Archives

2011 - Q3–Q4  2012 - Q1 · Q2 · Q3 · Q4   2013 - Q1 · Q2 · Q3 · Q4   2014 - Q1 · Q2 · Q3 · Q4   2015 - Q1 · Q2 · Q3 · Q4   2016 - Q1 · Q2 · Q3 · Q4   2017 - Q1 · Q2 · Q3 · Q4   2018 - Q1 · Q2 · Q3 · Q4   2019 - Q1 · Q2 · Q3 · Q4   2020 - Q1 · Q2 · Q3 · Q4   2021 - Q1 · Q2 · Q3–Q4  2022 - Q1–Q4  2023 - Q1–Q4  2024 - Q1–Q4

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

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.

---

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.

---

Hi, I'm RonBot, a script that checks new non-free file uploads. I have found that the subject image that you recently uploaded was more than 5% in excess of the Non-free content guideline size of 100,000 pixels. I have tagged the image for a standard reduction, which (for jpg/gif/png/svg files) normally happens within a day. Please check the reduced image, and make sure that the image is not excessively corrupted. Other files will be added to Category:Wikipedia non-free file size reduction requests for manual processing. There is a full seven-day period before the original oversized image will be hidden; during that time you might want to consider editing the original image yourself (perhaps an initial crop to allow a smaller reduction or none at all). A formula for the calculation of the desired size can be found at WP:Image resolution, along with instructions on how to tag the image in the rare cases that it requires an oversized image (typically about 0.2% of non-free uploads are tagged as necessarily oversized). Please contact the bot owner if you have any questions, or you can ask them at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content. See User:RonBot for info on how to not get these messages. RonBot (talk) 18:03, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

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 Blades^Godric 05:22, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

---

Hi, I'm RonBot, a script that checks new non-free file uploads. I have found that the subject image that you recently uploaded was more than 5% in excess of the Non-free content guideline size of 100,000 pixels. I have tagged the image for a standard reduction, which (for jpg/gif/png/svg files) normally happens within a day. Please check the reduced image, and make sure that the image is not excessively corrupted. Other files will be added to Category:Wikipedia non-free file size reduction requests for manual processing. There is a full seven-day period before the original oversized image will be hidden; during that time you might want to consider editing the original image yourself (perhaps an initial crop to allow a smaller reduction or none at all). A formula for the calculation of the desired size can be found at WP:Image resolution, along with instructions on how to tag the image in the rare cases that it requires an oversized image (typically about 0.2% of non-free uploads are tagged as necessarily oversized). Please contact the bot owner if you have any questions, or you can ask them at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content. See User:RonBot for info on how to not get these messages. RonBot (talk) 18:06, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for uploading File:Android Nim Commodore PET.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) 09:18, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Dear all. Recently, our community lost a dedicated user, Flooded with them hundreds (talk). Among their projects were a number of user scripts that were deleted when they left. I (DannyS712) have asked that they be undeleted, and have taken over maintaining them. You currently import Flooded's (deleted) script, and I thought that you might want to import a working version. Links to each script are provided below.

If you have any questions, please reach out and talk to me. --DannyS712 (talk) 21:31, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:50, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi Salvidrim! I have declined the speedy nomination you placed on Sergio Calderón becuase the new article was not "substantially identical" to the deleted version. Also, although the previous discussion was closed as a delete, the only participant was the nominator, meaning per WP:NOQUORUM it should be treated as a soft delete. I went ahead and restored the article history, because that version cited a source, which I re-added to the article. However, I have concerns that Sergio Calderón may not meet WP:NACTOR, and a (admittedly quick and superficial) search did not turn up any additional sources. I wanted to let you know that if you want to proceed with an AFD I have absolutely no problem with that. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 18:56, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree the first AfD should have been closed as WP:SOFTDEL; in any case the article being ineligible for PROD, and now with the source the article is no longer eligible for BLPPROD as well, perhaps you might be right that an AfD would be justified. I don't care much about the subject but perhaps Rubbish computer will enough to list it at AfD. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 19:16, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

ONUnicorn I'll refresh my memory of WP:NACTOR later and decide whether it should be listed at AfD. Cheers, Rubbish computer (Talk: Contribs) 19:55, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

I don't understand. A previous incarnation of this article was sent to AfD and deleted. How does that prevent me from applying a PROD to this version? John from Idegon (talk) 23:03, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

@John from Idegon: Jeez, read at least the lede of WP:PROD. "It must not be used for pages PRODed before or previously discussed at AfD or FfD." If the recreation is substantially similar, then G4 it. If it is not substantially similar, send to AfD if you believe the article topic does not meet our inclusion criteria. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 23:07, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

I read it. You have a unique interpretation of "article" apparently. This is a new article. This article has never been prodded or deleted. A previous article on the same subject was. Unlike AfC, PROD is not a referendum on the notability of the subject. It's stricktly about the article at hand. Example A guy writes an article on the non existent kingdom of Foo. He has a source (a blog he wrote), so there is a claim to notability and speedy is out. Its prodded and deleted. A year later, he creates the exact same article. G4 does not apply as it was not deleted via discussion. So in order to delete that, we have to waste the community's time with an AfD? Sorry....makes no sense. Although many of our policies are obscure, nit-picky, etc, I've seen few that are outright nonsensical. I'll start a discussion on the policy talk page. John from Idegon (talk) 16:59, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

You're welcome to discuss changes to deletion policy. Unless you contend that the content at the title Doug DeMuro today is about a different article subject (different person) than the subject which was examined in the previous AfD, the policy is crystal-clear that a PROD (aka discussionless deletion) cannot be used when there has already been a previous AfD (aka discussion about deletion). If the recreation is substantially similar to the AfD'ed version, then G4 it. If it is not substantially similar, send to AfD if you believe the article topic does not meet our inclusion criteria. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 17:09, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Re Special:Permalink/881027757#Managing a conflict of interest: what is the basis for this belief? I have no evidence to the contrary, I'm only here because they asked me about it off-wiki. I didn't know what to tell them. — MusikAnimal ^talk 01:02, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

MusikAnimal: See Talk:Glovibes for details. You saw the same e-mails as me and you even responded, I'm not sure how there is any confusion that this user is the manager of the artist. If you wanna tell them anything, instruct them on how to contribute with a COI/paid editing situation. :) Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 02:54, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Aha! There was one critical word, the "my" in "my artist", that gives it away. I also see now their real name from the email, which lines up with other accounts in the revision history... Obviously my focus was on the false positive report. The edit appeared to be constructive, so I did my part of saving it on their behalf. Anyway, I've informed them of relevant policies and guidelines, etc. Thanks — MusikAnimal ^talk 04:02, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I figured the "Manager to Glovibes" in the signature was pretty explicit. And it's okay that you only responded to the falsepos, that's the point of the mailing list, that's why I tagged the article and provided on-wiki guidance via the welcome. As you say, the edit wasn't necessarily problematic so it wasn't a big deal either way. :) Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 04:36, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, the signature says it all! My client hides those by default, so I missed it entirely. Maybe I should change that. Thanks again — MusikAnimal ^talk 06:01, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Leaving a link to posterity to where some discussion is occurring: User talk:HouseLuv 20#Managing a conflict of interest. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 20:04, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

... doesn't mean I'm even considering a new RfA yet. Thoughts on the topic always welcome but I don't envision RfA2 being a thing in 2019 at this point. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 21:59, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

The Arbitration Committee is currently considering a motion which affects you. It can be viewed at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Motion: Conduct of Mister Wiki editors. Bradv🍁 15:26, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

For the Arbitration Committee --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 06:33, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Motion: Conduct of Mister Wiki editors

Considering my vote, i'm glad to see this gone. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 09:47, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

🙏 Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 13:08, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Hey Ben, I started a proposal for updating the VG MoS in regards to covers and seeing as you've been active in the area I thought you may be interested CrimsonFox ^talk 12:41, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi Ben. I'm curious at what drew your attention back to this article, created by an undisclosed paid editor and deleted as promotional years ago? In the recent ARCA we decided not to formally restrict you from paid editing, but the lift of your topic ban was on the understanding that you would not be returning to it, and I'll be honest this is a bit of a red flag. – Joe (talk) 09:24, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Anwsered on article talk. I intended to leave a summary of the situation there anyways, you just happened to get to my talk page first since restoration happened while I was asleep. :p Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 10:27, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Forgive my ignorance in not knowing how these things work-- you undid my revision (which was in itself an undoing of a revision) re-adding the proposed deletion notice. I only added the notice back as the grounds for its removal seemed flimsy in the first place, and I believe it should remain given that the consensus was to delete the page. I'm obviously going about this in the wrong way, but I certainly don't want to take such drastic action as deleting the page myself... if you've any advice to give on what action should be taken, I would be glad to hear it.

Forgive & bless.

--Victareon (talk) 17:36, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

• Hi, first of all PRODs can be removed/contested for basically any reason. However anyways, as mentioned WP:PRODs (discussionless deletion) can only be used when there hasn't already been a PROD or discussion. In this case, if the new article is substantially similar to the version deleted at AfD, then WP:CSD#G4 might apply. If the current article is not substantially similar and you believe it fails to meet the threshold of Wikipedia's inclusion criteria, you can file a new AfD. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 02:59, 28 March 2019 (UTC)