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Beware! This user's talk page is monitored by talk page watchers. Some of them even talk back. On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog Stats for pending changes trial Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Index/Cases Category:Misplaced Pages semi-protected pages User:Writ_Keeper/Scripts/orangeBar.js in case I need it User:Risker/Mauricie

Notes

{{subst:W-screen}} {{subst:User:Alison/c}} Misplaced Pages:SPI/CLERK and Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Indicators

Note to self: Research Laura Muntz Lyall (or persuade one of the Riggrs to do so), consider writing an article about the Forster Family Dollhouse in the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Some day.

[Listeria Bot

Please post below

Talkback

Shaded0 (talk) 16:19, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

James Blunt

Hi Risker. I started a discussion at talk for James Blunt. I have researched what did happen at Pristina and Blunt's claims do not make any sense.Charles (talk) 10:01, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

reverts

I just eliminated my reverts of her edits. My job so I did it. Hmains (talk) 05:59, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

other

What, if anything, should I do about this edit that appeared on my talk page:

*And for good measure, I'll just complain on behalf of the reasonable community about the totally disingenuous and vindictive vote at the RfA. Such behaviour will soon be earning such editors topic bans from RfA - do you want to be one of the first? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:36, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

• • Oh my, Hmains. I really did go to bed right after our last exchange so didn't see this until this morning. I think that just moving on, as you seem to have done, is just fine. It doesn't seem to be a comment intending to open a discussion, but rather one individual's (strongly worded) perspective. I see that you were pretty busy after our exchange, and I thank you for working to remedy the issues we talked about. I think there's a question directed toward you in the discussion following your RFA vote, and I will leave you to address it directly. Hope you feel better, I have a feeling I'm coming down with that nasty bug as well. Risker (talk) 13:25, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

thanks, will do and I am glad I asked you. Everyone around here seems to be getting/being sick and I must be far away from wherever you are. Hmains (talk) 03:01, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

• • • I'll add that I certainly don't see any reason you (Hmains) should worry about your vote at my RfA. It's your opinion and your right to express it. I certainly respect it and thank you for expressing it. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:35, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Ealdgyth thanks for your thoughtful words. I know you will be a fine administrator already! Hmains (talk) 03:01, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

You've got mail!

AntiCompositeNumber (Leave a message) 14:31, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

It looks like the situation has cleared itself for now, but you can of course still look around if you wish. --AntiCompositeNumber (Leave a message) 04:16, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, AntiCompositeNumber, I've responded to your email. Risker (talk) 05:18, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Mz7 (talk) 05:44, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Mz7, I will look at it this evening. Risker (talk) 01:25, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! I appreciate the help. Mz7 (talk) 01:56, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

can you please check the refs for this draft BLP article

It contains a subsection which is related to an AfD you commented on, specifically this portion. You are incorrect about the depth of the Tyson ref methinks, although thanks to fonts, at first I did not think there was any depth there myself -- the discussion of the parody-work posted on the site covers about three pages. And although the formatting/layout/fonts used don't make it exactly clear that is what is going on, after looking at it long enough, methinks Tyson actually wrote an intro-paragraph, about ten sentences by Tyson on the meaning of particular faux-headlines (interleaved with the TPC-authored headlines themselves), and then a concluding sentence. Which is not a *chapter* on TPC, but is a reasonably detailed analysis of that one parody-piece by TPC, I would say.

I'm not actually doing a rewrite of the AfD'd website, but shifting to writing about the creator thereof. The advantage is that there are other refs, some recently discovered and some just better-organized-and-formatted; if you can please tell me on a percentage-scale from zero to 100% whether you think the broader BLP-topic has achieved WP:42, that would be much appreciated. (Where 'zero' means none of the refs presented are RS, and 100% means passes WP:N with flying colors, with 50% meaning 'probably has coinflip shot at surviving AfD' roughly.) And if you have time to help compose neutral body-prose, that also would be great of course  :-) But mostly I would just like a second opinion on whether Atbashian passed WP:GNG with the current refs, there are a few others being evaluated for the draft on the talkpage thereof. Besides the PlutoFiles by Tyson in 2010, the other best refs for GNG are Gries in 2015, FoxNews in 2004, and NewRepublic in 2004 (some of it stuck behind a paywall), plus additionally several bluelinked conservative pundits have provided further depth/details. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 12:48, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter - February 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.

Administrator changes

NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67

Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13

Guideline and policy news

• A discussion to workshop proposals to amend the administrator inactivity policy at Misplaced Pages talk:Administrators has been in process since late December 2016.
• Misplaced Pages:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2016 closed with no consensus for implementing Pending changes level 2 with new criteria for use.
• Following an RfC, an activity requirement is now in place for bots and bot operators.

Technical news

• When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. (T34950)
• Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Misplaced Pages, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. (T156448)
• The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee released a response to the Wikimedia Foundation's statement on paid editing and outing.

Obituaries

• JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Misplaced Pages seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.

13:36, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

RfC on "No paid editing for Admins" at WT:COI

I've relisted an RfC that was run at WT:Admin in Sept. 2015. It is at Misplaced Pages talk:Conflict of interest#Concrete proposal 3 as there are a number of similar proposals going on at the same place. Better to keep them together. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:38, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Your comments

I saw your comments on Misplaced Pages talk:Blocking policy where you write that 250 indefinite blocks are made daily and almost none are reversed.

I have made a suggestion that all indefinite blocks be cancelled after one year if the user requests it. If they have bad behaviour, it would be easy to reblock them again for a year. A year is a long time. Lakeshook (talk) 20:09, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

THT file

Thanks for quick response! That was pretty stupid... Requested oversight to scrub it. Blythwood (talk) 02:24, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Advice needed

Hi Risker,

I've just stumbled across University and college crowdfunding platforms, and I have no idea what to do with it. It seems to be on the borderline of notability as a topic, but I think it's badly named. It's really badly written, and I can't even imagine how to use the article title in an introductory sentence. What would you recommend? --Slashme (talk) 08:30, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi Slashme. Having given the article a quick scan, I think the core issue is that it's more an essay than an article. It's also not at all about any kind of crowdfunding platform, it's about how some organizations now include some form of crowdfunding as part of their fundraising strategy. I'm pretty hardline about notability, and I wouldn't consider this a notable topic, at least not without a parent article focused on fundraising strategies of universities and colleges - which we don't seem to have. Indeed, fundraising isn't even a topic within the articles of many universities and colleges. (I think it would be a valid inclusion into those articles, or even potentially a daughter article in some cases.) On the other hand, I have no idea what would happen if it went to AFD. Risker (talk) 05:03, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Please support the Sustainability Initiative!

Hi, Risker! Please allow me to follow up on a project that was discussed at the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin a couple of weeks ago:

I am writing you to ask for your support for the Sustainability Initiative, which aims at reducing the environmental impact of the Wikimedia movement. Over the past two years, more than 250 Wikipedians from all over the world have come together to push the Wikimedia movement towards greater sustainability.

The Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation has recently passed a resolution stating that the Foundation is committed to seeking ways to reduce the impact of its activities on the environment. Now, we are working with the Wikimedia Foundation staff to have all Wikimedia servers run on renewable energy by 2019.

In order to demonstrate that this is an issue that the community really cares about, I would like to ask you to sign the project page as well. Thank you! --Gnom (talk) 18:57, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Question about Restoring Deleted Page

Hi Risker, I originally contacted sphilbrick and was pointed in your direction. I am the administrator of Mirus Academy (a private school in Katy, TX). The wiki for our school was deleted over a year ago, but I only just now discovered it. This is the message I see: This page has been deleted. The deletion and move log for the page are provided below for reference. 13:33, 1 September 2015 Sphilbrick (talk | contribs) deleted page Mirus Academy (U.S) (Misplaced Pages:Long-term abuse/Orangemoody)

I read the Orangemoody information and see that it applies to the wiki I created for our school. When the wiki was not approved initially, I was contacted by an editor who agreed to make the needed corrections for me in exchange for $100. We completed the transaction, I saw the page online for a couple of days, and didn't think more about it until I just went to do some updating and found that it had been deleted.

Is it possible to restore the page? If not, should I just start from scratch and make a new one? Thanks for your advice! -- Slhogan94 (talk) 21:54, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Hello Slhogan94. It is unfortunate that you were caught in this situation. I cannot un-delete the article that appeared in the main pages of the encyclopedia, because it is a copyright violation. I note, however, that you yourself created a draft article on the subject (Draft:Mirus Academy), which was deleted shortly after your contact posted the article in mainspace. I can undelete that draft at your specific request. I must point out, however, that you have a pretty clear conflict of interest here, in that you are writing about your employer. I strongly urge you to follow the conflict of interest guidelines I have linked to, so that the article won't get deleted again. Under our current notability guidelines and policies, schools such as Mirus Academy would normally be considered notable enough to justify a Misplaced Pages article. Let me know if you would like me to undelete the draft and I'll do so when next I log in. In fact, if another administrator sees such a request before I get to it, they should feel free to proceed. Risker (talk) 02:17, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much!

Thanks for the block exemption. I really need it. This is the article for Free Basics. If you need clarifications on anything, please ask :) --JethRoad the FactBoy 16:00, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Also, can you do anything about another global block on all wikis: Your account or IP address has been blocked. 2A03:2880:3010:BFF6:0:0:0:0/64, you have been blocked by Tegel until 16:57, 26 April 2018, because: Open proxy. --JethRoad the FactBoy 16:07, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject Investment

Hey there! Im currently rebuilding the WikiProject Investment.

I already am pretty much finished with updating the project page.Take a look at it. Ping me if you want to help! Thanks. WikiEditCrunch (talk) 22:02, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

I'd like to invite you to join the Investment WikiProject. There are a lot of Investment related articles on Misplaced Pages that could use a little attention, and I hope this project can help organize an effort to improve them. So please, take a look and if you like what you see, help get this project off the ground and a few Investment pages into the front ranks of Misplaced Pages articles. Thanks!

"denying speedy - three minutes is way too fast to tag this page"

...but it had been over 3 hours at the time you removed it. — Smjg (talk) 16:03, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi, Smjg. In answer to your implied question - yes, the decision about the article came some time after it was tagged for deletion. It was a contested CSD. Contested CSDs are usually the very last ones admins will deal with, because CSD is the kind of thing a lot of admins do when they are looking for a relatively simple task; working out a contested CSD is often more complex than they're looking for. (I count myself amongst admins who tend to review all the rest before going to the contested CSDs.) Three minutes is just about always too short a time to tag a page for CSD unless it's a blatant ad, copyvio or BLP violation; I'm fine with immediately tagging those last three categories right away. But let's try to look at this from the perspective of a new user. They start an article on the Encyclopedia Anyone Can Edit. They've barely got their first sentence written when someone tags it for deletion. The deletion tag tells them they can contest it on the article talk page (thank goodness for the hyperlink)...and they do. But it doesn't tell the user whether or not they're allowed to keep editing; for a lot of people, that big sign at the top means "stop what you're doing right now". The same person who tagged the article leaves a difficult-to-understand message on the user talk page (forget your wiki-experience and try to figure out what you're supposed to do from that template) that says the article has no content and mumbles something about A3 (again...forget your experience and try to see how "Mario Nesich, martial artist" is equal to "no content"). Now, I understand entirely why a reviewer would use Twinkle to add that template, but I'm going to lay odds that hardly anyone has read the messages it leaves. There's a link to an article wizard...but why and how does someone use an article wizard when they have already started the article? There's a link to Misplaced Pages:Your first article, which is a pretty long page that isn't too badly out of date...but again, the article is already created, and it isn't as helpful on what to do with an existing but extremely incomplete article.

This is just brainstorming on my part, and I've probably done all of these things at various times. Perhaps instead of tagging the article, it may have been helpful to reach out and offer to move the article to draft space, and encourage continued development? Give them another 15 minutes? Offer other assistance? (Yeah, I know there's no point in giving them another 15 minutes, someone else will probably tag it before the initial reviewer finishes writing the talk page message.) I don't have all the answers, but I do know that such rapid tagging of brand new pages by brand new editors is extremely likely to scare those new editors away...and we very much need new editors, particularly ones who are starting articles on red-linked subjects (Mario Nesich is a well-known award-winning muay thai practitioner, and it kind of worries me that I knew that without googling him). I know there are plenty of new articles created that are sheer dreck - when I'm deleting, it's almost always the CSD queue - and I also know that a lot of the stuff that looks relatively well written but has any commercial application is about 50% likely to be paid editing (happy to delete those too!). But on those occasions when we're getting a new article that isn't about a current event or a football/soccer star, it will do us well to try to support new editors who are trying to create them. We want to try to keep the ones with potential. After all, long ago some other editors decided we had potential, and helped us get better. And here we still are, after all these years. It’s a pleasure to find a visitor on my talk page who’s been here even longer than me. Risker (talk) 06:39, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Invitation to Admin confidence survey

Hello,

Beginning in September 2017, the Wikimedia Foundation Anti-harassment tool team will be conducting a survey to gauge how well tools, training, and information exists to assist English Misplaced Pages administrators in recognizing and mitigating things like sockpuppetry, vandalism, and harassment.

The survey should only take 5 minutes, and your individual response will not be made public. This survey will be integral for our team to determine how to better support administrators.

To take the survey sign up here and we will send you a link to the form.

We really appreciate your input!

Please let us know if you wish to opt-out of all massmessage mailings from the Anti-harassment tools team.

For the Anti-harassment tools team, SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 19:52, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

NCORP

In the past you have written stuff like this, writing All this "we have done everything we can" nonsense is just that, nonsense. Where's the RFC on increasing notability standards for organizations? Where is the RFC on automatic deletion of advertorial or promotional articles, especially those created by SPAs and obviously undisclosed COI editors?

I opened a discussion to raise NCORP standards and pinged you there. It would be useful to have your voice there. I've been waiting for you and others to weigh in before moving forward.

There have also been several discussions about speedy deletion of paid articles at WT:SPEEDY and you have not participated there.

It is too late at the speedy discussions but it would be great if you could weigh in at NCORP. Thanks Jytdog (talk) 19:55, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Invitation to discuss the soon to built, Interaction Timeline

Hi Checkusers and Checkuser clerks,

The Anti-Harassment Tools team is seeking input about building the Interaction Timeline feature.

We’re inviting you to join the discussion because you use similar tools such as the Editor Interaction Analyser and User compare report during sockpuppet investigations.

You can leave comments on the on wiki discussion page or send an email to the Anti-Harassment Tools team.

For the Anti-Harassment Tools team SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 19:39, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Please let us know if you wish to opt-out of all massmessage mailings from the Anti-harassment tools team.

Gord Downie

Hello. I have moved your NYT reference as to where Gord died from the infobox and put it in the section of the article. Regards,   Aloha27  talk  05:18, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

• Ummm....why? Since it is an area of dispute (it's the infobox that keeps getting changed), that is where the reference should be. Please put it back where it is needed, Aloha27. Infoboxes can have references. Risker (talk) 05:23, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

I believe the reference would be best served in the article itself after the place of death as I have placed it. I shall keep an eye on the infobox to keep up with any disputes and will advise the editor(s) to take it to the talk page. The reference has been properly cite formatted. Regards,   Aloha27  talk  05:38, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Well then, use the reference twice. It needs to be in the infobox, the place of death has been changed at least four times. Cases like this are precisely why we allow references in infoboxes.

ANI Experiences survey

The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative (led by the Safety and Support and Anti-Harassment Tools team) is conducting a survey for en.wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with the Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works - which problems it deals with well, and which problems it struggles with.

The survey should take 10-20 minutes to answer, and your individual responses will not be made public. The survey is delivered through Google Forms. The privacy policy for the survey describes how and when Wikimedia collects, uses, and shares the information we receive from survey participants and can be found here:

• https://wikimediafoundation.org/2017_AN/Incidents_Survey_Privacy_Statement

If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be mailed to you via Special:Emailuser.

• Sign up here to receive a link to a survey

Thank you on behalf of the Support & Safety and Anti-Harassment Tools Teams, Patrick Earley (WMF) talk 18:24, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, Risker. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Misplaced Pages arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Happy Saturnalia!

		Happy Saturnalia
		Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season, from the horse and bishop person. May the year ahead be productive and troll-free and you not often get distracted by dice-playing. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:02, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

User:Oversight

Hi Risker, please see Misplaced Pages talk:Oversight. — xaosflux 18:07, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Birth dates

Hi Risker, I know you answered this on the OS talk page a while back, but it's been brought up to some extent on WT:BLP in regards to primary sourcing. What is our procedure on birth dates for non-minors that are not sourced or are only sourced to primary sources? I don't think I've ever gotten a consistent answer between oversighters on this question, so your thoughts would be appreciated. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:59, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi Tony, I took a bit of a look and I'm not quite sure what the context is in that thread. Is the discussion about a particular editor looking to have self-posted DOB removed, or is it about an article subject wanting to have a DOB removed? A lot of our article subjects probably shouldn't have DOB posted (e.g., academics, minor actors, and so on) simply because of the significant potential for misuse of that information. And adding DOBs of children/spouses of article subjects is really not good; minors in particular have a right to privacy. Let me know. Risker (talk) 04:41, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm not particularly sure the context of that thread myself either: the editor who raised it seems brought it up in the question of using primary sourcing to verify the date of birth, which in my view, is a no go.I mainly reached out because I didn't know whether such information would be subject to revdel or suppression, and how to communicate that on the thread: I've been given what appears to be contradictory answers from oversighters on the suppression of DOBs for adults: this conversation seems to suggest that any DOB that isn't reliably sourced should be suppressed, regardless of age, while other oversighters will decline to suppress the completely unsourced DOB of 10 year-old actors. Basically, the question of how we handle DOBs and what sourcing is necessary does come up a fair amount, and right now the answer seems to be that the policy on sourcing changes depending on the oversighter you talk to. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:57, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Panther in the Dollhouse listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect ''Panther in the Dollhouse''. Since you had some involvement with the 'Panther in the Dollhouse' redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Steel1943 (talk) 00:53, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hi there Calliopejen1, sorry for the delay in responding as I wasn't around very much due to some family matters. I've sent you an email, and I think you did a good job with that situation. Risker (talk) 03:18, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Murky Page Move Log

Hey Risker! I'm writing to ask about a deletion you made yesterday of the page "Move Music Festival." I'm relatively new here, and still making clumsy contributions - I had accidentally published the page to article space right off the bat instead of draft space, so it was tagged (rightly so) for speedy deletion as an empty article. I quickly moved it to draft space, and the speedy deletion tag was removed by another user. Then you deleted the original article space page under R2: cross-namespace redirect. I've since fleshed out the article in draft space and then transferred it back to article space, but under Google search results for "Move Music Festival Wiki," it returns the following text instead of a link preview:

"Move Music Festival. . Jump to: navigation, search. This redirect may meet Misplaced Pages's criteria for speedy deletion as a redirect from the main/article space to any other namespace except the Category:, Template:, Misplaced Pages:, Help: and Portal: namespaces. See CSD R2."

Is there any way to alter that now that the article is pointing back out of draft space into article space? Some sort of page history edit? I wanted to ask because I've got no clue. Thanks, Happilycleverafter (talk) 22:28, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Hello, Happilycleverafter and welcome to Misplaced Pages. It looks like this got straightened out without my personal attention (whether because it was just a glitch or a talk page watcher intervened). I will note in passing, however, that I don't think the subject is very notable; you have included only one or two independent sources, and very few of the performers are notable enough for their own articles. This looks pretty local. I won't personally tag it for review, but don't be surprised if it winds up in some form of deletion discussion because of its questionable notability. Risker (talk) 04:00, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Extended-Confirmation Protection of JT LeRoy article

Hi Risker, On the JT LeRoy Talk page, you signed last year's notification of the article being placed under Extended-Confirmation Protection, but in July of 2017 the lede was rewritten without authorization, and the rewrite is inaccurate. I'd like permission to fix it; please see my addition to "Lede" on the JT LeRoy Talk page. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Portofcallhttp (talk) 20:00, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Alyssa Carson

This is not intended in any way as canvassing, but as the person who spearheaded the Orangemoody research, you may wish to add a comment. It was a particularly nasty issue. My other personal thought is that it is high time the 3 month data access for CU (the default period issued with MediaWiki software), be significantly extended. This would require a policy change to CU which I'm not sure could be carried locally by en.WP. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:55, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Hello Kudpung! First, let me thank you for giving me reason to review one of the more positive episodes in my wiki-life: not that anyone had any fun dealing with that socking case, but as its lead, I felt it was possibly my most useful contribution to the project. I certainly learned a lot from it. One of the things I learned is how incredibly labour-intensive those kinds of investigations wind up being. Given the contributions of several checkusers, as well as the functionary discussions that occurred prior to the actual publication of the report to the commmunity, the interfaces with the WMF, the arrangements for the blocking bot, etc., there was an investment of more than an hour per blocked sock. I'm not sure I'd do it the same way again, although I am glad that we established a precedent for deleting "paid" articles without prejudice to appropriate re-creation that seems to be generally followed today.

I'm not going to comment on that particular AfD because what I see when I read this article is a very high-achieving and extremely focused high school student whose wonderfully supportive family is in a financial position to put her in good stead to reach her future goals. So far, however, she's really not accomplished anything noteworthy, in my opinion. (Example: There are no admission criteria for any of the Space Camps she attended, nor for participation in the NASA "explore space" passport program. But traveling to all the NASA centres over the course of less than a year is a pretty expensive endeavour, as is attendance at international camps.) I'm going to be honest and say that I would not have undeleted the article at the request of the subject's family member, even to put it into draft status; I'm hardly the strongest advocate of our COI guidelines, but even I think the COI is blatant in this situation. Having said that, the AfD by someone so new is....suspicious, shall we say. (It's not likely to be related to Manc1234 directly, although with Orangemoody we've always believed it was more than one person in more than one geographic area.)

To your larger question, about whether having a more expansive period for CU data access...well, that cuts both ways. Three months is usually long enough for about 95% of CU cases; many of the cases I've seen with "stale" contributions haven't edited in more than 6 months. The WMF privacy policy is board-approved, and takes into consideration such things as international standards (e.g., the EU privacy laws), the high value the broad community places on privacy, the usefulness of the data retained, and the risks that outside players such as law enforcement or courts may seek such data. I think three months is about right. CUs do have a private wiki that allows us to retain a little more data in cases involving repeat bad actors, and we have a few other tricks of the trade. One of the things I've noticed is the ever-increasing use of VPNs by users of all stripes (I confess to using one for all my mobile devices), as well as the massive increase in the use of (normally extremely dynamic) cellphone/mobile IPs. That often means having to sort out "good" editors from bad. More people are also becoming familiar with certain browser technology and flexibility is also changing - more than one commonly used browser allows users to "customize" the user agent. (I remember one sockmaster who used to change his UA to rude messages for the checkusers, but most changes are to make the UA really generic.)

I hope this is helpful. Thank you again for popping in. I'm going to keep an eye on that AfD... Risker (talk) 07:07, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you so much for responding at length. If there is any COI it is me and KrakatoaKatie. We based a new version on the original article by Manc1234 which he created with the sole purpose of extortion. In the beginning, the parents were naturally overjoyed to see a Misplaced Pages article about their daughter, and you can imagine thier distress at seeing it defaced with disgusting claims shortly afterwards. The next step in Manc's ploy was to 'offer' to remove the vandalism for a fee. The parent's were now extremely distressed. At Misplaced Pages, we claim (or the WMF claims) to uphold common decency and to protect the rights and reputations of its article subjects and editors. The article was more or less notable (it does have some good claims to notability and is well referenced) and as a gesture and in a case where in our opinion IAR is what it's for, we recreated the article without according any credit to the miscreant, and reposted it to mainspace. There are literally thousands of other BLP that are not in the slightest bit worthy of a Misplaced Pages article, the problem is the sheer number and controlling and deleting them all.

An increasing number of users are becoming very curious about the nominator of the AfD.

Best, Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:16, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Results from global Wikimedia survey 2018 are published

Hello! A few months ago the Wikimedia Foundation invited you to take a survey about your experiences on Misplaced Pages. You signed up to receive the results. The report is now published on Meta-Wiki! We asked contributors 170 questions across many different topics like diversity, harassment, paid editing, Wikimedia events and many others.

Read the report or watch the presentation, which is available only in English. Add your thoughts and comments to the report talk page. Feel free to share the report on Misplaced Pages/Wikimedia or on your favorite social media. Thanks!
--EGalvez (WMF)

19:25, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Etymologiae

I've replied on the talk page. I found your edit distinctly impolite, but more importantly mistaken on the facts, which I have now explained over there. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:19, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Does reviewing an article take long?

Hello Good Day, I would love you to help me review this article Draft:DJ Kentalky and also give me tip's on how to create Misplaced Pages article's for Record label's. Thank You. I would like to write about Universal Music Nigeria--Timi422 (talk) 06:46, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Technical Barnstar
	I just discussed your (now seminal) essay about content creation extensions at the mw:Wikimedia Technical Conference. Almost every technologist I work with knows about the essay. You've had a huge, positive impact on Wikimedia/WMDE Product work. Thank you for writing such a useful set of recommendations. EpochFail (talk • contribs) 22:20, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Aaron, it's a challenge for me to express how meaningful this recognition is to me. Along with some other feedback I received at Wikimania, I've come to realize that even "little editors" can have a significant impact on not just their own project, but on the movement as a whole. It strikes me that early 2016 was the period in which I had the most long-ranging (and possibly diverse!) effect; this checklist was written in February, and there was a certain little presentation about Pando that I made to staff in January that people still mention to this day. It motivates me to continue working within the movement in the various responsibilities I've taken on. Thanks so much. Risker (talk) 23:55, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, Risker. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Misplaced Pages arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks

Nice job on the timeline at the FB case, it's very helpful, and must have been a ton of work! --Elonka 05:25, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Well thanks for noticing, Elonka! It was a bit time-consuming, and I had hoped we'd have had the okay to unsuppress by now so it would not have been needed, but it's a lot easier to make tables with VisualEditor than it is using wikitext. I don't think any of us oversighters are willing to put our bits on the line for this case, but I just couldn't see the community or the parties being able to make informed workshop proposals without this information. None of the data I published is actually suppressed; it's just one of those artifacts of having to suppress 156 revisions in order to remove one particular statement. Risker (talk) 05:47, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Great thanks for https://en.m.wikipedia.org/Special:MobileDiff/869745341 !

For the past 2 hours ,reading it on a mobile (and writing this very message on a small screen) I have been scratching my head what had been happening back then. I even went to full admin logs of the key parties, as the official summaries on Arb were lacking, or not readily accessible to voters, at least as of now. Your table is very good (=objective) in visualising the ever escalating revert war. I wish there was such an automatic (an AI generated summary maybe?) tool at a casual non-admin WP reader, moi y compris, disposal.

Zezen (talk) 08:23, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Text only WikiLove

Hi again. There is no WikiLove template button on mobile WP edit UI, so just these words of appreciation for the tineline table discussed above. Bow and wishez from an EU wikipedian! Zezen (talk) 08:28, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom case evidence timeline

Thanks for your extensive timeline. However, when I was considering whether there possibly was misuse of the rollback feature, I noticed that you only referenced "reverts" without specifying whether they were ordinary undos, rollbacks or Twinkle reverts. It could be more accurate. Regards, --Pudeo (talk) 18:03, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Oh for pity's sake. The purpose of the timeline was to provide some content context, since it was the *content* of the edits that was not visible due to the unrelated suppressions. Anyone could have looked at the history of the page to see what you're looking for, since the edit summaries were not suppressed. Risker (talk) 18:13, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Very well. I just thought it would have been convenient to have an all-inclusive timeline instead of three people posting about the timeline of the events on the evidence page. Thanks anyway. --Pudeo (talk) 18:17, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

A goat for you!

Instead of medals, I give you this goat for your stepping up in the difficult times! (Hahahaha)

— regards, Revi 03:22, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Well, thank you very much, Revi! I have never been given a goat before, this is very (uhmmm) special. Never a dull moment around here, is there? Risker (talk) 03:24, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

"I am really not sure this is the precedent you want to set with this case"

Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but I have a feeling "misconduct is whatever we say it is regardless of any evidence of actual misconduct" is exactly the precedent they hope to set; you know as well as I do that right back to 2004 there's been a faction who see the committee not so much as a dispute-resolution body, but as a tool for implementing a purge of those its members consider insufficiently True Believers. There's a certain degree of irony in the fact that the committee is trying, with an apparently straight face, to redefine "adding a reliable source to an unreferenced contentious statement regarding a living person" as something undesirable. ‑ Iridescent 21:01, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Well, yeah, there have always been a few of those on every version of Arbcom; heaven only knows what we'll get when they count the votes, as I have a feeling there will be even more of that faction this time next month. I generally stay as far away from arbcom things as I can get away with - but it bothered me a lot that we were caught on that whole suppression thing, and nobody but arbs could see what had actually happened. Looks like things are wrapping up now, though, so I will take that stuff off my watchlist again and resume my ignoring-Arbcom-stuff usual posture. Risker (talk) 16:01, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Have been vaguely following this, and it is mildly surprising the way things are going, but maybe it shouldn't be that surprising. I also noticed this edit (not really related, but seems pertinent in some 'times change' sort of way), which rang very true. Carcharoth (talk) 00:53, 6 December 2018 (UTC) PS. Was Fred really still on the functionaries list? I am still so grateful I didn't stay subscribed to that list! :-) Carcharoth (talk) 00:54, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm feeling increasingly uncomfortable about some of this. On the other hand, after almost two weeks of working on the investigation of compromised accounts, I'm also finding myself feeling increasingly hardline on the issue of administrators maintaining basic security of their privileged accounts. I'm trying to find the sweet spot here as I prepare something that can go out to all administrators, but it's hard to keep that "the community is pissed off" tone out of my writing voice. (That's actually why I haven't moved it forward yet.) Oh, and Fred had unsubscribed from the functionaries mailing list way back in 2015. Both you and Iri technically have the right to ask for reinstatement as former arbitrators....but neither of you probably want to bother. Most of the time, it's pretty dull. Risker (talk) 07:17, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

I've swung 180° in the past year or so, from a believer in "no big deal" and the democratisation of the project, to a hardline "remove all tools from people who aren't active and have periodic reconfirmations for those who are". The number of problems being caused by legacy admins re-emerging and trying to enforce the standards of a decade ago, by current admins (and other functionaries) who see themselves as untouchable super-users with a mission to purify the wiki, by admins (and at least one arb) who openly abuse the toolset to further their personal hobby-horses or vendettas, and by legacy admins who have no incentive to keep their accounts secure, is getting too high for us to continue pretending it's just a case of a couple of bad apples. ‑ Iridescent 09:00, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Interesting, Iridescent. I'm not a big fan of reconfirmations, although I may yet come around. Gonna be honest, I have always thought that admins like me, who have spent a lot of years in the difficult areas of the project, are particularly susceptible to gaming by one or more of the various factions, so perhaps there's some self-interest in my hesitation; willingness to deal with "drama" has always had negative connotations, as showed up even in my RFA oh so many years ago. I could foresee that admins who work at arbitration enforcement or have a talent for cutting the gordian knots on ANI would be targeted. When I compare enwiki to some of the other wikipedias where I know multiple users, and where they have reconfirmation processes, even their RFA processes seem to operate much more on good faith and much less on the "popularity contest" process; their core culture is really, really different from ours. And I also know full well that there are a couple of projects where a strong faction has really skewed the admin corps to the point that it would be politically suicidal for anyone to oppose a "properly aligned" candidate at RFA or reconfirmation - compared to some projects, we're a lot more tolerant of that kind of dissent. Maybe the best way to summarize it is by using Tolstoy's famous line. I see Xeno has just mentioned me in a similar vein... Risker (talk) 19:33, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

There would be ways to run an automatic reconfirmation process that wouldn't involve either crapflooding RFA, or a parade of everyone who's ever taken a grudge lining up to take shots. Off the top of my head:

1. "Five years after your RFA, or on the next anniversary of the RFA for those who have been admins longer than five years (to spread out the backlog), the reconfirmation process will open;
2. For those who have fewer than 500 admin actions or fewer than 2000 edits in the past year (numbers up for discussion, but high enough that trying to game them would mean such a level of activity as to be a de facto return to activity), a new Request for Reconfirmation will be opened with a straightforward 50% pass/fail mark (so, no automatic desysoppings and people who are largely inactive but seen as valuable should pass without difficulty, but it acts as a mechanism for weeding out people who are seen as genuinely out of touch);
3. For those admins for whom are high enough not to trigger an automatic reconfirmation process, the WP:Speak now or forever hold your peace process is triggered. Over a period of 10 days (or whatever; we don't want it so short that people who only edit a couple of days a week don't see it but don't want swords of Damocles) editors are invited to provide evidence of administrative actions you have taken in the past year that explicitly violate Misplaced Pages policy or which any reasonable observer would conclude violated a clear consensus.
4. If at least five such examples are provided, a new Request for Reconfirmation will be opened with a straightforward 50% pass/fail mark; if this number of examples is not provided or you achieve 50%+1 support in the Request for Reconfirmation , you will be considered as reconfirmed for the next five years.

This is basically the WP:FAR model, of a phase 1 where editors are expected to provide evidence that an article is potentially problematic and only if they can show the goods does it move on to the phase 2 of community discussion to decide whether the issues raised are actually worth addressing and if so what should be done about them. It would be a lot harder for disgruntled people with whom someone has been in dispute to game, as the requirement to provide diffs before the Request for Reconfirmation opened would mean we only ever reached that stage if someone could actually demonstrate legitimate grounds for concern; there would be no automatic desysoppings as everyone would at minimum have the chance to persuade people to support them at the 50-50 vote stage; it would strongly incentivise admins to remain engaged with the community; it would (hopefully) negate the "oppose, adminship is for life so I insist on insanely high standards just in case" tendency at RFA; the solid stream over the next 12 months as the backlog of people who passed RFA pre-2013 are reconfirmed—most of whom would presumably sail through—would hopefully illustrate to potential admin candidates that provided you have no glaring skeletons in the closet, community votes are nothing to be afraid of, and the "RFA is a hellish ordeal" meme would finally be laid to rest. Yes, the Request for Reconfirmation stage could theoretically be gamed by accumulated enemies turning up, but frankly if over half the people commenting vote 'no confidence' and they've either managed to find and demonstrate evidence of misuse of the tools or it's clear that the subject is largely inactive, that person probably has lost the trust of the community. ‑ Iridescent 20:18, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

I presume that there will be sanctions for complainers that don't pony up the requisite evidence or misrepresent it? And that there will be no ill effects from a "here's everything someone somewhere thought was wrong with you" list which is what editors are invited to provide evidence of administrative actions you have taken in the past year that explicitly violate Misplaced Pages policy or which any reasonable observer would conclude violated a clear consensus and the others will invariably lead to in light of experience with ANI, RfC/U, ARB/Evidence pages turning into exactly that. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:48, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Also, sometimes I think there are people who believe that putting up with a lot of complaints of varying merit is part of an admin's obligations. I don't think that this idea has ever gained enough consensus to construct a process out of it. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:48, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Hence, provide evidence of administrative actions you have taken in the past year that explicitly violate Misplaced Pages policy or which any reasonable observer would conclude violated a clear consensus, not just "you did something I didn't like"; to trigger reconfirmation someone would need to demonstrate - not just allege - multiple incidences of the admin in question recently disregarding consensus. It would probably need tweaking to leave out things which technically violate policy but which no sane person would consider problematic (this edit technically violated WP:CITEVAR but anyone who tried to raise a complaint based on it would be laughed out). You can't seriously dispute that (1) we have some admins who are lacking in competence or who use the tools to further their personal grudges or pet causes, (2) unless they do something so egregious it ends up at arbcom, there's absolutely nothing anyone can do about it, and (3) the combination of 1 & 2 is causing problems both with self-appointed cops causing disruption, and with people opposing qualified candidates at RFA because they're not familiar enough with them to be certain they're up to the job and there's no way to remove them if they're not. ‑ Iridescent 21:00, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Today's Wikipedian 10 years ago

Awesome

Ten years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:19, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks so much, Gerda. I seem to recall this was granted following my first election to the Arbitration Committee. It's hard to believe it's been that long, or for that matter that both of us have stuck it out that long! Risker (talk) 18:57, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

My pleasure. I barely knew what Misplaced Pages was back then, but carry some legacy. I didn't know what arbcom was until 3 years into my career here when the one who called you awesome said he was an arb once, and I wasn't impressed because I had no idea ;) - I survived my encounter with arbitration, happy it was over three years ago. I should have known the ultimate guide, - long live his memory. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:45, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Happy Saturnalia

		Happy Saturnalia
		Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season, from the horse and bishop person. May the year ahead be productive and troll-free. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:04, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks for this, Ealdgyth. The best of the season to you and yours, too. Risker (talk) 18:58, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

	Gothic Seasons Greetings
	Your straight shooting no nonsense approach is missed! Wishing you glad tidings for x-mass, and all the best as always. Ceoil (talk) 22:29, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks so much for this very meaningful greeting, Ceoil. I am always happy to see your name floating around here. And I'm still shooting relatively straightly, just in different parts of the wiki-world. It's people like you who keep me here. Risker (talk) 06:58, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

	Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
	Hi Risker, I wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy and Prosperous New Year, Thanks for all your help and thanks for all your contributions to the 'pedia,    –Davey2010 00:29, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Davey2010. I'm hoping that we all make it through Christmas without any nasty viruses. And I'm certain that 2019 is going to have to be better than 2018 was; I cannot tell you how happy I am that this year is almost over. Risker (talk) 07:00, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi Risker, You're welcome, TMI I know but I've currently had an ear infection as well as a cold for the past week or 2 so I'm certainly hoping next year will be virus/cold-free!, If you have some sort of virus then I hope you get better soon :), Have a lovely Crimbo & New Year :), Thanks, –Davey2010 15:58, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to a great contributor to the project! My very best wishes for this holiday season. May your heart be filled with happiness during this special time. (Every day is a new day...) --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 08:53, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks so much for this really lovely greeting, Crystallizedcarbon - and apologies for the delay in responding! I hope your 2019 is starting off well. Risker (talk) 22:33, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! I fully understand! 2019 is starting great. On the early morning of the first, together with some other nutcases, we started the year with a nice trekking to a local peak. I am full of energy and looking forward to great things for this year. I also wish a great start of the year for you! --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 11:46, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Austral season's greetings

	Austral season's greetings
	Tuck into this! We've made about three of these in the last few days for various festivities. Supermarkets are stuffed with cheap berries. Season's greetings! Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:31, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

• Casliber - that looks so delicious, what a great way to start off the new year, by totally ignoring any dieting resolutions - not that either of us need such a thing. I admit given the weird mix of weather we've been having here, I'm a tiny bit envious of your antipodean sunshine. Hope you and yours have a great 2019, and perhaps our paths will cross in person over the course of the year. Risker (talk) 22:35, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Thanks for stepping in!

Dbarthelme (talk) 09:16, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

• That sort of coatrack article is very problematic. People confuse "I can source this statement" with "This statement should be in this article". Or perhaps it's not really confusion. Always happy to eradicate such nonsense. Risker (talk) 22:38, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Jeremy Kyle

Hi,

Thanks for protecting it. I did wonder about doing that myself but it doesn't usually get that sort of vandalism so I had left it for the time being. Hopefully there won't be any more like that, if there is then I'll extend it to extended confirmed protection. The trouble is, he's the sort of person that's always going to attract vandalism.

Thanks again!-- 5 albert square (talk) 22:22, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps the advantage of not really knowing much about this guy allows me to take the 30,000-foot view. That kind of nonsense isn't okay, regardless of how much of a jerk an article subject may be - and refer back to sentence 1, I really don't know. Risker (talk) 22:40, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

It's not even that he's a jerk, it's because he's a talk show host with a past that includes things like a gambling problem. So now because he has a go at people on his talk show who have problems like gambling etc, people think he's a bit of a hypocrite and the guy really isn't that well liked, well not in the UK anyway.-- 5 albert square (talk) 23:04, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

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