Stewards' noticeboard/Archives/2020-01

My account

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T243222 resolved

Hello! I'm having problems logging in in my account. Some days ago I logged off for the first time in many months and when trying to log in again it said that my username or password was wrong. I literally don't remember ever changing my password and I went on to see the saved passwords I had in Google Chrome for my Wikipedia accounts. There were three of them and all of them were the same as I remembered my password to be. After trying a few times with the same log in info, I gave up and tried the "I've forgotten my password" link which asked for my username and an email address, which I did gave. It then said an email would come with a new temporary password but it never came. I've been trying for some days the same thing and it never does. I've checked my spam messages but there's nothing in there. I'm actually one of the most active contributors in SqWiki and an admin (some admins from there can come and confirm my identity here as I've been talking with them on emails ever since this happened, actually those were the ones that told me to ask for help here) and I really don't wanna lose my account. Is there something I can do? This is my user page Sadsadas Thank you. - 185.212.191.85 22:20, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi, please make sure you use the correct email and username - the software will always say it has sent an email, to prohibit you from seeing if the email address is correct. If you're sure you did use the correct details, please open a Phabricator ticket (you can use this form for that) asking for a password reset, and ask trusted sqwiki users who know you in real life to confirm the request in that ticket. A system administrator will contact you and help you. --Martin Urbanec (talk) 22:47, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

@Martin Urbanec: hello! I'm a normal and interface admin at SqWiki. I can confirm the above user is indeed Sadsadas. I checked his userpage and apparently the problem with him is that he has removed the email address a bit after adding it at the preferences. That's why he doesn't get any email anymore from the software. Here (at the bottom) another admin asks him to put up an email so he can communicate more easily with him. He says that he will add it and then remove it after the other admin has seen it (he asks to give him a thank you to the edit as a way to tell that he has seen it after which he will remove it). All this is in Albanian. His aim was to remove the option "email this user" since he uses a nickname and the email is with his real identity but didn't know that by doing so the software would forget his email completely. The email mentioned there is the same he has put many times trying to get the temporary password and the one we have been talking through all this time. Is there a way to send the temporary password to that email? You can use that edit as proof that indeed that's his email if my word is not enough. Maybe a check user can check his IP in any way to further prove his identity? - Klein Muçi (talk) 01:00, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

@Martin Urbanec: thanks for the response. The problem is not with the user name but with password. I created this account in May 2013 and the password I put that time was the same until a few days earlier. - 185.212.191.85 10:25, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Hello! I'm another administrator on the Albanian Wikipedia and I can confirm his request. We are the most active sysops on SqWiki consequently we communicate often by email. The user Sadsadas told us about his problem and we suggested him to ask here. --Βατο (talk) 10:08, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

@Βατο and Klein Muçi: Confirmations seems to be sufficient. Could you please share the email address he/she usually uses when talking with you to martin.urbanec@wikimedia.cz, please? --Martin Urbanec (talk) 10:54, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

@Martin Urbanec: done. :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 15:01, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I have emailed the user with instructions how they can reset the password now. --Martin Urbanec (talk) 16:18, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Martin Urbanec (talk) 16:18, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Requests for comment/Include interface administrators for AAR

Are we at a point where this can be closed (presumably before AAR2019)? --Rschen7754 22:35, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

While it is a procedural comment, this proposal has not been widely advertised. With the impact of such changes, we need to be better and directly overt with promoting/advertising RFC that have global impacts.  — billinghurst sDrewth 23:01, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Actually, I have already prepared a review of inactive users for this year's edition -> Admin activity review/2019/Data. But as interface administrators were introduced in 2018, I suppose the review for holders of advanced rights does not apply to them this year because it has not been two years since the permissions were granted. Openbk (talk) 00:46, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Closing date set by Billinghurst. ~riley (talk) 18:01, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: ~riley (talk) 18:01, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Please keep bat-smg:Nauduotuos:Zordsdavini's admin's and bureaucrat's rights

Hi, we had small discussion in freed about my permissions on Samogitian wikipedia. Two main admins have been proposed to leave permission and nobody against. Zordsdavini (talk) 21:16, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

@Zordsdavini Hello. Thanks for the reply. We've noted this so your permissions ain't removed after this inactivity check. Best regards, —MarcoAurelio (talk) 21:47, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you :) Zordsdavini (talk) 06:25, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: —MarcoAurelio (talk) 14:25, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Please keep Willtron's admin and bureaucrat rights in Aragonese Wiktionary

Hello, after a voting (see here) our community has decided (3-0) that I should keep the permisions. Best regards --Willtron (talk) 16:37, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Done. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 20:03, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: —MarcoAurelio (talk) 14:26, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Please keep Nickrds09's admin rights in Tagalog Wikipedia

Hello, after "voting" our community has decided (3-0) that I should keep the permissions. Best regards --Nickrds09 ^{(Talk to me)} 05:40, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

@Nickrds09: Thanks for letting us know. I've noted this so your rights are kept. Best regards, —MarcoAurelio (talk) 12:52, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: —MarcoAurelio (talk) 14:26, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Spambots targeting user sandboxes

Flagging for general notice. Special:AbuseFilter/examine/log/746117 is an example of a spambot specifically targeting a user sandbox page. What joy. It may mean some tweaking to filters as numbers have been kept simpler to avoid false positives. I haven't reviewed to this point.  — billinghurst sDrewth 05:09, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 14:11, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Please keep s:fr:Utilisateur:Phe's admin's rights

Hello,

after discussing the subject on fr.wikisource, following this message on our Scriptorium from User:Linedwell, the community of fr-wikisource has a consensus for keeping User:Phe's admins rights active.

Please, do not remove those rights. Thanks ! --Hsarrazin (talk) 12:29, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

IMHO by the lecture of the policy, Phe should at least be posting something (4.2.- "[t]he notified users should then post information to the local community about the notice of maximum inactivity they received from the stewards in order to discuss the matter", "the messaged user could provide evidence to the stewards about the local community's decision"). Point 4.3 allows us, however, to evaluate on a case-by-case basis. I do not hold strong opinions in this case though but this has been subject of discussion in the past. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 11:50, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Or locals could simply set up their own policy to avoid it? — regards, Revi 13:44, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

How do we set up our own policy, and control tools, please ? --Hsarrazin (talk) 08:44, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

@Hsarrazin: The policy AAR was set so that advanced rights holders were not "set and forget". So a community needs to come up with a reasonable policy and approach to manage advanced rights holders who do not edit and interact with a community for 2 years (considered the maximum allowed.) What a local policy entails was left to local communities as stewardry was more concerned with having a good outcome rather than describe the input. The policy gives some examples of existing processes, and the list supplementary to the policy should link to each community's prescribed policy.  — billinghurst sDrewth 09:44, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

@Hsarrazin: I closed this issue as not done (so Phe still has admin permission), since there was a strong voice of the community. But, as it was said, it would be a good thing to have a local policy (since Phe was inactive for quite a long time). einsbor _talk 12:55, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: ~riley (talk) 04:03, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

mrwitionary missed from AAR?

According to this tool, the 2 sysops of mrwitionary did not make any logged actions / edits in the past 2 years, however, they are missed from the AAR data. I don't see any local inactivity policy that is more stringent than global. Is this an omission on the bot? Regards,--Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 08:07, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

See Admin activity review/Local inactivity policies. I don't like their inactivity policy but the way AAR is currently written not much we can do about it. --Rschen7754 19:35, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

6 years inactivity and at least one mr speaker must be sysop at all times, or else no AAR, wow, this is one of the weakest AAR I had ever see. AAR should be like, IMHO, CU/OS policy. Local AAR can be stronger than our AAR but not weaker. Slight delays are ok, 4 years different, IMHO, isn't. We might have to work out something in the future. I concede it will not be easy to change AAR though.--Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 06:29, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

There's no question that such policy is designed to willfully exclude AAR from applying there and at the same time avoid setting a formal activity review process as there's no way the conditions stablished in there would ever happen; nor it looks an active local community there exists thus no formal review can happen without one (Evasion (law) comes to my mind, mentioned here in a docendi causa way). The wording of the text in Admin activity review/Local inactivity policies is deficient and WP:BATTLE-ish, and the link is broken too. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 12:49, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Shall we just void this nonsense policy and leave them a message, telling them to give us a more proper policy or else follow our AAR.--Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 13:13, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

• There are a lot of problems with this project, including a forced consensus decided on another project that they're applying to this one. Praxidicae (talk) 13:15, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to thank 1997kB for fixing the link to the so-called policy, a text that was proposed, voted and approved by the same user if the link's right (!!!). Sorry, no, that is not valid. Projects are not the personal possession of one individual. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 14:00, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes that is the correct link, but pinging mr speaking user to know that what exactly is written there. @QueerEcofeminist: ‐‐1997kB (talk) 14:24, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

@1997kB:, thanks for the ping, in addition to the mrwitionary, [[w:mr]] has same issues we have no review process and crat and sysops are absent since ages, there are few sysops who should be removed according to w:mr:विकिपीडिया:चावडी/ध्येय_आणि_धोरणे/जुने_प्रस्ताव#दीर्घकाल_अकार्यरत_प्रचालक/प्रशासक_आपोआप_पदमुक्ती_कालावधी_प्रस्ताव this, we need to remove sysop flags from many but that has not happened (It says after one year of inactivity the flag should be removed!). And I agree with MarcoAurelio that above mentioned policy is not valid at all.

I request here that, with mrwitionary, lets check all mr projects for sysop activities as our crat(on mrwiki) is unwilling to implement the policies decided by community on mrwiki. And other mr projects don't have any of such valid policies. thanks QueerEcofeminist ^{"cite! even if you fight"!!!} [they/them/their] 16:37, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

• As per this both the sysops with no activity for last two years.(No Valid policy)</nowiki>
• As per this Both the sysops with no activity for last two years. (No policy at all!)</nowiki>
• As per this Only one active sysops out of 8
• User:Kaustubh, User:Sankalpdravid, User:Rahuldeshmukh101, User:कोल्हापुरी, User:सुभाष राऊत haven't used their sysop rights for years (from more than one year to four years) Where we have policy on this project which says sysops flag should be removed after one year of inactivity. And crat haven't implemented it yet for no good reasons. </nowiki> QueerEcofeminist ^{"cite! even if you fight"!!!} [they/them/their] 16:55, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for examining the mr projects. I completely agree with you. Proposed policies without consensus should not have been implemented. They inactive admins should be desysopped per AAR policy. I am really starting to doubt Mahitgar's responsibility and actions as a bureaucrat on mrwiki. I foresee that we will find more cases about this, in which case, I think he should be desysopped. Masum Reza^📞 20:03, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

He was removed as a crat from mrwiki a few years back. As for his other rights, that would have to go to RFC. And if this policy was indeed written and approved by 1 user I would say that we should proceed with AAR. --Rschen7754 20:08, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. As you said, it looks like he was stripped off all of his advanced permissions including sysop in 2017 due to admin abuse]. I am still worried about the so-called policies and guidelines he implemented there, while he was still a crat and a sysop. Mrwiki should not hold control over its sister projects. Yet it looks like he implemented a policy ten years ago that SWMT members should stay away from mrwiki, and mrwikitionary. Some SWMT members has been warned of it. Camouflaged Mirage first brought it to our attention on IRC. I propose that a native Marathi speaker look into the list of policies and guidelines Mihitgar implemented on Mr projects, and after evaluating them, discard them if the consensus agrees. Masum Reza^📞 20:33, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I have removed mr.wiktionary "policy" from the list of local policies per the confirmation of QueerEcofeminist that the document was unilateraly decided by an individual. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 20:53, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

@MarcoAurelio: Are you going to rerun AAR for this wiki or wait until next time? --Rschen7754 04:04, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

@Rschen7754: Yes, I'll post the relevant messages today. I got distracted yesterday with some other issues. Apologies. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 21:34, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks, I am aware that User:Mahitgar , were desysoped, But the current crat User:अभय नातू is no different than them, they are enough hostile to SWMT team and anyone working on anti-vandalism on mrwiki. w:mr:साचा चर्चा:Delete shows that, we need to fix Delete template which is used in cross wiki work. But even after many requests from many SWMT members they are reluctant to fix that. On top of it they are saying I don't have time to fix it(Their recent replies translates to these exact words!).

• mrwiki policies of inactive sysops haven't been implemented by User:अभय नातू, who happens to be inactive crat(in terms of crat/syosp actions!)
• I think, I should start an RFC on this and lets deal mrwiki issue differently as, Thanks to almost absent sysops, not just this but we are facing many other issues too. (women editors getting harassed and stalked, huge copyvios, unlimited protections on pages and sockfarms!)
• But other mr projects have no valid policy around active sysops so, stewards can/should look into it for sure. thanks. QueerEcofeminist ^{"cite! even if you fight"!!!} [they/them/their] 01:39, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

• I think the best course of action forward will be

1. Re-run the AAR (as both are way pass 2 years per normal AAR), leave them a message as per normal, best is we can write it in mr, maybe QueerEcofeminist can help. This is due to security risks.
2. Have a note for them to accept either SWMT actions or else they will be remove from GSwiki set. There is only one choice out of these two. If they are removed from GSwiki set and they need help, we are willing to help so long as they have a new consensus for them to be added back. In this vein, clarify usage of GR (I am so afraid to use my rights there with the explict risk of being blocked). This is for mrwikitionary
3. Lastly, with the mrwp issues, it will be a separate RFC.

• Best Regards,--Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 06:36, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I'd say, lets just focus on this thread on the mr.wikt invalid AAR "policy". Other issues should probably deserve their own discussion, and probably not on this noticeboard but on RFC or somewhere else :-) Best regards, —MarcoAurelio (talk) 21:37, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, as I've said elsewhere we could spend all day trying to fix all the broken wikis with corrupt admins and still have problems at the end of it. (I don't expect you to agree publicly since it's not "proper" for a steward to say something like that, of course). --Rschen7754 01:18, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

1. Comment mr:wikt: In light of no active community they cannot be determining that a policy acts ad infinitum for a WMF wiki.. They should be considered to have no operable admin review policy, and it should be considered voided forthwith, and if there is an active community they can develop a new and acceptable local AAR by the time of the next review.

   One administrator not editing for 10+ years should not be considered an administrator for an inactive community by any stretch of imagination, and should be automatically removed. We can pick up the remaining admin next year, if no updated policy.

2. Comment We probably should be looking for a further update to the AAR that any administrator who is inactive at a wiki for a period of five years (pick another number if you wish) will automatically have their rights removed, irrespective of any local administrative policy.  — billinghurst sDrewth 05:29, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Just noting here that I posted yesterday the notifications on mr.wiktionary so AAR is now running on mr.wiktionary. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 10:31, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

After a short discussion on IRC yesterday, I would like to mention here too the fact that the inactivity level of mrwiki admins (e.g. no logged action since 2009) affects the workflow of Wikidata. We can't delete items until they delete their articles, but it doesn't look like they do that. OFF to QueerEcofeminist; it's my country. :) Bencemac (talk) 12:36, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Wow, a lot of discussion here about w:mr and their admins/'crats without so much as a courtesy notification to them until now.

I stumbled across this after a note was put on my talk page at w:mr and I'm just astounded at this discussion. Since the accused parties (namely, admins on w:mr, including myself) have not been part of this discussion, I believe this entire thread to be one-sided. At best, the non-notice was a result of oversight and at worst, a plan to subvert users on w:mr. In the spirit of "Assume Good Faith", I'm choosing to believe the former at this time. I will take some time over the next couple of days to read through the myriad assertions and respond, if necessary.

In the meanwhile, my record of edits and adminship are open for examination at w:mr. I am more than happy to translate/interpret as necessary.

Regards

अभय नातू (talk) 23:09, 23 February 2020 (UTC) (Abhay Natu, admin/'crat, w:mr)

p.s. I see that w:mr related discussion may be moved to a different RFC. Please do let the admins/'crats on w:mr know about this before a formal opening of this RFC. Thank you. -- अभय नातू (talk) 23:15, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Next Steps

Now the AAR notification is done. We should look into the problem of mrwiki not welcoming SWMT actions. I am considering asking them on their village pumps (both mrwiki and mrwikitionary) on their stand. They cannot have the cake and eat it too. Per their welcome to SWMT members, such as this, they seemed to say "Marathi Wikipedia by consensus requests that SWMT members should avoid edits at mr-wiki and mr-wiktionary" and expanded "We at mr wiki community are self sufficient in routine patrol of mr wiki and mr wiktionary, we would still need meta support to control only interwiki spammers, as and when that happens, we still need support of steward/global sysop/SWMT at our sister projects namely mr wikibooks and mr wikiquote, we wish steward/global sysop/SWMT team to avoid edits at mr wiki and mr wiktionary other than those that control interwiki spammers. Mahitgar (He who knows, wants to know and loves to keep others informed) 14:54, 6 June 2010 (UTC) With reference to above discussion we posted a poll at Marathi language Wikipedia in above respect at following page: Poll for opting out of SWMT and Global Sysop Interference arrived at a consensus to that effect,".

I did not see any poll and they are still in the wikiset for GR/GS (for mrwitionary). For me personally, I fear to do any edits there as I am afraid I will be blocked there. I will suggest we give the community two options. Either they allow our intervention or have a poll saying to the effect they do not want our intervention which is then we will just leave it to them to handle. To that effect, both mrwiki and wikitionary will be removed from GS wikiset and GR too (I don't mind that, I don't want to misclick and get blocked).

Just to note this is regarding GS/GR wikisets, hence, it is on SN. Rest of the issues will be dealt with later on a separate RFC.

CC previous participants @Bencemac, QueerEcofeminist, Billinghurst, Rschen7754, and MarcoAurelio:@Masumrezarock100, 1997kB, and Praxidicae:.--Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 15:52, 16 February 2020 (UTC) clarified--Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 10:47, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't want mrwiki and mrwikitionary to be opted out of GR because unlike GR, GS is truly global just because of some so called consensus that happened 10 years ago. Warning/blocking a particular group of good-faith volunteers from editing should not be tolerated. I am reminding again that the proposer of this ten year old proposal, was stripped off his admin rights in 2017 because of "admin abuse". It is quite clear to me he wanted to just push his POV on others, which is contrary to our mission – "Anyone can contribute to wikimedia projects". mrwiki had to option to opt out from GS wiki, and they did so. The situation back then isn't the same as now. It doesn't seem like they are now very "self-sufficient" in routine patrol of mrwiki. Most of the admins are inactive there. The so called consensus ten years ago is not valid anymore. Masum Reza^📞 16:28, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Comment to enable the re-addition of GS you will need a means to have the policy components within Global sysops overridden that allow opt-out by a simple consensus. So that would be a trigger clause, or a low benchmark by which wikis are put back within Opted-out of global sysop wikis. That could be based on a measure, eg. set minimum number of active administrators AND a community consensus, possibly set a time period of review if they are between lowest benchmark and second lowest benchmark; maybe a performance target where communities that are unable to manage backlogs/requests within a timeframe.

(thinking out loud) Once suggest that a measures in place pairing with the activity of global sysops benchmark, so something like

LOWER BENCHMARK (for GS actions currently says) fewer than three administrators have made a logged action within the past two months; so

• (to achieve GS exclusion) minimum of three administrators and community consensus
• (to retain GS exclusion) minimum of three administrators need to have been active within the calendar year (activity test being that used for AAR)

Anyway, any change would require a community consensus here via a RFC.  — billinghurst sDrewth 05:19, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure the anti-SWMT user talk template mentioned above is an issue any more: is it still used by current users in recent messages? I've removed the offending part, we'll see. More importantly, there are still copyvios on this wiki which I reported in 2015! I've asked for the {{delete}} template to be restored, so that such reports are not swept under the carpet any more. We need to find out if this wiki respects at least the minimum required global policies: if they don't even respect copyright policies, there's really no use adapting global policies to suit such a fatally flawed case. Nemo 08:36, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

The delete template is really wrong. "This delete template can be used only to request deletion of User page requests and to deal interwiki spams only. For rest of purposes this template is no more in use in Marathi Wikipedia. Please do not use this template for rest of the puposes. Do not know Marathi? Then please leave your comment at Wikipedia:Embassy. Kindly note official Marathi Wikipedia policy to not to allow non Marathi Wikipedians any edits other than interwiki links and dealing with interwikispams" – what is this "official policy" and this tone is really harsh.--Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 09:55, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

"official Marathi Wikipedia policy to not to allow non Marathi Wikipedians any edits" ROTFL. I can tell you any admin trying to enforce such a discriminatory policy will likely have their tools removed before their feet touch the ground. What an embarrasing charade. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 16:28, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Despite so I refuse to edit there without proper clearance, I don't want to get blocked.--Aldnonymous^Bicara? 16:44, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Comment just for clarification, AAR is not yet done. The only one wiki left and it is mrwiktionary. einsbor _talk 10:01, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

@Einsbor: To clarify, I meant AAR is done is that the starting of AAR in mrwitionary is done. This is one of the main problem found by a few of us, so I meant the problem of mrwitionary not in AAR is resolved. Sorry for the confusing terms.--Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 10:05, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Noting that they are currently opted out (the initial comment in this section seems to be contradictory on that) and that there is no wikiset for GR, as it is truly global. Vermont (talk) 10:39, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

@Vermont: I meant mrwitionary (I just happen to collapse both), clarified, thanks for pointing out. I mean that if they hate SMWT so much and I personally refrain from doing GR actions there, why not we establish a wikiset excluding them. If the community really wish to do so to completely not have our intervention. --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 10:47, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: —MarcoAurelio (talk) 19:29, 13 March 2020 (UTC)