The best road to progress is freedom's road. - JFK
Texas
Just a note on WP:AGF. This is a very good concept, both here and IRL. But per WP:PACT, AGF until proven otherwise. note 2: Given that the subtleties of English grammar aren't always apparent to all, sometimes just stating the truth is required. In case there any doubt: Good faith is not the same as respect. I can assume good faith, but respect must be earned.
Awww Littleolive oil, that is so sweet of you. I'm a bit embarrassed, and at a lack of words here. In some ways it feels like ages since we talked, in others it feels like yesterday. I guess that's the way it is for friends, even wiki ones. I think you deserve this for yourself more than me - but I am truly thankful. Bless you. — Ched (talk) 10:16, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ched this is so deserved. You are one of the admins I count on for kindness and especially decorum and common sense. No pressure :O). My interest in Wikipedia has waned given some of the losses we've suffered. I've also had a poor connection for several months as I traveled-couldn't even tether to my phone. I hope you've been well. Littleolive oil (talk) 14:42, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for improving articles in October! - Today: see yourself, read about a hymn praying to not be on earth in vain, about a comics artist whose characters have character (another collaboration of the "perennial gang", broken by one of us banned - as if blocked wasn't enough), and in memory of the last prima donna assoluta, Edita Gruberová. I had to go to two grave sites last week, one who died now, one who died 10 years ago, so standing upright and in black seems appropriate. More colours - but subdued - can be had on hikes, - click on songs. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:22, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Gerda, but I'm sorry to say that I haven't really felt up to editing much lately. Hopefully that will change soon. — Ched (talk) 11:01, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
no pressure, - just sad sad that we ban people who have time and are willing, - so strange --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:09, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry - you'd have to be more specific on 2010. If by "significant" you mean something on wiki - no, not really. I don't carry that stuff around with me anymore, it got to be too heavy on my heart. — Ched (talk) 00:26, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ahh - I remember those days: sad and angry times. Haven't talked to him in a while - will have to drop a "Holiday greetings" to him. — Ched (talk) 16:08, 4 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea! - That was the first time I witnessed how an editor is treated in a way he or she only wants to leave. It happened now to Doug, and LouisAlain, and every time it happens I wonder if Wikipedia can afford loosing content editors. I was in Paris, and passed cafés, and wondered if some LouisAlain added information as an ip because as a named user, he is no longer welcome on the site "anybody" can edit, allegedly. He gave us soooo much. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:24, 4 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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 {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:20, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A recently closed Request for Comment (RFC) reached consensus to remove Autopatrolled from the administrator user group. You may, similarly as with Edit Filter Manager, choose to self-assign this permission to yourself. This will be implemented the week of December 13th, but if you wish to self-assign you may do so now. To find out when the change has gone live or if you have any questions please visit the Administrator's Noticeboard. 20:05, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
See: Chinese covid coverup 8 support v 9 oppose. The closing rational makes it obvious that this was nothing more than a supervote[1]. Pitiful; even more so coming from an experienced editor. — Ched (talk) 04:45, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Not too surprising, though. I wish it were, but...Intothatdarkness 17:42, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hey @Intothatdarkness:, always good to see you out and about. Yea, I agree; it should be surprising, but it isn't. So sad the amount of "political" editing that goes on here .. but I know it's nothing new. — Ched (talk) 01:57, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for improving article quality in December. If you like Advent music, check this out. If you like Christmas music and wishes, watch my user talk until 27 December ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:19, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And thank you Gerda for everything you do here. Not really doing much this month, but maybe next month I can ramp it up a bit. I hope you and your family have a wonderful and Merry Christmas - and a great New Year in 2022. — Ched (talk) 01:57, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ched! I've nominated you (along with all other active admins) to receive a solstice season gift from the WMF. Talk page stalkers are invited to comment at the nomination. Enjoy! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}}talk ~~~~~
Wow .. well Thank You Sdkb. I don't know as I'd ever be chosen, but I do appreciate the gesture. Very much appreciated. — Ched (talk) 14:34, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Cabayi • Donald Albury • Enterprisey • Izno • Wugapodes
Opabinia regalis
Casliber • David Fuchs • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy
Oversighter changes
Cabayi • Donald Albury • Enterprisey • Izno • Wugapodes
Opabinia regalis
Casliber • David Fuchs • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy
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.
The functionaries email list (functionaries-enlists.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.
another Did not, did too venue on Wikipedia. You know - cause we don't have enough places here. — Ched (talk) 20:24, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There seems to be the notion that the more you talk about it the more you will learn. When in fact it's just more of the same usually with out enough extensive context to come to a fair position or decision. Until we design a system that explores context in all of its many incarnations we cannot, not will not, but cannot consistently deal fairly with people. I was lucky enough to experience an arbitration many years ago in which the arbs took weeks to investigate allegations. I didn't realize how fortunate I was until recently. Most arbs do not have that kind of time. As we deal more and more with editors with long histories the more we need to be able to understand those histories and to place our concerns in context of that information. Another venue to deal with admins! One becomes so weary. Littleolive oil (talk) 22:02, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well I'm sure it's all with the best intentions - but as you say Olive - one does indeed become weary. Still - thinking positive, so I hope you have a wonderful 2022. — Ched (talk) 03:27, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I always tend to believe people mean well.:O) Littleolive oil (talk) 20:04, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
How we will see unregistered users
Hi!
You get this message because you are an admin on a Wikimedia wiki.
When someone edits a Wikimedia wiki without being logged in today, we show their IP address. As you may already know, we will not be able to do this in the future. This is a decision by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department, because norms and regulations for privacy online have changed.
Instead of the IP we will show a masked identity. You as an admin will still be able to access the IP. There will also be a new user right for those who need to see the full IPs of unregistered users to fight vandalism, harassment and spam without being admins. Patrollers will also see part of the IP even without this user right. We are also working on better tools to help.
We have two suggested ways this identity could work. We would appreciate your feedback on which way you think would work best for you and your wiki, now and in the future. You can let us know on the talk page. You can write in your language. The suggestions were posted in October and we will decide after 17 January.
I appreciate you so much, Ched. You're quiet thoughtfulness is a welcome reprieve from the noise of life for so many who interact with you here. I will forever cherish your gift to me at a time when I needed it so much. Your amazingly bright Song has left its impact on the surface of my heart and is eternally tied to the musical strings of my Life as a part of my Song. I am so grateful our paths have crossed and my Hope is for a prosperous and healthy year ahead for you and yours. ARoseWolf 16:43, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you so much ARoseWolf, you have no idea how much this means to me. While I've grown weary of the battles so prevalent on wiki, and become somewhat private in my efforts here - there are a few very good people (like yourself) that I cherish deeply. To know I've touched someone in a positive way means more to me than I could say with words. Your own gift of friendship puts you in some very rare company of the folks I know here. Thank you so much. — Ched (talk) 08:54, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The highest honor I could hope to achieve is being called friend. I'm overly private about most details but I probably share more than I should. Still, its a genuine attempt to relate and be related with. No matter what we do as humans we are always trying to maintain relevance. You matter to this encyclopedia and the community as an important part of it. This idea that a human's unique POV in their approach to how things are written here doesn't matter is rubbish. NPOV doesn't mean we all have to see things the same way. Yours is a beautiful view of things and I appreciate you. --ARoseWolf 18:59, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ARoseWolf First my apologies for the delay in my reply - health and weather issues haven't been the best. I'm honored to consider us friends. I'll try to drop you a line in the next day or two and introduce myself a bit less formally. :-). Your kindness is amazing, and I can't overstate how much it touches me. Talk soon, and best always, — Ched (talk) 12:00, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No apology necessary. I disappear for days at a time usually doing something of immediate import to life here. I so look forward to hearing from you when I do. --ARoseWolf 14:53, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And thank you Gerda for everything you do here as well - especially showing such friendship to me. Your picture is lovely, one of my favorites in that list I looked at very recently. I also wish you a wonderful 2022 as well. — Ched (talk) 08:54, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
thank you! I made a link to my new year's resolution, first for MarnetteD who's leaving (but will keep reading) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:28, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
2022 began happily with vacation. I uploaded images but stopped at 22 January - click on songs. 30 January means 10 years of Precious. It's also the birthday of a friend, - I'm so happy I mentioned his DYK on his 90th birthday when he was still alive. I have a great singer on DYK whom I heard, Elena Guseva, and wait for a Recent death appearance of Georg Christoph Biller whom I saw in action. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:12, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You've been gifted to see and hear many beautiful things - I appreciate you sharing them here. TY Gerda. — Ched (talk) 22:17, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm so sorry, your emails came through, I'm just desperately trying to remember my password. I think I hid it from myself. I don't keep up my email and it's been about two months since I've checked them. I'll remember it. Just wanted you to know it isn't you. You can delete this if you want. --ARoseWolf 13:40, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
no problem @ARoseWolf: - nothing important, just a few tidbits that offer some insight into who I am. — Ched (talk) 14:34, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, tidbits and insight, even more reason to remember. It's all important. I'll look at it and respond. I just wanted to let you know that I saw it. --ARoseWolf 14:37, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, by the way - I did go back and check to see if your real-life name was mentioned there .. and it is a very beautiful name by the way. — Ched (talk) 14:45, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I wasn't born with that name but it was my quasi-legal name growing up (long story I'll tell you by email in my response). I've had opportunities to change it but I associate more life experiences with it than any name I may have had before I was adopted by my uncle and aunt. Plus, I've heard just about every possible pronunciation imaginable. It makes for a good conversation starter. --ARoseWolf 14:54, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The user group oversight will be renamed suppress in 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.
Ten years ago, you were found precious. That's what you are, always. I cherish working with you, 10 years ago when we faced a difficult situation, and now that we silently improve songs' articles. This little light ... - my next: Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, thinking of my mother. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:12, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed that you gave me precious in response 10 years ago, - you could use the same code if you want to do that again, - I learned the use of BASEPAGENAME today, - about time ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:57, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry I'm not up to editing right now - but the memories are very dear to me. — Ched (talk) 03:15, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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)
Several unused discretionary sanctions and article probation remedies have been rescinded. This follows the community feedback from the 2021 Discretionary Sanctions review.
I noticed you did some minor updates on this article fairly recently, so I was hoping you might provide feedback on my suggestion (in the Talk section) that the article needs a pretty comprehensive re-write. And, of course seeing as you know this topic already maybe you would even help or lead the re-write.
I'd love your feedback, positive or negative. I'm proactively reaching out to recent editors of the article to get a group consensus before undertaking any editing of the article.
Access to Special:RevisionDelete has been expanded to include users who have the deletelogentry and deletedhistory rights. 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)
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.
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.
For your superb work on Ice Station Zebra. Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul have brought renewed interest to this old, forgotten film. If it wasn’t for your improvements, we wouldn’t have much to go on. Thank you again for your commitment to quality film articles. Viriditas (talk) 08:36, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
New editors were more successful with this new tool.
The New topic tool helps editors create new ==Sections== on discussion pages. New editors are more successful with this new tool. You can read the report. Soon, the Editing team will offer this to all editors at most WMF-hosted wikis. You can join the discussion about this tool for the English Wikipedia is at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Enabling the New Topic Tool by default. You will be able to turn it off in the tool or at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion.
I like my talk today (actually mostly from 29 May - I took the title pic), enjoy the music, two related videos worth watching! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:05, 31 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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.