Pkbwcgs
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  | Pkbwcgs is currently experiencing mental health issues, which may affect their Wikipedia editing in various ways. They may have difficulty with:
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WPCleaner version
Hi. It seems that you're using an outdated version of WPCleaner (I released 2.01 a week ago and you're still using 2.0). Normally, running WPCleaner through getdown should ensure that WPCleaner is kept up to date. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 08:48, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
Rescuing sources
Hi, when rescuing sources, please don't add unnecessary newlines, as you did here (and dozens of other instances). They make comparison of the old and new versions more difficult. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:26, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
- @Redrose64: That is not me. The tools is adding the unnecessary lines. There is nothing I can do about that. Pkbwcgs (talk) 17:50, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
- Please do not blame "the tools"; you are responsible for every edit that you make. If you believe that there is a fault in the tool, please contact whoever provided it. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:21, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
Your GA nomination of British Rail Class 458
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article British Rail Class 458 you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. 
This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of No Great Shaker -- No Great Shaker (talk) 20:01, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – March 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2019).
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Guideline and policy news
- The RfC on administrator activity requirements failed to reach consensus for any proposal.
- 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-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.
- paid-en-wp
- 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).
Miscellaneous
- Following the 2019 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Base, Einsbor, Jon Kolbert, Schniggendiller, and Wim b.
Your GA nomination of British Rail Class 458
The article British Rail Class 458 you nominated as a good article has passed 
; see Talk:British Rail Class 458 for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of No Great Shaker -- No Great Shaker (talk) 17:02, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
- @Pkbwcgs: You may have seen in your watchlist that someone has tried to revert the good article status. As far as I can tell, such action is out of process because my understanding is that any attempt to "delist" an article must be pursued by raising a case at the WP:GAR page. I have undone all of the person's actions and specified GAR as the place to go. If I am wrong then hopefully one of the admins will advise me of the correct course of action. All the best. No Great Shaker (talk) 14:00, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
Your BRFA
Hello, your recent BRFA (Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PkbwcgsBot 17) has been approved. Happy editing, — xaosflux Talk 18:29, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
BAGBot: Your bot request PkbwcgsBot 23
Someone has marked Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PkbwcgsBot 23 as needing your input. Please visit that page to reply to the requests. Thanks! AnomieBOT⚡ 18:54, 12 March 2019 (UTC) To opt out of these notifications, place {{bots|optout=operatorassistanceneeded}} anywhere on this page.
BAGBot: Your bot request PkbwcgsBot 5
Someone has marked Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PkbwcgsBot 5 as needing your input. Please visit that page to reply to the requests. Thanks! AnomieBOT⚡ 18:54, 12 March 2019 (UTC) To opt out of these notifications, place {{bots|optout=operatorassistanceneeded}} anywhere on this page.
NPR Newsletter No.17
Hello Pkbwcgs,
- News
- The WMF has announced that Google Translate is now available for translating articles through the content translation tool. This may result in an increase in machine translated articles in the New Pages Feed. Feel free to use the {{rough translation}} tag and gently remind (or inform) editors that translations from other language Wikipedia pages still require attribution per WP:TFOLWP.
- Discussions of interest
- Two elements of CSD G6 have been split into their own criteria: R4 for redirects in the "File:" namespace with the same name as a file or redirect at Wikimedia Commons (Discussion), and G14 for disambiguation pages which disambiguate zero pages, or have "(disambiguation)" in the title but disambiguate a single page (Discussion).
- {{db-blankdraft}} was merged into G13 (Discussion)
- A discussion recently closed with no consensus on whether to create a subject-specific notability guideline for theatrical plays.
- There is an ongoing discussion on a proposal to create subject-specific notability guidelines for chemicals and organism taxa.
- Reminders
- NPR is not a binary keep / delete process. In many cases a redirect may be appropriate. The deletion policy and its associated guideline clearly emphasise that not all unsuitable articles must be deleted. Redirects are not contentious. See a classic example of the templates to use. More templates are listed at the R template index. Reviewers who are not aware, do please take this into consideration before PROD, CSD, and especially AfD because not even all admins are aware of such policies, and many NAC do not have a full knowledge of them.
- NPP Tools Report
- Superlinks – allows you to check an article's history, logs, talk page, NPP flowchart (on unpatrolled pages) and more without navigating away from the article itself.
- copyvio-check – automatically checks the copyvio percentage of new pages in the background and displays this info with a link to the report in the 'info' panel of the Page curation toolbar.
- The NPP flowchart now has clickable hyperlinks.
Six Month Queue Data: Today – Low – 2393 High – 4828
Looking for inspiration? There are approximately 1000 female biographies to review.
Stay up to date with even more news – subscribe to The Signpost.
Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings.
--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:18, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
DYK nomination of British Rail Class 458
Hello! Your submission of British Rail Class 458 at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah (talk) 22:08, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
- Please see new note on your DYK nomination. Yoninah (talk) 20:27, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
Your recent bot approvals request has been Approved. Please see the request page for details. Primefac (talk) 13:56, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – April 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2019).
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Technical news
- In Special:Preferences under "Appearance" → "Advanced options", there is now an option to show a confirmation prompt when clicking on a rollback link.
- 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.
Arbitration
- The Arbitration Committee clarified that the General 1RR prohibition for Palestine-Israel articles may only be enforced on pages with the {{ARBPIA 1RR editnotice}} edit notice.
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.
Infobox university
Awaiting an answer to User talk:Frietjes#infobox university MB 00:54, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
Your BRFA (23)
Your recent BRFA (Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PkbwcgsBot 23) has been approved. Best regards, — xaosflux Talk 15:13, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
Speedy deletion declined: File:Chinese calendar v1.1.svg
Hello Pkbwcgs. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of File:Chinese calendar v1.1.svg, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: The file is not corrupt, the display of it is. Thank you. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 07:00, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
- @DeltaQuad: Re-read WP:CSD#F2 - "This applies to files that are corrupt, missing, empty, or that contain superfluous and blatant non-metadata information." The file was missing in this case and it is empty so it meets WP:CSD#F2. Pkbwcgs (talk) 07:04, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
- The file is not missing, it displays at the bottom of the page and when you go into the original file. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 07:07, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
- @DeltaQuad: So, how can I fix the corrupt display of the file? Pkbwcgs (talk) 07:09, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
- I'm assuming if it were reuploaded it might work, otherwise you would need to file a phabricator ticket as i'm not sure what the display issue is. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 07:11, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
- What is wrong with it? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:15, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
- @Redrose64: The display wasn't showing up correctly in File:Chinese calendar v1.1.svg. Pkbwcgs (talk) 18:19, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
- If you click on "640 × 219 pixels" or one of the other resolutions, you may see a blank white rectangle, probably depending on your browser, browser version, installed fonts, zodiac sign, and phase of the moon. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:57, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
- @Jonesey95: There is nothing there for me. The file is just completely blank for me. I can't even see a white rectangle. Pkbwcgs (talk) 20:42, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
- Ah, I see, The main problem is that it isn't a SVG image at all, it's a raster (binary) image in the form of a
<image width="704" height="241" id="XMLID_1_" xlink:href="data:;base64,..." i:knockout="Off" />element (from which I have omitted the binary data) in an XML wrapper that is pretending to be SVG. The wrapper is using<!DOCTYPE ...>in a manner that librsvg isn't expecting - it contains several<!ENTITY ...>declarations. It's also using a number of elements that simply are not part of the SVG 1.1 specification at all - these include:<imageReplacement>...</imageReplacement>;<slices>...</slices>;<sliceSourceBounds>...</sliceSourceBounds>;<sfw>...</sfw>;<v:sampleDataSets>...</v:sampleDataSets>;<variables>...</variables>;<variableSet>...</variableSet>;<variableSets>...</variableSets>. Remove the DOCTYPE; get rid of everything inside the<metadata>...</metadata>element; also remove the<switch>...</switch>element and everything inside it, including the<image />element. In fact, you might as well start fresh with a clean sheet. Don't use Adobe Illustrator (see Help:SVG#Image appearance); use proper SVG elements to draw a vector image; stick to what is explicitly described in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 (Second Edition) and use nothing else, not even embedded binaries. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:57, 17 April 2019 (UTC)- @Redrose64: In its current state, what is the correct file format for File:Chinese calendar v1.1.svg. Pkbwcgs (talk) 14:46, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
- As it stands, nothing. The file is a horrid mixture that is internally inconsistent. I have been able to work out that the binary portion is a base64 encoding of a .PNG file, which certainly isn't SVG as implied by the file extension. You could ask Mkw813 (talk · contribs), who uploaded (and presumably created) the image why it was done that way. If they want it to be a raster image, it needs to be saved as true PNG format, and uploaded with an appropriate extension (PNG or png). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:36, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
- I've redrawn it as a true SVG file, and so it is scalable to any degree. Commons doesn't allow the Arial font, so there are slight differences in the lettering even when displayed at the "native" 704x241. If you need the exact appearance of the original, I have made (but not uploaded) a true PNG file that is a replica. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:32, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
- As it stands, nothing. The file is a horrid mixture that is internally inconsistent. I have been able to work out that the binary portion is a base64 encoding of a .PNG file, which certainly isn't SVG as implied by the file extension. You could ask Mkw813 (talk · contribs), who uploaded (and presumably created) the image why it was done that way. If they want it to be a raster image, it needs to be saved as true PNG format, and uploaded with an appropriate extension (PNG or png). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:36, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
- @Redrose64: In its current state, what is the correct file format for File:Chinese calendar v1.1.svg. Pkbwcgs (talk) 14:46, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
- Ah, I see, The main problem is that it isn't a SVG image at all, it's a raster (binary) image in the form of a
- @Jonesey95: There is nothing there for me. The file is just completely blank for me. I can't even see a white rectangle. Pkbwcgs (talk) 20:42, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
- If you click on "640 × 219 pixels" or one of the other resolutions, you may see a blank white rectangle, probably depending on your browser, browser version, installed fonts, zodiac sign, and phase of the moon. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:57, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
- @Redrose64: The display wasn't showing up correctly in File:Chinese calendar v1.1.svg. Pkbwcgs (talk) 18:19, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
- What is wrong with it? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:15, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
- I'm assuming if it were reuploaded it might work, otherwise you would need to file a phabricator ticket as i'm not sure what the display issue is. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 07:11, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
- @DeltaQuad: So, how can I fix the corrupt display of the file? Pkbwcgs (talk) 07:09, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
- The file is not missing, it displays at the bottom of the page and when you go into the original file. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 07:07, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
Eudoxochiton nobilis photo tagged for speedy deletion
Thank you for tagging the Noble chiton photo for deletion, it was my first upload and I couldn't work out how to delete it or tag it for deletion, back then the instructions on how to do it didn't make sense! Regards Nickwilso (talk) 04:19, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
Pkbwcgs, can you please stop by your nomination and take a look at the most recent commentary? I think a new hook will be needed under the circumstances, but you'll know better than I once you've read the information placed there. Thank you very much. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:28, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – May 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2019).
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Guideline and policy news
- A request for comment concluded that creating pages in the portal namespace should be restricted to autoconfirmed users.
- Following a request for comment, the subject-specific notability guideline for pornographic actors and models (WP:PORNBIO) was removed; in its place, editors should consult WP:ENT and WP:GNG.
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 sowill 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.
- 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,
Miscellaneous
- A request for comment is currently open to amend the community sanctions procedure to exclude non XfD or CSD deletions.
- A proposal to remove pre-2009 indefinite IP blocks is currently open for discussion.
New message from Narutolovehinata5
Message added 00:37, 17 May 2019 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 00:37, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
- There's been a new response to you there. Please stop by soon. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:14, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
NPR Newsletter No.18
Hello Pkbwcgs,
- WMF at work on NPP Improvements
Niharika Kohli, a product manager for the growth team, announced that work is underway in implementing improvements to New Page Patrol as part of the 2019 Community Wishlist and suggests all who are interested watch the project page on meta. Two requested improvements have already been completed. These are:
- Allow filtering by no citations in page curation
- Not having CSD and PRODs automatically marked as reviewed, reflecting current consensus among reviewers and current Twinkle functionality.
- Reliable Sources for NPP
Rosguill has been compiling a list of reliable sources across countries and industries that can be used by new page patrollers to help judge whether an article topic is notable or not. At this point further discussion is needed about if and how this list should be used. Please consider joining the discussion about how this potentially valuable resource should be developed and used.
- Backlog drive coming soon
Look for information on the an upcoming backlog drive in our next newsletter. If you'd like to help plan this drive, join in the discussion on the New Page Patrol talk page.
- News
- Following a request for comment, the subject-specific notability guideline for pornographic actors and models (WP:PORNBIO) was removed; in its place, editors should consult WP:ENT and WP:GNG.
- Discussions of interest
- A request for bot approval for a bot to patrol two kinds of redirects
- There has been a lot discussion about Notability of Academics
- What, if anything, would a SNG for Softball look like
Six Month Queue Data: Today – 7242 Low – 2393 High – 7250
Stay up to date with even more news – subscribe to The Signpost.
Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings.
Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk) at 19:17, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
Speedy deletion and "keep" !votes
Re this close. Technically, there's nothing stopping an admin from speedy deleting a page that's being discussed at a deletion venue, but apart from cases where deletion is urgent (copyvios or attack pages, for example), that shouldn't be done if there have been valid "keep" !votes in the discussion. I think it's pretty clear how this undermines the consensus process. Additionally, in this particular case the deletion was per WP:G5; this type of deletion is most often done one en masse after the discovery of a sock, so it's almost certain that the admin hadn't noticed the page was at TFD. The best thing to do in such cases is to ask the deleting admin to restore it and possibly leave a note in the discussion. Thanks! – Uanfala (talk) 12:11, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – June 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2019).
Administrator changes
Andonic • Consumed Crustacean • Enigmaman • Euryalus • EWS23 • HereToHelp • Nv8200pa • Peripitus • StringTheory11 • Vejvančický
CheckUser changes
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
- The previously discussed unblocking of IP addresses indefinitely-blocked before 2009 was approved and has taken place.
- The 2019 talk pages consultation produced a report for Phase 1 and has entered Phase 2.
DYK nomination of British Rail Class 458
Hello! Your submission of British Rail Class 458 at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! BlueMoonset (talk) 15:34, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
- It has been over two weeks since you were last pinged here, and you have been editing in the interim. If you wish to continue pursuing this nomination, we need to hear from you on the nomination page very soon. Thank you very much. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:34, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
- Sorry that I didn't read this page more closely before posting the above. I hope things will be better for you soon; if you can get back to us in the near future, that would be great, but we can hold things open for a while longer. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:35, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
New Page Review newsletter July-August 2019
Hello Pkbwcgs,
- WMF at work on NPP Improvements
More new features are being added to the feed, including the important red alert for previously deleted pages. This will only work if it is selected in your filters. Best is to 'select all'. Do take a moment to check out all the new features if you have not already done so. If anything is not working as it should, please let us know at NPR. There is now also a live queue of AfC submissions in the New Pages Feed. Feel free to review AfCs, but bear in mind that NPP is an official process and policy and is more important.
- QUALITY of REVIEWING
Articles are still not always being checked thoroughly enough. If you are not sure what to do, leave the article for a more experienced reviewer. Please be on the alert for any incongruities in patrolling and help your colleagues where possible; report patrollers and autopatrolled article creators who are ostensibly undeclared paid editors. The displayed ORES alerts offer a greater 'at-a-glance' overview, but the new challenges in detecting unwanted new content and sub-standard reviewing do not necessarily make patrolling any easier, nevertheless the work may have a renewed interest factor of a different kind. A vibrant community of reviewers is always ready to help at NPR.
- Backlog
The backlog is still far too high at between 7,000 and 8,000. Of around 700 user rights holders, 80% of the reviewing is being done by just TWO users. In the light of more and more subtle advertising and undeclared paid editing, New Page Reviewing is becoming more critical than ever.
- Move to draft
NPR is triage, it is not a clean up clinic. This move feature is not limited to bios so you may have to slightly re-edit the text in the template before you save the move. Anything that is not fit for mainspace but which might have some promise can be draftified - particularly very poor English and machine and other low quality translations.
- Notifying users
Remember to use the message feature if you are just tagging an article for maintenance rather than deletion. Otherwise articles are likely to remain perma-tagged. Many creators are SPA and have no intention of returning to Wikipedia. Use the feature too for leaving a friendly note note for the author of a first article you found well made or interesting. Many have told us they find such comments particularly welcoming and encouraging.
- PERM
Admins are now taking advantage of the new time-limited user rights feature. If you have recently been accorded NPR, do check your user rights to see if this affects you. Depending on your user account preferences, you may receive automated notifications of your rights changes. Requests for permissions are not mini-RfAs. Helpful comments are welcome if absolutely necessary, but the bot does a lot of the work and the final decision is reserved for admins who do thorough research anyway.
- Other news
School and academic holidays will begin soon in various places around the Western world. Be on the lookout for the usual increase in hoax, attack, and other junk pages.
Our next newsletter might be announcing details of a possible election for co-ordinators of NPR. If you think you have what it takes to micro manage NPR, take a look at New Page Review Coordinators - it's a job that requires a lot of time and dedication.
Stay up to date with even more news – subscribe to The Signpost.
Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings.
Administrators' newsletter – July 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2019).
Administrator changes
- 28bytes • Ad Orientem • Ansh666 • Beeblebrox • Boing! said Zebedee • BU Rob13 • Dennis Brown • Deor • DoRD • Floquenbeam1 • Flyguy649 • Fram2 • Gadfium • GB fan • Jonathunder • Kusma • Lectonar • Moink • MSGJ • Nick • Od Mishehu • Rama • Spartaz • Syrthiss • TheDJ • WJBscribe
- 1Floquenbeam's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.
- 2Fram's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.
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Guideline and policy news
- A request for comment seeking to alleviate pressures on the request an account (ACC) process proposes either raising the account creation limit for extended confirmed editors or granting the account creator permission on request to new ACC tool users.
- 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).
- A request for comment seeks to determine whether Wikipedia:Office actions should be a policy page or an information page.
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
- 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.
DYK for British Rail Class 458
On 26 July 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article British Rail Class 458, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that in 2004 the British Rail Class 458 trains were so unreliable that their operator considered replacing them all, but by 2012 they had become the most reliable fleet in Britain? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/British Rail Class 458. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, British Rail Class 458), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.
This article is really not suitable for GA. I never got anywhere close to finishing it, and there's been no significant work done since. The history more or less stops at 1900 IIRC. -mattbuck (Talk) 12:42, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – August 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2019).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following a request for comment, the page Wikipedia:Office actions has been changed from a policy page to an information page.
- A request for comment (permalink) is in progress regarding the administrator inactivity policy.
Arbitration
- Editors may now use the template {{Ds/aware}} to indicate that they are aware that discretionary sanctions are in force for a topic area, so it is unnecessary to alert them.
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.
A goat for you!
For your work on Alfred Hancock Witherow.
Administrators' newsletter – September 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2019).
Administrator changes
Bradv • Chetsford • Izno
Floquenbeam • Lectonar- DESiegel • Jake Wartenberg • Rjanag • Topbanana
CheckUser changes
Oversight changes
- Callanecc • Fox • HJ Mitchell • LFaraone • There'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
- A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2019 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
Miscellaneous
- 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.
New Page Review newsletter September-October 2019
Hello Pkbwcgs,
- Backlog
Instead of reaching a magic 300 as it once did last year, the backlog approaching 6,000 is still far too high. An effort is also needed to ensure that older unsuitable older pages at the back of the queue do not get automatically indexed for Google.
- Coordinator
A proposal is taking place here to confirm a nominated user as Coordinator of NPR.
- This month's refresher course
Why I Hate Speedy Deleters, a 2008 essay by long since retired Ballonman, is still as valid today. Those of us who patrol large numbers of new pages can be forgiven for making the occasional mistake while others can learn from their 'beginner' errors. Worth reading.
- Deletion tags
Do bear in mind that articles in the feed showing the trash can icon (you will need to have 'Nominated for deletion' enabled for this in your filters) may have been tagged by inexperienced or non NPR rights holders using Twinkle. They require your further verification.
- Paid editing
Please be sure to look for the tell-tale signs of undisclosed paid editing. Contact the creator if appropriate, and submit the issue to WP:COIN if necessary. WMF policy requires paid editors to connect to their adverts.
- Subject-specific notability guidelines' (SNG). Alternatives to deletion
- Reviewers are requested to familiarise themselves once more with notability guidelines for organisations and companies.
- Blank-and-Redirect is a solution anchored in policy. Please consider this alternative before PRODing or CSD. Note however, that users will often revert or usurp redirects to re-create deleted articles. Do regularly patrol the redirects in the feed.
- Not English
- A common issue: Pages not in English or poor, unattributed machine translations should not reside in main space even if they are stubs. Please ensure you are familiar with WP:NPPNE. Check in Google for the language and content, and if they do have potential, tag as required, then move to draft. Modify the text of the template as appropriate before sending it.
- Tools
Regular reviewers will appreciate the most recent enhancements to the New Pages Feed and features in the Curation tool, and there are still more to come. Due to the wealth of information now displayed by ORES, reviewers are strongly encouraged to use the system now rather than Twinkle; it will also correctly populate the logs.
Stub sorting, by SD0001: A new script is available for adding/removing stub tags. See User:SD0001/StubSorter.js, It features a simple HotCat-style dynamic search field. Many of the reviewers who are using it are finding it an improvement upon other available tools.
Assessment: The script at User:Evad37/rater makes the addition of Wikiproject templates extremely easy. New page creators rarely do this. Reviewers are not obliged to make these edits but they only take a few seconds. They can use the Curation message system to let the creator know what they have done.
DannyS712 bot III is now patrolling certain categories of uncontroversial redirects. Curious? Check out its patrol log.
Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings.
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:15, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – October 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2019).
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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
.
- Following a discussion, a new criterion for speedy category renaming was added: C2F: One eponymous article, which
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
- The 2019 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place October 4th to 10th.
- The arbitration case regarding Fram was closed. While there will be a local RfC
focus[ing] on how harassment and private complaints should be handled in the future
, there is currently a global community consultation on partial and temporary office actions in response to the incident. It will be open until October 30th.
Miscellaneous
- The Community Tech team has been working on a system for temporarily watching pages, and welcomes feedback.
Regarding speedy deletion of File:NovikovEngine.pdf
Hi there I received your notice about speedy deletion of my PDF file NovikovEngine.pdf. That file was referenced in the Media:NovikovEngine.png as a vector graphics version of the file that was useful should anyone which to further edit/refine the figure. The .png format is of low resolution and may be unsuitable for future high-resolution screens. I thought I would clarify those points, since I feel that your speedy deletion was a little zealous. Cheers Jdpipe (talk) 18:40, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Your GA nomination of Pilning railway station
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Pilning railway station you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Pi.1415926535 -- Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:00, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Your GA nomination of Pilning railway station
The article Pilning railway station you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Pilning railway station for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Pi.1415926535 -- Pi.1415926535 (talk) 18:42, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Ashford International
Just to explain the recent kerfuffle on the article, the user in question is upset I started an ANI discussion to ban them, which reached consensus to do so. See WP:BKFIP for further details. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:50, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
@Pkbwcgs: Since you have been nominating many drafts for deletion, I suggest that you look at the drafts that this person has created. These drafts have been sitting around for many years, infact way to long.Catfurball (talk) 16:45, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
New Page Review newsletter November 2019
Hello Pkbwcgs,
This newsletter comes a little earlier than usual because the backlog is rising again and the holidays are coming very soon.
- Getting the queue to 0
There are now 810 holders of the New Page Reviewer flag! Most of you requested the user right to be able to do something about the huge backlog but it's still roughly less than 10% doing 90% of the work. Now it's time for action.
Exactly one year ago there were 'only' 3,650 unreviewed articles, now we will soon be approaching 7,000 despite the growing number of requests for the NPR user right. If each reviewer soon does only 2 reviews a day over five days, the backlog will be down to zero and the daily input can then be processed by every reviewer doing only 1 review every 2 days - that's only a few minutes work on the bus on the way to the office or to class! Let's get this over and done with in time to relax for the holidays.
Want to join? Consider adding the NPP Pledge userbox.
Our next newsletter will announce the winners of some really cool awards.
- Coordinator
Admin Barkeep49 has been officially invested as NPP/NPR coordinator by a unanimous consensus of the community. This is a complex role and he will need all the help he can get from other experienced reviewers.
- This month's refresher course
Paid editing is still causing headaches for even our most experienced reviewers: This official Wikipedia article will be an eye-opener to anyone who joined Wikipedia or obtained the NPR right since 2015. See The Hallmarks to know exactly what to look for and take time to examine all the sources.
- Tools
- It is now possible to select new pages by date range. This was requested by reviewers who want to patrol from the middle of the list.
- It is now also possible for accredited reviewers to put any article back into the New Pages Feed for re-review. The link is under 'Tools' in the side bar.
- Reviewer Feedback
Would you like feedback on your reviews? Are you an experienced reviewer who can give feedback to other reviewers? If so there are two new feedback pilot programs. New Reviewer mentorship will match newer reviewers with an experienced reviewer with a new reviewer. The other program will be an occasional peer review cohort for moderate or experienced reviewers to give feedback to each other. The first cohort will launch November 13.
- Second set of eyes
- Not only are New Page Reviewers the guardians of quality of new articles, they are also in a position to ensure that pages are being correctly tagged for deletion and maintenance and that new authors are not being bitten. This is an important feature of your work, especially while some routine tagging for deletion can still be carried out by non NPR holders and inexperienced users. Read about it at the Monitoring the system section in the tutorial. If you come across such editors doing good work, don't hesitate to encourage them to apply for NPR.
- Do be sure to have our talk page on your watchlist. There are often items that require reviewers' special attention, such as to watch out for pages by known socks or disruptive editors, technical issues and new developments, and of course to provide advice for other reviewers.
- Arbitration Committee
The annual ArbCom election will be coming up soon. All eligible users will be invited to vote. While not directly concerned with NPR, Arbcom cases often lead back to notability and deletion issues and/or actions by holders of advanced user rights.
- Community Wish list
There is to be no wish list for WMF encyclopedias this year. We thank Community Tech for their hard work addressing our long list of requirements which somewhat overwhelmed them last year, and we look forward to a successful completion.
To opt-out of future mailings, you can remove yourself here
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:33, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
Template:Did you know nominations/Pilning railway station
Hi, re Template:Did you know nominations/Pilning railway station - two trains a week certainly isn't the sparsest service, since both Denton and Reddish South also have two per week - one in each direction. But all of these pale against Teesside Airport with one per week - on Sundays only. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:48, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
- (talk page stalker)@Redrose64: This is a bit of a rhetorical question (as I know the answer), but why is Teeside Airport station still open? Although for sheer pointlessness, you can't beat Redcar British Steel. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:05, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
- Apparently, if you open a new airport, you need to ensure that there is a rail service, even if people don't want to use it and/or the trains are at inconvenient times. This is why East Midlands Parkway railway station exists. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:06, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – November 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2019).
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Guideline and policy news
- An RfC was closed with the consensus that the resysop criteria should be made stricter.
- The follow-up RfC to develop that change is now open at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2019 Resysop Criteria (2).
- A related RfC is seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure.
Arbitration
- Eligible editors may now nominate themselves as candidates for the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections. The self-nomination period will close November 12, with voting running from November 19 through December 2.
Your GA nomination of Corrour railway station
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Corrour railway station you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Ritchie333 -- Ritchie333 (talk) 12:20, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
Your GA nomination of Corrour railway station
The article Corrour railway station you nominated as a good article has failed 
; see Talk:Corrour railway station for reasons why the nomination failed. If or when these points have been taken care of, you may apply for a new nomination of the article. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Ritchie333 -- Ritchie333 (talk) 17:01, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
- I want to stress - this is nothing personal - you seem like a keen and enthusiastic editor. However, it's pretty much impossible to just nominate an article for GA without doing extensive work on it first. In the case of Corrour, I would recommend reading one of John McGregor's books, or indeed any book about the West Highland Line generally, to give you an idea of what needs to go in a GA. Simply taking what's already there just doesn't work, as by and large nobody has made a coordinated attempt to pull all the information from various editors together, which is one of the main benefits of a GA. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:03, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
Hello Pkbwcgs, I've noticed that you have nominated Astrodynamics (2) for deletion
Please go ahead, I initially created it as an in-development version of a new Astrodynamics template. I have since forgotten about that template and your nomination for deletion in my inbox came as a welcome surprise. (haha)
Thanks again, Rebestalic[dubious—discuss] 18:38, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
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 |
Administrators' newsletter – December 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2019).
Administrator changes
- EvergreenFir • ToBeFree
- Akhilleus • Athaenara • John Vandenberg • Melchoir • MichaelQSchmidt • NeilN • Youngamerican • 😂
CheckUser changes
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- 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.
- Following a proposal, the edit filter mailing list has been opened up to users with the Edit Filter Helper right.
Technical news
- Wikimedia projects can set a default block length for users via MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry. A new page, MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry-ip, allows the setting of a different default block length for IP editors. Neither is currently used. (T219126)
Arbitration
- Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 2 December 2018 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.
Miscellaneous
- The global consultation on partial and temporary office actions that ended in October received a closing statement from staff concluding, among other things, that the WMF
will no longer use partial or temporary Office Action bans... until and unless community consensus that they are of value or Board directive
.
- The global consultation on partial and temporary office actions that ended in October received a closing statement from staff concluding, among other things, that the WMF
DYK nomination of Pilning railway station
Hello! Your submission of Pilning railway station at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah (talk) 21:04, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
DYK for Pilning railway station
| | On 20 December 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Pilning railway station, which you recently nominated. The fact was ... that since modernization work in 2016, trains can only call at Pilning railway station when travelling eastbound? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Pilning railway station. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page. |
New Page Review newsletter December 2019
- Reviewer of the Year
This year's Reviewer of the Year is Rosguill. Having gotten the reviewer PERM in August 2018, they have been a regular reviewer of articles and redirects, been an active participant in the NPP community, and has been the driving force for the emerging NPP Source Guide that will help reviewers better evaluate sourcing and notability in many countries for which it has historically been difficult.
Special commendation again goes to Onel5969 who ends the year as one of our most prolific reviewers for the second consecutive year. Thanks also to Boleyn and JTtheOG who have been in the top 5 for the last two years as well.
Several newer editors have done a lot of work with CAPTAIN MEDUSA and DannyS712 (who has also written bots which have patrolled thousands of redirects) being new reviewers since this time last year.
Thanks to them and to everyone reading this who has participated in New Page Patrol this year.
| Rank | Username | Num reviews | Log |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rosguill (talk) | 47,395 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 2 | Onel5969 (talk) | 41,883 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 3 | JTtheOG (talk) | 11,493 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 4 | Arthistorian1977 (talk) | 5,562 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 5 | DannyS712 (talk) | 4,866 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 6 | CAPTAIN MEDUSA (talk) | 3,995 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 7 | DragonflySixtyseven (talk) | 3,812 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 8 | Boleyn (talk) | 3,655 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 9 | Ymblanter (talk) | 3,553 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 10 | Cwmhiraeth (talk) | 3,522 | Patrol Page Curation |
(The top 100 reviewers of the year can be found here)
- Redirect autopatrol
A recent Request for Comment on creating a new redirect autopatrol pseduo-permission was closed early. New Page Reviewers are now able to nominate editors who have an established track record creating uncontroversial redirects. At the individual discretion of any administrator or after 24 hours and a consensus of at least 3 New Page Reviewers an editor may be added to a list of users whose redirects will be patrolled automatically by DannyS712 bot III.
- Source Guide Discussion
Set to launch early in the new year is our first New Page Patrol Source Guide discussion. These discussions are designed to solicit input on sources in places and topic areas that might otherwise be harder for reviewers to evaluate. The hope is that this will allow us to improve the accuracy of our patrols for articles using these sources (and/or give us places to perform a WP:BEFORE prior to nominating for deletion). Please watch the New Page Patrol talk page for more information.
- This month's refresher course
While New Page Reviewers are an experienced set of editors, we all benefit from an occasional review. This month consider refreshing yourself on Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features). Also consider how we can take the time for quality in this area. For instance, sources to verify human settlements, which are presumed notable, can often be found in seconds. This lets us avoid the (ugly) 'Needs more refs' tag.
Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 16:11, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
Thank You
Hey, just wanted to more personally thank you for your work. Jerod Lycett (talk) 18:30, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
Using regex to fix pages at Category:Pages using deprecated image syntax
 | This help request has been answered. If you need more help, you can , contact the responding user(s) directly on their user talk page, or consider visiting the Teahouse. |
I would like to help out in clearing out the backlog at Category:Pages using deprecated image syntax using AWB but I don't know which regular expression to use. I know that AWB general fixes don't fix the deprecated image syntax problem. Pkbwcgs (talk) 14:41, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
- You will likely need a large number of regex expressions that will catch multiple issues in a single run. I highly suggest you discuss this further at WT:AWB as you will likely get a lot more help (and advice from others not necessarily watching your talk page). Primefac (talk) 14:53, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
I don't know what changes need to be made, but it's the only mainspace page that uses it. Given your bot already converted the rest I thought you'd know what changes need done. Jerod Lycett (talk) 02:43, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
- Nothing; there's nothing wrong with calling a template redirect. There's no harm (and thus no reason) to go changing it. Primefac (talk) 03:42, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 | This request for help from administrators has been answered. If you need more help or have additional questions, please reapply the {{admin help}} template, or contact the responding user(s) directly on their own user talk page. |
Can an admin please add the deletion template for the redirect Mаin Page. My reasoning for deletion is explained at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2020_January_3#Mаin_Page. The talk page of the redirect is fully protected so I can't post an edit request there. Pkbwcgs (talk) 10:09, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
Please can you again disambiguate Sun Yu and Wang Lin 😐😞 Zoglophie (talk) 18:49, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – January 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2019).
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Guideline and policy news
- 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.
- Following a successful RfC, a whitelist is now available for users whose redirects will be autopatrolled by a bot, removing them from the new pages patrol queue. Admins can add such users to Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist after a discussion following the guidelines at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist.
Arbitration
- 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 thanreasonably construed
. - Following the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Bradv, Casliber, David Fuchs, DGG, KrakatoaKatie, Maxim, Newyorkbrad, SoWhy, Worm That Turned, Xeno.
- 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
Miscellaneous
- This issue marks three full years of the Admin newsletter. Thanks for reading!
Barnstar awarded
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The Redirect Barnstar | |
| Your diligent work in the area of redirect categorization and improvement is duly recognized and greatly appreciated. You are truly one of the unsung heroes of Wikipedia, and we hope you continue to enjoy your improvement of this awesome encyclopedia! Award given for your keen observation of letters with identical appearance in Cyrillic and Latin scripts that should be deleted. On behalf of your fellow editors and the millions of readers of our encyclopedia, I say thank you. Senator2029 “Talk” 16:50, 9 January 2020 (UTC) |
- User:Senator2029, that is really kind of you. Thank you. Pkbwcgs (talk) 16:51, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
Invite to use WikiLoop Battlefield
Hi Pkbwcgs,
I found that you are a power user for the counter-vandalism tool STiki. First of all, Kudos! Thank you for help protecting Wikipedia.
Secondly, we are building a new web-based counter-vandalism tool, hoping to make it easier to use, and wonder if you would be interested in giving it a try here: http://battlefield.wikiloop.org, and kindly give us feedback at Wikipedia talk:WikiLoop Battlefield, thank you!
We currently started whitelist for DIRECT ROLLBACK features, if you are interested, ask us at Wikipedia talk:WikiLoop Battlefield too. User:Xinbenlv (talk) 09:12, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
TFD
Just a note, I'm finishing up the TV templates; you don't have to sit there and remove them one by one. Thanks for the help though. Primefac (talk) 13:15, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
Replacing deprecated template Click
I could not make it work in my user page. The instructions say: [[File:Example.jpg|link=Link title]] will just work the same, but it doesn't. I can't make the images show, so I removed the deprecated template and commented out the images till I can fix them. What am I doing wrong? -- Alexf(talk) 20:47, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
- @Alexf: If you substitute Template:Click in the instance of
{{Click || image= Nuvola apps ksirc.png | link=User talk:Alexf| width=40 | height=40}}, you should get[[File:Nuvola apps ksirc.png|40x40px|link=User talk:Alexf|User talk:Alexf]]. That shouldn't be much of a problem because both are the same. Are they not? Pkbwcgs (talk) 20:52, 21 January 2020 (UTC)- Alexf, there is a bot doing these substitutions, so you shouldn't have to do anything. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:30, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
- It had to do with the image sizing code. Fixed. Thanks!
- Jonesey95 The page is protected due to vandalism, therefore his alert and request to do it manually. -- Alexf(talk) 23:43, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
- @Jonesey95: Usually, bots can't edit pages that are fully protected unless they are adminbots so I asked Alexf to do it manually. Pkbwcgs (talk) 16:50, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
- Alexf, there is a bot doing these substitutions, so you shouldn't have to do anything. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:30, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
Deakin Ministry
Hi there, so the blanking of the Fourth Deakin Ministry page comes as a result of the discussion taken place on the List of Australian ministries talk page, and as part of an effort to fix inconsistencies and historical errors when it comes to the Australian Ministries pages and their ordering. In short, up until now Alfred Deakin's second tenure in office (1905-1908) had been split into two ministries; historical records however always had it listed as one continuous ministry (with minor reshuffles). I intend to merge the Fourth Deakin Ministry page with the Third, as the Third Deakin Ministry is the correct labelling for Deakin's 1909-1910 ministry. --Thescrubbythug (talk) 23:12, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Problems with special pages
| | This help request has been answered. If you need more help, you can , contact the responding user(s) directly on their user talk page, or consider visiting the Teahouse. |
Special:WantedTemplates hasn't been updated since 20 November 2019 and Special:WantedPages hasn't been updated since 26 November 2019. Special:WantedTemplates is supposed to be updated monthly and Special:WantedPages is supposed to be updated bimonthly (twice a month). I would like to report this problem somewhere but I don't know where to. It would be helpful if someone could point me to the right direction. Pkbwcgs (talk) 21:10, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
- Hi Pkbwcgs, thanks for asking. phab:T243599 seems to be related, recent and currently actively being worked on. Best regards, ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:02, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
Maintenance in User talk namespace
Could you leave orphaning templates on User talk pages like you did with click inline to the bots? It leaves a notification to the user if you do it without a bot flag which can be confusing when there isn't actually a new message. Thanks! ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 18:51, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – February 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2020).
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Guideline and policy news
- 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 a recent arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee reminded administrators
Miscellaneous
- Voting in the 2020 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2020, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2020, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
- The English Wikipedia has reached six million articles. Thank you everyone for your contributions!
New Page Reviewer newsletter February 2020
Hello Pkbwcgs,
- Source Guide Discussion
The first NPP source guide discussion is now underway. It covers a wide range of sources in Ghana with the goal of providing more guidance to reviewers about sources they might see when reviewing pages. Hopefully, new page reviewers will join others interested in reliable sources and those with expertise in these sources to make the discussion a success.
- Redirects
New to NPP? Looking to try something a little different? Consider patrolling some redirects. Redirects are relatively easy to review, can be found easily through the New Pages Feed. You can find more information about how to patrol redirects at WP:RPATROL.
- Discussions and Resources
- There is an ongoing discussion around changing notifications for new editors who attempt to write articles.
- A recent discussion of whether Michelin starred restraunts are notable was archived without closure.
- A resource page with links pertinent for reviewers was created this month.
- A proposal to increase the scope of G5 was withdrawn.
- Refresher
Geographic regions, areas and places generally do not need general notability guideline type sourcing. When evaluating whether an article meets this notability guideline please also consider whether it might actually be a form of WP:SPAM for a development project (e.g. PR for a large luxury residential development) and not actually covered by the guideline.
Six Month Queue Data: Today – 7095 Low – 4991 High – 7095
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16:08, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
A1 typo
Hi, Pkbwcgs; You wrote "100 views a day is equivalent to one view approximately every four days"; I knew you meant "100 views a year" and responded accordingly. Except in very exceptional cases, I won't correct another editor's talk, but I just wanted to point it out in case you wanted to do so. No need to strike-out, even though it's been responded to; I took it as intended, it's not like my response was misled by the original. TJRC (talk) 22:50, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- @TJRC: Thanks for pointing it out. I have corrected it. I did mean 100 views a year. Pkbwcgs (talk) 22:52, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
Template:Dopey
Please review your closure of Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 February 14#Template:Dopey, where everyone who commented appears to be happy with userfication of the unused template. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:16, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
- @Pigsonthewing: I have amended the closure at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2020_February_14#Template:Dopey. Pkbwcgs (talk) 22:13, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
- Comment For the record, I thought Pkbwcgs' close was reasonable given the prevailing consensus. There were actually 2-3 possible outcomes here, and that was one of them. That said, I am also fine with userification, too. It was one of those 2-3 possible outcomes. Doug Mehus T·C 22:25, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
- Comment Since it was changed to userfy, I note that Pkbwcgs just copied and pasted the template into Adrian J. Hunter's userspace. It's not a huge deal, since the only edits were done by Pigsonthewing, Pkbwcgs, and Adrian J. Hunter, but nonetheless, the creation date is now incorrect on the userspace copy. Per WP:ATT, the close should've been reversed, and the template and template talk XFDCloser edits backed out. Then, speedy deletion should've been requested for the userification version, and then it should've been moved, without leaving a redirect, to Adrian J. Hunter's userspace. If Adrian J. Hunter is fine with it, I would recommend either (a) changing back to "keep" or (b) requesting speedy deletion per G6 on the template version, linking to this talk page diff in the rationale. Doug Mehus T·C 22:49, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
- I don't mind either way. This all seems to have been a great deal of fuss over a harmless and unimportant template. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 23:49, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – March 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2020).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops
must not
undo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather thanshould not
. - A request for comment confirmed that sandboxes of established but inactive editors may not be blanked due solely to inactivity.
- Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops
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.
Miscellaneous
- Following the 2020 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: BRPever, Krd, Martin Urbanec, MusikAnimal, Sakretsu, Sotiale, and Tks4Fish. There are a total of seven editors that have been appointed as stewards, the most since 2014.
- The 2020 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Ajraddatz and Uzoma Ozurumba; they will serve for one year.
Administrators' newsletter – April 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2020).
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Guideline and policy news
- There is an ongoing request for comment to streamline the source deprecation and blacklisting process.
Technical news
- There is a plan for new requirements for user signatures. You can give feedback.
Arbitration
- 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.
- Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold a
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.
Your GA nomination of Birmingham New Street railway station
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Birmingham New Street railway station you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of The Rambling Man -- The Rambling Man (talk) 15:40, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Your GA nomination of Birmingham New Street railway station
The article Birmingham New Street railway station you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold 
. The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needing to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass; otherwise it may fail. See Talk:Birmingham New Street railway station for issues which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of The Rambling Man -- The Rambling Man (talk) 11:20, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – May 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2020).
Administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Oversight changes
Guideline and policy news
- Discretionary sanctions have been authorized for all pages and edits related to COVID-19, to be logged at WP:GS/COVID19.
- Following a recent discussion on Meta-Wiki, the edit filter maintainer global group has been created.
- A request for comment has been proposed to create a new main page editor usergroup.
- A request for comment has been proposed to make the bureaucrat activity requirements more strict.
Technical news
- The Editing team has been working on the talk pages project. You can review the proposed design and share your thoughts on the talk page.
- Enterprisey created a script that will show a link to the proper Special:Undelete page when viewing a since-deleted revision, see User:Enterprisey/link-deleted-revs.
Miscellaneous
- A request for comment closed with consensus to create a Village Pump-style page for communication with the Wikimedia Foundation.
Your GA nomination of Birmingham New Street railway station
The article Birmingham New Street railway station you nominated as a good article has failed ; see Talk:Birmingham New Street railway station for reasons why the nomination failed. If or when these points have been taken care of, you may apply for a new nomination of the article. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of The Rambling Man -- The Rambling Man (talk) 08:41, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
Articles for Creation: List of reviewers by subject notice
Hi Pkbwcgs, 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!
Sent to all Articles for Creation reviewers as a one-time notice. To opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page. Regards, Sam-2727 (talk)
Administrators' newsletter – June 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2020).
Administrator changes
- CaptainEek • Creffett • Cwmhiraeth
- Anna Frodesiak • Buckshot06 • Ronhjones • SQL
CheckUser changes
Guideline and policy news
- A request for comment asks whether the Unblock Ticket Request System (UTRS) should allowed any unblock request or just private appeals.
- 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
New Page Reviewer newsletter June 2020
Hello Pkbwcgs,
- Your help can make a difference
NPP Sorting can be a great way to find pages needing new page patrolling that match your strengths and interests. Using ORES, it divides articles into topics such as Literature or Chemistry and on Geography. Take a look and see if you can find time to patrol a couple pages a day. With over 10,000 pages in the queue, the highest it's been since ACPERM, your help could really make a difference.
- Google Adds New Languages to Google Translate
In late February, Google added 5 new languages to Google Translate: Kinyarwanda, Odia (Oriya), Tatar, Turkmen and Uyghur. This expands our ability to find and evaluate sources in those languages.
- Discussions and Resources
- A discussion on handling new article creation by paid editors is ongoing at the Village Pump.
- Also at the Village Pump is a discussion about limiting participation at Articles for Deletion discussion.
- A proposed new speedy deletion criteria for certain kinds of redirects ended with no consensus.
- Also ending with no change was a proposal to change how we handle certain kinds of vector images.
Six Month Queue Data: Today – 10271 Low – 4991 High – 10271
To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here
Administrators' newsletter – July 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2020).
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Guideline and policy news
- A request for comment is in progress to remove the T2 (template that misrepresents established policy) speedy deletion criterion.
Technical news
- Protection templates on mainspace pages are now automatically added by User:MusikBot II (BRFA).
Arbitration
- Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold an
RfC regarding on-wiki harassment
. The RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC and is open to comments from the community. - 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
.
- Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold an
Administrators' newsletter – August 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2020).
Administrator changes
Oversight changes
Guideline and policy news
- There is an open request for comment to decide whether to increase the minimum duration a sanction discussion has to remain open (currently 24 hours).
- Speedy deletion criterion T2 (template that misrepresents established policy) has been repealed following a request for comment.
- Speedy deletion criterion X2 (pages created by the content translation tool) has been repealed following a discussion.
- There is a proposal to restrict proposed deletion to confirmed users.
Administrators' newsletter – September 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2020).
Administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following a request for comment, the minimum length for site ban discussions was increased to 72 hours, up from 24.
- A request for comment is ongoing to determine whether paid editors
must
orshould
use the articles for creation process. - A request for comment is open to resolve inconsistencies between the draftification and alternative to deletion processes.
Arbitration
- A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2020 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
- An open request for comment asks whether active Arbitrators may serve on the Trust and Safety Case Review Committee or Ombudsman commission.
Notice of noticeboard discussion
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "Users with indefinitely protected user talk pages". Thank you. Jackmcbarn (talk) 19:19, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – September 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2020).
Administrator changes
- Ajpolino • LuK3
- Jackmcbarn
- Ad Orientem • Harej • Lid • Lomn • Mentoz86 • Oliver Pereira • XJaM
There'sNoTime → TheresNoTime
Guideline and policy news
- A request for comment found consensus that incubation as an alternative to deletion should generally only be recommended when draftification is appropriate, namely
1) if the result of a deletion discussion is to draftify; or 2) if the article is newly created
.
- A request for comment found consensus that incubation as an alternative to deletion should generally only be recommended when draftification is appropriate, namely
Technical news
- The filter log now provides links to view diffs of deleted revisions (phab:T261630).
Arbitration
- The 2020 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place from September 27th to October 7th.
- Following a request for comment, sitting Committee members may not serve on either the Ombuds Commission or the WMF Case Review Committee. The Arbitration Committee passed a motion implementing those results into their procedures.
Miscellaneous
- The Universal Code of Conduct draft is open for community review and comment until October 6th, 2020.
- Office actions may now be appealed to the Interim Trust & Safety Case Review Committee.
Administrators' newsletter – November 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2020).
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Guideline and policy news
- Community sanctions now authorize administrators to place under indefinite semiprotection
any article on a beauty pageant, or biography of a person known as a beauty pageant contestant, which has been edited by a sockpuppet account or logged-out sockpuppet
, to be logged at WP:GS/PAGEANT.
- Community sanctions now authorize administrators to place under indefinite semiprotection
Technical news
- 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.
- Sysops will be able to use Special:CreateLocalAccount to create a local account for a global user that is prevented from auto-creation locally (such as by a filter or range block). Administrators that are not sure if such a creation is appropriate should contact a checkuser.
Arbitration
- The 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections process has begun. Eligible editors will be able to nominate themselves as candidates from November 8 through November 17. The voting period will run from November 23 through December 6.
- The Anti-harassment RfC has concluded with a summary of the feedback provided.
Miscellaneous
- A reminder that
standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people.
(American Politics 2 Arbitration case).
- A reminder that
ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message
| | 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. If you wish to participate in the 2020 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 |
Administrators' newsletter – December 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2020).
Administrator changes
- Andrwsc • Anetode • GoldenRing • JzG • LinguistAtLarge • Nehrams2020
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- There is a request for comment in progress to either remove T3 (duplicated and hardcoded instances) as a speedy deletion criterion or eliminate its seven-day waiting period.
Technical news
- 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.
Arbitration
- Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 7 December 2020 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.
New Page Patrol December Newsletter
Hello Pkbwcgs,
- Year in review
It has been a productive year for New Page Patrol as we've roughly cut the size of the New Page Patrol queue in half this year. We have been fortunate to have a lot of great work done by Rosguill who was the reviewer of the most pages and redirects this past year. Thanks and credit go to JTtheOG and Onel5969 who join Rosguill in repeating in the top 10 from last year. Thanks to John B123, Hughesdarren, and Mccapra who all got the NPR permission this year and joined the top 10. Also new to the top ten is DannyS712 bot III, programmed by DannyS712 which has helped to dramatically reduce the number of redirects that have needed human patrolling by patrolling certain types of redirects (e.g. for differences in accents) and by also patrolling editors who are on on the redirect whitelist.
| Rank | Username | Num reviews | Log |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | DannyS712 bot III (talk) | 67,552 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 2 | Rosguill (talk) | 63,821 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 3 | John B123 (talk) | 21,697 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 4 | Onel5969 (talk) | 19,879 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 5 | JTtheOG (talk) | 12,901 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 6 | Mcampany (talk) | 9,103 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 7 | DragonflySixtyseven (talk) | 6,401 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 8 | Mccapra (talk) | 4,918 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 9 | Hughesdarren (talk) | 4,520 | Patrol Page Curation |
| 10 | Utopes (talk) | 3,958 | Patrol Page Curation |
- Reviewer of the Year
John B123 has been named reviewer of the year for 2020. John has held the permission for just over 6 months and in that time has helped cut into the queue by reviewing more than 18,000 articles. His talk page shows his efforts to communicate with users, upholding NPP's goal of nurturing new users and quality over quantity.
- NPP Technical Achievement Award
As a special recognition and thank you DannyS712 has been awarded the first NPP Technical Achievement Award. His work programming the bot has helped us patrol redirects tremendously - more than 60,000 redirects this past year. This has been a large contribution to New Page Patrol and definitely is worthy of recognition.
Six Month Queue Data: Today – 2262 Low – 2232 High – 10271
To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here
18:16, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – January 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2020).
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Guideline and policy news
- Speedy deletion criterion T3 (duplication and hardcoded instances) has been repealed following a request for comment.
Technical news
- You can now put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time.
Arbitration
- By motion, standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarily authorized
for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes)
. The effectiveness of the discretionary sanctions can be evaluated on the request by any editor after March 1, 2021 (or sooner if for a good reason). - Following the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, BDD, Bradv, CaptainEek, L235, Maxim, Primefac.
- By motion, standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarily authorized
Administrators' newsletter – February 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2021).
|
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Arbitration
- The standard discretionary sanctions authorized for American Politics were amended by motion to cover
post-1992 politics of United States and closely related people
, replacing the 1932 cutoff.
- The standard discretionary sanctions authorized for American Politics were amended by motion to cover
Miscellaneous
- Voting in the 2021 Steward elections will begin on 05 February 2021, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2021, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
- Wikipedia has now been around for 20 years, and recently saw its billionth edit!
Administrators' newsletter – March 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2021).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- A request for comment is open that proposes a process for the community to revoke administrative permissions. This follows a 2019 RfC in favor of creating one such a policy.
- A request for comment is in progress to remove F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a, which covers immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
- A request for comment seeks to grant page movers the
delete-redirectuserright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target. The full proposal is at Wikipedia:Page mover/delete-redirect. - A request for comment asks if sysops may
place the General sanctions/Coronavirus disease 2019 editnotice template on pages in scope that do not have page-specific sanctions
? - There is a discussion in progress concerning automatic protection of each day's featured article with Pending Changes protection.
Technical news
- When blocking an IPv6 address with Twinkle, there is now a checkbox with the option to just block the /64 range. When doing so, you can still leave a block template on the initial, single IP address' talkpage.
- When protecting a page with Twinkle, you can now add a note if doing so was in response to a request at WP:RfPP, and even link to the specific revision.
- There have been a number of reported issues with Pending Changes. Most problems setting protection appear to have been resolved (phab:T273317) but other issues with autoaccepting edits persist (phab:T275322).
Arbitration
- By motion, the discretionary sanctions originally authorized under the GamerGate case are now authorized under a new Gender and sexuality case, with sanctions
authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, any gender-related dispute or controversy and associated people.
Sanctions issued under GamerGate are now considered Gender and sexuality sanctions. - The Kurds and Kurdistan case was closed, authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for
the topics of Kurds and Kurdistan, broadly construed
.
- By motion, the discretionary sanctions originally authorized under the GamerGate case are now authorized under a new Gender and sexuality case, with sanctions
Miscellaneous
- Following the 2021 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AmandaNP, Operator873, Stanglavine, Teles, and Wiki13.
Administrators' newsletter – April 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2021).
Administrator changes
- Alexandria • Happyme22 • RexxS
Guideline and policy news
- Following a request for comment, F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a has been deprecated; it covered immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
- Following a request for comment, page movers were granted the
delete-redirectuserright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target.
Technical news
- When you move a page that many editors have on their watchlist the history can be split and it might also not be possible to move it again for a while. This is because of a job queue problem. (T278350)
- Code to support some very old web browsers is being removed. This could cause issues in those browsers. (T277803)
Arbitration
- A community consultation on the Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions procedure is open until April 25.
Thank you for helping me with Leipzig Riverside Forest
Dear Pkbwcgs, thank you for helping with my extension of Leipzig Riverside Forest. After a few discouraging moments with some of the German editors I was very happy that you looked at what I did, improved it and removed the stump-sign. Actually today I went for the next Leipzig-stump (Leipzig Zoological Garden) and since I also struggle with motivation (now and then) I must say that the way you helped without being stern about the things I don't get right (after two months of being here) aded to my day. Greetings from Leipzig Llydia (talk) 17:02, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – May 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2021).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, consensus was found that third party appeals are allowed but discouraged.
- The 2021 Desysop Policy RfC was closed with no consensus. Consensus was found in a previous RfC for a community based desysop procedure, though the procedure proposed in the 2021 RfC did not gain consensus.
Technical news
- The user group
oversightwill be renamed tosuppress. This is for technical reasons. You can comment at T112147 if you have objections.
- The user group
Arbitration
- The community consultation on the Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions procedure was closed, and an initial draft based on feedback from the now closed consultation is expected to be released in early June to early July for community review.
Administrators' newsletter – June 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2021).
Administrator changes
- Ashleyyoursmile • Less Unless
- Husond • MattWade • MJCdetroit • Carioca • Vague Rant • Kingboyk • Thunderboltz • Gwen Gale • AniMate • SlimVirgin (deceased)
Guideline and policy news
- Consensus was reached to deprecate Wikipedia:Editor assistance.
- Following a Request for Comment the Book namespace was deprecated.
Technical news
- Wikimedia previously used the IRC network Freenode. However, due to changes over who controlled the network with reports of a forceful takeover by several ex-staff members, the Wikimedia IRC Group Contacts decided to move to the new Libera Chat network. It has been reported that Wikimedia related channels on Freenode have been forcibly taken over if they pointed members to Libera. There is a migration guide and Wikimedia discussions about this.
Arbitration
- After a Clarification request, the Arbitration Committee modified Remedy 5 of the Antisemitism in Poland case. This means sourcing expectations are a discretionary sanction instead of being present on all articles. It also details using the talk page or the Reliable Sources Noticeboard to discuss disputed sources.
Administrators' newsletter – July 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2021).
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|
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Guideline and policy news
- Consensus has been reached to delete all books in the book namespace. There was rough consensus that the deleted books should still be available on request at WP:REFUND even after the namespace is removed.
- An RfC is open to discuss the next steps following a trial which automatically applied pending changes to TFAs.
Technical news
- IP addresses of unregistered users are to be hidden from everyone. There is a rough draft of how IP addresses may be shown to users who need to see them. This currently details allowing administrators, checkusers, stewards and those with a new usergroup to view the full IP address of unregistered users. Editors with at least 500 edits and an account over a year old will be able to see all but the end of the IP address in the proposal. The ability to see the IP addresses hidden behind the mask would be dependent on agreeing to not share the parts of the IP address they can see with those who do not have access to the same information. Accessing part of or the full IP address of a masked editor would also be logged. Comments on the draft are being welcomed at the talk page.
Arbitration
- The community authorised COVID-19 general sanctions have been superseded by the COVID-19 discretionary sanctions following a motion at a case request. Alerts given and sanctions placed under the community authorised general sanctions are now considered alerts for and sanctions under the new discretionary sanctions.
Articles for Creation July 2021 Backlog Elimination Drive
Hello Pkbwcgs:
WikiProject Articles for creation is holding a month long Backlog Drive!
The goal of this drive is to eliminate the backlog of unreviewed articles. The drive is running until 31 July 2021.
Barnstars will be given out as awards at the end of the drive.
There is currently a backlog of over 1800 articles, so start reviewing articles. We're looking forward to your help!
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for Creation at 21:54, 7 July 2021 (UTC). If you do not wish to recieve future notification, please remove your name from the mailing list.
British Rail Class 317
Youtube is an unreliable source, there was a need for the warning as when I left that warning you had not cited a source at all.
Also when adding sources don’t just put your source in the edit summary cite it on the page.
Many Thanks. Maurice Oly (talk) 17:10, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
- @Maurice Oly: Point me exactly to a policy which tells me that YouTube is an unreliable source because I personally haven't found such policy. Pkbwcgs (talk) 20:39, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
- @Pkbwcgs: read WP:USERGENERATED as youtube is user generated content and on railways pages youtube is not a reliable source as anybody could make anything up. Maurice Oly (talk) 22:05, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
- @Maurice Oly: There is a list of unacceptable user generated content on there and YouTube is not on that list. I'm not going to put my edits back but it feels wrong for a train that has been scrapped and video evidence of the train being taken to be scrapped but the article to say that it's stored. There is also a discussion about it on https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/class-317-withdrawals.179712/page-16. A specific train being taken to scrap is not a massive thing to be on the news, I wouldn't ever expect the scrapping of 317722 to make it onto the news, it's not newsworthy. Pkbwcgs (talk) 20:51, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
- @Pkbwcgs: While I understand youtube is not mentioned please don’t use it in future. As for the scrapping of a specific train being scrapped you’d be surprised but some railway related magazines do cover scrappings of specific units. For example Rail magazine issue 928 covers the scrapping of Class 321 units 321349, 321366, 321347 and 321366. I know those are Class 321 EMUs and not Class 317 EMUs but I thought I’d use them as examples.So specific units being scrapped are covered by the news just not always on websites. Maurice Oly (talk) 21:57, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
- Besides Rail, there are several others that show scrapping information, such as Modern Railways, Rail Express, The Railway Magazine and Today's Railways UK. YouTube is covered by WP:SPS. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:30, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
|
The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar |
| For your recent hard work! GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 20:02, 23 July 2021 (UTC) |
- @GorillaWarfare: You're so lovely and kind! Thank you! Pkbwcgs (talk) 20:13, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – July 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2021).
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Guideline and policy news
- An RfC is open to add a delay of one week from nomination to deletion for G13 speedy deletions.
Technical news
- Last week all wikis were very slow or not accessible for 30 minutes. This was due to server lag caused by regenerating dynamic lists on the Russian Wikinews after a large bulk import. (T287380)
Arbitration
- Following an amendment request, the committee has clarified that the Talk page exception to the 500/30 rule in remedy 5 of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 case does not apply to requested move discussions.
Miscellaneous
- You can vote for candidates in the 2021 Board of Trustees elections from 4 August to 17 August. Four community elected seats are up for election.
Administrators' newsletter – September 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2021).
Administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- Feedback is requested on the Universal Code of Conduct enforcement draft by the Universal Code of Conduct Phase 2 drafting committee.
- A RfC is open on whether to allow administrators to use extended confirmed protection on high-risk templates.
- A discussion is open to decide when, if ever, should discord logs be eligible for removal when posted onwiki (including whether to oversight them)
- A RfC on the next steps after the trial of pending changes on TFAs has resulted in a 30 day trial of automatic semi protection for TFAs.
Technical news
- The Score extension has been re-enabled on public wikis. It has been updated, but has been placed in safe mode to address unresolved security issues. Further information on the security issues can be found on the mediawiki page.
Arbitration
- A request for comment is in progress to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules. Comments and new proposals are welcome.
Miscellaneous
- The 2021 RfA review is now open for comments.
New Page Patrol newsletter September 2021
Hello Pkbwcgs,
Please join this discussion - there is increase in the abuse of Wikipedia and its processes by POV pushers, Paid Editors, and by holders of various user rights including Autopatrolled. Even our review systems themselves at AfC and NPR have been infiltrated. The good news is that detection is improving, but the downside is that it creates the need for a huge clean up - which of course adds to backlogs.
Copyright violations are also a serious issue. Most non-regular contributors do not understand why, and most of our Reviewers are not experts on copyright law - and can't be expected to be, but there is excellent, easy-to-follow advice on COPYVIO detection here.
At the time of the last newsletter (#25, December 2020) the backlog was only just over 2,000 articles. New Page Review is an official system. It's the only firewall against the inclusion of new, improper pages.
There are currently 706 New Page Reviewers plus a further 1,080 admins, but as much as nearly 90% of the patrolling is still being done by around only the 20 or so most regular patrollers.
If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process or its software.
Various awards are due to be allocated by the end of the year and barnstars are overdue. If you would like to manage this, please let us know. Indeed, if you are interested in coordinating NPR, it does not involve much time and the tasks are described here.
To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here. Sent to 827 users. 04:32, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Cheer up with a bumble bee!
Administrators' newsletter – October 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2021).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, extended confirmed protection may be used preemptively on certain high-risk templates.
- Following a discussion at the Village Pump, there is consensus to treat discord logs the same as IRC logs. This means that discord logs will be oversighted if posted onwiki.
Technical news
- DiscussionTools has superseded Enterprisey's reply-link script. Editors may switch using the "Discussion tools" checkbox under Preferences → Beta features.
Arbitration
- A motion has standardised the 500/30 (extended confirmed) restrictions placed by the Arbitration Committee. The standardised restriction is now listed in the Arbitration Committee's procedures.
- Following the closure of the Iranian politics case, standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, post-1978 Iranian politics, broadly construed.
- The Arbitration Committee encourages uninvolved administrators to use the discretionary sanctions procedure in topic areas where it is authorised to facilitate consensus in RfCs. This includes, but is not limited to, enforcing sectioned comments, word/diff limits and moratoriums on a particular topic from being brought in an RfC for up to a year.
Miscellaneous
- Editors have approved expanding the trial of Growth Features from 2% of new accounts to 25%, and the share of newcomers getting mentorship from 2% to 5%. Experienced editors are invited to add themselves to the mentor list.
- The community consultation phase of the 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process is open for editors to provide comments and ask questions to candidates.
November 2021 backlog drive
| New Page Patrol | November 2021 Backlog Drive |  |
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Boo!
Hello Pkbwcgs:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
—usernamekiran • sign the guestbook • (talk) 21:25, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
- PS: I hope you dont retire completely. See you around :) —usernamekiran • sign the guestbook • (talk) 21:25, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – November 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2021).
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Guideline and policy news
- Phase 2 of the 2021 RfA review has commenced which will discuss potential solutions to address the 8 issues found in Phase 1. Proposed solutions that achieve consensus will be implemented and you may propose solutions till 07 November 2021.
Technical news
- Toolhub is a catalogue of tools which can be used on Wikimedia wikis. It is at https://toolhub.wikimedia.org/.
Arbitration
- GeneralNotability, Mz7 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections. Ivanvector and John M Wolfson are reserve commissioners.
- Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves to stand in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections from 07 November 2021 until 16 November 2021.
Miscellaneous
- The 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process has concluded with the appointment of five new CheckUsers and two new Oversighters.
ArbCom 2021 Elections voter message
| | Hello! Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 6 December 2021. 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 2021 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 |
Administrators' newsletter – December 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2021).
Administrator changes
Technical news
- Unregistered editors using the mobile website are now able to receive notices to indicate they have talk page messages. The notice looks similar to what is already present on desktop, and will be displayed on when viewing any page except mainspace and when editing any page. (T284642)
- The limit on the number of emails a user can send per day has been made global instead of per-wiki to help prevent abuse. (T293866)
Arbitration
- Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections is open until 23:59, 06 December 2021 (UTC).
- The already authorized standard discretionary sanctions for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes), broadly construed, have been made permanent.
Administrators' newsletter – January 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2021).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following consensus at the 2021 RfA review, the autopatrolled user right has been removed from the administrators user group; admins can grant themselves the autopatrolled permission if they wish to remain autopatrolled.
- Additionally, consensus for proposal 6C of the 2021 RfA review has led to the creation of an administrative action review process. The purpose of this process will be to review individual administrator actions and individual actions taken by users holding advanced permissions.
Arbitration
- Following the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Cabayi, Donald Albury, Enterprisey, Izno, Opabinia regalis, Worm That Turned, Wugapodes.
Miscellaneous
- The functionaries email list (functionaries-en lists.wikimedia.org) will no longer accept incoming emails apart from those sent by list members and WMF staff. Private concerns, apart from those requiring oversight, should be directly sent to the Arbitration Committee.
Administrators' newsletter – February 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2022).
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Guideline and policy news
- The Universal Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines have been published for consideration. Voting to ratify this guideline is planned to take place 7 March to 21 March. Comments can be made on the talk page.
Technical news
- The user group
oversightwill be renamedsuppressin around 3 weeks. This will not affect the name shown to users and is simply a change in the technical name of the user group. The change is being made for technical reasons. You can comment in Phabricator if you have objections. - The Reply Tool feature, which is a part of Discussion Tools, will be opt-out for everyone logged in or logged out starting 7 February 2022. Editors wishing to comment on this can do so in the relevant Village Pump discussion.
- The user group
Arbitration
- Community input is requested on several motions aimed at addressing discretionary sanctions that are no longer needed or overly broad.
- The Arbitration Committee has published a generalised comment regarding successful appeals of sanctions that it can review (such as checkuser blocks).
- A motion related to the Antisemitism in Poland case was passed following a declined case request.
Miscellaneous
- Voting in the 2022 Steward elections will begin on 07 February 2022, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2022, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
- Voting in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey is open until 11 February 2022.
WP:AFC Helper News
Hello! I wanted to drop a quick note for all of our AFC participants; nothing huge and fancy like a newsletter, but a few points of interest.
- AFCH will now show live previews of the comment to be left on a decline.
- The template {{db-afc-move}} has been created - this template is similar to {{db-move}} when there is a redirect in the way of an acceptance, but specifically tells the patrolling admin to let you (the draft reviewer) take care of the actual move.
Short and sweet, but there's always more to discuss at WT:AFC. Stop on by, maybe review a draft on the way? Whether you're one of our top reviewers, or haven't reviewed in a while, I want to thank you for helping out in the past and in the future. Cheers, Primefac, via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – March 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2022).
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Guideline and policy news
- A RfC is open to change the wording of revision deletion criterion 1 to remove the sentence relating to non-infringing contributions.
- A RfC is open to discuss prohibiting draftification of articles over 90 days old.
Technical news
- The deployment of the reply tool as an opt-out feature, as announced in last month's newsletter, has been delayed to 7 March. Feedback and comments are being welcomed at Wikipedia talk:Talk pages project. (T296645)
- Special:Nuke will now allow the selection of standard deletion reasons to be used when mass-deleting pages. This was a Community Wishlist Survey request from 2022. (T25020)
- The ability to undelete the talk page when undeleting a page using Special:Undelete or the API will be added soon. This change was requested in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey. (T295389)
Arbitration
- Several unused discretionary sanctions and article probation remedies have been rescinded. This follows the community feedback from the 2021 Discretionary Sanctions review.
Miscellaneous
- The 2022 appointees for the Ombuds commission are Érico, Faendalimas, Galahad, Infinite0694, Mykola7, Olugold, Udehb and Zabe as regular members and Ameisenigel and JJMC89 as advisory members.
- Following the 2022 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AntiCompositeNumber, BRPever, Hasley, TheresNoTime, and Vermont.
- The 2022 Community Wishlist Survey results have been published alongside the ranking of prioritized proposals.
Administrators' newsletter – April 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2022).
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Guideline and policy news
- An RfC is open proposing a change to the minimum activity requirements for administrators.
Technical news
- Access to Special:RevisionDelete has been expanded to include users who have the
deletelogentryanddeletedhistoryrights. This means that those in the Researcher user group and Checkusers who are not administrators can now access Special:RevisionDelete. The users able to view the special page after this change are the 3 users in the Researcher group, as there are currently no checkusers who are not already administrators. (T301928) - When viewing deleted revisions or diffs on Special:Undelete a back link to the undelete page for the associated page is now present. (T284114)
Arbitration
- Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures § Opening of proceedings has been updated to reflect current practice following a motion.
- A arbitration case regarding Skepticism and coordinated editing has been closed.
- A arbitration case regarding WikiProject Tropical Cyclones has been opened.
Miscellaneous
- Voting for the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines has closed, and the results were that 56.98% of voters supported the guidelines. The results of this vote mean the Wikimedia Foundation Board will now review the guidelines.
Administrators' newsletter – May 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2022).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, a change has been made to the administrators inactivity policy. Under the new policy, if an administrator has not made at least 100 edits over a period of 5 years they may be desysopped for inactivity.
- Following a discussion on the bureaucrat's noticeboard, a change has been made to the bureaucrats inactivity policy.
Technical news
- The ability to undelete the associated talk page when undeleting a page has been added. This was the 11th wish of the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey.
- A public status system for WMF wikis has been created. It is located at https://www.wikimediastatus.net/ and is hosted separately to WMF wikis so in the case of an outage it will remain viewable.
Arbitration
- Remedy 2 of the St Christopher case has been rescinded following a motion. The remedy previously authorised administrators to place a ban on single-purpose accounts who were disruptively editing on the article St Christopher Iba Mar Diop College of Medicine or related pages from those pages.
New Page Patrol newsletter May 2022
Hello Pkbwcgs,
At the time of the last newsletter (No.26, September 2021), the backlog was 'only' just over 6,000 articles. In the past six months, the backlog has reached nearly 16,000, a staggering level not seen in several years. A very small number of users had been doing the vast majority of the reviews. Due to "burn-out", we have recently lost most of this effort. Furthermore, several reviewers have been stripped of the user right for abuse of privilege and the articles they patrolled were put back in the queue.
Several discussions on the state of the process have taken place on the talk page, but there has been no action to make any changes. The project also lacks coordination since the "position" is vacant.
In the last 30 days, only 100 reviewers have made more than 8 patrols and only 50 have averaged one review a day. There are currently 810 New Page Reviewers, but about a third have not had any activity in the past month. All 848 administrators have this permission, but only about a dozen significantly contribute to NPP.
This means we have an active pool of about 450 to address the backlog. We cannot rely on a few to do most of the work as that inevitably leads to burnout. A fairly experienced reviewer can usually do a review in a few minutes. If every active reviewer would patrol just one article per day, the backlog would very quickly disappear.
If you have noticed a user with a good understanding of Wikipedia notability and deletion, do suggest they help the effort by placing {{subst:NPR invite}}
on their talk page.
If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process and its software.
To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
Sent 05:18, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – June 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2022).
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Guideline and policy news
- Several areas of improvement collated from community member votes have been identified in the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines. The areas of improvement have been sent back for review and you are invited to provide input on these areas.
Technical news
- Administrators using the mobile web interface can now access Special:Block directly from user pages. (T307341)
- The IP Info feature has been deployed to all wikis as a Beta Feature. Any autoconfirmed user may enable the feature using the "IP info" checkbox under Preferences → Beta features. Autoconfirmed users will be able to access basic information about an IP address that includes the country and connection method. Those with advanced privileges (admin, bureaucrat, checkuser) will have access to extra information that includes the Internet Service Provider and more specific location.
Arbitration
- Remedy 2 of the Rachel Marsden case has been rescinded following a motion. The remedy previously authorised administrators to delete or reduce to a stub, together with their talk pages, articles related to Rachel Marsden when they violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy.
- An arbitration case regarding WikiProject Tropical Cyclones has been closed.
New Page Patrol newsletter June 2022
Hello Pkbwcgs,
- Backlog status
At the time of the last newsletter (No.27, May 2022), the backlog was approaching 16,000, having shot up rapidly from 6,000 over the prior two months. The attention the newsletter brought to the backlog sparked a flurry of activity. There was new discussion on process improvements, efforts to invite new editors to participate in NPP increased and more editors requested the NPP user right so they could help, and most importantly, the number of reviews picked up and the backlog decreased, dipping below 14,000[a] at the end of May.
Since then, the news has not been so good. The backlog is basically flat, hovering around 14,200. I wish I could report the number of reviews done and the number of new articles added to the queue. But the available statistics we have are woefully inadequate. The only real number we have is the net queue size.[b]
In the last 30 days, the top 100 reviewers have all made more than 16 patrols (up from 8 last month), and about 70 have averaged one review a day (up from 50 last month).
While there are more people doing more reviews, many of the ~730 with the NPP right are doing little. Most of the reviews are being done by the top 50 or 100 reviewers. They need your help. We appreciate every review done, but please aim to do one a day (on average, or 30 a month).
- Backlog drive
A backlog reduction drive, coordinated by buidhe and Zippybonzo, will be held from July 1 to July 31. Sign up here. 
Barnstars will be awarded.
- TIP – New school articles
Many new articles on schools are being created by new users in developing and/or non-English-speaking countries. The authors are probably not even aware of Wikipedia's projects and policy pages. WP:WPSCH/AG has some excellent advice and resources specifically written for these users. Reviewers could consider providing such first-time article creators with a link to it while also mentioning that not all schools pass the GNG and that elementary schools are almost certainly not notable.
- Misc
There is a new template available, {{NPP backlog}}, to show the current backlog. You can place it on your user or talk page as a reminder:
Very high unreviewed pages backlog: 15333 articles, as of 02:00, 26 December 2024 (UTC), according to DatBot
There has been significant discussion at WP:VPP recently on NPP-related matters (Draftification, Deletion, Notability, Verifiability, Burden). Proposals that would somewhat ease the burden on NPP aren't gaining much traction, although there are suggestions that the role of NPP be fundamentally changed to focus only on major CSD-type issues.
- Reminders
- Consider staying informed on project issues by putting the project discussion page on your watchlist.
- If you have noticed a user with a good understanding of Wikipedia notability and deletion, suggest they help the effort by placing
{{subst:NPR invite}}
on their talk page. - If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process and its software.
- To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
- Notes
NPP July 2022 backlog drive is on!
| New Page Patrol | July 2022 Backlog Drive | |
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Administrators' newsletter – July 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2022).
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Technical news
user_global_editcountis a new variable that can be used in abuse filters to avoid affecting globally active users. (T130439)
Arbitration
- An arbitration case regarding conduct in deletion-related editing has been opened.
Miscellaneous
- The New Pages Patrol queue has around 10,000 articles to be reviewed. As all administrators have the patrol right, please consider helping out. The queue is here. For further information on the state of the project, see the latest NPP newsletter.
Administrators' newsletter – August 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2022).
Administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- An RfC has been closed with consensus to add javascript that will show edit notices for editors editing via a mobile device. This only works for users using a mobile browser, so iOS app editors will still not be able to see edit notices.
- An RfC has been closed with the consensus that train stations are not inherently notable.
Technical news
- The Wikimania 2022 Hackathon will take place virtually from 11 August to 14 August.
- Administrators will now see links on user pages for "Change block" and "Unblock user" instead of just "Block user" if the user is already blocked. (T308570)
Arbitration
- The arbitration case request Geschichte has been automatically closed after a 3 month suspension of the case.
Miscellaneous
- You can vote for candidates in the 2022 Board of Trustees elections from 16 August to 30 August. Two community elected seats are up for election.
- Wikimania 2022 is taking place virtually from 11 August to 14 August. The schedule for wikimania is listed here. There are also a number of in-person events associated with Wikimania around the world.
- Tech tip: When revision-deleting on desktop, hold ⇧ Shift between clicking two checkboxes to select every box in that range.
New Page Patrol newsletter August 2022
Hello Pkbwcgs,
- Backlog status
After the last newsletter (No.28, June 2022), the backlog declined another 1,000 to 13,000 in the last week of June. Then the July backlog drive began, during which 9,900 articles were reviewed and the backlog fell by 4,500 to just under 8,500 (these numbers illustrate how many new articles regularly flow into the queue). Thanks go to the coordinators Buidhe and Zippybonzo, as well as all the nearly 100 participants. Congratulations to Dr vulpes who led with 880 points. See this page for further details.
Unfortunately, most of the decline happened in the first half of the month, and the backlog has already risen to 9,600. Understandably, it seems many backlog drive participants are taking a break from reviewing and unfortunately, we are not even keeping up with the inflow let alone driving it lower. We need the other 600 reviewers to do more! Please try to do at least one a day.
- Coordination
- MB and Novem Linguae have taken on some of the coordination tasks. Please let them know if you are interested in helping out. MPGuy2824 will be handling recognition, and will be retroactively awarding the annual barnstars that have not been issued for a few years.
- Open letter to the WMF
- The Page Curation software needs urgent attention. There are dozens of bug fixes and enhancements that are stalled (listed at Suggested improvements). We have written a letter to be sent to the WMF and we encourage as many patrollers as possible to sign it here. We are also in negotiation with the Board of Trustees to press for assistance. Better software will make the active reviewers we have more productive.
- TIP - Reviewing by subject
- Reviewers who prefer to patrol new pages by their most familiar subjects can do so from the regularly updated sorted topic list.
- New reviewers
- The NPP School is being underused. The learning curve for NPP is quite steep, but a detailed and easy-to-read tutorial exists, and the Curation Tool's many features are fully described and illustrated on the updated page here.
- Reminders
- Consider staying informed on project issues by putting the project discussion page on your watchlist.
- If you have noticed a user with a good understanding of Wikipedia notability and deletion, suggest they help the effort by placing
{{subst:NPR invite}}
on their talk page. - If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process and its software.
- To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:24, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
NPP message
Hi Pkbwcgs,
- Invitation
For those who may have missed it in our last newsletter, here's a quick reminder to see the letter we have drafted, and if you support it, do please go ahead and sign it. If you already signed, thanks. Also, if you haven't noticed, the backlog has been trending up lately; all reviews are greatly appreciated.
To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:11, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – September 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2022).
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Guideline and policy news
- A discussion is open to define a process by which Vector 2022 can be made the default for all users.
- An RfC is open to gain consensus on whether Fox News is reliable for science and politics.
Technical news
- The impact report on the effects of disabling IP editing on the Persian (Farsi) Wikipedia has been released.
- The WMF is looking into making a Private Incident Reporting System (PIRS) system to improve the reporting of harmful incidents through easier and safer reporting. You can leave comments on the talk page by answering the questions provided. Users who have faced harmful situations are also invited to join a PIRS interview to share the experience. To sign up please email Madalina Ana.
Arbitration
- An arbitration case regarding Conduct in deletion-related editing has been closed. The Arbitration Committee passed a remedy as part of the final decision to create a request for comment (RfC) on how to handle mass nominations at Articles for Deletion (AfD).
- The arbitration case request Jonathunder has been automatically closed after a 6 month suspension of the case.
Miscellaneous
- The new pages patrol (NPP) team has prepared an appeal to the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) for assistance with addressing Page Curation bugs and requested features. You are encouraged to read the open letter before it is sent, and if you support it, consider signing it. It is not a discussion, just a signature will suffice.
- Voting for candidates for the Wikimedia Board of Trustees is open until 6 September.
"All The Tropes" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect All The Tropes and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 September 11#All The Tropes until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Arlo James Barnes 23:17, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
October 2022 New Pages Patrol backlog drive
| New Page Patrol | October 2022 backlog drive | |
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Administrators' newsletter – October 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2022).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, consensus was found that if the rationale for a block depends on information that is not available to all administrators, that information should be sent to the Arbitration Committee, a checkuser or an oversighter for action (as applicable, per ArbCom's recent updated guidance) instead of the administrator making the block.
- Following an RfC, consensus has been found that, in the context of politics and science, the reliability of FoxNews.com is unclear and that additional considerations apply to its use.
- Community comment on the revised Universal Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines is requested until 8 October.
Technical news
- The Articles for creation helper script now automatically recognises administrator accounts which means your name does not need to be listed at WP:AFCP to help out. If you wish to help out at AFC, enable AFCH by navigating to Preferences → Gadgets and checking the "Yet Another AfC Helper Script" box.
Arbitration
- Remedy 8.1 of the Muhammad images case will be rescinded 1 November following a motion.
- A modification to the deletion RfC remedy in the Conduct in deletion-related editing case has been made to reaffirm the independence of the RfC and allow the moderators to split the RfC in two.
- The second phase of the 2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Review closes 3 October.
Miscellaneous
- An administrator's account was recently compromised. Administrators are encouraged to check that their passwords are secure, and reminded that ArbCom reserves the right to not restore adminship in cases of poor account security. You can also use two-factor authentication (2FA) to provide an extra level of security.
- Self-nominations for the electoral commission for the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections open 2 October and close 8 October.
- You are invited to comment on candidates in the 2022 CUOS appointments process.
- An RfC is open to discuss whether to make Vector 2022 the default skin on desktop.
- Tech tip: You can do a fuzzy search of all deleted page titles at Special:Undelete.
New Page Patrol newsletter October 2022
Hello Pkbwcgs,
Much has happened since the last newsletter over two months ago. The open letter finished with 444 signatures. The letter was sent to several dozen people at the WMF, and we have heard that it is being discussed but there has been no official reply. A related article appears in the current issue of The Signpost. If you haven't seen it, you should, including the readers' comment section.
Awards: Barnstars were given for the past several years (thanks to MPGuy2824), and we are now all caught up. The 2021 cup went to John B123 for leading with 26,525 article reviews during 2021. To encourage moderate activity, a new "Iron" level barnstar is awarded annually for reviewing 360 articles ("one-a-day"), and 100 reviews earns the "Standard" NPP barnstar. About 90 reviewers received barnstars for each of the years 2018 to 2021 (including the new awards that were given retroactively). All awards issued for every year are listed on the Awards page. Check out the new Hall of Fame also.
Software news: Novem Linguae and MPGuy2824 have connected with WMF developers who can review and approve patches, so they have been able to fix some bugs, and make other improvements to the Page Curation software. You can see everything that has been fixed recently here. The reviewer report has also been improved.
Suggestions:
- There is much enthusiasm over the low backlog, but remember that the "quality and depth of patrolling are more important than speed".
- Reminder: an article should not be tagged for any kind of deletion for a minimum of 15 minutes after creation and it is often appropriate to wait an hour or more. (from the NPP tutorial)
- Reviewers should focus their effort where it can do the most good, reviewing articles. Other clean-up tasks that don't require advanced permissions can be left to other editors that routinely improve articles in these ways (creating Talk Pages, specifying projects and ratings, adding categories, etc.) Let's rely on others when it makes the most sense. On the other hand, if you enjoy doing these tasks while reviewing and it keeps you engaged with NPP (or are guiding a newcomer), then by all means continue.
- This user script puts a link to the feed in your top toolbar.
Backlog:
Saving the best for last: From a July low of 8,500, the backlog climbed back to 11,000 in August and then reversed in September dropping to below 6,000 and continued falling with the October backlog drive to under 1,000, a level not seen in over four years. Keep in mind that there are 2,000 new articles every week, so the number of reviews is far higher than the backlog reduction. To keep the backlog under a thousand, we have to keep reviewing at about half the recent rate!
- Reminders
- Newsletter feedback - please take this short poll about the newsletter.
- If you're interested in instant messaging and chat rooms, please join us on the New Page Patrol Discord, where you can ask for help and live chat with other patrollers.
- Please add the project discussion page to your watchlist.
- If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be a reviewer, please ask any admin to remove you from the group. If you want the tools back again, just ask at PERM.
- To opt out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
Administrators' newsletter – November 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2022).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- The article creation at scale RfC opened on 3 October and will be open until at least 2 November.
- An RfC is open to discuss having open requests for adminship automatically placed on hold after the seven-day period has elapsed, pending closure or other action by a bureaucrat.
Arbitration
- Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 13 November 2022 until 22 November 2022 to stand in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections.
- The arbitration case request titled Athaenara has been resolved by motion.
- The arbitration case Reversal and reinstatement of Athaenara's block has entered the proposed decision stage.
- AmandaNP, Mz7 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2022 Arbitration Committee Elections. Xaosflux and Dr vulpes are reserve commissioners.
Miscellaneous
- The 2022 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process has concluded with the appointment of two new CheckUsers.
- You can add yourself to the centralised page listing time zones of administrators.
- Tech tip: Wikimarkup in a block summary is parsed in the notice that the blockee sees. You can use templates with custom options to specify situations like
{{rangeblock|create=yes}}or{{uw-ublock|contains profanity}}.
ArbCom 2022 Elections voter message
Hello! Voting in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 12 December 2022. 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 2022 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) 01:32, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – December 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2022).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- Consensus has been found in an RfC to automatically place RfAs on hold after one week.
- The article creation at scale RfC has been closed.
- An RfC on the banners for the December 2022 fundraising campaign has been closed.
Technical news
- A new preference named "Enable limited width mode" has been added to the Vector 2022 skin. The preference is also shown as a toggle on every page if your monitor is 1600 pixels or wider. When disabled it removes the whitespace added by Vector 2022 on the left and right of the page content. Disabling this preference has the same effect as enabling the wide-vector-2022 gadget. (T319449)
Arbitration
- Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 12, 2022 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.
- The proposed decision for the 2021-22 review of the discretionary sanctions system is open.
- The arbitration case Reversal and reinstatement of Athaenara's block has been closed.
- The arbitration case Stephen has been opened and the proposed decision is expected 1 December 2022.
- A motion has modified the procedures for contacting an admin facing Level 2 desysop.
Miscellaneous
- Tech tip: A single IPv6 connection usually has access to a "subnet" of 18 quintillion IPs. Add
/64to the end of an IP in Special:Contributions to see all of a subnet's edits, and consider blocking the whole subnet rather than an IP that may change within a minute.
New Pages Patrol newsletter January 2023
Hello Pkbwcgs,
- Backlog
The October drive reduced the backlog from 9,700 to an amazing 0! Congratulations to WaddlesJP13 who led with 2084 points. See this page for further details. The queue is steadily rising again and is approaching 2,000. It would be great if <2,000 were the “new normal”. Please continue to help out even if it's only for a few or even one patrol a day.
- 2022 Awards
Onel5969 won the 2022 cup for 28,302 article reviews last year - that's an average of nearly 80/day. There was one Gold Award (5000+ reviews), 11 Silver (2000+), 28 Iron (360+) and 39 more for the 100+ barnstar. Rosguill led again for the 4th year by clearing 49,294 redirects. For the full details see the Awards page and the Hall of Fame. Congratulations everyone!
Minimum deletion time: The previous WP:NPP guideline was to wait 15 minutes before tagging for deletion (including draftification and WP:BLAR). Due to complaints, a consensus decided to raise the time to 1 hour. To illustrate this, very new pages in the feed are now highlighted in red. (As always, this is not applicable to attack pages, copyvios, vandalism, etc.)
New draftify script: In response to feedback from AFC, the The Move to Draft script now provides a choice of set messages that also link the creator to a new, friendly explanation page. The script also warns reviewers if the creator is probably still developing the article. The former script is no longer maintained. Please edit your edit your common.js or vector.js file from User:Evad37/MoveToDraft.js to User:MPGuy2824/MoveToDraft.js
Redirects: Some of our redirect reviewers have reduced their activity and the backlog is up to 9,000+ (two months deep). If you are interested in this distinctly different task and need any help, see this guide, this checklist, and spend some time at WP:RFD.
Discussions with the WMF The PageTriage open letter signed by 444 users is bearing fruit. The Growth Team has assigned some software engineers to work on PageTriage, the software that powers the NewPagesFeed and the Page Curation toolbar. WMF has submitted dozens of patches in the last few weeks to modernize PageTriage's code, which will make it easier to write patches in the future. This work is helpful but is not very visible to the end user. For patches visible to the end user, volunteers such as Novem Linguae and MPGuy2824 have been writing patches for bug reports and feature requests. The Growth Team also had a video conference with the NPP coordinators to discuss revamping the landing pages that new users see.
- Reminders
- Newsletter feedback - please take this short poll about the newsletter.
- There is live chat with patrollers on the New Page Patrol Discord.
- Please add the project discussion page to your watchlist.
- If you no longer wish to be a reviewer, please ask any admin to remove you from the group. If you want the tools back again, just ask at PERM.
- To opt out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
Administrators' newsletter – January 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2022).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Oversighter changes
Guideline and policy news
- Speedy deletion criterion A5 (transwikied articles) has been repealed following an unopposed proposal.
Arbitration
- Following the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, CaptainEek, GeneralNotability, Guerillero, L235, Moneytrees, Primefac, SilkTork.
- The 2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Review has concluded with many changes to the discretionary sanctions procedure including a change of the name to "contentious topics". The changes are being implemented over the coming month.
- The arbitration case Stephen has been closed.
Miscellaneous
- Voting for the Sound Logo has closed and the winner is expected to be announced February to April 2023.
- Tech tip: You can view information about IP addresses in a centralised location using bullseye which won the Newcomer award in the recent Coolest Tool Awards.
Administrators' newsletter – February 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2023).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, the administrator policy now requires that prior written consent be gained from the Arbitration Committee to mark a block as only appealable to the committee.
- Following a community discussion, consensus has been found to impose the extended-confirmed restriction over the topic areas of Armenia and Azerbaijan and Kurds and Kurdistan.
Technical news
- The Vector 2022 skin has become the default for desktop users of the English Wikipedia.
Arbitration
- The arbitration case Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 has been opened and the proposed decision is expected 24 February 2023.
- In December, the contentious topics procedure was adopted which replaces the former discretionary sanctions system. The contentious topics procedure is now in effect following an initial implementation period. There is a detailed summary of the changes and administrator instructions for the new procedure. The arbitration clerk team are taking suggestions, concerns, and unresolved questions about this new system at their noticeboard.
Miscellaneous
- Voting in the 2023 Steward elections will begin on 05 February 2023, 21:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2023, 21:00 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
- Voting in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey will begin on 10 February 2023 and end on 24 February 2023. You can submit, discuss and revise proposals until 6 February 2023.
- Tech tip: Syntax highlighting is available in both the 2011 and 2017 Wikitext editors. It can help make editing paragraphs with many references or complicated templates easier.
Administrators' newsletter – March 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2023).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following a request for comment, F10 (useless non-media files) has been deprecated.
- Following a request for comment, the Portal CSD criteria (P1 (portal subject to CSD as an article) and P2 (underpopulated portal)) have been deprecated.
- A request for comment is open to discuss making the closing instructions for the requested moves process a guideline.
Technical news
- The results of the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey have been posted.
Arbitration
- Remedy 11 ("Request for Comment") of the Conduct in deletion-related editing case has been rescinded.
- The proposed decision for the Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 case is expected 7 March 2023.
- A case related to the Holocaust in Poland is expected to be opened soon.
Miscellaneous
- The 2023 appointees for the Ombuds commission are AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, JJMC89, MdsShakil, Minorax and Renvoy as regular members and Zabe as advisory members.
- Following the 2023 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Mykola7, Superpes15, and Xaosflux.
- The Terms of Use update cycle has started, which includes a
[p]roposal for better addressing undisclosed paid editing
. Feedback is being accepted until 24 April 2023.
Administrators' newsletter – April 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2023).
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Guideline and policy news
- A community RfC is open to discuss whether reports primarily involving gender-related disputes or controversies should be referred to the Arbitration enforcement noticeboard.
Technical news
- Some older web browsers will not be able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis starting this week. This mainly affects users of Internet Explorer 11. (T178356)
- The rollback of Vector 2022 RfC has found no consensus to rollback to Vector legacy, but has found rough consensus to disable "limited width" mode by default.
- A link to the user's Special:CentralAuth page will now appear in the subtitle links shown on Special:Contributions. This was voted #17 in the Community Wishlist Survey 2023.
Arbitration
- The Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 case has been closed.
- A case about World War II and the history of Jews in Poland has been opened, with the first evidence phase closing 6 April 2023.
New Page Patrol – May 2023 Backlog Drive
| New Page Patrol | May 2023 Backlog Drive | |
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| You're receiving this message because you are a new page patroller. To opt out of future mailings, please remove yourself here. | |
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:12, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – May 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2023).
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Guideline and policy news
- A request for comment about removing administrative privileges in specified situations is open for feedback.
Technical news
- Progress has started on the Page Triage improvement project. This is to address the concerns raised by the community in their 2022 WMF letter that requested improvements be made to the tool.
Arbitration
- The proposed decision in the World War II and the history of Jews in Poland case is expected 11 May 2023.
Miscellaneous
- The Wikimedia Foundation annual plan 2023-2024 draft is open for comment and input through May 19. The final plan will be published in July 2023.
Administrators' newsletter – June 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2023).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, editors indefinitely site-banned by community consensus will now have all rights, including sysop, removed.
- As a part of the Wikimedia Foundation's IP Masking project, a new policy has been created that governs the access to temporary account IP addresses. An associated FAQ has been created and individual communities can increase the requirements to view temporary account IP addresses.
Technical news
- Bot operators and tool maintainers should schedule time in the coming months to test and update their tools for the effects of IP masking. IP masking will not be deployed to any content wiki until at least October 2023 and is unlikely to be deployed to the English Wikipedia until some time in 2024.
Arbitration
- The arbitration case World War II and the history of Jews in Poland has been closed. The topic area of Polish history during World War II (1933-1945) and the history of Jews in Poland is subject to a "reliable source consensus-required" contentious topic restriction.
Miscellaneous
- Following a community referendum, the arbitration policy has been modified to remove the ability for users to appeal remedies to Jimbo Wales.
New Pages Patrol newsletter June 2023
Hello Pkbwcgs,
Backlog
Redirect drive: In response to an unusually high redirect backlog, we held a redirect backlog drive in May. The drive completed with 23851 reviews done in total, bringing the redirect backlog to 0 (momentarily). Congratulations to Hey man im josh who led with a staggering 4316 points, followed by Meena and Greyzxq with 2868 and 2546 points respectively. See this page for more details. The redirect queue is steadily rising again and is steadily approaching 4,000. Please continue to help out, even if it's only for a few or even one review a day.
Redirect autopatrol: All administrators without autopatrol have now been added to the redirect autopatrol list. If you see any users who consistently create significant amounts of good quality redirects, consider requesting redirect autopatrol for them here.
WMF work on PageTriage: The WMF Moderator Tools team, consisting of Sam, Jason and Susana, and also some patches from Jon, has been hard at work updating PageTriage. They are focusing their efforts on modernising the extension's code rather than on bug fixes or new features, though some user-facing work will be prioritised. This will help make sure that this extension is not deprecated, and is easier to work on in the future. In the next month or so, we will have an opt-in beta test where new page patrollers can help test the rewrite of Special:NewPagesFeed, to help find bugs. We will post more details at WT:NPPR when we are ready for beta testers.
Articles for Creation (AFC): All new page reviewers are now automatically approved for Articles for Creation draft reviewing (you do not need to apply at WT:AFCP like was required previously). To install the AFC helper script, visit Special:Preferences, visit the Gadgets tab, tick "Yet Another AFC Helper Script", then click "Save". To find drafts to review, visit Special:NewPagesFeed, and at the top left, tick "Articles for Creation". To review a draft, visit a submitted draft, click on the "More" menu, then click "Review (AFCH)". You can also comment on and submit drafts that are unsubmitted using the script.
You can review the AFC workflow at WP:AFCR. It is up to you if you also want to mark your AFC accepts as NPP reviewed (this is allowed but optional, depends if you would like a second set of eyes on your accept). Don't forget that draftspace is optional, so moves of drafts to mainspace (even if they are not ready) should not be reverted, except possibly if there is conflict of interest.
Pro tip: Did you know that visual artists such as painters have their own SNG? The most common part of this "creative professionals" criteria that applies to artists is WP:ARTIST 4b (solo exhibition, not group exhibition, at a major museum) or 4d (being represented within the permanent collections of two museums).
Reminders
- Newsletter feedback - please take this short poll about the newsletter.
- There is live chat with patrollers on the New Page Patrol Discord and #wikimedia-npp connect on IRC.
- Please add the project discussion page to your watchlist.
- To opt out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
New pages patrol needs your help!
Hello Pkbwcgs,
The New Page Patrol team is sending you this impromptu message to inform you of a steeply rising backlog of articles needing review. If you have any extra time to spare, please consider reviewing one or two articles each day to help lower the backlog. You can start reviewing by visiting Special:NewPagesFeed. Thank you very much for your help.
Reminders:
- There is live chat with patrollers on the New Page Patrol Discord.
- Please add the project discussion page to your watchlist.
- To opt out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
Sent by Zippybonzo using MediaWiki message delivery at 06:59, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – July 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2023).
Administrator changes
Bureaucrat changes
Guideline and policy news
- Contributions to the English Wikipedia are now released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0) license instead of CC BY-SA 3.0. Contributions are still also released under the GFDL license.
Technical news
- Discussion is open regarding a proposed global policy regarding third-party resources. Third-party resources are computer resources that reside outside of Wikimedia production websites.
Arbitration
- Two arbitration cases are currently open. Proposed decisions are expected 5 July 2023 for the Scottywong case and 9 July 2023 for the AlisonW case.
Administrators' newsletter – August 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2023).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
Technical news
- The tag filter on Special:NewPages and revision history pages can now be inverted. This allows hiding edits made by automated tools. (T334338)
- Special:BlockedExternalDomains is a new tool that allows easier blocking of plain domains (and their subdomains). This is more easily searchable and is faster for the software to use than the existing MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. It does not support regex (for complex cases), URL path-matching, or the MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist. (T337431)
Arbitration
- The arbitration cases named Scottywong and AlisonW closed 10 July and 16 July respectively.
- The SmallCat dispute arbitration case is in the workshop phase.
Administrators' newsletter – September 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2023).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, TFAs will be automatically semi-protected the day before it is on the main page and through the day after.
- A discussion at WP:VPP about revision deletion and oversight for dead names found that
[s]ysops can choose to use revdel if, in their view, it's the right tool for this situation, and they need not default to oversight. But oversight could well be right where there's a particularly high risk to the person. Use your judgment
.
Technical news
- Special:Contributions now shows the user's local edit count and the account's creation date. (T324166)
Arbitration
- The SmallCat dispute case has closed. As part of the final decision, editors participating in XfD have been reminded to be careful about forming
local consensus which may or may not reflect the broader community consensus
. Regular closers of XfD forums were also encouraged tonote when broader community discussion, or changes to policies and guidelines, would be helpful
.
Miscellaneous
- Tech tip: The "Browse history interactively" banner shown at the top of Special:Diff can be used to easily look through a history, assemble composite diffs, or find out what archive something wound up in.
New page patrol October 2023 Backlog drive
| New Page Patrol | October 2023 Backlog Drive | |
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| You're receiving this message because you are a new page patroller. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here. | |
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:14, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
New pages patrol newsletter
Hello Pkbwcgs,
Backlog update: At the time of this message, there are 11,300 articles and 15,600 redirects awaiting review. This is the highest backlog in a long time. Please help out by doing additional reviews!
October backlog elimination drive: A one-month backlog drive for October will start in one week! Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles and redirects patrolled. Articles will earn 4x as many points compared to redirects. You can sign up here.
PageTriage code upgrades: Upgrades to the PageTriage code, initiated by the NPP open letter in 2022 and actioned by the WMF Moderator Tools Team in 2023, are ongoing. More information can be found here. As part of this work, the Special:NewPagesFeed now has a new version in beta! The update leaves the NewPagesFeed appearance and function mostly identical to the old one, but updates the underlying code, making it easier to maintain and helping make sure the extension is not decommissioned due to maintenance issues in the future. You can try out the new Special:NewPagesFeed here - it will replace the current version soon.
Notability tip: Professors can meet WP:PROF #1 by having their academic papers be widely cited by their peers. When reviewing professor articles, it is a good idea to find their Google Scholar or Scopus profile and take a look at their h-index and number of citations. As a very rough rule of thumb, for most fields, articles on people with a h-index of twenty or more, a first-authored paper with more than a thousand citations, or multiple papers each with more than a hundred citations are likely to be kept at AfD.
Reviewing tip: If you would like like a second opinion on your reviews or simply want another new page reviewer by your side when patrolling, we recommend pair reviewing! This is where two reviewers use Discord voice chat and screen sharing to communicate with each other while reviewing the same article simultaneously. This is a great way to learn and transfer knowledge.
Reminders:
- You can access live chat with patrollers on the New Page Patrol Discord.
- Consider adding the project discussion page to your watchlist.
- To opt out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:46, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
November Articles for creation backlog drive
Hello Pkbwcgs:
WikiProject Articles for creation is holding a month long Backlog Drive!
The goal of this drive is to reduce the backlog of unreviewed drafts to less than 2 months outstanding reviews from the current 4+ months. Bonus points will be given for reviewing drafts that have been waiting more than 30 days. The drive is running from 1 November 2023 through 30 November 2023.
You may find Category:AfC pending submissions by age or other categories and sorting helpful.
Barnstars will be given out as awards at the end of the drive.
Administrators' newsletter – November 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2023).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
Technical news
- The WMF is working on making it possible for administrators to edit MediaWiki configuration directly. This is similar to previous work on Special:EditGrowthConfig. A technical RfC is running until November 08, where you can provide feedback.
- There is a proposed plan for re-enabling the Graph Extension. Feedback on this proposal is requested.
Arbitration
- Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 12 November 2023 until 21 November 2023 to stand in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections.
- Xaosflux, RoySmith and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2023 Arbitration Committee Elections. BusterD is the reserve commissioner.
- Following a motion, the contentious topic designation of Prem Rawat has been struck. Actions previously taken using this contentious topic designation are still in force.
- Following several motions, multiple topic areas are no longer designated as a contentious topic. These contentious topic designations were from the Editor conduct in e-cigs articles, Liancourt Rocks, Longevity, Medicine, September 11 conspiracy theories, and Shakespeare authorship question cases.
- Following a motion, remedies 3.1 (All related articles under 1RR whenever the dispute over naming is concerned), 6 (Stalemate resolution) and 30 (Administrative supervision) of the Macedonia 2 case have been rescinded.
- Following a motion, remedy 6 (One-revert rule) of the The Troubles case has been amended.
- An arbitration case named Industrial agriculture has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case close 8 November.
Miscellaneous
- The Articles for Creation backlog drive is happening in November 2023, with 700+ drafts pending reviews for in the last 4 months or so. In addition to the AfC participants, all administrators and New Page Patrollers can conduct reviews using the helper script, Yet Another AFC Helper Script, which can be enabled in the Gadgets settings. Sign up here to participate!
ArbCom 2023 Elections voter message
Hello! Voting in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 11 December 2023. 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 2023 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) 00:48, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – December 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2023).
Administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following a talk page discussion, the Administrators' accountability policy has been updated to note that while it is considered best practice for administrators to have notifications (pings) enabled, this is not mandatory. Administrators who do not use notifications are now strongly encouraged to indicate this on their user page.
Arbitration
- Following a motion, the Extended Confirmed Restriction has been amended, removing the allowance for non-extended-confirmed editors to post constructive comments on the "Talk:" namespace. Now, non-extended-confirmed editors may use the "Talk:" namespace solely to make edit requests related to articles within the topic area, provided that their actions are not disruptive.
- The Arbitration Committee has announced a call for Checkusers and Oversighters, stating that it will currently be accepting applications for CheckUser and/or Oversight permissions at any point in the year.
- Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 11, 2023 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.
New pages patrol January 2024 Backlog drive
| New Page Patrol | January 2024 Articles Backlog Drive | |
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| You're receiving this message because you are a new page patroller. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here. | |
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:10, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
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The Tireless Contributor Barnstar |
| Sorry to hear you've not been feeling great recently, I know what it feels like! Just wanted to thank you for being so diligent in updating some 2500 station figures, I can't imagine having that level of patience! Good work, and I do hope you don't end up leaving; your rigour and hard work will be thoroughly missed. Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 11:46, 26 December 2023 (UTC) |
Administrators' newsletter – January 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2023).
Administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Oversighter changes
Arbitration
- Following the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Aoidh, Cabayi, Firefly, HJ Mitchell, Maxim, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720.
- Following a motion, the Arbitration Committee rescinded the restrictions on the page name move discussions for the two Ireland pages that were enacted in June 2009.
- The arbitration case Industrial agriculture has been closed.
Miscellaneous
- The New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in January 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 13,000 unreviewed articles awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!
Administrators' newsletter – February 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2024).
Administrator changes
Bureaucrat changes
Guideline and policy news
- An RfC about increasing the inactivity requirement for Interface administrators is open for feedback.
Technical news
- Pages that use the JSON contentmodel will now use tabs instead of spaces for auto-indentation. This will significantly reduce the page size. (T326065)
Arbitration
- Following a motion, the Arbitration Committee adopted a new enforcement restriction on January 4, 2024, wherein the Committee may apply the 'Reliable source consensus-required restriction' to specified topic areas.
- Community feedback is requested for a draft to replace the "Information for administrators processing requests" section at WP:AE.
Miscellaneous
- Voting in the 2024 Steward elections will begin on 06 February 2024, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 27 February 2024, 14:00 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
- A vote to ratify the charter for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is open till 2 February 2024, 23:59:59 (UTC) via Secure Poll. All eligible voters within the Wikimedia community have the opportunity to either support or oppose the adoption of the U4C Charter and share their reasons. The details of the voting process and voter eligibility can be found here.
- Community Tech has made some preliminary decisions about the future of the Community Wishlist Survey. In summary, they aim to develop a new, continuous intake system for community technical requests that improves prioritization, resource allocation, and communication regarding wishes. Read more
- The Unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in February 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with {{Unreferenced}}. You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!
Administrators' newsletter – March 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2024).
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Guideline and policy news
- Phase I of the 2024 RfA review is now open for participation. Editors are invited to review, comment on, and propose improvements to the requests for adminship process.
- Following an RfC, the inactivity requirement for the removal of the interface administrator right increased from 6 months to 12 months.
Technical news
- The mobile site history pages now use the same HTML as the desktop history pages. (T353388)
Miscellaneous
- The 2024 appointees for the Ombuds commission are だ＊ぜ, AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Doǵu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, MdsShakil, Minorax, Nehaoua, Renvoy and RoySmith as members, with Vermont serving as steward-observer.
- Following the 2024 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Ajraddatz, Albertoleoncio, EPIC, JJMC89, Johannnes89, Melos and Yahya.
Administrators' newsletter – April 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2024).
Administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- An RfC is open to convert all current and future community discretionary sanctions to (community designated) contentious topics procedure.
Technical news
- The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes. (T313405)
Arbitration
- An arbitration case has been opened to look into "the intersection of managing conflict of interest editing with the harassment (outing) policy".
Miscellaneous
- Editors are invited to sign up for The Core Contest, an initiative running from April 15 to May 31, which aims to improve vital and other core articles on Wikipedia.
New Pages Patrol newsletter April 2024
Hello Pkbwcgs,
Backlog update: The October drive reduced the article backlog from 11,626 to 7,609 and the redirect backlog from 16,985 to 6,431! Congratulations to Schminnte, who led with over 2,300 points.
Following that, New Page Patrol organized another backlog drive for articles in January 2024. The January drive started with 13,650 articles and reduced the backlog to 7,430 articles. Congratulations to JTtheOG, who achieved first place with 1,340 points in this drive.
Looking at the graph, it seems like backlog drives are one of the only things keeping the backlog under control. Another backlog drive is being planned for May. Feel free to participate in the May backlog drive planning discussion.
It's worth noting that both queues are gradually increasing again and are nearing 14,034 articles and 22,540 redirects. We encourage you to keep contributing, even if it's just a single patrol per day. Your support is greatly appreciated!
2023 Awards
Onel5969 won the 2023 cup with 17,761 article reviews last year - that's an average of nearly 50/day. There was one Platinum Award (10,000+ reviews), 2 Gold Awards (5000+ reviews), 6 Silver (2000+), 8 Bronze (1000+), 30 Iron (360+) and 70 more for the 100+ barnstar. Hey man im josh led on redirect reviews by clearing 36,175 of them. For the full details, see the Awards page and the Hall of Fame. Congratulations everyone for their efforts in reviewing!
WMF work on PageTriage: The WMF Moderator Tools team and volunteer software developers deployed the rewritten NewPagesFeed in October, and then gave the NewPagesFeed a slight visual facelift in November. This concludes most major work to Special:NewPagesFeed, and most major work by the WMF Moderator Tools team, who wrapped up their major work on PageTriage in October. The WMF Moderator Tools team and volunteer software developers will continue small work on PageTriage as time permits.
Recruitment: A couple of the coordinators have been inviting editors to become reviewers, via mass-messages to their talk pages. If you know someone who you'd think would make a good reviewer, then a personal invitation to them would be great. Additionally, if there are Wikiprojects that you are active on, then you can add a post there asking participants to join NPP. Please be careful not to double invite folks that have already been invited.
Reviewing tip: Reviewers who prefer to patrol new pages within their most familiar subjects can use the regularly updated NPP Browser tool.
Reminders:
- You can access live chat with patrollers on the New Pages Patrol Discord.
- Consider adding the project discussion page to your watchlist.
- To opt out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
New page patrol May 2024 Backlog drive
| New Page Patrol | May 2024 Articles Backlog Drive | |
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:15, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – May 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2024).
Guideline and policy news
- Phase I of the 2024 requests for adminship review has concluded. Several proposals have passed outright and will proceed to implementation, including creating a discussion-only period (3b) and administrator elections (13) on a trial basis. Other successful proposals, such as creating a reminder of civility norms (2), will undergo further refinement in Phase II. Proposals passed on a trial basis will be discussed in Phase II, after their trials conclude. Further details on specific proposals can be found in the full report.
Technical news
- Partial action blocks are now in effect on the English Wikipedia. This means that administrators have the ability to restrict users from certain actions, including uploading files, moving pages and files, creating new pages, and sending thanks. T280531
Arbitration
- The arbitration case Conflict of interest management has been closed.
Miscellaneous
- This may be a good time to reach out to potential nominees to ask if they would consider an RfA.
- A New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in May 2024 to reduce the number of unreviewed articles in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 15,000 articles awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!
- Voting for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) election is open until 9 May 2024. Read the voting page on Meta-Wiki and cast your vote here!
Administrators' newsletter – June 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2024).
Administrator changes
Bureaucrat changes
Guideline and policy news
- Phase II of the 2024 RfA review has commenced to improve and refine the proposals passed in Phase I.
Technical news
- The Nuke feature, which enables administrators to mass delete pages, will now correctly delete pages which were moved to another title. T43351
Arbitration
- The arbitration case Venezuelan politics has been closed.
- The Committee is seeking volunteers for various roles, including access to the conflict of interest VRT queue.
Miscellaneous
- WikiProject Reliability's unsourced statements drive is happening in June 2024 to replace {{citation needed}} tags with references! Sign up here to participate!
Administrators' newsletter – July 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2024).
Administrator changes
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
Administrators' newsletter – August 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2024).
Technical news
- Global blocks may now target accounts as well as IP's. Administrators may locally unblock when appropriate.
- Users wishing to permanently leave may now request "vanishing" via Special:GlobalVanishRequest. Processed requests will result in the user being renamed, their recovery email being removed, and their account being globally locked.
Arbitration
- The Arbitration Committee appointed the following administrators to the conflict of interest volunteer response team: Bilby, Extraordinary Writ
New pages patrol September 2024 Backlog drive
| New pages patrol | September 2024 Backlog Drive | |
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:10, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – September 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2024).
Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, there is a new criterion for speedy deletion: C4, which
applies to unused maintenance categories, such as empty dated maintenance categories for dates in the past
. - A request for comment is open to discuss whether Notability (species) should be adopted as a subject-specific notability guideline.
Arbitration
- Following a motion, remedies 5.1 and 5.2 of World War II and the history of Jews in Poland (the topic and interaction bans on My very best wishes, respectively) were repealed.
- Remedy 3C of the German war effort case ("Cinderella157 German history topic ban") was suspended for a period of six months.
- The arbitration case Historical Elections is currently open. Proposed decision is expected by 3 September 2024 for this case.
Miscellaneous
- Editors can now enter into good article review circles, an alternative for informal quid pro quo arrangements, to have a GAN reviewed in return for reviewing a different editor's nomination.
- A New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in September 2024 to reduce the number of unreviewed articles and redirects in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 13,900 articles and 26,200 redirects awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!
Administrators' newsletter – October 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2024).
Administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Guideline and policy news
- Administrator elections are a proposed new process for selecting administrators, offering an alternative to requests for adminship (RfA). The first trial election will take place in October 2024, with candidate sign-up from October 8 to 14, a discussion phase from October 22 to 24, and SecurePoll voting from October 25 to 31. For questions or to help out, please visit the talk page at Wikipedia talk:Administrator elections.
- Following a discussion, the speedy deletion reason "File pages without a corresponding file" has been moved from criterion G8 to F2. This does not change what can be speedily deleted.
- A request for comment is open to discuss whether there is a consensus to have an administrator recall process.
Arbitration
- The arbitration case Historical elections has been closed.
- An arbitration case regarding Backlash to diversity and inclusion has been opened.
- Editors are invited to nominate themselves to serve on the 2024 Arbitration Committee Electoral Commission until 23:59 October 8, 2024 (UTC).
Miscellaneous
- If you are interested in stopping spammers, please put MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist and MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist on your watchlist, and help out when you can.
Administrators' newsletter – November 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2024).
Administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Oversighter changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following a discussion, the discussion-only period proposal that went for a trial to refine the requests for adminship (RfA) process has been discontinued.
- Following a request for comment, Administrator recall is adopted as a policy.
Technical news
- Mass deletions done with the Nuke tool now have the 'Nuke' tag. This change will make reviewing and analyzing deletions performed with the tool easier. T366068
Arbitration
- RoySmith, Barkeep49 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2024 Arbitration Committee Elections. ThadeusOfNazereth and Dr vulpes are reserve commissioners.
- Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate from 3 November 2024 until 12 November 2024 to stand in the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections.
- The Arbitration Committee is seeking volunteers for roles such as clerks, access to the COI queue, checkuser, and oversight.
Miscellaneous
- An unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in November 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with {{Unreferenced}}. You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!
ArbCom 2024 Elections voter message
Hello! Voting in the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 2 December 2024. 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 2024 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) 00:34, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
Estimates of Station Usage updates
HOW?!!!?! I would LOVE to know how on earth you're updating all the stations so quickly! If you're doing them all manually then you're truly a legend, and from one autistic nerd to another, I give you massive respect <3 FlyingScotsman72 (talk) 16:02, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks to you too. You really do these things very quickly and it's good to get it done. Johnlp (talk) 21:22, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – December 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2024).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following an RFC, the policy on restoration of adminship has been updated. All former administrators may now only regain the tools following a request at the Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard within 5 years of their most recent admin action. Previously this applied only to administrators deysopped for inactivity.
- Following a request for comment, a new speedy deletion criterion, T5, has been enacted. This applies to template subpages that are no longer used.
Technical news
- Technical volunteers can now register for the 2025 Wikimedia Hackathon, which will take place in Istanbul, Turkey. Application for travel and accommodation scholarships is open from November 12 to December 10, 2024.
Arbitration
- The arbitration case Yasuke (formerly titled Backlash to diversity and inclusion) has been closed.
- An arbitration case titled Palestine-Israel articles 5 has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case will close on 14 December.
New pages patrol January 2025 Backlog drive
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:53, 18 December 2024 (UTC)