User talk:Pinkville/Archive4

my RfA - Ta!

Gwen gleans, wending keen by the wikirindle.

Thanks for so strongly supporting my RfA, which went through 93/12/5. Your thoughtful words helped so much! I'll be steadfast in this trust the en.Wikipedia community has given me. Cheers! Gwen Gale (talk) 01:11, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Seydou Keita

Greetings! You recently created somewhat of a mess by moving Seydou Keïta (footballer) to Seydou Keïta II (footballer). Moving pages can sometimes be a bit complicated (I have also created similar messes in the past), and I see you have taken steps to solve the issue. May I just point out that instead of disambiguating two persons with the same name and profession by naming them I and II it's better to disambiguate by adding nationality, or, if nationality also is the same, birthyear (in this case Seydou Keita (Malian footballer) or Seydou Keita (footballer born 1980). In this case there seem to not have been a dab-issue in the first place, so moving Seydou Keïta II (footballer) back to Seydou Keïta (footballer) would solve all issues (even if I'd prefer Seydou Keita (footballer) which is the most common spelling). Respectfully, Sebisthlm (talk) 15:19, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah... if only the two names had actually been identical! I got entangled in the Seydou/Salif Keïta net, but the key problems have been resolved and I'll tidy up any loose ends. Thanks for your comments! I decided to keep "Keïta" for both footballers since they are relatives, previously the surname had been rendered differently for each. Pinkville (talk) 16:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I see. The reason I moved Seydou to "Keita" is that after a brief search I didn't find any sources that suggested that he uses diacritics (including both the sources in the article and the official FC Barcelona Site). Moreover, the initial move from Keita to Keïta was made without discussion, and not by you (otherwise I would of course have consulted you). In alignment with the spelling within the article and other articles like Centre Salif Keita and Stade Centre Salif Keita, I thought the article should be at "Keita" unless reliable sources would suggest a different spelling. On the other hand, as a Swede I'm sensitive to the use of diacritics (Å, Ä and Ö are letters in their own right in Swedish) so if it can be established that mr Keita actually spells his name with diacritics I'm all for a move back to Seydou Keïta (footballer). I also notice that of the articles in other languages the Spanish, Italian and Latvian versions use diacritics. Sebisthlm (talk) 19:59, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you were perfectly right. I looked into the sources for Salif Keïta, and they exclusively gave "Keita", without diacritical, so I think this article should be moved accordingly - but I can't do it myself (the move requires an administrator). As for the other languages, it's possible that the diacritics derive from Spanish, Italian or French transliterations, given their closer colonial proximity to Mali, if you see what I mean. But the linguistic issue is territory I know next to nothing about. I'll see about getting Salif Keïta (footballer) moved to Salif Keita (footballer). Pinkville (talk) 01:26, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Um. Hoary (talk) 01:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

You mean I could have typed less? thanks again. Pinkville (talk) 02:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly, most instances of "Keita" in the Library of Congress Authorities (very reliable, authoritative source for name orthography in English) prefer the variants without diacritics, but for Salif Keïta, the singer, they give the following scope note:

Keïta, Salif, |d 1949-

670 __ |a Ambassadeurs Internationaux (Musical group). Dance music from West Africa [SR] p1984: |b label (Salif Keita) container (b. in Mali; musician & songwriter; not to be confused with soccer player of same name)

Hard to conclude from this that the footballer also uses the diacritic, but the suggestion is there. (There is no entry in the Library of Congress Authorites for the footballer.) Furthermore, the Wikipedia article on the singer does not use the diacritic that LibCon prefers. So very messy.... Pinkville (talk) 01:41, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

quelle iconnerie

So put me straight, please. . . . Hoary (talk) 01:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Now you've done it! You've compelled me to go to the university library to dig into books that I'd hoped to have laid to rest... Pinkville (talk) 13:17, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

could you please do me a favor?

Hello,

I am a master student at the Institute of Technology Management, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. Currently I am wrapping up my master thesis titled “Can Wikipedia be used for knowledge service?” In order to validate the knowledge evolution maps of identified users in Wikipedia, I need your help. I have generated a knowledge evolution map to denote your knowledge activities in Wikipedia according to your inputs including the creation and modification of contents in Wikipedia, and I need you to validate whether the generated knowledge evolution map matches the knowledge that you perceive you own it. Could you please do me a favor?

1. I will send you a URL link to a webpage on which your knowledge evolution map displays. Please assign the topic (concept) in the map to a certain cluster on the map according to the relationship between the topic and clusters in your cognition, or you can assign it to ‘none of above’ if there is no suitable cluster.
2. I will also send a questionnaire to you. The questions are related to my research topic, and I need your viewpoints about these questions.

The deadline of my thesis defense is set by the end of June, 2008. There is no much time left for me to wrap up the thesis. If you can help me, please reply this message. I will send you the URL link of the first part once I receive your response. The completion of my thesis heavily relies much on your generous help.

Sincerely

JnW^talk 07:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure. I'd be happy to help. You can use my Wikipedia email to send me the URL. Pinkville (talk) 11:19, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello, here is the link

Pretest webpage

If you have any question during pretest, please contact me.

Please finish it before 25 June. Thanks a lot. :)

JnW^talk 14:34, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Great! I'll get to it as soon as I can (until the end of today I'm busy with my RfA. Pinkville (talk) 14:51, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. This page will exist even after deadline. So just take your time. But I still hope that you can finish it early. :)

JnW^talk 09:57, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've completed the pretest, but two articles did not load properly* - undoubtedly because their titles include diacritics: Yokoyama Matsusaburō and Kameya Tokujirō. Pinkville (talk) 13:34, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

* They both loaded as articles "to be created", like this.

I am sorry about that. It's because the locale character-set code. My program cannot present the special character well. But still thank you for completing it.

And the questionnaire is completed. Link:

evaluation questionnaire

Thanks for doing this questionnaire, and I hope that you will feel interested about this. :)

JnW^talk 04:25, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi, just remind you to complete the questionnaire.

My thesis's oral defense is on next Wednesday. So please complete it as early as you can. I believe it would just take you 5 miniutes. Thanks a lot. :)

JnW^talk 08:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I have finished the questionnaire. Pinkville (talk) 11:19, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Hello, thanks a lot for your help on filling out the questions on the pretest and questionnaire. In order for us to interpret the answers you gave, I have three additional questions to ask you. In the questionnaire, you check ‘free’ for the compensation of answering the question. Now there are some scenarios:

1. If the users need to pay for asking questions through our knowledge service, will you still answer the questions for free?
2. If the users pay a certain fee for each of his/her questions being answered, will you receive the compensation for answering the question or allow us to donate it to the charitable institutions?
3. Do you have any comments on the knowledge service which we plan to develop? In this knowledge service, we will allow users to ask their questions, and the system will forward these questions to the users who edited wikipedia and were identified by our system as the domain experts. Which business model do you think is more proper? The expert can be compensated by the fee paid by the seekers or do it for altruism with no charge.

JnW^talk 13:28, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

howdy

sorry to pop up out of the blue like this, but i was wondering if i could just ask you a favor - the article on Naomi Klein is pretty regularly besieged by pov editors attempting to violate WP:undue by focusing disproportionately on the minority of criticisms of her recent book while failing to acknowledge the overwhelming majority of praise. whatever one's personal feelings on the book, it's pretty inarguable that it was well reviewed by most people, which wikipedia should naturally reflect. sorry to ask you, but i've been dealing with the same people for months, and it gets pretty boring reverting the same silliness over and over. i got into a thing like this over on the ralph nader page a few months ago with a user who was later found to be a sock puppet and blocked. if you could just keep an eye on it from time to time, it would be much appreciated. i'll be posting this message on a few other user pages just in case you've got your plate full or just plum don't wanna do it. thanks Marshmellowgoggles (talk) 13:15, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd be glad to help out as much as I can. If it weren't for the good work of people like Klein, et al we'd have many fewer opportunities to use our editing skills... ;~) Pinkville (talk) 13:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

cheers man! Marshmellowgoggles (talk) 16:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Emile Gsell

Thank you for changing links on the French arcticle.

Your culture in photography (and your work on wikipedia) is very impressive.

Jatayou (talk) 21:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Happy to help. Thank you very much. Pinkville (talk) 21:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Nomination

Hi. I'm glad you've accepted. We'll start it soon after mine has finished. Regards. Epbr123 (talk) 05:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. Thanks. Pinkville (talk) 10:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Are you ready to start the RfA? Epbr123 (talk) 22:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I am indeed ready! Pinkville (talk) 22:33, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Question

Just so you know, I've left you an additional question on your RFA. Take your time on the answer for this one--I really want to support you! :) Malinaccier (talk) 01:48, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice! :~) I'll try to give it my best. Pinkville (talk) 02:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Your RFA

Best of luck for your RFA -- TinuCherian ^{(Wanna Talk?)} - 09:28, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much! Pinkville (talk) 10:30, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

You are now an administrator

Congratulations, I have just closed your RfA as successful and made you an administrator. Take a look at the administrators' how-to guide and the administrators' reading list if you haven't read those already. Also, the practice exercises at the new admin school may be useful. If you have any questions, get in touch on my talk page. WjBscribe 22:58, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much! Pinkville (talk) 23:01, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, that went quite well. Congratulations and enjoy the tools! Epbr123 (talk) 23:11, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the nomination and the kind words. I have a feeling not all RfAs go that smoothly... ;~) Pinkville (talk) 23:34, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Next month, Bureaucrat? -- Hoary (talk) 23:16, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Why the heck not! Pinkville (talk) 23:34, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I haven't interacted with you much, but I would like to say congratulations on your successful RfA. Good luck with the tools! -- SchfiftyThree 00:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the good wishes! Hope we'll cross paths again soon. Pinkville (talk) 01:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Congrads, Pinkville. Use it wisely. :-) --Mizu onna sango15/水女珊瑚15 00:59, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, and I'll do my best. Pinkville (talk) 01:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Congrats pinkville, feel free to take a look at my admin dashboard here: User:Xenocidic/dashboard. It can be transcluded, or just pilfered the old way. happy admniming.

Thank you! Handy dash! Pinkville (talk) 01:41, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Congrats on your Adminship !!! BlueQ99 (talk) 11:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

What about the workers?

This just popped up in my watchlist: (User rights log); 22:56 . . WJBscribe (Talk | contribs | block) changed rights for User:Pinkville from (none) to sysop (Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Pinkville)

So the editing proletariat and peasantry have "rights (none)".

The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a Wikipedia to win. Workers of the world, unite! -- Hoary (talk) 23:16, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

¡No Pasarán!<meta /><meta /> Pinkville (talk) 23:42, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

\o/ Yay! Gwen Gale (talk) 23:21, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

A fine, fine selection! Thanks! Pinkville (talk) 23:42, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah... All Power to the People! Pinkville (talk) 23:45, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Another helpful link from the site any IP can edit :) Gwen Gale (talk) 23:56, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

A bureaucrat? Pinkville (talk) 00:03, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Ask his big sister, she taught him everything he needed to know. Gwen Gale (talk) 00:12, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow, these are priceless. They're like images from The Evangelical Church of the Silicon Bible... Pinkville (talk) 00:16, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of Willy On Wheels... :) Gwen Gale (talk) 00:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Shiva H. Vishnu! Pinkville (talk) 00:39, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, along with the most active editors at M-theory. I do know Power Puff Girls is owned. Gwen Gale (talk) 00:51, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

... ... . . . . I die.. . . in a sp ray . of .. pix els .. . . Pinkville (talk) 00:59, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

About your RfA

The admins' T-shirt. Acalamari 01:37, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations on your successful request for adminship. I am glad you passed, and you are welcome for the support. For information on using your new tools, see the school for new admins; you will find it very useful. Good luck! Acalamari 01:37, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all... and the t-shirt (though it's a little small for me :~)) Pinkville (talk) 01:40, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

There's some truly weird shinola in the school for new admins. Here's the list of contents, with my "seasoned, experienced" comments:

• Blocking
  • Humdrum stuff. Till recently I didn't use the official templates because I never remembered what they were. Now I use them but I still don't remember what they are, and have to look them up, damn.
• Deleting
  • This one's a doddle.
• Protecting
  • This too.
• Protecting deleted pages
  • I always forget how to do this one. It hardly matters, as the need only arises about once a month.
• Rollback
  • Really easy.
• Rollback granting and revoking
  • I've never done it. If anyone asked me, I suppose I'd have to go through their edit history (yawn); but if I then didn't like what I saw I wouldn't grant it and if I did like it I'd just put them up for admin, which as you've discovered is no big deal.
• Viewing deleted pages and contributions
  • Can be blackly humorous. You'll gain a new understanding of the depths of human vanity, etc., when you see "deleted" pages.
• (new!) Dealing with disputes
  • Toggle "horse sense" ON.
• (new!) Accountcreator granting and revoking
  • I'd never even heard of "Accountcreator".

Hoary (talk) 13:36, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, the Coles Notes* version of Administration. Thanks! Oh, what hijinks await...?! Pinkville (talk) 15:33, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

* In fact, infamous for failing to provide summaries of whole scenes from such minor and obscure literature as Hamlet, and for muddling the identities of characters.

Congratulations! Feel free to ask me if you need any help. :) GlassCobra 01:41, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

You're on my watchlist! :~) Thanks! Pinkville (talk) 01:42, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations on your successful request for adminship -- TinuCherian ^{(Wanna Talk?)} - 01:53, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Pinkville (talk) 01:54, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I have added {{administrator}} to your user page. Hope you dont mind ;) -- TinuCherian ^{(Wanna Talk?)} - 01:55, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Quite reasonable. Thank you. Pinkville (talk) 02:08, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations! Masterpiece2000 (talk) 02:18, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Congrats from a fellow admin... good luck with the tools! weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 06:12, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Congrats!!:)Λua∫Wise ^{(Operibus anteire)} 06:48, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks folks! Pinkville (talk) 10:30, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations on your successful request for adminship. --Kaaveh (talk) 19:37, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Pinkville (talk) 21:05, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

RFA

My pleasure, and congratulations! Jayjg ^(talk) 00:33, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Pinkville (talk) 01:46, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Mop

The "real world" beckons. I see you're up and around; could I ask you to put Cary Herrman on your watchlist? Thanks. -- Hoary (talk) 01:16, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Barely up, but I comply! :~) Pinkville (talk) 01:19, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Gotta luv that photo though... Pinkville (talk) 01:31, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Amazing bit of shadow and light, that photo, but none of the references cited in the article meet RS :) Gwen Gale (talk) 01:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

You noticed that too? ;~) Pinkville (talk) 01:40, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

There's some weird shinola going on; check my recent edits. -- Hoary (talk) 02:18, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, curious. I'm guessing it's still just a matter of unfortunate coincidental meeting of desperate attempts to save lame article with misguided attempt to deal with user talk page sullying... Will keep an eye, though, 'cuz it could get worse... Pinkville (talk) 02:33, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Almost. See my explanation to Hoary. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 02:39, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Just noticed that. But feel free to ask another admin to block under such circumstances - annoying situation, isn't it. :~) Pinkville (talk) 02:42, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

You're probably right, but I resisted the temptation for an indefinite block.  :) Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 02:43, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

That took fortitude! :~) Like Hoary, I'm keeping watch on this in case you'd like some "outside" intervention. Pinkville (talk) 02:46, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Canadian photography

Would this chap be the cynosure of the vernissages that you frequent? Or what's the skinny? -- Hoary (talk) 10:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Never heard of him. I never really know when it comes to Rawk Photographers... this one is very uninteresting, but presumably legit. The nickname anecdote is obviously encyclopedic, of course. Pinkville (talk) 11:13, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, his name is fascinating, fascinating. I have, however, felt myself obliged to make certain edits to other ingredients of this article. Hm, what if the article were to start "Omer Cordell is a photographer named "Impson", after the Simpsons"? -- Hoary (talk) 11:52, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Faint praise, indeed. And I think your proposed lead is much better than the current version. Pinkville (talk) 13:15, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

From the only substantial independent bibliographic source in the article, the interview at Metal-rules.com, we find this less than encouraging admission:

Are you able to make a living at photography?

Unfortunately I’m not doing this full time yet. I’d love to have this as my only income some day, though, it’s a very tough market to get into. I have a day job, but every other job aside from what I want to do seems trivial to me.

Salif Keïta (footballer)

And what he wants to do is daunting:

Sure, someone can look at my work and say “Hey! This looks just like so and so’s work,” but my point is that I don’t go to the library or the bookstore and look at photography books to get inspired. I want to create something from my own mind-frame and try to produce something that is semi-original...

Although the interview was conducted in 2004, the fact that no later interviews have been cited suggests that we may have both done too much work on this article already... Salvageable or AfDable? Pinkville (talk) 13:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

It's already been AfD'd, so it shouldn't be sent there again till everything is crystal clear to all.

Of course I'd have voted DEL if I'd known about it, but I didn't know about it, because WP HOP doesn't have a routine deletion-notification subpage. Till recently it didn't have a list for how many articles there were of which level of completion; it recently got one, but then some bot wiped it out. -- Hoary (talk) 14:21, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

That's a sad little AfD. That's an even sadder botched job. There's some consolation in hoping that someday, I'll also be well known in my phylosophy for shooting film. Pinkville (talk) 14:41, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

<- Curiously, Omer gets more (and more recent) Google hits under his "unfortunate former last name" ("Shaked") than he does as "Omer Cordell"... Of course, they may not all be the same Omer "Impson" who is planning a more profound book about his travels around the world. Pinkville (talk) 14:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Meanwhile. . . . Hoary (talk) 15:13, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd say a pretty successful user talk page exchange, with an as yet unsuccessful article... If only the Goddesses would spare us any more rock photographers. Pinkville (talk) 15:37, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

If Impson doesn't show up at the vernissages, how about this fella? -- Hoary (talk) 06:36, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that one during my RfA... apparently Canada is a particularly good breeding ground for these... things. I'll look at his CV a little more closely, but I have a feeling that e/mailing a few dozen notable artists/photographers doesn't confer notability on the sender... Pinkville (talk) 13:27, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you hep to this cat? -- Hoary (talk) 15:12, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

No, I ain't that hep... I'll have to look more closely after work. Pinkville (talk) 15:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Mop and bucket, please!

And not your new ones, just the bog standard ones. If you have time, that is. -- Hoary (talk) 23:32, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Fixed (I think). -- Hoary (talk) 07:02, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Gee, sorry I came to this so late. I didn't visit Wikiland last night. Does this need to be deleted now? I find this all rather confusing... Pinkville (talk) 13:30, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I dunno. I rather supposed that if it were useless then somebody who knows about this stuff would remove it.

Well, you could always assuage your conscience by blocking a few people, I suppose. -- Hoary (talk) 13:44, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Resistance is futile (or, as they say in the US, Resistance is feudal). Pinkville (talk) 13:48, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, does that ogg file actually play what it purports to? Unfortunately, my workplace PC doesn't deign to play such files... Pinkville (talk) 13:55, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll try it tomorrow. Our workplace PCs are WinVaster, full of bloatware. I chucked the application form for what could have been mine into the wastebin and continued to use my Kubuntu box instead. I install on it the software I want to install, no more and no less. (Stick it to The Man!) -- Hoary (talk) 16:00, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Isn't that VinWaster? What a tragedy! Pinkville (talk) 17:50, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Or you could use a mop and bucket after one of these. -- Hoary (talk) 15:57, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

And does this simply take a long time to update - or is there still a problem? Pinkville (talk) 13:37, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I think it's supposed to spider the various projects once every few days. But I don't know. -- Hoary (talk) 13:44, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I believe I saw a note to that effect, but I don't remember the context. Pinkville (talk) 13:48, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

It was worth a try

...thank you for your noble effort to help out with that user. After this, I think Gwen did the right thing. If he comes back with more abuse I'll protect the page (unless someone else sees it first). Appreciate you trying, though: sometimes it works. Antandrus (talk) 23:54, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

And thank you. I think everybody did a very good job on this case. And you, Acroterion and (of course) Gwen Gale showed admirable restraint under great provocation. There seemed to be a (very) slim chance of a better outcome, but that inexcusable edit corked it. Who'd have thought Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan could inspire such heights of over-the-top hostility? Pinkville (talk) 00:10, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

The long and short of it is, there are lots of down-market, sensationalized "documentaries" and other references to Earhart and Noonan on the telly. Gwen Gale (talk) 07:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I guess that stands to reason. There's a whiff of fetish (in the older psychological sense of the term) to this thing... Pinkville (talk) 11:02, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

You did a fine job of patient explanation. Most of the time it doesn't work, but every now and then we reel somebody back from the brink. Abuse comes with the territory, as does a thick skin. Acroterion _(talk) 01:34, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. And well done to you! I've seen the "patient explanation" approach work once or twice (so much time spent on talk pages vs. article pages!), but this looked like a doomed case from early on... Pinkville (talk) 01:48, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

You'll know you've truly arrived when there's a thread at AN/I with your name on it and the words "admin abuse" and "desysop" in the text.

As for the Jovian satellite, I'd let it go. He's been around long enough to know better, but he doesn't seem to be making a habit of it, and I personally give a lot more slack on talk pages. It's all poor form, especially the patronizing tone and stepping on your edits, but not worth your time or worry. Acroterion _(talk) 02:19, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

You'll know you've truly arrived... Something for me to look forward to.

In fact, I was a little taken aback when the Red Pen reacted as he did. I'm seldom too concerned with such (useless) musings being on the talk page as long as they don't appear in the article. Lots of people seem to think they can take on Chomsky, and often add a few lines of murky thought to his talk page... comparatively harmless. But this had the appearance of something that might escalate. Thanks for your reassuring assessment. Pinkville (talk) 11:09, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I've occasionally offered gentle advice to enthusiastic warners about inflaming an otherwise manageable situation. Most of the time they take it well and adopt a more judicious approach.

I had my baptism at AN/I when I encountered an editor who was making somewhat controversial edits while logged out, but signing his name. I pointed out that it was impossible to tell whether it was really him or an impostor trying to stir things up in his name. I blocked the IP (anon only) and forced him to log in, which he promptly did, then went directly to AN/I where he complained loudly about my "abuse" and demanded punishment. Apathy reigned, and the thread died. Acroterion _(talk) 11:57, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

That was a peculiar road to resolution! Pinkville (talk) 23:29, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Name in vain

Touche' I have attempted a different tack that is more friendly, I hope. -- The Red Pen of Doom 12:20, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

And it looks like a positive - if unlikely - outcome has been achieved! All the best. :~) Pinkville (talk) 23:27, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

My last contribution. Now I'm called a Jovian satellite but my original thought was Greek mythology combined with initials of sorts. Cheers and I hope to see you under more pleasant circumstances. You are a reasonable man despite Chomskyanism. :-).Io (talk) 19:04, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

But the moon has volcanoes! :~) Likewise, I hope we cross paths again soon (and thanks for the kind word). Meanwhile, I'm quite happy to discuss your points on Chomsky (or any other subject you like)... on either of our talk pages! All the best. Pinkville (talk) 02:18, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I should feel right at home then - but wait a second, I breathe oxygen among other things. (See, we're not so different after all - I'll even go as far as assuming you are carbon-based like me. :-)

I'm all out-chomskied for the time being, and this recent "debate" has not been one of my shining moments, so I'll leave be. But I do have a few questions, which I've never seen addressed about his theories. Maybe another time. I at least know, where to find you. And I'm not usually this bellicose. Let's just put it down bad timing. All the best Io (talk) 16:25, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, maybe not out-chomskied enough. Here's a citation from the introduction to The Amazonian Languages, eds. Dixon and Aikhenvald. Chomsky has been accused of reducing everything to syntax. Maybe, maybe not, but I myself suspect that the ones who set up the scheme for the work mentioned in the introduction were disciples of his. To give Chomsky the benefit of the doubt, I may wrong or, if I'm right, they may have misunderstood their teacher. But here comes the quotation.

The Handbook of Amazonian Languages, edited by Desmond C. Derbyshire and Geoffrey K. Pullum and published by Mouton de Gruyter, is a most worthwhile enterprise that has so far run to four volumes that include ten grammars (ranging in quality from quite good to very good) together with a number of typological and historical studies. Yet the Handbook would be more useful if the contributors were not forced to follow an idiosyncratic scheme of organization: syntax, then phonology, then morphology. That this is basically unworkable is demonstrated by the fact that five of the eight grammars in the first three volumes have, as the whole of 23, Morphology, a single sentence along the lines This has been treated in earlier sections. It is of course necessary to know the basic inflectional morphology in order to unterstand the syntax, so this information is slipped in early on in the description (but at different places in each grammar). The net result may be that nowhere is there any integrated morphological statement, e.g. of the structure of the verb.

This really sounds peculiar, and if my suspicion is correct, then Chomsky does have something to answer for. (Io)

I don't know the work you've mentioned here, but I know something of Geoffrey Pullum, and it seems clear from what I know of him and of the context, that this is not the same subject within linguistics that Chomsky is pursuing. Traditionally, linguistics has dealt with analysing the differences and similarities of various language, their histories and interactions, etc. That is not Chomsky's subject. Chomsky is interested in the faculty of mind that allows us to acquire and use language, and it is the findings that he and others have uncovered that strongly suggest the existence of a language organ (not a term he uses [anymore], by the way) - the faculty of language that not only largely allows for our communication with each other, but that also allows for (the peculiarities of) human thought. When speaking of language, Chomsky is usually speaking of language in this sense, and not in the sense of English, French, Wolof, Thai, etc. (termed, natural languages). He is interested in the generative grammar that allows all normal humans to produce unprecedented sentences, etc. with limited means. That is, to have the capacity for infinite expression from limited means. More on this later, I suspect... Pinkville (talk) 02:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

There is also the question about the oft mentioned language organ and settings of parameters (I once attended a weird and illogical lecture by a devoted follower where that concept figured heavily, perhaps more of which later) along with the question of whether children acquire all languages with equal ease. The first thought that springs to mind is that the children are not able to decide the question. They have forgotten by the time they are able to answer. (Io)

Actually, the fact that children forget this "learning" is one bit of evidence that supports Chomsky's theories of language acquisition. The process seems to be nearly automatic. At this point, nearly every living language has been studied - and in Chomskyan linguistics, the weirder the language, the more likely it has been studied (e.g. Australian Aboriginal languages are at the centre of the field; and studies of sign languages have been pivotal), and the facts are in: children acquire language - regardless of where or which language(s) - in the same time frame and the same way. One of the key observations in Chomsky's analyses of language is that - in spite of the outrageous apparent difficulty of the task - children acquire language with nearly no instruction, and with apparent ease - almost as if they are simply waiting for it to come upon them. For example, though it takes years of intensive training to get a chimpanzee to acquire a few word, a human child acquires about 35 words per day from the age of 3 (until their teens, when the rate slows, slightly) - and without having to hear the various tense/person/etc. variations of each word. That is the "ease" of language acquisition of which Chomsky speaks. To contrast, the (now debunked) Behaviourist account of language acquisition was that children had to hear (and remember) every utterance that they might some day use... without any scope for simply knowing the grammar and creating their own utterances as circumstances demanded. Pinkville (talk) 02:25, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Just a single point (or perhaps a couple) in the midst of everything else, so that you don't think I've deserted you. :-) That children don't remember how they learned their language is neither here nor there. In the process of learning, they are not able to communicate, and what cannot be somehow kept in mind by some kind of system, call it a mental sign language or whatever you wish, can not be remembered. A terms like "now debunked" should not be bandied about. It (behaviourism) has been debunked to the satisfaction of those who were mostly against it in the first place or let themselves be swayed by Chomsky's skills at sweeping under the carpet. There is a world of qualified people out there who disagree. The late, lamented Larry Trask was one of them, one of the regrettably few linguists, who are cited in opposition to Chomsky in that particular article. The rest of the criticism is regrettably about politics and Chomskys apparent need to draw attention to himself in one field, when his attraction in another was on the wane. There is no such thing as a weird language except in the eye of the beholder. If you think English is somehow typical, then most languages look weird, but had Chomsky been born Turkish, his theory would have been different. Cross-species comparisons are also absolutely irrelevant. Sorry about this plain talk, but it's been a tiring day, and tomorrow will be worse. I'll pick up more substantial points (if you were about to tell me, that I'm merely speculatiog, I am aware of that :-) when I'm fresh. But still, Chomsky isn't in a position to say much of anything about the function of the mind, precisely because of his abstract approach. As a phycisist once said (according to my memory): "High-energy particle interactions don't take place in Hilbert spaces, they take place in a laboratory." The same can be said about language. All the best and hope to hear from you Io (talk) 19:11, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

One belated PS. As anyone who has learned a foreign language can attest, 35 new words per day are nothing astonishing, especially if a major proportion of your waking hours are devoted to the task. Children do have something to compare to, namely the rules they have already learnt, hence the frequency of errors based on analogy in their language. The first rules are learnt slowly, then at an accelerating pace, but that doesnt't have to mean that the rules are innate and in my opinion they are not. Use Occam's razor. The poverty of stimulus is vastly overrated. Don't parents talk to their children? I don't know of a single case, when they have not. In fact parents are usually talking all the time, when they are with their children. Cheers (and I will add comments as I think of them and find the time) :-) Io (talk) 20:53, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

This has been a long one. I'll keep the next one, if there is one, shorter. Feel free to answer, if you're so inclined, on my talk page. That frees your own from clutter and I will see the answer sooner. All the best Io (talk) 18:05, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

More linguistics including Chomsky

Sorry about my continuing "harassment", but I'm thinking, and I as I understand it, I have an open invitation to "chatter aimlessly" :-) here. Feel free to ignore, if I'm boring you. To quote Chomsky:

The fact that all normal children acquire essentially comparable grammars with remarkable rapidity suggests that human beings are somehow specially designed to do this, with datahandling or hypothesis-formulating ability of unknown character and complexity. (Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, ed. K. Brown).

Very well, but who is to say that children acquire their mother tongue (or tongues) with remarkable rapidity? It takes a child years to become a competent speaker and for the first couple of years he or she has little to do except absorb and process information. Also note that he says essentially comparable grammars, which somewhat takes the bite out of his argument. It is of course not in dispute that there is a language organ, generally speaking. It's the brain, and since children do learn to speak that point is proven. It is even mostly known which part of the brain is responsible. But nothing about remarkable speed or ease follows logically. A great deal of a child's time is spent learning the language, slowly at first, then more rapidly as he becomes more adept and has more data to compare with. So why have people accepted the statement about extraordinary rapidity so readily? I'm not following any author here. This is something that has bothered me for quite a while, and, believe it or not, the idea is my own, although I do not doubt that some others have thought the same. It is known that children learn the same native language at very different speeds. It is also known that they, generally speaking, learn some facets of the language later than others. So why is the idea so difficult to accept that there may be differences in effort between languages? After all, learning language A may produce a competent speaker in X years and another speaker of language B in the same time, but who can prove that the same amount of intellectual effort is required in both cases? All children have, after all, is time for absortion and digestation of the continous bombardment of external stimuli.

You once said some thing to the effect of, that most who tackle Chomsky fail spectaculary by their own efforts. I hope you were only referring to amateurs like me. Competent linguists have also taken him on and failed to fail, so to speak. :-) (Io)

Actually, I was mostly thinking of the scads of academics (and wannabes) and media types who have taken him on. There's a particularly embarrassing interview by CBC's Evan Solomon of Chomsky (I think it's even on YouTube...) in which the interviewer clearly thinks he's got Chomsky by the balls, but he's only hung himself up by his own nuts. Even at the end, Solomon has no idea what has happened. In my experience, that's quite typical of most wannabe honest-makers of Chomsky. See also, this exemplary letter. There's an example in the field of linguistics I can supply - but the link isn't handy at the moment... I'll get back to you. Pinkville (talk) 02:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the language organ: Its existence is not in dispute any longer, but when Chomsky started (in the 1950s) it was against the backdrop of Skinnerian behaviourism, which denied innatism entirely. To this day, such anti-innatist ideas persist in some related fields, as indicated by a recent essay appearing in Sociology Today (Albert Bergesen, Chomsky Versus Mead, 2004) appealing to peers to accept that the mind has innate structures - against the still prevailing notion (in sociology, Bergesen argues), that it is a blank slate. (If you have access to JSTOR I can provide you with relevant link(s)). And to clarify, the language organ isn't the brain, per se, but the faculty of language which resides in the brain (and which is analogous to the optic system, say).

About the language organ. If its existence is not in dispute, where is it? An organ is a well defined concept in biology and the human body has been mapped very thoroughly. Another thing. If you read the opening sentences of the article on Stephen Pinker you'll see that there are two groups of psychologists and/or linguists debating evolution and heredity, very complex fields both, way out of their field. Methinks it is a case of hubris on both sides and I cannot but think of Her Almightiness, The Invisible Pink Unicorn. Cheers Io (talk) 20:33, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

As for the rapidity of child language acquisition, I responded to that in my earlier comment, above. But one point, studies show that (normal) children learn the same mother tongue at about the same rate, and in the same way, developmentally speaking. That is, it's not the case that some learn all the verbs first, then the nouns, and so on, while others learn nouns, then verbs. There are phases to language acquisition, but - on evidence - these seem to be essentially (i.e. fundamentally) the same regardless of the specific language involved. Furthermore, as Chomsky has pointed out, the apparent radical differences between various languages turn out to be much less different on closer examination than was previously thought - with at most very few deep differences between any languages noted. The variation between natural languages is all superficial, the deep structures are the same. Pinkville (talk) 03:02, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it's been fun writing this. I'll take you up on your offer of discussion on our respective talk pages. I hope you think this is a discussion, not some aimless rambling. :-) Cheerio Io (talk) 20:38, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

And please feel free to chatter. I'll respond (more fully) as soon as I can... I'm just on my way home from work. (And I've been collecting some readings...:~)) Pinkville (talk) 21:01, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity. Where are you or more to the point, what is your time zone? I'm on Greenwich time. Cheers Io (talk) 21:18, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm in Montreal. So, Eastern (Daylight) Time. Pinkville (talk) 02:42, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Kibitzing here . . . if you want to see Chomsky taken on by a sharp interviewer, see his interrogation by Cap'n Spock in "Chomsky on the Enterprise", chapter 6 of this excellent book. -- Hoary (talk) 03:28, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I've only read bits and pieces of Pullum, but I like what he has to say. Of course, the whole subject is... Fascinating... Pinkville (talk) 11:28, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Evidence under your nose

Extending an invitation to me, like you did, is like giving a pyromaniac a matchbox. Anyway, yoy've probably heard this anecdote, but I've always found it funny and instructive (see topic title) so here goes:

A linguistics professor was giving a lecture about how various positive and negative statements can change meanings in various ways - double negatives, positive and negative etc. - but he ended the lecture by saying that there had yet to be found an example of two positives adding up to a negative - at which someone in the audience quickly stood up and said contemptuously: "Yeah, right!"

Well, perhaps I've got an odd sense of humour. Cheers, and by all means enlighten me as is within your power, since you have been collecting readings - the only hurdle should then be my comprehension. :-) Io (talk) 22:41, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

har har. Good joke! Pinkville (talk) 03:22, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

language

I'll start with some general comments here, and then respond to your specific points, in turn, above. I've read much of Chomsky's available writings on language and mind intended for a non-specialist audience. I'm no linguist and I'm no scientist, but I have an active interest in the science of mind - the cognitive sciences, and I read what I can on the subject. I've also read much of Chomsky's political writings, and though I am personally interested in any possible connections between the two, it's important to point out that Chomsky himself doesn't see any significant knowable link between them. See, for instance, his opening remarks in his well-known 1970 lecture, Language and Freedom, also an excellent introduction to his understanding - at the time - of language and mind.

First, as I read it, Chomsky's primary intent in studying language is to understand the human mind. The premise is that language is the only part of the mind we understand at all well (and, at that, not so much anyway) and the only part of the mind for which we have easy access to evidence, i.e. language itself. Compare, for instance, psychology, which has only a relatively recent history as a subject of serious scientific inquiry* and which remains comparatively mysterious, without any known components that could compare with the known components of language: words, syntax, etc. Until recently (and, in no small measure, following from Chomsky), psychology was still mired in fallacious extrapolations from the pecking of pigeons to human behaviour (but that's another subject).

Though Chomsky writes strictly in English, he grew up reading, speaking, and teaching Hebrew. He studied Arabic in university, and the anecdotal evidence seems to be that he knows Yiddish, French and other languages besides.

Anyway, enough of preliminaries... Pinkville (talk) 01:35, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

*The serious study of language goes back thousands of years. I'd say (to my knowledge, Chomsky says nothing like this), that the study of psychology has - until the 19th century - primarily been conducted in literature. But there are Indian texts analysing language that date back well before Christ.

Some readings:

• Marc D. Hauser, Noam Chomsky, and W. Tecumseh Fitch. The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?, 2002.
• W. Tecumseh Fitch, Marc D. Hauser, and Noam Chomsky. The evolution of the language faculty: Clarifications and implications, 2005.
• Chomsky, interview. The 'Chomskyan Era', 2000.

You'll find the Indian texts discussed here. As point of historical interest, you might also want look this up. It turns out that it was a countryman of mine who invented minimal pairs. :-). About the rest, ease of learning and all that more will follow, but I have seen too many examples of siblings learning to speak at different rates to be convinced that children learn their mother tongues at about the same rate. It makes a lot of difference, whether you give or take a year at that age. That the language organ in Chomsky's sense is no longer in dispute, is a very bold statement, and so is the statement that the deep structure (if there is one) is basically the same. There is consensus that language processing takes place in the brain and two parts of the brain have been associated with it, Broca's area and Wernicke's area. That is about as far as the agreement goes. If there were agreement, there would be little to write about, and yet authors pour out articles like the end is near.

Sorry, forgot to sign. All the best Io (talk) 21:01, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

To get something out of the way

I think it should be mentioned that I'm not the least bit interested in Chomsky's politics. The bits and pieces I've heard or read are bizarre to me, and they will probably not be what the man will be remembered for. It is a pity that the article Criticism of Noam Chomsky deals almost exclusively with politics.

As for the rest, I think I'll begin with Chomsky and psychology for the simple reason that I have the 12 volume Handbook of Psychology, Editor-in-Chief Irving B. Weiner, Wiley & Sons, 2003. It is thus accessible to me (admittedly in a pdf-version), and fairly recent, covers the whole field and is published by a reputable house by reputable authors. Chomsky does get a fair amount of mentions there.

But, there's always a but, I'm getting pressed for time, preparing for the autumn semester (both as a grad student and TA, although I'm much older than the average for either) so I'll have to make do with easily accessible literature, and I don't have time for anything lengthy. Reading about anything but statistics and time series will have to be squeezed in, and then I also have an enormous amount of precipitation data to process. This does not mean I'm backtracking. I'm just warning you that this might drag on. Think of it as some sort of mail chess. I'll write when I've got time, energy and inspiration.

As an aside regarding psychology, it is a relative latecomer as a serious science. Freudian analysis does not qualify as science, for instance, although Freud himself acknowledged that his construction would eventually give way to chemistry, biology and the like. Unfortunately the next generation forgot about that and the id, ego, superego and whatnot took on lives of their own. It's worth remembering Richard Feynman's comparison of psychoanalysis to witch-doctoring. (Feynman, of course, realized that psychology based on solid evidence from biology, chemistry and physics is science - after all, he knew better than most what the scientific method entails.) But psychologists were poorly educated in those fields for a long time. I remember the time when Roger Sperry got his Nobel Prize. It was customary then (perhaps still is) for the winners in chemistry, physics and medicine to have a discussion afterwards, where they often went far and wide. Sperry (who at least knew how to conduct experiments) spent quite some time trying to convince the physicists that they (the physicists) didn't really understand physics!

Thank you for the links, and I have high hopes, now that everyone is showing himself from his better side (well, you didn't show a bad side as I recall :-), that this should be both fun and educational. All the best Io (talk) 20:08, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Physiology and neural networking

After stealing some time to read a couple of articles, it seems to me that Chomsky thinks of languages mainly in terms of computers. Indeed, his first level refers to Turing machines. But, has he ever delved into neural networking (I mean artificial networking here) which is how computers learn and would seem to be a good paradigm for the human learning process. (Neural networking was actually inspired by non-chomskian ideas about how the brain works.) Also, has he ever studied the actual biological or more precisely, physiological, function of the brain? He is a linguist, not a physiologist. To end this with a short analogy, which I heard years ago: "Chomsky's approach is comparable to trying to find out how a car engine works by studying its exhaust fumes." (I can't supply you with a reference, but the analogy stuck in my mind.) I'm returning to my probability distributions now, but damn the Internet and damn Wikipedia - once you get going the next thing you know is that you're a couple of hours past bedtime and you've got nothing to show for it in real life. :-) All the best Io (talk) 19:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Happy Independence Day!

As you are a nice Wikipedian, I just wanted to wish you a happy Independence Day! And if you are not an American, then have a happy day and a wonderful weekend anyway!  :) Your friend and colleague, --Happy Independence Day! Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 04:32, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! I'm all for independence! Pinkville (talk) 10:53, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, so am I, and others may have it as well, even Americans. :-) Io (talk) 19:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

For your delectation

James Michael Gomez‎. Just one of hundreds of major talents. Or not. -- Hoary (talk) 14:09, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Wow, they're getting younger and younger, too! Still, there might yet be a prodigy, I suppose... Pinkville (talk) 15:30, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Small potatoes. And now, something written with real professionalism. -- Hoary (talk) 10:56, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Slick... Pinkville (talk) 11:22, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Heavy relief. -- Hoary (talk) 20:27, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

If I'm boring you ...

... just say so. I admit that I've bombarded you with comments and musings, but if you think they're too dumb to deserve an answer, you might say that, and I won't be offended. On the other hand, if you don't have any answers, you might say that too. No harm no foul, but I'm beginning to get the impression that I'm talking to myself here. You could gather the comments and questions and deal with them by category, for instance, "This doesn't deserve an answer", "I don't know", "I'm still thinking" or "Here's the answer". Lack of time is also quite an acceptable reason. All the best Io (talk) 15:18, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about not getting back earlier - I am strapped for time at the moment (though I've read your posts, I haven't had a chance to form an intelligent response yet). I'll reply properly later today or tomorrow. So, I'm by no means bored, etc... just slow! :~) Pinkville (talk) 15:26, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

You have my full sympathy about being strapped for time. As it is, I have had to steal time to write anything on this page at all - between reading statistics and trying to get my MATLAB-programs to behave. :-) Take your time. Cheerio Io (talk) 15:47, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

One question about the deep structure. This actually requires a prologue, which is as follows.

It seems to be an article of faith among linguists of all stripes that all languages are, more or less, equally "complex". The reasons they give for that happen to coincide to a large degree with Chomsky's arguments (at various stages in his development). Examples are, for instance:

Children learn languages at approximately the same rate.

Any child can be taken as an infant, transplanted to a different community and he/she will learn the language there at the same rate as the natives. (No argument there, as far as I'm concerned.)

Some languages may be less complicated than others in one respect (e.g. Icelandic morphology is way more complicated than that of English, to name two languages I know), but the complexity to make it up is in that case stuck in other areas of the language. (English syntax is often mentioned in this case.) But I've just been leafing through an Icelandic syntax, 800 pages or so and still much left to be explained, so I can't really accept that reasoning.

This leads me to the conclusion, that the credo of equal complexity (not that there is any metric for that, as far as I know, please tell me, if you do) is a preparation for another credo, namely that all languages are equally worthy of study, which I heartily agree with.

So, the question becomes as follows: Knowing the phonetic, morphological and syntactical complexities of at least one language well, I would be interested in knowing, how a Universal grammar accounts for all that. Icelandic (or pick another language to your liking) has exceptions and exceptions to exceptions in abundance, it is morphologically complex and its syntax is at least as complicated as the English one, to say nothing abut the phonology, so it seems to me, having just had a brief refresher, that the majority of the language has to be aquired without the help of an innate grammar, which by definition produces a finite set of rules and does not predict exceptions. (Recursion does, indeed, provide for an infinite set, but no language can realize that.) As any historical liguist will tell you, there are various forces at work, analogy, levelling and so on, all of which has to be learnt by exposure to each language. Cheers Io (talk) 19:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

PS: If you would like to save some space on your talk page, and take this discussion up per e-mail, it's OK. We both chose to be able to receive mail, so that is an option. Just drop me a line and I'll answer. If not, let's continue here. All the best Io (talk) 19:20, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you're simplifying the notion of UG and exaggerating the significance that it has for many people concerned with it. You may find Newmeyer's Possible and Probable Languages of interest. -- Hoary (talk) 21:25, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm very probably simplifying the notion, which is actually bad, since a more complicated system than what I have got the impression of, only makes things worse. I may be exaggerating the impact (let's hope so) but then we have to take into account, which period we are talking about. Linguistics seems to be recovering from Chomsky, gradually, but there was a time when Chomsky was linguistics, for all practical purposes. Thanks for the reference, but I don't have the time nor resources to spend on reading books on the subject. I'll have to make do with what I already have (e.g. Comrie's Language Universals), but otherwise I'm really in a pinch, learning and doing other stuff, about which see above. But thanks and all the best Io (talk) 16:40, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I've lead a varied life for the past decade or more, but the only constant has been my interest in mathematics. And, having read quite a bit about it and having an interest in languages, that is where I see Chomsky fail. Just to clarify. All the best Io (talk) 18:41, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

PS: If there is a language organ, where is it? You can't postulate an organ without proving its physical existence. Now, according to Pinkville, if I have understood him correctly, its existence is not in debate (a questionable statement in itself) and also that the brain isn't it. I really am shocked. You have to be able to make predictable claims, and if you go as far as postulating an organ without being able to locate it you're in the same situation as when I postulate the existence of my ketchup-gland, which hasn't been found yet but does regulate the amount of ketchup in my blood-stream and also provides my blood with its colour - medical opinion notwithstanding, the red blood cells have nothing to do with the colour - the medical doctors have just not understood linguistics correctly. (I'll leave out a smiley here, I don't know the one which combines sarcasm and everything else - but this was a deliberately extreme example): Cheers Io (talk) 19:27, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Here's a link to a new sub-page for ongoing discussions of Chomsky, linguistics, and anything else that folks would like to discuss in greater depth than is convenient on a talk page... Pinkville (talk) 21:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Bob Shell

Unusual, a photographer convicted of and imprisoned bigtime for manslaughter. But it seems that a mere guilty verdict and life imprisonment doesn't satisfy some editors of Wikipedia. Take a look at the article's edit history, and consider adding it to your watchlist. -- Hoary (talk) 01:56, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Gaudenzio Marconi

Dear Pinkville, May I challenge you ?! I think it would be interesting to improve Gaudenzio Marconi. Best regards, Jatayou (talk) 09:57, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

So, pistols at dawn? ;~) Oh no, much better to work on this article together! Good idea. See you there soon... Pinkville (talk) 11:06, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Klein / Stiglitz

Hello--I thought my double-quote from Stiglitz was a good way to handle it. There's good stuff and bad stuff throughout the review, and I thought that without devoting a whole lot to that one review, those two quotes best summed it up. There are lots of qualifications he makes throughout the review, opening right up with implications that it's full of conspiracy theories, and talking about oversimplification, but including all that would get out of hand. (We can discuss on talk page if you'd prefer.) Cretog8 (talk) 17:36, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Ha! NM, I see while I was writing this, you started on the talk page. I'll go there instead.Cretog8 (talk) 17:38, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi, indeed, I responded on the article talk page. Pinkville (talk) 19:11, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Well excuuuuuuuse me

One fucking thing after another. -- Hoary (talk) 14:54, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I expect the result of this TfD discussion will be an order to convert all related content to a myriad of sub-stubs. Then we'll have danced a full circle. Pinkville (talk) 15:29, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh. That's what you meant by "fingerpopping"! Gwen Gale (talk) 15:36, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you think there's any significance to your getting the euphemised version while I got the hard core? :~) Pinkville (talk) 18:32, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

To all members of the Anarchist Task Force - about improvement of the AI-Wiki-page

I have just joined the Anarchist Task Force, and I have had some problems with publishing of my Anarchist International Wikipedia page, see my sandbox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Anna_Quist/Anarchist_International for the present version/proposal. This page needs improvements to reach Wiki-consensus, and this should be a somewhat collective project to avoid a "COI"-template. As I am new to editing here on Wikipedia I need help with the page, I hope for your cooperation with this improvement. As an introduction to this cooperation, feel free to read this note on my talk page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anna_Quist#Message_to_all_anarchists_on_Wikipedia_-_Anarchy_is_cooperation_without_coercion.2Fdestruction.2Fdeletion_-_about_the_deletion_of_the_AI-Wiki-page_and_cooperation_to_achieve_an_updated_AI-page_with_general_Wiki-consent .

Any contribution, matter of fact criticism, to give input and advice, or even contribute to new sections, will be helpful, and is much appreciated. Please join in the project...

(Anna Quist (talk) 17:17, 29 July 2008 (UTC))

Photographers Task Force

If you can spare a moment from the excitement of marching under a black flag, perhaps I can again draw your attention to (the soon to be deleted?) Template:History of photography-related articles: there are some interesting people appearing. (I have access to a stunning book about Boggiani and hope to lick that particular article into shape.) -- Hoary (talk) 00:52, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Can't breathe... black flag... cutting off... air...

You're absolutely right. Some very interesting names, and not just the famous Muppet photographer, John Barrett! I'll have a closer look! Pinkville (talk) 01:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Take heart. -- Hoary (talk) 11:24, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The trouble with the huge and handsome Boggiani book is that it's so multilingual that not much is written in any of its languages. No article for Boggiani in the two-volume Routledge encyclopedia of 19th century photography (which I notice lazily lets Bennett skip macrons and thus distort Japanese names), none in the Oxford Companion, and "my" library turns out to have no dictionary of anthropologists/ethnographers. There was at least one recent book anthologizing and discussing early photographs of American Indians but this doesn't mention him. Apparently he gets a favorable write-up in Tristes Tropiques, but I've mislaid my copy of this splendidly readable book and anyway I have a dim view of Professeur Blue-jeans' concern for the facts. -- Hoary (talk) 11:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story... I have a number of possible sources available that I'll consult, and with some luck I might find el dorado! Will let you know (or the findings will magically appear). Pinkville (talk) 13:30, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

This could have been by you!

Should I blame Bennett or Tuttle for the mangling of Japanese? Whichever, verifying/fixing the result is most irritating. -- Hoary (talk) 03:11, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Tennett or Buttle... indeed, it's annoying! And even I should have guessed those macron additions. Slowly filling in the very early history. Pinkville (talk) 11:24, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I could only guess a third or so; th' missus helped with a bit more, and then frantic googling around verified the guesses and corrected one. It's not easy. What's irritating is that Bennett (presumably) knew, and then he or somebody else perversely decided to suppress the information. -- Hoary (talk) 14:47, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich

An editor has nominated One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich, an article you edited, for deletion, with this comment:

I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? Mayalld (talk) 19:20, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 19:56, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Liberal rubbish! Try this and then let's go out and shoot something. -- Hoary (talk) 15:32, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Totally awesome! Let's go shooting, but don't bring Dick!

When I was working at the airport, every fall I would see the hunters returning from Kuujjuaq and Puvirnituq on their way back to the States, etc. I once saw a hunter with a broken leg wearing a very charming camouflage booty over his cast. And another time, I noticed a hunter in the middle of the Tie Rack store adjusting the straps on his baby carrier... only for me to finally realise that he was actually fixing the wrapping on his caribou...

Btw, Palin is, like, totally awesome! Pinkville (talk) 00:12, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

The monkey said it first! Uh, which airport was that? Hoary (talk) 00:43, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

That which was then called, merely, Dorval Airport. Pinkville (talk) 00:53, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

"Montréal Dorky Aérodrome"? Did they, like, speak French there? Ewww! -- Hoary (talk) 14:26, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and I hope you've supported our troops by listening to this important video. Pinkville (talk) 01:30, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Damn, she's hot. In particular, she's so hot in the last 40 seconds or so that some spoilsport has blanked it out. So I'm missing the, uh, "butt parts". -- Hoary (talk) 14:26, 21 September 2008 (UTC) ... Thinking of which, veep schmeep, Palin for Prez! -- Hoary (talk) 14:46, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Now, that's my kind of Palin!

Pity about the butt parts... they were delicious in the earlier, uncarved version. Pinkville (talk) 13:21, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah, a further note on Sandy Belle. Pinkville (talk) 13:29, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I quote a comment perhaps not by you: Thanks for the info! I’ll pass it on to the person who told me about the video; he wasn’t sure but felt rather certain it was satire. What with the "sperms" and all that, it is indeed hard to be absolutely sure (or sure to be absolutely hard, or something). Nice graphic on the top left by the way. Yes, dear boy. It's by a chap called Banksy. But the real question that people should be asking about a video such as this is of course, will it blend?. -- Hoary (talk) 15:30, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Norman Finkelstein

There seems to be some trouble brewing at NF. I don't think you can mess round with a lead on a delicate article like this. I have reverted once, while the depaulcize newby keeps plunking a very poor piece of sardonic vitriol back into para.1. I haven't reverted his revert. I would appreciate if some of the admins keep an eye on this, since we have in the past had a fairly broad agreement on all sides that quality material (not Plaut, who is a notorious controversialist writing for a dubious source) is the aim, and that editing at this stage should be consensual, and discussed beforehand on the talkpage. Thank you Nishidani (talk) 19:00, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I am indeed keeping an eye on the article (as always), and the moment further disruptive editing by depaulcize occurs he/she will be dealt with. Thanks for the headsup! Pinkville (talk) 23:35, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Chop chop chop!

This sez:

Shortest path from Sada Abe to Will It Blend?

Sada Abe April 27 Department store Blender Will It Blend?

4 clicks needed

Should The American Shopper be told? -- Hoary (talk) 01:45, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Muslimgauze image advice

Hello! (I've picked you as a suitable informant, based on your past edits at Muslimgauze, and remarks/character I agree with above ;)

I recently welcomed a brand new editor, User:I. Khider, whom appears to be an official biographer for Bryn Jones, and says he has "access to A LOT of images" that might be useful/useable here. (I found his forthcoming book appears on amazon). He is looking for advice on how to deal with Images here, a realm I'm not at all familiar with. I was wondering if you might be interested in assisting him and educating us both at User talk:I. Khider#Muslimgauze, or, if you could point me towards someone else you'd recommend? Much thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 02:03, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Greetings Pinkville,

First, thank you for your offers of help as posted on the discussion page. There are two realms I need guidance on, suggestions of what sort of images would be prudents to include in the Muslimgauze Wikipedia entry. Out of a myriad of images, we just need a few to facilitate an encyclopedia entry. Could you suggest where in the entry would it be best to include images? At some point I also want to include sound--but out of 200 albums, it will be tough to figure out which minute long sound bite to use! Currently the entry has 'Starter Status'. I am gunning for "Feature Article" and know I have a long way to go. Any advice to get me on the path to that coveted status? Thank you in advance. I. Khider (talk) 20:14, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Get stuck in mate

Mark Miremont, Justin Grant . . . en:WP is bristling with major, major talents meriting your editorial services. -- Hoary (talk) 16:31, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Paul Couvrette? -- Hoary (talk) 02:03, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Jesus, I thought I'd already done something to that article! (Karsh is boring, his Grasshopper must be spectacular!). Oh, how about that, it's the article's first anniversary (or one-year anniversary, as they say). We'll see... Pinkville (talk) 02:43, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

In other news . . . I'd been thinking of nominating one or two clueful people as administrator. These are people who've been beavering away writing articles and making informative contributions to substantive discussions about these, rather than people who spend a lot of time hanging around "admin-related work" (as I now realize I used to do, before some other admin plucked me from obscurity and landed me in RfA). But I fear that this rantlet may have queered my chances with a large percentage of the peanut gallery I mean !voters. -- Hoary (talk) 00:26, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I noticed said rantlet... I'd be happy to help gee up some worthies to the exalted ranks of the seraphim [did I mix enough metaphors?]. Pinkville (talk) 02:28, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

This young chap seems interested. -- Hoary (talk) 16:31, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Pinkville, perhaps

Morning, Pink. I'm sorry to note that KP Botany seems to have vanished again. I don't know what happened, but his recent edit summaries include what's now at the end of this, on a subject I thought you might know about. -- Hoary (talk) 23:13, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Labor / Worker's Rights project

I recently drafted a proposal for a Worker's Rights & Labor Issues WikiProject ... I thought you might be interested, since you are working on the Anarchism project ...

Cheers! Jrtayloriv (talk) 05:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Infoboxes again

They're being added. Hoary (talk) 02:35, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Richard Green, Australian photographer

No mention on WP. This is a pity. Do you have any leads? It's a rather different genre from many of your interests, though. User_talk:Jenafalt#Australian_photographers. Tony (talk) 10:24, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do! Pinkville (talk) 11:19, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Green schmeen: exhale as deeply as you can, and inhale this. -- Hoary (talk) 00:42, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Wow. That's a superb example of... what it is. In fact, I'm drowning in it. Too bad you decided to prune it a bit... Pinkville (talk) 13:18, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Nonsense

I came here to look at someone who calls my nice sentences nonsense and find you are interested in 19th century photography. Why then are there no articles on the Pueblo and Hopi photographers like Adam Vroman or Kate Cory or Ben Wittick or thousands others? At the moment I have only very louse dictionaries right here, so cannot really do much about it myself.--Radh (talk) 14:01, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, it was a very nicely formed sentence that didn't make much sense. :~)

The problem for WP articles on 19th century photography is that there are so few editors interested in writing them. I've not been very active for 6 months or more, and my 19th c. photographic expertise centres on Japan, China and SE Asia. The most dedicated editor on (non-gadget) photographic subjects is Hoary. He might have something to add on the subject; you'll have to ask him. However, I am indeed interested in the subjects you raise and I do have some pertinent resources at my disposal... I'll see what I can do. Pinkville (talk) 02:31, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, I will also look around, but I am cut off from useful libraries right now and the internet is often next to useless for these people. There is aWikip article on Jo Mora (Hopi. 1904- 06) and a stump on Hillers (on the german Wikip).--Radh (talk) 03:29, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Just saw your reply on Chomsky/discussion: Self-hating jew was, I believe, used and overused around 1900 (Weininger debate?) and I must say it is nice to hit over the head with and has been used mainly for this reason, but not much else. Apart from Chomsky, as I get old, I find the very vocal and mainly intellectual part of the radical left wing in Germany that calls itself antideutsch very distasteful for this reason alone, correct as they may be in part. Blind anti-nationalism is as useless as the real thing, it is not the criticism that is necessarily wrong, it is the attitude.--Radh (talk) 03:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

This may need a short expansion, I am not a nationalist, but I know a bit about the life my grandfather (soldier in WW1, ruin in the 20s, early death partly through leaking gasses at his work) and my father (WW2) had to live, so know Germany today is simply not neonazi and evil to the core.--Radh (talk) 03:53, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Just read your reply more carefully and there is really nothing fundamental in your attitude I could not share (with some reservations, of course). I am much more pessimistic about the chances of Israel to survive arab friendship (I know that the jews were treated much worse in Europe even before Hitler than in many arab countries most of the time). I also think my (rational or irrational) dislike of Chomsky, as well as your (rational or irrational) liking him, starts to get in the way of useful debate.--Radh (talk) 12:58, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

You press the button, we do the rest

Yo Pink, care to look at this? (I'm going to bed.) -- Hoary (talk) 16:52, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi again

Sorry for the delayed answer, but I've been inactive for a very long time. I'll see you soon. All the best Io (talk) 18:05, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Hiroh Kikai

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have found some concerns with the referencing which you can see at Talk:Hiroh Kikai/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 19:03, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

-- although this had effortlessly passed the same process. -- Hoary (talk) 01:33, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I don't believe I managed to keep the irritation out of my response to this Kikai kaka... Then again, I didn't try too hard. Pinkville (talk) 01:40, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Our man Jez made at least one very good point: that a book by X isn't a RS for a claim that X has achieved this or that. I fixed that and the article's a lot better for it; it may well have benefited in other ways too. So I approve of these "sweeps" when they're done intelligently, as that one was. Meanwhile, elsewhere.... Hoary (talk) 03:12, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Your library

-- invites you. -- Hoary (talk) 23:09, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

The Goodness of Articles on photographers

Duh.

I haven't read the rest of this "Good" article. Frankly, I don't want to. --

Howard Zinn

Please discuss adding the video on Talk:Howard Zinn. Thank you. Wyatt Riot (talk) 18:37, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I thought i had discussed this... but I've added a further comment anyway. Pinkville (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Place Ville-Marie

Hi there,

I see on your user page that you live in Montreal. I am going to assume that you have heard of Place Ville-Marie in asking you this question. The reports of the number of floors in Place Ville-Marie vary from 43 to 46. Do you, with your Montreal expertise, know the actual number of floors in this structure, or could you possibly visit this building to find out? Thanks,

-Stuck in Edmonton 117Avenue (talk) 22:52, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Funny. :~) As a matter of fact, I work at a museum that stores the architectural drawings for Place Ville-Marie, so I can certainly check out this fact for you. I recall that PVM went through some major changes before and during construction - I don't remember if these included changes in the number of floors, but if so, this might account for the discrepancy. I let you know my findings as soon as I can. Pinkville (talk) 00:43, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Other editors are saying that it went from 44 to 47 floors in the 1960s. 117Avenue (talk) 01:38, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Chomsky

My deletion of the philosophy of language template was accidental, so you were correct in restoring it. Chomsky is however a Trotskyist, and not a 9/11 conspiracy theorist at all. Regards. Sir Richardson (talk) 19:08, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

But he is in no way a Trotskyist... He is an anarchist, is a critic of Bolshevism and all phases of the Soviet Union, and has repeatedly reviled Trotsky's actions and apologetics for Soviet crimes. I regret that I don't follow your reference to 9/11 conspiracy theories. Pinkville (talk) 23:26, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes, now I see you (properly) removed the 9/11 conspiracy theorists category. Folks should actually read the guy before they enroll him in the dis/favoured club of the day. Pinkville (talk) 23:31, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

A solid New Year to you, Pinkville! Get a grip, stick it to The Man, and, um, if you have some free time then consider writing some more stuff about photography. (It'll soon be too cold to do much else, no?) -- Hoary (talk) 14:03, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Oi! Hurry up and add some Alltagskultur oder Hochkultur content or we shall return to taunt you a second time. -- Verband Bildender Künstler der DDR 03:01, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

reply

makes sense. FC Toronto (talk) 11:12, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Pinkville. You have new messages at Grim23's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Grim²³★ 06:52, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Photography in Denmark

Hello Pinkville. Thought I would drop you a line in view of your interest in the early history of photography and your keen involvement in Wikiproject History of Photography. I've been writing a number of articles in connection with Danish culture and have recently started this one on Danish photography. I would very much appreciate your assistance in helping to improve the article, either directly by your own edits or by providing suggestions on the article's talk page. If you think it is a candidate for DYK, please feel free to submit it.

Perhaps you can also let me know of any other active editors who might be interested in contributing. I'm afraid that up to now there has only been one other interested party as you will see from the edit history.

Once we've brought the article up to at least B quality, I hope to back it up with a number of biographies on Danish photographers and perhaps a few more on museums, galleries, exhibitions, etc. Ipigott (talk) 09:41, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

You're invited!

Hello, Pinkville,

You are invited meet with your fellow Wikipedians by attending the Montréal meetup scheduled on Sunday, June 27, 2010; between 1500 - 1700 to be held at the Comité Social Centre Sud (CSCS), located at 1710 Beaudry, in Montréal. You can sign up at the meetup page.

The meetup is happening in concurrence with RoCoCo 2010, a free, bilingual, weekend unconference including many people involved with Wikis both within the Wikipedia/Wikimedia Community and abroad. You do not need to attend the conference to sign up for the Wikimeetup, but you are certainly welcome! Bastique ^{☎ call me!}

(PS: Please share this with those you know who might not be on the delivery list, i.e. Users in Montreal/Quebec)

Delivered by SoxBot (talk) 00:49, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Felice Beato

I have nominated Felice Beato for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Jan 1922 (talk) 20:08, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Changes on Nigerian Civil War

Hallo there,

Thanks for your hard work on wikipedia.

I have noticed that you have reverted three changes recently made on the Nigerian Civil war.

Please join the discussion that has been opened on the article talk page to see whether these changes will acquire consensus or not. If no concerns will be made I guess I will revert them as they were to the last revision.

Yours faithfully.

Maurice Carbonaro (talk) 12:21, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I have nominated Felice Beato for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. GamerPro64 20:02, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

MSU Interview

Dear Pinkville,

My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the communityHERE, where it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.

So a few things about the interviews:

• Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
• Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
• All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
• All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
• The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.

Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your nameHERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.11.206.39 (talk) 03:50, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Vogel

Someone is calling for a source for some material you added here. Have you got one? Dicklyon (talk) 03:17, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

de/De

Ping! -- Hoary (talk) 09:10, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

You're invited: Art & Feminism Edit-a-thon

Art & Feminism Edit-a-Thon - You are invited!

File:Csaky madonna.jpg

Hi Pinkville! The first ever Art and Feminism Edit-a-thon will be held on Saturday, February 1, 2014 across the United States and Canada - including Montreal! Wikipedians of all experience levels are welcome to join! Any editors interested in the intersection of feminism and art are welcome. Experienced editors will be on hand to help new editors. Bring a friend and a laptop! Come one, come all! Learn more here! SarahStierch (talk) 07:28, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Request for comment

Hello there, a proposal regarding pre-adminship review has been raised at Village pump by Anna Frodesiak. Your comments here is very much appreciated. Many thanks. Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:46, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Woodburytype in 1862

Hi, I would like to ask you as founder of Woodburytype, if you have some explanation to my question on Commons? For example Metropolitan Museum connects Woodburytype and year cca 1863, it means one year before discovered. I prepared that file for ″Picture of the Week on Czech Wikipedia", where I used year cca 1862. It seems to me a little bit nonsense. Thank you very much.--Misbeliever (talk) 13:50, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Nomination of E. A. Sargent for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article E. A. Sargent is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/E. A. Sargent until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:03, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

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) 13:02, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thanks for setting up the posting on Pierre Rossier! Orossier (talk) 20:34, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Genre painting

Hello Pinkville,

I wanted to let you know that I just tagged Genre painting for deletion, because it seems to be copied from another source.

If you feel that the article shouldn't be deleted and want more time to rewrite it in your own words, you can contest this deletion, but please don't remove the speedy deletion tag from the top.

You can leave a note on my talk page if you have questions. Music1201 (talk) 01:31, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

Hello, Pinkville. 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. 17:49, 23 September 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 Pinkville.

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) 13:48, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Pinkville. 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)

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.

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13:36, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2017

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

Administrator changes

Amortias • Deckiller • BU Rob13

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

Guideline and policy news

• A recent RfC has redefined how articles on schools are evaluated at AfD. Specifically, secondary schools are not presumed to be notable simply because they exist.
• AfDs that receive little participation should now be closed like an expired proposed deletion, following a deletion process RfC.
• Defender, HakanIST, Matiia and Sjoerddebruin are our newest stewards, following the 2017 steward elections.
• The 2017 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Góngora, Krd, Lankiveil, Richwales and Vogone. They will serve for approximately 1 year.

Technical news

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – April 2017

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

Administrator changes

TheDJ

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

Guideline and policy news

• Following a discussion on the backlog of unpatrolled files, consensus was found to create a new user right for autopatrolling file uploads. Implementation progress can be tracked on Phabricator.
• The BLPPROD grandfather clause, which stated that unreferenced biographies of living persons were only eligible for proposed deletion if they were created after March 18, 2010, has been removed following an RfC.
• An RfC has closed with consensus to allow proposed deletion of files. The implementation process is ongoing.
• After an unsuccessful proposal to automatically grant IP block exemption, consensus was found to relax the criteria for granting the user right from needing it to wanting it.

Technical news

• After a recent RfC, moved pages will soon be featured in a queue similar to Special:NewPagesFeed and require patrolling. Moves by administrators, page movers, and autopatrolled editors will be automatically marked as patrolled.
• Cookie blocks have been deployed. This extends the current autoblock system by setting a cookie for each block, which will then autoblock the user if they switch accounts, even under a new IP.

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

Administrators' newsletter – May 2017

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

Administrator changes

Karanacs • Berean Hunter • GoldenRing • Dlohcierekim

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – June 2017

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

Administrator changes

Doug Bell • Dennis Brown • Clpo13 • ONUnicorn

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – July 2017

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

Administrator changes

Happyme22 • Dragons flight

Zad68

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – August 2017

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

Administrator changes

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

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:12, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Beato

Good to see your name popping up as an editor of the article on Beato ... but the edit summary for this -- ouch! You removed the unreferenced (and conceivably quite fictional) assertion (not by me!) that, quote, Scott O’Connor used a number of these images in his two books, The Silken East in 1904 and Mandalay and Other Cities of the Past in Burma in 1907, popularizing Beato’s work to an even larger extent, unquote. As even the newer book (OCLC 969983442) is well over a century old, I don't suppose that this is promotional ... unless perhaps there's a lot more money in the facsimile reprint business than I'd imagine. -- Hoary (talk) 03:34, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Ha ha! Should have looked a little more closely! In that case, I can imagine a number of more appropriate edit summaries. I'm not sure how effective these books were in "popularizing Beato’s work to an even larger extent" considering his virtual invisibility until very recently. Meanwhile... I hope you're well! Every now and then my head pops up out of the burrow. Pinkville (talk) 18:01, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Before it pops back down again, how about this article? (I have some sympathy for both sides of the argument over it.) -- Hoary (talk) 07:48, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Damn, didn't get there in time, but fortunately the result was just (I reckon). Pinkville (talk) 16:59, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2017

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

Administrator changes

Nakon • Scott

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – October 2017

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

Administrator changes

Boing! said Zebedee • Ansh666 • Ad Orientem

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, Pinkville. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

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

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Obituaries

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – July 2018

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

Administrator changes

Pbsouthwood • TheSandDoctor

Gogo Dodo

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

Bureaucrat changes

Andrevan • EVula

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – August 2018

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

Administrator changes

Sro23

KaisaL • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – September 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

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

Optimist on the run → Voice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018

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

Administrator changes

Justlettersandnumbers • L235

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

Interface administrator changes

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

Oversight changes

Guerillero • NativeForeigner • Snowolf • Xeno

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018

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

Administrator changes

Sir Sputnik

Kudpung • Liz • Lourdes

Everyking • Jackmcbarn

Interface administrator changes

Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes

AGK • Ivanvector • Stwalkerster • TonyBallioni

Oversight changes

Amorymeltzer • Oshwah • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Keilana

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

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

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

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

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

Administrator changes

Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz

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

Interface administrator changes

Deryck Chan

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

Obituaries

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019

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

Administrator changes

Galobtter

Orangemike

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

Bureaucrat changes

Addshore

CheckUser changes

Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

AGK • Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Guideline and policy news

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

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

• The Wikimedia Foundation now requires all interface administrators to enable two-factor authentication.
• Members of the Bot Approvals Group (BAG) are now subject to an activity requirement. After two years without any bot-related activity (e.g. operating a bot, posting on a bot-related talk page), BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice.

Technical news

• Starting on December 13, the Wikimedia Foundation security team implemented new password policy and requirements. Privileged accounts (administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, oversighters, interface administrators, bots, edit filter managers/helpers, template editors, et al.) must have a password at least 10 characters in length. All accounts must have a password:

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

User accounts not meeting these requirements will be prompted to update their password accordingly. More information is available on MediaWiki.org.

• Blocked administrators may now block the administrator that blocked them. This was done to mitigate the possibility that a compromised administrator account would block all other active administrators, complementing the removal of the ability to unblock oneself outside of self-imposed blocks. A request for comment is currently in progress to determine whether the blocking policy should be updated regarding this change.
• {{Copyvio-revdel}} now has a link to open the history with the RevDel checkboxes already filled in.

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

• Accounts continue to be compromised on a regular basis. Evidence shows this is entirely due to the accounts having the same password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately.
• Around 22% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 20% in June 2018. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless of whether you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.

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

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

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

Administrator changes

Enterprisey • JJMC89

BorgQueen

Harro5 • Jenks24 • Graft • R. Baley

Interface administrator changes

Enterprisey

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is currently open to reevaluate the activity requirements for administrators.
• Administrators who are blocked have the technical ability to block the administrator who blocked their own account. A recent request for comment has amended the blocking policy to clarify that this ability should only be used in exceptional circumstances, such as account compromises, where there is a clear and immediate need.
• A request for comment closed with a consensus in favor of deprecating The Sun as a permissible reference, and creating an edit filter to warn users who attempt to cite it.

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2019 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2019, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2019, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• A new IRC bot is available that allows you to subscribe to notifications when specific filters are tripped. This requires that your IRC handle be identified.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:15, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2019

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

Administrator changes

Evad37

There'sNoTime

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

Interface administrator changes

Evad37 • Galobtter

Ritchie333

CheckUser changes

There'sNoTime

Keegan • Ks0stm

Oversight changes

There'sNoTime

Ks0stm • Sphilbrick

Guideline and policy news

• The RfC on administrator activity requirements failed to reach consensus for any proposal.
• Following discussions at the Bureaucrats' noticeboard and Wikipedia talk:Administrators, an earlier change to the restoration of adminship policy was reverted. If requested, bureaucrats will not restore administrator permissions removed due to inactivity if there have been five years without a logged administrator action; this "five year rule" does not apply to permissions removed voluntarily.

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee announced two new OTRS queues. Both are meant solely for cases involving private information; other cases will continue to be handled at the appropriate venues (e.g., WP:COIN or WP:SPI).
  • paid-en-wpwikipedia.org has been set up to receive private evidence related to abusive paid editing.
  • checkuser-en-wpwikipedia.org has been set up to receive private requests for CheckUser. For instance, requests for IP block exemption for anonymous proxy editing should now be sent to this address instead of the functionaries-en list.

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – April 2019

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

Administrator changes

Reaper Eternal • ThaddeusB

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

Mentifisto → Lofty abyss

Interface administrator changes

Mr. Stradivarius

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad

Kingturtle

Technical news

• In Special:Preferences under "Appearance" → "Advanced options", there is now an option to show a confirmation prompt when clicking on a rollback link.
• The Wikimedia Foundation's Community health initiative plans to design and build a new user reporting system to make it easier for people experiencing harassment and other forms of abuse to provide accurate information to the appropriate channel for action to be taken. Please see meta:Community health initiative/User reporting system consultation 2019 to provide your input on this idea.

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

• Two more administrator accounts were compromised. Evidence has shown that these attacks, like previous incidents, were due to reusing a password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. All admins are strongly encouraged to enable two-factor authentication, please consider doing so. Please always practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.
• As a reminder, according to WP:NOQUORUM, administrators looking to close or relist an AfD should evaluate a nomination that has received few or no comments as if it were a proposed deletion (PROD) prior to determining whether it should be relisted.

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

ArbCom 2019 special circular

Administrators must secure their accounts The Arbitration Committee may require a new RfA if your account is compromised. Use strong, unique passwords for your Wikipedia account and associated email Change your password now if your Wikipedia account password or email password is reused on another website, exposed, or weak Enable two-factor authentication now for improved security

View additional information

Why have I received this message? All administrators are receiving it. What prompted you to send this message? Recently, several Wikipedia admin accounts were compromised. The admin accounts were desysopped on an emergency basis. In the past, the Committee often resysopped admin accounts as a matter of course once the admin was back in control of their account. The committee has updated its guidelines. Admins may now be required to undergo a fresh Request for Adminship (RfA) after losing control of their account. What do I need to do? Only to follow the instructions in this message. Check that your password is unique (not reused across sites). Check that your password is strong (not simple or guessable). Enable Two-factor authentication (2FA), if you can, to create a second hurdle for attackers. How can I find out more about two-factor authentication (2FA)? You can find out more about 2FA at m:2FA.

This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:27, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)

ArbCom would like to apologise and correct our previous mass message in light of the response from the community.

Since November 2018, six administrator accounts have been compromised and temporarily desysopped. In an effort to help improve account security, our intention was to remind administrators of existing policies on account security — that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." We have updated our procedures to ensure that we enforce these policies more strictly in the future. The policies themselves have not changed. In particular, two-factor authentication remains an optional means of adding extra security to your account. The choice not to enable 2FA will not be considered when deciding to restore sysop privileges to administrator accounts that were compromised.

We are sorry for the wording of our previous message, which did not accurately convey this, and deeply regret the tone in which it was delivered.

For the Arbitration Committee, -Cameron11598 21:04, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2019

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

Administrator changes

HickoryOughtShirt?4 • RexxS

Necrothesp

Bratsche • Kyle Barbour • Kzollman • Madman

Interface administrator changes

Pharos

Bureaucrat changes

Primefac

CheckUser changes

Reaper Eternal

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

• A request for comment is currently open to amend the community sanctions procedure to exclude non XfD or CSD deletions.
• A proposal to remove pre-2009 indefinite IP blocks is currently open for discussion.

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

Administrators' newsletter – June 2019

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

Administrator changes

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

CheckUser changes

Ivanvector

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

• The previously discussed unblocking of IP addresses indefinitely-blocked before 2009 was approved and has taken place.
• The 2019 talk pages consultation produced a report for Phase 1 and has entered Phase 2.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:48, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2019

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

Administrator changes

28bytes • Ad Orientem • Ansh666 • Beeblebrox • Boing! said Zebedee • BU Rob13 • Dennis Brown • Deor • DoRD • Floquenbeam¹ • Flyguy649 • Fram² • Gadfium • GB fan • Jonathunder • Kusma • Lectonar • Moink • MSGJ • Nick • Od Mishehu • Rama • Spartaz • Syrthiss • TheDJ • WJBscribe

¹Floquenbeam's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.

²Fram's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.

Bureaucrat changes

28bytes • WJBscribe • Wizardman

Interface administrator changes

MSGJ • TheDJ

CheckUser changes

Beeblebrox • BU Rob13 • DoRD

Oversight changes

Beeblebrox • BU Rob13 • DoRD • GB fan

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment seeking to alleviate pressures on the request an account (ACC) process proposes either raising the account creation limit for extended confirmed editors or granting the account creator permission on request to new ACC tool users.

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

• The scope of CSD criterion G8 has been tightened such that the only redirects that it now applies to are those which target non-existent pages.
• The scope of CSD criterion G14 has been expanded slightly to include orphan "Foo (disambiguation)" redirects that target pages that are not disambiguation pages or pages that perform a disambiguation-like function (such as set index articles or lists).
• A request for comment seeks to determine whether Wikipedia:Office actions should be a policy page or an information page.

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

• In February 2019, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) changed its office actions policy to include temporary and project-specific bans. The WMF exercised this new ability for the first time on the English Wikipedia on 10 June 2019 to temporarily ban and desysop Fram. This action has resulted in significant community discussion, a request for arbitration (permalink), and, either directly or indirectly, the resignations of numerous administrators and functionaries. The WMF Board of Trustees is aware of the situation, and discussions continue on a statement and a way forward. The Arbitration Committee has sent an open letter to the WMF Board.

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

Administrators' newsletter – August 2019

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

Administrator changes

Johnuniq • Kosack • Valereee

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

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

Interface administrator changes

Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes

RickinBaltimore

Oversight changes

Beeblebrox

RickinBaltimore

Guideline and policy news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – September 2019

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

Administrator changes

Bradv • Chetsford • Izno

Floquenbeam • Lectonar

DESiegel • Jake Wartenberg • Rjanag • Topbanana

CheckUser changes

Callanecc • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2019 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.

Miscellaneous

• A global request for comment is in progress regarding whether a user group should be created that could modify edit filters across all public Wikimedia wikis.

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

Administrators' newsletter – October 2019

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

Administrator changes

Barkeep49

Beetstra • KillerChihuahua • Kusma

Arcadian • Extraordinary Machine • Xeno

JamesBWatson → JBW

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

CheckUser changes

Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Oversight changes

Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – November 2019

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

Administrator changes

GermanJoe • Girth Summit • Kees08 • Nosebagbear

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

DeltaQuad • Fang Aili • Pakaran

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad • Pakaran

Interface administrator changes

MSGJ

CheckUser changes

L235 • Mz7 • SQL • ST47

Ivanvector

DeltaQuad

Oversight changes

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

DeltaQuad • DGG • Julia W

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC was closed with the consensus that the resysop criteria should be made stricter.

• The follow-up RfC to develop that change is now open at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2019 Resysop Criteria (2).

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

Arbitration

• Eligible editors may now nominate themselves as candidates for the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections. The self-nomination period will close November 12, with voting running from November 19 through December 2.

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

ArbCom 2019 election voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:04, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2019

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

Administrator changes

EvergreenFir • ToBeFree

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

CheckUser changes

Beeblebrox

Deskana

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

• Wikimedia projects can set a default block length for users via MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry. A new page, MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry-ip, allows the setting of a different default block length for IP editors. Neither is currently used. (T219126)

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 2 December 2018 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

Miscellaneous

• The global consultation on partial and temporary office actions that ended in October received a closing statement from staff concluding, among other things, that the WMF will no longer use partial or temporary Office Action bans... until and unless community consensus that they are of value or Board directive.

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

Administrators' newsletter – January 2020

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

Administrator changes

Dreamy Jazz • Newslinger • Rosguill

Deor • Spartaz • Xeno

Angusmclellan • clpo13 • Edgar181 • Matthewedwards • NCurse

CheckUser changes

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

Oversight changes

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

Someguy1221

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment asks whether partial blocks should be enabled on the English Wikipedia. If enabled, this functionality would allow administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces, rather than the entire site.
• A proposal asks whether admins who don't use their tools for a significant period of time (e.g. five years) should have the toolset procedurally removed.
• Following a successful RfC, a whitelist is now available for users whose redirects will be autopatrolled by a bot, removing them from the new pages patrol queue. Admins can add such users to Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist after a discussion following the guidelines at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist.

Arbitration

• The fourth case on Palestine-Israel articles was closed. The case consolidated all previous remedies under one heading, which should make them easier to understand, apply, and enforce. In particular, the distinction between "primary articles" and "related content" has been clarified, with the former being the entire set of articles whose topic relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted rather than reasonably construed.
• Following the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Bradv, Casliber, David Fuchs, DGG, KrakatoaKatie, Maxim, Newyorkbrad, SoWhy, Worm That Turned, Xeno.

Miscellaneous

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

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:06, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2020

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

Administrator changes

Ergo Sum • Nick Moyes • QEDK • Wugapodes

Dennis Brown

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

CheckUser changes

Opabinia regalis • Premeditated Chaos

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

• Twinkle now supports partial blocking. There is a small checkbox that toggles the "partial" status for both blocks and templating. There is currently one template: {{uw-pblock}}.
• When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title. [1]

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2020 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2020, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2020, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• The English Wikipedia has reached six million articles. Thank you everyone for your contributions!

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

Administrators' newsletter – March 2020

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

Administrator changes

Money emoji

Athaenara • DeltaQuad

Fishhead64 • Kudpung • Mikaey

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad

CheckUser changes

DeltaQuad

Oversight changes

DeltaQuad

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

• Following the 2020 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: BRPever, Krd, Martin Urbanec, MusikAnimal, Sakretsu, Sotiale, and Tks4Fish. There are a total of seven editors that have been appointed as stewards, the most since 2014.
• The 2020 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Ajraddatz and Uzoma Ozurumba; they will serve for one year.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:20, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2020

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

Administrator changes

Cabayi • Lee Vilenski

Boing! said Zebedee

Jonny-mt • MarkGallagher • PeaceNT

Money emoji → Moneytrees

Bureaucrat changes

SilkTork • WereSpielChequers

CheckUser changes

NativeForeigner

Oversight changes

Someguy1221

Daniel Case

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold a Arbcom RfC regarding on-wiki harassment. A draft RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC (Draft) and not open to comments from the community yet. Interested editors can comment on the RfC itself on its talk page.

Miscellaneous

• The WMF has begun a pilot report of the pages most visited through various social media platforms to help with anti-vandalism and anti-disinformation efforts. The report is updated daily and will be available through the end of May.

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

Administrators' newsletter – May 2020

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

Administrator changes

Gnangarra • Kaisershatner • Malcolmxl5

CheckUser changes

Callanecc

Oversight changes

HJ Mitchell

Guideline and policy news

• Discretionary sanctions have been authorized for all pages and edits related to COVID-19, to be logged at WP:GS/COVID19.
• Following a recent discussion on Meta-Wiki, the edit filter maintainer global group has been created.
• A request for comment has been proposed to create a new main page editor usergroup.
• A request for comment has been proposed to make the bureaucrat activity requirements more strict.

Technical news

• The Editing team has been working on the talk pages project. You can review the proposed design and share your thoughts on the talk page.
• Enterprisey created a script that will show a link to the proper Special:Undelete page when viewing a since-deleted revision, see User:Enterprisey/link-deleted-revs.

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – June 2020

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

Administrator changes

CaptainEek • Creffett • Cwmhiraeth

Anna Frodesiak • Buckshot06 • Ronhjones • SQL

CheckUser changes

SQL

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment asks whether the Unblock Ticket Request System (UTRS) should allowed any unblock request or just private appeals.
• The Wikimedia Foundation announced that they will develop a universal code of conduct for all WMF projects. There is an open local discussion regarding the same.

Arbitration

• A motion was passed to enact a 500/30 restriction on articles related to the history of Jews and antisemitism in Poland during World War II (1933–45), including the Holocaust in Poland. Article talk pages where disruption occurs may also be managed with the stated restriction.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:27, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2020

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

Administrator changes

Malcolmxl5

John • TheCoffee • Tim!

Creffett → GeneralNotability

DeltaQuad → AmandaNP

CheckUser changes

Bbb23

Interface administrator changes

TonyBallioni

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold an RfC regarding on-wiki harassment. The RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC and is open to comments from the community.
• The Medicine case was closed, with a remedy authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for all discussions about pharmaceutical drug prices and pricing and for edits adding, changing, or removing pharmaceutical drug prices or pricing from articles.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:25, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2020

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

Administrator changes

Red Phoenix

Euryalus • SQL

Jujutacular • Monty845 • Rettetast • Madchester

Oversight changes

GB fan

Keegan • Opabinia regalis • Premeditated Chaos

Guideline and policy news

• There is an open request for comment to decide whether to increase the minimum duration a sanction discussion has to remain open (currently 24 hours).
• Speedy deletion criterion T2 (template that misrepresents established policy) has been repealed following a request for comment.
• Speedy deletion criterion X2 (pages created by the content translation tool) has been repealed following a discussion.
• There is a proposal to restrict proposed deletion to confirmed users.

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

Administrators' newsletter – September 2020

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

Administrator changes

Eddie891

Angela • Jcw69 • Just Chilling • Philg88 • Viajero

CheckUser changes

SQL

Guideline and policy news

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

Arbitration

• A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2020 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
• An open request for comment asks whether active Arbitrators may serve on the Trust and Safety Case Review Committee or Ombudsman commission.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:56, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2020

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

Administrator changes

Ajpolino • LuK3

Jackmcbarn

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

There'sNoTime → TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• The 2020 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place from September 27th to October 7th.
• Following a request for comment, sitting Committee members may not serve on either the Ombuds Commission or the WMF Case Review Committee. The Arbitration Committee passed a motion implementing those results into their procedures.

Miscellaneous

• The Universal Code of Conduct draft is open for community review and comment until October 6th, 2020.
• Office actions may now be appealed to the Interim Trust & Safety Case Review Committee.

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

Administrators' newsletter – November 2020

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

Administrator changes

John M Wolfson

Bduke • Nilfanion • Philosopher • Rspeer • Yunshui

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

TonyBallioni

CheckUser changes

EdJohnston • Oshwah • Yamla

Yunshui

Oversight changes

Anarchyte

Yunshui

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

• Sysops will once again be able to view the deleted history of JS/CSS pages; this was restricted to interface administrators when that group was introduced.
• Twinkle's block module now includes the ability to note the specific case when applying a discretionary sanctions block and/or template.
• Sysops will be able to use Special:CreateLocalAccount to create a local account for a global user that is prevented from auto-creation locally (such as by a filter or range block). Administrators that are not sure if such a creation is appropriate should contact a checkuser.

Arbitration

• The 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections process has begun. Eligible editors will be able to nominate themselves as candidates from November 8 through November 17. The voting period will run from November 23 through December 6.
• The Anti-harassment RfC has concluded with a summary of the feedback provided.

Miscellaneous

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

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:52, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:14, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2020

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

Administrator changes

Andrwsc • Anetode • GoldenRing • JzG • LinguistAtLarge • Nehrams2020

Interface administrator changes

Izno

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

• Voting for proposals in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey, which determines what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year, will take place from 8 December through 21 December. In particular, there are sections regarding administrators and anti-harassment.

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 7 December 2020 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

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

Administrators' newsletter – January 2021

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

Administrator changes

Hammersoft

Andres • Brion VIBBER • Rkitko • Thatcher

CheckUser changes

Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek • Primefac

Oversight changes

Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek

Joe Roe

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• By motion, standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarily authorized for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes). The effectiveness of the discretionary sanctions can be evaluated on the request by any editor after March 1, 2021 (or sooner if for a good reason).
• Following the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, BDD, Bradv, CaptainEek, L235, Maxim, Primefac.

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

Administrators' newsletter – February 2021

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

Administrator changes

Hog Farm

Mattflaschen • Nandesuka • Savidan • Wangi

CheckUser changes

Berean Hunter • Xeno

Oversight changes

Someguy1221 • Xeno

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2021 Steward elections will begin on 05 February 2021, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2021, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• Wikipedia has now been around for 20 years, and recently saw its billionth edit!

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

Administrators' newsletter – March 2021

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

Administrator changes

TJMSmith

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

Interface administrator changes

AmandaNP

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is open that proposes a process for the community to revoke administrative permissions. This follows a 2019 RfC in favor of creating one such a policy.
• A request for comment is in progress to remove F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a, which covers immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
• A request for comment seeks to grant page movers the delete-redirect userright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target. The full proposal is at Wikipedia:Page mover/delete-redirect.
• A request for comment asks if sysops may place the General sanctions/Coronavirus disease 2019 editnotice template on pages in scope that do not have page-specific sanctions?
• There is a discussion in progress concerning automatic protection of each day's featured article with Pending Changes protection.

Technical news

• When blocking an IPv6 address with Twinkle, there is now a checkbox with the option to just block the /64 range. When doing so, you can still leave a block template on the initial, single IP address' talkpage.
• When protecting a page with Twinkle, you can now add a note if doing so was in response to a request at WP:RfPP, and even link to the specific revision.
• There have been a number of reported issues with Pending Changes. Most problems setting protection appear to have been resolved (phab:T273317) but other issues with autoaccepting edits persist (phab:T275322).

Arbitration

• By motion, the discretionary sanctions originally authorized under the GamerGate case are now authorized under a new Gender and sexuality case, with sanctions authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, any gender-related dispute or controversy and associated people. Sanctions issued under GamerGate are now considered Gender and sexuality sanctions.
• The Kurds and Kurdistan case was closed, authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for the topics of Kurds and Kurdistan, broadly construed.

Miscellaneous

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

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:14, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2021

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

Administrator changes

Alexandria • Happyme22 • RexxS

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a has been deprecated; it covered immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
• Following a request for comment, page movers were granted the delete-redirect userright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target.

Technical news

• When you move a page that many editors have on their watchlist the history can be split and it might also not be possible to move it again for a while. This is because of a job queue problem. (T278350)
• Code to support some very old web browsers is being removed. This could cause issues in those browsers. (T277803)

Arbitration

• A community consultation on the Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions procedure is open until April 25.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:20, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2021

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

Administrator changes

Enchanter • Carlossuarez46

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, consensus was found that third party appeals are allowed but discouraged.
• The 2021 Desysop Policy RfC was closed with no consensus. Consensus was found in a previous RfC for a community based desysop procedure, though the procedure proposed in the 2021 RfC did not gain consensus.

Technical news

• The user group oversight will be renamed to suppress. This is for technical reasons. You can comment at T112147 if you have objections.

Arbitration

• The community consultation on the Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions procedure was closed, and an initial draft based on feedback from the now closed consultation is expected to be released in early June to early July for community review.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:51, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

FAR for Pierre Rossier

I have nominated Pierre Rossier for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 22:23, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2021

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

Administrator changes

Ashleyyoursmile • Less Unless

Husond • MattWade • MJCdetroit • Carioca • Vague Rant • Kingboyk • Thunderboltz • Gwen Gale • AniMate • SlimVirgin (deceased)

Guideline and policy news

• Consensus was reached to deprecate Wikipedia:Editor assistance.
• Following a Request for Comment the Book namespace was deprecated.

Technical news

• Wikimedia previously used the IRC network Freenode. However, due to changes over who controlled the network with reports of a forceful takeover by several ex-staff members, the Wikimedia IRC Group Contacts decided to move to the new Libera Chat network. It has been reported that Wikimedia related channels on Freenode have been forcibly taken over if they pointed members to Libera. There is a migration guide and Wikimedia discussions about this.

Arbitration

• After a Clarification request, the Arbitration Committee modified Remedy 5 of the Antisemitism in Poland case. This means sourcing expectations are a discretionary sanction instead of being present on all articles. It also details using the talk page or the Reliable Sources Noticeboard to discuss disputed sources.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:46, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2021

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

Administrator changes

Trialpears

AGK • Eliz81 • Mulad • ThaddeusB • Vianello • Who

Lacrimosus → Ikuzaf

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

CheckUser changes

AGK • DGG

Oversighter changes

AGK

Guideline and policy news

• Consensus has been reached to delete all books in the book namespace. There was rough consensus that the deleted books should still be available on request at WP:REFUND even after the namespace is removed.
• An RfC is open to discuss the next steps following a trial which automatically applied pending changes to TFAs.

Technical news

• IP addresses of unregistered users are to be hidden from everyone. There is a rough draft of how IP addresses may be shown to users who need to see them. This currently details allowing administrators, checkusers, stewards and those with a new usergroup to view the full IP address of unregistered users. Editors with at least 500 edits and an account over a year old will be able to see all but the end of the IP address in the proposal. The ability to see the IP addresses hidden behind the mask would be dependent on agreeing to not share the parts of the IP address they can see with those who do not have access to the same information. Accessing part of or the full IP address of a masked editor would also be logged. Comments on the draft are being welcomed at the talk page.

Arbitration

• The community authorised COVID-19 general sanctions have been superseded by the COVID-19 discretionary sanctions following a motion at a case request. Alerts given and sanctions placed under the community authorised general sanctions are now considered alerts for and sanctions under the new discretionary sanctions.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:27, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2021

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

Administrator changes

BusterD

Kees08 • Nickshanks • Protonk • Schissel • Ultraexactzz • Wknight94

CheckUser changes

TheresNoTime

Oversighter changes

TheresNoTime

ST47

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open to add a delay of one week from nomination to deletion for G13 speedy deletions.

Technical news

• Last week all wikis were very slow or not accessible for 30 minutes. This was due to server lag caused by regenerating dynamic lists on the Russian Wikinews after a large bulk import. (T287380)

Arbitration

• Following an amendment request, the committee has clarified that the Talk page exception to the 500/30 rule in remedy 5 of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 case does not apply to requested move discussions.

Miscellaneous

• You can vote for candidates in the 2021 Board of Trustees elections from 4 August to 17 August. Four community elected seats are up for election.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:18, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Some clues about the birth place of Kahn-Tineta Horn and else

Thanks for initiating the page on the extraordinary lady, the mother of Kaniehtiio Horn, Pinkville. In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahn-Tineta_Horn, I'd like to raise my doubt on the birth place, New York City. Meanwhile, I noticed that another source, now cited as ref. #18, indicated that Ms Horn's birthplace is Caughnawaga, making better sense to me.

Among the material that can be googled, one webpage revealed better context for inferring Ms Horn's birthplace:

1. Her father Assenaientor, aka Joe, like Caughnawaga men, went out of home to work as high-steel workers, as the Eastern Coast of North American facing its booming in construction around early 20th century. This became so prevalent that one neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York became a sort of downtown of Caughnawaga. But the reserve has remained home, and whenever there is no work, many of the Caughnawaga men in Brooklyn still return to their women and children.

2. Although roaming outside of Caughnawaga reserve since his age of 14 for two years, Joe returned to reserve and got married.

3. Ms Horn's early memory stated is the early memory of the reserve. Also, before she went to school was around the time while TV was about to enter the reserve, she didn't speak any of English before the school.

4. The first school she may go to is United Church school. And the school had a branch in the reserve during her childhood.

From while Ms Horn's Father got married to Ms Horn's preschool years, I'd like to conclude that she would stay in the reserve, and hence being born in the reserve, now known as Kahnawake, rather than New York City.

Here're some piece of information probably relevant to Ms Horn's page:

1. Ms Horn's portraits

2. Quite some of Ms Horn's children are highly esteemed

3. Ms Horn had stayed in New York City in her early life and maybe some of her younger siblings may be born outside of the reserve:

Her father became successful and bought a trailer. Thus, the family may go around places except for the reserve, so that she went to six different schools in a year. She spent her eleventh year at P.S. 6 in Brooklyn. In the summer of 1953, when she was eleven. Her father was killed in a steel accident in Vermont. The family returned to the reserve afterwards.

The webpage providing good details of Ms Horn's background also stated that New York City played a special role to her:

She entered the English-speaking high school at Eachine, a suburb of Montreal and had her college in Montreal. And on a few applications for part-time work, she put down an address in Brooklyn, New York, where she had once lived as a child. Kc2020 (talk) 16:27, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2021

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

Administrator changes

Jake Wartenberg

Emperor • Viridian Bovary

Ashleyyoursmile → Viridian Bovary

Guideline and policy news

• Feedback is requested on the Universal Code of Conduct enforcement draft by the Universal Code of Conduct Phase 2 drafting committee.
• A RfC is open on whether to allow administrators to use extended confirmed protection on high-risk templates.
• A discussion is open to decide when, if ever, should discord logs be eligible for removal when posted onwiki (including whether to oversight them)
• A RfC on the next steps after the trial of pending changes on TFAs has resulted in a 30 day trial of automatic semi protection for TFAs.

Technical news

• The Score extension has been re-enabled on public wikis. It has been updated, but has been placed in safe mode to address unresolved security issues. Further information on the security issues can be found on the mediawiki page.

Arbitration

• A request for comment is in progress to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules. Comments and new proposals are welcome.

Miscellaneous

• The 2021 RfA review is now open for comments.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:45, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2021

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

Administrator changes

Blablubbs

Alvestrand • Black Falcon • Deathphoenix • Dppowell • Mark Arsten • JGHowes (deceased)

Oversighter changes

Callanecc

Mkdw

Interface administrator changes

Galobtter

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, extended confirmed protection may be used preemptively on certain high-risk templates.
• Following a discussion at the Village Pump, there is consensus to treat discord logs the same as IRC logs. This means that discord logs will be oversighted if posted onwiki.

Technical news

• DiscussionTools has superseded Enterprisey's reply-link script. Editors may switch using the "Discussion tools" checkbox under Preferences → Beta features.

Arbitration

• A motion has standardised the 500/30 (extended confirmed) restrictions placed by the Arbitration Committee. The standardised restriction is now listed in the Arbitration Committee's procedures.
• Following the closure of the Iranian politics case, standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, post-1978 Iranian politics, broadly construed.
• The Arbitration Committee encourages uninvolved administrators to use the discretionary sanctions procedure in topic areas where it is authorised to facilitate consensus in RfCs. This includes, but is not limited to, enforcing sectioned comments, word/diff limits and moratoriums on a particular topic from being brought in an RfC for up to a year.

Miscellaneous

• Editors have approved expanding the trial of Growth Features from 2% of new accounts to 25%, and the share of newcomers getting mentorship from 2% to 5%. Experienced editors are invited to add themselves to the mentor list.
• The community consultation phase of the 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process is open for editors to provide comments and ask questions to candidates.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:04, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2021

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

Administrator changes

Clpo13

Brian0918 • JDoorjam • Karanacs • MrDarcy • Mindspillage

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

CheckUser changes

Dreamy Jazz • Ferret • GeneralNotability • Girth Summit • RoySmith

Oversight changes

Dreamy Jazz • LuK3

Guideline and policy news

• Phase 2 of the 2021 RfA review has commenced which will discuss potential solutions to address the 8 issues found in Phase 1. Proposed solutions that achieve consensus will be implemented and you may propose solutions till 07 November 2021.

Technical news

• Toolhub is a catalogue of tools which can be used on Wikimedia wikis. It is at https://toolhub.wikimedia.org/.

Arbitration

• GeneralNotability, Mz7 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections. Ivanvector and John M Wolfson are reserve commissioners.
• Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves to stand in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections from 07 November 2021 until 16 November 2021.

Miscellaneous

• The 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process has concluded with the appointment of five new CheckUsers and two new Oversighters.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:44, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

ArbCom 2021 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 6 December 2021. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2021 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:00, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2021

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

Administrator changes

A Train • Berean Hunter • Epbr123 • GermanJoe • Sanchom • Mysid

Technical news

• Unregistered editors using the mobile website are now able to receive notices to indicate they have talk page messages. The notice looks similar to what is already present on desktop, and will be displayed on when viewing any page except mainspace and when editing any page. (T284642)
• The limit on the number of emails a user can send per day has been made global instead of per-wiki to help prevent abuse. (T293866)

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections is open until 23:59, 06 December 2021 (UTC).
• The already authorized standard discretionary sanctions for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes), broadly construed, have been made permanent.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:25, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Administrators will no longer be autopatrolled

A recently closed Request for Comment (RFC) reached consensus to remove Autopatrolled from the administrator user group. You may, similarly as with Edit Filter Manager, choose to self-assign this permission to yourself. This will be implemented the week of December 13th, but if you wish to self-assign you may do so now. To find out when the change has gone live or if you have any questions please visit the Administrator's Noticeboard. 20:06, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2022

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

Administrator changes

Amalthea • Ihcoyc (deceased) • Kateshortforbob • Kirill Lokshin • Rifleman 82 • Ryan Norton • Wrp103

Interface administrator changes

Mr. Stradivarius

CheckUser changes

Cabayi • Donald Albury • Enterprisey • Izno • Wugapodes

Opabinia regalis

Casliber • David Fuchs • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy

Oversighter changes

Cabayi • Donald Albury • Enterprisey • Izno • Wugapodes

Opabinia regalis

Casliber • David Fuchs • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy

Guideline and policy news

• Following consensus at the 2021 RfA review, the autopatrolled user right has been removed from the administrators user group; admins can grant themselves the autopatrolled permission if they wish to remain autopatrolled.

• Additionally, consensus for proposal 6C of the 2021 RfA review has led to the creation of an administrative action review process. The purpose of this process will be to review individual administrator actions and individual actions taken by users holding advanced permissions.

Arbitration

• Following the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Cabayi, Donald Albury, Enterprisey, Izno, Opabinia regalis, Worm That Turned, Wugapodes.

Miscellaneous

• The functionaries email list (functionaries-enlists.wikimedia.org) will no longer accept incoming emails apart from those sent by list members and WMF staff. Private concerns, apart from those requiring oversight, should be directly sent to the Arbitration Committee.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:25, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

How we will see unregistered users

Hi!

You get this message because you are an admin on a Wikimedia wiki.

When someone edits a Wikimedia wiki without being logged in today, we show their IP address. As you may already know, we will not be able to do this in the future. This is a decision by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department, because norms and regulations for privacy online have changed.

Instead of the IP we will show a masked identity. You as an admin will still be able to access the IP. There will also be a new user right for those who need to see the full IPs of unregistered users to fight vandalism, harassment and spam without being admins. Patrollers will also see part of the IP even without this user right. We are also working on better tools to help.

If you have not seen it before, you can read more on Meta. If you want to make sure you don’t miss technical changes on the Wikimedia wikis, you can subscribe to the weekly technical newsletter.

We have two suggested ways this identity could work. We would appreciate your feedback on which way you think would work best for you and your wiki, now and in the future. You can let us know on the talk page. You can write in your language. The suggestions were posted in October and we will decide after 17 January.

Thank you. /Johan (WMF)

18:13, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2022).

Administrator changes

AustralianRupert • Cimon Avaro • Euryalus • Jehochman • Nunh-huh

28bytes

Bureaucrat changes

28bytes

Interface administrator changes

Evad37 • Galobtter

Ragesoss

Guideline and policy news

• The Universal Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines have been published for consideration. Voting to ratify this guideline is planned to take place 7 March to 21 March. Comments can be made on the talk page.

Technical news

• The user group oversight will be renamed suppress in around 3 weeks. This will not affect the name shown to users and is simply a change in the technical name of the user group. The change is being made for technical reasons. You can comment in Phabricator if you have objections.
• The Reply Tool feature, which is a part of Discussion Tools, will be opt-out for everyone logged in or logged out starting 7 February 2022. Editors wishing to comment on this can do so in the relevant Village Pump discussion.

Arbitration

• Community input is requested on several motions aimed at addressing discretionary sanctions that are no longer needed or overly broad.
• The Arbitration Committee has published a generalised comment regarding successful appeals of sanctions that it can review (such as checkuser blocks).
• A motion related to the Antisemitism in Poland case was passed following a declined case request.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2022 Steward elections will begin on 07 February 2022, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2022, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• Voting in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey is open until 11 February 2022.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:02, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2022).

Administrator changes

Modussiccandi

BOZ • Brookie (deceased) • Jackmcbarn • Jamesday • Jonathunder • Master of Puppets • Saravask

CheckUser changes

Callanecc

Oversighter changes

Callanecc

Guideline and policy news

• A RfC is open to change the wording of revision deletion criterion 1 to remove the sentence relating to non-infringing contributions.
• A RfC is open to discuss prohibiting draftification of articles over 90 days old.

Technical news

• The deployment of the reply tool as an opt-out feature, as announced in last month's newsletter, has been delayed to 7 March. Feedback and comments are being welcomed at Wikipedia talk:Talk pages project. (T296645)
• Special:Nuke will now allow the selection of standard deletion reasons to be used when mass-deleting pages. This was a Community Wishlist Survey request from 2022. (T25020)
• The ability to undelete the talk page when undeleting a page using Special:Undelete or the API will be added soon. This change was requested in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey. (T295389)

Arbitration

• Several unused discretionary sanctions and article probation remedies have been rescinded. This follows the community feedback from the 2021 Discretionary Sanctions review.

Miscellaneous

• The 2022 appointees for the Ombuds commission are Érico, Faendalimas, Galahad, Infinite0694, Mykola7, Olugold, Udehb and Zabe as regular members and Ameisenigel and JJMC89 as advisory members.
• Following the 2022 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AntiCompositeNumber, BRPever, Hasley, TheresNoTime, and Vermont.
• The 2022 Community Wishlist Survey results have been published alongside the ranking of prioritized proposals.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:46, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2022).

Administrator changes

Firefly • Sdrqaz

Ad Orientem

Geschichte • Ryan Postlethwaite • Sabine's Sunbird • Wassupwestcoast

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open proposing a change to the minimum activity requirements for administrators.

Technical news

• Access to Special:RevisionDelete has been expanded to include users who have the deletelogentry and deletedhistory rights. This means that those in the Researcher user group and Checkusers who are not administrators can now access Special:RevisionDelete. The users able to view the special page after this change are the 3 users in the Researcher group, as there are currently no checkusers who are not already administrators. (T301928)
• When viewing deleted revisions or diffs on Special:Undelete a back link to the undelete page for the associated page is now present. (T284114)

Arbitration

• Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures § Opening of proceedings has been updated to reflect current practice following a motion.
• A arbitration case regarding Skepticism and coordinated editing has been closed.
• A arbitration case regarding WikiProject Tropical Cyclones has been opened.

Miscellaneous

• Voting for the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines has closed, and the results were that 56.98% of voters supported the guidelines. The results of this vote mean the Wikimedia Foundation Board will now review the guidelines.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:13, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

New administrator activity requirement

The administrator policy has been updated with new activity requirements following a successful Request for Comment.

Beginning January 1, 2023, administrators who meet one or both of the following criteria may be desysopped for inactivity if they have:

1. Made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least a 12-month period OR
2. Made fewer than 100 edits over a 60-month period

Administrators at risk for being desysopped under these criteria will continue to be notified ahead of time. Thank you for your continued work.

22:53, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2022).

Administrator changes

Colin M

David.Monniaux • Fribbler • Grue • Kpjas • West.andrew.g

CheckUser changes

Ks0stm

Oversighter changes

Ks0stm

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, a change has been made to the administrators inactivity policy. Under the new policy, if an administrator has not made at least 100 edits over a period of 5 years they may be desysopped for inactivity.
• Following a discussion on the bureaucrat's noticeboard, a change has been made to the bureaucrats inactivity policy.

Technical news

• The ability to undelete the associated talk page when undeleting a page has been added. This was the 11th wish of the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey.
• A public status system for WMF wikis has been created. It is located at https://www.wikimediastatus.net/ and is hosted separately to WMF wikis so in the case of an outage it will remain viewable.

Arbitration

• Remedy 2 of the St Christopher case has been rescinded following a motion. The remedy previously authorised administrators to place a ban on single-purpose accounts who were disruptively editing on the article St Christopher Iba Mar Diop College of Medicine or related pages from those pages.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:34, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2022).

Administrator changes

Tamzin

Barek • Darkwind • Geometry guy • ProcseeBot • RoyBoy • Sean Whitton • Valereee • Visorstuff • WAvegetarian

Sn0wflake → VersedFenrir

CheckUser changes

Ivanvector

Guideline and policy news

• Several areas of improvement collated from community member votes have been identified in the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines. The areas of improvement have been sent back for review and you are invited to provide input on these areas.

Technical news

• Administrators using the mobile web interface can now access Special:Block directly from user pages. (T307341)
• The IP Info feature has been deployed to all wikis as a Beta Feature. Any autoconfirmed user may enable the feature using the "IP info" checkbox under Preferences → Beta features. Autoconfirmed users will be able to access basic information about an IP address that includes the country and connection method. Those with advanced privileges (admin, bureaucrat, checkuser) will have access to extra information that includes the Internet Service Provider and more specific location.

Arbitration

• Remedy 2 of the Rachel Marsden case has been rescinded following a motion. The remedy previously authorised administrators to delete or reduce to a stub, together with their talk pages, articles related to Rachel Marsden when they violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy.
• An arbitration case regarding WikiProject Tropical Cyclones has been closed.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:55, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Pinkville (talk) 20:49, 6 July 2022 (UTC)