User talk:BigHaz

My Policy

Now that I'm here, feel free to put any questions/concerns/comments below (preferably in their own section) if you want me to respond. Please specify where you want any responses (if they're necessary). Unless otherwise specified - or unless there's a good reason to do so - I'll reply here. Further, I can and will reply to deliberately inflammatory remarks in order to provide context, should the situation escalate or be at risk of doing so.

If you're wondering why an article was deleted, please read this page first. It should at least serve to clarify the situation, even if it doesn't give you an answer. I'm more than willing to answer, of course, but I'll assume that you've read it through.

Where archiving is concerned, I'll archive all "dead" discussions when the page gets too long and leave "live" ones out for a while. That way we don't run the risk of having bits and pieces scattered everywhere.

Halloween cheer!

Happy Halloween!

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Hello BigHaz:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
    – Linguist^unEins^uno 18:56, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Send Halloween cheer by adding {{subst:Happy Halloween}} to user talk pages with a friendly message.

Administrators' newsletter – November 2017

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

Administrator changes

Longhair • Megalibrarygirl • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Allen3 • Eluchil404 • Arthur Rubin • Bencherlite

Technical news

• The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team is creating an "Interaction Timeline" tool that intends to assist administrators in resolving user conduct disputes. Feedback on the concept may be posted on the talk page.
• A new function is now available to edit filter managers that will make it easier to look for multiple strings containing spoofed text.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors will be invited to submit candidate statements for the 2017 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 12 until November 21. Voting will begin on November 27 and last until December 10.
• Following a request for comment, Ritchie333, Yunshui and Ymblanter will serve as the Electoral Commission for the 2017 ArbCom Elections.

Obituaries

• The Wikipedia community has recently learned that Allen3 (William Allen Peckham) passed away on December 30, 2016, the same day as JohnCD. Allen began editing in 2005 and became an administrator that same year.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:49, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

A Barnstar

		The New Page Patroller's Barnstar
		For being one of the top 10 reviewers of the last 12 months. Thanks very much for your reviewing. Hope to see you back over there sometime! — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 20:47, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Something I keep meaning to do more of, and then getting distracted. I embarrass myself with my attention span, sometimes. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 23:29, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 November 2017

• News and notes: Cons, cons, cons

• Arbitration report: Administrator desysoped; How to deal with crosswiki issues; Mister Wiki case likely

• Technology report: Searching and surveying

• Interview: A featured article centurion

• WikiProject report: Recommendations for WikiProjects

• In the media: Open knowledge platform as a media institution

• Traffic report: Strange and inappropriate

• Featured content: We will remember them

• Recent research: Who wrote this? New dataset on the provenance of Wikipedia text

• Humour: Good faith (but still incomprehensible)

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:39, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Brisbane meetup - Sunday 10 December 2017 at The Edge, State Library of Queensland

If you are in or near Brisbane, please join us on Sunday 10 December 2017 any time from noon to 4pm at The Edge at the State Library of Queensland. For more details and to sign up, please go to the meetup page. See you there! Kerry (talk) 22:30, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

ANI Experiences survey

The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative (led by the Safety and Support and Anti-Harassment Tools team) is conducting a survey for en.wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with the Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works - which problems it deals with well, and which problems it struggles with.

The survey should take 10-20 minutes to answer, and your individual responses will not be made public. The survey is delivered through Google Forms. The privacy policy for the survey describes how and when Wikimedia collects, uses, and shares the information we receive from survey participants and can be found here:

• https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2017_AN/Incidents_Survey_Privacy_Statement

If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be mailed to you via Special:Emailuser.

• Sign up here to receive a link to a survey

Thank you on behalf of the Support & Safety and Anti-Harassment Tools Teams, Patrick Earley (WMF) talk 18:24, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2017

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

Administrator changes

Joe Roe

JzG

Ericorbit • Perceval • Thingg • Tristanb • Violetriga

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, a new section has been added to the username policy which disallows usernames containing emoji, emoticons or otherwise "decorative" usernames, and usernames that use any non-language symbols. Administrators should discuss issues related to these types of usernames before blocking.

Technical news

• Wikimedians are now invited to vote on the proposals in the 2017 Community Wishlist Survey on Meta Wiki until 10 December 2017. In particular, there is a section of the survey regarding new tools for administrators and for anti-harassment.
• A new function is available to edit filter managers which can be used to store matches from regular expressions.

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is open until Sunday 23:59, 10 December 2017 (UTC). There are 12 candidates running for 8 vacant seats.

Miscellaneous

• Over the last few months, several users have reported backlogs that require administrator attention at WP:ANI, with the most common backlogs showing up on WP:SPI, WP:AIV and WP:RFPP. It is requested that all administrators take some time during this month to help clear backlogs wherever possible. It should be noted that AIV reports are not always valid; however, they still need to be cleared, which may include needing to remind users on what qualifies as vandalism.
• The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative is conducting a survey for English Wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works (i.e. which problems it deals with well and which problems it struggles with). If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be emailed to you via Special:EmailUser.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:57, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, BigHaz. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 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 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedians who like NationStates

Hey! If you're interested, I started a series of userboxes for the game NationStates. Feel free to add any or add your own!-🐦Do☭torWho42 (⭐) 05:19, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 December 2017

• Special report: Women in Red World Contest wrap-up

• Blog: Close encounters of the Wikipedia kind

• Featured content: Featured content to finish 2017

• In the media: Stolen seagulls, public domain primates and more

• Arbitration report: Last case of 2017: Mister Wiki editors

• Gallery: Wiki loving

• Interview: Interview with Charlesjsharp, regular contributor of Wikipedia's Featured Pictures

• Recent research: French medical articles have "high rate of veracity"

• Technology report: Your wish lists and more Wikimedia tech

• Traffic report: Notable heroes and bad guys

• Humour: On their way to the WMF Incubator

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:27, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Brisbane meetup: Saturday 13 January 2018 at The Edge, State Library of Queensland

	Brisbane Meetup Next: To be decided (watch) Last: Saturday 13 January 2018
See also: Australian events listed at Wikimedia.org.au (or on Facebook)

If you are in or near Brisbane, please join us on Saturday 13 January 2018 any time from noon to 4pm at The Edge at the State Library of Queensland. For more details and to sign up, please go to the meetup page. See you there!

Administrators' newsletter – January 2018

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

Administrator changes

Muboshgu

Anetode • Laser brain • Worm 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

• The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey results have been posted. The Community Tech team will investigate and address the top ten results.
• The Anti-Harassment Tools team is inviting comments on new blocking tools and improvements to existing blocking tools for development in early 2018. Feedback can be left on the discussion page or by email.

Arbitration

• Following the results of the 2017 election, the following editors have been (re)appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Alex Shih, BU Rob13, Callanecc, KrakatoaKatie, Opabinia regalis, Premeditated Chaos, RickinBaltimore, Worm That Turned.

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

The Signpost: 16 January 2018

• News and notes: Communication is key

• In the media: The Paris Review, British Crown and British Media

• Featured content: History, gaming and multifarious topics

• Interview: Interview with Ser Amantio di Nicolao, the top contributor to English Wikipedia by edit count

• Technology report: Dedicated Wikidata database servers

• Humour: Why don't we have an article about _________?

• Arbitration report: Mister Wiki is first arbitration committee decision of 2018

• Traffic report: The best and worst of 2017

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:27, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

NPP Backlog Drive Appreciation and Review

		Special Edition New Page Patroller's Barnstar
		For completing at least 100 reviews during the 2018 NPP New Year Backlog Drive please accept this Special Edition Barnstar. Thank you for helping out at New Page Patrol. There is still work to do to meet our long term goals, so I hope you will continue to help us out. Cheers! — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 06:19, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

I have had a look at 20 or so of your recent reviews and while the 'easy' ones were generally reviewed well, there were a few errors that I noticed. I think you should slow down and spend a bit more time while reviewing. For example see: Titan Chowdhury and G-Aerosports (which I have nominated for deletion), Hartmut Thieme (which was a BLP tagged by another user for lack of sources after you reviewed it), and John Howlin (which probably should have had the refimprove tag, or similar, added). Thanks for your help, and I don't want to dissuade you from reviewing new articles, but it would pay to be a bit more careful in future. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 06:19, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Agreed that I got a bit carried away the last time I did a patrol, so no surprises there. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 07:35, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Ostani kraj mene

The article Ostani kraj mene has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Unsourced. Fails verifibility

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Dom from Paris (talk) 16:01, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

On list of authoritarian Regimes supported by soviet union or Russia

Don't undo my edits, i just made an account by the way, before that i was an active anonymous contributor to the page and the reason i undid your edits is because it says and i quote If you came here because someone asked you to, or you read a message on another website, please note that this is not a majority vote, but instead a discussion among Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia has policies and guidelines regarding the encyclopedia's content, and consensus (agreement) is gauged based on the merits of the arguments, not by counting votes. However, you are invited to participate and your opinion is welcome. Remember to assume good faith on the part of others and to sign your posts on this page by adding Fenetrejones (talk) 23:53, 1 February 2018 (UTC) at the end.

Note: Comments by suspected single-purpose accounts or canvassed users may be tagged using: — username (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. or — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that username (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. ~ User:Fenetrejones UTC:6:52 pm, 1 February 2018

It says precisely what you say it does, but that doesn't mean that you're allowed to !vote multiple times. The fact that the outcome will be determined by consensus and the policy-based merits of the arguments raised doesn't give you, me, or anyone else permission to say keep or delete multiple times. Have a look at WP:AFDEQ and its related sections to see how you can contribute to the discussion multiple times (usually by responding to the arguments someone else has made) without running foul of that policy. The undoing of the anonymous edits was, as you'll see, entirely policy-based, as were the warnings delivered. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 00:08, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

- It never said votes, it says by what the stronger argument is~User:fenetrejones 00:08, 2 February 2018 (UTC) -If that were the case then i would have liked it to be changed from 'for' to 'response above'~User:fenetrejones 00:08, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

I didn't say it said votes. I said, and I quote from my earlier message here, "It says precisely what you say it does". If you're confused by my use of the term "!vote", you'll find that it's a convenient shorthand used throughout XfD discussions, since "bolded opinion of what you think should be done which isn't a vote" is rather long to type over and over again. Regardless of what precisely we call someone typing keep, delete or any other option, the entire point of these discussions is that you get one of these bolded opinions of what you think should be done which isn't a vote per discussion. If you want to change your opinion, you're welcome to strikethrough what you previously wrote and enter a new one. If you want to withdraw from the discussion entirely, you can strike what you wrote and leave it be. If you want to respond to the argument advanced by another user, you can do so in a threaded discussion. Other users are entirely within their rights to strike a duplicate bolded opinion (...), and deleting that strikethrough is a form of vandalism. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 02:56, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

Blurpeace • Dana boomer • Deltabeignet • Denelson83 • Grandiose • Salvidrim! • 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

• The Arbitration Committee has enacted a change to the discretionary sanctions procedure which requires administrators to add a standardized editnotice when placing page restrictions. Editors cannot be sanctioned for violations of page restrictions if this editnotice was not in place at the time of the violation.

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

The Signpost: 5 February 2018

• Op-ed: Do editors have the right to be forgotten?

• Featured content: Wars, sieges, disasters and everything black possible

• Recent research: Automated Q&A from Wikipedia articles; Who succeeds in talk page discussions?

• Blog: New monthly dataset shows where people fall into Wikipedia rabbit holes

• Interview: Interview with The Rambling Man, Wikipedia's top contributor of Featured Lists

• Traffic report: TV, death, sports, and doodles

• Special report: Cochrane–Wikipedia Initiative

• Arbitration report: New cases requested for inter-editor hostility and other collaboration issues

• In the media: Solving crime; editing out violence allegations

• Humour: You really are in Wonderland

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:12, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Undelete album pages of a Croatian (Yugoslavian) rock band Aerodrom

Hello, I was wondering if you could undelete pages of first two albums of Croatian band Aerodrom ("Kad misli mi vrludaju" and "Tango Bango"). You cited "not enough reliable sources" as a reason for deletion, but what's more reliable source than having an LP in my hand and citing the band's official page. Those pages contained pure facts only. I can't see what is the difference between these two and all other articles for the whole discography of the band, which are still normally alive on Wikipedia. Thank you.

Newprog (talk) 22:44, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your question. For future reference, if you're questioning the deletion of a page, it's usually a good idea to link to the page in question, as these required quite some digging to find. Nonetheless, I'll respond to the queries you raise:

"Kad misli..." was tagged for "Proposed Deletion" in the middle of last year with the rationale "Fails WP:N". Now, I should point out here that the tagging wasn't done by me, only the deletion was. During the period of approximately one week that this tag was active, you or any other user had the ability to add further sources to confirm the notability (in line with the link in the template), and this didn't happen. Indeed, no edits were made to the article within that time at all, as far as I can see. The sources at the time that the article was deleted were a link to progarchives.com, which confirms that the album physically existed (the user-submitted reviews are neither here nor there), and a link to the band's Facebook page (which confirms that the band exists, but doesn't really do much about the album itself). Considering the standards outlined for albums, as well as more generally for the notability of article subjects, the album in question didn't meet those standards based on the sources present. "Having an LP in my hand and citing the band's official page" simply means that the album and the band exist, which doesn't amount to notability. What would be required, as you can see, would be coverage in the form of reviews and the like from reputable sources.

"Tango Bango" is largely in the same situation. There was a period of a week during which further sources could be provided. Nothing was. The extant sources merely confirmed the existence of the band and the album. In relation to "the band's official page", by the way, it may be important to note that the "best" sources are always those independent of the subject themselves, but that's perhaps for another day.

So, where to from here? I don't intend to un-delete the pages, as they don't demonstrate the notability of the albums at present. You are, of course, more than welcome to re-create the articles if you wish to do so. Do be aware, though, that the requirements around notability and sourcing are still the same as they were. Please feel free to ask further questions if anything is unclear here. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 06:42, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Help with references

Hello! I'm working on articles without sources and stumbled upon a few that you created back in the day about Eurovision songs. This is a topic I know nothing about. Any chance you'd be able to pop a reference or two into some of those articles real quick so someone could easily verify the info in there? It'd be a huge help. The ones I'm looking at in particular are Za našu ljubav and Chcę znać swój grzech..., but it looks like lots of the linked song articles may fit the bill. Thanks a bunch! Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 18:37, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Sure thing. It was something I did get started on years ago, but life gradually got busier and I obviously didn't get the full set completed - or anywhere like it. I'll add references for the two you've cited, but feel free to drop me a line with any other egregious examples and I'll get to them when I can. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 23:37, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 February 2018

• News and notes: The future is Swedish with a lack of administrators

• Recent research: Politically diverse editors write better articles; Reddit and Stack Overflow benefit from Wikipedia but don't give back

• Arbitration report: Arbitration committee prepares to examine two new cases

• Traffic report: Addicted to sports and pain

• Featured content: Entertainment, sports and history

• Technology report: Paragraph-based edit conflict screen; broken thanks

• Humour: Impossible and unexplained traffic report

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Administrators' newsletter – March 2018

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

Administrator changes

Lourdes†

AngelOfSadness • Bhadani • Chris 73 • Coren • Friday • Midom • Mike 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

• Following the 2018 Steward elections, the following users are our new stewards: -revi, Green Giant, Rxy, There'sNoTime, علاء.

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.

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

WikiCup 2018 March newsletter

And so ends the first round of the competition, with 4 points required to qualify for round 2. With 53 contestants qualifying, the groups for round 2 are slightly smaller than usual, with the two leaders from each group due to qualify for round 3 as well as the top sixteen remaining users.

Our top scorers in round 1 were:

• Aoba47 led the field with a featured article, 8 good articles and 42 GARs, giving a total of 666 points.
• FrB.TG , a WikiCup newcomer, came next with 600 points, gained from a featured article and masses of bonus points.
• Ssven2, another WikiCup newcomer, was in third place with 403 points, garnered from a featured article, a featured list, a good article and twelve GARs.
• Ceranthor, Numerounovedant, Carbrera, Farang Rak Tham and Cartoon network freak all had over 200 points, but like all the other contestants, now have to start again from scratch. A good achievement was the 193 GARs performed by WikiCup contestants, comparing very favourably with the 54 GAs they achieved.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 1 but before the start of round 2 can be claimed in round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.

If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk) and Vanamonde (talk) 15:27, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Signpost issue 4 – 29 March 2018

• Op-ed: Death knell for The Signpost?

• News and notes: Wiki Conference roundup and new appointments.

• Arbitration report: Ironing out issues in infoboxes; not sure yet about New Jersey; and an administrator who probably wasn't uncivil to a sockpuppet.

• In the media: The media on Wikipedia's workings: the good and not-so-good

• Traffic report: Real sports, real women and an imaginary country: what's on top for Wikipedia readers

• Featured content: Animals, Ships, and Songs

• Technology report: Timeless skin review by Force Radical.

• Special report: ACTRIAL wrap-up.

• Humour: WikiWorld Reruns

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:49, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2018

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

Administrator changes

331dot • Cordless Larry • ClueBot NG

Gogo Dodo • Pb30 • Sebastiankessel • Seicer • SoLando

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

• There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

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.

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

NPR Silver Award

		The New Page Reviewer's Silver Award
		For over 2000 new page reviews in the last year, thank you very much for your help at New Pages Patrol! — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 23:46, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 April 2018

• From the editors: The Signpost's presses roll again

• Signpost: Future directions for The Signpost

• News and notes: Photo of Kim Jong-un. Stephen Hawking death tops hits on many Wikipedias.

• In the media: The rise of Wikipedia as a disinformation mop

• In focus: Admin reports board under criticism

• Special report: ACTRIAL results adopted by landslide

• Opinion: Guideline for Organization Notability revised

• Op-ed: World War II Myth-making and Wikipedia

• Community view: It's time we look past Women in Red to counter systemic bias

• Discussion report: The future of portals

• Arbitration report: No new cases, and one motion on administrative misconduct

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Military History

• Blog: Why the world reads Wikipedia

• Humour: Our Favorite Places to Whine About Stuff

• Traffic report: A quiet place to wrestle with the articles of March

• Technology report: Coming soon: Books-to-PDF, interactive maps, rollback confirmation

• Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

• Gallery: A look at some famous and not as well-known border tripoints

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:50, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

WikiCup 2018 May newsletter

The second round of the 2018 WikiCup has now finished. Most contestants who advanced to the next round scored upwards of 100 points, but two with just 10 points managed to scrape through into round 3. Our top scorers in the last round were:

• Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with three featured articles
• Iazyges, with nine good articles and lots of bonus points
• Yashthepunisher, a first time contestant, with two featured lists
• SounderBruce, a finalist last year, with seventeen good topic articles
• Usernameunique, a first time contestant, with fourteen DYKs
• Muboshgu, a seasoned competitor, with three ITNs and
• Courcelles, another first time contestant, with twenty-seven GARs

So far contestants have achieved twelve featured articles between them and a splendid 124 good articles. Commendably, 326 GARs have been completed during the course of the 2018 WikiCup, so the backlog of articles awaiting GA review has been reduced as a result of contestants' activities. As we enter the third round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met; most of the GARs are fine, but a few have been a bit skimpy.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:10, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

Chochopk • Coffee • Gryffindor • Jimp • Knowledge Seeker • Lankiveil • Peridon • Rjd0060

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

• The Arbitration Committee is seeking additional clerks to help with the arbitration process.

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.

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

The Signpost: 24 May 2018

• From the editor: Another issue meets the deadline

• Op-ed: Has the wind gone out of the AdminShip's sails?

• Opinion: Integrating my many lives on Wikipedia

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Portals

• Discussion report: User rights, infoboxes, and more discussion on portals

• Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

• Arbitration report: Managing difficult topics

• News and notes: Lots of Wikimedia

• In the media: Wikipedia in Turkish politics; COI politics in Wikipedia; most cited work

• Traffic report: We love our superheroes

• Technology report: A trove of contributor and developer goodies

• Blog: Why I write about women on Wikipedia

• Recent research: Why people don't contribute to Wikipedia; using Wikipedia to teach statistics, technical writing, and controversial issues

• Humour: Play with your food

• Gallery: Wine not?

• From the archives: The Signpost scoops The Signpost

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:18, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

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

• Following a successful request for comment, administrators are now able to add and remove editors to the "event coordinator" group. Users in the event coordinator group have the ability to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit. Users will no longer need to be in the "account creator" group if they are in the event coordinator group.
• Following an AN discussion, all pages with content related to blockchain and cryptocurrencies, broadly construed, are now under indefinite general sanctions.

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

• In early May, an unusually high level of failed login attempts was observed. The WMF has stated that this was an "external effort to gain unauthorized access to random accounts". Under Wikipedia policy, administrators are required 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.

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

The Signpost: 29 June 2018

• From the editor: The Admin Ship is still barely afloat, while a Foundation project risks sinking

• Special report: NPR and AfC – The Marshall Plan: an engagement and a marriage?

• Op-ed: What do admins do?

• Opinion: Google isn't responsible for Wikipedia's mistakes

• News and notes: Money, milestones, and Wikimania

• In the media: Much wikilove from the Mayor of London, less from Paekākāriki or a certain candidate for U.S. Congress

• Discussion report: Deletion, page moves, and an update to the main page

• Featured content: New promotions

• Arbitration report: WWII, UK politics, and a user deCrat'ed

• Traffic report: Endgame

• Technology report: Improvements piled on more improvements

• Gallery: Wiki Loves Africa

• Blog: Wikipedia should be open for editors in Turkey

• Recent research: How censorship can backfire and conversations can go awry

• Humour: Television plot lines

• Wikipedia essays: This month's pick by The Signpost editors

• From the archives: Wolves nip at Wikipedia's heels: A perspective on the cost of paid editing

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:29, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

WikiCup 2018 July newsletter

The third round of the 2018 WikiCup has now come to an end. The 16 users who made it to the fourth round had at least 227 points. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

• Courcelles, a first time contestant, with 1756 points, a tally built largely on 27 GAs related to the Olympics
• Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with two featured articles and three GAs on natural history and astronomy topics
• SounderBruce, a finalist last year, with a variety of submissions related to transport in the state of Washington

Contestants managed 7 featured articles, 4 featured lists, 120 good articles, 1 good topic, 124 DYK entries, 15 ITN entries, and 132 good article reviews. Over the course of the competition, contestants have completed 458 GA reviews, in comparison to 244 good articles submitted for review and promoted. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process; several submissions, particularly in abstruse or technical areas, have needed additional work to make them completely verifiable.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk), Vanamonde (talk) 04:55, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

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.

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

Links to other wikis

Hi, to change a link to another language wiki, you now have to edit the entry in Wikidata.

At present, mandarin orange (Q125337) links to 87 language wikis, including our Mandarin orange and et:Harilik mandariinipuu. If you think that et:Mandariin is better, then change the link at mandarin orange (Q125337).

A major problem of Wikidata, to me anyway, is that it cannot handle multiple links between wikis. So if some wikis have separate articles on the plant and the fruit and some have only one, you can't create links that show this. You can only make one of the plant or fruit articles to link to the single article in the other wiki. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:55, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Darn. I tried making the edits on Wikidata first, and it shouted at me, so I followed what I thought was the appropriate process after searching here (not sure if the pages here about foreign language links are out of date, or whether I simply misread them - the day I'm having, I'll bet the latter!). My thinking is that the articles we have about the fruit/s should link to the et articles about the fruit/s as well, following a sort of "principle of least surprise". After all, if I went to the shop to buy a couple of mandarins, you wouldn't expect me to come back with a couple of trees. Since you know what you're doing, and I clearly don't, are you able to edit the Wikidata pages accordingly? I'm snowed-under at the moment with other commitments and am only here very infrequently. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 07:39, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

The problem is that to link the articles as correctly as possible with the current Wikidata regime requires either:

• Two entries at Wikidata, one for the fruit and one for the plant
• Deciding for each language wiki article which of the two Wikidata entries it is best linked to, noting that when there's only one language wiki article, the choice between the Wikidata entries is pretty arbitrary

or

• One entry at Wikidata, for the plant and its fruit
• Where there are two language wiki articles, deciding which of the two is best linked to the single Wikidata entry

This is a major task, involving translation in many cases, and I too am snowed under. I'm also frustrated by the refusal of the editors at Wikidata to come up with a proper solution to the existence of multiple articles in one language wiki corresponding to a single article in another and reluctant to spend time on what will always be a flawed solution. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:26, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

No worries. I'll park it under "things to do if I'm ever handed some spare time". BigHaz - Schreit mich an 23:17, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 July 2018

• From the editor: If only if

• Op-ed: The last leg of the Admin Ship's current cruise

• Opinion: Wrestling with Wikipedia reality

• News and notes: Another newspaper for Wikipedia; Wikimania 2018 ends; changes at NPR

• In the media: Blackouts in Europe; Wikipedia and capitalists; WMF Jet Set

• Discussion report: Wikipedias take action against EU copyright proposal, plus new user right proposals

• Featured content: Wikipedia's best content in images and prose

• Arbitration report: Status quo processes retained in two disputes

• Traffic report: Soccer, football, call it what you like – that and summer movies leave room for little else

• Technology report: New bots, new prefs

• Gallery: Independence days, national holidays, and football – all in July

• Blog: Motivation of two editors

• Recent research: Different Wikipedias use different images; editing contests more successful than edit-a-thons

• Humour: It's all the same

• Essay: Wikipedia does not need you

• From the archives: The pending changes fiasco: how an attempt to answer one question turned into a quagmire

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:51, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

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.

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

Merger discussion for Troy University at Phenix City

An article that you have been involved in editing—Troy University at Phenix City—has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Mr Xaero ^☎️ 05:22, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 August 2018

• From the editor: Today's young adults don't know a world without Wikipedia

• Interview: 2018 Wikimedian of the Year, Farkhad Fatkullin

• News and notes: Flying high; low practice from Wikipedia 'cleansing' agency; where do our donations go? RfA sees a new trend

• In the media: Quicksilver AI writes articles

• Discussion report: Drafting an interface administrator policy

• Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

• Special report: Wikimania 2018

• Traffic report: Aretha dies – getting just 2,000 short of 5 million hits

• Technology report: Technical enhancements and a request to prioritize upcoming work

• Gallery: Leapfrog, historic Thai cave, and a rhythmic beat

• Recent research: Wehrmacht on Wikipedia, neural networks writing biographies

• Humour: Signpost editor censors herself

• Essay: Principle of Some Astonishment

• From the archives: Playing with Wikipedia words

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:03, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

WikiCup 2018 September newsletter

The fourth round of the 2018 WikiCup has now come to an end. The eight users who made it to the final round had to score a minimum of 422 points to qualify, with the top score in the round being 4869 points. The leaders in round 4 were:

• Courcelles scored a magnificent 4869 points, with 92 good articles on Olympics-related themes. Courcelles' bonus points alone exceeded the total score of any of the other contestants!
• Kees08 was second with 1155 points, including a high-scoring featured article for Neil Armstrong, two good topics and some Olympics-related good articles.
• Cas Liber, with 1066 points, was in third place this round, with two featured articles and a good article, all on natural history topics.
• Other contestants who qualified for the final round were Nova Crystallis, Iazyges, SounderBruce, Kosack and Ceranthor.

During round four, 6 featured articles and 164 good articles were promoted by WikiCup contestants, 13 articles were included in good topics and 143 good article reviews were performed. There were also 10 "in the news" contributions on the main page and 53 "did you knows". Congratulations to all who participated! It was a generally high-scoring and productive round and I think we can expect a highly competitive finish to the competition.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck, and let the best editor win! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:31, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

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.

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

Proposed deletion of Na jastuku za dvoje

The article Na jastuku za dvoje has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Not notable. Fails WP:NSONG.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. SummerPhD^v2.0 00:31, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 October 2018

• From the editor: Is this the new normal?

• News and notes: European copyright law moves forward

• In the media: Knowledge under fire

• Discussion report: Interface Admin policy proposal, part 2

• Arbitration report: A quiet month for Arbcom

• Traffic report: John McCain's death generates over 7 million hits, followed by historical low

• Technology report: Paying attention to your mobile

• Gallery: A pat on the back

• Blog: After a catastrophic fire at the National Museum of Brazil, a drive to preserve what knowledge remains

• Recent research: How talk page use has changed since 2005; censorship shocks lead to centralization; is vandalism caused by workplace boredom?

• Humour: Signpost Crossword Puzzle

• Essay: Expressing thanks

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:44, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018

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

Administrator changes

Justlettersandnumbers • L235

Bgwhite • HorsePunchKid • J Greb • KillerChihuahua • Rami R • Winhunter

Interface administrator changes

Cyberpower678 • Deryck Chan • Oshwah • Pharos • Ragesoss • Ritchie333

Oversight changes

Guerillero • NativeForeigner • Snowolf • Xeno

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, the process for appointing interface administrators has been established. Currently only existing admins can request these rights, while a new RfC has begun on whether it should be available to non-admins.
• There is an open request for comment on Meta regarding the creation a new user group for global edit filter management.

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.

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

The Signpost: 28 October 2018

• From the editors: The Signpost is still afloat, just barely

• Op-ed: Wikipedia's Strickland affair

• News and notes: WMF gets a million bucks

• In the media: Bans, celebs, and bias

• Discussion report: Mediation Committee and proposed deletion reform

• Traffic report: Unsurprisingly, sport leads the field – or the ring

• Technology report: Bots galore!

• Special report: NPP needs you

• Special report 2: Now Wikidata is six

• In focus: Alexa

• Gallery: Out of this world!

• Recent research: Wikimedia Commons worth $28.9 billion

• Humour: Talk page humour

• Opinion: Strickland incident

• From the archives: The Gardner Interview

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:09, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

WikiCup 2018 November newsletter

The WikiCup is over for another year! Our Champion this year is Courcelles (submissions), who over the course of the competition has amassed 147 GAs, 111 GARs, 9 DYKs, 4 FLs and 1 ITN. Our finalists were as follows:

1. Courcelles (submissions)
2. Kosack (submissions)
3. Kees08 (submissions)
4. SounderBruce (submissions)
5. Cas Liber (submissions)
6. Nova Crystallis (submissions)
7. Iazyges (submissions)
8. Ceranthor (submissions)

All those who reached the final win awards, and awards will also be going to the following participants:

• Cas Liber (submissions) wins the FA prize, for three featured articles in round 2.
• Courcelles (submissions) wins the GA prize, for 92 good articles in round 3.
• Kosack (submissions) wins the FL prize, for five featured lists overall.
• Cartoon network freak (submissions) wins the topic prize, for 30 articles in good topics overall.
• Usernameunique (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 24 did you know articles in round 3.
• Zanhe (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 17 in the news articles overall.
• Aoba47 (submissions) wins the GAR prize, for 43 good article reviews in round 1.

Awards will be handed out in the coming weeks. Please be patient!

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether you made it to the final rounds or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup who have achieved much this year. Thanks to all who have taken part and helped out with the competition.

Next year's competition begins on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; it is open to all Wikipedians, new and old. The WikiCup judges will be back in touch over the coming months, and we hope to see you all in the 2019 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email) and Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · email).

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018

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

Administrator changes

Sir Sputnik

Kudpung • Liz • Lourdes

Everyking • Jackmcbarn

Interface administrator changes

Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes

AGK • Ivanvector • Stwalkerster • TonyBallioni

Oversight changes

Amorymeltzer • Oshwah • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Keilana

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment determined that non-administrators will not be able to request interface admin access.
• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the Mediation Committee should be closed and marked as historical.
• A village pump discussion has been ongoing about whether the proposed deletion policy (PROD) should be clarified or amended.
• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether pending changes protection should be applied automatically to today's featured article (TFA) in order to mitigate a recent trend of severe image vandalism.

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-enwikimedia.org. Other email lists, such as functionaries-en and clerks-l, remain unchanged.

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

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, BigHaz. 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)

The Signpost: 1 December 2018

• From the editor: Time for a truce

• Op-ed: Looking back, looking forward: A beginner's experience on Wikipedia

• Special report: The Christmas wishlist

• Opinion: The blogosphere migrates to Galaxy WMF

• News and notes: Reviewer of the year, WikiCup winner, and the 2019 Wikimedia Summit

• Reflections: Wikipedia, history, and the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day

• In the media: Court-ordered article redaction, paid editing, and rock stars

• Discussion report: Farewell, Mediation Committee

• Arbitration report: A long break ends

• Traffic report: Queen reigns for four weeks straight

• Gallery: Intersections

• Recent research: Why do the most active Wikipedians burn out?; only 4% of students vandalize

• Essay: No one cares about your garage band

• Humour: The dark side of our favorite root vegetable

• From the archives: Ars longa, vita brevis

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:46, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

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

Administrator changes

Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz

Boson • Daniel J. Leivick • Efe • Esanchez7587 • Fred Bauder • Garzo • Martijn Hoekstra • Orangemike

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

• Administrators and bureaucrats can no longer unblock themselves unless they placed the block initially. This change has been implemented globally. See also this ongoing village pump discussion (permalink).
• To complement the aforementioned change, blocked administrators will soon have the ability to block the administrator that placed their block to mitigate the possibility of a compromised administrator account blocking all other active administrators.
• Since deployment of Partial blocks on Test Wikipedia, several bugs were identified. Most of them are now fixed. Administrators are encouraged to test the new deployment and report new bugs on Phabricator or leave feedback on the Project's talk page. You can request administrator access on the Test Wiki here.

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 3 December 2018. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

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

• Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (Raymond Arritt) passed away on 14 November 2018. Boris joined Wikipedia as Raymond arritt on 8 May 2006 and was an administrator from 30 July 2007 to 2 June 2008.

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

The Signpost: 24 December 2018

• From the editors: Where to draw the line in reporting?

• Op-ed: Wikipedia not trumped by Trump appointee

• Special report: The Signpost got 380,000+ views in 2018, sounds reasonable enough, right?

• News and notes: Some wishes do come true

• In the media: Political hijinks

• Discussion report: A new record low for RfA

• WikiProject report: Articlegenesis

• Arbitration report: Year ends with one active case

• Traffic report: Queen dethroned by U.S. presidents

• Gallery: Sun and Moon, water and stone

• Blog: News from the WMF

• Humour: I believe in Bigfoot

• Essay: Requests for medication

• From the archives: Compromised admin accounts – again

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:35, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Welcome to the 2019 WikiCup!

Hello and Happy New Year!

Welcome to the 2019 WikiCup, the competition begins today. If you have already joined, your submission page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and we will set up your submissions page. One important rule to remember is that only content on which you have completed significant work during 2019, and which you have nominated this year, is eligible for points in the competition, the judges will be checking! Any questions should be directed to one of the judges, or left on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will make it to round 2. Good luck! The judges for the WikiCup are Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:14, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019

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

Administrator changes

Galobtter

Orangemike

BorgQueen • Davidruben • Ocee • Revolving Bugbear • Theda • There'sNoTime • Timc • Tijuana Brass • Tristessa de St Ange

Bureaucrat changes

Addshore

CheckUser changes

Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

AGK • Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Guideline and policy news

• There are a number of new or changed speedy deletion criteria, each previously part of WP:CSD#G6:

1. G14 (new): Disambiguation pages that disambiguate only zero or one existing pages are now covered under the new G14 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-disambig}}; the text is unchanged and candidates may be found in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as unnecessary disambiguation pages.
2. R4 (new): Redirects in the file namespace (and no file links) that have the same name as a file or redirect at Commons are now covered under the new R4 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-redircom}}; the text is unchanged.
3. G13 (expanded): Userspace drafts containing only the default Article Wizard text are now covered under G13 along with other drafts (discussion). Such blank drafts are now eligible after six months rather than one year, and taggers continue to use {{db-blankdraft}}.

• The Wikimedia Foundation now requires all interface administrators to enable two-factor authentication.
• Members of the Bot Approvals Group (BAG) are now subject to an activity requirement. After two years without any bot-related activity (e.g. operating a bot, posting on a bot-related talk page), BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice.

Technical news

• Starting on December 13, the Wikimedia Foundation security team implemented new password policy and requirements. Privileged accounts (administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, oversighters, interface administrators, bots, edit filter managers/helpers, template editors, et al.) must have a password at least 10 characters in length. All accounts must have a password:

1. At least 8 characters in length
2. Not in the 100,000 most popular passwords (defined by the Password Blacklist library)
3. Different from their username

User accounts not meeting these requirements will be prompted to update their password accordingly. More information is available on MediaWiki.org.

• Blocked administrators may now block the administrator that blocked them. This was done to mitigate the possibility that a compromised administrator account would block all other active administrators, complementing the removal of the ability to unblock oneself outside of self-imposed blocks. A request for comment is currently in progress to determine whether the blocking policy should be updated regarding this change.
• {{Copyvio-revdel}} now has a link to open the history with the RevDel checkboxes already filled in.

Arbitration

• Following the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: AGK, Courcelles, GorillaWarfare, Joe Roe, Mkdw, SilkTork.

Miscellaneous

• Accounts continue to be compromised on a regular basis. Evidence shows this is entirely due to the accounts having the same password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately.
• Around 22% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 20% in June 2018. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless of whether you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:38, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 January 2019

• Op-ed: Random Rewards Rejected

• In focus: The Collective Consciousness of Admin Userpages

• News and notes: WMF staff turntable continues to spin; Endowment gets more cash; RfA continues to be a pit of steely knives

• In the media: The Signpost's investigative story recognized, Wikipedia turns 18 and gets a birthday gift from Google, and more editors are recognized

• Discussion report: The future of the reference desk

• Featured content: Don't miss your great opportunity

• Arbitration report: An admin under the microscope

• Traffic report: Death, royals and superheroes: Avengers, Black Panther

• Technology report: When broken is easily fixed

• Gallery: Let us build a memorial fit for such pain and suffering

• News from the WMF: News from WMF

• Recent research: Ad revenue from reused Wikipedia articles; are Wikipedia researchers asking the right questions?

• Essay: How

• Humour: Village pump

• From the archives: An editorial board that includes you

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:49, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2019).

Administrator changes

Enterprisey • JJMC89

BorgQueen

Harro5 • Jenks24 • Graft • R. Baley

Interface administrator changes

Enterprisey

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is currently open to reevaluate the activity requirements for administrators.
• Administrators who are blocked have the technical ability to block the administrator who blocked their own account. A recent request for comment has amended the blocking policy to clarify that this ability should only be used in exceptional circumstances, such as account compromises, where there is a clear and immediate need.
• A request for comment closed with a consensus in favor of deprecating The Sun as a permissible reference, and creating an edit filter to warn users who attempt to cite it.

Technical news

• A discussion regarding an overhaul of the format and appearance of Wikipedia:Requests for page protection is in progress (permalink). The proposed changes will make it easier to create requests for those who are not using Twinkle. The workflow for administrators at this venue will largely be unchanged. Additionally, there are plans to archive requests similar to how it is done at WP:PERM, where historical records are kept so that prior requests can more easily be searched for.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2019 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2019, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2019, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• A new IRC bot is available that allows you to subscribe to notifications when specific filters are tripped. This requires that your IRC handle be identified.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:15, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 February 2019

• From the editors: Help wanted (still)

• News and notes: Front-page issues for the community

• In focus: Wikimedia affiliate organizations seek community participation in 2019 board election

• Discussion report: Talking about talk pages

• Featured content: Conquest, War, Famine, Death, and more!

• Arbitration report: A quiet month for Arbitration Committee

• Traffic report: Binge-watching

• Technology report: Tool labs casters-up

• Gallery: Signed with pride

• Recent research: Research finds signs of cultural diversity and recreational habits of readers

• Essay: Optimist's guide to Wikipedia

• From the archives: New group aims to promote Wiki-Love

• Humour: Pesky Pronouns

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:15, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

WikiCup 2019 March newsletter

And so ends the first round of the competition. Everyone with a positive score moves on to Round 2. With 56 contestants qualifying, each group in Round 2 contains seven contestants, with the two leaders from each group due to qualify for Round 3 as well as the top sixteen remaining contestants.

Our top scorers in Round 1 were:

• L293D, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with ten good articles on submarines for a total of 357 points.
• Adam Cuerden, a WikiCup veteran, came next with 274 points, mostly from eight featured pictures, restorations of artwork.
• MPJ-DK, a wrestling enthusiast, was in third place with 263 points, garnered from a featured list, five good articles, two DYKs and four GARs.
• Usernameunique came next at 243, with a featured article and a good article, both on ancient helmets.
• Squeamish Ossifrage was in joint fifth place with 224 points, mostly garnered from bringing the 1937 Fox vault fire to featured article status.
• Ed! was also on 224, with an amazing number of good article reviews (56 actually).

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start scoring points again from scratch. Between them, contestants completed reviews on 143 good articles, one hundred more than the number of good articles they claimed for, thus making a substantial dent in the review backlog. Well done all!

Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.

If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk).

Administrators' newsletter – March 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2019).

Administrator changes

Evad37

There'sNoTime

Alex Shih • Brian • Mushroom • Nakon • Oscarthecat • PeruvianLlama • Ragib • Reaper Eternal • Rossami • Tom

Interface administrator changes

Evad37 • Galobtter

Ritchie333

CheckUser changes

There'sNoTime

Keegan • Ks0stm

Oversight changes

There'sNoTime

Ks0stm • Sphilbrick

Guideline and policy news

• The RfC on administrator activity requirements failed to reach consensus for any proposal.
• Following discussions at the Bureaucrats' noticeboard and Wikipedia talk:Administrators, an earlier change to the restoration of adminship policy was reverted. If requested, bureaucrats will not restore administrator permissions removed due to inactivity if there have been five years without a logged administrator action; this "five year rule" does not apply to permissions removed voluntarily.

Technical news

• A new tool is available to help determine if a given IP is an open proxy/VPN/webhost/compromised host.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee announced two new OTRS queues. Both are meant solely for cases involving private information; other cases will continue to be handled at the appropriate venues (e.g., WP:COIN or WP:SPI).
  • paid-en-wpwikipedia.org has been set up to receive private evidence related to abusive paid editing.
  • checkuser-en-wpwikipedia.org has been set up to receive private requests for CheckUser. For instance, requests for IP block exemption for anonymous proxy editing should now be sent to this address instead of the functionaries-en list.

Miscellaneous

• Following the 2019 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Base, Einsbor, Jon Kolbert, Schniggendiller, and Wim b.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:12, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 March 2019

• From the editors: Getting serious about humor

• News and notes: Blackouts fail to stop EU Copyright Directive

• In the media: Women's history month

• Discussion report: Portal debates continue, Prespa agreement aftermath, WMF seeks a rebranding

• Featured content: Out of this world

• Arbitration report: The Tides of March at ARBCOM

• Traffic report: Exultations and tribulations

• Technology report: New section suggestions and sitewide styles

• News from the WMF: The WMF's take on the new EU Copyright Directive

• Recent research: Barnstar-like awards increase new editor retention

• From the archives: Esperanza organization disbanded after deletion discussion

• Humour: The Epistolary of Arthur 37

• Op-Ed: Pro and Con: Has gun violence been improperly excluded from gun articles?

• In focus: The Wikipedia SourceWatch

• Special report: Wiki Loves (50 Years of) Pride

• Community view: Wikipedia's response to the New Zealand mosque shootings

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:02, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2019).

Administrator changes

Reaper Eternal • ThaddeusB

Bogdangiusca • Christopher Parham • Necrothesp • Schneelocke • Siroxo • Sarah

Mentifisto → Lofty abyss

Interface administrator changes

Mr. Stradivarius

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad

Kingturtle

Technical news

• In Special:Preferences under "Appearance" → "Advanced options", there is now an option to show a confirmation prompt when clicking on a rollback link.
• The Wikimedia Foundation's Community health initiative plans to design and build a new user reporting system to make it easier for people experiencing harassment and other forms of abuse to provide accurate information to the appropriate channel for action to be taken. Please see meta:Community health initiative/User reporting system consultation 2019 to provide your input on this idea.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee clarified that the General 1RR prohibition for Palestine-Israel articles may only be enforced on pages with the {{ARBPIA 1RR editnotice}} edit notice.

Miscellaneous

• Two more administrator accounts were compromised. Evidence has shown that these attacks, like previous incidents, were due to reusing a password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. All admins are strongly encouraged to enable two-factor authentication, please consider doing so. Please always practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.
• As a reminder, according to WP:NOQUORUM, administrators looking to close or relist an AfD should evaluate a nomination that has received few or no comments as if it were a proposed deletion (PROD) prior to determining whether it should be relisted.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:57, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 April 2019

• News and notes: An Action Packed April

• In the media: Is Wikipedia just another social media site?

• Discussion report: English Wikipedia community's conclusions on talk pages

• Featured content: Anguish, accolades, animals, and art

• Arbitration report: An Active Arbitration Committee

• Traffic report: Mötley Crüe, Notre-Dame, a black hole, and Bonnie and Clyde

• Technology report: A new special page, and other news

• Gallery: Notre-Dame de Paris burns

• News from the WMF: Can machine learning uncover Wikipedia’s missing “citation needed” tags?

• Recent research: Female scholars underrepresented; whitepaper on Wikidata and libraries; undo patterns reveal editor hierarchy

• From the archives: Portals revisited

• Humour: Jimbo and Larry walk into a bar ...

• Opinion: The gaps in our knowledge of our gaps

• Interview: Katherine Maher marks 3 years as executive director

• Community view: 2019 Wikimedia Summit gathers movement affiliate representatives to discuss movement strategy

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:36, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

WikiCup 2019 May newsletter

The second round of the 2019 WikiCup has now finished. Contestants needed to scored 32 points to advance into round 3. Our top four scorers in round 2 all scored over 400 points and were:

• Cas Liber (1210), our winner in 2016, with two featured articles and three DYKs. He also made good use of the bonus points available, more than doubling his score by choosing appropriate articles to work on.
• Kosack (750), last year's runner up, with an FA, a GA, two FLs, and five DYKs.
• Adam Cuerden (480), a WikiCup veteran, with 16 featured pictures, mostly restorations.
• Zwerg Nase (461), a seasoned competitor, with a FA, a GA and an ITN item.

Other notable performances were put in by Barkeep49 with six GAs, Ceranthor, Lee Vilenski, and Canada Hky, each with seven GARs, and MPJ-DK with a seven item GT.

So far contestants have achieved nine featured articles between them and a splendid 80 good articles. Commendably, 227 GARs have been completed during the course of the 2019 WikiCup, so the backlog of articles awaiting GA review has been reduced as a result of contestants' activities. The judges are pleased with the thorough GARs that are being performed, and have hardly had to reject any. As we enter the third round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:45, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019 special circular

Administrators must secure their accounts The Arbitration Committee may require a new RfA if your account is compromised. Use strong, unique passwords for your Wikipedia account and associated email Change your password now if your Wikipedia account password or email password is reused on another website, exposed, or weak Enable two-factor authentication now for improved security

View additional information

Why have I received this message? All administrators are receiving it. What prompted you to send this message? Recently, several Wikipedia admin accounts were compromised. The admin accounts were desysopped on an emergency basis. In the past, the Committee often resysopped admin accounts as a matter of course once the admin was back in control of their account. The committee has updated its guidelines. Admins may now be required to undergo a fresh Request for Adminship (RfA) after losing control of their account. What do I need to do? Only to follow the instructions in this message. Check that your password is unique (not reused across sites). Check that your password is strong (not simple or guessable). Enable Two-factor authentication (2FA), if you can, to create a second hurdle for attackers. How can I find out more about two-factor authentication (2FA)? You can find out more about 2FA at m:2FA.

This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:19, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)

ArbCom would like to apologise and correct our previous mass message in light of the response from the community.

Since November 2018, six administrator accounts have been compromised and temporarily desysopped. In an effort to help improve account security, our intention was to remind administrators of existing policies on account security — that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." We have updated our procedures to ensure that we enforce these policies more strictly in the future. The policies themselves have not changed. In particular, two-factor authentication remains an optional means of adding extra security to your account. The choice not to enable 2FA will not be considered when deciding to restore sysop privileges to administrator accounts that were compromised.

We are sorry for the wording of our previous message, which did not accurately convey this, and deeply regret the tone in which it was delivered.

For the Arbitration Committee, -Cameron11598 21:03, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2019).

Administrator changes

HickoryOughtShirt?4 • RexxS

Necrothesp

Bratsche • Kyle Barbour • Kzollman • Madman

Interface administrator changes

Pharos

Bureaucrat changes

Primefac

CheckUser changes

Reaper Eternal

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment concluded that creating pages in the portal namespace should be restricted to autoconfirmed users.
• Following a request for comment, the subject-specific notability guideline for pornographic actors and models (WP:PORNBIO) was removed; in its place, editors should consult WP:ENT and WP:GNG.

Technical news

• XTools Admin Stats, a tool to list admins by administrative actions, has been revamped to support more types of log entries such as AbuseFilter changes. Two additional tools have been integrated into it as well: Steward Stats and Patroller Stats.

Arbitration

• In response to the continuing compromise of administrator accounts, the Arbitration Committee passed a motion amending the procedures for return of permissions (diff). In such cases, the committee will review all available information to determine whether the administrator followed "appropriate personal security practices" before restoring permissions; administrators found failing to have adequately done so will not be resysopped automatically. All current administrators have been notified of this change.
• Following a formal ratification process, the arbitration policy has been amended (diff). Specifically, the two-thirds majority required to remove or suspend an arbitrator now excludes (1) the arbitrator facing suspension or removal, and (2) any inactive arbitrator who does not respond within 30 days to attempts to solicit their feedback on the resolution through all known methods of communication.

Miscellaneous

• A request for comment is currently open to amend the community sanctions procedure to exclude non XfD or CSD deletions.
• A proposal to remove pre-2009 indefinite IP blocks is currently open for discussion.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:37, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 May 2019

• From the editors: Picture that

• News and notes: Wikimania and trustee elections

• In the media: Politics, lawsuits and baseball

• Discussion report: Admin abuse leads to mass-desysop proposal on Azerbaijani Wikipedia

• Arbitration report: ArbCom forges ahead

• Traffic report: Dark marvels, thrones, a vile serial killer biopic, that's entertainment!

• Technology report: Lots of Bots

• News from the WMF: Wikimedia Foundation petitions the European Court of Human Rights to lift the block of Wikipedia in Turkey

• Recent research: Wikipedia more useful than academic journals, but is it stealing the news?

• Essay: Paid editing

• From the archives: FORUM:Should Wikimedia modify its terms of use to require disclosure?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:10, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2019).

Administrator changes

Andonic • Consumed Crustacean • Enigmaman • Euryalus • EWS23 • HereToHelp • Nv8200pa • Peripitus • StringTheory11 • Vejvančický

CheckUser changes

Ivanvector

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC seeks to clarify whether WP:OUTING should include information on just the English Wikipedia or any Wikimedia project.
• An RfC on WT:RfA concluded that Requests for adminship and bureaucratship are discussions seeking to build consensus.
• An RfC proposal to make the templates for discussion (TfD) process more like the requested moves (RM) process, i.e. "as a clearinghouse of template discussions", was closed as successful.

Technical news

• The CSD feature of Twinkle now allows admins to notify page creators of deletion if the page had not been tagged. The default behavior matches that of tagging notifications, and replaces the ability to open the user talk page upon deletion. You can customize which criteria receive notifications in your Twinkle preferences: look for Notify page creator when deleting under these criteria.
• Twinkle's d-batch (batch delete) feature now supports deleting subpages (and related redirects and talk pages) of each page. The pages will be listed first but use with caution! The und-batch (batch undelete) option can now also restore talk pages.

Miscellaneous

• The previously discussed unblocking of IP addresses indefinitely-blocked before 2009 was approved and has taken place.
• The 2019 talk pages consultation produced a report for Phase 1 and has entered Phase 2.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:48, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

The June 2019 Signpost is out!

• Discussion report: A constitutional crisis hits English Wikipedia

• News and notes: Mysterious ban, admin resignations, Wikimedia Thailand rising

• In the media: The disinformation age

• On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

• Traffic report: Juneteenth, Beauty Revealed, and more nuclear disasters

• Technology report: Actors and Bots

• Gallery: Unlike the North Face, Wiki Loves Earth

• Special report: Did Fram harass other editors?

• Recent research: What do editors do after being blocked?; the top mathematicians, universities and cancers according to Wikipedia

• From the archives: Women and Wikipedia: the world is watching

• Opinion: Why the Terms of Use change didn't curtail undisclosed paid editing—and what might

• In focus: WikiJournals: A sister project proposal

• Community view: A CEO biography, paid for with taxes

• Op-Ed: 2019 Wikimedia Affiliate Selected Board Seats Election Results

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:52, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Eurovision Newsletter for June 2019

→ Issue 48 ← Headlines Duncan Laurence wins Eurovision 2019. Eight cities in the running to host Eurovision 2020. Jury voting inconsistencies at Eurovision 2019.
At the time of publication the project statistics were as follows
Number of articles	Unassessed articles	Good articles	A-class articles	Featured articles	Number of members
7263	33	54	1	5	109
• HOME • TALK • NEWSDESK • UNSUBSCRIBE • ARCHIVES • • Published by the Eurovision WikiProject •

Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:04, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2019).

Administrator changes

28bytes • Ad Orientem • Ansh666 • Beeblebrox • Boing! said Zebedee • BU Rob13 • Dennis Brown • Deor • DoRD • Floquenbeam¹ • Flyguy649 • Fram² • Gadfium • GB fan • Jonathunder • Kusma • Lectonar • Moink • MSGJ • Nick • Od Mishehu • Rama • Spartaz • Syrthiss • TheDJ • WJBscribe

¹Floquenbeam's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.

²Fram's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.

Bureaucrat changes

28bytes • WJBscribe • Wizardman

Interface administrator changes

MSGJ • TheDJ

CheckUser changes

Beeblebrox • BU Rob13 • DoRD

Oversight changes

Beeblebrox • BU Rob13 • DoRD • GB fan

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment seeking to alleviate pressures on the request an account (ACC) process proposes either raising the account creation limit for extended confirmed editors or granting the account creator permission on request to new ACC tool users.

• In a related matter, the account throttle has been restored to six creations per day as the mitigation activity completed.

• The scope of CSD criterion G8 has been tightened such that the only redirects that it now applies to are those which target non-existent pages.
• The scope of CSD criterion G14 has been expanded slightly to include orphan "Foo (disambiguation)" redirects that target pages that are not disambiguation pages or pages that perform a disambiguation-like function (such as set index articles or lists).
• A request for comment seeks to determine whether Wikipedia:Office actions should be a policy page or an information page.

Technical news

• The Wikimedia Foundation's Community health initiative plans to design and build a new user reporting system to make it easier for people experiencing harassment and other forms of abuse to provide accurate information to the appropriate channel for action to be taken. Community feedback is invited.

Miscellaneous

• In February 2019, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) changed its office actions policy to include temporary and project-specific bans. The WMF exercised this new ability for the first time on the English Wikipedia on 10 June 2019 to temporarily ban and desysop Fram. This action has resulted in significant community discussion, a request for arbitration (permalink), and, either directly or indirectly, the resignations of numerous administrators and functionaries. The WMF Board of Trustees is aware of the situation, and discussions continue on a statement and a way forward. The Arbitration Committee has sent an open letter to the WMF Board.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:19, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

WikiCup 2019 July newsletter

The third round of the 2019 WikiCup has now come to an end. The 16 users who made it to the fourth round needed to score at least 68 points, which is substantially lower than last year's 227 points. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

• Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with 500 points derived mainly from a featured article and two GAs on natural history topics
• Adam Cuerden, with 480 points, a tally built on 16 featured pictures, the result of meticulous restoration work
• SounderBruce, a finalist in the last two years, with 306 points from a variety of submissions, mostly related to sport or the State of Washington
• Usernameunique, with 305 points derived from a featured article and two GAs on archaeology and related topics

Contestants managed 4 (5) featured articles, 4 featured lists, 18 featured pictures, 29 good articles, 50 DYK entries, 9 ITN entries, and 39 good article reviews. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them, and it is imperative to claim them in the correct round; one FA claim had to be rejected because it was incorrectly submitted (claimed in Round 3 when it qualified for Round 2), so be warned! When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:12, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 July 2019

• News and notes: Wikimedia grants less accessible for travel, equipment, meetups, and India

• In the media: Politics starts getting rough

• Discussion report: New proposals in aftermath of Fram ban

• Arbitration report: A month of reintegration

• Gallery: Classic panoramas from Heinrich Berann

• On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

• Community view: Video based summaries of Wikipedia articles. How and why?

• News from the WMF: Designing ethically with AI: How Wikimedia can harness machine learning in a responsible and human-centered way

• Recent research: Most influential medical journals; detecting pages to protect

• Special report: Administrator cadre continues to contract

• Traffic report: World cups, presidential candidates, and stranger things

• In focus: The French Wikipedia is overtaking the German

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:17, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2019).

Administrator changes

Johnuniq • Kosack • Valereee

Ad Orientem • Ched • Gadfium • Jonathunder • Nick • Yelyos

Bald Zebra • Beetstra • Doug Bell • Journalist • Ruud Koot • Splash • Voice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes

RickinBaltimore

Oversight changes

Beeblebrox

RickinBaltimore

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, the page Wikipedia:Office actions has been changed from a policy page to an information page.
• A request for comment (permalink) is in progress regarding the administrator inactivity policy.

Arbitration

• Editors may now use the template {{Ds/aware}} to indicate that they are aware that discretionary sanctions are in force for a topic area, so it is unnecessary to alert them.

Miscellaneous

• Following a research project on masking IP addresses, the Foundation is starting a new project to improve the privacy of IP editors. The result of this project may significantly change administrative and counter-vandalism workflows. The project is in the very early stages of discussions and there is no concrete plan yet. Admins and the broader community are encouraged to leave feedback on the talk page.
• The new page reviewer right is bundled with the admin tool set. Many admins regularly help out at Special:NewPagesFeed, but they may not be aware of improvements, changes, and new tools for the Curation system. Stay up to date by subscribing here to the NPP newsletter that appears every two months, and/or putting the reviewers' talk page on your watchlist.

  Since the introduction of temporary user rights, it is becoming more usual to accord the New Page Reviewer right on a probationary period of 3 to 6 months in the first instance. This avoids rights removal for inactivity at a later stage and enables a review of their work before according the right on a permanent basis.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:23, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 August 2019

• News and notes: Documenting Wikimania and our beginnings

• In focus: Ryan Merkley joins WMF as Chief of Staff

• In the media: Many layers of fake news: Fake fiction and fake news vandalism

• Discussion report: Meta proposals on partial bans and IP users

• Traffic report: Once upon a time in Greenland with Boris and cornflakes

• Op-Ed: We couldn't have told you this, but Wikipedia was censored

• Opinion: The Curious Case of Croatian Wikipedia

• Community view: Chinese Wikipedia and the battle against extradition from Hong Kong

• News from the WMF: Meet Emna Mizouni, the newly minted 2019 Wikimedian of the Year

• Recent research: Special issue on gender gap and gender bias research

• On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:41, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

WikiCup 2019 September newsletter

The fourth round of the competition has finished in a flurry of last minute activity, with 454 points being required to qualify for the final round. It was a hotly competitive round with two contestants with over 400 points being eliminated, and all but two of the finalists having achieved an FA during the round. Casliber, our 2016 winner, was the highest point-scorer, followed by Enwebb and Lee Vilenski, who are both new to the competition. In fourth place was SounderBruce, a finalist last year. But all those points are swept away as we start afresh for the final round.

Round 4 saw the achievement of 11 featured articles. In addition, Adam Cuerden scored with 18 FPs, Lee Vilenski led the GA score with 8 GAs while Kosack performed 15 GA reviews. There were around 40 DYKs, 40 GARs and 31 GAs overall during round 4. Even though contestants performed more GARs than they achieved GAs, there was still some frustration at the length of time taken to get articles reviewed.

As we start round 5, we say goodbye to the eight competitors who didn't quite make it; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia, and we hope you will join us again next year. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them (some people have fallen foul of this rule and the points have been removed).

If you are concerned that your nomination, whether it be for a good article, a featured process, or anything else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:44, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2019).

Administrator changes

Bradv • Chetsford • Izno

Floquenbeam • Lectonar

DESiegel • Jake Wartenberg • Rjanag • Topbanana

CheckUser changes

Callanecc • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

Callanecc • Fox • HJ Mitchell • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Technical news

• Editors using the mobile website on Wikipedia can opt-in to new advanced features via your settings page. This will give access to more interface links, special pages, and tools.
• The advanced version of the edit review pages (recent changes, watchlist, and related changes) now includes two new filters. These filters are for "All contents" and "All discussions". They will filter the view to just those namespaces.

Arbitration

• A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2019 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.

Miscellaneous

• A global request for comment is in progress regarding whether a user group should be created that could modify edit filters across all public Wikimedia wikis.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:36, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 September 2019

• From the editors: Where do we go from here?

• Special report: Post-Framgate wrapup

• In the media: A net loss: Wikipedia attacked, closing off Russia? welcoming back Turkey?

• Traffic report: Varied and intriguing entries, less Luck, and some retreads

• News from the WMF: How the Wikimedia Foundation is making efforts to go green

• Recent research: Wikipedia's role in assessing credibility of news sources; using wikis against procrastination; OpenSym 2019 report

• Gallery: Finding freely licensed photo collections

• On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

• In focus: Wikidata & Wikibase for national libraries: the inaugural meeting

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:06, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2019).

Administrator changes

Barkeep49

Beetstra • KillerChihuahua • Kusma

Arcadian • Extraordinary Machine • Xeno

JamesBWatson → JBW

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

CheckUser changes

Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Oversight changes

Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Guideline and policy news

• Following a discussion, a new criterion for speedy category renaming was added: C2F: One eponymous article, which applies if the category contains only an eponymous article or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories.

Technical news

• As previously noted, tighter password requirements for Administrators were put in place last year. Wikipedia should now alert you if your password is less than 10 characters long and thus too short.

Arbitration

• The 2019 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place October 4th to 10th.
• The arbitration case regarding Fram was closed. While there will be a local RfC focus[ing] on how harassment and private complaints should be handled in the future, there is currently a global community consultation on partial and temporary office actions in response to the incident. It will be open until October 30th.

Miscellaneous

• The Community Tech team has been working on a system for temporarily watching pages, and welcomes feedback.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:54, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 October 2019

• In the media: How to use or abuse Wikipedia for fun or profit

• Special report: “Catch and Kill” on Wikipedia: Paid editing and the suppression of material on alleged sexual abuse

• In focus: The BBC looks at Chinese government editing

• Interview: Carl Miller on Wikipedia Wars

• Community view: Observations from the mainland

• Arbitration report: October actions

• Traffic report: Wrestling with a couple of teenagers, a Nobelist, and a lot of jokers

• Gallery: Wiki Loves Broadcast

• Recent research: Research at Wikimania 2019: More communication doesn't make editors more productive; Tor users doing good work; harmful content rare on English Wikipedia

• Essay: Wikipedia is in the real world

• News from the WMF: Welcome to Wikipedia! Here's what we're doing to help you stick around

• On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:11, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

WikiCup 2019 November newsletter

The WikiCup is over for another year! Our Champion this year is Adam Cuerden (submissions), who over the course of the competition has amassed 91 featured pictures, including 32 in the final round. Our finalists this year were:

1. Adam Cuerden (submissions) with 964 points
2. Lee Vilenski (submissions) with 899 points
3. Casliber (submissions) with 817 points
4. Kosack (submissions) with 691 points
5. SounderBruce (submissions) with 388 points
6. Enwebb (submissions) with 146 points
7. Usernameunique (submissions) with 145 points
8. HaEr48 (submissions) with 74 points

All those who reached the final will win awards. The following special awards will be made based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, these prizes are awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round, or in the event of a tie, to the overall leader in this field. Awards will be handed out in the coming weeks. Please be patient!

• Casliber (submissions) wins the featured article prize, for a total of 7 FAs during the course of the competition.
• Lee Vilenski (submissions) wins the good article prize, for 14 GAs in round 5.
• Yashthepunisher (submissions) wins the featured list prize, for 4 FLs overall.
• Adam Cuerden (submissions) wins the featured picture prize, for 91 FPs overall.
• MPJ-DK (submissions) wins the topic prize, for 7 articles in good topics in round 2.
• Lee Vilenski (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 14 did you know articles in round 5.
• Muboshgu (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 7 in the news articles in round 1.
• Ed! (submissions) wins the reviewer prize, for 56 good article reviews in round 1.

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether you made it to the final rounds or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup who have achieved much this year. Thanks to all who have taken part and helped out with the competition, not forgetting User:Jarry1250, who runs the scoring bot.

We have opened a scoring discussion on whether the rules and scoring need adjustment. Please have your say. Next year's competition will begin on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to see you all in the 2020 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth 14:18, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2019).

Administrator changes

GermanJoe • Girth Summit • Kees08 • Nosebagbear

DESiegel • GB fan • MSGJ • Voice of Clam • WilyD

DeltaQuad • Fang Aili • Pakaran

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad • Pakaran

Interface administrator changes

MSGJ

CheckUser changes

L235 • Mz7 • SQL • ST47

Ivanvector

DeltaQuad

Oversight changes

L235 • Mz7 • ST47 • Stwalkerster • The Blade of the Northern Lights • Xaosflux

DeltaQuad • DGG • Julia W

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC was closed with the consensus that the resysop criteria should be made stricter.

• The follow-up RfC to develop that change is now open at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2019 Resysop Criteria (2).

• A related RfC is seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors may now nominate themselves as candidates for the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections. The self-nomination period will close November 12, with voting running from November 19 through December 2.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:15, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019 election voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. 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 2019 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) 00:03, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 November 2019

• From the editor: Put on your birthday best

• News and notes: How soon for the next million articles?

• In the media: You say you want a revolution

• On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

• Arbitration report: Two requests for arbitration cases

• Traffic report: The queen and the princess meet the king and the joker

• Technology report: Reference things, sister things, stranger things

• Gallery: Winter and holidays

• Recent research: Bot census; discussions differ on Spanish and English Wikipedia; how nature's seasons affect pageviews

• Essay: Adminitis

• From the archives: WikiProject Spam, revisited

• In focus: An update on the Wikimedia Movement 2030 Strategy

• Special report: How many people edit in your favorite language? Where are they from?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:23, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2019).

Administrator changes

EvergreenFir • ToBeFree

Akhilleus • Athaenara • John Vandenberg • Melchoir • MichaelQSchmidt • NeilN • Youngamerican • 😂

CheckUser changes

Beeblebrox

Deskana

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC on the administrator resysop criteria was closed. 18 proposals have been summarised with a variety of supported and opposed statements. The inactivity grace period within which a new request for adminship is not required has been reduced from three years to two. Additionally, Bureaucrats are permitted to use their discretion when returning administrator rights.
• Following a proposal, the edit filter mailing list has been opened up to users with the Edit Filter Helper right.

Technical news

• Wikimedia projects can set a default block length for users via MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry. A new page, MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry-ip, allows the setting of a different default block length for IP editors. Neither is currently used. (T219126)

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 2 December 2018 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

Miscellaneous

• The global consultation on partial and temporary office actions that ended in October received a closing statement from staff concluding, among other things, that the WMF will no longer use partial or temporary Office Action bans... until and unless community consensus that they are of value or Board directive.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:47, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 December 2019

• From the editors: Caught with their hands in the cookie jar, again

• News and notes: What's up (and down) with administrators, articles and languages

• Special report: Are reputation management operatives scrubbing Wikipedia articles?

• In the media: "The fulfillment of the dream of humanity" or a nightmare of PR whitewashing on behalf of one-percenters?

• Discussion report: December discussions around the wiki

• Arbitration report: Announcement of 2020 Arbitration Committee

• Traffic report: Queens and aliens, exactly alike, once upon a December

• Technology report: User scripts and more

• Gallery: Holiday wishes

• Recent research: Acoustics and Wikipedia; Wiki Workshop 2019 summary

• From the archives: The 2002 Spanish fork and ads revisited (re-revisited?)

• On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

• Op-Ed: Why we need to keep talking about Wikipedia's gender gap

• WikiProject report: Wikiproject Tree of Life: A Wikiproject report

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:37, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Welcome to the 2020 WikiCup!

Happy New Year, Happy New Decade and Happy New WikiCup! The competition begins today and all article creators, expanders and improvers are welcome to take part. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page. We are relaxing the rule that only content on which you have completed significant work during 2020 will count; now to be eligible for points in the competition, you must have completed significant work on the content at some time! Any questions on the rules or on anything else connected to the Cup should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. Good luck! The judges for the WikiCup are Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:43, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2019).

Administrator changes

Dreamy Jazz • Newslinger • Rosguill

Deor • Spartaz • Xeno

Angusmclellan • clpo13 • Edgar181 • Matthewedwards • NCurse

CheckUser changes

Bradv • Casliber • David Fuchs • Maxim • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy • Xeno

Oversight changes

Bradv • Casliber • DGG • David Fuchs • Maxim • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy • Xeno

Someguy1221

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment asks whether partial blocks should be enabled on the English Wikipedia. If enabled, this functionality would allow administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces, rather than the entire site.
• A proposal asks whether admins who don't use their tools for a significant period of time (e.g. five years) should have the toolset procedurally removed.
• Following a successful RfC, a whitelist is now available for users whose redirects will be autopatrolled by a bot, removing them from the new pages patrol queue. Admins can add such users to Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist after a discussion following the guidelines at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist.

Arbitration

• The fourth case on Palestine-Israel articles was closed. The case consolidated all previous remedies under one heading, which should make them easier to understand, apply, and enforce. In particular, the distinction between "primary articles" and "related content" has been clarified, with the former being the entire set of articles whose topic relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted rather than reasonably construed.
• Following the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Bradv, Casliber, David Fuchs, DGG, KrakatoaKatie, Maxim, Newyorkbrad, SoWhy, Worm That Turned, Xeno.

Miscellaneous

• This issue marks three full years of the Admin newsletter. Thanks for reading!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:06, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 January 2020

• From the editor: Reaching six million articles is great, but we need a moratorium

• News and notes: Six million articles on the English language Wikipedia

• Special report: The limits of volunteerism and the gatekeepers of Team Encarta

• In the media: Turkey's back up, but what's happening with Dot-org and a new visual identity?

• Arbitration report: Three cases at ArbCom

• Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2019

• Gallery: Wiki Loves Monuments 2019, we're all winners

• News from the WMF: Capacity Building: Top 5 Themes from Community Conversations

• Community view: Our most important new article since November 1, 2015

• In focus: Cryptos and bitcoins and blockchains, oh no!

• Recent research: How useful is Wikipedia for novice programmers trying to learn computing concepts?

• From the archives: A decade of The Signpost, 2005-2015

• On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Japan: a wikiProject Report

• Humour: Predicting the 6,000,000th article

• Obituary: Remembering Wikipedia contributor Brian Boulton

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:09, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2020).

Administrator changes

Ergo Sum • Nick Moyes • QEDK • Wugapodes

Dennis Brown

Aude • BrownHairedGirl • CALR • Jengod • John Reaves • J.smith • Kim Dent-Brown • K1Bond007 • MECU • Refdoc • RHaworth

CheckUser changes

Opabinia regalis • Premeditated Chaos

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, partial blocks are now enabled on the English Wikipedia. This functionality allows administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces rather than the entire site. A draft policy is being workshopped at Wikipedia:Partial blocks.
• The request for comment seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure closed with wide-spread support for an alternative desysoping procedure based on community input. No proposed process received consensus.

Technical news

• Twinkle now supports partial blocking. There is a small checkbox that toggles the "partial" status for both blocks and templating. There is currently one template: {{uw-pblock}}.
• When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title. [1]

Arbitration

• Following a recent arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee reminded administrators that checkuser and oversight blocks must not be reversed or modified without prior consultation with the checkuser or oversighter who placed the block, the respective functionary team, or the Arbitration Committee.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2020 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2020, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2020, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• The English Wikipedia has reached six million articles. Thank you everyone for your contributions!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:05, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Happy Adminship Anniversary!

Wishing BigHaz a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Bobherry Talk Edits 01:39, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup 2020 March newsletter

And so ends the first round of the competition. Everyone with a positive score moves on to Round 2, with 57 contestants qualifying. We have abolished the groups this year, so to qualify for Round 3 you will need to finish Round 2 among the top thirty-two contestants.

Our top scorers in Round 1 were:

• Epicgenius, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with a featured article, five good articles and an assortment of other submissions, specialising on buildings and locations in New York, for a total of 895 points.
• Gog the Mild came next with 464 points, from a featured article, two good articles and a number of reviews, the main theme being naval warfare.
• Raymie was in third place with 419 points, garnered from one good article and an impressive 34 DYKs on radio and TV stations in the United States.
• Harrias came next at 414, with a featured article and three good articles, an English civil war battle specialist.
• CaptainEek was in fifth place with 405 points, mostly garnered from bringing Cactus wren to featured article status.
• The top ten contestants at the end of Round 1 all scored over 200 points; they also included L293D, Kingsif, Enwebb, Lee Vilenski and CAPTAIN MEDUSA. Seven of the top ten contestants in Round 1 are new to the WikiCup.

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start scoring points again from scratch. In Round 1 there were four featured articles, one featured list and two featured pictures, as well as around two hundred DYKs and twenty-seven ITNs. Between them, contestants completed 127 good article reviews, nearly a hundred more than the 43 good articles they claimed for, thus making a substantial dent in the review backlog. Contestants also claimed for 40 featured article / featured list reviews, and most even remembered to mention their WikiCup participation in their reviews (a requirement).

Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Some contestants made claims before the new submissions pages were set up, and they will need to resubmit them. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.

If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 March 2020

• From the editor: The ball is in your court

• News and notes: Alexa ranking down to 13th worldwide

• Special report: More participation, more conversation, more pageviews

• In the media: Mapping IP editors, Smithsonian open-access, and coronavirus disinformation

• Discussion report: Do you prefer M or P?

• Arbitration report: Two prominent administrators removed

• By the numbers: How many actions by administrators does it take to clean up spam?

• Community view: The Incredible Invisible Woman

• In focus: History of The Signpost, 2015–2019

• Recent research: Wikipedia generates $50 billion/year consumer surplus in the US alone

• From the archives: Is Wikipedia for sale?

• Traffic report: February articles, floating in the dark

• Gallery: Feel the love

• On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

• Op-Ed: What I learned as Wikimedia UK Communications Coordinator

• Opinion: Wikipedia is another country

• Humour: The Wilhelm scream

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:22, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup newsletter correction

There was an error in the WikiCup 2020 March newsletter; L293D should not have been included in the list of top ten scorers in Round 1 (they led the list last year), instead, Dunkleosteus77 should have been included, having garnered 334 points from five good articles on animals, living or extinct, and various reviews. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:29, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2020).

Administrator changes

Money emoji

Athaenara • DeltaQuad

Fishhead64 • Kudpung • Mikaey

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad

CheckUser changes

DeltaQuad

Oversight changes

DeltaQuad

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops must not undo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather than should not.
• A request for comment confirmed that sandboxes of established but inactive editors may not be blanked due solely to inactivity.

Technical news

• Following a discussion, Twinkle's default CSD behavior will soon change, most likely this week. After the change, Twinkle will default to "tagging mode" if there is no CSD tag present, and default to "deletion mode" if there is a CSD tag present. You will be able to always default to "deletion mode" (the current behavior) using your Twinkle preferences.

Miscellaneous

• Following the 2020 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: BRPever, Krd, Martin Urbanec, MusikAnimal, Sakretsu, Sotiale, and Tks4Fish. There are a total of seven editors that have been appointed as stewards, the most since 2014.
• The 2020 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Ajraddatz and Uzoma Ozurumba; they will serve for one year.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:20, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 March 2020

• From the editors: The bad and the good

• News and notes: 2018 Wikipedian of the year blocked

• WikiProject report: WikiProject COVID-19: A WikiProject Report

• Special report: Wikipedia on COVID-19: what we publish and why it matters

• In the media: Blocked in Iran but still covering the big story

• Discussion report: Rethinking draft space

• Arbitration report: Unfinished business

• In focus: "I have been asked by Jeffrey Epstein …"

• Community view: Wikimedia community responds to COVID-19

• Recent research: Disease outbreak uncertainties, AfD forecasting, auto-updating Wikipedia

• From the archives: Text from Wikipedia good enough for Oxford University Press to claim as own

• Traffic report: The only thing that matters in the world

• Gallery: Visible Women on Wikipedia

• News from the WMF: Amid COVID-19, Wikimedia Foundation offers full pay for reduced hours, mobilizes all staff to work remote, and waives sick time

• On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:42, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2020).

Administrator changes

Cabayi • Lee Vilenski

Boing! said Zebedee

Jonny-mt • MarkGallagher • PeaceNT

Money emoji → Moneytrees

Bureaucrat changes

SilkTork • WereSpielChequers

CheckUser changes

NativeForeigner

Oversight changes

Someguy1221

Daniel Case

Guideline and policy news

• There is an ongoing request for comment to streamline the source deprecation and blacklisting process.

Technical news

• There is a plan for new requirements for user signatures. You can give feedback.

Arbitration

• Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold a Arbcom RfC regarding on-wiki harassment. A draft RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC (Draft) and not open to comments from the community yet. Interested editors can comment on the RfC itself on its talk page.

Miscellaneous

• The WMF has begun a pilot report of the pages most visited through various social media platforms to help with anti-vandalism and anti-disinformation efforts. The report is updated daily and will be available through the end of May.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:00, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 April 2020

• News and notes: Unbiased information from Ukraine's government?

• In the media: Coronavirus, again and again

• Discussion report: Redesigning Wikipedia, bit by bit

• Featured content: Featured content returns

• Arbitration report: Two difficult cases

• Traffic report: Disease the Rhythm of the Night

• Gallery: Roy is doing fine and sending more photos

• Recent research: Trending topics across languages; auto-detecting bias

• Essay: Wikipedia:An article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing

• By the numbers: Open data and COVID-19: Wikipedia as an informational resource during the pandemic

• Opinion: Trusting Everybody to Work Together

• On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

• Interview: Health and RfA's: An interview with Guy Macon

• In focus: Multilingual Wikipedia

• WikiProject report: The Guild of Copy Editors

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:17, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup 2020 May newsletter

The second round of the 2020 WikiCup has now finished. It was a high-scoring round and contestants needed 75 points to advance to round 3. There were some very impressive efforts in round 2, with the top ten contestants all scoring more than 500 points. A large number of the points came from the 12 featured articles and the 186 good articles achieved in total by contestants, and the 355 good article reviews they performed; the GAN backlog drive and the stay-at-home imperative during the COVID-19 pandemic may have been partially responsible for these impressive figures.

Our top scorers in round 2 were:

• Epicgenius, with 2333 points from one featured article, forty-five good articles, fourteen DYKs and plenty of bonus points
• Gog the Mild, with 1784 points from three featured articles, eight good articles, a substantial number of featured article and good article reviews and lots of bonus points
• The Rambling Man, with 1262 points from two featured articles, eight good articles and a hundred good article reviews
• Harrias, with 1141 points from two featured articles, three featured lists, ten good articles, nine DYKs and a substantial number of featured article and good article reviews
• Lee Vilenski with 869 points, Hog Farm with 801, Kingsif with 719, SounderBruce with 710, Dunkleosteus77 with 608 and MX with 515.

The rules for featured article reviews have been adjusted; reviews may cover three aspects of the article, content, images and sources, and contestants may receive points for each of these three types of review. Please also remember the requirement to mention the WikiCup when undertaking an FAR for which you intend to claim points. Remember also that DYKs cannot be claimed until they have appeared on the main page. As we enter the third round, any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed now, and anything you forgot to claim in round 2 cannot! Remember too, that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth. - MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:44, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2020).

Administrator changes

Gnangarra • Kaisershatner • Malcolmxl5

CheckUser changes

Callanecc

Oversight changes

HJ Mitchell

Guideline and policy news

• Discretionary sanctions have been authorized for all pages and edits related to COVID-19, to be logged at WP:GS/COVID19.
• Following a recent discussion on Meta-Wiki, the edit filter maintainer global group has been created.
• A request for comment has been proposed to create a new main page editor usergroup.
• A request for comment has been proposed to make the bureaucrat activity requirements more strict.

Technical news

• The Editing team has been working on the talk pages project. You can review the proposed design and share your thoughts on the talk page.
• Enterprisey created a script that will show a link to the proper Special:Undelete page when viewing a since-deleted revision, see User:Enterprisey/link-deleted-revs.

Miscellaneous

• A request for comment closed with consensus to create a Village Pump-style page for communication with the Wikimedia Foundation.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:19, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 May 2020

• From the editor: Meltdown May?

• News and notes: 2019 Picture of the Year, 200 French paid editing accounts blocked, 10 years of Guild Copyediting

• In the media: CBS on COVID-19, Sanger on bias, false noses, and five prolific editors

• Discussion report: WMF's Universal Code of Conduct

• Special report: The sum of human knowledge? Not in one Wikipedia language edition

• Featured content: Weathering the storm

• Arbitration report: Board member likely to receive editing restriction

• Traffic report: Come on and slam, and welcome to the jam

• Op-Ed: Where Is Political Bias Taking Us?

• Gallery: Wildlife photos by the book

• News from the WMF: WMF Board announces Community Culture Statement

• Recent research: Automatic detection of covert paid editing; Wiki Workshop 2020

• Community view: Transit routes and mapping during stay-at-home order downtime

• On video: COVID-19 spurs innovations in Wikimedia video and virtual programming

• WikiProject report: Revitalizing good articles

• On the bright side: 500,000 articles in the Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia

• Obituaries: Dmitrismirnov, Kattenkruid, Muidlatif, Ronhjones, Tsirel

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:05, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2020).

Administrator changes

CaptainEek • Creffett • Cwmhiraeth

Anna Frodesiak • Buckshot06 • Ronhjones • SQL

CheckUser changes

SQL

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment asks whether the Unblock Ticket Request System (UTRS) should allowed any unblock request or just private appeals.
• The Wikimedia Foundation announced that they will develop a universal code of conduct for all WMF projects. There is an open local discussion regarding the same.

Arbitration

• A motion was passed to enact a 500/30 restriction on articles related to the history of Jews and antisemitism in Poland during World War II (1933–45), including the Holocaust in Poland. Article talk pages where disruption occurs may also be managed with the stated restriction.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:27, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 June 2020

• News and notes: Progress at Wikipedia Library and Wikijournal of Medicine

• Community view: Community open letter on renaming

• Gallery: After the killing of George Floyd

• In the media: Part collaboration and part combat

• Discussion report: Community reacts to WMF rebranding proposals

• Featured content: Sports are returning, with a rainbow

• Arbitration report: Anti-harassment RfC and a checkuser revocation

• Traffic report: The pandemic, alleged murder, a massacre, and other deaths

• News from the WMF: We stand for racial justice

• Recent research: Wikipedia and COVID-19; automated Wikipedia-based fact-checking

• Interview: What is wrong with rebranding to "Wikipedia Foundation"?

• Humour: Cherchez une femme

• Opinion: Trying to find COI or paid editors? Just read the news

• On the bright side: For what are you grateful this month?

• In focus: Edit Loud, Edit Proud: LGBTIQ+ Wikimedians and Global Information Activism

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Black Lives Matter

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:52, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2020).

Administrator changes

Malcolmxl5

John • TheCoffee • Tim!

Creffett → GeneralNotability

DeltaQuad → AmandaNP

CheckUser changes

Bbb23

Interface administrator changes

TonyBallioni

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is in progress to remove the T2 (template that misrepresents established policy) speedy deletion criterion.

Technical news

• Protection templates on mainspace pages are now automatically added by User:MusikBot II (BRFA).

Arbitration

• Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold an RfC regarding on-wiki harassment. The RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC and is open to comments from the community.
• The Medicine case was closed, with a remedy authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for all discussions about pharmaceutical drug prices and pricing and for edits adding, changing, or removing pharmaceutical drug prices or pricing from articles.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:25, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup 2020 July newsletter

The third round of the 2020 WikiCup has now come to an end. The 16 users who made it into the fourth round each had at least 353 points (compared to 68 in 2019). It was a highly competitive round, and a number of contestants were eliminated who would have moved on in earlier years. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

• Epicgenius, with one featured article, 28 good articles and 17 DYKs, amassing 1836 points
• The Rambling Man , with 1672 points gained from four featured articles and seventeen good articles, plus reviews of a large number of FACs and GAs
• Gog the Mild, a first time contestant, with 1540 points, a tally built largely on 4 featured articles and related bonus points.

Between them, contestants managed 14 featured articles, 9 featured lists, 3 featured pictures, 152 good articles, 136 DYK entries, 55 ITN entries, 65 featured article candidate reviews and 221 good article reviews. Additionally, MPJ-DK added 3 items to featured topics and 44 to good topics. Over the course of the competition, contestants have completed 710 good article reviews, in comparison to 387 good articles submitted for review and promoted. These large numbers are probably linked to a GAN backlog drive in April and May, and the changed patterns of editing during the COVID-19 pandemic. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:33, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2020).

Administrator changes

Red Phoenix

Euryalus • SQL

Jujutacular • Monty845 • Rettetast • Madchester

Oversight changes

GB fan

Keegan • Opabinia regalis • Premeditated Chaos

Guideline and policy news

• There is an open request for comment to decide whether to increase the minimum duration a sanction discussion has to remain open (currently 24 hours).
• Speedy deletion criterion T2 (template that misrepresents established policy) has been repealed following a request for comment.
• Speedy deletion criterion X2 (pages created by the content translation tool) has been repealed following a discussion.
• There is a proposal to restrict proposed deletion to confirmed users.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:20, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 2 August 2020

• Special report: Wikipedia and the End of Open Collaboration?

• COI and paid editing: Some strange people edit Wikipedia for money

• News and notes: Abstract Wikipedia, a hoax, sex symbols, and a new admin

• In the media: Dog days gone bad

• Discussion report: Fox News, a flight of RfAs, and banning policy

• Featured content: Remembering Art, Valor, and Freedom

• Traffic report: Now for something completely different

• Gallery: Photos of threatened species from iNaturalist

• News from the WMF: New Chinese national security law in Hong Kong could limit the privacy of Wikipedia users

• Recent research: Receiving thanks increases retention, but not the time contributed to Wikipedia

• Essay: Not compatible with a collaborative project

• Obituaries: Hasteur and Brian McNeil

• In focus: WikiLoop DoubleCheck, reviewing edits made easy

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:24, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 August 2020

• News and notes: The high road and the low road

• In the media: Storytelling large and small

• Featured content: Going for the goal

• Special report: Wikipedia's not so little sister is finding its own way

• Op-Ed: The longest-running hoax

• Traffic report: Heart, soul, umbrellas, and politics

• News from the WMF: Fourteen things we’ve learned by moving Polish Wikimedia conference online

• Recent research: Detecting spam, and pages to protect; non-anonymous editors signal their intelligence with high-quality articles

• Arbitration report: A slow couple of months

• From the archives: Wikipedia for promotional purposes?

• Obituaries: Marcus Sherman, Jerome West, and Pauline van Till

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:32, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup 2020 September newsletter

The fourth round of the competition has finished, with 865 points being required to qualify for the final round, nearly twice as many points as last year. It was a hotly competitive round with two contestants with 598 and 605 points being eliminated, and all but two of the contestants who reached the final round having achieved an FA during the round. The highest scorers were

• Bloom6132, with 1478 points gained mainly from 5 featured lists, 12 DYKs and 63 in the news items;
• HaEr48 with 1318 points gained mainly from 2 featured articles, 5 good articles and 8 DYKs;
• Lee Vilenski with 1201 points mainly gained from 2 featured articles and 10 good articles.

Between them, contestants achieved 14 featured articles, 14 featured lists, 2 featured pictures, 87 good articles, 90 DYK entries, 75 ITN entries, 95 featured article candidate reviews and 81 good article reviews. Congratulations to all who participated! It was a generally high-scoring and productive round and I think we can expect a highly competitive finish to the competition.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:51, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2020).

Administrator changes

Eddie891

Angela • Jcw69 • Just Chilling • Philg88 • Viajero

CheckUser changes

SQL

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, the minimum length for site ban discussions was increased to 72 hours, up from 24.
• A request for comment is ongoing to determine whether paid editors must or should use the articles for creation process.
• A request for comment is open to resolve inconsistencies between the draftification and alternative to deletion processes.

Arbitration

• A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2020 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
• An open request for comment asks whether active Arbitrators may serve on the Trust and Safety Case Review Committee or Ombudsman commission.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:56, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 September 2020

• Special report: Paid editing with political connections

• News and notes: More large-scale errors at a "small" wiki

• In the media: WIPO, Seigenthaler incident 15 years later

• Featured content: Life finds a Way

• Arbitration report: Clarifications and requests

• Traffic report: Is there no justice?

• Recent research: Wikipedia's flood biases

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:46, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 September 2020

• Special report: Paid editing with political connections

• News and notes: More large-scale errors at a "small" wiki

• In the media: WIPO, Seigenthaler incident 15 years later

• Featured content: Life finds a Way

• Arbitration report: Clarifications and requests

• Traffic report: Is there no justice?

• Recent research: Wikipedia's flood biases

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:53, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2020).

Administrator changes

Ajpolino • LuK3

Jackmcbarn

Ad Orientem • Harej • Lid • Lomn • Mentoz86 • Oliver Pereira • XJaM

There'sNoTime → TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment found consensus that incubation as an alternative to deletion should generally only be recommended when draftification is appropriate, namely 1) if the result of a deletion discussion is to draftify; or 2) if the article is newly created.

Technical news

• The filter log now provides links to view diffs of deleted revisions (phab:T261630).

Arbitration

• The 2020 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place from September 27th to October 7th.
• Following a request for comment, sitting Committee members may not serve on either the Ombuds Commission or the WMF Case Review Committee. The Arbitration Committee passed a motion implementing those results into their procedures.

Miscellaneous

• The Universal Code of Conduct draft is open for community review and comment until October 6th, 2020.
• Office actions may now be appealed to the Interim Trust & Safety Case Review Committee.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:42, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2020).

Administrator changes

John M Wolfson

Bduke • Nilfanion • Philosopher • Rspeer • Yunshui

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

TonyBallioni

CheckUser changes

EdJohnston • Oshwah • Yamla

Yunshui

Oversight changes

Anarchyte

Yunshui

Guideline and policy news

• Community sanctions now authorize administrators to place under indefinite semiprotection any article on a beauty pageant, or biography of a person known as a beauty pageant contestant, which has been edited by a sockpuppet account or logged-out sockpuppet, to be logged at WP:GS/PAGEANT.

Technical news

• Sysops will once again be able to view the deleted history of JS/CSS pages; this was restricted to interface administrators when that group was introduced.
• Twinkle's block module now includes the ability to note the specific case when applying a discretionary sanctions block and/or template.
• Sysops will be able to use Special:CreateLocalAccount to create a local account for a global user that is prevented from auto-creation locally (such as by a filter or range block). Administrators that are not sure if such a creation is appropriate should contact a checkuser.

Arbitration

• The 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections process has begun. Eligible editors will be able to nominate themselves as candidates from November 8 through November 17. The voting period will run from November 23 through December 6.
• The Anti-harassment RfC has concluded with a summary of the feedback provided.

Miscellaneous

• A reminder that standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people. (American Politics 2 Arbitration case).

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:51, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 November 2020

• News and notes: Ban on IPs on ptwiki, paid editing for Tatarstan, IP masking

• In the media: Murder, politics, religion, health and books

• Book review: Review of Wikipedia @ 20

• Op-Ed: Anti-vandalism with masked IPs: the steps forward

• Discussion report: Proposal to change board composition, In The News dumps Trump story

• Featured content: The "Green Terror" is neither green nor sufficiently terrifying. Worst Hallowe'en ever.

• Traffic report: Jump back, what's that sound?

• Interview: Joseph Reagle and Jackie Koerner

• News from the WMF: Meet the 2020 Wikimedian of the Year

• Recent research: OpenSym 2020: Deletions and gender, masses vs. elites, edit filters

• In focus: The many (reported) deaths of Wikipedia

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:50, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup 2020 November newsletter

The 2020 WikiCup has come to an end, with the final round going down to the wire. Our new Champion is Lee Vilenski (submissions), the runner-up last year, who was closely followed by Gog the Mild (submissions). In the final round, Lee achieved 4 FAs and 30 GAs, mostly on cue sport topics, while Gog achieved 3 FAs and 15 GAs, mostly on important battles and wars, which earned him a high number of bonus points. The Rambling Man (submissions) was in third place with 4 FAs and 8 GAs on football topics, with Epicgenius (submissions) close behind with 19 GAs and 16 DYK's, his interest being the buildings of New York.

The other finalists were Hog Farm (submissions), HaEr48 (submissions), Harrias (submissions) and Bloom6132 (submissions). The final round was very productive, and besides 15 FAs, contestants achieved 75 FAC reviews, 88 GAs and 108 GAN reviews. Altogether, Wikipedia has benefited greatly from the activities of WikiCup competitors all through the contest. Well done everyone!

All those who reached the final will receive awards and the following special awards will be made, based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, these prizes are awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round, or in the event of a tie, to the overall leader in this field.

• Gog the Mild (submissions) wins the featured article prize, for a total of 14 FAs during the course of the competition.
• Bloom6132 (submissions) win the featured list prize, for 5 FLs in round 4.
• Rhododendrites (submissions) wins the featured picture prize, for 3 FPs in round 3 and 5 overall.
• Lee Vilenski (submissions) wins the featured article reviewer prize, for 23 FAC reviews in round 5.
• Epicgenius (submissions) wins the good article prize, for 45 GAs in round 2 and 113 overall.
• MPJ-DK (submissions) wins the topic prize, for 33 articles in good topics in round 2.
• The Rambling Man (submissions) wins the good article reviewer prize, for 100 good article reviews in round 2.
• Epicgenius (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 22 Did you know articles in round 4 and 94 overall.
• Bloom6132 (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 63 In the news articles in round 4 and 136 overall.

Next year's competition will begin on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to see you all in the 2021 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:37, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

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The Signpost: 29 November 2020

• News and notes: Jimmy Wales "shouldn't be kicked out before he's ready"

• Op-Ed: Re-righting Wikipedia

• Opinion: How billionaires re-write Wikipedia

• In the media: Relying on Wikipedia: voters, scientists, and a Canadian border guard

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• Traffic report: 007 with Borat, the Queen, and an election

• News from Wiki Education: An assignment that changed a life: Kasey Baker

• GLAM plus: West Coast New Zealand's Wikipedian at Large

• Wikicup report: Lee Vilenski wins the 2020 WikiCup

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Administrators' newsletter – December 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2020).

Administrator changes

Andrwsc • Anetode • GoldenRing • JzG • LinguistAtLarge • Nehrams2020

Interface administrator changes

Izno

Guideline and policy news

• There is a request for comment in progress to either remove T3 (duplicated and hardcoded instances) as a speedy deletion criterion or eliminate its seven-day waiting period.

Technical news

• Voting for proposals in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey, which determines what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year, will take place from 8 December through 21 December. In particular, there are sections regarding administrators and anti-harassment.

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 7 December 2020 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:37, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 December 2020

• News and notes: Year-end legal surprises cause concern, but Public Domain Day is imminent

• In the media: Concealment, data journalism, a non-pig farmer, and some Bluetick Hounds

• Arbitration report: 2020 election results

• Opinion: How to make your factory's safety and labor issues disappear

• Featured content: Very nearly ringing in the New Year with "Blank Space" – but we got there in time.

• Traffic report: 2020 wraps up

• News from the WMF: What Wikipedia saw during election week in the U.S., and what we’re doing next

• Recent research: Predicting the next move in Wikipedia discussions

• Essay: Subjective importance

• Op-Ed: An unforgettable year we might wish to forget

• Gallery: Angels in the architecture

• Humour: 'Twas the Night Before Wikimas

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Welcome to the 2021 WikiCup!

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The competition begins today and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page. Any questions on the rules or on anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. We thank Vanamonde93 and Godot13, who have retired as judges, and we thank them for their past dedication. The judges for the WikiCup this year are Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:10, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2020).

Administrator changes

Hammersoft

Andres • Brion VIBBER • Rkitko • Thatcher

CheckUser changes

Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek • Primefac

Oversight changes

Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek

Joe Roe

Guideline and policy news

• Speedy deletion criterion T3 (duplication and hardcoded instances) has been repealed following a request for comment.

Technical news

• You can now put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time.

Arbitration

• By motion, standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarily authorized for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes). The effectiveness of the discretionary sanctions can be evaluated on the request by any editor after March 1, 2021 (or sooner if for a good reason).
• Following the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, BDD, Bradv, CaptainEek, L235, Maxim, Primefac.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:07, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 January 2021

• News and notes: 1,000,000,000 edits, board elections, virtual Wikimania 2021

• Special report: Wiki reporting on the United States insurrection

• In focus: From Anarchy to Wikiality, Glaring Bias to Good Cop: Press Coverage of Wikipedia's First Two Decades

• Opinion: Wikipedia's war against scientific disinformation

• In the media: The world's press says "Happy Birthday!" with a few twists

• Technology report: The people who built Wikipedia, technically

• Videos and podcasts: Celebrating 20 years

• News from the WMF: Wikipedia celebrates 20 years of free, trusted information for the world

• Recent research: Students still have a better opinion of Wikipedia than teachers

• Humour: Dr. Seuss's Guide to Wikipedia

• Featured content: New Year, same Featured Content report!

• Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2020

• Obituary: Flyer22 Frozen

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Administrators' newsletter – February 2021

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

Administrator changes

Hog Farm

Mattflaschen • Nandesuka • Savidan • Wangi

CheckUser changes

Berean Hunter • Xeno

Oversight changes

Someguy1221 • Xeno

Arbitration

• The standard discretionary sanctions authorized for American Politics were amended by motion to cover post-1992 politics of United States and closely related people, replacing the 1932 cutoff.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2021 Steward elections will begin on 05 February 2021, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2021, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• Wikipedia has now been around for 20 years, and recently saw its billionth edit!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:09, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 February 2021

• News and notes: Maher stepping down

• Disinformation report: A "billionaire battle" on Wikipedia: Sex, lies, and video

• Opinion: The call for feedback on community seats is a distraction

• In the media: Corporate influence at OSM, Fox watching the hen house

• News from the WMF: Who tells your story on Wikipedia

• Recent research: Take an AI-generated flashcard quiz about Wikipedia; Wikipedia's anti-feudalism

• Featured content: A Love of Knowledge, for Valentine's Day

• Traffic report: Does it almost feel like you've been here before?

• Gallery: What is Black history and culture?

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Administrators' newsletter – March 2021

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

Administrator changes

TJMSmith

Boing! said Zebedee • Hiberniantears • Lear's Fool • Only • WGFinley

Interface administrator changes

AmandaNP

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is open that proposes a process for the community to revoke administrative permissions. This follows a 2019 RfC in favor of creating one such a policy.
• A request for comment is in progress to remove F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a, which covers immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
• A request for comment seeks to grant page movers the delete-redirect userright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target. The full proposal is at Wikipedia:Page mover/delete-redirect.
• A request for comment asks if sysops may place the General sanctions/Coronavirus disease 2019 editnotice template on pages in scope that do not have page-specific sanctions?
• There is a discussion in progress concerning automatic protection of each day's featured article with Pending Changes protection.

Technical news

• When blocking an IPv6 address with Twinkle, there is now a checkbox with the option to just block the /64 range. When doing so, you can still leave a block template on the initial, single IP address' talkpage.
• When protecting a page with Twinkle, you can now add a note if doing so was in response to a request at WP:RfPP, and even link to the specific revision.
• There have been a number of reported issues with Pending Changes. Most problems setting protection appear to have been resolved (phab:T273317) but other issues with autoaccepting edits persist (phab:T275322).

Arbitration

• By motion, the discretionary sanctions originally authorized under the GamerGate case are now authorized under a new Gender and sexuality case, with sanctions authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, any gender-related dispute or controversy and associated people. Sanctions issued under GamerGate are now considered Gender and sexuality sanctions.
• The Kurds and Kurdistan case was closed, authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for the topics of Kurds and Kurdistan, broadly construed.

Miscellaneous

• Following the 2021 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AmandaNP, Operator873, Stanglavine, Teles, and Wiki13.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:13, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

WikiCup 2021 March newsletter

Round 1 of the competition has finished; it was a high-scoring round with 21 contestants scoring more than 100 points. Everyone with a positive score moves on to Round 2, with 55 contestants qualifying. You will need to finish among the top thirty-two contestants in Round 2 if you are to qualify for Round 3. Our top scorers in Round 1 were:

• Epicgenius led the field with a featured article, nine good articles and an assortment of other submissions, specialising on buildings and locations in New York, for a total of 945 points.
• Bloom6132 was close behind with 896 points, largely gained from 71 "In the news" items, mostly recent deaths.
• ImaginesTigers, who has been editing Wikipedia for less than a year, was in third place with 711 points, much helped by bringing League of Legends to featured article status, exemplifying how bonus points can boost a contestant's score.
• Amakuru came next with 708 points, Kigali being another featured article that scored maximum bonus points.
• Ktin, new to the WikiCup, was in fifth place with 523 points, garnered from 15 DYKs and 34 "In the news" items.
• The Rambling Man scored 511 points, many from featured article candidate reviews and from football related DYKs.
• Gog the Mild, last year's runner-up, came next with 498 points, from a featured article and numerous featured article candidate reviews.
• Hog Farm, at 452, scored for a featured article, four good articles and a number of reviews.
• Le Panini, another newcomer to the WikiCup, scored 438 for a featured article and three good articles.
• Lee Vilenski, last year's champion, scored 332 points, from a featured article and various other sport-related topics.

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start again from scratch. In Round 1, contestants achieved eight featured articles, three featured lists and one featured picture, as well as around two hundred DYKs and twenty-seven ITNs. They completed 97 good article reviews, nearly double the 52 good articles they claimed. Contestants also claimed for 135 featured article and featured list candidate reviews. There is no longer a requirement to mention your WikiCup participation when undertaking these reviews.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is a good article candidate, a featured process, or something else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.

If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:25, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 March 2021

• News and notes: A future with a for-profit subsidiary?

• Gallery: Wiki Loves Monuments

• In the media: Wikimedia LLC and disinformation in Japan

• News from the WMF: Project Rewrite: Tell the missing stories of women on Wikipedia and beyond

• Recent research: 10%-30% of Wikipedia’s contributors have subject-matter expertise

• From the archives: Google isn't responsible for Wikipedia's mistakes

• Essay: Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia

• Obituary: Yoninah

• From the editor: What else can we say?

• Arbitration report: Open letter to the Board of Trustees

• Traffic report: Wanda, Meghan, Liz, Phil and Zack

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:43, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2021

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

Administrator changes

Alexandria • Happyme22 • RexxS

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a has been deprecated; it covered immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
• Following a request for comment, page movers were granted the delete-redirect userright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target.

Technical news

• When you move a page that many editors have on their watchlist the history can be split and it might also not be possible to move it again for a while. This is because of a job queue problem. (T278350)
• Code to support some very old web browsers is being removed. This could cause issues in those browsers. (T277803)

Arbitration

• A community consultation on the Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions procedure is open until April 25.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:20, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 April 2021

• From the editor: A change is gonna come

• Disinformation report: Paid editing by a former head of state's business enterprise

• In the media: Fernando, governance, and rugby

• Opinion: The (Universal) Code of Conduct

• Op-Ed: A Little Fun Goes A Long Way

• Changing the world: The reach of protest images on Wikipedia

• Recent research: Quality of aquatic and anatomical articles

• Traffic report: The verdict is guilty, guilty, guilty

• News from Wiki Education: Encouraging professional physicists to engage in outreach on Wikipedia

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:31, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 April 2021

• From the editor: A change is gonna come

• Disinformation report: Paid editing by a former head of state's business enterprise

• In the media: Fernando, governance, and rugby

• Opinion: The (Universal) Code of Conduct

• Op-Ed: A Little Fun Goes A Long Way

• Changing the world: The reach of protest images on Wikipedia

• Recent research: Quality of aquatic and anatomical articles

• Traffic report: The verdict is guilty, guilty, guilty

• News from Wiki Education: Encouraging professional physicists to engage in outreach on Wikipedia

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:28, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

WikiCup 2021 May newsletter

The second round of the 2021 WikiCup has now finished; it was a high-scoring round and contestants needed 61 points to advance to Round 3. There were some impressive efforts in the round, with the top eight contestants all scoring more than 400 points. A large number of the points came from the 12 featured articles and the 110 good articles achieved in total by contestants, as well as the 216 good article reviews they performed; the GAN backlog drive and the stay-at-home imperative during the COVID-19 pandemic may have been partially responsible for these impressive figures.

Our top scorers in Round 2 were:

• The Rambling Man, with 2963 points from three featured articles, 20 featured article reviews, 37 good articles, 73 good article reviews, as well as 22 DYKs.
• Epicgenius, with 1718 points from one featured article, 29 good articles, 16 DYKs and plenty of bonus points.
• Bloom6132, with 990 points from 13 DYKs and 64 "In the news" items, mostly recent deaths.
• Hog Farm, with 834 points from two featured articles, five good articles, 14 featured article reviews and 15 good article reviews.
• Gog the Mild, with 524 points from two featured articles and four featured article reviews.
• Lee Vilenski, with 501 points from one featured article, three good articles, six featured article reviews and 25 good article reviews.
• Sammi Brie, with 485 points from four good articles, eight good article reviews and 27 DYKs, on US radio and television stations.
• Ktin, with 436 points from four good articles, seven DYKs and 11 "In the news" items.

Please remember that DYKs cannot be claimed until they have appeared on the main page. As we enter the third round, any content promoted after the end of Round 2 but before the start of Round 3 can be claimed now, and anything you forgot to claim in Round 2 cannot! Remember too, that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them (except for at the end of each round, when you must claim them before the cut-off date/time). When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Judges: Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:27, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Warwick Todd

The article Warwick Todd has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Does not meet WP:GNG

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Rusf10 (talk) 01:41, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

While a quick Google search (all I'm able to do right now, as I'm pressed for time) doesn't specifically throw up much beyond the books and recordings, I do note that it's the sort of thing people are free to look for sources on. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 08:02, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2021

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

Administrator changes

Enchanter • Carlossuarez46

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, consensus was found that third party appeals are allowed but discouraged.
• The 2021 Desysop Policy RfC was closed with no consensus. Consensus was found in a previous RfC for a community based desysop procedure, though the procedure proposed in the 2021 RfC did not gain consensus.

Technical news

• The user group oversight will be renamed to suppress. This is for technical reasons. You can comment at T112147 if you have objections.

Arbitration

• The community consultation on the Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions procedure was closed, and an initial draft based on feedback from the now closed consultation is expected to be released in early June to early July for community review.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:51, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2021

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

Administrator changes

Ashleyyoursmile • Less Unless

Husond • MattWade • MJCdetroit • Carioca • Vague Rant • Kingboyk • Thunderboltz • Gwen Gale • AniMate • SlimVirgin (deceased)

Guideline and policy news

• Consensus was reached to deprecate Wikipedia:Editor assistance.
• Following a Request for Comment the Book namespace was deprecated.

Technical news

• Wikimedia previously used the IRC network Freenode. However, due to changes over who controlled the network with reports of a forceful takeover by several ex-staff members, the Wikimedia IRC Group Contacts decided to move to the new Libera Chat network. It has been reported that Wikimedia related channels on Freenode have been forcibly taken over if they pointed members to Libera. There is a migration guide and Wikimedia discussions about this.

Arbitration

• After a Clarification request, the Arbitration Committee modified Remedy 5 of the Antisemitism in Poland case. This means sourcing expectations are a discretionary sanction instead of being present on all articles. It also details using the talk page or the Reliable Sources Noticeboard to discuss disputed sources.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:45, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 June 2021

• News and notes: Elections, Wikimania, masking and more

• In the media: Boris and Joe, reliability, love, and money

• Disinformation report: Croatian Wikipedia: capture and release

• Recent research: Feminist critique of Wikipedia's epistemology, Black Americans vastly underrepresented among editors, Wiki Workshop report

• Traffic report: So no one told you life was gonna be this way

• News from the WMF: Searching for Wikipedia

• Humour: Wikipedia's best articles on the world's strangest things

• WikiProject report: WikiProject on open proxies interview

• Forum: Is WMF fundraising abusive?

• Discussion report: Reliability of WikiLeaks discussed

• Obituary: SarahSV

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:14, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

WikiCup 2021 July newsletter

The third round of the 2021 WikiCup has now come to an end. Each of the sixteen contestants who made it into the fourth round had at least 294 points, and our top six scorers all had over 600 points. They were:

• The Rambling Man, with 1825 points from 3 featured articles, 44 featured article reviews, 14 good articles, 30 good article reviews and 10 DYKs. In addition, he completed a 34-article good topic on the EFL Championship play-offs.
• Epicgenius, a New York specialist, with 1083 points from 2 featured article reviews, 18 good articles, 30 DYKs and plenty of bonus points.
• Bloom6132, with 869 points from 11 DYKs, all with bonus points, and 54 "In the news" items, mostly covering people who had recently died.
• Gog the Mild, with 817 points from 3 featured articles on historic battles in Europe, 5 featured article reviews and 3 good articles.
• Hog Farm, with 659 points from 2 featured articles and 2 good articles on American Civil War battles, 18 featured article reviews, 2 good articles, 6 good article reviews and 4 DYKs.
• BennyOnTheLoose, a snooker specialist and new to the Cup, with 647 points from a featured article, 2 featured article reviews, 6 good articles, 6 good article reviews and 3 DYKs.

In round three, contestants achieved 19 featured articles, 7 featured lists, 106 featured article reviews, 72 good articles, 1 good topic, 62 good article reviews, 165 DYKs and 96 ITN items. We enter the fourth round with scores reset to zero; any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them (one contestant in round 3 lost out because of this). When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Judges: Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:29, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2021

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

Administrator changes

Trialpears

AGK • Eliz81 • Mulad • ThaddeusB • Vianello • Who

Lacrimosus → Ikuzaf

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

CheckUser changes

AGK • DGG

Oversighter changes

AGK

Guideline and policy news

• Consensus has been reached to delete all books in the book namespace. There was rough consensus that the deleted books should still be available on request at WP:REFUND even after the namespace is removed.
• An RfC is open to discuss the next steps following a trial which automatically applied pending changes to TFAs.

Technical news

• IP addresses of unregistered users are to be hidden from everyone. There is a rough draft of how IP addresses may be shown to users who need to see them. This currently details allowing administrators, checkusers, stewards and those with a new usergroup to view the full IP address of unregistered users. Editors with at least 500 edits and an account over a year old will be able to see all but the end of the IP address in the proposal. The ability to see the IP addresses hidden behind the mask would be dependent on agreeing to not share the parts of the IP address they can see with those who do not have access to the same information. Accessing part of or the full IP address of a masked editor would also be logged. Comments on the draft are being welcomed at the talk page.

Arbitration

• The community authorised COVID-19 general sanctions have been superseded by the COVID-19 discretionary sanctions following a motion at a case request. Alerts given and sanctions placed under the community authorised general sanctions are now considered alerts for and sanctions under the new discretionary sanctions.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:26, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 July 2021

• News and notes: Wikimania and a million other news stories

• Special report: Hardball in Hong Kong

• In the media: Larry is at it again

• Board of Trustees candidates: See the candidates

• Recent research: Gender bias and statistical fallacies, disinformation and mutual intelligibility

• Traffic report: Football, tennis and marveling at Loki

• News from the WMF: Uncapping our growth potential – interview with James Baldwin, Finance and Administration Department

• Humour: A little verse

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:10, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2021

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

Administrator changes

BusterD

Kees08 • Nickshanks • Protonk • Schissel • Ultraexactzz • Wknight94

CheckUser changes

TheresNoTime

Oversighter changes

TheresNoTime

ST47

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open to add a delay of one week from nomination to deletion for G13 speedy deletions.

Technical news

• Last week all wikis were very slow or not accessible for 30 minutes. This was due to server lag caused by regenerating dynamic lists on the Russian Wikinews after a large bulk import. (T287380)

Arbitration

• Following an amendment request, the committee has clarified that the Talk page exception to the 500/30 rule in remedy 5 of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 case does not apply to requested move discussions.

Miscellaneous

• You can vote for candidates in the 2021 Board of Trustees elections from 4 August to 17 August. Four community elected seats are up for election.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:17, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 August 2021

• News and notes: Enough time left to vote! IP ban

• In the media: Vive la différence!

• Wikimedians of the year: Seven Wikimedians of the year

• Gallery: Our community in 20 graphs

• News from Wiki Education: Changing the face of Wikipedia

• Recent research: IP editors, inclusiveness and empathy, cyclones, and world heritage

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Days of the Year Interview

• Traffic report: Olympics, movies, and Afghanistan

• Community view: Making Olympic history on Wikipedia

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:41, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

WikiCup 2021 September newsletter

The fourth round of the competition has finished with over 500 points being required to qualify for the final round. It was a hotly competitive round with two contestants, The Rambling Man and Epicgenius, each scoring over 3000 points, and six contestants scoring over 1000. All but one of the finalists achieved one or more FAs during the round, the exception being Bloom6132 who demonstrated that 61 "in the news" items produces an impressive number of points. Other contestants who made it to the final are Gog the Mild, Lee Vilenski, BennyOnTheLoose, Amakuru and Hog Farm. However, all their points are now swept away and everyone starts afresh in the final round.

Round 4 saw the achievement of 18 featured articles and 157 good articles. Bilorv scored for a 25-article good topic on Black Mirror but narrowly missed out on qualifying for the final round. There was enthusiasm for FARs, with 89 being performed, and there were 63 GARs and around 100 DYKs during the round. As we start round 5, we say goodbye to the eight competitors who didn't quite make it to the final round; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia, and we hope you will join us again next year. For other contestants, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them.

If you are concerned that your nomination, whether it be for a good article, a featured process, or anything else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:01, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2021

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

Administrator changes

Jake Wartenberg

Emperor • Viridian Bovary

Ashleyyoursmile → Viridian Bovary

Guideline and policy news

• Feedback is requested on the Universal Code of Conduct enforcement draft by the Universal Code of Conduct Phase 2 drafting committee.
• A RfC is open on whether to allow administrators to use extended confirmed protection on high-risk templates.
• A discussion is open to decide when, if ever, should discord logs be eligible for removal when posted onwiki (including whether to oversight them)
• A RfC on the next steps after the trial of pending changes on TFAs has resulted in a 30 day trial of automatic semi protection for TFAs.

Technical news

• The Score extension has been re-enabled on public wikis. It has been updated, but has been placed in safe mode to address unresolved security issues. Further information on the security issues can be found on the mediawiki page.

Arbitration

• A request for comment is in progress to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules. Comments and new proposals are welcome.

Miscellaneous

• The 2021 RfA review is now open for comments.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:44, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 September 2021

• News and notes: New CEO, new board members, China bans

• In the media: The future of Wikipedia

• Opinion: Wikimedians of Mainland China were warned

• Op-Ed: I've been desysopped

• Disinformation report: Paid promotional paragraphs in German parliamentary pages

• Discussion report: Editors discuss Wikipedia's vetting process for administrators

• Recent research: Wikipedia images for machine learning; Experiment justifies Wikipedia's high search rankings

• Community view: Is writing Wikipedia like making a quilt?

• Traffic report: Kanye, Emma Raducanu and 9/11

• News from Diff: Welcome to the first grantees of the Knowledge Equity Fund

• WikiProject report: The Random and the Beautiful

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:53, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2021

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

Administrator changes

Blablubbs

Alvestrand • Black Falcon • Deathphoenix • Dppowell • Mark Arsten • JGHowes (deceased)

Oversighter changes

Callanecc

Mkdw

Interface administrator changes

Galobtter

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, extended confirmed protection may be used preemptively on certain high-risk templates.
• Following a discussion at the Village Pump, there is consensus to treat discord logs the same as IRC logs. This means that discord logs will be oversighted if posted onwiki.

Technical news

• DiscussionTools has superseded Enterprisey's reply-link script. Editors may switch using the "Discussion tools" checkbox under Preferences → Beta features.

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.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:03, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 October 2021

• From the editor: Different stories, same place

• News and notes: The sockpuppet who ran for adminship and almost succeeded

• In the media: China bans, and is there intelligent life on this planet?

• Opinion: A photo on Wikipedia can ruin your life

• Discussion report: Editors brainstorm and propose changes to the Requests for adminship process

• Recent research: Welcome messages fail to improve newbie retention

• Community view: Reflections on the Chinese Wikipedia

• Traffic report: James Bond and the Giant Squid Game

• Technology report: Wikimedia Toolhub, winners of the Coolest Tool Award, and more

• Serendipity: How Wikipedia helped create a Serbian stamp

• Book review: Wikipedia and the Representation of Reality

• WikiProject report: Redirection

• Humour: A very Wiki crossword

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:12, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2021

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

Administrator changes

Clpo13

Brian0918 • JDoorjam • Karanacs • MrDarcy • Mindspillage

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

CheckUser changes

Dreamy Jazz • Ferret • GeneralNotability • Girth Summit • RoySmith

Oversight changes

Dreamy Jazz • LuK3

Guideline and policy news

• Phase 2 of the 2021 RfA review has commenced which will discuss potential solutions to address the 8 issues found in Phase 1. Proposed solutions that achieve consensus will be implemented and you may propose solutions till 07 November 2021.

Technical news

• Toolhub is a catalogue of tools which can be used on Wikimedia wikis. It is at https://toolhub.wikimedia.org/.

Arbitration

• GeneralNotability, Mz7 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections. Ivanvector and John M Wolfson are reserve commissioners.
• Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves to stand in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections from 07 November 2021 until 16 November 2021.

Miscellaneous

• The 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process has concluded with the appointment of five new CheckUsers and two new Oversighters.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:43, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

WikiCup 2021 November newsletter

The WikiCup is over for another year and the finalists can relax! Our Champion this year is The Rambling Man (submissions), who amassed over 5000 points in the final round, achieving 8 featured articles and almost 500 reviews. It was a very competitive round; seven of the finalists achieved over 1000 points in the round (enough to win the 2019 contest), and three scored over 3000 (enough to win the 2020 event). Our 2021 finalists and their scores were:

1. The Rambling Man (submissions) with 5072 points
2. Lee Vilenski (submissions) with 3276 points
3. Amakuru (submissions) with 3197 points
4. Epicgenius (submissions) with 1611 points
5. Gog the Mild (submissions) with 1571 points
6. BennyOnTheLoose (submissions) with 1420 points
7. Hog Farm (submissions) with 1043 points
8. Bloom6132 (submissions) with 528 points

All those who reached the final round will win awards. The following special awards will be made based on high performance in particular areas of content creation and review. Awards will be handed out in the next few days.

• The Rambling Man (submissions) wins the featured article prize, for 8 FAs in round 5.
• Lee Vilenski (submissions) wins the featured list prize, for 3 FLs in round 5.
• Gog the Mild (submissions) wins the featured topic prize, for 13 articles in a featured topic in round 5.
• Epicgenius (submissions) wins the good article prize, for 63 GAs in round 4.
• The Rambling Man (submissions) wins the good topic prize, for 86 articles in good topics in round 5.
• The Rambling Man (submissions) wins the reviewer prize, for 68 FAC reviews and 213 GAN reviews, both in round 5.
• Epicgenius (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 30 did you know articles in round 3 and 105 overall.
• Bloom6132 (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 71 in the news articles in round 1 and 284 overall.

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether they made it to the final round or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup, some of whom did very well. Wikipedia has benefitted greatly from the quality creations, expansions and improvements made, and the numerous reviews performed. Thanks to all who have taken part and helped out with the competition, not forgetting User:Jarry1250, who runs the scoring bot.

If you have views on whether the rules or scoring need adjustment for next year's contest, please comment on the WikiCup talk page. Next year's competition will begin on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to see you all in the 2022 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:55, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

ArbCom 2021 Elections voter message

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) 00:02, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 November 2021

• In the media: Denial: climate change, mass killings and pornography

• WikiCup report: The WikiCup 2021

• Deletion report: What we lost, what we gained

• From a Wikipedia reader: What's Matt Amodio?

• Arbitration report: ArbCom in 2021

• Discussion report: On the brink of change – RFA reforms appear imminent

• Technology report: What does it take to upload a file?

• WikiProject report: Interview with contributors to WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers

• Serendipity: "Did You Know ..." featured a photo of the wrong female WWII pilot

• News from Diff: Content translation tool helps create one million Wikipedia articles

• Traffic report: Reporting ticket sales on the edge of the Wiki, if Eternals should fail

• Recent research: Vandalizing Wikipedia as rational behavior

• Humour: A very new very Wiki crossword

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:45, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2021

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

Administrator changes

A Train • Berean Hunter • Epbr123 • GermanJoe • Sanchom • Mysid

Technical news

• Unregistered editors using the mobile website are now able to receive notices to indicate they have talk page messages. The notice looks similar to what is already present on desktop, and will be displayed on when viewing any page except mainspace and when editing any page. (T284642)
• The limit on the number of emails a user can send per day has been made global instead of per-wiki to help prevent abuse. (T293866)

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections is open until 23:59, 06 December 2021 (UTC).
• The already authorized standard discretionary sanctions for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes), broadly construed, have been made permanent.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:24, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Administrators will no longer be autopatrolled

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)

The Signpost: 28 December 2021

• From the editor: Here is the news

• News and notes: Jimbo's NFT, new arbs, fixing RfA, and financial statements

• Serendipity: Born three months before her brother?

• In the media: The past is not even past

• Recent research: STEM articles judged unsuitable for undergraduates below the first paragraph

• Arbitration report: A new crew for '22

• By the numbers: Four billion words and a few numbers

• Deletion report: We laughed, we cried, we closed as "no consensus"

• Gallery: Wikicommons presents: 2021

• Traffic report: Spider-Man, football and the departed

• Crossword: Another Wiki crossword for one and all

• Humour: Buying Wikipedia

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:06, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2022

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

Administrator changes

Amalthea • Ihcoyc (deceased) • Kateshortforbob • Kirill Lokshin • Rifleman 82 • Ryan Norton • Wrp103

Interface administrator changes

Mr. Stradivarius

CheckUser changes

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.

Arbitration

• Following the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Cabayi, Donald Albury, Enterprisey, Izno, Opabinia regalis, Worm That Turned, Wugapodes.

Miscellaneous

• 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.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:24, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

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.

If you have not seen it before, you can read more on Meta. If you want to make sure you don’t miss technical changes on the Wikimedia wikis, you can subscribe to the weekly technical newsletter.

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.

Thank you. /Johan (WMF)

18:12, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Welcome to the 2022 WikiCup!

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2022 competition has just begun and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. Even if you are a novice editor you should be able to advance to at least the second round, improving your editing skills as you go. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page. Any questions on the rules or on anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. The judges for the WikiCup this year are: Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:36, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Welcome to the 2022 WikiCup!

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2022 competition has just begun and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. Even if you are a novice editor you should be able to advance to at least the second round, improving your editing skills as you go. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page. Any questions on the rules or on anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. The judges for the WikiCup this year are: Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:01, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 January 2022

• Special report: WikiEd course leads to Twitter harassment

• News and notes: Feedback for Board of Trustees election

• Interview: CEO Maryana Iskander "four weeks in"

• Black History Month: What are you doing for Black History Month?

• Deletion report: Ringing in the new year: Subject notability guideline under discussion

• WikiProject report: The Forgotten Featured

• Arbitration report: New arbitrators look at new case and antediluvian sanctions

• Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2021

• Gallery: No Spanish municipality without a photograph

• Obituary: Twofingered Typist

• Op-Ed: Identifying and rooting out climate change denial

• Essay: The prime directive

• Opinion: Should the Wikimedia Foundation continue to accept cryptocurrency donations?

• In the media: Fuzzy-headed government editing

• Recent research: Articles with higher quality ratings have fewer "knowledge gaps"

• Serendipity: Pooh entered the Public Domain – but Tigger has to wait two more years

• Crossword: Cross swords with a crossword

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:20, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2022).

Administrator changes

AustralianRupert • Cimon Avaro • Euryalus • Jehochman • Nunh-huh

28bytes

Bureaucrat changes

28bytes

Interface administrator changes

Evad37 • Galobtter

Ragesoss

Guideline and policy news

• The Universal Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines have been published for consideration. Voting to ratify this guideline is planned to take place 7 March to 21 March. Comments can be made on the talk page.

Technical news

• 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.

Arbitration

• Community input is requested on several motions aimed at addressing discretionary sanctions that are no longer needed or overly broad.
• The Arbitration Committee has published a generalised comment regarding successful appeals of sanctions that it can review (such as checkuser blocks).
• A motion related to the Antisemitism in Poland case was passed following a declined case request.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2022 Steward elections will begin on 07 February 2022, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2022, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• Voting in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey is open until 11 February 2022.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:01, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 February 2022

• From the team: Selection of a new Signpost Editor-in-Chief

• News and notes: Impacts of Russian invasion of Ukraine

• Opinion: Why student editors are good for Wikipedia

• Special report: A presidential candidate's team takes on Wikipedia

• In the media: Wiki-drama in the UK House of Commons

• Serendipity: War photographers: from Crimea (1850s) to the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022)

• Technology report: Community Wishlist Survey results

• WikiProject report: 10 years of tea

• Featured content: Featured Content returns

• Deletion report: The 10 most SHOCKING deletion discussions of February

• Recent research: How editors and readers may be emotionally affected by disasters and terrorist attacks

• Arbitration report: Parties remonstrate, arbs contemplate, skeptics coordinate

• By the numbers: Does birthplace affect the frequency of Wikipedia biography articles?

• Gallery: The vintage exhibit

• Traffic report: Euphoria, Pamela Anderson, lies and Netflix

• News from Diff: The Wikimania 2022 Core Organizing Team

• Crossword: A Crossword, featuring Featured Articles

• Humour: Notability of mailboxes

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:19, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Happy Adminship Anniversary!

Wishing BigHaz a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Birthday Committee! Best wishes! CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 09:19, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2022).

Administrator changes

Modussiccandi

BOZ • Brookie (deceased) • Jackmcbarn • Jamesday • Jonathunder • Master of Puppets • Saravask

CheckUser changes

Callanecc

Oversighter changes

Callanecc

Guideline and policy news

• A RfC is open to change the wording of revision deletion criterion 1 to remove the sentence relating to non-infringing contributions.
• 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)
• The ability to undelete the talk page when undeleting a page using Special:Undelete or the API will be added soon. This change was requested in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey. (T295389)

Arbitration

• Several unused discretionary sanctions and article probation remedies have been rescinded. This follows the community feedback from the 2021 Discretionary Sanctions review.

Miscellaneous

• The 2022 appointees for the Ombuds commission are Érico, Faendalimas, Galahad, Infinite0694, Mykola7, Olugold, Udehb and Zabe as regular members and Ameisenigel and JJMC89 as advisory members.
• Following the 2022 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AntiCompositeNumber, BRPever, Hasley, TheresNoTime, and Vermont.
• The 2022 Community Wishlist Survey results have been published alongside the ranking of prioritized proposals.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:46, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

WikiCup 2022 March newsletter

And so ends the first round of the WikiCup. Last year anyone who scored more than zero points moved on to Round 2, but this was not the case this year, and a score of 13 or more was required to proceed. The top scorers in Round 1 were:

• Epicgenius, a finalist last year, who led the field with 1906 points, gained from 32 GAs and 19 DYKs, all on the topic of New York buildings.
• AryKun, new to the contest, was second with 1588 points, having achieved 2 FAs, 11 GAs and various other submissions, mostly on the subject of birds.
• Bloom6132, a WikiCup veteran, was in third place with 682 points, garnered from 51 In the news items and several DYKs.
• GhostRiver was close behind with 679 points, gained from achieving 12 GAs, mostly on ice hockey players, and 35 GARs.
• Kavyansh.Singh was in fifth place with 551 points, with an FA, a FL, and many reviews.
• SounderBruce was next with 454 points, gained from an FA and various other submissions, mostly on United States highways.
• Ktin, another WikiCup veteran, was in seventh place with 412 points, mostly gained from In the news items.

These contestants, like all the others who qualified for Round 2, now have to start scoring points again from scratch. Between them, contestants completed reviews of a large number of good articles as the contest ran concurrently with a GAN backlog drive. Well done all! To qualify for Round 3, contestants will need to finish Round 2 among the top thirty-two participants.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Anything that should have been claimed for in Round 1 is no longer eligible for points. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed.

Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:06, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 March 2022

• From the Signpost team: How The Signpost is documenting the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

• News and notes: Of safety and anonymity

• Eyewitness Wikimedian, Kharkiv, Ukraine: Countering Russian aggression with a camera

• Eyewitness Wikimedian, Vinnytsia, Ukraine: War diary

• Eyewitness Wikimedian, Western Ukraine: Working with Wikipedia helps

• Disinformation report: The oligarchs' socks

• In the media: Ukraine, Russia, and even some other stuff

• Recent research: Top scholarly citers, lack of open access references, predicting editor departures

• Wikimedian perspective: My heroes from Russia, Ukraine & beyond

• Discussion report: Athletes are less notable now

• Technology report: 2022 Wikimedia Hackathon

• Arbitration report: Skeptics given heavenly judgement, whirlwind of Discord drama begins to spin for tropical cyclone editors

• Traffic report: War, what is it good for?

• Deletion report: Ukraine, werewolves, Ukraine, YouTube pundits, and Ukraine

• Gallery: "All we are saying is, give peace a chance..."

• From the archives: Burn, baby burn

• Essay: Yes, the sky is blue

• Tips and tricks: Become a keyboard ninja

• On the bright side: The bright side of news

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:48, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2022).

Administrator changes

Firefly • Sdrqaz

Ad Orientem

Geschichte • Ryan Postlethwaite • Sabine's Sunbird • Wassupwestcoast

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open proposing a change to the minimum activity requirements for administrators.

Technical news

• 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)

Arbitration

• 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.

Miscellaneous

• 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.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:12, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

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:

1. Made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least a 12-month period OR
2. Made fewer than 100 edits over a 60-month period

Administrators at risk for being desysopped under these criteria will continue to be notified ahead of time. Thank you for your continued work.

22:52, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 April 2022

• News and notes: Double trouble

• In the media: The battlegrounds outside and inside Wikipedia

• Special report: Ukrainian Wikimedians during the war

• Eyewitness Wikimedian, Vinnytsia, Ukraine: War diary (Part 2)

• Technology report: 8-year-old attribution issues in Media Viewer

• Featured content: Wikipedia's best content from March

• In focus: Editing difficulties on Russian Wikipedia

• Gallery: A voyage around the world with WLM winners

• Interview: On a war and a map

• Serendipity: Wikipedia loves photographs, but hates photographers

• Traffic report: Justice Jackson, the Smiths, and an invasion

• Recent research: Student edits as "civic engagement"; how Wikipedia readers interact with images

• News from the WMF: How Smart is the SMART Copyright Act?

• Essay: The problem with elegant variation

• Humour: Really huge message boxes

• From the archives: Wales resigned WMF board chair in 2006 reorganization

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:39, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

WikiCup 2022 May newsletter

The second round of the 2022 WikiCup has now finished. It was a high-scoring round and contestants needed 115 points to advance to round 3. There were some very impressive efforts in round 2, with the top seven contestants all scoring more than 500 points. A large number of the points came from the 11 featured articles and the 79 good articles achieved in total by contestants.

Our top scorers in round 2 were:

1. Epicgenius, with 1264 points from 2 featured article, 4 good articles and 18 DYKs. Epicgenius was a finalist last year but has now withdrawn from the contest as he pursues a new career path.
2. AryKun, with 1172 points from two featured articles, one good article and a substantial number of featured article and good article reviews.
3. Bloom6132, with 605 points from 44 in the news items and 4 DYKs.
4. Sammi Brie, with 573 points from 8 GAs and 21 DYKs.
5. Ealdgyth, with 567 points from 11 GAs and 34 good and featured article reviews.
6. Panini!, with 549 points from 1 FA, 4 GAs and several other sources.
7. Lee Vilenski, with 545 points from 1 FA, 4 GAs and a number of reviews.

The rules for featured and good article reviews require the review to be of sufficient length; brief quick fails and very short reviews will generally not be awarded points. Remember also that DYKs cannot be claimed until they have appeared on the main page. As we enter the third round, any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed now, and anything you forgot to claim in round 2 cannot! Remember too, that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:39, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2022).

Administrator changes

Colin M

David.Monniaux • Fribbler • Grue • Kpjas • West.andrew.g

CheckUser changes

Ks0stm

Oversighter changes

Ks0stm

Guideline and policy news

• 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.

Technical news

• 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.

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.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:33, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 May 2022

• From the team: A changing of the guard

• News and notes: 2022 Wikimedia Board elections

• Community view: Have your say in the 2022 Wikimedia Foundation Board elections

• Opinion: The Wikimedia Endowment – a lack of transparency

• In the media: Putin, Jimbo, Musk and more

• Special report: Three stories of Ukrainian Wikimedians during the war

• In focus: Measuring gender diversity in Wikipedia articles

• Discussion report: Portals, April Fools, admin activity requirements and more

• WikiProject report: WikiProject COVID-19 revisited

• Technology report: A new video player for Wikimedia wikis

• Featured content: Featured content of April

• Interview: Wikipedia's pride

• Serendipity: Those thieving image farms

• Recent research: 35 million Twitter links analysed

• Tips and tricks: The reference desks of Wikipedia

• Traffic report: Strange highs and strange lows

• News from Diff: Winners of the Human rights and Environment special nomination by Wiki Loves Earth announced

• News from the WMF: The EU Digital Services Act: What’s the Deal with the Deal?

• Video: How the entire country of Qatar was blocked from editing

• Gallery: Diving under the sea for World Oceans Day

• From the archives: The Onion and Wikipedia

• Essay: How not to write a Wikipedia article

• Humour: A new crossword

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:45, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2022).

Administrator changes

Tamzin

Barek • Darkwind • Geometry guy • ProcseeBot • RoyBoy • Sean Whitton • Valereee • Visorstuff • WAvegetarian

Sn0wflake → VersedFenrir

CheckUser changes

Ivanvector

Guideline and policy news

• Several areas of improvement collated from community member votes have been identified in the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines. The areas of improvement have been sent back for review and you are invited to provide input on these areas.

Technical news

• 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.
• An arbitration case regarding WikiProject Tropical Cyclones has been closed.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:55, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 June 2022

• News and notes: WMF inks new rules on government-ordered takedowns, blasts Russian feds' censor demands, spends big bucks

• In the media: Editor given three-year sentence, big RfA makes news, Guy Standing takes it sitting down

• Special report: "Wikipedia's independence" or "Wikimedia's pile of dosh"?

• Discussion report: MoS rules on CCP name mulled, XRV axe plea nulled, BLPPROD drafting bid pulled

• Opinion: Picture of the Day – how Adam plans to ru(i)n it

• Featured content: Articles on Scots' clash, Yank's tux, Austrian's action flick deemed brilliant prose

• Essay: RfA trend line haruspicy: fact or fancy?

• Recent research: Wikipedia versus academia (again), tables' "immortality" probed

• Serendipity: Was she really a Swiss lesbian automobile racer?

• News from the WMF: Wikimedia Enterprise signs first deals

• Traffic report: Top view counts for shows, movies, and celeb lawsuit that keeps on giving

• Gallery: Celebration of summer, winter

• Humour: Shortcuts, screwballers, Simon & Garfunkel

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:30, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

WikiCup 2022 July newsletter

The third round of the 2022 WikiCup has now come to an end. Each of the sixteen contestants who made it into the fourth round had at least 180 points, which is a lower figure than last year when 294 points were needed to progress to round 4. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

• BennyOnTheLoose, with 746 points, a tally built both on snooker and other sports topics, and on more general subjects.
• Bloom6132, with 683 points, garnered mostly from "In the news" items and related DYKs.
• Sammi Brie, with 527, from a variety of submissions related to radio and television stations.

Between them contestants achieved 5 featured articles, 4 featured lists, 51 good articles, 149 DYK entries, 68 ITN entries, and 109 good article reviews. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is a good article nomination, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. WikiCup judges: Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:50, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2022).

Administrator changes

AA • Gwalla • Ioeth • Laurascudder • Moriori (deceased) • Nat • Rfl

Drilnoth → AFigureOfBlue

Bureaucrat changes

Lee Vilenski

Interface administrator changes

Nihiltres

Technical news

• user_global_editcount is a new variable that can be used in abuse filters to avoid affecting globally active users. (T130439)

Arbitration

• An arbitration case regarding conduct in deletion-related editing has been opened.

Miscellaneous

• The New Pages Patrol queue has around 10,000 articles to be reviewed. As all administrators have the patrol right, please consider helping out. The queue is here. For further information on the state of the project, see the latest NPP newsletter.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:28, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 August 2022

• From the editors: Rise of the machines, or something

• News and notes: Information considered harmful

• In the media: Censorship, medieval hoaxes, "pathetic supervillains", FB-WMF AI TL bid, dirty duchess deeds done dirt cheap

• Op-Ed: The "recession" affair

• Eyewitness Wikimedian, Vinnytsia, Ukraine: War diary (part 3)

• Election guide: The chosen six: 2022 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees elections

• Community view: Youth culture and notability

• Opinion: Criminals among us

• Arbitration report: Winds of change blow for cyclone editors, deletion dustup draws toward denouement

• Deletion report: This is Gonzo Country

• Discussion report: Notability for train stations, notices for mobile editors, noticeboards for the rest of us

• Traffic report: US TV, JP ex-PM, outer space, and politics of IN, US, UK top charts for July

• Featured content: A little list with surprisingly few lists

• Tips and tricks: Cleaning up awful citations with Citation bot

• In focus: Wikidata insights from a handy little tool

• On the bright side: Ukrainian Wikimedians during the war — three (more) stories

• Essay: How to research an image

• Recent research: A century of rulemaking on Wikipedia analyzed

• Serendipity: Don't cite Wikipedia

• Gallery: A backstage pass

• From the archives: 2012 Russian Wikipedia shutdown as it happened

• Humour: Why did the chicken cross the road?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:37, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2022).

Administrator changes

Valereee

Anthony Appleyard (deceased) • Capitalistroadster • Samsara

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC has been closed with consensus to add javascript that will show edit notices for editors editing via a mobile device. This only works for users using a mobile browser, so iOS app editors will still not be able to see edit notices.
• An RfC has been closed with the consensus that train stations are not inherently notable.

Technical news

• The Wikimania 2022 Hackathon will take place virtually from 11 August to 14 August.
• Administrators will now see links on user pages for "Change block" and "Unblock user" instead of just "Block user" if the user is already blocked. (T308570)

Arbitration

• The arbitration case request Geschichte has been automatically closed after a 3 month suspension of the case.

Miscellaneous

• You can vote for candidates in the 2022 Board of Trustees elections from 16 August to 30 August. Two community elected seats are up for election.
• Wikimania 2022 is taking place virtually from 11 August to 14 August. The schedule for wikimania is listed here. There are also a number of in-person events associated with Wikimania around the world.
• Tech tip: When revision-deleting on desktop, hold ⇧ Shift between clicking two checkboxes to select every box in that range.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:44, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 August 2022

• News and notes: Admins wanted on English Wikipedia, IP editors not wanted on Farsi Wiki, donations wanted everywhere

• Special report: Wikimania 2022: no show, no show up?

• In the media: Truth or consequences? A tough month for truth

• Discussion report: Boarding the Trustees

• News from Wiki Education: 18 years a Wikipedian: what it means to me

• In focus: Thinking inside the box

• Tips and tricks: The unexpected rabbit hole of typo fixing in citations...

• Technology report: Vector (2022) deployment discussions happening now

• Serendipity: Two photos of every library on earth

• Featured content: Our man drills are safe for work, but our Labia is Fausta.

• Recent research: The dollar value of "official" external links

• Traffic report: What dreams (and heavily trafficked articles) may come

• Essay: Delete the junk!

• Gallery: A Fringe Affair (but not the show by Edward W. Feery that was on this year)

• Humour: CommonsComix No. 1

• From the archives: 5, 10, and 15 years ago

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:58, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2022).

Administrator changes

DanCherek • DatGuy • Femke • Z1720

Aldux • Graham Beards • Nyttend

Interface administrator changes

Mr. Stradivarius

Guideline and policy news

• A discussion is open to define a process by which Vector 2022 can be made the default for all users.
• An RfC is open to gain consensus on whether Fox News is reliable for science and politics.

Technical news

• The impact report on the effects of disabling IP editing on the Persian (Farsi) Wikipedia has been released.
• The WMF is looking into making a Private Incident Reporting System (PIRS) system to improve the reporting of harmful incidents through easier and safer reporting. You can leave comments on the talk page by answering the questions provided. Users who have faced harmful situations are also invited to join a PIRS interview to share the experience. To sign up please email Madalina Ana.

Arbitration

• An arbitration case regarding Conduct in deletion-related editing has been closed. The Arbitration Committee passed a remedy as part of the final decision to create a request for comment (RfC) on how to handle mass nominations at Articles for Deletion (AfD).
• The arbitration case request Jonathunder has been automatically closed after a 6 month suspension of the case.

Miscellaneous

• The new pages patrol (NPP) team has prepared an appeal to the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) for assistance with addressing Page Curation bugs and requested features. You are encouraged to read the open letter before it is sent, and if you support it, consider signing it. It is not a discussion, just a signature will suffice.
• Voting for candidates for the Wikimedia Board of Trustees is open until 6 September.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:11, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

WikiCup 2022 September newsletter

The fourth round of the WikiCup has now finished. 383 points were required to reach the final, and the new round has got off to a flying start with all finalists already scoring. In round 4, Bloom6132 with 939 points was the highest points-scorer, with a combination of DYKs and In the news items, followed by BennyOnTheLoose, Sammi Brie and Lee Vilenski. The points of all contestants are swept away as we start afresh for the final round.

At this stage, we say goodbye to the eight competitors who didn't quite make it; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia, and we hope you will join us again next year. For the remaining competitors, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them, and importantly, before the deadline on October 31st!

If you are concerned that your nomination, whether it be for a good article, a featured process, or anything else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. The judges are Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:43, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 September 2022

• News and notes: Board vote results, bot's big GET, crat chat gives new mop, WMF seeks "sound logo" and "organizer lab"

• In focus: NPP: Still heaven or hell for new users – and for the reviewers

• In the media: A few complaints and mild disagreements

• Special report: Decentralized Fundraising, Centralized Distribution

• Discussion report: Much ado about Fox News

• Interview: ScottishFinnishRadish's Request for Adminship

• Opinion: Are we ever going to reach consensus?

• Serendipity: Removing watermarks, copyright signs and cigarettes from photos

• Recent research: How readers assess Wikipedia's trustworthiness, and how they could in the future

• Traffic report: Kings and queens and VIPs

• Featured content: Farm-fresh content

• Gallery: A Festival Descends on the City: The Edinburgh Fringe, Pt. 2

• CommonsComix: CommonsComix 2: Paulus Moreelse

• From the archives: 5, 10, and 15 Years ago: September 2022

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:00, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2022).

Administrator changes

ScottishFinnishRadish

Staxringold

Ahoerstemeier (deceased) • Ched

Interface administrator changes

Cyberpower678

CheckUser changes

GorillaWarfare

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, consensus was found that if the rationale for a block depends on information that is not available to all administrators, that information should be sent to the Arbitration Committee, a checkuser or an oversighter for action (as applicable, per ArbCom's recent updated guidance) instead of the administrator making the block.
• Following an RfC, consensus has been found that, in the context of politics and science, the reliability of FoxNews.com is unclear and that additional considerations apply to its use.
• Community comment on the revised Universal Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines is requested until 8 October.

Technical news

• The Articles for creation helper script now automatically recognises administrator accounts which means your name does not need to be listed at WP:AFCP to help out. If you wish to help out at AFC, enable AFCH by navigating to Preferences → Gadgets and checking the "Yet Another AfC Helper Script" box.

Arbitration

• Remedy 8.1 of the Muhammad images case will be rescinded 1 November following a motion.
• A modification to the deletion RfC remedy in the Conduct in deletion-related editing case has been made to reaffirm the independence of the RfC and allow the moderators to split the RfC in two.
• The second phase of the 2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Review closes 3 October.

Miscellaneous

• An administrator's account was recently compromised. Administrators are encouraged to check that their passwords are secure, and reminded that ArbCom reserves the right to not restore adminship in cases of poor account security. You can also use two-factor authentication (2FA) to provide an extra level of security.
• Self-nominations for the electoral commission for the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections open 2 October and close 8 October.
• You are invited to comment on candidates in the 2022 CUOS appointments process.
• An RfC is open to discuss whether to make Vector 2022 the default skin on desktop.
• Tech tip: You can do a fuzzy search of all deleted page titles at Special:Undelete.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:42, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 October 2022

• From the team: A new goose on the roost

• News and notes: Wikipedians question Wikimedia fundraising ethics after "somewhat-viral" tweet

• News from the WMF: Governance updates from, and for, the Wikimedia Endowment

• In the media: Scribing, searching, soliciting, spying, and systemic bias

• Disinformation report: From Russia with WikiLove

• Recent research: Disinformatsiya: Much research, but what will actually help Wikipedia editors?

• Interview: Isabelle Belato on their Request for Adminship

• Featured content: Topics, lists, submarines and Gurl.com

• Serendipity: We all make mistakes – don’t we?

• Traffic report: Mama, they're in love with a criminal

• From the archives: Paid advocacy, a lawsuit over spelling mistakes, deleting Jimbo's article, and the death of Toolserver

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:42, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2022).

Administrator changes

• 
  • Isabelle Belato
  • Whpq
• 
• 
  • Atama
  • Astronautics~enwiki
  • Athaenara
  • Eddie891
  • GraemeL
  • Marianocecowski
  • Natalya
  • Pratyeka
  • SB Johnny

Interface administrator changes

• TheresNoTime
• Ragesoss

CheckUser changes

• 
  • Blablubbs
  • Firefly
• Joe Roe

Oversight changes

• DGG

Guideline and policy news

• The article creation at scale RfC opened on 3 October and will be open until at least 2 November.
• An RfC is open to discuss having open requests for adminship automatically placed on hold after the seven-day period has elapsed, pending closure or other action by a bureaucrat.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 13 November 2022 until 22 November 2022 to stand in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections.
• The arbitration case request titled Athaenara has been resolved by motion.
• The arbitration case Reversal and reinstatement of Athaenara's block has entered the proposed decision stage.
• AmandaNP, Mz7 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2022 Arbitration Committee Elections. Xaosflux and Dr vulpes are reserve commissioners.

Miscellaneous

• The 2022 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process has concluded with the appointment of two new CheckUsers.
• You can add yourself to the centralised page listing time zones of administrators.
• Tech tip: Wikimarkup in a block summary is parsed in the notice that the blockee sees. You can use templates with custom options to specify situations like {{rangeblock|create=yes}} or {{uw-ublock|contains profanity}}.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:22, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

WikiCup 2022 November newsletter

The 2022 WikiCup has drawn to a close with the final round going down to the wire. The 2022 champion is

• Lee Vilenski (1752 points), who won in 2020 and was runner up in both 2019 and last year. In the final round he achieved 3 FAs and 15 GAs, mostly on cue sports. He was closely followed by
• Bloom6132 (1732), who specialised in "In the news" items and DYKs, and who has reached the final round of the Cup for the past three years. Next was
• BennyOnTheLoose (1238), another cue sports enthusiast, also interested in songs, followed by
• Muboshgu (1082), an "In the news" contributor, a seasoned contestant who first took part in the Cup ten years ago. Other finalists were
• Sammi Brie (930), who scored with a featured article, good articles and DYKs on TV and radio stations,
• Kavyansh.Singh (370), who created various articles on famous Americans, including an FA on Louis H. Bean, famed for his prediction of election outcomes. Next was
• PCN02WPS (292), who scored with good articles and DYKs on sporting and other topics and
• Z1720 (25) who had DYKs on various topics including historic Canadians.

During the WikiCup, contestants achieved 37 featured articles, 349 good articles, 360 featured article reviews, 683 good article reviews and 480 In the news items, so Wikipedia has benefited greatly from the activities of WikiCup competitors. Well done everyone! All those who reached the final round will receive awards and the following special awards will be made, based on high performance in particular areas of content creation and review. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, these prizes are awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round, or the overall leader in this field.

• Lee Vilenski wins the featured article prize, for a total of 6 FAs during the course of the competition and 3 in the final round.
• Kavyansh.Singh wins the featured list prize, for 3 FLs in round 2.
• Adam Cuerden wins the featured picture prize, for 39 FPs during the competition.
• Z1720 wins the featured article reviewer prize, for 35 FARs in round 4.
• Epicgenius wins the good article prize, for 32 GAs in round 1.
• SounderBruce wins the featured topic prize, for 4 FT articles in round 1.
• Lee Vilenski wins the good topic prize, for 34 GT articles in round 5.
• Sammi Brie wins the good article reviewer prize, for 71 GARs overall.
• Sammi Brie wins the Did you know prize, for 30 DYKs in round 3 and 106 overall.
• Bloom6132 wins the In the news prize, for 106 ITNs in round 5 and 289 overall.

Next year's competition will begin on 1 January and possible changes to the rules and scoring are being discussed on the discussion page. You are invited to sign up to take part in the contest; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to have a good turnout for the 2023 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners and finalists, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:28, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 November 2022

• News and notes: English Wikipedia editors: "We don't need no stinking banners"

• In the media: "The most beautiful story on the Internet"

• Interview: Lisa Seitz-Gruwell on WMF fundraising in the wake of big banner ad RfC

• Opinion: Privacy on Wikipedia in the cyberpunk future

• Disinformation report: Missed and Dissed

• Op-Ed: Diminishing returns for article quality

• Book review: Writing the Revolution

• Technology report: Galactic dreams, encyclopedic reality

• Essay: The Six Million FP Man

• Tips and tricks: (Wiki)break stuff

• Recent research: Study deems COVID-19 editors smart and cool, questions of clarity and utility for WMF's proposed "Knowledge Integrity Risk Observatory"

• Featured content: A great month for featured articles

• Obituary: A tribute to Michael Gäbler

• Concept: The relevance of legal certainty to the English Wikipedia

• Traffic report: Musical deaths, murders, Princess Di's nominative determinism, and sports

• From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago

• CommonsComix: Joker's trick

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:40, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2022).

Administrator changes

• Eddie891
• Euryalus
• TheresNoTime

• Alex.muller
• Excirial
• RedWordSmith
• Ron Ritzman
• TheresNoTime
• Stephen

Interface administrator changes

TheresNoTime

TheresNoTime

CheckUser changes

TheresNoTime

Oversight changes

TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

• Consensus has been found in an RfC to automatically place RfAs on hold after one week.
• The article creation at scale RfC has been closed.
• An RfC on the banners for the December 2022 fundraising campaign has been closed.

Technical news

• A new preference named "Enable limited width mode" has been added to the Vector 2022 skin. The preference is also shown as a toggle on every page if your monitor is 1600 pixels or wider. When disabled it removes the whitespace added by Vector 2022 on the left and right of the page content. Disabling this preference has the same effect as enabling the wide-vector-2022 gadget. (T319449)

Arbitration

• Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 12, 2022 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.
• The proposed decision for the 2021-22 review of the discretionary sanctions system is open.
• The arbitration case Reversal and reinstatement of Athaenara's block has been closed.
• The arbitration case Stephen has been opened and the proposed decision is expected 1 December 2022.
• A motion has modified the procedures for contacting an admin facing Level 2 desysop.

Miscellaneous

• Tech tip: A single IPv6 connection usually has access to a "subnet" of 18 quintillion IPs. Add /64 to the end of an IP in Special:Contributions to see all of a subnet's edits, and consider blocking the whole subnet rather than an IP that may change within a minute.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:43, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 January 2023

• News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation ousts, bans quarter of Arabic Wikipedia admins

• In the media: Odd bedfellows, Elon and Jimbo, reliable sources for divorces, and more

• Interview: ComplexRational's RfA debrief

• Technology report: Wikimedia Foundation's Abstract Wikipedia project "at substantial risk of failure"

• Essay: Mobile editing

• Arbitration report: Arbitration Committee Election 2022

• Recent research: Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement in talk page disputes

• Serendipity: Wikipedia about FIFA World Cup 2022: quick, factual and critical

• Featured content: Would you like to swing on a star?

• Traffic report: Football, football, football! Wikipedia Football Club!

• CommonsComix: #4: The Course of WikiEmpire

• From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:44, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Welcome to the 2023 WikiCup!

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2023 competition has just begun and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. Even if you are a novice editor you should be able to advance to at least the second round, improving your editing skills as you go. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page ready for you to take part. Any questions on the scoring, rules or anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. The judges for the WikiCup this year are: Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:16, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2022).

Administrator changes

• ComplexRational
• Extraordinary Writ

Stephen

• Andrew Yong
• Dbenbenn
• DESiegel
• GlassCobra
• Joe Decker
• Nancy
• Pathoschild
• StuffOfInterest
• William Pietri
• Wwwwolf
• Xdamr

Interface administrator changes

Nihiltres

CheckUser changes

Moneytrees

• Ivanvector
• SilkTork

Oversighter changes

• GeneralNotability
• Moneytrees

• Guerillero
• SilkTork

Guideline and policy news

• Speedy deletion criterion A5 (transwikied articles) has been repealed following an unopposed proposal.

Arbitration

• Following the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, CaptainEek, GeneralNotability, Guerillero, L235, Moneytrees, Primefac, SilkTork.
• The 2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Review has concluded with many changes to the discretionary sanctions procedure including a change of the name to "contentious topics". The changes are being implemented over the coming month.
• The arbitration case Stephen has been closed.

Miscellaneous

• Voting for the Sound Logo has closed and the winner is expected to be announced February to April 2023.
• Tech tip: You can view information about IP addresses in a centralised location using bullseye which won the Newcomer award in the recent Coolest Tool Awards.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:08, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 January 2023

• From the team: We heard zoomers liked fortnights: the biweekly Signpost rides again

• Special report: Coverage of 2022 bans reveals editors serving long sentences in Saudi Arabia since 2020

• News and notes: Revised Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines up for vote, WMF counsel departs, generative models under discussion

• In the media: Court orders user data in libel case, Saudi Wikipedia in the crosshairs, Larry Sanger at it again

• Technology report: View it! A new tool for image discovery

• In focus: Busting into Grand Central

• Serendipity: How I bought part of Wikipedia – for less than $100

• Gallery: What is our responsibility when it comes to images?

• Humour: New geologically speedy deletion criteria introduced

• Opinion: Good old days, in which fifth-symbol-lacking lipograms roam'd our librarious litany

• Featured content: Flip your lid

• Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2022

• From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:12, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2023).

Administrator changes

Gimmetrow

• Bjelleklang
• Bob the Wikipedian
• Leithp
• WhisperToMe
• 100 inactive admins

CheckUser changes

• BDD
• Bradv
• Donald Albury
• Maxim
• MusikAnimal

Oversighter changes

• BDD
• Bradv
• Donald Albury
• Maxim

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, the administrator policy now requires that prior written consent be gained from the Arbitration Committee to mark a block as only appealable to the committee.
• Following a community discussion, consensus has been found to impose the extended-confirmed restriction over the topic areas of Armenia and Azerbaijan and Kurds and Kurdistan.

Technical news

• The Vector 2022 skin has become the default for desktop users of the English Wikipedia.

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 has been opened and the proposed decision is expected 24 February 2023.
• In December, the contentious topics procedure was adopted which replaces the former discretionary sanctions system. The contentious topics procedure is now in effect following an initial implementation period. There is a detailed summary of the changes and administrator instructions for the new procedure. The arbitration clerk team are taking suggestions, concerns, and unresolved questions about this new system at their noticeboard.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2023 Steward elections will begin on 05 February 2023, 21:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2023, 21:00 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• Voting in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey will begin on 10 February 2023 and end on 24 February 2023. You can submit, discuss and revise proposals until 6 February 2023.
• Tech tip: Syntax highlighting is available in both the 2011 and 2017 Wikitext editors. It can help make editing paragraphs with many references or complicated templates easier.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:37, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 February 2023

• From the editor: New for the Signpost: Author pages, tag pages, and a decent article search function

• News and notes: Foundation update on fundraising, new page patrol, Tides, and Wikipedia blocked in Pakistan

• Section 230: Twenty-six words that created the internet, and the future of an encyclopedia

• Disinformation report: Wikipedia on Santos

• Special report: Legal status of Wikimedia projects "unclear" under potential European legislation

• In the media: Furor over new Wikipedia skin, followup on Saudi bans, and legislative debate

• Op-Ed: Estonian businessman and political donor brings lawsuit against head of national Wikimedia chapter

• Opinion: Study examines cultural leanings of Wikimedia projects' visual art coverage

• Recent research: Wikipedia's "moderate yet systematic" liberal citation bias

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Organized Labour

• Tips and tricks: XTools: Data analytics for your list of created articles

• Featured content: 20,000 Featureds under the Sea

• Traffic report: Films, deaths and ChatGPT

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:43, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 February 2023

• News and notes: Terms of Use update, Steward elections, and Wikipedia back in Pakistan

• In the media: Arbitrators open case after article alleges Wikipedia "intentionally distorts" Holocaust coverage

• Disinformation report: The "largest con in corporate history"?

• Essay: Machine-written articles: a new challenge for Wikipedia

• Tips and tricks: All about writing at DYK

• Featured content: Eden, lost.

• Gallery: Love is in the air

• Traffic report: Superbowl? Pfft. Give me some Bollywood! Yours sincerely, the world

• From the archives: 5, 10, and 15 years ago: Let's (not) delete the Main Page!

• Cobwebs: Editorial: The loss of the moral high ground

• Humour: The RfA Candidate's Song

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:01, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2023).

Administrator changes

The Wordsmith

• Fuhghettaboutit
• Spinningspark (deceased)

CheckUser changes

Callanecc

Oversighter changes

Callanecc

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, F10 (useless non-media files) has been deprecated.
• Following a request for comment, the Portal CSD criteria (P1 (portal subject to CSD as an article) and P2 (underpopulated portal)) have been deprecated.
• A request for comment is open to discuss making the closing instructions for the requested moves process a guideline.

Technical news

• The results of the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey have been posted.

Arbitration

• Remedy 11 ("Request for Comment") of the Conduct in deletion-related editing case has been rescinded.
• The proposed decision for the Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 case is expected 7 March 2023.
• A case related to the Holocaust in Poland is expected to be opened soon.

Miscellaneous

• The 2023 appointees for the Ombuds commission are AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, JJMC89, MdsShakil, Minorax and Renvoy as regular members and Zabe as advisory members.
• Following the 2023 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Mykola7, Superpes15, and Xaosflux.
• The Terms of Use update cycle has started, which includes a [p]roposal for better addressing undisclosed paid editing. Feedback is being accepted until 24 April 2023.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:18, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

WikiCup 2023 March newsletter

So ends the first round of the 2023 WikiCup. Everyone with a positive score moved on to Round 2, with 54 contestants qualifying. The top scorers in Round 1 were:

• Unlimitedlead with 1205 points, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with two featured articles on historical figures and several featured article candidate reviews.
• Epicgenius was in second place with 789 points; a seasoned WikiCup competitor he specialises in buildings and locations in New York.
• FrB.TG was in third place with 625 points, garnered from a featured article on a filmmaker which qualified for an impressive number of bonus points.
• TheJoebro64, another WikiCup newcomer, came next with 600 points gained from two featured articles on video games.
• Iazyges was in fifth place with 532 points, from two featured articles on classical history.

The top sixteen contestants at the end of Round 1 had all scored over 300 points; these included LunaEatsTuna, Thebiguglyalien, Sammi Brie, Trainsandotherthings, Lee Vilenski, Juxlos, Unexpectedlydian, SounderBruce, Kosack, BennyOnTheLoose and PCN02WPS. It was a high-scoring start to the competition.

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start again from scratch. The first round finished on February 26. Remember that any content promoted after that date but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Some contestants made claims before the new submissions pages were set up, and they will need to resubmit them. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed.

If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:36, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 9 March 2023

• News and notes: What's going on with the Wikimedia Endowment?

• Technology report: Second flight of the Soviet space bears: Testing ChatGPT's accuracy

• In the media: What should Wikipedia do? Publish Russian propaganda? Be less woke? Cover the Holocaust in Poland differently?

• Featured content: In which over two-thirds of the featured articles section needs to be copied over to WikiProject Military History's newsletter

• Recent research: "Wikipedia's Intentional Distortion of the Holocaust" in Poland and "self-focus bias" in coverage of global events

• From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:40, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 March 2023

• News and notes: Wikimania submissions deadline looms, Russian government after our lucky charms, AI woes nix CNET from RS slate

• Eyewitness: Three more stories from Ukrainian Wikimedians

• In the media: Paid editing, plagiarism payouts, proponents of a ploy, and people peeved at perceived preferences

• Featured content: Way too many featured articles

• Interview: 228/2/1: the inside scoop on Aoidh's RfA

• Traffic report: Who died? Who won? Who lost?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:15, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 April 2023

• From the editor: Some long-overdue retractions

• News and notes: Sounding out, a universal code of conduct, and dealing with AI

• In the media: Twiddling Wikipedia during an online contest, and other news

• Arbitration report: "World War II and the history of Jews in Poland" case is ongoing

• Featured content: Hail, poetry! Thou heav'n-born maid

• Recent research: Language bias: Wikipedia captures at least the "silhouette of the elephant", unlike ChatGPT

• From the archives: April Fools' through the ages

• Disinformation report: Sus socks support suits, seems systemic

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:44, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2023).

Administrator changes

Aoidh

KillerChihuahua

CheckUser changes

Ferret

Guideline and policy news

• A community RfC is open to discuss whether reports primarily involving gender-related disputes or controversies should be referred to the Arbitration enforcement noticeboard.

Technical news

• Some older web browsers will not be able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis starting this week. This mainly affects users of Internet Explorer 11. (T178356)
• The rollback of Vector 2022 RfC has found no consensus to rollback to Vector legacy, but has found rough consensus to disable "limited width" mode by default.
• A link to the user's Special:CentralAuth page will now appear in the subtitle links shown on Special:Contributions. This was voted #17 in the Community Wishlist Survey 2023.

Arbitration

• The Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 case has been closed.
• A case about World War II and the history of Jews in Poland has been opened, with the first evidence phase closing 6 April 2023.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:10, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 April 2023

• News and notes: Staff departures at Wikimedia Foundation, Jimbo hands in the bits, and graphs' zeppelin burns

• In the media: Contested truth claims in Wikipedia

• Obituary: Remembering David "DGG" Goodman

• Arbitration report: Holocaust in Poland, Jimbo in the hot seat, and a desysopping

• Opinion: What Jimbo's question revealed about scamming

• Op-Ed: Wikipedia as an anchor of truth

• Special report: Signpost statistics between years 2005 and 2022

• News from the WMF: Collective planning with the Wikimedia Foundation

• Featured content: In which we described the featured articles in rhyme again

• From the archives: April Fools' through the ages, part two

• Humour: The law of hats

• Traffic report: Long live machine, the future supreme

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:16, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Administrative permissions and inactivity reminder

This is a reminder that established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have made fewer than 100 edits over a 60-month period. You are receiving this annual reminder since you have averaged less than 50 edits per year over the last 5 years.

Inactive administrators are encouraged to reengage with the project in earnest rather than to make token edits to avoid loss of administrative permissions. Resources and support for reengaging with the project are available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/administrators. If you do not intend to be engaged with the project in the foreseeable future, please consider voluntarily resigning your administrative permissions by making a request at the bureaucrats' noticeboard.

Thank you for your past contributions to the project. — JJMC89 bot 02:26, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

WikiCup 2023 May newsletter

The second round of the 2023 WikiCup has now finished. Contestants needed to have scored 60 points to advance into round 3. Our top five scorers in round 2 all included a featured article among their submissions and each scored over 500 points. They were:

• Iazyges (1040) with three FAs on Byzantine emperors, and lots of bonus points.
• Unlimitedlead (847), with three FAs on ancient history, one GA and nine reviews.
• Epicgenius (636), a WikiCup veteran, with one FA on the New Amsterdam Theatre, four GAs and eleven DYKs
• BennyOnTheLoose (553), a seasoned competitor, with one FA on snooker, six GAs and seven reviews.
• FrB.TG (525), with one FA, a Lady Gaga song and a mass of bonus points.

Other notable performances were put in by Sammi Brie, Thebiguglyalien, MyCatIsAChonk, PCN02WPS, and AirshipJungleman29.

So far contestants have achieved thirteen featured articles between them, one being a joint effort, and forty-nine good articles. The judges are pleased with the thorough reviews that are being performed, and have hardly had to reject any. As we enter the third round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:14, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2023).

Administrator changes

Spicy

• Ale jrb
• Dbachmann
• DGG (deceased)
• Jimbo Wales

CheckUser changes

Jimbo Wales

Oversighter changes

Jimbo Wales

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment about removing administrative privileges in specified situations is open for feedback.

Technical news

• Progress has started on the Page Triage improvement project. This is to address the concerns raised by the community in their 2022 WMF letter that requested improvements be made to the tool.

Arbitration

• The proposed decision in the World War II and the history of Jews in Poland case is expected 11 May 2023.

Miscellaneous

• The Wikimedia Foundation annual plan 2023-2024 draft is open for comment and input through May 19. The final plan will be published in July 2023.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:22, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

List of endorsements in the 2020 Democratic Presidential primaries‎

Thank you for speedily deleting List of endorsements in the 2020 Democratic Presidential primaries‎ under db-a10. Unfortunately the editor who created the article immediately recreated it, complete with the speedy deletion tag. I'm not sure what the right next step is here? Thanks for your help, Grachester (talk) 00:23, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Re-creating it with the tag is a neat trick. Best process now would be to look at either Proposed Deletion or Articles for Deletion. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 00:35, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, appreciate it. Grachester (talk) 00:37, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Notice of noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:53, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

I see you have removed my request for you to not delete articles before they are eligible for deletion. So, I have raised the issue at WP:AN. Thank you. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:56, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

I've removed it as a sign of "message received and understood", but you're welcome to remain on your high horse if you wish. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 01:01, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

This sort of uncivil comment isn't needed - or helpful. I get being annoyed (both at being drug to AN, and to potentially losing bits to inactivity) but this sort of behavior isn't going to help you in any way. Please don't repeat this behavior. SQL^{Query Me!} 01:04, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

I have no intention thereof. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 01:07, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. I've been at the same point too fwiw. I got a warning from an arb when I came back around for doing something that was routine last I knew. I apologize if the tone of my message was too strong, but I am around if there's anything I can help with. SQL^{Query Me!} 01:19, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

The tone of your message was fine, and I thank you for the offer. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 04:18, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

I assume your final remarks there are as close as I'll get to an apology for the claims of incompetence. That's fine by me, under the circumstances. I would suggest that you consider not repeating false claims of deletions "waaay before" they are due to be deleted in future. I'll stay out of your fiefdom, but it's better not to make things up about people who make the mistake of crossing that border. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 13:00, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi BigHaz, it's good to see you are coming back. Liz is a very sweet person and I would hope you do understand that her actions were with context (in the past, we've had admin accounts hacked and random actions taken from them). She obviously did not consider you incompetent (she simply suspected your account had been taken over) nor is someone who would wish to antagonise admins who are here to support the project, such as you. I am so glad you are back, and so are others -- every helping hand and every small bit we do helps the project. And all of us are on the same side, Liz, you, me. So don't feel let down by what happened when you came back. Like I said, don't hold things against Liz and hopefully, you'll have better experiences as days proceed. Welcome back. Let me know if I can assist in anyway. Warmly, Lourdes 06:24, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not "let down", by any means. I'm simply going to leave her little fiefdom to her, since it clearly upsets her enough to make unfounded accusations multiple times, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. She can help the project by policing that sort of thing, and I'll stay well away from the border. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 00:15, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 8 May 2023

• News and notes: New legal "deVLOPments" in the EU

• In the media: Vivek's smelly socks, online safety, and politics

• Recent research: Gender, race and notability in deletion discussions

• Featured content: I wrote a poem for each article, I found rhymes for all the lists; My first featured picture of this year now finally exists!

• Arbitration report: "World War II and the history of Jews in Poland" approaches conclusion

• News from the WMF: Planning together with the Wikimedia Foundation

• Special report: There Shall Be Seasons Refreshing – Stories from WikiConference India 2023

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:23, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

R3 deletion

Hi, I don't think MasterChef: Dessert Makers and MasterChef Australia: Dessert Makers qualify as implausible misnomers to make. I think that this is definitely the sort of fairly common incorrect name which should be sent to RfD instead. Personally, I think it's a pretty helpful redirect and should be kept – which is as good a rationale as any that a CSDed page should be undeleted. J947 † ^edits 06:11, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Given the capitalisation and colons, I'm not convinced. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 07:18, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

That's precisely how MasterChef: Dessert Masters is stylised. Also note search is case-insensitive. J947 † ^edits 00:25, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Noted. My opinion remains unchanged. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 01:49, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

I can assure you that others will not think this way (it is the correct spelling and we don't seem to have redirects pointing from MasterChef XXXXXX to MasterChef: XXXXXX); that the deletion is not unambiguous; that the redirect has a high chance of being kept at RfD. J947 † ^edits 07:26, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm happy for others not to share my opinion. As presented to me the better part of a week ago, however, the issue appeared sufficiently unambiguous as to merit the deletion. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 09:48, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Speedy deletion is intended to reduce the time spent on deletion discussions for pages or media with no practical chance of surviving discussion. As I said... J947 † ^edits 10:51, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I refer you to my earlier reply, particularly the second sentence. I also refer you to the comment I left in response to your other reply. I consider both matters closed, as you are aware of the way of contesting a CSD tag. You are free to do so in future, and I am sure you will do. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 10:04, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Look, I'm really struggling to see how Area codes 305, 645, and 786 qualifies for R3. For one, it isn't a misnomer, because the article covers area code 645. Secondly, the criterion specifically does not apply to redirects created as a result of a page move. J947 † ^edits 07:23, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

If the intention is to query every single deletion I'm performing, I'm not sure that's the best move. You are free to create, and indeed to re-create, articles deleted this way if it matters as much as it appears to in these instances. There are also methods of contesting a CSD tag. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 09:51, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Oh, believe me, I'm not targeting you. I saw the redirect at CAT:R3, thought "surely this wouldn't be deleted" but decided to leave the tag there and watchlist the page to see if it indeed would be. Ta-dah. It's best practice to discuss the matter on the deleter's talk page before contesting it formally – at least, if the admin realises their mistake, then it can be undeleted more easily. I don't intend to recreate every redirect incorrectly deleted by R3: telling the admin that they applied the criterion incorrectly (which, by the way, you certainly did) seems much more time-effective in the long run. J947 † ^edits 10:51, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not saying that you're targeting me. I'm simply pointing out that you do appear to have a particular axe to grind and I would rather you stop before it becomes a problem. In terms of contesting a CSD tag, by the way, the process is considerably simpler than you appear to believe. You turn up on the page, remove the tag and indicate by so doing that you believe the page shouldn't be speedily-deleted. You don't need to lie in wait to jump on someone who happens not to share your opinion of the matter. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 10:02, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes. I know. That's what I've done 38 times, without complaint. Now, just this once, I wondered if admins actually check these things at all so left it alone. It was deleted, completely indefensibly, and now you're doubling down. I'm aware the stakes are low, but that's somewhat the point of directly questioning you about it. It's so that it doesn't happen 100 more times. J947 † ^edits 22:15, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not "doubling down" on anything. I'm informing you - for the third or fourth time, I might add - of a process which you tell me that you are well aware of. Furthermore, you are telling me that you genuinely believe that doing something other than the process of which you are well aware is somehow a better idea. That's not how these things work. The matter is closed, as far as I'm concerned, and I am not interested in further discussion since you are not interested in following the approved process. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 10:04, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

The page "Area codes 305, 645, and 786" qualifies for deletion, no matter the type of tag, because it does not conform to our rules for listing area codes. They are always listed in chronological order. So it is a "misnomer" of sorts. It should be deleted because no one is going to search for multiple area codes like that, even when area code 645 is finally installed in the NANP. kbrose (talk) 02:14, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

I see. However, it was created by a page move, and thus ineligible in that respect. (Thinking to search in numerical rather than chronological order seems inherently plausible to me – but YMMV, and it's not a particularly likely search term anyway.) J947 † ^edits 02:23, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Would it be too much to ask to move this discussion to the Talk page of the now-restored article (or perhaps to one or another of your existing Talk pages)? J947's presumably done with lying in wait for people, and can argue the point elsewhere if he wishes. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 02:33, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 May 2023

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My page was Speedy Deleted

i just want to why, so I can take corrections next time to keep the platform rules and regulations please. Chocobnj (talk) 18:24, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

You'll need to be more specific. Which page are we talking about? BigHaz - Schreit mich an 10:06, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Role of the Chinese Communist Party in lawmaking

Please undelete Role of the Chinese Communist Party in lawmaking. As a general rule pages should not be deleted after being merged, see Wikipedia:Merge and delete. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 13:37, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

I acted on a tag indicating that the page needed to be deleted to make room for a page move. Is this not the case? BigHaz - Schreit mich an 10:10, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

The fact that no page move happened is evidence that that isn't the case. It looks like Amigaoo's intent was to do a merge, not a page move at all, and in that case there was no valid reason for deletion. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 13:29, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

The fact that a move didn't happen isn't evidence that it won't, no. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 00:01, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

But events elsewhere makes it clear that one won't. Amigao merged some content from Role of the Chinese Communist Party in lawmaking to Legislative system of China. If their intention was to do a page move afterward, they could just as easily have done the merge the other way without any admin action, and they have edited the article since moving it so that's clearly not the case. In any event, the article at Legislative system of China, which you deleted to make way for a move from, is about far more than the role of the Chinese Communist Party in lawmaking so a move doesn't make sense.

Finally, you've ignored the fact that your deletion created a copyright violation, as explained at Wikipedia:Merge and delete, in addition to violating deletion policy. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:25, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

If you're intending to be belligerent about it, you'll get a considerably different response than if you're intending to be civil about it. There are plenty of things in life (and, occasionally, even here on Wikipedia) which I intend to do, but don't do as rapidly as I intend to for a variety of reasons. Sometimes (gasp!) I even do other things first before I do what I was intending to do.

If I were you, I would get in touch with the user to whom you refer and establish what their intentions are. If the response is "Whoops! Been meaning to make that move, so I'll get right onto it", there's no issue. If the response is "Whoops! I didn't mean to make that move at all", then we can take things from there. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 02:01, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

10 000 BC

Please undelete 10 000 BC. I don't see how it was obviously created in error, and as a general rule redirects from 2007 should not be speedy deleted without discussion. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 13:38, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Which general rule is this? BigHaz - Schreit mich an 10:11, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

I was extrapolating (possibly incorrectly) from R3, but you've still provided no evidence that the page was obviously created in error as the deletion criterion you used requires. This subcriterion was intended for things like Creating Category:Wargames introduced in 1971], where it's obvious a mistake was made, not cases like this. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 13:29, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Notice of noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.Fuzheado | Talk 02:02, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

CCoSes

Hi - I'm sorry, I thought I'd linked to this in my comment at AN. CCoSes are discussed at WP:CCOS. It's an essay, rather than policy, but it's widely accepted and is used as part of the process when we train new WP:NPP patrollers. It's worth a read if you want to implement CSDA7 tags in future. Now, would you be OK if I were to undelete Christianné Allen? I honestly don't think it was a valid A7, but I don't want to undo your action without discussion, per WP:RAAA. Cheers Girth Summit _(blether) 16:46, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

By all means, feel free to undelete it. I remain less than convinced about her inherent notability, even in light of the link, but I can see it matters to more people that she have an article than that she not. Perhaps my relative's career in the public service on this side of the Pacific should be re-evaluated... BigHaz - Schreit mich an 23:40, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for undeleting. This was never about my wanting her to have an article - I'd literally never heard of her before I came across the AN thread - it's about following proper processes. I don't have a view on whether or not she's notable - I haven't read the cited sources closely, or looked for others myself. Her former job certainly wouldn't convey notability automatically, but there is coverage in reliable sources cited in the article, so it's debatable - and that's the point. When it's it isn't clear-cut, AfD is the proper venue, so the community (rather than an individual admin) can make the decision. As for your relative - yeah, maybe? My partner's an academic, and we have an article about her (which I didn't write!), but I promise you we're both very ordinary people. Lots of people are notable, by our standards, without being very famous. Girth Summit _(blether) 09:52, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

You make a fair point. I remember back when I created way more articles than I could dream of doing these days I used to be surprised at who and what could have articles, so I suppose I'm glad that's still the case.

While I think of it, is the anonymous IP on the ANI baiting me for a reason, or just because it's an anonymous IP? Whoever's behind the IP appears to have some sort of animus, but I'm reasonably sure they're uninvolved, not an admin (because an IP, obviously), and just lobbing grenades for the sake. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 09:58, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

There are quite a few regulars who edit without logging in. Some of them may never have had accounts, but I assume most have used accounts in the past and abandoned them. That IP's contribs go back to July of last year, so it's a pretty stable address, but obviously not the first/only IP they've used. They do a bit of content work, and a lot of lurking at AN/ANI - you're not the first admin they've commented on. I don't think it's personal, just think of them as another member of the AN peanut gallery community we're accountable to. Girth Summit _(blether) 10:15, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'll admit to getting a bit tired of the IP's ad hominems, though. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 12:28, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Restoring speedy deleted pages

Hi BigHaz. I found these pages through this discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. Would you undelete:

1. MasterChef: Dessert Makers and MasterChef Australia: Dessert Makers (discussed here)
2. Area codes 305, 645, and 786 (discussed here)
3. Role of the Chinese Communist Party in lawmaking (discussed here)
4. 10 000 BC (discussed here)
5. Christianné Allen (discussed here and here)

I agree with the editors who discussed these pages with you that the pages are not eligible for the speedy deletion criteria they were deleted under.

Wikipedia:Deletion review#Instructions says: "Before listing a review request, please: Consider attempting to discuss the matter with the closer as this could resolve the matter more quickly. There could have been a mistake, miscommunication, or misunderstanding, and a full review may not be needed. Such discussion also gives the closer the opportunity to clarify the reasoning behind a decision."

I am considering open Wikipedia:Deletion review requests for these pages but am discussing the matter with you first. Thank you, Cunard (talk) 01:20, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

All done. I accidentally forgot to leave summaries on the first three, but they should all be up and running now. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 01:32, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much! I really appreciate it. Would you also undelete the pages' talk pages Talk:Area codes 305, 645, and 786, Talk:Role of the Chinese Communist Party in lawmaking, and Talk:Christianné Allen? Cunard (talk) 01:37, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Gah! Too much box-ticking on the brain today, clearly. Marking undergraduate history essays seems easy in comparison! BigHaz - Schreit mich an 01:40, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

No worries. When undeleting mainspace pages, it is easy to not remember that the talk pages also might need to be undeleted. I agree that marking essays might seem easy in comparison! I've asked quite a few admins in the past to undelete the talk pages of mainspace pages they've undeleted. Thank you very much again! Cunard (talk) 01:44, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Not sure whether I should admit it in polite company, but there was at least one of those pages I'd ticked the "undelete Talk page" box for and then un-ticked it for some reason. And no, I haven't the foggiest why either. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 01:53, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

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Administrators' newsletter – June 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2023).

Administrator changes

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• Ddstretch
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• Resolute

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Courcelles

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, editors indefinitely site-banned by community consensus will now have all rights, including sysop, removed.
• As a part of the Wikimedia Foundation's IP Masking project, a new policy has been created that governs the access to temporary account IP addresses. An associated FAQ has been created and individual communities can increase the requirements to view temporary account IP addresses.

Technical news

• Bot operators and tool maintainers should schedule time in the coming months to test and update their tools for the effects of IP masking. IP masking will not be deployed to any content wiki until at least October 2023 and is unlikely to be deployed to the English Wikipedia until some time in 2024.

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• The arbitration case World War II and the history of Jews in Poland has been closed. The topic area of Polish history during World War II (1933-1945) and the history of Jews in Poland is subject to a "reliable source consensus-required" contentious topic restriction.

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• Following a community referendum, the arbitration policy has been modified to remove the ability for users to appeal remedies to Jimbo Wales.

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The Signpost: 19 June 2023

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Administrators' newsletter – July 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2023).

Administrator changes

Novem Linguae

• Deckiller
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• MBisanz
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Bureaucrat changes

MBisanz

Guideline and policy news

• Contributions to the English Wikipedia are now released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0) license instead of CC BY-SA 3.0. Contributions are still also released under the GFDL license.

Technical news

• Discussion is open regarding a proposed global policy regarding third-party resources. Third-party resources are computer resources that reside outside of Wikimedia production websites.

Arbitration

• Two arbitration cases are currently open. Proposed decisions are expected 5 July 2023 for the Scottywong case and 9 July 2023 for the AlisonW case.

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The Signpost: 3 July 2023

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WikiCup 2023 July newsletter

The third round of the 2023 WikiCup has come to an end. The 16 users who made it to the fourth round had at least 175 points. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

• Thebiguglyalien, with 919 points from a featured article on Frances Cleveland as well as five good articles and many reviews,
• Unlimitedlead, with 862 points from a high-scoring featured articles on Henry II of England and numerous reviews,
• Iazyges, with 560 points from a high-scoring featured article on Tiberius III.

Contestants achieved 11 featured articles, 2 featured lists, 47 good articles, 72 featured or good article reviews, over 100 DYKs and 40 ITN appearances. As always, any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:17, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 July 2023

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The Signpost: 1 August 2023

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Administrators' newsletter – August 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2023).

Administrator changes

Firefangledfeathers

• AlisonW
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• Closedmouth
• Scottywong

Interface administrator changes

Novem Linguae

Technical news

• The tag filter on Special:NewPages and revision history pages can now be inverted. This allows hiding edits made by automated tools. (T334338)
• Special:BlockedExternalDomains is a new tool that allows easier blocking of plain domains (and their subdomains). This is more easily searchable and is faster for the software to use than the existing MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. It does not support regex (for complex cases), URL path-matching, or the MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist. (T337431)

Arbitration

• The arbitration cases named Scottywong and AlisonW closed 10 July and 16 July respectively.
• The SmallCat dispute arbitration case is in the workshop phase.

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Memo

WikiProject Eurovision News Desk Dear Eurovision Wikipedian, Our project pages have undergone a full color change and now resemble the Swedish flag . Content and design updates are taking place daily. The new Archive tab will make it easier to find and view just about all of our archived pages. It is a work in progress. Issue 49 of the newsletter is currently pending delivery. While we await that, you can now receive daily and/or weekly Eurovision news updates. Sign up below have a wonderful week. To receive a daily or weekly Eurovision news update please click on the appropriate button. Cordially, News Desk Editor-in-Chief Ktkvtsh (talk)

Ktkvtsh (talk) 04:54, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 August 2023

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WikiProject Eurovision Newsletter Issue 49

→ Issue 49 ← Headlines Loreen won the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool. Eurovision Choir canceled indefinitely. Junior Eurovision 2023 to be in Nice, France.
At the time of publication the project statistics were as follows
Number of articles	Unassessed articles	Good articles	A-class articles	Featured articles	Number of members
7263	0	171	0	4	105
• HOME • TALK • NEWSDESK • UNSUBSCRIBE • ARCHIVES • • Published by the Eurovision WikiProject •

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The Signpost: 31 August 2023

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Administrators' newsletter – September 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2023).

Administrator changes

• Pppery
• Theleekycauldron

• Dwheeler
• G.A.S
• Royalbroil
• Ssd

CheckUser changes

Bradv

Oversighter changes

Bradv

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, TFAs will be automatically semi-protected the day before it is on the main page and through the day after.
• A discussion at WP:VPP about revision deletion and oversight for dead names found that [s]ysops can choose to use revdel if, in their view, it's the right tool for this situation, and they need not default to oversight. But oversight could well be right where there's a particularly high risk to the person. Use your judgment.

Technical news

• Special:Contributions now shows the user's local edit count and the account's creation date. (T324166)

Arbitration

• The SmallCat dispute case has closed. As part of the final decision, editors participating in XfD have been reminded to be careful about forming local consensus which may or may not reflect the broader community consensus. Regular closers of XfD forums were also encouraged to note when broader community discussion, or changes to policies and guidelines, would be helpful.

Miscellaneous

• Tech tip: The "Browse history interactively" banner shown at the top of Special:Diff can be used to easily look through a history, assemble composite diffs, or find out what archive something wound up in.

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WikiCup 2023 September newsletter

The fourth round of the competition has finished, with anyone scoring less than 673 points being eliminated. It was a high scoring round with all but one of the contestants who progressed to the final having achieved an FA during the round. The highest scorers were

• Epicgenius, with 2173 points topping the scores, gained mainly from a featured article, 38 good articles and 9 DYKs. He was followed by
• Sammi Brie, with 1575 points, gained mainly from a featured article, 28 good articles and 50 good article reviews. Close behind was
• Thebiguglyalien, with 1535 points mainly gained from a featured article, 15 good articles, 26 good article reviews and lots of bonus points.

Between them during round 4, contestants achieved 12 featured articles, 3 featured lists, 3 featured pictures, 126 good articles, 46 DYK entries, 14 ITN entries, 67 featured article candidate reviews and 147 good article reviews. Congratulations to our eight finalists and all who participated! It was a generally high-scoring and productive round and I think we can expect a highly competitive finish to the competition.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them and within 24 hours of the end of the final. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.

I will be standing down as a judge after the end of the contest. I think the Cup encourages productive editors to improve their contributions to Wikipedia and I hope that someone else will step up to take over the running of the Cup. Sturmvogel 66 (talk), and Cwmhiraeth (talk)

The Signpost: 16 September 2023

• News and notes: Wikimedia power sharing – just an advisory role for the volunteer community?

• In the media: "Just flirting", going Dutch and Shapps for the defence?

• Obituary: Nosebagbear

• Serendipity: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no paywall, for thou, Wikipedia Library, art with me

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I have sent you a note about a page you started

Hello, BigHaz. Thank you for your work on Marija Magdalena. User:Alalch E., while examining this page as a part of our page curation process, had the following comments:

Thanks for the article. This is certainly a notable topic. I am concerned however with how the article's references are not connected to the statements next to which they are cited, in multiple places.

To reply, leave a comment here and begin it with {{Re|Alalch E.}}. Please remember to sign your reply with ~~~~. (Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

—Alalch E. 00:02, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 3 October 2023

• News and notes: Wikimedia Endowment financial statement published

• In the media: History is written by whoever can harness the most editors

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The Signpost: 23 October 2023

• News and notes: Where have all the administrators gone?

• In the media: Thirst traps, the fastest loading sites on the web, and the original collaborative writing

• Gallery: Before and After: Why you don't need to know how to restore images to make massive improvements

• Featured content: Yo, ho! Blow the man down!

• Traffic report: The calm and the storm

• News from Diff: Sawtpedia: Giving a Voice to Wikipedia Using QR Codes

• Humour: New citation template introduced for divine revelations, drug use, and really thinking about it

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WikiCup 2023 November newsletter

The WikiCup is a marathon rather than a sprint and all those reaching the final round have been involved in the competition for the last ten months, improving Wikipedia vastly during the process. After all this hard work, BeanieFan11 has emerged as the 2023 winner and the WikiCup Champion. The finalists this year were:-

• BeanieFan11 with 2582 points
• Thebiguglyalien with 1615 points
• Epicgenius with 1518 points
• MyCatIsAChonk with 1012 points
• BennyOnTheLoose with 974 points
• AirshipJungleman29 with 673 points
• Sammi Brie with 520 points
• Unlimitedlead with 5 points

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether they made it to the final round or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the competition, some of whom did very well. Wikipedia has benefitted greatly from the quality creations, expansions and improvements made, and the numerous reviews performed. All those who reached the final round will win awards. The following special awards will be made based on high performance in particular areas of content creation and review. Awards will be handed out in the next few days.

• Unlimitedlead wins the featured article prize, for 7 FAs in total including 3 in round 2.
• MyCatIsAChonk wins the featured list prize, for 5 FLs in total.
• Lee Vilenski wins the featured topic prize, for a 6-article featured topic in round 4.
• MyCatIsAChonk wins the featured picture prize, for 6 FPs in total.
• BeanieFan11 wins the good article prize, for 75 GAs in total, including 61 in the final round.
• Epicgenius wins the good topic prize, for a 41-article good topic in the final round.
• LunaEatsTuna wins the GA reviewer prize, for 70 GA reviews in round 1.
• MyCatIsAChonk wins the FA reviewer prize, for 66 FA reviews in the final round.
• Epicgenius wins the DYK prize, for 49 did you know articles in total.
• Muboshgu wins the ITN prize, for 46 in the news articles in total.

The WikiCup has run every year since 2007. With the 2023 contest now concluded, I will be standing down as a judge due to real life commitments, so I hope that another editor will take over running the competition. Please get in touch if you are interested. Next year's competition will hopefully begin on 1 January 2024. You are invited to sign up to participate in the contest; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors. It only remains to congratulate our worthy winners once again and thank all participants for their involvement! (If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.) Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:51, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 6 November 2023

• Arbitration report: Admin bewilderingly unmasks self as sockpuppet of other admin who was extremely banned in 2015

• In the media: UK shadow chancellor accused of ripping off WP articles for book, Wikipedians accused of being dicks by a rich man

• News and notes: Board candidacy process posted, editors protest WMF privacy measure, sweet meetups

• Opinion: An open letter to Elon Musk

• WikiCup report: The WikiCup 2023

• News from Wiki Ed: Equity lists on Wikipedia

• Recent research: How English Wikipedia drove out fringe editors over two decades

• Featured content: Like putting a golf course in a historic site.

• Wikidata: Evaluating qualitative systemic bias in large article sets on Wikipedia

• Traffic report: Cricket jumpscare

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Administrators' newsletter – November 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2023).

Administrator changes

0xDeadbeef

Tamzin

Dennis Brown

Interface administrator changes

Pppery

• Ragesoss
• TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

• The WMF is working on making it possible for administrators to edit MediaWiki configuration directly. This is similar to previous work on Special:EditGrowthConfig. A technical RfC is running until November 08, where you can provide feedback.
• There is a proposed plan for re-enabling the Graph Extension. Feedback on this proposal is requested.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 12 November 2023 until 21 November 2023 to stand in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections.
• Xaosflux, RoySmith and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2023 Arbitration Committee Elections. BusterD is the reserve commissioner.
• Following a motion, the contentious topic designation of Prem Rawat has been struck. Actions previously taken using this contentious topic designation are still in force.
• Following several motions, multiple topic areas are no longer designated as a contentious topic. These contentious topic designations were from the Editor conduct in e-cigs articles, Liancourt Rocks, Longevity, Medicine, September 11 conspiracy theories, and Shakespeare authorship question cases.
• Following a motion, remedies 3.1 (All related articles under 1RR whenever the dispute over naming is concerned), 6 (Stalemate resolution) and 30 (Administrative supervision) of the Macedonia 2 case have been rescinded.
• Following a motion, remedy 6 (One-revert rule) of the The Troubles case has been amended.
• An arbitration case named Industrial agriculture has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case close 8 November.

Miscellaneous

• The Articles for Creation backlog drive is happening in November 2023, with 700+ drafts pending reviews for in the last 4 months or so. In addition to the AfC participants, all administrators and New Page Patrollers can conduct reviews using the helper script, Yet Another AFC Helper Script, which can be enabled in the Gadgets settings. Sign up here to participate!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:22, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 November 2023

• In the media: Propaganda and photos, lunatics and a lunar backup

• News and notes: Update on Wikimedia's financial health

• Traffic report: If it bleeds, it leads

• Recent research: Canceling disputes as the real function of ArbCom

• Wikimania: Wikimania 2024 scholarships

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:42, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Momoka Ito

Hi! Could you restore the article "Momoka Ito"? You deleted it as an "expired PROD" back in 2017. It was prodded when I wasn't watching. (As far I know, anyone can request to undelete a prodded article at any time. I remember how I returned to Wikipedia and noticed the article was missing... But I didn't dare to ask then...)
She is notable, there were like 1 billion news articles about her in Japanese in 2017 already. And she is not forgotten, look: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22伊藤萌々香%22&tbm=nws&source=lnms. And she had a charting single in Japan: https://www.oricon.co.jp/prof/622786/rank/single/, so she easily passes WP:MUSICBIO no matter how short her English-language article was at the time of deletion. --Moscow Connection (talk) 01:12, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Looking at what the content of the article was back in 2017, I'd honestly suggest that you're better off starting from scratch. Assuming that the sources you're pointing to cover the bases you're telling me they do (I don't speak a lick of Japanese, so I have no way of knowing), it shouldn't be an overly-demanding task. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 07:30, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Could you please undelete the article and then move it to my userspace?
I don't really think I'm in the mood to put much effort into it, so I'm gonna just add a few sentences in the upcoming weeks and then show the result to you. (I just think that it was unfair to Momoko that her article was deleted, so I want it to be restored it as if it were created back in 2014. I promise I will show you the result before moving the article back to "mainspace".) --Moscow Connection (talk) 09:07, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

It's not about my judgement as to whether the article belongs in mainspace. It was (to some degree) back in 2017, since I happened to act on the expired PROD. If you want to re-create the article in your userspace, in mainspace to begin with, or somewhere else again, that's 100% your call. There's also no issue around the "fairness" to the subject of the article, since neither she nor you own the product - either as it existed six years ago, or as it might exist in the future.

If you're not interested in putting any effort into the production of the article, I fail to understand the point of undeletion in the first place. You've gone to the trouble of establishing who deleted the article more than half a decade ago, sent me a message asking for it to be undeleted (itself not quite the way of going about these things, unless the information on PRODs is not as I understand it reading the policy), and are now telling me that you're not going to work on it? BigHaz - Schreit mich an 09:31, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

The rules (Wikipedia:Proposed deletion) say that "the page may be undeleted upon request". I even vaguely remember that it was recommended somewhere to just ask the administrator who deleted the article. (If I understood the rules correctly, a prodded article can be restored as easy as it was deleted. I thought what I did here was just a "technical request".)
But okay, no problem, I can ask elsewhere. --Moscow Connection (talk) 09:56, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

They then provide a link to where to make such a request, as far as I can see. You're right in saying that you can ask me, as you have done, but since you've told me that you're not proposing to do any more work on the page and appear to believe you own it (or that the subject herself does), you'll need to take the next steps in the process, since I'm not convinced by your reasoning. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 10:04, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

ArbCom 2023 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 11 December 2023. 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 2023 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, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

WikiProject Eurovision Newsletter Issue 50

→ Issue 50 ← Headlines Three countries announce representative. Junior Eurovision 2023 won by France.
At the time of publication the project statistics were as follows
Number of articles	Unassessed articles	Good articles	A-class articles	Featured articles	Number of members
7263	0	178	0	4	108
• HOME • TALK • NEWSDESK • UNSUBSCRIBE • ARCHIVES • • Published by the Eurovision WikiProject •

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:03, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 December 2023

• News and notes: Beeblebrox ejected from Arbitration Committee following posts on Wikipediocracy

• In the media: Turmoil on Hebrew Wikipedia, grave dancing, Olga's impact and inspiring Bhutanese nuns

• Disinformation report: "Wikipedia and the assault on history"

• In focus: Tens of thousands of freely available sources flagged

• Comix: Bold comics for a new age

• Essay: I am going to die

• Featured content: Real gangsters move in silence

• Traffic report: And it's hard to watch some cricket, in the cold November Rain

• Humour: Mandy Rice-Davies Applies

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:08, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2023).

Administrator changes

• Ganesha811
• JPxG

• Ajpolino
• Lourdes
• Mairi
• RockMFR
• Somno
• WilyD

Beeblebrox → Just Step Sideways

CheckUser changes

• Beeblebrox
• Opabinia regalis

Oversight changes

• Beeblebrox
• Opabinia regalis

Guideline and policy news

• Following a talk page discussion, the Administrators' accountability policy has been updated to note that while it is considered best practice for administrators to have notifications (pings) enabled, this is not mandatory. Administrators who do not use notifications are now strongly encouraged to indicate this on their user page.

Arbitration

• Following a motion, the Extended Confirmed Restriction has been amended, removing the allowance for non-extended-confirmed editors to post constructive comments on the "Talk:" namespace. Now, non-extended-confirmed editors may use the "Talk:" namespace solely to make edit requests related to articles within the topic area, provided that their actions are not disruptive.
• The Arbitration Committee has announced a call for Checkusers and Oversighters, stating that it will currently be accepting applications for CheckUser and/or Oversight permissions at any point in the year.
• Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 11, 2023 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:53, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 December 2023

• Special report: Did the Chinese Communist Party send astroturfers to sabotage a hacktivist's Wikipedia article?

• News and notes: The Italian Public Domain wars continue, Wikimedia RU set to dissolve, and a recap of WLM 2023

• In the media: Consider the humble fork

• Discussion report: Arabic Wikipedia blackout; Wikimedians discuss SpongeBob, copyrights, and AI

• In focus: Liquidation of Wikimedia RU

• Technology report: Dark mode is coming

• Recent research: "LLMs Know More, Hallucinate Less" with Wikidata

• Gallery: A feast of holidays and carols

• Comix: Lollus lmaois 200C tincture

• Crossword: when the crossword is sus

• Traffic report: What's the big deal? I'm an animal!

• From the editor: A piccy iz worth OVAR 9000!!!11oneone! wordz ^_^

• Apocrypha: Local editor discovered 1,380 lost subheadings in ancient Signpost scrolls. And what he found was shocking.

• Humour: Guess the joke contest

• BJAODN: Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:57, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Welcome to the 2024 WikiCup!

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2024 competition has just begun and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. Even if you are a novice editor you should be able to advance to at least the second round, improving your editing skills as you go. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page ready for you to take part. Any questions on the scoring, rules or anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close on 31 January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. The judges for the WikiCup this year are: Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email), Epicgenius (talk · contribs · email), and Frostly (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:21, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2023).

Administrator changes

Clovermoss

Dennis Brown

• Julia W
• Marasmusine
• PBS

CheckUser changes

• Aoidh
• HJ Mitchell
• Sdrqaz
• Spicy
• ToBeFree
• Vanamonde93
• Z1720

Maxim

• Enterprisey
• Izno
• SilkTork

Oversighter changes

• Aoidh
• Firefly
• Sdrqaz
• ToBeFree
• Z1720

Maxim

• Enterprisey
• Izno
• SilkTork

Arbitration

• Following the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Aoidh, Cabayi, Firefly, HJ Mitchell, Maxim, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720.
• Following a motion, the Arbitration Committee rescinded the restrictions on the page name move discussions for the two Ireland pages that were enacted in June 2009.
• The arbitration case Industrial agriculture has been closed.

Miscellaneous

• The New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in January 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 13,000 unreviewed articles awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:54, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 January 2024

• From the editor: NINETEEN MORE YEARS! NINETEEN MORE YEARS!

• Special report: Public Domain Day 2024

• Technology report: Wikipedia: A Multigenerational Pursuit

• News and notes: In other news ... see ya in court!

• In focus: The long road of a featured article candidate

• In the media: What is plagiarism? Oklahoma Disneyland? Reaching a human being at Wikipedia?

• WikiProject report: WikiProjects Israel and Palestine

• Obituary: Anthony Bradbury

• Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2023

• Crossword: everybody gangsta till the style sheets start cascading

• Comix: Conflict resolution

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:48, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 January 2024

• News and notes: Wikipedian Osama Khalid celebrated his 30th birthday in jail

• Opinion: Until it happens to you

• Disinformation report: How paid editors squeeze you dry

• In the media: Katherine Maher new NPR CEO, go check Wikipedia, race in the race

• In focus: The long road of a featured article candidate, part 2

• Recent research: Croatian takeover was enabled by "lack of bureaucratic openness and rules constraining [admins]"

• Comix: We've all got to start somewhere

• Traffic report: DJ, gonna burn this goddamn house right down

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:12, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2024).

Administrator changes

• Red-tailed hawk
• Robertsky

• Ameliorate!
• Ancheta Wis
• Anthony Bradbury (deceased)
• Cobi
• Ev
• Moondyne
• Worm That Turned

Bureaucrat changes

Worm That Turned

CheckUser changes

Wugapodes

Interface administrator changes

• Enterprisey
• Izno

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC about increasing the inactivity requirement for Interface administrators is open for feedback.

Technical news

• Pages that use the JSON contentmodel will now use tabs instead of spaces for auto-indentation. This will significantly reduce the page size. (T326065)

Arbitration

• Following a motion, the Arbitration Committee adopted a new enforcement restriction on January 4, 2024, wherein the Committee may apply the 'Reliable source consensus-required restriction' to specified topic areas.
• Community feedback is requested for a draft to replace the "Information for administrators processing requests" section at WP:AE.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2024 Steward elections will begin on 06 February 2024, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 27 February 2024, 14:00 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• A vote to ratify the charter for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is open till 2 February 2024, 23:59:59 (UTC) via Secure Poll. All eligible voters within the Wikimedia community have the opportunity to either support or oppose the adoption of the U4C Charter and share their reasons. The details of the voting process and voter eligibility can be found here.
• Community Tech has made some preliminary decisions about the future of the Community Wishlist Survey. In summary, they aim to develop a new, continuous intake system for community technical requests that improves prioritization, resource allocation, and communication regarding wishes. Read more
• The Unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in February 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with {{Unreferenced}}. You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:01, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

WikiCup 2024 February newsletter

The 2024 WikiCup is off to a flying start, with 135 participants. This is the largest number of participants we have seen since 2017.

Our current leader is newcomer Generalissima (submissions), who has one FA on John Littlejohn (preacher) and 10 GAs and 12 DYKs mostly on New Zealand coinage and Inuit figures. Here are some more noteworthy scorers:

• AirshipJungleman29 (submissions), with one FA on Hö'elün, two GAs on Mongolia-related articles, and two DYKs;
• Vami_IV (submissions), with one FA on Doom (2016 video game), one GA on Boundary Fire (2017), and 11 reviews;
• MaranoFan (submissions), with one FA on Holidays (Meghan Trainor song), a nine-article FT on 30 (album), and two DYKs;
• Skyshifter (submissions), with one FA on OneShot and one DYK;
• Sammi Brie (submissions), with five GAs and five DYKs on television and radio stations;
• voorts (submissions) and Elli (submissions), both with one FA and one DYK each.

As a reminder, competitors may submit work for the first round until 23:59 (UTC) on 27 February, and the second round starts 1 March. Remember that only the top 64 scoring competitors will make it through to the second round; currently, competitors need at least 15 points to progress. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, and you hope to get it promoted before the end of the round, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. However, please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAN, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs which could otherwise be caused by the Cup. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges (Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), Epicgenius (talk · contribs), and Frostly (talk · contribs)) are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:57, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 February 2024

• News and notes: Wikimedia Russia director declared "foreign agent" by Russian gov; EU prepares to pile on the papers

• Disinformation report: How low can the scammers go?

• Gallery: Before and After: Why you don't need to touch grass to dramatically improve images of flora and fauna

• In the media: Speaking in tongues, toeing the line, and dressing the part

• Serendipity: Is this guy the same as the one who was a Nazi?

• Traffic report: Griselda, Nikki, Carl, Jannik and two types of football

• Crossword: Our crossword to bear

• Comix: Strongly

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:34, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

WikiCup 2024 March newsletter

The first round of the 2024 WikiCup ended at 23:59 (UTC) on 27 February. Everyone with at least 30 points moved on to Round 2, the highest number of points required to advance to the second round since 2014. Due to a six-way tie for the 64th-place spot, 67 contestants have qualified for Round 2.

The following scorers in Round 1 all scored more than 300 points:

• Generalissima (submissions), who has 916 points mostly from one FA on John Littlejohn (preacher), 15 GAs, and 16 DYKs on a variety of topics including New Zealand coinage and Inuit figures, in addition to seven reviews
• Vami_IV (submissions), who has 790 points from two FAs on Felix M. Warburg House and Doom (2016 video game), two GAs, one DYK, and 11 reviews
• AirshipJungleman29 (submissions), who has 580 points from one FA on Hö'elün, two GAs on Mongolia-related articles, two DYKs, and five reviews
• Sammi Brie (submissions), who has 420 points mostly from nine GAs and seven DYKs on television and radio stations
• MaranoFan (submissions), who has 351 points from one FA on Holidays (Meghan Trainor song), a nine-article FT on 30 (album), and three DYKs
• Skyshifter (submissions), who has 345 points from one FA on OneShot, one DYK and two reviews

In this newsletter, the judges would like to pay a special tribute to Vami_IV (submissions), who unfortunately passed away this February. At the time of his death, he was the second-highest-scoring competitor. Outside the WikiCup, he had eight other featured articles, five A-class articles, eight other good articles, and two Four Awards. Vami also wrote an essay on completionism, a philosophy in which he deeply believed. If you can, please join us in honoring his memory by improving one of the articles on his to-do list.

Remember that any content promoted after 27 February but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, feel free to review one of the nominations listed on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:40, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2024).

Administrator changes

• Sdkb
• The Night Watch

• East718
• Isabelle Belato
• Mzajac
• Staecker
• Stan Shebs
• Sugarfish
• Tamzin

Bureaucrat changes

SilkTork

Guideline and policy news

• Phase I of the 2024 RfA review is now open for participation. Editors are invited to review, comment on, and propose improvements to the requests for adminship process.
• Following an RfC, the inactivity requirement for the removal of the interface administrator right increased from 6 months to 12 months.

Technical news

• The mobile site history pages now use the same HTML as the desktop history pages. (T353388)

Miscellaneous

• The 2024 appointees for the Ombuds commission are だ＊ぜ, AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Doǵu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, MdsShakil, Minorax, Nehaoua, Renvoy and RoySmith as members, with Vermont serving as steward-observer.
• Following the 2024 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Ajraddatz, Albertoleoncio, EPIC, JJMC89, Johannnes89, Melos and Yahya.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:21, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 2 March 2024

• News and notes: Wikimedia enters US Supreme court hearings as "the dolphin inadvertently caught in the net"

• Recent research: Images on Wikipedia "amplify gender bias"

• In the media: The Scottish Parliament gets involved, a wikirace on live TV, and the Foundation's CTO goes on record

• Obituary: Vami_IV

• Traffic report: Supervalentinefilmbowlday

• WikiCup report: High-scoring WikiCup first round comes to a close

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:00, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Invitation to join the Twenty Year Society

Dear BigHaz,

I'd like to extend a cordial invitation to you to join the Twenty Year Society, an informal group for editors who've been participating in the Wikipedia project for twenty years or more. ​

Best regards, Chris Troutman (talk) 17:43, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 March 2024

• Technology report: Millions of readers still seeing broken pages as "temporary" disabling of graph extension nears its second year

• Interview: Interview on Wikimedia Foundation fundraising and finance strategy

• Special report: 19-page PDF accuses Wikipedia of bias against Israel, suggests editors be forced to reveal their real names, and demands a new feature allowing people to view the history of Wikipedia articles

• Op-Ed: Wikipedia in the age of personality-driven knowledge

• Recent research: "Newcomer Homepage" feature mostly fails to boost new editors

• News and notes: Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee Charter ratified

• In the media: "For me it’s the autism": AARoad editors on the fork more traveled

• Traffic report: He rules over everything, on the land called planet Dune

• Humour: Letters from the editors

• Comix: Layout issue

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:39, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2024).

Administrator changes

• Kbdank71
• Kosack
• NrDg
• TLSuda

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open to convert all current and future community discretionary sanctions to (community designated) contentious topics procedure.

Technical news

• The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes. (T313405)

Arbitration

• An arbitration case has been opened to look into "the intersection of managing conflict of interest editing with the harassment (outing) policy".

Miscellaneous

• Editors are invited to sign up for The Core Contest, an initiative running from April 15 to May 31, which aims to improve vital and other core articles on Wikipedia.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:47, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

WikiCup 2024 April newsletter

We are approaching the end of the 2024 WikiCup's second round, with a little over two weeks remaining. Currently, contestants must score at least 105 points to progress to the third round.

Our current top scorers are as follows:

• Sammi Brie (submissions) with 642 points, mostly from 11 GAs about radio and television;
• voorts (submissions) with 530 points, mostly from two FAs (Well he would, wouldn't he? and Cora Agnes Benneson) and three GAs;
• Generalissima (submissions) with 523 points, mostly from 11 GAs about coinage and history;
• SounderBruce (submissions) with 497 points, mostly from a FA about the 2020 season of the soccer club Seattle Sounders FC and two GAs;
• Tamzin (submissions) with 410 points, mostly from a FA about the drink Capri-Sun and three GAs;
• Kusma (submissions) with 330 points, mostly from a FA about the English botanist Anna Blackburne and a GA.

Competitors may submit work for the second round until the end of 28 April, and the third round starts 1 May. Remember that only competitors with the top 32 scores will make it through to the third round. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, and you hope to get it promoted before the end of the round, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAN, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs. As a reminder, competitors are strictly prohibited from gaming Wikipedia policies or processes to receive more points.

If you would like to learn more about rules and scoring for the 2024 WikiCup, please read Wikipedia:WikiCup/Scoring. Further questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges (Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), Epicgenius (talk · contribs), and Frostly (talk · contribs)) are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:05, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 April 2024

• In the media: Censorship and wikiwashing looming over RuWiki, edit wars over San Francisco politics, and another wikirace on live TV

• News and notes: A sigh of relief for open access as Italy makes a slight U-turn on their cultural heritage reproduction law

• WikiConference report: WikiConference North America 2023 in Toronto recap

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Newspapers (Not WP:NOTNEWS)

• Recent research: New survey of over 100,000 Wikipedia users

• Traffic report: O.J., cricket and a three body problem

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:47, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

WikiCup 2024 May newsletter

The second round of the 2024 WikiCup ended on 28 April. This round was particularly competitive: each of the 32 contestants who advanced to Round 3 scored at least 141 points. This is the highest number of points required to advance to Round 3 since 2014.

The following scorers in Round 2 all scored more than 500 points:

• Sammi Brie (submissions) with 707 points, mostly from 45 good article nomination reviews and 12 good articless about radio and television;
• Generalissima (submissions) with 600 points, mostly from 12 good articles and 12 did you know nominations about coinage and history;
• SounderBruce (submissions) with 552 points, mostly from a featured article about the 2020 Seattle Sounders FC season, three featured lists, and two good articles;
• BennyOnTheLoose (submissions) with 548 points, mostly from a featured article about the snooker player John Pulman, two featured lists, and one good article;
• voorts (submissions) with 530 points, mostly from two featured articles (Well he would, wouldn't he? and Cora Agnes Benneson) and three good articles.

The full scores for Round 2 can be seen here. So far this year, competitors have gotten 18 featured articles, 22 featured lists, and 186 good articles, 76 in the news credits and at least 200 did you know credits. They have conducted 165 featured article reviews, as well as 399 good article reviews and peer reviews, and have added 21 articles to featured topics and good topics.

Remember that any content promoted after 28 April but before the start of Round 3 can be claimed during Round 3, which starts on 1 May at 00:00 (UTC). Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed.

If you would like to learn more about rules and scoring for the 2024 WikiCup, please see this page. Further questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges (Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), Epicgenius (talk · contribs), and Frostly (talk · contribs)) are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:37, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Administrative permissions and inactivity reminder

This is a reminder that established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have made fewer than 100 edits over a 60-month period. You are receiving this annual reminder since you have averaged less than 50 edits per year over the last 5 years.

Inactive administrators are encouraged to reengage with the project in earnest rather than to make token edits to avoid loss of administrative permissions. Resources and support for reengaging with the project are available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/administrators. If you do not intend to be engaged with the project in the foreseeable future, please consider voluntarily resigning your administrative permissions by making a request at the bureaucrats' noticeboard.

Thank you for your past contributions to the project. — JJMC89 bot 00:22, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2024).

Administrator changes

Nyttend

• JohnOwens
• Killiondude
• MelanieN
• Nihonjoe

Bureaucrat changes

Nihonjoe

CheckUser changes

Joe Roe

Oversight changes

GeneralNotability

Guideline and policy news

• Phase I of the 2024 requests for adminship review has concluded. Several proposals have passed outright and will proceed to implementation, including creating a discussion-only period (3b) and administrator elections (13) on a trial basis. Other successful proposals, such as creating a reminder of civility norms (2), will undergo further refinement in Phase II. Proposals passed on a trial basis will be discussed in Phase II, after their trials conclude. Further details on specific proposals can be found in the full report.

Technical news

• Partial action blocks are now in effect on the English Wikipedia. This means that administrators have the ability to restrict users from certain actions, including uploading files, moving pages and files, creating new pages, and sending thanks. T280531

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Conflict of interest management has been closed.

Miscellaneous

• This may be a good time to reach out to potential nominees to ask if they would consider an RfA.
• A New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in May 2024 to reduce the number of unreviewed articles in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 15,000 articles awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!
• Voting for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) election is open until 9 May 2024. Read the voting page on Meta-Wiki and cast your vote here!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:25, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Kalloor

Could you please restore Kalloor at Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia/Kalloor? As a new record breaker for the longest standing Wikipedia hoax, I think it should be preserved. Thanks. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 23:53, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm not going to be able to do that for a couple of days at least (possibly longer) due to work commitments, so I'm happy for another admin to do it instead. There wouldn't be any stepping-on-toes if that happened. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 00:47, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 May 2024

• News and notes: Democracy in action: multiple elections

• Special report: Will the new RfA reform come to the rescue of administrators?

• Arbitration report: Ruined temples for posterity to ponder over – arbitration from '22 to '24

• In the media: Deadnames on the French Wikipedia, and a duel between Russian wikis

• Op-Ed: Wikidata to split as sheer volume of information overloads infrastructure

• Comix: Generations

• Traffic report: Crawl out through the fallout, baby

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:57, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2024).

Administrator changes

Graham Beards

• Deskana
• Mets501
• Staxringold

Bureaucrat changes

• Deskana
• Warofdreams

Oversight changes

Dreamy Jazz

Guideline and policy news

• Phase II of the 2024 RfA review has commenced to improve and refine the proposals passed in Phase I.

Technical news

• The Nuke feature, which enables administrators to mass delete pages, will now correctly delete pages which were moved to another title. T43351

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Venezuelan politics has been closed.
• The Committee is seeking volunteers for various roles, including access to the conflict of interest VRT queue.

Miscellaneous

• WikiProject Reliability's unsourced statements drive is happening in June 2024 to replace {{citation needed}} tags with references! Sign up here to participate!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:43, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 8 June 2024

• News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation publishes its Form 990 for fiscal year 2022-2023

• Technology report: New Page Patrol receives a much-needed software upgrade

• Deletion report: The lore of Kalloor

• In the media: National cable networks get in on the action arguing about what the first sentence of a Wikipedia article ought to say

• News from the WMF: Progress on the plan — how the Wikimedia Foundation advanced on its Annual Plan goals during the first half of fiscal year 2023-2024

• Opinion: Public response to the editors of Settler Colonial Studies

• Recent research: ChatGPT did not kill Wikipedia, but might have reduced its growth

• Featured content: We didn't start the wiki

• Essay: No queerphobia

• Special report: RetractionBot is back to life!

• Traffic report: Chimps, Eurovision, and the return of the Baby Reindeer

• Comix: The Wikipediholic Family

• Humour: Wikipedia rattled by sophisticated cyberattack of schoolboy typing "balls" in infobox

• Concept: Palimpsestuous

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:25, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

WikiCup 2024 July newsletter

The third round of the 2024 WikiCup ended on 28 June. As with Round 2, this round was competitive: each of the 16 contestants who advanced to Round 4 scored at least 256 points.

The following editors all scored more than 400 points in Round 3:

• Generalissima (submissions) with 1,059 points, mostly from 1 featured article on DeLancey W. Gill, 11 good articles, 18 did you know nominations, and dozens of reviews;
• Skyshifter (submissions) with 673 points, mostly from 2 featured articles on Worlds (Porter Robinson album) and I'm God, 5 good articles, and 2 did you know nominations;
• Sammi Brie (submissions) with 557 points, mostly from 1 featured article on KNXV-TV, 5 good articles, and 8 did you know nominations; and
• AryKun (submissions) with 415 points, mostly from 1 featured article on Great cuckoo-dove, with a high number of bonus points from that article.

The full scores for round 3 can be seen here. So far this year, competitors have gotten 28 featured articles, 38 featured lists, 240 good articles, 92 in the news credits, and at least 285 did you know credits. They have conducted 279 featured article reviews, as well as 492 good article reviews and peer reviews, and have added 22 articles to featured topics and good topics.

Remember that any content promoted after 28 June but before the start of Round 4 can be claimed during Round 4, which starts on 1 July at 00:00 (UTC). Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether for a good article, featured content, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed.

If you would like to learn more about rules and scoring for the 2024 WikiCup, please see this page. Further questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges (Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), Epicgenius (talk · contribs), and Frostly (talk · contribs)) are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:29, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 July 2024

• News and notes: WMF board elections and fundraising updates

• Special report: Wikimedia Movement Charter ratification vote underway, new Council may surpass power of Board

• In focus: How the Russian Wikipedia keeps it clean despite having just a couple dozen administrators

• Discussion report: Wikipedians are hung up on the meaning of Madonna

• In the media: War and information in war and politics

• Sister projects: On editing Wikisource

• Obituary: Hanif Al Husaini, Salazarov, Hyacinth, and PirjanovNurlan

• Opinion: Etika: a Pop Culture Champion

• Gallery: Spokane Willy's photos

• Op-Ed: Why you should not vote in the 2024 WMF BoT elections

• Crossword: On a day of independence, beat crosswords into crossploughshares

• Humour: A joke

• Cobwebs: Counting to a billion — manuscripts don't burn

• Recent research: Is Wikipedia Politically Biased? Perhaps

• Traffic report: Talking about you and me, and the games people play

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:37, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2024).

Administrator changes

• Elli
• HouseBlaster
• Pickersgill-Cunliffe

• Brianga
• De728631
• Georgewilliamherbert
• Hyacinth (deceased)
• ProveIt
• The Night Watch

Technical news

• Local administrators can now add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without using JavaScript. Documentation is available on MediaWiki. (T6086)

Miscellaneous

• The Community Wishlist is re-opening on 15 July 2024. Read more

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:58, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 July 2024

• Discussion report: Internet users flock to Wikipedia to debate its image policy over Trump raised-fist photo

• News and notes: Wikimedia community votes to ratify Movement Charter; Wikimedia Foundation opposes ratification

• News from the WMF: Wikimedia Foundation Board resolution and vote on the proposed Movement Charter

• Essay: Reflections on editing and obsession

• In the media: What's on Putin's fork, the court's docket, and in Harrison's book?

• Obituary: JamesR

• Crossword: Vaguely bird-shaped crossword

• Humour: Joe Biden withdraws RfA, Donald Trump selects co-nom

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:29, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

51st WikiProject Eurovision Newsletter

→ Issue 51 ← Headlines Nemo wins for Switzerland. Junior Eurovision 2024 will be hosted in Madrid..
At the time of publication the project statistics were as follows
Number of articles	Unassessed articles	Good articles	Featured articles	Number of members
8,668	0	199	4	116
• HOME • TALK • NEWSDESK • UNSUBSCRIBE • ARCHIVES • • Published by the Eurovision WikiProject •

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:51, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2024).

Administrator changes

Isabelle Belato

• Ian.thomson
• Modussiccandi

Interface administrator changes

Izno

CheckUser changes

Barkeep49

Technical news

• Global blocks may now target accounts as well as IP's. Administrators may locally unblock when appropriate.
• Users wishing to permanently leave may now request "vanishing" via Special:GlobalVanishRequest. Processed requests will result in the user being renamed, their recovery email being removed, and their account being globally locked.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee appointed the following administrators to the conflict of interest volunteer response team: Bilby, Extraordinary Writ

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:59, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 August 2024

• In the media: Portland pol profile paid for from public purse

• Recent research: STORM: AI agents role-play as "Wikipedia editors" and "experts" to create Wikipedia-like articles, a more sophisticated effort than previous auto-generation systems

• In focus: Twitter marks the spot

• News and notes: Another Wikimania has concluded.

• Special report: Nano or just nothing: Will nano go nuclear?

• Opinion: HouseBlaster's RfA debriefing

• Traffic report: Ball games, movies, elections, but nothing really weird

• Humour: I'm proud to be a template

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:47, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	After a decade of contributing, you deserve this barnstar. Arhan D (talk) 13:52, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

WikiCup 2024 August newsletter

The fourth round of the 2024 WikiCup ended on 29 August. Each of the 8 contestants who advanced to Round 4 scored at least 472 points, and the following contestants scored more than 700 points:

• Generalissima (submissions) with 1,150 points, mostly from 3 featured articles, 2 featured lists, 7 good articles, and 13 did you know nominations;
• Arconning (submissions) with 791 points, mostly from 2 featured lists, 8 good articles, 4 did you know nominations, and plenty of reviews;
• AirshipJungleman29 (submissions) with 718 points, mostly from a high-multiplier featured article on Genghis Khan and 2 good articles; and
• BennyOnTheLoose (submissions) with 714 points, mostly from 1 featured article on Susanna Hoffs, 2 featured lists, and 3 good articles.

Congratulations to our eight finalists and all who participated. Contestants put in extraordinary amounts of effort during this round, and their scores can be seen here. So far this year, competitors have gotten 36 featured articles, 55 featured lists, 15 good articles, 93 in the news credits, and at least 333 did you know credits. They have conducted 357 featured content reviews, as well as 553 good article reviews and peer reviews, and have added 30 articles to featured topics and good topics.

Any content promoted after 29 August but before the start of Round 5 can be claimed during Round 5, which starts on 1 September at 00:00 (UTC). Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. If two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether for a good article, featured content, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. Remember to claim your points within 14 days of earning them, and importantly, before the deadline on 31 October.

If you would like to learn more about rules and scoring for the 2024 WikiCup, please see this page. Further questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges (Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), Epicgenius (talk · contribs), and Frostly (talk · contribs)) are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:11, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2024).

Administrator changes

Pppery

Interface administrator changes

Pppery

Oversighter changes

Wugapodes

CheckUser changes

• Courcelles
• GeneralNotability

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, there is a new criterion for speedy deletion: C4, which applies to unused maintenance categories, such as empty dated maintenance categories for dates in the past.
• A request for comment is open to discuss whether Notability (species) should be adopted as a subject-specific notability guideline.

Arbitration

• Following a motion, remedies 5.1 and 5.2 of World War II and the history of Jews in Poland (the topic and interaction bans on My very best wishes, respectively) were repealed.
• Remedy 3C of the German war effort case ("Cinderella157 German history topic ban") was suspended for a period of six months.
• The arbitration case Historical Elections is currently open. Proposed decision is expected by 3 September 2024 for this case.

Miscellaneous

• Editors can now enter into good article review circles, an alternative for informal quid pro quo arrangements, to have a GAN reviewed in return for reviewing a different editor's nomination.
• A New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in September 2024 to reduce the number of unreviewed articles and redirects in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 13,900 articles and 26,200 redirects awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 September 2024

• News and notes: WikiCup enters final round, MCDC wraps up activities, 17-year-old hoax article unmasked

• In the media: AI is not playing games anymore. Is Wikipedia ready?

• Recent research: Simulated Wikipedia seen as less credible than ChatGPT and Alexa in experiment

• News from the WMF: Meet the 12 candidates running in the WMF Board of Trustees election

• Wikimania: A month after Wikimania 2024

• Serendipity: What it's like to be Wikimedian of the Year

• Traffic report: After the gold rush

• Humour: Local man halfway through rude reply no longer able to recall why he hates other editor

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:24, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 September 2024

• In the media: Courts order Wikipedia to give up names of editors, legal strain anticipated from "online safety laws"

• Community view: Indian courts order Wikipedia to take down name of crime victim, editors strive towards consensus

• Serendipity: A Wikipedian at the 2024 Paralympics

• Opinion: asilvering's RfA debriefing

• News and notes: Are you ready for admin elections?

• Gallery: Are Luddaites defending the English Wikipedia?

• Recent research: Article-writing AI is less "prone to reasoning errors (or hallucinations)" than human Wikipedia editors

• Traffic report: Jump in the line, rock your body in time

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:07, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2024).

Administrator changes

• Asilvering
• Significa liberdade

• Good Olfactory
• Hesperian
• I JethroBT
• TommyBoy
• Woody

CheckUser changes

• Barkeep49
• Izno

• Doug Weller
• Spicy

Guideline and policy news

• Administrator elections are a proposed new process for selecting administrators, offering an alternative to requests for adminship (RfA). The first trial election will take place in October 2024, with candidate sign-up from October 8 to 14, a discussion phase from October 22 to 24, and SecurePoll voting from October 25 to 31. For questions or to help out, please visit the talk page at Wikipedia talk:Administrator elections.
• Following a discussion, the speedy deletion reason "File pages without a corresponding file" has been moved from criterion G8 to F2. This does not change what can be speedily deleted.
• A request for comment is open to discuss whether there is a consensus to have an administrator recall process.

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Historical elections has been closed.
• An arbitration case regarding Backlash to diversity and inclusion has been opened.
• Editors are invited to nominate themselves to serve on the 2024 Arbitration Committee Electoral Commission until 23:59 October 8, 2024 (UTC).

Miscellaneous

• If you are interested in stopping spammers, please put MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist and MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist on your watchlist, and help out when you can.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:59, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 19 October 2024

• News and notes: One election's end, another election's beginning

• Recent research: "As many as 5%" of new English Wikipedia articles "contain significant AI-generated content", says paper

• In the media: Off to the races! Wikipedia wins!

• Contest: A WikiCup for the Global South

• Traffic report: A scream breaks the still of the night

• Book review: The Editors

• Humour: The Newspaper Editors

• Crossword: Spilled Coffee Mug

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:13, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Invitation to participate in a research

Hello,

The Wikimedia Foundation is conducting a survey of Wikipedians to better understand what draws administrators to contribute to Wikipedia, and what affects administrator retention. We will use this research to improve experiences for Wikipedians, and address common problems and needs. We have identified you as a good candidate for this research, and would greatly appreciate your participation in this anonymous survey.

You do not have to be an Administrator to participate.

The survey should take around 10-15 minutes to complete. You may read more about the study on its Meta page and view its privacy statement .

Please find our contact on the project Meta page if you have any questions or concerns.

Kind Regards,

WMF Research Team

BGerdemann (WMF) (talk) 19:21, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

WikiCup 2024 November newsletter

The 2024 WikiCup has come to an end, with the final round being a very tight race. Our new champion is AirshipJungleman29 (submissions), who scored 2,283 points mainly through 3 high-multiplier FAs and 3 GAs on military history topics. By a 1% margin, Airship beat out last year's champion, BeanieFan11 (submissions), who scored second with 2,264 points, mainly from an impressive 58 GAs about athletes. In third place, Generalissima (submissions) scored 1,528 points, primarily from two FAs on U.S. Librarians of Congress and 20 GAs about various historical topics. Our other finalists are: Sammi Brie (submissions) with 879 points, Hey man im josh (submissions) with 533 points, BennyOnTheLoose (submissions) with 432 points, Arconning (submissions) with 244 points, and AryKun (submissions) with 15 points. Congratulations to our finalists and all who participated!

The final round was very productive, and contestants had 7 FAs, 9 FLs, 94 GAs, 73 FAC reviews, and 79 GAN reviews and peer reviews. Altogether, Wikipedia has benefited greatly from the activities of WikiCup competitors all through the contest. Well done everyone!

All those who reached the final will receive awards and the following special awards will be made, based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, these prizes are awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round, or in the event of a tie, to the overall leader in this field.

• Generalissima (submissions) wins the featured article prize for 3 FAs in round 4, and 7 FAs overall.
• Hey man im josh (submissions) wins the featured list prize for 23 FLs overall.
• MaranoFan (submissions) wins the featured topic prize for 9 articles in featured topics in round 1.
• Hey man im josh (submissions) wins the featured content reviewer prize for 110 FA/FL reviews overall.
• BeanieFan11 (submissions) wins the good article prize for 58 GAs in round 5, and 70 GAs overall.
• Fritzmann (submissions) wins the good topic prize for 6 articles in good topics in round 2.
• Sammi Brie (submissions) wins the good article reviewer prize for 45 GA reviews in round 2, and 78 GA reviews overall.
• BeanieFan11 (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 131 Did you know articles overall.
• Muboshgu (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 15 In the news articles in round 1, and 36 overall.

Next year's competition will begin on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to see you all in the 2025 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement!

If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), Epicgenius (talk · contribs), and Frostly (talk · contribs). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:48, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2024).

Administrator changes

• Crisco 1492

• Babajobu
• Daniel
• Elf
• Jayron32
• Thue
• Wugapodes

CheckUser changes

Maxim

Oversighter changes

Maxim

Guideline and policy news

• Following a discussion, the discussion-only period proposal that went for a trial to refine the requests for adminship (RfA) process has been discontinued.
• Following a request for comment, Administrator recall is adopted as a policy.

Technical news

• Mass deletions done with the Nuke tool now have the 'Nuke' tag. This change will make reviewing and analyzing deletions performed with the tool easier. T366068

Arbitration

• RoySmith, Barkeep49 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2024 Arbitration Committee Elections. ThadeusOfNazereth and Dr vulpes are reserve commissioners.
• Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate from 3 November 2024 until 12 November 2024 to stand in the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections.
• The Arbitration Committee is seeking volunteers for roles such as clerks, access to the COI queue, checkuser, and oversight.

Miscellaneous

• An unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in November 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with {{Unreferenced}}. You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:20, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 6 November 2024

• From the editors: Editing Wikipedia should not be a crime

• News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation shares ANI lawsuit updates; first admin elections appoint eleven sysops; first admin recalls opened; temporary accounts coming soon?

• In the media: An old scrimmage, politics and purported libel

• Special report: Wikipedia editors face litigation, censorship

• Gallery: Why you should take more photos and upload them

• In focus: Questions and answers about the court case

• Traffic report: Twisted tricks or tempting treats?

• Technology report: Wikimedia tech, the Asian News International case, and the ultra-rare BLACKLOCK

• Humour: Man quietly slinks away from talk page argument after realizing his argument dumb, wrong

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:03, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Reminder to participate in Wikipedia research

Hello,

I recently invited you to take a survey about administration on Wikipedia. If you haven’t yet had a chance, there is still time to participate– we’d truly appreciate your feedback. The survey is anonymous and should take about 10-15 minutes to complete. You may read more about the study on its Meta page and view its privacy statement.

Take the survey here.

Kind Regards,

WMF Research Team

BGerdemann (WMF) (talk) 00:17, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 November 2024

• News and notes: Open letter to WMF about court case breaks one thousand signatures, big arb case declined, U4C begins accepting cases

• In the media: Summons issued for Wikipedia editors by Indian court, "Gaza genocide" RfC close in news, old admin Gwern now big AI guy, and a "spectrum of reluctance" over Australian place names

• Recent research: SPINACH: AI help for asking Wikidata "challenging real-world questions"

• News from the WMF: Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Endowment audit reports: FY 2023–2024

• Traffic report: Well, let us share with you our knowledge, about the electoral college

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:41, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

ArbCom 2024 Elections voter message

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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.

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Administrators' newsletter – December 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2024).

Administrator changes

• Ahecht
• DoubleGrazing
• Dr vulpes
• FOARP
• Peaceray
• Queen of Hearts
• Rsjaffe
• SD0001
• SilverLocust
• Sohom Datta
• ThadeusOfNazereth
• Voorts

• Ajpolino
• Fathoms Below
• Pppery
• Tamzin
• Worm That Turned

• Aervanath
• Christopher Sundita
• Dank
• Dennis Brown
• Dragons flight
• Fastily
• Graham87
• JaGa
• Kbh3rd
• Marine 69-71
• Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington
• Yamamoto Ichiro

Interface administrator changes

• SD0001
• Sohom Datta

Pppery

CheckUser changes

• Spicy
• TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RFC, the policy on restoration of adminship has been updated. All former administrators may now only regain the tools following a request at the Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard within 5 years of their most recent admin action. Previously this applied only to administrators deysopped for inactivity.
• Following a request for comment, a new speedy deletion criterion, T5, has been enacted. This applies to template subpages that are no longer used.

Technical news

• Technical volunteers can now register for the 2025 Wikimedia Hackathon, which will take place in Istanbul, Turkey. Application for travel and accommodation scholarships is open from November 12 to December 10, 2024.

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Yasuke (formerly titled Backlash to diversity and inclusion) has been closed.
• An arbitration case titled Palestine-Israel articles 5 has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case will close on 14 December.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:19, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 12 December 2024

• News and notes: Arbitrator election concludes

• Arbitration report: Palestine-Israel articles 5

• Disinformation report: Sex, power, and money revisited

• Op-ed: On the backrooms by Tamzin

• In focus: Are Wikipedia articles representative of Western or world knowledge?

• In the media: Like the BBC, often useful but not impartial

• Traffic report: Something Wicked for almost everybody

• Opinion: Worm That Turned's reconfirmation RfA debriefing

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:56, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 December 2024

• News and notes: Responsibilities and liabilities as a "Very Large Online Platform"

• Op-ed: Beeblebrox on Wikipediocracy, the Committee, and everything

• Opinion: Graham87 on being the first-ever administrator recall subject

• In the media: Delhi High Court considers Caravan and Ken for evaluating the ANI vs. WMF case

• From the archives: Where to draw the line in reporting?

• Recent research: "Wikipedia editors are quite prosocial", but those motivated by "social image" may put quantity over quality

• Humour: Backlash over Santa Claus' Wikipedia article intensifies

• Gallery: A feast of holidays and carols

• Traffic report: Was a long and dark December

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:59, 24 December 2024 (UTC)