Meta:Babel/Archives/2017-03

Help on Marathi Wikipedia against admins there

Hello! I have been indefinitely blocked on Marathi Wikipedia by an admin with no access even to my talk page or of writing an email to the admin. The block is wrongful in various ways and is foul especially when I raised my concerns about admins on that wiki not taking actions against copyrights violations. Images which infringe copyrights have been tagged for deletion since as long as 2013 with that community's admins simply sitting on them. There are more problems which I would elaborate later.
I come here to firstly enquire where I should complain now. I understand that Meta has global admins who could help in the matter. But what venue should I approach? (Kindly ping me when replying as I am not frequent on meta.) Dharmadhyaksha (talk) 03:56, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Speaking candidly, there have been problems at that wiki for years. Stewards are not a global ArbCom and can't really help in this matter, unfortunately. Your best bet is to either try to contact one of the mrwiki admins on Meta, or start a RFC (but the latter may not do anything since RFC is a broken process). --Rschen7754 06:54, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

@Mahitgar: --Rschen7754 06:56, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

@Rschen7754: My local block is a small thing and I don't really care much about it. But should the global sysop community just hopefully pray that no legal actions are raised against Wikimedia Foundation for all the copyvios that blatantly are supported by those local admins? Thankfully, this wiki is not much popular but that does not work as an excuse when laws are concerned. Yesterday i tagged a few images for deletion on Commons which Mahitgar had uploaded and what he did in turn was indef block me on Marathi wiki and upload those images locally. Looks like they know they have everything under control locally and hence are free to twist and turn things and disregard Foundation's licensing resolution.
I understand that we do not have a global Arbcom and if you say I would also believe that RfC is no way out. But I also doubt contacting any local admins through Meta is going to work. But will still give a try. @Kaustubh, Sankalpdravid, V.narsikar, and अभय नातू:. Dharmadhyaksha (talk) 08:58, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

mrwiki is not a global sysop wiki - they explicitly opted out. Sadly I'm sure they're not the only wiki that ignores copyright laws, though copyright isn't the only issue there. There have been successful RFCs that have done something, but they're <10% of the total. --Rschen7754 15:51, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

A few years ago Croatian Wiki fell under control of a group of abusive nationalistic admins. You can see the page on it at Requests for comment/2013 issues on Croatian Wikipedia. All admins where removed, and new ones elected. If there is a serious problem at Marathi Wiki and you want to deal with it, you (and/or other editors) would have to compile extensive documentation of abuses. Alsee (talk) 18:14, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

I think you may be thinking about a different wiki (Hindi?) - the Croatian Wikipedia issues are definitely unsolved. --Rschen7754 19:11, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

@Rahuldeshmukh101:, an admin on mrwiki, has now uploaded many copyvio screenshots of newspapers which unfortunately are now being displayed on the Marathi Wikipedia's main page. Rschen, I am unaware of the process, but how can some wiki get themselves opted out of global sysops? So does that mean no outsider can ever interfere and complete sovereignty is granted to them? Dharmadhyaksha (talk) 03:50, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

They only have to have a vote. RFC may be the best option here, but be clear, concise, and to the point if you go that route, because it's hard enough trying to get people to care about small wikis. --Rschen7754 04:45, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Ping system not working

I was supposed to be pinged to Talk:OTRS. However, I was not notified about the ping. If someone here can ping me here just for a test, I appreciate it. --George Ho (talk) 22:52, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho: I think pings only work when followed by a signature at the end of the comment. --Yair rand (talk) 23:16, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Hey, it works. :) --George Ho (talk) 23:17, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Button change

Hello, all,

I wanted to let you know that the buttons are changing in most of the editors tomorrow (Wednesday). There are two unrelated changes happening here: one is that the long-discussed change from "Save page" to say "Publish page" and "Publish changes" is finally reaching Meta. The other is that the button itself is going to become BIG and blue. Both of these changes are being made primarily for the sake of new editors.

If you discover problems with the "Publish page" labels, then please let me know as soon as possible. As with any new label, there may be imperfect translations or other difficulties, and we need to know about these problems. If you want to change the meaning of the label (e.g., to include additional information, which is done at the Chinese Wikipedia), then please talk to me first. Like changes to the copyright notice, changes to this button need to be reviewed by the Legal team in advance.

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T111088

I believe that the change to the appearance of the button will be more noticeable to established contributors. You can look at a screenshot on Phabricator. Unforunately, because of the technology used, it appears that it will not be possible to restore the old appearance completely via CSS changes.

If you have questions about this, then please {{ping}} me. Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:24, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Update: The BIG blue button has been delayed. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 14:38, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Whatamidoing (WMF): Isn't it problematic to say "publish changes" on flaggedrevs wikis where edits might not immediately be "published" for the user making the edit (e.g. IPs, non-autoreviewers)? --MF-W 14:17, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I understand that the date of publication is the date that it's available to the public through any method (e.g., via oldid links and the page history), not the date upon which it becomes the default that's shown to most users who read the page the usual way (or the date that it first gets indexed by the larger search engines, which has also been proposed by a couple of editors as "true" publication). However, I agree that it could be confusing to some editors who don't understand how Flagged Revisions work. If you have any ideas about how to make this clearer to inexperienced editors, then please add your thoughts to Talk:Editing/Publish. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:35, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

On pages affected by Flagged Revisions being edited by IPs, non-autoreviewers, the button could say "Ask to publish changes" or "Submit for approval".   — Jeff G. ツ 04:33, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

No editing for 30 minutes on two days

Due to the server switch project, all of the wikis will be in read-only mode for 20 to 30 minutes on two days soon:

• Wednesday, 19 April 2017, starting at 14:00 UTC
• Wednesday, 3 May 2017 (two weeks later), starting at 14:00 UTC

If you are a MediaWiki hacker, then please note that the normal deployment schedule has been canceled during both of those weeks.

There is more information at m:Tech/Server switch 2017, including a link to the official schedule. Please leave a message on my user talk page or "ping" me if you have any questions. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:07, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): would you be able to repeat this announcement on all wikis about a week before each of the dates? Green Giant (talk) 10:29, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi Green Giant,

I plan to send Tech/Server switch 2017 by MassMessage to "all the wikis" around 12 April 2017. Sending it twice seems like overkill. There will also be announcements in Tech/News (every week until it's over) and last-minute CentralNotice banners (both dates). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:01, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. Agreed twice is overkill. Green Giant (talk) 20:06, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikimedia Endowment

May I please have some substantive answers from the WMF to the questions asked at Talk:Wikimedia Endowment#How should we select members of the Wikimedia Endowment Advisory board?.

For background, see User:Guy Macon/Wikipedia has Cancer. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:05, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

(...Sound of Crickets...) --Guy Macon (talk) 03:23, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

(...Chirp...) --Guy Macon (talk)

(...Chirp...) --Guy Macon (talk) 17:49, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Answered on 19 April 2017 -Guy Macon (talk) 11:52, 21 April 2017 (UTC)