This is an archive of past discussions with User:Ceranthor. 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.
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.
Sorry, I don't have the time in real life right now to look for it. If you provide me with the link, I'd be happy to help. ceranthor16:27, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
The second round of the 2018 WikiCup has now finished. Most contestants who advanced to the next round scored upwards of 100 points, but two with just 10 points managed to scrape through into round 3. Our top scorers in the last round were:
Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with three featured articles
Iazyges, with nine good articles and lots of bonus points
Yashthepunisher, a first time contestant, with two featured lists
SounderBruce, a finalist last year, with seventeen good topic articles
Usernameunique, a first time contestant, with fourteen DYKs
Muboshgu, a seasoned competitor, with three ITNs and
Courcelles, another first time contestant, with twenty-seven GARs
So far contestants have achieved twelve featured articles between them and a splendid 124 good articles. Commendably, 326 GARs have been completed during the course of the 2018 WikiCup, so the backlog of articles awaiting GA review has been reduced as a result of contestants' activities. As we enter the third round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met; most of the GARs are fine, but a few have been a bit skimpy.
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Newberry Volcano 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 Casliber -- Casliber (talk) 11:00, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
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.
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Mount Bachelor 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 Freikorp -- Freikorp (talk) 12:01, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the review. I think I've addressed your concerns. I would be happy to help out with reviews! ceranthor15:12, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks so much for your comments so far, they've been very helpful. You'll probably notice this later anyway, but I'll mention it now. I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do with the Y2K prediction. It's listed in the 'Religious predictions' table (originally this table was just titled 'Past predictions', though an IP changed it and I agree with the change in general), though obviously it's neither religious nor spiritual. It's the only prediction in the table that isn't related to something supernatural. I considered creating a table for past scientific predictions and having this as the sole occupant, but I'm also not sure if this prediction meets the definition of an apocalyptic event anyway. I was going to just delete it prior to nomination at FLC, but figured I'd wait for feedback from others on the issue. Freikorp (talk) 00:08, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
Hi Ceranthor. Any chance you'd like to trade me reviewing Mount Mazama for you reviewing my last GAN, James Francis Dwyer? No worries if you're too busy. If you are interested just start the review and we'll go from there. :) Freikorp (talk) 12:28, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
Haha the odds of that happening were pretty low since it was listed for review weeks ago, but there you go. I'd still be more than happy to trade the review for comments on my current FAC. See here. :) Freikorp (talk) 04:01, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
On 30 May 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Trout Creek Hill, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the Trout Creek Hill volcanic eruption approximately 340,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene, produced a lava flow that extended 20 km (12 mi), temporarily damming the Columbia River? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Trout Creek Hill. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Trout Creek Hill), 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.
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Broken Top 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 Freikorp -- Freikorp (talk) 09:20, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
The article Broken Top you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needing to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass; otherwise it may fail. See Talk:Broken Top for things which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Freikorp -- Freikorp (talk) 11:40, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
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.
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Diamond Peak (Oregon) 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 Argento Surfer -- Argento Surfer (talk) 20:21, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
That would be great! From a glance, both seem fairly comprehensive and well-organized. I'd have to read more closely to get an idea of the prose, which I'd be happy to do some time this week. ceranthor20:36, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
@Jo-Jo Eumerus: Running through and copyediting now. I think they are both in good shape, but I would want the prose to be tightened up a bit before I personally would support either at FAC. Happy to help though, and I would be happy to leave comments for you at their respective talk pages or somewhere else. ceranthor18:12, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
Argh. Seems like I need some more learning on prose-writing then (over the long term I am planning to send a few more articles to FAC, getting them ready is the key hurdle). On the talk pages is fine. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:15, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
Jo-Jo Eumerus, I am sorry I didn't get around to it last night. I will definitely make some copyedits tonight through tomorrow and let you know what I think. ceranthor22:34, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
The article West Crater you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needing to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass; otherwise it may fail. See Talk:West Crater for things which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Freikorp -- Freikorp (talk) 07:20, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Big Cave 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 Jo-Jo Eumerus -- Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:20, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Trout Creek Hill 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 Jo-Jo Eumerus -- Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:01, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Mount Mazama 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 Freikorp -- Freikorp (talk) 09:00, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
The third round of the 2018 WikiCup has now come to an end. The 16 users who made it to the fourth round had at least 227 points. Our top scorers in round 3 were:
Courcelles, a first time contestant, with 1756 points, a tally built largely on 27 GAs related to the Olympics
Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with two featured articles and three GAs on natural history and astronomy topics
SounderBruce, a finalist last year, with a variety of submissions related to transport in the state of Washington
Contestants managed 7 featured articles, 4 featured lists, 120 good articles, 1 good topic, 124 DYK entries, 15 ITN entries, and 132 good article reviews. Over the course of the competition, contestants have completed 458 GA reviews, in comparison to 244 good articles submitted for review and promoted. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process; several submissions, particularly in abstruse or technical areas, have needed additional work to make them completely verifiable.
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.
Good day Ceranthor! I wanted to thank you again for your phenomenal GA review of Morgan Morgan Monument, and I would like to apologize again for not responding within the appropriate amount of time. I had a moment to incorporate all your suggested edits, and I have renominated the article to GAN accordingly. I will understand if you do not want to take this one on, but if you decide to, I will immediately address your comments. -- West Virginian (talk)18:29, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
@West Virginian: I just passed the article. I'm still not sure you need the HMDB sources, since that information is supported by two other references in the article already. I'm planning to nominate Three Fingered Jack soon, do you think you could review it once I put it up for GAN? ceranthor02:27, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
Ceranthor, thank you again for taking the time provide this thoughtful and informative review! I would like to keep the HMdb citations for now, and will work on finding another source to validate the text on the monument. I would also be honored to review your article once it is nominated! I appreciate all your continued contributions to Wikipedia! -- West Virginian (talk)02:42, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Three Fingered Jack 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 West Virginian -- West Virginian (talk) 02:20, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Hi Ceranthor! I'm thinking about nominating Teresa Sampsonia for FA. As it would be my first FA, I was wondering whether you'd be willing to get involved as mentor (saw your name at WP:FAM). In short: do you think I could nominate it right now, or do you think some things have to get changed/tweaked first? Best, - LouisAragon (talk) 21:46, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
@LouisAragon: From a quick read, I think it needs some fixing up first. I'd be happy to help you out. I see that Mike Christie was the GAN reviewer, and he's reliably thorough, so I suspect there shouldn't be too much that needs to be improved. ceranthor13:25, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
Sure - I'm a bit swamped IRL at the moment, but hopefully some time next week. I promise I'll give you a heads up once I'm free. ceranthor20:10, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
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.
