Cenarium, back in 2008 you fully protected the {{Wikt}} redirect to {{Wiktionary}}. At present, the redirect has only 1,123 transclusions and its target is transcluded 44,429 times. The target is presently template-protected, so I am hoping you would agree to lower the redirect's protection level also to template-protected? I'm a template editor, and I'd like to sort it to a maintenance category. Thank you for your consideration! Paine Ellsworthu/c01:29, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Xaosflux, it will have no effect at all on deferred changes. Removing the level is very simple, it just needs to be removed from the config by editing out 'review' in $wgFlaggedRevsRestrictionLevels for $wgDBname == 'enwiki'. Cenarium (talk) 01:02, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No, deferred changes can be enabled even without enabling pending changes protection. Both rely on FlaggedRevs, which would remain installed here. Cenarium (talk) 16:50, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Extended confirmed
FYI it was decided to leave "extended confirmed" in place on admin accounts, just for ease of use during desysops. (Noticed you'd removed a few as redundant) –xenotalk12:20, 30 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Where was it decided? (It isn't in the original proposal that I had initiated.) Desysops are sufficiently rare to not be worth bothering about (and it's easy to readd the group, along with the other usual ones), while presently it makes the total count of extended confirmed users inaccurate (which is not terrible in itself, but still :). Cenarium (talk) 13:17, 30 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't care one way or the other :D I think at least one of the sysops was removing it as redundant from other sysops andI noted in Wikipedia:Bureaucrats#Removal_of_permissions that if that group had ever been removed, we should restore it (if not already there) during a de-sysop. If they never had it, it should auto-promote. — xaosfluxTalk18:21, 30 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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.
JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.