User talk:VegaDark/Archive 7

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Archived Discussions
Archive 1 - December 13, 2005 - November 28, 2006
Archive 2 - November 28, 2006 - May 20, 2007
Archive 3 - May 20, 2007 - March 20, 2008
Archive 4 - March 20, 2008 - September 7, 2008
Archive 5 - September 7, 2008 - October 26, 2009
Archive 6 - October 26, 2009 - November 8, 2016
Archive 7 - November 8, 2016 - December 3, 2021

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

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

A new user right for New Page Patrollers

Hi VegaDark.

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

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 However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less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

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:48, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

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

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

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

Category:User en-0

Hey, I was hoping to see if you might recall a discussion about bots being able to use this category to filter out leaving messages on pages as an argument for usefulness of the category. I feel like it was discussed in depth, and ultimately dismissed, which was a contributing factor for why it was deleted, but I can't seem to find it in either of the old CfDs, here and here. Perhaps it was a talk page discussion or another similar category? Any ideas? Thanks, VegaDark (talk) 04:07, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Well, after a quick search, I found this. I'll see if I can find anything else. My vague recollection is that there was an userbox extension which auto-adds -0, but I don't remember if that was implemented in the end. - -jc37 04:20, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, that's helpful, although doesn't specifically discuss bots using the category and I could have sworn there was one where someone argued that usage and there was a discussion as to why that wasn't a good reason to keep it, but perhaps I'm misremembering things. VegaDark (talk) 04:53, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Found the extension discussion: mw:User_talk:RobertL/Archive_1#Babel-Extension - jc37 05:29, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Is this what you were looking for? - jc37 04:48, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

No, that was the discussion that was grounds for undoing the CfD which I did find. Basically I'm looking for arguments addressing this exact issue except I believe our previous consensus was this was not legitimate usage of the category. Kinda disappointed that venue was used to overturn a longstanding CfD decision as well. VegaDark (talk) 04:53, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

I have to say that this is quite the blast from the past. Just seeing ones like "Do you speak dolphin" lol

And wow at remembering the time invested in this. that ucfd page still ranks as my highest usage page in my edit history...

I'll keep looking, but besides that, How have you been? : ) - jc37 05:00, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

It's a good reminder of all the good work we put in to make the user category system actually work towards a collaborative environment instead of the cesspool it was before our intervention. Unfortunately it looks like not too many people have been policing them since I became less active - I've made a large number of nominations recently and there's plenty more to nominate in the future. I've been good, no real reason I haven't been particularly active other than just different hobbies taking up my time. The election results have re-invigorated me to do what I can to help with education, and I thought of Wikipedia and the work I've done here as a way to help with that, so perhaps I'll make an effort to be more active again. How about you? VegaDark (talk) 05:06, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

I understand. Wikipedia has a distinct value. Real life keeps me entangled of late, but I try to help as I can. Next year should be a bit freer, I think (famous last words : )

These days it's all I can do to unbury Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure, much less get back into cfd. And when I start to look at the mess in fiction-related pages in articlespace the task is just so huge, it just sometimes feels so overwhelming... - jc37 05:29, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Ugh, that looks like a contentious area. I'm glad users have picked their niche in needed areas or things would get backed up beyond belief. VegaDark (talk) 05:31, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Barnstar of Good Humor
	I give this on my behalf Paula William (talk) 00:40, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Happy New Year, VegaDark!

Happy New Year!

VegaDark,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
Donner60 (talk) 04:48, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Joke user categories

I would like to have further discussion. I am not sure how to use Requests for comment. It appears you must start by attaching an RFC to an article. What could we attach it to?Rathfelder (talk) 10:13, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• @Rathfelder I've created one, see Wikipedia_talk:User_categories#Request_for_comment_on_our_proposed_policy_for_users_remaining_in_redlinked_categories. VegaDark (talk) 22:11, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Thank you. Rathfelder (talk) 22:23, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Mexican expatriates in Italy Category

Hello VegaDark, can you please undo the deletion of Category:Mexican expatriates in Italy? The Category should no longer be empty now. Thank you very much. Inter&anthro (talk) 23:37, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

The category has now been restored. Thanks, VegaDark (talk) 02:06, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter - February 2017

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

Administrator changes

NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67

Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13

Guideline and policy news

• A discussion to workshop proposals to amend the administrator inactivity policy at Wikipedia talk:Administrators has been in process since late December 2016.
• Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2016 closed with no consensus for implementing Pending changes level 2 with new criteria for use.
• Following an RfC, an activity requirement is now in place for bots and bot operators.

Technical news

• When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. (T34950)
• Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. (T156448)
• The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee released a response to the Wikimedia Foundation's statement on paid editing and outing.

Obituaries

• JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.

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Discuss this newsletter • Subscribe • Archive

13:38, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Ultra-Speedy deletions

Hi VegaDark

At about 3:40am today I was notified that a bunch of categories which I had created had been tagged for speedy deletion under WP:C1 ("empty"). They included Category:Argentine female archers and Category:Romanian female archers.

As C1 notes, this criterion applies to categories that have been unpopulated for at least seven days. AFAIK, those categories had not been empty for more than a day or two, yet you deleted them both shortly after 7am today. That's only a little over 3 hours after they were tagged, rather than the usual 7 days.

Ordinarily I wouldn't mind much: if a category which I have created no longer serves its purpose of containing at least one article, then it needs to go, and I will often G7 speedy them myself.

But in this case, these categories are part of a larger series which have become empty as a result of the mass move to draft space of some 16,000 articles created by User:Sander.v.Ginkel.

As I wrote a few hours ago to the editor who applied the speedy tags:

I created categories which I promptly populated with existing articles. What I did not realise in doing this (I only learnt it this week) was that User:Sander.v.Ginkel had been mass-creating biogs of sportspeople using some sort of tools or unauthorised bot which created lots of errors. (When I went looking for what happened, I found for example WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive941#User:Fram.)

As a result of that, some 16,000 articles have been moved to draft space, and therefore removed from categories. AIUI, they were mostly biogs of sportspeople, and that has emptied many of the categories which I created and populated ... and since the articles were not tagged with any warning, I was unaware that I was wasting hours of my time. Not my fault; I acted in good faith, creating valid categories which were promptly populated.

I don't know the ultimate fate of those 16,000 articles. I guess that there isn't the editor time to review more than a fraction of them, but I'm sure that at least some of them will be restored. If and when they are restored, they will need their original categories ... which have now been deleted.

There is a good reason for the 7-day delay on C1 deletions. It's to avoid ping-pong deletion/re-creation cycles which waste everyone's time. That's a good principle in general, but particularly so in this unusual situation.

So .. please you can respect the 7-day delay?

Thanks! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:05, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

I just found another one, while working through Wikipedia:Database reports/Categories categorized in red-linked categories.

It is Category:Women's organisations in China, which you speedy deleted without tagging it or notifying the creator (me). It was empty because of a typo in a subcat. If notified, I could have fixed it easily, but instead I spent five minutes trying to figure out what happened.

Please don't delete empty categories unless they have been tagged for 7 days ... and if you are tagging them, Twinkle automatically notifies the creator. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:39, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

• Hi BrownHairedGirl, 100% of the deletions I performed were within policy, as I did wait 7 days for these categories being empty before deleting them. The way I delete empty categories is going through Wikipedia:Database reports/Empty categories, and looking at a revision at least 7 days old to ensure all entries I am deleting have been empty for at least 7 days. In this case, I used this 7-day old revision to find a list of categories that have been empty for at least 7 days. All categories you are concerned with should be listed in that report. So, while they may have been tagged only 3 hours before my deletion, they were empty for at least 6 days and 21 hours prior to being tagged. You will note that the C1 speedy deletion criterion does not mention a requirement for the category to be tagged, it only requires the category be empty. Recently the C1 criterion was actually increased from 4 days to 7 days to make sure stuff that was awaiting a migration wasn't affected, so it's very odd why these categories would be empty for so long in the middle of a migration. I'd offer to restore, but as an admin yourself and having notifications for these, you're better equipped to know which categories should be restored, although as a mater of practice I restore any category previously deleted as empty if it's been re-populated so I'll do that if I see any. VegaDark (talk) 01:23, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Sorry for a very slow reply, but here I am at last.

Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed explanation. All the reasons you give above seem to me to be procedurally correct. I don't see any grounds for thinking you have exceeded the scope of C1.

However, it all sounds a bit mechanical, and I don't see any sign of editorial judgement being exercised. C1 permits deletion in certain circumstances, but does not require it. I think that before deleting an empty category, an admin should also ask why it's empty, and whether its likely to be capable of being populated with existing articles.

So if I encounter, for example, an empty category for a niche occupation in a small place (e.g. Egyptologists from the Falkland Islands, Biathletes from Palau, Death metal musicians from East Timor), I won't give much thought before deleting it, unless there was a cluster of them (as above). Chances are that if it ever had any content, the one or two article(s) were recategorised more appropriately or deleted. At the other extreme, if found an empty category of Russian poets I would want to know what's going on. I'd be asking myself surely we have some content for that?

This category was somewhere between those polar extremes. But even so, if you asked the question "are we likely to have any existing content which belongs in Category:Women's organisations in China?", I think it would be hard to say no ... and not hard to find content with which to populate it.

Fine if you don't want to put in the effort of populating it itself. But while an un-notified deletion is permissible, is it really a wise and helpful course of action? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:01, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

It's a lot of work to try and find out why a particular category may be empty, since the evidence that would explain why is generally on the pages that are removed from the category, so you can't really track them down. In my experience in the times that I have, it's often due to there being a different naming convention that has become standard and someone simply correcting the category on a page, or small categories that had their contents AfD'd. In the case of your example, I would have likely assumed that the category became empty due to a naming convention change where it didn't get properly processed after a CfD closure or something similar. Most vandalism is caught and reverted well before 7 days, so most of the stuff that appears in the empty category report are legitimately empty for one reason or another. For those that are not and it is not caught for the full 7 days, I think this makes up such a small proportion of the categories that it's rarely an issue. With how easy it is to restore a category I don't think it's particularly burdensome to have to do so under such circumstances, and I periodically go through Wikipedia:Database reports/Deleted red-linked categories to seek out categories deleted per C1 that have been re-populated in order to restore to minimize the impact. I hope that is a satisfactory explanation. VegaDark (talk) 08:35, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Umm, no, I don't think it really is satisfactory. Sorry.

Yes, sometimes the work involved is disproportionate. I noted those cases above where scrutiny is unlikely to be fruitful, and the work would be disproportionate to any benefits. I think we agree on that.

My concern here is not the ease of restoring a category, but the difficulty of identifying that it is missing. That can be much harder to track down.

In the case of Category:Women's organisations in China, that seems to me to be a clear instance of a category which we should have -- if not under that name, then under another title. If it's under another title, then the solution is more likely to be a redirect than deletion.

It's also quite easy to track. Shift-click to open the redlink in a new tab/window. Trim the URL back to Category:Women's organisations, and press enter. It's red, but there's a wp:engvar issue, so change one letter and try Category:Women's organizations. Bingo! A huge category tree. So why is China not on the list?

If you like, don't spend the time to answer that question. But having established that there is a gap in the category tree, leave the category there for someone else to investigate and/or populate. Empty categories don't have to be deleted. Sometimes they should be redirected, and sometimes they are much-needed categories just waiting to be populated. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:57, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

@BrownHairedGirl: - Well, I guess I will keep in mind what you have to say in part and we will have to agree to disagree in part. I'm not necessarily of the persuasion that going through categories in such detail outweighs a far slower process in dealing with these, when my understanding of the entire reason for the C1 deletion being a speedy criterion is because of the frustration it causes readers for finding and navigating into empty categories. Ultimately, If it were expected of me to go through that process with the majority of empty categories I'd probably go find another area of the encyclopedia to focus on altogether. But, with your examples in mind I will try and heed more on the side of caution when I see a category that seems like it shouldn't be empty. VegaDark (talk) 03:44, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi VegaDark, yes, I agree that doing doing that sort of check in the majority of cases would be too onerous. Sometimes, there is merit in the old saying that "the best can be the enemy of the good", as un-needed perfectionism can prevent ppl doing a good enough job for the majority of cases, causing a net loss. As we considered in other recent discussions, there is a balance to be struck here.

But I think we are in agreement that while most C1s should just be done on sight, some cases do require a bit of discretion, and I'm happy with that. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:26, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

ANI discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Bishonen | talk 11:03, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

I wish

... that the Categories for discussion discussion had not been closed already, because I feel I need to respond to your comment. English is not my first language, so I may have had trouble making myself understood, or understanding you. When I said "it IS personal", I didn't mean that it is related to a missed person, but that it is a personal expression of the one adding the category. I sadly miss several users, too many to have individual categories, but for others, such a category where they can find each other may be the right thing, no? I am sad someone left us today and express it differently, top of my talk. The project got darker, again. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:27, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

A couple of links in matters relating to category deletion discussions

I would draw your attention to the sub headings below, and invite your comments;

Categories for discussion#After nominating: Notify interested projects and editors While it quite clearly states that notifying interested parties is optional, the fact that it is a heading title and provides a rationale for doing so it may be concluded that notifying such is optimal. No amount of WP:ILIKEIT is going to win over good policy reasons for deletion, so the argument that infesting CfD discussions with pride wounded editors is no reason for not notifying them. Moreover, as the nominator you do not need to wade through the morass of non policy orientated objections - that would be for the closing admin. Obviously, if anyone gave an objection rooted in an understanding of policy then you may wish to present counter arguments or even attempt to reach a consensus within the discussion - but you need only deal with the signal and not the noise.

Canvassing#Inappropriate notification I have reviewed this and find that only the opening paragraph/sentence of the guideline is at odds with your apparent disinclination to notify interested parties of your nominations - simply, a comprehensive and neutral notification of all effected is most likely to lead to a sound consensual decision rooted in policy. The sub heading linked to has a listing of inappropriate actions regarding notification, one of which is "secret". In this instance it refers to the improper use of non project space to notify other parties. I intend to start a discussion on the guidelines talkpage about including within that inappropriate action the lack of notification as a means of disallowing a wider discussion than might be achieved. You obviously have a view on that, and might wish to contribute.

Generally, I would like to understand why you have acted in such a way regarding Wikipedia:CfD in that you have opened discussions without advising those who have edited or populated categories. Other than policy and guidelines above indicating it is not mandatory, are there others or discussions where a consensus arose that notifications need not be sent resulting inan improvement to the encyclopedia? The enormous advantage of establishing consensus in such matters is that a fresh one needs to be found before the earlier can be overturned, whereas simple practice and custom is far more easily disregarded. I trust you see the benefit of opening up a discussion over these matters. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:41, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

I have opened the above mentioned discussion here. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:06, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @LessHeard vanU: I hope you will forgive me for butting in here, but I think I can shed light on this.

First off, most CFDs are poorly attended these days. That's despite every category page being tagged with a deletion notice, and most of them being notified through the article alerts system. Take a look, for example, at WP:CFD 2017 February 10#Subcategories_of_London_Boroughs, where I propose renaming almost 600 categories relating to one of the world's major cities. It is listed at WP:WikiProject London/Article_alerts, and I also left a note on WT:LONDON. Every one of the 596 categories was promptly tagged. Yet despite all that notification there were still only 6 commentators in 7 days, and that's above average these days.

I used to diligently do WikiProject notifications for each nomination, but I gave up a few years ago because most of the time they attract nobody other than regular CFD participants. So in most cases, I conclude that effort is disproportionate to the results, and don't bother. I reserve project notifications for big changes, such as those proposed for London. AFAICS, most CFD nominations take a similar approach.

As to notifying everyone who edited a category, that has never been CFD practice in the 11 years I have participated there. It sometimes happens at AFD (I think when a bot does the job), but I have never seen an AFD nominator criticised for failing to notify anyone other than the article creator who is auto-notified by WP:Twinkle. Nor I have I seen it happen at TFD, where participation rates are even lower than CFD. The guideline you link to doesn't reflect actual practice, because it places more emphasis on notification than is routinely required.

As to notifying those who populated categories, that would be massively muchly far too onerous. It would require a revision history search of each page in a category, which could easily takes many hours for a larger categories. In 11 years at CFD I do not recall ever seeing that done, just as I don't recall from sporadic visits to TFD any sign of nominations accompanied by systematic notifications of those who applied a template to pages.

So it's unfair to reproach VegaDark for following routine practice.

As to notifying users who are themselves members of the category, that's not covered in the guidelines. User categories have rarely come to CFD in recent years, so it is an understandable omission. You make a case for such such notifications, but I am not persuaded that inviting a bunch of heated ILIKEIT commentary helps achieve a consensus. Increasing the noise-to-signal levels rarely helps to produce better or more stable decisions.

But something deeper troubles me. The ANI thread was in effect a protest against an editor who was acting firmly within a reasonable interpretation of a long-standing guideline derived from hundreds of discussions at WP:UCFD. A few editors who were unaware of those guidelines found that they disliked them in principle when made aware of them, and then decided to try using the ANI as a sort of virtual lynch mob for someone acting within the framework of a stable guideline. That was not a pretty sight, and the conduct of those baying for VegaDark's blood seems to me to retrospectively add weight to Vega's judgement that they would bring more heat than light.

I respect the view of those who want to keep this type of category. But they should have gone straight to RFC rather than to an ill-founded and ill-conducted ANI. And while it's genuinely nice to see you back, LHvU, I think that your reproaches would be better directed at those who have misused ANI. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:27, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm glad I held off on responding to this, because I could not have put it any better than this. Thanks, BrownHairedGirl. VegaDark (talk) 08:17, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

I have responded at Wikipedia_talk:Canvassing#Inappropriate_Actions_.2F_Secret, for a wider participation. I would suggest, however, if it has become custom and practice to more limit the extent of notification provided in the less visited area's of WP then perhaps an RfC is the best way of having the guidelines altered to make this obvious to those unfamiliar with these places (or those considering taking up some of the strain - it might even lead to more recruits). "Appropriate notification" may be a useful term, where it signals comprehensive notification in matters where it is expected to have a considerable response and a severely limited one in more desolate venue. As ever, the views of those working the neglected areas can only be part of the discussion and the expectations of the wider community needs to be engaged - before some postering throwback of a former contributor starts making malarkey (again) over sweeping up dead leaves. LessHeard vanU (talk) 15:37, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

LHVU, I have replied to you at Wikipedia_talk:Canvassing#Inappropriate_Actions_.2F_Secret. As I noted there, there is no evidence of a wider problem to justify the measures you seek, which appear to be based wholly on an attempt by you to extrapolate from the single incident involving the almost unique case of a category relating you personally — a conflict of interest which you failed to disclose when launching the discussion at WT:CANVASS.

Your own personal category has been kept. Be happy about that. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:55, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

It was never my category, as I did not create it, subscribe to it, or have it in my userspace. It contains my contributors name. I am happy it was kept, because it appears to satisfy a group of contributors who I value for their continuing efforts to improve a project I was once extremely involved in. I do not care for your tone, BHG, and urge you to consider that you might be needing a break to enable you to AGF the motives of people who have been away from the culture found here. You were one of the stars that I believed could continue to guide this enterprise through the troubled future I knew I was leaving - I only hope that it is my long absence from the realities of providing assistance to these pages that has left me feeling disappointed in your comments about my motives and concerns. I am, very much so, glad that this has taken place on the talkpage of a third party editor, rather than a public arena. I intend to respond, courteously, on the guideline discussion page in the near future. I expect to be given the same manner of response. LessHeard vanU (talk) 02:24, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

LHVU, I too am disappointed. I was genuinely pleased to see your return, but I have been saddened by this little saga, and am also glad it has not taken place in a more public forum. I wish that VegaDark had been afforded the same courtesy, and that before rushing to ANI, your friend who was concerned about VegaDark's action in respect of a category about you had taken heed of the notice at the top of the ANI page: before posting a grievance about a user here, please consider discussing the issue with them on their user talk page. It would also have been nice if that ANI discussion had opened without the bad faith assumption that the CFD responses were from people who're against social interaction between Wikipedians, on principle.

I stand by my comment about the COI aspect of this, because although you had no part in creating or populating the category, it is all about you personally. I also stand by my observation about the error of assuming that one highly unusual case indicates a wider problem with XFD, when you have offered no evidence that this is the case. That is the fallacy of hasty generalization. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:49, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

I came here to offer a 'beer', or some other pictorial commiseration but find that most of what I would have said has already been better said by BHG. The 'lynch mob' mentality was not only unfair to you (how were you supposed to know what the category was?), it also prevented any serious discussion as to what the underlying purpose of usercats is. Sorry. Pincrete (talk) 16:44, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, it came as quite a surprise. Out of all the user categories I nominate, the particular one that prompted this I would have expected to be one of the least controversial and a near certainty of a successful nomination at the time - just some run of the mill user category cleanup I do from time to time. To arrive on my talk page to discover an AN/I notice along with a slew of comments that somehow agreed I had done something inappropriate was similar to stepping into the twilight zone. I will second the above in that I wish someone had come to my talkpage to discuss this prior to making a clearly inappropriate AN/I thread. It also very much assumed bad faith as opposed to considering my actions run of the mill cleanup work and that I had some sort of underhanded genda I was trying to achieve by getting this category deleted. VegaDark (talk) 04:15, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Request for Comment on the guidelines regarding "joke" categories

This is a notice that a discussion you participated in, either at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents or at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2017 February 8 has resulted in a Request for comment at Wikipedia talk:User categories#Request for Comment on the guidelines regarding "joke" categories. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:39, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2017

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

Administrator changes

Amortias • Deckiller • BU Rob13

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

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

Art+Feminism @ Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (March 18, 2017)

You are invited to the upcoming Art+Feminism edit-athon, which will be held at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (415 Southwest 10th Avenue #300, Portland 97205) on Saturday, March 18, 2017 from 10:00am – 5:00pm. For more information, visit Eventbrite.

Hope to see you there! -MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:46, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2017

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

Administrator changes

TheDJ

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:54, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon @ PNCA Library (April 29, 2017)

You are invited to the upcoming Art+Feminism edit-athon, which will be held at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) Library at 511 NW Broadway on Saturday, April 29, 2017, from 11am to 4pm. For more information, visit the Facebook event page.

Hope to see you there! -MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:32, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2017

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

Administrator changes

Karanacs • Berean Hunter • GoldenRing • Dlohcierekim

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:19, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Meetup Invitation

You are invited to the upcoming Asian Pacific American Heritage month edit-athon.

This will be held on the first floor of the Knight library at the University of Oregon.

For more information please see: Wikipedia:Meetup/Eugene/WikiAPA, a Facebook event link is also available on the Meetup page.

• Date: Friday, May 26, 2017
• Time: 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm
• Location: Edminston Classroom, Knight Library, Room 144
• Address:1501 Kincaid Street, Eugene, Oregon, 97403-1299

Hope to see you there!

(This message was sent to WikiProject members via Wikipedia:Meetup/Eugene/WikiAPA/MailingList on 23:32, 10 May 2017 (UTC). To opt-out of future messages please remove your name from the mailing list.)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2017

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

Administrator changes

Doug Bell • Dennis Brown • Clpo13 • ONUnicorn

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Wiki Loves Pride at PNCA: Tuesday, June 27

You are invited to the upcoming Wiki Loves Pride edit-athon, which will be held at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (511 NW Broadway) on Tuesday, June 27, 2017, from 5–8pm. For more information, visit the meetup page or Facebook event page.

Hope to see you there! -MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:38, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2017

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

Administrator changes

Happyme22 • Dragons flight

Zad68

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – August 2017

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

Administrator changes

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

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:11, 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.

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

Administrators' newsletter – October 2017

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

Administrator changes

Boing! said Zebedee • Ansh666 • Ad Orientem

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Category:Wikipedians who play RPGs

This deleted category has been repopulated. Can we delete the entries from the user pages?

NB you don't need to alert me to the proposed deletion of silly categories. I only create them so they can be removed. Rathfelder (talk) 08:14, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

• For red categories that are populated, and have been previously deleted via either CfD or speedy deleted via a G4 speedy deletion (for being too similar to a previously deleted category), I would consider it non-controversial if people checked the pages that are in the category to see if they have ever been removed. If they have never been removed before, then I think it is 100% appropriate to remove them (citing the CfD in question) like we would after the conclusion of a CfD. If they have been removed before and then re-added themselves, unfortunately there is no consensus what to do with this situation. I personally would advocate a policy that allows us to remove users from such categories, just like we would from a mainspace category if that were deleted, but that is a discussion that still needs to be settled. As for notifications I'll try and remember not to notify you from now on. VegaDark (talk) 08:43, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Category:Roman Limes in the United Kingdom

Hi, You recently deleted a number of categories around Roman Limes or Walls under the C2 rule. While they were empty, this is only because they were emptied out of process. I thought that I had lodged appeals against their speedy deletion but must have missed a couple of categories. I was leaving time for the deletor to respond to my queries. I've received no reply so I was going to re-populate them. Can you please restore the categories? Laurel Lodged (talk) 14:48, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

• Hi @Laurel Lodged:, Yes, the categories in question must have been empty for 7 or more days, and I did not see any reason not to delete them. For any categories you wish for me to re-create, just feel free to repopulate those and I will happily restore the categories as no longer empty. I don't usually pre-emptively restore categories before they become re-populated, however. VegaDark (talk) 23:10, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

In a twisted way ...

... this is kind of funny. :)

Sorry, my friend, that you caught the flak on my behalf. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 05:03, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I foresaw this coming when you made this nomination, based on the experience I had last time. I thought it wouldn't be directed towards me though since I wasn't the nominator! I really wish the guideline would be respected. I can't imagine a group of users bum-rushing a discussion overriding any other guideline successfully. So few care about user categories that this somehow gets overlooked. I'm glad the keeps haven't bled much into the other discussions, at least, unlike the last time around (a few of those could probably renominated successfully now). VegaDark (talk) 05:22, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that's always a risk when there are multiple nominations in one day. However, except for the subset of editors who want to scrap the guideline and make user categories an extension of userspace, I think most editors broadly agree with the guideline. It's just that some editors seem to develop selective blindness when "their" category is being discussed. :) -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 05:45, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I wanted to share with you that I won't be nominating any user categories for a few days, until the issue with MP is resolved (first the civility issue, then the category issue). It does no good to delete a category if it's not depopulated. I think a pause would be good, but I'm hoping to hear your thoughts as well. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 06:02, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

• I agree the issues with MP need to be resolved. I'm glad you brought it to AN/I and I will be adding my .02 cents shortly. As for not nominating categories for a bit, that's fair. Personally I think dealing with the 99% of categories that will be successfully depopulated is worth the nominations. Even if we can't get consensus to force users to respect decisions by not punishing them for repopulating categories I would still consider the category work worthwhile as it's a small minority who won't respect the decisions and you have had good luck with {{fmbox}} solution for everyone but MP so far. VegaDark (talk) 07:43, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
• @Black Falcon: After the really poor close at AN/I and the poor response on the closer's talk page, the only thing I can think of is starting a discussion on the CFD talk page or an RfC. We already had an RfC as you know, but it wasn't focused to this specific issue and instead was more on user categories in general. VegaDark (talk) 17:36, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

  You have my agreement/support if you choose to proceed, but to be honest, I don't think it's worth it at this particular time. There's still a lot of less-controversial cleanup to be done, and I worry that an RfC would distract from that. This does need to be addressed eventually, but I think we can have a more productive discussion when tempers have settled a bit and nerves are not quite so frayed. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 06:02, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

  Perhaps a good idea. VegaDark (talk) 06:20, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Upcoming Wikipedia edit-a-thon dedicated to artists of color - Thursday, Oct. 26 at PNCA

Main page: Wikipedia:Meetup/Portland/Artists of Color

On Thursday, October 26, a Wikipedia edit-a-thon dedicated to artists of color will be held from 4–8pm at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (511 NW Broadway). Learn more at Facebook. Hope to see you there! -MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:27, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2017

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

Administrator changes

Longhair • Megalibrarygirl • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Allen3 • Eluchil404 • Arthur Rubin • Bencherlite

Technical news

• The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team is creating an "Interaction Timeline" tool that intends to assist administrators in resolving user conduct disputes. Feedback on the concept may be posted on the talk page.
• A new function is now available to edit filter managers that will make it easier to look for multiple strings containing spoofed text.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors will be invited to submit candidate statements for the 2017 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 12 until November 21. Voting will begin on November 27 and last until December 10.
• Following a request for comment, Ritchie333, Yunshui and Ymblanter will serve as the Electoral Commission for the 2017 ArbCom Elections.

Obituaries

• The Wikipedia community has recently learned that Allen3 (William Allen Peckham) passed away on December 30, 2016, the same day as JohnCD. Allen began editing in 2005 and became an administrator that same year.

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

ANI Experiences survey

The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative (led by the Safety and Support and Anti-Harassment Tools team) is conducting a survey for en.wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with the Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works - which problems it deals with well, and which problems it struggles with.

The survey should take 10-20 minutes to answer, and your individual responses will not be made public. The survey is delivered through Google Forms. The privacy policy for the survey describes how and when Wikimedia collects, uses, and shares the information we receive from survey participants and can be found here:

• https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2017_AN/Incidents_Survey_Privacy_Statement

If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be mailed to you via Special:Emailuser.

• Sign up here to receive a link to a survey

Thank you on behalf of the Support & Safety and Anti-Harassment Tools Teams, Patrick Earley (WMF) talk 18:24, 1 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.

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

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

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

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – January 2018

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

Administrator changes

Muboshgu

Anetode • Laser brain • Worm That Turned

None

Bureaucrat changes

Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – February 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – March 2018

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

Administrator changes

Lourdes†

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

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

Obituaries

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

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

Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon: Jewish Women Artists (March 8, Oregon Jewish Museum)

On March 8 (International Women's Day), the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education and artist Shoshana Gugenheim will be hosting a Wikipedia edit-a-thon to create and improve Wikipedia articles about Jewish women artists. Click here for more information. You can also express interest or suggest articles to create or improve here. This event is free and open to the public, and will serve as both a public art action and a public educational program. Participation is welcome in person and remotely (for those outside of Portland). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:25, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon (March 10, Pacific Northwest College of Art)

On Saturday, March 10 (11am to 4pm), the Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) will be hosting a Wikipedia edit-a-thon to create and improve Wikipedia articles about art, feminism, and women. You can read details on the Facebook event page, or this Wikipedia meetup page. Tutorials for new editors, reference materials, childcare, and refreshments will be provided. Bring your laptop, power cord and ideas for entries that need updating or creation. For the editing-averse, you're welcome to stop by to show your support! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:50, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2018

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

Administrator changes

331dot • Cordless Larry • ClueBot NG

Gogo Dodo • Pb30 • Sebastiankessel • Seicer • SoLando

Guideline and policy news

• Administrators who have been desysopped due to inactivity are now required to have performed at least one (logged) administrative action in the past 5 years in order to qualify for a resysop without going through a new RfA.
• Editors who have been found to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block, for whatever reason, are now automatically considered banned by the community without the need to start a ban discussion.
• The notability guideline for organizations and companies has been substantially rewritten following the closure of this request for comment. Among the changes, the guideline more clearly defines the sourcing requirements needed for organizations and companies to be considered notable.
• The six-month autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) ended on 14 March 2018. The post-trial research report has been published. A request for comment is now underway to determine whether the restrictions from ACTRIAL should be implemented permanently.

Technical news

• There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee is considering a change to the discretionary sanctions procedures which would require an editor to appeal a sanction to the community at WP:AE or WP:AN prior to appealing directly to the Arbitration Committee at WP:ARCA.

Miscellaneous

• A discussion has closed which concluded that administrators are not required to enable email, though many editors suggested doing so as a matter of best practice.
• The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team has released the Interaction Timeline. This shows a chronologic history for two users on pages where they have both made edits, which may be helpful in identifying sockpuppetry and investigating editing disputes.

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

Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon (April 13, University of Oregon)

On Friday, April 13 (3pm to 6pm), the University of Oregon will be hosting a Wikipedia edit-a-thon to create and improve Wikipedia articles about art and feminism. You can learn more at the Dashboard page, or our Wikipedia meetup page. Tutorials for new editors, reference materials, and snacks will be provided. Please bring your laptop, power cord and ideas for entries that need updating or creation. For the editing-averse, we urge you to stop by to show your support and have snacks! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:01, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Obituaries

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – July 2018

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

Administrator changes

Pbsouthwood • TheSandDoctor

Gogo Dodo

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

Bureaucrat changes

Andrevan • EVula

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – August 2018

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

Administrator changes

Sro23

KaisaL • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – September 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

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

Optimist on the run → Voice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018

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

Administrator changes

Justlettersandnumbers • L235

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

Interface administrator changes

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

Oversight changes

Guerillero • NativeForeigner • Snowolf • Xeno

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018

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

Administrator changes

Sir Sputnik

Kudpung • Liz • Lourdes

Everyking • Jackmcbarn

Interface administrator changes

Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes

AGK • Ivanvector • Stwalkerster • TonyBallioni

Oversight changes

Amorymeltzer • Oshwah • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Keilana

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

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

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

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

Category:North American Wikipedians

Hi VegaDark

I have reversed your G4 speedy deletion of Category:North American Wikipedians, by restoring it.

Yes, it was deleted at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 15#North_American_Wikipedian_nationality_categories. However, I think that this use as a container category fits the spirit of that CFD, at it parallels the uncontroversial Category:South American Wikipedians.

Hope that's OK. If not, let's take it to a fresh CFD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:37, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

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

Administrator changes

Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz

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

Interface administrator changes

Deryck Chan

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

Obituaries

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

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

Polluted categories

Hi VegaDark

Please can you help me with an SQL query?

Your work on https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/29106 has been a godsend. I forked it to https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/30916 so that I can run it myself as needed, and it has made the job of keeping on top of Special:WantedCategories much much easier.

Now I am also working on Wikipedia:Database reports/Polluted categories. That report has a near-useless structure, so I have been building my lists using Petscan. With namespaces set to User/user talk/draft, I can find quote a few user and draft pages via several queries such as Living people|depth 2, 20th-century establishments|depth 6.

Unfortunately, it has quite a limited scope before it times out. So my searches have to be quite small, which is tedious.

So it would be wonderful if Quarry could do this ... but I never learnt SQL, so I was hoping that if I asked very nicely you might feel able to write the query, or at leas tell whether it can be done.

Basically, what I am looking for is:

• pages in namespaces: user or user talk or draft
  • which are also in Category:Articles or its subcats (to infinite depth)

Is this doable? Does the SQL database have any concept of category trees which would allow it to be used for a Petscan-type task? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:05, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

• The truth is, while I originally requested all these category reports, the actual legwork was all done by User:MZMcBride. I personally don't know SQL other than what I've seen from scripts I've come across. And I'm glad you have gone so thoroughly through them to finish performing so much of the cleanup I'd original envisioned. VegaDark (talk) 18:41, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi BrownHairedGirl (and VegaDark!). If you can describe what's deficient with the polluted categories (configuration) report, someone may be able to improve it. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:05, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Vega, for kicking this off ... and to @MZMcBride for setting it up.

WP:POLLUTEDCATS is basically a list of the polluted categories, with clever accompanying search tools. (Very cunning, and tks for enabling them).

However, what is actually needed to do the cleanup is a list of miscategorised pages. So what I'd like is a consolidated list of the user/usertalk/draft pages in those categories. Then I could run an AWB module over the lot to clean them up, instead of having to manually open up a search of each of up to 1000 categories and then manually edit each one.

When I got some lists via Petscan, I found that I could process a few hundred pages in 20 or 30 minutes. But working off WP:POLLUTEDCATS, a smaller cleanup took ten hours. Some sort of "userpages in polluted categories" list (as an addition, not a replacement) would make it easy to keep on top of this without having to give up vast chunks of my life every 7 days. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:07, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Okay, I think I see what you're saying.

My vague memory is that we went with the category approach because it wasn't always obvious which direction the pages should shift? That is, there are categories where we want only user drafts and no actual articles. And there's the opposite case of categories where we want only actual articles and not user drafts. Determining which type of category was which seemed difficult to do programmatically I guess? That's why we provided both links next to each category entry on the page, as I recall. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:14, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

To be more concrete about it, I don't think you really want a report that includes all of the members of Category:Userspace drafts created via the Article Wizard from March 2012 and Category:1926 deaths, two polluted categories. I think you want a report that has figured out which of the pages in both of these categories are "polluting" it. I think this is doable, but it would still require guessing and potentially being wrong, I imagine. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:27, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks @MZMcBride. However, cases like that one are not a problem. I already have code which ignores such categories when they are on a page being cleaned up.

It was a fairly trivial job to use a regex with negative-lookahead which excludes the false positives by skipping category names which contain (Wikipedian|Article Wizard).

Here's my current regex: \[\[ *Category(?! talk)\b(?<catname>([^\]\|](?!\b(Wikipedia|Wikipedians?|User talk pages with Uw-|WikiProject|Wikimedia|User talk archives|templates|fans|interested in|work group|Lists of userboxes|Userboxes|Articles created via the Article WizardWikimedia Foundation staff)\b))*)(?<close>[\|\]])

The way I use it is to process the entire page list list in pre-parse mode, and then check each page as I do the actual edits. In most runs there are one or two such categories that I hadn't encountered before, so I update my regex and continue. I have already processed about 2000 pages this way.

The only barrier is that I need the list of articles to start with. That's where I was hoping you could help. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:27, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Here you go: pages in polluted categories (configuration). However, I don't really want to maintain this report indefinitely. If I send you the Python script used to generate this report, would that be sufficient? --MZMcBride (talk) 04:03, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019

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

Administrator changes

Galobtter

Orangemike

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

Bureaucrat changes

Addshore

CheckUser changes

Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

AGK • Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Guideline and policy news

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

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

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

Technical news

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

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

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

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Wikipedia Editathon: The Visibility Project - Saturday, January 19

Make+Think+Code and the Pacific Northwest College of Art are hosting a Wikipedia editathon at the Shipley Collins Mediatheque (511 NW Broadway) on Saturday, January 19 from 10am to 2:30pm. The purpose of the event is to make Wikipedia a more vibrant, representative, inclusive and diverse resource. Please visit Wikipedia:Meetup/MakeThinkCode/TheVisibilityProject for more information. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:46, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedians by astrological sign

It looks like Category:Wikipedians by astrological sign and its subcategories are back, which looks like you nominated at CfD here, resulting in a merge. It looks like that was the most recent time these categories were discussed. As such, do you see any reason why all of those categories cannot be deleted per WP:CSD#G4? VegaDark (talk) 09:24, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I just saw this.

I checked and it looks like these are just where an enthuiastic editor (re-)added categories to userboxes, and then turned the redlinks blue. See the edit history of DoctorWho42 around Feb 15.

I wonder, if one were to edit the userboxes, would the categories then just be empty...

I hope this helps. And (more importantly) I hope you are having an awesome day : ) - jc37 09:29, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

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

Administrator changes

Enterprisey • JJMC89

BorgQueen

Harro5 • Jenks24 • Graft • R. Baley

Interface administrator changes

Enterprisey

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Oregon State University Black History Month Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, Friday, February 8

To commemorate Black History Month, Oregon State University, Wikimedia Nigeria, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, and AfroCROWD are hosting a Wikipedia edit-a-thon at the Oregon State University Valley Library on Friday, February 8 from 2–5pm. The purpose of the event is to reduce Wikipedia's diversity gap by creating and improving articles about African American culture and history, as well as notable people of African descent and the African diaspora in general. Please visit here for more information. Remote participation is welcome! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:37, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

PNCA Art+Feminism Wikipedia Editathon, Saturday, March 9

The Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) is hosting a Wikipedia edit-a-thon in the Shipley Collins Mediatheque (511 NW Broadway) on Saturday, March 9 from 10am – 2:30pm. This is a free community event designed to teach people to add and edit information about cis and transgender women and nonbinary folks to Wikipedia. We'll have training sessions, artist talks, snacks, free childcare, and plenty of exciting energy and collaboration! You're welcome to drop in any time during the event. Participants are encouraged to bring their own laptops and charging cables, though if you are not able, computer stations will be available. Please visit this link for more information. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:02, 4 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.

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

International Women's Day Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, Oregon Jewish Museum, Thursday, March 7

The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, in partnership with social practice artist Shoshana Gugenheim and as part of the Art+Feminism Project, will host the 2nd Annual International Women's Day Wikipedia Edit-a-thon to edit and/or create Wikipedia articles for Jewish women artists. The event will be held at the museum on Thursday, March 7 from 4 to 8 pm. Pre-registration is preferred but not required. Members of the public are invited to come to the museum to learn about the editing process, its history, its impact, and how to do it. We aim to collaboratively edit/enter 18 Jewish women artists into the canon. Support will be provided by an experienced local Wikipedian who will be on site to teach and guide the process. This edit-a-thon will serve as both a public art action and a public educational program. Participants will have an opportunity to select an artist/s ahead of time or on site.

Please visit this link and the meetup page for more information. Thanks! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:25, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2019

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

Administrator changes

Reaper Eternal • ThaddeusB

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

Mentifisto → Lofty abyss

Interface administrator changes

Mr. Stradivarius

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad

Kingturtle

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

ArbCom 2019 special circular

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

View additional information

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

This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:31, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)

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

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

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – May 2019

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

Administrator changes

HickoryOughtShirt?4 • RexxS

Necrothesp

Bratsche • Kyle Barbour • Kzollman • Madman

Interface administrator changes

Pharos

Bureaucrat changes

Primefac

CheckUser changes

Reaper Eternal

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – June 2019

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

Administrator changes

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

CheckUser changes

Ivanvector

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – July 2019

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

Administrator changes

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

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

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

Bureaucrat changes

28bytes • WJBscribe • Wizardman

Interface administrator changes

MSGJ • TheDJ

CheckUser changes

Beeblebrox • BU Rob13 • DoRD

Oversight changes

Beeblebrox • BU Rob13 • DoRD • GB fan

Guideline and policy news

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

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

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – August 2019

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

Administrator changes

Johnuniq • Kosack • Valereee

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

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

Interface administrator changes

Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes

RickinBaltimore

Oversight changes

Beeblebrox

RickinBaltimore

Guideline and policy news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

• Following a research project on masking IP addresses, the Foundation is starting a new project to improve the privacy of IP editors. The result of this project may significantly change administrative and counter-vandalism workflows. The project is in the very early stages of discussions and there is no concrete plan yet. Admins and the broader community are encouraged to leave feedback on the talk page.
• The new page reviewer right is bundled with the admin tool set. Many admins regularly help out at Special:NewPagesFeed, but they may not be aware of improvements, changes, and new tools for the Curation system. Stay up to date by subscribing here to the NPP newsletter that appears every two months, and/or putting the reviewers' talk page on your watchlist.

  Since the introduction of temporary user rights, it is becoming more usual to accord the New Page Reviewer right on a probationary period of 3 to 6 months in the first instance. This avoids rights removal for inactivity at a later stage and enables a review of their work before according the right on a permanent basis.

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

Administrators' newsletter – September 2019

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

Administrator changes

Bradv • Chetsford • Izno

Floquenbeam • Lectonar

DESiegel • Jake Wartenberg • Rjanag • Topbanana

CheckUser changes

Callanecc • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Category:Cemeteries in Kenya

Would you mind undeleting it? --evrik ^(talk) 19:34, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

• Hi there, it looks like this has already been undeleted by someone else. VegaDark (talk) 07:06, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Yes, I wan't sure when you might come back. Thanks! --evrik ^(talk) 14:52, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2019

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

Administrator changes

Barkeep49

Beetstra • KillerChihuahua • Kusma

Arcadian • Extraordinary Machine • Xeno

JamesBWatson → JBW

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

CheckUser changes

Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Oversight changes

Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – November 2019

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

Administrator changes

GermanJoe • Girth Summit • Kees08 • Nosebagbear

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

DeltaQuad • Fang Aili • Pakaran

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad • Pakaran

Interface administrator changes

MSGJ

CheckUser changes

L235 • Mz7 • SQL • ST47

Ivanvector

DeltaQuad

Oversight changes

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

DeltaQuad • DGG • Julia W

Guideline and policy news

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

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

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

Arbitration

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

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

ArbCom 2019 election voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:05, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2019

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

Administrator changes

EvergreenFir • ToBeFree

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

CheckUser changes

Beeblebrox

Deskana

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Please join us for our Cascadia Wikimedians annual meeting, Monday, December 23, 5:30pm PST

Please join us for our Cascadia Wikimedians annual meeting, Monday, December 23, 5:30pm PST. You can join us virtually from your PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, or Android at this link: https://virginia.zoom.us/my/wikilgbt. The address of the physical meeting is: Capitol Hill Meeting Room at Capitol Hill Library (425 Harvard Ave. E., Seattle, WA 98102) 47.622928°N 122.322912°W / 47.622928; -122.322912 The event page is here. You do not have to be a member to attend, but only members can vote in board elections. New members may join in person by completing the membership registration form onsite or (to be posted) online and paying $5 for a calendar year / $0.50 per month for the remainder of a year. Current members may renew for 2019 at the meeting as well.

18:04, 18 December 2019 (UTC) To subscribe or unsubscribe from future messages from Wikipedia:Meetup/Portland, please add or remove your name from this list.

Administrators' newsletter – January 2020

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

Administrator changes

Dreamy Jazz • Newslinger • Rosguill

Deor • Spartaz • Xeno

Angusmclellan • clpo13 • Edgar181 • Matthewedwards • NCurse

CheckUser changes

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

Oversight changes

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

Someguy1221

Guideline and policy news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:07, 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. [1]

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – March 2020

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

Administrator changes

Money emoji

Athaenara • DeltaQuad

Fishhead64 • Kudpung • Mikaey

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad

CheckUser changes

DeltaQuad

Oversight changes

DeltaQuad

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:21, 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.

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

Administrators' newsletter – May 2020

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

Administrator changes

Gnangarra • Kaisershatner • Malcolmxl5

CheckUser changes

Callanecc

Oversight changes

HJ Mitchell

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – June 2020

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

Administrator changes

CaptainEek • Creffett • Cwmhiraeth

Anna Frodesiak • Buckshot06 • Ronhjones • SQL

CheckUser changes

SQL

Guideline and policy news

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

Arbitration

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

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:28, 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.

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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.

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

Administrators' newsletter – September 2020

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

Administrator changes

Eddie891

Angela • Jcw69 • Just Chilling • Philg88 • Viajero

CheckUser changes

SQL

Guideline and policy news

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

Arbitration

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

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:57, 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.

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

Regarding Category:Users

It would be somewhat helpful if Category:Users had a category redirect that points to Category:Wikipedians. The former page is protected for creation. JsfasdF252 (talk) 09:20, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2020

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

Administrator changes

John M Wolfson

Bduke • Nilfanion • Philosopher • Rspeer • Yunshui

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

TonyBallioni

CheckUser changes

EdJohnston • Oshwah • Yamla

Yunshui

Oversight changes

Anarchyte

Yunshui

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – December 2020

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

Administrator changes

Andrwsc • Anetode • GoldenRing • JzG • LinguistAtLarge • Nehrams2020

Interface administrator changes

Izno

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – January 2021

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

Administrator changes

Hammersoft

Andres • Brion VIBBER • Rkitko • Thatcher

CheckUser changes

Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek • Primefac

Oversight changes

Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek

Joe Roe

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – February 2021

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

Administrator changes

Hog Farm

Mattflaschen • Nandesuka • Savidan • Wangi

CheckUser changes

Berean Hunter • Xeno

Oversight changes

Someguy1221 • Xeno

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Writing Black History of the Pacific Northwest into Wikipedia - Editathon 2021

Writing Black History of the Pacific Northwest into Wikipedia - Editathon 2021 Friday, February 26, 2021, 1:00-5:00 PM PST with Oregon State University, Education Opportunities Program, and AfroCROWD Guest Speaker: Spelman College's Alexandria Lockett "Click here to register directly on OSU's site".

Cascadia Wikimedians placed this banner at 03:46, 24 February 2021 (UTC) by using the Wikipedia:Meetup/Portland/Participants list.
To subscribe to or unsubscribe from messages from Wikipedia:Meetup/Portland, please add or remove your name here.

Administrators' newsletter – March 2021

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

Administrator changes

TJMSmith

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

Interface administrator changes

AmandaNP

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:15, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2021

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

Administrator changes

Alexandria • Happyme22 • RexxS

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – May 2021

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

Administrator changes

Enchanter • Carlossuarez46

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:52, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2021

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

Administrator changes

Ashleyyoursmile • Less Unless

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – July 2021

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

Administrator changes

Trialpears

AGK • Eliz81 • Mulad • ThaddeusB • Vianello • Who

Lacrimosus → Ikuzaf

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

CheckUser changes

AGK • DGG

Oversighter changes

AGK

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – July 2021

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

Administrator changes

BusterD

Kees08 • Nickshanks • Protonk • Schissel • Ultraexactzz • Wknight94

CheckUser changes

TheresNoTime

Oversighter changes

TheresNoTime

ST47

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – September 2021

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

Administrator changes

Jake Wartenberg

Emperor • Viridian Bovary

Ashleyyoursmile → Viridian Bovary

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

• The 2021 RfA review is now open for comments.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:46, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2021

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

Administrator changes

Blablubbs

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

Oversighter changes

Callanecc

Mkdw

Interface administrator changes

Galobtter

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:05, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2021

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

Administrator changes

Clpo13

Brian0918 • JDoorjam • Karanacs • MrDarcy • Mindspillage

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

CheckUser changes

Dreamy Jazz • Ferret • GeneralNotability • Girth Summit • RoySmith

Oversight changes

Dreamy Jazz • LuK3

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – December 2021

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

Administrator changes

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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