Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2017-10

Editors with Asperger's

I happened to come across an editor who says on their user-page that he/she has Asperger's. I don't believe this editor is aware of the existence of the list of editors with Asperger's somewhere here (I forget where it is btw). What options exist for bringing the list to the editor's attention without getting into trouble or drawing too much attention? - I do not use email. Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 14:15, 3 October 2017 (UTC) please ping me

Ottawahitech, are you talking about Aspergian Wikimedians page? Well, without email and without using any other external means you can for example write him on random wiki's talk page where he has an account or ping him in a random wiki he has account in. But, I suggest you assess whether it is that important. I think with user page they have communicated what they wanted already, and there is no need to list themselves on a global page especially if they are not active cross-wiki. --Base (talk) 11:59, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 10:57, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

New global ban RfC for user INeverCry

Please share: Requests for comment/Global ban of INeverCry. --78.53.71.61 10:55, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

This RfC is way premature, at best. INeverCry does not meet the Global bans criteria. INC has many enemies and many friends, and a global ban discussion will simply waste a lot of time without benefit to the projects. I will explain in a few minutes. As well, anons should not be allowed to start a global ban RfC and probably not any RfC. On Wikipedia, I haven't looked lately, two registered editors signing on were required for a User RfC, which makes sense. --Abd (talk) 11:37, 5 October 2017 (UTC) Let the anon recruit a registered user if he or she wants to remain anonymous. If he or she cannot, there is no hope for the ban. --Abd (talk) 11:37, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree that this RfC can't validly start/proceed as it stands now. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 11:45, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you both for your feedback! Yes, I am not experienced in starting a GB-RfC, therefor I added the section "Further evidence (to be added by other users)", hoping that this would bring posiive collaboration. If starting it logged-out via IP is forbidden, then please close it or re-start it whoever wants to; I will not burn my account, I have seen too much what happens to people who speak out against harassment publicly. --78.53.71.61 12:18, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. I have opposed harassment publicly. I'm still alive. This IP has admitted socking. If he were legitimately afraid of blowback, he could find a registered user willing to file. A meta user global ban RfC is not a process recommended for any new user, if he is actually new, it should be someone with experience -- and courage. Frankly, if the IP continues arguing tendentiously, I'd be tempted to file a global checkuser request, this is global disruption. However, my suspicion is that this user is already banned in some way or other. People do not dive into highly disruptive process like this, out of the blue. --Abd (talk) 13:06, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

• Unregistered users should never be allowed to file a globan ban request imo. Please see Requests for comment/Improvement of global ban policy. RadiX∞ 12:31, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I have seen a blocked user file disruptive process as IP or a new SPA, pushing a hot button, creating what was effectively a riot. Nobody noticed that the process was filed by an anon, with misleading evidence. They simply started shouting about the "outrage." INeverCry was not, as far as I've seen, harassing anyone (other than possibly, I haven't been following it, Russavia, global-ban evading, who has many friends. One of them has been Fae, who has asked for the RfC to be speedy closed.)--Abd (talk) 13:06, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

As I said at the other page, the global ban policy does not require discussed bans, it can be two infinitely blocked accounts. I think that the global ban policy should require two community bans to be able to proceed.  — billinghurst sDrewth 07:36, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

In agree, as a bare minimum! (however, there can be exceptions, which is why the current policy is vague on this. The global lock is routinely used for detected spammers with no discussions, and nobody is worried about that, support is nearly universal.) The intention of the policy was to make global bans of possibly good-faith users, especially users with high contributions, difficult and rare. Simply being indef blocked on two wikis can happen fairly easily (and transiently), and sometimes these are linked (and sometimes based on an error that propagated). The intention of a global ban is to protect the many wikis from deja vu all over again. Where blockable behavior is not likely to propagate, the basic purpose isn't there.

Further, different wikis may have different purposes. As the example I best know, en.wikiversity is not an encyclopedia, and rarely experiences revert warring, conflict over space, whereas this can be a major difficulty with encyclopedia projects, with one article per topic. So users who got into trouble on Wikipedia may do just fine on Wikiversity. Commons presents different conflicts, but conflict remains routine there.

Global bans, enforced by a lock, are highly intrusive, the tool is crude. It used to be that a local 'crat could effectively undo a global lock, which did sufficiently protect local wikis. That all changed with SUL. A global ban can interfere with the right of a local wiki to decide to allow or disallow participation. Defeating a global lock with a new allowed local account is not a problem, if locally accepted, but once a "global ban" is in place, then it is common that any new accounts are detected and locked, regardless of local wishes. So this is a loss of local autonomy. Some don't mind that. --Abd (talk) 16:29, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 10:56, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Please help

How can i create an account on Arabic Wikipedia in turkey? i mean i'm forced to use a proxy so i can browse the site and when i'm trying to create an account it won't work because i'm using a proxy. i have been trying for a long time, i just want to join the Arabic Wikipedia and help. --AhrimanAmmaneh (talk) 09:04, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

@AhrimanAmmaneh: You have an account. As you are logged in here, it should just create when you head over to w:ar:User:AhrimanAmmaneh. In fact if you pop top special:centralauth/AhrimanAmmaneh you can see what exists for you. If that does not work, then Arabic Wikipedia will need to change their settings or grant you a work-around. They control their local settings, not us.  — billinghurst sDrewth 10:58, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Noting that we don't know the IP address, so we cannot advise specifically on that issue. You can always look at https://tools.wmflabs.org/meta/stewardry/arwiki?sysop=1 find an active admin at arWP, and ping them here asking for their intervention.  — billinghurst sDrewth 11:29, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 10:56, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Return to scn.wiki after long time off

Hi everyone, I'm not sure if I'm in the right place, but I'll give this a whirl. I was one of the original co-founders of scn.wiki back in Oct 2004, and the first sysop, but have been away from it for a number of years. Now that I have plenty of time on my hands, I would like to return to it. I lost my admin rights two years ago, which is fair enough, but for the past week I have been the only user, apart from some vandalism. I think scn.wiki needs another admin straightaway, and would like to return to my old role, but at the moment, since there is minimal activity on scn.wiki, the usual processes are in hiatus. Is there anyone out there who can help me? Hopefully someone will still remember me from back in the day. Regards, Pippu d'Angelo —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pippu d'Angelo (talk) 18:04, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

You need to create an RfA discussion on scnwiki, either on an existing RfA page, or on a well-established Community Forum/​Café/​Village Pump page. Keep it open a week. Assuming nobody objects, then go to SRP and ask the stewards to give you sysop rights, with a link to that discussion page. They'll give you limited-term rights to start with. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:32, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

By the way, it doesn't matter if nobody else is active there; you still need to go through that process. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:33, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Bentornato! Mi aspetto che non sia troppo difficile seguire la procedura suggerita sopra e ottenere qualche voto da altri italici. Ci servi anche in translatewiki:Portal:Scn eh! 16:20, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 10:57, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Proposal for Certified Wiki Reporters

I propose that Wikipedia create a process whereby interested individuals could complete a certification course that qualifies them as 'Certified Wiki Reporters', essentially a short online course in adhering to fact based journalistic standards. As we enter a world with ubiquitous smart phone enabled citizen reporters, we are also running into the 'fake news' problem, and it would be comforting to see reports by individuals with some kind of certification. I find myself increasingly going to Wikipedia for serious emerging news events, as it seems to make a real effort to report only that which is verifiable. It would be even better if some of the reports came from Wiki certified people on the ground. No doubt this would entail some expense, since there would have to be some continuing validation process to make sure standards weren't violated by existing certified reporters, but it would also be a great achievement, and one that strikes me as fully in the Wiki philosophy.

Thanks for your consideration, David E. Cooke

Tjis is better suited for Wikinews than for Wikipedia. Ruslik (talk) 16:54, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Speaking of which The Wikinewsie Group had similar ideas, also some Wikinews, for instance Russian Wikinews have collaboration with a local media which provide them with official reporter's certificate which enable them to act as full-fledged journalists in all situations they want. --Base (talk) 12:02, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Now accepting applications for 2018 Ombuds Commission

Hi everyone! It's coming close to time for annual appointments of community members to serve on the Ombudsman commission (OC). This commission works on all Wikimedia projects to investigate complaints about violations of the privacy policy, especially in use of CheckUser and Oversight tools, and to mediate between the complaining party and the individual whose work is being investigated. They may also assist the General Counsel, the Executive Director or the Board of Trustees in investigations of these issues. For more on their duties and roles, see Ombudsman commission.

This is a call for community members interested in volunteering for appointment to this commission. Volunteers serving in this role should be experienced Wikimedians, active on any project, who have previously used the CheckUser/Oversight tools OR who have the technical ability to understand these tools and the willingness to learn them. They are expected to be able to engage neutrally in investigating these concerns and to know when to recuse when other roles and relationships may cause conflict.

Commissioners are required to identify to the Wikimedia Foundation and must be willing to comply with the appropriate Wikimedia Foundation board policies (such as the access to non-public data policy and the privacy policy). This is a position that requires a high degree of discretion and trust.

If you are interested in serving on this commission, please write me an email at kbrownwikimediaorg to detail your experience on the projects, your thoughts on the commission and what you hope to bring to the role. The commission consists of nine members; all applications are appreciated and will be carefully considered. The deadline for applications is end of day on 18 December, 2017.

Please feel free to pass this invitation along to any users who you think may be qualified and interested. Thank you! Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 15:11, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Mirror page from Meta

Hi, is it technically possible to have a page in Meta (or somewhere else) that can be seen from a local wiki depending on the language? I want to create a page here about how to download Kiwix (the offline project) but can be seen from any wiki inside it without being redirected to meta (something like commons pages in wikis). Now the page exists separately in all Arabic projects, but I want to have a unique place for the content so that I'm not going to update them manually. Also, is there a possibility that the shown language depends on the local wiki. Let's say the Swahili Wikibooks accept to translate add a link for the page when you click on the link in that language you see the page there (Swahili wikibooks) in Swahili, not in Arabic or English?--Helmoony (talk) 18:20, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

No. Userpages are seen from other wikis when local userpage does not exist, and with some #switch magic it is possible to make it appear in wiki's respective language, but not other pages. The best you can do is put {{softredirect}} template on local wikis pointing to Special:MyLanguage/Kiwix/Download (Special:MyLanguage will show the page in the language the user has set up as the interface language on Meta if the translation exists) or something like that. --Base (talk) 19:11, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

@Base:, the name space in Arabic projects is Wikipedia not User. Thank you for offering a solution. But how about commons files that can be viewed in local wikis without being redirected to. If it's possible for a commons file, why isn't possible for a meta page. --Helmoony (talk) 22:12, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Why I do not make a financial contribution to Wikipedia.

The way Wikipedia took sides in the copyright case of the Monkey selfie photos taken by British nature photographer David Slater was disgraceful.

I thought Wikipedia was supposed to take a "neutral point of view". How is this compatible with your stance of taking sides against the photographer in this dispute? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ad1mt (talk)

Note that there is no [incorporated] entity named "Wikipedia". Wikipedia doesn't receive any donations. Nemo 16:17, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia asks for neutrally written encyclopaedic articles. Wikimedia Foundation has a range of neutral and activist positions on a range of topics. Please feel free to read more about the Foundation at their website. Also differentiate the Foundation from the volunteers.  — billinghurst sDrewth 11:02, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Unresolved issue of Wikimedia servers changing gamma value in grayscale PNG images

See unresolved (or any other reaction) issue: Wikimedia_Forum/Archives/2017-08#Different_rendering_of_the_same_PNG_image. —Mykhal (talk) 12:26, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia changing some Unicode characters

Hi, I have noticed that during editation (after preview or save), some Unicode characters are without any obvious reason and warning, replaced with others by the server.

For instance ʹ (U+0374 GREEK NUMERAL SIGN) → ʹ (U+02B9 MODIFIER LETTER PRIME).

(So the first character had to be represented as its HTML entity to prevent the conversion.)

Is it intentional?

—Mykhal (talk) 12:37, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Can you point to a page where this happens? Ruslik (talk) 08:26, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Any page, including this one, as implied. I am not 100.00% sure it's a server problem, but verified that it behaves consistently in different browsers and platforms, on several different wikimedia servers. Just copy both symbols from the rendered text (not source) from my initial post, paste here in the textarea when editing, make preview, and verify that they became the same. (If they looked the same before as well, you have to use more sophisticated char comparison/determination method, like using Character Identifier (FF) or Unicode Analyzer (Cr) browser extension. —Mykhal (talk) 01:47, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Text in MediaWiki is converted to Unicode Normalization Form Canonical Composition (NFC), which specifies that replacement among many others. See also the normalization FAQ at unicode.org. Anomie (talk) 13:33, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, this is satisfactory explanation, performing of the normalization is reasonable, and I should probably challenge this particular canonization rule at very different place. —Mykhal (talk) 18:05, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Wanted Pages

Is there any way to solve a big and ancient issue in the Wanted Pages special page in every single Wikipedia? In every wiki there are files listed as a wanted page with a huge number of articles linking to it, as you can see in the english page for example: However, when this wanted file pages are created, they are not deleted from the wanted page list, and they have remained there month, after month, after month, and I guess that even for years, without a way of replacing them. This is absurd one, because there is a special page for Wanted Files in every wiki, and second, because this problem turns what would be an useful page to improve every wiki into an annoyance that makes it less useful for everyone. Other similar special pages don't have this problem, in my case, for examle, I have created dozens of wanted categories in the Spanish wiki thanks to a feature that works the way it is supposed to. I am sure this is an issue that could be solved easily with someone that nows about codes, and I think that, being a widespread issue in every wikipedia, it should be a priority to have it sorted out. --Pencho15 (talk) 21:26, 30 October 2017 (UTC)