User talk:GeneralizationsAreBad/Archive 16

Wikiproject Military history coordinator election nominations open

Nominations for the upcoming project coordinator election are now open. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 UTC on 14 September! Voting doesn't commence until 15 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the coord team. Cheers, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:53, 1 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello

I sent message below to Athaenara , who blocked Shahab’s account , but i have not got any answer, what should i do ?

I’m Shahab Pishanidar’s manager , he is an famous athlete from Iran. He has an Wikipedia account , Shahab pishanidar . There are always Profitable persons who wanted to get account by his name so that his main account has been blocked. He has Wikipedia in Persian but i want to restore his main account in english.if you need more information about him , i will get you any license you want to certify that it was his, himself , and it mistakenly blocked. How can i restore his main Wikipedia account? Soulmaz AP (talk) 07:22, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – September 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

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

Optimist on the run → Voice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

You've got mail

Hello, GeneralizationsAreBad. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Sir Sputnik (talk) 00:12, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Sir Sputnik: Responded

GAB^gab 01:44, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please remove user's talk page access

Can you also remove Assmuncha's talk page access? They made an obviously trollish and disruptive block appeal. funplussmart (talk) 03:28, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE: Never mind, someone else did it. funplussmart (talk) 17:25, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Strawberry and Cherry

Your name is cited as the blocker of an IP account. He added a paragraph to List of festivals in Australia c 29Jan 2018, which is still there — about Strawberry and Cherry festivals. Seems to be true info (based on Google) (but needs more), and there’s no other entry on that IP page.

What’s going on? Why blocked? Why does his typing remain? And how do you get someone-who-knows-what-they’re-talking-about to update the page properly? Shall I post to Talk? MBG02 (talk) 22:35, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@MBG02: That IP was blocked when I blocked a range belonging to a webhost - we do this because they are often used by vandals, sockpuppets, etc. to circumvent blocks and generally cause disruption. I've now unblocked the range. Regards, GAB^gab 22:40, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Can a “legit” person log-on from a banned IP, or does Wiki stop them before they get a chance to enter their log-on info? MBG02 (talk) 01:25, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@MBG02: Depends. There is a setting to prohibit accounts from logging in via a given IP, but this feature is not always enabled. GAB^gab 02:27, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Blocks

Thanks for blocking [1], this is him as well. Lorstaking (talk) 03:06, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Lorstaking: Also dealt with. Not quite sure who's the master, but it doesn't really matter. GAB^gab 03:08, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. You are not quite sure because it was during your inactivity when he turned himself into a trolling LTA. Read Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Wikiexplorer13 and Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Wikiexplorer13. Lorstaking (talk) 03:12, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Lorstaking: Oh, so he was being honest! Imagine that. I try to stay away from ethnonationalist/religious sockmasters because of this sort of thing... these disputes are intractable and involve countless discrete sockfarms. GAB^gab 03:14, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sarah Lowe

Hi, you just deleted Sarah Lowe and I didn’t understand the reason why. Can you at least restore this as DRAFT so I can fix? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xgdfalcon (talk • contribs) 03:14, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've replied on your talkpage. GAB^gab 03:18, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What’s your opinion?

Next Question. I saw the bit above where you’re being asked to review articles... I made a (revert) (I cut and pasted from the old page) in Polymer science for a cut made in Jan 2015. I suppose it’s the backlog; but why wasn’t it corrected before? There are 36 pagewatchers and c90 viewers per day. I must’ve been at least the 100th person to notice it, maybe even 1000th. And, though small, it wasn’t “tiny”. Perhaps Wiki could have a button with a (pop up) small text field, so the not-so-bold can report small problems - and with an info box that tells ‘em to check (or use) Talk for “2 Line” problems. It won’t decrease the Wiki workload, but it might reduce confusion (for readers). MBG02 (talk) 03:37, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@MBG02: Maybe the village pump would be interested in this? Regards, GAB^gab 15:36, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/FaisalMusicFan99[edit]

Hi GAB
You closed the above SPI, on the basis that the user was indeffed, without confirming that they were a sockpuppet.

This leaves the following new articles, by that user, which are entirely unsourced and all of which have false information

Draft:Simon White (musician) ‎
- Draft:Simon White (guitarist) was previously deleted (G5: Created by a banned or blocked user (FaisalMusicFan99) in violation of ban or block)
Draft:John Scott (musician)
Draft:Ian Morris (bassist)
Draft:Tom Dowling (musician)
Draft:Geraint Watkins (keyboardist) - false info - see our actual article Geraint Watkins

Three of these fake drafts have also been edited by an IP of the sock 217.165.60.181 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

As I requested on the SPI page - Once sockpuppetry has been confirmed please delete these G5 - Creations by banned or blocked users
Could I please ask you to delete these drafts as, without confirmation of sock puppetry, I cannot propose them G5
Thanks - Arjayay (talk) 09:44, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

~~@Arjajay:~~ I have no ability to technically confirm sockpuppetry here. However, based on these convincing overlaps, I'd say that you should be on safe ground in G5-tagging whichever pages are eligible. Regards, GAB^gab 02:40, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Botched the ping. @Arjayay: :) GAB^gab 02:40, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks - have nominated accordingly - Arjayay (talk) 09:33, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Your Question on SPI

Hi Gab, this is a reply to a question on this "guy's deal" from an old comment from you that I came across, It is quite possible that you already know the answer. But nevertheless, I will answer it here as it does no harm. The British Indian Empire was partitioned into India and Pakistan in 1947. Pakistan further got split into Pakistan and Bangladesh in 1971. Fundamentalists in Pakistan view India and Bangladesh with grudge, this appears to be the driving force in this editors edit, who seems to be on a mission to show these countries in bad light. On the contrary, he was even using Facebook as a source for an edit showing Pakistan in good light. So now it makes it a little easy to guess. Hope this answer helps you in future. Cheers and regards. --DBig Xrayᗙ 22:56, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@DBigXray: Sockpuppeteers always puzzle me, especially their often never-ending devotion to extraordinarily arcane points of contention. But, of course, they do tend to populate these sorts of ethnonationalist/religious subject areas. Regards, GAB^gab 02:14, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Agree perhaps they feel that they are doing some kind of national service with this never ending devotion, After all Nationalism and Religion does lead people to do extraordinary things. I believe having some background about these contentious areas help to quickly single out a problematic sock from genuine editors representing a less popular viewpoint. I have my interest in South Asian (Indian subcontinent) history and would be glad to help you if you need some quick answers/opinions on background. Appreciate your good work in the backlogged area of SPI. Regards. --DBig Xrayᗙ 12:18, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Books

@DBigXray: Appreciate your offer! Now that you mention it, I am looking for some good literature on partition, particularly from a bottom-up perspective (although high politics is also interesting). I read The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide last year and found it fascinating. Thanks, GAB^gab 15:15, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) Hi GAB, for a truly bottom-up perspective Ian Talbot's Divided Cities is the best I have seen. It is focused on Punjab, and the two cities of Lahore and Amritsar in particular (which are only 50 km apart, I discovered yesterday!). All of Punjab politics gets covered as part of the context, and the ground situation in the two cities.

For high-level politics, I always go to H. V. Hodson's The Great Divide as a first call. Even though Hodson was a government insider, his clarity in navigating all the contentious waters is truly superb. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 16:40, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Kautilya3: Excellent, thank you! Is Yasmin Khan's The Great Partition worth reading, too? And tps is always appreciated

GAB^gab 16:46, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yasmin Khan gets cited a lot on Wikipedia and I have read bits and pieces, but I haven't studied the whole book carefully. I might be wrong, but it seems to me to be more of a "personal perspective" than a proper history, much like Ayesha Jalal's The Sole Spokesman. Valuable, but to be taken with a large grain of salt. There is a review by Ian Copland, JSTOR 30223491, where he reviews Yasmin Khan and Ian Talbot toggether. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:58, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

KT's book recommendations are excellent.Hodson. To pile up on the list. I would also recommend Freedom at Midnight which is one of the popular and an interesting read on the topic. I haven't read Khan or Jalal so no comments on them. hope this answers your book request :D cheers. --DBig Xrayᗙ 10:16, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User:YellowJuche

Could you take action with regards to this user as a possible new sock of KimYaJong? – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 11:09, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Finnusertop: Hmm. If you could file an SPI, we'd be glad to take a look :) GAB^gab 02:12, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Possible block evasion

Hi GAB. I came across Muhammad Ashiq Ali while checking on the non-free use of File:Muhammad Ashiq Ali.png. It seems that the file was uploaded by Verifications for the sole purpose of adding it to Muhammad Ashiq Ali's user page, which is not allowed per WP:NFCC#9; moreover, a non-free file like this most likely wouldn't even be allowed in the article namespace per WP:NFCC#1. I can't think of a good reason why one user would randomly upload a non-free image of another user for use on their user page, so this seems to be a case of WP:QUACK and WP:EVADE. Since you were the admin who blocked Muhammad Ashiq Ali, I figured I ask you whether a new SPI should be started in a case such as this which seems rather obvious. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:43, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Marchjuly: Yeah, it's obvious, so I've

Blocked and tagged them and

IP blocked 124.29.216.249. Feel free to G5 Verifications' creations that are eligible for it, and thanks for bringing this up. Regards, GAB^gab 02:30, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for taking a look a this. As for G5, I guess some of the creations might be possible to save, but I'm not really that knowledgable about Pakastani films. So, I posted something at WT:FILM and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pakistan to see if anyone in either of those two WikiProjects feel there's something worth keeping. If nothing is worth saving, the non-free file's which were uploaded for use in those articles will eventually be deleted per WP:F5. Some of the uploaded files, however, were added to already existing articles, and those seem to be OK. The drafts all can probably be deleted since they were either moved to the mainspace by the editor and are not needed, or likely will never be worked on by anyone else. It's the edits to already existing articles which I'm not sure how to handle since some might actually be OK. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:36, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not super-knowledgeable, either. But we could go through the edits and see what looks problematic. GAB^gab 15:18, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RPP

I am curious that what this edit means. This will cause editor who use Twinkle can not request protection. If you want to archive these immediately, I suggest you add {{RFPP|ar}} instead Hhkohh (talk) 22:09, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Hhkohh: Well-spotted - that little button can be deceptively simple. I reverted. Thanks, GAB^gab 22:11, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(Twenty-)three strikes for Shingling334

Hi GeneralizationsAreBad, I don't understand why WP:THREESTRIKES is not appropriate for Shingling334. There are almost thirty sockpuppets listed at Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Shingling334 that are clearly marked CU-confirmed as sockpuppets of Shingling334. If the original account was never CU-confirmed to any of its puppets, then who are the CU-confirmed ones puppets of? How can we indicate that that individual is community banned, not just that various accounts are blocked? If this person we refer to as Shingling334 doesn't qualify for a three-strikes ban, then I don't know who does... Could you explain? Do we maybe need to think about changing the THREESTRIKES policy (as it's quite new), or the way we designate the sockmaster for the purposes of it? Thanks! --IamNotU (talk) 01:24, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If I had my way, we'd eliminate WP:3X, and I'd certainly be opposed to any changes that would make it easier to identify a "banned" user. Why don't you list CU-confimed socks who were publicly identified on two different occasions after the initial indefinite block? I'm certainly not going to go through all the socks just to slap a useless banner on a sockmaster's page. Or, better still, who don't you just let it go?--Bbb23 (talk) 02:30, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As it is, 3X is pretty much a formality; "Rv sock" is perfectly acceptable when reverting sock edits. Those socks are likely CU-confirmed to one another, not to the master itself, but the difference is somewhat academic. GAB^gab 14:21, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Bbb23: I don't understand: "Why don't you list CU-confimed socks who were publicly identified on two different occasions after the initial indefinite block?" Why don't I list them where, and what for? And why are you opposed to identifying banned users? Personally I think there may be some usefulness to it beyond just a formality. In any case, at the moment we do have WP:3X, and it seems to me there's a technicality that's preventing it from being applied here where it clearly should apply, so maybe not a bad idea to see if that can be fixed somehow. I'll try to ask around a bit... --IamNotU (talk) 20:11, 13 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

When I asked you to list them, I meant here.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:44, 13 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As the person who wrote the 3X proposal (to paraphrase Bbb, it’s my fault) all it does is make it so a repeat sockmaster can’t be unblocked without discussion. It’s mainly useful for formerly productive editors who if an admin didn’t know the background could be unblocked without community consensus. It doesn’t exist as bloodsport, despite what some people think. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:51, 13 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oooh, bloodsport, what a great word!--Bbb23 (talk) 01:59, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@TonyBallioni: thanks for your comment. I'd like to think I'm not asking about this out of vindictiveness... I have an interest in Middle Eastern food, and a minor interest in helping with janitorial work on vandal/pov editing. That's put me in the position of cleaning up after this person for the last couple of years, and I'm asking myself if there's any kind of end-game here, or it just goes on forever? My thoughts are basically WP:RBI. The only other time I had anything to do with a persistent sockmaster, it worked - he kept going until he realized that all his edits were quietly reverted and nobody would interact with him. He threw a bit of a tantrum, and then disappeared.

The problem in the present situation is that every once in a while, he gets an edit through, or someone starts debating content policies or makes an edit accomplishing what he wants, even though they know he's a sock. That's intermittent variable ratio reinforcement, the same as a slot machine - give him an inch, and he'll be back five times a day trying to get another inch. I've caved myself, a year ago I reinstated one of his "X is a Turkish Y" edits, saying "just because you're a sock puppet doesn't mean you never have a good idea". WP:BLOCKEVASION says it "does not mean that edits must be reverted just because they were made by a blocked editor (obviously helpful changes, such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism, can be allowed to stand)". And really, a "sock puppet", how bad can that be? It doesn't sound very serious, maybe give the guy a break... Whereas "community banned user" is another level. "An editor who is site-banned is forbidden from making any edit, anywhere on Wikipedia, via any account or as an unregistered user, under any and all circumstances."

I think that would encourage other editors not to indulge him, interact, or even think about whether his edits are helpful or not. Just revert, block, and ignore, no questions asked. Look at İstiklal Marşı: Revision history, 26 August - after a meltdown with several other editors, in the end he got exactly what he wanted. I think this is unhealthy for Wikipedia. I also think it's unhealthy for him. In that exchange he claims to be autistic, which may be another deception, but it's clear that he gets very worked up about things, at times to the level of leaving (childish) death threats. Perhaps he has access to some kind of counselling at school, and might mention being upset about being banned by Wikipedia, and they could help. I don't know. I looked at a couple of LTA cases and people talked about making a complaint to the person's ISP. I don't know if that ever actually happens, but if so I would think a formal ban would be a precursor to that.

He's also indicated more than once that he doesn't seem to understand that he, as a person, is blocked or banned by consensus of the community, but rather that certain individuals are harassing him and deactivating his accounts so he has to get new ones. It's probably unlikely to convince him, but still I think the effort should be made. If there are any steps that could lead to actually ending this, they should be taken. I still have some hope that one day (soon) he'll realize that he's just not going to be allowed to edit, and give up. I understand that a ban could go against WP:DENY, but in this case it doesn't seem to me like he's in it for either lulz or infamy, he's just obsessed with making these quite particular edits, and having them stay in the articles. I also understand that 3X doesn't allow a banned user template unless there's CU evidence, which we don't seem to have for the original account. So again there may be a structural question here to solve, as we are using the original account name as shorthand for a person who has multiple other accounts that are CU confirmed. Anyway, enough armchair psychology, you are all a lot more experienced in this than I am, but those are my thoughts about it, thanks for considering them. --IamNotU (talk) 04:17, 17 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think you’re misunderstanding the point of this: it was to clarify for admins who patrol CAT:UNBLOCK that people who have repeatedly socked need community consensus before an unblock. This was already normal practice but on occasion you’d have cowboy unblocks or situations where it was unclear what should be done. This ended that. In the case you are describing, no reasonable admin would unblock, so this isn’t needed. Bbb23, GAB, and myself are hardly known for being admins who take a lax view on socking/block evasion. If the three of us are telling you it doesn’t matter in this case, it really doesn’t matter. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:34, 17 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You're right that I don't entirely understand. Putting aside 3X for a moment - are you saying that in general, there is no practical difference between an indefinite block and a ban of any editor, other than requiring consensus to unblock? My point is that WP:BMB and WP:SBAN say "an editor who is site-banned is forbidden from making any edit ... under any and all circumstances" and "they may not edit at all, even if the edits seem good". That language is only found in the banning policy, it's not in the blocking policy. The blocking policy, at WP:BLOCKEVASION, specifies that "helpful changes, such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism, can be allowed to stand". I expect that the average person, after reading the blocking and banning policies, would believe that banning is a much more serious sanction, with a significantly stronger "zero tolerance" policy on editing. If that's not the intention, or it doesn't reflect actual practice, it should probably be clarified.

Seeing other editors debating with him about whether his edits are helpful or not, and him being told it's ok to edit as an IP as long as his contributions are useful, I got the impression that a ban would help dissuade other editors from encouraging him by accepting "good" edits. I see that the banning policy does have the same language about "helpful edits can be allowed to stand" in WP:BANREVERT, which is a bit difficult to understand as it seems to contradict WP:BMB. I'm not known for being a person who has trouble understanding things, so if I'm saying there's something in the way the blocking/banning policies are written that can lead to misunderstanding, it's likely true. I'm happy to help improve it if I can... maybe I should take it up on another talk page? --IamNotU (talk) 23:43, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Possible SOCK or MEAT

Hi GAB. Bentdmjamin is a newly created account whose first edit was to post a !vote in a somewhat contentious (and obscure) FFD discussion. The !vote basically repeated the same arguments made by the only editor in favor of keeping the image. My guess is that the "keep" editor felt the discussion was going to end in "no consensus" and therefore the file would be kept by default. The discussion, however, was relisted and some more !votes in favor of deletion were added. So, (perhaps out of frustration?) an attempt was then made to provide more support in favor of keeping the image, either by SOCK or MEAT. Do you think this is something worth starting an SPI about? — Marchjuly (talk) 20:55, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Marchjuly: I'd say your hunch was right. GAB^gab 23:27, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I guess it apparently was. I was going to post an update, but it seems you've already noticed the accounts have been CU confirmed and blocked by another admin. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:55, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Notice

You have been blocked indefinitely from editing because your account is being used only for vandalism.

If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please read the guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text below the block notice on your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 19:15, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just kidding! Hdjensofjfnen (If you want to trout me, go ahead!) 00:45, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

GAB^gab 01:05, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A kitten for you!

Just messing with you. Here's a kitten.

Hdjensofjfnen (If you want to trout me, go ahead!) 02:00, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! GAB^gab 14:28, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@GeneralizationsAreBad: I'll have to thank you once again, GAB. I just made my 1,000th edit on Wikipedia - I thank you lots for your help! Hdjensofjfnen (If you want to trout me, go ahead!) 21:39, 17 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at User talk:Xaosflux#page history

You are invited to join the discussion at User talk:Xaosflux#page history. —usernamekiran(talk) 19:53, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Milhist coordinator election voting has commenced

G'day everyone, voting for the 2018 Wikiproject Military history coordinator tranche is now open. This is a simple approval vote; only "support" votes should be made. Project members should vote for any candidates they support by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September 2018. Thanks, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:35, 15 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Are You The One Who Protected The Filmography of Canuck Actress Tara Strong?

Dear GAB.

5 months ago, the filmography for famous Canadian voice actress Tara Strong (formerly Charendoff) hs been semi-protected indefinitely by another sysop. You didn't do this right?

Do you listen to any of the fab five that she is known for voicing under this collective nickname Twilight Sparkle Raven Timmy Turner Bubbles and Dil Pickles. If you do you used to watch Rugras when you were a little kid?

I think you're also the one who protected the character guide for Rugrats a while back.

And did you create the page for Havana by Camila Cabello which got protected by an invisible admin who came out of nowhere.

Lastly please reply back to me as soon as possible.

Good night,

67.81.163.178 (talk) 05:49, 15 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

IP please be aware that people have lives away from Wikipedia. You might also try asking your questions in a less accusatory manner. You should also try posting your questions on the talk page for the articles first. GAB here are a couple links - Tara Strong filmography (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) - Havana (Camila Cabello song) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) to try and save you a little time. Sorry I don't have time to track down which Rugrats article is the one in question. Regards GAB. MarnetteD|[[User talk:MarnetteD|Talk]j] 05:59, 15 September 2018 (UTC)an you[reply]

@MarnetteD: Thanks for your response - tps is always appreciated. Cyphoidbomb, does this seem familiar? GAB^gab 15:14, 15 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You are welcome GAB. Your link combined with the fact that the last few posts by this IP are in the same vein on other editors talk pages sure make it a possibility. Cheers. MarnetteD|Talk 16:04, 15 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Geolocation is consistent and she did show up recently. This is a different style than her usual nonsense, However the rambling and strange sentence structure could be indicative of her, but I'd also expect to see more grammar errors. I might consider blocking them on general principle because it doesn't appear they're here for any constructive purpose. Here they're complaining about an article having indefinite semi-protection, but the article is unprotected, then they're vaguely complaining about protection being applied a year ago or something, but I don't see any New Jersey IPs having edited around that time, so why does this person care? I dunno. Here they're asking a bot to consider lowering the protection level of an article about "a lilac colored feline looking alien and his human enemy who was an 11 year old male?" Vague time-wasting nonsense. It could be her. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 22:27, 15 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Milhist coordinator election voting has commenced

G'day everyone, voting for the 2018 Wikiproject Military history coordinator tranche is now open. This is a simple approval vote; only "support" votes should be made. Project members should vote for any candidates they support by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September 2018. Thanks, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:22, 15 September 2018 (UTC) Note: the previous version omitted a link to the election page, therefore you are receiving this follow up message with a link to the election page to correct the previous version. We apologies for any inconvenience that this may have caused.[reply]

NPR Newsletter No.13 18 September 2018

Hello GeneralizationsAreBad, thank you for your work reviewing New Pages!

The New Page Feed currently has 2700 unreviewed articles, up from just 500 at the start of July. For a while we were falling behind by an average of about 40 articles per day, but we have stabilised more recently. Please review some articles from the back of the queue if you can (Sort by: 'Oldest' at Special:NewPagesFeed), as we are very close to having articles older than one month.

Project news

The New Page Feed now has a new "Articles for Creation" option which will show drafts instead of articles in the feed, this shouldn't impact NPP activities and is part of the WMF's AfC Improvement Project.

As part of this project, the feed will have some larger updates to functionality next month. Specifically, ORES predictions will be built in, which will automatically flag articles for potential issues such as vandalism or spam. Copyright violation detection will also be added to the new page feed. See the projects's talk page for more info.

There are a number of coordination tasks for New Page Patrol that could use some help from experienced reviewers. See Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Coordination#Coordinator tasks for more info to see if you can help out.

Other

A new summary page of reliable sources has been created; Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources/Perennial sources, which summarizes existing RfCs or RSN discussions about regularly used sources.

Moving to Draft and Page Mover

Some unsuitable new articles can be best reviewed by moving them to the draft space, but reviewers need to do this carefully and sparingly. It is most useful for topics that look like they might have promise, but where the article as written would be unlikely to survive AfD. If the article can be easily fixed, or if the only issue is a lack of sourcing that is easily accessible, tagging or adding sources yourself is preferable. If sources do not appear to be available and the topic does not appear to be notable, tagging for deletion is preferable (PROD/AfD/CSD as appropriate). See additional guidance at WP:DRAFTIFY.
If the user moves the draft back to mainspace, or recreates it in mainspace, please do not re-draftify the article (although swapping it to maintain the page history may be advisable in the case of copy-paste moves). AfC is optional except for editors with a clear conflict of interest.
Articles that have been created in contravention of our paid-editing-requirements or written from a blatant NPOV perspective, or by authors with a clear COI might also be draftified at discretion.
The best tool for draftification is User:Evad37/MoveToDraft.js^(info). Kindly adapt the text in the dialogue-pop-up as necessary (the default can also be changed like this). Note that if you do not have the Page Mover userright, the redirect from main will be automatically tagged as CSD R2, but in some cases it might be better to make this a redirect to a different page instead.
The Page Mover userright can be useful for New Page Reviewers; occasionally page swapping is needed during NPR activities, and it helps avoid excessive R2 nominations which must be processed by admins. Note that the Page Mover userright has higher requirements than the NPR userright, and is generally given to users active at Requested Moves. Only reviewers who are very experienced and are also very active reviewers are likely to be granted it solely for NPP activities.

List of other useful scripts for New Page Reviewing

Twinkle provides a lot of the same functionality as the page curation tools, and some reviewers prefer to use the Twinkle tools for some/all tasks. It can be activated simply in the gadgets section of 'preferences'. There are also a lot of options available at the Twinkle preferences panel after you install the gadget.
In terms of other gadgets for NPR, HotCat is worth turning on. It allows you to easily add, remove, and change categories on a page, with name suggestions.
MoreMenu also adds a bunch of very useful links for diagnosing and fixing page issues.
User:Equazcion/ScriptInstaller.js^(info): Installing scripts doesn't have to be complicated. Go to your common.js and copy importScript( 'User:Equazcion/ScriptInstaller.js' ); into an empty line, now you can install all other scripts with the click of a button from the script page! (Note you need to be at the ".js" page for the script for the install button to appear, not the information page)
User:TheJosh/Scripts/NewPagePatrol.js^(info): Creates a scrolling new pages list at the left side of the page. You can change the number of pages shown by adding the following to the next line on your common.js page (immediately after the line importing this script): npp_num_pages=20; (Recommended 20, but you can use any number from 1 to 50).
User:Primefac/revdel.js^(info): Is requesting revdel complicated and time consuming? This script helps simplify the process. Just have the Copyvio source URL and go to the history page and collect your diff IDs and you can drop them into the script Popups and it will create a revdel request for you.
User:Lourdes/PageCuration.js^(info): Creates a "Page Curation" link to Special:NewPagesFeed up near your sandbox link.
User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/deletionFinder.js: Creates links next to the title of each page which show up if it has been previously deleted or nominated for deletion.
User:Evad37/rater.js^(info): A fantastic tool for adding WikiProject templates to article talk pages. If you add: rater_autostartNamespaces = 0; to the next line on your common.js, the prompt will pop up automatically if a page has no Wikiproject templates on the talk page (note: this can be a bit annoying if you review redirects or dab pages commonly).

Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:11, 17 September 2018 (UTC) [reply]

User:YellowJuche

Hi GAB. I think YellowJuche might be the same person behind JucheCapitalist, etc. Similiar user names, similar edit sums, and similar focus on DPRK related articles. — Marchjuly (talk) 10:09, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Marchjuly: You're not the first to bring this to my attention... could you perhaps file an SPI? Thanks! GAB^gab 17:28, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

l didn’t notice the other post about this. I will start an SPI later on today or tomorrow if nobody does it first. — Marchjuly (talk) 23:05, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

SSP case by anon

Hi 2601:589:8000:2ED0:8E3:9870:AE04:D383 opened a SSP case however neither of the users mentioned in their report seem to be blocked or have that many warnings on their talk page. Could you (or another admin) deal with this. Sakura Cartelet^Talk 01:21, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Sakura Cartelet: Thanks, I handled it. GAB^gab 01:28, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

WP:PERM

Hi greetings, I would like to use AWB in Wikipedia. So I placed a request in WP:PERM/AWB. First I requested it for my bot and then changed to my normal account. An administrator closed because he may misunderstood that it was for my bot. So I thought withdrawing the current request and place a fresh request is better. I placed {{withdrawn}} in request but then I striked out it because I heard continuing in current request is enough. Is it good? Am I place a new request or continuing in current request is enough? Kindly please help, if you like. Thank you.--PATH SLOPU^(Talk) 12:38, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Path slopu: Thank you for bringing this up. I'm not entirely sure what transpired at PERM, but since Swarm has already rejected the request, I recommend that you wait some time before re-applying. Best, GAB^gab 15:38, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your valuable advice. I will wait for some more time before re applying. Thank you--PATH SLOPU^(Talk) 01:43, 26 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi greetings, I would like to become a rollbacker in wikipedia. Now I revert vandalism with twinkle by RC Patrol. Using the right I can use huggle and igloo which is more powerful than twinkle in counter-vandalism. What requirements should I want before placing the request in WP:PERM? Now I have 700+ edits in mainspace. Kindly please help, if you like.--PATH SLOPU^(Talk) 01:51, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Considering the frequency which you request permissions both here and on other wikis, I think you should wait a bit before requesting any permission, and make sure you’re qualified and experienced enough for the permission you’re requesting. It may be seen as hat collecting. Vermont (talk) 13:32, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Have your say!

Hi everyone, just a quick reminder that voting for the WikiProject Military history coordinator election closes soon. You only have a day or so left to have your say about who should make up the coordination team for the next year. If you have already voted, thanks for participating! If you haven't and would like to, vote here before 23:59 UTC on 28 September. Thanks, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:29, 26 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Return of a LTA IP SP

Janagewen is back. See this SPI report. You placed a block on the 221.9 ... (something) range in the past. It expired and Jan. is back edit-warring and etc. at talk:x86. I thought that perhaps since you had handled this case, with this specific IP range... you might be able to help more quickly than the usual SPI response. Thanks either way. :) Jeh (talk) 08:59, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like it's been handled. GAB^gab 16:19, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

216.200.63.0/24

216.200.63.0/24 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

Could you perform a school on this /24 range, which has seen lots of vandalism/disruption recently? Thanks. 180.51.165.155 (talk) 17:11, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Done, thanks. GAB^gab 23:42, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Could you also look into blocking 38.124.151.0/24 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) as well (lots of recent vandalism)? 180.16.131.11 (talk) 18:23, 3 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018

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

Administrator changes

Justlettersandnumbers • L235

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

Interface administrator changes

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

Oversight changes

Guerillero • NativeForeigner • Snowolf • Xeno

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Discussion at User talk:Acroterion#online? its urgent

You are invited to join the discussion at User talk:Acroterion#online? its urgent. —usernamekiran(talk) 01:08, 6 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Question about blocking

Hello again. I am not sure if you remember this or not, but you responded to my block request on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard back in September. I was wondering if you could do something similar to my previous block? While I thoroughly enjoyed Wikipedia when I first joined in 2016, I have become increasingly disengaged and discouraged with it over the past year. I should really be focusing on my career and my own life rather than obsessing over projects on here. Apologies for the random message, but I would greatly appreciate the help. Aoba47 (talk) 01:38, 17 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Request

Hey, just wondering if on SPI cases like the last two in my deletion log, that we don't create/keep duplicate SPIs. If there is content that needs to merged with the main case, merge it, otherwise it's best to delete it so another case isn't filed there. I have switched the socks blocked from the master tagged by the SPI script to the master of the real SPIs, please be aware of that too. Makes it harder to track with different names from the CU side if we are looking back on a range to identify other socks. Thanks & appreciated. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 05:23, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@DeltaQuad: I determined that these were a separate group of socks, unrelated to Buddhakahika. So I created a new SPI, as requested by Bbb23. GAB^gab 15:25, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My bad. I have restored the two pages. Ignore my message. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 18:59, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Having said that, if you could make it crystal clear in the new SPIs that they are NOT related to the original SPI, especially since your carrying over a CU result templates, that would have gone a long way in my confusion, and I'm sure many other peoples. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 15:09, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@DeltaQuad: Thank you - will keep it in mind for the future. GAB^gab 19:23, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you

Thanks again for all your help and support. I do immediately have one question. I noticed the SPI helper script looks a little different for admins, and there's a few abbreviations I can't figure. Blk and dur are obvious enough. NTP I assume means no talk page. What do ACB, AB/AO, and NEM stand for?. Sir Sputnik (talk) 17:57, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page watcher) Block acount creation, autoblocks, email—see here for the full shebang. ——SerialNumber54129 18:09, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

NPR Newsletter No.14 21 October 2018

Chart of the New Pages Patrol backlog for the past 6 months.

Hello GeneralizationsAreBad, thank you for your work reviewing New Pages!

Backlog

As of 21 October 2018^[update], there are 3650 unreviewed articles and the backlog now stretches back 51 days.

Community Wishlist Proposal

There is currently an ongoing discussion regarding the drafting of a Community Wishlist Proposal for the purpose of requesting bug fixes and missing/useful features to be added to the New Page Feed and Curation Toolbar.
Please join the conversation as we only have until 29 October to draft this proposal!

Project updates

ORES predictions are now built-in to the feed. These automatically predict the class of an article as well as whether it may be spam, vandalism, or an attack page, and can be filtered by these criteria now allowing reviewers to better target articles that they prefer to review.
There are now tools being tested to automatically detect copyright violations in the feed. This detector may not be accurate all the time, though, so it shouldn't be relied on 100% and will only start working on new revisions to pages, not older pages in the backlog.

New scripts

User:Enterprisey/cv-revdel.js^(info) — A new script created for quickly placing {{copyvio-revdel}} on a page.

Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 20:49, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Block of User:130.156.22.250 Comment

You might have missed this, but User:130.156.22.250 is Brookdale Community College. The original 1-year block was the user's personal ISP. — Maile (talk) 14:31, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Maile66: Yes - I blocked the second IP for obvious block evasion. The behavior matches right up. Am I missing something? Best, GAB^gab 14:33, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. It was block evasion by an individual, but the school itself was not evading the block. — Maile (talk) 14:37, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Maile66: I could reduce the block duration, if you like (?) GAB^gab 14:40, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever you think is best. I suppose if you didn't, the school could straightened it out with Wikipedia later. I don't actually know how other admins handle this. — Maile (talk) 14:45, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Maile66: I've reduced the block. GAB^gab 14:48, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Thanks. — Maile (talk) 14:50, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Signature of RecentEdits

I noticed that user RecentEdits hasn't changed his signature yet, despite a warning from B dash that it's quite similar to that of Figfires, and it's beginning to become slightly confusing -- especially because both RecentEdits and Figfires work on WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. It might be time to take action? Hdjensofjfnen (♪ Oh, can I get a connection? Alternatively, trout me.) 21:23, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Hdjensofjfnen: I see that this is now at WP:AN... I'd prefer to keep a centralized discussion there. Regards, GAB^gab 19:24, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

RfA

Hi, thanks for the good word, but I'm happy being one of the regulars. :) Yoninah (talk) 15:42, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Yoninah: Argh... foiled again! :) GAB^gab 15:42, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018

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

Administrator changes

Sir Sputnik

Kudpung • Liz • Lourdes

Everyking • Jackmcbarn

Interface administrator changes

Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes

AGK • Ivanvector • Stwalkerster • TonyBallioni

Oversight changes

Amorymeltzer • Oshwah • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Keilana

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:18, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

221.121.128.0/19

Hi. I was curious why you unblocked Special:Contributions/221.121.128.0/19 back in September 2018. I was going to block it, too, but then I noticed that you had unblocked it. Was that causing collateral damage or something? NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:06, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@NinjaRobotPirate: I think I was concerned about the potential for collateral damage. Of course, I don't object to your reblocking it. Best, GAB^gab 18:25, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Help handling an IP

Could you please take care of a disruptive IP editor ? I have filed a report in Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive editing by IP. The editor has returned again [2], [3]. 2405:204:D10C:2A61:E893:B1DC:E98F:3689 (talk) 14:28, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello

I applied for Roleback and haven't heard back, I noticed you committed over there. About how long does it normally take for them to review my request? A 10 fireplane (talk) 04:49, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry I missed this - looks like it's been handled. GAB^gab 15:08, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

thats no problem, thanks anyways

A 10 fireplane (talk) 06:42, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just in case it's important

Hi, GAB. I saw your name on the SPI clerk list and thought it'd be a good idea to let someone know about a recent action of mine. I blocked Unionm (talk · contribs) as a block evading sock of Cnmk (talk · contribs) based on behavioral evidence. My main concern is that the action may need to be logged somewhere. Of course, if there's any problem with the block let me know. There's also an IP mixed in but it's an IPv6 and it has only made one edit. Any questions just ping me. Thanks Tiderolls 14:41, 11 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Tide rolls: No problem - I made a pro forma filing. Thanks for letting me know. GAB^gab 15:17, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Rollback Right

Hi, Since I saw that you are active on Wikipedia:Requests for permissions and I was wondering if I met the requirements for WP:Rollback, I decided to ask you a few things. Am I qualified for the right or should I wait another month before reapplying(my first request was denied because I had 146 edits on the mainspace, I have around 730 now)? Also, is it possible to request temporary rollback rights as a trial, then see if it is useful for me or not? Thank you and happy editing, --Me llamo @B00TH$!FT Chat With Me 06:31, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Boothsift: I see that Beeblebrox denied the request two weeks ago - I recommend putting in a few more weeks of countervandalism work and then reapplying. Experience is just as important as the edit count. Best, GAB^gab 19:00, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A brownie for you!

:D just saying hi and giving you a delicious brownie. Mainly for being you, but also for being great at dealing with all my pingz and clerk requests. TonyBallioni (talk) 06:34, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@TonyBallioni: Dunno about that... I've really been slacking at SPI. Thanks! GAB^gab 19:01, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

NPR Newsletter No.15 16 November 2018

Chart of the New Pages Patrol backlog for the past 6 months.

Hello GeneralizationsAreBad,

Community Wishlist Survey – NPP needs you – Vote NOW

Community Wishlist Voting takes place 16 to 30 November for the Page Curation and New Pages Feed improvements, and other software requests. The NPP community is hoping for a good turnout in support of the requests to Santa for the tools we need. This is very important as we have been asking the Foundation for these upgrades for 4 years.

If this proposal does not make it into the top ten, it is likely that the tools will be given no support at all for the foreseeable future. So please put in a vote today.

We are counting on significant support not only from our own ranks, but from everyone who is concerned with maintaining a Wikipedia that is free of vandalism, promotion, flagrant financial exploitation and other pollution.

With all 650 reviewers voting for these urgently needed improvements, our requests would be unlikely to fail. See also The Signpost Special report: 'NPP: This could be heaven or this could be hell for new users – and for the reviewers', and if you are not sure what the wish list is all about, take a sneak peek at an article in this month's upcoming issue of The Signpost which unfortunately due to staff holidays and an impending US holiday will probably not be published until after voting has closed.

Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}18:37, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Definition

What does RB’d mean A.R.M. 04:42, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@ARMcgrath: Rangeblocked

GAB^gab 04:42, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks A.R.M. 04:43, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, GeneralizationsAreBad. 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)[reply]

Question

Hi, you just blocked an IP for posting some nonsense. That nonsense was rev/del'd from one page... was that you? I only ask because he appears to have posted it to some other pages as well. Just thought I'd let you know. - wolf 21:09, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Thewolfchild: Heya - looks like it's taken care of now. Best, GAB^gab 21:54, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Edit request

I already posted this on User talk:Fastily, but could you remove the top file from MediaWiki:Bad image list since it's deleted? Thanks. ^Semi_Hypercube ✎ 01:07, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@SemiHypercube:

Done GAB^gab 01:11, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you (and could you possibly also RevDel the edits containing that file, considering the title?) ^Semi_Hypercube ✎ 01:14, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@SemiHypercube: Hm. Maybe Fastily would know how to do this? Regards, GAB^gab 01:16, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Email access removal request

Hi, thanks for blocking Fg68at. Could you please revoke email access if possible? They keep spamming my mail with grossly insulting threats.--SkyGazer 512 ^{Oh no, what did I do this time?} 01:46, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@SkyGazer 512: You can thank Jauerback for the block...

Done GAB^gab 01:50, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I just now noticed that it was Jauerback who had blocked them originally. Fg68at has also been globally locked; since a global lock, IIRC, means that a user cannot even log into their account, they can no longer use Special:EmailUser even if they did still have email enabled. I appreciate your help dealing with this situation. :-)--SkyGazer 512 ^{Oh no, what did I do this time?} 02:00, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is a pretty scary thing. Let's hope it gets resolved soon. GAB^gab 02:02, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Fg68at

Hi GeneralizationsAreBad, thanks for stopping the compromised account. The person recovered his access which got proven by Wikimedia Austria where he showed up in person. With this information, I unlocked the global account. I would also unblock the local account here but didn't want to override your block without any notice. I think you are okay with this, aren't you? Best, —DerHexer (Talk) 21:50, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@DerHexer: Unblocked the account. Thanks very much for letting me know. Regards, GAB^gab 22:22, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, too! Best, —DerHexer (Talk) 22:36, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's great news that the account's rightful owners are beginning to regain control of them. funplussmart (talk) 23:33, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Rollback

Hi greetings, I would like to use rollback right in enwiki. Now I'm using twinkle to revert vandalism. But with the permission, I can use huggle, stiki, igloo, etc to revert vandalism more effective. What requirements should I take before placing request in WP:PERM. Would you mind to help me? I'm seeking you because an advice from an experienced user is better before doing such things. Kindly please help me. Thank you.--PATH SLOPU^(Talk) 13:19, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Path slopu: See WP:Rollback for more details. --@Boothsift 01:53, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A brownie for you!

Just want to say hi, that's it. @Boothsift 01:55, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nominations now open for "Military historian of the year" and "Military history newcomer of the year" awards

Nominations for our annual Military historian of the year and Military history newcomer of the year awards are open until 23:59 (GMT) on 15 December 2018. Why don't you nominate the editors who you believe have made a real difference to the project in 2018? MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:26, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

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

Administrator changes

Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz

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

Interface administrator changes

Deryck Chan

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

Obituaries

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:36, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

NPR Newsletter No.16 15 December 2018

Hello GeneralizationsAreBad,

Reviewer of the Year

This year's award for the Reviewer of the Year goes to Onel5969. Around on Wikipedia since 2011, their staggering number of 26,554 reviews over the past twelve months makes them, together with an additional total of 275,285 edits, one of Wikipedia's most prolific users.

Thanks are also extended for their work to JTtheOG (15,059 reviews), Boleyn (12,760 reviews), Cwmhiraeth (9,001 reviews), Semmendinger (8,440 reviews), PRehse (8,092 reviews), Arthistorian1977 (5,306 reviews), Abishe (4,153 reviews), Barkeep49 (4,016 reviews), and Elmidae (3,615 reviews).
Cwmhiraeth, Semmendinger, Barkeep49, and Elmidae have been New Page Reviewers for less than a year — Barkeep49 for only seven months, while Boleyn, with an edit count of 250,000 since she joined Wikipedia in 2008, has been a bastion of New Page Patrol for many years.

Voting now open for "Military historian of the year" and "Military history newcomer of the year" awards

Voting for our annual Military historian of the year and Military history newcomer of the year awards is open until 23:59 (GMT) on 30 December 2018. Why don't you vote for the editors who you believe have made a real difference to Wikipedia's coverage of military history in 2018? MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:17, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Merry Merry

		Happy Christmas!
		Hello GeneralizationsAreBad, Early in A Child's Christmas in Wales the young Dylan and his friend Jim Prothero witness smoke pouring from Jim's home. After the conflagration has been extinguished Dylan writes that Nobody could have had a noisier Christmas Eve. And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim's Aunt, Miss. Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets, standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, "Would you like anything to read?" My thanks to you for your efforts to keep the 'pedia readable in case the firemen chose one of our articles :-) Best wishes to you and yours and happy editing in 2019. MarnetteD\|Talk 22:35, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Merry Christmas !!!

CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) is wishing you a Merry Christmas!

This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the Christmas cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas3}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Happy holidays!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2019!

Hello GeneralizationsAreBad, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2019.
Happy editing,
Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 22:24, 23 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

User:Neyoranking

Naijapuse.com.ng - I'm pretty sure adding your a link company to your userpage is almost always spam, and self promotion. But hey what do I know. unless it consists solely of spam or other speedy deletable material. Maybe just removing that he/she/they are the CEO of the company and their link to their webpage. VViking_TalkEdits 16:15, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Viewmont Viking: The username itself did not seem promotional, so I declined - sorry for being legalistic

GAB^gab 16:17, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, no worries about being legalistic we all have our own ways of enjoying editing. --VViking_TalkEdits 18:42, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Merry Christmas!

	Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2019!
	Hope you enjoy the Christmas eve with the ones you love and step into the new year with lots of happiness and good health. Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year! GSS (talk

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2019!

Hello GeneralizationsAreBad, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2019.
Happy editing,
Hhkohh (talk) 13:06, 25 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Request

Hi GAB! In September User:Binod Basnet/Draft is deleted as per my request. But now I need the contents of the draft. You being the deleting administrator please restore the contents of the page. Thanks--Binod Basnet (talk) 04:28, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Binod Basnet:

Done - you can revert to the desired version. Best, GAB^gab 22:09, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much --Binod Basnet (talk) 00:38, 27 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Lobjanist

Hey GAB, I just undid your close at WP:AN based on -revi's suggestion. I hope you don't mind.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:41, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Bbb23: No problem at all. Best, GAB^gab 22:09, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Apollo SPI close

Hey, just wondering why'd you close Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Apollo The Logician before there was a result. The IP was independently banned for vandalism for 48 hours. For sure he's going to continue socking with the IP after it expires. Not that it matters too much, I guess, since he's going to get a new mobile IP eventually anyway. --Pudeo (talk) 23:11, 27 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Pudeo: Yeah, he got reblocked. Will keep this in mind when dealing with future IPsocks. GAB^gab 21:08, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Happy New Year, GeneralizationsAreBad!

Happy New Year!

GeneralizationsAreBad,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
SkyGazer 512 ^{Oh no, what did I do this time?} 23:44, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Hello GeneralizationsAreBad: Thanks for all of your contributions to Wikipedia, and have a great New Year! Cheers, Walk Like an Egyptian (talk) 00:00, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year snowman}} to people's talk pages with a friendly message.

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019

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

Administrator changes

Galobtter

Orangemike

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

Bureaucrat changes

Addshore

CheckUser changes

Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

AGK • Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Guideline and policy news

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

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

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

Technical news

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

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

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

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:38, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ted CoConis protection

You might consider a few years or indef. Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:14, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2019

Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht

Happy 2019

begin it with music and memories

Not too late, I hope ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:12, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

SPI clerk

Hi. There are a few long-standing requests to become an SPI clerk here. You answered the latest request so I thought you should be aware. IWI (chat) 21:27, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User talk:IEsuredI

Hi GeneralizationsAreBad. This user talk page got flagged for a WP:NFCC#9 violation for having some non-free images on it. The files were probably added by the latest edit to the talk page made by IEsured. I was going to blank the enitre page, but figured I asked you first since you're the admin who indeffed this editor. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:09, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I took care of it before seeing this message. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:50, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that JJMC89. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:13, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Splinter News socking?

Hey, I noticed you banned Antitroll616 after this edit to Splinter News. Another editor has popped up and added roughly the same claim about Splinter encouraging terrorism. It seems like too specific of a claim for two different editors to have arrived at it separately. Could you take a look? Nblund^talk 02:13, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Nblund: Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I don't know if the behavioral evidence is quite enough, but it might be worth pinging Ponyo. Thanks, GAB^gab 17:16, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. Potentially dumb question: the template you used already pinged Ponyo, right? I can post this over at SPI if that's easier for bookkeeping purposes, but on a closer look, I think Opisthocoelicaudia66 and Pterodactyl717 are probably related based on near-identical edits to Harmeet Dhillon (1, 2). Similarly: Opisthocoelicaudia66, AntiTroll616 and John Grabowicz all made roughly the same edit at Splinter News (1, 2, 3). All those accounts except Opisthocoelicaudia66 have already been blocked for abusing multiple accounts, but I don't see any mention that they are connected. Nblund^talk 21:01, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The three accounts are all blocked/tagged now.-- Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 19:49, 21 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Spambots

Generally you can request a lock on m:SRG just saying "lock for spambots" and a steward will also do a loginwiki CU in most cases. :) I'm usually more than happy to help on spambots, but have a crazy RL week right now and am just doing general checking of things before heading back off. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:07, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The reply-link newsletter, issue 1

Hi! Welcome to the new reply-link newsletter, which I made because the ol' list on the reply-link talk page was unwieldy. In case you haven't been following development recently, I've sent out some new updates that should let it reply basically anywhere, even in transcluded pages or under hatted discussions (two locations people have been wanting for a while). Reliability has also gone way up, as I've implemented a couple of sanity checks that help prevent the script from responding to the wrong message. Unfortunately, that means the script fails a bit more often. Anyway, try it out if you haven't done so in a while, and let me know what you think! I always appreciate feature requests or bug reports on the talk page. Happy replying! (Signup list/Unsubscribe) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:23, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Creating a Page!

I'm Creating a Page that previously Topic deleted by you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ritesh748 (talk • contribs) 06:11, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Found this comment after a rather bizarre adventure down a rabbit hole: was using Huggle and found that Ritesh748 had made over a 100 edits on their user page (with some nonsensical edit sums), but few other edits. Found that they had created Mananpur (Village) (to get around the salting of Mananpur), and apparently wanted you to know about it?? Their case is currently open at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Karanshrivastva. I post this to ask if Mananpur (village) qualifies for speedy deletion under G5? Captain Eek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} 20:35, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@CaptainEek: Looks like it's already been deleted. GAB^gab 09:33, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RPP of American Muslims for Palestine

I think this should probably be a logged action (into the enforcement log), per WP:ARBPIA3? 182.58.231.246 (talk) 08:11, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Already done. GAB^gab 09:32, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

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

Administrator changes

Enterprisey • JJMC89

BorgQueen

Harro5 • Jenks24 • Graft • R. Baley

Interface administrator changes

Enterprisey

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:15, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Happy First Edit Day!

Have a very happy first edit anniversary!
From the Birthday Committee, CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 09:05, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User talk:175.34.64.2

You blocked the pornographic photo from the edit where it was created by User:Steenkeek Weef. But it is still visible in the next three edits before it was deleted by User:Materialscientist Fleet Lists (talk) 11:07, 12 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Also revdelled, thanks. GAB^gab 11:08, 12 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank You - that was quick.Fleet Lists (talk) 11:12, 12 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User:DavidJanet and User:DavidJanet88 appear to be sockpuppets of User:Otto4711

I don't exactly know enough about Wikipedia to know how to formally go about accusing someone of sockpuppetry, but this Reddit post seems to have some convincing evidence of a new case.

https://www.reddit.com/r/daverubin/comments/aw9yuv/dave_rubins_husbands_wikipedia_sockpuppets/

2607:FEA8:8400:1E9D:612E:B0C2:233D:D2D0 (talk) 16:12, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Appreciate your bringing this to our attention. However, given that these accounts haven't edited in years, I don't think there's anything we can do here for the time being. Regards, GAB^gab 16:26, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User:120.17.0.29

Thanks for putting the block n this IP. Just pointing out this IP is used by User:Cause gran26 already banned indefinitely for vandalising the same article in case you missed it. Equine-man (talk) 18:27, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like it, although that hasn't put an end to the disruption there. Page protection would be the next step. GAB^gab 12:03, 3 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – March 2019

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

Administrator changes

Evad37

There'sNoTime

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

Interface administrator changes

Evad37 • Galobtter

Ritchie333

CheckUser changes

There'sNoTime

Keegan • Ks0stm

Oversight changes

There'sNoTime

Ks0stm • Sphilbrick

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Request

Hi. I was wondering if you would be willing to help me with something - it should only take a minute. If you go to User:DannyS712/closeRM.js, do you see a (view/restore) option that takes you to Special:Undelete? And if yes, do you then get told that you do not have the necessary rights (The action you have requested is limited to users in one of the groups: Administrators, Oversighters, Researchers, Check users.) despite being an admin? Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 04:25, 8 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) likely is a bug with one of the intadmin things. Amorymeltzer may be able to help. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:49, 8 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@TonyBallioni: that's exactly what I believe it is, and I'm pretty sure its based on the call to MediaWiki:Badaccess-groups, which would require a phab ticket to change --DannyS712 (talk) 05:02, 8 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It is phab:T203083. — JJMC89 (T·C) 06:22, 8 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@JJMC89: Thanks --DannyS712 (talk) 06:25, 8 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

pending changes / rollback

A small note of appreciation: thank you.--Goldsztajn (talk) 16:02, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There is one Actor’s profile Named as Abdul Quadir Amin, his creation has been protected kindly consider again because he is a known actor, u can also search him on google and other search engines. Kindly do the needfull. Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ahanamirza (talk • contribs) 07:12, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Check this link for appreciation:- 1. [4] 2. [5]

Thank you

Regarding actor Abdul Quadir Amin Check this link for appreciation:- 1. [6] 2. [7]

Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ahanamirza (talk • contribs) 08:07, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Starting a sockpuppet investigation

Hello! I noticed a pattern that I think might be a sockpuppet. I've read the pages about opening an investigation, but before I actually go through with it, I wanted to run it by an administrator. I've opened an investigation, but before submitting it, I copied it to my Sandbox page. Are you able to look at my Sandbox page to see if (a) this is a legitimate issue; (b) I've filled out the right information ?

If you say to go ahead, I will submit it, but it's just waiting for now. Thanks very much. Jkgree (talk) 17:02, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

My Sandbox page [8]

@Jkgree: Thanks for your question. I'll be able to take a closer look at this later, but it looks legitimate upon first glance. Regards, GAB^gab 23:06, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

So I'll go ahead and submit it. Jkgree (talk) 02:33, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

NPR Newsletter No.17

Hello GeneralizationsAreBad,

News

The WMF has announced that Google Translate is now available for translating articles through the content translation tool. This may result in an increase in machine translated articles in the New Pages Feed. Feel free to use the {{rough translation}} tag and gently remind (or inform) editors that translations from other language Wikipedia pages still require attribution per WP:TFOLWP.

Discussions of interest

Two elements of CSD G6 have been split into their own criteria: R4 for redirects in the "File:" namespace with the same name as a file or redirect at Wikimedia Commons (Discussion), and G14 for disambiguation pages which disambiguate zero pages, or have "(disambiguation)" in the title but disambiguate a single page (Discussion).
{{db-blankdraft}} was merged into G13 (Discussion)
A discussion recently closed with no consensus on whether to create a subject-specific notability guideline for theatrical plays.
There is an ongoing discussion on a proposal to create subject-specific notability guidelines for chemicals and organism taxa.

Reminders

NPR is not a binary keep / delete process. In many cases a redirect may be appropriate. The deletion policy and its associated guideline clearly emphasise that not all unsuitable articles must be deleted. Redirects are not contentious. See a classic example of the templates to use. More templates are listed at the R template index. Reviewers who are not aware, do please take this into consideration before PROD, CSD, and especially AfD because not even all admins are aware of such policies, and many NAC do not have a full knowledge of them.

NPP Tools Report

Superlinks – allows you to check an article's history, logs, talk page, NPP flowchart (on unpatrolled pages) and more without navigating away from the article itself.
copyvio-check – automatically checks the copyvio percentage of new pages in the background and displays this info with a link to the report in the 'info' panel of the Page curation toolbar.
The NPP flowchart now has clickable hyperlinks.

Six Month Queue Data: Today – Low – 2393 High – 4828
Looking for inspiration? There are approximately 1000 female biographies to review.
Stay up to date with even more news – subscribe to The Signpost.

Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings.

--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:18, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Daragh carey

Hi GAB. I think an indefinite block on this editor may be excessive. Éamon de Valera was known as "The Long Fella", and Michael Collins was known as "The Big Fella". I agree with reverting the edits, but it was not vandalism. Cheers, Scolaire (talk) 23:13, 29 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Scolaire: Well, what do I know? Unblocked. Thanks for bringing this up. GAB^gab 09:05, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. Scolaire (talk) 09:24, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Open proxies

hi GAB, hope you are doing great. Can you suggest me which is the appropriate venue to report blacklisted open proxies that are being used to disrupt controversial articles ? Apparently this isn't. --DBig Xrayᗙ 06:04, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@DBigXray: WP:OP is probably the best place to report proxies. Granted, its response time isn't anything like AIV's, but it has specialized proxy checkers who will handle reports. Best, GAB^gab 09:06, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]