This is an archive of past discussions with User:Nihlus. 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.
Hello, Nihlus. 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.
I apologise for pestering your ivote and I struck it and reworded it. I actually believe that you would make a great admin and I will support your RFA whenever you are nominated (hopefully soon). You are a inspiration to a lot of younger editors. JC7V (talk) 01:16, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
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. I recently opened a request for dispute resolution. I have never been involved in one before and have a question about how it's suppose to work. When I opened the request, I entered a short description of the dispute, trying to be as neutral as possible. One of the involved editors has now responded with their own description of the case, in which they argue extensively for their position, and in the process, mischaracterize the situation extensively, IMO, and also launch attacks against me and other editors. I feel like I should respond to those mischaracterizations and attacks, but I a) don't want to do that it if would be counterproductive at this point, eg. by bloating the request before a volunteer has gotten involved, and b) want to engage in the appropriate place and way, and I don't know how that's typically done. So my question is, would it be appropriate to respond? And if so, when, where, and how would be the appropriate way to respond? Thanks for any tips you can give me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alweth (talk • contribs) 18:58, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
Width=100%
Hello!
I wanted to take the time and ask why do you deem the full-width variable for the RuPaul's Drag Race judges table unnecessary?
K CMS, it makes no sense to have it span the entire width of the page unless there is a lot of text and info that is causing it to be formatted poorly. That is not the case here. On larger resolutions, the table only spans about 30% of the page, so extending it to 100% distorts to table to unreadable levels. Nihlus12:02, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
Hello, what do you mean by "extending it to 100% distorts to table to unreadable levels"? I would just like to know. Thanks! k_cms (talk) 10:53, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
Abelmoschus Esculentus' User Scripts
Dear all. Recently, our community lost a dedicated user, Abelmoschus Esculentus (talk). Among their projects were a number of user scripts that they left behind. I (DannyS712) have copied the scripts, and have taken over maintaining them. You currently import one or more of Abelmoschus Esculentus' scripts, and I thought that you might want to import a maintained version. Links to each script are provided below.
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.
For the frank and civil discussion at that AfD. While you and I disagree on the interpretation, it's always good to see the thought process for other editors' decisions. Keep up the good work. Onel5969TT me16:47, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
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.
Hello, Nihlus. Please check your email; you've got mail! Message added 20:51, 20 April 2019 (UTC). 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.
Professor in need of assistance regarding a possible dispute
I am a professor who is using Wiki Ed for the first time with my Modern Global History class. Last night, I was suddenly attacked by a Wiki editor who accused me of not being a professional and saying that my students did not know enough to be on Wikipedia. The editor would not give me specific incidents of my students' failures despite repeated requests by me to do so. Here is a copy of our discussion:
Hi, are you professional? Your supposed students are causing chaos! Do you even know what is going on?!? MPS1992 (talk) 23:46, 22 April 2019 (UTC) It would be much more helpful to have specific examples of what you are referring to. My students have been working very hard on their projects which are due this evening Sheddedl (talk) 00:02, 23 April 2019 (UTC) wow, no surprise there then. MPS1992 (talk)
I am not tempted to cite specific students of yours and their disruptive editing. I realize that they are doing the best that they can. But the "last minute" behavior is annoying and disruptive. Please make sure that this does not happen again. MPS1992 (talk) 00:09, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
This is most certainly NOT last minute behavior. They have been working on this project with me looking over their shoulders once a week, every week for months. They know to use proper sources and have worked with the college librarian. I would need to know specifics of the problems that you are finding. Sheddedl (talk) 00:14, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
Please explain how this is not a last-minute edit, after already having been told that it was not appropriate, more than five hours earlier, in this edit. MPS1992 (talk) 00:20, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
Incidentally, I don't want that student penalised for their Wikipedia edits -- but I did look at the edits of other students and I was concerned. I think students on this course are not yet suited to involvement with Wikipedia. That's just my opinion, with which you may disagree. MPS1992 (talk) 00:30, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
I am not going to penalize my students. It would be very helpful to know your specific concerns rather than having you attack me. This is a learning process for me too because this is my first Wikipedia course, and I am having trouble seeing what you feel that my students are doing wrong. In the case of my young Spanish major working on Tupac Amaru II, she went to great lengths to find the information that she did. She translated it herself and then COMPLETELY REWROTE it, just like you would do for an English source. She has not plagiarized. We discussed her edits and your concerns today. There is nothing in the WikiEducation training pages saying that information from foreign language sources is forbidden. Sheddedl (talk) 00:48, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
I am sorry if I over-reacted. I will reply later about the Tupac Amaru II issue. To a very large extent, I think you have been misled about how useful Wikipedia is for students at the level you are teaching. MPS1992 (talk) 00:59, 23 April 2019 (UTC) (I am a volunteer, it is after 2am here right now, I have to get up for work in a few hours. MPS1992 (talk) 01:02, 23 April 2019 (UTC))
As you can see, the editor has been minimally apologetic, but is still very much on the attack. I have no idea how to handle this situation. I really don't want to open up any more discussions with the editor for fear that the editor is going to come back with more attacks. However, I also don't want all of my students' hard work deleted with no explanation. Do you have any suggestions? Sheddedl (talk) 14:00, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:Rupaul's drag race progress table
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.
If you can find any other reliable sources that consistently distinguish "high safes" and "low safes" from regular "just plain safe safes", then I'd be more than happy to defer to them. Recaps don't necessarily do that, however, but usually just discuss the winner and the bottom without necessarily giving a detailed recording of whether the safe queens were high, low or middle — and in many of the seasons, the only reference used to cite the rankings in our articles at all is metasourcing them to the episode itself, which also isn't a helpful source in the event of a dispute. So if somebody tries to alter the rankings in a DR results table, the only options I have are to either check the Drag Race Wiki tables, or to manually Google all the different episode recaps in the hopes that maybe one of them might have been more specific for that one queen than they usually are otherwise, or to rewatch the entire episode myself.
Again, if you've got a reliable source that consistently records the "highs" and "lows" for every episode in every season, so that we can always go to that specific site and verify a high/low/safe ranking in the snap of a finger without having to manually read through 98 different episode recaps or illegally download the episode off BitTorrent to watch it myself, then by all means bring it on. But user-generated or not, Drag Race Wiki is the only resource I'm aware of that records "high" or "low" placements at all. The only other alternative would be for us to entirely drop high/low tabs, and just stick with "safe" across the board for anybody but the winner and the bottoms — but I really don't envision a consensus for that emerging anytime soon. If there's a better source than Drag Race Wiki for this purpose, I'd be happy to defer to it if I knew what and where it was. Bearcat (talk) 18:15, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
@Bearcat:, regardless if other sources are available or not, you cannot use other wikis as reliable sources without changing policy. Nihlus23:53, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
Then what other options do we have? If somebody alters a rankings table, I have to be able to independently reverify whether their edit was right or wrong somewhere, so where else is there? Not my job to guess: your job to have an answer: what other source exists to independently reverify whether an alteration to the ranking tables is a helpful correction or a vandalistic fuckification? Bearcat (talk) 03:16, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
@Bearcat: My answer is that you don't use wikis as sources. It's not my job or anyone else's job to tell you where and how to find reliable sources, and it requires no guessing on your part to understand that. Nonetheless, RuPaul's Drag Race (season 10) is sourced, so I recommend starting there. Nihlus05:23, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
As I've stated, the issue is that episode recaps do not reliably clarify whether a queen who was neither the winner nor a lipsyncing bottom was "high safe", "low safe" or "just plain safe safe". Even the cited sources in the Season 10 article fail right across the board to actually support that distinction, and no other recaps I've searched for support that distinction either — published recaps single out the winner and the bottom two, but just designate everybody else as "safe" without making any high vs. low distinctions, and Drag Race Wiki is literally the only source I've ever been able to find that regularly distinguishes "high" and "low" from just plain "safe" at all. Obviously if somebody switches the winner of the week or the bottom two, the recaps clearly verify what's right or wrong, but that's mostly not what's actually happening — what's happening is that people switch highs and lows and safes around, in ways that are not easily verifiable because the higher quality sources do not support that distinction.
I have put in the time and effort to find other more reliable sources to sort out what was right or wrong when people make alterations to the ranking charts, and I'm literally just about the last person on Wikipedia who would ever need lessons in how to do that. The problem is that when there's a dispute over the high vs. low vs. safe distinction, there literally aren't any better sources to be had 99 per cent of the time.
It's obvious that the way our articles distinguish highs from lows in a weekly rankings chart was directly copied from Drag Race Wiki, because there are no other sources that reliably make that distinction. So if there's a problem here, it isn't with me — it's with whoever made the original decision that our articles should import a less than ideal source's ranking system in the first place even though it's so consistently unsourceable otherwise. What the articles really need is to have the high vs. low distinctions stripped from the charts entirely, because Drag Race Wiki is literally the only external source on the planet that supports that distinction — but until there's a consensus to strip the highs and lows, all I can do if there's a high vs. low vs. safe dispute over a queen's ranking is either consult Drag Race Wiki to see whether they ranked a queen as high or low or safe, or just ignore the issue entirely and let the editwar keep raging. Not because I don't know how to search for reliable sources in principle, but because there literally aren't any more reliable sources to be found for that: the actual written episode recaps on Vulture or AV Club simply don't verify it very well at all. In a nutshell, I'm done even trying to assist with any of this. Bearcat (talk) 11:39, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
@Bearcat: It helps to understand that the high and low changes predate the Drag Race Wiki itself. I'm over discussing this with someone who refuses to listen, but anything added or changed citing UGC will most likely be reverted per policy in the future. Nihlus21:13, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
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.
Hi Nihlus. I'm DannyS712 (talk), and I wanted to send you a warning about a change I am making to a script, User:DannyS712/DiscussionCloser, that you currently import. If you are an administrator, feel free to ignore this message. For non-administrators, you should be advised that I am removing the script's automatic addition of {{nac}} to your closes. If you have relied on this to mark such closes for you, please remember to add {{nac}} yourself. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk)
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.
I'm not sure why you removed the entire sentence at 2019 Wimbledon Championships – Men's Singles. Removing the entire topic of the article is against wikipedia guidelines. It looks like the term fits nicely so can easily be bolded, but it it could also be shortened to just "In the 2019 Wimbledon Championships..." and not be bolded. Either way is fine. What is not fine is to remove it completely as was discussed by administrators recently at Tennis Project talk. Thanks. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:08, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
Fyunck(click), administrators? Who? No one has authority over the article. Please read MOS:BOLDAVOID and the other existing articles for the Championships before coming back to my talk page. Thanks. Nihlus22:49, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
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.
Nihlus, I wanted to thank you for the time you took in evaluating my candidacy for adminship and for the thought you put into your oppose and your response to Bish. I hope that my actions as an admin will lean towards the "great admin" side of things far more than the "bad admin". Should you have feedback going forward please know I welcome it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:25, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
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.
Hi Nihlus, there's a dispute at ANI between two admins that I and some others have been trying to mediate, but I'm a little busy with an edit-a-thon today. I saw that you're coordinator at DRN and thought you might be able to lend an experienced hand. The discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Talking it out if you're able to help. Thanks! Wug·a·po·des 16:39, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
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.
Google Code-In 2019 is coming - please mentor some documentation tasks!
Hello,
Google Code-In, Google-organized contest in which the Wikimedia Foundation participates, starts in a few weeks. This contest is about taking high school students into the world of opensource. I'm sending you this message because you recently edited a documentation page at the English Wikipedia.
I would like to ask you to take part in Google Code-In as a mentor. That would mean to prepare at least one task (it can be documentation related, or something else - the other categories are Code, Design, Quality Assurance and Outreach) for the participants, and help the student to complete it. Please sign up at the contest page and send us your Google account address to google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org, so we can invite you in!
From my own experience, Google Code-In can be fun, you can make several new friends, attract new people to your wiki and make them part of your community.
If you have any questions, please let us know at google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org.
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.
Since the discussion was closed, just so I understand this right: I can perform several reverts within 24 hours of content that has been added or modified before my first revert during that 24 hour period. Right? BeŻet (talk) 20:47, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
But that doesn't make sense. So if between my edits someone makes a completely unrelated change somewhere completely different in the article, suddenly I violate the rule? Surely this is absurd? BeŻet (talk) 20:51, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
I'm sure if the edits were right on top of one another an administrator would be able to see that. I don't see how this is absurd at all. Nihlus21:03, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
I'm saying that it seems to me that the rule should discourage from people performing several reverts during 24 hours, but it seems that if you do them quickly enough in succession, or in an article that isn't busy, you're good to go. Seems like a big flaw to me that should perhaps be discussed elsewhere. BeŻet (talk) 22:52, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Because you are reverting two or more unrelated things done by two or more different editors; and you're suddenly not allowed to do that if someone manages to squeeze in a completely unrelated edit in. I will start a discussion about this somewhere, because this seems counter-intuitive to me. BeŻet (talk) 08:43, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
I have now started a conversation about this at the village pump, hopefully expressing my concerns clearly and what issues I see. Thank you for listening, and I hope you understand I am just concerned about the implications of the rule. BeŻet (talk) 08:57, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
Hello, Nihlus. 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.
DRN Volunteer Roll Call - Action Required
There has been no roll call since November 2017 so with that said, it is time to clean up the volunteer list. Please go to the Roll Call list and follow the instructions. If no response is received by May 30, 2020, it will be assumed that you no longer wish to participate and you will be removed as a DRN volunteer. Thank you for your attention to this and for helping Wikipedians in their dispute processes. Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of GalendaliaCVU Member \ Chat Me Up at 12:08, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
Articles for Creation: List of reviewers by subject notice
Hi Nihlus, you are receiving this notice because you are listed as an active Articles for Creation reviewer.
Recently a list of reviewers by area of expertise was created. This notice is being sent out to alert you to the existence of that list, and to encourage you to add your name to it. If you or other reviewers come across articles in the queue where an acceptance/decline hinges on specialist knowledge, this list should serve to facilitate contact with a fellow reviewer.
To end on a positive note, the backlog has dropped below 1,500, so thanks for all of the hard work some of you have been putting into the AfC process!
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.
Well I thought that was a possibility at first, so (because I didn't want to look stupid) I checked [2] first and didn't find your name. What would have helped more for me not to look stupid would have been to look for Nihlus, not Nilhus.... --Floquenbeam (talk) 03:24, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I posted the Rfc. You can find it here. I narrowed it to two options because options A and C were basically the same and could split the vote. If there are any changes you'd like me to make, please let me know. Smith0124 (talk) 00:33, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
Darryl Kerrigan
Darryl isn’t respecting your decision to keep things how they were initially until the results of the Rfc. He’s continued to accuse me of awful things and he’s threatening to revert back to his/her edits. I need you to calm him/her down and tell him/her to respect your decision. I’m so sick of arguing with this guy it’s all giving me a headache can you please talk some sense into Darryl. Thanks. Smith0124 (talk) 04:15, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
Smith0124, I just think it is best if you two just avoid each other for a bit and cool off. We're not in a hurry to get this resolved immediately. The new consensus will be reached and then it can be implemented as necessary. Also, I did want to clarify that I am not an administrator. Just someone who is trying to help this be resolved without someone getting blocked. Nihlus05:55, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for your help. I agree. Honestly it feels admins can block impulsively and I was scared of that. I’ve been trying to say we should just part ways but Darryl has persisted. Honestly I have a headache and just want all this to stop. You’ve been so nice and I really appreciate it. Smith0124 (talk) 05:59, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
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.
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.
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.
