User talk:The Wordsmith/Archive 9

A year ago ...
"the carrot sometimes; works better than the stick"
	... you were recipient; no. 1605 of Precious,; a prize of QAI!

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 5

←

Thank you for the close, but...

Would you mind making the change exactly as I indicated in my last post?

Simply striking the IBAN rather than removing it outright still leaves my name in there, and leaves me open to the same abuse I've been putting up with for the last week. I've already emailed an uninvolved admin about talking to the user who has been abusing me over it, but I'd still rather my name be removed entirely so that "Ctrl+F"ing my name wouldn't bring it up.

No rational Wikipedian would read it after your amendment as implying that I am under a restriction for my disruptive behaviour, but the same was true before your amendment, and I've given up assuming other Wikipedians will behave rationally when they are trying to find an excuse to disagree with me.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:17, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the convention is for partially overturning a community sanction, and if it is possible to just remove that portion. I'll look into it, and I'll see what I can do about accommodating your request. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 22:10, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the previous discussion in 2015 basically answered your question. I asked for a change in the wording, one other user suggested a further change to the wording (based on reasoning that "instigated" is just a more neutral word for "fabricated"), a few other users supported, and the wording was altered accordingly. The change was more radical than the one I asked for last week.

That said, if the 2013 wording were restored, I might not have a problem. Assuming good faith on the part of the user who instigated the recent discussion, then if they knew that the 2013 incident was a fabrication (read: that I had never violated the ban -- an admin had been tricked into thinking I had) I might have never thought it necessary to ask for the wording to be changed.

Now, if the admin I emailed (Boing, for what it's worth) agrees to talk the user in question out of repeatedly trying to game my IBANs to shut me up or shut me out of community discussions, the whole issue may be moot, but I really would rather never have to deal with this again, and the user in question isn't the first one to try.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:11, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Done The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 15:01, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Arbitration

As you where present in the discussion concerning Mr. Yiannopoulos and the placing of a category indicating descent, could you kindly join in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#RudiLefkowitz. More the merrier. Thank you. Regards, RudiLefkowitz (talk) 22:34, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Schooloutcomes RFC closure

There is a draft in your email. I'd appreciate it if you would take a look and give feedback.

Cheers, Tazerdadog (talk) 00:00, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

RFC closed

I have put up the closing statement at the RFC. It is awaiting your countersignature. Tazerdadog (talk) 00:13, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2017

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

Administrator changes

Amortias • Deckiller • BU Rob13

Ronnotel • Islander • Chamal N • Isomorphic • Keeper76 • Lord Voldemort • Shereth • Bdesham • Pjacobi

Guideline and policy news

A recent RfC has redefined how articles on schools are evaluated at AfD. Specifically, secondary schools are not presumed to be notable simply because they exist.
AfDs that receive little participation should now be closed like an expired proposed deletion, following a deletion process RfC.
Defender, HakanIST, Matiia and Sjoerddebruin are our newest stewards, following the 2017 steward elections.
The 2017 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Góngora, Krd, Lankiveil, Richwales and Vogone. They will serve for approximately 1 year.

Technical news

A recent query shows that only 16% of administrators on the English Wikipedia have enabled two-factor authentication. If you haven't already enabled it please consider doing so.
Cookie blocks should be deployed to the English Wikipedia soon. This will extend the current autoblock system by setting a cookie for each block, which will then autoblock the user after they switch accounts under a new IP.
A bot will now automatically place a protection template on protected pages when admins forget to do so.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:14, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Checkuser/networking experience?

An editor was recently blocked for editing from the IP address: 127.0.0.1 while his/her account was blocked. It is not technically possible for anyone to edit from this address without direct access to the wikipedia servers. If you have a chance and you're familiar with checkuser and/or networking can you look into it? James J. Lambden (talk) 20:04, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

On the advice of Doug Weller I have posted this incident to Village pump (technical) James J. Lambden (talk) 20:46, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Precious

"the carrot sometimes works better than the stick"

Thank you for quality articles such as White Night riots and Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline, for uploading images, for trying to mediate - lighthearted and reflected - even without a cabal, - wikidragon, repeating (6 March 2010): you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:39, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Closed sock investigation

The Wordsmith, I wanted to know if you have any suggestions as to how I might proceed. The SPI was closed as more or less stale or perhaps not a problem [[1]]. I've asked the closing check user to reconsider based on the recent disruptive behavior. [[2]] Is there an official way to request a reconsideration? Even with intervention I suspect HughD will continue to pester but at least with an official ruling it might be easier to get action taken to deal with the disruptions. Thanks Springee (talk) 23:25, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

The socks return. [[3]], [[4]] Despite the evidence the SPI admin simply closed the investigation. Do you have any suggestions? Would an ARE be appropriate in this case? Springee (talk) 22:32, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

I was surprised it got closed without investigating. I'm talking to a sockpuppetry specialist who might be able to give a more definitive answer on whether they're the same person. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 00:18, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you! Springee (talk) 00:31, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Things are being handled. The conclusive determination and evidence will be up sometime tomorrow. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 01:30, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Have you heard any updates? Thanks. Springee (talk) 13:15, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, there was a slight delay due to real life schedules. It hasn't been forgotten, I got an update this morning. A thorough investigation like this one can't be rushed. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 16:01, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Understood and thank you for making sure it gets due consideration. Springee (talk) 18:49, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Sadly the only hint the IP has taken is that Amazon based proxies will be blocked right away. He appears to be sticking to Chicago based IPs now. In the last few days we have three new ones [[5]], [[6]], [[7]] Springee (talk) 20:15, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

After a thorough investigation, we've determined that these IPs are the same person and likely HughD. However, there isn't strong enough evidence to mark it as confirmed. So, the investigation is being closed. My advice to you is that if the IP is stalking your contribs and being disruptive, to treat them as any other stalking and disruptive IP would be. I'm sorry that I can't be more help, but I have to go where the available evidence takes me. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 16:04, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

As I noted before, I will restore edits reverted by Springee solely for being performed by an IP he alleges to be banned. Felsic2 (talk) 16:51, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel it is wise to support disruptive IPs.

The Wordsmith, is there a way to increase the strength of the case. The new batch of IPs are all Chicago area based (same location as HughD) and we have more "HughD" phrasing in the edits over the last few days. Alternatively, can the IP editor be declared disruptive and thus even if the IP isn't ruled HughD, the edits can be treated as vandalism/sock and we can go from there? Also, can the results of the investigation be added to the HughD sock investigation page? [[8]] If other contextual evidence comes up it would be good to have the existing evidence etc in a single location. Thanks Springee (talk) 17:43, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

The only way to increase the strength of the case is to have technical evidence, i.e. if HughD starts editing again. Since he's been inactive for so long, his IP data was purged after 90 days and there's nothing technical tying Hugh to the IP editor. And sure, the IP can be declared disruptive. If he's disrupting things to the point of being block or ban worthy, that can be handled through the normal channels like WP:ANI. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 17:50, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Do you think the editor has been disruptive enough for a block at ANI? Certainly if this were ruled to be HughD we would have several grounds on which to block. As an IP we have someone who has edited tendentiously as well as is likely a sock. Would that make a sufficient case to request a block? Of course blocking a single IP is pointless in this case. Would a ruling allow editors to remove posts as vandalism? Springee (talk) 17:55, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Personally, I don't see it accomplishing much, as many of these events are stale. If its disruptive in the future, then report just like we do with anyone else. That's really all I can say on the matter, and I'm not planning on handling this personally until the end of time. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 17:58, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

In my opinion, undoing good quality edits just because of a feud is disruptive. I haven't seen any edits made by the editor that are grounds for sanctions, in and of themselves. Felsic2 (talk) 18:04, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

The edits aren't quality but you support them because they support a POV you are advocating/pushing.

OK. I'm sorry that we can't do more but I understand the concerns about sanctioning a user who hasn't logged in recently. I was worried that as the IP keeps shifting it's kind of pointless to block. I will request page protection again. Thanks for all of your help! Springee (talk) 18:08, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

What was so disruptive about all these edits?[9] Felsic2 (talk) 18:27, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

I also find it odd that you are accusing the editor of hounding you, but then you've been following him around.[10][11] If you don't want to deal with him, then following his edits is a bad way of doing that. Felsic2 (talk) 20:28, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

The Barnstar of Diplomacy

		The Barnstar of Diplomacy
		After watching you navigate the recent discussion at AE, build a consensus among editors that at first appeared diametrically opposed to one another, and civilly close a contentious discussion I am thoroughly impressed and grateful for your time, skill, and dedication. It is my distinct pleasure to present you a well earned Barnstar of Diplomacy. Thank you for all you do, Mifter (talk) 03:38, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks from me too. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:58, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes. look for carrot above ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:36, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

TRM AE

I do not disagree with the substance of your close and am not challenging it, but might it not have been better to let someone who wasn't involved so deeply in the discussion make the call on whether there was consensus? Mainly only slightly miffed I didn't have time to shift my position myself after this, which pretty much hit all the notes I wanted to see hit. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 11:17, 13 March 2017 (UTC).

I understand your position, but a participant in the appeal closing it is fairly commonplace, and very few admins are actually willing to close something like this. The whole discussion needed to be put out of its misery with decisive action, or it would have continued to circle the drain and cause increasing bitterness and resentment on all sides. You shifting your position was actually one of the major factors I considered in determining that consensus now existed, since all the criteria under which you would support an unblock were unambiguously met. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 13:43, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, The Wordsmith. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 17:31, 15 March 2017 (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.

Sir Joseph ^(talk) 17:31, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Sunday March 26: Action=History Wiki-Hackathon @ Ace Hotel

On the last Sunday of every month, the Boardroom at Ace Hotel New York hosts Action Equals History — a unique opportunity for New Yorkers to learn hands-on in a technology training/workshop session about the mechanics, practices and benefits of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects. This is an opportunity for all to gather, share and work collectively towards a more robust account of history.

For this month, and following on the recent Art+Feminism campaign, we'll focus on building better edit-a-thon tools for a variety of different thematic campaigns, and user-testing them with the community. Towards a goal of advancing these tools for wider use with diverse local groups.

Action=History Wiki-Hackathon @ Ace Hotel

Date: Sunday March 26
Time: 2:00 am - 6:00 pm
Location: Ace Hotel New York. 20 West 29th Street, Manhattan.
RSVP: on Meetup.com or on Wikipedia

Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 05:13, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

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Administrators' newsletter – April 2017

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

Administrator changes

TheDJ

Xnuala • CJ • Oldelpaso • Berean Hunter • Jimbo Wales • Andrew c • Karanacs • Modemac • Scott

Guideline and policy news

Following a discussion on the backlog of unpatrolled files, consensus was found to create a new user right for autopatrolling file uploads. Implementation progress can be tracked on Phabricator.
The BLPPROD grandfather clause, which stated that unreferenced biographies of living persons were only eligible for proposed deletion if they were created after March 18, 2010, has been removed following an RfC.
An RfC has closed with consensus to allow proposed deletion of files. The implementation process is ongoing.
After an unsuccessful proposal to automatically grant IP block exemption, consensus was found to relax the criteria for granting the user right from needing it to wanting it.

Technical news

After a recent RfC, moved pages will soon be featured in a queue similar to Special:NewPagesFeed and require patrolling. Moves by administrators, page movers, and autopatrolled editors will be automatically marked as patrolled.
Cookie blocks have been deployed. This extends the current autoblock system by setting a cookie for each block, which will then autoblock the user if they switch accounts, even under a new IP.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:55, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Drama

Are you just begging to see the drama unfold? I implemented a reasonable solution with the backing of WP:NPA that improves the project. Reverting that is silly and really just trying to help ignite the drama.--v/r - T P 18:59, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Posting a diff to an opposer pinging someone else who opposed, and a short statement saying they were canvassed (which does seem to be the case, if a very minor form of it) is not a personal attack. It is attacking the legitimacy of the !vote, not the person. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 19:03, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not going to bother with this as any further reverting on my part isn't going to help deescalate the situation at all. But, I do firmly disagree with you. Tagging someone you're speaking about in a conversation is a courtesy. It is not canvassing. And accusing someone of canvassing when it's not is a PA.--v/r - T P 19:07, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

David D. Hertz

Hi Wordsmith, Looks like you deleted this page for a speedy deletion request, after it had been contested. Please advise. BTW, I was actually in the middle of editing to add maintenance tags to it. Thanks. -- IsaacSt (talk) 19:47, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

I just dropped a note on your talkpage. You did not actually contest the G11 tag that was placed (unambiguous promotion). You contested A7, saying that a claim of importance was made. That's great, but an article making a claim of importance still meets G11 criteria if it is blatantly promotional, which it was. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 19:55, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. WP:G11 reads "If a subject is notable and the content could plausibly be replaced with text that complies with neutral point of view, this is preferable to deletion." -- IsaacSt (talk) 20:02, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Preferable isn't definitive. That's why we have WP:TNT. Aside from that, as The Wordsmith pointed out, you removed a tag as a declined A7 when it was tagged as G11. In any case, you've been asked by numerous editors to stop assessing speedies, so you may want to consider that for the time being.CHRISSYMAD ❯❯❯¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 20:04, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

@IsaacSt:If a subject is notable" is an important distinction that needs to be made. While a claim of importance was made, and it could arguable be credible, notability has no been established. That clause is intended to mean that if there is a topic who clearly and obviously meets our notability guidelines, for example a Fortune 500 company, but the article is just written with a PR-like tone, it should be rewritten. That argument doesn't work where the BLP subject is unlikely to meet the GNG at all. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 20:24, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

April 19: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

Wednesday April 19, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan.

We will include a look at the organization and planning for our chapter, and expanding volunteer roles for both regular Wikipedia editors and new participants.

We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities.

We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from all educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects.

After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery!

Wednesday April 19 WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com).

7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 137 West 14th Street

We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 18:30, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Followup

Following this AE ruling you made, I was wondering if you consider this acceptable behavior? Note the labeling of other editors and gratuitous Nazi comparisons that serve no purpose other than to inflame. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 22:52, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Serendipitously, there's also this, with some more examples of the same kind of behavior. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 01:05, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Your first diff is unacceptable, but nearly six weeks old. I'm reviewing the thread you posted. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 02:27, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

What's the issue with the first example being 6 weeks old? You now have several examples over several months, including the original complaint, which as you can imagine, was not the first. This unacceptable behavior has been going on for years. You said you were going to do something about it if it happened again. It did. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 02:41, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply, I've been busy this weekend and haven't checked in. The issue is that blocks and sanctions are intended to be preventative, not punitive. An old diff can help to establish a pattern of ongoing disruption, but a one-off diff six weeks old where the issue did not persist proves that the issue is not ongoing, and thus issuing a sanction would be the very definition of punitive. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 14:12, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

How many diffs of similar behavior would you need? Over what timeframe? I can give you practically as many as you like going back years. There is an ongoing problem. This was mentioned in the AE you closed with "You go back to editing your articles, and I keep track of the people I would have sanctioned. If I see those names again with fresh examples, then the banhammer comes down". No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 19:45, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Here's a little taste of the sort of ongoing problem other editors have to deal with. Note how it's rife with personal attacks, generalizations about whole groups of editors, a whole list of irrelevant stuff inserted for no other reason than to provoke, etc. This time there is no Nazi comparison that I can see, but I have plenty examples of those if you're interested. To be fair, I don't think you are in fact interested so feel free to tell me to get lost. You won't be the first admin to decline to take action against this ongoing abuse. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:07, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure how old anything is, but I have warned Nishidani in the past about his condescending behavior. Even on the ANI thread, he states that the people who are "against" him are not interested in truth but are nationalistic pov pushers. It is unacceptable that he can continue to insult others with almost every edit of his. In many cases, his insults are lost in his paragraphs of words, which is a shame. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 20:25, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Could you please tell me explicitly that you're not interested in pursuing any evidence relating to this issue so I can move it from my followup list to my disappointments list and move on? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 01:15, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, this thread slipped my mind. I'll enforce our policies, if you bring evidence of ongoing disruption and incivility. There's nothing I can do with weeks and months-old diffs without evidence that it is continuing, and that a sanction is necessary to prevent more disruption. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 14:47, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

You closed an AE with a warning about certain behavior, declining to take action at the time but saying you would if it happened again. It happened again. I supplied a diff of similar (probably even worse) behavior after that AE and the warning you issued. Now there's a new hurdle. It's obvious this guy can get away with constantly treating other editors like shit, I just wish the admins would be more honest about why they allow it. Anyway, thanks for your time, I won't be bothering you again with this. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:13, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Can you please look at these? I only included some diffs, but some of these are extremely uncivil towards @Icewhiz: and myself. diff, diff, diff, diff thanks. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 20:20, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Especially this one, where he says I and Icewhiz believe him to be antisemitic, [12] Sir Joseph ^(talk) 20:23, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Before...

...you close the latest I/P AE request, you may want to familiarise yourself with one of the recent ANI threads related to this. With particular attention to the comments by Kingsindian. There is a longterm issue of POV-editing with particular editors in the I/P area which he (Kings) has clearly laid out and the latest issue is just symptomatic of the wider problem. AE etc are generally very bad at handling long-term POV-pushing across articles, and given this particular editors editing, a 'warning' is largely pointless as it does nothing to address the underlying push in pro-Israel/anti-Palestine material. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:51, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

I'll review the links you presented, but I have no intention of closing the thread just yet. I want to see more opinions from administrators first. If you have evidence that this editor is a habitual problem, then please present it on the AE and I'm open to stronger measures if the evidence warrants it. The case as it was presented was a simple 1RR issue, not something more long-term, so that's what I based my opinion on. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 14:59, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

OTD maintenance

Hi, thanks for your edits on Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/April 25. Please be advised that when you take out articles for maintenance reasons, that you stick them in the Ineligible section, otherwise nobody will remember that they used to be here and vet them again a year from now. Regards, —howcheng {chat} 03:52, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Got it, thanks. I'm still learning the ropes of Main Page stuff. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 13:46, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for May 2

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Administrators' newsletter – May 2017

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

Administrator changes

Karanacs • Berean Hunter • GoldenRing • Dlohcierekim

Gdr • Tyrenius • JYolkowski • Longhair • Master Thief Garrett • Aaron Brenneman • Laser brain • JzG • Dragons flight

Guideline and policy news

An RfC has clarified that user categories should be emptied upon deletion, but redlinked user categories should not be removed if re-added by the user.
Discussions are ongoing regarding proposed changes to the COI policy. Changes so far have included clarification that adding a link on a Wikipedia forum to a job posting is not a violation of the harassment policy.

Technical news

You can now see a list of all autoblocks at Special:AutoblockList.
There is a new tool for adding archives to dead links. Administrators are able to restrict other user's ability to use the tool, and have additional permissions when changing URL and domain data.
Administrators, bureaucrats and stewards can now set an expiry date when granting user rights. (discuss, permalink)

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)

Prince Philip

First off, thank you for placing full-protection on the log. Two minor bugaboos, though: you forgot to add Template:pp-full to the article and you forgot to provide a rationale for the full protection (presumably the death rumors?) p b p 04:00, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

The Wordsmith, is this really the appropriate protection level, given only a single edit before the protection? Partly playing devil's advocate here, but I'm not entirely sure. Brianga (talk) 05:21, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

I concur with Brianga. I think mop only is an overreaction to a single IP vandal edit. Surely a-conf or x-conf would have sufficed unless there was a contrary indication by a vandal. Per WP:NO-PREEMPT: allowed in situations where blatant vandalism or disruption is occurring and at a level of frequency that requires its use in order to stop it. Matthew Thompson ^{talk to me!} 06:05, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

You're correct, semi would have been the better level. I meant to do that, but it looks like I selected the wrong option. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 17:14, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

From looking at the social media reaction to the big Buckingham Palace meeting, I actually think you did the right thing by full-protecting. Had you not, there would have been massive IP editing claiming (unsubstantiatedly) that Philip had died. p b p 14:02, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

@Purplebackpack89:, semi protection prevents IP editing while still allowing registered users a few days old and a couple of edits. Extended confirmed is also available - 30 days and 500 edits (prevents 99% of vandals). Full protection is not applied preemptively as it restrains good faith editors from making genuine edits. In high profile cases where even experienced editors get into edit wars (Trump's inauguration comes to mind), then full protection is sparingly applied. Anyway, The Wordsmith, it's no big deal - everyone makes mistakes and oversights. Matthew Thompson ^{talk to me!} 10:19, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Hello Wordsmith - Would you be willing to comment on an RFC?

Hi,

There is a minor disagreement over at Controversial Reddit Communities. Would you be willing to take a look? Cheers! 76.79.205.162 (talk) 19:47, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Sunday May 21: Metropolitan Museum of Art Edit-a-thon + global online challenge

Sunday May 21, 10:30 am - 4:30pm: Metropolitan Museum of Art Edit-a-thon

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Edit-a-thon: Met Open Access Initiative is the Metropolitan Museum of Art's first edit-a-thon, being hosted on Sunday May 21, 2017 in Thomas J. Watson Library at The Met Fifth Avenue in New York City.

The Met is excited to make available over 375,000 images of public domain artworks for contribution to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons from the museum’s collection spanning 5,000 years of art. The event is an opportunity for Wikimedia communities to engage The Met's diverse collection onsite and remotely. The event is a key marker too of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's first Wikimedian-in-Residence program, with resident Richard Knipel (User:Pharos), along with Wikimedia NYC. We invite you to help enhance Wikimedia communities and platforms with open access images from The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The event requires pre-registration. To register, 1) please sign-up with Eventbrite via The Met's website and 2) add your Wikipedia username to the #Participants on the wikimeetup page. Please check-in with museum staff when you arrive at the Thomas J. Watson Library within the museum.

We also welcome remote participation for the global Met Open Access Artworks Challenge (15 May - 30 June, 2017), you can sign up there at Met Open Access Artworks Challenge/Participants. --Pharos (talk) 16:23, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

SRS - clarification

Why did you strike your comment? I did not canvass anyone - as a matter of fact, you were the only person I notified and that was only because no one was commenting. The only canvassing occurring is on behalf of Koncorde - he has gotten Mark Bernstein and Art W to come over the page in an effort to support his position. I want to do this the right way. I feel because I am an IP editor, my opinion is being brushed into the trash unnecessarily. I have no bad intentions - only to have SRS listed as the sources support. 76.79.205.162 (talk) 16:50, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Why did you notify me? I don't think I've edited that article before, nor participated in previous discussions about that subreddit. And yes, I did see apparant canvassing from the other side as well. In a dispute where both sides appear to be doing something improper, its best to not allow myself to be canvassed into participating in the content dispute. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 18:01, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

For the record, I was brought to the discussion by this edit. Lot of people watch this page; I doubt I will be the only one. Congratulations, you played yourself.--Jorm (talk) 18:25, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

For the record, 76.79 is mistaken about me as well. As you (and the world) know, I’m not particularly likely to be canvassable on behalf of Koncorde (of all people). MarkBernstein (talk) 00:09, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Page protection

Request for page protection on Love in the Moonlight due to consistent revisions from IP addresses claiming other anonymous users are sockpuppets without verification. Thanks! TongsSnots (talk) 15:50, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, The Wordsmith. You have new messages at Herostratus's talk page.
Message added 05:41, 21 May 2017 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

May 24: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

Wednesday May 24, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan.

Topics this month include the TED wikiproject, the Met wikiproject, and encouraging free video on Wikimedia Commons!

We will include a look at the organization and planning for our chapter, and expanding volunteer roles for both regular Wikipedia editors and new participants.

We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities.

We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from all educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects.

After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery!

Wednesday May 24 WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com).

7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 137 West 14th Street

We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 19:31, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

P.S. bonus event this weekend:

Action=History: Sunday Hackathon @ Ace Hotel Sunday May 28, 2017

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2017

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

Administrator changes

Doug Bell • Dennis Brown • Clpo13 • ONUnicorn

ThaddeusB • Yandman • Bjarki S • OldakQuill • Shyam • Jondel • Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

An RfC proposing an off-wiki LTA database has been closed. The proposal was broadly supported, with further discussion required regarding what to do with the existing LTA database and defining access requirements. Such a tool/database formed part of the Community health initiative's successful grant proposal.
Some clarifications have been made to the community banning and unblocking policies that effectively sync them with current practice. Specifically, the community has reached a consensus that when blocking a user at WP:AN or WP:ANI, it is considered a "community sanction", and administrators cannot unblock unilaterally if the user has not successfully appealed the sanction to the community.
An RfC regarding the bot policy has closed with changes to the section describing restrictions on cosmetic changes.

Technical news

Users will soon be able to blacklist specific users from sending them notifications.

Miscellaneous

Following the 2017 elections, the new members of the Board of Trustees include Raystorm, Pundit and Doc James. They will serve three-year terms.

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

DYK nomination of Mike Enoch

Hello! Your submission of Mike Enoch at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah (talk) 15:45, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

when you get a chance

I arrived at your user page because Coffee is referring matters to you in his absence. We have a few articles translated from Turkish that we would like a Turkish speaker to look at. I am not clear whether Coffee would be interested and thought I would ask you, since you two apparently collaborate at times. If not do you know anyone who speaks Turkish and is not affected by Erdogan blocking wikipedia? I realize that many Turk have major real-life problems at the moment, but perhaps you have a suggestion? Thanks for any thought you devote to the matter. Elinruby (talk) 23:55, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't personally speak Turkish, but when I get in to my office tomorrow I'll see if I can find anyone who does. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 00:19, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

After asking around, I don't personally know anybody that speaks Turkish. However, despite the section not having been updated, a few of the editors listed at Wikipedia:Translators available#Turkish-to-English have been active recently. Your best bet would be to check their recent contribs and contact one of them. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 18:40, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

We're on Twitter!

WikiLGBT is on Twitter!

Hello The Wordsmith!
Follow the Wikimedia LGBT user group on Twitter at @wikilgbt for news, photos, and other topics of interest to LGBT Wikipedans and allies. Use #wikiLGBT to share any Wiki Loves Pride stuff that you would like to share (whether this month or any day of the year) or to alert folks to things that the LGBT Wikipedan community should know. RachelWex (talk)

For more information about Wiki Loves Pride, → click here ←.

RachelWex 18:56, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2017

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

Administrator changes

Happyme22 • Dragons flight

Zad68

Guideline and policy news

The RFC discussion regarding WP:OUTING and WMF essay about paid editing and outing (see more at the ArbCom noticeboard archives) is now archived. Milieus #3 and #4 received support; so did concrete proposal #1.

Technical news

Fuzzy search will soon be added to Special:Undelete, allowing administrators to search for deleted page titles with results similar to the search query. You can test this by adding ?fuzzy=1 to the URL, as with Special:Undelete?fuzzy=1. Currently the search only finds pages that exactly match the search term.
A new bot will automatically revision delete unused file versions from files in Category:Non-free files with orphaned versions more than 7 days old.

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)

Request for protection

Recently concluded show's page is frequented by vandals removing reliably sourced content. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Emperor:_Owner_of_the_Mask&action=history 177.224.95.157 (talk) 02:35, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Already done by another admin. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 13:56, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2017

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

Administrator changes

Anarchyte • GeneralizationsAreBad • Cullen328 ^{(first RfA to reach WP:300)}

Cprompt • Rockpocket • Rambo's Revenge • Animum • TexasAndroid • Chuck SMITH • MikeLynch • Crazytales • Ad Orientem

Guideline and policy news

Following a series of discussions around new pages patrol, the WMF is helping implement a controlled autoconfirmed article creation trial as a research experiment, similar to the one proposed in 2011. You can learn more about the research plan at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial. The exact start date of the experiment has yet to be determined.
A new speedy deletion criterion, regarding articles created as a result undisclosed paid editing, is currently being discussed (permalink).
An RfC (permalink) is currently open that proposes expanding WP:G13 to include all drafts, even if they weren't submitted through Articles for Creation.

Technical news

LoginNotify should soon be deployed to the English Wikipedia. This will notify users when there are suspicious login attempts on their account.
The new version of XTools is nearing an official release. This suite of tools includes administrator statistics, an improved edit counter, among other tools that may benefit administrators. You can report issues on Phabricator and provide general feedback at mw:Talk:XTools.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:11, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Redneck Revolt

Hi! I was thinking about creating an article about Redneck Revolt, and saw that you deleted that article a few months ago. I think there's been significant coverage in reliable sources published since April, such that while the group may not have been notable then, they probably are now. I was wondering what you'd advise – should I go ahead and create the new article, should I take it to WP:DRV, or something else entirely? I was also wondering about the content of the deleted article – could you perhaps clarify whether it was substantial enough to possibly be the basis of a better article, or if it was insubstantial or otherwise useless? Best, – Arms & Hearts (talk) 16:13, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

@Arms & Hearts: The original page didn't have much. It was six sentences long, gave no indication that it was significant at all, and sourced only to their own website and Its Going Down. If there's been more coverage in mainstream RS since then, that might be different. If you can show me some of this coverage, then I'll have no objection to creating a new article on it. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 22:56, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Coverage includes: Mother Jones, May/June 2017; Vice, 31 May; Guardian, 11 July. I don't have that much time for editing at the moment so I expect I'll begin work on a draft in my userspace and hopefully have it finished in the next week or so. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 00:22, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for providing the sources. Given what you have shown, I have no objection to a Userspace draft (though I'd like to see it when you think it is ready for prime time). I wish you luck in creating the article. However, please do note that Vice is of suspect reliability and Mother Jones is heavily partisan, so probably should not be used for controversial claims, especially about living persons. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 03:26, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Somewhat later than planned, the article is now up. Thanks again for your help. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 23:39, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

AE's discussion-required thread got archived with no result

Hello TheWordsmith. See Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive218#Consensus Required restriction in American Politics. I was so happy to see that this thread was gone from the board, but what happened is that it merely timed out. Also I see that you consider yourself involved with respect to American politics, so having you be the continuing owner of User:Coffee's restrictions may not work. How would you feel if all the discussion-required restrictions were made 'ownerless'? That would wipe out the past ownership, if any, so that any admin could unilaterally modify the rule on any particular article. (This is kind of the same thing I proposed at User talk:Dennis Brown/Archive 41#Talk:/r/The Donald). If you agree I will ask User:GoldenRing who made the request, and then if then see if there is enough to support to go forward from there. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 15:41, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

I'd also noticed that it got archived. There were enough admins there saying, "I'm not happy with this but I can see the writing on the wall..." that I don't think you could say there was any consensus for what I proposed, or not one I'd be happy with - it's more complicated than I thought. Rob's idea seemed to get some traction and I'd be happy enough with it, so if someone wanted to propose that then perhaps we could make some progress on this, but I don't have time to put anything together right now. GoldenRing (talk) 17:14, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Should also say that I don't think making them ownerless is a good idea. Part of the problem is that we already have fairly obscure restrictions, applied piecemeal by individual admins, and notified by templates that sometimes get used to mean just 1RR (eg. /r/The_Donald, which is what started all this) and sometimes mean what they actually say. Having admins reverting these one-by-one can only make that worse, in my view. GoldenRing (talk) 17:16, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2017

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

Administrator changes

Nakon • Scott

Sverdrup • Thespian • Elockid • James086 • Ffirehorse • Celestianpower • Boing! said Zebedee

Guideline and policy news

ACTRIAL, a research experiment that restricts article creation to autoconfirmed users, will begin on September 7. It will run for six months. You can learn more about the research specifics at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial, while Wikipedia talk:Autoconfirmed article creation trial is probably the best venue for general discussion.
Following an RfC, WP:G13 speedy deletion criterion now applies to any page in the draftspace that has not been edited in six months. There is a bot-generated report, updated daily, to help identify potentially qualifying drafts that have not been submitted through articles for creation.

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)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2017

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

Administrator changes

Boing! said Zebedee • Ansh666 • Ad Orientem

Tonywalton • AmiDaniel • Silence • BanyanTree • Magioladitis • Vanamonde93 • Mr.Z-man • Jdavidb • Jakec • Ram-Man • Yelyos • Kurt Shaped Box

Guideline and policy news

Following a successful proposal to create it, a new user right called "edit filter helper" is now assignable and revocable by administrators. The right allows non-administrators to view the details of private edit filters, but not to edit them.
Following a discussion about mass-application of ECP and how the need for logging and other details of an evolving consensus may have been missed by some administrators, a rough guide to extended confirmed protection has been written. This information page describes how the extended-confirmed aspects of the protection policy are currently being applied by administrators.

Technical news

You can now search for IP ranges at Special:Contributions. Some log pages and Special:DeletedContributions are not yet supported. Wildcards (e.g. 192.168.0.*) are also not supported, but the popular contribsrange gadget will continue to work.

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)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2017

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

Administrator changes

Longhair • Megalibrarygirl • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Allen3 • Eluchil404 • Arthur Rubin • Bencherlite

Technical news

The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team is creating an "Interaction Timeline" tool that intends to assist administrators in resolving user conduct disputes. Feedback on the concept may be posted on the talk page.
A new function is now available to edit filter managers that will make it easier to look for multiple strings containing spoofed text.

Arbitration

Eligible editors will be invited to submit candidate statements for the 2017 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 12 until November 21. Voting will begin on November 27 and last until December 10.
Following a request for comment, Ritchie333, Yunshui and Ymblanter will serve as the Electoral Commission for the 2017 ArbCom Elections.

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)

ANI Experiences survey

The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative (led by the Safety and Support and Anti-Harassment Tools team) is conducting a survey for en.wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with the Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works - which problems it deals with well, and which problems it struggles with.

The survey should take 10-20 minutes to answer, and your individual responses will not be made public. The survey is delivered through Google Forms. The privacy policy for the survey describes how and when Wikimedia collects, uses, and shares the information we receive from survey participants and can be found here:

https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2017_AN/Incidents_Survey_Privacy_Statement

If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be mailed to you via Special:Emailuser.

Sign up here to receive a link to a survey

Thank you on behalf of the Support & Safety and Anti-Harassment Tools Teams, Patrick Earley (WMF) talk 18:24, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2017

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

Administrator changes

Joe Roe

JzG

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

Wikimedians are now invited to vote on the proposals in the 2017 Community Wishlist Survey on Meta Wiki until 10 December 2017. In particular, there is a section of the survey regarding new tools for administrators and for anti-harassment.
A new function is available to edit filter managers which can be used to store matches from regular expressions.

Arbitration

Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is open until Sunday 23:59, 10 December 2017 (UTC). There are 12 candidates running for 8 vacant seats.

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) 20:57, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, The Wordsmith. 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)

DYK for Mike Enoch

On 10 June 2017, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Mike Enoch, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that white nationalist Mike Enoch helped Richard Spencer successfully sue Auburn University after it attempted to cancel their speaking engagement? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Mike Enoch. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Mike Enoch), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Vanamonde (talk) 00:02, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Oversight #26

By my rough count, I've just sent my 26th request to Oversight, requesting revert/delete treatment of harassment. It would be the the project’s benefit, and the victims’, if I were permitted to remove these from general visibility pending deletion. Don’t you agree?MarkBernstein (talk) 23:08, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

As I am not an Oversighter, I have no way of assessing a statement like that. I have no way of knowing how quickly Oversighters acted, if you were the first to make such a request about any particular diff, or if they acted upon any of your requests at all. The usual avenues of appeal are, of course, as open to you today as they were yesterday. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 00:20, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Remove Pending changes Protection

Hello, Could you please remove pending changes protection from Hello Internet as the article has been granted indefinite page protection. I am contacting you as Coffee, who added PCP, is away from Wikipedia and has asked users to contact you in their absence. Thanks, Greg (talk) 08:34, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Done The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 12:17, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

ARCA notification

You are involved in a recently-filed request for clarification or amendment from the Arbitration Committee. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Amendment_request:_American_politics_2 and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the Wikipedia:Arbitration guide may be of use.

Thanks, Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 10:37, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

The venue has been changed. It is now at AE. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 09:40, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

MarkBernstein topic ban?

Is this MarkBernstein GamerGate topic ban still in force? If true, are not these edits about Zoe Quinn a violation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:387:8:11:0:0:0:B1 (talk) 03:11, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

BLP vios by an anon IP

Hi, The Wordsmith. User:Coffee recommended you be contacted in Coffee's absence. Coffee on Dec. 10 blocked anon IP 62.28.64.102, who was edit-warring to add WP:BLP vios to Tracy Griffith and Peter Griffith. As soon as the 31-hour block was lifted, the anon IP went right back to BLP vios at those articles, here and here. I thought Coffee, or you by proxy, ought to be notified of that recidivism and defiance. --Tenebrae (talk) 19:12, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

I've blocked them again, for a week this time. However, it appears that Coffee has returned, so future inquiries should be directed to him. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 20:26, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

An incredibly diligent administrator

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		Thank you very much for handling all my administrative stuff while I was away! — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 23:53, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Anytime, friend. Great to have you back. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 01:38, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

Hello The Wordsmith: Enjoy the holiday season, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 16:43, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings1}} to send this message

Happy New Year, The Wordsmith!

Happy New Year!

The Wordsmith,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
-- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 23:20, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

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

Administrators' newsletter – January 2018

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

Administrator changes

Muboshgu

Anetode • Laser brain • Worm That Turned

None

Bureaucrat changes

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

The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey results have been posted. The Community Tech team will investigate and address the top ten results.
The Anti-Harassment Tools team is inviting comments on new blocking tools and improvements to existing blocking tools for development in early 2018. Feedback can be left on the discussion page or by email.

Arbitration

Following the results of the 2017 election, the following editors have been (re)appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Alex Shih, BU Rob13, Callanecc, KrakatoaKatie, Opabinia regalis, Premeditated Chaos, RickinBaltimore, Worm That Turned.

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

Comment on your post

Coffee doesn't have to dig up diffs - they can just drop the matter and I'll say no more. However if they repeatedly make accusations of me hounding them for years and just provide a link to the editor interaction tool as "evidence" then I will ask the community to step in to stop that nonsense. Take any pair of admins who work at ANI, AE, ANEW, RFPP, etc., and you'll get the same results. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 00:27, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

I saw that as well. Its worth noting that over the last few days, Coffee has been needled by a number of different people (and been implicitly told that he's being monitored by Arbcom by a sitting arb) and been dragged to noticeboards over nothing, which would cause stress and a feeling of being hounded. I would suggest giving it a little time for things to settle down and then approach him to clear the air. I think that would be the best way to resolve things for everybody. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 00:37, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Three days ago --NeilN ^{talk to me} 00:44, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

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

The Arbitration Committee has enacted a change to the discretionary sanctions procedure which requires administrators to add a standardized editnotice when placing page restrictions. Editors cannot be sanctioned for violations of page restrictions if this editnotice was not in place at the time of the violation.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:51, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2018

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

Administrator changes

Lourdes†

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

Following the 2018 Steward elections, the following users are our new stewards: -revi, Green Giant, Rxy, There'sNoTime, علاء.

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)

Precious anniversary

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:10, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:ARBGMO2 listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wikipedia:ARBGMO2. Since you had some involvement with the Wikipedia:ARBGMO2 redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. AIRcorn (talk) 22:33, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019 special circular

Administrators must secure their accounts

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

Use strong, unique passwords for your Wikipedia account and associated email
Change your password now if your Wikipedia account password or email password is reused on another website, exposed, or weak
Enable two-factor authentication now for improved security

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This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:27, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)

ArbCom would like to apologise and correct our previous mass message in light of the response from the community.

Since November 2018, six administrator accounts have been compromised and temporarily desysopped. In an effort to help improve account security, our intention was to remind administrators of existing policies on account security — that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." We have updated our procedures to ensure that we enforce these policies more strictly in the future. The policies themselves have not changed. In particular, two-factor authentication remains an optional means of adding extra security to your account. The choice not to enable 2FA will not be considered when deciding to restore sysop privileges to administrator accounts that were compromised.

We are sorry for the wording of our previous message, which did not accurately convey this, and deeply regret the tone in which it was delivered.

For the Arbitration Committee, -Cameron11598 21:04, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:58, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Accidental click

Dear User:The Wordsmith, I apologise for the revert I made here. It was due to an accidental click as I have the page on my watchlist. Kind regards, Anupam^Talk 19:13, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

@Anupam: No worries, accidents happen. Enjoy your day! The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 14:21, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

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