User talk:TonyBallioni: Difference between revisions

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

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

Administrator changes

Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz

Boson • Daniel J. Leivick • Efe • Esanchez7587 • Fred Bauder • Garzo • Martijn Hoekstra • Orangemike

Interface administrator changes

Deryck 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

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

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:37, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

UTRS #23449

Hi,

Could you please take a look at this unblock request from Huggums 537? I'd really appreciate your input on it as you were involved with them previously as to whether or not I should take this to a community discussion.-- 5 albert square (talk) 00:58, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Convenience link: utrs:23449 SQL^{Query me!} 01:09, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Odd mistake I made

Just to let you know if you were wondering what I meant, I mistakenly remembered your name when it should have been another highly respected admin. No offense was intended to either of you, but I'm sure it appeared odd. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:55, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

You're fine. I was planning on looking it over in the morning, so I hadn't noticed anything odd yet :) TonyBallioni (talk) 05:30, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

SPI for Wil93948?

Hey, TB, do you recall an SPI for Wil93948? Serena Berman popped up today with the recreation of Cavis Appythart, which is pretty clearly the same MO. Given the age of the account, this might justify a sweep for sleepers (I assume they're waiting to get autoconfirmed), but I don't remember an SPI to add them to. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 18:11, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Writ Keeper, the SPI that the CU log shows is Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/PornSexAssButtPiss. That sock is  Confirmed to the last group I blocked there as well as MrMenFan94 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki), whom I have blocked. Feel free to file an SPI if you want for the record. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:58, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Done, thanks for the help! Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:10, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Did I execute the MfD properly?

Hi Tony - please see User:Ianwikramanayake/draft - in retrospect, I realize it might have been done differently per this diff. I tried to save time and effort doing it the way I did (combining AfC/NPP/OTRS in one felled swoop) but if that's not the best way, then next time I'll leave the ticket # on the TP of an admin and move on to something else. I'm open to suggestions. ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 18:35, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

• TonyBallioni - just checking to make sure I'm not typing with invisible ink. ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 19:27, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Hi Atsme, sorry for the late response. I think that’s fine. I’m not sure of a better way would be unless it met G12 or one of the other speedy criteria. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:33, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

👍🏻 ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 16:28, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Range Block unblock

Thanks! Leaky Caldron 17:51, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Query

Hi. I blocked Special:Contributions/Chuck_E._Cheese_the_Handsome as very obvious block evasion - are CUs necessary/run for this sort of very WP:DUCK evasion? Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:44, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

You can always file an SPI or ask a CU directly to do a sleeper check. In this case another CU has already looked so there’s not a need to look again :) TonyBallioni (talk) 14:27, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

RM

I am strongly disagreeing with your decision to move Süleyman the Magnificent back to Suleiman the Magnificent. I am not going to propose an RM so your protecting the page is frankly beyond the pale. It is incredibly disrespectful to go over the head of an editor who and to endorse one side of a dispute by an administrative action. A discussion is not required for every move and a move that has been stable for several weeks should not be reverted without discussion. I'm not willing to invest time in a project where administrators are not willing to follow the policies they expect regular editors to follow.Seraphim System ^(talk) 20:56, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

​It'd been less than a month since you moved the page that has been stable for over a decade, which is close enough that any request to revert to the stable title and require an RM should be honoured. You had also used the extendedmover permission to move war with editors who were just following basic procedure with moves.

I was not favouring either side of a dispute and frankly don't care what the title is: this was an administrative action to restore the status quo ante, and the protection was justified especially as you have the ability to move war despite any redirect that may exist. If you disagree with my actions, feel free to request a review at WP:AN or if you feel they are especially egregious, the Arbitration Committee. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:04, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

No I don't feel it's espectially egregious, I just feel that it is disrespectful to me to undo it as "routine housekeeping" without even attempting a discussion with me. And I frankly don't give a shit about the status quo ante on an article from which I had to clean out references to a fiction novel. This assumes there is something worth protecting in the status quo. I made a decision based on my understanding of policy that an undiscussed move was allowed under the policy. I also stated that I was willing to move it back if it had been discussed with me. You can call it "warring" or whatever you think it is, but I'm not going to allow this community to abuse me. I have other things I can spend my time on. Based on my experience, I think it will be very difficult, with how things work here, to broader the range of viewpoints and backgrounds of editors working on this project due to how they are treated. I don't think you guys really appreciate how critical that is for the future of the project. In any case, I am extremely upset—would you mind also blocking my account for at least 6 months? I need a self-imposed break. Seraphim System ^(talk) 21:12, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

G6 to restore the stable title is the norm. We don't force an RM at the new title to restore to the title that policy says it should be at because of the header of the CSD policy. It's a technical deletion, which is why G6 applies.

I'm not willing to block you as you're currently angry at me. You can request Bishonen block you if you are serious about it, though. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:15, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Proof

Hi! This is the established editor Diamond Blizzard. User:24.5.8.227 is actually me. Sorry for the issue this has caused. Diamond Blizzard talk 06:40, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Diamond Blizzard, thanks. I looked at this with another admin and agree that you aren't the same person. TonyBallioni (talk) 07:36, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! I was pretty worried for a while. I do understand why I would seem suspicious to you. I don't know that much about this case, but from what I gathered, the sockpuppeteer had sockpuppets that were making seemingly "good" edits. Pretty sneaky. Of course, I'm a totally different person in reality; I'll be making sure to log in before editing from now on. Diamond Blizzard talk 07:42, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Whoops

I registered it and then went to go feed the cats and forgot to do anything with it when I got back, lol. Oops. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:10, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

🤷🏼‍♂️ TonyBallioni (talk) 06:26, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

P much ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:52, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

I have to ask...

Why the Triscuit? 28bytes (talk) 05:51, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

In memory of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Triscuit (2nd nomination), which pissed off Premeditated Chaos and I enough we bugged Drewmutt to make us a top icon. #neverforget​ TonyBallioni (talk) 06:03, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Haha... wow. Hard to imagine anyone would want to delete Triscuit, much less twice. Then again, I see Vegetable Thins are no longer with us, and no one's even tried to create an article for Wheatsworth (a favorite of mine), so I guess the anti-cracker cabal is more powerful than I would have expected. 28bytes (talk) 06:11, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I see veggie thins was a victim to Dysk’s “We over cover US food brands compared to UK food brands so let’s prove a point about it” deletion kick. To be fair, I’d probably merge it with wheat thins and redirect to that. Heh. It’s a PROD, might as well restore history. TonyBallioni (talk) 06:31, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Well, not to go all WP:OSE but if we can cover spotted dick we can certainly cover Triscuits, I'd think. 28bytes (talk) 06:51, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Why do British foods have the weirdest names? Galobtter (pingó mió) 06:57, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

I've always meant to go back and see if I can find enough in-depth sources to get Triscuit to GA status, just out of mild spite. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 07:01, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Query

Hey Tony. I am here to ask if my unblock had any mandatory conditions. I realize in my appeal I made some voluntary conditions, but I left it far too ambiguous, as “controversial” can unfortunately be used to describe arguably anything that involves debate at a talk page. The point was to avoid drama for my own sake, not have to step on eggshells when I am trying to make good-faith edits or discussion. Can you clarify this for me so I do not cause any issues? Thanks.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 01:24, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

I interpreted it as you describing how you would act. I don’t think a formal restriction on “controversial” things would work because that’s essentially anything on Wikipedia and has no easy definition. I think my close was clear that if you were disruptive you’d likely be blocked again, but it’s not a topic ban from controversy or anything of that sort. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:33, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Tony. Editors were just worried I was breaking an editing restriction. This will alleviate their concerns.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 01:36, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

It does not alleviate my concerns, that's for sure. In that discussion, TheGracefulSlick, you made the following commitment to the community: "I will remove myself from controversial topic areas of Wikipedia such as present-day politics for the next six months, then honestly evaluate my progress with an administrator". You didn't mention present-day politics in your message to Tony. I find your recent political editing behavior very troubling. Please tell the truth and stick to your promises. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:45, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

I did not mention it because politics were used as an example of any controversial thing. If there is actual conditions in place, I would like to know them. Am I excerpt from politics? How broad is that? Or any controversial thing, as I said in my appeal?TheGracefulSlick (talk) 01:51, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I think it would be wise for TheGracefulSlick to avoid anything that a reasonable person would consider controversial, but I don't think there's a formal restriction here. I'd call it a use your judgement situation, while recognizing that the community will likely not be patient if something is brought to ANI that could reasonably be considered disruptive. I hope that makes sense. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:52, 12 December 2018 (UTC)