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2020: I II 2021: I II III 2022: I II III 2023: I

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2023).

Administrator changes Spicy Ale jrb Dbachmann DGG (deceased) Jimbo Wales

CheckUser changes Jimbo Wales Oversighter changes Jimbo Wales

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment about removing administrative privileges in specified situations is open for feedback.

Technical news

• Progress has started on the Page Triage improvement project. This is to address the concerns raised by the community in their 2022 WMF letter that requested improvements be made to the tool.

Arbitration

• The proposed decision in the World War II and the history of Jews in Poland case is expected 11 May 2023.

Miscellaneous

• The Wikimedia Foundation annual plan 2023-2024 draft is open for comment and input through May 19. The final plan will be published in July 2023.

Hi Blablubbs,

Could I get some additional background on your block of ZillennialWriter - issued without a warning for an editor with appreciable productive edits, I didn't know if it was a belief that they were also an undisclosed paid editor or if there was a recurring serious issue I've missed in my initial glance at their edits. Obviously I'm aware of the red flags that led to GN's question route, but the formal block didn't appear to really fall on that basis afaict. Nosebagbear (talk) 01:29, 6 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Nosebagbear: Yes; there was/is an underlying UPE concern; see Cornelis Melief, Draft:ISA Pharmaceuticals B.V., Special:PageHistory/Andrea Orcel, Special:PageHistory/John C. Mack, Special:PageHistory/Javad Marandi. There's are also some BEANSy elements here; I can email you if you needed, though I'm currently pretty busy irl and it's been a while since I've looked at this, so it might be a few days before I can get to it. --Blablubbs (talk) 09:35, 6 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi Blablubbs, you recently blocked Thesixserra for sockpuppetry. They nominated an article for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roshni Kapoor. Per WP:SK#4, the deletion debate can be speedy kept if the nominator is a sockpuppet of a blocked user, but I can't tell if that's the case because the userpage was not tagged to indicate whether Thesixserra was evading the block of a previous account. Could you please clarify? ✗plicit 05:14, 20 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Explicit: They are  Likely to Sulshanamoodhi – SK4 should be fine. --Blablubbs (talk) 10:09, 20 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2023).

Administrator changes Ingenuity Ddstretch Prodego Resolute

CheckUser changes Courcelles

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, editors indefinitely site-banned by community consensus will now have all rights, including sysop, removed.
• As a part of the Wikimedia Foundation's IP Masking project, a new policy has been created that governs the access to temporary account IP addresses. An associated FAQ has been created and individual communities can increase the requirements to view temporary account IP addresses.

Technical news

• Bot operators and tool maintainers should schedule time in the coming months to test and update their tools for the effects of IP masking. IP masking will not be deployed to any content wiki until at least October 2023 and is unlikely to be deployed to the English Wikipedia until some time in 2024.

Arbitration

• The arbitration case World War II and the history of Jews in Poland has been closed. The topic area of Polish history during World War II (1933-1945) and the history of Jews in Poland is subject to a "reliable source consensus-required" contentious topic restriction.

Miscellaneous

• Following a community referendum, the arbitration policy has been modified to remove the ability for users to appeal remedies to Jimbo Wales.

Hi, looks like you were the last CU to run a check at SPI. What do you think of 21lf1Md315HfEOS3312 (now there's a mouthful)? There are an awful lot of similarities, that mixture of Filipino stuff and California stuff. OTOH, although there are an awful lot of socks to plow through, the username seems an unusual choice for this master.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:53, 5 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Bbb23: Sorry, I looked at this yesterday but forgot to hit enter on my response here.  Confirmed to the three Justins. Blocked. Feel free to tag as you see fit. --Blablubbs (talk) 16:30, 6 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I tagged the account as suspected just now (like the Justins). Thanks a lot.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:40, 6 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Somehow with all the work you did (thanks), the Winbytedemo doesn't have the usual notice on it pointing to Nestofbirdnests.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:50, 14 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Good catch, thanks – I forgot to retarget after the section move. Should be fixed now. --Blablubbs (talk) 23:57, 14 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yup. :-) --Bbb23 (talk) 00:09, 15 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello Blablubbs,

Backlog

Redirect drive: In response to an unusually high redirect backlog, we held a redirect backlog drive in May. The drive completed with 23851 reviews done in total, bringing the redirect backlog to 0 (momentarily). Congratulations to Hey man im josh who led with a staggering 4316 points, followed by Meena and Greyzxq with 2868 and 2546 points respectively. See this page for more details. The redirect queue is steadily rising again and is steadily approaching 4,000. Please continue to help out, even if it's only for a few or even one review a day.

Redirect autopatrol: All administrators without autopatrol have now been added to the redirect autopatrol list. If you see any users who consistently create significant amounts of good quality redirects, consider requesting redirect autopatrol for them here.

WMF work on PageTriage: The WMF Moderator Tools team, consisting of Sam, Jason and Susana, and also some patches from Jon, has been hard at work updating PageTriage. They are focusing their efforts on modernising the extension's code rather than on bug fixes or new features, though some user-facing work will be prioritised. This will help make sure that this extension is not deprecated, and is easier to work on in the future. In the next month or so, we will have an opt-in beta test where new page patrollers can help test the rewrite of Special:NewPagesFeed, to help find bugs. We will post more details at WT:NPPR when we are ready for beta testers.

Articles for Creation (AFC): All new page reviewers are now automatically approved for Articles for Creation draft reviewing (you do not need to apply at WT:AFCP like was required previously). To install the AFC helper script, visit Special:Preferences, visit the Gadgets tab, tick "Yet Another AFC Helper Script", then click "Save". To find drafts to review, visit Special:NewPagesFeed, and at the top left, tick "Articles for Creation". To review a draft, visit a submitted draft, click on the "More" menu, then click "Review (AFCH)". You can also comment on and submit drafts that are unsubmitted using the script.

You can review the AFC workflow at WP:AFCR. It is up to you if you also want to mark your AFC accepts as NPP reviewed (this is allowed but optional, depends if you would like a second set of eyes on your accept). Don't forget that draftspace is optional, so moves of drafts to mainspace (even if they are not ready) should not be reverted, except possibly if there is conflict of interest.

Pro tip: Did you know that visual artists such as painters have their own SNG? The most common part of this "creative professionals" criteria that applies to artists is WP:ARTIST 4b (solo exhibition, not group exhibition, at a major museum) or 4d (being represented within the permanent collections of two museums).

Reminders

• Newsletter feedback - please take this short poll about the newsletter.
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Hello, Blablubbs,

Hey, I have a general CUer question. I just noticed that you recently blocked Riverbend21 who had been active in patrolling. Is there a reason why no sockmaster was identified in their block notice and on the User page? It can be helpful for other editors to recognize future sockpuppets should they be created and I'm not sure why this information would not be disclosed. I don't see it as DENY, I see it as useful data for others working on the project. Thanks for any perspective you can provide. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:22, 18 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi @Liz, I hope all is well. I did weigh whether or not to publicly provide additional details (including tags) concerning this block, and ultimately decided against it. The primary reason for not doing so is that any tag I could place would only be useful to non-CU onlookers if accompanied by an extensive explanation since the CU finding and the facts of the case are more complicated than "account A is confirmed to account B", though that is part of it. Providing that explanation publicly may hamper our future ability to tackle related abuse. I did however compile fairly comprehensive documentation on the checkuser wiki. My apologies for the vagueness; I hope this helps regardless. --Blablubbs (talk) 22:31, 18 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No, this explanation helps a lot. I guessed that not supplying an identity had to do with some information that should be held back for privacy and BEANS' sake. I must admit that years ago I used to be a CU-skeptic and questioned a lot of decisions made my checkusers that were what I judged to be non-transparent. For regular editors, so much relies on trust in the honesty, competency and capability of the SPI team. But the more reports I made to SPI and the more familiarity I gained with sockpuppet activity, the more I came to implicitly trust the judgement of checkusers. This incident was unusual, to me, in that Riverbend21 was so active and had a lot of interaction with other editors so that's what prompted my curiosity about whether I had ever crossed paths with them with a different account. As an aside, I seem to be seeing more and more sockpuppet accounts who are active for a long time (months and even years) before being spotted but maybe this has always been going on but in the past they abandoned the accounts before being identified and so are just stale.

I still have a question about checkuser activity but I think I will send that as a message rather than post it here. I really appreciate you taking my query seriously and not defensively and explaining things as best as you can. I realize in SPI cases and on talk pages you all are constantly being asked to reveal more information which you can't do by the nature of your position and so I tried to ask this as a procedural question and not a "Can't you tell me who?" type question. Thanks again for your patience. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:09, 19 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello, Blablubbs. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((You've got mail)) or ((ygm)) template.Doug Weller talk 20:32, 18 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi can you remove rollback and Pending changes reviewers rights right from Riverbend21 because they are blocked. DarkHorseMayhem (talk) 00:50, 19 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@DarkHorseMayhem: That's not something we generally do; see WP:INDEFRIGHTS. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:11, 21 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Good afternoon. How are you? --Cusslouchy (talk) 19:36, 22 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello Blablubbs,

The New Page Patrol team is sending you this impromptu message to inform you of a steeply rising backlog of articles needing review. If you have any extra time to spare, please consider reviewing one or two articles each day to help lower the backlog. You can start reviewing by visiting Special:NewPagesFeed. Thank you very much for your help.

Reminders:

• There is live chat with patrollers on the New Page Patrol Discord.
• Please add the project discussion page to your watchlist.
• To opt out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

Sent by Zippybonzo using MediaWiki message delivery at 06:58, 1 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks for removing that template. I totally forgot .

Fylindfotberserk (talk) 09:52, 1 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2023).

Administrator changes

Novem Linguae

• Deckiller
• Electionworld
• MBisanz
• Penwhale
• Raul654
• Roadrunner
• Viridae
• Yannismarou

Bureaucrat changes

MBisanz

Guideline and policy news

• Contributions to the English Wikipedia are now released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0) license instead of CC BY-SA 3.0. Contributions are still also released under the GFDL license.

Technical news

• Discussion is open regarding a proposed global policy regarding third-party resources. Third-party resources are computer resources that reside outside of Wikimedia production websites.

Arbitration

• Two arbitration cases are currently open. Proposed decisions are expected 5 July 2023 for the Scottywong case and 9 July 2023 for the AlisonW case.

Thank you for blocking User:Bateros, everything about the account screamed sock but I had no basis for opening an SPI. Mztourist (talk) 05:31, 10 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I reverted the Bateros edits and an IP 37.245.41.140 from Sharjah, UAE (source of many of Orchomen's socks) immediately reverted them, see: [1], [2], [3] and [4], so I would request that you block the IP also. regards Mztourist (talk) 06:46, 10 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Acknowledgement they're Orchomen here: [5] Mztourist (talk) 07:03, 10 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Blablubbs, can you identify the sockmaster of أسامة بن عبد الله وليد ? Would help detect future socks and also determine whether a couple of articles they created are G5 elegible. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 17:36, 19 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Ignore that. Saw that you already did and it's the one I suspected. Abecedare (talk) 17:41, 19 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello, Blablubbs,

I was wondering if User:AngelicDevil29 was also a sockpuppet as I'm finding that they both edited some of the same pages on Sindhi culture. They were blocked for disuptive editing but now I'm wondering if these accounts are connected. I'm just taking care of some pages that أسامة بن عبد الله وليد created and wondered about AngelicDevil29 at the same time in terms of rolling back some edits. Thanks! I hope you had a good weekend. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:29, 24 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi @Liz! I haven't looked too closely, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'm going to go with "probably not" – if AngelicDevil29 was Bensebgli, I would've expected them to show up in the checks I ran on أسامة بن عبد الله وليد and others; this would also seem like a strange (and pointless) exercise if they were the same person. Hope that helps. --Blablubbs (talk) 20:03, 24 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No, this comment helps. Checkuser activity is kind of a black box to the rest of us, I understand it isn't pixiedust, but we really don't know how much work is involved, how time-consuming it might be for you all, it's a complete mystery. So, I post queries to checkusers not knowing if it's a matter of a minute or two after inputting a username in a database or it takes 20=30 minutes of deciphering IP data and looking at editing overlaps. So, it's fine to tell me that it's not worth your time to go any further into this. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:19, 25 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

On 24 July 2023, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article Bruno Flierl, which you had contributed to in 2021. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. PFHLai (talk) 12:25, 24 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2023).

Administrator changes

Firefangledfeathers

• AlisonW
• Amberrock
• Closedmouth
• Scottywong

Interface administrator changes

Novem Linguae

Technical news

• The tag filter on Special:NewPages and revision history pages can now be inverted. This allows hiding edits made by automated tools. (T334338)
• Special:BlockedExternalDomains is a new tool that allows easier blocking of plain domains (and their subdomains). This is more easily searchable and is faster for the software to use than the existing MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. It does not support regex (for complex cases), URL path-matching, or the MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist. (T337431)

Arbitration

• The arbitration cases named Scottywong and AlisonW closed 10 July and 16 July respectively.
• The SmallCat dispute arbitration case is in the workshop phase.

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2023).

Administrator changes Pppery Theleekycauldron Dwheeler G.A.S Royalbroil Ssd

CheckUser changes Bradv Oversighter changes Bradv

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, TFAs will be automatically semi-protected the day before it is on the main page and through the day after.
• A discussion at WP:VPP about revision deletion and oversight for dead names found that [s]ysops can choose to use revdel if, in their view, it's the right tool for this situation, and they need not default to oversight. But oversight could well be right where there's a particularly high risk to the person. Use your judgment.

Technical news

• Special:Contributions now shows the user's local edit count and the account's creation date. (T324166)

Arbitration

• The SmallCat dispute case has closed. As part of the final decision, editors participating in XfD have been reminded to be careful about forming local consensus which may or may not reflect the broader community consensus. Regular closers of XfD forums were also encouraged to note when broader community discussion, or changes to policies and guidelines, would be helpful.

Miscellaneous

• Tech tip: The "Browse history interactively" banner shown at the top of Special:Diff can be used to easily look through a history, assemble composite diffs, or find out what archive something wound up in.

Hi Blablubbs, sorry to bother but I have a question I'm hoping you could help me with; I don't want to take it to ANI or SPI at least not yet. I found your name on the recently-active admins list, and I know you're also do SPI work, hence why I'm here. Hope that's okay. :)

There are two new user accounts, both registered today within 10 mins of each other, both user names almost identical (one letter difference), and both are editing the same draft. I figured there must be an innocent explanation, they probably just accidentally registered two without even realising it... but the user insists they only have one account, and know nothing about the other, which is strange.

What should I do – report this somewhere, leave it with you, or just drop it and mind my own business? TIA, -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 14:08, 7 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi DoubleGrazing – I see what you're talking about, and I suspect there's a fairly innocent explanation here. I'll leave a note. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:17, 7 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks! -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 14:21, 7 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

New Page Patrol | October 2023 Backlog Drive
On 1 October, a one-month backlog drive for New Page Patrol will begin. Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles and redirects patrolled. Barnstars will also be granted for re-reviewing articles previously reviewed by other patrollers during the drive. Articles will earn 3x as many points compared to redirects. Interested in taking part? Sign up here.
You're receiving this message because you are a new page patroller. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:13, 9 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You've got (non-urgent) mail. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 07:11, 15 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Extraordinary Writ: Thanks, replied. --Blablubbs (talk) 11:09, 17 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi, you closed this as No Consensus. Looking at the arguments, for me at least, it appears the consensus was to Draftify (including Delete here). The arguments for Keep didn't show any sources that meet GNG/NCORP criteria nor overcame the criticism of individual sources. Many Keep !voters completely misinterpreted GNG/NCORP or used arguments not based on our criteria. Thank you. HighKing⁺⁺ 20:26, 19 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@HighKing: I didn't close anything, and I'm not sure what AfD you're referring to. LTA impersonation, maybe? --Blablubbs (talk) 20:27, 19 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Ok, found it (took me a second to parse "Beond" as a page title, sorry). This wasn't me. Note the history. --Blablubbs (talk) 20:30, 19 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Interesting. Especially given the number of anon ip editors at the page. Sorry, should have checked the history first! Thanks for the swift response. HighKing⁺⁺ 20:38, 19 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Is another CLC sock. Could you block? 47.227.95.73 (talk) 11:12, 20 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks; block applied, although it might be too late by now. --Blablubbs (talk) 19:48, 21 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No consensus? There isn't a single person who has supported the OP and the OP has failed to make a policy based argument. Reexamine your close. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:23, 22 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Horse Eye's Back: I haven't closed anything. See User talk:Blablubbs#AFD Beond. --Blablubbs (talk) 16:24, 22 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Fascinating, never seen that sort of active operations style of disinformation before. Apologies for flying off the handle at you, it seems I am the useful idiot in whatever plot was perpetrated here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:26, 22 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I had something similar at my talkpage once: User_talk:Gråbergs_Gråa_Sång/Archive_8#February_2023 Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:31, 22 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Also at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fanery. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:27, 22 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Oh now thats extra tricky because it is technically the right call so nobody is going to challenge that unless they notice the history... Insidious. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:29, 22 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Horse Eye's Back and Blablubbs, FYI [6] and Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive_edits_by_174.244.129.71. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:32, 27 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello Blablubbs,

Backlog update: At the time of this message, there are 11,300 articles and 15,600 redirects awaiting review. This is the highest backlog in a long time. Please help out by doing additional reviews!

October backlog elimination drive: A one-month backlog drive for October will start in one week! Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles and redirects patrolled. Articles will earn 4x as many points compared to redirects. You can sign up here.

PageTriage code upgrades: Upgrades to the PageTriage code, initiated by the NPP open letter in 2022 and actioned by the WMF Moderator Tools Team in 2023, are ongoing. More information can be found here. As part of this work, the Special:NewPagesFeed now has a new version in beta! The update leaves the NewPagesFeed appearance and function mostly identical to the old one, but updates the underlying code, making it easier to maintain and helping make sure the extension is not decommissioned due to maintenance issues in the future. You can try out the new Special:NewPagesFeed here - it will replace the current version soon.

Notability tip: Professors can meet WP:PROF #1 by having their academic papers be widely cited by their peers. When reviewing professor articles, it is a good idea to find their Google Scholar or Scopus profile and take a look at their h-index and number of citations. As a very rough rule of thumb, for most fields, articles on people with a h-index of twenty or more, a first-authored paper with more than a thousand citations, or multiple papers each with more than a hundred citations are likely to be kept at AfD.

Reviewing tip: If you would like like a second opinion on your reviews or simply want another new page reviewer by your side when patrolling, we recommend pair reviewing! This is where two reviewers use Discord voice chat and screen sharing to communicate with each other while reviewing the same article simultaneously. This is a great way to learn and transfer knowledge.

Reminders:

• You can access live chat with patrollers on the New Page Patrol Discord.
• Consider adding the project discussion page to your watchlist.
• To opt out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:45, 22 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think you were able to remove information from User talk:YouAreGoingToSweden so can you do the same for this edit where someone posted what appears to be a phone number? ThaddeusSholto (talk) 20:42, 25 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@ThaddeusSholto: Sorry for the late response. As an admin, I do have access to revision deletion, but that is generally not sufficient for removing highly sensitive information. I contacted an oversighter about your post at the time, and they've suppressed the material. Could I ask that you use WP:RFO in case you stumble across something like this again? Talk pages (and especially admin talk pages) tend to be fairly visible (for reference, about 120 people have mine watchlisted), and so making requests like these in public can lead to a Streisand effect. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:35, 28 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thank you for pointing me to WP:RFO. I'm sorry for the potential Streisand effect by posting here. ThaddeusSholto (talk) 14:41, 28 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Someone asked me about User:Chiefofswatis, suspecting them as part of the Sekk-47 farm. You know that one better than I do... --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 16:41, 3 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Jpgordon: Acknowledging that I've seen this; if memory serves, the case is a tad complex so I will need some time to look into it; will do my best to get back to you by tomorrow. --Blablubbs (talk) 09:25, 4 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Jpgordon: Turned out to be more straightforward than I expected – that's definitely them (specifically Group 1 from the SPI). Blocked and tagged. --Blablubbs (talk) 21:40, 4 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2023).

Administrator changes Hey man im josh Alex Bakharev CorbieVreccan Cyphoidbomb Davodd Hog Farm JamesR KnightLago Mark Ironie Nosebagbear (deceased) Rschen7754 Tamzin TonyBallioni

CheckUser changes DatGuy Ferret RickinBaltimore TonyBallioni Worm That Turned Oversighter changes RickinBaltimore TonyBallioni Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open regarding amending the paid-contribution disclosure policy to add the following text: Any administrator soliciting clients for paid Wikipedia-related consulting or advising services not covered by other paid-contribution rules must disclose all clients on their userpage.

Technical news

• Administrators can now choose to add the user's user page to their watchlist when changing the usergroups for a user. This works both via Special:UserRights and via the API. (T272294)

Arbitration

• Remedy 9 ("MarioProtIV topic ban") of the WikiProject Tropical Cyclones case has been rescinded.

Miscellaneous

• The 2023 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process has concluded with the appointment of one new CheckUser.
• Self-nominations for the electoral commission for the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections opens on 2 October and closes on 8 October.

Hello, Blablubbs. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((You've got mail)) or ((ygm)) template.Doug Weller talk 13:07, 11 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello, I was wondering what cleanup is needed to remove the "paid content" tag from the article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ofinno. Eaa83 (talk) 14:23, 11 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It should be looked over by an unaffiliated editor to ensure that the sources are reliable and sufficient to establish notability, and that the article adheres to a neutral point of view. --Blablubbs (talk) 10:08, 15 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello Blablubbs:

WikiProject Articles for creation is holding a month long Backlog Drive!
The goal of this drive is to reduce the backlog of unreviewed drafts to less than 2 months outstanding reviews from the current 4+ months. Bonus points will be given for reviewing drafts that have been waiting more than 30 days. The drive is running from 1 November 2023 through 30 November 2023.

You may find Category:AfC pending submissions by age or other categories and sorting helpful.

Barnstars will be given out as awards at the end of the drive.

There is a backlog of over 1900 pages, so start reviewing drafts. We're looking forward to your help! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:23, 31 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2023).

Administrator changes

0xDeadbeef

Tamzin

Dennis Brown

Interface administrator changes

Pppery

• Ragesoss
• TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

• The WMF is working on making it possible for administrators to edit MediaWiki configuration directly. This is similar to previous work on Special:EditGrowthConfig. A technical RfC is running until November 08, where you can provide feedback.
• There is a proposed plan for re-enabling the Graph Extension. Feedback on this proposal is requested.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 12 November 2023 until 21 November 2023 to stand in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections.
• Xaosflux, RoySmith and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2023 Arbitration Committee Elections. BusterD is the reserve commissioner.
• Following a motion, the contentious topic designation of Prem Rawat has been struck. Actions previously taken using this contentious topic designation are still in force.
• Following several motions, multiple topic areas are no longer designated as a contentious topic. These contentious topic designations were from the Editor conduct in e-cigs articles, Liancourt Rocks, Longevity, Medicine, September 11 conspiracy theories, and Shakespeare authorship question cases.
• Following a motion, remedies 3.1 (All related articles under 1RR whenever the dispute over naming is concerned), 6 (Stalemate resolution) and 30 (Administrative supervision) of the Macedonia 2 case have been rescinded.
• Following a motion, remedy 6 (One-revert rule) of the The Troubles case has been amended.
• An arbitration case named Industrial agriculture has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case close 8 November.

Miscellaneous

• The Articles for Creation backlog drive is happening in November 2023, with 700+ drafts pending reviews for in the last 4 months or so. In addition to the AfC participants, all administrators and New Page Patrollers can conduct reviews using the helper script, Yet Another AFC Helper Script, which can be enabled in the Gadgets settings. Sign up here to participate!

Not sure how you feel about being accused of "revenge" editing here, but to me that feels like the last straw. I think this editor needs a rest from Wikipedia for a while to consider their options. For what little it is worth, suggestions have been made that theyare using a ChatBot. I suspect not. This sounds very much like young teenage indian speak.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   13:47, 13 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Velella: I can take a look later. For what it's worth, I don't think all of their participation is via LLM, but there is an extremely stark contrast between the language in their recent posts and e.g. their opening statement at ANI. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:20, 13 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi there. user:James W. Reader, whom you indef blocked 3 hours ago, is now user:James w. Reeder and posting on my talkpage. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:41, 14 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Rosiestep (talk page watcher) handled. firefly ( t · c ) 16:55, 14 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks, Firefly. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:06, 14 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Firefly, And now they've returned to my talkpage as User:Jess Wade's dwindling interest in the wiki. --Rosiestep (talk) 22:55, 14 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Rosiestep: Blocked, thanks. (Also thanks Firefly :) --Blablubbs (talk) 22:59, 14 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi! I'm not sure if it's appropriate to ask for this here, but can you look into this? Thanks. Đại Việt quốc (talk) 23:36, 14 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Blablubbs: Not sure if you saw this. It has been 10 days but I didn’t hear back from you, neither here nor in the investigation page. I’m not asking you to resolve it. Just some feedback on whether more evidence is needed. Thanks! Đại Việt quốc (talk) 18:42, 25 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Đại Việt quốc: Sorry, SPI is a bit backlogged as usual and I'm only semi-around right now and haven't had a chance to take a look at this one. As a general statement, more evidence is usually a good thing and can make cases move more quickly, so if you have more diffs, feel free to tack them on. --Blablubbs (talk) 19:09, 25 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm looking at a block of yours and I noticed that there appears to be a subnet (/23) that appears to be assigned to a legitimate ISP named Squirrel that provides static IP addresses to users ([7]) rather than being an open proxy. Is there a technical way to unblock a particular suballocation of a range that's otherwise included as a part of a wider rangeblock, or is this sort of carveout not yet supported by MediaWiki software? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:23, 17 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Nope, unfortunately impossible. It requires math and manual reblocking on subranges "around" the thing you want to carve out – in this case:

23.230.0.0/19 (= 23.230.0.0-23.230.31.255)

23.230.32.0/20 (= 23.230.32.0-23.230.47.255)

23.230.48.0/22 (= 23.230.48.0-23.230.51.255)

23.230.52.0/23 (= 23.230.52.0-23.230.53.255)

23.230.56.0/21 (= 23.230.56.0-23.230.63.255)

23.230.64.0/18 (= 23.230.64.0-23.230.127.255)

23.230.128.0/17 (= 23.230.128.0-23.230.255.255)

I've done that now, thanks. CC @AntiCompositeNumber in case you want to mirror that for the global block. --Blablubbs (talk) 11:59, 17 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Awesome! Thank you so much. I'll follow up with ACN. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 13:54, 17 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I am writing to ask for help in dealing with a new sockpuppeteer who is creating new accounts very fast. The accounts I have seen are Dunny1117, Dunny1117a, Dunny1117b, AppleG1117, Apple1117a, Greene1117, & AGreene1117. Their main activity is inappropriately closing AfDs. They are all ducks, and blocked, but because they create new accounts quickly after each block, I think the only hope for making a significant impact on their activity might be a range block. taking this to SPI would be pointless, because of the time it would take, so I wonder if you will be willing to do a CU. Naturally I don't expect you to tell me the outcome if you do so. JBW (talk) 11:15, 17 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@JBW, FYI I just reported an account impersonating you, which I'm presuming has something to do with this. Giraffer ^{(talk·contribs)} 12:11, 17 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

(talk page watcher) I took a look at these, and unfortunately the nature of the IPs involved make rangeblocks impractical (which I realise is annoying...) firefly ( t · c ) 12:37, 17 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks, Firefly. That's what I rather expected, but hoped not. JBW (talk) 12:50, 17 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This time with this IP. A block should be needed. Thanks, 47.227.95.73 (talk) 13:45, 22 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Reblocked, thanks. --Blablubbs (talk) 15:02, 22 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The page Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Farhan Rana Rajpoot Artist has been speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This was done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category had been empty for seven days or more and was not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may have become empty on occasion.

Please do not recreate the material without addressing these concerns, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If you think this page should not have been deleted for this reason, you may contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you may open a discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion review. Vanjagenije (talk) 22:54, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello! Voting in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 11 December 2023. 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 2023 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) 00:46, 28 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello, Blablubbs. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((You've got mail)) or ((ygm)) template.Beccaynr (talk) 17:07, 2 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Blablubbs can you close the SPI already given verdict from Drmies? Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 18:18, 2 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi Blablubbs :) I'm looking to interview people here. Feel free to pass if you're not interested. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 21:44, 3 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi, Blablubbs! Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia.

I need IP block exemption. My blocked IP from which I am usually editing is 85.202.228.121. I was editing from my dormitory Wi-Fi, and I want to continue my Wikipedia contributions. Sadly, it shows that I can't edit due IP block, because it is 'open or anonymizing proxy'.

I don't ask for permission for every user to edit from that IP, but at least give me such opportunity. Thank you! MarcusTraianus (talk) 12:19, 4 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi, what does this mean? (I tried to edit the Otaku article, and I managed to do it only once)

Error, edit not published. [668a66e7-af73-4a2e-b748-130156a21f12] Caught exception of type Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError @[66796a80-6bf7-4ef2-b38e-4cbb56530e37] Caught exception of type Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError Fleyzk (talk) 13:46, 4 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Fleyzk: I'm not very well-versed in our technical infrastructure, but that sounds like a server-side error; those occur from time to time, albeit rarely. I'd recommend simply trying to resubmit the edit and seeing if it works now. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:04, 4 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]