I saw this edit by you and wanted to note a few things. Five years ago, I noted that we needed to start planning for a post-admin era. Five years later, and we're in the same place, if not worse. Back then, we had 525 active administrators. Now we're down to 468, a drop of 57...more than 10% of our admin corps. The situation continues to get worse. WP:RBM and WP:DBM both show we're in a crisis, but there's not enough things that are breaking to motivate people. There may never be enough; over at Commons there are deletion discussions awaiting closer by admins for 11 months. That's not even the worst backlog. It's not been enough to motivate Commons to do anything about it. Commons has become a failed project. I think it highly unlikely we are ever going to come up with a way to rejuvenate the admin corps. It's in a death spiral...a permanent one. So, yeah, I agree with you; we need to figure out a way to operate without administrators. I didn't want to post this one the WT:RESPONDER-RFC because it would have been a new section below the one you just started and might have distracted from it. Best regards, --Hammersoft (talk) 23:42, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the note. I totally agree. I got motivated to start working on the proposal again recently, so I hope it can move to a discussion no later than early next year. Enterprisey (talk!) 08:47, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Enterprisey. You have new messages at Wikipedia talk:Goings-on. Message added 00:52, 14 November 2021 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((Talkback)) or ((Tb)) template.
Hello! Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 6 December 2021. All eligible users are allowed 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 2021 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add ((NoACEMM)) to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:34, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Just wanted to let you know that in my opinion you are probably the most "youngest" candidate in the Arbcom 2021 elections in terms of registration date. And know what? I like that. I think we need some fresh blood to smooth out rusty Arbcom mechanisms... Cheers! AXONOV(talk)⚑ 14:21, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! I do feel like a bit of a spring chicken in that lineup. (Wugapodes might have me beat in that department, though.) Enterprisey (talk!) 05:51, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hey. I made some changes to a fork of TimestampDiffs earlier in the year (diff), for better handling when viewing archive pages. I think there are some cases where this fails, like if a bot edits a really old archive page which kinda screws up the rough timestamps on highly edited pages (eg really old archives of AN/ANI with lint errors etc), but on the whole seems to identify the revisions better than the core handling. Just letting you know in case you wanted to merge the changes into the main script. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:54, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Unregistered editors using the mobile website are now able to receive notices to indicate they have talk page messages. The notice looks similar to what is already present on desktop, and will be displayed on when viewing any page except mainspace and when editing any page. (T284642)
The limit on the number of emails a user can send per day has been made global instead of per-wiki to help prevent abuse. (T293866)
The already authorized standard discretionary sanctions for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes), broadly construed, have been made permanent.
It seems to me that the edits by Rlink2 should be done by a bot account, but my knowledge of these things is limited. I wouldn't normally care, but I use Recent changes a fair amount and lately Rlink2 has dominated the entries. I filter out bots, but I can't filter out single users (AFAIK), and it renders Recent changes far less useful. You're in the bot approvals group, which I didn't even know existed until I checked policy just now (heh), so I thought I'd ask you what you think.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:14, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hm. If people are saying "it's making recent changes less useful", I'd say that indicates the edits should be under a bot flag. There seems to have been a previous user talk page discussion about this without a firm conclusion. I'll ask for consensus and/or a BRFA on their talk page. Thanks for the pointer. Enterprisey (talk!) 02:05, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for looking into it.--Bbb23 (talk) 03:03, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, just to let you know that I editedUser:Enterprisey/copy-section-link.js just now to fix a cross-site scripting vulnerability in the hash part of the external URL. I managed to exploit this vulnerability on a private MediaWiki installation on my local PC by using a specially crafted heading containing JavaScript code. Let me know if you're interested in the details, and I'll share them with you. (I suppose I may as well share the details publicly now that the issue is fixed.) Best — Mr. Stradivarius♪ talk ♪ 15:41, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr. Stradivarius, thanks for that! Good catch. I guess I gotta go through the rest of 'em and check for XSS, or (hopeful voice) have you already gotten to that? Enterprisey (talk!) 02:08, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Not yet - I do plan on looking for more XSS in user scripts, but I've only just started. That script was about the third one that I checked. — Mr. Stradivarius♪ talk ♪ 02:14, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Enterprisey. Thank you for your courage to run in this year's ACE. This kind of scrutiny can sometimes be as challenging as an RfA - if not worse. Some candidates ran on a platform for changes in Arbcom. Now comes the cliff-hanger of waiting for the results. 52% of the votes were cast on day 1 of the ballot. You might find this analysis of the campaign to be of interest. You are welcome to leave your thoughts on its talk page. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:20, 7 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps User:Chicdat needs to be blocked for serial vandalism, introducing grammar, spelling, factual and style errors into an article and reverting dozens of times to try to keep the errors in place. DSMN-IHSAGT (talk) 12:24, 7 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A recently closed Request for Comment (RFC) reached consensus to remove Autopatrolled from the administrator user group. You may, similarly as with Edit Filter Manager, choose to self-assign this permission to yourself. This will be implemented the week of December 13th, but if you wish to self-assign you may do so now. To find out when the change has gone live or if you have any questions please visit the Administrator's Noticeboard. 20:05, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.
BRFA activity by month
Welcome to the eighth issue of the English Wikipedia's Bots Newsletter, your source for all things bot. Maintainers disappeared to parts unknown... bots awakening from the slumber of æons... hundreds of thousands of short descriptions... these stories, and more, are brought to you by Wikipedia's most distinguished newsletter about bots.
Our last issue was in August 2019, so there's quite a bit of catching up to do. Due to the vast quantity of things that have happened, the next few issues will only cover a few months at a time. This month, we'll go from September 2019 through the end of the year. I won't bore you with further introductions — instead, I'll bore you with a newsletter about bots.
Overall
Between September and December 2019, there were 33 BRFAs. Of these, Y 25 were approved, and 8 were unsuccessful (N2 3 denied, ? 3 withdrawn, and 2 expired).
TParis goes away, UTRSBot goes kaput: Beeblebroxnoted that the bot for maintaining on-wiki records of UTRS appeals stopped working a while ago. TParis, the semi-retired user who had previously run it, said they were "unlikely to return to actively editing Wikipedia", and the bot had been vanquished by trolls submitting bogus UTRS requests on behalf of real blocked users. While OAuth was a potential fix, neither maintainer had time to implement it. TParis offered to access to the UTRS WMFLabs account to any admin identified with the WMF: "I miss you guys a whole lot [...] but I've also moved on with my life. Good luck, let me know how I can help". Ultimately, SQL ended up in charge. Some progress was made, and the bot continued to work another couple months — but as of press time, UTRSBot has not edited since November 2019.
Curb Safe Charmer adopts reFill: TAnthonypointed out that reFill 2's bug reports were going unanswered; creator Zhaofeng Li had retired from Wikipedia, and a maintainer was needed. As of June 2021, Curb Safe Charmer had taken up the mantle, saying: "Not that I have all the skills needed but better me than nobody! 'Maintainer' might be too strong a term though. Volunteers welcome!"
Congratulations on your success in the elections and welcome to the 2021 Arbitration Committee. This is the first part of your induction onto the Arbitration Committee.
Before you can be subscribed to any mailing lists or assigned CheckUser or Oversight permissions, you must sign the Wikimedia Foundation's confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information (L37) and the OTRS users confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information (L45). Please confirm that your username is listed on the Access to nonpublic personal data policy/Noticeboard. If isn't, and you haven't signed the agreements, please do this promptly and let me know when you have signed them. Instructions for signing can be found here. Again, if you want CheckUser or Oversight permissions during your term, you must sign both agreements listed in the instructions. If you have signed but your username is not listed on the noticeboard, please let me know.
Over the coming days, you will receive a small number of emails as part of the induction process. Please carefully read them. If they are registration emails, please follow any instructions in them to finalise registration. You can contact me or any other arbitrator directly if you have difficulty with the induction process.
Thank you for volunteering to serve on the committee. We very much look forward to introducing ourselves to you on the mailing list and to working with you this term.
For the Arbitration Committee, Maxim(talk) 22:52, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I’m writing here to see if you would have any interest in helping to co-run an AFC backlog drive in either January or February. The AFC backlog (3 months, >2.8K articles to review) is getting to be pretty long. Would you be willing to help organize such a drive?
I also see that you’ve been recently appointed to ArbCom, and I know that that can take up a lot of time, so if you don’t have the time to help with running this it would make total sense. If that’s the case, would you be willing to give me any advice on how to formally organize a drive or on contacting key people to whom I should reach out?
Thank you for your time and contributions to Wikipedia. Happy reviewing!
First, congratulations on the ARBCOM position! I should also probably wish you good luck! I didn't even know the results were in until I saw the message on your talk page. Time to go see who the other lucky editors are.
My query though is about User:EnterpriseyBot/WiR report which I kind of stumbled upon. I was just curious what this report was all about. As much as I can figure out it is listing pages that have been tagged for speedy deletion that have taken a long time to be addressed. Is that correct?
I know you will be busy when January hits so I'm hoping for a reply before then. Thanks vey much! LizRead!Talk! 00:50, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Liz, thank you! Yeah, it isn't documented very well, but it's the result of this October 2017 discussion. From the code it seems to look for articles that match these rules (and thus are hopefully relevant to WP:WIR), although I suppose it doesn't do a very good job of it at the moment. It seems to get some page views from time to time. Enterprisey (talk!) 01:34, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! I'm User:Ed6767. I'm probably best known for founding and developing Wikipedia:RedWarn, which is now one of the most used user scripts on the English Wikipedia. I couldn't help but notice that you also develop user scripts, so I was wondering if I could ask you to try and give me feedback on my new tool called EasyWikiDev. It's a new way to develop user scripts quickly and easily using Visual Studio Code, and only takes a few minutes to set up and install on your computer, whilst saving you the headache of constantly having to save edits and reload the page for every single change to your script you'd like to test. EasyWikiDev makes it so you can develop your script locally, on your own computer, and only publish the changes to your users when you are ready to - and unlike other solutions, EasyWikiDev reloads the page right away when you make a change, so you always see the latest version of your script. Plus, by using Visual Studio Code, you have access to some of the most extensive and helpful extensions and tools available to developers right now.
If you're interested, you can find the GitHub repository here and a video tutorial that shows both how to set up EasyWikiDev and how to use it (which you should watch) here. When you have tried it and would like to give feedback, or just need help, please let me know by pinging me - you'd play a big part in my goal to make user script development easier for all Wikipedians. Thanks again for your consideration, ✨ Edtalk! ✨ 12:41, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Arbitration Committee welcomes the following new and returning arbitrators following their election by the community. The two-year terms of these arbitrators formally begin on 1 January 2022:
Outgoing arbitrators are eligible to retain the CheckUser and Oversight permissions, remain active on cases accepted before their term ended, and to remain subscribed to the functionaries' and arbitration clerks' mailing lists following their term on the committee. To that effect:
Stewards are requested to remove the permission(s) noted from the following outgoing arbitrators after 31 December 2021 at their own request:
CheckUser: Casliber, David Fuchs, Newyorkbrad, SoWhy
Oversight: Casliber, David Fuchs, Newyorkbrad, SoWhy
Outgoing arbitrators are eligible to remain active on cases opened before their term ended if they wish. Whether or not outgoing arbitrators will remain active on any ongoing case(s) will be noted on the proposed decision talk page of affected case(s).
Hey Enterprisey. Hope you are well. Just wanted to let you know that EnterpriseyBot hasn't edited User:EnterpriseyBot/BOTREQ status since the end of November. Might need to restart it in Toolforge or something. Happy editing. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:00, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed, thanks for letting me know. (I've turned on WP:BAM talk page notifications so hopefully the bot tells me about it next time as well.) Enterprisey (talk!) 11:16, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
EnterpriseyBot: Notify users of DYK nominations failure - Fixed I think[edit]
EnterpriseyBot's task "Notify users of DYK nominations" failed to run per the configuration specified at Wikipedia:Bot activity monitor/Configurations. Detected only 0 edits in the last 4 days, whereas at least 1 was expected. If/when the issue is fixed, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. When that is done, this notice will be reposted if the bot task is still broken or is re-broken. If your bot is behaving as expected, then you may want to modify the activity configuration instead. Or to unsubscribe from bot failure notifications, remove the |notify= parameter from the ((/task)) template. Thanks! – SDZeroBot (talk) 10:59, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
EnterpriseyBot: Update BOTREQ status failure - Fixed I hope[edit]
EnterpriseyBot's task "Update BOTREQ status" failed to run per the configuration specified at Wikipedia:Bot activity monitor/Configurations. Detected only 0 edits in the last 1 week, whereas at least 1 was expected. If/when the issue is fixed, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. When that is done, this notice will be reposted if the bot task is still broken or is re-broken. If your bot is behaving as expected, then you may want to modify the activity configuration instead. Or to unsubscribe from bot failure notifications, remove the |notify= parameter from the ((/task)) template. Thanks! – SDZeroBot (talk) 10:59, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
EnterpriseyBot: Notify users of DYK nominations failure[edit]
EnterpriseyBot's task "Notify users of DYK nominations" failed to run per the configuration specified at Wikipedia:Bot activity monitor/Configurations. Detected only 0 edits in the last 6 days, whereas at least 1 was expected. If/when the issue is fixed, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. When that is done, this notice will be reposted if the bot task is still broken or is re-broken. If your bot is behaving as expected, then you may want to modify the activity configuration instead. Or to unsubscribe from bot failure notifications, remove the |notify= parameter from the ((/task)) template. Thanks! – SDZeroBot (talk) 12:20, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
How did you create so many user scripts? What hand at coding! Is there a secret? ― ItcouldbepossibleTalk 06:29, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure if there are any secrets. At that time, I had a lot of free time and a lot of ideas for user scripts, so I just kept coding. At some point when I got close to 50 I thought that was a nice round number to stop at. (I just got busier in other areas at around that time as well.) I still have lots of ideas for user scripts, but at this point, with the amount of knowledge I have about Wikipedia, it's more productive for me to contribute in other ways. Enterprisey (talk!) 11:35, 25 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Postscript: I've just spotted Wikipedia:Suggestededit-add 1.0 which sheds much light on such edit(or)s. I will read into it further. Surely it would be helpful at least for users to have a pointer to such things on their User or Talk pages? And I wonder re the choice of ES. And now I've spotted Qwerfjkl's helpful tip at the end of this section, too. Trafford09 (talk) 10:28, 24 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be grateful for your advice, please, re User:HHHHHYYYY.
You will see that their contributions appear consistent, with identical edit summary, but they seem generally useful.
My concern is that the user may well be a (ro)bot, yet it appears to be unregistered, and the edit summary is unhelpful.
I know little about bots, so thought I should consult an expert.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the 22nd issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter. This issue will be covering new and updated user scripts from the past seven months (June through December 2021).
Got anything good? Tell us about your new, improved, old, or messed-up script here!
Featured script
LuckyRename, by Alexis Jazz, is this month's featured script. LuckyRename makes requesting file moves easier, and automates the many steps in file moving (including automatic replacement of existing usage). Give it a shot!
Updated scripts
SD0001: hide-reverted-edits has been updated to take into account changes in reversion tools like Twinkle and RedWarn.
ClaudineChionh: SkinSwitcher (a fork and update of Eizen's script) provides an options menu/toolbox/toolbar allowing users to view a given page in MediaWiki's default skins.
Wikipedia:User scripts/Ranking is a sortable table of Wikipedia's thousand-or-so most commonly used scripts; it includes their author, last modification date, installation count, and sometimes a short description.
Toolhub is a community managed catalog of software tools used in the Wikimedia movement. Technical volunteers can use Toolhub to document the tools that they create or maintain. All Wikimedians can use Toolhub to search for tools to help with their workflows and to create lists of useful tools to share with others.
draft-sorter sorts AfC drafts by adding WikiProject banners to their talk pages. It supersedes User:Enterprisey/draft-sorter, adding a few features and fixing some bugs.
BooksToSfn adds a portlet link in Visual Editor's source mode editing, in main namespace articles or in the user's Sandbox. When clicked, it converts one ((cite book)) inside a <ref>...</ref> tag block into an ((Sfn)).
diffedit enables editing directly from viewing a diff "when, for instance, you notice a tiny mistake deep into an article, and don't want to edit the entire article and re-find that one line to fix that tiny mistake".
warnOnLargeFile warns you if you're about to open a very large file (width/height >10,000px or file size >100 MB) from a file page.
QuickDiff (by OneTwoThreeFall at Fandom) lets you quickly view any diff link on a wiki, whether on Recent Changes, contribs pages, history pages, the diff view itself, or elsewhere. For more information, view its page on Fandom.
talkback creates links after user talk page links like this: |C|TB (with the first linking to the user's contributions, and the latter giving the option of sending a ((talkback)) notice). It also adds a [copy] link next to section headers.
diff-link shows "copy" links on history and contributions pages that copy an internal link to the diff (e.g., Special:Diff/1026402230) to your clipboard when clicked.
auto-watchlist-expiry automatically watchlists every page you edit for a user-definable duration (you can still pick a different time using the dropdown, though).
generate pings generates the wikitext needed to ping all members of a category, up to 50 editors (the limit defined by MediaWiki).
share ExpandTemplates url allows for easy sharing of your inputs to Special:ExpandTemplates. It adds a button that, when clicked, copies a shareable URL to your exact invocation of the page, like this. Other editors do not need to have this script installed in order to access the URL generated.
show tag names shows the real names of tags next to their display names in places such as page revision histories or the watchlist.
ColourContrib color-codes the user contributions page so that pages you've edited last are sharply distinguished from pages where another editor was the last to edit the page.
All in all, some very neat scripts were written in these last few months. Hoping to see many more in the next issue -- drop us a line on the talk page if you've been writing (or seeing) anything cool and good. Filling in for DannyS712, this has been jp×g. Take care, and merry Christmas! jp×g 07:30, 24 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Enterprisey, a request for protecting Template:Userscript (indefinite template-editor protection) is currently at WP:RFPP. The alleged need comes from MediaWiki:Gadget-script-installer.js, which can allegedly be tricked into installing malicious scripts by modifying the template. To me personally, this makes no sense: It's either a security issue in the gadget or something that can be done without template modification. Your input would be welcome at WP:RFPP. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:29, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Responded, thanks for the notice. Enterprisey (talk!) 04:30, 28 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
On my user page, I added the vandalism level template to check. On my most recent visit to the page, I saw that it showed a "moderate" level of vandalism. I'm not sure what it exactly means; I don't make disruptive edits or any of that stuff for that matter. Can someone please explain this to me? Would it be restoring edits or reverts? An explanation would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your response. Losipov (talk) 17:51, 31 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page stalker) @Losipov: The vandalism level template displays the 'reverts per minute ' (rpm) of edits on Wikipedia, and also how much vandalism this is relatively (e.g. moderate vandalism). This may also be of help. ― Qwerfjkltalk 22:27, 31 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Following consensus at the 2021 RfA review, the autopatrolled user right has been removed from the administrators user group; admins can grant themselves the autopatrolled permission if they wish to remain autopatrolled.
The functionaries email list (functionaries-enlists.wikimedia.org) will no longer accept incoming emails apart from those sent by list members and WMF staff. Private concerns, apart from those requiring oversight, should be directly sent to the Arbitration Committee.
You get this message because you are an admin on a Wikimedia wiki.
When someone edits a Wikimedia wiki without being logged in today, we show their IP address. As you may already know, we will not be able to do this in the future. This is a decision by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department, because norms and regulations for privacy online have changed.
Instead of the IP we will show a masked identity. You as an admin will still be able to access the IP. There will also be a new user right for those who need to see the full IPs of unregistered users to fight vandalism, harassment and spam without being admins. Patrollers will also see part of the IP even without this user right. We are also working on better tools to help.
We have two suggested ways this identity could work. We would appreciate your feedback on which way you think would work best for you and your wiki, now and in the future. You can let us know on the talk page. You can write in your language. The suggestions were posted in October and we will decide after 17 January.
Hi, there seems to be an error with your bot. If I'm reading the approval for Task 10 correctly, The task removes an inaccurate class (stub, start, etc.) from redirects. However, as of yesterday it is removing class=redirect parameters, which doesn't seem to be the intended purpose. I can't seem to find any discussions where the scope of Task 10 was changed or where a consensus was formed against using the redirect class in article assessment. So is this an intentional change or an error? 5225C (talk • contributions) 08:21, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@5225C, removing class=redirect parameters is intentional and allows the template to automatically detect when the page is no longer a redirect. The first post in the BOTREQ discussion mentions removal of class=redirect specifically. Enterprisey (talk!) 08:24, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I see. I bring it up because it's only been removing the assessment on articles in my watchlist as of yesterday, some of which have had class=redirect for a long time (around a year), so I was surprised when it suddenly started. Thanks for clarifying. 5225C (talk • contributions) 08:30, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm trying to implement most of the features listed on User:Enterprisey/reply-link/features in my script. Many are already done, but I'm not sure what "Markdown" and "Signpost comments" mean. Signpost presumably refers to WP:Signpost, but what kind of comments? And for markdown I have no idea. Also, who made the requests? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 08:00, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Markdown is support for Markdown. Honestly, maybe not my best idea :) but it would certainly increase usability for people used to other websites' systems. "Signpost comments" is support for replying to comments on Signpost articles. They use a slightly weird system (with transclusions and odd headers and stuff) and it used to break reply-link. I don't know if DiscussionTools supports it. Enterprisey (talk!) 08:04, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-12-28/From the editor they have sectionless transclusion. DiscussionTools can't deal with it either: The "reply" link cannot be used to reply to this comment. To reply, please use the full page editor by clicking "Edit source". (bad advice because you won't find the comment there) My script should be able to handle it only if all participants use my script (or compatible, if you look at my signature you can guess why this would work), so erm yeah not quite the universal solution. Or reply on the talk page (not transcluded), DT and reply-link also wouldn't have an issue with that. I don't think I'd ever heard of Markdown but it looks interesting. At least partial support should be easy enough. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 11:26, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.
BRFA activity by month
Welcome to the ninth issue of the English Wikipedia's Bots Newsletter, your source for all things bot. Vicious bot-on-bot edit warring... superseded tasks... policy proposals... these stories, and more, are brought to you by Wikipedia's most distinguished newsletter about bots.
After a long hiatus between August 2019 and December 2021, there's quite a bit of ground to cover. Due to the vastness, I decided in December to split the coverage up into a few installments that covered six months each. Some people thought this was a good idea, since covering an entire year in a single issue would make it unmanageably large. Others thought this was stupid, since they were getting talk page messages about crap from almost three years ago. Ultimately, the question of whether each issue covers six months or a year is only relevant for a couple more of them, and then the problem will be behind us forever.
Of course, you can also look on the bright side – we are making progress, and this issue will only be about crap from almost two years ago. Today we will pick up where we left off in December, and go through the first half of 2020.
Overall
In the first half of 2020, there were 71 BRFAs. Of these, Y 59 were approved, and 12 were unsuccessful (with N2 8 denied, ? 2 withdrawn, and 2 expired).
January 2020
Yeah, you're not gonna be able to get away with this anymore.
A new Pywikibot release dropped support for Python 3.4, and it was expected that support for Python 2.7 would be removed in coming updates. Toolforge itself planned to drop Python 2 support in 2022.
On February 1, some concerns were raised about ListeriaBot performing "nonsense" edits. Semi-active operator Magnus Manske (who originally coded the Phase II software|precursor of MediaWiki) was pinged. Meanwhile, the bot was temporarily blocked for several hours until the issue was diagnosed and resolved.
In March, a long discussion was started at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy by Skdb about the troubling trend of bots "expiring" without explanation after their owners became inactive. This can happen for a variety of reasons -- API changes break code, hosting providers' software updates break code, hosting accounts lapse, software changes make bots' edits unnecessary, and policy changes make bots' edits unwanted. The most promising solution seemed to be Toolforge hosting (although it has some problems of its own, like the occasional necessity of refactoring code).
A discussion on the bot noticeboard, "Re-examination of ListeriaBot", was started by Barkeep49, who pointed out repeated operation outside the scope of its BRFA (i.e. editing pages in mainspace, and adding non-free images to others). Some said it was doing good work, and others said it was operating beyond its remit. It was blocked on April 10; the next day it was unblocked, reblocked from article space, reblocked "for specified non-editing actions", unblocked, and indeffed. The next week, several safeguards were implemented in its code by Magnus; the bot was allowed to roam free once more on April 18.
Issues and enquiries are typically expected to be handled on the English Wikipedia. Pages reachable via unified login, like a talk page at Commons or at Italian Wikipedia could also be acceptable [...] External sites like Phabricator or GitHub (which require separate registration or do not allow for IP comments) and email (which can compromise anonymity) can supplement on-wiki communication, but do not replace it.
May 2020
We heard you like bots, so we made a bot that reports the status of your bots, so now you can use bots while you use bots
MajavahBot 3, an impressively meta bot task, was approved this month for maintaining a list of bots running on the English Wikipedia. The page, located at User:MajavahBot/Bot status report, is updated every 24 hours; it contains a list of all accounts with the bot flag, as well as their operator, edit count, last activity date, last edit date, last logged action date, user groups and block status.
In July 2017, Headbomb made a proposal that a section of the Wikipedia:Dashboard be devoted to bots and technical issues. In November 2019, Lua code was written superseding Legobot's tasks on that page, and operator Legoktm was asked to stop them so that the new code could be deployed. After no response to pings, a partial-block of Legobot for the dashboard was proposed. Some months later, on June 16, Headbomb said: "A full block serves nothing. A partial block solves all current issues [...] Just fucking do it. It's been 3 years now." The next day, however, Legoktm disabled the task, and the dashboard was successfully refactored.
On June 7, RexxS blocked Citation bot for disruptive editing, saying it was "still removing links after request to stop". A couple weeks later, a discussion on the bots noticeboard was opened, saying "it is a widely-used and useful bot, but it has one of the longest block logs for any recently-operating bot on Wikipedia". While its last BRFA approval was in 2011, its code and functionality had changed dramatically since then, and AntiCompositeNumber requested that BAG require a new BRFA. Maintainer AManWithNoPlan responded that most blocks were from years ago (when it lacked a proper test suite), and problems since then had mostly been one-off errors (like a June 2019 incident in which a LTA had "weaponized" the bot to harass editors).
David Tornheim opened a discussion about whether bots based on closed-source code should be permitted, and proposed that they not. He cited a recent case in which a maintainer had said "I can only suppose that the code that is available on GitHub is not the actual code that was running on [the bot]". Some disagreed: Naypta said that "I like free software as much as the next person, and I strongly believe that bot operators should make their bot code public, but I don't think it should be that they must do so".
The user group oversight will be renamed suppress in around 3 weeks. This will not affect the name shown to users and is simply a change in the technical name of the user group. The change is being made for technical reasons. You can comment in Phabricator if you have objections.
The Reply Tool feature, which is a part of Discussion Tools, will be opt-out for everyone logged in or logged out starting 7 February 2022. Editors wishing to comment on this can do so in the relevant Village Pump discussion.
Timtrent, think I have an answer. G13. I had just left an inquiry confirming the script is looking backwards time-based on each cycle. Coupled with seeing this, I think I now understand that our accept stat will naturally drift higher as declined and rejected articles are G13ed and no longer part of the stats. Take a look at run time and you will notice you start around 16% approval and drift up with each cycle. Slywriter (talk) 15:38, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Slywriter Thank you. I'd watched it drift up, but had no idea what was happening in the background. I knew my intuition had to be more accurate than it appeared to be! 🇺🇦 FiddleTimtrentFaddleTalk to me 🇺🇦 15:44, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
When your bot restarted the WP:GO page on 30 January 2022 it didn't include the '''[[Wikipedia:Featured lists|Lists]] that gained featured status''' line. Please could you look into this and see that it didn't occur again? (It stopped new FLs from being listed on the page.) Regards, ArmbrustTheHomunculus 19:21, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I found and fixed the issue; it didn't detect the date format properly, but I fixed it so now it just looks for anything in parentheses. Thanks for the report. Enterprisey (talk!) 23:38, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hello! I wanted to drop a quick note for all of our AFC participants; nothing huge and fancy like a newsletter, but a few points of interest.
AFCH will now show live previews of the comment to be left on a decline.
The template ((db-afc-move)) has been created - this template is similar to ((db-move)) when there is a redirect in the way of an acceptance, but specifically tells the patrolling admin to let you (the draft reviewer) take care of the actual move.
Short and sweet, but there's always more to discuss at WT:AFC. Stop on by, maybe review a draft on the way? Whether you're one of our top reviewers, or haven't reviewed in a while, I want to thank you for helping out in the past and in the future. Cheers, Primefac, via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Enterprisey, are you still planning to work on this task? If not, I was looking to tweak the script slightly and open a new BRFA. 🐶 EpicPupper(he/him | talk) 21:49, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@EpicPupper, yeah, I don't have the time - go ahead! Would be cool to have that running. Enterprisey (talk!) 23:27, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a reason why recently active users doesn't include me? Like, does the list automatically exclude the person looking at it, does it glitch out with my edit count, or does it actually need to be fixed? --I dream of horses(Contribs)(Talk) 22:50, 18 February 2022 (UTC) (ETA because words are hard)[reply]
@I dream of horses, the list uses the 500 most recent edits from Recent Changes, so it could be that a lot of people are editing right now (making it unlikely that a particular editor who's edited recently would show up). I'm unaware of any bug that would exclude a particular user. Enterprisey (talk!) 23:05, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@I dream of horses, also, clearing your browser cache might work; I reloaded after making an edit and I didn't show up until I force-reloaded. Enterprisey (talk!) 23:08, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Enterprisey, based on a request from Vami IV I've tweaked the cv-revdel script so that the diffs button is easier to see (it's now blue and bigger, and looks more similar to the MW interface because of OOUI). The tweaked version is at User:EpicPupper/cv-revdel.js; see the comparison here. Could you add the changes to your script, please? Thanks so much! 🐶 EpicPupper(he/him | talk) 20:27, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Please? 🥺 –♠Vami_IV†♠ 20:29, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Tweaking some stuff right now to the script, so it might be unstable. I should be done within the next minute or so. 🐶 EpicPupper(he/him | talk) 20:36, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Done my changes. Now the button also is spaced better. 🐶 EpicPupper(he/him | talk) 20:47, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
EnterpriseyBot's task "Archive WP:GO" failed to run per the configuration specified at Wikipedia:Bot activity monitor/Configurations. Detected only 0 edits in the last 1 week, whereas at least 1 was expected. If/when the issue is fixed, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. When that is done, this notice will be reposted if the bot task is still broken or is re-broken. If your bot is behaving as expected, then you may want to modify the activity configuration instead. Or to unsubscribe from bot failure notifications, remove the |notify= parameter from the ((/task)) template. Thanks! – SDZeroBot (talk) 00:20, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
EnterpriseyBot: Update BOTREQ status failure -- fixed 2022-03-01[edit]
EnterpriseyBot's task "Update BOTREQ status" failed to run per the configuration specified at Wikipedia:Bot activity monitor/Configurations. Detected only 0 edits in the last 1 week, whereas at least 1 was expected. If/when the issue is fixed, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. When that is done, this notice will be reposted if the bot task is still broken or is re-broken. If your bot is behaving as expected, then you may want to modify the task configuration instead. Or to unsubscribe from bot failure notifications, remove the |notify= parameter from the ((/task)) template. Thanks! – SDZeroBot (talk) 17:20, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It just so happened that there hadn't been any edits to BOTREQ proper in a week. Enterprisey (talk!) 00:28, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. I've been trying to patrol it for a long time, but the only method I've been able to use is through SWViewer, because the page takes too long to load, sometimes it gives errors in the software and it takes too long to update. Im not an expert on the subject of the Wikipedia interface precisely, but what I want to say is that if you can't see if there is a fault in the software, because the page does not work correctly and makes maintenance very difficult. And no, its not my hardware or my device, because those types of pages work normally in the rest of the wikis, but not here (enwiki). I will appreciate your attention. -Alabama- (Talk) 00:21, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@-Alabama-, hi. I don't work with any software for patrolling recent changes, so you may want to try asking meta:Talk:SWViewer or WP:VPT. Enterprisey (talk!) 00:23, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
A RfC is open to discuss prohibiting draftification of articles over 90 days old.
Technical news
The deployment of the reply tool as an opt-out feature, as announced in last month's newsletter, has been delayed to 7 March. Feedback and comments are being welcomed at Wikipedia talk:Talk pages project. (T296645)
To let you know, hlist styles will be removed out of the global stylesheets sooner (but SoonTM, not soon) rather than later. Izno (talk) 21:07, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Gotcha, thanks. Fortunately section-watchlist is dead (server isn't running) so the functionality won't be greatly impaired :^) Enterprisey (talk!) 22:28, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
EnterpriseyBot's task "Update WiR CSD report" failed to run per the configuration specified at Wikipedia:Bot activity monitor/Configurations. Detected only 0 edits in the last 1 week, whereas at least 1 was expected. If/when the issue is fixed, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. When that is done, this notice will be reposted if the bot task is still broken or is re-broken. If your bot is behaving as expected, then you may want to modify the task configuration instead. Or to unsubscribe from bot failure notifications, remove the |notify= parameter from the ((/task)) template. Thanks! – SDZeroBot (talk) 18:20, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Enterprisey: I just wanted to let you know that I adjusted your collapse box in the MoS discussion in order to allow the first few comments to show, since they were on-topic the editorial issue being discussed: policy does not permit collapsing merely because of length, unless the editor whose comments are being suppressed agrees it is appropriate: the relevant policy language can be found in WP:TPG. I agree that much of the discussion that followed was superfluous and led to no real progress on the underlying editorial issue, so I left that portion collapsed, but that spiraling meta exchange occurred specifically because another editor attempted to collapse the actual relevant discussion. I believe this is the appropriate balance, but I wanted to let you know, insofar as it is your name on the header of that box, as you signed it. Let me know if you'd rather I put my name there given the changed span of the box. SnowRise let's rap 03:48, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the notification, and feel free to do whatever w/r/t the box. I won't revert, but I remain of the opinion that the length of the comments diminishes the reading experience for visitors to the discussion severely enough to merit at least a refactor. Enterprisey (talk!) 04:00, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you: I'll take that feedback under advisement and consider moving the resulting discussion to a subsection so as to reduce the scrolling necessary for new participants wishing to read the !votes or add their own in that section. In the meantime, I think those points are germane and worth being a part of the record, so I appreciate that you have respected my wishes about having them visible until I figure out where they should ultimately be located and move them in a fashion that hopefully the other involved editor will find acceptable as well. Have a good one! SnowRise let's rap 04:12, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Access to Special:RevisionDelete has been expanded to include users who have the deletelogentry and deletedhistory rights. This means that those in the Researcher user group and Checkusers who are not administrators can now access Special:RevisionDelete. The users able to view the special page after this change are the 3 users in the Researcher group, as there are currently no checkusers who are not already administrators. (T301928)
When viewing deleted revisions or diffs on Special:Undelete a back link to the undelete page for the associated page is now present. (T284114)
Since you've edited since I posted this, I assume you missed my suggestion given that I know for me I often ignore the bottom of newsletters with the subscription link, etc. :) DannyS712 (talk) 00:34, 17 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Earth Day 2022 Edit-a-thon - April 22nd - 2PM EST[edit]
You're invited! NYC Earth Day 2022 Edit-a-thon! April 22nd!
This Edit-a-Thon is part of a larger Earth Day celebration, hosted by Brooklyn based recycling and community center Sure We Can, that runs from 1PM-7PM and is open to the public! See this flyer for more information: https://www.instagram.com/p/CcGr4FyuqEa/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Hey, you blocked this user earlier today, could you (or a talk page watcher) revdel their edits? They may qualify for oversight as well. Thanks, ansh.666 08:46, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Enterprisey. On the delsort program, it seems when I only change an AFD category and not add the AFD to a deletion sorting page, an unintended error message is added to the AFD discussion. This didn't happen before, and has already happened to both me and Engr. Smitty on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vettuva Gounder. Any timetable on a fix for this recently introduced bug? Thanks! Jalen Folf(talk) 06:45, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Enterprisey. I was keeping an eye on delsort errors for an unrelated reason so ended up thoroughly investigating this one. So the problem is that if the user doesn't pick any categories, delsort adds ((subst:Deletion sorting/multi|sig=~~~~)), and that template with no cats specified displays a big red error. Long story short, here's the fix. Add after line 374: if ( Array.isArray(cats) && ! cats.length ) return ''; –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:09, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Andrewgprout is reverting edits from Chandigarh - Vistara operates UK707 using A321N IXC-DEL-CCU with same aircraft, same flight number and pax does not disembark from plane. I have made attempt to chat with him on his chat page and he didn’t cared about and still reverted the edits and in the past he has got several warning for edits. I want to report this user. I dont know how I can. Admins please help and look into this matter. 649pardeep (talk) 07:31, 17 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! Not sure if you're the right person to ask, so feel free to point me elsewhere if so, but I've been trying to make some changes to the AfC script and noticed a weird behavior during testing. On testwiki, when I run the script, talkText in the talk page handling inside handleAccept (starting line 2266 of submissions.js) is always an empty string, even if there's something on the talk page. Since I'm trying to work with WikiProject banners this is making testing almost impossible - do you know what might be going on here? Rusalkii (talk) 06:39, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, looks like this might only be a problem when the draft is in userspace, and happens on this wiki too. Looks like the script just doesn't pick up userspace talk pages. Rusalkii (talk) 14:46, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Following an RfC, a change has been made to the administrators inactivity policy. Under the new policy, if an administrator has not made at least 100 edits over a period of 5 years they may be desysopped for inactivity.
A public status system for WMF wikis has been created. It is located at https://www.wikimediastatus.net/ and is hosted separately to WMF wikis so in the case of an outage it will remain viewable.
Arbitration
Remedy 2 of the St Christopher case has been rescinded following a motion. The remedy previously authorised administrators to place a ban on single-purpose accounts who were disruptively editing on the article St Christopher Iba Mar Diop College of Medicine or related pages from those pages.
The list of delsorts on your delsort.js script needs to be updated. I recently opened new delsorts for Oman and several Indian states. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 20:07, 13 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
respected,
greetings of the day,
we have a draft for an organisation which is real and running till date
but the submission of article is being rejected for some reasons since december 2021, the organization is ready to produce legal documents for any verfication (if there is a chance)
Mr Reading Turtle has given you microchips! Microchips promote WikiLove (📖💞) and hopefully this one has made your day more efficient. It is the food best preferred by bots. 🤖 Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else microchips, whether it be someone you have had robot wars with in the past or a good friend.
Love your vandalism updating stuff!
Spread the goodness of microchips by adding ((subst:Microchips for you)) to someone's talk page with a friendly message!
Administrators using the mobile web interface can now access Special:Block directly from user pages. (T307341)
The IP Info feature has been deployed to all wikis as a Beta Feature. Any autoconfirmed user may enable the feature using the "IP info" checkbox under Preferences → Beta features. Autoconfirmed users will be able to access basic information about an IP address that includes the country and connection method. Those with advanced privileges (admin, bureaucrat, checkuser) will have access to extra information that includes the Internet Service Provider and more specific location.
Was curious and tried out the tool; it seems to not be registering new votes starting on June 9 for most users I've tested. Is this because the tool is only run periodically, or because toolforge is down or something? Iseult Δx parlez moi 05:37, 11 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The New Pages Patrol queue has around 10,000 articles to be reviewed. As all administrators have the patrol right, please consider helping out. The queue is here. For further information on the state of the project, see the latest NPP newsletter.
AfD Stats could not discernible to renamed user's vote[edit]
Hello, Enterprisey/Archive 12. You have new messages at phab:T311709. Message added 04:00, 16 July 2022 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((Interwiki talkback)) or ((Itb)) template.
An RfC has been closed with consensus to add javascript that will show edit notices for editors editing via a mobile device. This only works for users using a mobile browser, so iOS app editors will still not be able to see edit notices.
An RfC has been closed with the consensus that train stations are not inherently notable.
Administrators will now see links on user pages for "Change block" and "Unblock user" instead of just "Block user" if the user is already blocked. (T308570)
Arbitration
The arbitration case request Geschichte has been automatically closed after a 3 month suspension of the case.
Miscellaneous
You can vote for candidates in the 2022 Board of Trustees elections from 16 August to 30 August. Two community elected seats are up for election.
Wikimania 2022 is taking place virtually from 11 August to 14 August. The schedule for wikimania is listed here. There are also a number of in-person events associated with Wikimania around the world.
Tech tip: When revision-deleting on desktop, hold ⇧ Shift between clicking two checkboxes to select every box in that range.
Hey Enterprisey, hope you are well. It seems as if Recently Active Oversighters is not showing any active Oversighters. It might be an issue with the usergroup name change to suppress instead of oversight. I posted this on Github as well, see here. Thanks! -- LuK3(Talk) 16:41, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
EnterpriseyBot: Update BOTREQ status failure (fixed 2022-09-08)[edit]
EnterpriseyBot's task "Update BOTREQ status" failed to run per the configuration specified at Wikipedia:Bot activity monitor/Configurations. Detected only 0 edits in the last 1 week, whereas at least 1 was expected. If/when the issue is fixed, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. When that is done, this notice will be reposted if the bot task is still broken or is re-broken. If your bot is behaving as expected, then you may want to modify the task configuration instead. Or to unsubscribe from bot failure notifications, remove the |notify= parameter from the ((/task)) template. Thanks! – SDZeroBot (talk) 18:20, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Enterprisey. Sorry to bug you, you're probably really busy. There's some open patches in the AFCH repo on GitHub (oldest is 6 months) and I was wondering if you wanted some help going through them. Myself (github NovemLinguae) and/or Ingenuity (github IngenuityWP) are both willing to help test and approve patches if you'd like. Would just need maintainer access. If not no worries. Thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:25, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Done, thanks for offering to help! Enterprisey (talk!) 06:13, 8 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
A discussion is open to define a process by which Vector 2022 can be made the default for all users.
An RfC is open to gain consensus on whether Fox News is reliable for science and politics.
Technical news
The impact report on the effects of disabling IP editing on the Persian (Farsi) Wikipedia has been released.
The WMF is looking into making a Private Incident Reporting System (PIRS) system to improve the reporting of harmful incidents through easier and safer reporting. You can leave comments on the talk page by answering the questions provided. Users who have faced harmful situations are also invited to join a PIRS interview to share the experience. To sign up please emailMadalina Ana.
Arbitration
An arbitration case regarding Conduct in deletion-related editing has been closed. The Arbitration Committee passed a remedy as part of the final decision to create a request for comment (RfC) on how to handle mass nominations at Articles for Deletion (AfD).
The arbitration case request Jonathunder has been automatically closed after a 6 month suspension of the case.
Miscellaneous
The new pages patrol (NPP) team has prepared an appeal to the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) for assistance with addressing Page Curation bugs and requested features. You are encouraged to read the open letter before it is sent, and if you support it, consider signing it. It is not a discussion, just a signature will suffice.