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Welcome to the stewards ' noticeboard. This message board is for discussing issues on Wikimedia projects that are related to steward work. Please post your messages at the bottom of the page and do not forget to sign it. Thank you. This is not the place for stewards requests. To make a new request, see steward requests and requests and proposals . For illustration of steward policies and use, see the steward handbook . See also: Access to nonpublic personal data policy noticeboard. This page is automatically archived by SpBot. Threads older than 30 days will be moved to the archive.

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Assist as volunteer to AAR22

This year, I thank you who a few valuable stewards are taking the process. Since a small number of these stewards aren't unavailable from time to time, it may be helpful for this process who are volunteer non-stewards -for example, me- to inform affected inactive users and their communities. I present it for your information. --Uncitoyen^talk 09:41, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

I did a few this morning, but did mostly processing. I wouldn't object to the assistance, but please wait for other stewards to comment. -- Amanda (she/her) 12:10, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

This has been done in the past [1][2] so it is certainly possible. --Rschen7754 17:07, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Apologies for the off-topic, but thinking out loud I believe AAR needs some redesign.

The process is far too manual nowadays (manual notify here, manual notify there, add a date here, post an update there, etc...) and cumbersome. Can't at least the notification process be scripted so it doesn't take forever to complete? MassMessage now supports sending translatable pages, which means MediaWiki automatically selects the language in which the message has to be posted based on the local wiki language (if we don't have it translated, it'll look for the fallback language and, in there's no translation or fallback, English will be used).

I am not sure we need to keep using Admin activity review/Notice to communities to notify the village pumps (a message we have to modify for each wiki notified to add the names of the inactive users... and every year is quite a number of wikis we have to notify) when AAR does not seem to require us to do so (See AAR#Policy, section 4; it is the responsability of the notified user to ask the community to keep their rights).

I think we could speed the process a lot by:

a) Every year, build a MassMessage list with the names of the inactive users according to policy (I guess Openbk script/bot can create it in addition to the /Data page).

b) Use the MassMessage List to send these users Admin activity review/Notice to inactive right holders (as mentioned above, MediaWiki picks which translated version to post based on the wiki local language, if there's no translation, then the translation for the configured fallback language(s) and, if there's no translation for either, it'll use English).

c) The clock starts ticking as MassMessage is logged.

d) Stewards then can keep an eye on SN, and verify if after one month there has been some activity/community discussion, and act accordingly.

If you think the community notification may still be useful, I think it needs to be more generic so we don't have to manually change it for each wiki in which we have to use it.

Sorry for the wall of text, —MarcoAurelio (talk) 17:52, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

What if the community notification was scripted to link to stewardry or some other tool? In the past at that stage in the process some communities have decided to create their own policy or otherwise object and I do not think that opportunity should be removed from them. As far as the individual messages, when I used to send them out I had to keep looking and guessing what language to use. Eliminating that would speed up the process. --Rschen7754 18:42, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

That'd be great, or "some advanced right holders of your community will soon receive a message on their talk pages about ..." - I agree with you that the community has to have a say of course, as AAR is subsidiary to local processes; but as we talked a while ago if the user does not ask the community to keep their permissions it does not seem that they can keep 'em, but perhaps this should be clarified in the policy. It does not seem reasonable to force a removal when the community do not agree, even if the user remain inactive and/or silent about it. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 19:00, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

@Uncitoyen: I think we've left this long enough with no objections, but if you could go ahead and assist with the notifications for this year, it would help and save some time. Feel free to ping me on my talk on dates where action is needed and i'll go through and pull flags. Obviously for next year we can consider a different process, but let's get this years over with. -- Amanda (she/her) 19:52, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for comments of all you. I started sending notifications slowly. I hope these helps you stewards. Other hand, MediaWiki's notification is little difficult for me (however I think easy for @MarcoAurelio:). Marco, you had listed WMF employees separately in Mediawiki previous years already. I would like to remark that Brion VIBBER has both a personal and a foundation account. Only locally him personal account has been authorized as sysop on mediawiki. Maybe other accounts like it that work for WMF. So I want to leave Mediawiki's notice to the stewards. --Uncitoyen^talk 10:20, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

The trick is to guess which of these are work accounts . For example: Brion VIBBER; while Brion Vibber (WMF) exists he doesn't seem to be using it. Similarly Eloquence was Erik Moeller (WMF), and so on. Yes, this needs to be sorted out first. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 14:10, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi @AmandaNP:, I have completed the notifications and noted their estimated process dates and status. If there is no problem, I can write down their community's answers when I will see as non-steward comments for your ease. However, the final -done/not done- decision is your stewards. Other way, can you make trwikiquote's notifications, I want to avoid these notifications as a local editor here as not to be misunderstood in local project. @MarcoAurelio:, yes I wanted to draw your attention because of these users. Instead of foundation accounts, they did use personal accounts. It would be good to list them. --Uncitoyen^talk 16:20, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes feel free to document/link responses, again ping me as necessary when dates/reviews come up. I am also happy to do the one notification for you. If you don't see it done 24 hours from now, ping me because I'll forget. -- Amanda (she/her) 00:40, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

@AmandaNP: For remind. It's passed 24 hours. Only if I see right, it missing notification of trwikiquote. --Uncitoyen^talk 11:33, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

@MarcoAurelio: I would compare all affected Mediawiki's admins with foundationwiki and Meta, I could only find the followings. I think these users who have worked for the Wikimedia Foundation now or in the past may include:

1. Brion VIBBER use personal account on Mediawiki as sysop, bureaucrat (Brion Vibber (WMF) is still employee of Wikimedia Foundation)
2. Eloquence use personal account on Mediawiki as sysop (Erik Moeller (WMF) is former Deputy Director of the WMF, his WMF account is locked by WMF because offboard)
3. Guillom use personal account on Mediawiki as sysop (Guillaume (WMF) is still employee of WMF)
4. Krenair use use personal account on Mediawiki as sysop, bureaucrat (Alex Monk (WMF) is former employee of WMF, his WMF account is locked by WMF because no longer)
5. Pchelolo use personal account on Mediawiki as sysop (PPchelko (WMF) is former employee of WMF, his WMF account is locked by WMF because no longer)
6. Siebrand use personal account on Mediawiki as sysop, bureaucrat (Smazeland-WMF is former employee of WMF, his WMF account is locked by WMF because former staff)
7. Sumanah use personal account on Mediawiki as sysop (Sharihareswara (WMF) is former employee of WMF, her WMF account is locked by WMF because offborad)
8. Varnent use personal account on Mediawiki as sysop (GVarnum-WMF is still employee of WMF)

Former employees may not currently be able to contribute on behalf of WMF on MediaWiki. So it may be better to separate the current WMF employees. --Uncitoyen^talk 12:14, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

@Uncitoyen: What I did on past reviews is to exclude personal accounts from current employees. See e.g. mw:Topic:W17zb5p3datkn29e. As such, I'd exclude Brion, Guillom and Varnent, and notify everyone else. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 15:21, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

In any case if you don't feel comfortable doing the mediawiki.org part I can take care of it. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 15:23, 25 February 2023 (UTC) I'll handle this myself. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 15:33, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

It's better for me if you can handle. --Uncitoyen^talk 15:57, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

@Uncitoyen: Done. Community notified at mw:Topic:Xdac9fsd71grrbup and the users at their respective talk pages with the exception of Vogone whose talk page redirects to his user page there, so I notified him here at Special:Diff/24629225. Titoxd notified as well too on their ENWP talk page (per their request on top of their mw.org talk page). To process on or after 2023-03-26. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 17:34, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Disruptive editing on Bhojpuri wikipedia (bhwiki)

Hi, This user राजा_भोजपुरिया has been creating articles in a script other than the projects acceptable script and then manipulating the wikidata links in a disruptive way. After politly asking not to do so and even after warnings the user continued to do the same. I have blocked the user for a short period but it appears he has already created another account लोहरान. Another older account seems to be sock of the user i.e. Binay babu. Please take notice and suggest accordingly. Thanks. --SM7^--talk-- 19:33, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

@SM7, they are also translating some content on Meta, could you advise whether the translations they produce are correct? They have also created a topic Wikimedia Forum#Bhojpuri_language calling for people to use Google Translate, but they claim to be a native speaker themselves. --Base (talk) 15:56, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

@Base, their claim to be native speaker appears to be correct as I can locate them belonging to Eastern part of Bhojpuri speaking region per their contributions on Bhojpuri wikipedia. However, their contributions are quite contradictory in nature. On the one hand, they are using the Devnagri script in the above mentioned translations, they are claiming an obsolete script Kaithi to be allowed to be used on Bhojpuri wikipedia. The above mentioned translations may require to be reviewed as they are heavily influenced by Hindi language (some of these are even completely in Hindi and not in Bhojpuri 1, 2, 3 4). Translation quality is poor and appears to be machine translation, without applying sufficient understanding. For example, After your mention, I found them translating on here on foundation's site too, and the very word "foundation" itself is wrongly translated to be नीव which is a term dedicated strictly to foundation of a wall in Hindi. Thus, even if they are native speaker, they are not putting this advantage to good use. Same is the problem with their articles created on bhwiki using content translation (many of them I have had to modify in order to keep them). In my opinion, their call for using Google Translate in order to create more articles (Number admiration) may not be a thing to welcome.--SM7^--talk-- 18:57, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

requesting assistance to give information on NO:WP

Hello

Adding an RFC on Ideals and realities on the ground in Norwegian Wikipedia, and not in position, due to this bloc to post a notice in NO:WP. I am acording to this requesting assistance to give information on the RFC on the NO:WP Village Pump. The title given may translate into Idealene og realitetene på bakken i Norsk Wikipedia. Andrez1 (talk) 19:03, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Adding an RFC I seems to be obliged to -

"If the RFC concerns the conduct of several users on the same wiki, or the conduct of an entire community of a Wikimedia wiki, the initiator of the RFC must post a neutrally-worded notice linking to the RFC on a prominent page on that wiki, such as the village pump (links). If the initiator is unable to do so because they are blocked on that wiki, they must post a notice on the stewards' noticeboard requesting assistance."

- on this I need assistance. Thank You. Andrez1 (talk) 11:05, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Request for global IP block exemption

I would like to know which method requesting global IP block exemption permission is most recommended - via SRGP or via UTRS. There's a huge amount of users from China must access Wikimedia projects via proxy, and some of them prefer a global IPBE flag applied to help them editing other projects like commons and wikidata. Previously they were taught to fill a request at SRGP, but since several month ago, that section was occupied with UTRS ticket, I'm thinking is it more recommended to guide user to submit their request through UTRS system? It would be helpful to get suggestion from steward, so I could alter the way when guiding users - like which method is faster for requester, and easier for steward to handle. Stang 13:08, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Non-steward opinion: Either way, the request appears on SRGP. If I am not wrong UTRS is mainly designed for appealing a (b)lock and not solely asking for GIPBE. Through UTRS or VRTS, requests are more private and might get delayed response because all might not be active there to handle those requests. I would suggest SRGP be the most recommended way. Kind regards, Tulsi 24x7 13:42, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Don't UTRS requests get mirrored on SRGP now? That would leave just the benefit of privacy for UTRS requests. ~~~~
User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 13:59, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

With my developer & steward hats, I'll try an explain the benefit of all 3 options to help you select best. And this would apply to anyone, so feel free to spread the advice.

• SRGP: This is by far the most visible and fastest option if you can do it. The two cases you can't are: 1) When there is a local meta block stopping you 2) you need privacy with your request
• UTRS: This is the second fastest option and but also has limited visibility. The only way that your request gets posted to SRGP from UTRS is if 1) your appeal is verified to your account 2) You have a global open proxy block. If you don't meet those conditions, UTRS will still take your appeal as long as you have a valid block. It just won't get posted to SRGP. There are also some factors that will change the ease and functionality over the next few months to both streamline and improve accessibility to block appeals in general. It is generally my goal to try and make it as easy as possible to use UTRS, keeping in mind I'm a volunteer.
• VRT: This is the least visible and most backlogged option. It's only meant to be a backstop for people who can't 1) post to meta 2) can't figure out the IP address of your block and therefore can't use UTRS. It's the hardest option to use because you have to wait for an available steward to go back and forth (usually 2-3 times if you aren't complete up front about the block affecting you). We are looking to improve response times, but that is also a project in itself.

Hope this help explains the options available. -- Amanda (she/her) 06:18, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Steward clerks

Today, we are launching a pilot project called Steward clerks. To help reduce the current backlog of Steward VRT proxy-related tickets, we are seeking help from members of the community. Please see the page linked above for details. Feel free to disseminate this message to those who you think would be interested, especially to English speakers from different language communities.

Applications

There are two application phases to start:

• Rapid round: Apply between March 19-22 UTC, Internal review: March 23-26 UTC, starting March 27 UTC (up to 6 people - those not selected for rapid round will automatically be reconsidered for regular round)
• Regular round: Apply between March 23-29 UTC, Internal review: March 30-April 2 UTC, starting April 3 UTC

Please apply to steward-clerksgooglegroupscom. Preference will be given to those willing to use off-wiki communication methods (most likely IRC) to help with coordination and questions. When applying, please give a quick paragraph about why you would be a good fit.

Please note, signing of ANPDP and the VRT confidentiality agreement is a requirement. You will not be added to the project until this is completed. -- Amanda (she/her) 20:01, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

I will say that I have thought stewards should have had clerks for a long time, though I would have thought more along the lines of running things like AAR that have a lot of components that don't actually require the tools. --Rschen7754 23:43, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

It has definitely been talked about internally and externally for at minimum 2 years in various capacities, and we should have acted on something sooner. We may eventually expand the role, but keeping the scope limited to a critical backlog, that can easily be corrected if an issue exists should be a solid start if it is successful. -- Amanda (she/her) 00:10, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

I made the stupid mistake of not allowing anyone but internal people to email the list. Should you have gotten an error, it is now fixed and feel free to send it again. Sorry about that. -- Amanda (she/her) 20:09, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Why is a Google Group being used instead of a mailing list on lists.wikimedia.org? Legoktm (talk) 23:47, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Or even @wikimedia.org Google Group, too. (Mea culpa for not pointing this out while I had the hat, I guess) — regards, Revi 15:41, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Sorry I forgot to reply here. At the moment, the program is in pilot mode, it's not guarentee that it will continue past 3 months. Right now, the list is used only for applications and there are only 2 people on it. It would be a bit bureaucratic to request a mailing list for just 2 people for a couple of applications. If we did move towards a coordination list, then we could consider a mailing list. As for a google group, that's an idea, but just like the mailing lists, there is no documentation that this is even possible, would be accepted, or the process for doing so or how long it would take. -- Amanda (she/her) 17:47, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

AAR: eswikibooks

Hello. Per discussion we'd like to keep Alhen's rights on es.wikibooks. This is currently marked as on hold in the AAR Data subpage. It can be changed to not done. Not doing this myself as es.wikibooks is one of my homewikis. Thanks, —MarcoAurelio (talk) 18:27, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Courtesy vanishing and deletion of user talk pages.

If I request a courtesy vanishing for my accounts, will I be able to get my user talk pages from all wikis, not just the English Wikipedia, deleted as well? because when the time comes, I want absolutely nothing left behind. Why are administrators so hesitant to delete user talk pages? Why are user talk pages rarely deleted? 1.145.161.96 14:47, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

In short: no. In general, user pages only contain information specific to the editor that made them, while user talk pages contain information that is specific to the community (and generally contain revisions authored by other contributors). As you see on every single page you publish, you release the content of your contributions with an irrevocable license - as does everyone else, something you re-agree to on every edit. In the event you are the only contributor to a user talk page, most projects will delete it as a courtesy. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:53, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Also I should've mentioned before my last post was archived, can the standard offer apply to global bans as well? 1.145.161.96 14:59, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

You can read about the process for overcoming a global ban on this page: Global bans. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:18, 27 March 2023 (UTC)