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Killing people off
Hello: I am very new to this, so please forgive me if my terminology is a bit off.
I am an author, currently writing a book on the history of the diffusion of knowledge. I am just coming to the end of the book's Part Three, which is about the storage of knowledge - libraries, encyclopaedias, that sort of thing. I will finish the chapter by talking about the history of Wikipedia.
So - I was happily writing along on the evening of March 27, about the invention of hypertext, and the naming of this concept in 1965 by Ted Nelson. To check on his biography I looked him up on Wikipedia, only to find to my great surprise that he had died, and on the very day, March 27 2022, that I was writing about him. The coincidence was so odd I wrote a footnote on my page, and then a Tweet, saying how odd, and how additionally odd that there were no obits about him, despite his considerable fame in the computer world.
Next morning I found out why. He wasn't dead at all. Nor were some ten other people who had been killed off, as it were, by the same anonymous person. And which led me to you, since your name is up on the page relating to all of this mayhem.
I have many questions - not the least of them: how does one find out the identity of the scoundrel who did this, and presumably gets some bizarre thrill from doing such things. But assuming that is one thing I'll never find out - how can I learn a little more about the process that drives Wikipedia's army of volunteer verifiers or administrators? I would like to know some of the jargon - there are references to socks, for example - and of the hierarchies within the administration who manage to keep Wikipedia clean and accurate and fair, and it generally now seems to be.
Any help you might be able to offer, I'd be most grateful. My email is simonwinchester@mac.com, my Twitter @simonwwriter. Here or anywhere, any help or suggestions would be very welcome. There is a wikipedia entry and just for now it seems more less right. I ope posting this doesn't put it at risk!
Thanks for reading this, if you or anyone else did.
Simon Winchester. Massachusetts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Simonw46 (talk • contribs) 21:08, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- Hi Simon, identities are private in Wikipedia, even for vandals. You might find WP:ADMIN, WP:VANDAL, and WP:SOCK useful reading. PhilKnight (talk) 09:03, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – April 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2022).
- An RfC is open proposing a change to the minimum activity requirements for administrators.
- Access to Special:RevisionDelete has been expanded to include users who have the
deletelogentry
anddeletedhistory
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)
- Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures § Opening of proceedings has been updated to reflect current practice following a motion.
- A arbitration case regarding Skepticism and coordinated editing has been closed.
- A arbitration case regarding WikiProject Tropical Cyclones has been opened.
- Voting for the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines has closed, and the results were that 56.98% of voters supported the guidelines. The results of this vote mean the Wikimedia Foundation Board will now review the guidelines.
New administrator activity requirement
The administrator policy has been updated with new activity requirements following a successful Request for Comment.
Beginning January 1, 2023, administrators who meet one or both of the following criteria may be desysopped for inactivity if they have:
Administrators at risk for being desysopped under these criteria will continue to be notified ahead of time. Thank you for your continued work. |
22:53, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
Your block of 2.137.140.173
I think it's a WP:DUCK for a Spanish IP blocked by Widr. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 13:47, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for letting me know. I will extend the block. PhilKnight (talk) 21:09, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
TPA
Hi there... you might want to revoke talk page access for IQBAL Hasan JCD, as they're still posting self-promotional content on their user talk page after you blocked them. Thanks. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 16:12, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
- Hi, they haven't edited since the block. PhilKnight (talk) 16:26, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
Thanks
Hi PhilKnight. Just letting you know about this as a courtesy. I think there’s probably no need for further clarification unless you or another oversighter/admin want to explain the specific policies that were applied or the processes that were involved. — Marchjuly (talk) 19:20, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
- Hi Marchjuly, thanks for letting me know. PhilKnight (talk) 20:29, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
a few more
Hello. These are probably spambots as well. Kindly take a look. --Minorax«¦talk¦» 12:39, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks. All blocked. 13:01, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – May 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2022).
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- Following an RfC, a change has been made to the administrators inactivity policy. Under the new policy, if an administrator has not made at least 100 edits over a period of 5 years they may be desysopped for inactivity.
- Following a discussion on the bureaucrat's noticeboard, a change has been made to the bureaucrats inactivity policy.
- The ability to undelete the associated talk page when undeleting a page has been added. This was the 11th wish of the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey.
- A public status system for WMF wikis has been created. It is located at https://www.wikimediastatus.net/ and is hosted separately to WMF wikis so in the case of an outage it will remain viewable.
- 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.
Revoke IP TPA
Hey! Could you revoke the TPA of the IP 180.253.44.41? They clearly aren't using their talk page to request an unblock (in fact, they removed the warnings and block notice, the block notice has to remain) ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 14:44, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
Done PhilKnight (talk) 15:04, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks! I made a post about this at WP:ANI as well since you were taking a few minutes to respond (understandably) and the IP continued. ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 15:09, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
Block evasion
Hi Phil, just to let you know that 103.216.213.40 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) that you blocked for 6 months is continuing disruption as 103.216.213.41 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). Cheers, — kashmīrī TALK 21:05, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
- Hi Kashmiri, thanks for letting me know. I have now blocked the IP. PhilKnight (talk) 08:25, 22 May 2022 (UTC)