User talk:UninvitedCompany/archive23

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

Administrators' newsletter – August 2017

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

Administrator changes

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

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – September 2017

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

Administrator changes

Nakon • Scott

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – October 2017

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

Administrator changes

Boing! said Zebedee • Ansh666 • Ad Orientem

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Wikipedia:Contact us/blocked listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wikipedia:Contact us/blocked. Since you had some involvement with the Wikipedia:Contact us/blocked redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. DrStrauss talk 17:13, 13 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.

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

Interaction Timeline alpha demo is ready for testing

Hello,

The Interaction Timeline alpha version is ready for testing. The Anti-Harassment Tools team appreciates you spending a few minutes to try out the tool and let us know if there is value in displaying the interactions in a vertical timeline instead of the approach used with the existing interaction analysis tools.

Also we interested in learning about which additional functionality or information we should prioritize developing.

Comments can be left on the discussion page here or on meta. Or you can share your ideas by email.

Thank you,

For the Anti-Harassment Tools Team, SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 21:57, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

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

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – December 2017

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

Administrator changes

Joe Roe

JzG

Ericorbit • Perceval • Thingg • Tristanb • Violetriga

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – January 2018

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

Administrator changes

Muboshgu

Anetode • Laser brain • Worm That Turned

None

Bureaucrat changes

Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – February 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – March 2018

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

Administrator changes

Lourdes†

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

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

Obituaries

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

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

G1 does not apply to user sandboxes

WP:G1 explicitly does not apply to user sandboxes ("or other pages in the user namespace"). Please could you revisit your deletion of User:TheBigSpoon/sandbox.

Based on comments made by other editors, it is possible that WP:G5 might apply. MPS1992 (talk) 22:00, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Could you please clarify whether: you believe the page should have been kept, or: you believe the wrong criteria were cited in the deletion. Thanks, The Uninvited Co., Inc. 22:04, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

I believe the page should not have been deleted. MPS1992 (talk) 22:06, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

I will undelete it, and list it at mfd, out of respect for your concerns, and out of respect for the editor who listed it as a speedy. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 22:09, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:TheBigSpoon/sandbox The Uninvited Co., Inc. 22:33, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! MPS1992 (talk) 22:52, 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.

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

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Obituaries

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

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

Interaction Timeline V1.1

Hello UninvitedCompany, I’m following up with you because you previously showed an interest in the Interaction Timeline. The Anti-Harassment Tools team has completed V1.1 and the tool is ready for use. The Interaction Timeline shows a chronologic history for two users on pages where they have both made edits.

The purpose of the tool is to better understand the sequence of edits between two users in order to make a decision about the best way to resolve a user conduct dispute. Here are some test cases that show the results and also some known limitations of the tool. We would like to hear your experience using the tool in real cases. You can leave public feedback on talk page or contact us by email if the case needs discretion or you would prefer to comment privately. SPoore (WMF), Trust & Safety, Community health initiative (talk) 16:30, 9 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.

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

How can the Interaction Timeline be useful in reporting to noticeboards?

Hi UninvitedCompany,

The Anti-Harassment Tools team built the Interaction Timeline to make it easier to understand how two people interact and converse across multiple pages on a wiki. The tool shows a chronological list of edits made by two users, only on pages where they have both made edits within the provided time range. Our goals are to assist users to make well informed decisions in incidents of user misconduct and to keep on-wiki discussions civil and focused on evidence.

We're looking to add a feature to the Interaction Timeline that makes it easy to post statistics and information to an on-wiki discussion about user misconduct. We're discussing possible wikitext output on the project talk page, and we invite you to participate! Thank you, For the Anti-Harassment Tools team, SPoore (WMF), Trust & Safety, Community health initiative (talk) 22:48, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Losing religion

The article Losing religion has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

No claim of notability

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages 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 page 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. Catrìona (talk) 16:59, 28 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.

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.

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

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jbhunley/Bureaucrat chat

Hello fellow bureaucrats, in regards to a current RfA that has met its time, I would like your assistance in judging the community consensus presented in the discussion at Jbhunley's RfA. Your input would be most welcome at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jbhunley/Bureaucrat chat. Best regards, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:37, 7 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.

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

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018

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

Administrator changes

Justlettersandnumbers • L235

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

Interface administrator changes

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

Oversight changes

Guerillero • NativeForeigner • Snowolf • Xeno

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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.

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

MfD nomination of Wikipedia:Leadership opportunities

Wikipedia:Leadership opportunities, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Leadership opportunities and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:Leadership opportunities during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. ‑ Iridescent 10:39, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, UninvitedCompany. 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.

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

Proposed deletion of John Roycroft (kickboxer)

The article John Roycroft (kickboxer) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Notability not established, WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages 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.

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

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

Administrator changes

Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz

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

Interface administrator changes

Deryck Chan

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

Obituaries

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:37, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
	Helped clean up vandalism :) SoVeryGrim (talk) 19:01, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Interloper

Yes. [1] Regards, Hamster Sandwich (talk) 00:47, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Precious

"prepare for the future"

Thank you for quality articles such as Isoflurane (2003!) and Linus and Lucy, for designing and serving arbitration, for long-term service as admin and bureaucrat, for "I admonish all of you who remain to prepare for the future" and for doing so, - Steven, repeating (30 November 2008): you are an awesome Wikipedian!

Awesome
Ten years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:31, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Well, normally I come around that day to say how precious it is, but 30 Nov was a busy day ;) - better late than never ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:08, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! Uninvited Company

ANI

Thank you for the message - I want the same. It's a shame some others 1) refuse to believe that and 2) seem to want me hung, drawn & quatered... Giant Snowman 19:03, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/administrators

Hi UC, Welcome back. I saw your post on Doug Weller's talk page re the above. It reminded me of a recent conversation, essentially between Iridescent and Risker, on Risker's talk page, which you might find relevant. Paul August ☎ 19:32, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day 2019

Welcome back! There's discussion at Wikipedia talk:Meetup/Minnesota of a celebration in the Twin Cities on January 19. It would be great if that fits your schedule. Jonathunder (talk) 00:30, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

I put it on my calendar; email sent also Uninvited Company 00:33, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

185.63.32.143 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

Can you change the block on this IP to a one or two year as it's a proxy that should be long-term blocked. Thanks. Home Lander (talk) 17:08, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Done. Uninvited Company 17:17, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Flippin Kentucky

Why have you “reverted” this article? I am the author of a published, documented work on this town and community. I regret so many edits, but there is a tremendous amount of detailed information to relate, and I have attempted to provide it in as succinct and accurate a statement as possible.

You have just wiped out all of that! By what authority?

If Wikipedia is this susceptible to unwarranted edits and deletions, I am done with it, and will cease to support it. BlueLevelBoy (talk) 17:07, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

My mistake, further discussion at talk. Uninvited Company 17:17, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

It now appears that that the first section of “Flippin, Kentucky” (brief description and statistical data) did not return. Are you able to restore it? Thanks for your help. BlueLevelBoy (talk) 17:24, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) BlueLevelBoy,

Fixed. Home Lander (talk) 17:26, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! BlueLevelBoy (talk) 17:26, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

You are welcome sir.

Fylindfotberserk (talk) 10:40, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Huge Amount of Paid Editing and Paid article creation is done in India.

Please Take a look at these articles most of the artcles are just "GRADE SCHOOLS" and we all know that grade schools are not notable at all. The citation provided are not independent, and grades school are not notable these types of articles are created by such private school to attract students so they can increase their PROFITS, it's a very common practice in india. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#G11 And also check who creates such advertisements he should be banned from editing Wikipedia there are more than 1000s of such non-notable paid advertisements in English Wikipedia.

You are my last hope for Independent Wikipedia in India. parents are forced to pay high fees in these schools as we all trust wikipedia, and these schools take advantage of it.

i am just a user with no rights like you, so i can not delete them all requested for deletion of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi_Public_School_Ghaziabad and it got deleted.

LIST OF SUCH SCHOOLS BY STATE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_schools_in_India

Nuksanhai (talk) 11:05, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Notice

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/GiantSnowman. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GiantSnowman/Evidence. Please add your evidence by December 31, 2018, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GiantSnowman/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Brad v🍁 21:45, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Insightful, but…

Hello.
By chance ran into your statement. No surprise that a user who sees all this trash in a critical light joined in 2003; new Wikipedia’s acquisitions are more susceptible to groupthink. The main problem of this site is that Wikipedia, in fact, promotes incompetence, by the wiki software in general and its social fabric as well. There is no positive selection among editors namely because undoing all changes is so easy. And mass rollback is a minute issue IMHO. While various firemen and snowmen aggressively police articles on living persons, most other articles—being it some geography or a historical person—rot in neglect. One can frequently see an editor formatting or copy-editing bollocks (thus making its identification harder), but you can never see anybody (except PoV warriors) lurking on talk pages and acting upon complaints. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:28, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

I choose to believe that the Wiki way of doing things is inherently useful; as you point out, it has its drawbacks. The problem with certain article categories -- history and geography usually do come up as examples -- is not new. The only thing that's changed is that we're now complaining about people editing articles about TV series rather than articles about pokemon. Be well, Uninvited Company 13:14, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Block length of BiscuitsForBrexit

Hey, re your block of BiscuitsForBrexit, I increased it to indefinite because that's usually what's done with vandalism-only accounts. The inflammatory username and their edits after the block only confirm that decision in my mind. Graham87 02:22, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

::nod:: I don't object, at all; I typically use shorter blocks mainly to mitigate the damage of any mistakes I may make. Uninvited Company 13:18, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Calpurnia (band)

Hi UninvitedCompany. I saw you protected this page a few days ago when it was being vandalised. The protection has run out and the vandals have returned [2], could it be placed under protection again please? I listed it in Wikipedia:Requests for page protection but I don't think it's being monitored at the moment. Thanks. Agent00x (talk) 15:32, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

I try to switch off with other administrators so that I don't get too involved in any one article. Requests for page protection is monitored, and someone will be along before you know it. Thanks. Uninvited Company 16:55, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Returning

Hi UC,

Thanks for the link, I did check it out earlier, so I have a general idea of what the expect if I return to high activity. It's certainly strange to see what (and who) has or hasn't changed. Funny enough, I also happened to look at my last few Wikipedia-related emails dealing with the major dispute that got me to withdraw from Wikipedia in the first place.

--Deathphoenix ʕ 02:31, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Merry Christmas !!!

Happy Yuletide!

Merry Yuletide to you! (And a happy new year!) .CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 19:42, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! Glad tidings to you! Uninvited Company 14:00, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

Hello UninvitedCompany: Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice if it's occurring in your area of the world, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, Fylindfotberserk (talk) 15:12, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

Greetings !

Hello UninvitedCompany: Enjoy the holiday season, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, ---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 18:33, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings1}} to send this message

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019

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

Administrator changes

Galobtter

Orangemike

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

Bureaucrat changes

Addshore

CheckUser changes

Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

AGK • Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Guideline and policy news

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

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

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

Technical news

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

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

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

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Invitation to return

Just wanted to say thanks for the note on my talk page with information for returning administrators. My time available to contribute is limited these days, but I'll definitely check out the links and set up Huggle. – Jrdioko (Talk) 23:26, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

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

Administrator changes

Enterprisey • JJMC89

BorgQueen

Harro5 • Jenks24 • Graft • R. Baley

Interface administrator changes

Enterprisey

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:16, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Inactive

I was looking at Coren's nomination for BAG and came across this which struck me as rather odd. Enigma^msg 07:11, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

There are a number of editors with similar histories. I have a proposal to deal with it around here somewhere, but I'm not sure I like it, or that it's a good idea. Uninvited Company 22:18, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Last admin action in August 2013. That must be a pretty unique case. Enigma^msg 22:33, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

It's not, there are probably dozens, especially if you exclude admin actions in the admin's own userspace or things they self-revert, and similar stuff. Uninvited Company 22:35, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Wow. I am sad to hear that. Enigma^msg 02:25, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Re your comments in the ongoing RfA on admin inactivity

Hi UninvitedCompany -- I wish we could move the discussion more towards what might help a mostly retired admin come back and contribute productively again. As I've written in the RfA, the bot-delivered warnings feel unfriendly. I think the wording should take into account the fact that some people are likely to be in the middle of extremely difficult situations, such as serious illness or the death or serious illness of spouse/close relatives. (I had a good laugh the other day when I correlated the date mine arrived with the events in my diary.) I applaud your personalised messages, but earlier similarly personalised messages might be more effective?

For what (little) it's worth, what got me back after a protracted very stressful period in my personal life appears to have been the portal I'd worked on, which provided a very safe space for borderline positive contributions, reconnected me with friends in the wikiproject, got me reassessing articles for the project, and then clicking on 'my' articles and being horrified at the changes that had occurred in my absence. It took some time (~2 months) for me to use the admin tools but the fact that I had (largely accidentally) succeeded in retaining the admin rights probably was a factor in my return -- I felt a duty to Wikipedia that I would not have done if the rights had been removed. Cheers, Espresso Addict (talk) 03:52, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Linking to logs

I saw your request at WP:AE#GiantSnowman where you said permalinks to specific entries are not possible due to technical limitations. With all due respect, and just as an FYI, this is wrong. See {{Logid}}. I believe the 2 block log entries you were referring to were this block of 5.151.172.213 for 48 hours with an explanation of "Block evasion" and this block of 124.62.79.115 for 48 hours with an explanation of "Vandalism-only account". Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 00:36, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Uninvited Company 00:38, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2019

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

Administrator changes

Evad37

There'sNoTime

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

Interface administrator changes

Evad37 • Galobtter

Ritchie333

CheckUser changes

There'sNoTime

Keegan • Ks0stm

Oversight changes

There'sNoTime

Ks0stm • Sphilbrick

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Racism in Brazil

Howdy. Why would you restore vandalism, at the Racism in Brazil article? Gonna guess, it was a mistake. GoodDay (talk) 20:53, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

@GoodDay: Thanks for the note. I use Huggle, and one of the drawbacks of that tool is that if you use it to revert a change within a few seconds of someone else's revert, it will revert the topmost change thus restoring the problematic edit. I am sure that's what happened here as the logs show another revert at the same time (rounded to the minute) as my edit. After a Huggle session, I go through my own recent contributions manually to check for these sorts of mistakes. Obviously I missed one. I do strive for 100% accuracy and thank you for your note. Uninvited Company 02:00, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Cool :) GoodDay (talk) 02:19, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Wrong talkpage deleted?

You recently moved Felipe (born July 1984) to Felipe (footballer, born July 1984), but Talk:Felipe (footballer, born July 1984) does the opposite (i.e., redirects to Talk:Felipe (born July 1984). You deleted the latter talkpage, but that's where the history was. I think you meant to delete the former talkpage (Talk:Felipe (footballer, born July 1984)) and move the history of Talk:Felipe (born July 1984) there? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 00:07, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Good catch. I'll take care of it. Uninvited Company 17:13, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2019

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

Administrator changes

Reaper Eternal • ThaddeusB

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

Mentifisto → Lofty abyss

Interface administrator changes

Mr. Stradivarius

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad

Kingturtle

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/RexxS/Bureaucrat chat

I've opened a bureaucrat chat for a current RfA. Your input would be most appreciated at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/RexxS/Bureaucrat chat. Best regards, Maxim_(talk) 22:08, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019 special circular

Administrators must secure their accounts

The Arbitration Committee may require a new RfA if your account is compromised.

Use strong, unique passwords for your Wikipedia account and associated email
Change your password now if your Wikipedia account password or email password is reused on another website, exposed, or weak
Enable two-factor authentication now for improved security

View additional information

This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:53, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)

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

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

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – May 2019

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

Administrator changes

HickoryOughtShirt?4 • RexxS

Necrothesp

Bratsche • Kyle Barbour • Kzollman • Madman

Interface administrator changes

Pharos

Bureaucrat changes

Primefac

CheckUser changes

Reaper Eternal

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

RfC

It seems like it is dead but for the record, I support your efforts to effect some kind of change. I find it to be a real problem that we have so many admins who haven't engaged in the project or used the tools in years. The reason for having the tools is to use them, not to just keep them for an infinite period with no intent of doing anything. Enigma^msg 18:11, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

ACC tool access request approved

Thank you for your interest in the account creation process. I have verified that you have signed the confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information and approved your request.

You may now access the interface here. Before you begin handling any requests, please ensure you have read and understood the account creation guide and username policy to familiarize yourself with the process.

Please subscribe yourself to the private ACC mailing list by clicking here and following the instructions on the page. I also highly recommend that you join us on IRC. We'll be able to grant you access to our private channel (#wikipedia-en-accounts ^connect), where a bot informs us when new account requests arrive, and where you can chat with the other members of the team and get real-time input, advice, and assistance with requests and how to handle certain cases that are giving you confusion or trouble.

Please note that repeatedly failing to correctly assess and process account requests and take the correct resulting actions will result in the suspension of your access to the ACC tool interface. Processing account creation requests is not a race, and each request should be handled with your utmost diligence, care, and attention. Closing each account request correctly, accurately, and within full compliance of the ACC tool guide is your goal and your priority; never sacrifice accuracy and compliance of policy in exchange for quantity, or to close a high number of requests that are in the queue.

Releasing any kind of nonpublic personal data listed in the access to nonpublic personal data policy (such as the IP addresses or email addresses of account creation requests), whether intentionally or unintentionally, is treated as an extremely serious violation of policy and will generally result in immediate suspension of your access to the ACC tool interface. Depending on the severity of the offense, the intent, and the level of misconduct that occurred, the violation and the breach of the confidential information will be reported to the Wikimedia Foundation, which can result in further sanctions and actions being taken against you (such as being blocked, banned, or having your access to nonpublic personal data status revoked). If you have questions about this or aren't sure about anything in regards to this policy, please ask a tool administrator.

Please don't hesitate to get in touch with any ACC tool administrator or other experienced ACC user if you have any questions. Thank you for participating in the account creation process, and we're glad to have you as part of the group! Welcome to the ACC tool user team! — JJMC89 (T·C) 14:04, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks!

Just wanted to drop a note to thank you for trying to find a way forward for that deadlocked situation, and to apologize for the sheer volume of text in a single day there. You opened the thread just as I was leaving for a trip, and by the time I was back online there was rather a lot to respond to (and three days worth of mulling it over). If I could have made it briefer I would, but I'm terrible at brevity, so my apologies for that! (I'll try to keep any needed responses briefer, but, again, not good at brevity)

In any case, I think letting that situation keep festering as it had been would be a perfect path to a lose—lose situation for all involved and for the project as a whole, and very much appreciate you trying to nudge it into some kind of constructive forward motion. Whatever the conclusion, so long as there is some kind of conclusion, has got to be better than the status quo. --Xover (talk) 16:01, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I felt an obligation to try to move the conversation forward after removing the "unblock" template. Uninvited Company 13:10, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Your closure at Citation bot

Hi UninvitedCompany, may I kindly ask you to revert your closure at User_talk:Citation_bot. I understand you'd like to clear a backlog, however in this instance the unblock request has not been done by a blocked user. If you are familiar with bot accounts, they are maintained by maintainers. Here, the unblock request was filed (barely 48 hours ago) by the the bot's sole maintainer AManWithNoPlan (who naturally isn't blocked). It would be much more preferable if the discussion was allowed to run its course as the bot is an important work tool for many editors. Regards, — kashmīrī ^TALK 06:42, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Kashmiri, that wasn't a closure of discussion as such. I hope the discussion will proceed, and I am confident that AManWithNoPlan will find a suitable venue for it. I believe discussion should involve the bot approvals group and follow the processes that group has established. In any case, the unblock procedures don't apply, which is why I marked the request closed. Uninvited Company 13:08, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Big thanks for taking time and looking into the matter with an impartial eye. Appreciate especially your comments at AN. — kashmīrī ^TALK 22:32, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2019

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

Administrator changes

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

CheckUser changes

Ivanvector

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:49, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

A small note of thanks

For saying what I was thinking this weekend as I caught up on recent events; and for your thoughtful work over the years. I hope to catch up soon. – SJ + 23:17, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2019

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

Administrator changes

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

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

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

Bureaucrat changes

28bytes • WJBscribe • Wizardman

Interface administrator changes

MSGJ • TheDJ

CheckUser changes

Beeblebrox • BU Rob13 • DoRD

Oversight changes

Beeblebrox • BU Rob13 • DoRD • GB fan

Guideline and policy news

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

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

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Floquenbeam 2/Bureaucrat chat

I've opened a bureaucrat chat for a current RfA. Your input would be most appreciated at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Floquenbeam 2/Bureaucrat chat. Primefac (talk) 19:51, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2019

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

Administrator changes

Johnuniq • Kosack • Valereee

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

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

Interface administrator changes

Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes

RickinBaltimore

Oversight changes

Beeblebrox

RickinBaltimore

Guideline and policy news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Advice needed

Hello.
Among users with whom I interact for years, of course, both asshats and trustworthy persons are known. But for superficial wiki acquaintances it’s easy to mistake; moreover, persons evolve and many of them rot. Some months ago I voted for two admin candidates on Wikimedia Commons; one deemed a hard-working watcher of everything and another a smart guy – at the time. Eventually the “hard-working watcher” revealed their propensity to harass certain users, whereas the “smart guy” turned a plain power-clinging asshat. Of course, the en.Wikipedian administration and Wikimedia structures are infiltrated by asshats as well. A powerful position is not a marker for integrity and trustworthiness.
Some years ago I wrote certain advice for users who vote in Wikipedia, but now I find myself in no position to follow own recommendations because my “white list” includes only a handful of active Wikipedians. Can you give me a hint: who may be trusted here nowadays? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 12:01, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I share many of your thoughts but don't have a list. There are any number of good people who remain involved. There are also many even-handed, intelligent, caring, gentle people who have decided that they cannot gain enough influence here to make participation in the politics worthwhile. Uninvited Company 22:08, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

No ready-to-use directions? There should be certain technique how cool users see each other, distinguish from the median crowd of waste-makers mutually decorated with barnstars and/or high privileges. I’m sure you must know something about it. During my wiki career I intervened to defend dozens people, but when I applied for a petty privilege here, nobody came to my side. It seems to me that my allies can’t identify me for some reason. Go forth with your known “caring people” and write an essay – I’ll see how intelligent are they. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 08:24, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

An unrelated remark: may I replace your “Old talk archived” hatnote with one of custom navigation tools like {{archives}}? The purposefully built templates have such advantages as embedded search string. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 12:01, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead. Uninvited Company 22:08, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2019

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

Administrator changes

Bradv • Chetsford • Izno

Floquenbeam • Lectonar

DESiegel • Jake Wartenberg • Rjanag • Topbanana

CheckUser changes

Callanecc • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Comment

Hello Steven, I hope this finds you and yours well. I doubt that I could find another user, at least an active one, who understands what the role of Arbcom should be, or at least what it was intended to be. You were there, you helped design and develop it, you understand the intended role of both Arbcom and the WMF. For all your work in those efforts I do thank you. I don't want this to come across as a "But what have you done for me lately" post - but personally I think it would be great to see you do another stint on AC. I know you've done your time - but perhaps at least think about it? Thanks for your time, best and Cheers. — Ched (talk) 20:38, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words. I've thought about it and am not sure if I can make enough of a difference there for it to be worth the considerable investment of time and emotional energy. I am dismayed by the relationship between WMF and ENWP, and Arbcom cannot fix this. I also have a number of views that are at odds with the "tradition of Arbcom" as it has evolved. I believe that as an institution it is too lenient and believes that people are far more capable of change than they actually are. It has excessive focus on due process. It has a core belief that problems are solvable and consensus can be achieved. I don't think that I can change much of that. I've tried before.

I'm not sure what the answer is.

Uninvited Company 21:20, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree that 1 individual would be hard pressed to make a difference; but a small collective with the proper skills and determination perhaps could. I must admit that the 'time and emotional energy' issue is one I have no answer for. WMF/ENWP/AC I'll circle back to. Having different views can be a good thing in proper discussion; it offers options that like minded folks might not have thought of. The core of Arbcom is admittedly something I can't speak to. I think that's something that only experience can teach. I do think that the operation of the Arbcom project can be improved with several things. One is the choice of participants, I think that one is a no-brainer. Now one that I personally believe is a factor is age. I don't want to discount the exceptions (who are often exceptional. :)), but in general I don't think that most 20-something aged people have the wherewithal to deal with the more problematic issues that arise on wiki. However 40+ tends to generate a level of experience that can often find solutions to difficult problems. (I won't get in to the 60+ area because ... well, I just won't)

Getting back to the WMF/en-wp issue: I think at one time Jimmy may have had the key to establishing the boundaries, but he doesn't seem to have the desire anymore. Perhaps he doesn't even have the ~~ability~~ authority. (although I doubt that). Being there in the early years, you would have much more insight into that than I would. As for Arbcom, I do commend them in their liaison role in delivering their open letter to the WMF. I think that shows that they can be part of a solution. My biggest fear is that this whole Fram issue is simply a test of sorts. A precursor to establishing a foothold in the governmental and administrative areas of our project. While their intervention into smaller projects may be a good thing, wp-en was established as a self governing body. (yes, I know, you're well aware since you were one of the primary founders of the whole Arbcom project - but sometimes I get started and forget where to quit).

Still, your time and emotions point is well taken, and I'll readily defer to that. I certainly don't have an answer either; but I do appreciate you indulging me in my ramblings. I'll leave it at that and say thank you and best wishes. Cheers UC — Ched (talk) 10:57, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2019

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

Administrator changes

Barkeep49

Beetstra • KillerChihuahua • Kusma

Arcadian • Extraordinary Machine • Xeno

JamesBWatson → JBW

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

CheckUser changes

Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Oversight changes

Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – November 2019

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

Administrator changes

GermanJoe • Girth Summit • Kees08 • Nosebagbear

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

DeltaQuad • Fang Aili • Pakaran

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad • Pakaran

Interface administrator changes

MSGJ

CheckUser changes

L235 • Mz7 • SQL • ST47

Ivanvector

DeltaQuad

Oversight changes

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

DeltaQuad • DGG • Julia W

Guideline and policy news

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

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

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

Arbitration

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

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

ArbCom 2019 election voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:03, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Google Code-In 2019 is coming - please mentor some documentation tasks!

Hello,

Google Code-In, Google-organized contest in which the Wikimedia Foundation participates, starts in a few weeks. This contest is about taking high school students into the world of opensource. I'm sending you this message because you recently edited a documentation page at the English Wikipedia.

I would like to ask you to take part in Google Code-In as a mentor. That would mean to prepare at least one task (it can be documentation related, or something else - the other categories are Code, Design, Quality Assurance and Outreach) for the participants, and help the student to complete it. Please sign up at the contest page and send us your Google account address to google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org, so we can invite you in!

From my own experience, Google Code-In can be fun, you can make several new friends, attract new people to your wiki and make them part of your community.

If you have any questions, please let us know at google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org.

Thank you!

--User:Martin Urbanec (talk) 21:59, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2019

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

Administrator changes

EvergreenFir • ToBeFree

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

CheckUser changes

Beeblebrox

Deskana

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Precious anniversary

A year ago ...
"prepare for the future"

... you were recipient no. 2085 of Precious, a prize of QAI!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:24, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2020

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

Administrator changes

Dreamy Jazz • Newslinger • Rosguill

Deor • Spartaz • Xeno

Angusmclellan • clpo13 • Edgar181 • Matthewedwards • NCurse

CheckUser changes

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

Oversight changes

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

Someguy1221

Guideline and policy news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:07, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2020

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

Administrator changes

Ergo Sum • Nick Moyes • QEDK • Wugapodes

Dennis Brown

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

CheckUser changes

Opabinia regalis • Premeditated Chaos

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

Twinkle now supports partial blocking. There is a small checkbox that toggles the "partial" status for both blocks and templating. There is currently one template: {{uw-pblock}}.
When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title. [3]

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Bureaucrat chat for RFA - Money emoji

I've opened a bureaucrat chat for the current RfA. Your input would be most appreciated at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Money emoji/Bureaucrat chat. Cheers, Primefac (talk) 15:01, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

(Was going to reply at the above-linked discussion which is now closed...) Thank you for your reply in which you wrote that only under unusual circumstances should a discussion with approximately 70% support (I believe it's at 69.86%) be seen as a consensus to promote. However, the community has explicitly asked us to promote candidates between 65% and 75% support. Accordingly, I don't see how promoting a candidate in the middle of the range requires particularly unusual circumstances. I could see it requiring unusual circumstances under the old standards, or to promote a candidate at under 65%, but right in the middle of the range? –xeno^talk 00:17, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

It took some digging to find it, but the actual discussion on widening the discretionary range is here. It was written in the context of an era when there were few successful RfAs, and supporters were divided in their rationale. While there were a minority of supporters who believed that the discretionary range should be elimintated in favor of a strict 2/3 supermajority (or some other numerical standard), I do not read a mandate there that bureaucrats should routinely or automatically approve RfAs that reach 70%. Instead, I read that RFAs ending in the discretionary range, remain at the discretion of the bureaucrats, with consensus as a guide. Moreover, the fact that many recent RfAs have reached over 90% support indicates to me that the problem of ever-escalating standards for adminship has been abated somewhat, as it demonstrates that there is not a shortage of candidates who can achieve broad support. Uninvited Company 21:07, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2020

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

Administrator changes

Money emoji

Athaenara • DeltaQuad

Fishhead64 • Kudpung • Mikaey

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad

CheckUser changes

DeltaQuad

Oversight changes

DeltaQuad

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:21, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2020

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

Administrator changes

Cabayi • Lee Vilenski

Boing! said Zebedee

Jonny-mt • MarkGallagher • PeaceNT

Money emoji → Moneytrees

Bureaucrat changes

SilkTork • WereSpielChequers

CheckUser changes

NativeForeigner

Oversight changes

Someguy1221

Daniel Case

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – May 2020

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

Administrator changes

Gnangarra • Kaisershatner • Malcolmxl5

CheckUser changes

Callanecc

Oversight changes

HJ Mitchell

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – June 2020

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

Administrator changes

CaptainEek • Creffett • Cwmhiraeth

Anna Frodesiak • Buckshot06 • Ronhjones • SQL

CheckUser changes

SQL

Guideline and policy news

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

Arbitration

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:28, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2020

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

Administrator changes

Malcolmxl5

John • TheCoffee • Tim!

Creffett → GeneralNotability

DeltaQuad → AmandaNP

CheckUser changes

Bbb23

Interface administrator changes

TonyBallioni

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:26, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2020

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

Administrator changes

Red Phoenix

Euryalus • SQL

Jujutacular • Monty845 • Rettetast • Madchester

Oversight changes

GB fan

Keegan • Opabinia regalis • Premeditated Chaos

Guideline and policy news

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – September 2020

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

Administrator changes

Eddie891

Angela • Jcw69 • Just Chilling • Philg88 • Viajero

CheckUser changes

SQL

Guideline and policy news

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

Arbitration

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:57, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2020

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

Administrator changes

Ajpolino • LuK3

Jackmcbarn

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

There'sNoTime → TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:44, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2020

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

Administrator changes

John M Wolfson

Bduke • Nilfanion • Philosopher • Rspeer • Yunshui

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

TonyBallioni

CheckUser changes

EdJohnston • Oshwah • Yamla

Yunshui

Oversight changes

Anarchyte

Yunshui

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:53, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:14, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2020

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

Administrator changes

Andrwsc • Anetode • GoldenRing • JzG • LinguistAtLarge • Nehrams2020

Interface administrator changes

Izno

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Precious anniversary

Precious
Two years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:11, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2021

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

Administrator changes

Hammersoft

Andres • Brion VIBBER • Rkitko • Thatcher

CheckUser changes

Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek • Primefac

Oversight changes

Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek

Joe Roe

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – February 2021

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

Administrator changes

Hog Farm

Mattflaschen • Nandesuka • Savidan • Wangi

CheckUser changes

Berean Hunter • Xeno

Oversight changes

Someguy1221 • Xeno

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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