This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Question
Hi Amalthea, AWESOME name btw,
Anyway, i wanted 2 know y my page Qetsiyah was deleted.
It's just a friendly question, no need 2 block me :) lol — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tyler Summers (talk • contribs) 20:45, 1 January 2014 (UTC)TS (talk) 20:48, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Hi Tyler, the Wikipedia community has a number of guidelines and policies about the topics and content of standalone articles. If it is apparent that a topic doesn't by itself have sufficient "notability" or that there isn't sufficient material to warrant a a standalone article then pages are either merged or deleted. In the case of a fictional character, what we're looking for is real-world notability (is the character discussed in depth in reliable secondary sources like newspapers?), and material written from a real-world perspective. Usually minor fictional characters are described as part of a list article. That's what happened here I think: WilliamJE felt there wasn't enough material to warrant a standalone article, redirected your new page to the list page where the character is already listed. If you want to expand on that you should first do so in that list (and I see you already have a bit). You can still find the text you wrote in the page history. For reference you may want to look into some other, comparable articles. For example, even most major "Song of Ice and Fire"/"Game of Thrones" characters are only described in List of A Song of Ice and Fire characters. Only some have standalone articles with sourced real-world information, like Brienne of Tarth. From Lost, Martin Keamy is also a good example for an article on a fictional character and the amount of real-world information we ideally want to provide. Hope that helps, if you have additional questions feel free to ask. Amalthea 21:55, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Um, i don't currently have any. But thanks, LOVE THE NAME :D TS (talk) 11:11, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
Thank you
Thank you for indenting my duplicate Support. I have absolutely no excuse for this error. Respectfully, Tiyang (talk) 09:35, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
Don't worry about it. Amalthea 09:41, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
HCCC14
This is clearly a sockpuppet of banned user Associate Affiliate - the edits are exactly what that user worked on before the ban. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spoortwee (talk • contribs) 22:29, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
Not clear to me, no. But you certainly are a disruptive sock account. Amalthea 18:45, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
@Huntster: I use a bot script that queries the API (with something like this) and does some minor reformatting to make the resulting page a bit smaller. From a glance, you have some magic in commons:User:Huntster/adminrights.js that used to do the required formatting for you. Assuming you still use monobook you probably only need to change all those http: links to https: and it might work again. Haven't tried it though. :) Cheers, Amalthea 18:43, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
Wow, something as simple as changing to https in the base script solved everything. I can now manually update again. Thanks so much :D — Huntster (t@c) 20:55, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
@Billy Hathorn: I've actually noticed the AfD, but there isn't really anything I feel I need to comment on. WP:POLOUTCOMES is in line with my experience & opinion, mayors of mid-size cities aren't inherently notable, notability needs to be shown per WP:NOTABILITY. If possible (I haven't looked at the references) I would recommend you pick one or two sources that are a) notable reliable sources and b) cover the topic in detail and independently (i.e. no obituary, no press release), and link them in the AfD. Also if possible, show that the topic has had at least some coverage in reliable sources outside his municipal area. In the end the closing admin will need to decide which arguments are in line with community policy and which he considers stronger (the number of people commenting there (should) have no bearing, only strength of argument). Hope that helps, Amalthea 16:12, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
I was wondering if you could take a look at 2 new ones I suspect of being socks. The 2nd one is Clueingforlooks with is just the same as a previous socks name Cluingforsocks just with an "e" added to the name. LADY LOTUS • TALK 13:43, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
Handling it now. You can't always rely on getting a clerk/admin/CU who is familiar with a case, and if that happens you as the filer need to present the evidence and why CU is needed, just like Deskana asked. It's very easy to do so in this case, and that way someone could have looked into it two days ago. Amalthea 15:59, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
I understand but I do appreciate you looking into it this time. Next time I'll have differences. LADY LOTUS • TALK 12:16, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
Template:Welcome
Is there a reason you raised Template:Welcome from template protection to full protection? Jackmcbarn (talk) 19:47, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Of course. I believe this was the action with the least negative impact to ensure that our most-used welcome template is usable without glitches or artifacts. As far as I can tell there is no hurry to make any changes and that raised concerns can be discussed first. I do expect it can be lowered again soon. Amalthea 20:03, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
CCI tally
Hi Amalthea. I noticed that your bot has not performed its tally of the CCI cases for a couple of days and I was wondering if you could have a look and see why not. Thanks, -- Diannaa (talk) 13:51, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Hmm, worked when I started it manually this afternoon, I'll have to check the logs to see what went wrong the last two times. Thanks for the note! Cheers, Amalthea 18:38, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Check please
Hello, I was advised by AGK to bring this information to a community member with checkuser privileges. The disruption has quieted down, but something about the editing pattern (multiple IPs used over a long period) seems very odd. The person is obviously an experienced user who is not shy about controversy. I didn't bring this to SPI because I have no idea who it might be or why they have chosen to edit this way. Ignocrates (talk) 20:09, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
Hmm. No response. Does silence mean you have checked and there is nothing to this? Just wondering. Ignocrates (talk) 22:54, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
Request for comment
Hello there, a proposal regarding pre-adminship review has been raised at Village pump by Anna Frodesiak. Your comments here is very much appreciated. Many thanks. Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:46, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
Jagged 85 SPI
In June 2010, at WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Jagged 85/Archive you said to reopen the SPI if further IPs or accounts were suspected. There is a discussion at ANI where four IPs are listed, and there is a little more at the Jagged RfC. Is it worth listing the IPs with some evidence at SPI? Jagged 85 is now banned and has not edited since September 2012, and SPI is generally for accounts, so I was wondering whether there would be any point in me reopening the case. Sorry to bother you, but my concern is that if a case were raised and quickly dismissed, an onlooker might get the message that they were untouchable, and those handling the edits would be further depressed. Johnuniq (talk) 04:36, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Hello. You're a past editor in the Garbage articles, would you mind giving your input on the latest discussion? Talk:Garbage_(band)#Genres. --Lpdte77 (talk) 01:47, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
Request for unprotecting edit notices
Please see WP:RFUP, where there is a request to undo the salting of certain edit notices. The user observes that account creators and template editors should have the ability to create these. I may not follow the logic completely, but since you are the salting admin, your opinion would be helpful. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 17:37, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, Callanecc, EdJohnston -- Just for some background, only reason for protection was that they are transcluded in MadiaWiki space (automatically, if they exist), and we always restrict those pages to admins. Personally I agree to keep them that way as long as the template editor group doesn't have editinterface. There also appears to be no reason to only unsalt the listed ones while keeping existing namespace editnotices like Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Template fully protected. Amalthea 08:53, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
hallo
Amaltea guten Abend, wie geht es Ihnen? Ich hoffe gut.
Ich habe eine wichtige Frage. Sie Checkuser, können Sie entdecken auch die IP statistischen?? Danke. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.152.52.163 (talk) 19:09, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Main page history
I miss it. Did I miss a change? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:42, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
A change in the API broke the tool, and you are the first to report it. :( Amalthea 11:54, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
Fixed, thanks for the report. We're missing a month's worth now of course ... Amalthea 12:03, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
E-mail sent to you
Hello, Amalthea. Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Hello Amalthea, I was reviewing currently approved bots with unusual flags, an noticed yours has the rollbacker flag. Which bot task requires this permission? Thanks, — xaosfluxTalk 02:00, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
None currently, I've removed it from the group. Thanks, Amalthea 08:52, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
Fields Medal page
Hello there,I'm that user who's been the victim of editing the Fields Medal page(i.e.I got blocked with charge of Vandalism.).I've got three question:1)When the current protected status of that page ends,Does the page current contents remain in place or they are replaced with the old version? 2)I've prepared a new and somehow comprehensive table about Fields medalists.I posted this table on the discussion section of the Fields Medal page,and I request for comments about this(If You come there and see my that table I will be really glad,and don't forget to put your comment about it down there!;-)),but so far,just one person did so.Is it normal? 3)Should I submit a request for edit to replace the new table with current one?Or should I wait for reaching a consensus?Thank You. Rezameyqani (talk) 07:50, 19 August 2014 (UTC)Rezameyqani (talk) 08:19, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
Fixed, thanks for the notice! Amalthea 13:26, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
Hi Amalthea, I think your bot has had another hiccup as the SPI page hasn't updated in several hours.--Jezebel'sPonyobons mots 21:17, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, Ponyo -- seems to have recovered on its own, but I'll try and find out what caused it. Cheers, Amalthea 07:24, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Stopped again. :-( — Richwales(no relation to Jimbo) 04:56, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
Somewhat unrelated, but Template:Webhostblock links to a non-existent section there. ⁓ Hello71 19:52, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
Bot
Hi,
It looks like the SPI bot is down again. Could you take a look? Thanks! Mike V • Talk 22:04, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
Nevermind, it seems to be working now. Mike V • Talk 18:15, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
Since you were the last person to edit this template (in 2009!): There have been a number of requests in the last five years for changes to the template – adding language that "disambiguation pages are not articles", adding the info symbol, adding a background color for visibility, and adding a link to WP:DDD. The talk page is very sparsely visited, so consensus is hard to come by, but there's been no dissent. I think it would be appropriate to WP:BOLDly make those changes. Could you do that? —Swpbtalk 16:58, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Hello Amalthea, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2015.
Happy editing, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:01, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
Hi Amalthea. The CCI stats at User:Amalthea/CCI/Overview are failing to update, though the bot seems to be active and doing its other tasks. If you could give it a poke I would appreciate it. Thanks, -- Diannaa (talk) 20:55, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
Hi Diannaa, odd, I'm getting an internal error in Mono when I'm running the task on the server, so I'm guessing it's a bug there. I've run it once from here, and will try to find out what's going on exactly. Seems to always fail on the same page, but that doesn't need to mean much. Cheers, Amalthea 10:07, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
I've switched to HTTP/1.0 for now which circumvents the problem. Thanks for letting me known! Amalthea 11:27, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, and best wishes for the holidays. -- Diannaa (talk) 15:21, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
Precious again
reviewing eyes
Thank you for reviewing in the Contributor copyright investigations/PumpkinSky! Paraphrasing (I hope not too closely): If everybody who read this looked at one more article it could be over today. - repeating: you are an awesome Wikipedian (5 May 2009)!
Hi, I'm re-creating article Hare Kanch Ki Chooriyan (1967) with new content. Letting you know since you had deleted Hare Kanch Ki Chooriyan on 30 August 2012 for copy vio. (G12: Unambiguous copyright infringement). I don't know what was in that article, but will avoid copyright. Thanks. Kaayay (talk) 10:46, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
Great, thanks! :) Amalthea 11:00, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
Whoopsie, is on its way ... Amalthea 14:58, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
Ah, too late, User:B has already taken care of it -- thanks! :) Amalthea 14:59, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
Twinkle (bis)
Hi Amalthea, I hope you are well, and that your relative inactivity here means good things are happening for you! Would you please be able to take a moment to sync Twinkle? In particular, there's a new format change at RPP which would be nice to be on top of. Thanks, — This, that and the other (talk) 12:58, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
Yes and yes :) Sync done, TTatO, but I haven't tested it. Cheers, Amalthea 14:23, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
Doesn't appear to be updating the SPI cases at the moment. Can you take a look? Thanks. Abecedare (talk) 01:03, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
Hmm, is updating again ... I'm still looking into whether this is a bug in mono, or Microsoft.NET is just more robust and Wikipedia's web server infrastrucutre is emitting faulty invalid HTTP. Thanks! Amalthea 08:30, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
Twinkle deployment
Hey there! I authored the recently deployed Block module for admins. I'm writing you today to understand the versioning system you are using. Looking at the page histories, it looks like the format is vX.X-XXX-SHA: commit message. I know we're on version 2.0 but where is the minor version number being tracked? Is that stored somewhere on your local machine when you run the sync script? Thanks! — MusikAnimaltalk 01:16, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
My deploy script is more or less a port of Azatoth's perl script. The version identifier is generated with git describe; The 'minor' version is actually just the number of commits since the tag named "v2.0". Version/build numbers with git is no quite straightforward. For continuous integration situations like here counting commits works quite well since its comparable. Problems start if you release from other branches than master or if you don't always build origin/master. HTH, Amalthea 06:26, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for the clarification. Does your script also run on python? I was unsuccessful at getting all the dependencies properly installed on my machine. — MusikAnimaltalk 05:07, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
No, a rather bare .NET script. Amalthea 09:41, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
Sysop highlighting
Hi Amalthea. I've been using your sysop highlighting script, see my page here. Very useful! But suddenly it's not working anymore. Did something happen? Note, please speak to me in words of one syllable about "scripts", they're a closed book to me. Thank you. P. S., I see Amalthea hasn't edited in over a month. Any helpful talkpage stalkers out there? Bishonen | talk 11:23, 14 May 2015 (UTC).
This edit seems to be the culprit. - NQ(talk) 11:42, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
Bad bot! :-( Bishonen | talk 14:01, 14 May 2015 (UTC).
I've added a quick temp fix if anyone wants it. Install this script: User:Padenton/adminhighlighter.js, short doc here it uses an admin list (which will not be updated) on my userspace from before the diff linked above. If anyone wants a notification when I delete the script (once this is in working order), there's a list you can add yourself to on the talk page here: User talk:Padenton/adminhighlighter ―Padenton|✉ 15:38, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for doing this, Padenton. It's working fine for me now with your fix. I've added myself to your list for a notification when you delete it. Bishonen | talk 16:52, 14 May 2015 (UTC).
Slight change in API output, and bot is not too robust in that regard. Fixed now, thanks, Bishonen, NQ & Padenton. Amalthea 09:06, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
The latest update dropped around 800 sysops. [1] - NQ(talk) 23:43, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
Hi, Amalthea – since edit notices are now all template protected by MediaWiki:Titleblacklist, I wonder if you could unprotect Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Category, which you fully protected back in May 2011? I would be deeply grateful if you could! Thank you in advance for your consideration in this! – Paine 20:31, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
Hi Paine! Reason for protection of the namespace editnotices was that they are transcluded in interface messages in MediaWiki space and visible on all pages of a namespace. I think they should be kept protected per WP:PPINDEF as long as the template editor group doesn't have editinterface since they are as sensitive as anything in the MediaWiki-namespace, incorrect edits there have the ability to disrupt all pages in the namespace. Cheers, Amalthea 10:04, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
Understandable – I'll just use a parser function to remove template editors from the notice on fully protected template talk pages. Joys! – Paine 13:10, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
SPI
I'd appreciate it if you tool a look at this, and participate, if possible. All Rows4 (talk) 09:14, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
You've got mail
Hello, Amalthea. Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Motion: Activity
In accordance with the standing procedure on inactivity, the checkuser permissions of:
are removed. The committee thanks them for their many years of service. For the Arbitration Committee, --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 18:37, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Hope all is well with you and that you are frolicking in happy pastures. :D I have tried to contextualize the decision to unblock Billy as I understood it with [2]. I should have linked you to it immediately given your low activity since I cannot count on "ping" to alert you, but that rather obvious thought didn't occur to me until around 3:00 a.m. If I have mischaracterized any part of it, please correct me! --Moonriddengirl(talk) 14:32, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
Sure, no worries, and from what I'd read I think you've gotten it right. :) Amalthea 13:08, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
Invitation to subscribe to the edit filter mailing list
Hi, as a user in the edit filter manager user group we wanted to let you know about the new wikipedia-en-editfilters mailing list. As part of our recent efforts to improve the use of edit filters on the English Wikipedia it has been established as a venue for internal discussion by edit filter managers regarding private filters (those only viewable by administrators and edit filter managers) and also as a means by which non-admins can ask questions about hidden filters that wouldn't be appropriate to discuss on-wiki. As an edit filter manager we encourage you to subscribe; the more users we have in the mailing list the more useful it will be to the community. If you subscribe we will send a short email to you through Wikipedia to confirm your subscription, but let us know if you'd prefer another method of verification. I'd also like to take the opportunity to invite you to contribute to the proposed guideline for edit filter use at WP:Edit filter/Draft and the associated talk page. Thank you! Sam Walton (talk) and MusikAnimaltalk 18:22, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
FTR, I removed myself from that user group September 10th. Amalthea 14:05, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
Hi Amalthea, it doesn't look like you're on-wiki much these days, but in case you watch more than you edit, I'll report the problem with Amalthea (bot) anyway. For some time now, the bot has not been behaving properly. The most common problem is when a case is archived, the bot puts it in open status and at the top of the list where it doesn't belong. There have been some kludgy "fixes" tried, e.g., making a null edit to the case, purging the case, and purging the list. Sometimes that worked. Sometimes it didn't. Sometimes it worked and the case went off the list and then popped back in. Another weird thing I just noticed today is a case I merged with another case, completed that case, closed it, and a clerk archived it. Now the case with the original name before the merge is in the endorsed category.
I love that table and rely on it. I know it's not always 100% up-to-date, and that's fine because it catches up fairly quickly, but this is driving me a bit nuts.
Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:14, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
@Bbb23: It seams that the bot stopped working completely. I edited the WP:SPI page and switched it to the backup table. Vanjagenije(talk) 21:31, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
@Bbb23 and Vanjagenije: The categories are added by the scripts (Twinkle, SPI helper), and/or the {{SPI case status}} template, right? The BRFA says the bot parses the pages to determine the status, but I see categories for each. If it is going off of categories it may not be the bot acting up, rather the categories aren't saying up-to-date, which is resolved by purging them. Another question: Wasn't the format of the SPI case pages changed recently? Was that around the same time you noticed the bot malfunctioning? — MusikAnimaltalk 02:59, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: Your first sentence question: I don't know. Category statement: I don't know what you mean by purging "them"; what's them? Your last question: I don't think the format changed recently, but it has changed from time to time. I couldn't tell you when. AFAIK, it's never acted up after a change. The malfunctioning has been going on since at least October 16. Now my question: earlier this evening I noticed that after days of listing things incorrectly, it now looks normal. First time in a few days. Did you do anything? Can you tell if anyone else did anything?--Bbb23 (talk) 04:48, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
Hmm I definitely didn't do anything :) But my thought was maybe there were some server or WMF-side issues going on where the categories weren't staying up-to-date. Presumably, the MediaWiki software occasionally purges them to refresh the list, but you can do this manually. E.g at Category:SPI cases awaiting administration there is a purge link — MusikAnimaltalk 05:03, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
What's "occasionally", and why was the manual purging unnecessary before? If you're right about the cause of the problem, does that mean the software is purging the categories less frequently? Is there a way to determine the frequency and if that frequency changed?--Bbb23 (talk) 05:25, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
The bot was not updating the SPI list for more than an hour when I posted the comment. I taught it should be running every 10 minutes, but now I see that it's not always the case. Vanjagenije(talk) 13:14, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
@Vanjagenije:: I try my best to conserve resources with the bot so yeah, it is started every 10 minutes to query the API to figure out whether things have changed, but it only edits when something has changed. Amalthea 13:18, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
@Bbb23:: Could you point out such a broken revision? Maybe I can figure out something from a log. As MusikAnimal has pointed out this could boil down to a problem with categories or the job queue. Looking at the categories right when you notice an incorrect table could confirm that ... If the problem returns then I'm sure I could change the logic that figures out the case state, or if Delta Quads bot task doesn't have that problem it might make sense to just permanently switch to that one? Amalthea 13:18, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
Ah, DQs bot isn't running ATM. I'd be happy to fix any problems though, but first I need to see it. :) Amalthea 13:21, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Vanja and I seem to be focusing on different issues. I'm not talking about the normal lag of the bot updating the table. It's been that way as long as I can remember. It always catches up and it's not a big deal. I'm talking about totally screwing up the table as I described in my original post. I'm not even sure what you mean by a "broken revision" as I'm not clear what that means and what I should look at. I can tell you when it's working (now and since some time yesterday) and when it hasn't (for at least several days before that and intermittently but regularly dating back to at least October 16). If you want to wait until it doesn't work again (if that happens), that's fine, but how do I get in touch with you at that time as your on-wiki presences seems limited.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:27, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
This revision, for example was broken. First two cases on the list were marked as "open" while they were actually archived and shouldn't be on the list at all. Vanjagenije(talk) 13:54, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
Thanks! Yeah, finding one prove to be easy :) Amalthea 14:04, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
← @Bbb23: Ok, I just clicked through some old revisions of the page and it seems like rv 688447817 shows the behavior you were talking about: The Scibaby case is shown as open at the very top of the page.
For any case to be listed in the table it needs to be categorized in Category:Open SPI cases, so Scibaby must have been in that category at that time.
If you look at the page source of that revision of the table, the case status is shown as "unknown". The case status is determined by the bot looking at the page source of the case page and finding the parameter of the {{SPI case status}} template. Since the template wasn't found on that revision of Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Scibaby we ended up with status 'unknown'.
So at the core this looks like a MediaWiki problem: If categorization breaks down, this bot will behave incorrectly.
Since it seems this has been resolved and everything is back to normal I don't think I need to work around this issue. Instead I would recommend three things:
The {{SPIstatusentry}}-template was changed in recent times so that it now misrepresents an unknown state like "unknown" as "Open"; that should be changed again.
If it reoccurs, please verify that the Category:Open SPI cases is incorrectly listing a page. IIRC back in the day a single recategorization happened instantly, not via job queue. If this breaks down sporadically try a null editon the SPI page. If this doesn't work, notify someone at WP:VPT :)
If it reoccurs and the problem seems to lie somewhere else then please let me know. Posting here should still be the best way to get my attention within a reasonable timespan. :)
Oh, that's all you were talking about when you used the word "revision". Never even occurred to me. I sorta follow most of what you said. If the problem recurs, I'll try to do what you suggest above. I can also consult with Vanja if I can't resolve it on my own. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:26, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
Since the problem persists I've now changed the templates so that an 'unknown' status is shown as such. I don't think I need to start working around incorrect categorization since it's now properly displayed, it's known how to workaround it via a null edit, and someone at VPT has reported the categorization bug to the devs. Amalthea 12:37, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
To make "no status" default to "unknown" you need to update {{SPI case status/core}} to add an "OPEN" status and change the default to "UNKNOWN". I'll work on it. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 17:48, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
I've put everything back the way it was before me or Amalthea changed anything for the time being until we decide together what we actually want. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 19:09, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
@Salvidrim!: As far as I understand it, the bot correctly categorizes pages with {{SPI case status}} (with no parameter) on it as "open", and there's no need to change that behavior. The issue is that there are cases 1) in the Open SPI cases category due to MediaWiki lag but 2) has been archived so it has no {{SPI case status}} template whatsoever. The bot currently (and correctly) classifies those as "unknown", but the template display code in {{SPIstatusentry}} doesn't handle this classification and defaults to "open"; the only change needed is to make {{SPIstatusentry}} handle this case and display "unknown" correctly. T. Canens (talk) 19:49, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
I UNDERSTAND IT NOW. Amalthea, MusikAnimal Can the bot be made to return these cases as status "archiving" instead of "unknown"? Or maybe "missing template"? Or perhaps -- don't report them at all? ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 20:04, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
@Salvidrim:@Timotheus Canens: As far as I understand its not a question of lag, archiving the case should remove the page from the category instantaneously (as it used to until recently). If you want I could certainly hide all pages without a {{SPI case status}} template, but this would mean that a page that is otherwise categorized in Category:Open SPI cases will never be listed. Not sure that ever happens, but null editing an 'unknown' page probably isn't too problematic either? To me the current behavior seems quite acceptable, but you guys will have to tell me what's best for you. :) Amalthea 14:08, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
(copied from User talk:Vanjagenije) The bot sometimes crawls reports that have been archived but for which the categories applied by the case-template haven't been removed yet due to MediaWiki lag -- and when the bot does not find a case template, it reports the status as "unknown" in the case list. The problem thus far is that this "unknown" status caused the cases in question to appear at the top of the case list, and "as if" they has an "open" status, because the caselist templates displayed cases under an "open" status as default when no other existing status matches. All I'd need to do (and that has been done) is to add a display option for cases reported by the bot as "unknown" so that they display as "unknown" and don't default to "open" because they don't match any documented status. As I've proposed, I don't think "unknown" is the best status to report these as and will see with Amalthea if she could tweak how the bot reports these cases in the caselist, so I can then adjust the caselist templates to display these reports how we want them. Basically, this special status caused by cases still being categorized (thus crawled by the bot) but which have been archived (thus no casetemplate) would only be something that would be reported by the bot to the caselist template and then displayed there in a non-confusing way until MediaWiki lag catches up and these stop being reported. It would not really be an "actual" case status (which would be illogical since the very existence of this would be because there is no longer a casetemplate). ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 3:35 pm, Today (UTC−5)
Please consider reducing the protection to pending-changes or semi-protection (or both) and putting an expiration date on it (I suggest 1 year - if there is no attempted abuse during that time then let it expire). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:15, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
I've removed the protections. Can't say whether I had a reason to not set any expiration date back in the day, but right now I see no reason for it. Thanks! Amalthea 17:51, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
Greetings, back in 2011 you fully protected this template for being highly visible, but as it is it has only under 1000 transclusions. I believe than in such cases template protection or semi protection is more common.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:14, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
Transclusion counts of substitution helper templates don't really reflect the "risk" since those meta templates are often used in substituted templates, like several welcome templates in this case. I agree though that template protection is surely sufficient today. That protection level didn't exist back then IIRC, and the template might have seen more high risk usage back then, too -- many template tricks like this one can now be solved better with Modules. Thanks & Cheers, Amalthea 21:14, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
Hello, Amalthea. Please check your email; you've got mail! Message added 01:27, 10 February 2016 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Greetings. Is there any chance that User:Amalthea (bot) could maintain a page containing a single value which is the number of RfAs currently open? We could transclude this on MediaWiki:Watchlist-details for the watchlist notice, which would obviate the need for manual updates. Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:20, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Sure, that's simple with everything already in place. Couple of questions though:
Is it sufficient if the page is in my userspace? Else it will require a BRFA.
RfBs on a separate page?
I'll just write the integer? And you loop it through {{Cardinal to word}} or something? Should make it sufficiently vandal-proof as well without full protection (if you protect that template)? Or I could hide it in some .js-page in the bot's user space.
Lovely thank you. I think I'll just use the raw number - I've knocked up Template:RfA watchlist notice as an example. I see what you mean about protection. Perhaps I'll put a check to see if the contents are a number - that would protect against obvious vandalism. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:48, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks much Amalthea, perhaps the bot could check MediaWiki:Watchlist-details for the next cookie number... just so us puny humans can be even lazier? Kharkiv07 (T) 19:24, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
← For manual watchlist notices you would then need to check back which cookie ID was last used for the RFA notice ... but I could use a separate range of numbers, e.g. cookie IDs in [10000,11000[. However, for the bot to decide when to increment the cookie ID someone needs to formalize the rules first. Imagine this scenario:
RfA A is put live
After a while the RfA is removed, for some reason
After a while, RfA B is put live
A while later RfA A is put live again (B is still live)
When is a new cookie ID used? Does it depend on how long the "a while"s are? I'm thinking maybe something like "an RfA is newly live for at least 5 hours, and that same RfA hasn't already gotten a cookie ID during the last 3 days" might work. Amalthea 00:49, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
5 or 6 hours sounds about right, and yes if an editor has already dismissed the notice then they wouldn't want a notice for the same RfA to appear again. I don't think the cookie has to be a number. Could you just prefix the number with RFA or similar? Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:56, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
MediaWiki:Common.js/watchlist.js is looking for digits only when parsing the ID. "wouldn't want a notice for the same RfA to appear again" -- that's exactly the problem, I don't think that's solvable with our current watchlist dismiss ID system. The example above was a bit contrived, here's a more typical one:
RfA A is put live, gets ID #1001
RfA B is put live later, combined notice gets ID #1002 (so that an editor who dismissed #1001 will still see the announcement for RfA B)
A while later RfA B is closed. Which ID is the new announcement supposed to get?
With the current script some editors will always see a notice for an RfA they already dismissed; this may be acceptable (and you have the same problem with manual cookie IDs of course), but the problem needs to be understood since you guys will get the complaints. :) The problem could be properly solved if announcements had multiple IDs and the dismiss logic only hid an entry if all IDs were dismissed. Amalthea 12:11, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
This is really getting into BIKESHED territory ... but in the example above I suppose the ideal would be to return to 1001 since there will be editors who dismissed RfA A and hadn't been online during RfA B's short life. But I don't think it's worth worrying too much about! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:05, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Any progress on this? Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:01, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
The SPI page was moved around in the time between those two bot edits; apparently this confused the Mediawiki categorization logic: You'll not that the page claims to be categorized in Category:Open SPI cases, but if you actually go to the category page you won't find it there. This might resolve itself if it's just sitting in the job queue waiting to be processed. If you want to fix it manually then do a WP:null edit on the SPI page, which will make Mediawiki to update the categories. Cheers, Amalthea 21:57, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:Seal of ASEAN.svg
⚠
Thanks for uploading File:Seal of ASEAN.svg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 03:24, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at T137613 regarding whether to create a Phabricator project for the Popups gadget. (As a maintainer of the gadget, legoktm thought you'd be interested.) Thanks! Enterprisey (talk!) (formerly APerson) 21:08, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, but I haven't done any work on popups in quite a while, so I don't think I can help you out there. Amalthea 07:07, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
"Not helpful" are some pretty strong words. Perhaps you could teach me what you mean by "deployed onsite" rather than dismissing me for trying to fix a problem the only way I know how. Thanks. – voidxor 19:03, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
When user:This, that and the other fixed the typos you reported, he removed the task from the to-do list and mentioned that they "will appear on-wiki soon", referring to the fact that Twinkle is developed on Github and the scripts will need to be copied to Wikipedia for them to have effect. Since TTatO isn't an admin and can't change the gadget pages himself he needs someone else to do it. I did that yesterday, right after the undo. Re-adding the task to the to-do list was not helpful since it misrepresented the problem. Next time just post at WT:TW, please. Amalthea 07:46, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
API change will break your bot
It looks like Amalthea Bot was using http:// to access the API last week, rather than https:// This is going to break soon, because of changes to the API. You can find more information in this e-mail message. If you need help updating your code to use https:// , then you might be able to find some help at w:en:Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard, on the mailing list, or at phab:T136674. Good luck, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:23, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
Oh alright, thanks for the notice. The one tool that was not using https has now been switched over. Cheers, Amalthea 18:20, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
Hi
How are you? i am new user here. can you please guide me about this website?
Hello, Amalthea. 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.
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. 17:47, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
Bot issue
Hi! The Amalthea (bot) is malfunctioning when the title of the page contains a "=" sign. Bot updated the SPI list (diff), but the case displays as a red link titled "endorsed" on the list. I tried to fix it manually (diff), but the bot immediately reverted me (diff). Vanjagenije(talk) 09:24, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
Do you know how to use the script cat-a-lot and enable the gadget on this wikipeida. (english).Saadkhan12345 (talk) 22:55, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
I don't, but it seems you've figured it our yourself. Amalthea 19:56, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
MfD nomination of Userspace circular redirects
A page in your userspace, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Userspace circular redirects and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Userspace circular redirects during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. -- A Certain White Catchi? 18:50, 18 October 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) 20:34, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
A new user right for New Page Patrollers
Hi Amalthea.
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) 13:46, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
Hello, Amalthea. 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.
The talkback template has recently become broken due to recent edits. The Template has been protected to prevent anyone except admins and template editors from editing it. I was wondering if you could take a look at it. As im sure you are aware, the template has fields for user and section. The template is currently configured to display those fields as:
Hello, Lammarck. You have new messages at [[User talk:Dillard421#Martial Law in the Philippines[edit]|Dillard421's talk page]].
No wiki tags added so you can see how it renders. Im contacting you because you have edited it before. Thanks Dillard421♂♂(talk to me) 04:58, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Hey Dillard421, it's not the template (which hasn't seen significant updates in 5 years), the section you wanted to link to included the "[edit]" link text (copy and paste I assume), and the square brackets broke the wikilink. I've removed that part and it seems to be working now. Cheers, Amalthea 10:15, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
OH I see what happened. Im dumb! haha thanks for the help Dillard421♂♂(talk to me) 21:12, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
Merry, merry!
From the icy Canajian north; to you and yours! FWiW Bzuk (talk) 20:01, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
Following an RfC, an activity requirement is now in place for bots and bot operators.
Technical news
When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. (T34950)
Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. (T156448)
The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.
JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.
Hi Amalthea. Regarding User:Amalthea_(bot)/userhighlighter.js/sysop.js, what do you use to keep this updated? I'd like to have a similar highlight list for Commons...I've been using Ais523's old admin highlighter, but this no longer outputs a formatted list I can use. Any suggestions on how to move forward? — Huntster (t@c) 00:56, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing to that, unfortunately I have zero understanding of API or how to parse that page into a format I can use. Ah well. — Huntster (t@c) 12:28, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
Amalthea, I was blocked by Wikipedia in 2011 for alleged copyright violations: following copyrighted text too closely though with attribution of the source in the reference link. You unblocked me on April 27, 2013.
In the former, my article was gutted to a single introductory paragraph on the claim that I had followed text too closely from a copyrighted source, The Handbook of Texas On-line, though I had scrambled the material. The WP article was expanded and recently published by West Texas Historical Review." The Hobart article is titled:
Land, Cattle, and Settlement: Timothy Dwight Hobart and the Shaping of the Texas Panhandle, 1855-1935
Authors
Billy Hathorn
Publication date
2016
Journal
The West Texas Historical Review
Volume
92
Issue
2016
Pages
78-93
Publisher
West Texas Historical Association in Lubbock
The Sheriff Pamerleau article had some information on her background that I was given permission by email to use. But WP found that I did not have the proper permission verified. I sent in a copy of the permission. That article is still on the board but altered somewhat from the way I submitted it.
The people on WP pushing for my ban would not consider the view that following copyrighted material too closely but with attribution is NOT plagiarism.
Would you consider reinstating me as you did four years ago? I have been banned for nearly seventeen months, long enough for violations of this kind, it seems to me. I understand that I shouldn't "follow too closely" and will never do so again.
Thanks,
Billy Hathorn 75.35.181.75 (talk) 02:33, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Re @Billy Hathorn: I cannot undo a community ban, you will need to submit an appeal as explained at WP:UNBAN. I haven't kept up with your edits regarding copyright problems, so I'm in no position to comment on that. What I can say is that as long as you keep evading your ban (not least with the anonymous IP account above) you show that you are still not caring about the policies of the Wikipedia community, so I'd expect you have no change of getting your ban lifted at the moment. If you are serious about this, my recommendation is: take a break of at least a year, without any edits, and appeal your ban then. Considering your history, this will probably not be enough, but its a first step. Amalthea 10:23, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Might want to see this, it concerns one of your scripts
Just a quick head's up, the bot seems to have tripped up this afternoon] (Anarchyte's RfA is still live) and consequently the RfA notice has disappeared from the watchlist. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 16:07, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
Michael Q. Schmidttalkbackis wishing you Season's Greetings! This message celebrates the holiday season, promotes WikiLove, and hopefully makes your day a little better. Spread the seasonal good cheer by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and aHappy New Year, whether it be someone with whom you had disagreements in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Share the good feelings. - MQS
User:Flix11
Hi Amalthea. I didn't realize you had previously blocked/unblocked this editor for WP:NOTBROKEN when I asked for advice at User talk:Yunshui#Need some advice. Perhaps you can offer a suggestion on how to best deal with this matter by commenting in that particular thread since they seem to be still "fixing" these redirects as before. Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 17:45, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
Ok, replied there. :) Amalthea 18:48, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
ArbCom 2017 election voter message
Hello, Amalthea. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
Hi, you recently posted on my talk page "I have given you access to IP block exemption. This will allow you to edit through a full block affecting your IP address, such as the block you asked about, when you are logged in." - are you able to remind me what page I asked about please? Thanks Ride the Hurricane (talk) 21:21, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
@Ride the Hurricane:: For some definitions of 'recently', anyway -- that was seven years ago. :) I really don't remember any details, but I don't think you were asking me about anything there. Apparently I was procedurally reviewing existing IP block exemptions, noticed that yours was no longer required since the IP block that made it necessary expired, and consequently removed it. See also your user rights log for more. Amalthea 21:55, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
Also, check out your talk page history, there was a strange edit there recently, maybe that's what's pinged you? Amalthea 22:00, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
Seven years? Blimey, so it was! I received a notification and assumed that's what it was for. No idea what that recent talk edit was - a bot tidying up policy references maybe? Thanks. Ride the Hurricane (talk) 01:23, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
Upcoming changes to wikitext parsing
Hello,
There will be some changes to the way wikitext is parsed during the next few weeks. It will affect all namespaces. You can see a list of pages that may display incorrectly at Special:LintErrors. Since most of the easy problems have already been solved at the English Wikipedia, I am specifically contacting tech-savvy editors such as yourself with this one-time message, in the hope that you will be able to investigate the remaining high-priority pages during the next month.
There are approximately 10,000 articles (and many more non-article pages) with high-priority errors. The most important ones are the articles with misnested tags and table problems. Some of these involve templates, such as infoboxes, or the way the template is used in the article. In some cases, the "error" is a minor, unimportant difference in the visual appearance. In other cases, the results are undesirable. You can see a before-and-after comparison of any article by adding ?action=parsermigration-edit to the end of a link, like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Foss?action=parsermigration-edit (which shows a difference in how {{infobox ship}} is parsed).
Hi Amalthea, it appears to me that the list is not updating. The last time the bot ran was about eight hours ago.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:06, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
Server is down, running it from home right now, but will have sporadic outages; everything should be back to normal tomorrow. Thanks for the update! Amalthea 17:24, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for explaining.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:39, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
Sure, there you go. Back in the day the report didn't have any additional information, I think that's why I omitted it…. Amalthea 18:59, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, appreciate that. ~ Amory(u • t • c) 22:07, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wikipedia:MOS:SCROLL. Since you had some involvement with the Wikipedia:MOS:SCROLL redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 21:49, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
SPI - Mislabeling of SPI status in table when multiple non-archived cases exist
(non-admin observing and throwing some ideas out there): When multiple non-archived cases for the same (suspected or proven) sockmaster exist, the 'Cases currently listed at SPI' table will reflect the status of the first non-archived case regardless of the status of any subsequent cases, in some cases making it seem as though cases that still need admin, clerk or CU attention are closed or CU completed. Would it be possible for the bot to, rather than look for the first occurrence of the SPI Case Status template, look for these in some order of priority? E.g. if there's a SPI Case Status template set to CU Request anywhere on the page, this would overrule the presence of that SPI Case Status 'closed' or 'CU completed' template elsewhere on the page, etc. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 08:08, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
Hey AddWittyNameHere! It's /supposed/ to prefer the lowest status as defined by Template:SPIstatusentry/order. Do you have an example where this isn't the case and it's using the first one instead? In any case, I'm open to changing the behavior here, I didn't discuss the current logic with anyone. Cheers, Amalthea 21:26, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
Hm, looking into it, it does seem the bot does do what it's told to do: follow that order of importance. Hadn't seen that order template and as I would personally have expected Open to rank as more important than CU Completed, a specific case where one request was CU Completed & the other Open registering as CU Completed on the table caused me some confusion. (The specific relevant case is Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/CastingMD) I suppose a case can be made for CU completed to rank higher than Open as well, though. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 22:23, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
Right, the thought was to have the status win out where it's more urgent for someone to look at it. Hmm, and by that logic it may make sense to rank Open even lower, right above Hold ... but since nobody has complained until now I'm not going to just change that. If you think it needs improving then feel free to raise it at WT:SPI, to reach everyone who has to work with it. :) Cheers, Amalthea 08:05, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
This is significantly less important than the SPI bot being down, but task ID I (updating User:Amalthea (bot)/userhighlighter.js/sysop.js) hasn't seem to run recently and it's messing with my scripts (haha). Just wanted to let you know – if it's a hassle to run it, take your time! Best, Kevin (aka L235·t·c) 05:09, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Fixed since, L235. :) Amalthea 19:41, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
Hi, the bot hasn't updated in the last three hours.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:14, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, Bbb23! Now I know how to set up a restart policy on a docker container, should not happen again after the next reboot. :/ Amalthea 19:41, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
It appears to have stopped about five hours ago. ~ Rob13Talk 03:36, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
ArbCom 2018 election voter message
Hello, Amalthea. 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.
... is missing today, or did I make a typing mistake? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:20, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
Hi! Brief network outage today during the time the snapshot is usually created; There is a secondary time slot for such occasions and it has since been created -- but thanks for the notice though, I appreciate it! Amalthea 23:07, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
Cuhelper script
Hi Amalthea,
Sometime pretty recently the script stopped working for me, i.e., I don't get a clickable timestamp. TonyBallioni says it's working for him. Any ideas what to do? Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:47, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, it's working fine for me. Used it multiple times in the last few hours. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:59, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Hi Bbb23! Same procedure as last time: How exactly are timestamps shown for you in the log? Did you recently change any date/time display settings? Is it also broken if you use a different browser? Amalthea 22:00, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
How do you remember these things? Maybe I should clone your brain. Anyway, another embarrassing moment aside, I changed my date/time preferences from No preference to American date style (I was experimenting with something unrelated). I just changed it back and voila! it works. Thanks much and sorry to have bothered you. (I wonder if I'll remember next time this happens.)--Bbb23 (talk) 22:07, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Glad to be of help. If you'd rather use a different date/time style let me know, it's actually supposed to work with all preferences since two years ago ... but it's rather tough to test for me now. :) Amalthea 23:08, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
RfA overview
Hi. Recently, User:cyberbot I was blocked because it is malfunctioning. As a result, can I suggest that you replace the contents of User:Cyberpower678/RfX Report (Cyberpower678 is offline) with User:Amalthea/RfX/Overview so that the report is still updated? --DannyS712 (talk) 00:51, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
Hi 83.31.85.72! The problem wasn't any vandalism, but repeated recreations after a community consensus to not have a separate article on that topic (WP:Articles for deletion/Malamanteau). The redirect was thus protected per WP:Protection policy#Creation protection. Do you think that this topic has now risen to encyclopedic notability and the previous consensus is outdated? Kind regards, Amalthea 20:19, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
Recently, several Wikipedia admin accounts were compromised. The admin accounts were desysopped on an emergency basis. In the past, the Committee often resysopped admin accounts as a matter of course once the admin was back in control of their account. The committee has updated its guidelines. Admins may now be required to undergo a fresh Request for Adminship (RfA) after losing control of their account.
What do I need to do?
Only to follow the instructions in this message.
Check that your password is unique (not reused across sites).
Check that your password is strong (not simple or guessable).
Enable Two-factor authentication (2FA), if you can, to create a second hurdle for attackers.
How can I find out more about two-factor authentication (2FA)?
Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)
ArbCom would like to apologise and correct our previous mass message in light of the response from the community.
Since November 2018, six administrator accounts have been compromised and temporarily desysopped. In an effort to help improve account security, our intention was to remind administrators of existing policies on account security — that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." We have updated our procedures to ensure that we enforce these policies more strictly in the future. The policies themselves have not changed. In particular, two-factor authentication remains an optional means of adding extra security to your account. The choice not to enable 2FA will not be considered when deciding to restore sysop privileges to administrator accounts that were compromised.
We are sorry for the wording of our previous message, which did not accurately convey this, and deeply regret the tone in which it was delivered.
For the Arbitration Committee, -Cameron11598 21:03, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
Hello, Amalthea. Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
For the Arbitration Committee, AGK ■ 21:46, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
Bot not working
Hi Amalthea, the bot hasn't updated the SPI page in almost 12 hours.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:35, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
@Bbb23: Sorry! Bot up again ... Amalthea 07:26, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
Thank you.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:03, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
Hi Amalthea, the bot hasn't updated the SPI page in almost 11 hours. There were also hiccups before that.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:32, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
@Bbb23: On it ... today seems to be the day of broken servers. What hiccups though? Amalthea 21:43, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for fixing it. As for the hiccups, I thought the bot was supposed to run at regular intervals (my vague memory is every 7 minutes), but before the long gap, it was running at irregular intervals. The most recent "regularity" seemed to be every 20 minutes (see entries surrounding 16:01, 20 August 2019). If you go back earlier on August 20, the intervals are often much longer than 20 minutes. If it's not too complicated, maybe you could explain to me how it's supposed to work so I'll know what to expect?--Bbb23 (talk) 22:26, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
It's checking for changes every ten minutes -- but if there are no changes it wont attempt to edit. :) Amalthea 00:13, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
That's wasn't complicated at all. :-) Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:37, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
DYK on a 12 hour schedule
Hi, Amalthea. Any chance your bot could be modified to save the Main Page twice a day when User:DYKUpdateBot/Time Between Updates is 43200 and go back to once a day when it is 86400. I understand it is more complicated than that, but I was wondering if you had considered it. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 11:08, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
(watching:) do you sugest 2 names then? Because replacing the first set by the second would be just as unfair as the current handling, only the other way round. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:16, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
Changing the bot is easy enough ... just let me know when you've figured out how exactly you want to name those pages? And maybe ping people on WT:Main Page history? Amalthea 20:30, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
There appears to be no opposition. Please begin archiving the Main Page twice a day as long as User:DYKUpdateBot/Time Between Updates = 43200. I have already switched Wikipedia:Main Page history to new templates and will modify the 2019 template to show both snapshots once your bot begins creating two archives a day. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 22:05, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:05, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
Google Code-In 2019 is coming - please mentor some documentation tasks!
Hello,
Google Code-In, Google-organized contest in which the Wikimedia Foundation participates, starts in a few weeks. This contest is about taking high school students into the world of opensource. I'm sending you this message because you recently edited a documentation page at the English Wikipedia.
I would like to ask you to take part in Google Code-In as a mentor. That would mean to prepare at least one task (it can be documentation related, or something else - the other categories are Code, Design, Quality Assurance and Outreach) for the participants, and help the student to complete it. Please sign up at the contest page and send us your Google account address to google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org, so we can invite you in!
From my own experience, Google Code-In can be fun, you can make several new friends, attract new people to your wiki and make them part of your community.
If you have any questions, please let us know at google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org.
Hi, the table hasn't updated since about 12:50 today (it was a bit erratic before then). Thanks for looking into it.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:14, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:Rani Maria Vattalil.jpg
⚠
Thanks for uploading File:Rani Maria Vattalil.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
No idea, sorry -- I'd have to investigate myself. :/
CU log script
I don't know if anyone has come and talked to you about this, but I found what is breaking your script for me. I tried it on vector & timeless and chrome and firefox. The issue seems to be with this line:
var paraCusearch = mw.util.getParamValue('cuSearch');
When replaced with:
var paraCusearch = !paraCuloghighlight;
It works perfectly. I don't know enough about js to diagnose it, but that's where it's breaking. -- Amanda(aka DQ) 22:13, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
Hi Amanda! I don't think I know about any current problems -- and it's hard for me to fix anything myself without access to the log pages. :/ Is there some competent person with access to investigate it? Else I can try and help, but I'll need to know more. What exactly is the problem? Do you have a related error message in your browser javascript console? I assume your change is just hiding the problem ... Amalthea 08:38, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
Sorry I totally forgot to watchlist this. I don't get any error on the console log but I'd happy email screenshots if you want me to test certain functions. If I remember back correctly when I tested mw.util.getParamValue('cuSearch') evaluated as null. Feel free to ping me back to make sure I reply. -- Amanda(aka DQ) 04:21, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
Hello, I saw that years ago you created a graph for the progress of reducing the backlog at CAT:NN - is there any chance you could resurrect this? I'm trying to build up interest in reducing the backlog. Thnaks, Boleyn (talk) 09:51, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
Hello, Amalthea. Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
... archive the main page twice a day when User:DYKUpdateBot/Time Between Updates is 43200 and go back to once a day when it is 86400. I mentioned this before and you suggested I bring it up for wider discussion. I did that and I believe there is consensus that it is a good idea. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 20:16, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:Being worked on
As I just notice per yesterday's Main page history link still red, Wikipedia:Main Page history has not been written after 16 July. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:20, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
Now some in the meantime were written but a few still missing. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:26, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
Today's is missing, DYK? Red link on top of my talk, looks pretty but doesn't help memory. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:41, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
Same, and probably also in between. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:58, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
CCI bot inquiry
Hello. Thought I let you that the CCI overview at User:Amalthea/CCI/Overview hasn't been updated since the 16th. I see that the SPI overview has returned to updating as today, so I was wondering if the CCI would be continuing updates as well soon. Thanks! --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 00:46, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
I just saw the CCI overview was updated. Thank you! :) MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 10:03, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
Looks like it's down again, hasn't updated in a month. Wizardman 02:43, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
It's running again. For some reason I missed the pings, and I guess that's why bot operators should really maintain some level of activity on the site ... :/ Amalthea 09:40, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message
Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:18, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
Hey Amalthea, it looks like you've got some user scripts in use by others that have bare javascript global wg-style variables. These are phab:T72470 deprecated, and while I don't think there's a timeline for their removal, it's been that way for a while. It's usually a straightforward fix, all uses need to use mw.config.get, such as converting wgTitle to mw.config.get('wgTitle'). There's some more info at mw:ResourceLoader/Migration guide (users)#Global wg variables. I can take care of cleaning them up for you if you like, or give you a full list if you want to handle it, just let me know! ~ Amory(u • t • c) 11:56, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
Took care of this, even the older ones. ~ Amory(u • t • c) 12:52, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
Bot broken
It looks like the SPI bot broke again FF-11 (talk) 09:41, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
CCI table
Hello. One of the newly added cases broke the CCI table (due to the large amount of the case). Please see the Ruigeroeland entry at User:Amalthea/CCI/Overview. Thanks! --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 18:40, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
Template:NAMESPACEID has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 07:00, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
Template:Nfurd has been nominated for merging with Template:Nrd. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 15:36, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at T137613 regarding whether to create a Phabricator project for the Popups gadget. (As a maintainer of the gadget, legoktm thought you'd be interested.) Thanks! Enterprisey (talk!) (formerly APerson) 21:08, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
A page in your userspace, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Userspace circular redirects and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Userspace circular redirects during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 18:50, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
Administrator changes
NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67
Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13
Guideline and policy news
Technical news
Obituaries
