Hi Osomite! The thread you created at the Wikipedia:Teahouse, Individual editing of sections on my Talk page has been disabled, has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days (usually at least two days, and sometimes four or more). You can still find the archived discussion here. If you have any additional questions that weren't answered then, please feel free to create a new thread.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Schazjmd

@Osomite Even before news articles came out, I myself had suspicions that they are potentially Russian affiliated (anyone who takes the time can see the strange connections). Obviously we cannot say that for sure. I have added a neutral description on the Bright Side Wikipedia page regarding several media organizations supposing they are Russian-affiliated with a statement from TheSoul itself. Perhaps TheSoul needs its own article and/or combine Bright Side and 5-Minute Crafts. I don't know- even if its not an offical tie, the strangeness and reach of their content combined with occasional political overtones has caused me to stay away. I doubt a legitimate propaganda operation wouldn't also operate with profit in mind or at the very least a for-profit company could experiment with propaganda (but not be dedicated to that as a mainstay) See on the talk page — Preceding unsigned comment added by Superdadsuper (talk • contribs) 03:15, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I only edit Wikipedia once or twice a year, so not sure this is where I may "talk" to you. I tread, here, warily.

I will await your decision. Thank you, again... (Mini4WD (talk) 14:42, 16 September 2020 (UTC))[reply]

@Mini4WD, O-M-G! You make a very good-point. I don't know. I think it will be necessary to convene an assemblage (or is it called a "gaggle") of at least 30 editors and 60 administrators to ponder this point at length. Whatever the outcome, pro-or-con, it needs to be included in the Manual-of-Style so that future hyphenate-type-errors do not occur. Thank you Mini4WD for the heads-up.

Osomite ^hablemos 22:34, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Osomite! The thread you created at the Wikipedia:Teahouse, The Manual of Style says "X" so you are wrong., has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days (usually at least two days, and sometimes four or more). You can still find the archived discussion here. If you have any additional questions that weren't answered then, please feel free to create a new thread. The archival was done by Lowercase sigmabot III, and this notification was delivered by Muninnbot, both automated accounts. You can opt out of future notifications by placing ((bots|deny=Muninnbot)) here on your user talk page. Muninnbot (talk) 19:01, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

...for catching my goof at Mad (magazine). I was looking at the wrong Crumb reference to Mad, incorrectly going to this passage:

What else was weird about Weirdo? As Crumb himself wrote in the first issue, the new effort marked "another new magazine, another MAD imitation, another small time commercial feature with high hopes, obviously doomed to fail." This is a reference to the number of MAD knock-offs that appeared during the 1950s and 1960s....

And so I say: D'oh!--Tenebrae (talk) 00:07, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not saying anything is wrong, just a standard awareness note for WP:ACDS topic areas. PackMecEng (talk) 05:01, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --14:01, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In this edit you called me an "apologist". From the context, I infer that you meant a "Nazi apologist", since you also referred to my "prodigious efforts to maintain Nazi victory in Poland/" Please retract these untrue and defamatory statements. You can do so by striking them out, using <s> and </s> at the beginning and end of each statement. Your failure to do so will result in your being reported to Wikipedia administrators for a gross violation of WP:No personal attacks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:22, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Should I assume that your putting an unwarranted edit-warring notification on my talk page is your way of saying that you refuse to retract your defamatory statements? If you can confirm that you have no intention of retracting, than I can proceed with reporting you to admins for personal attacks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:35, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Beyond My Ken: Previously I put this post on your talk page. I include it here for the record.

By definition, an apologist is "a person who offers an argument in defense of something controversial". By inference, you are the one putting the Nazi tag on it. The "context" is what you are making it to be. It seemed to me that Germany's successful invasion of Poland was a Nazi victory. Isn't that the position you have been maintaining?

I did not say you were a Nazi apologist. I am sorry that you inferred that. For the offense you feel, I apologize.

According to Godwin's law, this is the point at which effectively the discussion ends.

Osomite ^hablemos 22:02, 26 February 2021 (UTC) PS Seriously, stop. If you believe that I am wrong, report me to the authorities.[reply]

And here is my response from my talk page:

No, this is not the end of the discussion, since yours is a classic "non-apology apology". You apologize for "the offense I feel" but do not apologize for your statements. In any case, I did not ask for, and do not want an apology, which is useless to me, what I asked for was a retraction of your statements by striking them out. Without such a retraction, I will be taking this to admins. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:59, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

You will find the report here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:26, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You do really go to the ANI and explain yourself.Slatersteven (talk) 13:58, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It has been suggested that your silence and unwillingness to strike the comments will lead to a block, you really do need to start taking this seriously.Slatersteven (talk) 18:26, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Slatersteven: I appreciate your concern. Thank you. I find this issue very distressing. Sadly it was the last thing I thought about while trying to fall asleep last night (actually at 3 AM) as this dilemma has been weighing on my mind. I do not call people Nazi apologists. I have not called people Nazi apologists. Beyond My Ken through inference (BMK's word) says I did.

Slatersteven, after you made your proposal to me to remove my comments, I thought it was appropriate and was figuring out how to do what you suggested and best seek resolution. Yes, I was silent, the reason was that I wanted to give time to let things cool down. I was upset by the proceedings and want to be able to respond calmly. I was silent, but I was listening. I am distressed that my silence was construed as nefarious. Sometimes a silence is just a silence. I was just listening and thinking. What was the apparent need for urgency? You mentioned that I was "a POV pusher trying to force their version of nationalist history onto the article". Where did that come from? I have no alternate version of history to force. It is very interesting what some people consider the meaning of silence is.

This issue initiated around my "edit" (I apologize for the "scare quotes", but I can't get the dif rename done without them) of the following sentence in the Operation_Sea_Lion article in the section "Invasion of Poland":

In September 1939, the German invasion of Poland was a success, but this infringed on both a French and a British alliance with Poland and both countries declared war on Germany.

My purpose was to edit a poorly constructed sentence and clarify. With the result of:

In September 1939, German invaded Poland. This aggression infringed on a French alliance with Poland and a British alliance with Poland. Subsequently, France and Britain declared war on Germany.

(Oops, I see that I created a typo "German" instead of "Germany".) So I reconstructed a sentence that had a comma splice and unusual conjunction "but". I edited it to make it three sentences. Making the entry more informative and clear was my object. And then I was left with the first sentence where using the word "successful" felt awkward. I have never considered the invasion of Poland "unsuccessful" (as some here have somehow construed). An invasion is either an invasion or a "failed invasion". And I have never seen the use of "successful" relative to "invasion" anywhere. Seeing that accolade in an encyclopedia article did not seem to have a neutral point of view NPOV. So I did not think that using the "successful" necessary. Removing the word "success" or "successful" does not change the meaning of the sentence. I had no hidden agenda with doing this. I had no agenda. I was trying to write the best encyclopedia article I could by removing a word that was unnecessary. After all, was an invasion and the invasion did what an invasion does. And in the edit summary, I indicated, "There is no support for the claim that the invasion of Poland was "successful". And from there BMK disagreed and reverted the entire edit. BMK ignored my edit of the second sentence which was a marked improvement over the original.

Here is an observation. In the Invasion of Poland Wikipedia article, the word "success", relative to the overall invasion, was used once, stating "The success of the invasion marked the end of the Second Polish Republic, though Poland never formally surrendered." Here as with the Operation Sea Lion article, the word "success" is an unnecessary adjective. If the word "success" is removed, the meaning of the sentence is not altered.

The encyclopedia Britannica, when discussing what caused WWII, it simply states, "World War II began in Europe on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland." Here is a creditable encyclopedia that does not feel the need for touting the invasion as "successful".

Through all of this, I have pondered about "what was Hitler's goal in invading Poland?" What would have been Hitler's criteria to consider the invasion successful? Clearly, Hitler desired to expand eastward to gain “lebensraum” (living space) for Germans. Did the invasion accomplish this goal? Another thought was that Hitler needed to possess Poland in order to launch his offensive against Russia. Yes, the invasion was successful in Germany "possessing" Poland for this purpose. If it is this apparent, why couldn't BMK simply qualify the condition of success? Maybe BMK could have added another sentence or two?

Recently, I read somewhere that with Germany's invasion of Poland and when the Allied Forces entered into WWII against Germany, at that point Germany had already realized that they had lost the war. With that view, it seems a stretch to say the invasion spawned a "success". I guess I need to find that again because there will undoubtedly be contention about this assertion. In any case, this line of inquiry is interesting and needs to be examined.

For some reason, Beyond My Ken has called me "the editor" throughout this entire episode. This is a personal slight, I consider BMK to be rude. There is some psychology involved with not acknowledging a person with their name. To not acknowledge someone is a snub. It can mean to ignore or not take notice of.

For some reason, from BMK's first revert of my initial edit, BMK made no effort to collaborate with me. He has only been brusk, offensive, and threatening. I made a single revert and BMK put the edit war Ambox warning on my talk page accusing "You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Operation Sea Lion;" And then in an additional entry on my talk page threatened, "Your next revert to this article triggers a report to the edit warring notice board". OMG! I made a single revert at 10:35 and a second edit (retaining the word "successful" and BMK's response was to threaten me. Although in the edit war notice it counseled "Users are expected to collaborate with others", BMK never sought to collaborate with me. I highly doubt that BMK's behavior reflected an appropriate protocol.

Throughout many edit exchanges with editors, BMK has been determined to retain the exact original badly constructed sentence with simply the addition of four references supporting specifically for the single word "successful" in the context of "In September 1939, the successful German invasion of Poland". The placement of the references is unusual; they are placed immediately after the word " ". BMK's "edit" (Again, apologies for the "scare quotes") establishes that the references are specifically for just the word "successful", remarking in the edit summary "This is the way it must be done."

I appreciate that BMK has provided references specifically for the word "successful". I plan to track down the books to see whether there is actually a clear statement or analysis stating that the invasion was "successful". After I have been able to do find the books (they are at my libraries) and do the research, I was will report my results. If I am wrong, I will admit that I am wrong with appropriate apologies to BMK. I value truth and I value an honest presentation of history.

I see from the discussions, things have not cooled off. Beyond My Ken has been quite busy prosecuting his case. Is that appropriate? Today, BMK has "redacted what he considers to be personal attacks" in my post on the Operation Sea Lion Talk page. Was that appropriate? It seems that BMK is doing his best to add heat and stir the pot. From this situation, am I going to received fair consideration?

My posts concerned were in reply to "BLM post" (apologies for the "scare quotes") which was initiated immediately after I made "my first and only revert" (apologies for the "scare quotes").

BMK considers the following phrases to be personal attacks. Just to provide a perspective they were not grouped but spread in my post to BMK

• "to maintain Nazi victory in Poland"

• 4 lines of text follows

• "You are disingenuous."

• 10 lines of text follows

• "Your argument is largely that of an apologist."

I am truly sorry that BMK inferred (BMK's word) that a word in the first phrase and a word in the third phrase was a personal attack of being called a "Nazi apologist". I am sorry he saw it that way. It was in no way intended to be a personal attack that I had "cleverly hidden". I did make an apology which was heartfelt ("I did not say you were a Nazi apologist. I am sorry that you inferred that. For the offense you feel, I apologize."). However, somehow I did not say whatever magical words BMK thought appropriate and called it a "nonapology apology". Some here have the view that I did not make a "not a genuine apology". Is there some guidance on how to make a genuine apology?

About "apologist". Some who are judging here, consider that because I rebuffed BMK's "success" argument by saying it was "largely that of an apologist" is a personal attack. An apologist is "one who speaks or writes in defense of something". What is wrong with that? That is what BMK did. I did not find BMK's argument convincing.

And about personal attacks. "BMK's reply to me" (apologies for the "scare quotes") contains some significant personal attacks on me:

"I won't take it seriously, because you're so far off the mark that you're entirely around the bend. Ignoring your ignorant personal jibes, the issue here is simple: reliable sources, and every historian worth their salt, says that the German invasion of Poland was a successful one."

BMK tells me, "I am entirely around the bend", calls me "ignorant", and then just claims the authority of historians "worth their salt". That wasn't much of an argument, it was, to me, what you would expect from an apologist who has few facts at hand. It was an insult to me. BMK claims I made a personal attack, which is ironic when BMK freely makes personal attacks; they were personal attacks that were so clear there was no inference needed to understand what they were. I would appreciate BMK's apology for his personal attack on me.

BMK's posts contain quite a bit of disparagement directed towards me; a lot of anger. The tone was arrogant and overbearing. BMK was presenting what BMK considered to be superior knowledge and was quite annoyed at being challenged. BMK took some particularly umbrage with my challenge requesting a reference for the adjective "successful". It seemed to me that BMK was looking for reasons to have controversy and conflict.

About "disingenuous". Here is "my post" and here is the comment in context which was concerned his aspersion that I was edit warring although I only made a single revert:

"You are disingenuous. You were in an edit war earlier this month from which you received a edit block of one month. You contested the block and received mercy. You ended the episode by claiming, "I'll try my best to improve". You need to work on that claim, walk the talk."

It is apparent, and BMK's editing history involving his past edit wars demonstrates it, that BMK is not candid or sincere and is in fact quite disingenuous. He claimed an edit war after I made a single revert, which is disingenuous. BMK would prefer to distract and misdirect and call it a personal attack; however, it is not, it is simply an observation of fact. This is not BMK's first rodeo.

Many words have been written here with many analyses of my words. In a lot of ways, I see this as much in the way of John Godfrey Saxe's poem [The Blind Men and the Elephant] which ends:

"So, oft in theologic wars, the disputants, I ween, tread on in utter ignorance, of what each other mean, and prate about the elephant, not one of them has seen!"

I hope for an honest opinion of the elephant.

Clearly the judges are self-selecting themselves. Can the judges act without bias and fairness?

I feel that the judges have been looking at this episode cherry-picking words, touching only the parts of the elephant that are easily at hand, and making assumptions based upon, probably, a predetermined result. You assume you know all about me and have already passed judgment. You layer assumption upon assumption. You suppose. You guess. You infer.

I feel that I will not find fair judgment here. I wonder that when making your judgments, has all of the record in the posts been reviewed and given equal weight? With BMK making on-going "comments" (again apologies for the "scare quotes") and whipping up the prosecution I feel an unfair finger on the scale.

I have a suspicion that what I have written here is just going to provide more "grist for the mill" with more criticism of what you think I really said and more condemnation.

As you judge me, do you consider Beyond My Ken blameless? Shouldn't his involvement be considered?

I have not challenged anyone's specific already stated determinations. Doing that would probably not change any opinion. I have not addressed every detail. If anyone has a specific question they would like me to address, please let me know.

Osomite ^hablemos 04:37, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I will post this to the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents and see what transpires

It might have been more helpful to have condensed this into one or two paragprahs.Slatersteven (talk) 10:54, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Slatersteven: Yes less is more. Good thought. I have never been involved in a personal attack accusation and I had no guidance to follow so I did what I thought appropriate. Ironic, there was much ado about my prolonged silence, and now you want brevity. I was told to reply and that it was serious. I figured if it was serious, I would take it seriously and reply appropriately. I figured I had one opportunity to respond, so I made an effort to put it into perspective. What could I have explained in a paragraph or two? What is the critical issue? The critical defense?

You make a good point, so here is a try at brevity. A focused defence. (Hmm, and after writing the "brief", it is more than a paragraph or two. I did it with as few words as I could)

I have been accused by "inference" that I called Beyond My Ken (BMK) a Nazi Apologist. I did not. "Inference" is "a conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning." What is the evidence?

In my first post to the conversation, having spent some time carefully crafting it, I discovered when I tried to post I got an edit conflict as Slatersteven and BMK had posted several times while I composed, and I was behind. So I revised the post I was working on to place my somewhat belated comments in context. I "prefaced" with the comment, "I am a little behind on your prodigious efforts to maintain Nazi victory in Poland." I used the words "Nazi" and "victory" as they were prominently used in the back and forth posts between Slaterstevenu and BMK. I picked up on the theme. The words "Nazi attack" in my post were simply an "echoing" of the ideas being discussed. An echo nothing more.

The words "Nazi attack" would not be the ones I would use concerning the issue of "successful invasion". "Nazi attack" was not my original thought about the situation. BMK created the discussion section on the Operation Sea Lion talk page and titled it, "Was the Nazi invasion of Poland a success?" The original use of the word "Nazi" in the discussion done BMK.

Further down in the post, the part that I had tried to post but could not due to an edit conflict situation, I rebutted BMK's argument as being that of an apologist. An apologist, and nothing more. (See my previous post about "apologist", it is just a word to characterize a type of argument).

BMK, who clearly by the talk page discussion, at this point was very annoyed because I challenge the word "successful" and wanted a reference for that conclusion. So BMK, while annoyed (perhaps to the point of anger), read my post and wanted to reply. BMK created out of hole-cloth an imagined insult, a personal attack, because I used the word "Nazi" and "apologist" in the same post. Post hoc ergo propter hocer inferring, BMK decided that I said BMK was a "Nazi apologist". That is not true. I did not infer that, BMK inferred that.

To say that I made a personal attack is not true, I had no intent. I did not call BMK a "Nazi apologist". When I saw BMK's post back to me, I thought, "Oh Dear, where did that come from?" I immediately replied with an apology. Sadly BMK did not think it was not sufficient calling it a "nonapology apology". I am sorry that my apology did not satisfy BMK. At this point, I indicated I was no longer willing to engage (considering BMK's emotional state and imaginings). So I "went silent", which many here thought was a very suspicious thing to do. Note in my post, I said that was what I was intended to do. I invoked Godwin's law. And, I was condemned because I was not replying immediately. My speed of thought and action, unfortunately, does not match others in the Wikipedia world.

So BMK made a personal attack incident report. And here we are, with me defending myself from an "inferred" personal attack. I have been accused of doing something I did not do by "inference". Is inference adequate proof to make it fact? About this inference, I believe that I should be allowed the "benefit of the doubt".

I will post this to the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents and see what transpires.

Osomite ^hablemos 20:43, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I noticed a recent comment you made on an internal forum about BMK and his long-term pattern of behavior. It's something I've encountered myself, but you described it perfectly. Such a frustrating issue, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees it. I know commenting like this on the behavior of another editor is a dubious thing to do, but I strongly feel that this kind of thing is an exemplar of why Wikipedia's culture can discourage participation from newer editors. Ganesha811 (talk) 02:34, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's interesting how often people comment that this factor or that factor "drives away new editors", especially when put up against the reality that the majority of new editors - I would think - stick around, get the hang of the place, and eventually become productive editors, and that those who do run off frequently come back with new identities. Sometimes these also become productive contributors, but others, mostly the ones who were "driven off" because their edits were problematic in the first place, become puppetmasters, coming and going with new identities all the time. Now that, to my mind, is the true arrogance, the idea that one can edit whenever and as whomever one pleases, simply because someone dropped a dime on one's bad behavior.

Not everyone is cut out to edit in this kind of platform, which is simultaneously strict and free-form, and I, for one, don't feel that it helps the project much for us to bend over backwards to accommodate those square pegs who don't fit into the round holes we offer.

That you and Osomite (and others) don't like me is something I really can't do much about, not and remain true to myself and my commitment to continuing to improve the encyclopedia, but at least your crowd might recognize that I am committed to it, and that I do improve it, and that (here comes that "arrogance" again) I am more often right than I am wrong. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:03, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Beyond My Ken, hi! I do assume good faith on your part, as you describe in your last paragraph. We are all here to build an encyclopedia, and I know that dealing with repeated waves of vandals and trolls might engender a more blunt style than most people.

However, if you're open to a specific suggestion, I have one to make. I've noticed you often revert edits with the summary 'better before'. This is just not helpful. It's unlikely to produce any sort of constructive discussion, since it implies that there was something wrong with the change while providing absolutely no detail (policy-based, grammar-based, or otherwise) about what was wrong with it.

The result is that either you get into an edit war, or a discussion on the talk page that's already on the wrong foot, or, if they don't respond, you bite another editor by so bluntly reverting their contribution. You contribute a lot, but taking the time to give a specific reason for reverts rather than saying "better before", especially when the change is a matter of opinion and not clear vandalism, might help. Ganesha811 (talk) 03:38, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I will think about that. One of the problems is pure volume. I have a lot of pages on my watchlist, and I end up making a lot of edits in response to what's been done to them, so I fall back on "Better before" and "Not an improvement". I used to have a box on my talk page explaining what I mean by those canned replies (which are not so different from these commonly used abbreviations), but I took it down a while ago in a general clean up of the page. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:14, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ganesha811, I appreciate your commiserating about Beyond My Ken's modus. Clearly, my talk page is on BMK's watchlist radar. Amazing how he jumped in and promptly replied to your note to me. It was enlightening to have BMK explain his method and motivation tending his watchlist.

I am not a prolific Wikipedia editor. I read Wikipedia articles and see things to fix. I read about things in newspapers, magazines, and books; I watch movies; I then look to Wikipedia to see what is said. Sometimes I find things to fix, sometimes I find things to add. My goal is to make Wikpedia content accurate and not confusing. A lot of Wikipedia writing is good, but some writing is pretty bad. I fix the bad when I find it.

About my observation on BMK's modus. A while back BMK and I tangled over an edit I made to Operation Sea Lion. It was my first encounter with BMK I was simply trying to clarify a poorly written sentence and in the process removed the word "successfully". BMK reverted my edit and strongly disagreed (he did do an edit summary explaining) and goaded me into an edit war (I thought I had made an improvement, but BMK clearly disagreed) and escalated it to an Administrator's Notice board and added that I made a "personal assault" against him. I was very surprised and offended about how I had been treated. This encounter with BMK was a bad thing, I wondered how it could be fixed.

It seemed to me that BMK was seeking controversy, wanting an argument. He was brusk, bullying, demanding, and condescending. BMK was on the offensive, attacking, leaving no room to collaborate. I came away from this encounter a bit hurt by what I considered a hostile environment--it was not right, it was not necessary. I thought that BMK's behavior was not appropriate visa via the espoused Wikipedia philosophy and policy and guidance about cooperation in writing an encyclopedia.

Since then, I have been trying to figure out what is/was going on with the Wikipedia environment by observing. Recently BMK took umbrage with a newish editor. The editor fixed a run-on sentence, and BMK goaded an editing war about an argument about "proper grammar". The edit argument had no merit, after all, good grammar is good grammar. BMK was harsh to the editor and was wrong in his position. What BMK was doing did not seem logical (what was BMK's motivation?). I felt the editor need support so I stepped in and pointed out how BMK was behaving badly. But, BMK refused to see anything but his point of view. This encounter was a bad thing happening in Wikipedia.

With Beyond My Ken having joined the conversation with you, and you with having made the good suggestion to him about edit summaries, and BMK acknowledging, may be . . .

I need to reply to Beyond My Ken congenially to seek resolution. I would prefer to like him.

Osomite ^hablemos 05:20, 6 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

<personal attack by IP editor redacted>

((rpa)). It's OK to disagree with BMK's editing but name-calling is against our WP:NPA policy. – EdJohnston (talk) 03:38, 21 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

EdJohnston, you removed a personal attack that was made by an anonymous IP editor (an attack against Beyond My Ken, perhaps, as no specific editor was named in the post that was removed). Inadvertently (I hope), you made your statement quite ambiguous--it appears damning to me due to a lack of information to the contrary. Your comment makes it appear that I made the personal attack and not an anonymous IP editor. I realize that few people read my talk page and would see your comment, but in the spirit of accuracy, could you clarify who did what to whom? I would appreciate it. Osomite ^hablemos 20:52, 21 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:56, 21 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Your recent editing history at Veracity of statements by Donald Trump shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See the bold, revert, discuss cycle for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in you being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you do not violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. PackMecEng (talk) 23:33, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@PackMecEng: quit being a bully. You are have initiated this supposed edit war over your agitationist view that facts must have a NPOV. You are arguing against the facts and the truth. Or is your starting an edit war with me personal? Or as your recent Block from editing on the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard shows, are you are just looking to create controversy and be generally disagreeable. Your apparent Trump revisionist agenda is not a good look. Why are you so set against having the truth told about Trump? Is the truth a threat to your weltanschauung?Osomite ^hablemos 00:12, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I was not the first one to revert you nor the last to disagree with your edit. You are welcome to take me to ANI or AN if you wish. You appear to be hear to WP:RGW. PackMecEng (talk) 00:14, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@PackMecEng: My, my, my. You do carry on so. Trying to mount a defense to justify your behavior is so pathetic.

Please quit posting comments on my talk page (actually, please quit doing it anywhere in Wikipedia) about things you demonstrate little understanding.

"Righting Great Wrongs?" That's a pretty feeble effort at gaslighting. You are accusing me of the behavior you are engaging in yourself. Clearly with your false "not NPV" claims, you are in the WP:RWG mode trying to rewrite history to falsely burnish Trump's legacy which consists of tens of thousands of lies. You clearly have a very, very big job ahead of you defending the beloved Supreme Leader.

Go away. Go bully someone else.

Osomite ^hablemos 20:09, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just so you know, there is nothing particularly personal in PME's behavior, they do this sort of thing quite often - I keep having to warn them about following me around to comment on things I post. (An admin offered to block them for it, but I didn't feel like compiling the evidence that would have been required.) For laughs, you should read this (the part that's been collapsed) and their "discussion" of the block that resulted from it on their talk page [1]. It's almost surrealistic. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:16, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Next Housekeeping deletes begin here. . .

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2021).

Guideline and policy news

• 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.

• Additionally, consensus for proposal 6C of the 2021 RfA review has led to the creation of an administrative action review process. The purpose of this process will be to review individual administrator actions and individual actions taken by users holding advanced permissions.

Arbitration

• Following the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Cabayi, Donald Albury, Enterprisey, Izno, Opabinia regalis, Worm That Turned, Wugapodes.

Miscellaneous

• 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.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --15:13, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2022).

Guideline and policy news

• The Universal Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines have been published for consideration. Voting to ratify this guideline is planned to take place 7 March to 21 March. Comments can be made on the talk page.

Technical news

• 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.

Arbitration

• Community input is requested on several motions aimed at addressing discretionary sanctions that are no longer needed or overly broad.
• The Arbitration Committee has published a generalised comment regarding successful appeals of sanctions that it can review (such as checkuser blocks).
• A motion related to the Antisemitism in Poland case was passed following a declined case request.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2022 Steward elections will begin on 07 February 2022, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2022, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• Voting in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey is open until 11 February 2022.

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2022).

Guideline and policy news

• A RfC is open to change the wording of revision deletion criterion 1 to remove the sentence relating to non-infringing contributions.
• 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)
• Special:Nuke will now allow the selection of standard deletion reasons to be used when mass-deleting pages. This was a Community Wishlist Survey request from 2022. (T25020)
• The ability to undelete the talk page when undeleting a page using Special:Undelete or the API will be added soon. This change was requested in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey. (T295389)

Arbitration

• Several unused discretionary sanctions and article probation remedies have been rescinded. This follows the community feedback from the 2021 Discretionary Sanctions review.

Miscellaneous

• The 2022 appointees for the Ombuds commission are Érico, Faendalimas, Galahad, Infinite0694, Mykola7, Olugold, Udehb and Zabe as regular members and Ameisenigel and JJMC89 as advisory members.
• Following the 2022 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AntiCompositeNumber, BRPever, Hasley, TheresNoTime, and Vermont.
• The 2022 Community Wishlist Survey results have been published alongside the ranking of prioritized proposals.

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Hey! I noticed you undid my change to Skeuomorph to add the Flag of the Haudenosaunee. What is the reasoning behind this not being a skeuomorph? The stair-stepping on the tree in the middle of the flag was a necessary structure in the original belt because it was made from beads. The design of the flag is explicitly fashioned after the design of the belt, and although the stair-steps are no longer needed, they are still included. --Blacklemon67 (talk) 23:22, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Blacklemon67: This type of discussion should be on the Skeuomorph Talk Page. I am going to move your comment there and provide my reply.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --10:06, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2022).

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open proposing a change to the minimum activity requirements for administrators.

Technical news

• 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)

Arbitration

• Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures § Opening of proceedings has been updated to reflect current practice following a motion.
• A arbitration case regarding Skepticism and coordinated editing has been closed.
• A arbitration case regarding WikiProject Tropical Cyclones has been opened.

Miscellaneous

• Voting for the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines has closed, and the results were that 56.98% of voters supported the guidelines. The results of this vote mean the Wikimedia Foundation Board will now review the guidelines.

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2022).

Guideline and policy news

• 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.
• Following a discussion on the bureaucrat's noticeboard, a change has been made to the bureaucrats inactivity policy.

Technical news

• The ability to undelete the associated talk page when undeleting a page has been added. This was the 11th wish of the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey.
• 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.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --12:52, 1 June 2022 (UTC) (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2022).

Guideline and policy news

• Several areas of improvement collated from community member votes have been identified in the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines. The areas of improvement have been sent back for review and you are invited to provide input on these areas.

Technical news

• 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.

Arbitration

• Remedy 2 of the Rachel Marsden case has been rescinded following a motion. The remedy previously authorised administrators to delete or reduce to a stub, together with their talk pages, articles related to Rachel Marsden when they violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy.
• An arbitration case regarding WikiProject Tropical Cyclones has been closed.

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2022).

Technical news

• user_global_editcount is a new variable that can be used in abuse filters to avoid affecting globally active users. (T130439)

Arbitration

• An arbitration case regarding conduct in deletion-related editing has been opened.

Miscellaneous

• 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.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --16:46, 1 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2022).

Administrator changes

Valereee

Anthony Appleyard (deceased) • Capitalistroadster • Samsara

Guideline and policy news

• 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.

Technical news

• The Wikimania 2022 Hackathon will take place virtually from 11 August to 14 August.
• 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.

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2022).

Guideline and policy news

• 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 email Madalina 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.
• Voting for candidates for the Wikimedia Board of Trustees is open until 6 September.

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Sorry about the confusion - I was referring specifically to the use of the source as being not entirely random. Don't want to get back into that discussion; just want to apologize for the communication differences. I'm from the Ozarks and have a rural background so I learned a somewhat bastardized version of most common English idioms/pronunciations/spellings/grammatical constructions that can be at time confusing. Hog Farm _Talk 13:55, 9 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Hog Farm:, I appreciate hearing from you. No worries, it's all good.

I understand about rural idioms and such. Sometimes I encounter the same things-especially about pronunciation and I am particularly bad at spelling as I am slightly dyslexic. I have to work hard in getting writing right. I hail from a very rural part of Northern Eastern California. I had a neighbor from Missouri and I loved to listen to her talk. We lived high up in the Sierra Nevada mountains and whenever she talked about going west into the central valley, she would say about "going down below". And talking about something "over there", she would say "yonder". A wonderful lady. And since many of the older timers (way back then), like my grandmother, were one generation removed from the gold miners of the 1849 gold rush, they had their way with words also. Good memories.Osomite 🐻 (hablemos) 20:31, 11 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --12:21, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2022).

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, consensus was found that if the rationale for a block depends on information that is not available to all administrators, that information should be sent to the Arbitration Committee, a checkuser or an oversighter for action (as applicable, per ArbCom's recent updated guidance) instead of the administrator making the block.
• Following an RfC, consensus has been found that, in the context of politics and science, the reliability of FoxNews.com is unclear and that additional considerations apply to its use.
• Community comment on the revised Universal Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines is requested until 8 October.

Technical news

• The Articles for creation helper script now automatically recognises administrator accounts which means your name does not need to be listed at WP:AFCP to help out. If you wish to help out at AFC, enable AFCH by navigating to Preferences → Gadgets and checking the "Yet Another AfC Helper Script" box.

Arbitration

• Remedy 8.1 of the Muhammad images case will be rescinded 1 November following a motion.
• A modification to the deletion RfC remedy in the Conduct in deletion-related editing case has been made to reaffirm the independence of the RfC and allow the moderators to split the RfC in two.
• The second phase of the 2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Review closes 3 October.

Miscellaneous

• An administrator's account was recently compromised. Administrators are encouraged to check that their passwords are secure, and reminded that ArbCom reserves the right to not restore adminship in cases of poor account security. You can also use two-factor authentication (2FA) to provide an extra level of security.
• Self-nominations for the electoral commission for the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections open 2 October and close 8 October.
• You are invited to comment on candidates in the 2022 CUOS appointments process.
• An RfC is open to discuss whether to make Vector 2022 the default skin on desktop.
• Tech tip: You can do a fuzzy search of all deleted page titles at Special:Undelete.

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2022).

Guideline and policy news

• The article creation at scale RfC opened on 3 October and will be open until at least 2 November.
• An RfC is open to discuss having open requests for adminship automatically placed on hold after the seven-day period has elapsed, pending closure or other action by a bureaucrat.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 13 November 2022 until 22 November 2022 to stand in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections.
• The arbitration case request titled Athaenara has been resolved by motion.
• The arbitration case Reversal and reinstatement of Athaenara's block has entered the proposed decision stage.
• AmandaNP, Mz7 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2022 Arbitration Committee Elections. Xaosflux and Dr vulpes are reserve commissioners.

Miscellaneous

• The 2022 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process has concluded with the appointment of two new CheckUsers.
• You can add yourself to the centralised page listing time zones of administrators.
• Tech tip: Wikimarkup in a block summary is parsed in the notice that the blockee sees. You can use templates with custom options to specify situations like ((rangeblock|create=yes)) or ((uw-ublock|contains profanity)).

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Sorry, you're claiming that it's pronounced both por-TOH-lə and like "power-tall-ah", while claiming that they're the same. I suspect that you aren't familiar with the key, but if you are adding a second pronunciation, you need to provide a source. YouTube is good enough. Can you find someone on YouTube pronouncing it the way you think is correct? — kwami (talk) 02:24, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Kwamikagami: I think that your reclama and knowledge about this issue would be better placed on the Portola talk page rather than hiding it on my obscure talk page. Inquiring minds will want to know.

I will put this discussion on the Portola talk page. Please make your responses there.

I see from your user page that you have knowledge about how words are pronounced.

Your last edit on the Portola article you deleted my pronunciation of "pour|toll|'|ɑh". It has been in the article for quite some time. Wikipedia guidance tells that long-time-standing edits should not be changed without some talk page discussion and agreement first. Why didn't you just leave it alone?

I am puzzled, "power-tall-ah"? Where did that come from? Do you think that my "pour" comes out as "power"; "ur" sounds like "wer"? Seriously. Please explain how/where you came by that. Sounds made up for argument's sake to me.

I guess that I don't understand the obscure rule about creating that dialectical pronunciation of a place name. Where in the wide wide world of Wikipedia guidance is that explained? You say that a "reference" to the local dialectic pronunciation is required. Where exactly in the literature of the world would one find that reference? Surely you jest. I laugh that you think youtube is a reliable source. What do you want me to do, create a youtube titled "This is how you pronounce the name of the small rural town of Portola, California" and say the word Portola correctly pronounced many many times, and maybe, for no particular reason, read the Wikipedia article. Do you see how silly that idea is? And, by the way, Wikipedia does not consider youtube to be a reliable source.

I see that in your most recent edit you deleted the native area pronunciation (that I rendered to the best of my ability) of "pour|toll|'|ɑh"; or should I have presented it as "pourtollah"? I know this is the sound of how the folks in the area speak the town's name. I know because I live there. I hear it spoken that way almost every day. Why is it that you disagree about something you have never heard?

I don't quite understand how you rendered the "respelled" pronunciation as "por|TOH|lə". Where did you hear that pronunciation? I am particularly curious about the last syllable "lə"? You think that "la" has an unexpected vowel sound so you represent it with the schwa symbol? So if it is an unexpected vowel sound, what is is the actual sound?

In my local knowledge, the last syllable of "Portola" sounds distinctly like "ah". The last syllable consists of just the "a"; the "l" is spoken in the second syllable with the "to" and that sounds like "toll". Yes, I know, the hill folk of the eastern lost sierras speak funny. When you use "por" as the pronunciation of the first syllable, does it sound like "pour"?

Please tell me how you have expert knowledge about the pronunciation of the name of the village hamlet Portola? (I remember on the Today show in June 1960, when David Garraway mentioned that "the village hamlet of Portola (and he actually pronounced it as a Portolian would expect) is being threatened by forest fire". That was all he said--I heard it and I was gobsmacked that the news of the day from New York was about such an isolated place. So, every now and then, I like to use Dave's description of my town--village hamlet; however, it isn't hamlet-like.)

In one of your edit summaries, (or perhaps it was the edit you made on my talk page and then subsequently deleted--tsk, tsk. That was bad editor manners. If I want something on my talk page deleted, I will delete it) you wanted to "hear" the pronunciation. If you need to "hear" Portola spoken how do you know that the "funny" and unreadable, at least to me, International Phonetic Alphabet rendered pronunciation of (/pɔːrˈtoʊlə/) that has been in the article for quite some time, is correct? If you don't know how it sounds, how can you vouch for that pronunciation? Perhaps "(/pɔːrˈtoʊlə/)" should be deleted.

As background concerning the pronunciation of Portola and the reason for my involvement, an editor arrogantly assumed that the word was actually pronounced according to the Spanish language like the name of the explorer Gaspar de Portolá y Rovira for whom the town is indirectly named--that is a story in itself that I will include in the article after I have the necessary references that I hope to find in the Bancroft Library at Cal. So to correct that incorrect attribution, I edited and provided the native dialectic sound for the name and explained on the Portola talk page about the how and why of the edit.

I just realized that there is a district in San Francisco named "Portola". It is pronounced "close" to the lost sierra dialect, but not exactly. That pronunciation would be acceptable, but it would not be exact.

Osomite 🐻 (hablemos) 05:00, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I stopped reading your response when it became clear that you weren't being serious. We just can't take your word about something. You need evidence. And yes, if you have, say, the local news station pronouncing "Portola", or an interview with the police chief, that would probably be acceptable evidence for most people. — kwami (talk) 05:39, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Kwamikagami: You stopped reading my response? How rude. I read your responses without stopping. It is petty of you to be criticizing my writing style.

Please note that I pointed out to you that further comment on this issue should appropriately be done on the Portola talk page. But you are ignoring my reasonable and logical request. Why is that?

I am requesting, make that demanding, that you no longer post on my talk page. I am within my rights to bar from positing here--there's guidance about this somewhere in the Wikipedia monolith but I am not going to find it for you.

I would like to point out that you need to add edit summaries when you post. Empty edit summaries are not satisfactory

You are discounting my position because you don't consider it to be serious. That's pretty arrogant. Don't you have a sense of humor? Is the world of posting pronunciations always deadly serious? If so, that is so sad.

There is content in my post which is quite relevant and on point, but you are ignoring it. I guess that is the easy way out for you, just disregard any argument that challenges your position. It seems you quit because you have nothing to support your position--all you are doing is citing a rule you have made-up and demanding evidence. When you post a new or revised pronunciation, where do you find your reference (aka evidence)? You clearly have no expert knowledge of the correct pronunciation of the word Portola, yet you refuse to address my position by falsely claiming superior knowledge and intelligence concerning the pronunciation of words. OMG!

Addressing your demanded acceptable proofs, there is no local radio station in the county--it is really rural and damn near dirt poor. And about "an interview" with the Chief of Police", there is no Chief of Police. The law enforcement is the Sheriff of Plumas County located in the county seat. In any case, where would this interview have taken place where the word "Portola" would be correctly pronounced? Were you anticipating that a recording of a radio station there would be available? Your thinking is a bit ivory tower, what planet are you living on?

As a Wikipedia editor aren't you supposed to honor the Wikipedia's Five Pillars? Consider the pillar that directs that "Wikipedia's editors should treat each other with respect and civility". This includes a basic tenant of seeking consensus and avoiding edit wars. And, notice the 5th pillar--Wikipedia has no firm rules.

I asked questions, and you are ignoring them. You demand evidence but you will not attempt any collegial effort or cooperation. What rule can you site that requires that I must render to you evidence about the pronunciation of the word "Portola"?

And once again, I will also add this post to the Portola talk page.

I hope you have read this far and not stopped earlier due to your opinion of my writing style. If you refuse to engage by posting on the Portola talk page, I will consider that you have surrendered the discussion.

Osomite 🐻 (hablemos) 09:04, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --11:19, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2022).

Guideline and policy news

• Consensus has been found in an RfC to automatically place RfAs on hold after one week.
• The article creation at scale RfC has been closed.
• An RfC on the banners for the December 2022 fundraising campaign has been closed.

Technical news

• A new preference named "Enable limited width mode" has been added to the Vector 2022 skin. The preference is also shown as a toggle on every page if your monitor is 1600 pixels or wider. When disabled it removes the whitespace added by Vector 2022 on the left and right of the page content. Disabling this preference has the same effect as enabling the wide-vector-2022 gadget. (T319449)

Arbitration

• Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 12, 2022 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.
• The proposed decision for the 2021-22 review of the discretionary sanctions system is open.
• The arbitration case Reversal and reinstatement of Athaenara's block has been closed.
• The arbitration case Stephen has been opened and the proposed decision is expected 1 December 2022.
• A motion has modified the procedures for contacting an admin facing Level 2 desysop.

Miscellaneous

• Tech tip: A single IPv6 connection usually has access to a "subnet" of 18 quintillion IPs. Add /64 to the end of an IP in Special:Contributions to see all of a subnet's edits, and consider blocking the whole subnet rather than an IP that may change within a minute.

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2022).

Guideline and policy news

• Speedy deletion criterion A5 (transwikied articles) has been repealed following an unopposed proposal.

Arbitration

• Following the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, CaptainEek, GeneralNotability, Guerillero, L235, Moneytrees, Primefac, SilkTork.
• The 2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Review has concluded with many changes to the discretionary sanctions procedure including a change of the name to "contentious topics". The changes are being implemented over the coming month.
• The arbitration case Stephen has been closed.

Miscellaneous

• Voting for the Sound Logo has closed and the winner is expected to be announced February to April 2023.
• Tech tip: You can view information about IP addresses in a centralised location using bullseye which won the Newcomer award in the recent Coolest Tool Awards.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --14:15, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, the administrator policy now requires that prior written consent be gained from the Arbitration Committee to mark a block as only appealable to the committee.
• Following a community discussion, consensus has been found to impose the extended-confirmed restriction over the topic areas of Armenia and Azerbaijan and Kurds and Kurdistan.

Technical news

• The Vector 2022 skin has become the default for desktop users of the English Wikipedia.

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 has been opened and the proposed decision is expected 24 February 2023.
• In December, the contentious topics procedure was adopted which replaces the former discretionary sanctions system. The contentious topics procedure is now in effect following an initial implementation period. There is a detailed summary of the changes and administrator instructions for the new procedure. The arbitration clerk team are taking suggestions, concerns, and unresolved questions about this new system at their noticeboard.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2023 Steward elections will begin on 05 February 2023, 21:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2023, 21:00 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• Voting in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey will begin on 10 February 2023 and end on 24 February 2023. You can submit, discuss and revise proposals until 6 February 2023.
• Tech tip: Syntax highlighting is available in both the 2011 and 2017 Wikitext editors. It can help make editing paragraphs with many references or complicated templates easier.

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

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, F10 (useless non-media files) has been deprecated.
• Following a request for comment, the Portal CSD criteria (P1 (portal subject to CSD as an article) and P2 (underpopulated portal)) have been deprecated.
• A request for comment is open to discuss making the closing instructions for the requested moves process a guideline.

Technical news

• The results of the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey have been posted.

Arbitration

• Remedy 11 ("Request for Comment") of the Conduct in deletion-related editing case has been rescinded.
• The proposed decision for the Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 case is expected 7 March 2023.
• A case related to the Holocaust in Poland is expected to be opened soon.

Miscellaneous

• The 2023 appointees for the Ombuds commission are AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, JJMC89, MdsShakil, Minorax and Renvoy as regular members and Zabe as advisory members.
• Following the 2023 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Mykola7, Superpes15, and Xaosflux.
• The Terms of Use update cycle has started, which includes a [p]roposal for better addressing undisclosed paid editing. Feedback is being accepted until 24 April 2023.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --12:46, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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

Guideline and policy news

• A community RfC is open to discuss whether reports primarily involving gender-related disputes or controversies should be referred to the Arbitration enforcement noticeboard.

Technical news

• Some older web browsers will not be able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis starting this week. This mainly affects users of Internet Explorer 11. (T178356)
• The rollback of Vector 2022 RfC has found no consensus to rollback to Vector legacy, but has found rough consensus to disable "limited width" mode by default.
• A link to the user's Special:CentralAuth page will now appear in the subtitle links shown on Special:Contributions. This was voted #17 in the Community Wishlist Survey 2023.

Arbitration

• The Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 case has been closed.
• A case about World War II and the history of Jews in Poland has been opened, with the first evidence phase closing 6 April 2023.

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

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.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --10:04, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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

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.

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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.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --11:22, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[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.

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

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.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --14:27, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[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!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --16:16, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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

Guideline and policy news

• Following a talk page discussion, the Administrators' accountability policy has been updated to note that while it is considered best practice for administrators to have notifications (pings) enabled, this is not mandatory. Administrators who do not use notifications are now strongly encouraged to indicate this on their user page.

Arbitration

• Following a motion, the Extended Confirmed Restriction has been amended, removing the allowance for non-extended-confirmed editors to post constructive comments on the "Talk:" namespace. Now, non-extended-confirmed editors may use the "Talk:" namespace solely to make edit requests related to articles within the topic area, provided that their actions are not disruptive.
• The Arbitration Committee has announced a call for Checkusers and Oversighters, stating that it will currently be accepting applications for CheckUser and/or Oversight permissions at any point in the year.
• Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 11, 2023 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.

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

Arbitration

• Following the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Aoidh, Cabayi, Firefly, HJ Mitchell, Maxim, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720.
• Following a motion, the Arbitration Committee rescinded the restrictions on the page name move discussions for the two Ireland pages that were enacted in June 2009.
• The arbitration case Industrial agriculture has been closed.

Miscellaneous

• The New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in January 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 13,000 unreviewed articles awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!

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