User talk:Alanscottwalker/archive1

User talk:Alanscottwalker/archive2

User talk:Alanscottwalker/archive3

I started using one-click-archiver in 2017, it labeled the new page with a Capital 'A':

User talk:Alanscottwalker/Archive 1

		The Original Barnstar
		Neat fact, I think it's worth a barnstar. Good job. Royal Autumn Crest ( talk) 16:39, 19 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Precious

Seven years!

-- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 05:30, 2 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Thank you for caring about Jessye Norman and her article, borrowing her smile -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 12:51, 29 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Hi, thanks for participating in last May's RfC (Request for Comment).

I wish to invite you to join a new one with the specific question of:

Should our lead sentence describe Bettelheim as a "self-proclaimed psychologist"?

RfC on lead sentence

started: Feb. 25, 2020

Any time and effort you wish to spend on this will be most appreciated. Thanks. FriendlyRiverOtter ( talk) 01:30, 26 February 2020 (UTC) reply

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

Administrator changes

Gnangarra • Kaisershatner • Malcolmxl5

CheckUser changes

Callanecc

Oversight changes

HJ Mitchell

Guideline and policy news

• Discretionary sanctions have been authorized for all pages and edits related to COVID-19, to be logged at WP:GS/COVID19.
• Following a recent discussion on Meta-Wiki, the edit filter maintainer global group has been created.
• A request for comment has been proposed to create a new main page editor usergroup.
• A request for comment has been proposed to make the bureaucrat activity requirements more strict.

Technical news

• The Editing team has been working on the talk pages project. You can review the proposed design and share your thoughts on the talk page.
• Enterprisey created a script that will show a link to the proper Special:Undelete page when viewing a since-deleted revision, see User:Enterprisey/link-deleted-revs.

Miscellaneous

• A request for comment closed with consensus to create a Village Pump-style page for communication with the Wikimedia Foundation.

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

Administrator changes

CaptainEek • Creffett • Cwmhiraeth

Anna Frodesiak • Buckshot06 • Ronhjones • SQL

CheckUser changes

SQL

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment asks whether the Unblock Ticket Request System (UTRS) should allowed any unblock request or just private appeals.
• The Wikimedia Foundation announced that they will develop a universal code of conduct for all WMF projects. There is an open local discussion regarding the same.

Arbitration

• A motion was passed to enact a 500/30 restriction on articles related to the history of Jews and antisemitism in Poland during World War II (1933–45), including the Holocaust in Poland. Article talk pages where disruption occurs may also be managed with the stated restriction.

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

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is in progress to remove the T2 (template that misrepresents established policy) speedy deletion criterion.

Technical news

• Protection templates on mainspace pages are now automatically added by User:MusikBot II ( BRFA).

Arbitration

• Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold an RfC regarding on-wiki harassment. The RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC and is open to comments from the community.
• The Medicine case was closed, with a remedy authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for all discussions about pharmaceutical drug prices and pricing and for edits adding, changing, or removing pharmaceutical drug prices or pricing from articles.

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Thanks for moving that paragraph into chronological order - I had intended to do that while I was editing that section, thought I had, in fact! Glad you picked it up. Tvoz/ talk 00:14, 30 July 2020 (UTC) reply

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

Administrator changes

Red Phoenix

Euryalus • SQL

Jujutacular • Monty845 • Rettetast • Madchester

Oversight changes

GB fan

Keegan • Opabinia regalis • Premeditated Chaos

Guideline and policy news

• There is an open request for comment to decide whether to increase the minimum duration a sanction discussion has to remain open (currently 24 hours).
• Speedy deletion criterion T2 (template that misrepresents established policy) has been repealed following a request for comment.
• Speedy deletion criterion X2 (pages created by the content translation tool) has been repealed following a discussion.
• There is a proposal to restrict proposed deletion to confirmed users.

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An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Federal.

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Precious

Eight years!

I enjoyed having the TFA yesterday, DYK? -- Gerda Arendt ( talk)

Thank you. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 16:22, 2 September 2020 (UTC) reply

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

Administrator changes

Eddie891

Angela • Jcw69 • Just Chilling • Philg88 • Viajero

CheckUser changes

SQL

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, the minimum length for site ban discussions was increased to 72 hours, up from 24.
• A request for comment is ongoing to determine whether paid editors must or should use the articles for creation process.
• A request for comment is open to resolve inconsistencies between the draftification and alternative to deletion processes.

Arbitration

• A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2020 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
• An open request for comment asks whether active Arbitrators may serve on the Trust and Safety Case Review Committee or Ombudsman commission.

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

Administrator changes

Ajpolino • LuK3

Jackmcbarn

Ad Orientem • Harej • Lid • Lomn • Mentoz86 • Oliver Pereira • XJaM

There'sNoTime → TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment found consensus that incubation as an alternative to deletion should generally only be recommended when draftification is appropriate, namely 1) if the result of a deletion discussion is to draftify; or 2) if the article is newly created.

Technical news

• The filter log now provides links to view diffs of deleted revisions ( phab:T261630).

Arbitration

• The 2020 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place from September 27th to October 7th.
• Following a request for comment, sitting Committee members may not serve on either the Ombuds Commission or the WMF Case Review Committee. The Arbitration Committee passed a motion implementing those results into their procedures.

Miscellaneous

• The Universal Code of Conduct draft is open for community review and comment until October 6th, 2020.
• Office actions may now be appealed to the Interim Trust & Safety Case Review Committee.

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An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Honey Lane Market, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Milk Street.

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

Guideline and policy news

• Community sanctions now authorize administrators to place under indefinite semiprotection any article on a beauty pageant, or biography of a person known as a beauty pageant contestant, which has been edited by a sockpuppet account or logged-out sockpuppet, to be logged at WP:GS/PAGEANT.

Technical news

• Sysops will once again be able to view the deleted history of JS/CSS pages; this was restricted to interface administrators when that group was introduced.
• Twinkle's block module now includes the ability to note the specific case when applying a discretionary sanctions block and/or template.
• Sysops will be able to use Special:CreateLocalAccount to create a local account for a global user that is prevented from auto-creation locally (such as by a filter or range block). Administrators that are not sure if such a creation is appropriate should contact a checkuser.

Arbitration

• The 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections process has begun. Eligible editors will be able to nominate themselves as candidates from November 8 through November 17. The voting period will run from November 23 through December 6.
• The Anti-harassment RfC has concluded with a summary of the feedback provided.

Miscellaneous

• A reminder that standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people. ( American Politics 2 Arbitration case).

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Hey. Thank you for your considered statements over the last couple weeks at Talk:United States Electoral College. I wanted to expand on a string of Congressional reform addressing state mal-apportionment in federal elections. I noted previously, efforts to curb state majority abuses included three Acts of Congress passing both House and Senate in an effort to shape political communities that resembled the underlying populations geographically, socially, and ideologically (the culturally-related basket of religion, ethnic practice, and politics): contiguity (1842), and compactness (1872), including equal population (1911) (but only for a few sessions at a time, and never enforced).

If we expand the observation from listing Acts of Congress to exploring who was sponsoring them, the topic takes on an interesting aspect of US political intellectual history. The 1842 legislation was sponsored by Jacksonian Democrats, the 1872 by Lincoln Republicans, and the 1911 by Republican and Democratic Progressives. Wiki-fencing on Talk pages notwithstanding, I understand the impulse to the National Popular Vote generally to be aligned with that intellectual tradition. To take another page from the same democratizing impulse, if the states abuse their Constitutional duty to elect US Senators by their legislatures for thirty consecutive years as they did in the Gilded Age, then the American people will pass a Constitutional Amendment taking the abused trust away from the bad actors subverting their democratic republic.

So it is, that if the states do not refrain from the egregious anti-democratic practice of winner-take-all selection of their presidential electors, I expect that in due time the American people will take away the state legislature role in choosing a president, in one way or another. I will regret the loss of political community that might follow uniform standards for redistricting by equal population, contiguous boundaries, compact shapes, and respecting political boundaries aligned with the state geography. But the voting people are sovereign, at the very least, even if the non-voting populations of the voters' neighbors who are immigrants, young, and transients are left out of the national equation the future.

But whenever a persistent political majority takes form of the same opinion, it must be allowed to prevail, or we lose the American experiment that the London Economist last week noted is the political reason that Americans respect themselves and why others around the globe in turn respect them. - TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 16:46, 16 November 2020 (UTC) reply

Per history, it rather seems inertia will prevail, unless there is sustained political crises in multiple states over multiple elections (we maybe in the middle of such, but perhaps not and over-time the College will continue to most often produce outcomes most everyone can live with and endure, regardless of whatever principles some people see as being served or not). The College was and is a compromise, and it seems hardly surprising that in every generation the compromise will be questioned, and that talk of recalibration will arise, this is especially so in that ideas of what or who a democracy encompasses, change. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 18:11, 16 November 2020 (UTC) reply

Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{ NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 01:41, 24 November 2020 (UTC) reply

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

Administrator changes

Andrwsc • Anetode • GoldenRing • JzG • LinguistAtLarge • Nehrams2020

Interface administrator changes

Izno

Guideline and policy news

• There is a request for comment in progress to either remove T3 (duplicated and hardcoded instances) as a speedy deletion criterion or eliminate its seven-day waiting period.

Technical news

• Voting for proposals in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey, which determines what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year, will take place from 8 December through 21 December. In particular, there are sections regarding administrators and anti-harassment.

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 7 December 2020 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

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

Guideline and policy news

• Speedy deletion criterion T3 (duplication and hardcoded instances) has been repealed following a request for comment.

Technical news

• You can now put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time.

Arbitration

• By motion, standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarily authorized for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes). The effectiveness of the discretionary sanctions can be evaluated on the request by any editor after March 1, 2021 (or sooner if for a good reason).
• Following the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, BDD, Bradv, CaptainEek, L235, Maxim, Primefac.

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Thank for your help with Jerome Kohl! - Happy Wikipedia 20, - proud of a little bit on the Main page today, and 5 years ago, and 10 years ago, look: create a new style - revive - complete! I sang in the revival mentioned. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 19:24, 15 January 2021 (UTC) reply

On the Main page today, remembered in friendship -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 13:12, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply

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

Arbitration

• The standard discretionary sanctions authorized for American Politics were amended by motion to cover post-1992 politics of United States and closely related people, replacing the 1932 cutoff.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2021 Steward elections will begin on 05 February 2021, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2021, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• Wikipedia has now been around for 20 years, and recently saw its billionth edit!

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Hello. Former NARA employee here. One certificate is for public inspection as mandated by law - that is what is uploaded. There is a difference between a certificate of vote and ascertainment hence why my edit says "certificate of vote." However, since in the immediate one is available to the public - there is no real difference in the change made. Furthermore, I was simply replacing a certificate of vote from 2012 from one from 2020, hardly a controversial edit. Please refrain from making subtle jabs at other users. I am fully up to speed on the American electoral process. Cliffmore ( talk) 15:36, 9 February 2021 (UTC) reply

Cliffmore, Hi. Sorry, I did not think the image was controversial, I thought it was redundant, uninformative of the Process, and ultimately misleading in its redundancy. And since the two Certificates are different, created at different times in the process with different info, etc., and both events recently proved to be controversial, in addition to essential to the links in the chain from popular vote to inauguration, it makes sense in the Process section to illustrate the process with both certificates. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 16:46, 9 February 2021 (UTC) reply

Got it. Appreciate your clarification -- Cliffmore ( talk) 17:15, 9 February 2021 (UTC) reply

Lenten Rose

Today, we have a DYK about Wilhelm Knabe, who stood up for future with the striking school children when he was in his 90s, - a model, - see here. - Thank you for your position in the arb case request, - I feel I have to stay away, but there are conversations further down on the page, in case of interest, - in a nutshell: "... will not improve kindness, nor any article". - Yesterday, I made sure on a hike that the flowers are actually blooming ;) -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 14:23, 26 February 2021 (UTC) reply

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/RexxS. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/RexxS/Evidence. Please add your evidence by March 13, 2021, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/RexxS/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, SQL ^{Query me!} 04:49, 27 February 2021 (UTC) reply

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

Administrator changes

TJMSmith

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

Interface administrator changes

AmandaNP

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is open that proposes a process for the community to revoke administrative permissions. This follows a 2019 RfC in favor of creating one such a policy.
• A request for comment is in progress to remove F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a, which covers immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
• A request for comment seeks to grant page movers the delete-redirect userright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target. The full proposal is at Wikipedia:Page mover/delete-redirect.
• A request for comment asks if sysops may place the General sanctions/Coronavirus disease 2019 editnotice template on pages in scope that do not have page-specific sanctions?
• There is a discussion in progress concerning automatic protection of each day's featured article with Pending Changes protection.

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• By motion, the discretionary sanctions originally authorized under the GamerGate case are now authorized under a new Gender and sexuality case, with sanctions authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, any gender-related dispute or controversy and associated people. Sanctions issued under GamerGate are now considered Gender and sexuality sanctions.
• The Kurds and Kurdistan case was closed, authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for the topics of Kurds and Kurdistan, broadly construed.

Miscellaneous

• Following the 2021 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AmandaNP, Operator873, Stanglavine, Teles, and Wiki13.

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Thank you for what you said on Yoninah's talk, - see also Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-03-28/Obituary! -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 15:55, 29 March 2021 (UTC) reply

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

Administrator changes

Alexandria • Happyme22 • RexxS

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• A community consultation on the Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions procedure is open until April 25.

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

Administrator changes

Enchanter • Carlossuarez46

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, consensus was found that third party appeals are allowed but discouraged.
• The 2021 Desysop Policy RfC was closed with no consensus. Consensus was found in a previous RfC for a community based desysop procedure, though the procedure proposed in the 2021 RfC did not gain consensus.

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• The community consultation on the Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions procedure was closed, and an initial draft based on feedback from the now closed consultation is expected to be released in early June to early July for community review.

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Hey, Alanscottwalker. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! CommanderWaterford ( talk) 08:31, 18 May 2021 (UTC) reply

CommanderWaterford (
talk) 08:31, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
reply

Just to let you know, 85Rose has filed a case request at WP:ARC with you as a party. They failed to notify you so I am doing that for them. You may comment at the case request, though it may be removed by the time you see this message. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 12:08, 1 June 2021 (UTC) reply

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

Administrator changes

Ashleyyoursmile • Less Unless

Husond • MattWade • MJCdetroit • Carioca • Vague Rant • Kingboyk • Thunderboltz • Gwen Gale • AniMate • SlimVirgin (deceased)

Guideline and policy news

• Consensus was reached to deprecate Wikipedia:Editor assistance.
• Following a Request for Comment the Book namespace was deprecated.

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• After a Clarification request, the Arbitration Committee modified Remedy 5 of the Antisemitism in Poland case. This means sourcing expectations are a discretionary sanction instead of being present on all articles. It also details using the talk page or the Reliable Sources Noticeboard to discuss disputed sources.

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... for what you said on User talk:SlimVirgin - missing pictured on my talk, with music full of hope and reformation -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 19:45, 29 June 2021 (UTC) reply

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• The community authorised COVID-19 general sanctions have been superseded by the COVID-19 discretionary sanctions following a motion at a case request. Alerts given and sanctions placed under the community authorised general sanctions are now considered alerts for and sanctions under the new discretionary sanctions.

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Nice to see your datestamp in support. Trust is especially valuable when given by contributors with whom I interact regularly. Please help me by keeping sharp eyes on my foibles as they arise. I'm happy to learn something new. BusterD ( talk) 21:07, 15 July 2021 (UTC) reply

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Slatersteven ( talk) 09:47, 29 July 2021 (UTC) reply

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• Following an amendment request, the committee has clarified that the Talk page exception to the 500/30 rule in remedy 5 of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 case does not apply to requested move discussions.

Miscellaneous

• You can vote for candidates in the 2021 Board of Trustees elections from 4 August to 17 August. Four community elected seats are up for election.

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An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Illinois in the American Civil War, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Richard Yates.

( Opt-out instructions.) -- DPL bot ( talk) 05:58, 12 August 2021 (UTC) reply

Your citation (from Abraham Lincoln and slavery):

"Constitutional Convention, Virginia (1864) – Encyclopedia Virginia". Retrieved 2021-07-01.

What I did with it (note that at the end, as with many articles, there are instructions about how to cite it):

Bearss, Sara B. (December 20, 2020). "Constitutional Convention, Virginia (1864)". Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities. Retrieved 2021-08-01.

Thanks. deisenbe ( talk) 15:26, 12 August 2021 (UTC) reply

Hey, I saw you completed deleted the whole analysis for the election of 1864 I had wrote out. the page doesn’t even really explain why the election wasn’t as close as the electoral college map shows as Lincoln only narrowly edged out Mac in a few states which gave him the win. I know quite a bit about elections but Ik I do need to site the sources. I mainly used US election atlas which is already sourced. I don’t think thanos snapping that whole analysis was really necessary though as their was non of the like on the page. DrPipp96 ( talk) 21:51, 22 August 2021 (UTC) reply

Hi. Sorry but you do need to cite the sources for such "analysis" and that analysis has to be "directly" in the source, see Wikipedia's policy on the sourcing requirements, WP:V, and policy against publishing Wikipedia user's unsourced analysis, WP:NOR. If you have read that precise analysis from sources and you have good cites for it, then it can possibly be used (see also WP:NPOV, the other major content policy.) Alanscottwalker ( talk) 22:09, 22 August 2021 (UTC) reply

Precious

Nine years!

-- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 07:16, 2 September 2021 (UTC) reply

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

Administrator changes

Jake Wartenberg

Emperor • Viridian Bovary

Ashleyyoursmile → Viridian Bovary

Guideline and policy news

• Feedback is requested on the Universal Code of Conduct enforcement draft by the Universal Code of Conduct Phase 2 drafting committee.
• A RfC is open on whether to allow administrators to use extended confirmed protection on high-risk templates.
• A discussion is open to decide when, if ever, should discord logs be eligible for removal when posted onwiki (including whether to oversight them)
• A RfC on the next steps after the trial of pending changes on TFAs has resulted in a 30 day trial of automatic semi protection for TFAs.

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• A request for comment is in progress to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules. Comments and new proposals are welcome.

Miscellaneous

• The 2021 RfA review is now open for comments.

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

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, extended confirmed protection may be used preemptively on certain high-risk templates.
• Following a discussion at the Village Pump, there is consensus to treat discord logs the same as IRC logs. This means that discord logs will be oversighted if posted onwiki.

Technical news

• DiscussionTools has superseded Enterprisey's reply-link script. Editors may switch using the "Discussion tools" checkbox under Preferences → Beta features.

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

• Editors have approved expanding the trial of Growth Features from 2% of new accounts to 25%, and the share of newcomers getting mentorship from 2% to 5%. Experienced editors are invited to add themselves to the mentor list.
• The community consultation phase of the 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process is open for editors to provide comments and ask questions to candidates.

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Best, MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 00:08, 10 October 2021 (UTC) reply

16:13, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

• Toolhub is a catalogue of tools which can be used on Wikimedia wikis. It is at https://toolhub.wikimedia.org/.

Arbitration

• GeneralNotability, Mz7 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections. Ivanvector and John M Wolfson are reserve commissioners.
• Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves to stand in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections from 07 November 2021 until 16 November 2021.

Miscellaneous

• The 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process has concluded with the appointment of five new CheckUsers and two new Oversighters.

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Hi Alanscottwalker! Could you please help me understand why you reverted my bot's edit? My bot's edit was to delete a duplicated author from a reference. I'm not sure what "removal of TOC" means, as my bot's edit did not remove a table of contents. Thanks! GoingBatty ( talk) 23:46, 5 November 2021 (UTC) reply

Must have been some kind of glitch, because when I went through it at the time the TOC had disappeared and I scrolled through history to see it was the bot edit but now the history does not show that, so, now, all I can say is, apologies. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 05:47, 6 November 2021 (UTC) reply

The TOC issue was discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Missing TOC? Happy editing! GoingBatty ( talk) 15:13, 8 November 2021 (UTC) reply

Hello! Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 6 December 2021. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2021 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{ NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 00:19, 23 November 2021 (UTC) reply

Hey Alan, thanks for your work on Slave states and free states, but I want to clarify the edit of mine you've reverted a couple of times. The Emancipation Proclamation did not end the institution of slavery in areas under Confederate control. It just freed the slaves currently held there — an action enforced by Union forces as they moved through the south. ("...all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State...shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.") Slavery as an 'institution' continued until it was legally eliminated by individual states or by the 13th Amendment. That's one reason former Confederate states were required to ratify the 13th as a condition of readmission.

For example, if someone who owned a slave in a non-emancipated place (like, say, Kentucky, Delaware, or New Orleans) moved them to a place covered by the Proclamation (say, Alabama or Georgia), that slave was still a slave under the law. That's why the individual state changes and 13th Amendment were necessary: to end the institution itself. The Proclamation was the equivalent of a governor commuting the sentences of everyone on his state's Death Row: It protects everyone currently facing a death sentence, but it doesn't ban the death penalty or prevent future people from being sentenced to death. Flaggingwill ( talk) 13:09, 29 November 2021 (UTC) reply

Not convinced. The states were under matial law, and martial law ended slavery -- it is also practically certain that should there have arisen a second Dred Scott v. Sandford (of claimed enslaved moving between states) that the courts would never make that horrific mistake again, after the war they just went through. ~~ Alanscottwalker ( talk) 19:21, 29 November 2021 (UTC) reply

I'm sorry, but that's not accurate. Neither the Proclamation nor Union military control "ended slavery" anywhere, legally speaking. Black leaders, as well as Northern Republicans, expressed fears that as soon as Union forces returned home, freedmen would be re-enslaved so long as slavery was still on the books as legal. (From the Toledo Blade: "When the rebellion is suppressed, the same Constitution will be operative as before. Although every Slave in the South be emancipated, the institution in its legal sense would not be destroyed. The Slaves, if they remained in the States, could all be reenslaved as soon as the army that liberated them was removed.") The Proclamation had been made in the narrow context of Lincoln's war powers, and those powers would at some point end.

The Wade–Davis manifesto in 1864 specifically complained that Lincoln's Reconstruction plan "does not secure the abolition of Slavery; for the proclamation of freedom merely professed to free certain slaves, while it recognized the institution. Every constitution of the rebel States at the outbreak of the rebellion may be adopted without the change of a letter, for none of them contravene that proclamation." The whole point of each of the state actions in this article, as well as the 13th, was to remedy the fact that slavery 'as an institution' was still legal until it was made illegal by state or federal legislation. A few months before Lincoln was shot, his Secretary of State William Seward made a speech that made it very clear slavery in the Confederate states would still be a live matter at the war's end:

While the rebels continue to wage war against the Government of the United States, the military measures affecting Slavery, which have been adopted from necessity, to bring the war to a speedy and successful end, will be continued, except so far as practical experience shall show that they can be modified advantageously, with a view to the same end. When the insurgents shall have disbanded their armies, and laid down their arms, the war will instantly cease, and all the war measures then existing, including those which affect Slavery, will cease also, and all the moral, economical and political questions, as well questions affecting Slavery as others which shall then be existing between individuals and States and the Federal Government, whether they arose before the civil war began, or whether they grew out of it, will, by force of the Constitution, pass over to the arbitrament of courts of law, and to the councils of legislation.

And here's his Interior Secretary John P. Usher around the same time:

The moment they submit to the Government and support the Constitution the war must cease, an a matter of course, and peace will be the natural result. Then the question as to whether the President's Proclamation has in fact freed the slaves of the people of the South will come up for decision. It is a question of law, and can be decided only by the courts. The President believes the Proclamation is constitutional and lawful, and that it has effected all it was intended to effect, but if it should turn out, as it may, that the Proclamation does not in fact free all the slaves, the law must take its course over the President's Proclamation, for we are a law-abiding people.

Flaggingwill ( talk) 19:09, 1 December 2021 (UTC) reply

Your thesis is still not convincing. Martial law did end slavery, and you can quibble about it not being civil law, but that does not matter - it was the law of the land and it did end slavery. And Lincoln insisted that for a state to ever get out of being under martial law it had to affrim the EP. It seems like you contend the Emancipation Proclamation was illegal, and the courts would have found it illegal, but that is a pipe dream. And of course no court did find the Emancipation Proclamation illegal. Indeed, people argued for more beyond martial law, but that does not mean that martial law where it was in effect did not end slavery - in law, and ´´in fact´´ it did. (Nor did martial law end when the war ended, in some ways it only just began.) By law, martial law ended slavery where it was in effect, or as predicted there would have been nothing to be in court to fight over afterward, were it ever to get to court. -- Alanscottwalker ( talk) 19:50, 1 December 2021 (UTC) reply

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

Administrator changes

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections is open until 23:59, 06 December 2021 (UTC).
• The already authorized standard discretionary sanctions for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes), broadly construed, have been made permanent.

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Do you know how many times these parties have been to AE over the last decade? [1] An AE filing often results in an immediate retaliatory filing, and so much mud slinging that it's very hard for the uninvolved to determine who's in the wrong. El C, is that a fair summary of the dynamic? Jehochman ^Talk 18:09, 22 December 2021 (UTC) reply

Pretty much. It's an exceptionally challenging subject matter for the non-expert to orient themselves in. And on the WP:APL side of WP:ARBEE, there's also WP:APLRS to contend with. El_C 18:26, 22 December 2021 (UTC) reply

One editor has appear on 76 AE archive pages, and the other on 110 pages. They could be AE's most frequent customers. I think it's time to come up with a more systematic solution rather than continuing this revolving door. Jehochman ^Talk 18:49, 22 December 2021 (UTC) reply

User:Jehochman, you're here (and at the RfAA [2]) falsely insinuating that there have been 110 AE filings against me. Of course you don't say that explicitly ... because it's so blatantly false that if you did say it explicitly people would laugh at you and you yourself could be sanctioned for WP:ASPERSIONS. So instead, being careful, you only INSINUATE it. ... It's still blatantly false. Yes, there's passing mentions of me at WP:AE [3], or me commenting on someone else's report [4], or even some sock puppets trying to sling mud at me [5] [6] and getting themselves blocked in the process. If you've been editing in controversial areas for 12 years the number of times you get mentioned adds up. And here's another false insinuation - most of these mentions don't even have anything to do with Eastern Europe. They're about Donald Trump, or Race and Intelligence, or Economics, or Mexican history or some other unrelated topic. You either know this, in which case your "some statistics" comment is made entirely in bad faith, or you don't know this, which means you haven't even bothered to do a basic fact check before spouting off.

I also see that you're doing the same type of mealy mouthed insinuation here. Buddy? If you think that I'm guilty of "falsifying history in Eastern Europe for nationalistic ends" then have the guts to say that outright and name me by name, rather than doing this cowardly hint-hint-whisper-whisper crap on people's talk pages. And guess what? At that point, when you actually make the accusation explicitly, I will ask you to back it up with diffs. And if you can't provide such diffs, then *I* will report you myself for WP:ASPERSIONS and WP:NPA. If you can't do that then stop with this "everybody's talking about it" Trumpian nonsense. Volunteer Marek 19:01, 22 December 2021 (UTC) reply

(ec) No, Jehochman, the editor who has made most trips to AE is actually.... Icewhiz, you know, the guy who you're busy carrying water for right now. Volunteer Marek 19:01, 22 December 2021 (UTC) reply

He's been banned. So you're saying that a lot of trips to AE correlates with users being banned. Are you sure you want to point out that correlation? Jehochman ^Talk 20:11, 22 December 2021 (UTC) reply

Bang head against table. No J, no, that's not what I'm saying at all. I believe others already pointed out to you how ... specious (at best) your argument is [7]. Volunteer Marek 20:20, 22 December 2021 (UTC) reply

Not sure why this conversation should be here. What issue has AE not been able to deal with -- if the issue is whether someone should be banned from the project or a topic, put in your filing to Arbcom, who should be banned, why, diffs and what steps have been taken to secure the ban prior to Arbcom. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 20:30, 22 December 2021 (UTC) reply

AE has had trouble dealing with some of the editors who are its most frequent customers. No process is going to handle every situation perfectly. This looks like an exceptional case where delegation to AE probably won't solve the problem. The problems are outlined in the four threads I linked. I will respect your wish to end this. You asked and I answered. Thank you for your indulgence and please have the last word if you wish. Jehochman ^Talk 20:33, 22 December 2021 (UTC) reply

01:46, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for catching the missing "an" in my description of the second inaugural address. Please explain your other change, which was adding }} to the end of the block quote. I don't understand what it did. Maurice Magnus ( talk) 19:24, 1 January 2022 (UTC) reply

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

Guideline and policy news

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

• Additionally, consensus for proposal 6C of the 2021 RfA review has led to the creation of an administrative action review process. The purpose of this process will be to review individual administrator actions and individual actions taken by users holding advanced permissions.

Arbitration

• Following the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Cabayi, Donald Albury, Enterprisey, Izno, Opabinia regalis, Worm That Turned, Wugapodes.

Miscellaneous

• The functionaries email list (functionaries-enlists.wikimedia.org) will no longer accept incoming emails apart from those sent by list members and WMF staff. Private concerns, apart from those requiring oversight, should be directly sent to the Arbitration Committee.

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I believe you are being disruptive, although at this point I'm not willing to say that you are doing so deliberately. I respect your right to express your opinion, but not repeatedly and not in the wrong place. I don't plan to repeat myself about the "malformed" issue. I think you have made your point quite clearly. The resolution isn't for you and me to repeatedly disagree with each other. I'll respectfully ask you to take that issue to an administrators' board. Thanks. Sundayclose ( talk) 04:25, 23 January 2022 (UTC) reply

As I said, the discussion of malformation and the misleading nature of the RfC belongs in the RfC, not elsewhere. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 04:42, 23 January 2022 (UTC) reply

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

Guideline and policy news

• The Universal Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines have been published for consideration. Voting to ratify this guideline is planned to take place 7 March to 21 March. Comments can be made on the talk page.

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• Community input is requested on several motions aimed at addressing discretionary sanctions that are no longer needed or overly broad.
• The Arbitration Committee has published a generalised comment regarding successful appeals of sanctions that it can review (such as checkuser blocks).
• A motion related to the Antisemitism in Poland case was passed following a declined case request.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2022 Steward elections will begin on 07 February 2022, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2022, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• Voting in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey is open until 11 February 2022.

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

Guideline and policy news

• A RfC is open to change the wording of revision deletion criterion 1 to remove the sentence relating to non-infringing contributions.
• A RfC is open to discuss prohibiting draftification of articles over 90 days old.

Technical news

• The deployment of the reply tool as an opt-out feature, as announced in last month's newsletter, has been delayed to 7 March. Feedback and comments are being welcomed at Wikipedia talk:Talk pages project. ( T296645)
• Special:Nuke will now allow the selection of standard deletion reasons to be used when mass-deleting pages. This was a Community Wishlist Survey request from 2022. ( T25020)
• The ability to undelete the talk page when undeleting a page using Special:Undelete or the API will be added soon. This change was requested in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey. ( T295389)

Arbitration

• Several unused discretionary sanctions and article probation remedies have been rescinded. This follows the community feedback from the 2021 Discretionary Sanctions review.

Miscellaneous

• The 2022 appointees for the Ombuds commission are Érico, Faendalimas, Galahad, Infinite0694, Mykola7, Olugold, Udehb and Zabe as regular members and Ameisenigel and JJMC89 as advisory members.
• Following the 2022 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AntiCompositeNumber, BRPever, Hasley, TheresNoTime, and Vermont.
• The 2022 Community Wishlist Survey results have been published alongside the ranking of prioritized proposals.

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Hi Alanscottwalker,

In case you missed it, you added here Roosevelt issuing Executive Order 8802, but unfortunately ref name="Leuchtenburg" appears not to have been defined, so it was removed by another editor.

Best, == Peter NYC ( talk) 22:47, 4 March 2022 (UTC) reply

starting an article on the Arrest of User:Pessimist2006? Smallbones_{( smalltalk)} 01:25, 13 March 2022 (UTC) reply

Note that there is an article under a different name now. Smallbones_{( smalltalk)} 15:22, 13 March 2022 (UTC) reply

The name in the infobox should reflect the same common name used for the article title. The |other_names= parameter should be used for names not in common use, such as tribute names that are not used on station signs, schedules, etc. See 30th Street Station and South Station for typical usage. Pi.1415926535 ( talk) 17:12, 7 April 2022 (UTC) reply

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

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open proposing a change to the minimum activity requirements for administrators.

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures § Opening of proceedings has been updated to reflect current practice following a motion.
• A arbitration case regarding Skepticism and coordinated editing has been closed.
• A arbitration case regarding WikiProject Tropical Cyclones has been opened.

Miscellaneous

• Voting for the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines has closed, and the results were that 56.98% of voters supported the guidelines. The results of this vote mean the Wikimedia Foundation Board will now review the guidelines.

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As a major editor of the article this may be of interest. Randy Kryn ( talk) 13:53, 13 April 2022 (UTC) reply

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

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, a change has been made to the administrators inactivity policy. Under the new policy, if an administrator has not made at least 100 edits over a period of 5 years they may be desysopped for inactivity.
• Following a discussion on the bureaucrat's noticeboard, a change has been made to the bureaucrats inactivity policy.

Technical news

• The ability to undelete the associated talk page when undeleting a page has been added. This was the 11th wish of the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey.
• A public status system for WMF wikis has been created. It is located at https://www.wikimediastatus.net/ and is hosted separately to WMF wikis so in the case of an outage it will remain viewable.

Arbitration

• Remedy 2 of the St Christopher case has been rescinded following a motion. The remedy previously authorised administrators to place a ban on single-purpose accounts who were disruptively editing on the article St Christopher Iba Mar Diop College of Medicine or related pages from those pages.

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

Guideline and policy news

• Several areas of improvement collated from community member votes have been identified in the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines. The areas of improvement have been sent back for review and you are invited to provide input on these areas.

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• Remedy 2 of the Rachel Marsden case has been rescinded following a motion. The remedy previously authorised administrators to delete or reduce to a stub, together with their talk pages, articles related to Rachel Marsden when they violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy.
• An arbitration case regarding WikiProject Tropical Cyclones has been closed.

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Please see my entry, which I've titled "End date disputed?", on the Talk page of American Civil War. I am also asking CaptainEek to look at it. Thanks. Maurice Magnus ( talk) 14:35, 13 June 2022 (UTC) reply

I've added a further comment. Maurice Magnus ( talk) 18:48, 13 June 2022 (UTC) reply

Thanks. Just, fyi, I usually watch where I comment so no need for this extra step. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 19:29, 13 June 2022 (UTC) reply

		Messenger award
		Thank you for trying to get the message out there at DYK! Bruxton ( talk) 19:35, 18 June 2022 (UTC) reply

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• An arbitration case regarding conduct in deletion-related editing has been opened.

Miscellaneous

• The New Pages Patrol queue has around 10,000 articles to be reviewed. As all administrators have the patrol right, please consider helping out. The queue is here. For further information on the state of the project, see the latest NPP newsletter.

---

Hello. Just popping in to suggest that you might consider expanding your recent Talk:V post into a little essay/checklist.

:::::The thing is, the onus, or responsibility, does not first arise when there is a dispute, it arose at the time an author's first article addition, including at article creation. The principle for adding content is that it improves the pedia, we judge what improves the pedia by whether it accords with editing policies and guidelines: an irrevancy does not improve the pedia, a mangled context does not improve the pedia, a misplaced context does not improve the pedia, a lack of context does not improve the pedia, an overstated or misunderstood source does not improve the pedia, a trivia does not improve the pedia, a POV does not improve the pedia, a CVIO does not improve the pedia, an original research does not improve the pedia, etc. The onus, the responsibility, never moves, it is always on the author. No author is perfect or can be perfect but they do have to work to improve the pedia, and show it to the world, in their work.-- Alanscottwalker ( talk) 12:21, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

My personal, pessimistic observation is that important articles are increasingly overwhelmed by inexperienced or ill-informed editors who consider the extent of their personal knowledge to be the extent of all human knowledge. Lots of bad content is being promoted without enough research into the broader sources that would ensure useful NPOV narratives for our readers. One telltale sign comes in articles relating to current events where we see citations to local news media or third-tier broadcast reports rather than globally recognized journalism or academic sources. SPECIFICO talk 13:26, 23 July 2022 (UTC) reply

Well, I think it was ever thus, that is the nature of the beast, we can't expect people to know how to write an encyclopedia or Wikipedia, we must still continue to insist that they do it right. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 13:42, 23 July 2022 (UTC) reply

I see it getting quite a bit worse in articles relating to current events, perhaps because of media silos that reinforce some editors' casual conclusion that they are well enough informed to differentiate valid content from POV or NOTNEWS. Also, the number of politics-related articles has proliferated to such an extent that the relatively small number of well-informed editors is spread too thin. They are easily overwhelmed by perhaps well-intentioned, perhaps partisan, newcomers. SPECIFICO talk 15:11, 23 July 2022 (UTC) reply

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

Administrator changes

Valereee

Anthony Appleyard ( deceased) • Capitalistroadster • Samsara

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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Let me tell you more about my most recent edit. Instead of changing "Congress" to "the House of Representatives," I considered changing "By late 1864" to "In 1864," and leaving it as "Congress." But I have no evidence that Lincoln lobbied the Senate as he did the House. I have the Holzer and Gabbard book, and the pages cited do not mention the Senate. Neither does another relevant essay in the book.

Also, the book is a collection of essays, and the footnote should cite the essays and then say "in Holzer and Gabbard." I didn't make that edit, because I am not familiar with the abbreviated form of the footnote, and I'd have to redo the footnote in an unabbreviated form. If you'd like to work on this, the essay that includes 172-174 is Belz, Herman, "The Constitution, the Amendment Process, and the Abolition of Slavery." But equally relevant is Vorenberg, Michael, "The Thirteenth Amendment Enacted," pp. 180-182. The entire essay is on 180-194; the entire Belz essay is on 160-179. Maurice Magnus ( talk) 00:28, 13 August 2022 (UTC) reply

I simplified it, the aside is better noted in other articles. As general context (not for this Civil War article) Lincoln was very much keyed to election promises/mandates, he ran on non-expansion of slavery in 1860 and would not bend on that when he won, even to avert the civil war; he ran on the 13th amendment in 1864, and pursued it when he won in November. Also, Lincoln generally ascribed to an older Whiggish institutional philosophy where the law making lead was in the people's legislature, while the executive was more suggestive in that regard (whereas, the suppression of the rebellion power was in the executive). Alanscottwalker ( talk) 15:03, 13 August 2022 (UTC) reply

Please see my comment at Talk:American Civil War - Wikipedia. I posted it moments before CaptainEek edited the article. Maurice Magnus ( talk) 01:10, 27 August 2022 (UTC) reply

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

• The impact report on the effects of disabling IP editing on the Persian (Farsi) Wikipedia has been released.
• The WMF is looking into making a Private Incident Reporting System (PIRS) system to improve the reporting of harmful incidents through easier and safer reporting. You can leave comments on the talk page by answering the questions provided. Users who have faced harmful situations are also invited to join a PIRS interview to share the experience. To sign up please email Madalina Ana.

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

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

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Ten years ago, you were found precious. That's what you are, always. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 06:03, 2 September 2022 (UTC) reply

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Soldiers' Home, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Camp Douglas.

( Opt-out instructions.) -- DPL bot ( talk) 09:18, 4 September 2022 (UTC) reply

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

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, consensus was found that if the rationale for a block depends on information that is not available to all administrators, that information should be sent to the Arbitration Committee, a checkuser or an oversighter for action (as applicable, per ArbCom's recent updated guidance) instead of the administrator making the block.
• Following an RfC, consensus has been found that, in the context of politics and science, the reliability of FoxNews.com is unclear and that additional considerations apply to its use.
• Community comment on the revised Universal Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines is requested until 8 October.

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• Remedy 8.1 of the Muhammad images case will be rescinded 1 November following a motion.
• A modification to the deletion RfC remedy in the Conduct in deletion-related editing case has been made to reaffirm the independence of the RfC and allow the moderators to split the RfC in two.
• The second phase of the 2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Review closes 3 October.

Miscellaneous

• An administrator's account was recently compromised. Administrators are encouraged to check that their passwords are secure, and reminded that ArbCom reserves the right to not restore adminship in cases of poor account security. You can also use two-factor authentication (2FA) to provide an extra level of security.
• Self-nominations for the electoral commission for the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections open 2 October and close 8 October.
• You are invited to comment on candidates in the 2022 CUOS appointments process.
• An RfC is open to discuss whether to make Vector 2022 the default skin on desktop.
• Tech tip: You can do a fuzzy search of all deleted page titles at Special:Undelete.

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An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect 1933 Chicago World´s Fair and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 October 15#1933 Chicago World´s Fair until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. 1234qwer 1234qwer 4 15:13, 15 October 2022 (UTC) reply

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

Guideline and policy news

• The article creation at scale RfC opened on 3 October and will be open until at least 2 November.
• An RfC is open to discuss having open requests for adminship automatically placed on hold after the seven-day period has elapsed, pending closure or other action by a bureaucrat.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 13 November 2022 until 22 November 2022 to stand in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections.
• The arbitration case request titled Athaenara has been resolved by motion.
• The arbitration case Reversal and reinstatement of Athaenara's block has entered the proposed decision stage.
• AmandaNP, Mz7 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2022 Arbitration Committee Elections. Xaosflux and Dr vulpes are reserve commissioners.

Miscellaneous

• The 2022 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process has concluded with the appointment of two new CheckUsers.
• You can add yourself to the centralised page listing time zones of administrators.
• Tech tip: Wikimarkup in a block summary is parsed in the notice that the blockee sees. You can use templates with custom options to specify situations like {{ rangeblock|create=yes}} or {{ uw-ublock|contains profanity}}.

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Thanks again for catching my error; I had forgotten Booth's comment. But any reader who was unfamiliar with the comment or had forgotten it might be confused by Wikipedia first quoting Lincoln advocating Black suffrage and then stating that Booth reacted by wanting to kill Lincoln for supporting Black citizenship. I propose that we change "became determined to kill Lincoln for supporting citizenship for blacks. Booth is reported to have remarked: 'That is the last speech he will ever make'" to "and reacted by saying, 'That means nigger citizenship. Now, by God, I'll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make.'" I would footnote that to Ronald White's A. Lincoln, p. 672. Would you go along with that? Wikipedia quotes "nigger" where appropriate, as I think it is here. Maurice Magnus ( talk) 00:18, 3 November 2022 (UTC) reply

No. I think, it's clear and direct the way it is, and already sourced. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 02:14, 3 November 2022 (UTC) reply

First, I explained why the version you prefer is unclear. To repeat, it jumps without explanation from Lincoln's advocating Black suffrage to Booth's opposition to Black citizenship. You have not attempted to dispute that, but only to assert without offering a reason that it is clear.

Second, you imply that my version is unclear, which is patently false, and you do not explain why it is unclear.

Therefore, I will revert back to my version. Maurice Magnus ( talk) 17:26, 3 November 2022 (UTC) reply

I know that editing wars are frowned upon, so I will not undo your change now. But I intend to pursue this, after I figure out the arbitration procedure, which I've never used. In light of the fact that I offer reasons for my version and you rudely do not, I expect to prevail. Maurice Magnus ( talk) 17:40, 3 November 2022 (UTC) reply

1st, I reverted to the longtstanding version, you made a mistake by reverting back, see BRD. If you don't understand my reasons you can ask and discuss.

2nd: Any reader with a modicum of sense, can see the connection between voting and citzenship. (both in the way the sentences are structured and in substance)

3rd: A simple declarative statement is always more clear. What we are to do here is summarize, simply and straitforwardly. (the point there is simply that someone wanted to kill him for giving that speech, and that's because voting means citizenship, the details of the speech and Booth belong in other articles. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 17:59, 3 November 2022 (UTC) reply

(drive-by commenter) I agree here that the interest of encyclopedic brevity should be served. Any clarity added by the longer quotation is negated by the strong words used by Booth. The longer version of Booth's words seems to belong in Booth's biography, as it serves to characterize Booth's state of mind in more detail. This article talk page concerns Lincoln. Quisqualis ( talk) 20:05, 3 November 2022 (UTC) reply

Please see my comment with the above title at Talk:Abraham Lincoln and slavery. Maurice Magnus ( talk) 13:14, 5 November 2022 (UTC) reply

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

Guideline and policy news

• Consensus has been found in an RfC to automatically place RfAs on hold after one week.
• The article creation at scale RfC has been closed.
• An RfC on the banners for the December 2022 fundraising campaign has been closed.

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 12, 2022 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.
• The proposed decision for the 2021-22 review of the discretionary sanctions system is open.
• The arbitration case Reversal and reinstatement of Athaenara's block has been closed.
• The arbitration case Stephen has been opened and the proposed decision is expected 1 December 2022.
• A motion has modified the procedures for contacting an admin facing Level 2 desysop.

Miscellaneous

• Tech tip: A single IPv6 connection usually has access to a "subnet" of 18 quintillion IPs. Add /64 to the end of an IP in Special:Contributions to see all of a subnet's edits, and consider blocking the whole subnet rather than an IP that may change within a minute.

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This is very common, normal procedure on other articles, as I'm sure you know. It is the 'standard' in a descriptive rather than prescriptive way. You brought to my attention that this is actually contrary to Wikipedia's standards. Would you recommend generally that, if a person's convicted felon status isn't what makes them notable, that information be excluded from the opening paragraph if it is mentioned in the body of the article? Philomathes2357 ( talk) 16:04, 16 December 2022 (UTC) reply

Sure, and not just that, (every subject has some differences), but Fred Hampton's (like other famous people's) biography is already written-up in formal encyclopedia articles, so there is already good guidance for due encyclopedic presentation for such subjects. (As far as me knowing about so-called "normal" procedure, I just can't agree) Alanscottwalker ( talk) 17:00, 16 December 2022 (UTC) reply

Actually I restored it. So far as I can see, Hampton’s charge was dropped, Duke’s was not. A summary of hos article should include the felony. /info/en/?search=David_Duke#Legal_difficulties_and_felony_conviction Doug Weller talk 19:54, 16 December 2022 (UTC) reply

I find only three instances of the word "drop" or "dropped" in Fred Hampton's Wikipedia page, none of which reference his felony charges being dropped. Nor do I find any record of it from any reliable source, or any source at all on Google, Bing, or Yahoo Search. I considered that you meant that Hampton was posthumously pardoned, but I can't find any record of this either.

On the contrary, the USA Today article by Rasha Ali from 13 Feb 2021 entitled "Fact-checking 'Judas and the Black Messiah': Was Fred Hampton drugged or arrested for ice cream?" concludes discussion of the matter by stating "The Black Panther Party leader denied Suitt's accusations and claimed he was denied a fair trial. Regardless, Hampton spent some time in prison.". There is no mention of a later dropping of charges or pardon.

However, the matter was appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court. They upheld the decision of Cook County, and their affirmation is linked below. Either I've made a major oversight, in which case I welcome a citation, or Hampton was never pardoned, and the charges were never dropped.

I'll be happy to see some links to citations if you have them, since the fact Hampton's charges were dropped, if true, is not even mentioned on his Wikipedia page to date. I won't revert the Fred Hampton page back until we've actually sorted out the question of whether his charges were dropped, whether he was pardoned, or not. Of course, if they weren't dropped, it makes no logical sense to include one individual's felon status in their introductory sentence and not another. This fact should either be stated on both Hampton and Duke's opening sentences (as it's stated on the pages of other individuals), or it should be stated in neither. Given the strongly negative connotations of a felony conviction, I err on the side of neither.

https://law.justia.com/cases/illinois/supreme-court/1969/42474-5.html Philomathes2357 ( talk) 04:24, 17 December 2022 (UTC) reply

Hi all. I see that Alanscottwalker took it upon himself to re-revert my edit to the Fred Hampton page, even though nobody has challenged anything I said above. The only reason I took matters into my own hands and edited the page was because I interpreted a lack of communication as tacit agreement - since we're all on the same page that Fred Hampton's convicted felon status was never dropped (unless evidence can be presented) we can agree that it is pertinent, even though it's mentioned later in the article.

Another reason I thought this was agreed upon is that David Duke's page, which I picked at random from a sample of pages that include "convicted felon" in the opening sentence, was reverted when I removed the "convicted felon" piece, suggesting that the consensus was that "convicted felon", if the charges have not been dropped or expunged, is pertinent and important information to include in the introductory sentence.

I cannot see any reason whatsoever beyond raw editorial bias why "convicted felon" should be included in *some* opening sentences, while buried in the body of other bios. Either "convicted felon" should be included in the summary of every individual who's been convicted of a felony, or it's not appropriate to do so, and any criminal background should be relegated to the body of the bio, while leaving the introductory sentence to provide a more general overview of *why* this individual is significant enough to warrant a Wikipedia article.

If anything, you could argue that Hampton's felony conviction is *more* significant than Duke's, since Hampton's incident allegedly involved physical violence and Duke's is tax and finance related. But again, I think a clear policy or rule of thumb needs to be developed on this issue, rather than shooting from the hip and letting the specter of editorial bias sneak in.

I propose to remove the statement "convicted felon" from the opening sentence of David Duke's page, as well as every other page in which similar language is used, unless a person's convicted felon status is a major part of what makes them significant public figures (i.e. Jeffrey Epstein). I believe that is the most reasonable policy in regards to announcing an individual's felon status in the first sentence. If anyone wants to chime in, great, otherwise I'll go forward, and hope for an honest engagement rather than snark and misinformation. Philomathes2357 ( talk) 21:33, 18 December 2022 (UTC) reply

@ Philomathes2357 I see the word felony only once:" In exchange for having his felony charges dropped and receiving a monthly stipend, O'Neal agreed to infiltrate the BPP as a counterintelligence operative.". Doug Weller talk 10:48, 20 December 2022 (UTC) reply

You can't create policy, which is what you seem to be trying to do. I've suggested either an RfC on the talk page or try to get this into BLP, but I doubt that will work as it is so specific. Doug Weller talk 10:52, 20 December 2022 (UTC) reply

Hi Doug, thanks for engaging. As far as I can tell, the quote you just shared about felony charges being dropped refers to O'Neal, the informant, not Hampton. Also, I know I can't snap my fingers and single-handedly create policy, but I'd be happy to go through to proper channels to attempt to do so once something resembling a consensus has been established here. Thanks again for chiming in with some substance. Philomathes2357 ( talk) 16:50, 20 December 2022 (UTC) reply

You are right, nothing in the article said at least directly Hampton was convicted of a felony, and ordinary assault is not a felony. So why is there an issue about felony not being in the lead? Doug Weller talk 17:08, 20 December 2022 (UTC) reply

You're right, the fact that Hampton was convicted of a felony isn't directly mentioned in the article - which is kind of strange, since it's true. He wasn't convicted of "ordinary assault", he was convicted of robbery, which most certainly *is* a felony. I'm glad you pointed out this omission, as it shows that the body of the Hampton article needs work, too. I think the exact charge he was convicted of belongs in the body, but the phrase "convicted felon" shouldn't be in the lead - here or anywhere. Philomathes2357 ( talk) 17:27, 20 December 2022 (UTC) reply

So he was. But unless it’s changed recently, that wasn’t in the article so at that point it shouldn’t have been an issue. But all of this belongs on Duke’s talk page really. Doug Weller talk 17:50, 20 December 2022 (UTC) reply

I think these conversations are best had on Duke's page, Hampton's talk page, and the thread I created at "biographies of living persons". As you'll see, a clear consensus has emerged. Thanks for your input and I look forward to hearing your dissenting opinions on one of those talk pages. I agree, let's stop spamming Alanscottwalker's page, as he clearly has no interest in being engaged on this topic at this time. Will no longer reply to posts on this thread. Philomathes2357 ( talk) 20:31, 20 December 2022 (UTC) reply

Whatever you celebrate at this time of year, whether it's Christmas or some other festival, I hope you and those close to you have a happy, restful time! Have fun, Donner60 ( talk) 00:16, 23 December 2022 (UTC)}} reply

Donner60 ( talk) 02:11, 24 December 2022 (UTC) reply

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

Guideline and policy news

• Speedy deletion criterion A5 (transwikied articles) has been repealed following an unopposed proposal.

Arbitration

• Following the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, CaptainEek, GeneralNotability, Guerillero, L235, Moneytrees, Primefac, SilkTork.
• The 2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Review has concluded with many changes to the discretionary sanctions procedure including a change of the name to "contentious topics". The changes are being implemented over the coming month.
• The arbitration case Stephen has been closed.

Miscellaneous

• Voting for the Sound Logo has closed and the winner is expected to be announced February to April 2023.
• Tech tip: You can view information about IP addresses in a centralised location using bullseye which won the Newcomer award in the recent Coolest Tool Awards.

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Hello [[User:Alanscottwalker|Alanscottwalker]]. I noticed you recently did some copyediting on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange article. I recently posted a request on the article's [ /info/en/?search=Talk:Chicago_Mercantile_Exchange Talk page] concerning the Mergers and Productions sections that I'm hoping you could take a look at. I have a conflict of interest, so I'm not going to be editing the article directly. Any feedback you can provide would be appreciated! ~~~~ Lbischel ( talk) 19:39, 23 January 2023 (UTC) reply

Hi Alanscottwalker, just checking to see if you've had a chance to review the proposed update to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange article's Products section. I replied to your comment and tried to address the timeline issue that you raised. Any additional guidance would be much appreciated. Lbischel ( talk) 17:12, 31 March 2023 (UTC) reply

Hello again, Alanscottwalker. I recently posted a proposal on the CME Group Talk page that attempts to correct conflation between Chicago Mercantile Exchange and CME Group. Would appreciate any feedback you can provide. Lbischel ( talk) 22:14, 17 April 2023 (UTC) reply

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

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, the administrator policy now requires that prior written consent be gained from the Arbitration Committee to mark a block as only appealable to the committee.
• Following a community discussion, consensus has been found to impose the extended-confirmed restriction over the topic areas of Armenia and Azerbaijan and Kurds and Kurdistan.

Technical news

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

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 has been opened and the proposed decision is expected 24 February 2023.
• In December, the contentious topics procedure was adopted which replaces the former discretionary sanctions system. The contentious topics procedure is now in effect following an initial implementation period. There is a detailed summary of the changes and administrator instructions for the new procedure. The arbitration clerk team are taking suggestions, concerns, and unresolved questions about this new system at their noticeboard.

Miscellaneous

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

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

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, F10 (useless non-media files) has been deprecated.
• Following a request for comment, the Portal CSD criteria ( P1 (portal subject to CSD as an article) and P2 (underpopulated portal)) have been deprecated.
• A request for comment is open to discuss making the closing instructions for the requested moves process a guideline.

Technical news

• The results of the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey have been posted.

Arbitration

• Remedy 11 ("Request for Comment") of the Conduct in deletion-related editing case has been rescinded.
• The proposed decision for the Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 case is expected 7 March 2023.
• A case related to the Holocaust in Poland is expected to be opened soon.

Miscellaneous

• The 2023 appointees for the Ombuds commission are AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, JJMC89, MdsShakil, Minorax and Renvoy as regular members and Zabe as advisory members.
• Following the 2023 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Mykola7, Superpes15, and Xaosflux.
• The Terms of Use update cycle has started, which includes a [p]roposal for better addressing undisclosed paid editing. Feedback is being accepted until 24 April 2023.

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Hello Alanscottwalker,

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World War II and the history of Jews in Poland. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World War II and the history of Jews in Poland/Evidence. Please add your evidence by April 04, 2023, which is when the first evidence phase closes. Submitted evidence will be summarized by Arbitrators and Clerks at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World War II and the history of Jews in Poland/Evidence/Summary. Owing to the summary style, editors are encouraged to submit evidence in small chunks sooner rather than more complete evidence later.

Details about the summary page, the two phases of evidence, a timeline and other answers to frequently asked questions can be found at the case's FAQ page.

For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration.

For the Arbitration Committee,
~ ToBeFree ( talk) 00:12, 14 March 2023 (UTC) reply

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

Guideline and policy news

• A community RfC is open to discuss whether reports primarily involving gender-related disputes or controversies should be referred to the Arbitration enforcement noticeboard.

Technical news

• Some older web browsers will not be able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis starting this week. This mainly affects users of Internet Explorer 11. ( T178356)
• The rollback of Vector 2022 RfC has found no consensus to rollback to Vector legacy, but has found rough consensus to disable "limited width" mode by default.
• A link to the user's Special:CentralAuth page will now appear in the subtitle links shown on Special:Contributions. This was voted #17 in the Community Wishlist Survey 2023.

Arbitration

• The Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 case has been closed.
• A case about World War II and the history of Jews in Poland has been opened, with the first evidence phase closing 6 April 2023.

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

• Progress has started on the Page Triage improvement project. This is to address the concerns raised by the community in their 2022 WMF letter that requested improvements be made to the tool.

Arbitration

• The proposed decision in the World War II and the history of Jews in Poland case is expected 11 May 2023.

Miscellaneous

• The Wikimedia Foundation annual plan 2023-2024 draft is open for comment and input through May 19. The final plan will be published in July 2023.

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

• Following a community referendum, the arbitration policy has been modified to remove the ability for users to appeal remedies to Jimbo Wales.

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

Administrator changes

Novem Linguae

• Deckiller
• Electionworld
• MBisanz
• Penwhale
• Raul654
• Roadrunner
• Viridae
• Yannismarou

Bureaucrat changes

MBisanz

Guideline and policy news

• Contributions to the English Wikipedia are now released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0) license instead of CC BY-SA 3.0. Contributions are still also released under the GFDL license.

Technical news

• Discussion is open regarding a proposed global policy regarding third-party resources. Third-party resources are computer resources that reside outside of Wikimedia production websites.

Arbitration

• Two arbitration cases are currently open. Proposed decisions are expected 5 July 2023 for the Scottywong case and 9 July 2023 for the AlisonW case.

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An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Royal Exchange, London, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Neoclassical.

( Opt-out instructions.) -- DPL bot ( talk) 06:05, 7 July 2023 (UTC) reply

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence. Please add your evidence by August 4, 2023, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 13:04, 21 July 2023 (UTC) reply

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

Administrator changes

Firefangledfeathers

• AlisonW
• Amberrock
• Closedmouth
• Scottywong

Interface administrator changes

Novem Linguae

Technical news

• The tag filter on Special:NewPages and revision history pages can now be inverted. This allows hiding edits made by automated tools. ( T334338)
• Special:BlockedExternalDomains is a new tool that allows easier blocking of plain domains (and their subdomains). This is more easily searchable and is faster for the software to use than the existing MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. It does not support regex (for complex cases), URL path-matching, or the MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist. ( T337431)

Arbitration

• The arbitration cases named Scottywong and AlisonW closed 10 July and 16 July respectively.
• The SmallCat dispute arbitration case is in the workshop phase.

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The proposed decision in the SmallCat dispute has been posted. You are invited to review this decision and draw the arbitrators' attention to any relevant material or statements. Comments may be brought to the attention of the committee on the proposed decision talk page. For the Arbitration Committee, Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 10:53, 23 August 2023 (UTC) reply

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

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

• Special:Contributions now shows the user's local edit count and the account's creation date. ( T324166)

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

• Tech tip: The "Browse history interactively" banner shown at the top of Special:Diff can be used to easily look through a history, assemble composite diffs, or find out what archive something wound up in.

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An automated process has detected that when you recently edited McLean House (Appomattox, Virginia), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Union.

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 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) § RfC on the "Airlines and destinations" tables in airport articles. I saw that you participated in a discussion on a similar topic. Sunnya343 ( talk) 17:51, 8 October 2023 (UTC) reply

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited National Bureau of Economic Research, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Carnegie Foundation.

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

Administrator changes

0xDeadbeef

Tamzin

Dennis Brown

Interface administrator changes

Pppery

• Ragesoss
• TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

• The WMF is working on making it possible for administrators to edit MediaWiki configuration directly. This is similar to previous work on Special:EditGrowthConfig. A technical RfC is running until November 08, where you can provide feedback.
• There is a proposed plan for re-enabling the Graph Extension. Feedback on this proposal is requested.

Arbitration

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

Miscellaneous

• The Articles for Creation backlog drive is happening in November 2023, with 700+ drafts pending reviews for in the last 4 months or so. In addition to the AfC participants, all administrators and New Page Patrollers can conduct reviews using the helper script, Yet Another AFC Helper Script, which can be enabled in the Gadgets settings. Sign up here to participate!

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...but please do not edit war, as you are currently doing at Ida B. Wells. [8] [9] I ask you to self-revert pending a new consensus and instead engage substantively on the talk page. Generalrelative ( talk) 22:40, 13 November 2023 (UTC) reply

If you're going to insist that edits like this remain in articles, you are responsible for cleaning them up. That edit not only added many sources that aren't appropriate for that article but also added categories and a template that is already in the article or also inappropriate. You've taken responsibility for the material so I expect you'll clean them up yourself. ElKevbo ( talk) 14:54, 24 November 2023 (UTC) reply

Incorrect. Per Wikipedia's MOS, templates that are in the article are appropriate where as here, the citation section is very long. And you're the only one who knows what you think about various sources with the vague personal phrase 'appropriate', as a matter of the MOS and Preserve -- so it is incumbent on you to edit in not delete but do not remove any just because they are also in the long citation section. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 15:06, 24 November 2023 (UTC) reply

If you are talking about other templates than cite templates (which you did not mention in your edit summary), I have removed those from the section, which could have easily been done by you with an actually informative edit summary, without your mistaken wholesale deletion. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 15:21, 24 November 2023 (UTC) reply

Please keep an eye on the Baptists article. Nathan B2 has made many changes that remove important links (like those to Christian denomination) from the article. There seems to be an effort to put all Baptists under the umbrella of evangelicalism when there are mainline Baptist denominations, such as the American Baptist Churches USA. desmay ( talk) 18:36, 28 November 2023 (UTC) reply

Hello Desmay ( talk · contribs) and Alanscottwalker ( talk · contribs). I continued the conversation here Talk:Baptists#Association_of_churches.Thanks for your help. My best wishes of peace and love ( Wikipedia:WikiLove).-- Nathan B2 ( talk) 15:03, 4 December 2023 (UTC) reply

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

Guideline and policy news

• Following a talk page discussion, the Administrators' accountability policy has been updated to note that while it is considered best practice for administrators to have notifications (pings) enabled, this is not mandatory. Administrators who do not use notifications are now strongly encouraged to indicate this on their user page.

Arbitration

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

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

Arbitration

• Following the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Aoidh, Cabayi, Firefly, HJ Mitchell, Maxim, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720.
• Following a motion, the Arbitration Committee rescinded the restrictions on the page name move discussions for the two Ireland pages that were enacted in June 2009.
• The arbitration case Industrial agriculture has been closed.

Miscellaneous

• The New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in January 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 13,000 unreviewed articles awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!

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The plan has actually all the letters but the letter K, indicating the Henry VIII gate, is black on dark brown and black and almost impossible to see. I tried to download the original, unlettered, diagram to redo the lettering but don't appear to be able to. It really needs a new version to include the East Terrace but that is beyond my graphics abilities. Murgatroyd49 ( talk) 17:13, 14 January 2024 (UTC) reply

Thanks, yes, I found the K (and the O) after my comment. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 17:16, 14 January 2024 (UTC) reply

I've managed to relable it, I was trying to drag it direct into photoshop, which doesn't accept svg files! Strangely it now appears in the colours indicated in the alt parameter, not sure how. I also tried to add a letter for the East Terrace but it doesn't display. Murgatroyd49 ( talk) 17:56, 14 January 2024 (UTC) reply

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Administrator Conduct Case 2024-1: Mzajac. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Administrator Conduct Case 2024-1: Mzajac/Evidence. Please add your evidence by January 30, 2024, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Administrator Conduct Case 2024-1: Mzajac/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 17:55, 16 January 2024 (UTC) reply

As described at length in my edit summary at this edit for the article for Marble Hill, Manhattan, there is no Harlem Ship Canal. Harlem Ship Canal is a redirect to Spuyten Duyvil Creek which says "Today, Spuyten Duyvil Creek, the Harlem River Ship Canal, and the Harlem River form a continuous channel, referred to collectively as the Harlem River". The article for Harlem River says that is "flowing between the Hudson River and the East River", which covers the same definition as provided in the article for Spuyten Duyvil Creek. As a compromise in the Marble Hill article, I refer in the image caption to the body of water as the Harlem River and mention in as the long-ago site of the Harlem Ship Canal. I hope that serves as a satisfactory alternative. Alansohn ( talk) 16:54, 24 January 2024 (UTC) reply

None of you what wrote demonstrates there is "no Harlem Ship Canal". Just because the Harlem River also exists, in no way means that the Harlem Ship Canal does not exist. Indeed, that claim of yours is complete nonsense. As already discussed on the article talk page, the canal does exist and its what's in the picture of Marble Hill. The canal has existed ever since it was dug, and it exists today, it's never moved. The Harlem Ship Canal, the man-made channel south of Marble Hill, that separates it from Manhattan, is very much completely still there. And where it is today, is practically the most important thing that explains Marble Hill, Manhattan (like why it's part of Manhattan). Alanscottwalker ( talk) 18:59, 24 January 2024 (UTC) reply

While I firmly disagree, what I am asking is are willing to accept the compromise wording added to the caption in the article? Alansohn ( talk) 03:15, 25 January 2024 (UTC) reply

Other than your fanciful nonsense about a canal disappearing, your bogus reliance on broad unsourced Wikipedia statements (read Wikipedia is not a reliable source) to jump to your fanciful nonsense (which do not support your preposterous conclusion, anyway), and that the caption is rather less efficient than when it gets straight to the canal, which is what is relevant to the neighborhood - I've edited compromise in. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 14:45, 25 January 2024 (UTC) reply

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2024).

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC about increasing the inactivity requirement for Interface administrators is open for feedback.

Technical news

• Pages that use the JSON contentmodel will now use tabs instead of spaces for auto-indentation. This will significantly reduce the page size. ( T326065)

Arbitration

• Following a motion, the Arbitration Committee adopted a new enforcement restriction on January 4, 2024, wherein the Committee may apply the 'Reliable source consensus-required restriction' to specified topic areas.
• Community feedback is requested for a draft to replace the "Information for administrators processing requests" section at WP:AE.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2024 Steward elections will begin on 06 February 2024, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 27 February 2024, 14:00 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• A vote to ratify the charter for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is open till 2 February 2024, 23:59:59 (UTC) via Secure Poll. All eligible voters within the Wikimedia community have the opportunity to either support or oppose the adoption of the U4C Charter and share their reasons. The details of the voting process and voter eligibility can be found here.
• Community Tech has made some preliminary decisions about the future of the Community Wishlist Survey. In summary, they aim to develop a new, continuous intake system for community technical requests that improves prioritization, resource allocation, and communication regarding wishes. Read more
• The Unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in February 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with {{ Unreferenced}}. You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!

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An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Motte-and-bailey castle, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Bailey.

( Opt-out instructions.) -- DPL bot ( talk) 06:02, 18 February 2024 (UTC) reply

MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 15:20, 22 February 2024 (UTC) reply

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2024).

Guideline and policy news

• Phase I of the 2024 RfA review is now open for participation. Editors are invited to review, comment on, and propose improvements to the requests for adminship process.
• Following an RfC, the inactivity requirement for the removal of the interface administrator right increased from 6 months to 12 months.

Technical news

• The mobile site history pages now use the same HTML as the desktop history pages. ( T353388)

Miscellaneous

• The 2024 appointees for the Ombuds commission are だ＊ぜ, AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Doǵu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, MdsShakil, Minorax, Nehaoua, Renvoy and RoySmith as members, with Vermont serving as steward-observer.
• Following the 2024 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Ajraddatz, Albertoleoncio, EPIC, JJMC89, Johannnes89, Melos and Yahya.

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Hello Alanscottwalker,

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conflict of interest management. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conflict of interest management/Evidence. Please add your evidence by March 20, 2024, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conflict of interest management/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration.

For the Arbitration Committee,
~ ToBeFree ( talk) 20:03, 6 March 2024 (UTC) reply

IgnatiusofLondon (he/him • ☎️) 11:56, 1 April 2024 (UTC) reply

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2024).

Administrator changes

• Kbdank71
• Kosack
• NrDg
• TLSuda

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open to convert all current and future community discretionary sanctions to (community designated) contentious topics procedure.

Technical news

• The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes. ( T313405)

Arbitration

• An arbitration case has been opened to look into "the intersection of managing conflict of interest editing with the harassment (outing) policy".

Miscellaneous

• Editors are invited to sign up for The Core Contest, an initiative running from April 15 to May 31, which aims to improve vital and other core articles on Wikipedia.

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