Wikipedia talk:Username policy

2014 Request for Comment on reforming and updating this policy

Spacing

This has probably come up before, but is there anyway we can leave a space between entries? The current format plays Hell with my dyslexia. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 08:40, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Deepfriedokra, are you sure you meant to comment here? What do you mean by space between entries? --Izno (talk) 12:29, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

But this is the page it redirected to. (sigh) --Deepfriedokra (talk) 12:40, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Deepfriedokra, what page are you referring to then? --Izno (talk) 12:55, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

You have a choice of 25. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:42, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Usernames_for_administrator_attention The spacing between the entries, or lack thereof, runs them all together. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 22:42, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

The spacing is inconsistent, and parts of it (particularly the bot-reported section) are in breach of WP:LISTGAP. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:56, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

I didn't see this at the time, but I am in total agreement that the default should be to space entries. I often do this manually when replying just to make things easier to navigate. Beeblebrox (talk) 07:55, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Agree. A space (empty line) between entries in UAA and AIV makes things easier, esp when crowded, -- Alexf^(talk) 09:21, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

But what and where are these spaces? I have been given a link to Wikipedia:Usernames for administrator attention, but nothing more. Perhaps somebody might include a diff of an edit where these spaces are used, and indicate exactly where they my be found. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:31, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Here's me adding one at the bottom of my comment. [1] They are not there by default when reports are added by automated tools, or bot reports. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:08, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Redux

I'd still be interested in seeing if we can come up with a consensus that this would be a good thing, so we can show that to the Twinkle devs and bot operators and male it standard practice. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:17, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Spacing is not appropriate per WP:LISTGAP. --Izno (talk) 05:37, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

That's ridiculous. The manual of style is not binding on internal administrative processes. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:45, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Erm, the page is related to accessibility which is in at least one pillar. So, yeah, it might have a "MOS" on the title but it's relevant everywhere. --Izno (talk) 05:47, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

UAA is not for the general public, it is for internal administrative purposes, and you've got administrators saying the lack of spacing is causing an accessibility issue for them. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:49, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Shrug. You won't find consensus from me. I suspect RR64 above thinks similarly. --Izno (talk) 05:51, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

OK. So by "spacing", it is actually blank lines that are being described; in which case, it's a definite No. Accessibility applies everywhere, it is not something that you can opt out of. If you don't believe me, ask either RexxS (talk · contribs) or Graham87 (talk · contribs), both also admins. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:41, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: If you insist on breaching WP:LISTGAP and WP:INDENTMIX, perhaps you can explain to Graham87, who is an admin and is blind, why he has to put up with all of the garbage that is emitted from his screen reader when editors (or bots) misuse list markup in that way.

Anyone adding a comment to Wikipedia:Usernames for administrator attention simply needs to start their comment with either *: or ** – it's as simple as that. If someone's dyslexia benefits from having a blank line between comments, please try using a single asterix * instead of a blank line. That solves the problem for anyone using a screen reader and will probably prove just as effective in alleviating dyslexia when folks are examining the wikitext. I've preceded my comment here with the equivalent of a blank line (a line with just the current indent markup), which doesn't show in the rendered html, but does prevent Graham's screen reader from reading out the closure of six levels of description lists and the reopening of six levels of new description lists (which is what a completely blank line does). HTH. --RexxS (talk) 20:46, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

FWIW, it's the raw text in the edit box that makes my eyes jiggle. Other notice boards leave a gap between lines in the edit box without hindering readability of the displayed text. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 21:21, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

@Deepfriedokra: does a single character (or just a few characters) not help the jiggling almost as much as a completely blank line? If you look at how I've spaced this comment, it wouldn't cause a problem for Graham, and if it helps you, wouldn't that be the solution we should be promoting? --RexxS (talk) 21:39, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I think so. Yes thanks/ --Deepfriedokra (talk) 21:52, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I never claimed to be an expert in how screen readers work, if a solution that simple solves both problems I'm all for it. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:03, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

User:Isaacl/On wikitext list markup includes a brief description of how wiki list markup affects screen readers, though it focuses on not changing list types unnecessarily. Wikipedia:Colons and asterisks has a longer description. isaacl (talk) 22:41, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, all. I'm Graham87 and I approve this message. Graham87 02:11, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I'd like to proceed with asking tool devs for Twinkle to have it do this by default. So, just so we're all on the same page, what we would want to ask is that when adding new reports, at the bottom of each one the tool would add a line with a single asterisk to provide spacing between reports while avoiding any accessibility issues. Does that sound ok to everyone? Should we also ask that the response helper script that many admins use be set to post above this line (assuming that's not super hard to code) in order to keep reports coherent? Beeblebrox (talk) 22:02, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

This should be live now. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 19:14, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Usernames violating the BLP policy

Right now we say Certain disruptive and offensive usernames (such as those containing contentious material about living persons, or those that are clearly abusive towards any race, religion or social groups) should be immediately blocked by administrators and suppressed from logs by Oversighters to protect Wikipedia and the subjects involved from harm. Requests for removing attack usernames from logs should be reported to the global Stewards team for evaluation and private removal from all WMF projects. I found this confusing -- I clicked on reported and had no idea what I was supposed to do there, so I came back here and clicked on suppressed from logs, got to Oversight, and sent an email from there. Am I supposed to also be doing something over at meta? —valereee (talk) 09:44, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Valereee, that's a pretty bad choice of link for "reported"...so the place to request global locks is meta:Steward Requests/Global, which says If the account name is grossly insulting or contains personal information please contact a steward privately in #wikimedia-stewards or email your request to the stewards OTRS queue at stewards(at)wikimedia.org but do not post it here. So there's your answer (pop onto IRC or email the stewards), I'll update the policy to be more clear. GeneralNotability (talk) 13:04, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Should we maybe also throw in a link to WP:RFO? Our local oversighters are often a bit faster than the stewards, the sooner stuff like that gets zapped the better, the stewards can always follow up on the global level. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:11, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

lol 'pop onto IRC'. Your estimation of my technical know-how is overgenerous. :D —valereee (talk) 21:57, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Emailing OS is the fastest way to get enwiki names suppressed, so I'd say do both. Also agreed that the existing link isn't great. Primefac (talk) 19:02, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

False positives for Cyrillic

I just removed Дювайц лобюжё from WP:UAA/BOT as a false positive. DeltaQuadBot claims it was "Attempting to skip filters using multiple similar characters", but that clearly isn't the case. The filter is tagged "Low confidence". This isn't the first time I've seen this for Cyrillic. @AmandaNP: is this a known issue? power~enwiki (π, ν) 06:13, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

No this is actually a feature meant to stop people from using foreign accents to evade filters. so anything listed at User:AmandaNP/UAA/Similar will flag and throw that. Sadly it's just a side-effect. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 16:50, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

The UTF-8 encoding is D0 94 D1 8E D0 B2 D0 B0 D0 B9 D1 86 20 D0 BB D0 BE D0 B1 D1 8E D0 B6 D1 91 and bytes of value D0h occur eight times. I guess that's what the "multiple similar characters" relates to. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:56, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Aha, so the filter is reporting "multiple similar characters", but it isn't looking at characters if it is reporting that for repeated D0 which have no separate meaning in the context of UTF-8, it is looking at bytes (octets). Seems like the fix is to get it to look at the right encoding. (Only here because I was at the house next door, peered across the fence and noticed an interesting-looking party going on...) Mathglot (talk) 23:27, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Please change my user name.

Please change my user name. From (its_dark_rishi ) to darkone97 Its dark rishi (talk) 14:42, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Its dark rishi, please see WP:CHU for instructions. Primefac (talk) 15:25, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Would this username violate WP:BLPABUSE?

Apologies if this is not the right place to ask, but would the username "Commissioner Gase" violate WP:BLPABUSE? Thanks. {{u|Squeeps10}} {Talk} Please ping when replying. 06:16, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

User page looks like article: Red Shogun412

I was uncertain about this, as Red Shogun412 (talk · contribs) has decent mainspace edits, so I trod lightly and simply left them {{uw-userpage}} on their talk page. Should I have {{db-g11}}'ed instead? About 1/3 of their edits are to their user page, and all of the recent edits. Not sure what to do, here. Mathglot (talk) 18:00, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Just noticed that by their own claim, they are a minor (17 y.o.); should I customize or remove the template, and maybe just say it looks too much like an article? Mathglot (talk) 18:36, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I added more of an explanation below your templated notice, explaining the specific part of the guideline they're running up against. It's not a great idea to have detailed personal biographical information on your user page, but if they put it there themselves then I don't think it's violating policy. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:47, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

@Ivanvector:, thanks for adding that. Since then, they've cut the page way back, and it looks fine, now. Mathglot (talk) 23:20, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 January 2021

no i will not do that i just want to have a thing i don`t know what this is what is this for — Preceding unsigned comment added by CVTQUENSI!B1nt (talk • contribs) 18:50, 8 January 2021 (UTC)