This is an archive of past discussions with User:Excirial. 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.
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.
A request for comment asks whether partial blocks should be enabled on the English Wikipedia. If enabled, this functionality would allow administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces, rather than the entire site.
A proposal asks whether admins who don't use their tools for a significant period of time (e.g. five years) should have the toolset procedurally removed.
The fourth case on Palestine-Israel articles was closed. The case consolidated all previous remedies under one heading, which should make them easier to understand, apply, and enforce. In particular, the distinction between "primary articles" and "related content" has been clarified, with the former being the entire set of articles whose topic relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted rather than reasonably construed.
Following a request for comment, partial blocks are now enabled on the English Wikipedia. This functionality allows administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces rather than the entire site. A draft policy is being workshopped at Wikipedia:Partial blocks.
The request for comment seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure closed with wide-spread support for an alternative desysoping procedure based on community input. No proposed process received consensus.
Technical news
Twinkle now supports partial blocking. There is a small checkbox that toggles the "partial" status for both blocks and templating. There is currently one template: {{uw-pblock}}.
When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title. [1]
Arbitration
Following a recent arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee reminded administrators that checkuser and oversight blocks must not be reversed or modified without prior consultation with the checkuser or oversighter who placed the block, the respective functionary team, or the Arbitration Committee.
Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops must not undo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather than should not.
A request for comment confirmed that sandboxes of established but inactive editors may not be blanked due solely to inactivity.
Technical news
Following a discussion, Twinkle's default CSD behavior will soon change, most likely this week. After the change, Twinkle will default to "tagging mode" if there is no CSD tag present, and default to "deletion mode" if there is a CSD tag present. You will be able to always default to "deletion mode" (the current behavior) using your Twinkle preferences.
Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold a Arbcom RfC regarding on-wiki harassment. A draft RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC (Draft) and not open to comments from the community yet. Interested editors can comment on the RfC itself on its talk page.
Miscellaneous
The WMF has begun a pilot report of the pages most visited through various social media platforms to help with anti-vandalism and anti-disinformation efforts. The report is updated daily and will be available through the end of May.
The Wikimedia Foundation announced that they will develop a universal code of conduct for all WMF projects. There is an open local discussion regarding the same.
Arbitration
A motion was passed to enact a 500/30 restriction on articles related to the history of Jews and antisemitism in Poland during World War II (1933–45), including the Holocaust in Poland. Article talk pages where disruption occurs may also be managed with the stated restriction.
The Medicine case was closed, with a remedy authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for all discussions about pharmaceutical drug prices and pricing and for edits adding, changing, or removing pharmaceutical drug prices or pricing from articles.
There is no such degree as a 'Masterbate' degree at any university ersatz and it sounds z bit cheesy. Why did you change it back? It sounds very much like masturbate.
188.29.214.229 (talk) 20:17, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
Hi Excirial. I hope this finds you well. It may amuse you to remember that over 6 whole years ago you said you hoped to see me hit the 100 DYK boundary some time in the future - so you might like to know that it's finally happened. Maybe it would have been quicker if I didn't keep writing such loooong articles. Here's hoping that the next hundred will be nice, quick drive-by's! Thank you for your previous support! Storye book (talk) 19:16, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
I had to refresh my memory a tad after a decade, but i believe that Burn Bridge and specifically this revision was the article that initially caught my eye. And in particular that lovely forestscape image that had "a tree which looked like a face next to a the steam" (I believe that's a fairly accurate paraphrasing of my thoughts back then). Quite the trip back down memory lane!
What else can i say but a rather belated "Congratulations on reaching the 100 mark!". I haven't been around as much the last two or so years as i once was, and during that time i have mostly been gnoming about without logging in (Why log in just to correct a typo or write a paragraph after all). I really should catch up with some your newer DYK's though as it haven't really kept myself up to date with those in the meantime. A quick look however shows that they are as colourful as always with lots of lovely images included. Also, lots and lots of well formatted reference list with expanded references containing all relevant information. It's probably a result of spending too many years on the wiki, but i really grew font of well formatted and organized lists of references.
Now, i hope that the small text back then that stated "250 DYK's" might also become a reality eventually! But no rush for that - 100 lovely and long DYK's are (at the very least) as valuable as a 200 DYK's that only just reach the 1500 word boundary after all. Excirial(Contact me,Contribs)05:01, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
Thank you so much for that kind message, Excirial - it's much appreciated. Regarding the nature reserve articles, I have only been able to take winter photos so far, due to spring being cancelled (lockdown, and public transport limitations here). But I hope to go back and take pictures of those places in flower next year, and maybe find some of their famous rare bugs and so on. One can always hope. Do you know if there's a place where I can ask for a 100-dyk banner? All the best. Storye book (talk) 09:58, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
Sysops will once again be able to view the deleted history of JS/CSS pages; this was restricted to interface administrators when that group was introduced.
Twinkle's block module now includes the ability to note the specific case when applying a discretionary sanctions block and/or template.
In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. If you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.
Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed 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.
Voting for proposals in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey, which determines what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year, will take place from 8 December through 21 December. In particular, there are sections regarding administrators and anti-harassment.
By motion, standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarily authorizedfor all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes). The effectiveness of the discretionary sanctions can be evaluated on the request by any editor after March 1, 2021 (or sooner if for a good reason).
A request for comment is open that proposes a process for the community to revoke administrative permissions. This follows a 2019 RfC in favor of creating one such a policy.
A request for comment is in progress to remove F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a, which covers immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
A request for comment asks if sysops may place the General sanctions/Coronavirus disease 2019 editnotice template on pages in scope that do not have page-specific sanctions?
When blocking an IPv6 address with Twinkle, there is now a checkbox with the option to just block the /64 range. When doing so, you can still leave a block template on the initial, single IP address' talkpage.
When protecting a page with Twinkle, you can now add a note if doing so was in response to a request at WP:RfPP, and even link to the specific revision.
By motion, the discretionary sanctions originally authorized under the GamerGate case are now authorized under a new Gender and sexuality case, with sanctions authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, any gender-related dispute or controversy and associated people. Sanctions issued under GamerGate are now considered Gender and sexuality sanctions.
Following a request for comment, F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a has been deprecated; it covered immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
Following a request for comment, page movers were granted the delete-redirect userright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target.
Technical news
When you move a page that many editors have on their watchlist the history can be split and it might also not be possible to move it again for a while. This is because of a job queue problem. (T278350)
Code to support some very old web browsers is being removed. This could cause issues in those browsers. (T277803)
The user group oversight will be renamed to suppress. This is for technical reasons. You can comment at T112147 if you have objections.
Arbitration
The community consultation on the Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions procedure was closed, and an initial draft based on feedback from the now closed consultation is expected to be released in early June to early July for community review.
AFC is in the consideration phase for planning a Backlog Drive, and your script and good work has underpinned prior drives. I am hoping that your script is able to work with AFCH and the current MW versions
79.71.150.221 (talk) 16:58, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
you sent me this "Hello, I'm Excirial. I wanted to let you know that I reverted one of your recent contributions —the one you made with this edit to Sickle-cell disease—"
i have never changed anything on wiki ever. why did i get this message?
Wikimedia previously used the IRC network Freenode. However, due to changes over who controlled the network with reports of a forceful takeover by several ex-staff members, the Wikimedia IRC Group Contacts decided to move to the new Libera Chat network. It has been reported that Wikimedia related channels on Freenode have been forcibly taken over if they pointed members to Libera. There is a migration guide and Wikimedia discussions about this.
Consensus has been reached to delete all books in the book namespace. There was rough consensus that the deleted books should still be available on request at WP:REFUND even after the namespace is removed.
An RfC is open to discuss the next steps following a trial which automatically applied pending changes to TFAs.
Technical news
IP addresses of unregistered users are to be hidden from everyone. There is a rough draft of how IP addresses may be shown to users who need to see them. This currently details allowing administrators, checkusers, stewards and those with a new usergroup to view the full IP address of unregistered users. Editors with at least 500 edits and an account over a year old will be able to see all but the end of the IP address in the proposal. The ability to see the IP addresses hidden behind the mask would be dependent on agreeing to not share the parts of the IP address they can see with those who do not have access to the same information. Accessing part of or the full IP address of a masked editor would also be logged. Comments on the draft are being welcomed at the talk page.
Arbitration
The community authorised COVID-19 general sanctions have been superseded by the COVID-19 discretionary sanctions following a motion at a case request. Alerts given and sanctions placed under the community authorised general sanctions are now considered alerts for and sanctions under the new discretionary sanctions.
Pending suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity
Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions will be removed if you do not return to activity within the next month.
Inactive administrators are encouraged to rejoin the project in earnest rather than to make token edits to avoid loss of administrative permissions. Resources and support for reengaging with the project are available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/administrators. If you do not intend to rejoin the project in the foreseeable future, please consider voluntarily resigning your administrative permissions by making a request at the bureaucrats' noticeboard.
Imminent suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity
Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions will be removed if you do not return to activity within the next several days.
Inactive administrators are encouraged to rejoin the project in earnest rather than to make token edits to avoid loss of administrative permissions. Resources and support for reengaging with the project are available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/administrators. If you do not intend to rejoin the project in the foreseeable future, please consider voluntarily resigning your administrative permissions by making a request at the bureaucrats' noticeboard.
