User talk:BigHaz
My Policy
[edit]Now that I'm here, feel free to put any questions/concerns/comments below (preferably in their own section) if you want me to respond. Please specify where you want any responses (if they're necessary). Unless otherwise specified - or unless there's a good reason to do so - I'll reply here. Further, I can and will reply to deliberately inflammatory remarks in order to provide context, should the situation escalate or be at risk of doing so.
If you're wondering why an article was deleted, please read this page first. It should at least serve to clarify the situation, even if it doesn't give you an answer. I'm more than willing to answer, of course, but I'll assume that you've read it through.
Where archiving is concerned, I'll archive all "dead" discussions when the page gets too long and leave "live" ones out for a while. That way we don't run the risk of having bits and pieces scattered everywhere.
Halloween cheer!
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Hello BigHaz:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
– LinguistunEinsuno 18:56, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – November 2017
[edit]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.
A Barnstar
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The New Page Patroller's Barnstar | |
| For being one of the top 10 reviewers of the last 12 months. Thanks very much for your reviewing. Hope to see you back over there sometime! — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 20:47, 23 November 2017 (UTC) |
- Something I keep meaning to do more of, and then getting distracted. I embarrass myself with my attention span, sometimes. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 23:29, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 24 November 2017
[edit]- News and notes: Cons, cons, cons
- Arbitration report: Administrator desysoped; How to deal with crosswiki issues; Mister Wiki case likely
- Technology report: Searching and surveying
- Interview: A featured article centurion
- WikiProject report: Recommendations for WikiProjects
- In the media: Open knowledge platform as a media institution
- Traffic report: Strange and inappropriate
- Featured content: We will remember them
- Recent research: Who wrote this? New dataset on the provenance of Wikipedia text
Brisbane meetup - Sunday 10 December 2017 at The Edge, State Library of Queensland
[edit]If you are in or near Brisbane, please join us on Sunday 10 December 2017 any time from noon to 4pm at The Edge at the State Library of Queensland. For more details and to sign up, please go to the meetup page. See you there! Kerry (talk) 22:30, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
ANI Experiences survey
[edit]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:
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.
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
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2017).
Administrator changes
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.
ArbCom 2017 election voter message
[edit]Hello, BigHaz. 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)
Hey! If you're interested, I started a series of userboxes for the game NationStates. Feel free to add any or add your own!-🐦Do☭torWho42 (⭐) 05:19, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 18 December 2017
[edit]- Special report: Women in Red World Contest wrap-up
- Featured content: Featured content to finish 2017
- In the media: Stolen seagulls, public domain primates and more
- Arbitration report: Last case of 2017: Mister Wiki editors
- Gallery: Wiki loving
- Recent research: French medical articles have "high rate of veracity"
- Technology report: Your wish lists and more Wikimedia tech
- Traffic report: Notable heroes and bad guys
Brisbane meetup: Saturday 13 January 2018 at The Edge, State Library of Queensland
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Brisbane Meetup
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If you are in or near Brisbane, please join us on Saturday 13 January 2018 any time from noon to 4pm at The Edge at the State Library of Queensland. For more details and to sign up, please go to the meetup page. See you there!
Administrators' newsletter – January 2018
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2017).
Administrator changes
- Muboshgu
Anetode • Laser brain • Worm That Turned- None
Bureaucrat changes
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.
The Signpost: 16 January 2018
[edit]- News and notes: Communication is key
- In the media: The Paris Review, British Crown and British Media
- Featured content: History, gaming and multifarious topics
- Interview: Interview with Ser Amantio di Nicolao, the top contributor to English Wikipedia by edit count
- Technology report: Dedicated Wikidata database servers
- Arbitration report: Mister Wiki is first arbitration committee decision of 2018
- Traffic report: The best and worst of 2017
NPP Backlog Drive Appreciation and Review
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Special Edition New Page Patroller's Barnstar | |
| For completing at least 100 reviews during the 2018 NPP New Year Backlog Drive please accept this Special Edition Barnstar. Thank you for helping out at New Page Patrol. There is still work to do to meet our long term goals, so I hope you will continue to help us out. Cheers! — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 06:19, 31 January 2018 (UTC) |
I have had a look at 20 or so of your recent reviews and while the 'easy' ones were generally reviewed well, there were a few errors that I noticed. I think you should slow down and spend a bit more time while reviewing. For example see: Titan Chowdhury and G-Aerosports (which I have nominated for deletion), Hartmut Thieme (which was a BLP tagged by another user for lack of sources after you reviewed it), and John Howlin (which probably should have had the refimprove tag, or similar, added). Thanks for your help, and I don't want to dissuade you from reviewing new articles, but it would pay to be a bit more careful in future. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 06:19, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
- Agreed that I got a bit carried away the last time I did a patrol, so no surprises there. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 07:35, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
The article Ostani kraj mene has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
Unsourced. Fails verifibility
While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Dom from Paris (talk) 16:01, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
On list of authoritarian Regimes supported by soviet union or Russia
[edit]Don't undo my edits, i just made an account by the way, before that i was an active anonymous contributor to the page and the reason i undid your edits is because it says and i quote If you came here because someone asked you to, or you read a message on another website, please note that this is not a majority vote, but instead a discussion among Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia has policies and guidelines regarding the encyclopedia's content, and consensus (agreement) is gauged based on the merits of the arguments, not by counting votes. However, you are invited to participate and your opinion is welcome. Remember to assume good faith on the part of others and to sign your posts on this page by adding Fenetrejones (talk) 23:53, 1 February 2018 (UTC) at the end.
Note: Comments by suspected single-purpose accounts or canvassed users may be tagged using: — username (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. or — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that username (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. ~ User:Fenetrejones UTC:6:52 pm, 1 February 2018
- It says precisely what you say it does, but that doesn't mean that you're allowed to !vote multiple times. The fact that the outcome will be determined by consensus and the policy-based merits of the arguments raised doesn't give you, me, or anyone else permission to say keep or delete multiple times. Have a look at WP:AFDEQ and its related sections to see how you can contribute to the discussion multiple times (usually by responding to the arguments someone else has made) without running foul of that policy. The undoing of the anonymous edits was, as you'll see, entirely policy-based, as were the warnings delivered. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 00:08, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
- It never said votes, it says by what the stronger argument is~User:fenetrejones 00:08, 2 February 2018 (UTC) -If that were the case then i would have liked it to be changed from 'for' to 'response above'~User:fenetrejones 00:08, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
- I didn't say it said votes. I said, and I quote from my earlier message here, "It says precisely what you say it does". If you're confused by my use of the term "!vote", you'll find that it's a convenient shorthand used throughout XfD discussions, since "bolded opinion of what you think should be done which isn't a vote" is rather long to type over and over again. Regardless of what precisely we call someone typing keep, delete or any other option, the entire point of these discussions is that you get one of these bolded opinions of what you think should be done which isn't a vote per discussion. If you want to change your opinion, you're welcome to strikethrough what you previously wrote and enter a new one. If you want to withdraw from the discussion entirely, you can strike what you wrote and leave it be. If you want to respond to the argument advanced by another user, you can do so in a threaded discussion. Other users are entirely within their rights to strike a duplicate bolded opinion (...), and deleting that strikethrough is a form of vandalism. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 02:56, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – February 2018
[edit]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.
The Signpost: 5 February 2018
[edit]- Featured content: Wars, sieges, disasters and everything black possible
- Traffic report: TV, death, sports, and doodles
- Special report: Cochrane–Wikipedia Initiative
- Arbitration report: New cases requested for inter-editor hostility and other collaboration issues
- In the media: Solving crime; editing out violence allegations
- Humour: You really are in Wonderland
Undelete album pages of a Croatian (Yugoslavian) rock band Aerodrom
[edit]Hello, I was wondering if you could undelete pages of first two albums of Croatian band Aerodrom ("Kad misli mi vrludaju" and "Tango Bango"). You cited "not enough reliable sources" as a reason for deletion, but what's more reliable source than having an LP in my hand and citing the band's official page. Those pages contained pure facts only. I can't see what is the difference between these two and all other articles for the whole discography of the band, which are still normally alive on Wikipedia. Thank you.
Newprog (talk) 22:44, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks for your question. For future reference, if you're questioning the deletion of a page, it's usually a good idea to link to the page in question, as these required quite some digging to find. Nonetheless, I'll respond to the queries you raise:
- "Kad misli..." was tagged for "Proposed Deletion" in the middle of last year with the rationale "Fails WP:N". Now, I should point out here that the tagging wasn't done by me, only the deletion was. During the period of approximately one week that this tag was active, you or any other user had the ability to add further sources to confirm the notability (in line with the link in the template), and this didn't happen. Indeed, no edits were made to the article within that time at all, as far as I can see. The sources at the time that the article was deleted were a link to progarchives.com, which confirms that the album physically existed (the user-submitted reviews are neither here nor there), and a link to the band's Facebook page (which confirms that the band exists, but doesn't really do much about the album itself). Considering the standards outlined for albums, as well as more generally for the notability of article subjects, the album in question didn't meet those standards based on the sources present. "Having an LP in my hand and citing the band's official page" simply means that the album and the band exist, which doesn't amount to notability. What would be required, as you can see, would be coverage in the form of reviews and the like from reputable sources.
- "Tango Bango" is largely in the same situation. There was a period of a week during which further sources could be provided. Nothing was. The extant sources merely confirmed the existence of the band and the album. In relation to "the band's official page", by the way, it may be important to note that the "best" sources are always those independent of the subject themselves, but that's perhaps for another day.
- So, where to from here? I don't intend to un-delete the pages, as they don't demonstrate the notability of the albums at present. You are, of course, more than welcome to re-create the articles if you wish to do so. Do be aware, though, that the requirements around notability and sourcing are still the same as they were. Please feel free to ask further questions if anything is unclear here. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 06:42, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
Help with references
[edit]Hello! I'm working on articles without sources and stumbled upon a few that you created back in the day about Eurovision songs. This is a topic I know nothing about. Any chance you'd be able to pop a reference or two into some of those articles real quick so someone could easily verify the info in there? It'd be a huge help. The ones I'm looking at in particular are Za našu ljubav and Chcę znać swój grzech..., but it looks like lots of the linked song articles may fit the bill. Thanks a bunch! Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 18:37, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
- Sure thing. It was something I did get started on years ago, but life gradually got busier and I obviously didn't get the full set completed - or anywhere like it. I'll add references for the two you've cited, but feel free to drop me a line with any other egregious examples and I'll get to them when I can. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 23:37, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
The Signpost: 20 February 2018
[edit]- News and notes: The future is Swedish with a lack of administrators
- Recent research: Politically diverse editors write better articles; Reddit and Stack Overflow benefit from Wikipedia but don't give back
- Arbitration report: Arbitration committee prepares to examine two new cases
- Traffic report: Addicted to sports and pain
- Featured content: Entertainment, sports and history
- Technology report: Paragraph-based edit conflict screen; broken thanks
Administrators' newsletter – March 2018
[edit]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_allthat 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.
WikiCup 2018 March newsletter
[edit]And so ends the first round of the competition, with 4 points required to qualify for round 2. With 53 contestants qualifying, the groups for round 2 are slightly smaller than usual, with the two leaders from each group due to qualify for round 3 as well as the top sixteen remaining users.
Our top scorers in round 1 were:
Aoba47 led the field with a featured article, 8 good articles and 42 GARs, giving a total of 666 points.
FrB.TG , a WikiCup newcomer, came next with 600 points, gained from a featured article and masses of bonus points.
Ssven2, another WikiCup newcomer, was in third place with 403 points, garnered from a featured article, a featured list, a good article and twelve GARs.- Ceranthor, Numerounovedant,
Carbrera, 
Farang Rak Tham and 
Cartoon network freak all had over 200 points, but like all the other contestants, now have to start again from scratch. A good achievement was the 193 GARs performed by WikiCup contestants, comparing very favourably with the 54 GAs they achieved.
Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 1 but before the start of round 2 can be claimed in round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.
If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk) and Vanamonde (talk) 15:27, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
Signpost issue 4 – 29 March 2018
[edit]- News and notes: Wiki Conference roundup and new appointments.
- Arbitration report: Ironing out issues in infoboxes; not sure yet about New Jersey; and an administrator who probably wasn't uncivil to a sockpuppet.
- Traffic report: Real sports, real women and an imaginary country: what's on top for Wikipedia readers
- Featured content: Animals, Ships, and Songs
- Technology report: Timeless skin review by Force Radical.
- Special report: ACTRIAL wrap-up.
- Humour: WikiWorld Reruns
Administrators' newsletter – April 2018
[edit]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.
NPR Silver Award
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The New Page Reviewer's Silver Award | |
| For over 2000 new page reviews in the last year, thank you very much for your help at New Pages Patrol! — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 23:46, 13 April 2018 (UTC) |
The Signpost: 26 April 2018
[edit]- From the editors: The Signpost's presses roll again
- Signpost: Future directions for The Signpost
- In the media: The rise of Wikipedia as a disinformation mop
- In focus: Admin reports board under criticism
- Special report: ACTRIAL results adopted by landslide
- Community view: It's time we look past Women in Red to counter systemic bias
- Discussion report: The future of portals
- Arbitration report: No new cases, and one motion on administrative misconduct
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Military History
- Traffic report: A quiet place to wrestle with the articles of March
- Technology report: Coming soon: Books-to-PDF, interactive maps, rollback confirmation
- Featured content: Featured content selected by the community
WikiCup 2018 May newsletter
[edit]The second round of the 2018 WikiCup has now finished. Most contestants who advanced to the next round scored upwards of 100 points, but two with just 10 points managed to scrape through into round 3. Our top scorers in the last round were:
Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with three featured articles
Iazyges, with nine good articles and lots of bonus points- Yashthepunisher, a first time contestant, with two featured lists
SounderBruce, a finalist last year, with seventeen good topic articles- Usernameunique, a first time contestant, with fourteen DYKs
Muboshgu, a seasoned competitor, with three ITNs and
Courcelles, another first time contestant, with twenty-seven GARs
So far contestants have achieved twelve featured articles between them and a splendid 124 good articles. Commendably, 326 GARs have been completed during the course of the 2018 WikiCup, so the backlog of articles awaiting GA review has been reduced as a result of contestants' activities. As we enter the third round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met; most of the GARs are fine, but a few have been a bit skimpy.
If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:10, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – May 2018
[edit]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_anyfunction 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.
- 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
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.
The Signpost: 24 May 2018
[edit]- From the editor: Another issue meets the deadline
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Portals
- Discussion report: User rights, infoboxes, and more discussion on portals
- Featured content: Featured content selected by the community
- Arbitration report: Managing difficult topics
- News and notes: Lots of Wikimedia
- Traffic report: We love our superheroes
- Technology report: A trove of contributor and developer goodies
- Recent research: Why people don't contribute to Wikipedia; using Wikipedia to teach statistics, technical writing, and controversial issues
- Humour: Play with your food
- Gallery: Wine not?
- From the archives: The Signpost scoops The Signpost
Administrators' newsletter – June 2018
[edit]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.
The Signpost: 29 June 2018
[edit]- Special report: NPR and AfC – The Marshall Plan: an engagement and a marriage?
- Op-ed: What do admins do?
- News and notes: Money, milestones, and Wikimania
- In the media: Much wikilove from the Mayor of London, less from Paekākāriki or a certain candidate for U.S. Congress
- Discussion report: Deletion, page moves, and an update to the main page
- Featured content: New promotions
- Arbitration report: WWII, UK politics, and a user deCrat'ed
- Traffic report: Endgame
- Technology report: Improvements piled on more improvements
- Gallery: Wiki Loves Africa
- Recent research: How censorship can backfire and conversations can go awry
- Humour: Television plot lines
- Wikipedia essays: This month's pick by The Signpost editors
- From the archives: Wolves nip at Wikipedia's heels: A perspective on the cost of paid editing
WikiCup 2018 July newsletter
[edit]The third round of the 2018 WikiCup has now come to an end. The 16 users who made it to the fourth round had at least 227 points. Our top scorers in round 3 were:
- Courcelles, a first time contestant, with 1756 points, a tally built largely on 27 GAs related to the Olympics
- Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with two featured articles and three GAs on natural history and astronomy topics
- SounderBruce, a finalist last year, with a variety of submissions related to transport in the state of Washington
Contestants managed 7 featured articles, 4 featured lists, 120 good articles, 1 good topic, 124 DYK entries, 15 ITN entries, and 132 good article reviews. Over the course of the competition, contestants have completed 458 GA reviews, in comparison to 244 good articles submitted for review and promoted. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process; several submissions, particularly in abstruse or technical areas, have needed additional work to make them completely verifiable.
If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk), Vanamonde (talk) 04:55, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – July 2018
[edit]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
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.
Links to other wikis
[edit]Hi, to change a link to another language wiki, you now have to edit the entry in Wikidata.
At present, mandarin orange (Q125337) links to 87 language wikis, including our Mandarin orange and et:Harilik mandariinipuu. If you think that et:Mandariin is better, then change the link at mandarin orange (Q125337).
A major problem of Wikidata, to me anyway, is that it cannot handle multiple links between wikis. So if some wikis have separate articles on the plant and the fruit and some have only one, you can't create links that show this. You can only make one of the plant or fruit articles to link to the single article in the other wiki. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:55, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- Darn. I tried making the edits on Wikidata first, and it shouted at me, so I followed what I thought was the appropriate process after searching here (not sure if the pages here about foreign language links are out of date, or whether I simply misread them - the day I'm having, I'll bet the latter!). My thinking is that the articles we have about the fruit/s should link to the et articles about the fruit/s as well, following a sort of "principle of least surprise". After all, if I went to the shop to buy a couple of mandarins, you wouldn't expect me to come back with a couple of trees. Since you know what you're doing, and I clearly don't, are you able to edit the Wikidata pages accordingly? I'm snowed-under at the moment with other commitments and am only here very infrequently. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 07:39, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- The problem is that to link the articles as correctly as possible with the current Wikidata regime requires either:
- Two entries at Wikidata, one for the fruit and one for the plant
- Deciding for each language wiki article which of the two Wikidata entries it is best linked to, noting that when there's only one language wiki article, the choice between the Wikidata entries is pretty arbitrary
- or
- One entry at Wikidata, for the plant and its fruit
- Where there are two language wiki articles, deciding which of the two is best linked to the single Wikidata entry
- This is a major task, involving translation in many cases, and I too am snowed under. I'm also frustrated by the refusal of the editors at Wikidata to come up with a proper solution to the existence of multiple articles in one language wiki corresponding to a single article in another and reluctant to spend time on what will always be a flawed solution. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:26, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- No worries. I'll park it under "things to do if I'm ever handed some spare time". BigHaz - Schreit mich an 23:17, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- The problem is that to link the articles as correctly as possible with the current Wikidata regime requires either:
The Signpost: 31 July 2018
[edit]- From the editor: If only if
- Opinion: Wrestling with Wikipedia reality
- Discussion report: Wikipedias take action against EU copyright proposal, plus new user right proposals
- Featured content: Wikipedia's best content in images and prose
- Arbitration report: Status quo processes retained in two disputes
- Traffic report: Soccer, football, call it what you like – that and summer movies leave room for little else
- Technology report: New bots, new prefs
- Recent research: Different Wikipedias use different images; editing contests more successful than edit-a-thons
- Humour: It's all the same
- Essay: Wikipedia does not need you
Administrators' newsletter – August 2018
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2018).
Administrator changes
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.
Merger discussion for Troy University at Phenix City
[edit]
An article that you have been involved in editing—Troy University at Phenix City—has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Mr Xaero ☎️ 05:22, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
The Signpost: 30 August 2018
[edit]- From the editor: Today's young adults don't know a world without Wikipedia
- News and notes: Flying high; low practice from Wikipedia 'cleansing' agency; where do our donations go? RfA sees a new trend
- In the media: Quicksilver AI writes articles
- Discussion report: Drafting an interface administrator policy
- Featured content: Featured content selected by the community
- Special report: Wikimania 2018
- Traffic report: Aretha dies – getting just 2,000 short of 5 million hits
- Technology report: Technical enhancements and a request to prioritize upcoming work
- Recent research: Wehrmacht on Wikipedia, neural networks writing biographies
- Humour: Signpost editor censors herself
- From the archives: Playing with Wikipedia words
WikiCup 2018 September newsletter
[edit]The fourth round of the 2018 WikiCup has now come to an end. The eight users who made it to the final round had to score a minimum of 422 points to qualify, with the top score in the round being 4869 points. The leaders in round 4 were:
- Courcelles scored a magnificent 4869 points, with 92 good articles on Olympics-related themes. Courcelles' bonus points alone exceeded the total score of any of the other contestants!
Kees08 was second with 1155 points, including a high-scoring featured article for Neil Armstrong, two good topics and some Olympics-related good articles.- Cas Liber, with 1066 points, was in third place this round, with two featured articles and a good article, all on natural history topics.
- Other contestants who qualified for the final round were
Nova Crystallis, Iazyges, SounderBruce, 
Kosack and Ceranthor.
During round four, 6 featured articles and 164 good articles were promoted by WikiCup contestants, 13 articles were included in good topics and 143 good article reviews were performed. There were also 10 "in the news" contributions on the main page and 53 "did you knows". Congratulations to all who participated! It was a generally high-scoring and productive round and I think we can expect a highly competitive finish to the competition.
Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck, and let the best editor win! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:31, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – September 2018
[edit]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 isarticle_textwhich is nowpage_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.
The article Na jastuku za dvoje has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
Not notable. Fails WP:NSONG.
While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. SummerPhDv2.0 00:31, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
The Signpost: 1 October 2018
[edit]- From the editor: Is this the new normal?
- News and notes: European copyright law moves forward
- In the media: Knowledge under fire
- Discussion report: Interface Admin policy proposal, part 2
- Arbitration report: A quiet month for Arbcom
- Technology report: Paying attention to your mobile
- Gallery: A pat on the back
- Recent research: How talk page use has changed since 2005; censorship shocks lead to centralization; is vandalism caused by workplace boredom?
- Humour: Signpost Crossword Puzzle
- Essay: Expressing thanks
Administrators' newsletter – October 2018
[edit]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.
The Signpost: 28 October 2018
[edit]- From the editors: The Signpost is still afloat, just barely
- News and notes: WMF gets a million bucks
- In the media: Bans, celebs, and bias
- Discussion report: Mediation Committee and proposed deletion reform
- Traffic report: Unsurprisingly, sport leads the field – or the ring
- Technology report: Bots galore!
- Special report: NPP needs you
- Special report 2: Now Wikidata is six
- In focus: Alexa
- Gallery: Out of this world!
- Recent research: Wikimedia Commons worth $28.9 billion
- Humour: Talk page humour
- Opinion: Strickland incident
- From the archives: The Gardner Interview
WikiCup 2018 November newsletter
[edit]The WikiCup is over for another year! Our Champion this year is 
Courcelles (submissions), who over the course of the competition has amassed 147 GAs, 111 GARs, 9 DYKs, 4 FLs and 1 ITN. Our finalists were as follows:
- Courcelles (submissions)
- Kosack (submissions)
- Kees08 (submissions)
SounderBruce (submissions)- Cas Liber (submissions)
- Nova Crystallis (submissions)
- Iazyges (submissions)
- Ceranthor (submissions)
All those who reached the final win awards, and awards will also be going to the following participants:
- Cas Liber (submissions) wins the FA prize, for three featured articles in round 2.
- Courcelles (submissions) wins the GA prize, for 92 good articles in round 3.
- Kosack (submissions) wins the FL prize, for five featured lists overall.
- Cartoon network freak (submissions) wins the topic prize, for 30 articles in good topics overall.
- Usernameunique (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 24 did you know articles in round 3.
Zanhe (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 17 in the news articles overall.
Aoba47 (submissions) wins the GAR prize, for 43 good article reviews in round 1.
Awards will be handed out in the coming weeks. Please be patient!
Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether you made it to the final rounds or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup who have achieved much this year. Thanks to all who have taken part and helped out with the competition.
Next year's competition begins on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; it is open to all Wikipedians, new and old. The WikiCup judges will be back in touch over the coming months, and we hope to see you all in the 2019 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email) and Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · email).
Administrators' newsletter – November 2018
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2018).
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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-en
wikimedia.org. Other email lists, such as functionaries-en and clerks-l, remain unchanged.
ArbCom 2018 election voter message
[edit]Hello, BigHaz. 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)
The Signpost: 1 December 2018
[edit]- From the editor: Time for a truce
- Special report: The Christmas wishlist
- Discussion report: Farewell, Mediation Committee
- Arbitration report: A long break ends
- Traffic report: Queen reigns for four weeks straight
- Gallery: Intersections
- From the archives: Ars longa, vita brevis
Administrators' newsletter – December 2018
[edit]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
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.
The Signpost: 24 December 2018
[edit]- From the editors: Where to draw the line in reporting?
- News and notes: Some wishes do come true
- In the media: Political hijinks
- Discussion report: A new record low for RfA
- WikiProject report: Articlegenesis
- Arbitration report: Year ends with one active case
- Traffic report: Queen dethroned by U.S. presidents
- Gallery: Sun and Moon, water and stone
- Blog: News from the WMF
- Humour: I believe in Bigfoot
- Essay: Requests for medication
- From the archives: Compromised admin accounts – again
Welcome to the 2019 WikiCup!
[edit]Hello and Happy New Year!
Welcome to the 2019 WikiCup, the competition begins today. If you have already joined, your submission page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and we will set up your submissions page. One important rule to remember is that only content on which you have completed significant work during 2019, and which you have nominated this year, is eligible for points in the competition, the judges will be checking! Any questions should be directed to one of the judges, or left on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will make it to round 2. Good luck! The judges for the WikiCup are Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:14, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – January 2019
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2018).
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Guideline and policy news
- There are a number of new or changed speedy deletion criteria, each previously part of WP:CSD#G6:
- G14 (new): Disambiguation pages that disambiguate only zero or one existing pages are now covered under the new G14 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-disambig}}; the text is unchanged and candidates may be found in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as unnecessary disambiguation pages.
- R4 (new): Redirects in the file namespace (and no file links) that have the same name as a file or redirect at Commons are now covered under the new R4 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-redircom}}; the text is unchanged.
- G13 (expanded): Userspace drafts containing only the default Article Wizard text are now covered under G13 along with other drafts (discussion). Such blank drafts are now eligible after six months rather than one year, and taggers continue to use {{db-blankdraft}}.
- The Wikimedia Foundation now requires all interface administrators to enable two-factor authentication.
- Members of the Bot Approvals Group (BAG) are now subject to an activity requirement. After two years without any bot-related activity (e.g. operating a bot, posting on a bot-related talk page), BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice.
Technical news
- Starting on December 13, the Wikimedia Foundation security team implemented new password policy and requirements. Privileged accounts (administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, oversighters, interface administrators, bots, edit filter managers/helpers, template editors, et al.) must have a password at least 10 characters in length. All accounts must have a password:
- At least 8 characters in length
- Not in the 100,000 most popular passwords (defined by the Password Blacklist library)
- Different from their username
- User accounts not meeting these requirements will be prompted to update their password accordingly. More information is available on MediaWiki.org.
- Blocked administrators may now block the administrator that blocked them. This was done to mitigate the possibility that a compromised administrator account would block all other active administrators, complementing the removal of the ability to unblock oneself outside of self-imposed blocks. A request for comment is currently in progress to determine whether the blocking policy should be updated regarding this change.
- {{Copyvio-revdel}} now has a link to open the history with the RevDel checkboxes already filled in.
Arbitration
- Following the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: AGK, Courcelles, GorillaWarfare, Joe Roe, Mkdw, SilkTork.
Miscellaneous
- Accounts continue to be compromised on a regular basis. Evidence shows this is entirely due to the accounts having the same password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately.
- Around 22% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 20% in June 2018. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless of whether you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.
The Signpost: 31 January 2019
[edit]- Op-Ed: Random Rewards Rejected
- News and notes: WMF staff turntable continues to spin; Endowment gets more cash; RfA continues to be a pit of steely knives
- Discussion report: The future of the reference desk
- Featured content: Don't miss your great opportunity
- Arbitration report: An admin under the microscope
- Traffic report: Death, royals and superheroes: Avengers, Black Panther
- Technology report: When broken is easily fixed
- News from the WMF: News from WMF
- Recent research: Ad revenue from reused Wikipedia articles; are Wikipedia researchers asking the right questions?
- Essay: How
- Humour: Village pump
- From the archives: An editorial board that includes you
Administrators' newsletter – February 2019
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2019).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
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.
The Signpost: 28 February 2019
[edit]- From the editors: Help wanted (still)
- News and notes: Front-page issues for the community
- Discussion report: Talking about talk pages
- Featured content: Conquest, War, Famine, Death, and more!
- Arbitration report: A quiet month for Arbitration Committee
- Traffic report: Binge-watching
- Technology report: Tool labs casters-up
- Gallery: Signed with pride
- From the archives: New group aims to promote Wiki-Love
- Humour: Pesky Pronouns
WikiCup 2019 March newsletter
[edit]And so ends the first round of the competition. Everyone with a positive score moves on to Round 2. With 56 contestants qualifying, each group in Round 2 contains seven contestants, with the two leaders from each group due to qualify for Round 3 as well as the top sixteen remaining contestants.
Our top scorers in Round 1 were:
- L293D, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with ten good articles on submarines for a total of 357 points.
Adam Cuerden, a WikiCup veteran, came next with 274 points, mostly from eight featured pictures, restorations of artwork.
MPJ-DK, a wrestling enthusiast, was in third place with 263 points, garnered from a featured list, five good articles, two DYKs and four GARs.- Usernameunique came next at 243, with a featured article and a good article, both on ancient helmets.
Squeamish Ossifrage was in joint fifth place with 224 points, mostly garnered from bringing the 1937 Fox vault fire to featured article status.
Ed! was also on 224, with an amazing number of good article reviews (56 actually).
These contestants, like all the others, now have to start scoring points again from scratch. Between them, contestants completed reviews on 143 good articles, one hundred more than the number of good articles they claimed for, thus making a substantial dent in the review backlog. Well done all!
Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.
If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk).
Happy First Edit Day!
[edit]
Have a very happy first edit anniversary!
From the Birthday Committee, CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 21:08, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – March 2019
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2019).
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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.
- paid-en-wp
- 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).
Miscellaneous
- Following the 2019 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Base, Einsbor, Jon Kolbert, Schniggendiller, and Wim b.
The Signpost: 31 March 2019
[edit]- From the editors: Getting serious about humor
- News and notes: Blackouts fail to stop EU Copyright Directive
- In the media: Women's history month
- Discussion report: Portal debates continue, Prespa agreement aftermath, WMF seeks a rebranding
- Featured content: Out of this world
- Arbitration report: The Tides of March at ARBCOM
- Traffic report: Exultations and tribulations
- Technology report: New section suggestions and sitewide styles
- News from the WMF: The WMF's take on the new EU Copyright Directive
- Recent research: Barnstar-like awards increase new editor retention
- From the archives: Esperanza organization disbanded after deletion discussion
- Humour: The Epistolary of Arthur 37
- In focus: The Wikipedia SourceWatch
- Special report: Wiki Loves (50 Years of) Pride
- Community view: Wikipedia's response to the New Zealand mosque shootings
Administrators' newsletter – April 2019
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2019).
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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.
The Signpost: 30 April 2019
[edit]- News and notes: An Action Packed April
- In the media: Is Wikipedia just another social media site?
- Discussion report: English Wikipedia community's conclusions on talk pages
- Featured content: Anguish, accolades, animals, and art
- Arbitration report: An Active Arbitration Committee
- Traffic report: Mötley Crüe, Notre-Dame, a black hole, and Bonnie and Clyde
- Technology report: A new special page, and other news
- Gallery: Notre-Dame de Paris burns
- News from the WMF: Can machine learning uncover Wikipedia’s missing “citation needed” tags?
- Recent research: Female scholars underrepresented; whitepaper on Wikidata and libraries; undo patterns reveal editor hierarchy
- From the archives: Portals revisited
WikiCup 2019 May newsletter
[edit]The second round of the 2019 WikiCup has now finished. Contestants needed to scored 32 points to advance into round 3. Our top four scorers in round 2 all scored over 400 points and were:
- Cas Liber (1210), our winner in 2016, with two featured articles and three DYKs. He also made good use of the bonus points available, more than doubling his score by choosing appropriate articles to work on.
- Kosack (750), last year's runner up, with an FA, a GA, two FLs, and five DYKs.
- Adam Cuerden (480), a WikiCup veteran, with 16 featured pictures, mostly restorations.
Zwerg Nase (461), a seasoned competitor, with a FA, a GA and an ITN item.
Other notable performances were put in by 
Barkeep49 with six GAs, 
Ceranthor, 
Lee Vilenski, and 
Canada Hky, each with seven GARs, and 
MPJ-DK with a seven item GT.
So far contestants have achieved nine featured articles between them and a splendid 80 good articles. Commendably, 227 GARs have been completed during the course of the 2019 WikiCup, so the backlog of articles awaiting GA review has been reduced as a result of contestants' activities. The judges are pleased with the thorough GARs that are being performed, and have hardly had to reject any. As we enter the third round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them.
If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:45, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
ArbCom 2019 special circular
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Administrators must secure their accounts
The Arbitration Committee may require a new RfA if your account is compromised.
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This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:19, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)
[edit]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)
Administrators' newsletter – May 2019
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2019).
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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 sowill 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.
- 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,
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.
The Signpost: 31 May 2019
[edit]- From the editors: Picture that
- News and notes: Wikimania and trustee elections
- In the media: Politics, lawsuits and baseball
- Discussion report: Admin abuse leads to mass-desysop proposal on Azerbaijani Wikipedia
- Arbitration report: ArbCom forges ahead
- Technology report: Lots of Bots
- News from the WMF: Wikimedia Foundation petitions the European Court of Human Rights to lift the block of Wikipedia in Turkey
- Essay: Paid editing
- From the archives: FORUM:Should Wikimedia modify its terms of use to require disclosure?
Administrators' newsletter – June 2019
[edit]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
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.
The June 2019 Signpost is out!
[edit]- Discussion report: A constitutional crisis hits English Wikipedia
- News and notes: Mysterious ban, admin resignations, Wikimedia Thailand rising
- In the media: The disinformation age
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
- Traffic report: Juneteenth, Beauty Revealed, and more nuclear disasters
- Technology report: Actors and Bots
- Special report: Did Fram harass other editors?
- Recent research: What do editors do after being blocked?; the top mathematicians, universities and cancers according to Wikipedia
- From the archives: Women and Wikipedia: the world is watching
- In focus: WikiJournals: A sister project proposal
- Community view: A CEO biography, paid for with taxes
Eurovision Newsletter for June 2019
[edit] → Issue 48 ←
Headlines
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| At the time of publication the project statistics were as follows | |||||
| Number of articles | Unassessed articles | Good articles | A-class articles | Featured articles | Number of members |
7263 
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33
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54
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1 
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5
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109
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• HOME • TALK • NEWSDESK • UNSUBSCRIBE • ARCHIVES • | |||||
- Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:04, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – July 2019
[edit]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.
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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.
WikiCup 2019 July newsletter
[edit]The third round of the 2019 WikiCup has now come to an end. The 16 users who made it to the fourth round needed to score at least 68 points, which is substantially lower than last year's 227 points. Our top scorers in round 3 were:
Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with 500 points derived mainly from a featured article and two GAs on natural history topics- Adam Cuerden, with 480 points, a tally built on 16 featured pictures, the result of meticulous restoration work
- SounderBruce, a finalist in the last two years, with 306 points from a variety of submissions, mostly related to sport or the State of Washington
- Usernameunique, with 305 points derived from a featured article and two GAs on archaeology and related topics
Contestants managed 4 (5) featured articles, 4 featured lists, 18 featured pictures, 29 good articles, 50 DYK entries, 9 ITN entries, and 39 good article reviews. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them, and it is imperative to claim them in the correct round; one FA claim had to be rejected because it was incorrectly submitted (claimed in Round 3 when it qualified for Round 2), so be warned! When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met.
If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:12, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost: 31 July 2019
[edit]- In the media: Politics starts getting rough
- Discussion report: New proposals in aftermath of Fram ban
- Arbitration report: A month of reintegration
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
- Community view: Video based summaries of Wikipedia articles. How and why?
- News from the WMF: Designing ethically with AI: How Wikimedia can harness machine learning in a responsible and human-centered way
- Recent research: Most influential medical journals; detecting pages to protect
- Special report: Administrator cadre continues to contract
- Traffic report: World cups, presidential candidates, and stranger things
Administrators' newsletter – August 2019
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2019).
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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.
The Signpost: 30 August 2019
[edit]- News and notes: Documenting Wikimania and our beginnings
- In focus: Ryan Merkley joins WMF as Chief of Staff
- Discussion report: Meta proposals on partial bans and IP users
- Traffic report: Once upon a time in Greenland with Boris and cornflakes
- News from the WMF: Meet Emna Mizouni, the newly minted 2019 Wikimedian of the Year
- Recent research: Special issue on gender gap and gender bias research
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
WikiCup 2019 September newsletter
[edit]The fourth round of the competition has finished in a flurry of last minute activity, with 454 points being required to qualify for the final round. It was a hotly competitive round with two contestants with over 400 points being eliminated, and all but two of the finalists having achieved an FA during the round. Casliber, our 2016 winner, was the highest point-scorer, followed by Enwebb and Lee Vilenski, who are both new to the competition. In fourth place was SounderBruce, a finalist last year. But all those points are swept away as we start afresh for the final round.
Round 4 saw the achievement of 11 featured articles. In addition, Adam Cuerden scored with 18 FPs, Lee Vilenski led the GA score with 8 GAs while Kosack performed 15 GA reviews. There were around 40 DYKs, 40 GARs and 31 GAs overall during round 4. Even though contestants performed more GARs than they achieved GAs, there was still some frustration at the length of time taken to get articles reviewed.
As we start round 5, we say goodbye to the eight competitors who didn't quite make it; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia, and we hope you will join us again next year. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them (some people have fallen foul of this rule and the points have been removed).
If you are concerned that your nomination, whether it be for a good article, a featured process, or anything else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:44, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – September 2019
[edit]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
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.
The Signpost: 30 September 2019
[edit]- From the editors: Where do we go from here?
- Special report: Post-Framgate wrapup
- Traffic report: Varied and intriguing entries, less Luck, and some retreads
- News from the WMF: How the Wikimedia Foundation is making efforts to go green
- Recent research: Wikipedia's role in assessing credibility of news sources; using wikis against procrastination; OpenSym 2019 report
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
Administrators' newsletter – October 2019
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2019).
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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
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- Following a discussion, a new criterion for speedy category renaming was added: C2F: One eponymous article, which
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.
The Signpost: 31 October 2019
[edit]- In the media: How to use or abuse Wikipedia for fun or profit
- Special report: “Catch and Kill” on Wikipedia: Paid editing and the suppression of material on alleged sexual abuse
- Interview: Carl Miller on Wikipedia Wars
- Community view: Observations from the mainland
- Arbitration report: October actions
- Gallery: Wiki Loves Broadcast
- Recent research: Research at Wikimania 2019: More communication doesn't make editors more productive; Tor users doing good work; harmful content rare on English Wikipedia
- News from the WMF: Welcome to Wikipedia! Here's what we're doing to help you stick around
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
WikiCup 2019 November newsletter
[edit]The WikiCup is over for another year! Our Champion this year is 
Adam Cuerden (submissions), who over the course of the competition has amassed 91 featured pictures, including 32 in the final round. Our finalists this year were: