User talk:GeneralNotability/Archives/2020/August

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Administrators' newsletter – August 2020

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

Administrator changes

added Red Phoenix
readded Euryalus • SQL
removed Jujutacular • Monty845 • Rettetast • Madchester

Oversight changes

readded GB fan
removed Keegan • Opabinia regalis • Premeditated Chaos

Guideline and policy news

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

Winkelvi

Just for the record, I reverted Winkelvi's user page simply because the description is not true. Yes, I blocked him indefinitely, and yes he has been suspected of sockpuppetry ... but the latter did not cause the former. If the block is commuted to a checkuser one or otherwise definitively proven, we can update then, but I don't think we should tag based on purely circumstantial evidence. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 08:28, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

You should have just removed the 'blocked' parameter Ritchie333. I have added {{sockpuppeteer|spipage=Winkelvi}} to the talk page. Could someone please move it to the user page? - MrX 🖋 11:27, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
Sure, done. Incidentally, I had no idea the user page was full-protected until I made this change just now. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:32, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Ritchie333. - MrX 🖋 13:22, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 2 August 2020

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Hello, GeneralNotability/Archives/2020. Please check your email; you've got mail!
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ThatMontrealIP (talk) 01:04, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

ThatMontrealIP, handled (passed it to the friendly neighborhood oversight team). In the future, best to contact WP:OVERSIGHT for outing issues. GeneralNotability (talk) 01:37, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Unblocking of User:ActuallyElordi

Hello! You have deleted the message left at User_talk:ActuallyElordi. The person blocked for impersonation is himself. -Theklan (talk) 17:04, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Theklan, I saw. I removed the message because you are not permitted to file an unblock request on behalf of another user. GeneralNotability (talk) 17:12, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
Thant's weird. How is the procedure to appeal the decision if I see that it is an error? -Theklan (talk) 17:24, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
Theklan, if the user wants to appeal they may appeal it and admins will handle the appeal. If they don't appeal, then they presumably don't care enough to get unblocked. Regardless, you may not file an appeal on behalf of someone else. GeneralNotability (talk) 19:05, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
I am not sure many users with 3 edits who violated no policies relevant to the block can figure out how to apply for appeal. Are you sure it is the case where following the letter of the policy makes sense? --Base (talk) 02:04, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Base, hold it right there please. You say the user violated no policies relevant to the block. That is incorrect. enwiki's username policies specifically prohibit people from having a username which implies that they are a specific well-known person (right up until they have verified that they are that person). That policy is there for a very good reason, too; it is intended to prevent impersonation of real people. In this case, someone with the username "ActuallyElordi" was editing Jacob Elordi. That looks like a pretty clear-cut violation of the aforementioned "well known person" part of the username policy.
As for whether or not it makes sense to follow the rules: the unblock directions are right there on their talk page. They are not complicated. I have seen people with just a single edit manage to request an unblock. GeneralNotability (talk) 02:25, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
The policy you mention says "unless it is your real name". It does mention that the block might happen, but it says "until proof of identity is provided". In this case it is provided. The policy does not require for the proof to be provided by the user themselves. The next paragraph does mention info-en, but it does not say that it is the only way it can be done. The block looks justified from what information was available at the moment it was done, but at this point it does not seem to make sense. As to "I have seen people with just a single edit manage to request an unblock", it is a clear case of Survivorship bias. You haven't seen those people with 1 edit that did not manage to request an unblock. --Base (talk) 03:24, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Base, you're right, the policy does not explicitly require the evidence to be provided by the user, probably because nobody expected another user to be able to provide that proof. Similarly, I actually went back and re-read WP:BLOCK and WP:UNBLOCK, and neither explicitly prohibits other users from placing unblock requests on someone else's behalf (so that was my mistake acting as if it were explicitly disallowed), but I believe that this is because nobody expected one person to place an unblock request for another person.
You're probably correct about survivorship bias, but frankly, if someone cannot follow the fairly straightforward directions on the block notice (or even just post on their talk page saying "I really am Elordi, please unblock me" - I watch the talk pages of editors I block), then I have to question whether they have any business editing an encyclopedia.
Regardless, this is entirely a moot point - barkeep49 saw this whole discussion and chose to unblock based on the youtube video. If you still have concerns about my actions, you are of course welcome to raise them at the noticeboard of your choice. GeneralNotability (talk) 13:17, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Just noting that WP:UNBLOCK does prohibit 3rd party appeals Appeals of blocks may be made only by the editor under a currently active block. in the section Appeals by third party so GN was correct in reverting the unblock request made there. This was an unusual situation in several regards so it's unsurprising that there were different ways of upholding our policies and guidelines. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:05, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #427

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Discussions
    • Open request for adminship: Wiki13
  • Tool of the week
    • SQID allows you to analyse, browse and query Wikidata. SQID is inspired by Magnus Manske's Reasonator, but focuses on prominently featuring information about Wikidata classes and properties.
  • Development
    • The last week was our quarterly prototyping week. We worked on the following projects. None of them are ready for prime-time yet but we'll continue with them.
      • Slices: We've had a lot of requests for accessing dumps of a smaller part of Wikidata's data since rarely anyone needs the complete data in Wikidata. The tricky part is figuring out which part is needed and if any of that can be generalized. We looked into for example how to make dump generation faster so we could potentially produce more smaller dumps that only cover a part of Wikidata's data, either thematically (e.g. humans) or by type of data (e.g. only statements and English labels and aliases but not sitelinks or descriptions).
      • REST API: As part of our effort to make it easier to access Wikidata's data for programmers we looked into a REST API. We tried to see if we could cover the existing action API modules in a REST API. We could. We'll take this as input for our ongoing API work now.
      • Improving quality ratings through ORES: ORES can judge the quality of an Item automatically. It is currently not very good at it however. We tried a few things to make it more accurate and found some easy wins we'll probably make happen in the next weeks.
      • Query manipulator: One of the ways we could potentially improve the load situation of the Wikidata Query Service is by automatically analyzing and then redirecting a bunch of queries to other systems that are more suitable for that particular type of query. The nice thing about that would be that the person/program sending the query wouldn't have to care about it but it'd be done automagically for them. We tried to build such a system and the results look very promising but more work/experimenting is needed, especially together with the WMF Search team.

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Mohammed Sadat (WMDE) 15:37, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-32

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

  • All queries to the Wikidata Query Service failed between 17:50 and 17:59 UTC on Thursday 23 July. Some queries failed during a longer period. [1]
  • Interlanguage links were ordered incorrectly for the past few weeks. This problem was also mentioned in Tech News two weeks ago. The problem is now fixed. [2]
  • There is a problem with the global preferences for the "Use Legacy Vector" option. Developers are working on fixing it. [3]
  • A bug in the Wikibase extension had disabled the "move" and "create" types of protection in the main (Gallery) namespace on Wikimedia Commons. New protections could not be added, and existing protections were not enforced, allowing some page moves and page creations that should not have been possible. This has now been fixed. [4]

Changes later this week

  • The video player will change to be simpler and more modern. This week, the current beta feature will become the video player for everyone on most non-Wikipedia wikis. The old player will be removed. [5]
  • Users' global.js and global.css pages will now also be loaded on the mobile site. You can read documentation for how to avoid applying styles to the mobile skin. [6]
  • Advanced item In the MonoBook skin, the searchGoButton identifier is now searchButton. This may affect CSS and JS gadgets. Migration instructions can be found in T255953. This was previously mentioned in issue 27.
  • Advanced item Bot operators can use Pywikibot to regularly archive discussions. The behavior when the bot uses counter to prevent large archives was changed. [7]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 4. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from August 5. It will be on all wikis from August 6 (calendar).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:43, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) on a "Wikipedia policies and guidelines" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 17:30, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

You play in a complicated pond

Thank you for being patient with my question at SPI. This is a part of WP I am happy to be a customer of, so to speak, but do not fancy trying to work inside! Fiddle Faddle 20:19, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Timtrent, sure, I'm glad to be of service. And please, don't hesitate to ask questions if you think we didn't do something we needed to (or did something we shouldn't have) - it wouldn't be the first time I've missed something! GeneralNotability (talk) 20:24, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
AFC seems to throw up a goodly number of socks, copyvios, UPE and all sorts of stuff. I seem to be reporting more violations than reviewing drafts! Fiddle Faddle 20:28, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Shooting of Greg Gunn

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Shooting of Greg Gunn you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Atsme Talk 📧 15:57, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

A new sock has appeared

Hi, GeneralNotability Please have a look to the new sock at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mynameisking21102002. Thank you. ~ Amkgp 💬 19:07, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks

Sorry for the late reply. I didn't know much about filters, and your prompt reply was quite helpful. I spent some time looking at half a dozen of the readable filters with nearby numbers, and at the documentation. I have a pretty good handle on parsing regular expressions, so it was interesting.

Thanks for the help. Geo Swan (talk) 01:53, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Geo Swan, sure, happy to help. GeneralNotability (talk) 17:53, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia technical issues and templates request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) on a "Wikipedia technical issues and templates" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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DYK

Just noticed that Template:Did you know nominations/Shooting of Greg Gunn wasn't posted at Template talk:Did you know. Intentional or mistake? – Majavah talk · edits 12:31, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Majavah, mistake, thanks for catching that. I'll fix it shortly. GeneralNotability (talk) 12:35, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Cross-wiki spam

Hello, General! :D

I'm an administrator in Persian Wikipedia, I noticed you removed a section from the article fa:ویکی پدیای فارسی, Can you provide me with more info on that? Also, can you provide me with some information on how you chase cross-wiki spam and if you guys could use a few more hands? Cheers! Mohammad 17:27, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Mohammad Check this out. The paper has since been blacklisted across all projects for spamming. Praxidicae (talk) 17:30, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
Mohammad, hello! I actually had to explain this at dewiki a little while ago, so I'll just copy what I said there:
I removed them because that paper has been the subject of a massive sockpuppetry campaign (I believe over 200 accounts have been connected to this so far, many confirmed by checkuser) to insert it into articles in many different languages. If it had been one or two accounts adding this article to several wikis, I might not have removed it, but because there are over 200 there is no way that this is a good faith misunderstanding. If you look at the articles I changed, each article had a different user add the section I deleted (but they all added similar text), and all of those accounts have been globally locked because of their involvement with this campaign. The link to the article has been blacklisted across all languages and several people are working to find and remove all of this spam. This was originally found at the English Wikipedia, please see w:en:Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Refspam_across_many_articles for further details. GeneralNotability (talk) 17:34, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you both for your time and answer! Mohammad 17:42, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

p.s: I granted you Autopatrol over there for a week, this should prevent the Abuse Filter from messing with your job. let me know if you need anything else. Mohammad 17:49, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
Mohammad, thank you very much! GeneralNotability (talk) 17:50, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Religion and philosophy request for comment

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The Bugle: Issue CLXXII, August 2020

Full front page of The Bugle
Your Military History Newsletter

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 14:30, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Didn't mean to override your block

Must've done that at the exact same moment as oddly didn't get a notification you'd already blocked. As they say great minds... Glen (talk) 17:15, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Glen, hah, no worries, revoking TPA was probably the right thing to do anyway. GeneralNotability (talk) 17:29, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Engineering and technology Good Article nomination

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Caldew (trawler) on a "Engineering and technology" Good Article nomination. Thank you for helping out!
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Horror Films article disruption

Hello, I believed you've helped out on the article Horror films regarding an editor using various ips and names attempting to change section titles (and other de), [8], [9]. It is happening again. If you have time, could you take a look at the edits from 107.77.241.x Thanks, hope all is well.   // Timothy :: talk  23:34, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

TimothyBlue, sure, I'll have a look later today. GeneralNotability (talk) 13:29, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-33

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • FileImporter and FileExporter became standard features on all Wikis during the first week of August. They help you transfer files from local wikis to Wikimedia Commons with the original file information and history intact. [10]

Problems

  • The mobile skin displays a message at the bottom of the page about who edited last. This message showed raw wikitext. This has now been fixed. Some messages in Structured Discussions and content translation may still appear as raw wikitext. Developers are working on it. [11]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from August 12. It will be on all wikis from August 13 (calendar).

Future changes

  • All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 1. This is planned between 13:30 and 15:30 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [12][13]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:06, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Cross-wiki spam?

Hello, I'm a patroller from Turkish Wikipedia. I just saw this revision in recent changes and wanted to ask you for a bit more detailed reason about this removal. Could you have deleted something wrong, or was this change made intentionally? I'll be waiting for your response, and then mark the revision as patrolled. Have a nice day.--evrifaessa ❯❯❯ talk 18:48, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Evrifaessa, thank you for the message. That was indeed an intentional change. Last week, we discovered on enwiki that a number of papers by that author (Lewoniewski) have been spammed by a complex spam farm, and the paragraph I deleted matches the characteristics of spam from that group (cited the paper "Multilingual Ranking of Wikipedia Articles with Quality and Popularity Assessment in Different Topics " and reported . I am currently working on a report about this, you can see meta:User:GeneralNotability/Paper_sockfarm_AAR for what I have so far, and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Lomtikov and Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Refspam_across_many_articles for the discussions which led to the discovery of this group. GeneralNotability (talk) 18:58, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for the explanation, I marked the revision as patrolled. I wish you success in your work on sockpuppets, have a nice day :)--evrifaessa ❯❯❯ talk 19:04, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

What's the best practice for SPI

Hi, thanks for helping look into the SPI I opened. For future cases, what's the best practice if I notice additional socks for an SPI I've previouslyopened and already closed (blocked). Can I ping that same thread again with additional accounts and info? Or is it best to open a new one with a reference to the first/closed thread? Thank you. — Infogapp1 (talk) 21:34, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Infogapp1, there isn't a firm policy, but my general preference is that if the report is closed, you open a new report, but if the thread is not closed, you add it to the existing report. If the report is marked as "checked" you should ping a clerk or the checkuser who performed the check to let them know that you've added another possible sock. GeneralNotability (talk) 15:44, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
GeneralNotability When you say closed, do you mean once it has reached the archive stage? Or when the socks have already been blocked? Thank you very much for clarifying. — Infogapp1 (talk) 16:05, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Infogapp1, each section has a "case status" display. I'm referring to when it says "this investigation has been closed and will be archived shortly by a clerk or checkuser" (or something like that). Usually the case is set to that state at the same time as the socks are blocked. Once it's actually been archived, of course, you should always start a new section (don't modify the archives). GeneralNotability (talk) 16:15, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
GeneralNotability That's clear, thank you. — Infogapp1 (talk) 16:18, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Armenian genocide (in Azerbaijani language) Semi-protection request

Then how can I request a protection for that? I can't seem to find any protection request pages in Azerbaijani wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sweetkind (talk • contribs)

Sweetkind, I'm sorry, but I do not know the process to request page protection on the Azerbaijani Wikipedia. GeneralNotability (talk) 20:34, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you very much for the assistance and help guides!

GaiusTranquillusSuetonius (talk) 02:21, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

GaiusTranquillusSuetonius, of course, happy to help. Welcome to Wikipedia! GeneralNotability (talk) 15:04, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Rollback

Hello @GeneralNotability: you have declined my rollback request on July 15 Special:PermaLink/968279859#User:C1K98V. And I was thinking if you could review my edits. I had enrolled in CVUA but was unable to find and report to AIV, but I'm willing to complete it as soon I find some edit which I can report. Meanwhile if you can suggest me that would be great. Thanks, stay safe. C1K98V (💬 ✒️ 📂) 13:17, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

C1K98V, I've reviewed your recent edits, and I'm willing to grant rollback on a trial basis for one month. I will grant the permission shortly. Remember, rollback should only be used in cases of unambiguous vandalism - when in doubt, use Twinkle's rollback and leave an edit summary. GeneralNotability (talk) 13:29, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for sparing few moment to review. I will keep in mind your valuable suggestions. Stay safe. C1K98V (💬 ✒️ 📂) 13:33, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #429

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Tool of the week
    • Entity Explosion: a new multilingual Chrome browser extension. "Taking the power of Wikidata with me wherever I go across the web!". Uses API calls to the Wikidata Query Service to match the URL you are browsing on to a Wikidata item, and then displays data and links to other sites about the same entity. (Video)
  • Development
    • Fixed a bug where a length limit for strings seems to have reverted itself back from 1500 to its default 400 (phabricator:T259440)
    • Fixed a bug that Wikibase is not always adding &redirect=no in situations when MediaWiki usually does (phabricator:T255387)
    • Wrapping up the initial work on the design system so it is ready for use in the first new feature (Query Builder)
    • Fixed the serialization of statements on Forms and Senses not containing the datatype (phabricator:T249206)
    • Wrapping up work on the first version of Federated Properties so that other Wikibase installations can use Wikidata's Properties instead of having to maintain their own
    • Worked on ensuring the data from the linked data interface at Special:EntityData is always up to date after an edit has been made (phabricator:T128486)
    • Enabling clients to use Lua to request labels, descriptions and aliases in some (often minority) languages even when they are not content languages (phabricator:T259340, phabricator:T260118)


You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Mohammed Sadat (WMDE) 15:03, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

PageImp

I thought I did revoke tpa, but I guess not — apparently I only wrote in the log that I was going to. Funny, though... I could have sworn I ticked the box. Anyway, thanks for taking care of it. Bishonen | tålk 20:02, 17 August 2020 (UTC).

Bishonen, yeah, and your block message says "TPA revoked" too...oh well. Happy to be of service anyway. GeneralNotability (talk) 20:25, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

ArmoryNYC

You username blocked this editor, but they're now clearly editing as Aaron at The Armory NYC. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:36, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Beyond My Ken, that's allowed - I only softblocked ArmoryNYC, so they're permitted to create a new account instead of renaming. I've dropped a {{welcome-coi}} on their userpage. GeneralNotability (talk) 20:40, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
Yes, of course you're right. I deleted an edit, but I'll restore. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:43, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-34

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • If you revert an edit using the undo link your edit is marked with an undo tag. This will now only happen if you don't change anything in the edit window before publishing the undo. This is to keep users from marking edits as undos when they actually do something else. [14]
  • The new OOUI version will not work with Internet Explorer 8. This means the wikis will look strange and not work well in Internet Explorer 8. This was reported in Tech/News/2020/17. This is because keeping the wikis working with very old browsers creates other problems. [15]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 August. It will be on all wikis from 20 August (calendar).

Future changes

  • All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 1. This is planned between 13:30 and 15:30 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis next week. This is a reminder. You can help by translating the announcement message. [16][17]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:41, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Fahad Sheikh

Hi I just read your message regarding being directly or indirectly paid for the article I submitted. I hereby provide a disclaimer that I am not in anyway being paid for the article. I happen to a media specialist and I added a missing wikipedia page for a very well known Pakistani Actor Fahad Sheikh. I have not received any sort of benefit or numeration for this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HadiiHassanEdits (talk • contribs) 13:56, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Shooting of Greg Gunn

The article Shooting of Greg Gunn you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Shooting of Greg Gunn for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Atsme -- Atsme (talk) 09:41, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Removal of cross-wiki spam in Turkish Wikipedia

Hello, I saw this removal, but couldn't really understand why you removed Alexa. I know that you're removing bestref and Lewoniewski for good purpose, but why did you remove Alexa? Would you like to explain?--evrifaessa ❯❯❯ talk 18:59, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Evrifaessa, I just removed it because it was added by the same user in the same edit (see w:tr:Special:Diff/22885314), that's the only reason. I can stop removing the Alexa info if you think that those should stay. GeneralNotability (talk) 19:01, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
well, I removed it again afterwards. as per the archive date of the citation, that info belongs to 2009. but i don't know what other patrollers would do when they saw your revision, anyways, as you got your temporary global rollbacker rights, you can keep going i guess. best wishes :)--evrifaessa ❯❯❯ talk 19:08, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Please don't modify checkuser blocks

A strict reading of WP:CUBL would be that changing CheckUser blocks to remove {{Checkuserblock-account}} is forbidden. Keeping this in the block rationale is necessary because there is a bureaucracy around undoing these blocks. Contact a CheckUser if you think the block rationale needs to be changed. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 15:19, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

NinjaRobotPirate, sorry, that was a mistake on my part (I forgot to uncheck the already-CU-blocked accounts when performing the mass SPI blocks) - I know I'm not supposed to remove the checkuser block tag. My apologies, I'll try to be more vigilant about that in the future. GeneralNotability (talk) 15:32, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) although I can't speak for GeneralNotability, I suspect this is due to leaving "Override any existing blocks" on. The tool overrides the block summary no matter what (regardless if it is a CU block) and I have fallen foul to this before. I'll suggest some modifications to the tool to help prevent accidental overwriting using the tool on the talk page for the tool. Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 15:36, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
Dreamy Jazz, yup, that's almost certainly what it was - maybe I should change that option to default off, or add in a safety check to not overwrite blocks with the cu block template in them. GeneralNotability (talk) 15:38, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Religion and philosophy request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Religion in the European Union on a "Religion and philosophy" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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Barnstar

The Admin's Barnstar
Thank you, GN, for all your assistance. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 03:47, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Radio West (Uganda)

Thanks for catching the SPI network and this article that I'd been eyeing for a bit. I've gone through and excised much of the cruft from this article (I also moved it from "100.2 Fm Radio West" as the station has five total transmitters) and added additional sources. When/how should the UPE tag be removed? Raymie (t • c) 18:12, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Raymie, my expectation is basically this: if you've gone through the article, removed the cruft/questionable sourcing/promo, and are reasonably convinced that the topic is notable, you're free to remove the tag (recommend leaving a comment on the talk page when you do so). GeneralNotability (talk) 19:27, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Engineering and technology Good Article nomination

Your feedback is requested at Talk:K-156 (Kansas highway) on a "Engineering and technology" Good Article nomination. Thank you for helping out!
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Wikidata weekly summary #430

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Tool of the week
    • Sophox allows for SPARQL querying of Wikidata and OpenStreetMap in a single query
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
    • Two new grant programs from WikiCite, in support of open citations and linked bibliographic data.
Full documentation, eligibility requirements, selection criteria, program design principles, and contacts at the links. Apply by 1 October.
  1. Project & events [$2-10k]
  2. e-Scholarships [per-diem calculated on your city; 1-5 people (single, or as a 'remote group') for 2-4 days, for COVID-era "stay at home" projects. Paid in advance living allowance, no expense report required.]
  • Development
    • Deployed the first version of the Wikidata Bridge to Catalan Wikipedia
    • Creating Grafana Dashboards for the new Wikidata Bridge so we have some data to help us determine which datatypes to support next for example (phabricator:T260532)
    • Finished working on ensuring Labels of Items in some unusual, often minority, languages are still available on Wikipedia and other clients (phabricator: T259340)
    • Fixed error messages for API modules that will not work with the first version of Federated Properties (phabricator:T258558)
    • Working on improving how ORES judges the quality of an Item to make it more accurate
    • Started coding on Automated Configuration Discovery to make it easier for tool builders to make their tools work for other Wikibase instances as well

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Mohammed Sadat (WMDE) 15:09, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-35

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 August. It will be on all wikis from 27 August (calendar).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:59, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

WP:SPI case

Hi! Would you care to take a look at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/JamesOredan, seeing as you're already somewhat familiar with the case from a previous report a month ago? TompaDompa (talk) 13:42, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

TompaDompa, sure, I'll try to take a look later today. GeneralNotability (talk) 13:49, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks! TompaDompa (talk) 13:53, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Welcome message, comment and /or warning from GeneralNotability to me

Hi!

Your message [Hello, MarieYolette, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions.

I noticed that one of the first articles you edited was English as a second or foreign language, which appears to be dealing with a topic with which you may have a conflict of interest. In other words, you may find it difficult to write about that topic in a neutral and objective way, because you are, work for, or represent, the subject of that article. Your recent contributions may have already been undone for this very reason].

I am very familiar with the high level of editor sensitivity, as well as moderators, software programs, and bots. But I have no conflict interest in the field of English as a Second language. I neither work for, nor do I represent any entity in that area of work. I made some edits in the reference section, and added a document cataloged in ERIC (Educational Resource Information Center). I wrote that paper in 1989, but although a query for that article on Google pages led to a Wikipedia landing page, the article was missing from that page. Therefore, I simply added it.

If that is considered a conflict of interest, then, a different editor should add the title to free Encyclopedia: Fundamentally Speaking: A Focus on English as a Second Language (ESL) Thanks,

MarieYolette (talk) 14:00, 26 August 2020 (UTC)Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).https://eric.ed.gov/?q=Marie+Yolette+Winfield&id=ED320393.

MarieYolette, it is generally considered a conflict of interest to link to your own work. If you believe that it is worth including, I recommend making an edit request on the article's talk page to ask that someone else review it and add it if appropriate. GeneralNotability (talk) 15:14, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Signpost query

Hi GeneralNotability,

I'm just putting together a short(very ish) summary of the interim case review committee from the charter, application page and the Q&A. Your question on process and the answer Maggie gave were quite key. I was just wondering if you had a couple of lines of reaction on it you wanted to add - it's not a "viewpoints discussion" but Smallbones felt it beneficial to ask for a couple of comments from those who significantly participated. Nosebagbear (talk) 17:47, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Nosebagbear, sure, but I don't have a ton to say. I thought Maggie's response was clear and helpful, but I was a bit surprised that the process was not officially defined at the time of the discussion. GeneralNotability (talk) 19:15, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Shooting of Jacob Blake

Do you think this protection needs to be bumped? I'm looking at the disruption and thinking maybe? —valereee (talk) 01:20, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Valereee, I haven't been watching too closely, but from a skim of the recent contribs I'm guessing you're thinking about full protection since I don't see much disruption that EC would stop (aside from Jack Klee420, whose contribution history suggests they might need a NOTHERE). If you think it's necessary to go to full, I'm not going to object. I do see a few points of contention which are getting argued via edit summaries, but I'm a little iffy myself on whether this is so disruptive that full protection is needed. GeneralNotability (talk) 01:32, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
That was where I was, too. I'm waffling. —valereee (talk) 01:33, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
Valereee, all right, let's leave it for now - I think if both of us are unsure then it's probably better to leave it. GeneralNotability (talk) 01:44, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Blocked for me

Why blocked for me I am not a Policy violation MK0750 (talk) 02:45, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

MK0750, you are not able to edit the main article space because you repeatedly moved a draft to the main space after being asked to submit it through the articles for creation process. GeneralNotability (talk) 12:59, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I Request to you unblock ID please MK0750 (talk) 14:42, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

MK0750, you may follow the directions in the block message to request an unblock. GeneralNotability (talk) 14:52, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

{{unblock|reason=I have not a any policy violation} MK0750 (talk) 15:03, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I see the user has decided to communicate shortly after having their draft declined. The question here is: Do you want to be unblocked from the mainspace so you can move this draft to the mainspace again? You have not made any improvements — first you submit it, then removed duplicate AFC submission tag, and then moved the intro text to above the infobox which is not where it goes, even though I said this twice in the edit history. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:43, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Draft:School's Out (2018 film) and Draft:Luàna Bajrami

Since you are the only active editor involved in this, I intended to move those articles into the mainspace, but there appears to some form of COI. I am not seeing it in the most current revision do you have an objections to mainspacing those articles? Valoem talk contrib 22:23, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

I've main spaced it. Valoem talk contrib 00:12, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Do you disagree with my main spacing here? You have not responded nor thanked me for this, I've noticed you have responded to every comment on your talk page besides this. Valoem talk contrib 23:29, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Valoem, given that you waited two hours between asking me and mainspacing it, I didn't think a response would matter. For what it's worth, I don't remember either of those pages after looking at their history, so no objection from me. GeneralNotability (talk) 23:57, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for getting back to me, I just wanted to make sure no COI was involved. I didn't think much of it first, but the current AfD I am involved in made me think twice about everything as the overwhelming consensus for deletion seems abnormal. If you are interested in what I am involved in you can review my history. Please do not engage in the current AfD as it appears to be pointless, but I intend to open a DRV regarding this (this has nothing to do with School's Out or Luàna Bajrami) if you would like me to ping you into the DRV, please let me know. Valoem talk contrib 00:30, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Bedriczwaleta SPI

Hello. Since my filing of the Bedriczwaleta SPI in August 26, there is some updates down the road. 186.111.128.0/20 IP range is now blocked by Drmies and i believe 185.66.250.0/20 has done good faith edits recently, so i believe there is no action against them are needed. Could you consider checking the case again? If possible, i want to see this SPI closed soon with some actions taken mentioned in the SPI. I want to sleep, so i'm sorry if i have a hard time formulating my arguments. Thanks! SMB99thx my edits 13:09, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

SMB99thx, sure, I will have a look. GeneralNotability (talk) 01:09, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. SMB99thx my edits 01:11, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Protection

Re [18]

Could you change the protection from Extended confirmed protection to Semi-protection? Bob K31416 (talk) 16:57, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Bob K31416, I only set the protection level to semi-protection a week ago, El C is the one who bumped it up to extended confirmed here. I am not in a position to unilaterally change the protection level, as I understand things - this was an arbitration enforcement action, and the arbitration enforcement policy says No administrator may modify or remove a sanction placed by another administrator without: 1. the explicit prior affirmative consent of the enforcing administrator; or 2. prior affirmative agreement for the modification at (a) AE or (b) AN or (c) ARCA. This is as much help as I can give you - I have never tried to modify another admin's enforcement action, so I can't give you any advice besides "talk to El C". GeneralNotability (talk) 01:07, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
I was misled by an apparent Wikipedia software bug that indicates Extended confirmed protection on pages after you semi-protected the article. Bob K31416 (talk) 02:29, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 August 2020

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