Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2019-09

Since November 2018

Hello,
Compared to Wishlist Survey 2019, when will the global signature? Best regards. —Eihel (talk) 23:28, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

The Community Tech handles most of the wishes. Considering that many wishes haven't been granted yet, it may take a while to get the global signature. We might get an accurate date by asking a member of the tech team or other product team. Esteban16 (talk) 00:00, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Txs Esteban16 —Eihel (talk) 11:22, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 12:32, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

"Contact Us"

According to Privacy policy, "If you have questions or suggestions about this Privacy Policy, or the information collected under this Privacy Policy, please email us at privacy@wikimedia.org or contact us directly"

First mail sent on August 16th: no answer.

Second mail sent on August 21th: no answer.

Third mail sent on August 27th: no answer.

This is a joke, isn't it? --Discasto (talk) 12:49, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

I'd try legalwikimedia.org, maybe it's more frequently checked. You should also consider your whether question/suggestion really needs response. Some suggestion don't need answer and some questions have been already answered in the document and elsewhere. –Ammarpad (talk) 16:10, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi @Discasto: back when Michelle Paulson was in charge of WMF Legal, I could mostly rely on getting responses to emails that I sent to legal@, but those days have long passed and I've now come to expect that emails that I send there will be ignored. If you want to escalate this you might try leaving a note on the talk page of MDennis (WMF). ↠Pine (✉) 05:45, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 12:32, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

For how long esams.wikimedia.org is expected to be down?

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T232224

How serious is damage to it? And are Ashburn servers capable to cope with increased load? It would be nice to see some communication from responsible people. I’m sure not all technicians and management are now busy trying to revive the Amsterdam base.

By the way, I currently have to switch to Ashburn (text-lb.eqiad.wikimedia.org) via iptables because—in Europe—dyna.wikimedia.org resolves to text-lb.esams.wikimedia.org which is dead. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:30, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Found myself a page https://grafana.wikimedia.org/d/000000330/varnish-machine-stats?from=1567786000000&to=1567894000000&var-datasource=esams%20prometheus%2Fops&var-cluster=bastion&var-instance=All&orgId=1 – it would be interesting to know what is “tcp_incsumerror”. Likely something bad with TCP checksums which suggests a broken network hardware. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 22:07, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

It's not a matter of "load" in the typical sense, it's a confirmed DDoS. Moving the traffic elsewhere doesn't necessarily help. Live updates are as usual on the #wikimedia-tech IRC channel and at some point the confirmed facts about the incident will be on wikitech:Incident documentation. Meanwhile we can play with Wikimedia servers' wikitech:Network_monitoring but if the thing had a simple explanation it would be already solved. Nemo 22:16, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Are other Internet properties attacked as well? A list of those suffering attacks may help to guess who ordered it. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 05:18, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

By the way: https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/09/07/malicious-attack-on-wikipedia-what-we-know-and-what-were-doing/ Nemo 09:12, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 12:32, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Edit filters

Is there a place to get assistance for smaller projects where there isn't really anyone that is a bona fide edit filter expert? We've got a vandal or two on en.quote that are simply not amenable to range blocks, and last time we tried implementing an edit filter it ended up in a lot of collateral damage and had to be disabled. GMG^talk 12:26, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

I presume you could ask for help here. I could help, to an extent, however there are many more well-versed in filters than I. What vandal is it? Best regards, Vermont (talk) 15:17, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

The more immediate is probably "the Toy Story vandal", for lack of a better term. Probably a child. But has targeted pages on Pixar movies (see for example here), and this goes back years. Just to block their last three IP's on that one article its 4x10²⁹ IPv6 addresses. GMG^talk 15:40, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

@GreenMeansGo: For one-off advice, you can ask here, or in some of our other admin type forums, pop a question on my talk page here, or at my enWQ talk page. If you are looking for more distinct and ongoing assistance, then your advisors are going to need to see your filters, I would suggest that your community look to get consensus to have the AbuseFilter right abusefilter-modify to be separately assigned by local admins and/or crats (see enWS's means to achieve with "Abuse filter editors" at s:Special:ListGroupRights). Then if you want some true experts there are others around where we can direct for help, though it will all be restricted by the rights issue. Your community needs to work out what it wants, and how you want to support it.  — billinghurst sDrewth 21:57, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Advice based on one example is tricky but let me start with what may be possible. What exactly are you trying to do (stop, slow down, flag, make difficult), to whom (new users, IP addresses, someone who hasn't met a criteria) and to what. If it is a distinct set of articles then you can have some means to categorise based on a common feature or individually identify those to the filter (build a list). Happy to advise, but detailed advice about filters and specific twists to apply is not best here.  — billinghurst sDrewth 22:07, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, well, I realize we don't want to teach vandals how to stuff beans up their nose. I guess that's a problem in and of itself though, because how do you get community approval for an edit filter that you can't really advertise. (I suppose there is always the option of begging someone to run for local sysop for the sole purpose of managing our edit filters.) GMG^talk 12:50, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

GreenMeansGo or IRC, email...Praxidicae (talk) 13:44, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

As I said for enWS, we have the ability for someone to be assigned the abusefilter rights on their own, and it has limited assignation, though it is a useful ability. And I would say that the stewards have followed that path in that they opened up global filters to meta administrators. Design your community to how it best functions to the available people and tools.

• Is it possible to do filters only for pages in certain categories? It's a bit touchy on quote, for example, there may be very few instances where it's appropriate to add "fuck" to an article on Wikipedia, but there may actually be many legitimate instances when adding quotes. GMG^talk 21:59, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

  yes/no. Normal categories are just text, or part of textual templates, so if you can match it, then yes. Special categories are not, so those are no.  — billinghurst sDrewth 23:05, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

WikiDirect

I have begun a new wikiproject proposal which goes by the name WikiDirect.WikiDirect is a proposal for a free worldwide guidebook, tht would help in day to day questions, basically it is a Q&A wiki. Right now, i cant seem to find any volunteers to improve this page (coding and etc...) Please, if you have any time, step forward and help to construct this proposal into something better... Arep Ticous 11:04, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Partial blocks status update

Partial blocks has been enabled on all Wikivoyage, Wikisource and Wiktionary wikis. We think the partial blocks feature is at a good, stable stage now as we have seen fewer and fewer bugs come up in the last few months of the feature being deployed on various projects. The team has spent a lot of time in improving the backend infrastructure of block code and made sure that the code is reliable, in anticipation of any future features that may need to be added.

There continues to be requests from more wikis for partial blocks. We also presented about partial blocks at Wikimania and it was very well-received, with several attendees asking for partial blocks to be enabled on their home wikis. In light of the general positive reception to partial blocks on wikis where it is deployed, we are planning to do a wider deployment to more Wikimedia projects in the next few weeks.

We will continue to collect feedback about partial blocks as we launch the feature on more wikis, alongside data collection on usage of the feature. We are also around to do maintenance work on the features, as and when needed. For the Anti-Harassment Tools Team, SPoore (WMF) Strategist, Community health initiative (talk) 14:59, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia African Month

Good afternoon,

After a successful first edition, I would not know how to have other editions, in other languages, especially since a Portuguese edition had been produced without any connection with the French. How do we organize all this? Also, do I have to create a site the way of the Asian month (I have good HTML/CSS/PHP knowledge and a little JavaScript)? For information, the next organisation will be established in January, and the jury two months later, before the competition in May.

Thank you & Cordially, AirSThib (Flight attendant · Flights), the 16:49, 14 September 2019 (UTC).

MARI STULL

Quiero hacer algunos cambios en la biografía de la señora Stull debido a que lo que aparece en Wikipedia ha sido desmentido por ella y con pruebas fehacientes. Cómo se hace cuándo quién creó el artículo denuncia que al hacer estos cambios se está siendo violento? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pamela DiMatteo (talk)

Discuss it on the talk page of the article. If there are further problems, then you need to discuss it in their village pump/community discussion pages.  — billinghurst sDrewth 23:19, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Second iteration of draft recommendations published

Hey there. The second (September) iteration of draft recommendations (m:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Recommendations) are published at Meta-wiki. What we reviewed and discussed in the past month was the first (August) iteration. Now is your time to review the current (second) iteration of the recommendations. --George Ho (talk) 11:14, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Goodness; I read a few of them and these look like anew recommendations with little connect to the earlier versions .... Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 17:46, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

File upload for fair use

I have a question about permission to upload files for fair use. As far as I know, most Wikipedia projects have been removed the tools for uploading. But I'm thinking of making that right available on the Wikipedia Bahasa Melayu one day. So, can anyone guide or direct me to relevant pages that related to it? Thank you. CyberTroopers (talk) 17:01, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

@CyberTroopers: see Fair use  — billinghurst sDrewth 00:39, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Call for applications: 2020 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 kbrown(at)wikimedia.org to detail your experience on the projects, your thoughts on the commission and what you hope to bring to the role. The commission typically consists of ten members; all applications are appreciated and will be carefully considered. The deadline for applications is end of day on 31 December, 2019.

Please feel free to pass this invitation along to any users who you think may be qualified and interested. Thank you! Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 12:52, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

The consultation on partial and temporary Foundation bans just started

Hello,

In a recent statement, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees requested that staff hold a consultation to "re-evaluat[e] or add community input to the two new office action policy tools (temporary and partial Foundation bans)".

Accordingly, the Foundation's Trust & Safety team invites all Wikimedians to join this consultation and give their feedback from 30 September to 30 October.

How can you help?

• Suggest how partial and temporary Foundation bans should be used, if they should (eg: On all projects, or only on a subset);

• Give ideas about how partial and temporary Foundation bans should ideally implemented, if they should be; and/or

• Propose changes to the existing Office Actions policy on partial and temporary bans.

We offer our thanks in advance for your contributions, and we hope to get as much input as possible from community members during this consultation!

-- Kbrown (WMF) 17:13, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

@Kbrown (WMF): Link to discussion? The page does not contain the discussion and the talk page isn't completely relevant to the discussion itself, of which this consultation may be moved into an RFC if no convenient direct link to the discussion. --Znotch190711 (talk) 13:21, 1 October 2019 (UTC) (sorry for my "probably bad english")

@Znotch190711: This is the main consultation page. The discussion of the various questions the consultation covers is happening on the consultation's talk page. I'm not sure what you mean by the "consultation may be moved into an RFC". Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 13:30, 1 October 2019 (UTC)