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Nominations now open for "Military historian of the year" and "Military history newcomer of the year" awards

Nominations for our annual Military historian of the year and Military history newcomer of the year awards are open until 23:59 (GMT) on 15 December 2018. Why don't you nominate the editors who you believe have made a real difference to the project in 2018? MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:26, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

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

Administrator changes

readded Al Ameer sonRandykittySpartaz
removed BosonDaniel J. LeivickEfeEsanchez7587Fred BauderGarzoMartijn HoekstraOrangemike

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


16:12, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Note regarding Category:Unsynchronized talk page redirects

I run a bot that clears Category:Unsynchronized talk page redirects and your bot's moves are populating that category so fast that I ramped up the speed at which my bot edits so that it could catch up. Mostly it just takes null edits to clear pages there but there are some that either the bot fixes or are left for me to manually fix (e.g. whenever a talk page must be moved to sync with its article or if an article has no talk and one needs to be created – usually I just throw up a WikiProject tag, and done. Anyhow appreciate it if you could pause while my bot catches up (I think you're paused at the moment). Thanks. wbm1058 (talk) 00:39, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: Sure! I hadn't fed it the new dataset yet (was just going to when I saw this), so it won't be running. Ping me when it's done, okay? --TheSandDoctor Talk 02:30, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
It appears that only 32 are present? I won't restart it at the moment, but when you have caught up (the cat is empty or you ping), I will restart okay? About 85% of my set to go through (done ~4-5k, approx 35k total) --TheSandDoctor Talk 02:32, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
OK, it's cleared out now. There were over 1,000 there a while ago. Those last 32 I manually made edits to clear them out. My bot clears most of them, but the exceptions need manual processing, or to wait longer for another double-redirwect fixing bot maybe. Anyhow I guess ready for the next onslaught. Probably best if you do them in batches, rather than all in one run. wbm1058 (talk) 03:18, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
@Wbm1058 and Number 57: Started a run again. It is working in batches (can see lists here) and will be over halfway done by the end of this one. There are, however, around 8000 pages in its current batch. I can't view User:Number 57/Elections/Standard titles for some reason, but aside from (possibly) that (whatever it may be, can't check as it crashes), this current one is the largest left (is currently running on User:Number 57/Elections/American sub-articles). I can kill the task at any time (per request), or you yourself can by going to User:TheSandBot/status and changing the "true" beside "election_converter" to "false" (case sensitive, other changes will break page/has to be JSON safe). --TheSandDoctor Talk 17:23, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
@Wbm1058 and Number 57: Scratch that. Task paused. Database went read-only. Will restart in a bit. --TheSandDoctor Talk 17:26, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Internal error

FYI. Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Internal error. How is your bot handling moves over redirects? Does it have admin privileges, or does it do page-mover swaps (I hope not the latter; that's a kludge to be avoided for mass-moves like this, in my opinion). wbm1058 (talk) 15:13, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

@Wbm1058 and Number 57: The bot isn't moving over redirects and is not an adminbot. --TheSandDoctor Talk 17:02, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Election changes

Status

What's the status of the big election article name changing, please? —GoldRingChip 14:11, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

@GoldRingChip: Responded on Number 57's talk page a few minutes ago, but basically I was asked above to slow down to give another bot time to catch up. I did that, but then got bogged down with some big final projects to complete and a nasty bug...at the same time. Will try and get it up and running again today. --TheSandDoctor Talk 16:49, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
@Number 57 and GoldRingChip: It is now  In progress on User:Number 57/Elections/American sub-articles. --TheSandDoctor Talk 17:06, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
Is this still in progress? I see that some General elections in New Zealand have been done, but not the most recent ones, at least. Nurg (talk) 04:41, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
@Nurg: The bot has completed its run through the lists, moving over 45k. It did, however, miss some. Once the General list is broken up we can fully assess what is left to be moved and I will probably attempt another run on those at that time. That said, I am not around much until the 13th (PST) due to finals. --TheSandDoctor Talk 05:05, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Templates

What about templates? Hayholt (talk) 17:34, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
@Hayholt: The bot does not touch templates. Number 57 has stated previously that he will take care of updating them. In the meantime, no links are broken. --TheSandDoctor Talk 17:53, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Redirects

I think I read that it doesn't touch redirects. If that's true, can it be changed? See, e.g., the extensive list at Category:United States House of Representatives elections in Massachusetts. —GoldRingChip 18:41, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

That is correct. What exactly are your proposing GoldRingChip? --TheSandDoctor Talk 19:41, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm proposing a process of changing articles such as: United States House of Representatives elections in Massachusetts, 1834 to 1834 United States House of Representatives elections in Massachusetts. They would remain a redirects, such as to United States House of Representatives elections, 1834#Massachusetts. —GoldRingChip 20:01, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
See Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval/TheSandBot#Redirects. —GoldRingChip 20:02, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Subject: Lists of UK top ten singles and albums pages

Hello, TheSandDoctor. This is 1996Larry here. I was wondering if you and some other users could edit these pages and include sources in them. Wikipedia has a policy of challanging and removing unsourced material from its pages.

Looking forward to hearing from you again.

1996Larry — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1996Larry (talkcontribs) 08:45, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

@1996Larry: I am confused as to why you are asking this? Why don't you fix them yourself? Are you afraid that adding reliable sources/citations would get you blocked? If so, that is the exact opposite. Please also see what 331dot left on your talk page. --TheSandDoctor Talk 23:40, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Reply: TheSandDoctor, the UK top ten single and album pages are usually created/edited by another user called 03md. He hasn't edited them in a while, so if he's back editing these pages, you could assist him in editing them, as he also got a warning recently about adding unsourced material, just like myself. - 1996Larry --— Preceding unsigned comment added by 1996Larry (talkcontribs) 07:15, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

@1996Larry: I am in the same boat as 331dot I am afraid. As for 03md being recently warned about the addition of unsourced material, I can find no such warning on User talk:03md? Where did you see the warning directed at 03md? The best way to avoid such warnings is to source your edits. Considering that you are on WP:SECONDCHANCE in relation to the addition of unsourced content, I would strongly recommend (reliably) sourcing your edits to articles and updating the article yourself. If you wish to edit it in your sandbox and have someone look it over first, I imagine that would be okay as well, so long as you copied the minimum necessary for your update (ie a specific section). I would also recommend looking at Help:Signature to learn how to properly sign your messages on talk pages. --TheSandDoctor Talk 07:27, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Reply: TheSandDoctor, I wouldn't risk editing the pages without anyone's help. It wasn't me who started those pages, it was 03md. - 1996Larry — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1996Larry (talkcontribs)

@1996Larry: Perhaps this tutorial or The Wikipedia Adventure might be of use to you? --TheSandDoctor Talk 07:39, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Effect of bot on navigation boxes

Hi there!

Looks like you're running a bot that helps with renaming pages. Tehse bulk renames really do a number on navigation boxes because the boxes now link (completely!) to redirects. That breaks the context of the box, and is probably a little confuising for users, too. I think that good automation makes less work for people (and not more), so I'm wondering if you'd consider enhancing your bot to take care of the issues it creates when performing renames. -- Mikeblas (talk) 13:20, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

@Mikeblas: As mentioned in one of the sections above, I'm cleaning up all the navboxes, which will take a few days. However, if you are going to edit the templates in the meantime, it would be helpful if you could fix all of the links rather than just some of them. Cheers, Number 57 17:12, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
@Number 57: I'm doing my best! In some cases, the redirects weren't renamed, so they end up as red links. And, sometimes, life calls and I can't quite finish in one swat. Sounds like you're more comfortable working on it alone, so I'll leave you to it. -- Mikeblas (talk) 17:24, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

17:33, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Clean up needed...

Howdy. So it looks like some of the conversions that you and I did broke some of the song pages. See this diff for example. [[Category:Music infoboxes with Module:String errors{{!}}S]]<strong class="error">String Module Error: Match not found</strong> got introduced a number of times. NOT pointing fingers!!! I did this a bunch as well. But, if you have some time and feel like helping clean up I'd sure appreciate it. There were about 400 of them, I've got it down to 300 now. heres a search that shows them all. Any help would be appreciated. --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 23:18, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

@Zackmann08: I was working to undo it. I'm a bit confused here? Special:Diff/872749421. Sorry if I am missing something. I am quite busy between now and Wednesday (inclusive) as I have finals coming up. --TheSandDoctor Talk 23:35, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
My point was to try and fix them... Not to just revert the change. See this diff. You don't have to do them nevermind. --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 23:37, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
@Zackmann08: Sorry for the confusion. I have done about half a dozen. If there are any left by Wednesday night or Thursday, I will deal with them more in depth. I am sorry that I cannot be of much use before then, but I seriously have to get back to my studies. --TheSandDoctor Talk 23:56, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
No apologies necessary!! School and the real world come first, ALWAYS. --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 00:09, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
How'd your exams go? --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 16:11, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
@Zackmann08: I think they went fine, but ultimately I won't know until some point between now and January. Thanks for asking! How many do you think you left in that cat? --TheSandDoctor Talk 17:34, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm sure you did great! Don't stress. I'm showing 82 pages left: [9]. I've just been comparing the before and after diffs and manually fixing the pages. For example: [10]. If you have some time that'd be awesome. If not no worries! --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 17:50, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Thanks Zackmann08 . I will take a look at them in a bit. Still waking up . --TheSandDoctor Talk 17:54, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

2012 World Twenty20 Stadiums listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect 2012 World Twenty20 Stadiums. Since you had some involvement with the 2012 World Twenty20 Stadiums redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Stefan2 (talk) 21:08, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.16 15 December 2018

Hello TheSandDoctor/Archives/2018,

Reviewer of the Year

This year's award for the Reviewer of the Year goes to Onel5969. Around on Wikipedia since 2011, their staggering number of 26,554 reviews over the past twelve months makes them, together with an additional total of 275,285 edits, one of Wikipedia's most prolific users.

Thanks are also extended for their work to JTtheOG (15,059 reviews), Boleyn (12,760 reviews), Cwmhiraeth (9,001 reviews), Semmendinger (8,440 reviews), PRehse (8,092 reviews), Arthistorian1977 (5,306 reviews), Abishe (4,153 reviews), Barkeep49 (4,016 reviews), and Elmidae (3,615 reviews).
Cwmhiraeth, Semmendinger, Barkeep49, and Elmidae have been New Page Reviewers for less than a year — Barkeep49 for only seven months, while Boleyn, with an edit count of 250,000 since she joined Wikipedia in 2008, has been a bastion of New Page Patrol for many years.

See also the list of top 100 reviewers.

Less good news, and an appeal for some help

The backlog is now approaching 5,000, and still rising. There are around 640 holders of the NPR flag, most of whom appear to be inactive. The 10% of the reviewers who do 90% of the work could do with some support especially as some of them are now taking a well deserved break.


Really good news - NPR wins the Community Wishlist Survey 2019

At #1 position, the Community Wishlist poll closed on 3 December with a resounding success for NPP, reminding the WMF and the volunteer communities just how critical NPP is to maintaining a clean encyclopedia and the need for improved tools to do it. A big 'thank you' to everyone who supported the NPP proposals. See the results.


Training video

Due to a number of changes having been made to the feed since this three-minute video was created, we have been asked by the WMF for feedback on the video with a view to getting it brought up to date to reflect the new features of the system. Please leave your comments here, particularly mentioning how helpful you find it for new reviewers.


If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, go here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:14, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Voting now open for "Military historian of the year" and "Military history newcomer of the year" awards

Voting for our annual Military historian of the year and Military history newcomer of the year awards is open until 23:59 (GMT) on 30 December 2018. Why don't you vote for the editors who you believe have made a real difference to Wikipedia's coverage of military history in 2018? MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:17, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

20:34, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Page Mover Rights

Hi TheSandDoctor, I was wondering if you could grant me Page mover rights in order to rename my sandbox? Thanks! --Az1568 (talk) 05:41, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@Az1568: No  Done --TheSandDoctor Talk 05:48, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Thank you! --Az1568 (talk) 06:04, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Can you please block me for 1 year ?

I do not have that much time(for at least a year) to edit Wikipedia but i can't stop me from editing. I even enforced a wiki break using the enforcer(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Eatcha/common.js) but as you can see i am still able to login. Eatcha (talk) 18:55, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

@Eatcha: It appears that I was beaten to it. If at any point you change your mind, please feel free to email me or ping me on your talk page and I will unblock you. --All the best & happy holidays, TheSandDoctor Talk 00:40, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Merry Christmas !!!

@CAPTAIN RAJU: Thank you! I am going to be sending those around myself tomorrow morning (PST) probably. --TheSandDoctor Talk 00:40, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!
May your winter holidays be filled with joy, laughter and good health. Wishing you all the best in 2019 and beyond.

--Cameron11598 (Talk) 04:45, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Cam! --TheSandDoctor Talk 05:59, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Technical Barnstar
Just wanted to say a huge thanks for TheSandBot's huge piece of work moving the election articles - it seems to have gone extremely well! Number 57 15:58, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for this Number 57! Please let me know if you ever need more help in the future (outside of this currently ongoing task, which of course I shall continue, I mean) --TheSandDoctor Talk 23:42, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
Sort of related to the current task, but do you think your bot could help with this? Cheers, Number 57 12:33, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
@Number 57: Looks like it was resolved. I seriously am now officially unavailable until Thursday basically, so I am glad to hear someone else is dealing with it. --TheSandDoctor Talk 19:20, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Request on 11:54:56, 24 December 2018 for assistance on AfC submission by Harix786


Please help me to make a wiki page for my organization my page was rejected because they said that "the page seems to be unambiguous advertising which only promotes a company, group, product, service, person, or point of view and would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become encyclopedic" [REDACTED - TSD] below is my last submission on wikipedia please help me to resubmit a valid wiki page with valid information. Haris Naeem 11:54, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

@Harix786: There is no need to copy and paste for two reasons: 1. talk pages are not where drafts/articles go and 2. administrators can view most deleted pages indefinitely.
The reason that it was deleted was provided both at the link where it used to exist (copied below) and implied on your talk page twice.
10:21, 24 December 2018 TheSandDoctor (talk | contribs) deleted page Draft:VinePk (G11: Unambiguous advertising or promotion (TW))
It was written as an unambiguous advertisement and also implied that you have a conflict of interest. Based on this, I would, in the strongest possible terms, recommend that you do not write this yourself and instead request an article be written by a neutral third party on the relevant subpage (follow directions at that link). If you insist on writing this yourself, the next step depends on whether or not you are being paid to write this and/or promote the company. If you are being paid, then you must declare your conflict of interest when writing it. If you are not, then you are strongly encouraged to do the same. Regardless, articles must be notable (backed up by independent reliable sources), written from a neutral point of view, and not be advertisements. I would recommend reading WP:YFA and What Wikipedia is Not before attempting to make any more articles. --TheSandDoctor Talk 18:29, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Hi TheSandDoctor/Archives/2018, I wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas
and a very Happy and Prosperous New Year,
Thanks for all your help and thanks for all your contributions to the 'pedia,

   –Davey2010 Merry Christmas / Happy New Year 08:20, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
Thank you Davey! I am just about heading off for the evening as it is just after midnight here, will be handing out more of these in the morning --TheSandDoctor Talk 08:24, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2019!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2019!

Hello TheSandDoctor, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2019.
Happy editing,

Walk Like an Egyptian (talk) 08:31, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Thank you very much Walk Like an Egyptian, the same to you! --TheSandDoctor Talk 08:34, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
Nosebagbear (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas!

This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the Christmas cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas3}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Thank you! Merry Christmas to you as well Nosebagbear --TheSandDoctor Talk 09:58, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Merry Christmas and happy 2019!

Merry Christmas and happy new year! I was happy to see you have a successful RfA during 2018. I hope you will edit more happily in 2019 Hhkohh (talk) 12:09, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Merry Christmas to you as well Hhkohh, and thank you. Rest assured, I have no plans of going anywhere. --TheSandDoctor Talk 18:15, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Xmas

FWiW Bzuk (talk) 14:48, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
Thank you Bzuk! Merry Christmas to you as well . --TheSandDoctor Talk 18:15, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Greetings !

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings1}} to send this message
Thank you very much Wikaviani! I wish you the same --TheSandDoctor Talk 22:06, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

A pie for you!

Congrats on your appointment to the elite force of global renamers. I know you totally didn't eat all the pies...hell, you don't even like pies...but I'm just gonna leave this one here as a token of celebration, because WikiLove doesn't have a "poutine" option. (Is that an offensive stereotype?) Regards,  Swarm  {talk}  07:55, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
@Swarm: Of course not! Pies aren't totally something I would eat every meal if I could. How preposterous! . I actually dislike poutine. It is honestly more of a French Canadian thing (I am very English Canadian if there is such a thing). also, thank you for the WikiLove. --TheSandDoctor Talk 20:03, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Unprotect request

Nov 20, you protected {{Infobox chemical}} [16] per this request.

But the template is in develop mode still, and not in use (not in article space), so not "highly visible". Discussion (including postponement of introduction) is at {{Chembox}} (talk). Please remove the protection. Once fit for live usage, the protection will be appropriate. -DePiep (talk) 01:05, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

@DePiep:  Done Lowered to autoconfirmed. Ping/request further protection when necessary. --TheSandDoctor Talk 04:26, 29 December 2018 (UTC)