User talk:MSGJ

RfB

I was wondering if you might consider running for RfB anytime soon. From what I've seen you have a 10+ years solid adminship stint, and people know you have a WP:CLUE. I'm sure you won't have dearth of co-noms either (count me in!). Given that the community has looked favourably to RfBs this past while, I was thinking if you might be interested. --qedk (t 桜 c) 20:46, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

@QEDK: many thanks for your kind words. Has it really been 10 years?! I'm not really interested in becoming a bureaucrat for two reasons: I don't think it perfectly matches my skill set, and there is not really much for the crats to do these days, so I don't think any more are needed. But thanks for thinking of me! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:35, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

No worries, but again, crats don't need to do crat things to be crats! You'd make a good addition but I do get your point. --qedk (t 桜 c) 15:37, 27 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

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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 02:18, 4 May 2019 (UTC) Template:Z152

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 21:03, 4 May 2019 (UTC) Template:Z83

Winchester School of Art

Hi, Would you be able to unprotect this article? It's been protected for 8 years now and seems unnecessary. Thanks Aloneinthewild (talk) 14:38, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Sure, let's try it — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:08, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Martin Aloneinthewild (talk) 15:32, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Gotarzes I of Parthia

There's really no need to move that article imho. The reason is that many of the articles have 'of Parthia' is due to having the same name and regnal number as many other kings in the Middle East. --HistoryofIran (talk) 16:04, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Feel free to move it back. I was going for the consistent look. Nice work on Mithridates III by the way! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:05, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

@HistoryofIran: I was just wondering how many of the articles shown at Mithridates IV of Parthia (Q317695) relate to Mithridates III and which ones to Mithridates IV. Can you help with that? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:10, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Sure; these two articles are related to the actual Mithridates III of our English Wikipedia [1] [2] --HistoryofIran (talk) 16:18, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, I think I sorted those out — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:47, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Spygate

Hi Martin. Thank you so much for your close of the very messy Spygate move request. However I'd like to request that you take another look. At the end of your analysis, you say that the top 3 vote-getters were all basically the same title. This is in fact not accurate. If you look at the arguments among them there are very specific arguments for or against one or the other. Pursuant to WP:NOTDEMOCRACY, I think you're supposed to evaluate those arguments and the support for them rather than simply tallying up !votes. And if it's too close a call, then I believe you could propose a runoff between the top 2. R2 (bleep) 21:42, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

The top two choices were Spygate (conspiracy theory) and Spygate (political conspiracy theory). There is not a substantial difference between these and I believe the word "political" does not add much to the meaning. This was borne out by editors in the discussion because a lot supported both of those choices rather than just one of them. At the end of the day I feel a runoff is unlikely to be a good use of editors' time. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:04, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, there is a substantial difference between those two. Several editors argued that "Spygate (conspiracy theory)" isn't an effective disambiguation because it's confusing with Spygate (NFL) (another Spygate that involved a conspiracy theory). There was some pushback against that argument as well. R2 (bleep) 22:14, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

As the dude who wrote the original article and who has watched the whole "what to name it" argument back and forth and sighed the whole time but who has not read over all of the extensive text on that article's talk page, I have to say I agree with R2 here. The NFL controversy is also a conspiracy theory, and so it seems to me like this one aught to be distinguished from that one in its title by the use of the word "political". I know it seems like unnecessary disambiguation, but given the fact that there are apparently two "spygates", it does seem we aught to distinguish. Not that I think anyone is going to be confused about which spygate they are learning about when they read the article, and not that anyone isn't going to be able to find THE "spygate" they are looking for! My sympathy, though, for trying to figure out what the consensus was. My head would hurt. And probably my eyes... and my lungs, maybe my liver. A loose necktie (talk) 22:47, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

A loose necktie, you should have !voted on the move requests! R2 (bleep) 22:56, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Ahrtoodeetoo I know, I know. I was afraid to even begin getting involved there because of the morass that it was becoming. I am not always as brave as I should be sometimes. Let me see if it is too late to throw my 2¢ in there even now... A loose necktie (talk) 14:37, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Divided Heaven

Kindly explain where you looked when you found no consensus to move from a title which is mentioned in only one of the sources for the article? Do you go by length of comment? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:00, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

I will check and reply tomorrow as I am just logging off :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:21, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

I've made a brief comment on the talk page. As well as being correct, you also need to be able to persuade other editors that you are right! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:22, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

I also replied there. I don't mean to persuade, just to point out facts. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:15, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

I gently suggest that the facts may not be as clear cut as you perceive. I have made another comment on that page (probably my last). Best regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:40, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Buffyverse

Template:Buffyverse has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. --woodensuperman 10:06, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

How did you know I copied and pasted 2020 NASCAR Cup Series?

99721829Max (talk) 14:42, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

By looking at the history of the two pages. We have a move button which is the proper way to do that. See Help:How to move a page for more details. But please wait for that discussion to be closed by someone. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:56, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank for approving the unblock request.

The new user name will be selected as instructed. Please advise if the prior draft article which was in the editing stage restored. Thank you in advance for your assistance. Publicationaccess (talk) 01:39, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Sheesh, sorry about that

The curse of clicking edit on a page when you're viewing an old version! Thanks for sorting it out.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:36, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Easily done :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:38, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Unblock declined for Citation Bot

Hi MSGJ. I see that you declined an unblock request at User talk:Citation bot today. I think that the debate on that page has been based on a misunderstanding of the policy. As I just posted at User talk:Citation bot#The current block is not well-founded on the policy, the policy, specifically WP:BOTCONFIG, allows for a bot to be controlled by people who are not the bot's operators. That is exactly how Citation Bot works. Users who trigger the bot are not "bot operators", and are not covered by WP:BOTMULTIOP. I would appreciate your feedback on this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Srleffler (talk • contribs)

There was some discussion on the semantic differences between "operate", "control" and "trigger", but without any clear resolution. In any case the wording in the policy is "edits of a specific designated type, at the direction of more than one person" (my emphasis). It seems clear to me that the bot is acting under the direction of the user that makes the request. There is a discussion on this very point at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Clarification on "Bots operated by multiple users". — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:43, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks.--Srleffler (talk) 02:03, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Blocking/Unblocking

Thank you for your help- I really appreciate it.Newton78531(Newton78531 (talk) 17:28, 20 May 2019 (UTC))

Freaks listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Freaks. Since you had some involvement with the Freaks redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:45, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

SPI

Hi, I happened to see an interesting SPI case while visiting a user talk page. In cases like this, should the account ideally be blocked? Evidences are compelling and one unrelated user and a reviewing clerk urged to block, and more over it looks like this guy was hiding during the SPI and did not came to defend/explain himself despite being informed about it in his talk page, and neither did he left a message on the accusing user's talk. He returned to editing only after the case was closed and archived. Isn't this strange. It pretty much looks like a block evasion went scot-free. 137.97.101.28 (talk) 13:25, 3 June 2019 (UTC)