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Administrators' newsletter – January 2018

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

Administrator changes

added Muboshgu
readded Anetode • Laser brain • Worm That Turned
removed None

Bureaucrat changes

readded 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

Arbitration

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

Abuse of rollback

This is a clear violation of the use of rollback. I'll assume good faith and also assume you meant to simply "undo" the edit, but be advised that any further misuse of the tool will result in a report being filed against you to remove this ability from your editing capabilities. And for what it's worth, your edit summary "you are wrong" is actually false, I am correct that this individual passes WP:GNG. Feel free to take the article to WP:AFD if you still believe that I am "wrong". In the meantime, please stop abusing the tools you still have available, and stop asserting that your personal opinion trumps Wikipedia policy and guideline. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:01, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't the only one getting an abusive rollback with a rather infuriating comment, it seems. Please ask for references and possibly check before reverting an edit just on your whim that it's false… Nowhere man (talk) 15:51, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
Final warning, if I see a single repeat of this abuse, I will request you be sanctioned and your rollback removed. You, a former admin, should know much better than to abuse privileged tools. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:29, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
Oh, and the previous editor had it spot on: Please ask for references and possibly check before reverting an edit just on your whim that it's false. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:44, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Edit summary

Here, you claimed ""correction" of adjective is absolutely wrong", yet there appeared to be nothing in the edit you reverted that related to any kind of pseudo-correction. Could you clarify? Most of your instructions to other editors come via edit summaries so it would be helpful if you could elucidate this one because I'm struggling to explain it to a good faith editor who is being driven away from the project by your edits. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:05, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Tags

Here you apparently think I should have done something. Can you point me to the policy that states that? If not, I suggest you never make such an accusation again, especially as you do all of your communication via edit summary. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:27, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man: There is no policy-based reason for exclusion or inclusion, and there is obviously a dispute on each of the entries. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:10, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
I don't think you read the comment. I asked for the policy-based reason for your edit summary concluding that I should have done something. Clearly if there is no policy reason, you need to refrain from making such claims in your edit summaries. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:06, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

DMOZ contributor category CfD

Please see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 January 25. – S. Rich (talk) 05:00, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 26

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 26, December – January 2018

  • #1Lib1Ref
  • User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Spotlight: What can we glean from OCLC’s experience with library staff learning Wikipedia?
  • Bytes in brief

Arabic and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:36, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2018

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

Administrator changes

added None
removed 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

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

The Troubles/Wikipedia Year Pages

The objective of the Wikipedia year pages is to list events that occurred on certain dates. There wasn't one for July 20th in 1990, so I thought about added it into the timeline, especially after finding out that there wasn't an entry for it on that page, after reading about it on the London Stock Exchange pages. I find it to be a part of what is known as The Troubles. You're American, so naturally an IRA bombing wouldn't have effected you. But I still find the event to be news worthy, even if luckily there were not any fatalities or injuries, the fact of the matter is, things could have been a lot worse.

Also, you say that IRA bombings are not really worthwhile to post on the page. Well I mentioned what the purpose of those pages were and you said that, without even looking to notice that on the same month, there was a listing for another IRA bombing that did take the life of a British MP, again on the same month as the Stock Exchange bombing.

I don't really think it's your place to question what is being posted as I had done nothing wrong. It was news, it took place in the right year and on that date. If it was accidentally or deliberately placed on the wrong date or the wrong year fair enough, it should be removed. But that bombing did take place and is still regarded as an event that took place during that month and on that year. True not everything will be catalogued on these pages, but I personally thought it was worth mentioning, being a Londoner myself, who was (if albeit briefly) was effected by The Troubles. (D31 (talk) 00:04, 22 February 2018 (UTC)David31584D31 (talk) 00:04, 22 February 2018 (UTC))

If there is not a Wikipedia article on the bombing (not merely mentions in articles primarily about something else), then it was not notable enough to list in the 1990 year article. JRSpriggs (talk) 01:20, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Twinkle misuse

I count at least four edits today alone where you have misused Twinkle and used incorrect or misleading edit summaries. Do not do that again or I will seek to have your permission to use the tool removed. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:57, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man: [citation needed]. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:53, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
You’ve been warned, so if I see it again, I’ll simply report you with the wealth of diffs which demonstrate that you are abusing the tool. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:49, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
You obviously don't have the diffs, or you would produce them. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:56, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
Au contraire. Please do not abuse the tool again, or we'll have another trip to ANI. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:32, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2018

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

Administrator changes

added Lourdes†
removed 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

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

Wikipedia Day LA, March 31

Wikipedia Day LA 2018

Please join us from 10:00 am - 5:00 pm on Saturday, March 31st for Wikipedia Day LA 2018 at the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. There will be speakers, panel discussions, a presentation on Wikidata, flash sessions, and a discussion about the formation of an LA User Group. There could be dramatic readings of LA-related talk pages, and there will be truly excellent cake. Please RSVP on the event page if you're thinking of joining us.

We hope to see you there! JSFarman (talk) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:18, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Join our Facebook group here, and follow us on Twitter .

To opt out of future mailings about LA meetups, please remove your name from this list.

In response to your message to me r.e. Australian elections

I shall add sources ASAP to those that you have altered, but I must object to how you single out and question the importance of the Australian elections when on many of the same year pages you have unsourced information about elections from other countries that you haven't scrutinised at all. For instance, for the page for 1990 you have unsourced and less detailed information about the elections for the following countries: Nicaragua, Hungary, Greece, Burma, Colombia, Israel, Peru, Bulgaria, Algeria, Mongolia, Pakistan, New Zealand, Poland, Germany, Serbia and Haiti - as well as the State of the Union address by U.S. President George H.W. Bush and the downfall of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Yet it is Australia which is singled out and questioned in such a manner. Why is it that you don't apply the same standards and scrutiny to all those other examples? Where's the fair go for Australia?

I eagerly await your response.

I thank you for your swift response, and I'll endeavour to reduce the details to the bare minimum where necessary. — 58.96.96.204 (talk) 13:27, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Neutral notice

A move request regarding Deadline.com / Deadline Hollywood, an article whose talk page you have edited, is taking place at Talk:Deadline Hollywood#Requested move 11 March 2018. It is scheduled to end in seven days.--Tenebrae (talk) 19:25, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

March 2018

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on 2018. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.

Please be particularly aware that Wikipedia's policy on edit warring states:

  1. Edit warring is disruptive regardless of how many reverts you have made.
  2. Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes; work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing. pbp 21:52, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

This is a completely bogus and fake warning. Rubin, please feel free to ignore, as you've done nothing wrong here. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:57, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
You kind of have tho, Rubin: you've edit-warred with TRM yet again and you've continued to interact with him even though it's clearly unproductive. And TRM, you've edit-warred with Rubin, continued to interact with him, AND made inappropriate use of the edit-summary tool. pbp 22:04, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
Sure, just because we have a difference of opinion frequently, it doesn't mean we need you of all people to come and attempt to police it. Your warnings are quite unnecessary, your presence here completely not required. And why you've replied to Rubin here is beyond me, when he's not responded to your bogus template. What a way to waste all of our time. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:13, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
We're talking about your actions here, TRM, because you refuse to engage in productive dialogue on your talk page. The reason that I tagged you and Arthur with an edit-warring tag is because the two of you, and I think somebody else as well...are in an edit war! Rubin tried to discuss it with you here, but, instead of explaining your actions, you just removed his comment (wow, is there ANYONE you DO engage in productive dialogue with?). This is particularly disturbing because you and Rubin edit-war on a fairly regular basis. And cut your high-and-mighty act. I got as much right to call you out on your perennial misbehavior and miscongeniality as anybody else does. pbp 22:18, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
Sure, keep up the great work Backpacker. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:24, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Edit warring

I'm not going to template you but you've been here long enough to know what 3rr is and you know what BRD is aswell so kindly stop edit warring and go to the talkpage (or start an RFC or whatever), Thank you. –Davey2010Talk 23:55, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

@Davey2010: This may even be a bigger issue than even just AN3. There are frequent edit wars between Arthur and User:The Rambling Man at year pages such as 2017 and 2018. They occurred both before AND after the two of them ended up at ArbCom on a different matter. For the good of the Wikipedia, those two need to be IBANned. pbp 01:38, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
I have no desire to cause drama or to get involved, If someone believes IBANning is in order then they know what to do. –Davey2010Talk 02:11, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
@Davey2010: I know WP:BRD. User:The Rambling Man never follows it. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:04, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
Ooh, hello Rubin, are you well? Why wait nearly three weeks and ping me? Are you just stirring? The Rambling Man (talk) 19:08, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
Do me a favour .... Go to ANI and request an IBAN between you and TRM .... I'm honestly sick to death of you goading him (You may not see it that way however I do!) ..... –Davey2010Talk 19:22, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
The biggest problem with that is the problematic edits that Rubin makes on year articles, which often go unnoticed, that I would not be able to highlight to the community as problematic. I would estimate that 80% of the edits that Rubin makes to remove or highlight specific entries for removal in year articles are kept by the community, yet I'm just about the only one doing the work to prevent Rubin's censorship in favour of his perspective. By all means initiate an IBAN request, but I would then respond by initiating an ANI to see that Rubin's edits are closely monitored and perhaps even subject to a cooling off period during which time anyone could revert him without Rubin being able to edit war. I don't really care either way so look forward to your input. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:08, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
The Rambling Man - Ah when you put it like that my suggestion is worse than worse!, My aim was to try and resolve things but I feel i'd only be making shit worse, Right dumb idea nevermind. –Davey2010Talk 20:17, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2018

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

Administrator changes

added 331dot • Cordless Larry • ClueBot NG
removed 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

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

Books & Bytes - Issue 27

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 27, February – March 2018

  • #1Lib1Ref
  • New collections
    • Alexander Street (expansion)
    • Cambridge University Press (expansion)
  • User Group
  • Global branches update
    • Wiki Indaba Wikipedia + Library Discussions
  • Spotlight: Using librarianship to create a more equitable internet: LGBTQ+ advocacy as a wiki-librarian
  • Bytes in brief

Arabic, Chinese and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:49, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Condolences

Arthur, I'd like to offer my sympathies to you and your family. I'm sorry for your loss. Take care. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 12:02, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

I would also like to pass on my condolences and best wishes to you and your family. Petty arguments on Wikipedia equate to precisely nothing most of the time and your news brings that home to (at least) me. So please accept my olive branch here and accept my sincerest thoughts in your difficult time. Best wishes. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:50, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Arts Datathon!

LA County Civic Arts Datathon!
Please join us for the LA County Arts Commission Civic Art Wikipedia Edit-a-thon. Beginners are welcome! We'll provide training for new editors.
(See the meetup page for more details.)
Friday, April 27, 2018, 9:00-5:00
 Bob Hope Patriotic Hall, 1816 S. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90015.
We hope to see you there! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:09, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
Join our Facebook group here, and follow us on Twitter .
 To opt out of future mailings about LA meetups, please remove your name from this list.

13 page. 'Other' section. 24 hour clock info.

Hi Arthur Rubin,

You have reverted my edit 'A 24-hour clock uses the number 13 in the form of 13:00-13:59, to represent the fourteenth hour of its 24-hour cycle.' which I put in the 'Other' section of the 13 page. Whilst you gave the reason as seems trivial, I do not believe this to be the case. It is an overwhelmingly accepted cultural usage of the number 13 in the extremely important area of time keeping. I also believe I put the information in the appropriate section on the page. I would like to please request that you do not revert the edit if I make it again. Thank you for your time.RickyBennison (talk) 19:39, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@RickyBennison: It's not technically correct, and I consider it trivia. If I remember, I'll tag it with appropriate tags, rather than deleting it. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:43, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

CS1 fix

my 2017 template text aligner must have been messed up. Thanks for fixing it. Eddie891 Talk Work 01:32, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

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

Administrator changes

added None
removed 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

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

Article: 1729 (number)

Arthur, I would like to understand more your reason for removing the addition I made to the above-named article. In particular, I cannot see how the information added can be 'too complex to be interesting'. If anything, it is less complex than other entries in the 'Other properties' section that need elaborate explanations. Whereas my references to Star numbers and Centred hexagonal numbers, as you can see, offered immediate, graphical confirmation.

Perhaps even more important, I always believed that articles should be accessible selectively, so that different readers may take from them just the parts that are relevant to them. For example, one user might want to know as much as possible about the G. H. Hardy anecdote, yet have no interest in Carmichael numbers, Euler pseudoprimes or Sphenic numbers.

On that basis, would you consider reinstating my edit? --DStanB (talk) 18:26, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

@DStanB: I think that one is complicated enough to require a source: the individual facts can be verified, but I don't think the combination falls into the WP:CALC exception to WP:SYNTH. If you can find a source, reliable not only for content, but for importance, I think inclusion would be appropriate. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:22, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

I get what you are saying, but I cannot agree that my addition falls within the scope of WP:SYNTH, which clearly refers to unwarranted conclusions, whereas my addition does not '...reach or imply a conclusion...'. Therefore, the fact that 'the individual facts can be verified', and are also interesting, should be a sufficient justification. What say you? --DStanB (talk) 10:20, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH is not specifically about unwarranted conclusions, but about unsourced conclusions.
The facts are:
  1. 1729 = 7 × 13 × 19
  2. 13 is a Star number [citation needed] (perhaps under WP:CALC)
  3. 7 and 19 are the first two nontrivial Centered hexagonal numbers [citation needed] (because of "nontrivial")
  4. The star number and centered hexagonal number sequences are related [citation needed].
And this disregards whether the question of whether the statement is interesting. It appearing in a reliable source would be evidence that it is interesting. As well to say that 1729 is the product of the first centered hexagona number, the first centered 12-onal number, and the first centered 18-onal number. If we didn't know better, it would sound interesting. It might be that, if we knew better, your statement wouldn't sound interesting. That is why we need a source which reports it as interesting.

Thank you, that is very helpful, revealing your reasoning. Point 1 may be taken as read, since it appears high in the article’s list of principal characteristics.

Concerning 2., I would argue that the Star number link should be enough, unless the ‘’Star number’’ article is deficient in some way. However, I did use the expression ‘non-trivial’ in this context; I shall come to a solution to this next.

Concerning 3., I would be happy to modify ‘non-trivial’ with the addition of ‘(in the sense that the number 1 is the undifferentiated, or degenerate first member of both the ‘’Star number’’ series and the ‘’Centred hexagon number’’ series)’. That is, unless you can suggest a more succinct way to express the same idea. Either way, that should obviate the need for a specific citation.

Concerning 4., I would be happy to be more specific and say that figurate, centred Stars and Centred hexagonal numbers share the property that the first consists of 12 identical, figurate triangles and the second consists of 6 identical, figurate triangles, in each case arranged around a single, central element (hence the adjective: Centred).

I think it might be helpful to get away from dependency on the meaning of ‘interesting’, which was part of the reason you gave for reversing my edit. I hope we can agree that ‘interesting’ is a subjective judgement; some people find mathematics inherently interesting, while others do not, and people make up their own minds as to what they find interesting.

Are we now closer to making my edit fit Wikipedia standards? Have I demonstrated that the basis of my edit is not Original Research? --DStanB (talk) 18:47, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Alternate account?

Is User:ArthurRubin2 an alternative account you created? GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:27, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare: No. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:28, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
Didn't think so :) GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:29, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
GorillaWarfare, I snooped already, but I'll leave the decision to you. I foresee a NOTHERE block for the account given their last edits. Drmies (talk) 22:33, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
@Drmies: It's a hardblock, and I upgraded it to add autoblock once it was confirmed to not be Arthur Rubin. Should probably be okay now. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:37, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
What if it were someone who just happened to have the same first and last names as Arthur Rubin? What should such a person do? In a world with billions of people, such coincidences are actually very common. JRSpriggs (talk) 02:12, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
I know there are other Arthur Rubin's. The most notable is probably a convicted Long Island, New York wife-murderer. (It's unlikely he would have access to the internet.) However, such a person, if competent, would want to distinguish himself from me.
As all this user's edits have been deleted or revdel'd it seems unlikely that there were actual attempts to make constructive edits. You'd have to ask an admin to be sure. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:22, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
I saw where this account came from, JRSpriggs. This was not innocent. Drmies (talk) 02:36, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Why did you remove the comma?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Millennium&diff=prev&oldid=841034096

Iamthemostwanted2015 (talk) 19:18, 13 May 2018 (UTC)Iamthemostwanted2015

@Iamthemostwanted2015: My display originally showed I added the comma. Let me check. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:31, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

10-4 (It means alright in police coding). Iamthemostwanted2015 (talk) 19:34, 16 May 2018 (UTC)Iamthemostwanted2015

Deleting references

Arthur,

Why do you keep deleting my entry that is cited? This is my official attempt to understand why you believe that CE / BCE is -NOT- based upon BC/ AD and is derived from the life of Jesus. Please provide references next time you delete my entry as this would back up your position rather than rely on your opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SGT-Craig (talk • contribs) 17:42, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

@SGT-Craig: It's a minority view, as can be seen by the previous times you added it were not supported by the sources you provided. The dominant view is that CE/BCE is based on AD/BC. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:12, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Hey Arthur, could you help me with something?

I have an image I wish upload for 2017, but the image keeps getting too big. How do I adjust it to make it look normal-sized? Thanks, in advance. Iamthemostwanted2015 (talk) 16:08, 21 May 2018 (UTC)Iamthemostwanted2015

World Leaders

What I did was simply try to address the "needs to be alphabetized" tag in those sections by sorting, in alphabetical order, the leaders by country. To answer your second point point, the section is clearly named notable world leaders, so it makes sense to only include the relatively well-known ones or else we would have to add every single country leader of the decade to the list. RiverCastle (talk) 17:02, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018

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

Administrator changes

added None
removed Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington

Guideline and policy news

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

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

Bingo

It's an interesting question, but did you mean to tag the articles 1 to 90 rather than the talk pages? If we manage to get rid of bingo then next I'd like to nominate the former numbers of Municipal Okrugs of Saint Petersburg, which I've tried and failed to remove on several occasions. Certes (talk) 23:09, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

I can't find the option in AWB to swap between regular pages and discussion pages. I'm sure there is one. I'm not sure how to tag al the Okrugs, and taging is important, or some editors will claim process isn't being observed. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:29, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Re: 2000s decade Article

Hello there. I am making a comment onto you removing my change on the Article of 2000s decade. The topic is video gaming, and I strongly feel that what you did was wrong as I only made a change because the content stated there was false. I will be making the change again, thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.47.208.145 (talk) 22:27, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that when you recently edited 2, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Quarter (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are usually incorrect, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of unrelated topics with similar titles. (Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.)

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:24, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your help, but maybe it's time to get protection for these pages being data-dumped by IPs who don't get the message. Yours, Quis separabit? 05:47, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

@[email protected]: I'm not an admin. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 12:38, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Please warn ip address 24.47.208.145

The user keeps vandalizing the article on 2000s (decade), despite you having undone the disruptive edits. Your help would be highly appreciated, thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marked Man 808 (talk • contribs) 11:15, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

RE: Kurt Waldheim

WHY?. Yours, Quis separabit? 21:14, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

According to his biographic article, Waldheim was merely accused. It did not say that he was convicted of war crimes.
And even if he knew about the atrocities and did nothing and then lied about it, that is a far cry from actively causing them.
If that were enough to make one guilty, then it would be hard to find any innocent person to be president of the republic. JRSpriggs (talk) 02:46, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Books & Bytes – Issue 28

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 28, April – May 2018

  • #1Bib1Ref
  • New partners
  • User Group update
  • Global branches update
    • Wikipedia Library global coordinators' meeting
  • Spotlight: What are the ten most cited sources on Wikipedia? Let's ask the data
  • Bytes in brief

Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Italian and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:33, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

List of Powers of Two Deletion

Hello!

I am currently trying to update the List of powers of two page, so it exceeds 295. If you could keep it open for a little while, I could add more content to it.

Thanks, AwesomeBoing — Preceding unsigned comment added by AwesomeBoing (talk • contribs) 03:36, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

This is where they communicate!! Hide more bah — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.164.221.232 (talk) 08:58, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2018

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

Administrator changes

added Pbsouthwood • TheSandDoctor
readded Gogo Dodo
removed Andrevan • Doug • EVula • KaisaL • Tony Fox • WilyD

Bureaucrat changes

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

Administrators' newsletter – August 2018

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

Administrator changes

added Sro23
readded 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

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

13 years ago...

Hey, Arthur Rubin. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee!
Have a great day! Nat965 (talk) 08:58, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Non-free use of File:Brandon Lee.jpg

Thank you for uploading File:Brandon Lee.jpg. However, there is a concern that the use of the image on Wikipedia may not meet the criteria required by Wikipedia:Non-free content. Details of this problem, and which specific criteria that the image may not meet, can be obtained by going to the image description page. If you feel that this image does meet those criteria, please place a note on the image description or talk page explaining why. Do not remove the {{di-fails NFCC}} tag itself.

An administrator will review this file within a few days, and having considered the opinions placed on the image page, may delete it in accordance with our criteria for speedy deletion or remove the tag entirely. If you have any questions, please ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 15:40, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Regarding this edit. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:40, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
@Stefan2: My mistake. I intended to revert the anon's edit before yours. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:44, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
No problem. Everyone makes mistakes. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:47, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Books & Bytes – Issue 29

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 29, June – July 2018

Hindi, Italian and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:02, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2018

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

Administrator changes

added None
removed Asterion • Crisco 1492 • KF • Kudpung • Liz • Randykitty • Spartaz
renamed Optimist on the run → Voice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

added 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.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:22, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Robin Leach

I've already attempted to prevent posters from adding Robin Leach to the notable deaths section that Gar has already reverted earlier. My attempt was already reverted by user Black Kite and I want to alert you and Yerpo to have this challenged on the Talk page. Just keep a close eye on The Rambling Man however as we all know how much of a total yes-man he is and a total rogue to everything he has done against us Wikipedians so far. —*riot_iori* ❰talk❱ 02:19, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

−2 (number) listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect −2 (number). Since you had some involvement with the −2 (number) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Thryduulf (talk) 10:53, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

7th Annual Los Angeles Wiknic

It's the 7th Annual Los Angeles Wiknic!

Sunday, September 30, 11:00-4:00 PM
Pan Pacific Park, 7600 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036
 Hang out. Consume crowd-sourced BBQ! Bask in the glory of late September in Los Angeles (and the glory
of our new user group, Wikimedians of Los Angeles).
RSVP (and volunteer) here.
We hope to see you there! JSFarman (talk) 02:50, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
Join our Facebook group, or follow us on Twitter!

To opt out of future mailings about LA meetups, please remove your name from this list.

Merger discussion for Terminal and nonterminal functions

An article that you have been involved in editing—Terminal and nonterminal functions—has been proposed for merging with Terminal and nonterminal symbols. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. I noticed you participated in the last merge discussion we had on this topic. Thank you. Enterprisey (talk!) 05:34, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
Hi thank you for your messages and i was just trying to contribute as i like old people if that doesn't sound weird and hearing life stories. ThatBaileyLad (talk) 00:45, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

two images removed

Hi,

It appears that two images of female African artists were removed, 1905 & 1998 Can you explain why? thx MauraWen (talk) 09:54, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

@MauraWen:
  1. In 1915, you damaged the text format while changing American-born to African-American. I should have preserved the image.
  2. Images in year articles are supposed to be 120px unless consensus is established otherwise.
— Arthur Rubin (talk) 10:09, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
I was not aware that 120px is the standard. I have seen 100px on all the other year pages I have contributed to. I will put the images back. MauraWen (talk) 10:13, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
Many of the 100px were created by a floating IP who makes more serious mistakes. Until about a week ago, I was ignoring his image problems unless he made too many content errors in the text. But 120px is the standard except in articles he has damaged. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 10:19, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

May Abel Smith & Henry Abel Smith

Hello Arthur i noticed May Abel Smith and Henry Abel Smith are missing from the the year they died in 1993 and 1994 and was wondering if they should be added?? --ThatBaileyLad (talk) 18:21, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't think so, but with our present absence of standards, I cannot provide a reason....
As an aside, it would be helpful in these questions if you would provide a Wikilink to each person's article. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:50, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_May_Abel_Smith - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Abel_Smith ----ThatBaileyLad (talk) 21:18, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018

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

Administrator changes

added Justlettersandnumbers • L235
removed Bgwhite • HorsePunchKid • J Greb • KillerChihuahua • Rami R • Winhunter

Interface administrator changes

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

Oversight changes

removed Guerillero • NativeForeigner • Snowolf • Xeno

Guideline and policy news

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.

--

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:12, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

'Importance'

Why are you constantly reverting edits and claiming they violate good faith policy (which is an entirely subjective policy to begin with) and removing edits because you deem them "not important"?

I want a straight answer, because your whimsical determination of what's important seems like a ridiculous attempt at trolling.

To me, you're violating 'good faith'.

Are you trying to limit the amount of data on articles to conserve Wikipedia's energy for its servers?

Or do you want to be disruputive? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:940:C000:EDF:49A4:E644:9E5D:CD0F (talk) 13:08, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Your edits and edit comments are clearly disruptive.
Importance is the only criterion in potentially infinite lists of speculation about future years, decades, centuries, or millennia. If a country, or even a state or province, banned plastic straws, that might rise to the level of importance required for these articles. Starbucks stating that it intends to ban plastic straws by 2020 does not, even if that claim were reported by an independent reporter. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:51, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

249 (number)

Hi Arthur, I added a picture of Street o. 249 in Bamako in the article 249 (number). And then you delete it, saying: "It's a picture. what does it have to do with 249?". Well, it's a picture of Street No. 249 in Bamako, Mali. Do I need to say more? It is a representation of something in human society that we've given the name "249". Just as you would add a picture of a tree to the article tree. Please check the geographical coordinates on Google Maps or so, and you can see I'm correct. Many thanks for replacing the picture, Loranchet (talk) 15:06, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Halloween cheer!

Happy Halloween!

Hello Arthur Rubin:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
    – —usernamekiran(talk) 12:07, 15 October 2018 (UTC)



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

Priority list: explain? (Curious)

You explained in the edit notes of the 2018 article that there is a "priority list" of the people who have died in each month. Out of curiousity, would you mind running it down, telling me how the list is categorized? Thanks, GoAnimateFan199Pro (talk) 06:50, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Books & Bytes, Issue 30

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 30, August – Septmeber 2018

  • Library Card translation
  • Spotlight: 1Lib1Ref spreads to the Southern Hemisphere and beyond
  • Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:42, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Question about a category name change

Arthur, I was hoping you could offer some wikipedia process insight related to a request to change a category name. In short I understand the general RfC process. You pose a question, post notices and typically let it run 30 days. Once time is up, if need be, a formal closure can be requested then it is decided if there is consensus (typically for or against) or no consensus. I don't know how that works with a category name change. I'm assuming you don't work in the automotive article space much which is why I'm asking you (avoids accusations of seeking a favorable admin). The discussion is here Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2018 October 26#Category:Cars. It is clear this isn't a simple counting of a few votes. Thanks! Springee (talk) 01:38, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018

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

Guideline and policy news

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-en@wikimedia.org. Other email lists, such as functionaries-en and clerks-l, remain unchanged.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:18, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, Arthur Rubin. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 2 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)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, Arthur Rubin. 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)

Yugoslavia

You may have introduced an anachronism in 1990s articles concerning Serbia and Montenegro. It was known as the "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" and changed its constitunional name to "State Union of Serbia and Montenegro" in 2003. You mention it under that name in the article 1999. Dimadick (talk) 12:53, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Sorry. I thought I researched the name adequately. I think I've backed it out, now. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:21, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

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

Administrator changes

readded Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz
removed Boson • Daniel J. Leivick • Efe • Esanchez7587 • Fred Bauder • Garzo • Martijn Hoekstra • Orangemike

Interface administrator changes

removedDeryck 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

Arbitration

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

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

Possible RfD discussion of interest

See Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2016 March 14#Redirects to 1000 (number). Steel1943 (talk) 04:14, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

2018 Deaths

Just so you know i worked really on trying to help with the article and you erased all the good info i type! Matt Campbell (talk) 16:25, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

@Matt Campbell: — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:30, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
I didn't check to see which contributions were yours. With one exception, the only entries I removed were of likely non-notable people, or those with no description. If those were all yours, perhaps you should try to match the guidelines. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:29, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

2 of them were famous in my home state! Matt Campbell (talk) 16:42, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

@Matt Campbell: They are supposed to be internationally notable. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:46, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Why does it matter? Matt Campbell (talk) 16:48, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Eddy Clearwater

The musicians i listed were good friends of his and he performed with them and sang with them! Matt Campbell (talk) 20:33, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Books & Bytes, Issue 31

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 31, October – Novemeber 2018

  • OAWiki
  • Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available on meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:34, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

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