unsubscribe from future BAG Spam by removing your name from this list.)

Bots Newsletter, April 2017

Bots Newsletter, April 2017

Greetings!

The BAG Newsletter is now the Bots Newsletter, per discussion. As such, we've subscribed all bot operators to the newsletter. You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.

Highlights for this newsletter include:

Arbcom

Magioladitis ARBCOM case has closed. The remedies of the case include:

  • Community encouraged to review common fixes
  • Community encouraged to review policy on cosmetic edits
  • Developers encouraged to improve AWB interface
  • Bot approvals group encouraged to carefully review BRFA scope
  • Reminders/Restrictions specific to Magioladitis
BRFAs

We currently have 27 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing!

Discussions

There are multiple ongoing discussions surrounding bot-related matters. In particular:

New things

Several new things are around:

Wikimania

Wikimania 2017 is happening in Montreal, during 9–13 August. If you plan to attend, or give a talk, let us know!

Thank you! edited by:Headbomb 11:35, 12 April 2017 (UTC)


(You can unsubscribe from future newsletters by removing your name from this list.)

Since you've been inactive for a while, I've removed you from the subscription list. Feel free to re-add yourself to the newsletter if you become active again though. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:55, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Lambda Resistance (Half-Life 2) listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Lambda Resistance (Half-Life 2). Since you had some involvement with the Lambda Resistance (Half-Life 2) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Lordtobi () 18:53, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Bot stuck?

Hi Madman, can you check on your bot - it created the new entries at Wikipedia:Inactive administrators/2017, but does not appear to have generated notifications. — xaosflux Talk 19:37, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Working now, if it was you: thanks! — xaosflux Talk 01:16, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
Uh oh, I saw "working now" on the 3rd and assumed the initial report was due to the delay between report and notification cron jobs (to make sure report is done running, since it can take some time), didn't really follow up, but looking at it today it looks like notifications still haven't been sent out? Am I missing something? Should I kick off the task manually and investigate or has it been handled by another party? — madman 19:51, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Bot appears to be down still, as far as I am aware noone else is working on issues with your bot. — xaosflux Talk 14:26, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: – Acknowledged; I meant whether the notifications had been handled by another party. Since I don't see any on Talk pages, I'll kick off notify1. I suppose the notify2 date will have to be adjusted to be sometime after the 1st, which will require a bit of manual configuration for the next few tasks, but I've done it before. Apologies for the inconvenience. — madman 02:36, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
I see what happened with the notify1 task when it was run automatically:
Oct 01 01:15:17 inactive.notify1 [debug] {"login":{"result":"Failed","reason":"Incorrect password entered. Please try again."}}
Oct 01 01:15:17 inactive.notify1 [error] Unable to log in and get authentication tokens
That's... pretty freaking weird seeing as it did the report 75 minutes prior and there was no problem. Looking into it. — madman 02:39, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
And that result from the API was clearly incorrect seeing as the inactive.update ("Removing administrators no longer inactive as of November 2017") task is still running; all the tasks have the exact same configuration. I'd say this was just a glitch but I'd be more comfortable if I could find a Phabricator ticket or some wikitech e-mail traffic indicating there were known issues around that time. Will continue to look into it. Should the second round of notifications for November admins be on the 10th or so? Does that seem reasonable? — madman 02:42, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
For the November batch, please do round2 notifications on or about Nov 15th. This will have no impact to the December people (who should not be double listed from the November list). — xaosflux Talk 02:56, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
Will do, and acknowledged (the report task never double-lists). Cheers, — madman 03:57, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
December 2017

Looks like the new cycle was not created either - can you tell if this is pending? — xaosflux Talk 13:47, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Got {"login":{"result":"Failed","reason":"Incorrect password entered. Please try again."}} again. I'm... completely baffled. I guess I'll try changing the bot's password through frontend and config and see if that helps? In the meantime I'll run report and notify1 from console... — madman 04:22, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
Are you using Special:BotPasswords or normal web passwords? May want to try BotP's. — xaosflux Talk 04:26, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
If you are, there is a bug that that error will appear if you are using an IP not in the BotPasswords whitelist you define. — xaosflux Talk 04:29, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
Normal Web password. I can try the latter. It's weird that the behavior is inconsistent though. I'd run it from my own host to see if that changes anything, but running it on Tools means other people can be added to the project. (Though I haven't figured out what the implications of that are re sharing passwords to the MadmanBot account.) — madman 04:30, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
See also phab:T137805. — xaosflux Talk 04:35, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
Oh, that's interesting. Yes, the bot is using action=login, of course. Looks like I have to switch to either BotPasswords or OAuth (BotPasswords being the quicker option, of course). Thanks for the info. — madman 05:40, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
Successfully using a BotPassword now but will look into switching to OAuth in the future; BotPasswords makes me worry I may have missed a needed right (I did catch the right to e-mail users). I'll be keeping a close eye on it and hope reliability improves. — madman 05:48, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
You can just turn them all on if you want - if it is not a member of a usergroup with that access it won't work anyway. — xaosflux Talk 11:27, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

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Inactive admins problem?

Hi Madman, can you please check Wikipedia:Inactive administrators/2018 - it looks like there are more accounts slipping though the audit, for example:

User		Last Edit	group
Mikaey		20170201002953	sysop
Natalya		20170201171915	sysop
Pakaran		20170202233150	sysop/CRAT
Pb30		20170131063703	sysop
Peruvianllama	20170130155156	sysop
Quadell		20170118121941	sysop
Rspeer		20170201200359	sysop
Sean Whitton	20170201150825	sysop
Sebastiankessel	20170126191418	sysop
Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 01:59, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
It'll take forever (possibly days) to run, but I think I have a query that should pull what you're looking for: User:SQL/Inactive. SQLQuery me! 18:16, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
@SQL: quarry:query/24570 runs fast , it is "from now" but the date rangs could be updated. — xaosflux Talk 18:38, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
Updated "as of now" list that should be on the February list
user_name	user_editcount	user_registration	Last edit	Last log	user_group
Chuq		20071		20020907002428		20170205014640	20170120122252	sysop (IS on list)
Gogo Dodo	192684		20060415030914		20170213071353	20170213071144	sysop (IS on list)

Quadell		107303		20030104001836		20170118121941	20160126140618	sysop
Sebastiankessel	4569		20050607221548		20170126191418	20090129213910	sysop
Peruvianllama	13507		20040326191110		20170130155156	20130111043559	sysop
Pb30		14773					20170131063703	20170204203843	sysop
Mikaey		12559		20071118040444		20170201002953	20170201002953	sysop
Sean Whitton	7797		20050813203732		20170201150825	20170201150745	sysop
Natalya		8259		20041219173640		20170201171915	20160312002304	sysop
Rspeer		7626		20040717014717		20170201200359	20150304045707	sysop
Pakaran		9740		20030907190433		20170202233150	20150312194215	sysop, bureaucrat
Saravask	21942		20050924041106		20170221233530	20131004065926	sysop
Wickethewok	16424		20060119092227		20170224185009	20130618173912	sysop
SoLando		14638		20031220123248		20170227144353	20151008083841	sysop
Seicer		20221		20060506161122		20170228184002	20161214165213	sysop
xaosflux Talk 04:49, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

MORE bot problems

Please see Wikipedia talk:Inactive administrators/2018 - there is again a huge list of missing entries on this report. @JJMC89: do you still have Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/JJMC89 bot 13 ready to spin up as needed? Can you run a process for April 2018 (to another page) and see if you end up with the current list+missing list? — xaosflux Talk 02:38, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

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

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Notification of pending suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity

Information icon Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions will be removed if you do not return to activity within the next month.

Inactive administrators are encouraged to rejoin the project in earnest rather than to make token edits to avoid loss of administrative permissions. Resources and support for reengaging with the project are available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/administrators. If you do not intend to rejoin the project in the foreseeable future, please consider voluntarily resigning your administrative permissions by making a request at the bureaucrats' noticeboard.

Thank you for your past contributions to the project. — JJMC89 bot 00:02, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Notification of imminent suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity

Information icon Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions will be removed if you do not return to activity within the next several days.

Inactive administrators are encouraged to rejoin the project in earnest rather than to make token edits to avoid loss of administrative permissions. Resources and support for reengaging with the project are available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/administrators. If you do not intend to rejoin the project in the foreseeable future, please consider voluntarily resigning your administrative permissions by making a request at the bureaucrats' noticeboard.

Thank you for your past contributions to the project. — JJMC89 bot 00:01, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity

Information icon Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions have been removed.

Subject to certain time limits and other restrictions, your administrative permissions may be returned upon request at WP:BN.

Thank you for your past contributions to the project. — xaosflux Talk 00:34, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

we never communicated directly, but I have seen a lot of your work. I was also aware of you coming and going on enwiki (you were contacted through email for some tecnhical problems). It is sad to know that you are now officially inactive. I hope you come back someday. Best of luck for your real life, —usernamekiran(talk) 06:23, 1 April 2019 (UTC)