This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Hi Can you rename my user name from Rohollah.ghanbari to Rohollah_Ghanbari ? Tank you :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rohollah.ghanbari (talk • contribs)

 Done per your email request to me. 28bytes (talk) 03:12, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

[1] -- who cares if he was "no longer an administrator" -- the guy gave ten years of his life to this place -- it's totally not important. Probably the stupidest most pointless thing I've ever seen you post. NE Ent 00:33, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I was under the impression the poster was seeking removal of administrative rights. No disrespect was intended. –xeno^talk 00:43, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Ah -- thought / was hoping it was something like that. That would make sense if it was BN instead of AN, but there wasn't a request for removal rights for the account, so it doesn't read quite right. NE Ent 01:52, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

There wasn't any context at all. –xeno^talk 02:00, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Context: Death. Sadness. Appreciation. NE Ent 03:16, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Mea culpa. Thanks for your refactoring, I approve. –xeno^talk 13:42, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Looks like I wasn't alone in misinterpreting the thread. –xeno^talk 10:56, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Special:CentralAuth/Steinbeck

Special:CentralAuth/Csteinbeck

Hi Xeno, in 2014 I issued a merge request (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Changing_username/Usurpations/Rejected/21#Csteinbeck_.E2.86.92_Steinbeck) which you were dealing with. In the end, you referred to an upcoming merge tool which would deal with my request some time in the future. In the mean time, my "old" account, which I wanted to usurp, got renamed to something like "steinbeck_enwiki", so I assume something has happened. Can you enlighten me? :) Thanks, Chris Csteinbeck (talk) 16:07, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

@Csteinbeck: Apparently the merge tool will now not be available, at least in any kind of near term. If you want to be called Steinbeck, that could probably be arranged but we can't merge the two accounts. –xeno^talk 16:28, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

@Xeno:Thanks for the reply. Would the rename give me back my old edits under the name 'steinbeck'? In particular in the german wikipedia I did quite some. Otherwise it is not worth the effort, just for the sake of a different name. Csteinbeck (talk) 16:42, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure if we can help you stitch those accounts together, certainly not if you can't remember the password. –xeno^talk 16:54, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Welcome to "the deep dark black hole" — Ched :  ?  14:43, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Quite. It seems the only winning move is not to play. –xeno^talk 14:49, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

I have GOT to remember that response. I'd imagine that more than a few folks could have predicted a difficult close once things got down to the 70% range and lower. I would have more to add there, but I'd be afraid that the wording would be twisted into an accusation of gloating. To be honest, I was actually working on a "congrats" if it had gone in the "promote" direction (hoping it would calm any "but we opposed" commentary) - some of which I used in my response to Hawkeye's thank you statement.

<thinking> .. Crat eh? Seems much like a fireman's job. Days and days of boredom, with sudden flashes of more drama than you could shake a stick at. I can understand some of the thinking there, but there are other posts which leave me in a perpetual *headdesk* state.

Anyway - thanks for doing the tough jobs. (feel free to pass it along to the others at the next cabal meeting) — Ched :  ?  15:16, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, things will probably quiet down 'until the next big one'. Thanks for your kind words. –xeno^talk 23:28, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

The last time I explained my read of consensus in general (which is more or less in line with yours), I got the same response. The lesson I learned is to explain less, which is unfortunate but less drama prone. There is a lot of nuance to determining consensus, and it is more art than science. This is particularly true when trying to explain it to people that see it as binary, rather than fluid. I think this first major test went fairly well in all respects. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:39, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

I will admit that it would have been the 'path of least resistance' to simply say, like some of my colleagues [who I am not criticizing, mind you], that "I just don't see consensus here" (indeed no one argued against their positions), without referring to any of the thought processes that I had used - but I would rather be honest and upfront about my methods and be willing to listen to the feedback regarding them. And of course, our guiding document indicates that we "are expected to explain the reasoning for [our] actions on request and in a civil manner". –xeno^talk 00:00, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree, and that is how I got into the debate. In the end, I was not dissuaded from my methods, in spite of the exact same arguments you just saw. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:24, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes - that "nuance" thing that Dennis mentions is key. Plus - there was obviously some lack of understanding in regards to consensus in general, and consensus as it pertains to individual .. umm - projects isn't the right word - but consensus of a RfC or XfD rather than consensus at say RfX, where it's the boundaries which are being determined. (hey Dennis, how the heck ya doin?) — Ched :  ?  00:32, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Related: Special:Diff/703030113. –xeno^talk 02:03, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

How are you? It has been a long time, again. Congratulations on the nomination; the header made an excellent start to my post. :) Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:16, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Ncm. I'm well, how are you? Thanks for dropping by :) I added a new header because I still haven't claimed my shirt, lol. –xeno^talk 10:53, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Just wanted to thank you in a more "personal way" for the answers you offered me concerning the RfA process. I thought if I move here, I could isolate my words from a thread with the potential for misunderstanding. Caballero/Historiador ^⎌ 20:19, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

You're welcome, thanks for clarifying what you were asking. –xeno^talk 20:21, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I see that you have evaluated the situation on MBisanz user talk page. Since you are aware of the problem, why don't you take action?

I see this as a serious Wikipedia problem. There is bad behavior. There should be a systematic way to resolve it. ANI is not the proper place. There is too much drama there. By making a complaint there, there's a good chance that I would be attacked and there still wouldn't be resolution.

Therefore, my plans are to appeal to you to act. If not, I will let it go. Canadians are usually not like that. They can be quite helpful.

Ensign Hapuna of the Royal Hawaiian Navy (talk) 19:43, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm an administrator but I typically don't get involved in user conduct or civility enforcement. What actions would you like me to take? Would you like me to unarchive the section you posted? Would you like me to scold the user for their inappropriate and uncollegial language? (done) –xeno^talk 19:49, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your concern and comments, Xeno. It encourages me to come back to edit now. Ensign Hapuna of the Royal Hawaiian Navy (talk) 20:50, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

You're welcome, let me know if you experience further problems. –xeno^talk 20:57, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

This user seems to have real problems and issues. Look at his/her belligerent response (edit summary) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:BatteryIncluded&action=history Ensign Hapuna of the Royal Hawaiian Navy (talk) 21:05, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I probably wouldn't have bothered putting that link to them, I included their username in the message on your talk page and they would've received an 'echo' notification. For now I would say let it drop and just try to focus on content, rather than contributors. –xeno^talk 21:21, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree but thank you for your effort! It would have been a very unfriendly atmosphere if someone were nasty and everyone thought is was acceptable. I don't seek an eye for an eye. Ensign Hapuna of the Royal Hawaiian Navy (talk) 00:26, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

	The Barnstar of Diligence
	Just because. Winterysteppe (talk) 03:59, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

My request for username usurpation is way past the hold period of 1 week. Since you are one of the most active renamers here, I request to please fulfill mine and other's usurpation requests. Thanks. - Randomuser0122 13:15, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

•  Done, thanks for the note. –xeno^talk 12:06, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Should these redirects be tagged for deletion ? Mlpearc (open channel) 15:06, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Probably not (they're harmless), they just don't need to be listed in such a long list. –xeno^talk 15:07, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

I was thinking that they would find there way back easily if they're still around, (looks like I'm a closet deletionist :P ) Cheers, Mlpearc (open channel) 15:11, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

. . . for approving my name change.(1). Bunai (talk) 01:54, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Been trying to get that done for a while now. Unquietwiki (talk) 19:20, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Happy to help! –xeno^talk 19:31, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

I adding an eating trigger. For example, if you put eating in your user status, you would get

Xeno is eating

. Just to let you know. Peter Sam Fan 14:38, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Sure... Is that a public domain donut though? –xeno^talk 14:42, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

WP:A7M and Wikipedia talk:Credible claim of significance Bazj (talk) 18:16, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the pointer. –xeno^talk 19:05, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

	The Admin's Barnstar
	because i can Winterysteppe (talk) 02:32, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Further to User talk:Xeno/Archive 32#fyi... To you and to Redrose64, thanks for not pushing the various discussions together. Wikipedia talk:Shortcut#RfC: To deprecate WP: shortcuts to user essays seems to be lining up for a WP:SNOW close as caveat lector but the other two discussions are throwing up some interesting ideas for A7/uw-hasty and nuanced yes/no !votes at the significance discussion which would have not emerged in another year of discussing it all in one big lump. Thanks, Bazj (talk) 22:22, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

No problem. I just like to have the context, but understand about not muddying up a general discussion. –xeno^talk 13:10, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Your comment at arbcom caught my eye; "could you point to any misuse of the rollback or account creator facilities or otherwise explain why they cannot continue to be held by the editor? Removing them would seek punitive otherwise."
My Rollback was taken from me and I never even got to use it, never mind abusing it. Your view on this is admirable, I only wish that all admins had the same apprehension about using their tools for punishment. Cheers. - ^theWOLFchild 23:46, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Seconded! Irondome (talk) 23:51, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, we definitely shouldn't be removing userrights that aren't being misused just to punish someone for some other transgression. Is there no policy/guideline advice on this? –xeno^talk 13:09, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

I wish more admins were like you. Wikipedia would be a different place (for me at least). Keep up the good work. - ^theWOLFchild 14:01, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Dear Xeno,

You have just renamed this user. However, s(he) is currently blocked on meta-wiki for abusing of multiple accounts.

Regards, RadiX∞ 12:29, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought I had checked the CentralAuth page. Must have missed this one. The rename has been reverted. –xeno^talk 13:58, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello. This user seems to have moved their own user page to User:Vikram160797. But they seem to be editing from the first account as noted here. The history of the first name also indicates that there is another account User:Vikythewild. Please have a look. — LeoFrank  ^Talk 10:26, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

•  Done, fixed. Thanks for pointing that out. –xeno^talk 11:53, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for uploading File:Highlandergame2.jpg. However, there is a concern that the rationale provided for using this file on Wikipedia may not meet the criteria required by Wikipedia:Non-free content. This can be corrected by going to the file description page and adding or clarifying the reason why the file qualifies under this policy. Adding and completing one of the templates available from Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your file is in compliance with Wikipedia policy. Please be aware that a non-free use rationale is not the same as an image copyright tag; descriptions for files used under the non-free content policy require both a copyright tag and a non-free use rationale.

If it is determined that the file does not qualify under the non-free content policy, it might be deleted by an administrator within a few days in accordance with our criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions, please ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 21:05, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Xeno! Long time no chat! I hope you're doing well. I have a random question for you regarding the technical abilities of Administrators vs the technical abilities of Bureaucrats. According to both the Bureaucrat page as well as the user access levels table - you don't have the technical ability to grant the IPBE user right to an account, but you can revoke it. However, Administrators can both grant and revoke the IPBE user right to and from accounts. Is this true? And if so, why is that?

According to the 'crat page,

"Bureaucrats are Wikipedia users with the technical ability to:

• add the administrator, bureaucrat, account creator, reviewer, or bot user group to an account
• remove the administrator, account creator, IP block exemption, reviewer, or bot user group from an account."

The table I linked you shows a minus ("-") next to IPBE and the Bureaucrat user group, while Administrators shows a plus or minus ("±") next to IPBE. I'm just confused and curious at the same time as to why this is the case. I feel like this would have to be done purposefully and for a particular reason. It just seems odd to me... ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 16:05, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm not really sure, to be honest. You'd probably have to dig around really old bug reports (site requests) for when the group was being created to find out. One of my talk page watchers might have the answer or be able to help find it. –xeno^talk 02:25, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

It seems like it was added accidentally. I can't think of any good reason why the 'crat bit would have that. In Wikipedia's early days, the 'crat flag didn't exist and sysop promotions were done manually by the sysadmins. However, they then updated the MW software to allow users to promote to administrators on their own, which became the sole role for bureaucrats. Their roles have evolved into handling bot flagging and renaming, later removed, so I don't see where the IPBE comes into play.—^cyberpower_Chat:Online 17:05, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Isn't there developer logs? –xeno^talk 18:59, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Hey, I'd like some help workshopping a proposed new permission called "Page mover". Please see Wikipedia:Page mover and leave your comments at Wikipedia talk:Page mover (or just go ahead and edit your suggestions in). –xeno^talk 23:35, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Re: your comment now archived at Wikipedia talk:Page mover/Archive 1#Include history merge tool?: the results of that tool are reversible with the press of a button; see this log. Graham87 07:15, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Oh! Excellent. Thanks for pointing that out. –xeno^talk 15:04, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi, I was writing a draft article about Dr. Vipul Patel when I discovered that you previously deleted a page by the same name. I never saw the previous page, but I would like to be sure my page is not suffering from the same problems. Could you take a look? Draft:Dr. Vipul Patel

The page is not complete; it needs more references, and the sections on Major Career Events and Academic Career need more information. I am also not sure if the list of publications is too much.

Here is what I found about the previous page:

A page with this title has previously been deleted.

If you are creating a new page with different content, please continue. If you are recreating a page similar to the previously deleted page, or are unsure, please first contact the deleting administrator using the information provided below.

21:26, 23 June 2010 Xeno (talk | contribs) deleted page Dr. Vipul Patel (G12: Unambiguous copyright infringement: http://www.globalroboticsinstitute.com/en/urology-robotic-prostatectomy/why-dr-patel/achievements) 19:15, 23 June 2010 Xeno (talk | contribs) moved page Dr. Vipul Patel to User:PRPLwiki/Dr. Vipul Patel without leaving a redirect (WP:USERFY) (revert) 19:14, 23 June 2010 Xeno (talk | contribs) restored page Dr. Vipul Patel (5 revisions restored: WP:USERFY) 18:41, 23 June 2010 Fastily (talk | contribs) deleted page Dr. Vipul Patel (G11: Unambiguous advertising or promotion)

Proboscidian (talk) 01:50, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

I deleted the article because of the copyright violation, so as long your draft has no plagiarism or close paraphrasing my deletion would not prevent you from submitting a compliant article. –xeno^talk 02:11, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi, could you please move Article Kde domov můj? to Kde domov můj - original name in Czech is without question mark. Thanks --ThecentreCZ (talk) 00:19, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Okay, –xeno^talk 01:52, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Whack! You've been whacked with a wet trout. Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know you did something silly.

I know we're all keen to give Maile66 the mop! -- samtar ^{talk or stalk} 15:14, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Haha. Thanks for the thanks, after I received it that's when I double-checked things. No idea how this happened! Maybe because I've cut caffeine from my life?? –xeno^talk 15:15, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm always pretty ecstatic to see someone pass RfA, though I think this is a first! I always thought a caffeine habit was a requirement for a crat.. -- samtar ^{talk or stalk} 15:19, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

I see you said you didn't have your coffee when you closed Maile's RfA a little early, so here's a fresh cup for you. — Jkudlick • t • c • s 11:58, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! I think it must have helped, I think I managed not to muck anything up! –xeno^talk 15:29, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

You asked for it! --QEDK (T ☕ C) 16:44, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Paoc3030 is going to be a bureaucrat and administrator. 112.134.82.204 (talk) 09:16, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi I saw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Firyal_al-Muhammad this page of her royal highness Princess Firyal of Jordan using the name she doesn't use. She is known as Princess firyal of jordan(visit her website or the UNESCO page )

Please change the name to Princess Firyal of Jordan. If you want, I can give you more reliable sources. Like her identifications. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aj0ob009 (talk • contribs) 21:24, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

I always tell people it takes me six months to return a phone call. Thank-you for your message concerning administrator status. I was unaware until just a few minutes ago. I just got a computer, after many years of not having access to a machine of my own. I plan to return to active editing, and in a few months I intend to apply for re-instatement. I have always been a user of the resource (WP) but haven't logged onto my account, only very occasionally. I think I had a very solid record of pursuing high ideals within the body of the project, especially issues concerning racism and harassment within article space. See you around!

Hamster Sandwich (talk) 01:41, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

	The Original Barnstar
	thank you with love..your jennie. Jenox143 (talk) 06:04, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi Xeno. I wanted to request your time. Can you please take a quick look at Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations and see if I've done this okay? Thanks. Xender Lourdes (talk) 11:16, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

I want my username to be changed to "shaktibhai14" from "shaktimak14". Thanking you in advance. Please... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shaktimak14 (talk • contribs) 11:23, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

I've made a little proposal at Template talk:RMpmc#Appearance, and since all this is still so new, I'd like your input.  What's in your palette? Paine  19:04, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day, Xeno, from the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! Chris Troutman (talk) 14:23, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

It's been ten years, today. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:23, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Well how about that! Thanks for the note =) –xeno^talk 15:51, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi Xeno, just thought I'd run this by an admin before boldly taking off with this idea - the latest Tech News title was bungled when the mass-message sender sent it out. I've got a semi-automatic (as in, I'm having to verify and click "Save" after every found occurrence) AWB task set up which will fix these. Firstly, is this even needed, and secondly does this need any approval/consensus to do? -- samtar ^{talk or stalk} 13:39, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

What was wrong with it and how many pages were affected? –xeno^talk 13:41, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

It was initially posted missing a leading [, making the link syntax break:

[m:Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2016/29|Tech News: 2016-29]]

There are 517 subscribers to the newsletter, but not all of these are for the English Wikipedia -- samtar ^{talk or stalk} 13:45, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) You will trigger the "new messages" dialog for every user if you clean this up without actually being a bot. The bad section header isn't breaking the rest of the page, and isn't necessary to read the newsletter - so it may not need to be fixed. I have a bot approved to clean up other people's messes that could be run tonight if it is really worth it (ping me). — xaosflux ^Talk 13:57, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Good point on the new messages notification, perhaps spamming 400-odd people wouldn't make me overly popular.. As you say, it's not needed at all, but given the relatively low number of fixes required, and the ease of the fix, it may be worth using your mess-cleaning bot if you have time :) thanks -- samtar ^{talk or stalk} 14:03, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

FYI: I've got a bot job doing a stealthy cleanup, but only for enwiki user talks that are still present, I'm not chasing down all those other projects :D — xaosflux ^Talk 21:34, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Hello Xeno please help me. Please add UTC+5:45 in the list of Template:Time. It is standard time of Nepal. Thanks—Nepali keto62 _{Questions?!?!?} 07:57, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

@Nepali keto62: The procedure is listed there itself VarunFEB2003 (talk) 12:06, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

@VarunFEB2003: No it isn't when I keep NST as my time zone then error message is displayed.—Nepali keto62 _{Questions?!?!?} 12:09, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

It uses a module so maybe NST isnt in it you can add it VarunFEB2003 (talk) 12:10, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Nepali keto62, I added ((time|NPT)) (ex: 22:03, 21 February 2024 NPT [refresh] ). The change was made on page Module:Time. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:39, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Note NST is already in use for "Newfoundland Standard Time", I'm assuming Nepal time is NPT. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:41, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Hello, Xeno. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy.

Extended confirmed protection (also known as "30/500 protection") is a new level of page protection that only allows edits from accounts at least 30 days old and with 500 edits. The automatically assigned "extended confirmed" user right was created for this purpose. The protection level was created following this community discussion with the primary intention of enforcing various arbitration remedies that prohibited editors under the "30 days/500 edits" threshold to edit certain topic areas.

In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions:

• Extended confirmed protection may only be used in cases where semi-protection has proven ineffective. It should not be used as a first resort.
• A bot will post a notification at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard of each use. MusikBot currently does this by updating a report, which is transcluded onto the noticeboard.

Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you.
This message was sent to the administrators' mass message list. To opt-out of future messages, please remove yourself from the list. 17:49, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Dear Sir/Madam, Please clarify why my edits and contribution of previous account are not showing in my current account i.e. User:Pragmocialist. The edits i performed with my previous User:Pragmocialist account is showing for user:Pragmocialist (usurped), i want both contributions to be merged. Thank you.Pragmocialist (talk) 16:44, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, it is not possible to merge contribution histories. –xeno^talk 17:00, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Bureaucrats remove administrator rights if they remain inactive for one year. This administrator is inactive for more than 4 years but still has administrator rights

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Useight

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&limit=1&username=Useight — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.39.38.17 (talk) 04:42, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Useight is active on their alternate account Useight's Public Sock, see Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard/Archive 32#Bureaucrat Useight and similar threads. I don't know why they never use their main account. –xeno^talk 18:08, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Template:Xsign/month has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Frietjes (talk) 14:08, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:34, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi Xeno.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:48, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Hello, Xeno. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

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 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Xeno, I would be very grateful if you could rename my account to "SwapLink". Can you do this? Dannyboy 360 (talk) 18:58, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Hi Dannyboy 360. I'm not Xeno, but if you would like to have your username changed, please see WP:Changing username. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 20:42, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

K6ka, I did look at this, and that is why I knew how to request a change. Dannyboy 360 (talk) 00:38, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Template:Acc has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. GXXF T • C 16:27, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Godsy/Bureaucrat chat

I would be grateful for your input in the above discussion. Many thanks, WJBscribe via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:33, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Alien sideboob. Since you had some involvement with the Alien sideboob redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 00:00, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of video game exclusives (seventh generation) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of video game exclusives (seventh generation) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Odie5533 (talk) 17:06, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Template:Unblocked has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 07:58, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Hello Xeno: Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice if it's occurring in your area of the world, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 15:04, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use ((subst:Season's Greetings)) to send this message

You thief! Kidding. Happy New Year, and thanks for all your work all year (BAGs, page moves, WP:USURP, etc.). --JustBerry (talk) 21:56, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your message on the noticeboard concerning User:JohnCD's death. The thread has been closed while I have been offline. I am preparing a presentation on the Battle of the Somme and will not be online much, if at all, for a few days. I thought I would take a short break to see if the status of the matter had been cleared up. I take no pleasure in the outcome. I would have preferred to have been fooled and embarrassed by a hoax than to have one of Wikipedia's most learned, diligent, cautious and polite administrators, who did such good work, pass from among us. His contributions surely will be missed. Donner60 (talk) 06:41, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Leaving a note here since i notice that you have shown interest in history merges, and the idea of automating it, many years back. See wp:BTR#Bot for category history merges. 103.6.159.72 (talk) 14:13, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.

Administrator changes

NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67

Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13

Guideline and policy news

• A discussion to workshop proposals to amend the administrator inactivity policy at Wikipedia talk:Administrators has been in process since late December 2016.
• Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2016 closed with no consensus for implementing Pending changes level 2 with new criteria for use.
• Following an RfC, an activity requirement is now in place for bots and bot operators.

Technical news

• When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. (T34950)
• Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. (T156448)
• The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee released a response to the Wikimedia Foundation's statement on paid editing and outing.

Obituaries

• JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.

13:38, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Xeno, thank you (about a year and a half late) for your notification. I have been absent about five years all together, so I missed the entire discussion and am obviously well over the inactivity term. But thanks very much for the courtesy of explaining the situation! I've missed this place, I'm planning to make more time in my life for it in the near future. Dan 02:11, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Nice to see you around, Dan - I'm sure we would benefit from your resumed presence =). –xeno^talk 15:32, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Hello, I'd like to see the template's code. Could you copy it to my user space? Thanks. RoCo^(talk) 16:23, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

•  Done, Rollingcontributor see User:Rollingcontributor/Truestatus, User:Rollingcontributor/Truestatus/doc. –xeno^talk 19:18, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you! RoCo^(talk) 01:25, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes :)

Hello, Xeno. You have new messages at McDoobAU93's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((Talkback)) or ((Tb)) template.

--17:58, 28 February 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by McDoobAU93 (talk • contribs) 17:58, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Great! –xeno^talk 18:27, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2017).

Administrator changes

Amortias • Deckiller • BU Rob13

Ronnotel • Islander • Chamal N • Isomorphic • Keeper76 • Lord Voldemort • Shereth • Bdesham • Pjacobi

Guideline and policy news

• A recent RfC has redefined how articles on schools are evaluated at AfD. Specifically, secondary schools are not presumed to be notable simply because they exist.
• AfDs that receive little participation should now be closed like an expired proposed deletion, following a deletion process RfC.
• Defender, HakanIST, Matiia and Sjoerddebruin are our newest stewards, following the 2017 steward elections.
• The 2017 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Góngora, Krd, Lankiveil, Richwales and Vogone. They will serve for approximately 1 year.

Technical news

• A recent query shows that only 16% of administrators on the English Wikipedia have enabled two-factor authentication. If you haven't already enabled it please consider doing so.
• Cookie blocks should be deployed to the English Wikipedia soon. This will extend the current autoblock system by setting a cookie for each block, which will then autoblock the user after they switch accounts under a new IP.
• A bot will now automatically place a protection template on protected pages when admins forget to do so.

On 10 March 2017, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Xbox Game Pass, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the Xbox Game Pass has been described as "Netflix for video games"? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Xbox Game Pass. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, ), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Mifter (talk) 12:03, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Template:Maintenance category. Since you had some involvement with the Template:Maintenance category redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Jason Quinn (talk) 11:53, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Misclicked here, but I fixed it. Apologies if you got a confusing notification about the revert. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:21, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

No worries. –xeno^talk 20:27, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Template:Maintenance category. Since you had some involvement with the Template:Maintenance category redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. UpsandDowns1234 21:08, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2017).

Administrator changes

TheDJ

Xnuala • CJ • Oldelpaso • Berean Hunter • Jimbo Wales • Andrew c • Karanacs • Modemac • Scott

Guideline and policy news

• Following a discussion on the backlog of unpatrolled files, consensus was found to create a new user right for autopatrolling file uploads. Implementation progress can be tracked on Phabricator.
• The BLPPROD grandfather clause, which stated that unreferenced biographies of living persons were only eligible for proposed deletion if they were created after March 18, 2010, has been removed following an RfC.
• An RfC has closed with consensus to allow proposed deletion of files. The implementation process is ongoing.
• After an unsuccessful proposal to automatically grant IP block exemption, consensus was found to relax the criteria for granting the user right from needing it to wanting it.

Technical news

• After a recent RfC, moved pages will soon be featured in a queue similar to Special:NewPagesFeed and require patrolling. Moves by administrators, page movers, and autopatrolled editors will be automatically marked as patrolled.
• Cookie blocks have been deployed. This extends the current autoblock system by setting a cookie for each block, which will then autoblock the user if they switch accounts, even under a new IP.

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/GoldenRing/Bureaucrat chat

I would be grateful for your input in the above discussion. Many thanks, WJBscribe (talk) 12:15, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

At the above-mentioned discussion you stated "Controls are in place if any particular administrator starts behaving poorly." Please could you outline the controls available because I am dubious that such controls exist. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:17, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. –xeno^talk 16:31, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Please provide one example of the Arbitration Committee desysopping an administrator for incompetence. It has not happened during my time on site, but perhaps you're aware of an example from before my time. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 16:39, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

The committee is the last resort in a wide range of available dispute resolution options. If an admin displays incompetence, they can be talked to on their talk page and if that doesn't help, there is WP:AN, blocking, etc. –xeno^talk 16:51, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi Xeno. A discussion at User talk:K6ka#WP:USURP prompted me that the bot's responses need to be brought up to date with the (rather unsatisfactory) global renaming arrangements. I asked Anomie about it at User talk:Anomie#WP:CHU/U. Couple of questions...

1. Do you agree with the tweaks I've suggested?
2. Are you able to update Template:CUU accordingly?

The template's syntax is a bit too complicated for me to feel comfortable editing it without making a mess! Cheers, WJBscribe (talk) 09:57, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I will take a look a bit later. It's a bit too early in the morning to be fussing with nested if statements =) –xeno^talk 12:05, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

• @K6ka: do you know how to handle this? –xeno^talk 13:23, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
  • I can try in my userspace when I have time to dabble with it. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 14:21, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Bots Newsletter, April 2017

Greetings! The BAG Newsletter is now the Bots Newsletter, per discussion. As such, we've subscribed all bot operators to the newsletter. You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include: Arbcom Magioladitis ARBCOM case has closed. The remedies of the case include: Community encouraged to review common fixes Community encouraged to review policy on cosmetic edits Developers encouraged to improve AWB interface Bot approvals group encouraged to carefully review BRFA scope Reminders/Restrictions specific to Magioladitis BRFAs We currently have 27 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing! Discussions There are multiple ongoing discussions surrounding bot-related matters. In particular: RFC on COSMETICBOT Efforts at WP:CHECKWIKI to identify cosmetic fixes Requested move for the Bot Owners' Noticeboard A phabricator ticket T162685 has been made to have a "bots" tag, so issues related to bot frameworks can be tracked New things Several new things are around: A BAG Guide has been created (WP:BAGG, discussion). Users now have the option to hide AWB from their watchlists via a script (WP:HIDEAWB, discussion) The guidance on how to deal with bot issues has been overhauled (WP:BOTISSUE, discussion) The bot policy has been updated to clarify that bot operators are required to register accounts. (WP:BOTACCOUNT, discussion) Wikimania Wikimania 2017 is happening in Montreal, during 9–13 August. If you plan to attend, or give a talk, let us know! Thank you! edited by:Headbomb 11:35, 12 April 2017 (UTC) (You can unsubscribe from future newsletters by removing your name from this list.)

As you were involved in the discussion on ANI, I am bringing this to your attention: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Request_to_de-sysop_Jondel. Toddst1 (talk) 00:04, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2017).

Administrator changes

Karanacs • Berean Hunter • GoldenRing • Dlohcierekim

Gdr • Tyrenius • JYolkowski • Longhair • Master Thief Garrett • Aaron Brenneman • Laser brain • JzG • Dragons flight

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC has clarified that user categories should be emptied upon deletion, but redlinked user categories should not be removed if re-added by the user.
• Discussions are ongoing regarding proposed changes to the COI policy. Changes so far have included clarification that adding a link on a Wikipedia forum to a job posting is not a violation of the harassment policy.

Technical news

• You can now see a list of all autoblocks at Special:AutoblockList.
• There is a new tool for adding archives to dead links. Administrators are able to restrict other user's ability to use the tool, and have additional permissions when changing URL and domain data.
• Administrators, bureaucrats and stewards can now set an expiry date when granting user rights. (discuss, permalink)

Miscellaneous

• Following an RfC, the editing restrictions page is now split into a list of active restrictions and an archive of those that are old or on inactive accounts. Make sure to check both pages if searching for a restriction.

Psst...Xeno...Newyorkbrad left a comment in y'all's section...and I think he grabbed a handful of the beer nuts... Drmies (talk) 15:22, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

It's fine, the time it would take to read Newyorkbrad's apology for his minor transgression would outweigh the cost of the beer nuts ;p. Thanks for the pointer. –xeno^talk 15:37, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2017).

Administrator changes

Doug Bell • Dennis Brown • Clpo13 • ONUnicorn

ThaddeusB • Yandman • Bjarki S • OldakQuill • Shyam • Jondel • Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC proposing an off-wiki LTA database has been closed. The proposal was broadly supported, with further discussion required regarding what to do with the existing LTA database and defining access requirements. Such a tool/database formed part of the Community health initiative's successful grant proposal.
• Some clarifications have been made to the community banning and unblocking policies that effectively sync them with current practice. Specifically, the community has reached a consensus that when blocking a user at WP:AN or WP:ANI, it is considered a "community sanction", and administrators cannot unblock unilaterally if the user has not successfully appealed the sanction to the community.
• An RfC regarding the bot policy has closed with changes to the section describing restrictions on cosmetic changes.

Technical news

• Users will soon be able to blacklist specific users from sending them notifications.

Miscellaneous

• Following the 2017 elections, the new members of the Board of Trustees include Raystorm, Pundit and Doc James. They will serve three-year terms.

Hello Xeno. I very much appreciate your attempt to resolve the situation. WP:TPOC states Because threads are shared by multiple editors (regardless how many have posted so far), no one, including the original poster, "owns" a talk page discussion or its heading. It is generally acceptable to change headings when a better heading is appropriate, e.g., one more descriptive of the content of the discussion or the issue discussed, less one-sided, more appropriate for accessibility reasons, etc. To avoid disputes, it is best to discuss a heading change with the editor who started the thread, if possible, when a change is likely to be controversial. It can also sometimes be appropriate to merge entire sections under one heading (often preserving the later one as a subheading) if their discussions are redundant. In order to ensure links to the previous section heading (including automatically generated links in watchlists and histories) continue to work, one should use one of the following templates to anchor the old title:

Thread retitled from "(({1))}"., (({1))}, . Link (or template) markup may be removed from section headings, but the link should be recreated at the first use of the term, or in a hatnote.; WP:UP#OWN states Traditionally Wikipedia offers wide latitude to users to manage their user space as they see fit. I constantly notice others users changing section titles on their own talk page within reason as they see fit, and I believe it is a widely accepted practice to organize ones talk page as one sees fit. A more minor personal concern is that I keep my talk page very tidy and try to keep a consistent format which the formerly notice style does not match. I do not believe I should have to visibly retain the former section header, they've made their view clear in their post. Any objection if I change "Formerly Minor, pointless edits to ((anchor|Minor, pointless edits))? Best Regards, — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 17:05, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

If I grasp Calton's concern, it's that you are removing their statement that your edits are "pointless" (as this word is not repeated in their text). As a compromise, you could move the anchor to be the first words of their text, i.e. "((anchord|Minor, pointless edits)): Would you mind...", perhaps that would be amenable to Calton. –xeno^talk 17:23, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

 Done. See here. I've ignored a lot of section headers lately, some of which make far worse false allegations against me, but I should not have to tolerate them on own my talk page. Thanks again and Best Regards, — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 17:32, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Why does the bot think I blocked Amitshahid (see here)?--Bbb23 (talk) 17:59, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @Bbb23: multiple rename actions involved, your block is here. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:21, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Xaosflux, although I'd never be able to figure this out myself, and I still don't completely understand. Is there a reason why he's unblocked now?--Bbb23 (talk) 19:16, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

@Bbb23: Here is the timeline:

• 2016-05-04T14:43:04Z You blocked the account Meetuonline (currently called User:Meetuonline (usurped))
• 2016-05-16T21:08:00Z Vituzzu set {User:Meetuonline@global} to globally locked
• 2017-06-20T17:39:07Z Xeno renamed User:Meetuonline to User:Meetuonline (usurped)
• 2017-06-20T17:40:20Z Xeno renamed User:Amitshahid to User:Meetuonline

So the account you blocked (and Vituzzu locked) still is, but was renamed - and someone else is now using that username. Hope that helps? — xaosflux ^Talk 20:03, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Perfect, thanks!--Bbb23 (talk) 20:08, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2017).

Administrator changes

Happyme22 • Dragons flight

Zad68

Guideline and policy news

• The RFC discussion regarding WP:OUTING and WMF essay about paid editing and outing (see more at the ArbCom noticeboard archives) is now archived. Milieus #3 and #4 received support; so did concrete proposal #1.

Technical news

• Fuzzy search will soon be added to Special:Undelete, allowing administrators to search for deleted page titles with results similar to the search query. You can test this by adding ?fuzzy=1 to the URL, as with Special:Undelete?fuzzy=1. Currently the search only finds pages that exactly match the search term.
• A new bot will automatically revision delete unused file versions from files in Category:Non-free files with orphaned versions more than 7 days old.

Miscellaneous

• A newly revamped database report can help identify users who may be eligible to be autopatrolled.
• A potentially compromised account from 2001–2002 attempted to request resysop. Please practice appropriate account security by using a unique password for Wikipedia, and consider enabling two-factor authentication. Currently around 17% of admins have enabled 2FA, up from 16% in February 2017.
• Did you know: On 29 June 2017, there were 1,261 administrators on the English Wikipedia – the exact number of administrators as there were ten years ago on 29 June 2007. Since that time, the English Wikipedia has grown from 1.85 million articles to over 5.43 million.

You have been nominated to receive a free t-shirt from the Wikimedia Foundation through our Merchandise Giveaway program (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Merchandise_giveaways). Congratulations and thank you for your hard work! Please email us at merchandise@wikimedia.org and we will send you full details on how to accept your free shirt. Thanks! SHsut (WMF) Wikimedia Store

Thank you so much, and to those who nominated me. Leaving this here for reminder. –xeno^talk

Cheers, –xeno^talk 22:42, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Bots Newsletter, July 2017

Greetings! Here is the 4th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include: BAG BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are now members of the BAG (see RfBAG/BU Rob13 and RfBAG/Cyberpower678 3). BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are both administrators; the former operates BU RoBOT which does a plethora of tasks, while the latter operates Cyberbot I (which replaces old bots), Cyberbot II (which does many different things), and InternetArchiveBot which combats link rot. Welcome to the BAG! BRFAs We currently have 12 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing! Discussions Efforts at WP:CHECKWIKI to identify cosmetic fixes are still ongoing. The RFC on COSMETICBOT has concluded with "a clear consensus exists to adopt the proposed language". The new wording is now live. The venue for bot appeals and reexaminations has been changed from WP:BRFA to WP:BOTN (see discussion) The Wikipedia:Bot owner's noticeboard is now the Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard (see discussion). New things A historical correction was made to WP:BOTPOL (see discussion). WP:HIDEBOTS now mentions how to hide all bots from your watchlist, not only specific bots. The phabricator ticket T162685 is now closed, and we now have "#Bots-Framework" tag, so issues related to bot frameworks can be tracked. Wikibits.js has been removed (see discussion). 21 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion). WP:BOTISSUE has been updated to mention that BAG members can act as neutral mediators in bot-related disputes. WP:INTERWIKIBOT has been updated to reflect the post-February 2013 practice of putting interwiki links on Wikidata, rather than on Wikipedia (see discussion). Upcoming HTML Tidy will be phased out in June 2018, or possibly earlier. This may affect some bots (see FAQ). Wikimania Wikimania 2017 is happening in Montreal, during 9–13 August. If you plan to attend, or give a talk, let us know! Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 17:12, 19 July 2017 (UTC) (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

I've restored my comment to where it should go, as otherwise it splits the discussion making it hard to follow. Aiken D 18:24, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

We do not generally allow in-line responses to a candidate's answer in that section, this affords undue weight to the user who chooses to place their comments there rather than appropriately in the "Discussion" section. I have wrapped your comment into a more formal "Follow-up question" format (Special:Diff/792304549), as I suppose was your intent. –xeno^talk 19:22, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2017).

Administrator changes

Anarchyte • GeneralizationsAreBad • Cullen328 ^{(first RfA to reach WP:300)}

Cprompt • Rockpocket • Rambo's Revenge • Animum • TexasAndroid • Chuck SMITH • MikeLynch • Crazytales • Ad Orientem

Guideline and policy news

• Following a series of discussions around new pages patrol, the WMF is helping implement a controlled autoconfirmed article creation trial as a research experiment, similar to the one proposed in 2011. You can learn more about the research plan at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial. The exact start date of the experiment has yet to be determined.
• A new speedy deletion criterion, regarding articles created as a result undisclosed paid editing, is currently being discussed (permalink).
• An RfC (permalink) is currently open that proposes expanding WP:G13 to include all drafts, even if they weren't submitted through Articles for Creation.

Technical news

• LoginNotify should soon be deployed to the English Wikipedia. This will notify users when there are suspicious login attempts on their account.
• The new version of XTools is nearing an official release. This suite of tools includes administrator statistics, an improved edit counter, among other tools that may benefit administrators. You can report issues on Phabricator and provide general feedback at mw:Talk:XTools.

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2017).

Administrator changes

Nakon • Scott

Sverdrup • Thespian • Elockid • James086 • Ffirehorse • Celestianpower • Boing! said Zebedee

Guideline and policy news

• ACTRIAL, a research experiment that restricts article creation to autoconfirmed users, will begin on September 7. It will run for six months. You can learn more about the research specifics at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial, while Wikipedia talk:Autoconfirmed article creation trial is probably the best venue for general discussion.
• Following an RfC, WP:G13 speedy deletion criterion now applies to any page in the draftspace that has not been edited in six months. There is a bot-generated report, updated daily, to help identify potentially qualifying drafts that have not been submitted through articles for creation.

Technical news

• You will now get a notification when someone tries to log in to your account and fails. If they try from a device that has logged into your account before, you will be notified after five failed attempts. You can also set in your preferences to get an email when someone logs in to your account from a new device or IP address, which may be encouraged for admins and accounts with sensitive permissions.
• Syntax highlighting is now available as a beta feature (more info). This may assist administrators and template editors when dealing with intricate syntax of high-risk templates and system messages.
• In your notification preferences, you can now block specific users from pinging you. This functionality will soon be available for Special:EmailUser as well.

Arbitration

• Applications for CheckUser and Oversight are being accepted by the Arbitration Committee until September 12. Community discussion of the candidates will begin on September 18.

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect La Boite Orange. Since you had some involvement with the La Boite Orange redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Lordtobi (✉) 20:04, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Template:Inactive bureaucrat has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 13:09, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2017).

Administrator changes

Boing! said Zebedee • Ansh666 • Ad Orientem

Tonywalton • AmiDaniel • Silence • BanyanTree • Magioladitis • Vanamonde93 • Mr.Z-man • Jdavidb • Jakec • Ram-Man • Yelyos • Kurt Shaped Box

Guideline and policy news

• Following a successful proposal to create it, a new user right called "edit filter helper" is now assignable and revocable by administrators. The right allows non-administrators to view the details of private edit filters, but not to edit them.
• Following a discussion about mass-application of ECP and how the need for logging and other details of an evolving consensus may have been missed by some administrators, a rough guide to extended confirmed protection has been written. This information page describes how the extended-confirmed aspects of the protection policy are currently being applied by administrators.

Technical news

• You can now search for IP ranges at Special:Contributions. Some log pages and Special:DeletedContributions are not yet supported. Wildcards (e.g. 192.168.0.*) are also not supported, but the popular contribsrange gadget will continue to work.

Arbitration

• Community consultation on the 2017 candidates for CheckUser and Oversight has concluded. The Arbitration Committee will appoint successful candidates by October 11.
• A request for comment is open regarding the structure, rules, and procedures of the December 2017 Arbitration Committee election, and how to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.

Hello, Xeno. 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.~ Matthewrbowker ^{Say something · What I've done} 04:44, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Thread retitled from "Template:Formerly".

Could you come to the Help Desk and explain how this template is supposed to work? It indicates that it invokes the "anchor" template, but if I say ((Formerly|ABC)) it doesn't seem to do anything. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:31, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Apparently it does work. But the documentation is kind of scanty. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:57, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs: The way it works is to allow you to create an anchor using an old section name, if one wishes to change a header in a thread but allow section links from history to still work and also preserving any of the original author's "message" that was conveyed by the former thread title. I've actually used it in this edit as designed. It might not really be a functional demo because my talk page is short. Hope that helps. –xeno^talk 17:07, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

I see. The difference between this and the "anchor" template seems to be that with this one the previous header is visible while with "anchor" it is not. Thank you! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:05, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs: Yes, although there is also ((Visible anchor)), "Formerly" adds stylization and the word "Formerly". –xeno^talk 13:59, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

It seems like those three functions could be combined into one - if there was a demand for it. Although these templates probably aren't used often enough to go to all that effort. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:11, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2017).

Administrator changes

Longhair • Megalibrarygirl • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Allen3 • Eluchil404 • Arthur Rubin • Bencherlite

Technical news

• The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team is creating an "Interaction Timeline" tool that intends to assist administrators in resolving user conduct disputes. Feedback on the concept may be posted on the talk page.
• A new function is now available to edit filter managers that will make it easier to look for multiple strings containing spoofed text.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors will be invited to submit candidate statements for the 2017 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 12 until November 21. Voting will begin on November 27 and last until December 10.
• Following a request for comment, Ritchie333, Yunshui and Ymblanter will serve as the Electoral Commission for the 2017 ArbCom Elections.

Obituaries

• The Wikipedia community has recently learned that Allen3 (William Allen Peckham) passed away on December 30, 2016, the same day as JohnCD. Allen began editing in 2005 and became an administrator that same year.

Hello, Xeno. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible 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 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2017).

Administrator changes

Joe Roe

JzG

Ericorbit • Perceval • Thingg • Tristanb • Violetriga

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, a new section has been added to the username policy which disallows usernames containing emoji, emoticons or otherwise "decorative" usernames, and usernames that use any non-language symbols. Administrators should discuss issues related to these types of usernames before blocking.

Technical news

• Wikimedians are now invited to vote on the proposals in the 2017 Community Wishlist Survey on Meta Wiki until 10 December 2017. In particular, there is a section of the survey regarding new tools for administrators and for anti-harassment.
• A new function is available to edit filter managers which can be used to store matches from regular expressions.

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is open until Sunday 23:59, 10 December 2017 (UTC). There are 12 candidates running for 8 vacant seats.

Miscellaneous

• Over the last few months, several users have reported backlogs that require administrator attention at WP:ANI, with the most common backlogs showing up on WP:SPI, WP:AIV and WP:RFPP. It is requested that all administrators take some time during this month to help clear backlogs wherever possible. It should be noted that AIV reports are not always valid; however, they still need to be cleared, which may include needing to remind users on what qualifies as vandalism.
• The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative is conducting a survey for English Wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works (i.e. which problems it deals with well and which problems it struggles with). If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be emailed to you via Special:EmailUser.

Hello Xeno: Enjoy the holiday season, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 03:13, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use ((subst:Season's Greetings1)) to send this message

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2017).

Administrator changes

Muboshgu

Anetode • Laser brain • Worm That Turned

None

Bureaucrat changes

Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the administrator policy should be amended to require disclosure of paid editing activity at WP:RFA and to prohibit the use of administrative tools as part of paid editing activity, with certain exceptions.

Technical news

• The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey results have been posted. The Community Tech team will investigate and address the top ten results.
• The Anti-Harassment Tools team is inviting comments on new blocking tools and improvements to existing blocking tools for development in early 2018. Feedback can be left on the discussion page or by email.

Arbitration

• Following the results of the 2017 election, the following editors have been (re)appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Alex Shih, BU Rob13, Callanecc, KrakatoaKatie, Opabinia regalis, Premeditated Chaos, RickinBaltimore, Worm That Turned.

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

Administrator changes

None

Blurpeace • Dana boomer • Deltabeignet • Denelson83 • Grandiose • Salvidrim! • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC has closed with a consensus that candidates at WP:RFA must disclose whether they have ever edited for pay and that administrators may never use administrative tools as part of any paid editing activity, except when they are acting as a Wikipedian-in-Residence or when the payment is made by the Wikimedia Foundation or an affiliate of the WMF.
• Editors responding to threats of harm can now contact the Wikimedia Foundation's emergency address by using Special:EmailUser/Emergency. If you don't have email enabled on Wikipedia, directly contacting the emergency address using your own email client remains an option.

Technical news

• A tag will now be automatically applied to edits that blank a page, turn a page into a redirect, remove/replace almost all content in a page, undo an edit, or rollback an edit. These edits were previously denoted solely by automatic edit summaries.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee has enacted a change to the discretionary sanctions procedure which requires administrators to add a standardized editnotice when placing page restrictions. Editors cannot be sanctioned for violations of page restrictions if this editnotice was not in place at the time of the violation.

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

Administrator changes

Lourdes†

AngelOfSadness • Bhadani • Chris 73 • Coren • Friday • Midom • Mike V

† Lourdes has requested that her admin rights be temporarily removed, pending her return from travel.

Guideline and policy news

• The autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) is scheduled to end on 14 March 2018. The results of the research collected can be read on Meta Wiki.
• Community ban discussions must now stay open for at least 24 hours prior to being closed.
• A change to the administrator inactivity policy has been proposed. Under the proposal, if an administrator has not used their admin tools for a period of five years and is subsequently desysopped for inactivity, the administrator would have to file a new RfA in order to regain the tools.
• A change to the banning policy has been proposed which would specify conditions under which a repeat sockmaster may be considered de facto banned, reducing the need to start a community ban discussion for these users.

Technical news

• CheckUsers are now able to view private data such as IP addresses from the edit filter log, e.g. when the filter prevents a user from creating an account. Previously, this information was unavailable to CheckUsers because access to it could not be logged.
• The edit filter has a new feature contains_all that edit filter managers may use to check if one or more strings are all contained in another given string.

Miscellaneous

• Following the 2018 Steward elections, the following users are our new stewards: -revi, Green Giant, Rxy, There'sNoTime, علاء.

Obituaries

• Bhadani (Gangadhar Bhadani) passed away on 8 February 2018. Bhadani joined Wikipedia in March 2005 and became an administrator in September 2005. While he was active, Bhadani was regarded as one of the most prolific Wikipedians from India.

Bots Newsletter, March 2018

Greetings! Here is the 5th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include: ARBCOM Magioladitis 2 happened, leading to further restrictions on Magioladitis (decision, summary). Betacommand 3 was proposed to be amended to lift the indefinite ban on Δ, but was unsuccessful (decision). A motion concerning Crosswiki issues (mostly concerning Wikidata) was passed (see discussion). BAG Hersfold was removed from the BAG due to long term inactivity. BRFAs We currently have 6 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing! Discussions While there were no large-scale bot-related discussion in the past few months, you can check WP:BOTN and WT:BOTPOL (and their corresponding archives) for smaller issues that came up. New things WP:BOTDICT, a dictionary of common bot-related terms (see discussion). 6 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion). The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey happened. Two bot-related proposal passed, #6 deploy Article Alerts to other languages and #10 Commons deletion notification bot, although other entries may affect bots as well. Category:Wikipedia bots and its subcategories has had some cleanup. Bot-related pages that were historically important but are no longer of interests can be found in Category:Wikipedia bots (historical) The edit summary limit has been increased to 1000 characters (see T6715). If a bot you operate relied on the old truncation limit (255 characters), please review/update your code, as overly long summaries can be disruptive/annoying. If you want to use extra characters to have more information in your edit summary, please do so intelligently. You will soon be able to ping users from the edit summary (see T188469). If you wish to use this feature in your bot, please do so intelligently. Upcoming HTML Tidy will be phased out in June 2018, or possibly earlier. This may affect some bots (see FAQ). Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 03:12, 3 March 2018 (UTC) (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

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

Administrator changes

331dot • Cordless Larry • ClueBot NG

Gogo Dodo • Pb30 • Sebastiankessel • Seicer • SoLando

Guideline and policy news

• Administrators who have been desysopped due to inactivity are now required to have performed at least one (logged) administrative action in the past 5 years in order to qualify for a resysop without going through a new RfA.
• Editors who have been found to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block, for whatever reason, are now automatically considered banned by the community without the need to start a ban discussion.
• The notability guideline for organizations and companies has been substantially rewritten following the closure of this request for comment. Among the changes, the guideline more clearly defines the sourcing requirements needed for organizations and companies to be considered notable.
• The six-month autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) ended on 14 March 2018. The post-trial research report has been published. A request for comment is now underway to determine whether the restrictions from ACTRIAL should be implemented permanently.

Technical news

• There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee is considering a change to the discretionary sanctions procedures which would require an editor to appeal a sanction to the community at WP:AE or WP:AN prior to appealing directly to the Arbitration Committee at WP:ARCA.

Miscellaneous

• A discussion has closed which concluded that administrators are not required to enable email, though many editors suggested doing so as a matter of best practice.
• The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team has released the Interaction Timeline. This shows a chronologic history for two users on pages where they have both made edits, which may be helpful in identifying sockpuppetry and investigating editing disputes.

Template:Iw-ref has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 02:32, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

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

Administrator changes

None

Chochopk • Coffee • Gryffindor • Jimp • Knowledge Seeker • Lankiveil • Peridon • Rjd0060

Guideline and policy news

• The ability to create articles directly in mainspace is now indefinitely restricted to autoconfirmed users.
• A proposal is being discussed which would create a new "event coordinator" right that would allow users to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit.

Technical news

• AbuseFilter has received numerous improvements, including an OOUI overhaul, syntax highlighting, ability to search existing filters, and a few new functions. In particular, the search feature can be used to ensure there aren't existing filters for what you need, and the new equals_to_any function can be used when checking multiple namespaces. One major upcoming change is the ability to see which filters are the slowest. This information is currently only available to those with access to Logstash.
• When blocking anonymous users, a cookie will be applied that reloads the block if the user changes their IP. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. This currently only occurs when hard-blocking accounts.
• The block notice shown on mobile will soon be more informative and point users to a help page on how to request an unblock, just as it currently does on desktop.
• There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee is seeking additional clerks to help with the arbitration process.

Obituaries

• Lankiveil (Craig Franklin) passed away in mid-April. Lankiveil joined Wikipedia on 12 August 2004 and became an administrator on 31 August 2008. During his time with the Wikimedia community, Lankiveil served as an oversighter for the English Wikipedia and as president of Wikimedia Australia.

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

Administrator changes

None

Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington

Guideline and policy news

• Following a successful request for comment, administrators are now able to add and remove editors to the "event coordinator" group. Users in the event coordinator group have the ability to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit. Users will no longer need to be in the "account creator" group if they are in the event coordinator group.
• Following an AN discussion, all pages with content related to blockchain and cryptocurrencies, broadly construed, are now under indefinite general sanctions.

Technical news

• IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in June. This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.
• The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team will build granular types of blocks in 2018 (e.g. a block from uploading or editing specific pages, categories, or namespaces, as opposed to a full-site block). Feedback on the concept may be left at the talk page.
• There is now a checkbox on Special:ListUsers to let you see only users in temporary user groups.
• It is now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked.

Arbitration

• A recent technical issue with the Arbitration Committee's spam filter inadvertently caused all messages sent to the committee through Wikipedia (i.e. Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee) to be discarded. If you attempted to send an email to the Arbitration Committee via Wikipedia between May 16 and May 31, your message was not received and you are encouraged to resend it. Messages sent outside of these dates or directly to the Arbitration Committee email address were not affected by this issue.

Miscellaneous

• In early May, an unusually high level of failed login attempts was observed. The WMF has stated that this was an "external effort to gain unauthorized access to random accounts". Under Wikipedia policy, administrators are required to have strong passwords. To further reinforce security, administrators should also consider enabling two-factor authentication. A committed identity can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

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

Administrator changes

Pbsouthwood • TheSandDoctor

Gogo Dodo

Andrevan • Doug • EVula • KaisaL • Tony Fox • WilyD

Bureaucrat changes

Andrevan • EVula

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC about the deletion of drafts closed with a consensus to change the wording of WP:NMFD. Specifically, a draft that has been repeatedly resubmitted and declined at AfC without any substantial improvement may be deleted at MfD if consensus determines that it is unlikely to ever meet the requirements for mainspace and it otherwise meets one of the reasons for deletion outlined in the deletion policy.
• A request for comment closed with a consensus that the ((promising draft)) template cannot be used to indefinitely prevent a WP:G13 speedy deletion nomination.

Technical news

• Starting on July 9, the WMF Security team, Trust & Safety, and the broader technical community will be seeking input on an upcoming change that will restrict editing of site-wide JavaScript and CSS to a new technical administrators user group. Bureaucrats and stewards will be able to grant this right per a community-defined process. The intention is to reduce the number of accounts who can edit frontend code to those who actually need to, which in turn lessens the risk of malicious code being added that compromises the security and privacy of everyone who accesses Wikipedia. For more information, please review the FAQ.
• Syntax highlighting has been graduated from a Beta feature on the English Wikipedia. To enable this feature, click the highlighter icon () in your editing toolbar (or under the hamburger menu in the 2017 wikitext editor). This feature can help prevent you from making mistakes when editing complex templates.
• IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in July (previously scheduled for June). This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.

Miscellaneous

• Currently around 20% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 17% a year ago. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless if you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.

Happy First Edit Day, Xeno, from the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! Kpgjhpjm 00:50, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Well, how about that! Thank you :) –xeno^talk 00:42, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

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

Administrator changes

Sro23

KaisaL • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

• After a discussion at Meta, a new user group called "interface administrators" (formerly "technical administrator") has been created. Come the end of August, interface admins will be the only users able to edit site-wide JavaScript and CSS pages like MediaWiki:Common.js and MediaWiki:Common.css, or edit other user's personal JavaScript and CSS. The intention is to improve security and privacy by reducing the number of accounts which could be used to compromise the site or another user's account through malicious code. The new user group can be assigned and revoked by bureaucrats. Discussion is ongoing to establish details for implementing the group on the English Wikipedia.
• Following a request for comment, the WP:SISTER style guideline now states that in the mainspace, interwiki links to Wikinews should only be made as per the external links guideline. This generally means that within the body of an article, you should not link to Wikinews about a particular event that is only a part of the larger topic. Wikinews links in "external links" sections can be used where helpful, but not automatically if an equivalent article from a reliable news outlet could be linked in the same manner.

Technical news

• The WMF Anti-Harassment Tools team is seeking input on the second set of wireframes for the Special:Block redesign that will introduce partial blocks. The new functionality will allow you to block a user from editing a specific set of pages, pages in a category, a namespace, and for specific actions such as moving pages and uploading files.

Hello fellow bureaucrats, in regards to a current RfA that has met its time, I would like your assistance in judging the community consensus presented in the discussion at Jbhunley's RfA. Your input would be most welcome at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jbhunley/Bureaucrat chat. Best regards, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:37, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

I haven't opined yet! --Aardvark Floquenbeam (talk) 20:17, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Why aren't you a bureaucrat again? –xeno^talk 20:26, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

He's waiting for a nominator. I was going to nominate him myself, but I have some concerns... --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:29, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

I'll nominate. –xeno^talk 20:35, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Careful, it might tarnish your repuation; I think he might be a sockpuppet. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:38, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Good to see you old friend. Amazing how time flies. –xeno^talk 20:39, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Indeed it does. Flying by in real life, too! Too old to be this busy. Good to see you around too. It's nice to see familiar names on my watchlist when I pop in for a few minutes. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:44, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

I've now participated. My apologies for not opining sooner - not a lot I can do when my Internet is off! :D I hope you're well. :) Acalamari 20:50, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Likewise, thank you for dropping in! Keep in mind you can always use IPoAC if your internet is out. Can't stop the signal. –xeno^talk 20:51, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Bots Newsletter, August 2018

Greetings! Here is the 6th issue of the Bots Newsletter. You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include: ARBCOM Nothing particular important happened. Those who care already know, those who don't know wouldn't care. The curious can dig ARBCOM archives themselves. BAG There were no changes in BAG membership since the last Bots Newsletter. Headbomb went from semi-active to active. In the last 3 months, only 3 BAG members have closed requests - help is needed with the backlog. BOTREQs and BRFAs As of writing, we have... 24 active BOTREQs, please help if you can! 5 open BRFAs and 3 BRFAs in need of BAG attention (see live status). 54 approved bot tasks since the start of 2018. Of note, Community Tech bot 5 (the #10 Wish on the 2017 Community Survey) was approved to notify users concerning problematic images and files from Wikimedia Commons. Also If you're a bot operator that can help with Tidy/Linter error cleanup (see discussion, discussion), please file a BRFA! 8 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion, discussion, discussion). Discussions These are some of the discussions that happened / are still happening since the last Bots Newsletter. Many are stale, but some are still active. Use of tags by bots – Exploring the use of a new 'bot' tag. Mass page moves – Bot policy question/clarification about mass moves. Creation of redirects – Bot policy question/clarification about the creation of redirects. Guidance on disruptive use of semi–automated tools? – Related to meatbots (see also MOS discussion, which resulted in small addition to MOS:VAR). Discussion concerning WP:BOTFLAG/WP:RC – A reminder that bots should use the bot flag when it makes sense to use it (see also VPT discussion and CREATEBOT update). Out of curiosity... (to all bot operators) – BotPasswords vs OAuth usage amongst bot operators. Introducing Toolhub – Toolhub is looking for feedback. New things ((Automated tools)), a new template linking to user-activated tools and scripts has been created. It can be used in articles previews, and can be placed on any non-mainspace page/template (e.g. ((Draft article))) to provide convenient links to editors. AWB 5.10.0.0 is out, after nearly 20 months without updates. If you run an old version, you will be prompted to install the new version automatically. See the changelog for what's new. Note that the next version will require .NET Framework 4.5. Many thanks to Reedy and the AWB team. BotWatch, "a listing of editors that have made >2 edits per minute [without] a bot flag", is being developed by SQL (see discussion). Massive updates and improvements have been made to Citation bot in the past few months (see discussions, discussions, discussions). You can activate the bot here, amongst other methods. HTML Tidy has been phased out (see Tech News #28). ((Newbot)) has been reorganized a bit (diff). In particular, it links to previously approved BRFAs (see discussion). Wikipedia:Bots#See also has been reorganized a bit (diff). The bot dictionary has two new entries, context bot and context-sensitive edit. The bot request header has been updated to include better guidance (see discussion). The subcategories of Category:Wikipedia bot requests for approval have been sorted in a consistent manner to make past BRFAs easier to find. Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 15:04, 18 August 2018 (UTC) (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

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

Administrator changes

None

Asterion • Crisco 1492 • KF • Kudpung • Liz • Randykitty • Spartaz

Optimist on the run → Voice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

Amorymeltzer • Mr. Stradivarius • MusikAnimal • MSGJ • TheDJ • Xaosflux

Guideline and policy news

• Following a "stop-gap" discussion, six users have temporarily been made interface administrators while discussion is ongoing for a more permanent process for assigning the permission. Interface administrators are now the only editors allowed to edit sitewide CSS and JavaScript pages, as well as CSS/JS pages in another user's userspace. Previously, all administrators had this ability. The right can be granted and revoked by bureaucrats.

Technical news

• Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour.
• Some abuse filter variables have changed. They are now easier to understand for non-experts. The old variables will still work but filter editors are encouraged to replace them with the new ones. You can find the list of changed variables on mediawiki.org. They have a note which says Deprecated. Use ... instead. An example is article_text which is now page_title.
• Abuse filters can now use how old a page is. The variable is page_age.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee has resolved to perform a round of Checkuser and Oversight appointments. The usernames of all applicants will be shared with the Functionaries team, and they will be requested to assist in the vetting process. The deadline to submit an application is 23:59 UTC, 12 September, and the candidates that move forward will be published on-wiki for community comments on 18 September.

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

Administrator changes

Justlettersandnumbers • L235

Bgwhite • HorsePunchKid • J Greb • KillerChihuahua • Rami R • Winhunter

Interface administrator changes

Cyberpower678 • Deryck Chan • Oshwah • Pharos • Ragesoss • Ritchie333

Oversight changes

Guerillero • NativeForeigner • Snowolf • Xeno

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, the process for appointing interface administrators has been established. Currently only existing admins can request these rights, while a new RfC has begun on whether it should be available to non-admins.
• There is an open request for comment on Meta regarding the creation a new user group for global edit filter management.

Technical news

• Partial blocks should be available for testing in October on the Test Wikipedia and the Beta-Cluster. This new feature allows admins to block users from editing specific pages and in the near-future, namespaces and uploading files. You can expect more updates and an invitation to help with testing once it is available.
• The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team is currently looking for input on how to measure the effectiveness of blocks. This is in particular related to how they will measure the success of the aforementioned partial blocks.
• Because of a data centre test, you will be able to read but not edit the Wikimedia projects for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee has, by motion, amended the procedure on functionary inactivity.
• The community consultation for 2018 CheckUser and Oversight appointments has concluded. Appointments will be made by October 11.
• Following a request for comment, the size of the Arbitration Committee will be decreased to 13 arbitrators, starting in 2019. Additionally, the minimum support percentage required to be appointed to a two-year term on ArbCom has been increased to 60%. ArbCom candidates who receive between 50% and 60% support will be appointed to one-year terms instead.
• Nominations for the 2018 Arbitration Committee Electoral Commission are being accepted until 12 October. These are the editors who help run the ArbCom election smoothly. If you are interested in volunteering for this role, please consider nominating yourself.

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

Administrator changes Sir Sputnik Kudpung • Liz • Lourdes Everyking • Jackmcbarn Interface administrator changes Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes AGK • Ivanvector • Stwalkerster • TonyBallioni Oversight changes Amorymeltzer • Oshwah • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93 Keilana

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment determined that non-administrators will not be able to request interface admin access.
• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the Mediation Committee should be closed and marked as historical.
• A village pump discussion has been ongoing about whether the proposed deletion policy (PROD) should be clarified or amended.
• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether pending changes protection should be applied automatically to today's featured article (TFA) in order to mitigate a recent trend of severe image vandalism.

Technical news

• Partial blocks is now available for testing on the Test Wikipedia. The new functionality allows you to block users from editing specific pages. Bugs may exist and can be reported on the local talk page or on Meta. A discussion regarding deployment to English Wikipedia will be started by community liaisons sometime in the near future.
• A user script is now available to quickly review unblock requests.
• The 2019 Community Wishlist Survey is now accepting new proposals until November 11, 2018. The results of this survey will determine what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year. Voting on the proposals will take place from November 16 to November 30, 2018. Specifically, there is a proposal category for admins and stewards that may be of interest.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors will be invited to nominate themselves as candidates in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 4 until November 13. Voting will begin on November 19 and last until December 2.
• The Arbitration Committee's email address has changed to arbcom-enwikimedia.org. Other email lists, such as functionaries-en and clerks-l, remain unchanged.

Not an impersonation attempt, but I thought you should be aware of this new username. --Hammersoft (talk) 00:32, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. Since xeno is a fairly ubiquitous concept I don't think I can lay claim to all things xeno. As long as they don't claim association or endorsements probably just something to keep an eye on. All the best, –xeno^talk 01:33, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Hello, Xeno. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible 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 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Hello, Xeno. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible 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 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

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

Administrator changes

Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz

Boson • Daniel J. Leivick • Efe • Esanchez7587 • Fred Bauder • Garzo • Martijn Hoekstra • Orangemike

Interface administrator changes

Deryck Chan

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, the Mediation Committee is now closed and will no longer be accepting case requests.
• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether members of the Bot Approvals Group should satisfy activity requirements in order to remain in that role.
• A request for comment is in progress regarding whether to change the administrator inactivity policy, such that administrators "who have made no logged administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped". Currently, the policy states that administrators "who have made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped".
• A proposal has been made to temporarily restrict editing of the Main Page to interface administrators in order to mitigate the impact of compromised accounts.

Technical news

• Administrators and bureaucrats can no longer unblock themselves unless they placed the block initially. This change has been implemented globally. See also this ongoing village pump discussion (permalink).
• To complement the aforementioned change, blocked administrators will soon have the ability to block the administrator that placed their block to mitigate the possibility of a compromised administrator account blocking all other active administrators.
• Since deployment of Partial blocks on Test Wikipedia, several bugs were identified. Most of them are now fixed. Administrators are encouraged to test the new deployment and report new bugs on Phabricator or leave feedback on the Project's talk page. You can request administrator access on the Test Wiki here.

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 3 December 2018. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

Miscellaneous

• In late November, an attacker compromised multiple accounts, including at least four administrator accounts, and used them to vandalize Wikipedia. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. Sharing the same password across multiple websites makes your account vulnerable, especially if your password was used on a website that suffered a data breach. As these incidents have shown, these concerns are not pure fantasies.
• Wikipedia policy requires administrators to have strong passwords. To further reinforce security, administrators should also consider enabling two-factor authentication. A committed identity can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

Obituaries

• Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (Raymond Arritt) passed away on 14 November 2018. Boris joined Wikipedia as Raymond arritt on 8 May 2006 and was an administrator from 30 July 2007 to 2 June 2008.

Hello Xeno! Thanks a lot for clean-up on Polish locations that use Infobox settlement.[2]

There are still 5000+ [3] that

• use the redirect Infobox Settlement instead of the direct call
• have the coordinates outside the infobox
• have no pushpin map specified

For the reader most significant would be moving the coordinates into the infobox and add " pushpin_map = Poland ". While doing that, the redirect can be turned into a direct call of Infobox settlement, as your bot did in 2010.[4]

Could your go through the 5000+ and check if it could perform all three changes? Redirect replacement maybe should not be done standalone, because it may qualify as cosmetic. 92.227.45.6 (talk) 19:16, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Hello! You're welcome. Unfortunately I don't run this bot anymore, perhaps a posting at WP:BOTREQ might be in order? –xeno^talk 20:34, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

OH! I see what happened. the perma link Wikipedia:Bureaucrat_activity#February_2018 here sends you to a version of a page with a bad link on UninvitedCompany's line. How do we fix this? Crazynas ^t 18:08, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

@Crazynas: Ah, that makes more sense - you had edited an old version of the page! So there's nothing we can really do to fix the link to Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Godsy/Bureaucrat_cha... I wouldn't worry about it too much since it is corrected in the "added" permanent link right below. –xeno^talk 18:21, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

 Self-trout Yea, I saw that updated underneath after I posted here. And didn't notice the old version hat-note. It's a bit deceiving since the current revision is still February 2018: that's why I thought I was at an archive or sub-page not an old diff. I've never seen this particular style of archiving and perma-linking before. Anyhow, sorry for the confusion! Crazynas ^t 18:31, 7 December 2018‎ (UTC)

No worries, was done in good faith. No trout needed =) –xeno^talk 18:39, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

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

Administrator changes Galobtter Orangemike BorgQueen • Davidruben • Ocee • Revolving Bugbear • Theda • There'sNoTime • Timc • Tijuana Brass • Tristessa de St Ange Bureaucrat changes Addshore

CheckUser changes Joe Roe • SilkTork Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime Oversight changes AGK • Joe Roe • SilkTork Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Guideline and policy news

• There are a number of new or changed speedy deletion criteria, each previously part of WP:CSD#G6:

1. G14 (new): Disambiguation pages that disambiguate only zero or one existing pages are now covered under the new G14 criterion (discussion). This is ((db-disambig)); the text is unchanged and candidates may be found in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as unnecessary disambiguation pages.
2. R4 (new): Redirects in the file namespace (and no file links) that have the same name as a file or redirect at Commons are now covered under the new R4 criterion (discussion). This is ((db-redircom)); the text is unchanged.
3. G13 (expanded): Userspace drafts containing only the default Article Wizard text are now covered under G13 along with other drafts (discussion). Such blank drafts are now eligible after six months rather than one year, and taggers continue to use ((db-blankdraft)).

• The Wikimedia Foundation now requires all interface administrators to enable two-factor authentication.
• Members of the Bot Approvals Group (BAG) are now subject to an activity requirement. After two years without any bot-related activity (e.g. operating a bot, posting on a bot-related talk page), BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice.

Technical news

• Starting on December 13, the Wikimedia Foundation security team implemented new password policy and requirements. Privileged accounts (administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, oversighters, interface administrators, bots, edit filter managers/helpers, template editors, et al.) must have a password at least 10 characters in length. All accounts must have a password:

1. At least 8 characters in length
2. Not in the 100,000 most popular passwords (defined by the Password Blacklist library)
3. Different from their username

User accounts not meeting these requirements will be prompted to update their password accordingly. More information is available on MediaWiki.org.

• Blocked administrators may now block the administrator that blocked them. This was done to mitigate the possibility that a compromised administrator account would block all other active administrators, complementing the removal of the ability to unblock oneself outside of self-imposed blocks. A request for comment is currently in progress to determine whether the blocking policy should be updated regarding this change.
• ((Copyvio-revdel)) now has a link to open the history with the RevDel checkboxes already filled in.

Arbitration

• Following the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: AGK, Courcelles, GorillaWarfare, Joe Roe, Mkdw, SilkTork.

Miscellaneous

• Accounts continue to be compromised on a regular basis. Evidence shows this is entirely due to the accounts having the same password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately.
• Around 22% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 20% in June 2018. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless of whether you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.

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

Administrator changes

Enterprisey • JJMC89

BorgQueen

Harro5 • Jenks24 • Graft • R. Baley

Interface administrator changes

Enterprisey

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is currently open to reevaluate the activity requirements for administrators.
• Administrators who are blocked have the technical ability to block the administrator who blocked their own account. A recent request for comment has amended the blocking policy to clarify that this ability should only be used in exceptional circumstances, such as account compromises, where there is a clear and immediate need.
• A request for comment closed with a consensus in favor of deprecating The Sun as a permissible reference, and creating an edit filter to warn users who attempt to cite it.

Technical news

• A discussion regarding an overhaul of the format and appearance of Wikipedia:Requests for page protection is in progress (permalink). The proposed changes will make it easier to create requests for those who are not using Twinkle. The workflow for administrators at this venue will largely be unchanged. Additionally, there are plans to archive requests similar to how it is done at WP:PERM, where historical records are kept so that prior requests can more easily be searched for.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2019 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2019, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2019, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• A new IRC bot is available that allows you to subscribe to notifications when specific filters are tripped. This requires that your IRC handle be identified.

Hi Xeno, I keep meaning to but keep putting off some workarounds, but they are individual. Since pages like BN are low volume, having a secondary account configured with "Email me when a page or a file on my watchlist is changed" could be a hack (but to reset it you'd have to touch the page while logged in on the secondary account). Any other ideas? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:32, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Xaosflux I’ve never used an rSS reader or app, but wouldn’t that do the trick as well? (With the only subscription = BN). –xeno^talk 14:35, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

I was thinking of that as well, I'll go configure it on a couple of pages - I'm not sure how quickly the back-end syndication job runs (the job that publishes the rss feeds). Most RSS clients aren't configured for notification. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:59, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

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

Administrator changes Evad37 There'sNoTime Alex Shih • Brian • Mushroom • Nakon • Oscarthecat • PeruvianLlama • Ragib • Reaper Eternal • Rossami • Tom Interface administrator changes Evad37 • Galobtter Ritchie333

CheckUser changes There'sNoTime Keegan • Ks0stm Oversight changes There'sNoTime Ks0stm • Sphilbrick

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

Thank you for changing my user name to my nickname.

I want English articles to be sent to me regularly for editing.

Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph Ozojie (talk • contribs) 12:08, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

You're welcome Joseph Ozojie, if you are looking for articles to edit you should consider joining a Wikipedia:WikiProject, perhaps Wikipedia:WikiProject Film or Wikipedia:WikiProject Music. –xeno^talk 13:15, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Or SuggestBot perhaps? 2405:204:130C:AF29:D932:948:F93A:A8D0 (talk) 00:12, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes! I was trying to remember the name of this bot but kept coming up with the Article Alerts Bot :) –xeno^talk 06:28, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

That is a ridiculous oppose and you know it. Just a link ([1]) and a sig. It doesn't matter if there is an edit summary, everybody shouldn't be expected to go scouring through the history to find and match up the edit with !vote to see if there was summary. The explanation should be in the !vote anyway, not buried in the page history. Regardless if you think or personally feel my response was "crude" or not, the analogy was apt and on point. You can't just remove responses now because you dont like them... there is already enough problems with this process as it is. You should self-revert, my response is just as valid as the others. (More-so in some cases). - wolf 15:43, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
Added note; I had it my mind that you had said the edit summary explained the diff, in your edit summary. But now I see that I was mistaken, as there was no edit summary to explain the 'oppose'. The "diff thing" you mentioned does not explain the 'oppose' either. This makes my comment even more appropriate and your removal less so. Please put my comment back. Thank you. - wolf 16:33, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

The diff to which I was referring was the one posted on the oppose line, not the edit summary.

You are welcome to submit a fresh comment that doesn’t call another editor’s position “a pile of dog shit” [edit:this was my paraphrase]. This is not appropriate for the venue. As far as explaining the oppose- it’s perfectly clear with the diff provided: DeltaQuad, an an arbitrator, chose to oppose an admonition for a bureacrat action that ignored rules. The participant is entitled to use that to make presumptions about how the candidate would act as a bureaucrat in a similar context.

From a purely strategic standpoint, pulling this explanation out of the opposer does more harm to the candidate’s chances than good. –xeno^talk 21:51, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

My original post was; "What is with these bizarre opposes? No explanation, no context. Just sitting there... kinda like a dog just shat on the carpeting and left". It was a passive analogy and certainly an appropriate one, when looking at the !vote; "opppose [1] sig". No explanation what-so-ever. Your assertion that I called the !vote "a pile of dog shit" is incorrect and misleading, hopefully not intentionally, but you should strike and re-phrase with a proper, correct quote.

The !vote tells us nothing. So, to try and understand the reasoning for the oppose, we're forced to look at the Arbcom case; Three admins went a little nuts at an Arbcom election with the first admin doing some pretty stupid stuff, the second and third admins kept blocking him, but he kept unblocking himself, all the while they're all edit warring with each other. Finally a Crat steps in and IAR de-sysops the first admin. The Crat then starts an Arbcom case to report his actions. The first admin gets nailed; desysop + admonishment. The other admins are warned. The Crat however gets a free pass. Only 1 of 11 Arbs voted to de-crat him. There was also a vote to admonish him, but it failed 3 to 8.

The candidate, DQ was one of the 8 and it's her vote that is linked in this RfB. It tells us nothing. Nothing at all about why the !voter feels DQ would be incompetent or disruptive as a Crat. There is obviously a history here we're not aware of and it has no legitimate relevance to this 'oppose'. The contributor might as well as posted "Oppose - because I don't like her (sig)". Which would've been removed as disruptive, just as the current, actual 'oppose' should be removed.

You advised I could post another reply. I did, hoping to solicit an actual reason for the 'oppose'. They replied, but it is one step above "Lorum ipsum...". It's nonsense. Basically, because of DQ's vote noted above, in the majority of the 8-3 decision to decline admonishing Maxim the IAR-desysop'ing-Crat, she believes that DQ doesn't have "the proper temperament or ability to gauge community consensus to be a bureaucrat". What a pile of dogshit.

"From a purely strategic standpoint, pulling this explanation out of the opposer does more harm to the candidate’s chances than good." - I'm not trying to dismiss 'oppose' !votes of candidates I support. I just think that all opposers should be able to provide solid reasoning, with diffs, that show either a pattern of problems, or a singular problem that is so egregious, that the candidates is likely to be incompetent or purposefully abusive and/or disruptive. If an opposer can clearly demonstrate that, then it should be added to the RfA/B for everyone to see, regardless if I supported or even nominated the candidate. If they can't, their !votes should be removed from the page until they can. From a purely practical standpoint, we absolutely should be pulling explanations out of opposers that are clear or lack proof in their entries, regardless of how it affects the results. - (oh, and sorry about the length) - wolf 08:49, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

”Passive analogy” or not, the tone and composition of your contributions are coming very close to badgering other participants and I think if your goal is to see a fresh bureaucrat appointed you would do well to simply let the discussion run its course at this point. If your goal is a thorough examination of the candidate, you could also bolster your support with actual evidence and arguments in support of the candidacy rather than simply “per all above” which does not advance the discussion much. You may not personally feel the participant’s reasoning is sound (that a single IAR desysop is "egregiously disruptive") but they are free to draw the conclusions that they’ve drawn. And in my opinion, the original oppose with the diff stood on its own but one can seek elucidation without the invective. –xeno^talk 10:45, 11 March 2019 (UTC) (add 12:09, 11 March 2019 (UTC))

The point is, Crazynas didn't "draw any conclusions"... they just posted a diff. If people are going to oppose a candiadate, the least they can do is provide some kind of explanation or rationale. (I would suggest a reasonable explanation, like Samsara has with oppose #6, but if they can't, then at least post a ridiculous explanation, such as "opposing out of revenge", like Foxnpichu has, so at least people have an idea of what the oppose is about.) But to just post a link to a diff, with no context, forcing everyone to read though an entire Arb case and decipher their intent, is patently absurd.

But you're ok with that, and at the same time you're attacking my !vote...? I "examined the candidate", as I do at all requests before giving my support or opposing them. Why would you assume otherwise? My entry is #97... what is there to say? "I support per above", as in, "I agree with the 96 people that supported ahead of me". Some supporters haven't even posted that, just simply "support". But even then, it has been widely accepted that 'support' !votes don't need explaining. They are supporting the candidate, based on their nom and/or their answers to the questions and/or their history. When you have an acceptable candidate with plenty of support, then it's the 'opposes' that need to be explained and supported with facts.

But seriously, if you're going to police that page, then police that page. You have an admin posting repeated personal attacks, even reinstating them after redaction. You have people posting comments following 'oppose' !votes that have nothing to do with with that !vote and at last look, some guy threatening to abuse user talk page warning templates, with an obvious intent to create a chilling effect on any replies they disagree with. You've removed my post. It seems you have some more work to do, if want to appear to be impartial and only looking out for the integrity of RfB process. - wolf 23:47, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

I’m not sure I have much more to say. As I said, I don’t have a problem with seeking elucidation of oppose votes in a civil manner. Perhaps outside perspectives will help: I see there is a thread here that may provide additional advice. –xeno^talk 06:35, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Sorry to stalk the page xeno, but since this seems to be about me. @Thewolfchild: I check Wikipedia so infrequently now days that I didn't even see that first comment. To me at least, the idea that all we are doing in the RfX's is trying to get our fecal matter in the right location is a rather amusing one when you get into the metaphor that deeply. Part of why I left the singular diff was because I know enough about the current 'crats that I suspected deciphering my reasoning in a general sense would not be hard, I also did it, in part out of respect, because as far a I can tell otherwise DQ is a generally sensible editor; if they had turned out to be one of the three arbs that voted for the admonishment I would have been happy to support them. What I didn't say there, but I will say here is that what effectively happened in that case was ArbCom policy by fiat (and perhaps I've been inactive for long enough that that is the norm around here now, I hope not) which granted additional effective rights to the bureaucrats now granted the consensus that HJ read was narrow but the consensus and the policy have been in place for quite a while now, shifting it in the (relative) backwater of an arbcom case does not seem appropriate to me, and then a former arb (who knows full well what can be 'gotten away with without sanction)... well. I hope that clears up my reasoning a bit more, but xeno was right above, you probably would have been best to just let my vote stand. Best. Crazynas ^t 09:04, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

The supporting !vote #204 is particularly revealing in this regard. Crazynas ^t 10:50, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Awesome

Ten years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:50, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

=) –xeno^talk 15:20, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Old and decrepit like the rest of us these days :) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 16:49, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

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

Administrator changes Reaper Eternal • ThaddeusB Bogdangiusca • Christopher Parham • Necrothesp • Schneelocke • Siroxo • Sarah Mentifisto → Lofty abyss Interface administrator changes Mr. Stradivarius

Bureaucrat changes DeltaQuad Kingturtle

Technical news

• In Special:Preferences under "Appearance" → "Advanced options", there is now an option to show a confirmation prompt when clicking on a rollback link.
• The Wikimedia Foundation's Community health initiative plans to design and build a new user reporting system to make it easier for people experiencing harassment and other forms of abuse to provide accurate information to the appropriate channel for action to be taken. Please see meta:Community health initiative/User reporting system consultation 2019 to provide your input on this idea.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee clarified that the General 1RR prohibition for Palestine-Israel articles may only be enforced on pages with the ((ARBPIA 1RR editnotice)) edit notice.

Miscellaneous

• Two more administrator accounts were compromised. Evidence has shown that these attacks, like previous incidents, were due to reusing a password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. All admins are strongly encouraged to enable two-factor authentication, please consider doing so. Please always practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.
• As a reminder, according to WP:NOQUORUM, administrators looking to close or relist an AfD should evaluate a nomination that has received few or no comments as if it were a proposed deletion (PROD) prior to determining whether it should be relisted.

Regarding this edit: can I ask that you consider using slightly less jarring language? (Perhaps it was chosen deliberately as an echo of the scrutinized edit of the candidate?) I know that the current accepted practice for Wikipedia discussions is quite permissive, so this is just an optional, freely ignorable request. Thanks. isaacl (talk) 22:46, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

I can’t remember in which work of media I heard the term (and Googling for it turned NSFW real quick...)- it was meant to signal camaraderie with the new colleagues but I can see how it could be misconstrued. Thank you for the note. –xeno^talk 23:14, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

I appreciate your consideration! isaacl (talk) 23:17, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

I have to say I was in hysterics when I saw this edit... WJBscribe (talk) 23:18, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

=) –xeno^talk 23:25, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

I've opened a bureaucrat chat for a current RfA. Your input would be most appreciated at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/RexxS/Bureaucrat chat. Best regards, Maxim_(talk) 22:08, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Maxim. –xeno^talk 12:14, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

clear thought and language

Thank you for quality articles, beginning with Highlander: The Game, then Xbox Game Pass and Shotest Shogi (pictured), for super-large-scale global renaming, for creative ubs, for working towards the mandate to create more administrators, - repeating from more than ten years ago and 26 July 2009: you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:39, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

An honour! Thank you. Laid the groundwork for the latter ones, but a shame about Highlander not making it to market- I had such plans for my first article! –xeno^talk 12:13, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

I also remember my first well, deleted within minutes ;) - Today, I'm working on an article a friend created, and weeks later it was sent to draft space. Could you perhaps take a look if it's fit to be returned to Main space. I asked RexxS who did it the last time, and JLN who moved, but so far without response. I did it myself for Julia Kleiter, but not to everyone's liking. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:23, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Not able to give it a close read at this second, but on a glance it looks ready for prime-time to me. Keep up the great work! –xeno^talk 12:28, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Nevermind, it's done. There are many more, though, which I hope to get to in due course. Too nice weather outside right now ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:30, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

I was going to try and figure out the paperwork, but Serial beat me to it =) –xeno^talk 13:34, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Looks like the rules and the vote does not matter. Rules say 65% . Last five nominations were all over 90% If the powers to be want to do something the rules and guidelines are flexible. Find consensus when you want consensus. You seem to forget the extra 10% was to allow for close calls. The rule is 75% and then 10% to maybe let someone worthy to win. RexxS lost. Why have a count? Just review comments the next time. Not that many people vote anyway. The insiders do as they please. Just saying. Eschoryii (talk) 05:10, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I believe the difference between 64% and 65% was four votes. Bureaucrats are not mere bean counters- if the community wants mathematical precision without context or nuance, they can replace bureaucrats with bots. –xeno^talk 06:37, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

We could do away with the counter! 28bytes says it better: "I'm pretty confident that I would have came to the same conclusion as to whether there was consensus to promote regardless of whether the raw percentage was 63.7%, 64.1%, 65.2%, or 66.8%, assuming that the underlying arguments made by the supporters and opposers were the same. If the community wants us to hew rigidly to an arbitrary percentage rather than use our judgment to determine consensus, we will of course abide by that," ... –xeno^talk 12:56, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I voted support. Wikipedia needs more administrators. But why have a vote if the decision is to be made by the bureaucrats. The line is what the community wants or consensus. The truth is that things are decided by any group of editors that are active and involved. I appreciate your honesty. You wanted him to pass and he did. Its ok with me. Its just hard to believe this guy passed and the bar is lowered for the next one. Just objectively look at the bureaucrat vote. Eschoryii (talk) 22:51, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I’m actually not too familiar with the candidate, so I wouldn’t say I wanted him to pass, per se. I want to continue to fulfill the community mandate to create more administrators, yes. The bureaucrats have always been tasked with the decision, divined from reading the tea leaves of consensus in the discussion. It’s more art than science I’m afraid, and certainly isn’t maths. I saw consensus here and was honest with what I saw, even knowing there might be those that disagreed with my reading. There is an excellent discussion at User_talk:SoWhy#Checking_to_see_if_I'm_missing_something that explores the numerics angle a bit more and I agree with SoWhy’s analysis (Special:PermanentLink/892046119). The next bureaucrat discussion will be an entirely seperate event, with different supporting and oppositional arguments, and we don’t do “precedent” in these things, for the same reasons that they can’t be reduced to mathematics. –xeno^talk 23:07, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Your excellent discussion reference was so good because it lets you have discretion to go below 65%. The discussion also said those who agreed to lower the percentages thought 65% was a floor. We do not need to discuss this further. Feel free if you want the last word. Eschoryii (talk) 02:07, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Indeed if you can’t see past the raw numbers/percentages and consider the consensus-building discussion as a whole, then there’s not much more to discuss in such a limited venue. Wider community inputs would be required to see which of our positions (trees vs. forest) holds wider community support. Thanks for dropping by. –xeno^talk 08:05, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

@Eschoryii: See Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship#New RfC: Limiting bureaucrat discretion. –xeno^talk 13:21, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm curious what this edit to AN was about. I don't see any visual differences? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:52, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I was actually trying to get the bot to archive the thread. But maybe it saw through my trickery. –xeno^talk 17:55, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Administrators must secure their accounts The Arbitration Committee may require a new RfA if your account is compromised. Use strong, unique passwords for your Wikipedia account and associated email Change your password now if your Wikipedia account password or email password is reused on another website, exposed, or weak Enable two-factor authentication now for improved security

View additional information

This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:36, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

A special circular? Subject of a current discussion: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Return of permissions to administrators notice of which I’ve noted. –xeno^talk 18:06, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)

ArbCom would like to apologise and correct our previous mass message in light of the response from the community.

Since November 2018, six administrator accounts have been compromised and temporarily desysopped. In an effort to help improve account security, our intention was to remind administrators of existing policies on account security — that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." We have updated our procedures to ensure that we enforce these policies more strictly in the future. The policies themselves have not changed. In particular, two-factor authentication remains an optional means of adding extra security to your account. The choice not to enable 2FA will not be considered when deciding to restore sysop privileges to administrator accounts that were compromised.

We are sorry for the wording of our previous message, which did not accurately convey this, and deeply regret the tone in which it was delivered.

For the Arbitration Committee, -Cameron11598 21:04, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

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

Administrator changes HickoryOughtShirt?4 • RexxS Necrothesp Bratsche • Kyle Barbour • Kzollman • Madman Interface administrator changes Pharos

Bureaucrat changes Primefac CheckUser changes Reaper Eternal

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment concluded that creating pages in the portal namespace should be restricted to autoconfirmed users.
• Following a request for comment, the subject-specific notability guideline for pornographic actors and models (WP:PORNBIO) was removed; in its place, editors should consult WP:ENT and WP:GNG.

Technical news

• XTools Admin Stats, a tool to list admins by administrative actions, has been revamped to support more types of log entries such as AbuseFilter changes. Two additional tools have been integrated into it as well: Steward Stats and Patroller Stats.

Arbitration

• In response to the continuing compromise of administrator accounts, the Arbitration Committee passed a motion amending the procedures for return of permissions (diff). In such cases, the committee will review all available information to determine whether the administrator followed "appropriate personal security practices" before restoring permissions; administrators found failing to have adequately done so will not be resysopped automatically. All current administrators have been notified of this change.
• Following a formal ratification process, the arbitration policy has been amended (diff). Specifically, the two-thirds majority required to remove or suspend an arbitrator now excludes (1) the arbitrator facing suspension or removal, and (2) any inactive arbitrator who does not respond within 30 days to attempts to solicit their feedback on the resolution through all known methods of communication.

Miscellaneous

• A request for comment is currently open to amend the community sanctions procedure to exclude non XfD or CSD deletions.
• A proposal to remove pre-2009 indefinite IP blocks is currently open for discussion.

I request you to have protected this article Bepanah Pyaar because this article is many IP user try to make unhelpful changes so I request you sir accept my request and protect this article at least 1 month, Thank you. Goodd-002 ^(chatme) 10:52, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Looks like another administrator handled this. Goodd-002 in future you can post to WP:RFPP. –xeno^talk 14:23, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

On reflection my comment at AN might sound like frustration with you. It isn't, it's frustration with the blocked editor's lack of minimal effort, combined with a more general frustration that there is really no way to prevent editors who aren't mature enough to edit here from disrupting things every 6 months. I do appreciate the ping. And at least it gives me an opportunity to say "Hi Xeno, hope all's well". --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:46, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Not at all, I understand where you're coming from. I've still seen you churning out excellent work though. Thanks for dropping in =) –xeno^talk 14:49, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Please move the article as per request see discussion. Hello Sir, I request you to change the name of this article on the basis of the request made by me because I am unable to change it because it has been created several times even after it has been deleted , due to which it has been protected. Because of which I can not make changes in this. I request you to make changes in its name and thank you very much for accepting my request. Goodd-002 ^(chatme) 06:22, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Has the TV series actually aired now? @Premeditated Chaos and Bishonen: as they deleted and set protection. –xeno^talk 12:13, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes Sir, it is being broadcasted So far, 196 episodes of this serial have been shown on TV, I have referred you here on the page so that you can do that.See here. Goodd-002 ^(chatme) 14:51, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

I've completed the request as it seemed uncontroversial. Anyone is free to reverse it if felt otherwise. –xeno^talk 15:26, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

OK sir thank you very much Goodd-002 ^(chatme) 15:51, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Oh, I see, I protected it as repeatedly recreated. It's fine now, of course. I'll remove the protection. Thanks, Xeno. Bishonen | talk 17:27, 17 May 2019 (UTC).

Looks like I don't have to? My protection is still the only thing in the protection log, but clearly the article isn't protected. Bishonen | talk 17:29, 17 May 2019 (UTC).

I thought it was going to give me some kind of warning but it just let me move it in place. I guess nothing needs to be done! –xeno^talk 17:36, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Hello Sir, I need your help. I request you to change the name of this article to Aghori (2019 TV Series) by BepanahDrama but when I created it, it was made with the correct name that is called Ek Shakti Ek ...Aghori please see the move request made by me see here. Thank you Goodd-002 ^(chatme) 12:59, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for performing the move. Looks fine to me. –xeno^talk 11:50, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Hello Sir, I need your help. I request you to change the name of this article to Aghori (2019 TV Series) by User:Zeecolors but when I created it, it was made with the correct name that is called Ek Shakti Ek ...Aghori please see the move request made by me see here. Goodd-002 ^(chatme) 10:25, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Let the move request run its course and someone will move it. –xeno^talk 12:36, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Have you had any further thoughts on the "election" of the RexxS administrator. You were so certain of your position of consensus over a mathematical vote tally. There was a lot of chatter after the decision. RexxS thought he had lost and had to be talked into keeping his nomination and that fact was not discussed. You were so certain that losing by 1% could be overcome by reading how people voted in their comments. The comments were read by those who had RexxS sleep on his decision for 24 hours. Maybe he was assured that 65% could mean 64% by the bureaucrats. I am sure other things have come and gone but has time and reflection changed any of your thinking? I have changed my mind. Sleep well. Eschoryii (talk) 08:36, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Well the website is still running, RexxS is churning out good administrative work, and the community has not put all the bureaucrats up against the wall (yet...). Glad that your mind has changed. I still think we have a recruitment problem and need more administrators. –xeno^talk 10:02, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

As I watch things Wikipedia is "run" by evolving rules and people over time and a consensus standard allows that evolution. Eschoryii (talk) 21:41, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Happy adminship anniversary!

Oshawott 12 ==()== Talk to me! 03:41, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! Once it grows into a cat, you’re taking it back though... –xeno^talk 07:35, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Happy Adminship Anniversary!

Have a very happy adminship anniversary on your special day!
Best wishes, CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 23:30, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

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

Administrator changes

Andonic • Consumed Crustacean • Enigmaman • Euryalus • EWS23 • HereToHelp • Nv8200pa • Peripitus • StringTheory11 • Vejvančický

CheckUser changes

Ivanvector

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC seeks to clarify whether WP:OUTING should include information on just the English Wikipedia or any Wikimedia project.
• An RfC on WT:RfA concluded that Requests for adminship and bureaucratship are discussions seeking to build consensus.
• An RfC proposal to make the templates for discussion (TfD) process more like the requested moves (RM) process, i.e. "as a clearinghouse of template discussions", was closed as successful.

Technical news

• The CSD feature of Twinkle now allows admins to notify page creators of deletion if the page had not been tagged. The default behavior matches that of tagging notifications, and replaces the ability to open the user talk page upon deletion. You can customize which criteria receive notifications in your Twinkle preferences: look for Notify page creator when deleting under these criteria.
• Twinkle's d-batch (batch delete) feature now supports deleting subpages (and related redirects and talk pages) of each page. The pages will be listed first but use with caution! The und-batch (batch undelete) option can now also restore talk pages.

Miscellaneous

• The previously discussed unblocking of IP addresses indefinitely-blocked before 2009 was approved and has taken place.
• The 2019 talk pages consultation produced a report for Phase 1 and has entered Phase 2.

Hi xeno, to follow up from that RfC. I've spilled the beans on parts of this on-wiki a few times, the most notable admin function available to blocked admins is (deletedtext) and the related view functions of that nature. The "blocking" software was designed around stopping 'edits' not 'actions'; but there are new developments to the blocked software being actively worked on, though I suspect dealing with the niche of managing blocked admins will be low on the development order. There are a bunch of phab tasks related to blocked admin things, but again they are low priority as it is easy enough to remove someones admin access (in a mediawiki sense) if they are problematic. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Not a programmer but it seems like it should be an easy fix- Just have the software interpret the user right as absent when the user is blocked? Out of my depths, thanks for the follow up. Feel free to email also. –xeno^talk 15:55, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

(EC) I got EC with xaosflux: also note that to prevent rogue admins taking over whole wiki by blocking every admin except themselves, there is a kill switch that allows the blocked admins to block blocking admin (in this case Fram blocking WMFOffice). — regards, Revi 15:56, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Ah yes, that’s newer. –xeno^talk 16:00, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Mostly, in workflow of: (a)xeno requests an action (b) check if permission to do action exists (c) do action; they could insert a (b2) check if account is blocked. I think the "hard" part is that (b) happens in lots of disparate parts that all need to be individually updated. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:58, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Gotcha. –xeno^talk 16:00, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Xaosflux (ec), is that intentional or simply the fact that the code hasn't been refactored? StudiesWorld (talk) 16:03, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Likely because MediaWiki is essentially developed to allow wide adaptability. A lot of features that are here are developed exclusively for English Wikipedia and that took a lot of developer time and resources. So things that are exclusively enwiki-centric and not that important (or can be achieved with another method effectively) tend to linger for years on the bug tracking system and are often plastered with "need-volunteer" tag. Ability of blocked admin to view deleted material is quite not a problem for MediaWiki and even many other Wikimedia projects (You have to ask yourself, first how many admins are currently blocked? to see why something is just unnecessary). So even if you're to voluntarily refactor the code and submit for review it will either be vetoed or left to linger on Gerrit for some years. It's just not that important. Removing +sysop from an account is just a matter of few seconds technically —and by extension from the MediaWiki perspective. It's on the enwiki social norms that the story is completely different. – Ammarpad (talk) 16:46, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

xaosflux: What about the staff userright? See q (failed ping) : special:diff/901524072 –xeno^talk 13:20, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

@Xeno: see Special:Diff/901524696. My expectation is that the someone in the staff user group would need to unblock themselves first, but that they certainly can do that. Does that help? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:14, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it does. Thank you! –xeno^talk 14:16, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm a bit concerned that this discussion has been closed as "no consensus", which seems to leave the question up in the air for the bureaucrats to handle, perhaps being resolved in much the same way as Floq's tool removal has been resolved - by whichever bureaucrat feels most generously toward a given desysopped admin. In reality, a rather strong consensus against appeared to be emerging before this was closed, with the count of support/oppose being a whopping 8/17, with all momentum on the "oppose" side. Could this be opened back up to allow that consensus to finish emerging? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 13:47, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

What if I changed “no consensus” to “not carried”? I don’t think further discussion of the proposal as written will bear fruit. –xeno^talk 13:49, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

While I certainly participated, my original suggestion was that it appeared to mostly be a fork of the discussion at WT:ADMIN and it may have been too soon for !voting - such that it should just have the discussion merged to the other discussion to keep it all in one place. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:53, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree. –xeno^talk 13:54, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I would have no objections to something closer to "consensus against the current proposal, with no prejudice against other, more refined proposals". Is that agreeable? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:05, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for being willing to discuss this and reconsider the wording. Much appreciated. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:25, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Of course, thank you for coming by :) –xeno^talk 16:48, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Hello, Xeno,

I'm not sure where to post this comment. It surely would be unwelcome on the "Fram" page and all discussions on WP:BN are closed and other discussions are so lengthy it would take all day & night to catch up. I just need to say, to someone, that I cringe when I hear that any resysop/unblocking decisions are "overwhelmingly supported by the community". There has been a lot of noise, outrage and heat this week which is understandable. This is an unprecedented action.

But, you know, the majority of editors and, yes, admins, on Wikipedia are continuing to do the work they do every day, editing articles, deleting CSDs, blocking trolls, getting on with the work of the project. They either are not participating in these discussions about overreach by the WMF or they, like me, have unpopular opinions and the last thing they want to do is subject themselves to the anger of those who feel differently. So, they continue to do the necessary work of maintaining this project. You are not hearing their voices because they are not talking about this issue.

I'm NOT saying I agree with WMFOffice actions. It would have been best to have ArbCom handle all of this. I will say that I think that more editors and admins who are not participating in this discussion are willing to give WMF the benefit of the doubt in this extraordinary situation. I just wanted to let one bureaucrat know that there the vast majority of editors are continuing to edit and get on with the work of the project. And, speaking for myself, while I admire those who are willing to act out of principle, I also appreciate those who keep focused on the work. All the best, Xeno. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:31, 15 June 2019 (UTC)