So, after being denied rollback twice and starting to get kicked from irc(was trying to request oversight) I am feeling like that the community is no longer appreciating my efforts on wikipedia and are considering me as a hassle to deal with.
Sysops willonce again be able to view the deleted history of JS/CSS pages; this was restricted tointerface administrators when that group was introduced.
Twinkle's block module now includes the ability to note the specific case when applying adiscretionary sanctions block and/or template.
HI The creeper2007, I'm writing to let you know we have simplified theRfC on trust levels for the tool WikiLoop DoubleCheck. Please join and share your thoughts about this feature! We made this change after hearing users' comments on the first RfC being too complicated. I hope that you can participate this time around, giving your feedback on this new feature for WikiLoop DoubleCheck users. Thanks and see you around online, María Cruz MediaWiki message delivery (talk)20:05, 19 November 2020 (UTC)[reply] If you would like to update your settings to change the wiki where you receive these messages, please do sohere.
Hello! Voting in the2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. Alleligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
TheArbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting theWikipedia 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 imposesite bans,topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. Thearbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
Voting for proposals in the2021 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 regardingadministrators andanti-harassment.
Bymotion,standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarilyauthorizedfor all pages relating to theHorn 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).
Arequest for comment is open that proposes a process for the community to revoke administrative permissions. This follows a2019 RfC in favor of creating one such a policy.
Arequest for comment is in progress to removeF7 (invalid fair-use claim)subcriterion a, which covers immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
Arequest for comment asks if sysops mayplace the General sanctions/Coronavirus disease 2019 editnotice template on pages in scope that do not have page-specific sanctions?
When blocking an IPv6 address withTwinkle, there is now a checkbox with the option tojust 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 atWP:RfPP, and even link to the specific revision.
Bymotion, thediscretionary sanctions originally authorized under theGamerGate case arenow authorized under a newGender and sexuality case, with sanctionsauthorized 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.
Thank you for supporting Project WikiLoop! The year 2020 was an unprecedented one. It was unusual for almost everyone. In spite of this, Project WikiLoop continued the hard work and made some progress that we are proud to share with you. We also wanted to extend a big thank you for your support, advice, contributions and love that make all this possible.
Thank you for taking the time to review Wikipedia usingWikiLoop DoubleCheck. Your work is important and it matters to everyone. We look forward to continuing our collaboration through 2021!
Following arequest 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 arequest for comment,page movers were granted thedelete-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 ajob queue problem. (T278350)
Code to support some very oldweb browsers is being removed. This could cause issues in those browsers. (T277803)
The user groupoversight will be renamed tosuppress. This is fortechnical reasons. You can comment atT112147 if you have objections.
Arbitration
Thecommunity consultation on the Arbitration Committeediscretionary 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.
Wikimedia previously used theIRC networkFreenode. However, due to changes over who controlled the network with reports of a forceful takeover by several ex-staff members, theWikimedia IRC Group Contacts decided to move to the newLibera 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 amigration guide and Wikimediadiscussions about this.
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 atWP:REFUND even after the namespace is removed.
AnRfC is open to discuss the next steps following a trial which automatically applied pending changes toTFAs.
Technical news
IP addresses of unregistered users are tobe hidden from everyone. There is a rough draft of howIP 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 welcomedat the talk page.
Arbitration
The community authorisedCOVID-19 general sanctions have been superseded by theCOVID-19 discretionary sanctions following amotion 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.
AnRfC is open to add a delay of one week from nomination to deletion forG13 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 regeneratingdynamic lists on the Russian Wikinews after a large bulk import. (T287380)
Adiscussion is open to decide when, if ever, should discord logs be eligible for removal when posted onwiki (including whether to oversight them)
ARfC on the next steps after the trial ofpending changes onTFAs 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 themediawiki page.
Arbitration
A request for comment is in progress to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures ofthe Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules. Comments and new proposals are welcome.
Followingan RfC, extended confirmed protection may be used preemptively on certainhigh-risk templates.
Followinga 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.
Amotion has standardised the 500/30 (extended confirmed) restrictions placed by the Arbitration Committee. The standardised restriction is now listed inthe Arbitration Committee's procedures.
Following the closure of theIranian politics case, standard discretionary sanctionsare authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, post-1978 Iranian politics, broadly construed.
The Arbitration Committeeencourages 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
Editorshave 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 toadd themselves to the mentor list.
Thecommunity consultation phase of the 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process is open for editors to provide comments and ask questions to candidates.
Phase 2 of the 2021RfA review has commenced which will discuss potential solutions to address the 8 issuesfound in Phase 1. Proposed solutions that achieve consensus will be implemented and you may propose solutions till 07 November 2021.
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)
The already authorized standarddiscretionary sanctions for all pages relating to theHorn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes), broadly construed,have been made permanent.
Following consensus at the2021 RfA review, the autopatrolled user righthas been removed from the administrators user group; admins can grant themselves the autopatrolled permission if they wish to remain autopatrolled.
Thefunctionaries 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 tothe Arbitration Committee.
The user groupoversight will be renamedsuppress 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 fortechnical reasons. You can commentin 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 relevantVillage Pump discussion.
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 atWikipedia talk:Talk pages project. (T296645)
Access toSpecial:RevisionDelete has been expanded to include users who have thedeletelogentry anddeletedhistory rights. This means that those in theResearcher user group andCheckusers who are not administrators can now accessSpecial: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 onSpecial:Undelete a back link to the undelete page for the associated page is now present. (T284114)
News from the WMF:How Smart is the SMART Copyright Act? The deceptively simple Strengthening Measures to Advance Rights Technologies Copyright Act of 2022.
Following anRfC, a change has been made to theadministrators 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.
A public status system for WMF wikis has been created. It is located athttps://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 theSt Christopher case has been rescinded following amotion. The remedy previously authorised administrators to place a ban on single-purpose accounts who were disruptively editing on the articleSt Christopher Iba Mar Diop College of Medicine or related pages from those pages.
Administrators using the mobile web interface can now accessSpecial:Block directly from user pages. (T307341)
TheIP Info feature has beendeployed to all wikis as a Beta Feature. Any autoconfirmed user may enable the feature using the "IP info" checkbox underPreferences →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.
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 ishere. For further information on the state of the project, see the latestNPP newsletter.
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.
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 requestGeschichte has been automatically closed after a 3 month suspension of the case.
Miscellaneous
You can vote for candidates in the2022 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 listedhere. There are also a number ofin-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.
From the archives:5, 10, and 15 years ago The Signpost looks back onThe Signpost: New reports, conceived in a spirit of collaboration, and dedicated to the proposition of information and, uh, more information for all.
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 whetherFox News isreliable 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 aPrivate 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 thequestions provided. Users who have faced harmful situations are also invited to join a PIRS interview to share the experience. To sign upplease emailMadalina Ana.
Arbitration
An arbitration case regardingConduct in deletion-related editing has been closed. The Arbitration Committeepassed 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 requestJonathunder 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 theopen letter before it is sent, and if you support it, consider signing it. It is not a discussion, just a signature will suffice.
Following an RfC, consensus has been found that, in the context of politics and science, the reliability ofFoxNews.com is unclear and that additional considerations apply to its use.
TheArticles for creation helper script now automatically recognises administrator accounts which means your name does not need to be listed atWP:AFCP to help out. If you wish to help out at AFC, enable AFCH by navigating toPreferences →Gadgets and checking the "Yet Another AfC Helper Script" box.
Arbitration
Remedy 8.1 of theMuhammad images case will be rescinded 1 November following amotion.
AnRfC is open to discuss having openrequests for adminship automatically placed on hold after the seven-day period has elapsed, pending closure or other action by abureaucrat.
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}}.
In the media:"The most beautiful story on the Internet" Ineffective altruism, return of the toaster, Jess Wade keeps wading through it, Russia censors searches, schools embrace Wikipedia.
Book review:Writing the Revolution Heather Ford's new volume on Wikipedia, knowledge and power in the 2011 Egyptian revolution.
Technology report:Galactic dreams, encyclopedic reality Facebook's Galactica demo provides a case study in large language models for text generation at scale: this one was silly, but we cannot ignore them forever.
Essay:The Six Million FP Man Okay, six hundred, but either way, the bionic editor speaks.
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 theVector 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 thewide-vector-2022 gadget. (T319449)
Arbitration
Eligible users are invited tovote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 12, 2022 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seenhere.
Tech tip: A single IPv6 connection usually has access to a "subnet" of 18 quintillion IPs. Add/64 to the end of an IP inSpecial:Contributions to see all of a subnet's edits, andconsider blocking the whole subnet rather than an IP that may change within a minute.
Featured content:Would you like to swing on a star? You head into the featured content report. Amongst the features you see astronauts, both Gilbert and Sullivan, Ursula K. Le Guin's incredibly talented mother, andBillboard charts. It is pitch black, you are likely to be eaten by a grue.
From the archives:Five, ten, and fifteen years ago Photographers, Sandy Hook, the shocking use of Nazi symbols in articles about Nazis, and "You wouldn't recognise a fact if it bit you in the ass".
Voting for theSound 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 usingbullseye which won the Newcomer award in the recentCoolest Tool Awards.
Voting in the2023 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.
Disinformation report:The "largest con in corporate history"? Gautam Adani and his companies possibly behind scheme featuring scores of socks, infiltration of articles for creation process.
TheTerms of Use update cycle has started, whichincludes a[p]roposal for better addressing undisclosed paid editing. Feedback is being accepted until 24 April 2023.
Therollback 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.
In the media:Contested truth claims in Wikipedia Covering Russia, Poland, the Vatican, the U.S., and the "perilously thin" boundary between real life and Wikipedia.
Obituary:Remembering David "DGG" Goodman The prolific editor, former Arbitration Committee member and co-founder of Wikimedia New York City died in April.
Special report:Signpost statistics between years 2005 and 2022 In this article, we will look atThe Signpost statistics. More precisely:Signpost article statistics by year, TOP 20 titles ofSignpost articles, TOP 20 article authors, and the home wikis of article authors.
News from the WMF:Collective planning with the Wikimedia Foundation First of a two part series summarising the priorities for the Wikimedia Foundation's next fiscal year (July 2022–June 2023) including staffing, budget and other changes, and how to provide your feedback.
Arequest for comment about removing administrative privileges in specified situations is open for feedback.
Technical news
Progress has started on thePage Triage improvement project. This is to address the concerns raised by the community in their2022 WMF letter that requested improvements be made to the tool.
News from the WMF:Planning together with the Wikimedia Foundation The second article in a series describing the priorities and work of the Wikimedia Foundation. The article invites Wikimedians to collaborate with the Foundation.
Traffic report:Coronation, chatbot, celebs Celebs and Bollywood film dominated reader interest, as usual, but with a new persistent presence on the lists of a certain AI.
Followingan RfC, editors indefinitely site-banned bycommunity consensus will now have all rights, including sysop, removed.
As a part of the Wikimedia Foundation'sIP Masking project, anew policy has been created that governs the access to temporary account IP addresses. Anassociated 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 ofIP masking. IP masking will not be deployed to any content wiki untilat least October 2023 and is unlikely to be deployed to the English Wikipedia until some time in 2024.
Arbitration
The arbitration caseWorld 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.
Cobwebs:Getting serious about writing The innards of the Signpost received a major overhaul in March/April 2019. Here's how we reduced behind-the-scenes busywork and improved writers resources.
Followingan RfC,TFAs will be automatically semi-protected the day before it is on the main page and through the day after.
A discussion atWP:VPP about revision deletion and oversight fordead 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.
TheSmallCat dispute case has closed. As part of the final decision, editors participating inXfD have been reminded to be careful about forminglocal consensus which may or may not reflect the broader community consensus. Regular closers ofXfD forums were also encouraged tonote 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 ofSpecial:Diff can be used to easily look through a history, assemble composite diffs, or find out what archive something wound up in.
Featured content:By your logic, The first issue to feature two poetry article
Concept:Wikipedia policies from other worlds: WP:NOANTLERS Material must be written with the greatest care and attention; the level of detail and commentary regarding the antlers of living persons is to be kept to a minimum.
Followinga motion, the contentious topic designation ofPrem Rawat has been struck. Actions previously taken using this contentious topic designation are still in force.
Followingseveral motions, multiple topic areas are no longer designated as a contentious topic. These contentious topic designations were from theEditor conduct in e-cigs articles,Liancourt Rocks,Longevity,Medicine,September 11 conspiracy theories, andShakespeare authorship question cases.
Followinga motion, remedies 3.1 (All related articles under 1RR whenever the dispute over naming is concerned), 6 (Stalemate resolution) and 30 (Administrative supervision) of theMacedonia 2 case have been rescinded.
Followinga motion, remedy 6 (One-revert rule) of theThe Troubles case has been amended.
An arbitration case namedIndustrial agriculture has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case close 8 November.
Miscellaneous
TheArticles 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 inthe Gadgets settings.Sign up here to participate!
Comix:Bold comics for a new age "I think we ought to read only the kind of comics that wound or stab us. If the comic we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for?" — Franz Kafka
Featured content:Real gangsters move in silence Quite literally, and other fascinating featured articles, pictures and lists
Traffic report:And it's hard to watch some cricket, in the cold November Rain If you don't fancy the sport that occupies over 25% of the slots in these lists, there's always movies, celebrities, and political follies to fall back on – or an unusual fired-for-the-weekend CEO.
Humour:Mandy Rice-Davies Applies This page in a nutshell: Whether or not someone has denied unsavory allegations — though such a denial may not merit being given equal weight in an article — a worthless shitpost should still be included.
Following atalk page discussion, theAdministrators' accountability policy has been updated to note that while it is considered best practice for administrators to havenotifications (pings) enabled, this is not mandatory. Administrators who do not use notifications are now strongly encouraged to indicate this on their user page.
Arbitration
Followinga motion, theExtended 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 hasannounced 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.
Crossword:when the crossword is sus The Signpost Crossword is a 2018 online multiplayer social deduction game that takes place in space-themed settings where players are colorful, armless cartoon astronauts.
BJAODN:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense Edit summary: "Only need this page for about 30 minutes to demonstrate to a friend how easy it is to create a Wikipedia page. Then it will be deleted."
Following amotion, the Arbitration Committee rescinded the restrictions on the page name move discussions for the two Ireland pages that wereenacted in June 2009.
From the editor:NINETEEN MORE YEARS! NINETEEN MORE YEARS! The Signpost can now drink beer and chant slogans in Canada. What slogans should we chant for the next nineteen years?
News and notes:In other news ... see ya in court! Let the games begin! The 2024 WikiCup is off to a strong start. With copyright enforcement, AI training and freedom of expression, it's another typical week in the wiki-sphere!
WikiProject report:WikiProjects Israel and Palestine What are the editorial processes behind covering some of the most politically polarizing and contentious topics on English Wikipedia?
Comix:We've all got to start somewhere Writing a good subheading for a one-sentence joke is basically like writing an entire second joke so I'm not going to do it.
AnRfC 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 amotion, 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 isrequested for a draft to replace the "Information for administrators processing requests" section atWP:AE.
A vote toratify the charter for theUniversal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is open till 2 February 2024, 23:59:59 (UTC) viaSecure 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 foundhere.
Community Tech has made some preliminary decisions about the future of theCommunity 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 Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes. (T313405)
Arbitration
Anarbitration case has been opened to look into "the intersection of managing conflict of interest editing with the harassment (outing) policy".
Miscellaneous
Editors are invited tosign up forThe Core Contest, an initiative running from April 15 to May 31, which aims to improvevital and other core articles on Wikipedia.
WikiConference report:WikiConference North America 2023 in Toronto recap Outcomes of the event including newly published videos and photos, the archived conference website and program, and some attendee reflections on its significance.
Partial action blocks are now in effect on the English Wikipedia. This means that administrators have the ability to restrict users from certain actions, including uploading files, moving pages and files, creating new pages, and sending thanks.T280531
In the media:War and information in war and politics Advocacy organizations, a journalist, mycophobes, conservatives, leftists, photographers, and a disinformation task force imagine themselves in Wikipedia.
Local administrators can now add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without using JavaScript.Documentation is available on MediaWiki. (T6086)
Essay:Reflections on editing and obsession A lost Signpost submission from fifteen years ago brought into the light, as good and true now as it was then.
Users wishing to permanently leave may now request "vanishing" viaSpecial:GlobalVanishRequest. Processed requests will result in the user being renamed, their recovery email being removed, and their account being globally locked.
Following anRfC, there is a newcriterion for speedy deletion:C4, whichapplies to unused maintenance categories, such as empty dated maintenance categories for dates in the past.
The arbitration caseHistorical Elections is currently open. Proposed decision is expected by 3 September 2024 for this case.
Miscellaneous
Editors can now enter intogood article review circles, an alternative for informalquid pro quo arrangements, to have aGAN reviewed in return for reviewing a different editor's nomination.
Serendipity:A Wikipedian at the 2024 Paralympics User Hawkeye7 opens up on his experience as a media representative following the Australian team at the latest Summer Paralympics in Paris.
Opinion:asilvering's RfA debriefing User asilvering reflects on their recent successful request for adminship.
News and notes:Are you ready for admin elections? More changes to RfA on the way in October, final results for the U4C elections revealed, and other news from the Wikimedia world.
Followinga discussion, the speedy deletion reason "File pages without a corresponding file" has been moved from criterionG8 toF2. This does not change what can be speedily deleted.
In the media:Off to the races! Wikipedia wins! Perplexing persistence, pay to play, potential president's possible plagiarism, crossword crossover to culture, and a wish come true!
Mass deletions done with theNuke tool now have the 'Nuke' tag. This change will make reviewing and analyzing deletions performed with the tool easier.T366068
From the editors:Editing Wikipedia should not be a crime But not everybody is able to legally read Wikipedia, and not everybody is able to legally edit Wikipedia.
Followingan RFC, thepolicy on restoration of adminship has been updated. All former administrators may now only regain the tools following a request at theWikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard within 5 years of their most recent admin action. Previously this applied only to administrators deysopped for inactivity.
Following arequest for comment, a new speedy deletion criterion,T5, has been enacted. This applies to template subpages that are no longer used.
Traffic report:SomethingWicked for almost everybody Fighting and killing – on screen, in politics, and in the ring – competes for attention with Disney.
News and notes:Responsibilities and liabilities as a "Very Large Online Platform" What the VLOP – findings of an outside auditor for "responsibilization" of Wikipedia. Plus, new EU Commissioners for tech policy, WLE 2024 winners, and a few other bits of news from the Wikipedia world.
Arequest for comment is open to discuss whether admins should be advised to warn users rather than issue no-warning blocks to those who have posted promotional content outside of article space.
Technical news
The Nuke feature also nowprovides links to the userpage of the user whose pages were deleted, and to the pages which were not selected for deletion, after page deletions are queued. This enables easier follow-up admin-actions.
Administrators can nownuke pages created by a user or IP address from the last 90 days, up from the initial 30 days.T380846
A 'Recreated' tag will now be added to pages that were created with the same title as a page which was previously deleted and it can be used as a filter inSpecial:RecentChanges andSpecial:NewPages.T56145
News and notes:Let's talk! The WMF executive team delivers a new update; plus, the latest EU policy report, good-bye to the German Wikipedia's Café, and other news from the Wikimedia world.
Community view:24th Wikipedia Day in New York City Wikimedians and newbies celebrate 24 years of Wikipedia in the Brooklyn Central Library. Special guests Stephen Harrison and Clay Shirky joined in conversation.
Traffic report:A wild drive The start of the year was filled with a few unfortunate losses, tragic disasters, emerging tech forces and A LOT of politics.
Technology report:Hear that? The wikis go silent twice a year From patrolling new edits to uploading photos or joining a campaign, you can count on the Wikimedia platform to be up and running — in your language, anywhere in the world. That is, except for a couple of minutes during the equinoctes.
Opinion:Sennecaster's RfA debriefing User Sennecaster shares her thoughts on her recent RfA and the aspects that might have played a role in making it successful.
Arequest for comment is open to discuss whether AI-generated images (meaning those wholly created by generative AI, not human-created images modified with AI tools) should be banned from use in articles.
A new filter has been added to theSpecial:Nuke tool, which allows administrators to filter for pages in a range of page sizes (in bytes). This allows, for example, deleting pages only of a certain size or below.T378488
Non-administrators can now check which pages are able to be deleted using theSpecial:Nuke tool.T376378
News from the WMF:Product & Tech Progress on the Annual Plan A look at some product and tech highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation's Annual Plan (July–December 2024).
An RfC was closed with consensus to allow editors to opt-out of seeing "sticky decorative elements". Such elements should now be wrapped in{{sticky decoration wrapper}}. Editors who wish to opt out can follow the instructions atWP:STICKYDECO.
An RfC has resulted ina broad prohibition on the use of AI-generated images in articles. A few common-sense exceptions are recognized.
AnArticles for Creation backlog drive is happening in June 2025, with over 1,600 drafts awaiting review from the past two months. In addition to AfC participants, all administrators and new page patrollers can help review using the Yet Another AFC Helper Script, which can be enabled in theGadgets settings.Sign up here to participate!
Administrator elections will take place this month. Administrator elections are an alternative toRFA that is a gentler process for candidates due to secret voting and multiple people running together. The call for candidates is July 9–15, the discussion phase is July 18–22, and the voting phase is July 23–29. Get ready to submit your candidacy, or (with their consent) to nominate a talented candidate!
Followinga request for comment, there isa new policy outlining the granting of permissions to view the IP addresses oftemporary accounts. Temporary account deployment on the English Wikipedia is currently scheduled for September 2025, and editors canrequest access to the permission ahead of time. Admins are encouraged to keep an eye on the request page; there will likely be a flood of editors requesting the permission when they realize they can no longer see IP addresses.
South Asia (WP:CT/SA) is designated acontentious topic. The topic area is specifically defined asAll pages related to the region ofSouth Asia (India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal), broadly construed, including but not limited to history, politics, ethnicity, and social groups.
Wikimania 2025 is happening inNairobi,Kenya, and online from August 6 to August 9. This year marks 20 years ofWikimania. Interested users can join the online event. Registration for the virtual event is free and will remain open throughout Wikimania. You canregister here now.
An RfC is open on whether use ofemojis with no encyclopedic value in mainspace and draftspace (e.g., at the start of paragraphs or in place of bullet points) should be added as a criterion underG15.
An RfC is in progress to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
Aftera motion, arbitration enforcement page protections no longer need to be logged in the AELOG. A bot now automatically posts protections atWP:AELOG/P. To facilitate this bot, protection summaries must include a link to the relevant CT page (e.g.[[WP:CT/BLP]]), and you will receive talk page reminders if you forget to specify the contentious topic but otherwise indicate it is an AE action.
Traffic report:One click after another Serial-killer miniseries, deceased scientist, government shutdowns and Sandalwood hit "Kantara" crowd the tubes.
Starting on November 4, the IP addresses of logged-out editors are no longer being publicly displayed. Instead, they will have atemporary account associated with their edits.
Administrators will now find thatSpecial:MergeHistory is now significantly more flexible about what it can merge. It can now merge sections taken from the middle of the history of the source (rather than only the start) and insert revisions anywhere in the history of the destination page (rather than only the start).T382958
AnArticles for Creation backlog drive is happening in December 2025, with over 1,000 drafts awaiting review from the past two months. In addition to AfC participants, all administrators and new page patrollers can help review using the Yet Another AFC Helper Script, which can be enabled in theGadgets settings.Sign up here to participate!
Changes to theAccess to Temporary Account IP Addresses Policy's disclosure rules include broadening the consecutive-blocks exception to cover all admin actions and removing the requirement to revision-delete permissible disclosures once they become unnecessary (instead requiring only their removal). SeeWP:TAIVDISCLOSE for more information.
Due to the result of a recentmotion, a rough consensus of administrators at thearbitration enforcement noticeboard may impose an expanded topic ban on Israel, Israelis, Jews, Judaism, Palestine, Palestinians, Islam, and/or Arabs, if an editor'sArab-Israeli conflict topic ban is determined to be insufficient to prevent disruption. At least one diff per area expanded into should be cited.
Administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Guideline and policy news
Arbitration
Ajpolino •LuK3
Jackmcbarn
Ad Orientem •Harej •Lid •Lomn •Mentoz86 •Oliver Pereira •XJaM
There'sNoTime →TheresNoTime
Technical news
Miscellaneous
Interface administrator changes
lists.wikimedia.org) will no longer accept incoming emails apart from those sent by list members and WMF staff. Private concerns, apart from those requiring oversight, should be directly sent tothe Arbitration Committee.
Oversighter changes
Bureaucrat changes
Enable theuser info card