User talk:Versageek

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A Note About Advertising and Conflicts of Interest

If I reverted your link addition or removed your links from an article, please read this:

Due to the rising profile of Wikipedia and the amount of extra traffic it can bring a site, there is a great temptation to use Wikipedia to advertise or promote sites. This includes both commercial and non-commercial sites. You should avoid linking to a website that you own, maintain or represent, even if the guidelines otherwise imply that it should be linked. If the link is to a relevant and informative site that should otherwise be included, please consider mentioning it on the talk page and let neutral and independent Wikipedia editors decide whether to add it. This is in line with the conflict of interest guidelines.

Main pages: Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and Wikipedia:Spam

If you have additional information to add to the article, why not simply add it rather than having an external link?

Archive Jul06-Dec07, Archive Jan08-Dec08, Archive Jan09-Dec10, Archive Jan11-Current

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George "Joji" Miller

The second time this article was recently CSD, would you consider salting this one? Tiggerjay (talk) 00:49, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! Tiggerjay (talk) 03:59, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

External Links

Hi Versageek,

I am new to editing Wikipedia and I was hoping to add useful information about insects to pages. I make educational YouTube videos about insects. I do not want to run into a problem with "conflict of interest" policies, but I also think that these videos would add beneficial information to the pages. Somewhere it mentioned, bringing it up in a "Talk" and letting other editors decide if it was a valuable addition. Where would I do that? I tried to just place a couple up and your bot knocked them down and I just don't want to step on any toes as I did not know that links were discouraged. Also, would it be more okay to just add written information to the body and then add the link at the bottom as a reference?

Thank you, Insectopia — Preceding unsigned comment added by Insectopia 2015 (talk • contribs) 20:26, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

For a broad based discussion, you could try: The WikiProject Insects talk page. Otherwise on the individual talk pages of the articles where you are trying to add links. --Versageek 19:17, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Some stroopwafels for you!

Thank you for your work on OTRS and other technical issues. DThomsen8 (talk) 13:00, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Self-publishing&action=history

Hi Versageek,

I added the link to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. Why was it reverted? Thanks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Self-publishing&action=history — Preceding unsigned comment added by 54.240.196.170 (talk) 17:06, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

External links like that are not permitted in the body of articles. --Versageek 17:40, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Versageek, will it be ok with link to this page though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindle_Direct_Publishing? --54.240.196.170 (talk) 21:23, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

to link to a wikipedia page use this format: [[Kindle Direct Publishing]], it will look like this Kindle Direct Publishing. --Versageek 03:38, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

help

hello, Well I was trying to create our wiki So if you know how can I create my own please help me out — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbcreativo (talk • contribs) 18:03, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Disneyland Roblozia

Why did you delete it, It's aloud... I had permission from Disney themselves — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:2CEA:5900:31B5:D6EF:3D87:332 (talk) 22:26, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

sanyog kumar deletion issue

the page sanyog kumar is in the way of deletion . why this is going to be deleted . one thing is clear that this is going to be important ... but u applied A7 here .... but i want this to continued . what to do please suggest ....i don't want it in the way of deletion . thank u — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sanyogchourasia (talk • contribs) 07:36, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

While this young writer may some day merit an encyclopedia entry. He currently does not meet our criteria for inclusion. Try again in a few years. --Versageek 23:57, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Reversion bot XLinkBot on Propuesta Indecente

This edition is legitimate? or there is an error in it. --186.84.46.227 (talk) 19:19, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Checkuser check

Please do a checkuser check on user:Fuck the Golden State Warriors! Sincerely, Tikeem and user:TikeemIsMyWorld and block the IP address where those accounts originate. 2602:306:3357:BA0:B919:A583:2133:8AAF (talk) 04:47, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Looks like my fellow checkusers have already taken care of it. Thanks. --Versageek 05:15, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

XLinkBot

Hello, a concern about your bot, XLinkBot, has been raised at: Wikipedia:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard#Unflagged_bot_XLinkBot, please review the discussion on that page. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 19:16, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Your bot replaced my updated info with outdated dated. Please stop.

The page is Pedro Fernández. I had updated It with recent discography, updated, working links to his official page, his Twitter and Facebook pages. Updated the TV section with his 2015 and 2016 shows. Updated the opening with his Grammy awards. Updated the movie section by adding missing roles. Then your bot comes along and wipes it all out. If you can't capture updated data then leave it alone if you see it has been manually updated. That was qiute a bit of effort you wiped out! Please respond otherwise wiki is a waste of everyone's time and effort. SusanneSCSusanneSC (talk) 03:00, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

How can I edit my Boardloch page so it doesn't get deleted? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicholastharpe (talk • contribs) 03:59, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Impersonator/Imbotinator

User:XLlinksBot, just created. Not sure if this is an imbotinator or a legit new bot, so just letting you know! Crow^Caw 19:41, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Recreation of Page

You have recently creation-protected RiceGum, however there's now been a page named Bryan Le (RiceGum) created. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 16:04, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Inquiry on attempt to publish article on Albert Fattal

Hello, my name is Terchi and I am a new writer on Wikipedia. I recently began working on an article on Albert Fattal and was alerted of your attempt to publish the same. I would like to kindly know why your article was rejected and any pointers you may have on how to make my article better. Thanks in advance.

kind regards, (T.terchi (talk) 14:12, 24 August 2016 (UTC))

The best advice I can offer is to lay off of the superlatives. I read the deleted versions of the article and for a minute I thought it had been autogenerated by one of those programs that uses a lot of big words that seem to say something but are really nonsense. --Versageek 20:46, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

External Links, Conflict of Interest

Hello Versageek,

I totally understand the terms and conditions, please see that at this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaser_(gambling) the explanation on https://www.bestonlinesportsbooks.info/betting-tips/how-to-bet-teasers is good for readers.

You can compare this one: http://www.bettingbrain.com/betting-tips/teaser-betting/ that is already there as well.

Please let me know.

thanks.

regards,

Andrew — Preceding unsigned comment added by AndrewBOS (talk • contribs) 03:14, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a directory or link farm, also please see other stuff exists. I'm guessing from your username that you have some relation to the site you are adding. Adding links in this manner is discouraged and could cause the site to be blacklisted --Versageek 20:46, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Waiting for your answer.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by AndrewBOS (talk • contribs) 05:04, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

You can't put in blacklist a site the have information that matter to people.

I added the articles with information according to the content and what people are looking for.

So...I would like you to explain what do you don't like about the information? What type of information is ok for those pages??

thanks for your time.

regards,

Andrew — Preceding unsigned comment added by AndrewBOS (talk • contribs) 05:10, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

We can and do blacklist sites if they are repeatedly added to articles by users with an apparent conflict of interest. Thus far, you haven't repeatedly added links to the site. The content on the site you want to link to adds nothing to the article that isn't already available, either on the page or in one of the existing references. If you want to add the link to that page, I suggest asking for consensus on the article talk page. --Versageek 16:22, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AndrewBOS (talk • contribs) 00:34, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

checkuser check

Someone brought up on Wolfdog's wikipedia talk page that he rarely does edit summaries. On many occasions he will delete lots of text and never put up a summary of his edits. he has been doing this for a long time. 57.9 percent of his edits do not have summaries. I was wondering if you could checkuser this user and see if he's deliberately going around and doing things he shouldn't be doing on wiki page articles? Since he does this so often and so frequently, I think it should be looked into. This would be unfair to all the other users that contribute to wikipedia that spend alot of time trying to make contributions just to have someone go around very often and delete things without summaries. If a user is going around and deleting large amount of text without a reason, I would figure that would be vandalism. And many vandals like to go around doing that under numerous accounts. And account that has nearly a 60 percent rate of deleting things without a summary, is in my view a problem. Thank you. Juliep94 (talk) 21:20, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand the function of the checkuser tool. It detects if multiple users are sharing the same IP address. It wouldn't be of any help here. The best solution in this case would be to ask the user to please use edit summaries. It appears that someone has recently requested that on his talk page. --Versageek 23:41, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. I'm not 100 percent on the rules here so sorry if I'm wrong. Since this user goes around deleting a lot of text all the time from various articles, I was wondering since many vandals do this, if he could also be going under other names and doing something similar? Sometimes people spend weeks/months of research to add to articles. I think it's vandalism if you just go around and delete and snip stuff here and there. Obviously pages evolve all the time, and that's a good thing. But going around and randomly deleting things with no explanation to me is vanadalism. The near 60 percent rate is what worried me. This leads to suspicion. I don't know for sure if they're going under multiple aliases. I figured a quick checkuser would be able to find out if they did or not. And if they didn't, I'd have no problem apologizing for being wrong. I'd apologize to them personally on the talk page if that ended up being the case. Juliep94 (talk) 00:25, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

Hello, Versageek. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy. Extended confirmed protection (also known as "30/500 protection") is a new level of page protection that only allows edits from accounts at least 30 days old and with 500 edits. The automatically assigned "extended confirmed" user right was created for this purpose. The protection level was created following this community discussion with the primary intention of enforcing various arbitration remedies that prohibited editors under the "30 days/500 edits" threshold to edit certain topic areas. In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions: Extended confirmed protection may only be used in cases where semi-protection has proven ineffective. It should not be used as a first resort. A bot will post a notification at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard of each use. MusikBot currently does this by updating a report, which is transcluded onto the noticeboard. Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you. This message was sent to the administrators' mass message list. To opt-out of future messages, please remove yourself from the list. 17:49, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Aromanians

What are you doing? Why you delete my work on aromanians? What is your problem!? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.211.209.67 (talk) 19:59, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:34, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

A new user right for New Page Patrollers

Hi Versageek.

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

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

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

Azzura Birleanu

Please understand Azzura Birleanu is a public person in her own right and it has nothing to do with her father.she has been featured in global news and campaigns and publications that have nothing to do with her father . Reinstate the page , it has substantial links to support my statement — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.29.164.199 (talk) 23:26, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Versageek. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. Mdann52 (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

weblink and Facebook link changed

In Nepal Youth Foundation and Olga Murray wikipedia, we found wrong link to website and facebook page. We dont use www.nyof.org, it was changed to www.nepalyouthfoundation.org.

and also regarding facebook link, its changed to /nepalyouthfoundation instead of /nepalyouth.

My changes has been rejected!

Please suggest me, how should we make changes?

Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sanjoj (talk • contribs) 04:02, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Versageek!

Happy New Year!

Versageek,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
Donner60 (talk) 08:00, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

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

Why?

Why did you change it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Truth23217 (talk • contribs) 22:31, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

I assume you are talking about the changes you (and your IP) made to Psychiatry. In medical articles we generally use the mainstream consensus. If you wish to change that consensus, you need to discuss it on the talk page first. We have an entire article about controversies in Psychiatry, which includes mention of the material you are trying to add to the main article. --Versageek 19:29, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Question

Hello, I'm new to editing at Wikipedia, but your bot undid the edits I made to the Powers, Oregon page and I have been unable to determine why. I apologize if this is obvious, but I have been unable to find an answer online. Thank you.

Lunaseay (talk) 19:13, 13 January 2017 (UTC)Lunaseay

The bot reverted you because you added a wordpress.com link. If you omit that link, your changes won't be reverted. Also, we don't use inline links in articles like you did here : '''[http://www.scod.com/cities/powers/ Powers]''' . --Versageek 19:35, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Reverting reference addition by Rohrigtom

Through XLinkBot you reverted a reference added by Rohrigtom to Buchenwald concentration camp page, the reason of which I am unable to understand by the given edit summary. Can you explain better? Many thanks. Carlotm (talk) 02:32, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Looks like this is why it was added to the revert list. --Versageek 03:07, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter - February 2017

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

Administrator changes

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

Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Obituaries

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

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13:38, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Your bot removed legitimate content

Slavic speakers of Hellenic Macedonia also call their language "our own (language)" according to statements by the Slavic speakers themselves: [1]. However, your bot removed this legitimate content and the citation, discriminating against it solely on my status as a new user and the domain name where the statement appears: [2]. You may need to adjust the bot's settings to ensure it doesn't delete legitimate content. Առմենիե (talk) 05:02, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2017

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

Administrator changes

Amortias • Deckiller • BU Rob13

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

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

Re: Please stop adding inappropriate external links to Wikipedia...

Hello,

Thank you for your message. However I just would like to clarify.

1. I know that this links are no follow and I'm NOT looking here for promotion/alter my page search engine ranking. I just wanted to contribute to "Wikipedia". 2. Previously I added links and they were approved but today you deleted them - no problem. I can see that I'm not very welcome here... 3. In my opinion you should do something here in order that people can understand easily if their links are inappropriate. 4. Just example here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Tension - There is a external link cleary promoting the page: http://www.dynamictension.com/. Why is approved? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomasz71 (talk • contribs) 13:50, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Kind regards, Tom — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomasz71 (talk • contribs) 13:41, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

@Tomasz71: It's not 'approved'. Maybe it got missed, or maybe it once pointed to a different page. You could have clicked 'edit' and remove it; I just did. The existence of other inappropriate links is not a good argument for adding more. 86.20.193.222 (talk) 00:22, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Poss interesting mistake by XLinkBot

[3]

I was pasting a CSD/Copyvio report, and it disliked the link. I couldn't see anywhere on the bot's page to report this. 86.20.193.222 (talk) 00:11, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

please release my wikipedia page named pindi sarhal i will improve the page better thankyou — Preceding unsigned comment added by ADILKHAN1290 (talk • contribs) 19:23, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2017

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

Administrator changes

TheDJ

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

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

Invitation to beta-test IABot

Hello Versageek! I would like to invite you to help beta test the interface for InternetArchiveBot. IABot is a bot designed to help mitigate link rot on Wikipedia. Users can control the bot by using a Management Interface that was designed to be integrated with and similar to Wikipedia (For example, only autoconfirmed users can run the bot; on-wiki administrators have admin access on the tool; user permissions on the tool are flag based; logs are kept; etc.)

If you'd like to help out, feel free to give the interface a go to check for bugs/anomalies/other weird things and send your feedback to Cyberpower678, the bot operator. Again, the interface is at http://tools.wmflabs.org/iabot/ (If it's down for maintenance right now, it'll be back up shortly). If you are not interested, feel free to ignore this message. Thanks, —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 22:58, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2017

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

Administrator changes

Karanacs • Berean Hunter • GoldenRing • Dlohcierekim

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – June 2017

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

Administrator changes

Doug Bell • Dennis Brown • Clpo13 • ONUnicorn

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – July 2017

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

Administrator changes

Happyme22 • Dragons flight

Zad68

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Sunday July 16: New England Wiknic @ Cambridge, MA

Sunday July 16, 1-5pm: New England Wiknic

You are invited to join us the "picnic anyone can edit" at John F. Kennedy Park, near Harvard Square, Cambridge, as part of the Great American Wiknic celebrations being held across the USA. Remember it's a wiki-picnic, which means potluck. Sunday July 16 New England Wiknic (also on Facebook) 1–5pm - come by any time! Look for us by the Wikipedia / Wikimedia banner! We hope to see you there! --Phoebe (talk) 16:33, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for Boston-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Fernanfloo

Hello. I came across this article doing New Pages Review patrol and noticed on the talk page that you deleted this on 14 October 2016. I am considering taking it to AfD for not meeting notability criteria. I was wondering if you want to have a look and see if it should be speedy deleted (if that is what you did before). That might be difficult because it is an established article and may not fit the speedy criteria. I'll let you decide on that. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 04:11, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi, your bot reverted a link on this page

Suckapunch Records (official website link) which currently has no connection to the record company, as my suggestion of their myspace page is deemed inappropriate, please consider removal of the link to the hijacked page altogether, sucka-punch records seems to now only maintain a Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/suckapunchrecords

Survey Invite

I'm working on a study of political motivations and how they affect editing. I'd like to ask you to take a survey. The survey should take 5 minutes. Your survey responses will be kept private. Our project is documented at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_%2B_Politics.

Survey Link: http://uchicago.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_80J3UDCpLnKyWTH?Q_DL=3dz0m2ubQw1KSnb_80J3UDCpLnKyWTH_MLRP_8hOOFMbUUGDUw6N&Q_CHL=gl

I am asking you to participate in this study because you are a frequent editor of pages on Wikipedia that are of political interest. We would like to learn about your experiences in dealing with editors of different political orientations.

Sincere thanks for your help! Porteclefs (talk) 15:25, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2017

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

Administrator changes

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

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:11, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject Investment

I'd like to invite you to join the Investment WikiProject. There are a lot of Investment related articles on Wikipedia that could use a little attention, and I hope this project can help organize an effort to improve them. So please, take a look and if you like what you see, help get this project off the ground and a few Investment pages into the front ranks of Wikipedia articles. Thanks!

WikiEditCrunch (talk) 20:55, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2017

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

Administrator changes

Nakon • Scott

Sverdrup • Thespian • Elockid • James086 • Ffirehorse • Celestianpower • Boing! said Zebedee

Guideline and policy news

• ACTRIAL, a research experiment that restricts article creation to autoconfirmed users, will begin on September 7. It will run for six months. You can learn more about the research specifics at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial, while Wikipedia talk:Autoconfirmed article creation trial is probably the best venue for general discussion.
• Following an RfC, WP:G13 speedy deletion criterion now applies to any page in the draftspace that has not been edited in six months. There is a bot-generated report, updated daily, to help identify potentially qualifying drafts that have not been submitted through articles for creation.

Technical news

• You will now get a notification when someone tries to log in to your account and fails. If they try from a device that has logged into your account before, you will be notified after five failed attempts. You can also set in your preferences to get an email when someone logs in to your account from a new device or IP address, which may be encouraged for admins and accounts with sensitive permissions.
• Syntax highlighting is now available as a beta feature (more info). This may assist administrators and template editors when dealing with intricate syntax of high-risk templates and system messages.
• In your notification preferences, you can now block specific users from pinging you. This functionality will soon be available for Special:EmailUser as well.

Arbitration

• Applications for CheckUser and Oversight are being accepted by the Arbitration Committee until September 12. Community discussion of the candidates will begin on September 18.

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

XLinkBot edit war

Hi. We've encountered a malfunction with this doodad of yours. Here. 93.73.36.17 (talk) 08:42, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

That work you deleted gave me sleepless nights to finish. I hope you are happy. Thank you

Invitation to Admin confidence survey

Hello,

Beginning in September 2017, the Wikimedia Foundation Anti-harassment tool team will be conducting a survey to gauge how well tools, training, and information exists to assist English Wikipedia administrators in recognizing and mitigating things like sockpuppetry, vandalism, and harassment.

The survey should only take 5 minutes, and your individual response will not be made public. This survey will be integral for our team to determine how to better support administrators.

To take the survey sign up here and we will send you a link to the form.

We really appreciate your input!

Please let us know if you wish to opt-out of all massmessage mailings from the Anti-harassment tools team.

For the Anti-harassment tools team, SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 19:52, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Please dont revert my page

I am trying to create my wikipedia bio and it seems that my bio is being redirected to another page and after I edit you revert all the changes and everything disapear please help me to solve this problem

148.101.70.2 (talk) 03:47, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2017

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

Administrator changes

Boing! said Zebedee • Ansh666 • Ad Orientem

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Invitation to discuss the soon to built, Interaction Timeline

Hi Checkusers and Checkuser clerks,

The Anti-Harassment Tools team is seeking input about building the Interaction Timeline feature.

We’re inviting you to join the discussion because you use similar tools such as the Editor Interaction Analyser and User compare report during sockpuppet investigations.

You can leave comments on the on wiki discussion page or send an email to the Anti-Harassment Tools team.

For the Anti-Harassment Tools team SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 19:39, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Please let us know if you wish to opt-out of all massmessage mailings from the Anti-harassment tools team.

Administrators' newsletter – November 2017

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

Administrator changes

Longhair • Megalibrarygirl • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Allen3 • Eluchil404 • Arthur Rubin • Bencherlite

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Obituaries

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – December 2017

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

Administrator changes

Joe Roe

JzG

Ericorbit • Perceval • Thingg • Tristanb • Violetriga

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, a new section has been added to the username policy which disallows usernames containing emoji, emoticons or otherwise "decorative" usernames, and usernames that use any non-language symbols. Administrators should discuss issues related to these types of usernames before blocking.

Technical news

• Wikimedians are now invited to vote on the proposals in the 2017 Community Wishlist Survey on Meta Wiki until 10 December 2017. In particular, there is a section of the survey regarding new tools for administrators and for anti-harassment.
• A new function is available to edit filter managers which can be used to store matches from regular expressions.

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is open until Sunday 23:59, 10 December 2017 (UTC). There are 12 candidates running for 8 vacant seats.

Miscellaneous

• Over the last few months, several users have reported backlogs that require administrator attention at WP:ANI, with the most common backlogs showing up on WP:SPI, WP:AIV and WP:RFPP. It is requested that all administrators take some time during this month to help clear backlogs wherever possible. It should be noted that AIV reports are not always valid; however, they still need to be cleared, which may include needing to remind users on what qualifies as vandalism.
• The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative is conducting a survey for English Wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works (i.e. which problems it deals with well and which problems it struggles with). If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be emailed to you via Special:EmailUser.

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

Administrators' newsletter – January 2018

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

Administrator changes

Muboshgu

Anetode • Laser brain • Worm That Turned

None

Bureaucrat changes

Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

You've got mail!

Hello, Versageek. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 11:13, 4 January 2018 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:13, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Irish coin blog articles

Hi,

I did not intend to spam.

My blog is intended as a useful guide / source of additional info for Irish coin collectors. It is much acclaimed within the coin collecting community - especially to those new to the hobby since I try to explain the history, politics and economics behind the coin issues. I also explain technical wordings and phrases.

It also contains much more info than some of your articles, e.g. St Patrick's Halfpennies / Farthings.

Please re-consider your undo's.

Best regards, James O'Brien — Preceding unsigned comment added by JJJOBrien (talk • contribs) 06:45, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

The general rule is that you should not be adding links to your own website. I did look at the site & it does look like it can be useful as a resource, however you should suggest the addition on the article(s) talk page rather than add it yourself. Also, you are consistently breaking page formatting with the way you are inserting the links. --Versageek 20:41, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – March 2018

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

Administrator changes

Lourdes

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

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

Obituaries

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – April 2018

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

Administrator changes

331dot • Cordless Larry • ClueBot NG

Gogo Dodo • Pb30 • Sebastiankessel • Seicer • SoLando

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Obituaries

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

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

Orphaned non-free image File:WikiHow screenshot.png

Thanks for uploading File:WikiHow screenshot.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:03, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Chislic

This bot is changing my edits to better reflect the current state of Chislic in the state of South Dakota — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.77.246.170 (talk) 02:29, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

(new section)

Hi Versageek, I'm writing you here because I've seen this is the main wiki where you edit and because here you're an abusefilter, checkuser and sysop. I think I've found a few proxies used recently by a single user who hides behind them to make similar unconstructive edits in different pages, and a few socks used to do the same kind of edits created recently. If I write here the suspicious proxies IP ranges, will you be able to block them (as they're forbidden on Wikipedia) and do the same with the socks created over such ranges (as they weren't created for reasons according to community standards)? Let me know, please, I'd like to be helpful to the project by reporting vandals in bad faith who use proxies and socks such as this one! Enowtenorez (talk) 08:11, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2018

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

Administrator changes

Pbsouthwood • TheSandDoctor

Gogo Dodo

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

Bureaucrat changes

Andrevan • EVula

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – August 2018

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

Administrator changes

Sro23

KaisaL • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – September 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

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

Optimist on the run → Voice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

XLinkBot

Your XLinkBot is the kind of thing that drives people away from Wikipedia. I really don't understand why you reverted all my changes. You even reverted my changes that were links to other Wikipedia pages that were relevant to the discussion. Did you spend any time looking through what I attempted to contribute? I really don't think so. The last time this happened to me was 5+ years ago and I vowed to myself to never return to this evil place with power-happy mods and now I remember why! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sdfoley01 (talk • contribs) 08:02, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018

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

Administrator changes

Justlettersandnumbers • L235

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

Interface administrator changes

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

Oversight changes

Guerillero • NativeForeigner • Snowolf • Xeno

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Change the name of: Ixquick by StartPage

Good morning. I think that you should change the name of: Ixquick by StartPage. Since the name of: Ixquick is out of date. The updated name is: StartPage. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Notewiki2000 (talk • contribs) 04:27, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018

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

Administrator changes

Sir Sputnik

Kudpung • Liz • Lourdes

Everyking • Jackmcbarn

Interface administrator changes

Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes

AGK • Ivanvector • Stwalkerster • TonyBallioni

Oversight changes

Amorymeltzer • Oshwah • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Keilana

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

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

Administrator changes

Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz

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

Interface administrator changes

Deryck Chan

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

Obituaries

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

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

Merry Merry

		Happy Christmas!
		Hello Versageek, 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 22:55, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Statue of Equality (Ramanuja)

I Ravi Teja.M user I'd: ravi.maturi. I have just edited the above subjected article. In which I have just added the information of the chief temple Architect of that project including his facebook I'd link. I just wanted to know, why did that edit has been reverted back and let me know how to improve my edit.So, that It won't be reverted again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ravi.maturi (talk • contribs) 15:12, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Explanation

Can I please know why my last edits have been deleted? Thank you.

(109.235.153.213 (talk) 11:50, 29 December 2018 (UTC))

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019

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

Administrator changes

Galobtter

Orangemike

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

Bureaucrat changes

Addshore

CheckUser changes

Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

AGK • Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Guideline and policy news

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

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

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

Technical news

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

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

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

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

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

Administrator changes

Enterprisey • JJMC89

BorgQueen

Harro5 • Jenks24 • Graft • R. Baley

Interface administrator changes

Enterprisey

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

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