User talk:Mattinbgn

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This user contributed, with the assistance of WikiProject Riverina, to Riverina, a featured article. This user contributed, as part of the Invincibles featured topic drive, to Sid Barnes, a featured article. This user wrote Archie Jackson, a featured article. This user wrote Clem Hill, a featured article. This user wrote Hugh Trumble, a featured article. This user wrote Harry Trott, a featured article. This user contributed, as part of the Invincibles featured topic drive, to Ian Johnson (cricketer), a featured article. This user wrote Bill Ponsford, a featured article. This user contributed, as part of the Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight, to Palm Island, Queensland, a good article. This user contributed, with the assistance of WikiProject Riverina, to Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, a good article. This user wrote Warwick Armstrong, a good article. This user wrote Herbie Collins, a good article. This user wrote Joe Darling, a good article. This user contributed, as part of the Invincibles featured topic drive, to Colin McCool, a good article. This user wrote Bill Ponsford, a good article. This user is an administrator. This user is an Australian.

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It is approximately 7:07 AM where this user lives.

Filing report on Engleham at WP:ANI?[edit]

You seem very serious about getting that guy topic-banned. To be honest, I'm fed up with him and his antics, so he must be reported. I'd like to report him, but I already warned him about attacking other editors. --George Ho (talk) 08:46, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't see a need for a topic ban at this stage. I think page protecting and blocking if the personal abuse is over the top is sufficient at this stage. These were his first significant edits in nine months. Happy to wait and see what happens. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 10:23, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
He's blocked for two weeks. As you said, let's wait to see what happens. --Gh87 in the public computer (talk) 21:29, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you![edit]

The Photographer's Barnstar
It seems every time I go looking for a photo for some Queensland topic, a town hall, a museum, or whatever, I find a Mattinbgn photo! I know you uploaded a lot of them some years ago, so you must have been wondering if you'd wasted your time, but I'm thrilled at the coverage of small town Queensland that you have provided. Many thanks, Kerry! Kerry (talk) 05:54, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I wasn't concerned about wasting my time - I always thought someone would get around to using them for something sooner or later. I still have huge chunks of Queesland to cover yet though. Great work on the Queensland Heritage Register items too, by the way. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 06:34, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Request to use photograph[edit]

Hi Mattinbgn I love your image of the Mt Walsh National Park / mountains, which features on the Wikipedia page titled "Mt Walsh National Park". I am wondering if you would give permission for me to use the image on a website. For more information, feel free to email me direct at <redacted> Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.

Responded via email - removed email address to avoid spammers. Mattinbgn (talk) 20:07, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Australian Magpie[edit]

Is it possible to downgrade the protection from Australian Magpie? I don't think it is necessary now. © Tbhotch™ (en-2.5). 19:11, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done! -- Mattinbgn (talk) 19:35, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Burnett River[edit]

Hello. Thank you for editing Burnett River. Would you please be able to add some embedded references? It would also be great to flesh out the subsection about the fish present in this river, if we can find sufficient information... Thank you again, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.Zigzig20s (talk) 08:57, 13 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have no access to sources other that general internet searches on this topic, sorry. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 04:17, 15 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Callide River[edit]

Hi again. Are you interested in creating a page for the Callide River in Queensland? I have very slow internet connection, so I can't look for the right references at the moment. I know you do great work with wikipedia, so I thought I would ask. Thanks.Zigzig20s (talk) 08:59, 13 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Gender in biographies[edit]

Hi, you reverted my edit which stated the gender of a person. Don't you think it's time to include this crucial information in our biographies? I was reading an article in a newspaper which included the name of Hetty Johnston and I needed to write an article myself in a non-English language. In some non-English languages it's impossible to talk about a person (or even an unanimate thing like a table or a chair, or an abstract thing like a country or an idea) without stating their gender. It's impossible to know the gender of a person from their name, particularly in English. The issue may sound like an non-issue but it is if you write many articles in non-English languages and you have to spend 10 or 20 minutes before writing every article just to find out someone's gender. In some cases for non-famous people it was impossible for me to find out someone's gender and I had to write my non-English article guessing the gender and in more than one ocassion readers who knew the gender of the person I was referring to wrote to me saying I referred to a male as a she (or to a female as a he), but what can one do? In some non-English languages it's also impossible to say something like "gender unknown" because the gender of a person can change most of the words of a whole article, so it's not one could simply include both the male and female forms of one or two words and let the rest of the article be the same, all the words in the whole article have to change according to the gender. As I did some work searching the internet to find it out her gender, I added it to her Wikipedia article. If we don't state the gender of a person in our biographies, the only way this information is conveyed if through the use of "he" or "she" and "his" or "her", but we shouldn't rely on this grammatical feature because it can easility be lost after an editor's re-write or copyedit. Indeed, many times I've checked Wikipedia biographies hoping to see quickly a "he" or a "she" or ideally a photograph in the first paragraphs but in many Wikipedia biographies this doesn't happen, or the much-searched-for "he" or "she" is only included after many paragraphs of text or not at all, and it's prone to be removed by copyediting (or even put there by someone like me who wrongly assumed the gender of someone after failing to find it out by searching on the internet). I think the best way to avoid these problems and make Wikipedia biographies more useful is to include the gender of the person in parentheses after their date of birth, or inside their infobox if the article has one. What do you think? Would you agree with including the gender of people in their biographies and refrain from reverting such edits like mine which include this crucial and much-needed information? You can read more about why the gender of a person is important in the grammatical gender article. Cogiati (talk) 08:31, 14 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • You can see another example of an article (not edited by me) which includes the gender of a person (a photographer, I'm also a photographer myself but I also write articles so I have the problem of finding out the gender of a person almost every day and it's really a serious problem for someone having to write many articles every day, don't underestimate what it's like to lose 10+ minutes before writing an article just for finding out the gender of someone!) here: Polixeni Papapetrou in which we read that "Polixeni Papapetrou (born 1960) is a female photographer from Melbourne, Australia." Would you copyedit the article to remove the word "female" in that instance? If not, then why revert an edit introducing the word "female" into another biography where such crucial and much-needed essential biographical information is not included or is only conveyed through the utilization of "she" (or "he") which can easily be lost in other editors' copyedits? We should strive to make Wikipedia more useful rather than less useful, and we do this by including all the information needed by our readers. Cogiati (talk) 08:44, 14 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The sex of a subject is certainly important but it should be a little more stylishly introduced than just whacking the term "female" in brackets next to the birth date. More than anything else, it reads like the subject was born female but may no longer be. What you are proposing is a rather significant change to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies and one I would not support. Perhaps take it up on the talk page there -- Mattinbgn (talk) 04:15, 15 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you![edit]

The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
Thanks for all your Queensland war memorial photos. I've been busy adding them to articles. Kerry (talk) 07:00, 3 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! I need to get back up to Queensland with the camera again ... -- Mattinbgn (talk) 08:07, 3 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Request for comment[edit]

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)[reply]

Townsville or Townsville, Queensland[edit]

There's a proposed move of Category:Townsville to Category:Townsville, Queensland taking place here and I know this issue of primary topic vs disambiguation is usually something you have strong views about. Kerry (talk) 23:03, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You've got mail![edit]

Hello, Mattinbgn. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 14:51, 1 June 2014 (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.

--Mdann52talk to me! 14:51, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Metung Productions vs vanity posts?[edit]

Pardon my ignorance but could you check Metung's subsection on Metung Productions. My knee-jerk reaction is that this is the result of a series of vanity posts. However your expertise in small town articles may see some reason why this article has about 1/3rd of its content on this particular film group. To me the whole section is unreferenced, PoV, poorly written and fairly repetitive: I'm tempted to delete it but I'd like a second opinion. [signed very late, sorry] shaidar cuebiyar (talk) 05:51, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hazeldene[edit]

How would you rewrite the article in a way that makes sense now that the town no longer formally exists? I am usually a fan of separate articles, and there are plenty of examples where articles on degazetted towns still make sense (i.e. Wittenoom), but I can't see how it makes sense to maintain an article on a tiny town that no longer has a separate identity. What is your objection to merging the content into the Flowerdale article? The Drover's Wife (talk) 03:09, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Bredbo[edit]

You provided a name move and disam page. So instead of a page we now have two and lots of links that need tidying up after ... And other towns of the same naming convention that haven't been moved. Should they ? --Dave Rave (talk) 05:17, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Two things - Firstly, we should always have had two pages - there should have been a redirect from the plain name "Bredbo" to "Bredbo, New South Wales" just as there is now a redirect the other way. As long as there are no double redirects, there is no urgency to "fix" the links - this can be done at someone's leisure. Therefore there is no extra page and also no extra work. Secondly, the naming convention at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Australia applies and clearly Bredbo belongs at its plain, undisambiguated name. Should the other titles similar to this be moved as well? In my view, yes, absolutely - but there is no hurry - so long as redirects from one name to the other exist, readers will find the article they are looking for. Hope this explains my actions. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 06:06, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Mattinbgn Photo used on Dalby page incorrect[edit]

Hi, As a longtime Dalby resident, I would like to point out that your photo that has been labelled as "Dalby War Memorial 2008" on the Dalby page is actually an obelisk erected to the memory of Joshua Thomas Bell an early MP, pioneer and landholder and is found in Bell Park at the end of Cunningham Street.The War memorial is in Patrick Street near the swimming pool and features a digger on top of a plinth. You might want to edit same.

Scottimac (talk) 07:42, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you - you know that you are allowed to fix it yourself if you wish. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 21:02, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Happy New Year Mattinbgn![edit]

Happy New Year!

Mattinbgn,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia. NorthAmerica1000 10:14, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year 2015}} to user talk pages.

Super 10?[edit]

Hello Mattinbgn, with your knowledge on these matters, I'd like to ask your help/opinion on moving "Super 10 (Southern Hemisphere competition)" page to be the primary topic at Super 10. The peak dates of 1992–97 on Google Books Ngram seems to support it's primacy.

The Super 10 page now just redirects back to it. There is a disambig page at: Super 10 (disambiguation). An Italian tournament also used the name at one time but it is now called the Eccelenza. Is requesting a multiple page move the way to go or would this be a waste of time? Thanks -- Ham105 (talk) 15:35, 19 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A multiple page move request at WP:RM would be the way to progress this. Gather your evidence for the move and draft up a move request. I am happy to take a look at it before you post it, if you like. Be aware that there may be some discussion about a merge with Super Rugby, although that was different altogether. Good luck! -- Mattinbgn (talk) 00:26, 20 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Hopefully nothing is missing in the code below. -- Ham105 (talk) 17:03, 20 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Draft code for requested move
{{subst:Requested move |new1 = Super 10 |current2=Super 10 |new2= Super 10 (disambiguation) |reason = 

The international tournament within major rugby nations South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand in the 1990s should be the Super 10 primary topic. From
[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Super+10&year_start=1985&year_end=2015&corpus=15&smoothing=1&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CSuper%2010%3B%2Cc0 Google Books Ngram], the peak counts in the period 1992–97 supports its case for primacy.

After 2000, the Italian domestic rugby competition previously known as Serie A adopted the name for a time before being rebranded again as Eccelenza. Its wikipedia page is "National Championship of Excellence". I propose to include a hatnote on the page of the international Super 10 saying "For the Italian former Super 10, see National Championship of Excellence. For other uses, see Super 10 (disambiguation)." -- ~~~~

Australian poems category[edit]

I'm replying to your edit of the Banjo Paterson poem "Clancy of the Overflow", as I'm a bit confused about the correct approach to poems of this sort.

I added the "Australian poems" category to the page a day or so back only for it to be reverted by user Michael Bednarek who stated "Category:Australian poems is parent to Category:Poetry by Banjo Paterson". I believe the implication is that as the poem is listed under "Category:Poetry by Banjo Paterson" it isn't required to be listed under "Category:Australian poems" as that would amount to a duplication.

As I have a number of other poems that fit this category (along with others by Henry Lawson) I'd like to standardise the approach to avoid an "edit-war". Any thoughts? Perry Middlemiss (talk) 21:11, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, user JackOfOz is reverting all the category additions now. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 21:14, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! There is a DR/N request you may have interest in.[edit]

This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute discussion you may have participated in. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help this dispute come to a resolution. The discussion is about the topic Magneto (generator). Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you! Biscuittin (talk) 19:26, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A beer for you![edit]

Many thanks for protecting Wyangala Dam. Enjoy!! Denisarona (talk) 09:54, 25 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

FLRC for List of Zimbabwe national cricket captains[edit]

I have nominated List of Zimbabwe national cricket captains for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Harrias talk 09:02, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hotspur[edit]

Hello haven't looked at your pic yet but in the early 1950s the postmistress (of the destroyed PO just over the Crawford) baked the best gingerbread in the world. Probably need more for an article. Cheers Epistemos (talk) 11:26, 29 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think so! :) Was fascinating travelling around the south west. Lots of scope for new articles in that region. The Rising Sun Hotel in Hotspur could almost sustain an article on its own!. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 01:17, 30 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguator removals[edit]

Hello Matt. I have noticed you have been altering article titles to remove "unnecessary disambiguations", such as your move from Mullumbimby, New South Wales to Mullumbimby. I am just wondering if you have consensus for these moves? Because last time I checked, the consensus was to retain the disambiguators, whether "unnecessary" or not. Gatoclass (talk) 10:20, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest having a look at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Australia. "Most Australian settlement articles are at Town, State/Territory; however, the name of a city or town may be used alone if the place is the primary or only topic for that name (e.g., Sydney rather than Sydney, New South Wales). If you feel that the town is not the primary topic for "Mullumbimby", feel free to start a WP:RM stating why it isn't. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 22:35, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That guideline language is not necessarily an invitation for moving pages from the long-accepted name, it is permissive of creating new articles at the shorter name. This was noted in the discussion on WP:AWNB by gnangarra in the last week. --Scott Davis Talk 23:28, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's unfair - I have not been bulk-naming articles and if there is any controversy I have either accepted opposition or used WP:RM. I have also largely left SA WA articles alone as I am aware that some editors there have strong pro-mandatory disambiguation views.
What I do think is wrong though is to use claims of "disruption" to derail the process of moving articles to their natural names. The discussion around disambiguation was had - and contrary to claim at AWNB, the discussion was detailed and comprehensive - and it is time to move on. Any idea that only new articles should be at undisambiguated names is nonsense - so Mungar can be at its natural name but Orroroo, South Australia let's say, created earlier, can't? (BTW, read Talk:Orroroo, South Australia) What is disruptive IMO is forcing a WP:RM discussion every time an article that has a unique name or is clearly the WP:PRIMARY topic. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 00:54, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There have been several people recently moving Australian place articles around. I don't think anyone has used the term "disruption" specifically about you. There are two other editors I would consider using it for (but I don't think I have actually said it about them either, although others might have). You and I are quite possibly close to the extreme ends of the continuum of opinions, but I think we generally manage to be polite and accepting that the other has a legitimate point of view even if it's not our own. In general, I prefer precise naming of articles, while I would say you prefer concise naming. I've always described "<name>, <state>" as a qualified name, not a pre-disambiguated name, in the "fully qualified" sense that you don't really expect a kid's letter to be delivered successfully to "grandma, High Street". I chipped into this conversation from the side, from having your talk page on my watchlist, not from any specific issue about Mullumbimby. I explicitly thanked you for the WP:RM conversation about Coolangatta, since I got to that one amongst several other disputed moves that had not been discussed by their movers. --Scott Davis Talk 12:11, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the explanation Matt. It seems things have changed since I last took a look at this issue. Anyhow, I am fully in favour of the removal of unnecessary disambiguators - how many towns in the world named "Mullumbimby" are there likely to be? - so you are welcome to proceed from my POV. I just wanted to be sure you were not editing against consensus. Gatoclass (talk) 13:48, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Norm Houghton (historian) AfD[edit]

Wondering if you could have a look at this article Norm Houghton (historian), and see if you have a view on its notability, which has been proposed for AfD, and if you don't think t gets there yet, whether you have any suggestions for possible sources that might help, thanks Garyvines (talk) 01:49, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Richie Benaud[edit]

I'm not sure if you are aware that in April this year I nominated the Richie Benaud article for "Good Article" status. It took a while for the review to come though and I now find there are a number of items that need to be addressed. I'm okay with the bulk of them but a few are outside my area of expertise - particularly in terms of illustrations fitting copyright and commons requirements. As you have an interest in Australian cricket I was wondering if you'd like to join me in getting the Benaud article up to scratch, or, if not, if you could recommend someone else who might be able to help. Cheers, Perry Middlemiss (talk) 22:35, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to help and will take a look when I can. Also, the team at [[W{:CRICKET]] would be able to provide some advice. I suspect the photos in question are not public domain unfortunately. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 08:55, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I'll raise the issue with WP:CRICKET when I can, probably over the weekend when I might have a bit more time.Perry Middlemiss (talk) 22:43, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom elections are now open![edit]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability 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, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:16, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Tom Wills[edit]

Hello, I was wondering if you could assist me in constructing an FA-quality summation of Tom Wills' cricketing style and captaincy. I'm not very well-versed in the lingo and technical aspects, and couldn't hope to produce anything like the work you've done on Bill Ponsford. Also being the soul editor of the article for so long, it would be nice just to have a fresh take on things. Cheers. - HappyWaldo (talk) 04:37, 31 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Help to contribute to actual photographers[edit]

Hi, I am using wikipedia for photographs , and have come across a few photographers that I would like to talk to, briefly , and occasionally donate money to, as well as wikipedia. I respect the work that is done on a voluntary basis, by the photographers on Wikipedia, and whilst I am a business startup, and do not have a load of money, I appreciate the work being done, and want to reward if I have any spare money, to the individual photographer, but find this hard to do. So I joined Wikipedia. I look at a lot of town and city images around the country, and around the world, on wikipedia, for my job. I can occasionally now guess a photographer before I see who took the pic :)

Also want to learn the ropes for photos occasionally , to upload my own, to wikipedia towns and cities.. still early days.. I hope I am using the photos the right way, on my website. Thanks for reading.. .Marty (Martyk@ezebook.com ) please delete email address after initial read? Thanks

2016 Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Search Community Survey[edit]

The Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation has appointed a committee to lead the search for the foundation’s next Executive Director. One of our first tasks is to write the job description of the executive director position, and we are asking for input from the Wikimedia community. Please take a few minutes and complete this survey to help us better understand community and staff expectations for the Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director.

Thank you, The Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Search Steering Committee via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:50, 1 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Precious[edit]

sports in rural Australia

Thank you for quality articles about Australian topics, beginning with football clubs such as Strathmerton Football Club, then today's Harry Trott and Riverina, for creating navboxes, for good illustration with your own photography, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:10, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Three years ago, you were recipient no. 1450 of Precious, a prize of QAI! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:00, 5 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Extended confirmed protection[edit]

Hello, Mattinbgn. 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:

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Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you.
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Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins[edit]

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) 20:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A new user right for New Page Patrollers[edit]

Hi Mattinbgn.

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

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

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

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open![edit]

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

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter - February 2017[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.

Administrator changes

NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67
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Guideline and policy news

Technical news

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Arbitration

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  • JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.
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13:37, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Fair Use in Australia discussion[edit]

As an Australian Wikipedian, your opinion is sought on a proposal to advocate for the introduction of Fair Use into Australian copyright law. The discussion is taking place at the Australian Wikipedians' notice board, please read the proposal and comment there. MediaWiki message delivery MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:07, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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New NSW Police Comissioner[edit]

Hi Mattinbgn.
I see you've updated the List of Commissioners of New South Wales Police page, with Mick Fuller.
The source says that Fuller has been 'appointed', I know I'm being picky, but isn't Scipione still the 'commish' until he retires, which is apparently on Friday? --220 of Borg 23:28, 30 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Today is Friday, hence my edit. However, happy for you to clarify on the page if you think it is necessary. Thanks for the courtesy of discussing it with me.-- Mattinbgn (talk) 00:09, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed it is, I assume they do mean Scipione retires 'this' Friday, so I'm splitting hairs a bit lot. I think when I queried, I had assumed they meant he retired 'next' Friday 10 April. Technically, perhaps, he's commish until the moment he retires, or formally hands over to Fuller. I've also updated Scipiones page, may need copyediting this evening, feel free as I may not have internet access then. Regards --220 of Borg 01:20, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Facepalm Facepalm Thanks for the fix.[1] I copied the infobox from Scipiones' page and edited it to suit, but missed the AO. --220 of Borg 05:05, 10 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – May 2017[edit]

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

Administrator changes

added Karanacs • Berean Hunter • GoldenRing • Dlohcierekim
removed Gdr • Tyrenius • JYolkowski • Longhair • Master Thief Garrett • Aaron Brenneman • Laser brain • JzG • Dragons flight

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Miscellaneous

  • Following an RfC, the editing restrictions page is now split into a list of active restrictions and an archive of those that are old or on inactive accounts. Make sure to check both pages if searching for a restriction.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:19, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – June 2017[edit]

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

Administrator changes

added Doug Bell • Dennis Brown • Clpo13 • ONUnicorn
removed ThaddeusB • Yandman • Bjarki S • OldakQuill • Shyam • Jondel • Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:40, 1 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oz cricket lists[edit]

Hi Matt, I saw you noticed some of my edits to Australian Cricket Hall of Fame, I'm hoping to bring it up to FLC standards and then co-nom it with you, if you're interested? I've tinkered with both the Frank Worrell Trophy (at FLC now) and the Trans-Tasman Trophy (waiting for FLC) as well. I'm not sure how I've stumbled into working on these three Aussie lists, but outside the Ashes, us Poms don't really have anything that interesting to report about! Cheers, The Rambling Man (talk) 07:35, 10 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry @The Rambling Man: - I meant to come back to this and reply and got caught up. Thanks for the work you have done and the thought re: co-nomming - it is appreciated. I have deliberately stayed away from participation in the FA/GA process over the past few years. I found the process incredibly frustrating. I am happy to help though where I can. Cheers, Mattinbgn (talk) 22:08, 20 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. I'm pretty cool with the FLC process, so shouldn't be a major biggie. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:40, 21 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – July 2017[edit]

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

Administrator changes

added Happyme22 • Dragons flight
removed Zad68

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Miscellaneous

  • A newly revamped database report can help identify users who may be eligible to be autopatrolled.
  • A potentially compromised account from 2001–2002 attempted to request resysop. Please practice appropriate account security by using a unique password for Wikipedia, and consider enabling two-factor authentication. Currently around 17% of admins have enabled 2FA, up from 16% in February 2017.
  • Did you know: On 29 June 2017, there were 1,261 administrators on the English Wikipedia – the exact number of administrators as there were ten years ago on 29 June 2007. Since that time, the English Wikipedia has grown from 1.85 million articles to over 5.43 million.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:59, 6 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Archibald[edit]

Oops! Thanks for that. (Brain insufficiently engaged.) Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 07:30, 22 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No worries! -- Mattinbgn (talk) 07:50, 22 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – August 2017[edit]

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

Administrator changes

added Anarchyte • GeneralizationsAreBad • Cullen328 (first RfA to reach WP:300)
removed Cprompt • Rockpocket • Rambo's Revenge • Animum • TexasAndroid • Chuck SMITH • MikeLynch • Crazytales • Ad Orientem

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:12, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

An Invincible on Main Page?[edit]

Hope you don't mind this --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 15:19, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not only do I not mind it, I am grateful you have taken an interest in it! -- Mattinbgn (talk) 21:08, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I created this little baby in 2012. Seems extraordinary that we're now running FAs twice because of a shortage of FAs, when we've still got quite a lot of very good quality FAs from 10 years ago that haven't run once. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 21:42, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have scheduled Johnson for TFA on December 8, 2017. Thanks for your work.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:00, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to all involved here for the presentation on his birthday! What's next? - I received flowers which I could share for the occasion! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:20, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – September 2017[edit]

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

Administrator changes

added Nakon • Scott
removed Sverdrup • Thespian • Elockid • James086 • Ffirehorse • Celestianpower • Boing! said Zebedee

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • You will now get a notification when someone tries to log in to your account and fails. If they try from a device that has logged into your account before, you will be notified after five failed attempts. You can also set in your preferences to get an email when someone logs in to your account from a new device or IP address, which may be encouraged for admins and accounts with sensitive permissions.
  • Syntax highlighting is now available as a beta feature (more info). This may assist administrators and template editors when dealing with intricate syntax of high-risk templates and system messages.
  • In your notification preferences, you can now block specific users from pinging you. This functionality will soon be available for Special:EmailUser as well.

Arbitration

  • Applications for CheckUser and Oversight are being accepted by the Arbitration Committee until September 12. Community discussion of the candidates will begin on September 18.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:35, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – October 2017[edit]

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

Administrator changes

added Boing! said Zebedee • Ansh666 • Ad Orientem
removed Tonywalton • AmiDaniel • Silence • BanyanTree • Magioladitis • Vanamonde93 • Mr.Z-man • Jdavidb • Jakec • Ram-Man • Yelyos • Kurt Shaped Box

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

  • Community consultation on the 2017 candidates for CheckUser and Oversight has concluded. The Arbitration Committee will appoint successful candidates by October 11.
  • A request for comment is open regarding the structure, rules, and procedures of the December 2017 Arbitration Committee election, and how to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:23, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – November 2017[edit]

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

Administrator changes

added Longhair • Megalibrarygirl • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93
removed Allen3 • Eluchil404 • Arthur Rubin • Bencherlite

Technical news

Arbitration

Obituaries

  • The Wikipedia community has recently learned that Allen3 (William Allen Peckham) passed away on December 30, 2016, the same day as JohnCD. Allen began editing in 2005 and became an administrator that same year.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:50, 2 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Zimbabwe coup[edit]

There is no coup (yet) in Zimbabwe. How is creating a page saying there IS a coup NOT a hoax? Cheers. ‡ Єl Cid of ᐺalencia ᐐT₳LKᐬ 03:27, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi El cid, el campeador and thanks for your feedback. From Wiktionary - Hoax - "Anything deliberately intended to deceive or trick". The article was not a hoax. It may have been mistitled, poorly sourced or factually incorrect, but we deal with these matters via editing and discussion, not deletion. Cheers, Mattinbgn (talk) 00:24, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – December 2017[edit]

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

Administrator changes

added Joe Roe
readded JzG
removed Ericorbit • Perceval • Thingg • Tristanb • Violetriga

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a request for comment, a new section has been added to the username policy which disallows usernames containing emoji, emoticons or otherwise "decorative" usernames, and usernames that use any non-language symbols. Administrators should discuss issues related to these types of usernames before blocking.

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • Over the last few months, several users have reported backlogs that require administrator attention at WP:ANI, with the most common backlogs showing up on WP:SPI, WP:AIV and WP:RFPP. It is requested that all administrators take some time during this month to help clear backlogs wherever possible. It should be noted that AIV reports are not always valid; however, they still need to be cleared, which may include needing to remind users on what qualifies as vandalism.
  • The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative is conducting a survey for English Wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works (i.e. which problems it deals with well and which problems it struggles with). If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be emailed to you via Special:EmailUser.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:58, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2017 election voter message[edit]

Hello, Mattinbgn. 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.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – January 2018[edit]

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

Administrator changes

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

Bureaucrat changes

readded Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

  • A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the administrator policy should be amended to require disclosure of paid editing activity at WP:RFA and to prohibit the use of administrative tools as part of paid editing activity, with certain exceptions.

Technical news

Arbitration

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

Administrators' newsletter – February 2018[edit]

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

Administrator changes

added None
removed Blurpeace • Dana boomer • Deltabeignet • Denelson83 • Grandiose • Salvidrim! • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

  • An RfC has closed with a consensus that candidates at WP:RFA must disclose whether they have ever edited for pay and that administrators may never use administrative tools as part of any paid editing activity, except when they are acting as a Wikipedian-in-Residence or when the payment is made by the Wikimedia Foundation or an affiliate of the WMF.
  • Editors responding to threats of harm can now contact the Wikimedia Foundation's emergency address by using Special:EmailUser/Emergency. If you don't have email enabled on Wikipedia, directly contacting the emergency address using your own email client remains an option.

Technical news

  • A tag will now be automatically applied to edits that blank a page, turn a page into a redirect, remove/replace almost all content in a page, undo an edit, or rollback an edit. These edits were previously denoted solely by automatic edit summaries.

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:52, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of Goroke for deletion[edit]

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Goroke is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Goroke until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 02:40, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – March 2018[edit]

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

Administrator changes

added Lourdes†
removed AngelOfSadness • Bhadani • Chris 73 • Coren • Friday • Midom • Mike V
† Lourdes has requested that her admin rights be temporarily removed, pending her return from travel.

Guideline and policy news

  • The autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) is scheduled to end on 14 March 2018. The results of the research collected can be read on Meta Wiki.
  • Community ban discussions must now stay open for at least 24 hours prior to being closed.
  • A change to the administrator inactivity policy has been proposed. Under the proposal, if an administrator has not used their admin tools for a period of five years and is subsequently desysopped for inactivity, the administrator would have to file a new RfA in order to regain the tools.
  • A change to the banning policy has been proposed which would specify conditions under which a repeat sockmaster may be considered de facto banned, reducing the need to start a community ban discussion for these users.

Technical news

  • CheckUsers are now able to view private data such as IP addresses from the edit filter log, e.g. when the filter prevents a user from creating an account. Previously, this information was unavailable to CheckUsers because access to it could not be logged.
  • The edit filter has a new feature contains_all that edit filter managers may use to check if one or more strings are all contained in another given string.

Miscellaneous

Obituaries

  • Bhadani (Gangadhar Bhadani) passed away on 8 February 2018. Bhadani joined Wikipedia in March 2005 and became an administrator in September 2005. While he was active, Bhadani was regarded as one of the most prolific Wikipedians from India.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:00, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mass moves[edit]

You know what the guideline says: something that says "both are acceptable" is not an invitation to attempt to unilaterally force your passionately-held naming views on the project. You have single-handedly conducted mass moves of hundreds of articles virtually alone among all users in Australian Wikipedia, in spite of a guideline that does not support this, so you could - predictably - turn around and claim that the status quo had changed and try to use that unilateral effort to overcome your long-standing inability to get a consensus for your desired position. You didn't have consensus support for the moves in the first place, so forcing you to actually get that consensus is hardly WP:POINT. Go bully someone else. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:00, 14 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Farewell, travel safe and come back some time[edit]

Good morning. I just noticed that you have set your user page to "Retired". While you and I have clashed over the naming convention and its application for Australian places on-and-off for a very long time, I have valued your contributions to article content, especially photographs of rural places. I also took a few years off of Wikipedia when other stuff became more important. I wish you well in your life and hope to see you back here one day. --Scott Davis Talk 01:08, 15 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – April 2018[edit]

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

Administrator changes

added 331dot • Cordless Larry • ClueBot NG
removed Gogo Dodo • Pb30 • Sebastiankessel • Seicer • SoLando

Guideline and policy news

  • Administrators who have been desysopped due to inactivity are now required to have performed at least one (logged) administrative action in the past 5 years in order to qualify for a resysop without going through a new RfA.
  • Editors who have been found to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block, for whatever reason, are now automatically considered banned by the community without the need to start a ban discussion.
  • The notability guideline for organizations and companies has been substantially rewritten following the closure of this request for comment. Among the changes, the guideline more clearly defines the sourcing requirements needed for organizations and companies to be considered notable.
  • The six-month autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) ended on 14 March 2018. The post-trial research report has been published. A request for comment is now underway to determine whether the restrictions from ACTRIAL should be implemented permanently.

Technical news

Arbitration

  • The Arbitration Committee is considering a change to the discretionary sanctions procedures which would require an editor to appeal a sanction to the community at WP:AE or WP:AN prior to appealing directly to the Arbitration Committee at WP:ARCA.

Miscellaneous

  • A discussion has closed which concluded that administrators are not required to enable email, though many editors suggested doing so as a matter of best practice.
  • The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team has released the Interaction Timeline. This shows a chronologic history for two users on pages where they have both made edits, which may be helpful in identifying sockpuppetry and investigating editing disputes.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018[edit]

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

Administrator changes

added None
removed Chochopk • Coffee • Gryffindor • Jimp • Knowledge Seeker • Lankiveil • Peridon • Rjd0060

Guideline and policy news

  • The ability to create articles directly in mainspace is now indefinitely restricted to autoconfirmed users.
  • A proposal is being discussed which would create a new "event coordinator" right that would allow users to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit.

Technical news

  • AbuseFilter has received numerous improvements, including an OOUI overhaul, syntax highlighting, ability to search existing filters, and a few new functions. In particular, the search feature can be used to ensure there aren't existing filters for what you need, and the new equals_to_any function can be used when checking multiple namespaces. One major upcoming change is the ability to see which filters are the slowest. This information is currently only available to those with access to Logstash.
  • When blocking anonymous users, a cookie will be applied that reloads the block if the user changes their IP. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. This currently only occurs when hard-blocking accounts.
  • The block notice shown on mobile will soon be more informative and point users to a help page on how to request an unblock, just as it currently does on desktop.
  • There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

Obituaries

  • Lankiveil (Craig Franklin) passed away in mid-April. Lankiveil joined Wikipedia on 12 August 2004 and became an administrator on 31 August 2008. During his time with the Wikimedia community, Lankiveil served as an oversighter for the English Wikipedia and as president of Wikimedia Australia.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:05, 2 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018[edit]

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

Administrator changes

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

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in June. This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.
  • The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team will build granular types of blocks in 2018 (e.g. a block from uploading or editing specific pages, categories, or namespaces, as opposed to a full-site block). Feedback on the concept may be left at the talk page.
  • There is now a checkbox on Special:ListUsers to let you see only users in temporary user groups.
  • It is now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked.

Arbitration

  • A recent technical issue with the Arbitration Committee's spam filter inadvertently caused all messages sent to the committee through Wikipedia (i.e. Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee) to be discarded. If you attempted to send an email to the Arbitration Committee via Wikipedia between May 16 and May 31, your message was not received and you are encouraged to resend it. Messages sent outside of these dates or directly to the Arbitration Committee email address were not affected by this issue.

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:00, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – July 2018[edit]

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

Administrator changes

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

Bureaucrat changes

removed Andrevan • EVula

Guideline and policy news

  • An RfC about the deletion of drafts closed with a consensus to change the wording of WP:NMFD. Specifically, a draft that has been repeatedly resubmitted and declined at AfC without any substantial improvement may be deleted at MfD if consensus determines that it is unlikely to ever meet the requirements for mainspace and it otherwise meets one of the reasons for deletion outlined in the deletion policy.
  • A request for comment closed with a consensus that the {{promising draft}} template cannot be used to indefinitely prevent a WP:G13 speedy deletion nomination.

Technical news

  • Starting on July 9, the WMF Security team, Trust & Safety, and the broader technical community will be seeking input on an upcoming change that will restrict editing of site-wide JavaScript and CSS to a new technical administrators user group. Bureaucrats and stewards will be able to grant this right per a community-defined process. The intention is to reduce the number of accounts who can edit frontend code to those who actually need to, which in turn lessens the risk of malicious code being added that compromises the security and privacy of everyone who accesses Wikipedia. For more information, please review the FAQ.
  • Syntax highlighting has been graduated from a Beta feature on the English Wikipedia. To enable this feature, click the highlighter icon () in your editing toolbar (or under the hamburger menu in the 2017 wikitext editor). This feature can help prevent you from making mistakes when editing complex templates.
  • IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in July (previously scheduled for June). This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.

Miscellaneous

  • Currently around 20% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 17% a year ago. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless if you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:22, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – August 2018[edit]

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

Administrator changes

added Sro23
readded KaisaL • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

  • After a discussion at Meta, a new user group called "interface administrators" (formerly "technical administrator") has been created. Come the end of August, interface admins will be the only users able to edit site-wide JavaScript and CSS pages like MediaWiki:Common.js and MediaWiki:Common.css, or edit other user's personal JavaScript and CSS. The intention is to improve security and privacy by reducing the number of accounts which could be used to compromise the site or another user's account through malicious code. The new user group can be assigned and revoked by bureaucrats. Discussion is ongoing to establish details for implementing the group on the English Wikipedia.
  • Following a request for comment, the WP:SISTER style guideline now states that in the mainspace, interwiki links to Wikinews should only be made as per the external links guideline. This generally means that within the body of an article, you should not link to Wikinews about a particular event that is only a part of the larger topic. Wikinews links in "external links" sections can be used where helpful, but not automatically if an equivalent article from a reliable news outlet could be linked in the same manner.

Technical news

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

Administrators' newsletter – September 2018[edit]

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

Administrator changes

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

Interface administrator changes

added Amorymeltzer • Mr. Stradivarius • MusikAnimal • MSGJ • TheDJ • Xaosflux

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a "stop-gap" discussion, six users have temporarily been made interface administrators while discussion is ongoing for a more permanent process for assigning the permission. Interface administrators are now the only editors allowed to edit sitewide CSS and JavaScript pages, as well as CSS/JS pages in another user's userspace. Previously, all administrators had this ability. The right can be granted and revoked by bureaucrats.

Technical news

  • Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour.
  • Some abuse filter variables have changed. They are now easier to understand for non-experts. The old variables will still work but filter editors are encouraged to replace them with the new ones. You can find the list of changed variables on mediawiki.org. They have a note which says Deprecated. Use ... instead. An example is article_text which is now page_title.
  • Abuse filters can now use how old a page is. The variable is page_age.

Arbitration

  • The Arbitration Committee has resolved to perform a round of Checkuser and Oversight appointments. The usernames of all applicants will be shared with the Functionaries team, and they will be requested to assist in the vetting process. The deadline to submit an application is 23:59 UTC, 12 September, and the candidates that move forward will be published on-wiki for community comments on 18 September.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:23, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018[edit]

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

Administrator changes

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

Interface administrator changes

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

Oversight changes

removed Guerillero • NativeForeigner • Snowolf • Xeno

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • Partial blocks should be available for testing in October on the Test Wikipedia and the Beta-Cluster. This new feature allows admins to block users from editing specific pages and in the near-future, namespaces and uploading files. You can expect more updates and an invitation to help with testing once it is available.
  • The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team is currently looking for input on how to measure the effectiveness of blocks. This is in particular related to how they will measure the success of the aforementioned partial blocks.
  • Because of a data centre test, you will be able to read but not edit the Wikimedia projects for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time.

Arbitration

  • The Arbitration Committee has, by motion, amended the procedure on functionary inactivity.
  • The community consultation for 2018 CheckUser and Oversight appointments has concluded. Appointments will be made by October 11.
  • Following a request for comment, the size of the Arbitration Committee will be decreased to 13 arbitrators, starting in 2019. Additionally, the minimum support percentage required to be appointed to a two-year term on ArbCom has been increased to 60%. ArbCom candidates who receive between 50% and 60% support will be appointed to one-year terms instead.
  • Nominations for the 2018 Arbitration Committee Electoral Commission are being accepted until 12 October. These are the editors who help run the ArbCom election smoothly. If you are interested in volunteering for this role, please consider nominating yourself.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:13, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Colin Sylvia[edit]

Hi, Wow, so you're going to undo my edit because it wasn't yours? Thanks. Snickers2686 (talk) 21:05, 28 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies for upsetting you. It appeared to be an edit conflict. Everything you wrote, including the source - was already in the article. Check the edit history and try to assume good faith. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 21:09, 28 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018[edit]

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

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • Partial blocks is now available for testing on the Test Wikipedia. The new functionality allows you to block users from editing specific pages. Bugs may exist and can be reported on the local talk page or on Meta. A discussion regarding deployment to English Wikipedia will be started by community liaisons sometime in the near future.
  • A user script is now available to quickly review unblock requests.
  • The 2019 Community Wishlist Survey is now accepting new proposals until November 11, 2018. The results of this survey will determine what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year. Voting on the proposals will take place from November 16 to November 30, 2018. Specifically, there is a proposal category for admins and stewards that may be of interest.

Arbitration

  • Eligible editors will be invited to nominate themselves as candidates in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 4 until November 13. Voting will begin on November 19 and last until December 2.
  • The Arbitration Committee's email address has changed to arbcom-en@wikimedia.org. Other email lists, such as functionaries-en and clerks-l, remain unchanged.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:18, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2018 election voter message[edit]

Hello, Mattinbgn. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018[edit]

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

Administrator changes

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

Interface administrator changes

removedDeryck Chan

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a request for comment, the Mediation Committee is now closed and will no longer be accepting case requests.
  • A request for comment is in progress to determine whether members of the Bot Approvals Group should satisfy activity requirements in order to remain in that role.
  • A request for comment is in progress regarding whether to change the administrator inactivity policy, such that administrators "who have made no logged administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped". Currently, the policy states that administrators "who have made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped".
  • A proposal has been made to temporarily restrict editing of the Main Page to interface administrators in order to mitigate the impact of compromised accounts.

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • In late November, an attacker compromised multiple accounts, including at least four administrator accounts, and used them to vandalize Wikipedia. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. Sharing the same password across multiple websites makes your account vulnerable, especially if your password was used on a website that suffered a data breach. As these incidents have shown, these concerns are not pure fantasies.
  • Wikipedia policy requires administrators to have strong passwords. To further reinforce security, administrators should also consider enabling two-factor authentication. A committed identity can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

Obituaries

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

Keep on snapping![edit]

Award for services to tea and scones
I finally got around to starting the Queensland Country Women's Association article and was overwhelmed by the number of photos of their halls that you have taken. I am putting them to good use! So please treat yourself to some tea and scones in honour of the QCWA and all your photos! Kerry (talk) 04:42, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I enjoy getting around small-town Australia and CWA halls (along with Masonic Lodges and RSL buildings) are in nearly every town of any size. Glad the photos are being used. Cheers, Mattinbgn (talk) 07:55, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019[edit]

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

Guideline and policy news

  1. G14 (new): Disambiguation pages that disambiguate only zero or one existing pages are now covered under the new G14 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-disambig}}; the text is unchanged and candidates may be found in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as unnecessary disambiguation pages.
  2. R4 (new): Redirects in the file namespace (and no file links) that have the same name as a file or redirect at Commons are now covered under the new R4 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-redircom}}; the text is unchanged.
  3. G13 (expanded): Userspace drafts containing only the default Article Wizard text are now covered under G13 along with other drafts (discussion). Such blank drafts are now eligible after six months rather than one year, and taggers continue to use {{db-blankdraft}}.

Technical news

  • Starting on December 13, the Wikimedia Foundation security team implemented new password policy and requirements. Privileged accounts (administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, oversighters, interface administrators, bots, edit filter managers/helpers, template editors, et al.) must have a password at least 10 characters in length. All accounts must have a password:
  1. At least 8 characters in length
  2. Not in the 100,000 most popular passwords (defined by the Password Blacklist library)
  3. Different from their username
User accounts not meeting these requirements will be prompted to update their password accordingly. More information is available on MediaWiki.org.
  • Blocked administrators may now block the administrator that blocked them. This was done to mitigate the possibility that a compromised administrator account would block all other active administrators, complementing the removal of the ability to unblock oneself outside of self-imposed blocks. A request for comment is currently in progress to determine whether the blocking policy should be updated regarding this change.
  • {{Copyvio-revdel}} now has a link to open the history with the RevDel checkboxes already filled in.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • Accounts continue to be compromised on a regular basis. Evidence shows this is entirely due to the accounts having the same password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately.
  • Around 22% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 20% in June 2018. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless of whether you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:39, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Happy new year[edit]

Any thoughts on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_talk:Australia_national_soccer_team_matches and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_July_21#Australia_national_association_football_team at all? It would be interesting to see why 7 years has to pass for this is resolved! JarrahTree 23:36, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi and Happy New Year to you too! Not sure I want to get involved in the football/soccer wars again - my NY resolution is to avoid online conflict as far as possible!!!! That said, there is an argument that the "men's" team is not strictly a team for men alone but rather an "open team; women, subject to being good enough, would be eligible for selection. I am not sure that flies though. Whatever happens should be consistent across the sport as a minimum and ideally the encyclopedia as a whole. Cheers, Mattinbgn (talk) 01:30, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2019).

Administrator changes

added Enterprisey • JJMC89
readded BorgQueen
removed Harro5 • Jenks24 • Graft • R. Baley

Interface administrator changes

removedEnterprisey

Guideline and policy news

  • A request for comment is currently open to reevaluate the activity requirements for administrators.
  • Administrators who are blocked have the technical ability to block the administrator who blocked their own account. A recent request for comment has amended the blocking policy to clarify that this ability should only be used in exceptional circumstances, such as account compromises, where there is a clear and immediate need.
  • A request for comment closed with a consensus in favor of deprecating The Sun as a permissible reference, and creating an edit filter to warn users who attempt to cite it.

Technical news

  • A discussion regarding an overhaul of the format and appearance of Wikipedia:Requests for page protection is in progress (permalink). The proposed changes will make it easier to create requests for those who are not using Twinkle. The workflow for administrators at this venue will largely be unchanged. Additionally, there are plans to archive requests similar to how it is done at WP:PERM, where historical records are kept so that prior requests can more easily be searched for.

Miscellaneous

  • Voting in the 2019 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2019, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2019, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
  • A new IRC bot is available that allows you to subscribe to notifications when specific filters are tripped. This requires that your IRC handle be identified.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:15, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – March 2019[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2019).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • A new tool is available to help determine if a given IP is an open proxy/VPN/webhost/compromised host.

Arbitration

  • The Arbitration Committee announced two new OTRS queues. Both are meant solely for cases involving private information; other cases will continue to be handled at the appropriate venues (e.g., WP:COIN or WP:SPI).
    • paid-en-wp@wikipedia.org has been set up to receive private evidence related to abusive paid editing.
    • checkuser-en-wp@wikipedia.org has been set up to receive private requests for CheckUser. For instance, requests for IP block exemption for anonymous proxy editing should now be sent to this address instead of the functionaries-en list.

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:13, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in New South Wales reorganised[edit]

Given your enthusiasm for photos, I thought you might be interested to see that I have reorganised the NSW requested photo category into a category tree of local governments, people, etc, to break it down into more manageable subsets, so it doesn't look so daunting. Kerry (talk) 11:30, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – April 2019[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2019).

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • Two more administrator accounts were compromised. Evidence has shown that these attacks, like previous incidents, were due to reusing a password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. All admins are strongly encouraged to enable two-factor authentication, please consider doing so. Please always practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.
  • As a reminder, according to WP:NOQUORUM, administrators looking to close or relist an AfD should evaluate a nomination that has received few or no comments as if it were a proposed deletion (PROD) prior to determining whether it should be relisted.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:57, 7 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2019 special circular[edit]

Icon of a white exclamation mark within a black triangle
 Administrators must secure their accounts

The Arbitration Committee may require a new RfA if your account is compromised.

View additional information

This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:38, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)[edit]

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 21:04, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – May 2019[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2019).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • XTools Admin Stats, a tool to list admins by administrative actions, has been revamped to support more types of log entries such as AbuseFilter changes. Two additional tools have been integrated into it as well: Steward Stats and Patroller Stats.

Arbitration

  • In response to the continuing compromise of administrator accounts, the Arbitration Committee passed a motion amending the procedures for return of permissions (diff). In such cases, the committee will review all available information to determine whether the administrator followed "appropriate personal security practices" before restoring permissions; administrators found failing to have adequately done so will not be resysopped automatically. All current administrators have been notified of this change.
  • Following a formal ratification process, the arbitration policy has been amended (diff). Specifically, the two-thirds majority required to remove or suspend an arbitrator now excludes (1) the arbitrator facing suspension or removal, and (2) any inactive arbitrator who does not respond within 30 days to attempts to solicit their feedback on the resolution through all known methods of communication.

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:37, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – June 2019[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2019).

Administrator changes

removed Andonic • Consumed Crustacean • Enigmaman • Euryalus • EWS23 • HereToHelp • Nv8200pa • Peripitus • StringTheory11 • Vejvančický

CheckUser changes

removed Ivanvector

Guideline and policy news

  • An RfC seeks to clarify whether WP:OUTING should include information on just the English Wikipedia or any Wikimedia project.
  • An RfC on WT:RfA concluded that Requests for adminship and bureaucratship are discussions seeking to build consensus.
  • An RfC proposal to make the templates for discussion (TfD) process more like the requested moves (RM) process, i.e. "as a clearinghouse of template discussions", was closed as successful.

Technical news

  • The CSD feature of Twinkle now allows admins to notify page creators of deletion if the page had not been tagged. The default behavior matches that of tagging notifications, and replaces the ability to open the user talk page upon deletion. You can customize which criteria receive notifications in your Twinkle preferences: look for Notify page creator when deleting under these criteria.
  • Twinkle's d-batch (batch delete) feature now supports deleting subpages (and related redirects and talk pages) of each page. The pages will be listed first but use with caution! The und-batch (batch undelete) option can now also restore talk pages.

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:48, 8 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – July 2019[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2019).

Administrator changes

removed 28bytes • Ad Orientem • Ansh666 • Beeblebrox • Boing! said Zebedee • BU Rob13 • Dennis Brown • Deor • DoRD • Floquenbeam1 • Flyguy649 • Fram2 • Gadfium • GB fan • Jonathunder • Kusma • Lectonar • Moink • MSGJ • Nick • Od Mishehu • Rama • Spartaz • Syrthiss • TheDJ • WJBscribe
1Floquenbeam's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.
2Fram's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.

Guideline and policy news

  • In a related matter, the account throttle has been restored to six creations per day as the mitigation activity completed.

Technical news

  • The Wikimedia Foundation's Community health initiative plans to design and build a new user reporting system to make it easier for people experiencing harassment and other forms of abuse to provide accurate information to the appropriate channel for action to be taken. Community feedback is invited.

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:20, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – August 2019[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2019).

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • Following a research project on masking IP addresses, the Foundation is starting a new project to improve the privacy of IP editors. The result of this project may significantly change administrative and counter-vandalism workflows. The project is in the very early stages of discussions and there is no concrete plan yet. Admins and the broader community are encouraged to leave feedback on the talk page.
  • The new page reviewer right is bundled with the admin tool set. Many admins regularly help out at Special:NewPagesFeed, but they may not be aware of improvements, changes, and new tools for the Curation system. Stay up to date by subscribing here to the NPP newsletter that appears every two months, and/or putting the reviewers' talk page on your watchlist.
    Since the introduction of temporary user rights, it is becoming more usual to accord the New Page Reviewer right on a probationary period of 3 to 6 months in the first instance. This avoids rights removal for inactivity at a later stage and enables a review of their work before according the right on a permanent basis.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:24, 3 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ITN recognition for Graham Farmer[edit]

On 14 August 2019, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article Graham Farmer, which you updated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 18:15, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – September 2019[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2019).

Administrator changes

added Bradv • Chetsford • Izno
readded Floquenbeam • Lectonar
removed DESiegel • Jake Wartenberg • Rjanag • Topbanana

CheckUser changes

removed Callanecc • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

removed Callanecc • Fox • HJ Mitchell • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Technical news

  • Editors using the mobile website on Wikipedia can opt-in to new advanced features via your settings page. This will give access to more interface links, special pages, and tools.
  • The advanced version of the edit review pages (recent changes, watchlist, and related changes) now includes two new filters. These filters are for "All contents" and "All discussions". They will filter the view to just those namespaces.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:37, 7 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thirteen years of editing![edit]

Hey, Mattinbgn. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee!
Have a great day! Chris Troutman (talk) 23:53, 25 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]


Administrators' newsletter – October 2019[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2019).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a discussion, a new criterion for speedy category renaming was added: C2F: One eponymous article, which applies if the category contains only an eponymous article or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories.

Technical news

  • As previously noted, tighter password requirements for Administrators were put in place last year. Wikipedia should now alert you if your password is less than 10 characters long and thus too short.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • The Community Tech team has been working on a system for temporarily watching pages, and welcomes feedback.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:55, 2 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – November 2019[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2019).

Guideline and policy news

  • A related RfC is seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure.

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:15, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2019 election voter message[edit]

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. 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 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) 00:08, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – December 2019[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2019).

Administrator changes

added EvergreenFir • ToBeFree
removed Akhilleus • Athaenara • John Vandenberg • Melchoir • MichaelQSchmidt • NeilN • Youngamerican • 😂

CheckUser changes

readded Beeblebrox
removed Deskana

Interface administrator changes

readded Evad37

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:48, 2 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ITN recognition for 2019 Bougainvillean independence referendum[edit]

On 12 December 2019, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article 2019 Bougainvillean independence referendum, which you nominated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:53, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Happy Adminship Anniversary![edit]

Happy Adminship Anniversary!

Have a very happy adminship anniversary on your special day!

Best wishes, CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 18:14, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – January 2020[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2019).

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:06, 4 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NSW LGAs[edit]

Thanks so much for your work on historical NSW LGAs, by the way - I know we've clashed plenty over the years, but it's bugged me for years that our coverage of this area has been so poor and that links are inevitably red, so it's been fantastic to suddenly see so many of them turning blue. You really are doing a great job with this. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:37, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Praise from the praiseworty is praise indeed as I really admire your work with cultural heritage items in Australia. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 21:39, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

hanging in there[edit]

sheesh ones and other editors edits actually create so much peripheral damage challenges that.... - following the rabbit holes from any ones edits - if only the editor numbers werent so shrinking JarrahTree 11:37, 18 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. Must admit I only poke my head back here once in a while now. Only when I get something I am interested in. The maintenance tasks don't really grab me any more. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 21:14, 20 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
no big deal that, most eds have not the slightest maintenance interest anymore, but hey better than disappearing completely as so many have... keep the faith... JarrahTree 00:50, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! -- Mattinbgn (talk) 20:39, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – February 2020[edit]

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

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a request for comment, partial blocks are now enabled on the English Wikipedia. This functionality allows administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces rather than the entire site. A draft policy is being workshopped at Wikipedia:Partial blocks.
  • The request for comment seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure closed with wide-spread support for an alternative desysoping procedure based on community input. No proposed process received consensus.

Technical news

  • Twinkle now supports partial blocking. There is a small checkbox that toggles the "partial" status for both blocks and templating. There is currently one template: {{uw-pblock}}.
  • When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title. [2]

Arbitration

  • Following a recent arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee reminded administrators that checkuser and oversight blocks must not be reversed or modified without prior consultation with the checkuser or oversighter who placed the block, the respective functionary team, or the Arbitration Committee.

Miscellaneous


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:06, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – March 2020[edit]

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

Guideline and policy news

  • Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops must not undo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather than should not.
  • A request for comment confirmed that sandboxes of established but inactive editors may not be blanked due solely to inactivity.

Technical news

  • Following a discussion, Twinkle's default CSD behavior will soon change, most likely this week. After the change, Twinkle will default to "tagging mode" if there is no CSD tag present, and default to "deletion mode" if there is a CSD tag present. You will be able to always default to "deletion mode" (the current behavior) using your Twinkle preferences.

Miscellaneous


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:20, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – April 2020[edit]

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

Guideline and policy news

  • There is an ongoing request for comment to streamline the source deprecation and blacklisting process.

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • The WMF has begun a pilot report of the pages most visited through various social media platforms to help with anti-vandalism and anti-disinformation efforts. The report is updated daily and will be available through the end of May.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:00, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – May 2020[edit]

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

Administrator changes

removed Gnangarra • Kaisershatner • Malcolmxl5

CheckUser changes

readded Callanecc

Oversight changes

readded HJ Mitchell

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:19, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – June 2020[edit]

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

Administrator changes

added CaptainEek • Creffett • Cwmhiraeth
removed Anna Frodesiak • Buckshot06 • Ronhjones • SQL

CheckUser changes

removed SQL

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

  • A motion was passed to enact a 500/30 restriction on articles related to the history of Jews and antisemitism in Poland during World War II (1933–45), including the Holocaust in Poland. Article talk pages where disruption occurs may also be managed with the stated restriction.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:27, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed deletion of Chief Medical Officer (Australia)[edit]

Notice

The article Chief Medical Officer (Australia) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Reads like an advertisement for one person. Needs more WP:SIGCOV for WP:N.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Jackreed86 (talk) 06:50, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

BTW - thanks for your work on the CMO's - good work !! JarrahTree 03:00, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! - I got your email. Just haven't got around to replying. Cheers - Mattinbgn (talk) 03:23, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
very important contribs imho - the sort of material that we always need to improve - as for email, no big deal there is no deadline :) JarrahTree 03:52, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
eureka - just before the government libraries et al closed down I was checking out cumpston primary sources in the archives here in perth - he was the origin of the federal cmo - imho - unless someone else can prove to me otherwise - he solved oz's problems by being in the right place at the right time and saved oz from really worse effects from 1918-1919 issues... but as dg of health some of the ideas moved up to the federal corridors so to speak... I had forgotten his name and role - but the discussion brought it all back - there is a lot more to public health administration in the oz federal and state systems than the average punter realises - here in WA in the 1880s to 1950s (mainly) many lgas/councils had their own board of health - tracking that is outright crazy - but they were in most cases absorbed into councils broader roles by the 60s - but their preoccupations and issues are great reading... JarrahTree 08:58, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – July 2020[edit]

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

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:25, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Merger discussion for Swan Hill[edit]

An article that you have been involved in editing—Swan Hill—has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Jonathan O'Donnell (talk) 00:29, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Administrators' newsletter – August 2020[edit]

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) 08:21, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – September 2020[edit]

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

Administrator changes

added Eddie891
removed Angela • Jcw69 • Just Chilling • Philg88 • Viajero

CheckUser changes

readded SQL

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:56, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Happy First Edit Day![edit]

Happy First Edit Day!

Have a very happy first edit anniversary!

From the Birthday Committee, CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 06:40, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Happy First Edit Day![edit]

Hey, Mattinbgn. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee!
Have a great day! Megan☺️ Talk to the monster 09:07, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Administrators' newsletter – September 2020[edit]

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

Administrator changes

added Ajpolino • LuK3
readded Jackmcbarn
removed Ad Orientem • Harej • Lid • Lomn • Mentoz86 • Oliver Pereira • XJaM
renamed There'sNoTime → TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:43, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Queenland Firebirds players[edit]

Hi, thanks for your thanks regarding Beryl Friday. I've just transferred a bunch of other "Queenland Firedbirds players" from the 2015 and 2016 era into the Wikimedia Commons category of the same name. I've managed to identity some of them. I would be grateful if you could help with identifying the remainder and double check that my identifications have been correct so far. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. Djln Djln (talk) 23:46, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – November 2020[edit]

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

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:52, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message[edit]

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) 01:30, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – December 2020[edit]

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

Administrator changes

removed Andrwsc • Anetode • GoldenRing • JzG • LinguistAtLarge • Nehrams2020

Interface administrator changes

added Izno

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:37, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Happy Adminship Anniversary![edit]

Happy Adminship Anniversary!

Have a very happy adminship anniversary on your special day!

Best wishes, CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 05:45, 19 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – January 2021[edit]

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

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:08, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – February 2021[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2021).

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:09, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – March 2021[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2021).

Administrator changes

added TJMSmith
removed Boing! said Zebedee • Hiberniantears • Lear's Fool • Only • WGFinley

Interface administrator changes

added AmandaNP

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • When blocking an IPv6 address with Twinkle, there is now a checkbox with the option to just block the /64 range. When doing so, you can still leave a block template on the initial, single IP address' talkpage.
  • When protecting a page with Twinkle, you can now add a note if doing so was in response to a request at WP:RfPP, and even link to the specific revision.
  • There have been a number of reported issues with Pending Changes. Most problems setting protection appear to have been resolved (phab:T273317) but other issues with autoaccepting edits persist (phab:T275322).

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:14, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – April 2021[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2021).

Administrator changes

removed Alexandria • Happyme22 • RexxS

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a request for comment, F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a has been deprecated; it covered immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
  • Following a request for comment, page movers were granted the delete-redirect userright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target.

Technical news

  • When you move a page that many editors have on their watchlist the history can be split and it might also not be possible to move it again for a while. This is because of a job queue problem. (T278350)
  • Code to support some very old web browsers is being removed. This could cause issues in those browsers. (T277803)

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:20, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Palm Island GA Reassessment[edit]

Palm Island, Queensland, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Whiteguru (talk) 08:40, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – May 2021[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2021).

Administrator changes

removed Enchanter • Carlossuarez46

Interface administrator changes

removed Ragesoss

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • The user group oversight will be renamed to suppress. This is for technical reasons. You can comment at T112147 if you have objections.

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:51, 7 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – June 2021[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2021).

Administrator changes

added Ashleyyoursmile • Less Unless
removed Husond • MattWade • MJCdetroit • Carioca • Vague Rant • Kingboyk • Thunderboltz • Gwen Gale • AniMate • SlimVirgin (deceased)

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • Wikimedia previously used the IRC network Freenode. However, due to changes over who controlled the network with reports of a forceful takeover by several ex-staff members, the Wikimedia IRC Group Contacts decided to move to the new Libera Chat network. It has been reported that Wikimedia related channels on Freenode have been forcibly taken over if they pointed members to Libera. There is a migration guide and Wikimedia discussions about this.

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:45, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – July 2021[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2021).

Guideline and policy news

  • Consensus has been reached to delete all books in the book namespace. There was rough consensus that the deleted books should still be available on request at WP:REFUND even after the namespace is removed.
  • An RfC is open to discuss the next steps following a trial which automatically applied pending changes to TFAs.

Technical news

  • IP addresses of unregistered users are to be hidden from everyone. There is a rough draft of how IP addresses may be shown to users who need to see them. This currently details allowing administrators, checkusers, stewards and those with a new usergroup to view the full IP address of unregistered users. Editors with at least 500 edits and an account over a year old will be able to see all but the end of the IP address in the proposal. The ability to see the IP addresses hidden behind the mask would be dependent on agreeing to not share the parts of the IP address they can see with those who do not have access to the same information. Accessing part of or the full IP address of a masked editor would also be logged. Comments on the draft are being welcomed at the talk page.

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:27, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – July 2021[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2021).

Guideline and policy news

  • An RfC is open to add a delay of one week from nomination to deletion for G13 speedy deletions.

Technical news

  • Last week all wikis were very slow or not accessible for 30 minutes. This was due to server lag caused by regenerating dynamic lists on the Russian Wikinews after a large bulk import. (T287380)

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:18, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

ta for that[edit]

sort of a west oz ed mistake that one... trust all is well your side of the paddock JarrahTree 09:06, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – September 2021[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2021).

Administrator changes

readded Jake Wartenberg
removed Emperor • Viridian Bovary
renamed Ashleyyoursmile → Viridian Bovary

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • The Score extension has been re-enabled on public wikis. It has been updated, but has been placed in safe mode to address unresolved security issues. Further information on the security issues can be found on the mediawiki page.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:45, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Happy First Edit Day![edit]

Happy First Edit Day!

Have a very happy first edit anniversary!

From the Birthday Committee, CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 05:56, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – October 2021[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2021).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

  • A motion has standardised the 500/30 (extended confirmed) restrictions placed by the Arbitration Committee. The standardised restriction is now listed in the Arbitration Committee's procedures.
  • Following the closure of the Iranian politics case, standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, post-1978 Iranian politics, broadly construed.
  • The Arbitration Committee encourages uninvolved administrators to use the discretionary sanctions procedure in topic areas where it is authorised to facilitate consensus in RfCs. This includes, but is not limited to, enforcing sectioned comments, word/diff limits and moratoriums on a particular topic from being brought in an RfC for up to a year.

Miscellaneous

  • Editors have approved expanding the trial of Growth Features from 2% of new accounts to 25%, and the share of newcomers getting mentorship from 2% to 5%. Experienced editors are invited to add themselves to the mentor list.
  • The community consultation phase of the 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process is open for editors to provide comments and ask questions to candidates.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:04, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – November 2021[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2021).

Guideline and policy news

  • Phase 2 of the 2021 RfA review has commenced which will discuss potential solutions to address the 8 issues found in Phase 1. Proposed solutions that achieve consensus will be implemented and you may propose solutions till 07 November 2021.

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:44, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2021 Elections voter message[edit]

Hello! Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 6 December 2021. 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 2021 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) 00:10, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – December 2021[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2021).

Administrator changes

removed A Train • Berean Hunter • Epbr123 • GermanJoe • Sanchom • Mysid

Technical news

  • Unregistered editors using the mobile website are now able to receive notices to indicate they have talk page messages. The notice looks similar to what is already present on desktop, and will be displayed on when viewing any page except mainspace and when editing any page. (T284642)
  • The limit on the number of emails a user can send per day has been made global instead of per-wiki to help prevent abuse. (T293866)

Arbitration


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:24, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators will no longer be autopatrolled[edit]

A recently closed Request for Comment (RFC) reached consensus to remove Autopatrolled from the administrator user group. You may, similarly as with Edit Filter Manager, choose to self-assign this permission to yourself. This will be implemented the week of December 13th, but if you wish to self-assign you may do so now. To find out when the change has gone live or if you have any questions please visit the Administrator's Noticeboard. 20:06, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Happy Adminship Anniversary![edit]

Wishing Mattinbgn a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Birthday Committee! Best wishes! CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 00:52, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Merchandise giveaway nomination[edit]

A t-shirt!
A token of thanks
Hi Mattinbgn! I've nominated you (along with all other active admins) to receive a solstice season gift from the WMF. Talk page stalkers are invited to comment at the nomination. Enjoy! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk ~~~~~
A snowflake!

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:50, 31 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – January 2022[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2021).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following consensus at the 2021 RfA review, the autopatrolled user right has been removed from the administrators user group; admins can grant themselves the autopatrolled permission if they wish to remain autopatrolled.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • The functionaries email list (functionaries-en@lists.wikimedia.org) will no longer accept incoming emails apart from those sent by list members and WMF staff. Private concerns, apart from those requiring oversight, should be directly sent to the Arbitration Committee.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:24, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How we will see unregistered users[edit]

Hi!

You get this message because you are an admin on a Wikimedia wiki.

When someone edits a Wikimedia wiki without being logged in today, we show their IP address. As you may already know, we will not be able to do this in the future. This is a decision by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department, because norms and regulations for privacy online have changed.

Instead of the IP we will show a masked identity. You as an admin will still be able to access the IP. There will also be a new user right for those who need to see the full IPs of unregistered users to fight vandalism, harassment and spam without being admins. Patrollers will also see part of the IP even without this user right. We are also working on better tools to help.

If you have not seen it before, you can read more on Meta. If you want to make sure you don’t miss technical changes on the Wikimedia wikis, you can subscribe to the weekly technical newsletter.

We have two suggested ways this identity could work. We would appreciate your feedback on which way you think would work best for you and your wiki, now and in the future. You can let us know on the talk page. You can write in your language. The suggestions were posted in October and we will decide after 17 January.

Thank you. /Johan (WMF)

18:13, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2022[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2022).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • The user group oversight will be renamed suppress in around 3 weeks. This will not affect the name shown to users and is simply a change in the technical name of the user group. The change is being made for technical reasons. You can comment in Phabricator if you have objections.
  • The Reply Tool feature, which is a part of Discussion Tools, will be opt-out for everyone logged in or logged out starting 7 February 2022. Editors wishing to comment on this can do so in the relevant Village Pump discussion.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:01, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – March 2022[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2022).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:46, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – April 2022[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2022).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • Access to Special:RevisionDelete has been expanded to include users who have the deletelogentry and deletedhistory rights. This means that those in the Researcher user group and Checkusers who are not administrators can now access Special:RevisionDelete. The users able to view the special page after this change are the 3 users in the Researcher group, as there are currently no checkusers who are not already administrators. (T301928)
  • When viewing deleted revisions or diffs on Special:Undelete a back link to the undelete page for the associated page is now present. (T284114)

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:13, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

New administrator activity requirement[edit]

The administrator policy has been updated with new activity requirements following a successful Request for Comment.

Beginning January 1, 2023, administrators who meet one or both of the following criteria may be desysopped for inactivity if they have:

  1. Made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least a 12-month period OR
  2. Made fewer than 100 edits over a 60-month period

Administrators at risk for being desysopped under these criteria will continue to be notified ahead of time. Thank you for your continued work.

22:53, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2022[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2022).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:34, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – June 2022[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2022).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • Administrators using the mobile web interface can now access Special:Block directly from user pages. (T307341)
  • The IP Info feature has been deployed to all wikis as a Beta Feature. Any autoconfirmed user may enable the feature using the "IP info" checkbox under Preferences → Beta features. Autoconfirmed users will be able to access basic information about an IP address that includes the country and connection method. Those with advanced privileges (admin, bureaucrat, checkuser) will have access to extra information that includes the Internet Service Provider and more specific location.

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:55, 2 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – July 2022[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2022).

Technical news

  • user_global_editcount is a new variable that can be used in abuse filters to avoid affecting globally active users. (T130439)

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • The New Pages Patrol queue has around 10,000 articles to be reviewed. As all administrators have the patrol right, please consider helping out. The queue is here. For further information on the state of the project, see the latest NPP newsletter.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:29, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – August 2022[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2022).

Administrator changes

readded Valereee
removed Anthony Appleyard (deceased) • Capitalistroadster • Samsara

Guideline and policy news

  • An RfC has been closed with consensus to add javascript that will show edit notices for editors editing via a mobile device. This only works for users using a mobile browser, so iOS app editors will still not be able to see edit notices.
  • An RfC has been closed with the consensus that train stations are not inherently notable.

Technical news

  • The Wikimania 2022 Hackathon will take place virtually from 11 August to 14 August.
  • Administrators will now see links on user pages for "Change block" and "Unblock user" instead of just "Block user" if the user is already blocked. (T308570)

Arbitration

  • The arbitration case request Geschichte has been automatically closed after a 3 month suspension of the case.

Miscellaneous

  • You can vote for candidates in the 2022 Board of Trustees elections from 16 August to 30 August. Two community elected seats are up for election.
  • Wikimania 2022 is taking place virtually from 11 August to 14 August. The schedule for wikimania is listed here. There are also a number of in-person events associated with Wikimania around the world.
  • Tech tip: When revision-deleting on desktop, hold ⇧ Shift between clicking two checkboxes to select every box in that range.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:44, 5 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of Val Holten for deletion[edit]

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Val Holten is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Val Holten until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

SWinxy (talk) 21:24, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – September 2022[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2022).

Guideline and policy news

  • A discussion is open to define a process by which Vector 2022 can be made the default for all users.
  • An RfC is open to gain consensus on whether Fox News is reliable for science and politics.

Technical news

Arbitration

  • An arbitration case regarding Conduct in deletion-related editing has been closed. The Arbitration Committee passed a remedy as part of the final decision to create a request for comment (RfC) on how to handle mass nominations at Articles for Deletion (AfD).
  • The arbitration case request Jonathunder has been automatically closed after a 6 month suspension of the case.

Miscellaneous

  • The new pages patrol (NPP) team has prepared an appeal to the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) for assistance with addressing Page Curation bugs and requested features. You are encouraged to read the open letter before it is sent, and if you support it, consider signing it. It is not a discussion, just a signature will suffice.
  • Voting for candidates for the Wikimedia Board of Trustees is open until 6 September.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:12, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sixteenth anniversary on Wikipedia![edit]

Invitation to join the Fifteen Year Society[edit]

Dear Mattinbgn,

I'd like to extend a cordial invitation to you to join the Fifteen Year Society, an informal group for editors who've been participating in the Wikipedia project for fifteen years or more. ​

Best regards, Chris Troutman (talk) 19:44, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – October 2022[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2022).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • The Articles for creation helper script now automatically recognises administrator accounts which means your name does not need to be listed at WP:AFCP to help out. If you wish to help out at AFC, enable AFCH by navigating to Preferences → Gadgets and checking the "Yet Another AfC Helper Script" box.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:43, 1 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – November 2022[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2022).

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:23, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2022 Elections voter message[edit]

Hello! Voting in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 12 December 2022. 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 2022 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) 00:36, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – December 2022[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2022).

CheckUser changes

removed TheresNoTime

Oversight changes

removed TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • A new preference named "Enable limited width mode" has been added to the Vector 2022 skin. The preference is also shown as a toggle on every page if your monitor is 1600 pixels or wider. When disabled it removes the whitespace added by Vector 2022 on the left and right of the page content. Disabling this preference has the same effect as enabling the wide-vector-2022 gadget. (T319449)

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:44, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Happy Fifteenth Adminship Anniversary![edit]

Wishing Mattinbgn a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Chris Troutman (talk) 19:33, 19 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – January 2023[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2022).

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • Voting for the Sound Logo has closed and the winner is expected to be announced February to April 2023.
  • Tech tip: You can view information about IP addresses in a centralised location using bullseye which won the Newcomer award in the recent Coolest Tool Awards.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:09, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Gippsland[edit]

A tag has been placed on Category:Gippsland indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself. Liz Read! Talk! 02:21, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – February 2023[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2023).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • The Vector 2022 skin has become the default for desktop users of the English Wikipedia.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • Voting in the 2023 Steward elections will begin on 05 February 2023, 21:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2023, 21:00 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
  • Voting in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey will begin on 10 February 2023 and end on 24 February 2023. You can submit, discuss and revise proposals until 6 February 2023.
  • Tech tip: Syntax highlighting is available in both the 2011 and 2017 Wikitext editors. It can help make editing paragraphs with many references or complicated templates easier.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:38, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Coonalpyn, South Australia pix[edit]

Hi Mattinbgn I hesitated to put my snap of the silo alongside yours, but I reckon that north end is an essential part of the piece. If you have a shot of that end I won't complain, but couldn't find it on Commons. There's a good background story to its commissioning. Cheers, Doug butler (talk) 10:11, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – March 2023[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2023).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:19, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – April 2023[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2023).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:11, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – May 2023[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2023).

Guideline and policy news

  • A request for comment about removing administrative privileges in specified situations is open for feedback.

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:22, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – June 2023[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2023).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following an RfC, editors indefinitely site-banned by community consensus will now have all rights, including sysop, removed.
  • As a part of the Wikimedia Foundation's IP Masking project, a new policy has been created that governs the access to temporary account IP addresses. An associated FAQ has been created and individual communities can increase the requirements to view temporary account IP addresses.

Technical news

  • Bot operators and tool maintainers should schedule time in the coming months to test and update their tools for the effects of IP masking. IP masking will not be deployed to any content wiki until at least October 2023 and is unlikely to be deployed to the English Wikipedia until some time in 2024.

Arbitration

  • The arbitration case World War II and the history of Jews in Poland has been closed. The topic area of Polish history during World War II (1933-1945) and the history of Jews in Poland is subject to a "reliable source consensus-required" contentious topic restriction.

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:33, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – July 2023[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2023).

Administrator changes

added Novem Linguae
removed

Bureaucrat changes

removed MBisanz

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

  • Two arbitration cases are currently open. Proposed decisions are expected 5 July 2023 for the Scottywong case and 9 July 2023 for the AlisonW case.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:58, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Keith Miller has been nominated for deletion[edit]

Category:Keith Miller has been nominated for deletion. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Joseph2302 (talk) 10:03, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Precious anniversary[edit]

Precious
Seven years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:17, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – August 2023[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2023).

Administrator changes

added Firefangledfeathers
removed

Interface administrator changes

added Novem Linguae

Technical news

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:54, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – September 2023[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2023).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following an RfC, TFAs will be automatically semi-protected the day before it is on the main page and through the day after.
  • A discussion at WP:VPP about revision deletion and oversight for dead names found that [s]ysops can choose to use revdel if, in their view, it's the right tool for this situation, and they need not default to oversight. But oversight could well be right where there's a particularly high risk to the person. Use your judgment.

Technical news

Arbitration

  • The SmallCat dispute case has closed. As part of the final decision, editors participating in XfD have been reminded to be careful about forming local consensus which may or may not reflect the broader community consensus. Regular closers of XfD forums were also encouraged to note when broader community discussion, or changes to policies and guidelines, would be helpful.

Miscellaneous

  • Tech tip: The "Browse history interactively" banner shown at the top of Special:Diff can be used to easily look through a history, assemble composite diffs, or find out what archive something wound up in.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:22, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

CfD nomination at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 October 1 § Category:WikiProject X members[edit]

A category or categories you have created have been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 October 1 § Category:WikiProject X members on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Qwerfjkltalk 09:32, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

request to use a picture of an empty lake boga[edit]

hi i was wondering if i might have your permission to use one of your pictures of an empty Lake Boga (such as the one below). i think it would be very helpful contribution to a book i am writing about how our surroundings impact our emotional health. thank you very much in advance for your kind consideration of my request, Jenny D


Jenniferaoibhadonovan (talk) 01:33, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – November 2023[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2023).

Administrator changes

added 0xDeadbeef
readded Tamzin
removed Dennis Brown

Interface administrator changes

added Pppery
removed

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

  • Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 12 November 2023 until 21 November 2023 to stand in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections.
  • Xaosflux, RoySmith and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2023 Arbitration Committee Elections. BusterD is the reserve commissioner.
  • Following a motion, the contentious topic designation of Prem Rawat has been struck. Actions previously taken using this contentious topic designation are still in force.
  • Following several motions, multiple topic areas are no longer designated as a contentious topic. These contentious topic designations were from the Editor conduct in e-cigs articles, Liancourt Rocks, Longevity, Medicine, September 11 conspiracy theories, and Shakespeare authorship question cases.
  • Following a motion, remedies 3.1 (All related articles under 1RR whenever the dispute over naming is concerned), 6 (Stalemate resolution) and 30 (Administrative supervision) of the Macedonia 2 case have been rescinded.
  • Following a motion, remedy 6 (One-revert rule) of the The Troubles case has been amended.
  • An arbitration case named Industrial agriculture has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case close 8 November.

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:23, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2023 Elections voter message[edit]

Hello! Voting in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 11 December 2023. 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 2023 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) 00:30, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – December 2023[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2023).

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

  • Following a motion, the Extended Confirmed Restriction has been amended, removing the allowance for non-extended-confirmed editors to post constructive comments on the "Talk:" namespace. Now, non-extended-confirmed editors may use the "Talk:" namespace solely to make edit requests related to articles within the topic area, provided that their actions are not disruptive.
  • The Arbitration Committee has announced a call for Checkusers and Oversighters, stating that it will currently be accepting applications for CheckUser and/or Oversight permissions at any point in the year.
  • Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 11, 2023 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:54, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Happy Adminship Anniversary![edit]

Administrators' newsletter – January 2024[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2023).

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:54, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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