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This is the archive of comments added to User talk:Gyrofrog during 2018 and 2019. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 19:35, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2018

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

Administrator changes

added Muboshgu
readded AnetodeLaser brainWorm That Turned
removed None

Bureaucrat changes

readded Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

Arbitration


INNER SANCTUM RECORDS

I see you rewrote my updated info on my record store. Not a fan site ?. I'm the sole owner of the record store, I have owned it 100% since May of 1985. I still don't think its write you didn't allow the updated info to stay on the original page... + definitely not right you messed with my info !!! who gives you the right ??? I did not !!! ... Patrick (owner) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:8E00:38C0:A5AE:8DCA:F130:89E9 (talk) 01:33, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Please have a look at WP:TONE, WP:COI, WP:NOR. While the article is not an autobiography, I believe WP:AUTOBIO is also applicable to the content you posted. Thanks. -- Gyrofrog 15:47, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2018

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

Administrator changes

added None
removed BlurpeaceDana boomerDeltabeignetDenelson83GrandioseSalvidrim!Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration


Administrators' newsletter – March 2018

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

Administrator changes

added Lourdes
removed AngelOfSadnessBhadaniChris 73CorenFridayMidomMike V
† Lourdes has requested that her admin rights be temporarily removed, pending her return from travel.

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

Obituaries

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

Hi plese help me fast

Hi mate, how are you, answer, may I ask you to answer the subject is accepted through GNG? I am not asking you for a favor, rather I'll explain to you why so that you can with ethics answer. The subject in the matter is an icon for Ethiopian football, he's been in Ethiopian radios, following with his words in an interview appearing in EBC TV which is the central and government TV channel of Ethiopia. DireTube as well is not close to a blog, or routine page but Ethiopia's biggest platform where over 200 people actually commented on the subject and he was spoken about in a highly matter showing very high coverage. I don't want to become a hypocrite and saying that it would be hypocritical to delete this subject when we accept thai-players who has only played 1 or 2 games in the league but sources are fully or almost over fully not reliable, it might as well been a page created and edited by someone... You understand my point mate? All in all, he is very suited for note via GNG, he's suited via following:"Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly and in detail so that no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material., <-- he has been in an exclusive interview with what I know two Swedish newspapers (or could be more I only know 2) who wrote him in the first page with a fully page on only him, he had a full interview in radio that many small Ethiopian TV channels broadcasted and the major EBC TV aswell... I am counting on you pal, think of it as a favor to me but with ethics as well... and by the way may you note that it dosn't matter if he fails WP:FOOTY if he's acceptable to GNG which he is to the person who was against it in the discussion, if you want I can send you puctures of him in the magazine and at 11:13 January4 he was recorded in Aftonbladet silly season notice which is swedens biggest news-platforms of all times and he blew in swedish-football community where everyone talked about him, and about a week ago he was in radio where he himself admitted that a possible move is in the coming months... again GNG is via ethiopia and his adimre alongside EFF-president who spoke so highly of him. Thank my friend, I hope you see this and answer in my favor, if you are very not wanting to answer in my favor, then don't answer against it please I'm already having trouble with one perosn who wanted to delete,

Administrators' newsletter – April 2018

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

Administrator changes

added 331dotCordless LarryClueBot NG
removed Gogo DodoPb30SebastiankesselSeicerSoLando

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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.

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

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

Administrator changes

added None
removed ChochopkCoffeeGryffindorJimpKnowledge SeekerLankiveilPeridonRjd0060

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

Obituaries

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

Slow Jam truth answer to vandalism

I’m offended and disgusted that I’m labeled as vandalism in regard to Slow Jam. I created the Radio Format which is the genre. Yes it comes from a song by Midnight Star and that was the start for my creating the radio format of Slow Jam. Without the format on radio there would not be a mention of Slow Jam referring to a ballad or as you refer a down tempo song. Everything I wrote is exactly what it should be. I don’t take being called a vandal lightly and I’ll defend myself and my Slow Jam creation forever. You don’t even know me but yet felt it necessary to call me and my lifetime effort vandalism. I’m worldwide on the radio with Snoop Dogg’s Radio Station. That should tell you something. My name is Kevin “Slow Jammin” James. Check your facts and I’m not done with trying to clear my name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slowjamjames (talkcontribs) 17:56, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Left response at User talk:Slowjamjames. -- Gyrofrog 18:06, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018

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

Administrator changes

added None
removed Al Ameer sonAliveFreeHappyCenariumLupoMichaelBillington

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous


Administrators' newsletter – July 2018

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

Administrator changes

added PbsouthwoodTheSandDoctor
readded Gogo Dodo
removed AndrevanDougEVulaKaisaLTony FoxWilyD

Bureaucrat changes

removed AndrevanEVula

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

Administrators' newsletter – August 2018

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

Administrator changes

added Sro23
readded KaisaLYmblanter

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news


Administrators' newsletter – September 2018

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

Administrator changes

added None
removed AsterionCrisco 1492KFKudpungLizRandykittySpartaz
renamed Optimist on the runVoice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

added AmorymeltzerMr. StradivariusMusikAnimalMSGJTheDJXaosflux

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

AfroCine: Join us for the Months of African Cinema in October!

Greetings!

You are receiving this message because your username or portal was listed as a participant of a WikiProject that is related to Africa, the Carribean, Cinema or theatre.

This is to introduce you to a new Wikiproject called AfroCine. This new project is dedicated to improving the Wikipedia coverage of the history, works, people, places, events, etc, that are associated with the cinema, theatre and arts of Africa, African countries, the carribbean, and the diaspora. If you would love to be part of this or you're already contributing in this area, kindly list your name as a participant on the project page here.

Furthermore, In the months of October and November, the WikiProject is organizing a global on-wiki contest and edit-a-thon tagged: The Months of African Cinema. If you would love to join us for this exciting event, also list your username as a participant for this event here. In preparation for the contest, please do suggest relevant articles that need to be created or expanded in different countries, during this event!

If you have any questions, complaints, suggestions, etc., please reach out to me personally on my talkpage! Cheers!--Jamie Tubers (talk) 20:50, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Welcome to the Months of African Cinema!

Greetings!

The AfroCine Project welcomes you to October, the first out of the two months which has been dedicated to improving contents that centre around the cinema of Africa, the Caribbean, and the diaspora.

This is a global online edit-a-thon, which is happening in at least 5 language editions of Wikipedia, including the English Wikipedia! Join us in this exciting venture, by helping to create or expand articles which are connected to this scope. Also remember to list your name under the participants section, if you haven't done so already.

On English Wikipedia, we would be recognizing Users who are able to achieve the following:

  • Overall winner (1st, 2nd, 3rd places)
  • Country Winners
  • Diversity winner
  • High quality contributors
  • Gender-gap fillers
  • Page improvers
  • Wikidata Translators

For further information about the contest, the recognition categories and how to participate, please visit the contest page here. For further inquiries, please leave comments on the contest talkpage or on the main project talkpage. See you around :).--Jamie Tubers (talk) 22:50, 03 October 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018

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

Administrator changes

added JustlettersandnumbersL235
removed BgwhiteHorsePunchKidJ GrebKillerChihuahuaRami RWinhunter

Interface administrator changes

added Cyberpower678Deryck ChanOshwahPharosRagesossRitchie333

Oversight changes

removed Guerillero NativeForeigner SnowolfXeno

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018

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

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, Gyrofrog. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

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

Administrator changes

readded Al Ameer sonRandykittySpartaz
removed BosonDaniel J. LeivickEfeEsanchez7587Fred BauderGarzoMartijn HoekstraOrangemike

Interface administrator changes

removedDeryck Chan

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

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

Obituaries


Attribution

Good afternoon,

I’m writing you from Radical Carbon SL. Currently, we are in the postproduction process of a documentary serie called Catalunya, Barcelona. Our aim is to show the history of Catalonia through more than 40 interviews of people who live in and/or has grown up in Catalonia.

In order to illustrate some of the topics that are showed in the documentary, we have decided to include some pictures from Wikipedia that are under your authorship. Therefore, we would like to ask you how do you want us to attribute the credit of those images.

We need to know where would you like your name to appear: in the moment the picture appears or in the end with the rest of the credits.

I’m attaching a list of the links of the images that we would like to use:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MontserratMonastery01.jpg

Thank you for your attention,

Sandra Serrano http://catalunyabarcelona.com/

Catbarfilm111 (talk) 20:22, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

  • Starting on December 13, the Wikimedia Foundation security team implemented new password policy and requirements. Privileged accounts (administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, oversighters, interface administrators, bots, edit filter managers/helpers, template editors, et al.) must have a password at least 10 characters in length. All accounts must have a password:
  1. At least 8 characters in length
  2. Not in the 100,000 most popular passwords (defined by the Password Blacklist library)
  3. Different from their username
User accounts not meeting these requirements will be prompted to update their password accordingly. More information is available on MediaWiki.org.
  • Blocked administrators may now block the administrator that blocked them. This was done to mitigate the possibility that a compromised administrator account would block all other active administrators, complementing the removal of the ability to unblock oneself outside of self-imposed blocks. A request for comment is currently in progress to determine whether the blocking policy should be updated regarding this change.
  • {{Copyvio-revdel}} now has a link to open the history with the RevDel checkboxes already filled in.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

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

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

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

Administrator changes

added EnterpriseyJJMC89
readded BorgQueen
removed Harro5Jenks24GraftR. Baley

Interface administrator changes

removedEnterprisey

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

Administrators' newsletter – March 2019

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

Guideline and policy news

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-wp@wikipedia.org has been set up to receive private evidence related to abusive paid editing.
    • checkuser-en-wp@wikipedia.org has been set up to receive private requests for CheckUser. For instance, requests for IP block exemption for anonymous proxy editing should now be sent to this address instead of the functionaries-en list.

Miscellaneous


Ways to improve Ali Jimale

Hello, Gyrofrog,

Thanks for creating Ali Jimale! I edit here too, under the username Polyamorph and it's nice to meet you :-)

I wanted to let you know that I have tagged the page as having some issues to fix, as a part of our page curation process and note that:-

Independent sources are needed

The tags can be removed by you or another editor once the issues they mention are addressed. If you have questions, leave a comment here and prepend it with {{Re|Polyamorph}}. And, don't forget to sign your reply with ~~~~ . For broader editing help, please visit the Teahouse.

Delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.

Polyamorph (talk) 09:13, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2019

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

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

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

ArbCom 2019 special circular

Icon of a white exclamation mark within a black triangle
Administrators must secure their accounts

The Arbitration Committee may require a new RfA if your account is compromised.

View additional information

This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:22, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)

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

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

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

For the Arbitration Committee, -Cameron11598 21:03, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2019

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

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous


Administrators' newsletter – June 2019

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

Administrator changes

removed AndonicConsumed CrustaceanEnigmamanEuryalusEWS23HereToHelpNv8200paPeripitusStringTheory11Vejvančický

CheckUser changes

removed Ivanvector

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous


Administrators' newsletter – July 2019

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

Administrator changes

removed 28bytesAd OrientemAnsh666BeeblebroxBoing! said ZebedeeBU Rob13Dennis BrownDeorDoRDFloquenbeam1Flyguy649Fram2GadfiumGB fanJonathunderKusmaLectonarMoinkMSGJNickOd MishehuRamaSpartazSyrthissTheDJWJBscribe
1Floquenbeam's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.
2Fram's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.

Guideline and policy news

  • In a related matter, the account throttle has been restored to six creations per day as the mitigation activity completed.

Technical news

  • 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


Adama

I wanted to point out that you reverted an edit regarding the demographic composition of Adama/Nazret that was in fact correct, and given that you are a long-time editor of Ethiopian topics I thought you were entitled to clarification: the census statistics do indeed show 59% of residents speak Amharic and 26% speak Oromo, and not the other way around. There has been one if not several editors who keep on changing the numbers around (without any kind of citation), as well as removing any mention of the name "Nazret" or any Amharic on the page. Obviously this is blatant vandalism, although I will not speculate on their motivations (even if they are immediately apparent). --Varavour (talk) 00:00, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2019

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

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • 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.
  • The new page reviewer right is bundled with the admin tool set. Many admins regularly help out at Special:NewPagesFeed, but they may not be aware of improvements, changes, and new tools for the Curation system. Stay up to date by subscribing here to the NPP newsletter that appears every two months, and/or putting the reviewers' talk page on your watchlist.

    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.


Sandra Good

Hi. I would like to know why, after I made the correct changes in regards to who Sandra Goods son, Ivan's father was, you deleted the information. I'm not sure in you're aware that Ivan admits that Bobby Beausoleil is his father here's a blog for the Manson family your free to read his comments, and Ivan also has a Facebook where there are pictures of Bobby, and Ivan together if not, just google them. I highly doubt at 50 years old the man gas anything to hide. Also, the date there says 2016 but, Ivan as well as George Stimpsons were made in 2019. Unless, they have asked that the information NOT be made public on Wikipedia, however the information IS already public knowledge if you go looking for it in the right places. Thanks so much!

https://rxstr.com/2016/02/19/sandra-good-profile/sandra-good-and-ivan-pugh/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.61.12.52 (talk) 12:57, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2019

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

Administrator changes

added BradvChetsfordIzno
readded FloquenbeamLectonar
removed DESiegelJake WartenbergRjanagTopbanana

CheckUser changes

removed CallaneccLFaraoneThere'sNoTime

Oversight changes

removed CallaneccFoxHJ MitchellLFaraoneThere'sNoTime

Technical news

  • 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.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous


AfroCine: Join the Months of African Cinema this October!

Greetings!

After a successful first iteration of the “Months of African Cinema” last year, we are happy to announce that it will be happening again this year, starting from October 1! In the 2018 edition of the contest, about 600 Wikipedia articles were created in at least 8 languages. There were also contributions to Wikidata and Wikimedia commons, which brought the total number of wikimedia pages created during the contest to over 1,000.

The AfroCine Project welcomes you to October, the first out of the two months which have been dedicated to creating and improving content that centre around the cinema of Africa, the Caribbean, and the diaspora. Join us in this global edit-a-thon, by helping to create or expand articles which are connected to this scope. Also remember to list your name under the participants section.

On English Wikipedia, we would be recognizing participants in the following manner:

  • Overall winner (1st, 2nd, 3rd places)
  • Diversity winner
  • Gender-gap fillers

For further information about the contest, the recognition categories and how to participate, please visit the contest page here. For further inquiries, please leave comments on the contest talkpage or on the main project talkpage. See you around :).--Jamie Tubers (talk) 00:50, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2019

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

Guideline and policy news

  • 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.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • The Community Tech team has been working on a system for temporarily watching pages, and welcomes feedback.

Happy Adminship Anniversary!

Wishing Gyrofrog a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! PATH SLOPU 15:09, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks! -- Gyrofrog 15:14, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2019

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

Guideline and policy news

  • A related RfC is seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure.

Arbitration


ArbCom 2019 election voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. 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.

If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:03, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2019

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

Administrator changes

added EvergreenFirToBeFree
removed AkhilleusAthaenaraJohn VandenbergMelchoirMichaelQSchmidtNeilNYoungamerican😂

CheckUser changes

readded Beeblebrox
removed Deskana

Interface administrator changes

readded Evad37

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous