User talk:Stifle/Archive 16

Philosothon

Stifle please note that the COI issue in relation to the Philosothon page has been dealt with during the review claim following the deletion of the article. The article was peer reviewed for a reputable journal and it was edited by university based academics that are specialist in Philosophy and Education. In terms of lack of notability it is not notable in the US but nor is Neighbours and AFL football both of which deserve a place in this encyclopaedia. Likewise this event is notable in an educational environment in Australasian and UK Schools, high school, middle schools and primary schools. It also has strong links with the university sector over the past 8 years. notability has also been established. So why delete?Sydney59 (talk) 16:00, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Johnny Terris

FYI, in case the ping doesn't work: WP:REFUND#Johnny Terris. JohnCD (talk) 22:04, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Is it okay for me to remove AfD tag on Sara Bronin?

Wondering.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 09:13, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

• I've removed it, should have done so whilst closing the AFD but my script failed. Stifle (talk) 09:26, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 09:46, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Asking Your Support

Hi, good morning. I noticed that you are very active on the State of New York University page. I wanted to let you know that the page of one of the trustees Joseph Belluck has been nominated for deletion. I would really appreciate it if you could support the page so that it is not deleted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Joseph_Warren_Belluck

Thank you very much Nwerner1 (talk) 13:41, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vysyaraju Kasi Viswanatham Raju

Sorry to bother you, but your closure does not correctly assess community consensus here:

• Nominator says "I'm sure any sources may be non-English and offline" not true, as shown below, a question of fact
• Necrothesp votes "definite keep", citing WP:NPOL
• I voted "keep" citing sources, and NPOL
• Cutest Penguin voted "delete" sayimg that the subject would be notable if true, but says it is a hoax, "Hoax" is not true, a question of fact, so the vote reverts to "notable"
• Fuebaey changed his vote to "keep", citing my sources and NPOL
• Nyttend voted "Delete" "per Fuebaey", since Fuebaey changed his vote, this reverts to "keep", for the "Hoax' see Cutest Penguin
• Sulabhvarshney makes a Comment which is shown to be irrelevant, since the (incomplete) list in question begins only in 1951, and the subject was a member before that

The result seems to be a clear "keep", since there remains not a single argument for deletion. I will add the sources and the info to the article as soon as I come to it. Kraxler (talk) 14:54, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

As noted in my talk page header and FAQ, I consider all my deletion decisions carefully before closing and do not change them based on talk page requests. In any event, no consensus and keep are functionally equivalent. Stifle (talk) 15:00, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I didn't request to change it. Read my message, and think about it. Kraxler (talk) 15:05, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I thought about it before I closed the discussion; you're welcome to list at Wikipedia:Deletion review if you feel so strongly, but if you do not want the closure changed, then I am not sure what you are here for. Stifle (talk) 15:22, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Pointing out mistakes to prevent them happening again in the future. Constructive criticism. Improving quality. Kraxler (talk) 16:49, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I'd agree, if there was a mistake. There wasn't. Stifle (talk) 08:09, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

IFA Paris

Our Wiki page IFA Paris has been deleted? Why? We are one of the biggest fashion schools and all the other fashion schools can have a Wikipedia page, but we can't? We changed a lot and tried hard to make it sound satisfactory.. How can I reinstate it? Thanks in advance. Nikki38394724 (talk) 01:28, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

IFA Paris was deleted because the community consensus said it should be. No two articles are alike and each one stands or falls on its own merits, so I am unable to entertain suggestions that because another article exists, yours should also.

It won't be possible to reinstate the article unless further and better reliable sources can be provided to show that the school is properly notable. You'll also need to review the conflict of interest rules. Stifle (talk) 08:09, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back to us. We understand that just because another article exists, it isn't a valuable argument. But the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istituto_Marangoni for example is even more worthless than ours was and is also missing credible sources, yet nobody decides to delete it. No idea why our page became a victim. We would like to reinstate the article, making it simpler and narrowing it down to everything for which we have reliable sources. How do we get started with this? Can you give us a helping hand? Thanks.

Nikki38394724 (talk) 09:11, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

As I've already explained, we don't have a particular order for dealing with suboptimal articles.

Have you read WP:COI? Stifle (talk) 10:06, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I've read it. We would like to reinstate the article, making it simpler and narrowing it down to everything for which we have reliable sources. How do we get started with this? Can you give us a helping hand?

Nikki38394724 (talk) 10:23, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, you've said all that already. Repeating the same thing isn't going to help. As you've read the COI rules, you'll know that we don't encourage organizations to write about themselves. You would need to file a request at WP:REFUND for the article to be undeleted as a draft, and then when you feel that it is appropriate as an article, file a request at WP:DRV for permission to move it into the main article space. I will not be in a position to do any of these things for you. If you find yourself unable to file the necessary requests, try filing a request for help at WP:HD instead.

Please note that I am unable to provide further assistance on this matter. Stifle (talk) 10:27, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

guru

Hmmm. I thought I changed that to \.guru, which would only match the blog tld. Never mind. Guy (Help!) 11:00, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

• All that was there was \bguru\b which I think hits anything where guru is neither preceded nor followed by any alphanumeric character. I think you want \b\.guru\b but I am not confident enough in regexen to be sure I'm right. Stifle (talk) 10:50, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I thought I fixed it. Never mind, the spamming was low level and is probably manageable. Guy (Help!) 10:53, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Palestine-Israel articles 3 arbitration case opened

You may opt-out of future notification regarding this case at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 3/Notification list. You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 3. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 3/Evidence. Please add your evidence by September 8, 2015, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 3/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:43, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Philip Wright (bishop)

I would have thought that Philip Wright (bishop) was the correct name for the page, rather than Philip S. Wright. It is my under under standing that Wikipedia biographies are to be named according to the name the person usually or commonly goes by. When disambiguation is needed, in the case of bishops (bishop) is place behind their name. I understand middle names and middle initials are a deprecated form of disambiguation.

I do understand that the url [1] which you use to support your remaming of the article refers Philip S. Wright but it also refers to him as Philip Wright ("Bishop Philip Wright is married to Mrs. Carla Suite-Wright") Wayne Jayes (talk) 14:23, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

• The request came in from Roman Spinner and was marked uncontroversial, so I completed it on that basis. If you feel it is not uncontroversial I will revert it and you can discuss amongst yourselves. Stifle (talk) 14:34, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

My apologies for adding to your talk page one additional posting regarding this topic. All such future comments will be taken to Talk:Philip S. Wright#Article main title header Philip Wright (bishop) or Philip S. Wright —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 22:18, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Invitation to subscribe to the edit filter mailing list

Hi, as a user in the edit filter manager user group we wanted to let you know about the new wikipedia-en-editfilters mailing list. As part of our recent efforts to improve the use of edit filters on the English Wikipedia it has been established as a venue for internal discussion by edit filter managers regarding private filters (those only viewable by administrators and edit filter managers) and also as a means by which non-admins can ask questions about hidden filters that wouldn't be appropriate to discuss on-wiki. As an edit filter manager we encourage you to subscribe; the more users we have in the mailing list the more useful it will be to the community. If you subscribe we will send a short email to you through Wikipedia to confirm your subscription, but let us know if you'd prefer another method of verification. I'd also like to take the opportunity to invite you to contribute to the proposed guideline for edit filter use at WP:Edit filter/Draft and the associated talk page. Thank you! Sam Walton (talk) and MusikAnimal ^talk 18:22, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing my inappropriate non-admin closure

I apologize for the inconvenience caused, and will try to gain more experience before I return to closing AfD discussions. sovereign°sentinel (contribs) 09:36, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

• No problem. We all have to learn sometime :) Stifle (talk) 10:10, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Sandbox

Well, I copied and pasted it because I knew it would be deleted eventually. Thanks for deleting it without telling me so I couldn't put my work that took me about 12 hours total, or more. You made my whole day. EDIT: I apologize for the rude message. I understand. Not David Brown (talk) 10:45, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Political alignment - Página /12 newspaper in Argentina

Hi Stifle, good to hear about you, your role in Wikipedia

I am not going to add any drama to Wikipedia, because there's not. There is drama in Argentina, but that is another matter

I am new as a wikipedia contributor, so I apologise if I have not played the rules by the book. All I have tried to do is to correct a highly hypocritical appearance stating that Pagina 12, a newspaper in Argentina, is aligned with "centre-left" or something that is called "progresismo". This newspaper founded by Jorge Lanata who was subsequently ousted, has become an utterly unconditional supporter of the Kirchners who rule Argentina for nearly 12 years at the point of even defending the undefendable like the appointment of a former torturer (General Milani) as Chief Commander of the Armed Forces. No matter what Cristina Kirchner, the president, says or does, in open and clear contradiction with previous statements and anything commonly admitted as being "leftist", it is supported and defended by Página 12. Their main contributors, a group who call themselves "Carta Abierta" have clearly expressed in their newspaper to support and vote for "Frente para la Victoria", Cristina Kirchner's party.

I therefore find it natural that they should assume their political alignment and not perversely, on the foreign versions of Wikipedia at least (Argentine readers cannot be fooled), call themselves "centre-left"

If, because this presumably big supporter of the Kirchners, called "Banfield", has prerogatives to block me on Wikipedia's Pagina 12 page, so be it. I just thought I would try to end hypocrisy

Thanks for the opportunity to express myself anyway

Liberté&justice (talk) 06:26, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

I take absolutely no position whatsoever on who is "right" about the article, and have no intention to do so. The one thing I observed was that you broke the three-revert rule, which is why I blocked you. Stifle (talk) 07:24, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Hard left

What a particularly inept bit of adminship there. Repeated edit warring from one editor across a range of articles, which you then reward by doing nothing over it, but protecting the article in his favoured state for a week. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:05, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

You will be well aware that protection is not an endorsement of the current version.

I will not dignify the remainder of your message with a response. Stifle (talk) 12:57, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

When Garageland is next at ANEW for edit-warring the next article to his version of truth (likely to be Morning Star by his latest edits), are you going to support him in that one too by locking the article to his favoured version? Andy Dingley (talk) 13:07, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree with User:Stifle that protection of Hard left was justified. Anyone can open an RFC on the talk page to decide if the names of those politicians should be included. EdJohnston (talk) 13:27, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

So bulk-stripping sources is now a content issue, rather than behavioural, even when it's an editor who has just been blocked for edit-warring and calls the rest of us "cunt"s without the slightest admin comment? Andy Dingley (talk) 13:40, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Exactly, Andy. His blanking edits and bulk-stripping just goes to show how illogical Stifle's actions and occupation of his position is. Attractel (talk) 10:53, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

• Stifle, you told us to start talking, but we already have been - I've received no reply. What should I do, talk to a brick wall? There was no consensus to change it in the first place. The only person engaging in edit-warring was Garageland66, which is why I refrained from reverting it again in the first place. This is a procedural absurdity from an inept admin to say the least. Attractel (talk) 10:51, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

  Calling me "inept", "illogical", etc. is not likely to make me want to take your side. Stifle (talk) 13:36, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

  • But as you're both clearly concerned about my actions being incorrect, I've submitted them for review at WP:ANI. Stifle (talk) 13:47, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

3RR

do I understand correctly? the 3RR rule means in practice that if a contributor wants to correct a misleading statement and the author of that misleading statement keeps reverting it to his "advantage", the honest contributor just has to sit and sigh? Liberté&justice (talk) 23:57, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Both users should be discussing their issues and not edit warring. Reverting consistently three times a day for a week is just as bad as four times spread over 24 hours. Stifle (talk) 08:48, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

File:Madonna-Material-Girl-333295.jpg

I wonder whether deleting the image from Material Girl was a mistake. Talk:Finally (CeCe Peniston song), Talk:Wildside (Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch song), and Talk:I'm Coming Out prove that any rule might allow two cover arts. --George Ho (talk) 10:58, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

• WMF Policy as enumerated at WP:NFCC cannot be overridden by local consensus, I'm afraid. Those articles would need to have the excess images removed. Stifle (talk) 13:36, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I tried enforcing it in "Finally" article, but I edit-warred with one user, MiewEN. Therefore, I avoided doing the same with two others. --George Ho (talk) 01:08, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

At first I was waiting for your response, but I have no choice but to have the image deletion reviewed at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2015 September 20. --George Ho (talk) 06:01, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Your message did not read as though you were expecting a further response... Stifle (talk) 08:34, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

File:Clement Davies 1948.jpg

Hi, You recently deleted this image as it was not being used in an article and you then went on to state this in the relevant image deletion discussion. It appears that another editor not involved in this discussion, took it upon themself to delete the image from the article it was being used in and which is still currently under discussion. I have added a comment to this discussion that I will re-up the image but feel under the circumstances, that since you were the deleting editor, it would be easier for you to restore the image file. It would also be helpful if you could then restore the image to the article. This would avoid problems and assist those editors in discussion on this matter. Thanks. Graemp (talk) 15:12, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi again, I now see that you have just closed this discussion. Please re-open. Graemp (talk) 15:15, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Oops. I've restored the image and tagged it properly. Stifle (talk) 15:25, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for that. However, the same editor has again deleted it from United Kingdom general election, 1950 so that it is again orphaned. To avoid an edit war, it would help if you could restore the image to that article with a suitable explanation. Thanks. Graemp (talk) 05:10, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

I didn't remove it from that article, so I'm not going to re-add it either. Stifle (talk) 08:17, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

In which case, please be vigilant to ensure that the image does not again get deleted before the article discussion has concluded. Your accidental early closure of the image use discussion may have deterred further contributions. Please can you take steps to bump the discussion to ensure other editors know it is still live. Thanks. 09:17, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Palestine-Israel articles 3 arbitration case proposed decision posted

Hi Stifle. A decision has been proposed in the Palestine-Israel articles 3 arbitration case, for which you are on the notification list. Please review this decision and draw the arbitrators' attention to any relevant material or statements. Comments may be brought to the attention of the committee on the proposed decision talk page. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, L235 (t / c / ping in reply) 20:41, 14 October 2015 (UTC) (via MediaWiki message delivery (talk))

Category:Order of the Netherlands Lion and subcategories relisted

Hello. You participated in either the CFD discussion to delete the above category and its subcategories or the DRV discussion regarding those categories (or both). The result of the DRV was to relist the categories for discussion. This is a notification that they have now been relisted for discussion here. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:45, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

kindly have a look at MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist page

Hi, hope all is well with you. can you please review the whitelist YourStory.com? I see that you have reviewed and approved a few of them. So far I haven't got any update from any other Wikipedia editor. Thank you so much! Sid69pua (talk) 06:19, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

You will need to wait your turn. Stifle (talk) 09:40, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Kurdish terrorism

Way back in 2006 you commented (Delete) at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kurdish terrorism. An article of that name is back, and I suspect it is the same page reposted. 220 of ^Borg 16:42, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Jono Lester

In 2008 you salted this title after articles about a then-18-year-old-hopeful racing driver were created three times in a day. In seven years it seems his career has progressed. Today a newish user requested assistance in moving Draft:Jono Lester to the title; looking into it, I found that an article had already been created in 2013 at Jonathan Lester, bypassing the salting. Since he is clearly known as Jono, I have moved the article to that title and told the new requester to improve that one. Letting you know because I over-rode your 2008 salt. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 18:33, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the courtesy note. Seems entirely sensible. Stifle (talk) 09:44, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

World Energy Forum

Hi! I just want to ask why World Energy Forum was deleted. It seems to be a known international organization. I want to declare that World Energy Forum is my client to provide transparency. Lc788074 (talk) 23:08, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

The reasons for deletion are found at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/World Energy Forum (2nd nomination). You should be aware of our conflict of interest rules. Stifle (talk) 09:15, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm highly aware with Wikipedia's guidelines especially with the regards to conflict of interest rules. I'm planning to create a new draft for this article. I intend to have a neutral point of view and provide reliable sources to this draft. As I'm not allowed to live edit according to WP:PSCOI, is it possible that you can review my draft? Thanks! Lc788074 (talk) 03:56, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

I will not be reviewing any drafts. Please submit it through WP:AFC. Stifle (talk) 09:14, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Draft:Carathéodory rank

Hi, you have closed the DRV discussion on Draft:Carathéodory rank? I guess it's ok to close the discussion as "overturn". But the wording there seems not clear. Can you clarify your statement so that the page can and should be restored? As it's not a test page. Thanks. -- Taku (talk) 23:22, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

• My closure is not an overturn. It is correct that a page with five words should not exist. My view is that if you want to recreate it, you need to include something more substantial. Stifle (talk) 09:02, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Requesting rollback

The user Helmoony is mass-removing "Tunisian arabic" in articles that was in place since several months. after the debate in Tunisia portal in september, an admin finally decided to grant the mention of Tunisian arabic for the names of people and places. Things were so settled since then, but the user Helmoony is recently removing all the mentions, could you please do something about it ? Thank you.Zangouang (talk) 16:26, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Please report to WP:ANI including links to articles and proper diffs. Stifle (talk) 17:27, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

ACC access

Hey - getting back into the UTRS thing, and today had a new account request from an IP user caught in a rangeblock, so I need ACC access again. The message says you're still the guy to ask, so asking. :-) Katie^talk 21:02, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

• Hmm. I don't have any ACC access any more, I gave it up a couple years ago. I guess that message needs changing. Stifle (talk) 10:50, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/AusGamers

Hey—as a deletion review regular, I wanted to ask your opinion of this AfD's "no consensus" closure before I take it to discussion. I thought it was clear that the keep votes were not based in policy. czar 02:05, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

• I don't think any of the arguments are up to much to be honest. A DRV will probably come out "meh" so you may want to consider relisting it in a few months. Stifle (talk) 10:49, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Invitation to join the Ten Year Society

Dear Stifle/Archive 16,

I'd like to extend a cordial invitation to you to join the Ten Year Society, an informal group for editors who've been participating in the Wikipedia project for ten years or more.

Best regards,  — Scott • talk 15:28, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Joined. Stifle (talk) 15:46, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

St Patrick

I have reverted your edit on Saint Patrick's Day. This issue comes up every year, and every year the conclusion is the same. Wikipedia is not in the position to tell people what way they should abbreviate "Patrick", Wikipedia merely documents what's already out there. See the talk page. Thanks. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 14:20, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

• Doesn't make it any less wrong :( Stifle (talk) 14:28, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Page protection at Argument from authority

Hi. I saw that you protected the page. I honestly appreciate you protecting the page, and wish I'd thought to request page protection myself. It would certainly have been a better route than reverting. Normally, I'm quite cautious about the 3RR (and am willing to prove that I've specifically avoided violating it in the past if you feel I might be blowing smoke), I do realize that edit warring is disruptive, and I am feeling a bit contrite about having violated it this time. However, despite what FLoA said at the 3RR noticeboard, the reason I have been reverting has been to maintain the page as it was when the discussion started.

Unfortunately however, you protected it after it had been reverted yet again by one of the two users who've been pushing for the inclusion of the material being discussed. If you take a look at this diff, you can see that version I was reverting to was the version as it stood before that specific contentious material was inserted (that material was first inserted here, in which another large chunk of contentious material was also re-inserted). Is is possible to maintain that version until the discussion has concluded? I understand if you have objections to doing something that might be seen as taking sides, I just want to try to get a clearer consensus on what material belongs on the page before it is included. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:46, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

For the reasons given at m:The Wrong Version, I will not be taking this request forward. Listef (klat) 15:34, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Wow. That was one hell of a stretch. Okay then, thanks anyways. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:23, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Rose Cocktail

You proposed deletion for the article Rose (cocktail) because you said it was unreferenced for over nine years. There is a link in the side bar part but the link is broken. The correct link is http://iba-world.com/cocktails/rose/ . As you can see from the link it is an IBA official cocktail, but I am not sure if that is enough for the article to remain. 86.158.13.116 (talk) 18:58, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

I have tried to make a start of adding references, but I don't know much about how to write an article for Wikipedia. I have found the drink in two 1920s era cocktail books from Paris and there are also numerous websites that have the cocktail or variations of it listed. It is also an IBA official cocktail but the Cocktail infobox itself seems to be broken and I have no idea how to fix it. In the infobox you are supposed to put the name of the cocktail and then it automatically links to the recipe on the IBA website but the IBA website must have changed the URL format because the links are broken for any cocktail that used the infobox to link to the recipe. 86.158.13.116 (talk) 16:57, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Uw-crystal

Template:Uw-crystal has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. ElectricBurst^{(Electron firings)}_(Zaps) 21:23, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Your policy of a blanket ban on all archive.is links seems unreasonable

Hi Stifle,

All I have to say on the matter is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist#http:.2F.2F_archive.is_.2F1aTaF

but I thought I'd leave a message for you, because some of your decisions on that page suggest that you are labouring under the impression that archive.is is a simple URL-shortening service rather than a webpage archiving service. Archive.is URLs are short, yes, but they do host the page in question, not just a URL to the server which originally hosted the content (as do bit.ly et al.)

Kind regards,

LaFolleCycliste 21:46, 16 April 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by LaFolleCycliste (talk • contribs)

FFD

Hi Stife. Thank you for helping to clear the backlog of FFD discussions. There are not many admins working at FFD, and those that are can only do so much. This is just a suggestion, but it might be a good idea to add {{Oldffdfull}} templates to the file talk pages of images that you keep. This provides a link to the relevant discussion to anyone whose interested and it also allows you to provide a brief summary of your close: For example, "keep" for article "A", but remove from article "B". Since WP:NFCR was merged into FFD last fall, FFD now deals with non-free content issues, which may involve a file's usage in multiple articles. WP:PUF has also been merged into FFD, so those discussions are only going to create more options when it comes to closes. -- Marchjuly (talk) 11:04, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

closure on List of Cal Fire firefighters AFD

Thank you for your closure and explanation at the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Cal Fire firefighters killed in the line of duty. It's fine by me that you described as "a bit of a mess" because of my move during the AFD, but I wonder if you could clarify there in the AFD itself that it was a "Keep" decision as you posted at the article's Talk page. That would allow the AFDSTATS software and any other automated processes to be able to interpret it as one of the allowed outcomes for an AFD. Or I hope you don't mind if I edit the AFD to insert "Keep but remove list of memorialized persons". Oh, hmm, I see you have a note posted stating that you don't change AFD closures based on talk page requests, but I don't mean this as a change of decision, it's just a clarification. It's no big deal either way, if you don't want it revised.

Also feel free to participate at Talk:California Firefighters Memorial#Memorial list about a list of the persons listed on the memorial can and/or should be included in the article. I recognize that there is wp:NOTMEMORIAL but what that says is "Wikipedia is not the place to memorialize deceased friends, relatives, acquaintances, or others who do not meet such requirements", and that does not rule out including some type of list here, I think. I don't terribly care, myself: I also think that linking to the list of names on an external website can be better, as that will be updated presumably by Cal Fire or whomever. One reason I'll raise it there is to allow the original contributor a chance to discuss it.

Again, thanks for making sense of the AFD. --doncram 22:59, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

• Hi there, I'm not going to endorse your move during the AFD by putting down a keep closure, for the sake of automation. The AFD was a bit of a mess, and I think characterizing it otherwise for that reason wouldn't be right. Stifle (talk) 13:04, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files

Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 19:46, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History of the New York Yankees/archive1

Hi, Stifle. Because it's been a few days since your comment at the above FAC, I wanted to notify you that I removed the image you were worried about here. Please consider revisiting your opposition if you have the opportunity. Thanks again for taking the time to review the photos. Giants2008 (Talk) 02:03, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

javascript

Stifle, to speed up the whitelist handlings, I wrote User:Beetstra/Gadget-Spam-whitelist-Handler. You will see that especially the whitelistings will go exceedingly more easy with that. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:06, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

• Thank you. Stifle (talk) 09:06, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2016 May 15

I invite you to discuss front covers of singles releases. --George Ho (talk) 11:00, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Carlos Alberto Cabral

The article Carlos Alberto Cabral has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

The article makes no claim to notability & significant coverage in RS to meet GNG cannot be found. There's a wiki article in Spanish, but it's only marginally longer, with many red links.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. K.e.coffman (talk) 07:33, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Recreating article "Vaidyanathan Ramaswami"

Hi Stifle, Would you please take a look at this improved and substantially different new draft and consider recreating the article "Vaidyanathan Ramaswami". This article had been the subject of a discussion before here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Vaidyanathan_Ramaswami_(3rd_nomination) . As suggested during that discussion by one admin: "as still questionably better for any improvements, best deleted and restarted if better later. SwisterTwister", I have rewritten entirely the article wih better structure and referencing. It is available in my sandbox here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:RoshanKarki123/sandbox . I will be grateful if you would evaluate this draft and consider publishing it on Wikipedia. Thank you for your cooperation. RoshanKarki123 (talk) 13:19, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi, you need to submit this at deletion review. Stifle (talk) 08:54, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

UK Border at Marne la Vallée-Chessy

Hello, your edit of the Eurostar article suggests there is no UK border post at Marne la Vallée-Chessy, and that checks take place on arrival at St Pancras.

Are you sure this is currently the case? I called Eurostar and asked, and while they strangely couldn't tell whether there is a UK border post at Marne la Vallée-Chessy, they did say that UK border checks for Eurostar passengers always take place in France or Belgium. I checked the timetable and it's clear you don't get off at Lille (as is the case when travelling on a train from Marseille).

Do you have any recent experience of this? André Devecserii (talk) 20:58, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, this was the case last December when I travelled, and I have checked with friends who travelled last month and it remained so. Eurostar does not publicise it in order not to discourage passengers from using the Disneyland direct service, for which they charge a premium fare.

There are French exit checks and a small plain-clothes UK Border Force contingent at Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy but the formal checks are done on arrival at Ashford International, Ebbsfleet International (where I alighted), and London St. Pancras International. Stifle (talk) 08:49, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

I see, thanks.

Do you happen to know the situation for the Bourg-st-Maurice route? That one is also unclear, though I've heard that UK officers do perform checks at Bourg-st-Maurice and Moutiers, but that Aime-la-Plagne doesn't have the space for it, hence why only southbound trains stop there. André Devecserii (talk) 18:19, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Stifle Called the train stations directly. Bourg+Moutiers apparently have Uk posts but not Chessy. Changed the Juxtaposed controls article accordingly André Devecserii (talk) 19:23, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

That answers that! Stifle (talk) 13:25, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

File:The Cranberries - Dreams (US single cover).jpg

I invite you to discuss this image. --George Ho (talk) 17:26, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

Hello, Stifle. 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)

Green Party of England and Wales logos FFD

Hi Stifle. I mentioned you at User talk:Jo-Jo Eumerus#Green Party of England and Wales logos, but am posting here as a courtesy as well. Any comment you might have would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:38, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

• I am sorry for not responding; I was on holiday. This appears to be moot now. Stifle (talk) 08:27, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:34, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

New deal for page patrollers

Hi Stifle,

In order to better control the quality of new pages, keep out the spam, and welcome the genuine newbies, the current system we introduced in 2011 is being updated and improved. The documentation and tutorials have also been revised and given a facelift. Most importantly a new user group New Page Reviewer has been created.

Under the new rule, you may find that you are temporarily unable to mark new pages as reviewed. However, this is nothing to worry about - most current experienced patrollers are being accorded the the new right without the need to apply, and if you have significant previous experience of patrolling new pages, we strongly encourage you to apply for the new right as soon as possible - we need all the help we can get, and we are now providing a dynamic, supportive environment for your work.

Find out more about this exiting new user right now at New Page Reviewers and be sure to read the new tutorial before applying. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:29, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

A new user right for New Page Patrollers

Hi Stifle.

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

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

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

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Stifle. 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)

‎File:Bowie HeroesSingle.jpg

I nominated this image for deletion at FFD. I invite you to improve consensus. --George Ho (talk) 09:20, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Geoffrey de Wirce

I just noticed he was mentioned in 4 other articles so I started the page but I have no strong feeling about him either way, if you think he isn't noteworthy please delete. Unibond (talk) 14:31, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

We'll see if anyone else objects. Stifle (talk) 14:32, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

E.M.E.A College

Hi I saw that you tagged for speedy delete A3 the above page. I hesitated because when I read the WP:A3 it says "Similarly, this criterion does not cover a page having only an infobox, unless its contents also meet another speedy deletion criterion" i have been reverted in the past for similar tags and i wanted your advice as an admin as to how this works. thanks --Domdeparis (talk) 14:39, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

• There are conflicts as to whether an infobox with basic information qualifies for "no information at all" as in some places it is written that "template tags" do not count as content for the purpose of A3. Stifle (talk) 14:41, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• Ok so it's a bit of a grey area if I understand rightly, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for your help. --Domdeparis (talk) 14:43, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• Hi the creator of the page asked for more time to edit it so I changed the speedy delete to a G6 towards a Draft version but I have a doubt about whether I did it correctly. Domdeparis (talk) 16:43, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
  • It all seems fine now. Stifle (talk) 14:10, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
    • Thanks I agree. Cheers --Domdeparis (talk) 14:21, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Geoffrey de Wirce

I saw your proposed deletion for this stub. There seems to be a lot of possible citations. I assume that you looked. Were you unimpressed with the references for some reason? Bearian (talk) 21:19, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Having just noticed the prior discussion, I am tagging Unibond. Bearian (talk) 21:21, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

He appeareth to hath beene onne of William the Bastard's original merrie knights. Bearian (talk) 21:23, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

You're welcome to contest the PROD in the usual way if desired; please add references. Stifle (talk) 14:10, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

No, thanks, I just wanted your thoughts. My thought is that it would be too much work to rescue. Bearian (talk) 01:30, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Unamed Mitchell

Hi, if I'm not mistaken, that article was about a TV character and not eligible for A7. Adam9007 (talk) 17:57, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

So it seems. Undeleted and redirected to List of EastEnders characters. Stifle (talk) 14:13, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

File:Mount Pisgah NC.jpg

Thank you for deleting the file. Would you mind closing the discussion too? De728631 (talk) 18:29, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi there, there is a bot to close FFDs when the image has been deleted. If this has not already been done, it should be picked up shortly. Stifle (talk) 09:10, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Ah, alright. De728631 (talk) 12:04, 23 January 2017 (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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13:37, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Talk:Richard Eastell/submission from Professor Eastell

If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.

You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.

A tag has been placed on Talk:Richard Eastell/submission from Professor Eastell requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G12 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page appears to be an unambiguous copyright infringement. This page appears to be a direct copy from https://www.shef.ac.uk/humanmetabolism/people/eastell. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material, and as a consequence, your addition will most likely be deleted. You may use external websites or other printed material as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. This part is crucial: say it in your own words. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously and persistent violators will be blocked from editing.

If the external website or image belongs to you, and you want to allow Wikipedia to use the text or image — which means allowing other people to modify it — then you must verify that externally by one of the processes explained at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials. If you are not the owner of the external website or image but have permission from that owner, see Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission. You might want to look at Wikipedia's policies and guidelines for more details, or ask a question here.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 00:02, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Transwiki

Template:Transwiki has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. — Train2104 (t • c) 18:55, 21 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)

Sock account

I strongly suspect that these two accounts are by the same person: [2], [3]. In addition, USAQuidditch is a confirmed sock user here on Wikipedia [4]. Tamara787 might also be another account as well. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:25, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

• I'm not certain what you want me to do about this. I would suggest posting on WP:AN or c:COM:AN. Stifle (talk) 15:32, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Okay, done. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:34, 3 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)

Nomination for deletion of Template:PUF-npd

Template:PUF-npd has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 02:21, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Images with no fair use rationale subcat starter

Template:Images with no fair use rationale subcat starter has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 05:09, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:MCQ/helpdesk

Template:MCQ/helpdesk has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 17:41, 22 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)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Rugby union

Hello. You're listed as "Cap" number 52 in this WikiProject. It seems that the Project's talk page is sadly neglected these days. I know little about rugby but have seen how important an active WikiProject is to getting quality information on Wikipedia by helping each other. If you don't mind the nudge (and you may be very active, I've not checked) please pop by the WikiProject talk page from time to time to reply to comments - or start your own. Cheers. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 00:04, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Glenn Paterson

It may not be true for all varieties of English, but certainly in Australian English the word "footballer" means "a person who plays any code of football". Hence, Paterson as a rugby player is just as much a footballer as Zinedine Zidane playing the code our news media still obstinately refer to as "soccer". That said, per WP:NRU, the man's still not notable as the Japanese competition in which he has played isn't fully professional, so I'll take it to AfD. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 23:01, 11 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) 00:11, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Taku-cruft discussion

I saw your response to the DRV and wanted to bring an Administrator's noticeboard discussion to your attention at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Willfull and persistent disruption of Draft space by TakuyaMurata. Please feel free to provide suggestions as to how we could productively move forward. Thank you. Hasteur (talk) 12:06, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. Stifle (talk)

Block a user

Amaury, has been acting like a do-whatever-you-want rollbacker for a very, very, very, very long time and must be blocked. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1001:B01F:A500:D986:755C:BF2B:AD5C (talk) 12:31, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Obvious troll is obvious. Stifle (talk) 15:15, 21 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)

When to remove "This article has multiple issues"?

Hi Stifle. I was doing some research and saw that this article had some issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_source_and_information_reliability. I reworded slightly, added some references and a link to another Wikipedia article. How do I know if I can remove the warning at the top of the page "This article has multiple issues"? (You added the warning back in 2010). Stevegon (talk) 21:05, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

If you think you've adequately solved the issues, you don't need anyone's permission to remove the notice. Stifle (talk) 11:17, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Removed. Stevegon (talk) 21:43, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Invitation to Admin confidence survey

Hello,

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

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

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

We really appreciate your input!

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

For the Anti-harassment tools team, SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 20:56, 14 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)

Zach Wood

Can you unprotect that page? I'm gonna create the article on NFL player Zach Wood. Thanks. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 00:56, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

 Done; for faster service in future use WP:RFPP. Stifle (talk) 09:20, 18 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) 00:49, 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, Stifle. 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)

Your close of Steak and Blowjob Day DRV

Looks like it got closed twice, or a copy-paste template duplication, or something. Could you take a look? Thanks. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:20, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I think it's better now. Stifle (talk) 15:53, 6 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)

Thai Gyulchatai

Hi! Many thanks for your restoring my article. Miniapolis suspects me of being paid although I’m merely an unselfish volunteer. Nobody precludes me from creating an article about a person who has been my favourite actress since I saw her in Blood Monkey a week ago. Eastern Europeans get used to calling such girls Gyulchatai. --Janggun Dungan (talk) 13:01, 5 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)

Request to Remove Website From Spam List

Hello Stifle,

I would like to bring into your attention that website Infodriveindia.com is listed in Spam due to some mistakes in past. This is my humble request please remove website from spam list, please let me know the steps you would like us to take to get our website out of spam list of wiki.

Thanks, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Satyendradb (talk • contribs) 09:33, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Please file a request at MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist. Stifle (talk) 10:05, 19 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)

Joyce McKinney

You protected this redirect under BLP, but the target was moved and now there's a double redirect bots can't fix. Could you please oblige? Hairy Dude (talk) 14:14, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

 Done: redirected Joyce McKinney to Manacled Mormon case. Stifle (talk) 16:09, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Thank you :) Hairy Dude (talk) 17:04, 31 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)

Wikipedia:NFT listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wikipedia:NFT. Since you had some involvement with the Wikipedia:NFT redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so.  — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)  18:51, 14 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)

Deletion review for Kane Tanaka

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Kane Tanaka. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. 100.40.125.198 (talk) 22:48, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I can't find the deletion review listing. Can you please indicate what it is you want to do? Stifle (talk) 09:48, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Clicking deletion review should have taken you to it but here is a different link. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2018_August_14 100.40.125.198 (talk) 06:28, 30 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)

Undeletion Discussion

Hi Stifle,

I was about to add a new page and I noticed that it had been deleted before here: [5]. I have read the comments and agree with the deletion at the time. This building is now virtually complete and will be placed in service early next year. I think now that it is a real building which is substantially complete, it might be time to reconsider undeleting the page. I have read some of the Deletion Review page and your FAQ and WP:REFUND to figure out how best to start this process, and it seems I should start here. [6] Here is a link to more information about the status of the temple. Sorry my wiki markup isn't very good, it has been a while since I did anything complicated that I couldn't copy or mimic :) Glennfcowan (talk) 03:03, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

• Haha, see I told you I was out of practice. Here is the original link to the deletion decision: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Kinshasa_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo_Temple Thank you! Glennfcowan (talk) 03:07, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

If you have overcome the reason for deletion you can simply recreate the article in place. Stifle (talk) 14:23, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Great, thanks for your help. Glennfcowan (talk) 19:45, 6 October 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)

Change in user rights?

I don't know what you are doing here [7] but I do not show "poor judgement in accepting copyvio". My User:Legacypac/CSD_log confirms I find and delete a lot of copyvio. My Move log shows only 3-4 out of my last 1000 moves have been deleted as copyvio, which is a very good record. We all miss the occasional copyvio because it is hard to find. You just smeared me without evidence or discussion in the PERM log and if there is any way to remove that comment I urge you to remove or edit it to show it was an error. Legacypac (talk) 19:03, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

I already readded the permission saying it was not what I intended to do. If that's not satisfactory then as logs cannot be edited or deleted I guess I could remove and re-add the permission again with another comment such as "previous permission removal was entirely in error and should be disregarded". Stifle (talk) 17:32, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I'd appreciate that. I'm a little sensitive as this kind of thing has been used against me by Admins. Legacypac (talk) 21:41, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

 Done Stifle (talk) 09:25, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

I saw that on my watchlist and was pretty surprised especially as there was nothing on Legacypac's talk page. Good to see it was simply an error especially as I don't think there are any special rights to have access to the Afc tool just a decision by an admin to add it. Dom from Paris (talk) 11:06, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

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Hello, Stifle. 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.

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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)