User talk:GeneralNotability/Archives/2021/September

The Downlink – September 2021
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:25, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Feedback request: Engineering and technology Good Article nomination
Your feedback is requested &#32;at Talk:Windsor Gardens station&#32; on a "Engineering and technology" Good Article nomination. Thank you for helping out! You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name. Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) &#124; Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. &#124; Sent at 23:31, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

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LittleCuteSuit (talk) 06:00, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for getting this looked into. If anything else related to this comes up, I'll let you know as well. All the best! LittleCuteSuit (talk) 19:04, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Out of curiosity...
...how would an admin edit/remove a tag? I tried revdel and that didn't work. It is inconceivable that I would be right and you would be wrong about a technical matter, so I have no doubt you're correct. But how? --Floquenbeam (talk) 13:10, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
 * update: I can see how I can removed ALL instances of a given tag (if it has less than 5000 uses), but can't find any documentation about this case. I should also make clear I'm not going to do it for this one user even if it is possible unless there is some kind of consensus (which I don't see happening), this is just to improve my understanding. --Floquenbeam (talk) 13:16, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , if you pull up a page's history, there's a button for "edit tags of selected revisions" next to "change visibility of selected revisions," it works just like revdel - opens up a special page where you can edit the tags associated with the selected batch of edits. now have a look at the tags of the edit where you added this section . GeneralNotability (talk) 13:25, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
 * So what you're saying is, that big giant button has been there for years, and I never noticed it? Sigh. Anyway, thanks, that answers the question. (And I no longer appear to be a bot).  My mistake was thinking it could be done from the page of the actual diff, or the contribs page.  I'll go amend my ANI comment. Thanks. --Floquenbeam (talk) 13:31, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I never noticed it, either. —valereee (talk) 15:59, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2021).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Jake Wartenberg
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Emperor • Viridian Bovary
 * Pictogram voting rename.png →

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.

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:44, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Sock
A discussion which is more heat than light is now taking place at Talk:Bates method. To cut a long story short: are they a WP:SOCK or simply a pro-quackery shill? Can you answer this question at Sockpuppet investigations/Belteshazzar? tgeorgescu (talk) 01:38, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Reply-link officially superseded by DiscussionTools
Hi! Reply-link has officially been superseded by DiscussionTools, which you can install using the "Discussion tools" checkbox under. DiscussionTools, developed by the WMF's Editing Team, is faster and has more features than reply-link, and it wouldn't make sense for me to keep developing reply-link. I think the Editing Team is doing amazing work, and look forward to what they can do in the future. Thank you for using reply-link over the years! Enterprisey (talk!) 06:11, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

BLP query
Hi, two single purpose editors have recently been editing the article on Martyn Percy, who is controversial due to ongoing disputes with his employer, in the last month. Their edits have been reverted due to lack of sources and NPOV. Where is the best place report this? The COI is obvious so a COIN discussion seems unnecessary, but I think they could both be blocked from the main article to force them to make edit requests. TSventon (talk) 10:51, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * That looks bad indeed. I wonder if the accounts represent one person or two? Anyway, I've blocked them both indefinitely from Martyn Percy. If new accounts should turn up making the same edits, we'll have to protect the article, I suppose. (Say, Mr TSventon, do you like to eat temlas?) Bishonen &#124; tålk 11:12, 6 September 2021 (UTC).
 * thanks, I have been following the article for a while and it has been a magnet for unsourced and POV material from Percy's supporters and opponents since November 2018. If the accounts represent two people they may be cooperating. What would be the best venue for any similar problems in future? (Very much.) TSventon (talk) 11:42, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * WP:BLPN, I suggest. But also feel free to come straight to me (on your way to Konditori Rota) . Bishonen &#124; tålk 11:59, 6 September 2021 (UTC).

Tech News: 2021-36
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * The wikis that have Growth features deployed have been part of A/B testing since deployment, in which some newcomers did not receive the new features. Now, all of the newcomers on 21 of the smallest of those wikis will be receiving the features.

Changes later this week
 * There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg In 2017, the provided jQuery library was upgraded from version 1 to 3, with a compatibility layer. The migration will soon finish, to make the site load faster for everyone. If you maintain a gadget or user script, check if you have any JQMIGRATE errors and fix them, or they will break.
 * Last year, the Portuguese Wikipedia community embarked on an experiment to make log-in compulsory for editing.  The impact report of this trial is ready. Moving forward, the Anti-Harassment Tools team is looking for projects that are willing to experiment with restricting IP editing on their wiki for a short-term experiment. Learn more.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. 

15:19, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar cat for you!

 * Thank you :) GeneralNotability (talk) 02:41, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

COI-acc
I remember you were working COIN and I came across editing at Nottingham Castle; nothing bad, but was unsure what to do next, per the Template I have used at their Talk which states multiple-user accounts will need to be blocked. Does it need to be listed at COIN to initiate further action? Please advise. Thank you.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 02:21, 7 September 2021 (UTC)


 * , I went ahead and softblocked them since organization names are not allowed for usernames (since they imply shared use). GeneralNotability (talk) 13:34, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Muchas, I'll keep an eye on it.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 19:47, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Found another similar, (UK government company information) - I've deleted some advertising content and kept some of the prose, albeit unsourced as yet. Thanks.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 00:31, 9 September 2021 (UTC)


 * , blocked that one too. It'll probably be faster to report these accounts to WP:UAA; these are pretty obvious username policy violations. GeneralNotability (talk) 02:22, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Will do; now I've had a chance to look at the website, I've deleted the rest of the prose added as it was copy/paste vio. Thx.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 16:48, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Sockpuppet
Strong feeling that user Noorullah21 and MbIam9416 are same person. Noorullah21 reverted the changes on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Battle_of_Panipat and then MbIam9416 who hasn't made any edits since 19th August 2021, pops up to just make change to same page on September 8, 2021 and this is the only page MbIam9416 makes change too on that day. I am pretty sure, this is not coincident. And both Noorullah21 and MbIam9416 enforce same changes to add Amb (princely state) and Khanate of Kalat. Looks like as MbIam9416, changes are made by Mobile Device whereas as Noorullah21 through different device. Comparison of diff on multiple occasions but here is quick two links to differences: This is the diff of change by Noorullah21 [] This is the diff in change by MbIam9416 [] Can you look into this? Canon8 (talk) 13:17, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , sure, I'll try to take a look tomorrow. GeneralNotability (talk) 02:42, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , okay, I've taken a look, and based on how they write I don't think they're the same person. It's possible that there is some kind of coordination going on, but that's basically impossible to prove. I'll add that things like "what kingdom did what in South Asian history" seem to attract a lot of people with very strong opinions who might not actively be working together. GeneralNotability (talk) 13:20, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Sockpuppet investigations/Sean Ethan James D. Querubin
I see you closed the SPI case despite that WayKurat was asking for help from any admins to take action against SeanJ 2007's sockpuppets because Sean already admitted doing a lot of sockpuppetry activities (using his user accounts and IPs) for more than a year. I found it very unfair. Is there any other way to block all of Sean's accounts? -136.158.42.180 (talk) 01:56, 9 September 2021 (UTC)


 * IP editor, I do not think the editor in question has been deceptive or disruptive in how they are using their accounts - they abandoned the first one and moved to a second one, they aren't evading any particular scrutiny or sanctions, and I do not see any attempts to suggest they are different people. I warned them about logging in instead of editing while logged out, but I do not see any reason to block for sockpuppetry. GeneralNotability (talk) 02:40, 9 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Since the case has been closed, what if Sean would try to get back on me for revenge?? For example, a lot of plagiarism; the user will copy-paste all my edits and ideas as well as comments and messages. Or stalking; the user will be watching over all my contributions from now on. -136.158.42.180 (talk) 03:21, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * If you are being stalked or harassed, you should report it to WP:ANI. I certainly hope that Sean will not be doing that, though. GeneralNotability (talk) 13:13, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/82.22.42.5
It was useful to keep track of the IPs used by this LTA, particularly as one or two admins routinely ignore reports of it at AIV. DuncanHill (talk) 20:38, 9 September 2021 (UTC)


 * , in my opinion the main problem is that it's very hard for someone who doesn't know the original IP to find a case like that, so keeping an archive doesn't make much sense. I do see your point, however, so I'll take this to the clerks' noticeboard for input from other folks. GeneralNotability (talk) 21:29, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It's a lot harder to find something that doesn't exist than it is to find something that does. DuncanHill (talk) 21:32, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/82.22.42.5
I see you have deleted this investigation due to it being IP only. The individual has recently struck again. (IP: 85.255.235.201 ) Where can I turn to next to stop this individual? Romomusicfan (talk) 16:43, 2 September 2021 (UTC)


 * , if they are being disruptive, report them to WP:AIV. GeneralNotability (talk) 02:11, 4 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I did (see Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism&direction=next&oldid=1035641717) and got passed on to AN/I.(see Wikipedia:Administrators noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=1035736584 which is where User directed me to the sockpuppet investigation.Romomusicfan (talk) 08:24, 10 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Anyway, thanks for restoring the investigation page.Romomusicfan (talk) 08:30, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SheryOfficial/Archive
FYI:

User:SheryOfficial has now listed a number of his or her accounts at User_talk:SheryOfficial. The accounts include: SheryOfficial, SheheryarAwais, JafferAwan, SheheryarOfficial, SheheryarandAwais, MyNameIsJanMangu, Fayyaz Anwar, SAFSOfficial, FayyazFamily, SheheryarFayyazOfficial, Shehryar Fayyaz, Hira Fayyaz, Awais Gas, Shield Has, ShehzadaShery, Awais Shahbaz, Qazi Shah, ShahiShield, Hassan Shah Nawaz, MrBakar, KaimkhaniKamal, MianJawaad, Dugsen, Wordynilo, SharqHabib, RaziNaama, AliMurtazaYT, AliAther, Huwalhabib, Isaayi, UmatiKhan, Salamun44, ChampeonZekz, Semonlee, Kelzom, Dogrilo, Khaliafatun and AbnayZahra

Looks like some weren't identified as socks before. rsjaffe 🗩 🖉 22:46, 10 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks - I don't see a pressing need to list all of them out at SPI or tag them at this time, though. GeneralNotability (talk) 01:45, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Thank you very much ! GeneralNotability (talk) 14:22, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #485
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week. 


 * Events
 * Upcoming:
 * WikidataCon update: you can now check in the program of the first day of the online conference
 * Transbordados: WikidataCon's preconference for Latin America - September 14, 21 and 28 (21h UTC) - with simultaneous translation for Portuguese and Spanish, via YouTube - set of events to discuss Wikidata and decoloniality, knowledge organization and digital dissemination of collections in Latin America contexts. Join us!
 * 14/09 - Towards a decolonial wiki: overflowing knowledge from the Latin American horizon - speakers: Amanda Jurno (Wiki Movimento Brasil), Bianca Santana (journalist, writer and activist) and Silvia Gutiérrez (El Colégio de México) - watch it in PT-BR / ES
 * 21/09 - The universe of libraries: Wikidata and the multiplication of knowledge potencies - speakers: Lilian Viana (GLAM das Bibliotecas da USP) and Maurício Genta (Wikimedia Argentina e Biblioteca Nacional da Argentina) - watch it in PT-BR / ES
 * 28/09 - Digital collections and Wikidata: organizing a network of knowledge - speakers: Evelin Heidel (a.k.a. Scann; Wikimedistas do Uruguai) and Karen Worcman (Museu da Pessoa) - watch it in PT-BR / ES
 * Demo of the Query Builder live on Twitch and in French by Vigneron, September 14 at 18:00 CEST
 * Ongoing:
 * Data Quality Days - several sessions happened over the past days and more are coming this week. Recordings, slides and notes are linked in the program
 * Past:
 * Forex - 36C3 Wikipaka WG: Live querying: let’s explore Wikidata together! - YouTube


 * Press, articles, blog posts, videos
 * Papers
 * Linking Data and Descriptions on Moths Using the Wikimedia Ecosystem Part of collection TDWG Proceedings 2021
 * other
 * Ainali talks about Wikidata on The World According to Wikipedia podcast.


 * Tool of the week
 * Wwwyzzerdd for Wikidata is a browser extension that allows you to view and edit Wikidata information from Wikipedia (demo video). Install it in Firefox or Chrome


 * Other Noteworthy Stuff
 * Face The Facts mobile app allows you to scan election posters and see the true facts about politicians.
 * Wikidata now has over 150,000 Senses on Lexemes!


 * Did you know?


 * Newest properties:
 * General datatypes: GRAC rating
 * External identifiers: Center for Turkish Cinema Studies film ID, Civilisti Italiani member ID, Government Publications Number (Taiwan), Global Location Number, Iași Central University Library ID, Encyclopaedia of Islam (second edition) ID, Gujarati Vishwakosh entry, Télé-Loisirs ID, Anagrafe degli studiosi ID, e-Maapõu stratigraphy ID, INAPP Thesaurus ID, Douyin video ID, IndieMag game ID, INAPP author ID, TBDB ID, Enciclopedia dello Sport ID, INAPP work ID, Fondation du patrimoine ID, Endemia.nc animal taxon ID, Gry Online game ID, Encyclopaedia of Islam (first edition) ID, Encyclopaedia of Islam (third edition) ID, Festivaletteratura person ID


 * New property proposals to review:
 * General datatypes: Mexican Video Game content classification category, NZTCS conservation status, Unique Identifier, relevant date for copyright, Allaboutjazz musician ID, Google Fonts ID
 * External identifiers: museum-digital place ID, EPA Facility Registry Service ID, thefreedictionary dictionary term ID, TermCymru ID, Bildatlas-Künstler-ID, Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law ID, NZTCS ID, Australian Research Council Grant ID, PSC, SAM id, Dictionary of Old Norse Prose ID, Norsk Akademis Ordbok ID, Swedish Food Agency food ID, e-Maapõu locality ID, Grand dictionnaire terminologique ID, Kallías, Owler company ID


 * Query examples:
 * List of movies with Jean-Paul Belmondo ordered by number of sitelinks (based on source via d:Template:Generic queries for actors)
 * List of actors with whom Jean-Paul Belmondo has played the most (based on source via d:Template:Generic queries for actors)
 * count of movies with Jean-Paul Belmondo by decade
 * List of characters in Tintin ordered by number of apparitions (source)
 * People with no birth/death/floruit dates but which have a position from which dates can be inferred (source)
 * Map of the origin of diamond open access journal (Q108440863) publications (source)
 * Map of place names in Ghana ending with "li", "ti", "om" (source)
 * Development
 * Mismatch Finder: The website part of the tool is taking shape but is not quite functional yet. We worked on creating the results page. You can see the current very much not finished state at https://mismatch-finder.toolforge.org/
 * Linked the Query Builder from the Query Service so it is discoverable (T280229)
 * Finished work on normalizing filenames when linking to media files on Commons (T251480)
 * All new wbstack.com wikis will now be created with elastic search support, including Wikibase indexes! All existing sites will have elastic search soon! (Source)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


 * Monthly Tasks
 * Add labels, in your own language(s), for the new properties listed above.
 * Comment on property proposals: all open proposals
 * Contribute to a Showcase item.
 * Help translate or proofread the interface and documentation pages, in your own language!
 * Help merge identical items across Wikimedia projects.
 * Help write the next summary!

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Mohammed Sadat (WMDE) 15:05, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-37
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * 45 new Wikipedias now have access to the Growth features.
 * A majority of Wikipedias now have access to the Growth features. The Growth team has published an FAQ page about the features. This translatable FAQ covers the description of the features, how to use them, how to change the configuration, and more.

Problems
 * All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on 14 September. This is planned at 14:00 UTC.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * Starting this week, Wikipedia in Italian will receive weekly software updates on Wednesdays. It used to receive the updates on Thursdays. Due to this change, bugs will be noticed and fixed sooner.
 * You can add language links in the sidebar in the new Vector skin again. You do this by connecting the page to a Wikidata item. The new Vector skin has moved the language links but the new language selector cannot add language links yet.
 * The syntax highlight tool marks up code with different colours. It now can highlight 23 new code languages. Additionally,  can now be used as an alias for the Go programming language, and a special  mode has been added to show a program's output.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. 

15:31, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

New Page Patrol newsletter September 2021
Hello ,

Please join this discussion - there is increase in the abuse of Wikipedia and its processes by POV pushers, Paid Editors, and by holders of various user rights including Autopatrolled. Even our review systems themselves at AfC and NPR have been infiltrated. The good news is that detection is improving, but the downside is that it creates the need for a huge clean up - which of course adds to backlogs.

Copyright violations are also a serious issue. Most non-regular contributors do not understand why, and most of our  Reviewers are not experts on copyright law - and can't be expected to be, but  there is excellent, easy-to-follow advice on COPYVIO detection here.

At the time of the last newsletter (#25, December 2020) the backlog was only just over 2,000 articles. New Page Review is an official system. It's the only firewall against the inclusion of new, improper pages.

There are currently 706 New Page Reviewers plus a further 1,080 admins, but as much as nearly 90% of the patrolling is still being done by around only the 20 or so most regular patrollers.

If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process or its software. Various awards are due to be allocated by the end of the year and barnstars are overdue. If you would like to manage this, please let us know. Indeed, if you are interested in coordinating NPR, it does not involve much time and the tasks are described here. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here. Sent to 827 users. 04:31, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

"extremely interesting" probably won't pan out :)
Made me chuckle, and after performing a dozen or so reverts, I now understand what you meant ;). Regards, MattSucci  (talk) 04:57, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Sock
Hello GeneralNotablity, this user you blocked appears to be back (Roculator), usage of identical edit summary "misuse of sources". Editing from a mobile device as well. Magherbin (talk) 02:17, 8 September 2021 (UTC)


 * , agreed, blocked. GeneralNotability (talk) 12:53, 8 September 2021 (UTC)


 * GeneralNotability, Can you chime in on this SPI case? Looks clear-cut just needs clerk/admin assistance. . Magherbin (talk) 21:17, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , commented there - I'm curious what Mz7 was thinking about and would like to hear their input. GeneralNotability (talk) 02:42, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * GeneralNotability, the sock has returned as "Paccinog" similar edits being made across articles . They have made disparaging remarks as well . Page may need protection as they're creating more accounts . Magherbin (talk) 21:13, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-38
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Growth features are now deployed to almost all Wikipedias. For the majority of small Wikipedias, the features are only available for experienced users, to test the features and configure them. Features will be available for newcomers starting on 20 September 2021.
 * MediaWiki had a feature that would highlight local links to short articles in a different style. Each user could pick the size at which "stubs" would be highlighted. This feature was very bad for performance, and following a consultation, has been removed.
 * A technical change was made to the MonoBook skin to allow for easier maintenance and upkeep. This has resulted in some minor changes to HTML that make MonoBook's HTML consistent with other skins. Efforts have been made to minimize the impact on editors, but please ping Jon (WMF) on wiki or in phabricator if any problems are reported.

Problems
 * There was a problem with search last week. Many search requests did not work for 2 hours because of an accidental restart of the search servers.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * Octicons-tools.svg The meta=proofreadpage API has changed. The <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> parameter has been renamed to <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> . API users should update their code to avoid unrecognized parameter warnings. Pywikibot users should upgrade to 6.6.0.

Future changes
 * The Reply tool will be deployed to the remaining wikis in the coming weeks. It is currently part of "" in Beta features at most wikis. You will be able to turn it off in Editing Preferences.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The previously announced change to how you obtain tokens from the API has been delayed to September 21 because of an incompatibility with Pywikibot. Bot operators using Pywikibot can follow T291202 for progress on a fix, and should plan to upgrade to 6.6.1 when it is released.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="tech-newsletter-content"/>

18:29, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you
Thank you for looking into the case and responding. Why this other person chose to copy my former user name is beyond my understanding. I'm just glad its been cleared up. Thanks for looking into it and asking for more clarity from EnPassant. I'm not sure what evidence they would have tried to present because the only connection is that user name but I do not blame them for bringing it forward. I know they were just doing their best to protect the integrity of the encyclopedia. Thanks again for all you do. -- A Rose Wolf  11:43, 22 September 2021 (UTC)


 * , my pleasure, I'm glad it all turned out okay. GeneralNotability (talk) 14:02, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CLXXXV, September 2021
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here. If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 14:00, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

UN report addition query
Hi, I just wanted to open this chat to discuss the subject that your brought up in the arbitration forum. I went about a systematic update of company pages only because the UN report in question is something of a seminal work in terms of clearly defining, in thoroughly vetted terms, which companies are involved in what activities in the West Bank. It seemed like a glaring omission on Wikipedia that this significant report had gone unmentioned (I have sort of assumed it got passed over because everyone was busy with Covid-19), so yes, I've been trying to fill an information gap, but not in an unwarranted way I think. You were not the only editor that undid Mike Rothman2's reversions. So did the established editor Berrely, who noted on the Sonol article that the content was "written very neutrally and cites suitable sources".

The only POV I see this as pushing is that of the UN, which in my mind is not particularly POV, as the collective voice of the international community. Perhaps this is a mistaken viewpoint from the perspective of Wikipedia. I am happy to be put in my place on the subject if I am genuinely out of order. But I would add that before I added these new criticism sections, many of these articles were lazily unexpanded, glowing and semi-promotional, and that I have also made other changes, including thoroughly vetting the sources, improving readability and tagging dead links for the future reference of other editors that may wish to review and expand the articles.

I had no doubt that there would be users who did not like these additions, but, in line with the 'be bold' mantra of Wikipedia, that was not in my mind a reason not to go ahead with adding discussion-provoking material. The controversy over the Bank Mizrahi-Tefahot page, for instance, has already led to significant improvement of the overall sourcing of the piece. I would say that rather proves the point that adding this material is also a positive development for these articles by stimulating the re-editing process for what were otherwise a rather tired collection of ailing company profiles with rotting links. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:25, 15 September 2021 (UTC)


 * , so your edits may well have all been relevant. My comment was based mostly on the pattern of your edits - mass addition of criticism sections is often indicative of somebody who is trying to push a particular agenda. GeneralNotability (talk) 15:34, 15 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Yes, well it did also occur to me that I might get flagged for it, even if only by a bot, due to the pattern of the edits, but an alternative approach didn't really come to mind, and, like I said, I didn't believe that these edits were unwarranted and therefore something to hide. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:41, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi again, I just wanted to let you know that Mike Rothman2, who you gave a 72-hour ban on 14 September, just returned to exactly the same pattern of disruptive edits that led to his initial ban. He even expanded upon the reversions he made previously, for instance on the Bank Hapaolim page, where he removed details on the institution's tax evasion, downplaying an incident that was "the second-largest recovery by the US Department of Justice since it began investigating the facilitation of US tax evasion by foreign banks in 2008" to a single line. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:01, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * For reference
 * From Wikipedia:Banning policy#Topic ban - Seddon talk 18:00, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia technical issues and templates request for comment
Your feedback is requested &#32;at Talk:Joseph Stalin&#32; on a "Wikipedia technical issues and templates" request for comment. Thank you for helping out! You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name. Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) &#124; Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. &#124; Sent at 00:30, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Vandalism on Kirkuk
Hi, you might want to revert vandalism and POV edits by Serchia to the last stable version. He started an edit war by removing sourced content and causing an edit war, and even goes as far as changing the order of ethnicities in the city in a racist attempt to move the Turkmen name to the end and minimise their significance even though they are the historical majority in the city. Thank you. 82.24.229.152 (talk) 17:03, 23 September 2021 (UTC)


 * IP editor, that's a content dispute, and I am not planning to intervene in a content dispute beyond protecting the page. Take it to the talk page. GeneralNotability (talk) 17:39, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

George Mason University
FYI: someone seems to have added back the clubs and associations you removed. You might be interested in taking a look at it. <span style="font-family:system-ui,Inter,-apple-system,YuGothic,sans-serif;background-color:#f3f3fe;padding:2px 5px;border-radius:3px;white-space:nowrap">Northern Moonlight | ほっこう  17:58, 24 September 2021 (UTC)


 * , yup, I saw - and by a Mason IP, no less! I'm not really feeling like getting into a fight over it right now. GeneralNotability (talk) 17:50, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Bug in SPI tool?
Hi GN, I'm trying to move Sockpuppet investigations/Rezaee.original to show the oldest account as the master (although I intend to close it without action, as there's no evidence of WP:BADSOCKery). Trouble is, I can't. I select 'All sections', and tick the 'Move/merge full case' button, hit 'Continue', and am taken to the next screen; I can enter the new sockmaster's name, but there's no button to proceed with the move. Has something changed? Cheers Girth Summit <sub style="font-family:Segoe print;color:blue;"> (blether)  14:20, 26 September 2021 (UTC)


 * , yup. It appears that some of my HTML was violating the official spec, but browsers just started having issues with that in the past week. spotted the issue and I've committed their fix - let me know if the problem continues. GeneralNotability (talk) 17:48, 26 September 2021 (UTC)


 * As the kids say nowadays.. get gud scrub ~TNT (she/they • talk) 19:36, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks GN - working again now. Cheers Girth Summit <sub style="font-family:Segoe print;color:blue;"> (blether)  11:18, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 September 2021
<div class="hlist" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:54, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Modify a rangeblock?


Hello GN. Would you object to my converting your block of Special:Contributions/37.120.237.0/24 into a hardblock? I found some logged-in abuse from this range while researching a sock case. You had marked this range as a Colocation webhost. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 21:55, 26 September 2021 (UTC)


 * , no objection at all - and in the future, you're always welcome to turn any of my rangeblocks into hardblocks without asking my permission. I do appreciate you checking with me, though! GeneralNotability (talk) 21:58, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

restore my section...
Ugh, looks like that was my fault. I had an edit conflict and must have resolved it incorrectly. Sorry about that! -- RoySmith (talk) 03:20, 27 September 2021 (UTC)


 * No problem, it was an accident...I hope. GeneralNotability (talk) 13:05, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-39
<section begin="technews-2021-W39"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * iOS 15 has a new function called Private Relay (Apple website). This can hide the user's IP when they use Safari browser. This is like using a VPN in that we see another IP address instead. It is opt-in and only for those who pay extra for iCloud. It will come to Safari users on OSX later. There is a technical discussion about what this means for the Wikimedia wikis.

Problems
 * Octicons-tools.svg Some gadgets and user-scripts add items to the portlets (article tools) part of the skin. A recent change to the HTML may have made those links a different font-size. This can be fixed by adding the CSS class <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr">.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * The GettingStarted extension was built in 2013, and provides an onboarding process for new account holders in a few versions of Wikipedia. However, the recently developed Growth features provide a better onboarding experience. Since the vast majority of Wikipedias now have access to the Growth features, GettingStarted will be deactivated starting on 4 October.
 * A small number of users will not be able to connect to the Wikimedia wikis after 30 September. This is because an old root certificate will no longer work. They will also have problems with many other websites. Users who have updated their software in the last five years are unlikely to have problems. Users in Europe, Africa and Asia are less likely to have immediate problems even if their software is too old. You can read more.
 * You can receive notifications when someone leaves a comment on user talk page or mentions you in a talk page comment. Clicking the notification link will now bring you to the comment and highlight it. Previously, doing so brought you to the top of the section that contained the comment. You can find more information in T282029.

Future changes
 * The Reply tool will be deployed to the remaining wikis in the coming weeks. It is currently part of "" in Beta features at most wikis. You will be able to turn it off in Editing Preferences. See the list of wikis.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2021-W39"/>

22:20, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

User:EvidenceAlliquots
I see you’ve blocked User:EvidenceAlliquots for edit warring, I guess you’d better check my edits, as I’ve not been angelic myself. GimliDotNet (talk) 17:32, 28 September 2021 (UTC)


 * , I appreciate the honesty. I did see that you were the other side of the edit war, but I chose not to block you in this case since basically all of EvidenceAlliquots's edit history consists of edit-warring poor sources into articles. Next time, take it to WP:ANEW for admin help, okay? GeneralNotability (talk) 18:39, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Will do, cheers. GimliDotNet (talk) 18:47, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

User:AK74DEAN
Kindly consider if this is block evasion. The first thing this user did was to create a template. Thank you. --Whiteguru (talk) 21:54, 29 September 2021 (UTC)


 * , I see no grounds to suspect block evasion. GeneralNotability (talk) 12:14, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Potential Mistaken Revert
Hello,

I came across an edit that you reverted which I believe is accurate and is not a crypto scam or something of that effect as it appears you thought at the time. The website merely has an interesting domain name, perhaps the coinye.net website would have been a better choice for the original editor to have used to improve trust. As the edit states, The original Coinye (not a fork or modified or anything like that) is still accessible with running nodes and active miners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1020771435 EL-SSS (talk) 13:01, 30 September 2021 (UTC)


 * , are there any reliable sources supporting this? I don't have any reason to doubt you, but it does look very suspicious when someone changes URLs like that (especially with cryptocurrency, a topic subject to lots of spam and scams), so I'd be a lot more comfortable if there were a good source supporting the new domain. GeneralNotability (talk) 13:47, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

No worries I completely understand. I'll take a deeper look and get back to you with some credible sources, or make the edit myself if you think that's the best option. EL-SSS (talk) 13:57, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , if you've got the sources, go ahead and re-add the link (just make sure to cite the new sources!) GeneralNotability (talk) 15:29, 30 September 2021 (UTC)