Barkeep49

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Administrators' newsletter – September 2024

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

Administrator changes

Pppery

Interface administrator changes

Pppery

Oversighter changes

Wugapodes

CheckUser changes

• Courcelles
• GeneralNotability

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, there is a new criterion for speedy deletion: C4, which applies to unused maintenance categories, such as empty dated maintenance categories for dates in the past.
• A request for comment is open to discuss whether Notability (species) should be adopted as a subject-specific notability guideline.

Arbitration

• Following a motion, remedies 5.1 and 5.2 of World War II and the history of Jews in Poland (the topic and interaction bans on My very best wishes, respectively) were repealed.
• Remedy 3C of the German war effort case ("Cinderella157 German history topic ban") was suspended for a period of six months.
• The arbitration case Historical Elections is currently open. Proposed decision is expected by 3 September 2024 for this case.

Miscellaneous

• Editors can now enter into good article review circles, an alternative for informal quid pro quo arrangements, to have a GAN reviewed in return for reviewing a different editor's nomination.
• A New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in September 2024 to reduce the number of unreviewed articles and redirects in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 13,900 articles and 26,200 redirects awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

AE Request

Hi, thanks for permission to go over 500 words in responding to my AE report. I'm not familiar with how this plays out really - is it usually the done thing for the reporter to continually amend the complaint? In my statement I replied to points made and incorrect claims which have been removed or edited or changed. I've already edited my statement once to account for the changing request, I don't have time to stay on top of it though. Apologies for asking here if this isn't the done thing either! Void if removed (talk) 18:17, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

@Void if removed no they shouldn't be doing that. I've requested they stop. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:19, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. Am I allowed to add a reply to my statement? LunaHasArrived has pointed out I've made a mistake I want to apologise for, and also I'd like to respond to the "LGBA Founders" thing because it's been kind of my white whale and I've not covered myself in glory there over the years but I've moved on. Void if removed (talk) 20:56, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes. If you keep your total replies under 300 words you're fine. If this gets much larger and you need more words ask again. I hope to jump substantively to what's happening soon. Barkeep49 (talk) 01:03, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

RE: this comment 22 December Went back here per Radilacs response to my first batch. WP:SPLC notes that they are reliable but their labeling shouldn't automatically be included in the LEAD. I'm curious in what circumstances Void would find it appropriate to include a gender related hate designation in the lead given their reluctance on these two. I'm happy to respond but I'm at my limit now do you still want me to? I've already added links to relevant context to two edits you mentioned I hope that's ok. Void if removed (talk) 21:03, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

You can definitely have some additional words to reply to me. Barkeep49 (talk) 21:10, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

@Void if removed thanks for your email. As chance would have it I was in possession of that information already, but I appreciate your making sure of that. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:54, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the time you put in to assessing my case. I'll take all the constructive comments on board. Void if removed (talk) 13:46, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 September 2024

• News and notes: WikiCup enters final round, MCDC wraps up activities, 17-year-old hoax article unmasked

• In the media: AI is not playing games anymore. Is Wikipedia ready?

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• News from the WMF: Meet the 12 candidates running in the WMF Board of Trustees election

• Wikimania: A month after Wikimania 2024

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• Humour: Local man halfway through rude reply no longer able to recall why he hates other editor

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:24, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Change to the Functionary team

Following a request to the Committee, the CheckUser permissions of Barkeep49 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) have been restored.

For the Arbitration Committee, Primefac (talk) 11:44, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Change to the Functionary team

Clear vs clear and substantial

This came up in an earlier discussion, and I finally found it. Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Archive 19#Quick question. Maybe the standard changed, and maybe it only applies actions taken to enforce Arbcom placed sanctions. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:57, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

@ScottishFinnishRadish I can confirm that it was intentionally changed in DS to CT from clear and substantial to clear. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:00, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Gotcha, thanks. I'm just glad that I didn't hallucinate asking about that somewhere. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:04, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

September music

story · music · places

Per calendar, BWV 78 is 300 years today! = my story -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Three stories related to today in memory, 11 September, 20 July and 20 June, the latter piece of art also pictured on the Main page. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:04, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Today is Schoenberg's 150th birthday! On display, portrayed by Egon Schiele, with a DYK hook from 2010 and another from 2014, about his 40th birthday, appeared on his 140th birthday. - See places for a stunning sunrise, on the day Bruckner's 200th birthday was celebrated (a few days late). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:43, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Attack page

The "singer-songwriter" draft page you just moved is the target of a long harassment campaign similar to Chris Chan. The page is pure trolling and serves no purpose except to continue that harassment. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 17:01, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

@Helpful Raccoon I appreciate that background. I'm certainly familiar with the harassment of Chan. My quick googling doesn't reveal quite that same kind of harassment but does reveal a focus on the BLP violations that caused me to revdel the move logs. Can you document (perhaps best done in an email) more of that harassment campaign? Alternatively I agree it's unlikely they'll ever be able to move from being a draft page so perhaps try MFD? Barkeep49 (talk) 17:07, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I removed some false information that is part of the trolling. This is very similar to Chris Chan, including a wiki his "fans" have put together that documents his delusions. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 17:13, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

@Liz if you think the page is better off deleted don't let me stop you. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:21, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I put it up for a MfD, although I still think it should be speedy deleted. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 23:54, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

AE

(ping ScottishFinnishRadish) I won't have a chance to write anything substantial till this evening. I've responded the most recent issue (the “trans kids” one) on the talk page it occurred, to try to address how that's been misrepresented. But as you note there are a lot of diffs offered, and I'm quite sure by this evening there will be other posts by other editors with 50 more diffs. I wish it was clearer which are the areas of concern you guys would like me to address, and which you've already dismissed as misinterpreted. You can email me if you think that might be kinder. -- Colin°^Talk 10:44, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm glad FFF was able to reformat the diffs for you (I was going to put them here). Also because this is at a conduct noticeboard I will be keeping my substantive comments there. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:04, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

(ping ScottishFinnishRadish again). There are two diffs with a "diffonly=1" flag on them, which prevents examination of the context. Could those be removed too please. -- Colin°^Talk 17:30, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

@Colin you could delete that and make a new link you use in your response. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:10, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Barkeep, ScottishFinnishRadish, Valereee and Vanamonde93 for considering my case as fairly as you can. I can only conclude that all four of you must have been terrible people in a previous life, and brought back to spend your evenings moderating the bickering of folk on the internet. -- Colin°^Talk 21:08, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for closing, I did think we had a consensus for a general reminder re: AGF though. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:52, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

AE, travel

BK and SFR, I don't want to clutter the AE page with my typical travelogue, but I saw the AE last night after I finished packing, am headed this morning to the airport, will be flying all day, then traveling from the airport to my destination for a family wedding, getting in late. That is, at best, it will take me at least 24 hours to even be able to read the rest of the diffs. I'd like to have more time to view and comment on any real issues, which the most recent was not. And the mobile diffs will make it much harder to work from my (very slow) hotspot at the airport; I did not realize, for example, that WhatamIdoing was the first to use the term "trans kids" because of the mess of trying to view the whole page from a mobile diff with limited time. Is it possible to reinforce that the OP needs to better focus their diffs on any that are truly problematic, hopefully with non-mobile version, so that context can be more easily viewed and discussed? I wasted what little time I had last night commenting on a mobile diff with no context that was better handled by WAID. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:57, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

It would be really great if someone could just edit those urls to be standard diffs. Surely that's not contentious? -- Colin°^Talk 13:59, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

On the topic of mobile diffs, User:Þjarkur/NeverUseMobileVersion.js will take care of that. I have that installed to keep the site from forcing me back to the horrible mobile interface randomly, but it also shifts diffs to regular desktop diffs. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:00, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. That seems to work, though I can see the browser fetch the mobile page and then the desktop one after. SFN, your common.js is, em, extremely trusting of a lot of random users! -- Colin°^Talk 14:18, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, it has to load all your scripts before it knows to open the right version of the page. It's better than nothing though. Also, you reminded me to do a bit of cleanup on my common.js. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:39, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Thx to both, that helps, I'm off ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:06, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I assume that confusion (around who used the term first) is because Colin objected when a different editor used the same language, and I assume that was because it's difficult on long pages to keep track of which comment belongs to which sig, or because he had other things he needed to say about that comment. Mixing up who said what happens all over the wiki. I really don't think anyone was trying to be unfair here.

I do think sometimes that we need the equivalent of amusement park signs on some subjects. Instead of saying "You have to be at least this tall for this ride", we need one that says "If you have this much real-world anxiety about this subject, don't edit this page". It's obvious when you watch the conversations across multiple pages that some people have significant real-world fears about restrictions on gender care. IMO those fears aren't entirely misplaced, but from the Wikipedia POV, real-world anxiety does not make for a dispassionate Wikipedian. Regardless of whether the fear is about COVID vaccines, Trump's re-election prospects, climate change, gender equality, the mess in Gaza, immigration, or any other subject, real-world anxiety consistently produces POV pushers. We have traditionally tried to address this by accepting and moderating the POV pushing. I hope that we will be able to continue doing that for GENSEX topics, but perhaps society has shifted enough over the years that it's no longer a viable model. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:03, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Question about AE report

Regarding your closure of the AE report about me, I don't understand what happened with the concerns of myself, Levivich and SashiRolls that filer was engaged in disruptive editing and POV pushing? It would appear these concerns were ignored and have not been addressed. Thank you, IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 19:11, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

@IOHANNVSVERVS as @Vanamonde93 indicated filing a separate report - especially given the source manipulation concerns - would be appropriate. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:21, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I really don't understand how AE works. One doesn't get the impression that concerns of POV pushing are being taken seriously here. I will not be filing a separate report. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 19:28, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Arbitration Enforcement is designed to be a board with structured discussion about editor behavior in certain (Arbcom approved) places. A problem with many Palestine-Israel reports there is that it attempts to turn it into a wide ranging discussion about many editors' behavior. AE does not do that well. And so with your report there was an attempt to keep the discussion focused - which in this case was on the edit warring presented by the filer. The ask for a separate report is showing it's being taken seriously. Rather than nothing happening because it is buried as a small part of a large discussion of which it is not the focus, its own report means that conduct would be the focus. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:45, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Serious allegations were made and they were ignored. That seems rather bureaucratic (in the sense of being "overly concerned with procedure at the expense of efficiency or common sense").

I don't intend to be argumentative and I'm just registering my disappointment. I have a lot of respect for the individual admins who respond at AE, but AE itself has something wrong with it. There seem to be inconsistencies with how things are done there, and I'd like to ask if there is somewhere where all the rules etc governing AE are written.

Thank you for your time Barkeep, and know that I take seriously the warning I recieved for edit warring/1RR. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 20:11, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I can understand why as a non-frequent participant you're not seeing it this way, but it is my sincere belief that Vanamonde's suggestion was correct: filing a seperate report was the right answer for efficiency. If someone were to file a report today that was straight forward in the way the report just closed was, there's a great chance that the total time to close both would be less than the time it takes to close the sprawled report about IntrepidContributor. Barkeep49 (talk) 20:52, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Could I file a report saying simply "In a previous AE report, I made a statement alleging misconduct by user(s) x. I was told to submit a separate report to address these concerns. Here is my statement and note that there were statements by other editors in the IOHANNVSVERVS report which are relevant to this report."

And should two or three separate reports be filed or can my concerns about the three editors be dealt with in the one report?

Thank you, IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 21:08, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

The most successful reports have specific diffs with easy to understand explanation of why those diffs present a problem - that was something the report that just closed did well. So "read a whole bunch of other stuff to find what was relevant" won't be successful. Nor would "read the statements by me, Levivich, and SashiRolls" because the one that comes closest is SashiRolls here but that is just a single diff when the 3 of you are arguing a pattern and the rest are assertions without clear evidence to back them up. Someone needs to compile what the pattern of diffs are. An example of that happening for something somewhat like this is this by Levivich which, not for nothing, was too late in a thread that had already spiraled. And yes a person can file two or three concerns in a row about similar concerns for different editors. Barkeep49 (talk) 21:37, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

It's unfortunate that serious allegations are ignored unless certain hoops are jumped through.

I'll ask again if there is somewhere I can read about the rules/procedures/etc regarding AE? IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 21:58, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

They're not ignored, as much as there have been millions of words written on talk pages and thousands upon thousands of edits. Without a clear demonstration of what exactly the problem is its very difficult to suss out. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:52, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

They've not been ignored? Three users reported concerns about a user's conduct but these concerns have not been responded to or addressed.

"Without a clear demonstration of what exactly the problem is"? The allegations were very clear in identifying what the problem is. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 20:22, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for missing that question earlier. I wish there was a good tutorial for learning about AE. The rules and procedures are written in the box labeled "Important information". But how to write effective AE reports is something that doesn't exist as far as I know. However, most of the advice on how to write an effective ArbCom statement would also apply to AE. Barkeep49 (talk) 23:06, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Very clear evidence was presented that user x was misrepresenting the source you provided and which he and user y repeatedly reverted. His claim that the variant on the wh-cleft structure "What happened in 1948" was vague was shown to be false as it was clearly defined in the source as "massacres and expulsions at gunpoint" "which led to over 80 per cent of the Palestinian population being violently forced to flee". What BK49 seems not to want to say is that it is easier for AE admins to treat AE as though it were WP:AN3 where simple revert-counting is normally addressed. I too was sorry to see that the complaint was not treated seriously, as the evidence presented was very clear and in the context of a larger complaint it will likely be successfully muddied. While someone could reinitiate the same case with exactly the same evidence, mentioning both user x and user y, it would have been much simpler to give a 1RR warning without falsely claiming that you were unilaterally edit-warring when there were three people involved, counting user x (who made claims on the talk page) and user y (who did not).-- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 21:00, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

The reason I haven't said What BK49 seems not to want to say is that it is easier for AE admins to treat AE as though it were WP:AN3 where simple revert-counting is normally addressed is because I don't think it's true. Instead I think The ask for a separate report is showing it's being taken seriously. Rather than nothing happening because it is buried as a small part of a large discussion of which it is not the focus, its own report means that conduct would be the focus. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:37, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Just making sure

I was going through my contributions, and the edits I did to an AN/I hat was revdel'd. Did I do something wrong? Babysharkboss2!! ^{(Nomad Vagabond)} 12:57, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Babysharkboss2, looks like your edit was caught up in a revdel of material added to the Kautilya3 thread by Ms Sarah Welch. Your contributions came between the addition of the material and its removal. Folly Mox (talk) 14:15, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Oh. So I didn't do anything wrong? Babysharkboss2!! ^{(Nomad Vagabond)} 14:21, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Correct. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:24, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

oh, ok! Thanks! Babysharkboss2!! ^{(Nomad Vagabond)} 15:49, 13 September 2024 (UTC)