Administrators' newsletter – January 2018 edit

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

 

  Administrator changes

  Muboshgu
  AnetodeLaser brainWorm That Turned
  None

  Bureaucrat changes

  Worm That Turned

  Guideline and policy news

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

  Technical news

  Arbitration


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:37, 3 January 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Bugle: Issue CXLI, January 2018 edit

 
Your Military History Newsletter

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Disambiguation link notification for February 2 edit

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Lucca (dog), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page IED (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are usually incorrect, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of unrelated topics with similar titles. (Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.)

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 10:44, 2 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Thanks edit

Thanks. Fixed it -- pointed now to Improvised explosive device. — ERcheck (talk) 01:47, 3 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Administrators' newsletter – February 2018 edit

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

 

  Administrator changes

  None
  BlurpeaceDana boomerDeltabeignetDenelson83GrandioseSalvidrim!Ymblanter

  Guideline and policy news

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

  Technical news

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

  Arbitration


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:51, 4 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Disambiguation link notification for February 9 edit

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited John F. Goodman, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page ASU (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:05, 9 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Thanks - fixed it. — ERcheck (talk) 13:56, 9 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Bugle: Issue CXLII, February 2018 edit

 
Your Military History Newsletter

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If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 07:16, 11 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

DSTRESS edit

What would you think about putting a link and comment about DSTRESS on the top of the Marine Corps portal? Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 01:52, 14 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Thanks - looks good. Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 12:20, 14 February 2018 (UTC)Reply
I've removed it. Portals exist to introduce Wikipedia content, not to promote external sites, however worthy. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:30, 14 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Re:Raúl G. Villaronga edit

Hello old buddy, your recommendation sounds good to me. You have my blessings. Tony the Marine (talk) 04:10, 23 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Administrators' newsletter – March 2018 edit

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

 

  Administrator changes

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

  Guideline and policy news

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

  Technical news

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

  Miscellaneous

  Obituaries

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:00, 2 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Trinidad Swilling edit

It is just to give the reader a brief description of what was the historical background of Tucson during her era and that at the time and even though she was born in Mexico, her Mexican family in Tucson were living within the boundaries of the new United States territory and became American citizens as a result of the Gadsden Purchase. Tony the Marine (talk) 20:18, 4 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Bugle: Issue CXLIII, March 2018 edit

 
Your Military History Newsletter

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DYK nomination of Richard O. Culver, Jr. edit

  Hello! Your submission of Richard O. Culver, Jr. 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) 07:51, 19 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Re:Elsa Miranda article edit

Could you do me a favor and fix the billboard section for me? I will appreciate it. Tony the Marine (talk) 18:29, 25 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

April 2018 Milhist Backlog Drive edit

G'day all, please be advised that throughout April 2018 the Military history Wikiproject is running its annual backlog elimination drive. This will focus on several key areas:

  • tagging and assessing articles that fall within the project's scope
  • adding or improving listed resources on Milhist's task force pages
  • updating the open tasks template on Milhist's task force pages
  • creating articles that are listed as "requested" on the project's various lists of missing articles.

As with past Milhist drives, there are points awarded for working on articles in the targeted areas, with barnstars being awarded at the end for different levels of achievement.

The drive is open to all Wikipedians, not just members of the Military history project, although only work on articles that fall (broadly) within the scope of military history will be considered eligible. This year, the Military history project would like to extend a specific welcome to members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red, and we would like to encourage all participants to consider working on helping to improve our coverage of women in the military. This is not the sole focus of the edit-a-thon, though, and there are aspects that hopefully will appeal to pretty much everyone.

The drive starts at 00:01 UTC on 1 April and runs until 23:59 UTC on 30 April 2018. Those interested in participating can sign up here.

For the Milhist co-ordinators, AustralianRupert and MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:54, 27 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Administrators' newsletter – April 2018 edit

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

 

  Administrator changes

  331dotCordless LarryClueBot NG
  Gogo DodoPb30SebastiankesselSeicerSoLando

  Guideline and policy news

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

  Technical news

  Arbitration

  • The Arbitration Committee is considering a change to the discretionary sanctions procedures which would require an editor to appeal a sanction to the community at WP:AE or WP:AN prior to appealing directly to the Arbitration Committee at WP:ARCA.

  Miscellaneous

  • A discussion has closed which concluded that administrators are not required to enable email, though many editors suggested doing so as a matter of best practice.
  • The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team has released the Interaction Timeline. This shows a chronologic history for two users on pages where they have both made edits, which may be helpful in identifying sockpuppetry and investigating editing disputes.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Bugle: Issue CXLIIV, April 2018 edit

 
Your Military History Newsletter

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If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 09:55, 8 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

DYK for Richard O. Culver, Jr. edit

On 15 April 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Richard O. Culver, Jr., which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Richard O. Culver, Jr., one of the founders of the U.S. Marine Corps Sniper School in Quantico, Virginia, was born on Alcatraz Island? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Richard O. Culver, Jr.. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Richard O. Culver, Jr.), 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.

Vanamonde (talk) 00:02, 15 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Stale draft edit

Greetings! I've been combing through stale drafts as of late, and I happened across one of yours: User:ERcheck/Sandbox3. Would you be willing to either blank it or delete it under U1? It honestly doesn't matter which. Thanks! Compassionate727 (T·C) 20:06, 26 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Hello, from the Portals WikiProject... edit

You are invited to join the effort to revitalize and improve the Portal system...

The Portals WikiProject was rebooted on April 17th, and is going strong. Fifty-nine editors have joined so far, with more joining daily.

We're having a blast, and excitement is high...

Our goal is to update, upgrade, and maintain portals.

In addition to working directly on portals, we are developing tools to make portals more dynamic (self-updating), and to make building and maintaining portals easier. We've finished two tools so far, with more to come. They are Template:Transclude lead excerpt and Template:Transclude random excerpt.

Discussions are underway about how to further upgrade portals, and what the portals of the future will be.

There are plenty of tasks (including WikiGnome tasks too).

With more to come.

We may even surprise ourselves and exceed all expectations. Who knows what we will be able to accomplish in what may become the biggest Wikicollaboration in years.

See ya at the WikiProject!

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   23:48, 1 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018 edit

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

 

  Administrator changes

  None
  ChochopkCoffeeGryffindorJimpKnowledge SeekerLankiveilPeridonRjd0060

  Guideline and policy news

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

  Technical news

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

  Arbitration

  Obituaries

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:05, 2 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Bugle: Issue CXLIV, May 2018 edit

 
Your Military History Newsletter

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 15:00, 12 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

Thank you very much edit

The RfC discussion to eliminate portals was closed May 12, with the statement "There exists a strong consensus against deleting or even deprecating portals at this time." This was made possible because you and others came to the rescue. Thank you for speaking up.

By the way, the current issue of the Signpost features an article with interviews about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

I'd also like to let you know that the Portals WikiProject is working hard to make sure your support of portals was not in vain. Toward that end, we have been working diligently to innovate portals, while building, updating, upgrading, and maintaining them. The project has grown to 80 members so far, and has become a beehive of activity.

Our two main goals at this time are to automate portals (in terms of refreshing, rotating, and selecting content), and to develop a one-page model in order to make obsolete and eliminate most of the 150,000 subpages from the portal namespace by migrating their functions to the portal base pages, using technologies such as selective transclusion. Please feel free to join in on any of the many threads of development at the WikiProject's talk page, or just stop by to see how we are doing. If you have any questions about portals or portal development, that is the best place to ask them.

If you would like to keep abreast of developments on portals, keep in mind that the project's members receive updates on their talk pages. The updates are also posted here, for your convenience.

Again, we can't thank you enough for your support of portals, and we hope to make you proud of your decision. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   18:07, 26 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

P.S.: if you reply to this message, please {{ping}} me. Thank you. -TT

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018 edit

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

 

  Administrator changes

  None
  Al Ameer sonAliveFreeHappyCenariumLupoMichaelBillington

  Guideline and policy news

  Technical news

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

  Arbitration

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

  Miscellaneous


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:59, 1 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Bugle: Issue CXLVI, June 2018 edit

 
Your Military History Newsletter

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 10:35, 11 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

Administrators' newsletter – July 2018 edit

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

 

  Administrator changes

  PbsouthwoodTheSandDoctor
  Gogo Dodo
  AndrevanDougEVulaKaisaLTony FoxWilyD

  Bureaucrat changes

  AndrevanEVula

  Guideline and policy news

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

  Technical news

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

  Miscellaneous

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:22, 3 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Bugle: Issue CXLVII, July 2018 edit

 
Your Military History Newsletter

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
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Administrators' newsletter – August 2018 edit

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

 

  Administrator changes

  Sro23
  KaisaLYmblanter

  Guideline and policy news

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

  Technical news


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:31, 5 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Bugle: Issue CXLVIII, August 2018 edit

 
Your Military History Newsletter

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 08:35, 12 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Wikiproject Military history coordinator election nominations open edit

Nominations for the upcoming project coordinator election are now open. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 UTC on 14 September! Voting doesn't commence until 15 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the coord team. Cheers, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:53, 1 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Administrators' newsletter – September 2018 edit

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

 

  Administrator changes

  None
  AsterionCrisco 1492KFKudpungLizRandykittySpartaz
  Optimist on the runVoice of Clam

  Interface administrator changes

  AmorymeltzerMr. StradivariusMusikAnimalMSGJTheDJXaosflux

  Guideline and policy news

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

  Technical news

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

  Arbitration

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:23, 2 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Bugle: Issue CXLIX, September 2018 edit

 
Your Military History Newsletter

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 22:19, 10 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Milhist coordinator election voting has commenced edit

G'day everyone, voting for the 2018 Wikiproject Military history coordinator tranche is now open. This is a simple approval vote; only "support" votes should be made. Project members should vote for any candidates they support by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September 2018. Thanks, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:35, 15 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Milhist coordinator election voting has commenced edit

G'day everyone, voting for the 2018 Wikiproject Military history coordinator tranche is now open. This is a simple approval vote; only "support" votes should be made. Project members should vote for any candidates they support by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September 2018. Thanks, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:22, 15 September 2018 (UTC) Note: the previous version omitted a link to the election page, therefore you are receiving this follow up message with a link to the election page to correct the previous version. We apologies for any inconvenience that this may have caused.Reply

Have your say! edit

Hi everyone, just a quick reminder that voting for the WikiProject Military history coordinator election closes soon. You only have a day or so left to have your say about who should make up the coordination team for the next year. If you have already voted, thanks for participating! If you haven't and would like to, vote here before 23:59 UTC on 28 September. Thanks, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:29, 26 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018 edit

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

 

  Administrator changes

  JustlettersandnumbersL235
  BgwhiteHorsePunchKidJ GrebKillerChihuahuaRami RWinhunter

  Interface administrator changes

  Cyberpower678Deryck ChanOshwahPharosRagesossRitchie333

  Oversight changes

  Guerillero NativeForeigner SnowolfXeno

  Guideline and policy news

  Technical news

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

  Arbitration

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:13, 5 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Bugle: Issue CL, October 2018 edit

 
Your Military History Newsletter

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 07:00, 7 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

Today's Wikipedian 10 years ago edit

Awesome
 
Ten years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:27, 1 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Thank you! — ERcheck (talk) 02:19, 26 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018 edit

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

  Guideline and policy news

  Technical news

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

  Arbitration

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:18, 3 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Bugle: Issue CLI, November 2018 edit

 
Your Military History Newsletter

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 09:39, 14 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

ArbCom 2018 election voter message edit

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

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

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

Nominations now open for "Military historian of the year" and "Military history newcomer of the year" awards edit

Nominations for our annual Military historian of the year and Military history newcomer of the year awards are open until 23:59 (GMT) on 15 December 2018. Why don't you nominate the editors who you believe have made a real difference to the project in 2018? MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:26, 3 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018 edit

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

 

  Administrator changes

  Al Ameer sonRandykittySpartaz
  BosonDaniel J. LeivickEfeEsanchez7587Fred BauderGarzoMartijn HoekstraOrangemike

  Interface administrator changes

 Deryck Chan

  Guideline and policy news

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

  Technical news

  Arbitration

  Miscellaneous

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

  Obituaries


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:36, 3 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Bugle: Issue CLII, December 2018 edit

 
Your Military History Newsletter

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 10:34, 9 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Voting now open for "Military historian of the year" and "Military history newcomer of the year" awards edit

Voting for our annual Military historian of the year and Military history newcomer of the year awards is open until 23:59 (GMT) on 30 December 2018. Why don't you vote for the editors who you believe have made a real difference to Wikipedia's coverage of military history in 2018? MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:17, 16 December 2018 (UTC)Reply