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Unblocking User:Abhiimannyu

Hi BethNaught. What do you think of Abhiimannyu's latest unblock appeal? I'm inclined to lift the block - the username has been changed and he's agreed not to write about his organisation, so I don't see that a block is required any more. What's your take? Yunshui 雲水 08:26, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@Yunshui: I would be fine with the block being lifted. The deleted article is just borderline G11, it was mostly deleted for A7; likewise, the block was mostly for the username vio. Therefore the username change and his agreement not to write about Bitdle is enough for me. BethNaught (talk) 10:37, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Cheers. Unblocked, eyes on. Yunshui 雲水 12:16, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

March 2018

[Bishzilla humorously bites the little user in half.] Oops. bishzilla ROARR!! pocket 21:35, 25 March 2018 (UTC).

Signpost issue 4 – 29 March 2018

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Administrators' newsletter – April 2018

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

Administrator changes

added 331dot • Cordless Larry • ClueBot NG
removed 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

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

2018 Land Day incidents

Thanks for protecting this. Just as an FYI, ECP under the arb decisions now need to be logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration_enforcement_log/2018#Extended_confirmed_protections. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:55, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: OK, but since when? 500/30 isn't a discretionary sanction. BethNaught (talk) 07:14, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
Sorry for the late response. Away from home without a computer. I believe there was an ARCA in early 2017 that made it clear, but can’t find it because search is a pain to navigate on mobile. Samsara would likely be able to quote you the number and verse more readily. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:43, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Special:AbuseFilter/769

Hello BethNaught! Hope you are well. I noticed Special:AbuseFilter/769 hasn't gotten any hits since your November 15 edit. Perhaps the filter stopped working, and just needs to be tweaked? Otherwise would it be okay to disable it? Thanks :) — MusikAnimal talk 03:16, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Disabled. It seems the LTA found a way around it so not much point keeping it up. Might re-enable later if necessary. BethNaught (talk) 06:45, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Tolomatic page deletion

Hello, I see that the Tolomatic page I created was deleted due to "Unambiguous advertising or promotion". I will rewrite the text to be more neutral and delete content that is promotional. Are there other changes that need to be done? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AmericanoRalph (talk • contribs) 17:30, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes: in order for your article to be kept, you will need to demonstrate that Tolomatic is important enough to have an article by citing independent, reliable sources which discuss the company. BethNaught (talk) 18:01, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Special:AbuseFilter/756

I had to disable Special:AbuseFilter/756 again. I'm sorry! It is slow, and consuming too many conditions. We must find a more efficient way to do it. I left more notes in the description. Thanks for your understanding :) — MusikAnimal talk 16:38, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: Fine, for the moment I'll just give up on these: unless Nsmutte's activity spikes the partial effect they have is really not worth it. But if edits are allowed to be held up for >10 minutes by a filter, there really ought to be a runtime cap as well as a condition limit. Also, I know that increased information on average conditions and runtime is being worked on, but if admins/EFMs are to be able to design filters without the risk of you turning them off out of the blue due to a long tail, that information needs to be available to us. BethNaught (talk) 18:10, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
I couldn't agree more! There are a number of tasks open to surface performance issues, phab:T176895 namely. The runtime cap versus condition is a fundamental flaw in AbuseFilter. We have to abide by the condition count because that's how it's currently measuring "performance" (and if we exceed the limit some filters won't run), but in reality it's not truly measuring performance. For instance 1 == 1 counts as a condition, when obviously it runs very fast, compared to old_wikitext irlike "giant regex string" which is also one condition. There's a task for this somewhere, but a solution is a long ways off. In the meantime I might try to push to increase our condition limit, because times have changed since AbuseFilter first came out, and I suspect our machinery is much faster these days. I don't think we need to give up on your filters, we just need to rewrite them to be a bit simpler. All I can say is the recent 10-minute save was not an IP in the target ranges, which is what worries me (though I still can't prove it wasn't Nsmutte). Anyway, when I have the time I'll be more than happy to help rework this filter :) Apologies again, hopefully you understand the issue. — MusikAnimal talk 18:54, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
Hey, sorry to ping you again. I actually misread the runtime in Logstash. It definitely didn't take 10 minutes! That's nuts... it was around 12 seconds. Don't ask me how I managed to get that wrong. More than 800ms is considered "slow", so 12 seconds is still too long, but anyway I thought you should know. Again I hope to revisit the above filter soon. Today I've cleaned up some 20 or so filters, and we're no longer hitting the condition limit, so now we've got a little more wiggle room :) — MusikAnimal talk 01:25, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 April 2018

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Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

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

Administrator changes

added None
removed 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

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

The Signpost: 24 May 2018

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Administrators' newsletter – June 2018

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

Administrator changes

added None
removed Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington

Guideline and policy news

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:59, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Creating article Olio (app)

Hey there BethNaught, I'm DoubleGrazing. :) I was searching for an article on the food-sharing app Olio, and saw that one doesn't exist. I would be happy to try drafting at least a stub, but I then noticed from the redlink page that you'd deleted a previous article a couple of years ago. So I thought before I go and trample on any mines, I ought to check with you if there's anything I need to be aware of. Just to be clear, I've no connection with the said organisation and am not trying to give them a plug or anything (although I guess I would say that even if I did!), I just feel that they are on a good mission, and are now established enough to warrant an article. Can you think of any reason why I shouldn't go ahead, or otherwise have any thoughts you could share? TIA Cheers, DoubleGrazing (talk) 07:58, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

As you can see in the ANI discussion, the article was created using a sockfarm by a paid editing company. There's nothing to stop you writing an article as long as you follow NPOV, notability etc. I would just recommend you put in super extra effort to showcase independent sources and avoid any wording that might be considered promotional—given the history, some editors will have heightened suspicions about your motives. BethNaught (talk) 20:51, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 June 2018

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Administrators' newsletter – July 2018

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

Administrator changes

added Pbsouthwood • TheSandDoctor
readded Gogo Dodo
removed Andrevan • Doug • EVula • KaisaL • Tony Fox • WilyD

Bureaucrat changes

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

Sofana R. Dahlan

Sofana R. Dahlan
Hi! Now, that you have rolled back the article to a version with a few references, perhaps, a speedy deletion would not be necessary; nonetheless, given the question of adequate notability I still propose to nominate the page for deletion. Rahiminejad (talk) 20:21, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

You are perfectly entitled to open a debate at WP:AFD. BethNaught (talk) 20:54, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 July 2018

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Thank you

Thank you for deleting that page. <3 🖍S (talk) 08:53, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2018

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

Administrator changes

added Sro23
readded 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

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

The Signpost: 30 August 2018

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Administrators' newsletter – September 2018

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

Administrator changes

added None
removed Asterion • Crisco 1492 • KF • Kudpung • Liz • Randykitty • Spartaz
renamed Optimist on the run → Voice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

added 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)

Minimise section may need tweaking

While the minimise section is working great in desktop mode, it has now even entered mobile view mode. Yes, the words "toggle visibility" appear alongside the minimise/maximise characters ʌ and v, creating a feeling of clutter and redundancy. Can you please see if something can be done? --Kailash29792 (talk) 06:42, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 September 6#Unbox Therapy

Hi BethNaught. Would you unsalt Unbox Therapy? See the closing statement at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 September 6#Unbox Therapy. Pinging DRV nominator Thivierr (talk · contribs) and DRV closer Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs) so they are aware of this request. Thank you, Cunard (talk) 06:36, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 October 2018

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Results from global Wikimedia survey 2018 are published

Hello! A few months ago the Wikimedia Foundation invited you to take a survey about your experiences on Wikipedia. You signed up to receive the results. The report is now published on Meta-Wiki! We asked contributors 170 questions across many different topics like diversity, harassment, paid editing, Wikimedia events and many others.

Read the report or watch the presentation, which is available only in English. Add your thoughts and comments to the report talk page. Feel free to share the report on Wikipedia/Wikimedia or on your favorite social media. Thanks!
--EGalvez (WMF)

19:25, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018

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

Administrator changes

added Justlettersandnumbers • L235
removed Bgwhite • HorsePunchKid • J Greb • KillerChihuahua • Rami R • Winhunter

Interface administrator changes

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

Oversight changes

removed Guerillero • NativeForeigner • Snowolf • Xeno

Guideline and policy news

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)

The Signpost: 28 October 2018

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Invitation to New AI-Labelling Campaign for Newcomer Sessions

Hello, I'm reaching out to you because I saw that you signed up as a labelling volunteer at Wikipedia:Labels/Edit quality. I'm starting a new project that builds on Edit quality, to predict Newcomer quality. That is, to predict the damagingness and goodfaithness of "sessions" (multiple related edits) of users within 1 day of their registration. With this AI trained, we could help automatically distinguish betewen productive and unproductive new users. If you wouldn't mind taking a look at this new labelling campaign and label a few sessions I would be very grateful. In addition if you have any feedback or discover any bugs in the process I would appreciate that too. You can find the project page at Wikipedia:Labels/Newcomer_session_quality or go directly to labels.wmflabs.org/ui/enwiki/ and look for the campaign titled "Newcomer Session quality (2018)". Thanks so much!

Maximilianklein (talk) 20:21, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018

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

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

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

Arbitration

  • Eligible editors will be invited to nominate themselves as candidates in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 4 until November 13. Voting will begin on November 19 and last until December 2.
  • The Arbitration Committee's email address has changed to arbcom-en@wikimedia.org. Other email lists, such as functionaries-en and clerks-l, remain unchanged.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:18, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, BethNaught. 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)

Unheadered message from now-blocked user re Ron Kitchens

Hi BethNaught,

I would like to discuss the page clearing of the Ron Kitchens living biography entry. I would be more than willing to consider incorporating any feedback you have on the page, however, to my knowledge the page adheres to the living biography standards.

Thanks for any feedback you have!

SMFTDunham (talk) 15:11, 27 November 2018 (UTC)SMFTDunham

The Signpost: 1 December 2018

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Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

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

Administrator changes

readded Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz
removed Boson • Daniel J. Leivick • Efe • Esanchez7587 • Fred Bauder • Garzo • Martijn Hoekstra • Orangemike

Interface administrator changes

removedDeryck 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

Arbitration

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

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

The Signpost: 24 December 2018

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Seasonal Greetings

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2019!

Hello BethNaught, 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,
Everedux (talk) 21:02, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

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

Incandescence(festival)

Hello Beth, I wanted to bring your attention to the Incandescence(festival) page. You had deleted the page a couple of hour ago and it has been recreated. I added notability / advert and other tags to the page but the page creator keeps on removing them without any reason in their edit summary. Happy new year :) Csgir (talk)


I'm the creator of this page. It is a college fest's wiki page, that was to be created. I was bringing changes on it. Please recover that content. Or help me giving a different alternative. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rayabhisek2220 (talk • contribs) 14:48, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

The article was a blatant advertisement and I won't restore it. My advice to you is:
  • If you are here to promote the festival, leave Wikipedia and advertise elsewhere.
  • If you want to write a neutral article, submit a draft for review through WP:AFC.
🎄BethNaught🎄 (talk) 16:44, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Page undeleting

Hi the page 'Mlindo The Vocalist' is not an advert Mlindo is a South African well know artist you can even search for your self Mnikzo (talk) 21:52, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

I disagree. The page was completely unreferenced and contained much promotional language, presenting opinions as facts and using an inappropriate tone.
If you wish to appeal, you may follow the Wikipedia:Deletion review process. However I would not expect an appeal to succeed. 🎄BethNaught🎄 (talk) 22:16, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019

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

Guideline and policy news

  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}}.

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

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)

The Signpost: 31 January 2019

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:49, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

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

Administrator changes

added Enterprisey • JJMC89
readded BorgQueen
removed Harro5 • Jenks24 • Graft • R. Baley

Interface administrator changes

removedEnterprisey

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)

Happy First Edit Day

Happy First Edit Day!

Have a very happy first edit anniversary!
From the Birthday Committee, CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 20:45, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Talk pages consultation 2019

The Wikimedia Foundation has invited the various Wikimedia communities, including the English Wikipedia, to participate in a consultation on improving communication methods within the Wikimedia projects. As such, a request for comment has been created at Wikipedia:Talk pages consultation 2019. You are invited to express your views in the discussion. ~ Winged BladesGodric 05:16, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 February 2019

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:15, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2019

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

Guideline and policy news

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-wp@wikipedia.org has been set up to receive private evidence related to abusive paid editing.
    • checkuser-en-wp@wikipedia.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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:12, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Deletion review for Draft:Ephixa

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Draft:Ephixa. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Micro (Talk) 05:48, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

User:BethNaught/hideSectionDesktop.js

For some reason now it is not working; I recently installed a set of scripts, and can some scripts/double installations negate others? Please check here, although the hideSectionDesktop script is installed only once. --Kailash29792 (talk) 08:25, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

  • Yes, of course scripts can interfere with each other.
  • User:Enterprisey/hover-edit-section.js and User:Technical_13/Scripts/Gadget-veditLinks.js jump out from the names as possible problems, but it's not necessarily either.
  • It's hard for me to diagnose the problem unless you describe in more detail what is happening. Do the toggle links not appear, or do they appear but not work? Is the problematic behaviour consistent or intermittent? Also see below.
  • General good advice in these cases is to enable scripts one at a time until something breaks. Then you know which script doesn't play nice with ones you already have.
  • BethNaught (talk) 20:22, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
What I meant was, [toggle visibility] does not even appear. --Kailash29792 (talk) 04:04, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

User:Radiant!/Classification of admins

LOL, did you just discover that now? -- MelanieN (talk) 19:59, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

I knew of the page, but hadn't realised you'd added me! BethNaught (talk) 23:21, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 March 2019

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:02, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
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