This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the
current talk page.
Fuzzy search will soon be added to
Special:Undelete, allowing administrators to search for deleted page titles with results similar to the search query. You can test this by adding ?fuzzy=1 to the URL, as with
Special:Undelete?fuzzy=1. Currently the search only finds pages that exactly match the search term.
A newly revamped
database report can help identify users who may be eligible to be autopatrolled.
A potentially compromised account from 2001–2002 attempted to
request resysop. Please practice appropriate
account security by using a unique password for Wikipedia, and consider enabling
two-factor authentication. Currently around 17% of admins have enabled 2FA, up from 16% in February 2017.
Did you know: On 29 June 2017, there were 1,261 administrators on the English Wikipedia – the exact number of administrators as there were ten years ago
on 29 June 2007. Since that time, the English Wikipedia has grown from 1.85 million articles to over 5.43 million.
LoginNotify should
soon be deployed to the English Wikipedia. This will notify users when there are suspicious login attempts on their account.
The new version of
XTools is nearing an official release. This suite of tools includes
administrator statistics, an improved
edit counter, among other tools that may benefit administrators. You can report issues on
Phabricator and provide general feedback at
mw:Talk:XTools.
Following an
RfC,
WP:G13 speedy deletion criterion now applies to any page in the draftspace that has not been edited in six months. There is a
bot-generated report, updated daily, to help identify potentially qualifying drafts that have not been submitted through
articles for creation.
Technical news
You will now
get a notification when someone tries to log in to your account and fails. If they try from a device that has logged into your account before, you will be notified after five failed attempts. You can also
set in your preferences to get an email when someone logs in to your account from a new device or IP address, which may be encouraged for admins and accounts with sensitive permissions.
Syntax highlighting is now available as a beta feature (
more info). This may assist administrators and template editors when dealing with intricate syntax of high-risk templates and system messages.
Applications for
CheckUser and
Oversight are
being accepted by the Arbitration Committee until September 12. Community discussion of the candidates will begin on September 18.
Following a
successful proposal to create it, a new user right called "
edit filter helper" is now assignable and revocable by administrators. The right allows non-administrators to view the details of private
edit filters, but not to edit them.
Following
a discussion about mass-application of ECP and how
the need for logging and other details of an evolving consensus may have been missed by some administrators, a
rough guide to extended confirmed protection has been written. This information page describes how the extended-confirmed aspects of the protection policy are currently being applied by administrators.
A
request for comment is open regarding the structure, rules, and procedures of the December 2017 Arbitration Committee election, and how to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
A new function is
now available to edit filter managers that will make it easier to look for multiple strings containing spoofed text.
Arbitration
Eligible editors will be invited to submit candidate statements for the
2017 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 12 until November 21. Voting will begin on November 27 and last until December 10.
The Wikipedia community has recently learned that
Allen3 (William Allen Peckham)
passed away on December 30, 2016, the same day as
JohnCD. Allen began editing in 2005 and became an administrator that same year.
Hello, KnightLago. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The
Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the
Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose
site bans,
topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The
arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
Following a
request for comment, a
new section has been added to the username policy which disallows usernames containing emoji, emoticons or otherwise "decorative" usernames, and usernames that use any non-language symbols. Administrators should discuss issues related to these types of usernames before blocking.
Technical news
Wikimedians are now invited to vote on the proposals in the
2017 Community Wishlist Survey on Meta Wiki until 10 December 2017. In particular, there is a section of the survey regarding new tools for
administrators and for
anti-harassment.
A
new function is available to edit filter managers which can be used to store matches from regular expressions.
Over the last few months, several users have reported
backlogs that require administrator attention at
WP:ANI, with the most common backlogs showing up on
WP:SPI,
WP:AIV and
WP:RFPP. It is requested that all administrators take some time during this month to help clear backlogs wherever possible. It should be noted that AIV reports are not always valid; however, they still need to be cleared, which may include needing to remind users on what qualifies as vandalism.
The
Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative is conducting a survey for English Wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with
Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works (i.e. which problems it deals with well and which problems it struggles with). If you would like to take this survey, please
sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be emailed to you via Special:EmailUser.
A
request for comment is in progress to determine whether the
administrator policy should be amended to require disclosure of paid editing activity at
WP:RFA and to prohibit the use of administrative tools as part of paid editing activity, with certain exceptions.
An RfC
has closed with a consensus that candidates at
WP:RFA must disclose whether they have ever edited for pay and that administrators may never use administrative tools as part of any paid editing activity, except when they are acting as a
Wikipedian-in-Residence or when the payment is made by the Wikimedia Foundation or an affiliate of the WMF.
Editors
responding to threats of harm can now contact the Wikimedia Foundation's emergency address by using
Special:EmailUser/Emergency. If you don't have email enabled on Wikipedia, directly contacting the emergency address using your own email client remains an option.
Technical news
A
tagwill now be automatically applied to edits that blank a page, turn a page into a redirect, remove/replace almost all content in a page, undo an edit, or rollback an edit. These edits were previously denoted solely by
automatic edit summaries.
Arbitration
The Arbitration Committee
has enacted a change to the
discretionary sanctions procedure which requires administrators to add a
standardizededitnotice when placing page restrictions. Editors cannot be sanctioned for violations of page restrictions if this editnotice was not in place at the time of the violation.
Community ban discussions
must now stay open for at least 24 hours prior to being closed.
A change to the administrator inactivity policy
has been proposed. Under the proposal, if an administrator has not used their admin tools for a period of five years and is subsequently desysopped for inactivity, the administrator would have to file a new RfA in order to regain the tools.
A change to the banning policy
has been proposed which would specify conditions under which a repeat sockmaster may be considered de facto banned, reducing the need to start a community ban discussion for these users.
Technical news
CheckUsers
are now able to view private data such as IP addresses from the
edit filter log, e.g. when the filter prevents a user from creating an account. Previously, this information was unavailable to CheckUsers because access to it could not be logged.
The edit filter has
a new featurecontains_all that edit filter managers may use to check if one or more strings are all contained in another given string.
Bhadani (Gangadhar Bhadani) passed away on 8 February 2018. Bhadani joined Wikipedia in March 2005 and became an administrator in September 2005. While he was active, Bhadani was regarded as one of the most prolific Wikipedians from India.
Thanks for uploading File:OWL TV FAU.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a
claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see
our policy for non-free media).
Thanks for uploading File:OWL TV FAU.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a
claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see
our policy for non-free media).
Administrators who have been desysopped due to inactivity
are now required to have performed at least one (logged) administrative action in the past 5 years in order to qualify for a resysop without going through a new RfA.
Editors who have been found to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block, for whatever reason, are
now automatically considered banned by the community without the need to start a ban discussion.
There will soon be a
calendar widget at
Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.
Arbitration
The Arbitration Committee
is considering a change to the discretionary sanctions procedures which would require an editor to appeal a sanction to the community at
WP:AE or
WP:AN prior to appealing directly to the Arbitration Committee at
WP:ARCA.
Miscellaneous
A
discussion has closed which concluded that administrators are not required to
enable email, though many editors suggested doing so as a matter of best practice.
The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team has released the
Interaction Timeline. This shows a chronologic history for two users on pages where they have both made edits, which may be helpful in identifying sockpuppetry and investigating editing disputes.
I've been around for six years now and I believe this is the first time I've encountered you. Thank you for stepping up and taking decisive action against a UPE editor. It's not common, and highly refreshing. If you have any doubts about how I feel about paid editing, you may want to read
this. Bravo.
John from Idegon (
talk)
03:20, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
Also with regards to
Osaze Osemwegie Ero the only other edits were done semi-automated and were not significant. I assume you were refering to
this which is not adding any sources but just formatting them, which is not significant. The primary and only editor doing non-automated tasks was the blocked user. CHRISSYMAD❯❯❯¯\_(ツ)_/¯23:22, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
And same with
this one. Those are all semi-automated or automated edits and not even remotely significant. Forcing it to sit through a no-participation AfD won't change the outcome but will let it sit around for more socks to mess around with. CHRISSYMAD❯❯❯¯\_(ツ)_/¯23:27, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
Have I done anything else to displease you today? Do you have a master list of these you are working off of or are you just going through account history?
KnightLago (
talk)
23:32, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
A
proposal is being discussed which would create a new "event coordinator" right that would allow users to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit.
Technical news
AbuseFilter has received numerous improvements, including an
OOUI overhaul,
syntax highlighting, ability to
search existing filters, and a few new functions. In particular, the search feature can be used to ensure there aren't existing filters for what you need, and the new equals_to_any function can be used when checking multiple namespaces. One major upcoming change is the ability to
see which filters are the slowest. This information is currently only available to those with access to
Logstash.
When blocking anonymous users, a
cookie will be applied that reloads the block if the user changes their IP. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. This currently only
occurs when hard-blocking accounts.
The block notice shown on mobile will soon
be more informative and point users to a
help page on how to request an unblock, just as it currently does on
desktop.
There will soon be a
calendar widget at
Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.
Lankiveil (Craig Franklin) passed away in mid-April. Lankiveil joined Wikipedia on 12 August 2004 and became an administrator on 31 August 2008. During his time with the Wikimedia community, Lankiveil served as an oversighter for the English Wikipedia and as president of Wikimedia Australia.
Following a
successful request for comment, administrators are now able to add and remove editors to the
"event coordinator" group. Users in the event coordinator group have the ability to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit. Users will no longer need to be in the
"account creator" group if they are in the event coordinator group.
IP-based
cookie blocks should be
deployed to English Wikipedia in June. This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.
The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team will build
granular types of blocks in 2018 (e.g. a block from uploading or editing specific pages, categories, or namespaces, as opposed to a full-site block). Feedback on the concept may be left at
the talk page.
It is
now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked.
Arbitration
A
recent technical issue with the Arbitration Committee's spam filter inadvertently caused all messages sent to the committee through Wikipedia (i.e.
Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee) to be discarded. If you attempted to send an email to the Arbitration Committee via Wikipedia between May 16 and May 31, your message was not received and you are encouraged to resend it. Messages sent outside of these dates or directly to the Arbitration Committee email address were not affected by this issue.
An
RfC about the deletion of drafts closed with a consensus to change the wording of
WP:NMFD. Specifically, a draft that has been repeatedly resubmitted and declined at AfC without any substantial improvement may be deleted at
MfD if consensus determines that it is unlikely to ever meet the requirements for mainspace and it otherwise meets one of the
reasons for deletion outlined in the deletion policy.
Starting on July 9, the WMF Security team, Trust & Safety, and the broader technical community will be seeking input on an
upcoming change that will
restrict editing of site-wide JavaScript and CSS to a new
technical administrators user group. Bureaucrats and stewards will be able to grant this right per a community-defined process. The intention is to reduce the number of accounts who can edit frontend code to those who actually need to, which in turn lessens the risk of malicious code being added that compromises the security and privacy of everyone who accesses Wikipedia. For more information, please review the
FAQ.
Syntax highlighting has been graduated from a Beta feature on the English Wikipedia. To enable this feature, click the highlighter icon () in your editing toolbar (or under the
hamburger menu in the
2017 wikitext editor). This feature can help prevent you from making mistakes when editing complex templates.
IP-based
cookie blocks should be
deployed to English Wikipedia in July (previously scheduled for June). This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.
Miscellaneous
Currently around 20% of admins have enabled
two-factor authentication, up from 17% a year ago. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider
doing so. Regardless if you use 2FA, please practice appropriate
account security by ensuring your password is
secure and unique to Wikimedia.
Can Administrators be blocked from Wikipedia and has there been any cases of that happening because the question just popped out of my head for some reason
ARMcgrath (
talk)
00:15, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
After
a discussion at Meta, a new user group called "
interface administrators" (formerly "technical administrator") has been created. Come the end of August, interface admins will be the only users able to edit site-wide JavaScript and CSS pages like
MediaWiki:Common.js and
MediaWiki:Common.css, or edit other user's personal JavaScript and CSS. The intention is to improve security and privacy by reducing the number of accounts which could be used to compromise the site or another user's account through malicious code. The new user group can be assigned and revoked by
bureaucrats.
Discussion is ongoing to establish details for implementing the group on the English Wikipedia.
Following a
request for comment, the
WP:SISTER style guideline now states that in the mainspace, interwiki links to
Wikinews should only be made as per the
external links guideline. This generally means that within the body of an article, you should not link to Wikinews about a particular event that is only a part of the larger topic. Wikinews links in "external links" sections can be used where helpful, but not automatically if an equivalent article from a reliable news outlet could be linked in the same manner.
Technical news
The WMF
Anti-Harassment Tools team is seeking input on the
second set of wireframes for the
Special:Block redesign that will introduce
partial blocks. The new functionality will allow you to block a user from editing a specific set of pages, pages in a category, a namespace, and for specific actions such as moving pages and uploading files.
You indef'd this
user. They had their user page deleted for advert/promo, and now they're using their talk page for the same, instead of appealing. -
wolf16:49, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
I'm a new user and I searched the Yaumul Arafah page you've protected, I've tried to edit but I can't as of now. Today is Yaumul Arafah so change is needed immediately. there is a gross error on the page. It mentions that the prophet recommends fasting on the tenth of ashura. This is false and derogatory to the prophet and his family and he has said no such thing. His grandson and the 3rd Imam Hussein was martyred on the 10th. Fasting is recommended for good things and rewards, not on the day the prophet lost his own blood. and so it's forbidden to fast on the tenth. Please fix this immediately as this is a false quote and perpetuates misinformation
Thank you.
Ronany99 (
talk)
23:29, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
@
Ronany99: The article has been protected due to vandalism. However, this does not prevent you from suggesting an edit(s) to the article to correct whatever you believe is incorrect. You can follow this
link and request that the article be edited on the article's talk page. I suggest you provide sources to support your proposed changes. Hope this helps.
KnightLago (
talk)
23:56, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
Following
a "stop-gap" discussion, six users have temporarily been made
interface administrators while
discussion is ongoing for a more permanent process for assigning the permission. Interface administrators are now the only editors allowed to edit sitewide
CSS and
JavaScript pages, as well as CSS/JS pages in another user's userspace. Previously, all administrators had this ability. The right can be granted and revoked by bureaucrats.
Technical news
Because of
a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour.
Some
abuse filter variables
have changed. They are now easier to understand for non-experts. The old variables will still work but filter editors are encouraged to replace them with the new ones. You can find the list of changed variables
on mediawiki.org. They have a note which says Deprecated. Use ... instead. An example is article_text which is now page_title.
Abuse filters
can now use how old a page is. The variable is page_age.
Arbitration
The Arbitration Committee has resolved to perform a round of
Checkuser and Oversight appointments. The usernames of all applicants will be shared with the
Functionaries team, and they will be requested to assist in the vetting process. The deadline to submit an application is 23:59 UTC, 12 September, and the candidates that move forward will be published on-wiki for community comments on 18 September.
Before considering this request, please take a look at the recent editing history. I find this request to be in bad faith, over a content disagreement rather than legitimate vandalism that requires page protection. This user edit warred with an IP over a number of good faith edits and one legitimately questionable edit, and the IP is actively engaged in discussion on the talkpage. Trying to oust the IP from contributing feels like gaming the system.
FutureForecasts reverted all of the IP's edits with no real solid rationale (other than the one edit about the placement of casting information), left a warning on the IP's talkpage, and then came here to get the IP removed from being able to contribute. If this were a reported incident, I'd be screaming
boomerang.
Grandpallama (
talk)
17:06, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Grandpallama has been answered on the article Talk page with my explanation that the individual copyedits were fine, however they were being placed in the wrong section. There have been problem edits from 3 IP editors over the last 24 hours, each of which I have notified, and the 7 day extension on the page protection would help.
FutureForecasts (
talk)
17:11, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
And Grandpallama responded to you that the individual copyedits should not have been reverted, period. And you absolutely edit warred to remove them, then warned the IP, and then asked for page protection to prevent IP editing even as the IP was responding on the talkpage. As I said to you before, if you don't understand why the other reversions you did were inappropriate, then you should not be reverting people's edits at all. In the meantime, I have restored the IP's copyedits while maintaining the original version of the placement of the casting info.
Grandpallama (
talk)
17:27, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
My request was based on 3 IP editor, not the single one Grandpallama is focusing on. Since he does not know the edit history of the page and the multiple IP editors involved then let KnightLago look at it. Grandpallama has added in some small edits done by one of the IP editors which looks fine, though the larger problem edits from the other IP editors continue. Please extend page protection for 7 days.
FutureForecasts (
talk)
17:31, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for telling me what I do and don't know about a page's individual history. In the past 24 hours, only two clearly problematic edits have occurred
[2][3] while I count five other constructive ones from IPs, not including the many copyedits by the IP that I restored. The only other potentially problematic edits involve the placement of the controversy section, which simply requires editors to be redirected to the talkpage. Since some of the strongest objections to the placement have been raised by IPs, including one engaged on the talkpage about that topic, trying to get them excluded from editing is problematic. I see this as a bad faith request.
Grandpallama (
talk)
17:48, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Request is made in good faith. Since I am the one who has been cleaning-up the poor edits which you refer to above, and not you, the request for page protection is still a valid and a useful request.
FutureForecasts (
talk)
17:52, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
There is an open
request for comment on Meta regarding the creation a new user group for global edit filter management.
Technical news
Partial blocks should be available for testing in October on the
Test Wikipedia and the
Beta-Cluster. This new feature allows admins to block users from editing specific pages and in the near-future, namespaces and uploading files. You can expect more updates and an invitation to help with testing once it is available.
The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team is currently looking for input on how to
measure the effectiveness of blocks. This is in particular related to how they will measure the success of the aforementioned partial blocks.
Because of
a data centre test, you will be able to read but not edit the Wikimedia projects for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time.
Following a
request for comment, the size of the Arbitration Committee will be decreased to 13 arbitrators, starting in 2019. Additionally, the minimum support percentage required to be appointed to a two-year term on ArbCom has been increased to 60%. ArbCom candidates who receive between 50% and 60% support will be appointed to one-year terms instead.
Nominations for the 2018 Arbitration Committee Electoral Commission are
being accepted until 12 October. These are the editors who help run the ArbCom election smoothly. If you are interested in volunteering for this role, please consider nominating yourself.