User talk:Billinghurst/Archives/2016

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Signpost: 06 January 2016

Abuse filter

Hi Billinghurst. I notice you work with the abuse filter on Meta and was just wondering if we could get some insights from you on the use of the block function there? We're having a discussion here as we might propose enabling the feature on enwiki. Any input you have would be very appreciated. Sam Walton (talk) 13:33, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

@Samwalton9: Block function provided gives a permanent block on the account for a match. It was a feature that we enabled at meta for local spambots, ultimately for username only (perm bans on IP not a great idea). We did have a small look at blocks in a global filter and backed away from that implementation. So it needs tight boundaries on the filters, and, possibly tight control and review on the admins using it. If you can do that and have filters with v.v.v. low false positives, then worth it. I will attempt to get to the discussion, though won't be before the weekend. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:02, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Help decide the future of Wikimania

The Wikimedia Foundation is currently running a consultation on the value and planning process of Wikimania, and is open until 18 January 2016. The goals are to (1) build a shared understanding of the value of Wikimania to help guide conference planning and evaluation, and (2) gather broad community input on what new form(s) Wikimania could take (starting in 2018).

After reviewing the consultation, we'd like to hear your feedback on on this survey.

In addition, feel free to share any personal experiences you have had at at a Wikimedia movement conference, including Wikimania. We plan to compile and share back outcomes from this consultation in February.

With thanks,

I JethroBT (WMF) (talk), from Community Resources 22:01, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 January 2016

The Signpost: 20 January 2016

The Signpost: 27 January 2016

Last December, I invited you to share your views on the value of Wikimedia conferences and the planning process of Wikimania. We have completed analysis of these results and have prepared this report summarizing your feedback and important changes for Wikimania starting in 2018 as an experiment. Feedback and comments are welcome at the discussion page. Thank you so much for your participation. I JethroBT (WMF), Community Resources, 22:47, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 February 2016

The Signpost: 10 February 2016

The Signpost: 17 February 2016

The Signpost: 24 February 2016

The Signpost: 02 March 2016

The Signpost: 09 March 2016

The Signpost: 16 March 2016

The Signpost: 23 March 2016

The Signpost: 1 April 2016

The Signpost: 14 April 2016

The Signpost: 24 April 2016

The Signpost: 2 May 2016

The Signpost: 17 May 2016

Some bubble tea for you!

Sorry, Huggle welcomed you automatically. Clubjustin (talk) 14:05, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 May 2016

The Signpost: 05 June 2016

The Signpost: 15 June 2016

The Signpost: 04 July 2016

Robert Adrain/ Robert Adrian

Hello! I would like to create a page on the Canadian artist Robert Adrian, however I see you have a redirect from this name to Robert Adrain. My plan is to create the new Robert Adrian page, and if necessary we can talk about redirects following that. any objections? Have a nice day. HappyValleyEditor (talk) 18:56, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Sure. Please ensure that there is a hat note on the article that replaces the redirect. Thanks. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:56, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
Will do. Thanks HappyValleyEditor (talk) 17:01, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 21 July 2016

The Signpost: 04 August 2016

The Signpost: 18 August 2016

The Signpost: 06 September 2016

BeeSafe notability

Hello dear user Billinghurst,

I have noticed you put a notability template on my page. The notability question was put on this topic already before and it was solved by a different wikipedia administrator. I have provided more than enough sources on the page, I would like to ask which part of it is not reliable enough. I understand some of the reference links are in Slovak, but that should be OK. Thank you for your response, Matobeno1 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Matobeno1 (talkcontribs) 08:33, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Dear paid editor. Please take your lobbying somewhere else. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:42, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

Hello, Billinghurst. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy.

Extended confirmed protection (also known as "30/500 protection") is a new level of page protection that only allows edits from accounts at least 30 days old and with 500 edits. The automatically assigned "extended confirmed" user right was created for this purpose. The protection level was created following this community discussion with the primary intention of enforcing various arbitration remedies that prohibited editors under the "30 days/500 edits" threshold to edit certain topic areas.

In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions:

  • Extended confirmed protection may only be used in cases where semi-protection has proven ineffective. It should not be used as a first resort.
  • A bot will post a notification at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard of each use. MusikBot currently does this by updating a report, which is transcluded onto the noticeboard.

Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you.
This message was sent to the administrators' mass message list. To opt-out of future messages, please remove yourself from the list. 17:48, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 September 2016

The Signpost: 14 October 2016

Help with Log-in on Mozilla Firefox

To Who It May Concern:

I have been trying to log into this account, The Empire of History, through Mozilla Firefox. Currently, I am logged in from Microsoft Edge, which is the other browser on my computer. However, for some reason, when I try to log into this account on Firefox, it says this: "There seems to be a problem with your login session; this action has been canceled as a precaution against session hijacking. Go back to the previous page, reload that page and then try again." No matter what I try to do, it will not let me login. Is there any way that I can resolve this issue?

Thank you for your assistance.

--The Empire of History (talk) 03:44, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

@The Empire of History: Try logging out, and purging your cookies in Firefox, also checking that you have allowed permissions. I have no issues with Firefox use. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:56, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

spambot

Billinghurst, regarding your block of a couple of spambots last night - please note that these are apparently globally attacking. I posted regarding these on m:Talk:Spam blacklist, I think these IPs should be globally locked with withdrawal of talkpage access (and preferably as soon as they hit the blacklist to unclutter the list). I also asked here on en.wikipedia to have a bot do the honours on these, but maybe that should even be considered globally.

We have {{spamblacklistblock}} as block reason for them now in the block options, and in Twinkle, for ease of blocking. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:58, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

@Beetstra: Yep. I have been doing some log/spamblacklist work at Meta, enWS, commons, and MW over the past month, concurrently whilst dealing with the file spam issue for Commons (as mentioned at meta). At this point of time I am gathering data by putting blocks in place, whilst dealing with the worst of the worst at meta. Putting global blocks in place is okay for individual IPs, though is trickier for IP ranges without the ability to view local data for the country of blocking at the respective language wiki where presumably it will have negative impacts. FWIW the spam is predominantly English language so tracking those five wikis gives a good indication and management approach (though I cannot be definitive as I cannot see all the spamblacklist logs any more, and I cannot be bothered asking for a creation of a group set of right to manage spam globally as I am not wanting to particularly re-enter the WMF politics zone, been there, done enough of that, retired!)

Re bot blocking, there is too much collateral damage to just block based on appearance in the blacklist, it needs to be more finely attuned. Best that I could see to manage it would be to have a spamfilter where you specifically put in problematic urls, and allowed the system to block on that basis, BUT it won't happen globally as stewards have the guidance to not globally block based on a spam filter, so it would have to be wiki-based. Wiki-centric blocks are already doable where the community allows. OR we look at splitting spamblacklists into hard and soft lists (or ranked lists) where the most egregious are in one list (or more highly rated); which is similar process that you use for your link reverting bot. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:21, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

It boils back again to the same old (roughly a suggestion made by the developers (Brion), for crying out loud - no we need VE etc. more) - overthrow the old spam blacklist and write a new one, preferably based on an edit-filter like basis. That would allow for separate edit filters per group of URLs, and then you could just ignore the logs, unless you want to know who is spamming what (or even choose not to log .. who friggin' cares for these). As it is now, there are IPs that manage to get thousands of edits before being blocked (we now have 2-3 editors actively following it, and still they manage to get to 50 ..), flooding out pages and pages of the log, making the log utterly useless.
Here on en, those IPs have zero edits until now (and I blocked by now easily a 100, some for a year after returning after a block) - otherwise I would not block them long-term with revoking talkpage access. I doubt if these IPs have globally any edits. However, I do think that it is important to tag the talkpages if you withdraw talkpage access, just in case that the IP is taken over by a regular, real editor. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:56, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Took a bit of digging - but this and this and this is also the same spambot - see them appearing here and here. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:53, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

168.213.5.105

Hello Billinghurst,

I came across this IP when I was adding a {{Shared IP edu}} template to it, and I noticed that you indefinitely blocked them. Since IP addresses are usually not blocked indefinitely, I just wanted to let you know just in case this was an accident, regards. Yinf (talk) 23:36, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

@Yinf: Many thanks, that was definitely not intentional. I have pulled it back to a month. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:25, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Link change to Dictionary of Australian Biography articles

Hi Billinghurst, it seems the article links for these have changed, e.g. In Abel Tasman the D.A.B. link http://gutenberg.net.au/dictbiog/0-dict-biogT-V.html#tasman1 has now changed to http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks15/1500721h/0-dict-biogT-V.html#tasman1. (I've manually updated the link on this page). The "Dictionary of Australian Biography" template has 826 uses currently. Can a bot be run to change the link in pages that use the template? Or is it best to modify the template to include the first part of the link and run the bot to just include the last part of the link in the template? That way, if the URL changes again it just means one change the D.A.B. template itself. Thanks. DivermanAU (talk) 02:12, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Ouch. My opinion is that we would look to have a scheme that is easily updateable, but still allows full url. So something like convert template:Dictionary of Australian Biography to have link= to still be a full url though replaced with afactor that has something like shortlink=0-dict-biogT-V.html and where shortlink is used that the remainder of the url is automatically applied. I can run through a fix if required; it looks reasonably simple based on your example. It is just a matter of getting each pair of the required combinations. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:08, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
Maybe it's easier just to have a bot just replace the old part of the path with the new one. another example:
http://gutenberg.net.au/dictbiog/0-dict-biogA.html#adams1 is now
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks15/1500721h/0-dict-biogA.html#adams1
so, if the string "gutenberg.net.au/dictbiog" is replaced with "gutenberg.net.au/ebooks15/1500721h" that will fix the links. DivermanAU (talk) 20:44, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
@DivermanAU: Yes, that is possible, though doesn't future proof. Without even looking at the guts of the template, I was thinking something like changing the template code to have
{{#if:{{{shortlink|}}}|http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks15/1500721h/{{{shortlink|}}}|{{{link}}}}}
then replacing link=http://gutenberg.net.au/dictbiog/ with shortlink=. This way it doesn't matter whether someone uses a full link, or the shortlink either will work, and both cannot display, and it will work before or after the update. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:46, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
Sounds good to me! DivermanAU (talk) 01:12, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 Done Parameter change made; proceeding to the replacements which will take a little while as I have never bothered with bot rights here. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:55, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 November 2016

The article Camilla Nylund has been proposed for deletion because it appears to have no reliable references. Under Wikipedia policy, this biography of a living person will be deleted after seven days unless it has at least one reference to a reliable source that directly supports material in the article.

If you created the article, please don't be offended. Instead, consider improving the article. For help on inserting references, see Referencing for beginners, or ask at the help desk. Once you have provided at least one reliable source, you may remove the {{prod blp/dated}} tag. Please do not remove the tag unless the article is sourced. If you cannot provide such a source within seven days, the article may be deleted, but you can request that it be undeleted when you are ready to add one. – Finnusertop (talkcontribs) 19:17, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Reversal of Changes for Ironshore Wiki

Billinghurst, you recently undid changes that were made to the Ironshore wiki page ( 01:43, 30 October 2016‎ ). Would you mind clarifying why these changes were reverted? Thank you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironshore — Preceding unsigned comment added by NRCDYN (talkcontribs) 01:16, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:32, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anyoption. North America1000 02:39, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

A new user right for New Page Patrollers

Hi Billinghurst/Archives.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

File Duplicate?

What do you mean my file was a duplicate?

((GR) Duplicate: File:Regions of Ethiopia.png → File:Ethiopia regions english.png Exact or scaled-down duplicate: c::File:Ethiopia regions english.png) updated since my last visit (undo | thank)

(cur | prev) 10 November 2016‎ DejazmachQabridahar (talk | contribs)‎ m . . (1,589 bytes) (-5)‎ . . (Adapted the regions based on CC 2.5 and new map http://reliefweb.int/map/ethiopia/ethiopia-somali-region-administrative-map-05-jan-2015) (undo)

Based on CC 2.5 I had the right to adapt his work. As you can see by the UN source it shows a 2015 map of the Somali region? So why remove my work?

- (Dejazmachqabridahar) 02:07, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Conversation belongs at Commons where the process took place. I can see that there are changes that I missed last time. That said we are going to better document the changes as this would be seen as being a somewhat important update that should contain specific information. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:11, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Did you intend to nominate this as Articles for Deletion or as Miscellany for Deletion? It was in draft space, and you nominated it for deletion as an article, but it isn't an article. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:31, 20 November 2016 (UTC) You may have made the wrong kind of deletion nomination. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:33, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: Sure, whichever. It is spam dressed up as article. Take it through whichever process you deem suitable. I must be more intolerant than you with such submissions. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:14, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
User:billinghurst - If it were in article space, I would tag it for G11. However, in draft space, I would decline it as reading like an advertisement. The problem is that you used the wrong deletion method in the space it is in. Robert McClenon (talk) 12:09, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
It was late at night and I was packing up. Don't fuss it, correct an insignificance. Crap is crap and it should go through the process to get it deleted. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:12, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

What about here?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Inflatable_pigs_on_Roger_Waters%27_tours&oldid=prev&diff=750715062 — what`s wrong with this edit? user talk:Nazgulina —Preceding undated comment added 13:14, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Please find use reliable sources. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:46, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Such dead links should either be updated or removed

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Estadio_Monumental_Antonio_Vespucio_Liberti&oldid=prev&diff=750714649 - so we have dead link here. user talk:Nazgulina

If it has a dead link, please tag with {{dead link}} as discussed at WP:Dead link and WP:DEADREF, rather than replacing it with an indirect link to a fan site. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:47, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Billinghurst. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

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 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

November 2016

Your revert on Jujutsu did not have an edit summary. Please provide an edit summary when you revert anything that isn't vandalism. Thanks!  {MordeKyle  23:11, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 November 2016

64.114.222.13

Hello Billinghurst,

I see that you have blocked this IP for 2 weeks, but it looks like their previous block was for six months. Just wanted to let you know in case if you weren't aware of that. I've also confirmed it to be a school IP, see this link. 2601:1C0:106:C856:7C92:9639:8495:3992 (talk) 23:49, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Sure. New case, new escalating doom. As it will be a new user at the school, continuing an old block pattern is less helpful. We'll see what we should do next in two weeks. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:22, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

A cookie for you!

thank you had to change my links as was from the google page rather than from the source i m learning slowly Truthitmatters (talk) 15:37, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 December 2016

Removal of Wikisource template from Adelsverein article

The template you removed from Adelsverein is the legal testimony of John O. Meusebach (Otfried Hans Freiherr von Meusebach) about the Adelsverein history and emigration to Texas. I have put the template back with a little better title on it so that is understood. Seems to me this is directly related to the article. — Maile (talk) 16:48, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

@Maile66: We would like to the work with {{wikisource}} not to the author page. Your link is slightly misleading with the title. Ideally the Meusebach article will utilise {{wikisource author}}. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:14, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
Well, OK. Your newest edit sent it to a page that did not exist, I guess because you left it in the wikisource author template. — Maile (talk) 22:22, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
It did? Ugh, apologies, too many edit. I was sure that I changed it. <sigh> — billinghurst sDrewth 09:06, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
Great work. Keep at it. Happy holidays and a prosperous 2017. Quis separabit? 14:04, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

fyi

just like ahmad sukarno - muhammad suharto was an invented western abberration, no one in Indonesia ever called him that JarrahTree 00:06, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I was just pairing the infobox to the lead. At the same time, I doubt that he was just referred to as Suharto by his mother, or by all people, so some indication of first and family name would be of interest. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:50, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Harto or Pak Harto was the Jakartan taxi drivers version - however a very good point - he was javanese - so in most cases the javanese familial name for the child can be so far from the adult name (dont let me start on that one) - to answer you on that I am not sure I can get a good handle on that in the short term. Youre brave editing there - he big articles usually are a waste of time to have on watch list - indonesia, suharto, sukarno - everyone is an expert of course and the flies are omnipresent as well. Happy new year etc - JarrahTree 01:01, 28 December 2016 (UTC)