User talk:Timotheus Canens/Archives/2018/5

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Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2018).

Administrator changes

None

Chochopk • Coffee • Gryffindor • Jimp • Knowledge Seeker • Lankiveil • Peridon • Rjd0060

Guideline and policy news

The ability to create articles directly in mainspace is now indefinitely restricted to autoconfirmed users.
A proposal is being discussed which would create a new "event coordinator" right that would allow users to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit.

Technical news

AbuseFilter has received numerous improvements, including an OOUI overhaul, syntax highlighting, ability to search existing filters, and a few new functions. In particular, the search feature can be used to ensure there aren't existing filters for what you need, and the new equals_to_any function can be used when checking multiple namespaces. One major upcoming change is the ability to see which filters are the slowest. This information is currently only available to those with access to Logstash.
When blocking anonymous users, a cookie will be applied that reloads the block if the user changes their IP. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. This currently only occurs when hard-blocking accounts.
The block notice shown on mobile will soon be more informative and point users to a help page on how to request an unblock, just as it currently does on desktop.
There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

The Arbitration Committee is seeking additional clerks to help with the arbitration process.

Obituaries

Lankiveil (Craig Franklin) passed away in mid-April. Lankiveil joined Wikipedia on 12 August 2004 and became an administrator on 31 August 2008. During his time with the Wikimedia community, Lankiveil served as an oversighter for the English Wikipedia and as president of Wikimedia Australia.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:05, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Mass killings under Communist regimes

In 2011, the above linked page was placed under indefinite protection. As the administrator who protected the page, you are doubtless aware of the article's contentious history. As the gold padlock was placed so long ago, and as progress has stalled on the article, with only one substantive edit request having been made in the past six months, I wonder if it is not the time to discuss a gradual scaling back of protection.

How might I go about opening such a discussion? Where would be the appropriate forum to do so? I'm contacting you because you were the protecting administrator, but if you aren't able to answer my question, where might I turn to receive an answer? I'm also leaving a similar message at User talk:Sandstein, who was also involved in the controversy those many years ago. Thanks for your time. schetm (talk) 04:36, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Unprotected now that the underlying restriction has been lifted. T. Canens (talk) 09:39, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

May 23: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

Wednesday May 23, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan.

We will include a look at the organization and planning for our chapter, and expanding volunteer roles for both regular Wikipedia editors and new participants.

We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities.

We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from all educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects.

After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery!

Wednesday May 23 WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com).

7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 145 West 14th Street

(note the new address, a couple of doors down from the former Babycastles location)

We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 03:12, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

P.S. You are also invited to Action = History: Wikipedia Edit-a-thon for Asian American Literature on Sunday May 27!

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)