User talk:Srich32977/Archive 22

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2018).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Sir Sputnik
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Kudpung • Liz • Lourdes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Everyking • Jackmcbarn

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg AGK • Ivanvector • Stwalkerster • TonyBallioni

Oversight changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Amorymeltzer • Oshwah • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Keilana

Guideline and policy news
 * A request for comment determined that non-administrators will not be able to request interface admin access.
 * A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the Mediation Committee should be closed and marked as historical.
 * A village pump discussion has been ongoing about whether the proposed deletion policy (PROD) should be clarified or amended.
 * A request for comment is in progress to determine whether pending changes protection should be applied automatically to today's featured article (TFA) in order to mitigate a recent trend of severe image vandalism.

Technical news
 * Partial blocks is now available for testing on the Test Wikipedia. The new functionality allows you to block users from editing specific pages. Bugs may exist and can be reported on the local talk page or on Meta. A discussion regarding deployment to English Wikipedia will be started by community liaisons sometime in the near future.
 * A user script is now available to quickly review unblock requests.
 * The 2019 Community Wishlist Survey is now accepting new proposals until November 11, 2018. The results of this survey will determine what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year. Voting on the proposals will take place from November 16 to November 30, 2018. Specifically, there is a proposal category for admins and stewards that may be of interest.

Arbitration
 * Eligible editors will be invited to nominate themselves as candidates in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 4 until November 13. Voting will begin on November 19 and last until December 2.
 * The Arbitration Committee's email address has changed to arbcom-en@wikimedia.org. Other email lists, such as functionaries-en and clerks-l, remain unchanged.

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:19, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

GoodReads
I missed the GoodReads template deletion discussion, as I was travelling overseas when pinged. It's a very bad decision, based on unsound reasoning, but I don't see what can be done at this stage. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:50, 2 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Indeed, procedure was violated and WP policy was ignored. But WP:DELREV allows for a second look. Please initiate. Thanks so very much! – S. Rich (talk) 07:35, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
 * On what grounds? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:46, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
 * See also Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 60. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:59, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the VP thread. I'm on a mobile device for the next (and past) 36 hours which makes commenting difficult. So WP must wait b4 I cast my pearls. – S. Rich (talk) 14:52, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Perhaps now (or soon) is the time to go for a WP:DELREV. Since the closing was WP:NACD, actual deletions were performed here for books and here for authors. Thus we go to the admins, who must consider WP policies and guidelines. The grounds are two-fold: 1. "substantial procedural error" exists because notice of the TfD was short and scant. Jytdog did not notify you and other interested editors until October 31, 5 days into the discussion; there was no notice posted on the template talk pages; and there was no notice posted on interested projects such as WP:WPSPAM, WT:BOOKS, WP:WPT, or WP:WMNWRITE. (Jytdog did give notice to the templates creator, User talk:Phil Boswell.) 2. The NAC closer did not consider the issues of policy that I raised. E.g., I addressed the 4 policy reasons for deletion (none of which apply) and pointed out that hundreds of other "user-friendly" webpages are linked via templates. (In fact, the closing was made just 11 hours after my last comment.) Finally, there was not "overwhelming" support for deletion. 5 !votes and the IP definitely said delete; I and Tgeorgescus said keep; and the rest was "non-commital". Your thoughts are eagerly anticipated. – S. Rich (talk) 02:29, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.15 16 November 2018
Hello ,
 * Community Wishlist Survey – NPP needs you – Vote NOW
 * Community Wishlist Voting takes place 16 to 30 November for the Page Curation and New Pages Feed improvements, and other software requests. The NPP community is hoping for a good turnout in support of the requests to Santa for the tools we need. This is very important as we have been asking the Foundation for these upgrades for 4 years.


 * If this proposal does not make it into the top ten, it is likely that the tools will be given no support at all for the foreseeable future. So please put in a vote today.


 * We are counting on significant support not only from our own ranks, but from everyone who is concerned with maintaining a Wikipedia that is free of vandalism, promotion, flagrant financial exploitation and other pollution.


 * With all 650 reviewers voting for these urgently needed improvements, our requests would be unlikely to fail. See also The Signpost Special report: 'NPP: This could be heaven or this could be hell for new users – and for the reviewers', and if you are not sure what the wish list is all about, take a sneak peek at an article in this month's upcoming issue of The Signpost which unfortunately due to staff holidays and an impending US holiday will probably not be published until after voting has closed.

Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. —  Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 18:37, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Cemeteries El Alamein all nations
[Alamein on german wikivoyage] Thanks for your interest--Roland.h.bueb (talk) 17:20, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
 * S. Rich, now I found on german Wikivoyage the description of the war graves of all nations in El Alamein


 * S. Rich, parts for a seperate article also exist in Wikimedia. Category:Cemeteries in El Alamein. --Roland.h.bueb (talk) 17:36, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

New Skylab controversy RfC proposal
Hi! I have drafted another RfC at Talk:Skylab_controversy. Please comment on how best to get appropriate input from the Wikipedia editor community. -- ke4roh (talk) 14:44, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you ...
... for improving article quality in Febuary 2018! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:34, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

... and in March! Happy Easter! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:56, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

... and in in April! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:16, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

... and in May! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:05, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

... and in June! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:39, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

... and in July! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:40, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

... and in August! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:33, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

... and in September! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:56, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

... and in October! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:25, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

... and in November! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:54, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2018). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Boson • Daniel J. Leivick • Efe • Esanchez7587 • Fred Bauder • Garzo • Martijn Hoekstra • Orangemike

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svgk Chan

Guideline and policy news
 * Following a request for comment, the Mediation Committee is now closed and will no longer be accepting case requests.
 * A request for comment is in progress to determine whether members of the Bot Approvals Group should satisfy activity requirements in order to remain in that role.
 * A request for comment is in progress regarding whether to change the administrator inactivity policy, such that administrators "who have made no logged administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped". Currently, the policy states that administrators "who have made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped".
 * A proposal has been made to temporarily restrict editing of the Main Page to interface administrators in order to mitigate the impact of compromised accounts.

Technical news
 * Administrators and bureaucrats can no longer unblock themselves unless they placed the block initially. This change has been implemented globally. See also this ongoing village pump discussion (permalink).
 * To complement the aforementioned change, blocked administrators will soon have the ability to block the administrator that placed their block to mitigate the possibility of a compromised administrator account blocking all other active administrators.
 * Since deployment of Partial blocks on Test Wikipedia, several bugs were identified. Most of them are now fixed. Administrators are encouraged to test the new deployment and report new bugs on Phabricator or leave feedback on the Project's talk page. You can request administrator access on the Test Wiki here.

Arbitration
 * Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 3 December 2018. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

Miscellaneous
 * In late November, an attacker compromised multiple accounts, including at least four administrator accounts, and used them to vandalize Wikipedia. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. Sharing the same password across multiple websites makes your account vulnerable, especially if your password was used on a website that suffered a data breach. As these incidents have shown, these concerns are not pure fantasies.
 * Wikipedia policy requires administrators to have strong passwords. To further reinforce security, administrators should also consider enabling two-factor authentication. A committed identity can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

Obituaries
 * (Raymond Arritt) passed away on 14 November 2018. Boris joined Wikipedia as on 8 May 2006 and was an administrator from 30 July 2007 to 2 June 2008.

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:36, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.16 15 December 2018
Hello ,

This year's award for the Reviewer of the Year goes to. Around on Wikipedia since 2011, their staggering number of 26,554reviews over the past twelve months makes them, together with an additional total of 275,285edits, one of Wikipedia's most prolific users.
 * Reviewer of the Year
 * Thanks are also extended for their work to (15,059 reviews),  (12,760reviews),  (9,001reviews),  (8,440reviews),  (8,092reviews),   (5,306reviews),  (4,153 reviews),  (4,016reviews),  and  (3,615reviews)., , , and  have been New Page Reviewers for less than a year — Barkeep49 for only sevenmonths, while , with an edit count of 250,000 since she joined Wikipedia in 2008, has been a bastion of New Page Patrol for many years.

See also the list of top100 reviewers.

The backlog is now approaching 5,000, and still rising. There are around 640holders of the NPR flag, most of whom appear to be inactive. The 10% of the reviewers who do 90% of the work could do with some support especially as some of them are now taking a well deserved break.
 * Less good news, and an appeal for some help

At #1 position, the Community Wishlist poll closed on 3December with a resounding success for NPP, reminding the WMF and the volunteer communities just how critical NPP is to maintaining a clean encyclopedia and the need for improved tools to do it. A big 'thank you' to everyone who supported the NPP proposals. See the results.
 * Really good news - NPR wins the Community Wishlist Survey 2019

Due to a number of changes having been made to the feed since this three-minutevideo was created, we have been asked by the WMF for feedback on the video with a view to getting it brought up to date to reflect the new features of the system. Please leave your comments here, particularly mentioning how helpful you find it for new reviewers. If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, go here. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:14, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Training video

math error
One of your scripts produces math errors: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sphere&diff=874493812&oldid=872808529 I fixed it. --Boehm (talk) 17:11, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'm about done with math related vital articles, but I'll keep an eye out for the $$$$ Wiki markup. – S. Rich (talk) 18:21, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Editing "Maize"
In your recent edit of the 'Maize' article, you converted the second page numbers to only include the last two digits (like 1901-1902 --> 1901-02), and you removed the dashes in ISBNs. Is there a Wik policy for these changes? It seems to me that the former can sometimes be unclear and that the latter goes against the formatting that books use. Unless there is a Wik policy for these changes, I would be against them. Kdammers (talk) 15:35, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * WP allows any widely accepted citation style. WP:CITEVAR says when a particular style is established editors should stick with the style. My gnomish project is to get all vital articles into one style. Hence I'll go with the Chicago Manual of Style when that looks like the easy way. (E.g., there are fewer conversions to get all in compliance.) Regarding isbns, the hyphens and spaces don't matter -- the wikitext reader takes you to Book Sources with or without them. Once you get to Special:BookSources the links to WorldCat (OCLC), Amazon books, Google, etc. use unhyphenated isbns. Since WP prefers isbn-13, adding/leaving a hyphen in the isbn-13s allows editors to see right away that 13 is being used. If the citation style is already established with hyphens in all of the ISBNs, I leave it alone. But when using the Citation Bot, I find conversions to both hyphenated and unhyphenated isbns, so I try to use the bot first and then go from there. (BTW, page ranges use endashes, and ISBNs use hyphens. For more see MOS:DASH.) – S. Rich (talk) 17:03, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * , your edits are introducing MANY errors into these articles. Please fix your script. This edit removed valid page numbers (pages=29) and changed "p. 492–3" to "pp. 492–03". Also, removing full page ranges is contrary to MOS:NUMRANGE, so you should have a very good reason for doing it. Imposing a new CITEVAR by changing all of these non-ambiguous page ranges to ambiguous and erroneous page ranges is not a very good reason. Please reconsider these edits. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:36, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You are also removing spaces between initials, contrary to MOS:INITIALS (in many articles), removing meaningful hyphens from ISBNs, introducing incorrect state abbreviations (CT) and breaking page ranges (pages=95567), and breaking citation parameters. Some of your edits are productive, like fixing year ranges per MOS, but on the whole, you should get consensus to make these significant changes to the citation style that are contrary to MOS. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:50, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Reply: Hyphens in ISBNs are not meaningful - Please see my comment above about Book source. NUMRANGE is "should" guidance, and CITEVAR says don't vary from established citation styles -- my changes have corrected errors in order to establish a consistent WP:CITESTYLE within and throughout each article. So, now, in Fungus, your indiscriminate use of roll-back has created "pages=980–6" and "pages=850-9" alongside "pages=233-248" etc., "wind - species" (note the hyphen instead of dash),, "chapter=14—Fungi", etc.. MOS:INITIALS says "Use initials in a personal name only if the name is commonly written that way." But in citations we often see initials in the author citations. In fact, they often don't have spaces or full points (especially in science journal cites). EACH of my gnomish edits has been done to establish a consistent style within the particular articles. IF you see particular edits that need correcting, then do so, but please look at WP:ROLLBACKUSE and avoid the bot for "reverting good-faith changes which you happen to disagree with". Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 16:38, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I inspected many of your edits and reverted (I do not use rollback) only the ones that had too many errors to be acceptable. I fixed your errors in a couple of articles, but it is not my job to clean up after you; you are responsible for your own edits. Please leave full page ranges in place where they are present. If you choose to apply a more consistent citation style to these articles (I note that you have left initials with spaces between them in some articles but not in others, so I dispute your claim of applying a consistent style to all of these articles), please use a style that adheres to MOS's guidance, including that on initials and page ranges. The guidance exists for good reasons: in this case to reduce ambiguity in page ranges and to preserve consistency in the display of names. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:13, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You didn't "rollback" the edits as Rollback allows for multiple page edit reverts. You simply went back to the version you preferred, even if that version had errors. Yes, I did leave some spaces in the initials -- but those were inadvertent errors. You could have corrected them. But as I point out, your "rollbacks" restored errors I had corrected. Again, please be particular with your copyedits. – S. Rich (talk) 17:31, 15 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes, seconded, you're introducing a variety of errors with your "fixes", as well as making a multitude of changes invisible to readers. I'm not sure I see the point, honestly. Also it feels as if you're following me around, I do hope you wouldn't dream of doing such a thing but it sure feels like it right now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:54, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * MUCH better, a clear improvement to the article with no errors that I can see. I'm not sure why you removed "et al." in this one; it can be a clue that something is wrong and needs fixing. This one is also an improvement; looking for explicit "et al." can lead to even more improvements. Well done. Good work. Yes. Thank you for incorporating our constructive feedback into your editing. Wikipedia will be better for it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 07:51, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Discussion on Edit
I apologize for my actions of bad faith. Thank you for your insight (AzN Egoist) 13:22, 31 October 2018 (CST)

MOS:NUMRANGE
Regarding some details of at Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: please note the advice at MOS:NUMRANGE where full ranges are recommended. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:36, 27 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks Michael. However the MOS for citations allows for Chicago Manual of Style page ranges (e.g. 2 digits). My effort produced a uniform/consistent presentation of the page ranges. (It's now late, so I can't get the particular MOS for CMS citations. Perhaps tomorrow.) – S. Rich (talk) 06:53, 27 December 2018 (UTC)
 * You should not be changing page ranges from the full to the abbreviated form. Nor should you be taking hyphens out of ISBN numbers. Be very careful with ranges like 2315–S24, which are likely to mean a main article at some range, plus supplementary pages. (These would be better as NNN–NNN, SNN–SNN.) Your changes at Maize were in no way an improvement. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:47, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
 * So now, Peter, with your revert, you have WP:ALLCAPS, a mix of spaced and unspaced emdashes, all sorts of hyphenations in the ISBNS (which don't matter), a mix of page range presentations, and a mix of date formats for the books. You couldn't fix the "wrong" edits, but had to (re-)create inconsistent formats and MOS variations for the readers. Happy New Year. – S. Rich (talk) 08:09, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Please stop changing page ranges from the full to the abbreviated form and removing hyphens from ISBNs. Kanguole 17:11, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Why? – S. Rich (talk) 17:13, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

To my critics — WP:CITEVAR has a key word which they miss: established. When citations in an article vary between full and partial number ranges or between hypenated and unhyphenated ISBNs, there is no "established" style. My gnomish efforts are to produce consistency, e.g., to establish one particular style within articles. Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 17:46, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I came here in response to this edit, which took an article that already formatted page ranges and ISBNs consistently, and changed them to your preferred format, contrary to CITEVAR. Please stop doing that.  Kanguole 01:08, 5 January 2019 (UTC)


 * So, between you and I, we have improved the article. E.g., my 1 and your 7 edits produced this version. I used the citation bot, AutoEd, and my eyeballs. Essentially you now have ISBNs with hyphens. But so what? When you click the ISBNs and go to Book sources you end up with links to Amazon.com, WorldCat, etc. which present ISBNs without hyphens . Amazon and WorldCat have programs with automatically convert ALL the ISBNs to unhyphenated versions; whereas, WP is behind the times and relies on WP:GNOMEs like me to do the work. – S. Rich (talk) 03:10, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2018).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Galobtter
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Orangemike
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg BorgQueen •  Davidruben • Ocee • Revolving Bugbear • Theda • There'sNoTime • Timc • Tijuana Brass • Tristessa de St Ange

Bureaucrat changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Addshore



CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Joe Roe • SilkTork
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg AGK • Joe Roe • SilkTork
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Guideline and policy news
 * There are a number of new or changed speedy deletion criteria, each previously part of WP:CSD:
 * G14 (new): Disambiguation pages that disambiguate only zero or one existing pages are now covered under the new G14 criterion (discussion). This is db-disambig; the text is unchanged and candidates may be found in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as unnecessary disambiguation pages.
 * R4 (new): Redirects in the file namespace (and no file links) that have the same name as a file or redirect at Commons are now covered under the new R4 criterion (discussion).  This is db-redircom; the text is unchanged.
 * G13 (expanded): Userspace drafts containing only the default Article Wizard text are now covered under G13 along with other drafts (discussion). Such blank drafts are now eligible after six months rather than one year, and taggers continue to use db-blankdraft.
 * The Wikimedia Foundation now requires all interface administrators to enable two-factor authentication.
 * Members of the Bot Approvals Group (BAG) are now subject to an activity requirement. After two years without any bot-related activity (e.g. operating a bot, posting on a bot-related talk page), BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice.

Technical news
 * Starting on December 13, the Wikimedia Foundation security team implemented new password policy and requirements. Privileged accounts (administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, oversighters, interface administrators, bots, edit filter managers/helpers, template editors, et al.) must have a password at least 10 characters in length . All accounts must have a password:
 * At least 8 characters in length
 * Not in the 100,000 most popular passwords (defined by the [//github.com/wikimedia/password-blacklist Password Blacklist library])
 * Different from their username
 * User accounts not meeting these requirements will be prompted to update their password accordingly. More information is available on MediaWiki.org.
 * Blocked administrators may now block the administrator that blocked them. This was done to mitigate the possibility that a compromised administrator account would block all other active administrators, complementing the removal of the ability to unblock oneself outside of self-imposed blocks. A request for comment is currently in progress to determine whether the blocking policy should be updated regarding this change.
 * Copyvio-revdel now has a link to open the history with the RevDel checkboxes already filled in.

Arbitration
 * Following the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee:, , , , ,.

Miscellaneous
 * Accounts continue to be compromised on a regular basis. Evidence shows this is entirely due to the accounts having the same password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately.
 * Around 22% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 20% in June 2018. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless of whether you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:39, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

2019


Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht

Happy 2019 -

begin it with music and memories

Thank you for your project help last year! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:48, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Please check out "Happy" once more, for a smile, and sharing (a Nobel Peace Prize), and resolutions. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:51, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

January
Thank you for improving articles! Did you know that Precious began 7 years ago? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:44, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for being one of Wikipedia's top medical contributors!
Thanks again :-) --  Doc James  along with the rest of the team at Wiki Project Med Foundation 17:41, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Timeline of 1960s counterculture
Hi, thanks for your recent contributions to this article. I was interested (and grateful) for your comment/edit here. You might like to weigh in at the talk page, where I raised some objections about the editorial tone, and especially about the criteria for inclusion in the timeline – ie, whether a reliable source identifies each event as significant to the counterculture (rather than just an individual editor determine that it is, using self-sourced examples). Or perhaps you might not, of course(!); I quite understand. Thanks, JG66 (talk) 04:35, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2019). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Enterprisey • JJMC89
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg BorgQueen
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Harro5 • Jenks24 • Graft • R. Baley

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svgprisey

Guideline and policy news
 * A request for comment is currently open to reevaluate the activity requirements for administrators.
 * Administrators who are blocked have the technical ability to block the administrator who blocked their own account. A recent request for comment has amended the blocking policy to clarify that this ability should only be used in exceptional circumstances, such as account compromises, where there is a clear and immediate need.
 * A request for comment closed with a consensus in favor of deprecating The Sun as a permissible reference, and creating an edit filter to warn users who attempt to cite it.

Technical news
 * A discussion regarding an overhaul of the format and appearance of Requests for page protection is in progress (permalink). The proposed changes will make it easier to create requests for those who are not using Twinkle. The workflow for administrators at this venue will largely be unchanged. Additionally, there are plans to archive requests similar to how it is done at WP:PERM, where historical records are kept so that prior requests can more easily be searched for.

Miscellaneous
 * Voting in the 2019 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2019, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2019, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
 * A new IRC bot is available that allows you to subscribe to notifications when specific filters are tripped. This requires that your IRC handle be identified.

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:16, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Reference formatting
Hi - I noticed that you removed wikilinks from several references on Ralph Northam's page, but it's unclear why. My understanding is that each publication in the "work" field of a reference should be linked the first time that it appears in the article. It appears that you maintained links to a few smaller publications, such as WAVY-TV, The Virginian Pilot, and The Roanoke Times, but removed all of the links for several prominent publications, such as The Washington Post, The Richmond Times-Dispatch, and The Hill. As far as I know, links should be given once in the references for each publication, even if that publication is well-known. Are you able to clarify? Thanks. --Jpcase (talk) 02:28, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I commend you to MOS:OL. The larger pubs (to my mind) qualify as "Everyday words understood by most readers in context." The actual reference article titles show up in the reflist as blue links, and I don't think adding a second blue-link to the WP:SEAOFBLUE is good editering. Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 02:38, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

self discipline
Ouch! You've used a template to send a message to an experienced editor. Please review the essay Don't template the regulars or maybe listen to a little advice. Doesn't this feel cold, impersonal, and canned? It's meant in good humour. Best wishes. – S. Rich (talk) 03:59, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Reverting My Edits?
You reverted my Grammatical edits on the Chelsea Manning article without stating a reason. What's up? Tadpole256 (talk) 02:40, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Bumped the wrong button. – S. Rich (talk) 03:02, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

January 2019
Please do not use styles that are unusual, inappropriate or difficult to understand in articles. There is a Manual of Style, and edits should not deliberately go against it without special reason. ''You're still removing spaces from between initials, even though you've been asked not to do this. Please do not continue with a sequence of edits when you have been asked to stop.'' DrKay (talk) 21:37, 18 January 2019 (UTC)


 * - – — -- I certainly am following the MOS in every respect. (Please do not rely just on the complaints you see above. While some of the complaints were WP:OWNBEHAVIOR-driven, I've carefully considered each of them.) AGF, I've tried to answer the complaints. Regarding your concerns: 1. I've been putting endashes in the citation page ranges per MOS:ENTO. 2. When the ISBNs presented have a mix of spaces and/or hyphens (such as ISBN 978-0-226-28705-8), I try to present one scheme that is uniform/consistent throughout the article. (This is IAW WP:CITEVAR.) 3. When the references use initials I seek to unify their presentations within the references. Examples: todays' FA Thomasomys ucucha omits spaces in the referenced authors; and an upcoming TFA Imperator torosus has refs which omit the full stops (periods) in the first name initials in the references. (It would seem that these FAs violate MOS:INITIALS, expect that initials used in references are names not " commonly written that way".) My goal is to edit the WP:VA3 listed IAW [see WP:G] the MOS and then endeavor to modify the MOS guidance – via discussion. E.g., I hope to clarify that INITIALS and DASHES apply to article text and less so to referencing. – S. Rich (talk) 02:36, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You made this argument above but I don't see anyone agreeing. You shouldn't continue with edits when they are the subject of a dispute and consensus is not shown to be on your side. DrKay (talk) 08:15, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
 * The bit about ISBNs is inaccurate: you've continued to de-hyphenate ISBNs in articles that consistently used hypenated ISBNs with a few exceptions, or even with no exceptions. You know other editors disagree with your ideas on this – please stop.  Kanguole 20:47, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I beg your pardon. In History of the Middle East and Continent the Citation bot changed hyphenated ISBN-10s to the partially hyphenated ISBN-13s. Should I then leave a mix of hyphenated & non-hyphenated cites? (Continent also had improper ISBNs in an "id=" parameter.) In History of Africa the previous version had a mix of hypenated/non-hyphenated ISBNs, plus a non-templated ISBN. Same situation here and here and here where Citebot made the initial ISBN changes. (I followed through to make sure all the ISBNs comply with CITEVAR.) Kanguole, I've done ~2,000 edits in the 1,000 VA-3 list over the last 60+ days, so it's inevitable that some editors think I'm stepping on toes. At the same time I've had other editors give me thanks for the changes. So, what's the problem with producing an article that has a consistent ISBN format? – S. Rich (talk) 21:39, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I assume you mean that Citation bot changed un hyphenated ISBN-10s to partially hyphenated ISBN-13s (with a hyphen after the 978), as it preserves the hyphenation in hyphenated ISBN-10s. If you are unable to bring the few exceptions into line with the dominant hyphenated style, please leave it to someone else.  Kanguole 22:05, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Kanguole, my routine generally runs like this:
 * 1) find page I'm interested in and quickly scan history (has Cite bot and/or auto-ed been run recently?)
 * 2) open for editing and run Cite bot -- wait and wait and wait, and/or do other work
 * 3) if Cite bot responds with changes, review them
 * 4) run Auto-ed and review changes (if any)
 * 5) proceed with an eye-ball review for needed/helpful edits
 * 6) if there are ISBN variants, select the variant which can be edited the quickest to achieve a consistent ISBN presentation
 * 7) look for other cheap edit fixes such as hyphens in page ranges and dates, MOSDASH, mixed page range lengths etc (such as p. 1 vs pp. 1–2), spaced and unspaced initials in refs
 * 8) look for more cheap edit fixes such as ALLCAPS, NOTUSA, overly precise COORDS, OVERLIKINKING (especially in the refs and See also list)
 * 9) more complicated edits involve citation "location= ", "date/year= ", citation title hyperlinks, etc.
 * 10) "Show preview" and look for the red warnings, fix as needed or capable
 * 11) "Publish changes" – S. Rich (talk) 22:47, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Regarding ISBNs, while it is certainly easy to obtain uniformity by removing hyphens, several editors have objected, so you should stop doing that. If it is too difficult to achieve conformance with the dominant hyphenated style, you can leave that to someone else.  Kanguole 23:06, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
 * WHY are hyphens in ISBNs important? Are Amazon, WorldCat, Google missing something? They don't use hyphens. And what should I say to the several editors who have approved of my ISBN edits?  – S. Rich (talk) 23:13, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You could say that you're going to follow CITEVAR. Kanguole 23:33, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I could say that, I have said that, and I do say I do that. And the key word in CITEVAR is "established". "To make stable or firm; to confirm." If an article has references with a mix of hyphenated & un-hyphenated ISBNs, is the style "established"? Since you are willing to add hyphens -- where you deem necessary -- you must agree that your effort promotes a "firm or stable" style. But please answer my question -- WHY are the hyphens important? – S. Rich (talk) 00:04, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
 * If most of the ISBNs are hyphenated, with the exception of a few, usually added more recently and in poorly formatted references, then yes, that style is established.
 * Conversely, if most are not hyphenated or partially hyphenated, then that style is "established"?01:08, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Since we've recently discovered that Wikipedia prefers hyphenation in ISBNs (cf WP:ISBN, ), I don't believe the situation is symmetrical. Kanguole 14:24, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Delimited ISBNs are preferred for presentation to humans by the International ISBN Agency, style guides such as CMOS, and Wikipedia (see WP:ISBN). They are easier for humans to read and copy correctly, and the delimited parts quickly provide useful information, e.g. country and publisher, to people familiar with them.  Kanguole 00:39, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
 * CMOS indicates both are acceptable. WP does not prefer one-way or the other, but consistency is a strong theme in WP guidance.
 * Who copies ISBNs these days and with what? Pencil & paper?? If I want to copy something from my laptop or mobile, I highlight the term and press "Copy". (BTW, when I served in Iraq the kids on the street all wanted pencils from the GIs. But those kids are grownup now and their kids use iPhones & Androids.) – S. Rich (talk) 01:08, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Got a "thank you" for my edits to Thomas Edison. – S. Rich (talk) 02:00, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Just got another "thank you". This one for for Nicholaus Copernicus. – S. Rich (talk) 08:08, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to use disruptive, inappropriate or hard-to-read formatting, you may be blocked from editing. There is a Wikipedia Manual of Style, and edits should not deliberately go against it without special reason. You've been asked before not to remove spaces between initials, but you've just done it again. DrKay (talk) 19:16, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I tidied up after your (nearly all valid) edits at Roman Republic. Please stop removing spaces from initials, and be careful to preserve page ranges . – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:00, 20 February 2019 (UTC)


 * – please take a look at Chicxulub crater and Water fluoridation. The references in these articles (which you've edited) have a mix of spaced and unspaced initials, plus initials which lack full stops and spaces. If someone were to add or remove such spaces/full stops so that a uniform citation system was presented, would they be guilty of disruptive editing? I assume you posted your template because of your particular interest in Edward, but your threat of blocking is not well taken. – S. Rich (talk) 18:37, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * If you, specifically, went to either of those articles and removed spaces between initials in contravention of MOS and contrary to the multiple requests that have been placed on this page, then yes, you would be editing disruptively. Please refrain. I appreciate your edits when they move articles toward having a more consistent, MOS-compliant style, and I encourage you to preview carefully using the "Show Changes" feature in order to catch more of your typos and errors. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:33, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2019).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Evad37
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg There'sNoTime
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Alex Shih • Brian • Mushroom • Nakon • Oscarthecat • PeruvianLlama • Ragib • Reaper Eternal • Rossami • Tom

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Evad37 • Galobtter
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Ritchie333



CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg There'sNoTime
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Keegan • Ks0stm

Oversight changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg There'sNoTime
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Ks0stm • Sphilbrick

Guideline and policy news
 * The RfC on administrator activity requirements failed to reach consensus for any proposal.
 * Following discussions at the Bureaucrats' noticeboard and Wikipedia talk:Administrators, an earlier change to the restoration of adminship policy was reverted. If requested, bureaucrats will not restore administrator permissions removed due to inactivity if there have been five years without a logged administrator action; this "five year rule" does not apply to permissions removed voluntarily.

Technical news
 * A new tool is available to help determine if a given IP is an open proxy/VPN/webhost/compromised host.

Arbitration
 * The Arbitration Committee announced two new OTRS queues. Both are meant solely for cases involving private information; other cases will continue to be handled at the appropriate venues (e.g., WP:COIN or WP:SPI).
 *  has been set up to receive private evidence related to abusive paid editing.
 *  has been set up to receive private requests for CheckUser. For instance, requests for IP block exemption for anonymous proxy editing should now be sent to this address instead of the functionaries-en list.

Miscellaneous
 * Following the 2019 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Base, Einsbor, Jon Kolbert, Schniggendiller, and Wim b.

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:13, 4 March 2019 (UTC)