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News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2024).

Administrator changes Sdkb The Night Watch East718 Isabelle Belato Mzajac Staecker Stan Shebs Sugarfish Tamzin

Bureaucrat changes SilkTork

Guideline and policy news

• Phase I of the 2024 RfA review is now open for participation. Editors are invited to review, comment on, and propose improvements to the requests for adminship process.
• Following an RfC, the inactivity requirement for the removal of the interface administrator right increased from 6 months to 12 months.

Technical news

• The mobile site history pages now use the same HTML as the desktop history pages. (T353388)

Miscellaneous

• The 2024 appointees for the Ombuds commission are だ＊ぜ, AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Doǵu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, MdsShakil, Minorax, Nehaoua, Renvoy and RoySmith as members, with Vermont serving as steward-observer.
• Following the 2024 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Ajraddatz, Albertoleoncio, EPIC, JJMC89, Johannnes89, Melos and Yahya.

Coincident with a checkuser block, you reverted a COI question at Nihonjoe's talk page. Would you consider reinstating it? Nihonjoe had responded to the same user's previous inquiry along the same lines. Yngvadottir (talk) 00:03, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Yngvadottir - the account in question is a sock belonging to a long-term abuser, and as such I reverted as I would any other LTA account messing about in 'project internals'. That said, Nihonjoe is entirely free to restore the comment if they feel they would like to answer it. firefly ( t · c ) 15:03, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Firefly,

Thanks for letting me know about the autopatrolled user right. I’ll try to live up to it!

T. E. Meeks (talk) 13:19, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Happy adminship anniversary! Hi Firefly! On behalf of the Birthday Committee, I'd like to wish you a very happy anniversary of your successful request for adminship. Enjoy this special day! The Herald (Benison) (talk) 02:31, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Happy Adminship Anniversary, Firefly! We are so lucky to have you helping out the project! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:43, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I thought I'd check on the bot and it stopped posting CSD G13 5 month notices on March 8th. Can you get it up and going again? Many thanks! It is providing a valuable service to content creators. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:43, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Liz - fixed! Was an issue with Toolforge. And thank you for the message above too :) firefly ( t · c ) 22:20, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah! I'm glad I checked. I have it on my calendar to check Firefly Bot twice monthly to make sure those CSD G13 messages are going out. No problem with the bot but there can be problems on WMF's side. Thank you for fixing the issues. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:25, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I looked and looked and couldn't figure this out. A few weeks ago you checkuserblocked Mother of Jabbas with the rationale "BKH / AttackTheMoonNow." What does BKH stand for? City of Silver 18:35, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@City of Silver - hello! That refers to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Brian K Horton - should probably have linked the SPI in the block summary, but I was working quickly :) firefly ( t · c ) 19:30, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for this. I don't fault you at all for using that shorthand. City of Silver 19:31, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey there! This is to let you know that phase I of the 2024 requests for adminship (RfA) review is now no longer accepting new proposals. Lots of proposals remain open for discussion, and the current round of review looks to be on a good track towards making significant progress towards improving RfA's structure and environment. I'd like to give my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has given us their idea for change to make RfA better, and the same to everyone who has given the necessary feedback to improve those ideas. The following proposals remain open for discussion:

• Proposal 2, initiated by HouseBlaster, provides for the addition of a text box at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship reminding all editors of our policies and enforcement mechanisms around decorum.
• Proposals 3 and 3b, initiated by Barkeep49 and Usedtobecool, respectively, provide for trials of discussion-only periods at RfA. The first would add three extra discussion-only days to the beginning, while the second would convert the first two days to discussion-only.
• Proposal 5, initiated by SilkTork, provides for a trial of RfAs without threaded discussion in the voting sections.
• Proposals 6c and 6d, initiated by BilledMammal, provide for allowing users to be selected as provisional admins for a limited time through various concrete selection criteria and smaller-scale vetting.
• Proposal 7, initiated by Lee Vilenski, provides for the "General discussion" section being broken up with section headings.
• Proposal 9b, initiated by Reaper Eternal, provides for the requirement that allegations of policy violation be substantiated with appropriate links to where the alleged misconduct occured.
• Proposals 12c, 21, and 21b, initiated by City of Silver, Ritchie333, and HouseBlaster, respectively, provide for reducing the discretionary zone, which currently extends from 65% to 75%. The first would reduce it 65%–70%, the second would reduce it to 50%–66%, and the third would reduce it to 60%–70%.
• Proposal 13, initiated by Novem Lingaue, provides for periodic, privately balloted admin elections.
• Proposal 14, initiated by Kusma, provides for the creation of some minimum suffrage requirements to cast a vote.
• Proposals 16 and 16c, initiated by Thebiguglyalien and Soni, respectively, provide for community-based admin desysop procedures. 16 would desysop where consensus is established in favor at the administrators' noticeboard; 16c would allow a petition to force reconfirmation.
• Proposal 16e, initiated by BilledMammal, would extend the recall procedures of 16 to bureaucrats.
• Proposal 17, initiated by SchroCat, provides for "on-call" admins and 'crats to monitor RfAs for decorum.
• Proposal 18, initiated by theleekycauldron, provides for lowering the RfB target from 85% to 75%.
• Proposal 24, initiated by SportingFlyer, provides for a more robust alternate version of the optional candidate poll.
• Proposal 25, initiated by Femke, provides for the requirement that nominees be extended-confirmed in addition to their nominators.
• Proposal 27, initiated by WereSpielChequers, provides for the creation of a training course for admin hopefuls, as well as periodic retraining to keep admins from drifting out of sync with community norms.
• Proposal 28, initiated by HouseBlaster, tightens restrictions on multi-part questions.

To read proposals that were closed as unsuccessful, please see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase I/Closed proposals. You are cordially invited once again to participate in the open discussions; when phase I ends, phase II will review the outcomes of trial proposals and refine the implementation details of other proposals. Another notification will be sent out when this phase begins, likely with the first successful close of a major proposal. Happy editing! theleekycauldron (talk • she/her), via:

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:53, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Precious

Two years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:48, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The bot has stopped updating the case status. It is notifying editors of expiring drafts, but that is a different task. Does the code need to be stopped and restarted?

Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:05, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's working now. Thank you.

Robert McClenon (talk) 00:45, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Per Yngvadottir's evidence, and in line with WP:ARBPOL, you are requested to recuse from the Conflict of interest management case.

Please see also this discussion on the evidence talk page, which explains why I am posting this request. BilledMammal (talk) 05:01, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies for the delay in replying, I wanted to give this the thought it deserved.

Bottom line up front, I do not believe I need to recuse in this case.

Yngvadottir's evidence correctly states that I reverted an edit on Nihonjoe's talk page. It also states that my reply to their asking me to restore it didn't answer their question. In hindsight this is also true, and I should have been clearer. The edit was made by a sock of a WMF-banned long-term abuser (Brian K Horton). This user frequently involves themselves in internal matters, particularly around ArbCom, seemingly with the goal of stirring up drama. I have on various occasions blocked these socks and reverted their enquiries per WP:BMB (e.g. 1, 2), as I have with probably hundreds of other socks wanting to stir up trouble. I didn't think that restoring the actions of a WMF-banned user would be a wise course of action.

What I should have said is that if Yngvadottir felt that the enquiry was nonetheless valid, they were free to take ownership of it - either ask it themself or revert it and state that they were taking it over. By instead saying "well Nihonjoe can reply if they want to" (and implicitly saying that others should not restore the comment, despite that not being my intention) it gave the impression that I was putting a finger on the scale - allowing Nihonjoe to 'avoid' replying to the enquiry by not replying to it. This was doubly unwise given the ongoing arbitration proceeding - while the action was routine, there are plenty of other Checkusers or administrators who could have performed it, and I probably should have left it to them to avoid even the appearance of a conflict and will do so in the future.

I apologise for the lack of clarity in my response. I will gently say that Yngvadottir could have replied to my response and asked for clarity, or called me out then and there if they felt I was being unfair - but I realise that as an Arb it is on me to ensure that I give detailed responses when dealing with things in the orbit of Committee business.

Where I disagree with Yngvadottir, El_C, and BilledMammal is that this requires my recusal. ARBPOL states that Arbitrators should recuse where there is personal involvement in the substance of the dispute or significant personal involvement with one of the parties. This is a high bar. I suppose the case for recusal would be that my reversion of the enquiry and decision not to reinstate it was aimed at protecting Nihonjoe from scrutiny or advocating for him - perhaps because I want to "back him up" personally, or because I have a desire to limit scrutiny of COI editing more broadly? I think both of these are easy to refute - I have no personal connection with Nihonjoe in any form (indeed I can't recall any places we have interacted at all), and I do not believe that reverting that enquiry has in any way lessened the scrutiny that he has received. Indeed the ongoing case has put the entire matter under about as high-resolution a microscope as you're likely to find on Wikipedia.

I hope this assuages your concerns. If not you can of course refer the matter to the Committee for a vote. firefly ( t · c ) 18:08, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The big issue a lot of us have had and the reason why 3 arbitrator recusals have been requested and have now been referred to the whole committee (was initially attempted days ago but refused at the time due to procedural error) is the appearance of impropriety and how that reduces the community's trust in any decision that is reached. I'm not sure whether or not this is an unfair expectation but it's not one that I alone have. Noah, AA^Talk 19:29, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure, whether I am right here; if not, then please help me find the right addressee.
It seems that some of the fireflytools.toolforge.org/linter/_x_x_wiki bots crashed two days ago (they show "As of 2024-03-24 00:15:17" for the last update date and time). Who is able to try restarting them? --At40mha (talk) 08:34, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]