Administrators' newsletter – June 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2018).
Administrator changes
None
Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington
Guideline and policy news
Technical news
- IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in June. This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.
- The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team will build granular types of blocks in 2018 (e.g. a block from uploading or editing specific pages, categories, or namespaces, as opposed to a full-site block). Feedback on the concept may be left at the talk page.
- There is now a checkbox on Special:ListUsers to let you see only users in temporary user groups.
- It is now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked.
Arbitration
- A recent technical issue with the Arbitration Committee's spam filter inadvertently caused all messages sent to the committee through Wikipedia (i.e. Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee) to be discarded. If you attempted to send an email to the Arbitration Committee via Wikipedia between May 16 and May 31, your message was not received and you are encouraged to resend it. Messages sent outside of these dates or directly to the Arbitration Committee email address were not affected by this issue.
Miscellaneous
Administrators' newsletter – July 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2018).
Administrator changes
Pbsouthwood • TheSandDoctor
Gogo Dodo
Andrevan • Doug • EVula • KaisaL • Tony Fox • WilyD
Bureaucrat changes
Andrevan • EVula
Guideline and policy news
- An RfC about the deletion of drafts closed with a consensus to change the wording of WP:NMFD. Specifically, a draft that has been repeatedly resubmitted and declined at AfC without any substantial improvement may be deleted at MfD if consensus determines that it is unlikely to ever meet the requirements for mainspace and it otherwise meets one of the reasons for deletion outlined in the deletion policy.
- A request for comment closed with a consensus that the {{promising draft}} template cannot be used to indefinitely prevent a WP:G13 speedy deletion nomination.
Technical news
- Starting on July 9, the WMF Security team, Trust & Safety, and the broader technical community will be seeking input on an upcoming change that will restrict editing of site-wide JavaScript and CSS to a new technical administrators user group. Bureaucrats and stewards will be able to grant this right per a community-defined process. The intention is to reduce the number of accounts who can edit frontend code to those who actually need to, which in turn lessens the risk of malicious code being added that compromises the security and privacy of everyone who accesses Wikipedia. For more information, please review the FAQ.
- Syntax highlighting has been graduated from a Beta feature on the English Wikipedia. To enable this feature, click the highlighter icon (
) in your editing toolbar (or under the hamburger menu in the 2017 wikitext editor). This feature can help prevent you from making mistakes when editing complex templates.
- IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in July (previously scheduled for June). This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.
Miscellaneous
- Currently around 20% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 17% a year ago. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless if you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.
Administrators' newsletter – August 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2018).
Administrator changes
Sro23
KaisaL • Ymblanter
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
- 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.
Administrators' newsletter – September 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2018).
Administrator changes
None
Asterion • Crisco 1492 • KF • Kudpung • Liz • Randykitty • Spartaz
Optimist on the run → Voice of Clam
Interface administrator changes
Amorymeltzer • Mr. Stradivarius • MusikAnimal • MSGJ • TheDJ • Xaosflux
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.
Q: Are You The Sysop Who Created Bibi Bourelly's Page? And When Did It Got Protected?
Good morning Bongwarrior.
3 years ago on March 26 a new song by Barbadian chanteuse Riri titled Better Have My Money was released on iTunes for a free download.
On April 6, Noisey Vice posted an article titled Meet the 20 Year Old Who Wrote Rih's Better Have My Money. Her name is Bibi Bourelly and she is from Berlin, Germany.
Not too soon after she wrote this, she released her debut single called Riot. May 6 is when she dropped her first extended play titled Free The Real Pt. 1.
But did you create a page for her after the song came out? The first sentence after her name says that she is "an American-German singer and songwriter signed to Def Jam Recordings."
It should be "a German-American singer and songwriter signed to Def Jam Recordings." If she was an American date of birth (14 July 1994) should be written in MDY.
Who protected her page? It wasn't you Bongwarrior possibly an anonymous sysop with an IP address as his/her username.
Talk back to me.
Best wishes,
67.81.163.178 (talk) 13:26, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
- @Bongwarrior: see the discussion on my talkpage (at least the earlier part) about this IP and their possible relationship to Gabriella~four.3-6 (talk · contribs) Acroterion (talk) 14:21, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
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