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New message from Aloha27

Hello, Tamzin. You have new messages at Aloha27's talk page.
Message added 16:17, 15 February 2022 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Hi. The only other information I've been able to come up with is the EIU comparing the two editors in question. https://sigma.toolforge.org/editorinteract.py?users=Geo+Swan&users=173.66.134.81&users=&startdate=20000101&enddate=20220215&ns=&server=enwiki&allusers=on Regards,   Aloha27  talk  16:17, 15 February 2022 (UTC)   Aloha27 (EDIT) I do not believe that the indeffed editor chiming in on a 3RR case regarding an IP editor to be in any way coincidental. Have a good day!

SPI query

Hello, Tamzin,

You seem to have an encyclopedic memory of sockmasters. Wasn't there a sockpuppet that focused on radio stations in the Philippines? So is new editor Jairus 123456789 but I don't know what SPI case to post about it. Liz Read! Talk! 02:40, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

@Liz: I have a good memory for sockmasters, but even I can't keep track of everything about TV and radio in the Phillipines. Perhaps Sammi Brie can be of assistance? If she doesn't know, I can dig deeper tomorrow. Special:Contributions/Jairus_123456789 rings a bell for me too. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 02:53, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
Well, thanks for pointing me in the right direction! Much appreciated. Liz Read! Talk! 02:57, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Merchandise giveaway nomination

A t-shirt!
A token of thanks
Hi Tamzin! I've nominated you to receive a gift from the WMF. Talk page stalkers are invited to comment at the nomination. Enjoy! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 09:13, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Rate limit

You mentioned getting some sort of rate limit error with User:Suffusion of Yellow/batchtest-plus.js. I was unable to reproduce this; I was able to test the last 2000 hits of filter 614 without getting an error. Can you tell me what sort of message you saw? (Also User:MusikAnimal has this ever happened to you?) Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:57, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I have not! But as an admin I have the apihighlimits permission so I probably wouldn't have ran into this anyway. — MusikAnimal talk 20:59, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: Hmmm. What's weird is that I can't find any limit on abusefiltercheckmatch. Is there a hard limit on POST requests for the entire API? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:06, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
@Suffusion of Yellow: An API limit was my best guess of the cause, based on having worked with the MW API before; what the actual error said was simply "HTTP error: HTTP error" (or something to that effect). Maybe a momentary connection issue on my part? There was no obvious way to tell the script to "try again", so I couldn't really tell what was happening; dismissing the notification and clicking the "continue" button just threw the same error. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 21:20, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
You can always start over by scrolling to the top, and clicking "Test" again. Otherwise, there's no way to try just the ones that failed. And @MusikAnimal:, I was possibly able to reproduce this by trying to send 500 (!) requests at once, instead limiting it to 10 concurrent requests. At least after a while I started getting HTTP 503 errors. I hope I wasn't actually breaking something. In any case does logstash show what kind of error Tamzin was getting? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:53, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
Yes it most likely is in Logstash. If Tamzin can tell me roundabouts when exactly they saw the error, I should be able to find it. I'm not sure how it will help, but I'm happy to try! :)
I've definitely hit errors before using Twinkle's batch delete/protect on a very large list of pages. I don't recall if they were 503s specifically, but it was apparently something general to the action API seeing as I had the apihighlimits permission. I too am surprised Tazmin ran into this. Maximum 10 concurrent requests should be safe. — MusikAnimal talk 22:14, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: Would have been shortly before Special:Diff/1077004232. When you look, please don't judge how often I check my own contribs. ;) -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 23:04, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
Tamzin, if this happens again, try adding window.batchTestPlusMaxConcurrentRequests = 5; (or even a lower number) to your common.js. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:04, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Okay, update. @Suffusion of Yellow:
    • Exact wording is "HTTP error: error"
    • Pressing "cancel" and then "test" again caused the error to recur. I tried that several times. One time a single entry did get the red X while all others stalled. The other times were stalls across the board.
    • Console reveals the following errors are happening cyclically: 
      Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 500 ()
VM704:1 Uncaught (in promise) SyntaxError: Unexpected token < in JSON at position 0
VM705:1 Uncaught (in promise) SyntaxError: Unexpected token < in JSON at position 0
      The VMXXX numbers go up each time. That unexpected token <... Is it possible the API is giving the standard HTML error page instead of a more specific JSON error message? I have to handle that edge case in 'zinbot at api.py#L52, and it's come up from time to time when something was just very broken in an API query. Note that there's no network activity, so the cycle is the console repeatedly trying and failing to parse something, rather than repeated 500 errors, despite the console messages making it seem that way.
    • Reloaded, tried again, this time got to see in the console how it starts. 
      GET https://whois.toolforge.org/w/68.199.96.217/lookup/json net::ERR_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES
ipExtWHOISInline @ index.php?title=User:GeneralNotability/ip-ext-info.js_&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:63
(anonymous) @ index.php?title=User:GeneralNotability/ip-ext-info.js_&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:77
(anonymous) @ index.php?title=User:GeneralNotability/ip-ext-info.js_&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:76
fire @ VM1462:544
getHits @ index.php?title=User:Suffusion_of_Yellow/batchtest-plus.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:171
await in getHits (async)
(anonymous) @ index.php?title=User:Suffusion_of_Yellow/batchtest-plus.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:213
dispatch @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core%2Coojs-ui-widgets%7Cjquery.ui&skin=vector&version=29pq7:70
elemData.handle @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core%2Coojs-ui-widgets%7Cjquery.ui&skin=vector&version=29pq7:66
      And then that's what it looked like each time before the "Unexpected token" messages this time. Not sure why it's different, but definitely more helpful... something about the interplay with User:GeneralNotability/ip-ext-info.js, then?
    • Setting window.batchTestPlusMaxConcurrentRequests = 1; didn't stop it, although this time I also spotted the console message 
      Access to fetch at 'https://whois.toolforge.org/w/50.250.32.193/lookup/json' from origin 'https://en.wikipedia.org' has been blocked by CORS policy: No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource. If an opaque response serves your needs, set the request's mode to 'no-cors' to fetch the resource with CORS disabled.
  • So... Too much demand with the two extensions running at once, and then batchtest-plus failing to parse an HTML error message? Something like that? Courtesy ping GeneralNotability. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 06:32, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
    • Thanks for all the digging! I've got some idea of what's causing this (there's some O(N^2) behavior going on when you click "continue") but it will take a while to put it all together. The JSON parsing errors, at least seem to be coming from ip-ext-info.js; I get a similar flood of errors on Special:PermaLink/1077363363 also. Also https://whois.toolforge.org seems really slow today; that also may be part of the problem. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:02, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
    Alright, so here's what was happening:
    1. You click "test". batchtest-plus.js fetches 100 hits from the filter log, formats them with some links to user talk, contributions, etc., calls mw.hook('wikipage.content').fire() on the results, then starts making abusefiltercheckmatch calls, at most 10 at a time
    2. Meanwhile, ip-ext-info.js sends up to 100 requests to whois.toolforge.org all to once.
    3. You click "continue". batchtest-plus.js fetches 100 more hits from the filter log, formats them, and then calls mw.hook('wikipage.content').fire() on all of the log entries (including those from step 1), then starts testing them 10 at a time
    4. Meanwhile, ip-ext-info.js sends up to 200 more requests to whois.toolforge.org
    5. You click "continue". batchtest-plus.js fetches 100 more hits from the filter log, formats them, and then calls mw.hook('wikipage.content').fire() on all of the log entries (including those from steps 1 and 3), then starts testing them 10 at a time
    6. Meanwhile, ip-ext-info.js sends up to 300 more requests to whois.toolforge.org...
    And so on. For N batches, that's up to 100 * N(N+1)/2 requests! Now, whois.toolforge.org is really slow right now, so the requests just keep piling up until the browser runs out of connections, and there are none left for batchtest-plus.js. That's the error you were getting in the popup box.
    So, I've fixed "my" bug: Now mw.hook('wikipage.content') is only fired on the latest 100 entries, not all of them. And, it's only fired after the results are in, so there's less competition with other scripts. That might be enough.
    But there's a still problem with ip-ext-info.js, anytime it "sees" a page with N IP links, it tries to make N parallel requests to whois.toolforge.org.
    TL;DR for GeneralNotability: ip-ext-info.js needs some kind of rate-limiting. If it's used on a page with 500 unique IP links, it should not try to make 500 simultaneous requests to whois.toolforge.org. That's unlikely to succeed and can cause problem for other scripts. Try it on Special:PermaLink/1077363363. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:41, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
    Suffusion of Yellow, that sounds like work though...ugh. Fiiiine. I'll work on it, looks like your batchtest-plus solution should work pretty easily. GeneralNotability (talk) 21:54, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

IP mask

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Unregistered editing already has many problems, for example identities used by multiple people and inability to handle them. There are many reasons to turn it off period, although arguably "casual edits" may outweigh them.

IP masking solves none of them, turns from 1 to 100, and adds more. Not just because there needs to be information on who can find them for governments schools etc but also because it is not IPs, but ranges, which don't exist. They're all seperate. Plus, the "IP unmasker" is just CheckUser but for unregistered editors. So there's one group for those -- but registering lets you hide from those but move to another group? What nonsense is this?

Plus, they want to use not just IP based but session based. Meaning there's no need for proxies anymore, you can just make a browser extension that gives you a new identity. Maybe I'll make one.

IP masking cannot stand. This just takes the many problems IP editing already has and scales them up even more, but without really solving anything other than people who don't read a banner. Tamzin, please help stop this IP masking. Even if you become an IP unmasker, and I become an IP unmasker, and every editor becomes an IP unmasker, that's a ridiculous system that shouldn't have to exist in the first place. Having to run a CU on pretty much everyone always?!?! Just disable unregistered editing.

P.S. My IP address is 162.248.94.163 - there's no need to OS it. Feel free to run the rDNS entry as well, it's naleksuh.com. Naleksuh (talk) 23:59, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

@Naleksuh: As you know, I waive any privilege against non-pseudonymous off-wiki statements being quoted or referenced on-wiki. However, that does not mean that I'm generally comfortable with using my talk page to continue off-wiki discussions, for the simple reason that I affect different demeanors and even put forth different outward personas in different spaces, and it's hard to juggle multiple demeanors and personas at once. I often like to analogize things here to a workplace setting, so, this is a bit like being asked in a meeting, without warning, to elaborate on something I'd idly mused about at a get-together over the weekend.
For talkpage watchers who are curious as to the context, I expressed a general feeling that IP masking will either be implemented well, or it won't be and the community will riot until it's better. That's not so much an opinion on IP masking as an opinion on the WMF and the Wikimedia community. My actual opinion on IP masking is "Legal has made its mind up, so let's do this right." -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 00:51, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

List of journalists killed covering the Russo-Ukrainian War

Hi Tamzin. Regarding the move on List of journalists killed during the Russo-Ukrainian War, I thought the previous name, "covering", was better, and I see in the summary you also say the previous name is better, but that during is some type of convention. However, each page is different and consensus can go on a case by case basis. In this specific case, the purpose of the page is different from most "List of X during Y" as it's specifically about journalists covering it, otherwise journalists wouldn't be important. Would you mind if I made an RM for the page? Normally, I would just go ahead and do it, but I wanted to ask you first due to the "following other editors around" concern you raised here. Let me know, hope you are doing alright. Naleksuh (talk) 00:24, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

@Naleksuh: I wrote out a longer reply to this, and then realized I wasn't AGFing, and recalled that there have been times in my knowing you that I thought you were doing something out of malice and realized later that you were just failing to understand a social norm.
So I'm going to give AGF one shot here: What you are doing is not okay. If you have questions about why, we can get into why, but for starters you have to understand that fact. Your recent mainspace edits consist exclusively of pages that I've edited or pages related to such pages. I've politely asked you to stop, and now you have not just continued, but have come to my talkpage to highlight that you are continuing. Again, that is not okay. I'd really like to think that you mean well, and I think that if you do mean well, it should be easy enough for you to stop. So I'm going to ask you, more directly, to please stop.
Is this a request you will abide by? -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 00:58, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
Fair enough, I'm sorry you don't like me editing the same pages you are editing on. Bear in mind that the Russo-Ukrainian War is a current event, so those pages are relevant to me and I can't promise I will never edit anything relating to the Russo-Ukrainian war, but I will stop looking at your contributions and intentionally editing pages in the same space you are if you are not happy with it. I would like to hear more about why, and hopefully find a way that I can edit on the same pages as you without it being such a big problem in the future, but I will stop for now per this request.
Is this a request you will abide by? Well, it would be pretty rude if I said "no". But I agree, as I've mentioned previously I have been there myself, there has been a problem on another wiki with a particular user who would go through my contributions and just revert anything they didn't like, often with a very short summary or no summary at all, and would go back several weeks just reverting various edits of mine. I'll stop, but I would like to get into why and not make people feel so concerned about me, as my intention is to build upon and improve the work of others, just as I hope other people will do to my contributions. Naleksuh (talk) 01:14, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
@Naleksuh: I will stop looking at your contributions and intentionally editing pages in the same space you are if you are not happy with it ... I think the vast majority of people would be unhappy with that. I'm struggling to explain why that's such an uncomfortable thing to do, because it's kind of like explaining why pain is painful or pleasure is pleasurable. It goes back to a very primal fear of being watched, I think. Now, this is a public wiki, and we're all watched in a sense, but someone editing all the same pages on you, clearly intentionally, then feels like you're being stalked. I don't mean "stalked" in the legal sense, but the hunting sense. Like someone is tracking your paces, waiting for something. I look through other people's contribs all the time, either out of idle curiosity or for SPI reasons. When I do, I keep my hands thoroughly off of the pages they edit, though, because I don't want them to have that sense of being prey. No one deserves that (even people I actually am coming after at SPI).
To pick an IRL analogy once more, it's rather like if you went to a department store and, every department you went to, the same person came to the same aisle to do their own shopping. A department store is a public space, so you couldn't say that they're violating your privacy, and they technically haven't done anything they they might not have done on their own. But it will still make you feel uncomfortable, because once more you're that ape that's gotten too far from its tree.
It's a big wiki, but in other ways it's a small wiki, and of course I'm sure we'll bump into each other from time to time; that's fine. The issue is entirely with using another editor's contribs as the basis for your own editing. If you're going to stop doing that, then good. :) That's all I'd ask. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 01:48, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
I'm still not really sure I understand how opening contribs relates to following people around in a department store, I just kinda have to trust that it is, and not open your contribs page anymore, at all. For what it's worth, I don't have a problem with people editing pages through my contribs, I just hope they will assume good faith and help people, but if I've upset you in any way, it's not my intention. But if the only way to not upset people is to just not open your contribs page at all, I guess I have to. For what it's worth, I'm not editing pages *because* other people edit them, I just like looking at stuff and edit things where I see fit, so I'd have to just blind myself from ever seeing them in the first place-- to me, that feels like knowingly bringing harm to the encyclopedia, but I guess you don't see it that way. I'll stop looking at your contribs and focus on other pages. Naleksuh (talk) 02:02, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) Naleksu, I happened to notice this conversation. I hope you mean it when you say you won't follow Tamzin around any more, nor use their contribs list as the basis for your own editing. You hedge that simple promise round so much, with statements like "I would like to hear more about why, and hopefully find a way that I can edit on the same pages as you without it being such a big problem", and "I'll stop, but I would like to "get into why" and not make people feel so concerned about me", and "to me, that feels like knowingly bringing harm to the encyclopedia" (!) that it makes me a little dubious. You seem to be implying that it'll be a negative to the encyclopedia for you to stop, and that Tamzin's wish to not be followed around is strange. No, none of these things are true. If you follow them around any more, I will block you. I hope that's clear. Bishonen | tålk 14:18, 17 March 2022 (UTC).
Sorry I misspelled your name, Naleksuh, so that the ping wasn't sent. Here's a new ping. Bishonen | tålk 14:22, 17 March 2022 (UTC).
Tamzin's wish to not be followed around is strange I didn't say it is strange, or that Tamzin should not feel uncomfortable from it. I just explained, historically, that I never thought anyone would mind: I don't really mind if people do it to me, and I've never had anyone else ask about it before. But since there's a problem with it, I already agreed to stop. So, problem solved. Naleksuh (talk) 17:00, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
@Naleksuh: I'm going to take all this at face value, so... The issue isn't with opening my contribs page. The issue is with opening my contribs page and then making 10 edits to pages I'd edited or pages closely related thereto, without editing any other mainspace pages in between, five of them after I'd asked you to stop, and then coming to my talk and asking my feelings about you RM'ing one of them. Again, I'm AGFing that your intentions in all of this were good, and thus AGFing that you were trying to defuse rather than escalate by starting this thread, but the message it wound up conveying was still much more one of "I'm still watching you".
I understand that some editors often make little touch-ups on articles they read; I understand that because I'm one of them. Ser Amantio di Nicolao, our most active editor, made a copy-edit to List of journalists killed during the Russo-Ukrainian War. If he had then gone on to edit a few other article I've recently edited, I would have thought, "Oh, he checked my contribs to see what I'm up to, and in the course of that saw some other things to edit." However, you made the first 5 of these 10 edits shortly after posting a strange message on my talkpage continuing an off-wiki disagreement (#IP mask), and made the remaining 5 amidst a more pointed disagreement in which I had closed that thread, told you to not contact me on-wiki about off-wiki matters, told you not to contact me off-wiki at all, and told you not to follow me around. Of the first 5, one was a marginally useful gnomish edit related to an obscure article I had moved, which in particular gave off the impression of you wanting me to notice that you were following my edits. Maybe that's not the case, but that's the impression it gave off. Because you rarely use edit summaries, it's hard for me to know for sure whether you've made edits like that in the past, but a skim of your past year's contribs makes me think you haven't. Furthermore, 4 of these 10 edits were in some way problematic (grammatical error, incorrectly marked minor · incorrectly marked minor · bold retarget that was obviously going to be controversial and should have gone to RfD (but really should have just waited for the RM to close), incorrectly marked minor · using an HTML comment to discuss in article, incorrectly marked minor); that isn't in itself a conduct issue, since these are good-faith errors, but they collectively show that you're not particularly experienced at editing enwiki (or, perhaps, rusty), which, again, adds to the sensation of you following me around just for the sake of following me around.
On that note, if you're not understanding an analogy between following someone around on-wiki and following someone around in real life, I really don't know what to tell you. I grew up worrying about being followed "IRL"—disgruntled critics of my father, someone my mom had a restraining order against, an antisemitic neighbor. I think on balance that makes me less sensitive to petty things like someone following my edits, because I have a good scale for what a real threat is like (one that also includes row 365 here [.xlsx]). But it also makes me understand the importance of people not feeling like they're being followed, online, offline, wherever. I hope this all explains it somewhat better. If it doesn't, well, that's all I've got, I'm afraid. And, I want to be clear, no part of this response is an invitation to debate. If you think I'm wrong, then you think I'm wrong. Good luck, and please read Help:Minor edits. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 18:41, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Withdrawn RFD (List of typographers).

I hope I haven't given you even more work by just reverting my precipitate nomination. I've been around here long enough to know better but then again I've never done an RFD before. No need to reply unless there is something else I should have done. I've already taken enough of your time. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:57, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

@John Maynard Friedman: No problem at all. The initial filing was a quick fix—happens all the time at WP:RM/TR, where due to some quirks of the template used it's much harder to fix—and you got everything right on the revert. Let me know if you ever need help on a technical thing regarding redirects/RfD. Somewhere along the line I became the most active maintainer of Module:RfD and {{Rfd2}}, and my bot keeps track of anomalous RfD taggings (e.g it logged this, although I actually just noticed organically), so given all that I tend to keep a close eye on potential quirks arising at RfD. (Also, you flatter me in implying I have anything useful to do with my time. ;) ) -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 20:13, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Pipe trick

Thanks for including the link! I didn't know it existed before, and I believe it will be very helpful moving forward.

While I'm here, I 100% agree with controversial opinion #3.

BilledMammal (talk) 00:56, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@BilledMammal: Every time I do a round of archiving on my talkpage, I realize I haven't responded to this, but then still fail to. So: Glad you found it helpful! I've been thinking of making some sort of "Things you should know about MediaWiki but maybe don't" subpage. Not like, tips and tricks, just things that are "obvious" but not obvious, like the existence of a built-in syntax highlighter and regex-replace window, or the fact that you can delete columns of tables using VisualEditor.
And, glad you like being right. :D -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 23:43, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

LA Confidential sources

I looked online for sources for those reviews and couldn't find them. Those newspapers don't appear to have archived their movie reviews. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Just Another Cringy Username (talk • contribs) 06:06, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

@Just Another Cringy Username: I tracked down a cite on Google for the Tribune quote, which is enough to make me think that the other two quotes are probably legit, and, per WP:SOURCEACCESS, a statement shouldn't be removed just because it's hard to verify. I'll take a deeper dive later for the other two quotes, and, if I find the reviews in question and the quotes aren't in them, will remove the quotes. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 06:18, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
How did you find it? Just by doing a search? Just Another Cringy Username (talk) 06:26, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, I couldn't find it when searching the quote either for whatever reason, but a search for chicago tribune "l.a. confidential" book did the trick. Second result. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 06:28, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Funny, I did the same thing and didn't get a result. Maybe it's because I use Duck Duck Go?
On another topic, so using "sir" as a term of respect is a thing? I remember hearing about it in The King and I, but that isn't exactly a reliable source. Would certainly explain the cringy notes I used to get when banning spammers as a Reddit mod. ("Oh dear sir where is my mistake sir? i did not do a spam sir!") — Preceding unsigned comment added by Just Another Cringy Username (talk • contribs) 06:52, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) It's fairly antiquated in the central Anglosphere (outside of the UK, and even there relatively circumscribed). It is, however, the default term of respect in much of South Asia, and enwiki has a very large South Asian editing population. (My stepmother taught business law at university for a semester a few years ago and has a story about being referred to as "honoured Madam" by an Indian international student.) This can result in some culture shock between editors of different nationalities, as one group is a very low-honorifics culture and the other much more regimented, and enwiki in turn was built on the "flat hierarchy" assumptions of the former and is an unfamiliar environment to people normed on a far more deferential social context. Vaticidalprophet 06:58, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Ah yes, probably a difference between search engines. As to the rest, well, Vati said part of what I was going to say. I don't think high-honorific culture versus low-honorific culture is the only difference, though. I was raised with Southern etiquette norms, and, if interacting with a stranger IRL of clearly binary gender presentation, will normally address them as "Sir" or "Ma'am". But that norm doesn't translate over to the Internet for me, and doesn't seem to for most Americans from parts of the country where this is the norm. I wonder why Americans who use honorifics in person tend not to online... This seems like something Wugapodes would know.
So, while it may sound strange to our ears, I think it's important to respect different dialects of English with different norms, which is why I give people an alternate honorific to use if that's what they're more comfortable with. The main reason for my note, though, isn't anything about my own gender—it doesn't really trigger any gender dysphoria in me to be called "Sir"—but because I want people to consider the subconscious bias likely at work when they decide to call me "Sir". Often it's people who I'm in some position of authority over, either formal authority like at SPI, or informal authority as an experienced member of the community, and I get the impression that they're assuming that power == male. And I get it, we've all made that kind of assumption occasionally... But we all could benefit from catching ourself when that happens and meditating a bit on those biases. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 07:11, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
My back-of-the-envelope explanation is that United States Americans (with significant regional, ethnic, and racial variation) are highly egalitarian to the point of erasing power differences (Wilentz 2002). An example would be the US ideology of "middle class". Americans are highly likely to self-identify as middle class even if that is not true because doing otherwise would contradict that egalitarian myth (Martin 2017 and Shenker-Osorio 2013, but see Cao 2018 for critique). The use of honorifics is similar in that it makes explicit differences in power. By using "sir" or "ma'am" I admit that you have power over me which in US contexts can be a face-threatening act and so is avoided. There are notable exceptions most of which occur in non-white, US sub-cultures. The US Black diaspora has a tradition of using honorifics for community elders (Italie 2019) which seems related to the history of racial power dynamics in the US South. Honorifics were frequently withheld from Black US Americans (Davis 2006, c.w. racial slurs), and so their use within the community is both a recognition of the racialized power dynamics imposed on Black speakers as well as a method of resistance by requiring the use of honorifics by those who would not recognize their hard-fought gains in cultural power. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:32, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Thank you, Wugapodes! That's very interesting. So... My one remaining question, then, is why is it totally normal for me (and many other Americans of Southern, Mid-Atlantic, or Midwestern backgrounds) to say, "Excuse me, sir, you've double-parked in front of my car," but totally alien to say, "Excuse me, sir, your edits go against MOS". It's not a difference in register, because I'm generally more formal in my online speech than in real life, and yet use honorifics less. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 03:48, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
I think in that situation, you'd be using "sir" ironically. I've heard it used that way in situations where there's an unearned power imbalance. It's subtle, but you're almost trying to get them to check their privilege. "I want you to realize you're abusing the power you have over me." Just Another Cringy Username (talk) 23:39, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
@Just Another Cringy Username: Well I was just giving that as an example. It could also apply to "Excuse me ma'am, is this seat taken?" or in some social contexts "I'm doing well, sir, how are you?" Neither of which I would say analogous versions of online. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 01:49, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

MikePlant1 SPI

Hi Tamzin,

Just wanted to let you know that I've reopened the MikePlant1 SPI with potential new socks. I am aware that you are also a SPI clerk and that you recused yourself from this given you recused yourself as AfD filer, so this is FYI only. Pilaz (talk) 15:36, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Icewhiz 5k?

How did you get 5000 contribs in one listing? I thought they had made that impossible. You used to be able to manually create a URL to do it, but they changed the API to deny that a while ago. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:25, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

@RoySmith: Indeed a manual URL edit. I didn't think it was possible either, but another clerk showed me the trick a while ago. I guess something changed MW-side?
(Also, "Icewhiz 5k" sounds like the world's least fun road race.) -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 17:35, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Sean J 2007 block issue

I know he totally knows his mistakes, but what's wrong is he can't explain them exactly, that's the problem with blocked users, especially some Filipinos, who has difficulty speaking English, well Sean doesn't have difficulty speaking it, he just can't really explain it well. —Ctrlwìkí (talk) 00:11, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

@Ctrlwiki: I think you're making the opposite case here, though. He speaks decent English and yet can't put the words in the right order to say he messed up, which makes me think the issue is one of competence, not of English skills. He still says things that would make no sense in any language, like But in the base that Deepfiedokra that has been told me, 6 months first before considering unblock here, sorry I cannot do that because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and I am studying. I'd really like for Sean to be able to return to editing (and hey, I'm just one non-admin; I can't prevent someone from unblocking him), but I'm still not convinced he understands how Wikipedia owrks. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 02:36, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Edit Filter for the word 'Sus'

Hey Tamzin - I may be wrong (please tell me if so) but while looking through the list of abuse filters there isn't one that has any way to stop the word 'sus' being used in articles to vandalise. If there is one but it is private then it doesn't seem to work or isn't set to disallow, otherwise, would there be an easy way to create a filter or add it to an existing one as I see it used a lot more than usual recently. Thanks, Zippybonzo | talk 19:21, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

@Zippybonzo: 1124 catches some variants of "sus", but not \bsus\b itself. I think the issue is that there's just too many valid usages of that. See SUS, Special:Search/~sus, or this narrower search that attempts to roughly approximate word boundaries since I gather Special:Search can't do those. What the filter does do instead is search for patterns where other context makes Among Us sus-ing, well, sus. Even then, we recently ran into an FP on "The Story of Susanna" among the books at Susanna (Book of Daniel). Sadly, if a phrase used in vandalism happens to also be a phrase with lots of valid use cases (see also Owo and Harambe, both recently removed from filters), there's only so much we can do. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 21:06, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
Yeah - one day, the trend will die off and we can have a break from people putting sus on all the pages. Thanks for the help, Zippybonzo | talk 16:27, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
@Zippybonzo: Unrelatedly, thanks for tagging that page on testwiki from a completed bot test. One thing led to another and I wound up deleting about 9% of testwiki's mainspace. :P -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 02:24, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Well - thank you for taking the time to delete said 9% of testwiki’s main space. Zippybonzo | talk 08:57, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Merchandise Giveaway Nomination – Successful

A Wikimedia t-shirt!
A Wikimedia t-shirt!

Hey Tamzin,

You have been successfully nominated to receive a free t-shirt from the Wikimedia Foundation through our Merchandise Giveaway program. Congratulations and thank you for your hard work! Please email us at merchandise@wikimedia.org and we will send you full details on how to accept your free shirt. Thanks!

On behalf of the Merchandise Giveaway program,

-- janbery (talk) 13:09, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

For clarity

Hello, I think I need to clarify that this right here is what I get when I cite absolutely everything I've learned in Toki Pona to the Swadesh list at wiktionary:Appendix:Toki Pona Swadesh list, the general list at wiktionary:Appendix:Toki Pona, or the contributor-generated dictionary at glosbe.com. The whole thing really was meant as a joke, and for clarity I need to apologize for the absurdity. Believe me, this is not the first time that being an absolute n00b/not very good at languages has caught me doing some really strange things. With regrets, — 3PPYB6 — TALK — CONTRIBS — 00:57, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

@3PPYB6: sina pakala ala e mi. tenpo musi la jan o musi. musi la sina ike e toki pona. musi la mi pona e toki sina. ni li pakala ala. taso toki ale la sona ni li suli: toki ante la sina ken ala linja e nimi sama nasin pi toki Inli. sina o sona e nasin toki. sina wile sitelen lon lipu Wikipedia pi toki ante la, sina o sona e ni. ante la sina pakala a! -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 02:19, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
@Tamzin—I'm really close to es-2 at this point; maybe I can edit eswiki without messing up. 😛 — 3PPYB6 — TALK — CONTRIBS — 04:26, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Category:CS1 maint: url-status

Hi Tamzin! Your page User:Tamzin/common.css is accidentally included in Category:CS1 maint: url-status. To fix this, could you please change the text /* from [[Category:CS1 maint: url-status]] */ to /* from [[:Category:CS1 maint: url-status]] */ (i.e. add a colon to change the category to a category link)? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 04:42, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

@GoingBatty:  Fixed. Thanks! Sorry about that. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 05:10, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Position to place the old RfD

If you add the previous RfD template above the nomination, the XFDCloser buttons will stop appearing. I have moved it below. Jay (talk) 06:34, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

@Jay: Thanks for letting me know. Sorry about that. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 18:26, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

How to best use WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE arguments?

Howdy! Sorry if this is not the right place to go; however, I've come across your work in RfD before and I ended up stumbling upon your user page and saw your opinion about BLPs and I also fundamentally agree. There was a recently closed AfD that closed at keep where WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE was part of the discussion. I came across it not long after it closed and I was seeing some argue that WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE should generally go through WP:VRT, which makes sense; however in this instance, there was an edit, removed from the page, from who I credibly believed to be the subject of the page. I had some evidence for this, but the AfD had already closed by the time I had gathered the information as to why I think the person was legitimately the subject. I guess my question is, is there a good way to invoke a WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE argument at AfD without having to go through WP:VRT. I think that lots and lots of people to whom WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE apply likely don't understand the procedures of wikipedia and an edit that can very likely be attributed to the subject specifically requesting deletion should probably be taken as a valid. I apologize if this has turned into a bit of a rant; I just was not entirely sure where to go and seeing your opinion on BLPs, I thought your talk page would be a good place to go. I do not plan on taking the AfD to WP:DRV, so I am hoping this does not count as WP:Canvassing. snood1205(Say Hi! (talk)) 23:36, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

@TartarTorte: Sorry for the very belated reply. In general, a BLPREQUESTDELETE argument should come alongside some sort of verification of the subject's identity—whether that's through VRT, through some sort of clear demonstration (I believe we have accepted a Reddit-style selfie with note for establishing a notable Wikipedian's identity at least once), or, perhaps most efficiently, through an off-wiki post on verified social media. I've run into this twice with RMs that fell ambiguously under WP:DEADNAME: C. Quintana tweeted to clarify her gender identity for one RM, and prior to that Angela Zimmerman had been prepared to, but didn't since the RM wound up going that direction anyways. Tillie Kottmann did a similar thing about faer pronouns and DOB. So I would say that a similar approach is probably the most straightforward with BLPREQUESTDELETE.
Of course, we should be doing it the opposite way, presumed nonconsent to being the subject of a BLP, with people having to verify their identities in order to consent (for all but the most notable people). -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 18:41, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Clerk help needed

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/MrBoldBald has been sitting for days; it needs a merge, can you help as a clerk? wizzito | say hello! 23:44, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

@Wizzito:
  1. It will be dealt with when it's dealt with. We're all volunteers here.
  2. Generally, when asking a favor of someone on-wiki, you're better off asking someone you haven't cast aspersions against off-wiki to an audience known to engage in harassment. There are 15 other clerks, as well as several ex-clerk CUs who sometimes do clerk tasks, hopefully none of whom share my reason to be disinclined to help you. It's not a spite thing. I'm sure it sounds that way, but it isn't. I don't dislike you, and even if I did, I don't have a problem working with people I dislike. But I don't work with people whom I don't trust to speak honestly about me, purely as a matter of self-preservation.
I'm not trying to create drama here, just to explain why I can't help you. If you'd like to archive or blank this thread, feel free. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 00:01, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Not sure why this is worth the argument

But l definitely get a paywall. It would be better to use a Central or South American text anyway, since the topic is Central and South American reaction. Also, I have been tasked with summarizing/moving this section, so although I understand why you're guarding the article, I don't think that revert was constructive and I am going to refer you to the talk page and/or ErnestKrause, who just asked me why I am not doing this faster Elinruby (talk) 01:16, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

@Elinruby: I'm not guarding the article. I just have it watchlisted; that was my first edit to it in a while. I saw that you added a template outside the reference tags that normally wouldn't go there, and went to switch to the more concise and metadata-friendly |url-access=subscription. Before submitting the edit, I thought to check whether it actually was paywalled, and found that it wasn't, at least for me. It occurred to me that perhaps you'd put the template on the wrong reference, so I thought it better to revert and prompt eiher correction or discussion. If you're saying that it's paywalled for you, then my apologies. I have no objection to you re-inserting a paywall note, although again I'd encourage the |url-access=subscription approach over {{paywall}}. Thanks for reaching out. :) -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 01:20, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
OK. Just to be sure, Straits Times? That's the one we are talking about? Elinruby (talk)
@Elinruby: Yep. With adblock off I get a an ad covering the entire page, but it's dismissable. If it matters, I'm in the U.S. and am using a Chromebook. Whatever the cause, per H:CS1 it looks like the proper course of action is to set |url-access=limited: there are other constraints (such as a cap on daily views, a restriction to certain day or night times, or providing the contents only to certain IP ranges/locales on behalf of the provider of the source) to freely access this source as a whole. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 01:40, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
I will take another look before setting anything again, but am inclined to use a different source anyway. However it is possible that I looked at the same ad you did, but too fast to see that it could be dismissed. But my geek curiosity is aroused so thank you for the geolocation information as it is useful. I recognized the name as Tibetan (among other uses perhaps?) and was wondering if you might perhaps be in northern India or something. The devices I am using would ping to different parts of North America, so it will be interesting to see if switching makes a difference. By the way, “guarding the article” was intended in a good sense. This article *should* be watched, as the potential for hijinks is extremely high. Elinruby (talk) 04:53, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
@Elinruby: Well, glad we're sorting it out. :) Far from a big deal in the grand picture of things. Glad you're working to keep that article manageable. This inspired me to go make publishable a draft I'd earlier translated from frwiki, and thus now we have Bombing of Borodianka, which was the last redlink on {{2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine}}. Always more battles and attacks to write about, though. Sigh.
On a lighter note, I assume you're thinking of the Tibetan name Tenzin. Tamzin actually has a totally different etymology, a variant of Thomasina, which is the feminine form of my birth name. There's also a Persian name, Tasnim, and an Arabic name, Tasmin (which also exists in English, sometimes as Tazmin, as a variant of "Jasmine"), and both of those are also totally unrelated to Tamzin. So it seems a lot of cultures like putting those consonants in similar orders. I get called "Tazmin" a lot (including in a lot of ping attempts), but you're only the second person to connect it to Tenzin. This puts you in good company, as the one other person is someone I deeply admire. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 06:06, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
thanks for the etymology; the one I was thinking of seemed a bit...ferocious? I note that a lot of people do seem to have the name, which I had not encountered before, and I had to add Tibet to get the entity I was thinking of. Elinruby (talk) 17:23, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
I packed all the ferocity into my middle name. My Esther 8:6 tattoo is almost done healing, and when it is I think I'll make it the "profile picture" on my userpage. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 19:32, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
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