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.
After a momentary feeling of trepidation when I saw an edit to the talk page of Bute witches, my feeling turned to pleasure at seeing your user name active again. More work on that article is next on my list now that Eric and I have more or less finished with Witchcraft in Orkney and some of the other witch stuff. I hope you are well and doing fine? SagaciousPhil - Chat10:23, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You are most kind and it is good to hear from you. I am just noodling around at present but I will pay your above-mentioned coven a visit in due course. All the best for 2018. BenMacDui10:34, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
At some risk to my faith in human nature I did so venture as I am sure you have seen. Witchcraft in Orkney remains 'Start' class which is unduly modest of it. Are you and your familiar planning to GA it or similar? If not I will bestow a small promotion on the talk page... BenMacDui18:08, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks for your edits, they are always very much appreciated. I chanted a little spell and, hey presto, it was added to the [long] GAN queue. ;-) These poor abused women deserve to have their stories told; the things they were subjected to are dreadful. Gowdie was a story-teller and it seems her fertile imagination was used against her; Janet Cornfoot, one of the Pittenweem witches, was killed by a mob over 300 years ago on 30 January (The historian Lizanne Henderson described the events surrounding the case of the Pittenweem witches as "one of the most extraordinary and truly horrific outbursts of witch persecution". I pinched that from the article ...); but those are only scratching the surface of the horrors - in Bute, an unknown number of women were locked in the dungeon of Rothesay Castle and just left to die . SagaciousPhil - Chat09:51, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks. I doubt I will manage to be as productive as at some points in the past but I'm hoping to find a few hours here and there. BenMacDui18:45, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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 tagwill 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 standardizededitnotice 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.
I'd like to point out a few things without enumerating them at the SPI or at ANI. You may have already thought of them, but ...
You've blocked MSW for one week pending the investigation of their possible relationship with AVC. Having suffered through that SPI for about a month now, what makes you think it will be resolved in a week?
Assuming there is a finding that MSW and AVC are the same person, things flow a bit more easily. AVC is the master, and MSW plus the other two accounts you blocked are puppets. MSW is indeffed, and if they want to edit again, they have to request an unblock from AVC (unless they've forgotten the password).
However, if no one makes that finding, the oldest account is Lisa.davis, not MSW. In other words, MSW is still a puppet and should be indeffed. An unblock request would come from Lisa.davis.
That means that regardless of any finding connecting MSW and AVC - if there ever is one - MSW should already be indeffed, and the ANI discussion is premature. If there is an unblock request, a discussion could be started at that time to see whether the community thinks the request should be granted. I personally would never have asked the community what to do after an SPI block unless, at a minimum, there is an unblock request. However, even though I disagree with having brought this to ANI, it would be difficult to pull it at this point.
Finally, MSW hasn't edited Wikipedia since your block. I'm curious, as I imagine you are, what they'll say.
Although irrelevant, I'm kinda curious why you plunged into this. Doesn't seem to be your area of expertise. I hope you'll patrol SPI in the future. We could always use the help.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:21, 6 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly what I am thinking.[1] ANI is not a place for solving these matters and especially not something as clear as this case where no one no one has any doubt over suspected socks. Ben MacDui, I appreciate your efforts that you assessed the SPI. I would like to ask though if there is anything really left to do except indeffing Weyburnfarm (I hope you read this edit) and Ms Sarah Welch. Lorstaking (talk) 02:22, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments. I will try to be as brief as possible here.
Why did I so plunge? I notice that we train SPI clerks but the training for admins seems to be limited to the advice to “try not to mess up too badly and learn from your mistakes when you do”. I am new to SPI and if I had known how difficult the case might be at the beginning I wouldn’t have started it. Once I was in, no-one else bothered to offer much assistance.
I understand that SPI is not run by consensus but the ANI gambit has pulled in some new voices, which (and I include this dialogue) I find helpful.
Point taken about Lisa.davis but in the circumstances I don’t think indeffing MSW was (for me) a realistic starting point. Maybe in more experienced hands it didn’t have to be, but this is a case where IAR applies, at least for now. (If you (plural) know of any similar cases I’d be interested.)
Even long term productive admins have been site-banned as per the policy and standards described by Bbb23, as recent as this example. Even if we are attempting to find sense in the ANI, editors have supported indef block than opposed it. I know that this is not a usual SPI case, but not a hard one either. There are many more SPIs, that involved much bigger accounts. It could be controversial if there was any convincing argument that MSW is unrelated to these accounts, however no one has disputed the strong connection between these accounts, not even MSW, because it is as obvious as sky is blue. Talking about disputing the connection between accounts, I can also recall those SPIs where CU has shown "confirmed" connection between the accounts, still some people have attempted to dispute the connection. Doesn't means that the policy and standards would be renounced for these trivial arguments unless there is a strong consensus to change them. Again, ANI is not a venue for such arguments, village pump is, and until these standards are not changed, we will have to abide by them. Lorstaking (talk) 05:01, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well, MacDui, as a Sherlock Holmes fan, you were probably best placed to handle this case. Thanks for your efforts. I look forward to more of your help with SPI cases! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 08:42, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well thank-you to those of you making encouraging noises about my future participation at SPI. @Lorstaking: whether or not you are right about ANI, what's done is done. We will, I am sure, be moving back to SPI on this topic soon. BenMacDui16:26, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sanday, Orkney
As I “talked” with Mutt Lunker about this, the Living Orkney magazine article cited (not the OIC link) says that SC was the community council negotiator with SSE, which successfully secured the wind turbine community benefit mentioned in the Wikipedia entry. So he is certainly relevant as a person associated with Sanday, and the entry on Sanday is incomplete without mention of SC. Local notability is relevant in an article such as this, for example John D Mackay (also listed under “People associated with Sanday”) is "notable" because "he is remembered locally for writing to The Times in 1967".
It is not often I contribute to Wikipedia, but almost whenever I do, it is a battle, which puts me off bothering. The whole project seems to be WP:OWNed by the regulars, which is a shame for those of us interested in the dissemination of knowledge and the recording of facts. Therefore, I am reinstating this good faith contribution to the article in the hope you will treat it with good faith and allow it to remain for the reasons given in the paragraph above.
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Thorfinn the Mighty you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Iazyges -- Iazyges (talk) 15:20, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Varunbhatkt1997 is still able to edit their own talk page. You should ask them to read WP:UNBLOCK carefully and follow the instructions. I notice that you edited Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/RohithKumarPatali/Archive but as the case is closed this isn't going to have any effect there. I am afraid sockpuppetry is a difficult topic to grapple with, but if Varunbhatkt1997 does request an unblock than an uninvolved admin will take a look at the issues. BenMacDui18:57, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, Shravanshravi, another suspected sock of RohithKumarPatali emailed me with a similar request. I don't suppose you know that individual too? BenMacDui19:44, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the quick reply. I really appreciate your concern and dedication towards English Wikipedia. I have given instructions to sock not to write an E-mail to admin who blocked you and request to unblocking (Because you cannot unblock). I already told him he can edit his talk page and read about WP:Unblock. Thanks. Regards --Gopala Krishna A | (talk)06:21, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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 featurecontains_all that edit filter managers may use to check if one or more strings are all contained in another given string.
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.
Hello Ben MacDui, can you please look at Varunkanthila. His username is very similar to Varunbhatkt1997 you blocked as a sock of RohithKumarPatali and was registered after 10 days Varunbhatkt1997 was blocked. He is editing in the same area and made his 3rd edit at Paramvah Studios where he delinked a wikilink exactly same as Vb97, creating the same kind of articles and if you look at articles he created it looks like created by Varunbhatkt1997 e.g. this appears to be a copy of this by Vb97. Thank you – GSS (talk|c|em) 12:06, 14 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Back again
User:TRUEV140 is back again as R1A2G3. Created 4 days after last block, same edits, same articles, same behaviour. This is why I said all edits should be reverted regardless of good or bad. Last time I did not reverted a single edit, despite getting the rollbacker. He is coming back whenever he wants to edit and get blocked and return again and get blocked. This process continues. He is actually not blocked here, only his user accounts are.--Let There Be Sunshine15:20, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
What?? If you're certain the account is a sock, then block it indef. If you are unsure, do not block, otherwise you just blocked an innocent user temporarily for no reason. Sro23 (talk) 15:14, 24 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Sro23: Don't panic - I am pretty sure or I would not have blocked them. At the time I wasn't sure if I could just indef the account and add this direct to the archive without an SPI being opened but I have now seen another example of this. However, this is becoming a persistent problem (they will be back in 3-4 days one way or another) and I was also planning to ask a CU look at it. Now see also my comments at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Muhammed Zafwan. BenMacDui18:54, 24 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Either the account is a sock or it isn't. If you strongly suspect that a user is a sock, you may block them indef based on suspicion alone. Filing a procedural SPI report is often helpful but not required. If you have doubts, do not block the user until those doubts have been resolved (via SPI, CU, whatever). There is no inbetween. Blocks are supposed to be preventative. If we assume the user is a TRUEV140 sockpuppet, they now have access to an unblocked account because the user's temp block has already expired. If we assume the user is not a sock, then again, an innocent user has been blocked for something they didn't do. So I don't see a benefit to what you did. Sorry if I come across as panicking, but false positive blocks in relation to SPI's are something I care deeply about and one of the reasons I became a clerk. Sro23 (talk) 19:45, 24 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
OK - to be completely clear:
It's a sock and will indef block them and add the to the archive asap.
Given TRUEV140's recent behaviour I doubt this will make much difference either way.
I completely understand that you are trying to avoid ambiguity. All I was trying to do was create a time pressure to move things along in the proper order. I see now that this wasn't necessary (although I don't recall reading anything to the effect that an SPI report is not required).
I also understand that you are concerned about 'false positives' but (insofar as any behavioural analysis can be certain) that isn't the case here.
Even so, given the very slow progress on various outstanding SPI cases (list of them where I am waiting on action by others on application) I am not really sure why this one is being singled out for a quick fix. BenMacDui20:22, 24 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I missed this discussion. I was going to file an SPI today as the 72 hour block ends. Seems like he's already indeffed now. I was skeptical that if I file a report earlier someone would close the case saying the user is already blocked (and I was lazy too). There's more than enough evidence for this case and is obvious. I was pretty sure that Ben MacDui having blocked the user's previous socks could easily identify this.--Let There Be Sunshine07:13, 25 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Dispiriting?
I'd like to understand why you found this edit dispiriting. I attempted an explanation at the article's talk page. If you think the edit was overly harsh, please do suggest an alternative, or edit the article, or join in the discussion.
I could restore "amateur naturalist" and "professional arborist", which seem supported by references although perhaps not relevant to the discovery. Like you (and other editors), I suspect some sort of WP:COI is going on.
Thanks for getting back to me here. I'm not trying to create drama, and as I mentioned my knowledge of the topic is negligible, and I doubt I will get involved from an article content angle. I did however get the impression that a knowledgeable person was being rather unkindly (if not unfairly) treated by those who know their way around the encyclopaedia's policies. I fear you are right about the sarcastic behaviour you refer to above - and I certainly wasn't trying to single you out for criticism. Apologies if you felt that was the case. If there is any further fall-out please feel free to let me know. BenMacDui10:52, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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.
I was stating that "Bute" is not the proper name, which needs a source (not the other way round), the A-Z shows that "Isle of Bute" is its name. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:11, 6 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Watson, W. J. (1994) The Celtic Place-Names of Scotland. Edinburgh; Birlinn. ISBN 1841583235. First published 1926. p. 37
That might do for a start. The island's name is "Bute". Sometimes it get's called "Isle of Bute" the post office being the main offenders in this context, but we don't have articles called "London Town" or " City of Birmingham" and it is only "Isle of Bute" here for disambiguation purposes. Few of the islands that are the primary topic begin "Isle of..." - Isle of Ewe and Isle of May being the exceptions. BenMacDui18:35, 6 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
OK I now have the Haswell-Smith book which does refer to it as just "Bute" but in response to not having "London Town" or " City of Birmingham" we do have articles at "River Thames" (not "Thames") and "River Clyde" (not "Clyde") in addition to Isle of Man and Isle of Wight. And the OS name for "Jura" doesn't include "Isle of". Essentially most UK rivers include "River" in the name, some islands include "Isle" of "Island" but few settlements include "City", "Town", "Village" etc. You can discuss this at User:Crouch, Swale/Island names. Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:53, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Orkneyinga saga you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Maunus -- Maunus (talk) 07:00, 21 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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.
Hello Ben MacDui, can you please take a look at this user who looks like Varunbhatkt1997 (talk·contribs) you blocked a few months back. He was registered 3 days after Varunbhatkt1997 was blocked and a day after his unblock request was declined and using a mobile device since then (possibly to avoid the same IP). He is editing in the same area and recreated their deleted article under a different title which looks very similar to the deleted version and Editor Interaction Analyser showing a huge percentage of overlap also, take a look at this comment at seoclerks by the master (RohithKumar). Thank you GSS (talk|c|em) 08:17, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. Just requesting a sanity check on an edit I made to your {{Ordnance Survey}} template - was I correct to remove the prefilled date (which was the date you created the template)? Or is there some contextual reason why the articles that use this template would all want to use this date in the absence of any other? --Lord Belbury (talk) 12:14, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Your Lordship, Thanks for your note. I think you are correct in that it would make more sense if, in the medium term future, editors could see an access date that reflects the actual date so that this corresponds to whatever Edition of the OS has been used. (It hasn't mattered much in the short term as so far as I am aware no new editions of any substance have appeared). However there are two relatively small issues to be considered:
For any existing articles the change has meant that there is no longer an access date shown. This hardly matters for any article that is not at GA or better but for those that have reached these dizzy heights, MOS sticklers will grumble. At a guess there are only about half a dozen, which I'd be happy to fix.
I am an idle fellow these days and I confess I have not researched how to use the new transclusion to add an access date. I wonder if you would be kind enough to update the desultory instructions at Template:Ordnance Survey/doc to assist the uninitiated?
Sure, have updated the documentation. The access date option was already there, I just changed the default from "21 August 2013" to blank.
Afraid I don't really understand what the MOS stickler angle would be (surely it's bad to have an article created in 2018 which claims that the writer accessed the OS source in 2013?), but maybe it's worth asking such a stickler if there's a better solution to having a blank default. I did look to see if there was an explicit "access date unknown" setting, but couldn't find anything. --Lord Belbury (talk) 07:37, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think the blank default is fine and thanks for doing the /doc update. Yes, the wrong date is not good but no date at all will draw attention so I will back-formulate those that need them. BenMacDui18:18, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I would make an sockpuppet investigation report, but I don't know anything about the procedure. While dealing with new userspace AfC submissions I found an existing draft in the way. This is common, but it is almost always the same editor who has created duplicate submissions, often to start again without the decline templates. In this instance the draft was created by a different editor, who was blocked.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Hello, Ben MacDui. 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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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}}.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that when you recently edited River Findhorn, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Celtic (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are usually incorrect, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of unrelated topics with similar titles. (Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.)
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.
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.
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.
Recently, several Wikipedia admin accounts were compromised. The admin accounts were desysopped on an emergency basis. In the past, the Committee often resysopped admin accounts as a matter of course once the admin was back in control of their account. The committee has updated its guidelines. Admins may now be required to undergo a fresh Request for Adminship (RfA) after losing control of their account.
What do I need to do?
Only to follow the instructions in this message.
Check that your password is unique (not reused across sites).
Check that your password is strong (not simple or guessable).
Enable Two-factor authentication (2FA), if you can, to create a second hurdle for attackers.
How can I find out more about two-factor authentication (2FA)?
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.
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.
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.
In a related matter, the account throttle has been restored to six creations per day as the mitigation activity completed.
The scope of CSD criterion G8 has been tightened such that the only redirects that it now applies to are those which target non-existent pages.
The scope of CSD criterion G14 has been expanded slightly to include orphan "Foo (disambiguation)" redirects that target pages that are not disambiguation pages or pages that perform a disambiguation-like function (such as set index articles or lists).
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. Community feedback is invited.
Miscellaneous
In February 2019, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) changed its office actions policy to include temporary and project-specific bans. The WMF exercised this new ability for the first time on the English Wikipedia on 10 June 2019 to temporarily ban and desysop Fram. This action has resulted in significant community discussion, a request for arbitration (permalink), and, either directly or indirectly, the resignations of numerous administrators and functionaries. The WMF Board of Trustees is aware of the situation, and discussions continue on a statement and a way forward. The Arbitration Committee has sent an open letter to the WMF Board.
Following a research project on masking IP addresses, the Foundation is starting a new project to improve the privacy of IP editors. The result of this project may significantly change administrative and counter-vandalism workflows. The project is in the very early stages of discussions and there is no concrete plan yet. Admins and the broader community are encouraged to leave feedback on the talk page.
Since the introduction of temporary user rights, it is becoming more usual to accord the New Page Reviewer right on a probationary period of 3 to 6 months in the first instance. This avoids rights removal for inactivity at a later stage and enables a review of their work before according the right on a permanent basis.
Editors using the mobile website on Wikipedia can opt-in to new advanced features via your settings page. This will give access to more interface links, special pages, and tools.
The advanced version of the edit review pages (recent changes, watchlist, and related changes) now includes two new filters. These filters are for "All contents" and "All discussions". They will filter the view to just those namespaces.
A global request for comment is in progress regarding whether a user group should be created that could modify edit filters across all public Wikimedia wikis.
Following a discussion, a new criterion for speedy category renaming was added: C2F: One eponymous article, which applies if the category contains only an eponymous article or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories.
Technical news
As previously noted, tighter password requirements for Administrators were put in place last year. Wikipedia should now alert you if your password is less than 10 characters long and thus too short.
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.
An RfC on the administrator resysop criteria was closed. 18 proposals have been summarised with a variety of supported and opposed statements. The inactivity grace period within which a new request for adminship is not required has been reduced from three years to two. Additionally, Bureaucrats are permitted to use their discretion when returning administrator rights.
