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Administrators' newsletter – October 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2021).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

  • A motion has standardised the 500/30 (extended confirmed) restrictions placed by the Arbitration Committee. The standardised restriction is now listed in the Arbitration Committee's procedures.
  • Following the closure of the Iranian politics case, standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, post-1978 Iranian politics, broadly construed.
  • The Arbitration Committee encourages uninvolved administrators to use the discretionary sanctions procedure in topic areas where it is authorised to facilitate consensus in RfCs. This includes, but is not limited to, enforcing sectioned comments, word/diff limits and moratoriums on a particular topic from being brought in an RfC for up to a year.

Miscellaneous

  • Editors have approved expanding the trial of Growth Features from 2% of new accounts to 25%, and the share of newcomers getting mentorship from 2% to 5%. Experienced editors are invited to add themselves to the mentor list.
  • The community consultation phase of the 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process is open for editors to provide comments and ask questions to candidates.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:03, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Technical Barnstar
Sincerely apologize for incorrectly doing that merge and I give my condolences for you fixing it. I could have sworn I was doing it wrong when I was doing it, anyways. Panini!🥪 21:27, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Does this involve going leaving a request at Wikipedia:Requested moves for moves like this? Panini!🥪 21:27, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Panini!, yes, I believe WP:RM/TR is the correct venue. GeneralNotability (talk) 23:48, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-40

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • A more efficient way of sending changes from Wikidata to Wikimedia wikis that show them has been enabled for the following 10 wikis: mediawiki.org, the Italian, Catalan, Hebrew and Vietnamese Wikipedias, French Wikisource, and English Wikivoygage, Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikinews. If you notice anything strange about how changes from Wikidata appear in recent changes or your watchlist on those wikis you can let the developers know.

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 October. It will be on all wikis from 7 October (calendar).
  • Advanced item Some gadgets and bots that use the API to read the AbuseFilter log might break. The hidden property will no longer say an entry is implicit for unsuppressed log entries about suppressed edits. If your bot needs to know this, do a separate revision query. Additionally, the property will have the value false for visible entries; previously, it wasn't included in the response. [1]
  • A more efficient way of sending changes from Wikidata to Wikimedia wikis that show them will be enabled for all production wikis. If you notice anything strange about how changes from Wikidata appear in recent changes or your watchlist you can let the developers know.

Future changes

  • You can soon get cross-wiki notifications in the iOS Wikipedia app. You can also get notifications as push notifications. More notification updates will follow in later versions. [2]
  • Advanced item The JavaScript variables wgExtraSignatureNamespaces, wgLegalTitleChars, and wgIllegalFileChars will soon be removed from mw.config. These are not part of the "stable" variables available for use in wiki JavaScript. [3]
  • Advanced item The JavaScript variables wgCookiePrefix, wgCookieDomain, wgCookiePath, and wgCookieExpiration will soon be removed from mw.config. Scripts should instead use mw.cookie from the "mediawiki.cookie" module. [4]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:28, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

SPI

That was quick. Thanks! This puppet master is extremely annoying, though apparently not very bright. Skyerise (talk) 17:02, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

My pleasure, Skyerise. GeneralNotability (talk) 17:24, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Weird, right?

[5] vs [6].-- Jezebel's Ponyobons mots 20:09, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Ponyo, weird indeed - this has to be one of the more labor-intensive ways of gaming ECP. Magic CU goggles have anything to say about the two of them? GeneralNotability (talk) 20:17, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
The goggles were completely unhelpful in this instance. It was like staring into a fog patch.-- Jezebel's Ponyobons mots 20:18, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
Ponyo, search me, then. This is either very weird ECP gaming or one of those infernal TikTok memes (probably not that second one, but it's around that level of dumb disruption). I'll keep an eye on 806 for a while in case more of them show up. GeneralNotability (talk) 20:22, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
Hello, GeneralNotability/Archives/2021. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Deb (talk) 11:11, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Deb, seen and acknowledged, thank you. GeneralNotability (talk) 13:41, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-41

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 October. It will be on all wikis from 14 October (calendar).

Meetings

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:29, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Advice please

Hi GN, re this closure; does that mean their comments on talkpages (including in an RfC) can be struck out per WP:TPO (Removing or striking through comments made by blocked sock puppets of users editing in violation of a block or ban...) in the same way as for blocked socks? -- DeFacto (talk). 17:50, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

DeFacto, no - that only would apply if they were socking after a block, so if one of the users had been blocked and then asked their friends to go comment (and this is an unusual case anyway, so I'd recommend not striking anything regardless). GeneralNotability (talk) 20:02, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
GN, thanks for the clarification. Does that then mean that where they've all !voted the same way in an RfC, that they are each given the same weight as each of the other participants? -- DeFacto (talk). 20:13, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
DeFacto, that one I can't give a solid answer to, sorry - I'm not really a discussion-closer. I would assume the multiple !votes would be discounted in some way by the closer, but this is outside my area of expertise. GeneralNotability (talk) 20:33, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Filter 1170

Do you want me to just fix that? :-) Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:39, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Suffusion of Yellow, you're a better filter-writer than I am - go for it, with my thanks. GeneralNotability (talk) 23:40, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
@Suffusion of Yellow: sorry to butt in, but why aren't you an admin yet? ~TNT (she/her • talk) 23:43, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
It's a good question... GeneralNotability (talk) 23:44, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
@TheresNoTime: Because for the last year or so, next month has always been a better month for RFA. Really no other reason... Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:55, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
Should be fixed now. Main issue was that !a == b means (!a) == b (as in C etc.). Oddly !a rlike b does mean !(a rlike b), but that one just drives me crazy so I always use the explicit parentheses anyway. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:55, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
Suffusion of Yellow, argh, too much time in Python lately I guess (if not a == b...not that that's always good practice either...). Thanks for fixing that - you rock! GeneralNotability (talk) 03:00, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
Not a problem. I also excluded bots; I assume you want to set this warn at some point. What are your thoughts about creating a "spiclerk" user group (with no special user rights)? Not only would that make maintaining this filter easier, but WP:POPUPS and the various userhighlighter scripts would make it immediately clear who is a clerk. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:13, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
Suffusion of Yellow, good thinking. I'm not sure there would be consensus for an spiclerk role, since it's just a couple of filters and SPI clerks aren't supposed to be "special". GeneralNotability (talk) 21:19, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
Yeah not too famaliar with SPI, so if you think it will fail I won't bother proposing it. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:10, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments: candidates appointed

The Arbitration Committee is pleased to welcome the following editors to the functionary team:

The committee thanks all members of the community who participated and helped bring this process to a successful conclusion.

Katietalk 04:44, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments: candidates appointed

Tarick Salmaci

Hi GeneralNotability. A little over a year ago you closed Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Taricksalmaci/Archive and I've got not real problem with the way you did so; however, it seems that now that the protection on Tarick Salmaci has expired, that either Salmaci or someone claiming to be Salmaci is back as Boxingdetroit. It seems a new account shows up every time the article protection expires to try and re-add the same questionable images and make other edits to the article. I've tried to explain things at User talk:Taricksalmaci and c:User talk:Taricksalmaci, but there was never a response received. I could add this latest account to the SPI, but that seems pointless. The Taricksalmaci account is only soft-blocked on Wikipedia and that could probably be lifted if he just emails VRT and verifies his identity. Once he does that, then perhaps the other issues can be resolved as well. This has been going on for five or six years now and the article has already been protected multiple times (the last one for a year), but things start up again each time the protection wears off. Any suggestions on what to do here? -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:31, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Marchjuly, seems Explicit has handled the situation (blocked Boxingdetroit, indef semi'd the page in question). GeneralNotability (talk) 13:18, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
I noticed that. Thank you for taking a look. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:54, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Universal Code of Conduct News – Issue 4

Universal Code of Conduct News
Issue 4, October 2021Read the full newsletter

Welcome to the fourth issue of Universal Code of Conduct News! This newsletter will help Wikimedians stay involved with the development of the new code and will distribute relevant news, research, and upcoming events related to the UCoC.

If you haven’t already, please remember to subscribe here if you would like to be notified about future editions of the newsletter, and also leave your username here if you’d like to be contacted to help with translations in the future.

  • Enforcement Draft Guidelines Review Wrap-up - The Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Draft Guidelines Review will come to a close on 17 October 2021, after more than two months of extensive consultations. (continue reading)
  • Roundtable Discussions and Conversation Hours - Another successful roundtable session happened on September 18, 2021 to discuss the EDGR. One last conversation hour will be happening on October 15th, 2021. (continue reading)
  • Movement Charter Drafting Committee Elections - The Movement Charter Drafting Committee selection process has kicked off and will be open until October 25, 2021. Contributors to Wikimedia projects can elect their favorite candidates on to the committee. (continue reading)
  • New Direction for the Newsletter - As we round-up the consultation processes for the Universal Code of Conduct, the facilitation team is currently envisioning new directions for the newsletter. (continue reading)
  • Diff Blogs - Check out the most recent publications about the UCoC on Wikimedia Diff. (continue reading)

MNadzikiewicz (WMF) (talk) 20:36, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Congratulations

Just like yesterday, i remember !voting a support at your RFA and today, look how far you've come. Congrats my dear friend and colleague. I know you shall do well with your new appointments and the tools that come with it. Congratulations once more you, & a major thank you for all the hard work you have put in towards bettering the collaborative project especially at SPI. Celestina007 (talk) 16:42, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words Celestina007, they are deeply appreciated. GeneralNotability (talk) 18:10, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
💗 Celestina007 (talk) 22:49, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

WP:ELECTCOM2021

Hello GeneralNotability. Thank you for volunteering for the Electoral Commission for the 2021 ArbCom Election. Following the closure of the ELECTCOM RfC, you have been selected as a commissioner. Congratulations! Some important pages to watch about the election are: Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2021/Coordination, Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2021/Coordination, Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2021, and others in Category:Wikipedia Arbitration Committee Elections 2021. Your duties may require some private communications with the other commissioners, traditionally wikimail and/or email has been used for this, along with IRC - but this is up to you to decide. Again, thank you for volunteering for this important position. Best regards, — xaosflux Talk 23:38, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-42

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • Toolhub is a catalogue to make it easier to find software tools that can be used for working on the Wikimedia projects. You can read more.

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 October. It will be on all wikis from 21 October (calendar).

Future changes

  • The developers of the Wikipedia Android app are working on communication in the app. You can now answer questions in survey to help the development.
  • 3–5% of editors may be blocked in the next few months. This is because of a new service in Safari, which is similar to a proxy or a VPN. It is called iCloud Private Relay. There is a discussion about this on Meta. The goal is to learn what iCloud Private Relay could mean for the communities.
  • Wikimedia Enterprise is a new API for those who use a lot of information from the Wikimedia projects on other sites. It is a way to get big commercial users to pay for the data. There will soon be a copy of the Wikimedia Enterprise dataset. You can read more. You can also ask the team questions on Zoom on 22 October 15:00 UTC.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:52, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

TryDeletingMe SPI again

Hey, some time ago I filed an SPI [7] seeking to show that ElderZamzam is a sock account of TryDeletingMe. In addition to that, I sent further evidence to you through email. I just took a look at the concerned accounts today, and I noticed that ElderZamzam repeated an edit made around 2 years ago by the confirmed sock of TryDeletingMe, ThreatMatrix. [8][9] both accounts remove the "where he was later promoted to platoon commander" part. Both touch the part on Glodjane/Radonic massacre too. Furthermore, if needed, I have noticed two other similarities between the accounts, but would like to show them only through email so the sock master does not learn to be more careful in the future. In any case, I think that the same edit on the Ramush Haradinaj article is enough in addition to the evidence I posted at the SPI and sent to you through email. What do you think? Ktrimi991 (talk) 09:22, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi Ktrimi991, I see what you've linked. I've gone over all of the evidence again and pulled checkuser logs for TryDeletingMe and ThreatMatrix to compare them to ElderZamzam (I'd say  Possible based on the limited data available). In summary: I agree that they share a strong Serbian nationalist POV and have similar interests, but I'm also aware that Eastern European ethnonationalism is one of those very charged areas where people just do happen to show up with strong opinions. I certainly agree that they could be the same person, but there just isn't enough evidence for me to be confident they're the same person. In my mental model for all of this, the value of blocking them if they are a TDM sock does not outweigh cost of an incorrect block given my lack of confidence. GeneralNotability (talk) 17:43, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for your response, and sorry for taking much time with this. I am aware that Balkan POV pushers have shared interests, but still they have some similarities that are not shared with any other of zillions of Balkan POV pushers I have reported during the years. As noted at the SPI, at the same time: both edit from Australia, are interested in air transport and related documents, Middle East wars and WWII. Furthermore, both show an obvious interest in editing List articles (examples include [10][11][12][13][14][15] and [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]). TryDeletingMe and his sock had the habit to not put space between their comment and signature (examples include [24][25][26]) and ElderZamzam is doing the same thing (examples include ([27][28][29][30]). Both do the same thing: in some tp posts they put space between the comment and signature, in other tp posts they do not put space. In any case, I have stayed away from interacting with them, and I see that their problematic edits are being undone by other editors. As long as the disruption is undone, I am OK with the situation. Sorry again for the time I took from you, I do not want to be repetitive or boring. Cheers, Ktrimi991 (talk) 18:48, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
I was actually going to report this account myself back in July, but Ktrimi was faster than me and his match was much better than the possible sock I was thinking about. Their 18th edit was a semi-protection request[31], which made it seem likely that this is not a new account. There are many similarities which go beyond common interests and writing style. It's one thing for two editors to be interested in the history of Serbia and even maintain common beliefs about Serbia, but having the same interests in many different categories indicates a much closer ecological niche (Ktrimi's diffs). Edits by EZZ (ElderZamzam) often require cleanup and verification of the sources because they don't discuss the narratives of the edits and some edits are written as talking points in the context of Balkan geopolitical disputes like when they added an edit[32] about an ambush by Bosniak to Serbian troops in the background section of a massacre of Bosniak civilians committed by Serbian troops, even though the two events are unrelated. In the context of Balkan talking points in public discourse, the Bosniak ambush is often implied as "justification" for the massacre of civilians. It has been added and removed several times from the article. The EZZ edit is the continuation of the same narrative added in 2020 by another account [33] Inicijativa (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). I think that it's much more likely than not that this is not a new editor. For those of us who have to do the cleanup, it proves difficult to handle such workload on a daily basis. --Maleschreiber (talk) 00:12, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
Maleschreiber and Ktrimi991, I do understand what you're saying. If you want to file this at SPI again for another admin to take a look at, you're welcome to. GeneralNotability (talk) 00:52, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
I am sorry to see you GeneralNotability being dragged into this issue once again. Once again both Ktrimi991 and Maleschreiber have misconstrued my edits to portray myself as a sock of the aforementioned accounts. Ktrimi991 has claimed my edit on the Ramush Haradinaj page touched on the Glodjane/Radonic massacre, this is false as my edit did not touch on the topic of the "Glodjane/Radonic massacre". Maleschreiber has claimed my edit on the 1995 Tuzla massacre page is attempting to justify the massacre of Bosniaks from a Serbian POV lens. This is a false claim as my edit in comparison to the edit made by Inicijativa is different. My edit discusses the history of conflict in the city of Tuzla in order to provide background to the events as this was not the first time Tuzla had encontered conflict during the Bosnian War. The only act of war that occurred in Tuzla was the aforementioned incident in 1992, hence why I put it there. I make reference to Yugoslav troops and not "Serbian" troops so the claim made by Maleschreiber that I stated this is false. The majority of my edits are still live and I have encouraged editors to change my edits if they are POV. At no point have I engaged in edit warring and the claim that my edits are difficult and create a workload on a daily basis is false, given that the majority of my edits are still live. Although I am not making this claim in confidence, these accusations made against me with false narratives and using my apparent affiliation with "Serbia" as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting my views is bordering on a WP:WIAPA. I am glad my userlog checks were scanned and I encourage that. I am concerned that Ktrimi in particular is trying to have my account blocked, despite an I.P address associated with the TDM account still in use. On 9 June 2018, Ktrimi posted a message on TDM's talkpage advising them not to use their I.P address in the context of edits made on the Era Istrefi and B. Wongar page. A scan of the page shows that the I.P address in question is 103.18.48.33 as confirmed by Ktrimi on 26 May 2018 " Undid revision 842985142 by 103.18.48.33 (talk) Sock of TryDeletingMe". What is interesting is that TDM is still using this I.P address with a recent edit on 13 July 2021. I am puzzled as to why I am in the firing line while TDM is free to edit. ElderZamzam (talk) 23:41, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

User:GeneralBotability

Hello, GeneralNotability,

I was not familiar with your bot but apparently it is removing a lot of sockpuppet categories from IP editors that were tagged as sockpuppets. One result of these actions is that it emptied out hundreds of Wikipedia sockpuppet and Suspected sockpuppet categories. These empty sockpuppet categories are routinely deleted as uncontroversial deletion when they show up on the Empty category list. Typically, a few of these categories show up every day as sockpuppet cases are moved around and moved to new sockmasters. Still, the appearance of hundreds of sockpuppet categories on the Deletion log might raise questions so I thought I'd give you a head's up. Thanks! Liz Read! Talk! 01:54, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Liz, thanks for the heads-up. I routinely delete empty sock categories myself, so no issues here with deleting those. I'm happy to do the deletion myself if you'd like, in order to give it the extra legitimacy of an SPI clerk doing it. GeneralNotability (talk) 01:57, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
Well, there were about 200 categories on 10/20 and over 800 categories yesterday. I see a some, but not so many, on today's Unused Categories list but I think after today, this bot task will probably be done. I don't think it's going to be an ongoing job...once the IP accounts have been de-tagged as sockpuppets, I don't think SPI clerks and CUers will continue to tag them in the future. And, by the way, I think it's great to untag IP accounts, an idea that I'm sure has been proposed over the years but never approved. It's hard to get major changes like this approved so kudos for that. Maybe it's easier to work through the Bot Approvals Group than make a proposal at the Village Pump as discussions there can sometimes get off-track. Liz Read! Talk! 22:42, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
Thanks Liz. I make no secret that I'm no fan of the IPSock templates, but we really need an idea of how many of these templates are on active IPs before we have any chance of discussing whether we should keep using the template. My pre-run estimate was something on the order of 40 thousand tags on IPs that hadn't edited in 2+ years. GeneralNotability (talk) 02:06, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Newest account listed as the suspected master

Hi again, GN. At that SPI [34] the newest account is listed as the suspected master, while the two older accounts as the suspected socks. Since in a socking case, the oldest account is considered the master and the newer accounts as socks, should that be noted there? Ktrimi991 (talk) 01:58, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Ktrimi991, nothing to worry about - a clerk or checkuser will fix it up later. You're welcome to note it at the SPI if you want. GeneralNotability (talk) 02:03, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Sock

Hello GeneralNotability, this sock has returned [35] [36]. The page may need to be locked. Magherbin (talk) 12:24, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Magherbin, thanks - bagged them and Riorititize and ECP'd the page. GeneralNotability (talk) 21:48, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

November 2021 backlog drive

New Page Patrol | November 2021 Backlog Drive
  • On November 1, a one-month backlog drive for New Page Patrol will begin.
  • Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles patrolled.
  • Barnstars will also be granted for re-reviewing articles previously reviewed by other patrollers during the drive.
  • Redirect patrolling is not part of the drive.
  • Interested in taking part? Sign up here.
You're receiving this message because you are a new page patroller. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

(t · c) buidhe 01:58, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Deshnie Govender

Hi GeneralNotability. You blocked User:Roxximanager yesterday due the continue spamming of Deshnie Govender. 41.13.14.91 (talk · contribs) has taken over, adding the same spam. Would blocking or page protection be appropriate? Thanks ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 23:46, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

ActivelyDisinterested, good spot, thanks. Blocked the IP, I can semi the page if they come back with a different IP. GeneralNotability (talk) 20:12, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Congrats

Very happy to see you joined the team. Well deserved and a boost to the project. If there's anything I can help with, please don't hesitate to reach out :) TonyBallioni (talk) 06:43, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you very much TonyBallioni :) GeneralNotability (talk) 20:02, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-43

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 October. It will be on all wikis from 28 October (calendar).

Future changes

  • Diff pages will have an improved copy and pasting experience. The changes will allow the text in the diff for before and after to be treated as separate columns and will remove any unwanted syntax. [37]
  • The version of the Liberation fonts used in SVG files will be upgraded. Only new thumbnails will be affected. Liberation Sans Narrow will not change. [38]

Meetings

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:07, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CLXXV, October 2021

Full front page of The Bugle
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) 12:52, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Belteshazzar

Hi, I noticed you blocked Belteshazzar. I suspect this user might be sock-puppeting so I filed an SPI report but I messed up in the title [39] there is a gap where there should not be one and it hasn't been filed properly. I have tried to fix it but it does not work, I think an admin has to sort it. Is there any chance you could fix it for me? I do apologise for the mistake. If not, I will just recreate an SPI report. Psychologist Guy (talk) 17:33, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Psychologist Guy, handled, thanks for letting me know. GeneralNotability (talk) 22:54, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Barnstar of Diligence
Congrats on being promoted to full clerk as part of the Arbitration Commitee. And thansk for helping me with WP:SO. SoyokoAnis - talk 15:07, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
Thank you SoyokoAnis, and please stay out of trouble now. GeneralNotability (talk) 19:16, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
I will! (lol) SoyokoAnis - talk 19:17, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Oliver Emanuel

User:Vkbg-3543 opened an AFD for this article (Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Oliver_Emanuel). It is a new user with around 30 edits, and I see there has been disruption around this article. Before I fill the edit request and copy the afd tag to the article I would like to know if this is just more of the same disruption? Should the AfD be closed as disruption? The guy seems pretty clearly notable from the sourcing. Thanks. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:28, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Nevermind, looks like that question is answered. Sorry to bother you. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:29, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
ScottishFinnishRadish, there is a lot of socking around this article (two separate sock groups, in fact) and I've spent a good part of today using CU to find sleepers...I think I've blocked a solid dozen or so of their accounts. Assume just about anything done to this article by a new user is probably socking of some sort. GeneralNotability (talk) 19:41, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
Will do. I'll WP:DENY anything sketchy I see there. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:02, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

removal of IP sock template

I see the bot remove the templates, which I think is often a good thing if they are old. But here it is removing one from an IP talkpage which is currently under a checkuser imposed block. Whereas many IPs are volatile, I am not sure if that is always the case. Maybe the bot should check the last time an account was under a checkuser-type block and reconsider? Dirk Beetstra T C 13:21, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Beetstra, mmm, I see your point. However - the checkusers would never confirm the relationship between the IP and the named account, so there's nothing "official" about that tagging. I'll need to think about it. GeneralNotability (talk) 16:06, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
That does not necessarily matter. If the IP edits or has edited we know who is/was using it. The sock is still in he same place, the IP still belongs to the same organisation. See also timing of diff. This cannot be done by a time-algorithm, some of these are simply still correct, and the info is/can be valuable. Dirk Beetstra T C 19:20, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
The bot is edit warring with me, and I insist that these removals are wrong. please stop. --Dirk Beetstra T C 21:39, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
Beetstra, the bot should not have run in the past week, and it was a one-time run so you don't need to worry about it re-running anytime soon. GeneralNotability (talk) 21:46, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, but I think that the bot has damaged tracking of socks, and I insist that you try to solve this before the next run. It has, and likely will again, wrongly removed these tags. Dirk Beetstra T C 21:49, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
Beetstra, I disagree with you about the utility of these tags, but I do not intend to re-run the bot any time soon and am planning to have a discussion with the SPI clerks and CU team regarding these tags before it runs again. GeneralNotability (talk) 22:29, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
I think you can solve it mostly with some extra checks. I do not disagree that these tags are mostly useless but some are still in place, like the two I reverted. Maybe remove those where the SPI case has not been edited for more than 5 years? Dirk Beetstra T C 04:44, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

mark-locked: adding CentralAuth

Hi! I noticed on m:Steward requests/Global/2021-w43 that the underlining done by User:GeneralNotability/mark-locked.js doesn't work, because the link is to Special:CentralAuth. I tinkered around, and it looks like this functionality could be added by changing line 25 to const userTitleRX = new RegExp( '^(' + userNS.join( '|' ) + '|' + 'Special:Contributions' + '\\/' + '|' + 'Special:CentralAuth' + '\\/)+([^\\/#]+)$', 'i' );. Let me know what you think. Best, —‍Mdaniels5757 (talk • contribs) 19:19, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Mdaniels5757, great idea - I've added that and cleaned up that regex a bit. GeneralNotability (talk) 19:31, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
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