User talk:Bbb23

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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)

Blocking without tags

I noticed that JBM1971's sock are being blocked without tags. Any particular situations when that is the preferred approach? I ask because I have been dormant for some time and may not be uptodate with the current norms in the area. Abecedare (talk) 21:49, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

They'll be tagged after the merge I requested takes place.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:54, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Got it. Thanks. Abecedare (talk) 21:58, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Calore123

Calore123 (talk · contribs), blocked for sockpuppetry, has requested an unblock. They have agreed to refrain from any further sockpuppetry, have agreed to a [[WP:1RR] restriction, and a topic ban around India and Pakistan. You are the blocking admin. Admittedly, I tend to end up disappointed in cases like this (unblock, then the person pretty quickly violates the restrictions), but blocks are easy to reinstate. This user has been editing for about a year now and only ran into block-worthy trouble in the past few weeks. Would you permit me to WP:AGF here and lift the block under those restrictions? --Yamla (talk) 23:30, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

@Yamla: I didn't respond here because I figured you could see what I was doing on the user's Talk page. I don't think this is a good candidate for unblocking. Although the socking may have been recent, he came to the attention of the two admins I pinged before that, and I doubt that he would have had he not already been a disruptive editor. I tend to agree with Drmies: I have little faith. Frankly, I think you ought to reserve your good faith for a user who is more likely to justify it.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:00, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Yeap, I was following along. I just haven't had a moment to respond there yet. Thank you for looking into it. You have convinced me. --Yamla (talk) 21:14, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

User:Shibuya Kid

You beat me to the block by mere seconds... thanks for handling that ;-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 15:20, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Aaaand you beat me to protecting the AFD as well ;-) (I'm looking at now to see if seven days has passed; if it has, I'm going to close it). ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 15:22, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

@Oshwah: I was just about to suggest that but hit an edit conflict when replying to your first post here. We're both too fast. --Bbb23 (talk) 15:25, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Indeed we are quite fast here :-). The AFD has been closed - it's a keep. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 15:27, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

@Oshwah: As King Caspar said in Amahl and the Night Visitors, thank you, thank you, thank you.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:37, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

No problem; always happy to help ;-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 15:43, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Avonbrunton

Hi B, I noticed that you blocked Avonbrunton as part of a CU. Any chance you could look into this again? He added some heavy puffery about Aamir Khan, declaring him the world's biggest movie star, like here and here. I've seen an uptick of this from other users like here where Birsanagarwala adds similar crap, and here where BollywoodEditor does the same thing. Looking at Avonbrunton and Birsanagarwala's edit summaries, I see some similarities, like "Added notable work about the movie" and "added essential data about the movie" and "i have added notable attribute about the anchor of the show" and "I have added noted attribute about the owner of the production house". I don't quite see the same pattern with BollywoodEditor, but they haven't done much editing. Avon and Birsan look fairly similar though. Thanks man, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 22:33, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Birsanagarwala (talk · contribs · count) is  Confirmed. Saurabhshimgekar (talk · contribs · count) is  Likely. BollywoodEditor is  Unrelated. The first two are blocked and tagged.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:59, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Gracias. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 04:12, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorting two sockdrawers. Could use a confirmation on new probable sock.

Metcalf89 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Mr. Young at Heart (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) - already indeffed as a sock of User:Emmy Expert, but most recent edits were with this account.
Higher Ground 1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) - already indeffed as a sock of User:Chitt66; most recent use.

Let me know if this would be better sorted at SPI. We've already got an ongoing investigation at ANI: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Long-term disruption, copyvios, trademark-vios, plus 8 solid months of total refusal to interact with other editors (Permalink) and have a pretty solid assessment of the behavioural patterns that have given all of these away. But it would be helpful to know which drawer to put this one in. Would you mind glancing at this one to see which match, if any? I don't know if we're dealing with dynamic or static IPs, or if this may actually be the missing link that means this is one big sockdrawer. Thanks. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 19:23, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't believe I can help much. Nor do I see that it matters which drawer you put them in. They're all blocked, so it's more academic at this point. Filing a report at SPI will probably get you nowhere because it will likely be summarily closed.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:06, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I just blocked them. The patterns are clear at this point. One drawer or more, doesn't really matter. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 23:31, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Tirritating

Can we put SineBot on delay? 30 seconds or a minute would make a big difference. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 00:27, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Sing it out! "It Only Takes a Moment".--Bbb23 (talk) 00:32, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

"...only takes a moment, to feel alright..." Never had you pegged for a Mel & Kim fan. Get fresh at the weekend! Drmies (talk) 00:41, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

I think these two users are connected

Johnhexer and Vijayabhaskar02 seem to have same vocabulary and style of writing. I noticed it in a recent interaction at an AfD where both of these users used exact phrase "As a member of Wikipedia" and Johnhexer's first statement in Afd matches the statement on Vijaya's first line of user page "to contribute verified content to the community." Thanks! Dial911 (talk) 17:52, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Links would be helpful.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:02, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

See Johnhexter's comment in this discussion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/StuMagz and user page of Vijay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Vijayabhaskar02 Dial911 (talk) 18:05, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

The two accounts + Tanneruvenugopalam (talk · contribs · count) are  Confirmed, blocked and tagged. I would normally drop a note at the AfD, but that thing is a mess!--Bbb23 (talk) 18:48, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, leave the note. Thanks for the help! Dial911 (talk) 19:43, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

No, I meant I am not leaving a note. It would get lost in all the clutter anyway.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:45, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Haha, even I meant the same. Leave (dropping) the note. Dial911 (talk) 19:55, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

More for your drawer

Regularfinn (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

No clue who this is, but pretty clearly Bookwormboy2 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) you CU blocked yesterday. Just letting you know in case its one you run sleeper checks on. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:58, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: None I could find on a quick check (I want to sign off for the evening). BTW, Bookwormboy2 is WhenDatHotlineBling (talk · contribs · count). Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:18, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

More sock puppets on Patrick Treacy page?

You blocked some sock puppets on the page Patrick Treacy and I reverted the page to the pre-sock-puppet content (although I suspect that some of the earlier contributors might have been sock puppets too). Someone swept back in (using a similar sort of naming convention to a previous sock: Mcmanusbr as compared to Oliveroc) and reverted and now someone else (again adopting a similar naming convention as previous socks: Tariqsaeed2018 as compared to Joyland2017) has come in and made further edits that burnish the subject's reputation. I suspect it's socks again. If you look at the discussion on the talk page, you'll see that pages about this particular subject have a "history".

PreviouslyFiscalspace (talk) 16:03, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Can't log in

Hi Bbb23, it's User:Prisonermonkeys here. I'm having a bit of trouble with my account and I'm told you might be able to help.

A few weeks ago, I got a notification that someone had tried to log into my account. As it tured out, I wasn't alone; hundreds, if not thousands of accounts were affected. I changed my password as a precaution and didn't think much of it until this week.

I edit exclusively from a mobile device and this week I got a new phone. I tried to log in, but realised I had forgotten my password. I then tried to recover it, only to be told that no e-mail address is registered to my account. At this point, I'm more stoopid than lyin', so I'm wondering if there is anything thst can be done short of creating a new account (or if not, if I can create a new account and have my old editing privileges restored). 1.129.106.204 (talk) 09:00, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

As far as I know, there is no way to recover your old account unless you had an e-mail address associated with it, which I don't believe you did. Ajraddatz, assuming you're a good person to ask, am I right about that? That means your only recourse is to create a new account. Once that's done, you should put a notice on the userpage of the new account and of the old account establishing the relationship between the two accounts so other editors know. Once you've created your new account, let me know, and I'll be glad to give you the same permissions you had with the old.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:10, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Bbb. Seems odd that I don't have an e-mail tied to the account; it's so common that I just assumed that I did. Anyway, truth be told, I could probably use a break from Wikipedia. I've been editing almost non-stop for nine years now and while there's one or two articles that I'd like to see through to GA or even FA status, I don't have any long-term projects in mind. 1.144.107.161 (talk) 20:27, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

CU-blocked user Canadianji

Hello. There's also another account, Skarduji (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), that you might want to block, since it's obviously related to Canadianji, and tag-team vandalized Skardu with them a few days ago (Canadianji, Skarduji). Cheers, - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 13:42, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I already know about that account and others, but I haven't yet blocked them. There are enough of them I need to reopen the SPI to list them. Plus, I wanted to eat breakfast.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:04, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Faizanali.007

In case my message is ignored,[1] I am informing you here that the connection of Faizanali.007 with International Editor Shah was largely believed by admins,[2] and had been used as basis to decline unblock requests of International Editor Shah. Kindly re-open the SPI if its possible. Lorstaking (talk) 18:34, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Question

Since you are an expert regarding what is appropriate ;-), I have a question: As you know, I am banned from editing anything related to automobile; now, the article Automobile redirects to car. Does that mean that I can safely create articles on rail transport vehicles? Best regards, --Johannes Maximilian (talk) 23:43, 11 July 2018 (UTC)