Stewards' noticeboard/Archives/2012-10

Interwiki spamming

Hello. I was directed here from ANI on en-wiki, in hope that you can help with a difficult problem spanning different projects, but particularly affecting en-wiki and those in obscure foreign languages. The IP editor, 68.3.67.81, is creating various stubs of articles on various foreign-language projects, with the apparent single purpose of spamming en-wiki with bots who place interwiki links. An example article is . Here are some example contributions lists from the foreign Wikis, to show you what kind of scope this problem has: [1] [2] [3] [4]. This was previously experienced in a big way on the article . The only solution we have so far is to fully protect the page in question for a while, which is obviously not a good solution for actively edited articles. This user is already blocked six months on en-wiki; administrators here are effectively powerless to do much more about this obviously disruptive spamming. Elizium23 (talk) 00:01, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• I and other members of SWMT have been monitoring this, and I think it's about time that this IP get a global block.--Jasper Deng (talk) 00:25, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
• Done MBisanz ^talk 00:46, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Stewards acting on Commons

Following the recent discussion at commons:Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/User_problems#Non-admin_stewards_performing_admin_tasks, this is just to point out that Commons doesn't much like Stewards carrying out admin actions on Commons where there isn't an emergency factor or cross-wiki element. For ordinary Commons tasks, Commons is big enough that admins should be easily available as needed, at commons:COM:AN or via IRC. Stewards are of course as welcome as anyone else to apply for Commons adminship; there are activity requirements to maintain adminship, but they're not that onerous (commons:Commons:Administrators/De-adminship). Hope this message is not misunderstood: Commons is of course grateful for Stewards' contributions. Thanks, Rd232 (talk) 22:29, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

IMHO the steward policy should make it clear that having steward tools is not an entitlement to act as a local sysop in projects where you haven't been elected as one. (I proposed making the relevant section more clear wrt bureaucrat/oversight/checkuser actions last year on the policy's talk page, but it doesn't seem to have attracted much discussion at all.) There is a line to be drawn between cases where it's ok to for stewards to use local admin tools (GS wikis and emergency cases, at least) and cases where it's clearly inappropriate, such as local non-urgent deletions of files on Commons. Using one's "Great Love to Wikimedia projects" as a justification for refusing to seek local tools and continuing to use your global rights for local sysop actions certainly doesn't sound right to me. The policy forbids stewards from changing rights in projects where they are active community members; I think it would make sense to extend this practice to all non-urgent actions requiring special rights. Jafeluv (talk) 11:44, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I think all stewards are well aware of this, and going outside of mandate is really very occasional, and justified by RRULE and IAR. Several stewards who made several good faith and correct edits without the required admin rights, apologized and agreed to be more careful. I don't think there is anything to follow-up, besides what was already established on the Commons. Pundit (talk) 12:00, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Stewards needed for the enWP ArbCom elections

User:MuZemike just said on IRC that the enWP ArbCom elections are coming up. If any stewards are interested in helping out (who have not done it last year - that were Bencmq, Vituzzu and myself), please contact him on en:User talk:MuZemike. You can find more information on the request for help from last year (here). Trijnstel_talk 20:56, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

whose home wiki is not the English Wikipedia does not count anymore? CentralAuth still tells me that enwiki is my home wiki although I've more edits on dewiki and started editing there months before. Cheers, —DerHexer (Talk) 21:02, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I think that still counts, though he didn't mention it to me. You should ask MuZemike I think. Trijnstel_talk 21:08, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

That can be something that we can bring up when we start our RfC for the upcoming election. I mean, DerHexer is a special case, and I know most of us know his main wiki is de.wiki, but somebody on en.wiki is sure to bring up the technicality mentioned above. MuZemike (talk) 21:47, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the technical home wiki assigned by CentralAuth is what we're talking about here. In any case, you have had in the past significant involvement on enwiki, including attaining sysop status, and it would at the very least give the appearance of impropriety for you to be involved in this process, imo. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 21:41, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

And I don't want to be involved. It was just a question. ;-) But great that I'm a special case. :-D —DerHexer (Talk) 22:02, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

In policy the 'home wiki' term is actually described as a wiki where one is an active community member, which seems like a much more relevant criterion than the account's home wiki from an SUL point of view IMHO. Jafeluv (talk) 09:26, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

• We're discusing it among stewards and should reply shortly. Pundit (talk) 05:42, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
  • And we have a team: Pundit, Teles, Laaknor, Mardetanha, Millosh and Quentinv57. Trijnstel_talk 19:33, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Global sysops on urwiki

I have proposed the implementation of global sysops on ur.wikipedia about a week ago [5], but did not really get any reaction [6] (the comment there is unrelated, google translate suggests). There is activity on the wiki, as the recent changes reveal, but obviously not in speedy deletions. Would stewards consider this as enough to allow GS there? --MF-W 17:34, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Is silence a yes or a no? :P --MF-W 10:22, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I left a notice there. Giving them some more time to reply, since there appear to be active people on that wiki. -Barras talk 10:25, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

It's been many months and we haven't received any reply despite lots of activity on that page, I would say that we can implement it. Doing so now. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 09:09, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Question

Hi. I'm sorry if this is not the right place to ask it. Question is: In Northern Sami Wikipedia has been a vote on the bureaucrats to get technical rights to delete admin rights. Today ended the voting and there were two supporting votes and no votes against. Can we (the bureaucrats on se wp) have the technical right to delete admin rights? Gálaniitoluodda (talk) 15:56, 29 September 2012 (UTC), admin&bureaucrat on North Sámi Wikipedia

No. That would probably not even be enough to elect a bureaucrat nowadays. --Nemo 18:18, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

For reference, that's not enough to even elect a permanent admin nowadays. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 08:42, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Turkish wikipedia copies again from Ansiklopedika.org

Turkish wikipedia copies again from Ansiklopedika.org. They copy pasted one of the article from Ansiklopedika.org. Can anything be done about this? We can not do anything because they have forbidden the name of Ansiklopedika on Turkish wikipedia and they block us when we try to talk on village pump. Thanks for any help.

• http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%2B4%2B4_E%C4%9Fitim_sistemi
• http://ansiklopedika.org/4_art%C4%B1_4_art%C4%B1_4_e%C4%9Fitim_sistemi

95.10.191.2 19:43, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Ansiklopedika content is licensed under CC-BY 3.0, so I think the copying itself shouldn't be a problem. However, the original authors of the text will need to be credited. I've notified Cano58 (the creator of the tr.wp page) about this discussion. Jafeluv (talk) 09:32, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Turkish Wikipedia is a shame on the copy paste and show no credit issue. Nearly half of the project is copy paste from other sources. Like [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13] thousands of these articles. This is maybe because of the copyrights issue ise not well known or not respected in the whole country of Turkey. And the most sad point is the admins do not ever care of the copyright issue. Nearly all of the turkish wiki admins know about this last copy and paste issue but none of them has warned the user:Cano58 yet. Best regards.212.156.67.30 10:11, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

My English is not very good. Article is not completely copy. Content is not exactly the same (currently). --- Cano58 (talk)

Turkish wikipedia has deleted the page today. 95.10.125.100 16:30, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

This seems to be more an issue that would fall under Requests for comment rather than something that stewards could be intervening.

“ ... (stewards) are tasked with technical implementation of community consensus, and dealing with emergencies (for example, cross-wiki vandalism). ”

Stewards are not here to determine communities' issues. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:11, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

w:User:Tony1

Tony1 has returned to en.WN, and re-engaged in hostilities with n:User:Brianmc, a Wikinews Bureaucrat with whom Tony1 has strong differences of opinion.

This return appears to be instigated by Tony1's exchange of opinions with w:User:LauraHale, who is also an administrator on en.WN. While I have no specific opinions regarding Tony1's behaviour as a leader in the en.WP community, I would describe the messages on the user's talk page immediately preceding the edits to en.WN as harrassing over picayune details in an attempt to intimidate an acknowledged expert in her field of expertise (Laura Hale is a Ph.C. in sports journalism.)

This posting is merely to bring a situation of cross-project activity to the attention of the stewards, hopefully before there is any major disruption for en.WN such as Tony1's campaign to remove links and citations to the project from en.WP two years ago. - Amgine/^{meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news} 23:39, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

This conversation was brought to stewards' attention in IRC, and I believe that the consensus is that this should be attempted to be managed by the respective wikis/communities. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:54, 21 October 2012 (UTC)