L235

Administrators' newsletter – July 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2024).

Administrator changes

• Elli
• HouseBlaster
• Pickersgill-Cunliffe

• Brianga
• De728631
• Georgewilliamherbert
• Hyacinth (deceased)
• ProveIt
• The Night Watch

Technical news

• Local administrators can now add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without using JavaScript. Documentation is available on MediaWiki. (T6086)

Miscellaneous

• The Community Wishlist is re-opening on 15 July 2024. Read more

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:58, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Voting to ratify the Wikimedia Movement Charter is ending soon

Copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Voting to ratify the Wikimedia Movement Charter is ending soon because this page is listed on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Subscribe.

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to other languages.

Hello everyone,

This is a kind reminder that the voting period to ratify the Wikimedia Movement Charter will be closed on July 9, 2024, at 23:59 UTC.

If you have not voted yet, please vote on SecurePoll.

On behalf of the Charter Electoral Commission,

RamzyM (WMF) 03:45, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

U4C Special Election - Call for Candidates

Copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § U4C Special Election - Call for Candidates because this page is listed on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Subscribe.

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to other languages.

Hello all,

A special election has been called to fill additional vacancies on the U4C. The call for candidates phase is open from now through July 19, 2024.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members are invited to submit their applications in the special election for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.

In this special election, according to chapter 2 of the U4C charter, there are 9 seats available on the U4C: four community-at-large seats and five regional seats to ensure the U4C represents the diversity of the movement. No more than two members of the U4C can be elected from the same home wiki. Therefore, candidates must not have English Wikipedia, German Wikipedia, or Italian Wikipedia as their home wiki.

Read more and submit your application on Meta-wiki.

In cooperation with the U4C,

-- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 00:02, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Concern on the impact of disproportionate application of range blocks on inclusion in my country

I recently clicked edit and it turned out I wasn't logged in. I was faced with IP ban on 107.181.176.0/20 by you. This does not hinder my ability to edit at all, since I simply logged in.

Here is the thing, I wasn't using VPN, and this is a recurring problem for me since 2020, when I first started to attempt an edit. I use cellular network from a large ISP in my country.

I first noticed in 2020 that I was unable to edit because of a range block by Widr (I can't locate the IP of the time anymore), but most importantly range blocks preempt account creation too, I believe I made an account request at the time but wasn't granted (I can't locate the request anymore).

I was finally lucky that I was briefly not range blocked in 2022 and I rushed to create an account, but I must note that I was range blocked more than 99% of the time while not using VPN. I live in a flawed democratic country that has a lot of vandals though not malicious (this is what I perceive).

I'm concerned about range blocks' potential of harming inclusion from my country, which already suffers from a lack of editors. I am thankful if you can investigate whether range blocks are disproportionately applied in my country, compared to, say, United States, and find ways to minimize harm.

Thanks in advance! Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 21:14, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

@Sir Kenneth Kho: Thanks for taking the time to write in. I'm sorry about the situation you found yourself in. In this particular case, I would note that the IP range is also blocked globally, which means that even without any action on the English Wikipedia side, it would still be blocked.

It's a difficult balance -- we can't allow known webhost or proxy IP ranges to have unrestricted edit access to Wikipedia because of the degree of abuse we see from those ranges. However, I know that there's often a lot of collateral damage that comes from those decisions. Ultimately, in the longer run, we probably need to get smarter about risk mitigation on Wikipedia — our current tools were created back in the early 2000s and broadly haven't been updated much since then. Best KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:37, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Six years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:13, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Wikimedia Movement Charter ratification voting results

Copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Wikimedia Movement Charter ratification voting results because this page is listed on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Subscribe.

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Hello everyone,

After carefully tallying both individual and affiliate votes, the Charter Electoral Commission is pleased to announce the final results of the Wikimedia Movement Charter voting.  

As communicated by the Charter Electoral Commission, we reached the quorum for both Affiliate and individual votes by the time the vote closed on July 9, 23:59 UTC. We thank all 2,451 individuals and 129 Affiliate representatives who voted in the ratification process. Your votes and comments are invaluable for the future steps in Movement Strategy.

The final results of the Wikimedia Movement Charter ratification voting held between 25 June and 9 July 2024 are as follows:

Individual vote:

Out of 2,451 individuals who voted as of July 9 23:59 (UTC), 2,446 have been accepted as valid votes. Among these, 1,710 voted “yes”; 623 voted “no”; and 113 selected “–” (neutral). Because the neutral votes don’t count towards the total number of votes cast, 73.30% voted to approve the Charter (1710/2333), while 26.70% voted to reject the Charter (623/2333).

Affiliates vote:

Out of 129 Affiliates designated voters who voted as of July 9 23:59 (UTC), 129 votes are confirmed as valid votes. Among these, 93 voted “yes”; 18 voted “no”; and 18 selected “–” (neutral). Because the neutral votes don’t count towards the total number of votes cast, 83.78% voted to approve the Charter (93/111), while 16.22% voted to reject the Charter (18/111).

Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation:

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees voted not to ratify the proposed Charter during their special Board meeting on July 8, 2024. The Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, Nataliia Tymkiv, shared the result of the vote, the resolution, meeting minutes and proposed next steps.  

With this, the Wikimedia Movement Charter in its current revision is not ratified.

We thank you for your participation in this important moment in our movement’s governance.

The Charter Electoral Commission,

Abhinav619, Borschts, Iwuala Lucy, Tochiprecious, Der-Wir-Ing

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:52, 18 July 2024 (UTC)