Stewards' noticeboard/Archives/2017-10

2017 Persian Wikipedia Arbitration Committee Election

Hello Stewards,

This is the second year that the Persian Wikipedia community is going to hold the Arbitration Committee Election using SecurePoll just like the English Wikipedia. We have taken care of all the arrangements. We just need one steward to volunteer to serve as a scrutineer. We would prefer if that scrutineer does not have much involvement with fawiki in order to help preserve the integrity of the election. The current timetable will have voting between 10 and 23 November. We expect a voter turnout of about 100 users, so the job will not be hard. Please feel free to contact me or User:Huji if you have any questions. Thanks in advance, 4nn1l2 (talk) 20:17, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks 4nn1l2 for starting the topic, as you said, I am happy to answer any questions. I think it is a good to ping User:Jalexander-WMF as well. Huji (talk) 01:58, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

I forwarded this to the stewards mailing list and both Einsbor and RadiX volunteered for this role. Trijnstel_talk 13:05, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. That is great. We can have both of them as scrutineers. 4nn1l2 (talk) 22:55, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

My unblock on en:wiktionary

Hi, I would like to get unblocked, or at least being able to edit my own userpage to request unblock, since I cannot even do so. The reason given was "Mass-adding nonsensical translation requests": in fact there has been nonsense translation requests in a variety of languages for a few months, but not all were meaningless (though sounded weird) and I answered a few of them. People who write such requests do not necessarily master the language very well and their requests may appear strange. Thank you Bu193 (talk) 09:29, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Hello, there is their own community and admins, so stewards can't help you here. If you want, you can contact the user on Meta (User talk:Wyang). Stryn (talk) 16:35, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

But his answering here is unlikely since he has no edit here. I just would like to be able to edit my user talk page en:wiktionary to ask for unblock there. Bu193 (talk) 10:56, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Many users get a notification if their talk page has been edited on any wikis. Stryn (talk) 12:35, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Re-election of Oversight on Swedish Wikipedia

I would like to ask for a review of the re-election of User:Hannibal as Oversighter on svwiki. It takes place at sv:Wikipedia:Ansökan om administrativ behörighet/Hannibal#Omval (administratör och censor) oktober 2017. The election is both concerning his function as Sysop and as Oversighter. Nobody has (yet) voted against him as sysop so that is not the issue at all. The problem is the Oversight-election. Based on the sensitivity of the OS-tools I ask for your help. You need 90% support to be (re-)elected on svwiki. Therefor he was at the edge of being de-oversighted with only four against-votes when the problem with loosing local Oversight was announced at the local Village pump, resulting in ten new votes quickly was recruited. I complained about this Canvass-like behaviour, but I doubt that the problem locally has been reviewed in a sober way. The objections against Hannibals Oversight-ship is a mixture of doubts about his handling of a special case and doubts about that we at all should have local OS at svwiki. In my opinion the voting has been influenced by alienation of WMF's privacy/oversight policy, the need of communication in other languages than Swedish and the influence from users not active on the project and therefor not familiar with the local view on Oversight (a view some users tend to describe as superior to the global policy).

NB!, I personally have no objection about how the OS-tools has been used on svwiki. But I have doubts that we should have these tools locally.

The election can be closed after 7 days, i.e. after October 26, 19:01 UTC+2, but can be extended to up to two weeks if the result is inconclusive. -- Innocent bystander (talk) 05:24, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

FYI: The election has been closed. Hannibal was finally voted down with 47-6 in the Oversight-election. Last years re-election gives the user mandate to stay as Oversight until the end of October. -- Innocent bystander (talk) 17:27, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know. Please start a request on SRP, linking to the discussion and local policy requiring 90% support to stay on as an OS. Also note that both oversighters will need to be removed in accordance with the global policy until a second one is elected. Regards, – Ajraddatz (talk) 04:56, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

2017 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee Elections

We will run the elections to ArbCom in November and December. The voting will continue until 3 December. After that date, we need three volunteers for scrutineering. The scrutineers must be stewards whose home project is not the English Wikipedia. We have done it every year since 2012, and I hope that this year we will find three scrutineers as well to complete the elections. Thanks a lot, the participation will be highly appreciated. On behalf of the election comittiee (Yunshui and Ritchie333), --Ymblanter (talk) 10:19, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

I can. Matiia (talk) 00:25, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Waiting for two more volunteers.--Ymblanter (talk) 04:44, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

+1 RadiX∞ 15:29, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

+1--Shanmugamp7 ^(talk) 15:31, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

+1 Mardetanha ^talk 15:54, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks a lot to all of you! We only need three scrutineers, should we just pick Matiia, RadiX, and shanmugamp7, and keep Mardetanha as a reserve scrutineer, in case smth does not work? --Ymblanter (talk) 19:50, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

@Ymblanter: Ok. It's fine by me. :) RadiX∞ 12:23, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. We might have some changes, but I will discuss them individually when I am absolutely certain they are going to occur.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:53, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Emergency help from Steward

Hi this is regarding Marathi Wikipedia . The administrator has posted a image to मिडियाविकी:Sitenotice which truly goes against Conflict of interest policy. There is hate speech in the sitenotice too the image was speedy deleted on commons but has been uploaded on local wiki. Please take necessary actions. --Tiven2240 (talk) 05:47, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Marathi Wikipedia misuse of administrative powers

I would like to draw attention of Steward on the current misuse of administrative powers on Marathi Wikipedia as I report User:Mahitgar to misuse his administrative powers on all three wikimedia projects of wikimedia foundation (Wikipedia wikisource wiktionary). Mahitgar has before too being a subject of discussion whether it is on Meta:bebel or meta:RFA. Currently as stated Marathi Wikipedia has 10 administrators but I find only 3 active on the project (Mahitgar V.Narsikar and अभय नातू). Narsikar has been also sometimes active but abhay and mahitgar are always there for project but from few days I've seen there are changes in mahitgar's behavior due to allow of non-marathi language in specific condition on Marathi Wikipedia the proposal can be found on the notice board. I was organizing Wikipedia Asian month where I had been in touch with @Saileshpat: but mahitgar played his admin powers and made me trap in wikipedia Filters and imposed filer ban on me unknowingly. I was asking many times on enwp talkpage of mahitgar but it didn't payed heed. When I supported the above said proposal Mahitgar banned me giving a false reason कॉपीराईट कायद्याच्या उल्लंघनाच्या समर्थनार्थ प्रचालकांवर ऐरवाजवी दबाव व संघर्ष भूमिका(translation "[Putting] Unreasonable pressure on admins in support of violation of copyright law, and confrontational position") which has no connection with me. I had noted the same at User talk:Vituzzu#My block on Marathi Wikipedia and asked mahitgar for the reasons on Abhay's talkpage on enwp but yet no response. When I started revolting about the block mahitgar has been creating blocking policy on Marathi Wikipedia which had no community consensus the same can be found at mr:मिडियाविकी:Ipbreason-dropdown.

sitenotice that was recently removed from Marathi Wikipedia

Just today morning mahitgar uploaded a image that made me write the above message for help. The site notice has just been changed by another admin @Rahuldeshmukh101: but it can be found on wikisource and wiktionary it reads मातृभाषा मराठी असूनही मराठी विकिपीडियाच्या चर्चा पानांवर लाळघोटू इंग्रजीत लिहू देण्याची मागणी करणाऱ्यांनो; आणि त्यांना अनुमोदन देणाऱ्यांनो आपल्याला मराठीची लाज वाटते ? की मराठीत लिहिल्याने आपली बोटे झडून गळून पडतात ? आणि मराठी विकिपीडियावर इंग्रजीचा बोलबोबाला चालवू देणाऱ्यांनो; तुम्ही मराठीचा अभिमान नसल्यासारखे मुखस्तंभ का आहात ? की आज मराठी विकिपीडियावर मराठी विकावयास निघाली आहे?

Translated Despite the mother tongue Marathi, those who demanded to write slogans on Marathi Wikipedia talk pages; And they who will approve them Do you feel ashamed of Marathi? Does that mean that your fingers are burnt down by writing in Marathi? And English speakers on marathi Wikipedia; Why are you in the front of your face like not being proud of Marathi?Is Today, Marathi Wikipedia going to sell Marathi?

This seems to be a direct taunt on @अभय नातू: and me. While abhay was making a way through the filters for me for Asian month Mahitgar again misuses his adminstrative powers to block user:Abhijeet Safai stating reason that he is using english language on marathi Wikipedia.

Since Mahitgar had uploaded the image of sitenotice on Commons I had requested @Christian Ferrer: to delete it on its talk page. After this step of deletion Mahitgar who is admin on marathi wikisource and wiktionary blocked me on those project too.

I request that my accounts to be unblocked on all three Wikimedia projects and a strict action shall be taken on Mahitgar for misusing his adminstrative powers on Wikimedia projects.Thanking you --Tiven2240 (talk) 15:17, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Users affected by Mahitgar's actions

The following users i believe are of no proper reason blocked on Marathi Wikipedia

• User:Abhijeet Safai
• User:Rohini
• User:Dharmadhyaksha
• User:Tiven2240
• User:Chinmayisk

--Tiven2240 (talk) 15:26, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Update: Following a complaint made by Chinmayi and me, she was unblocked by a steward. Here is a copy of our complaint. I was unblocked by a Marathi 'crat today. -- Rohini (talk) 12:59, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Comments

• Yes. I too find Mahitgar autocratic and he does not listen to anyone. He wants to use only Marathi language everywhere on Marathi WP. Our long pending demand is at least on talk pages other languages should be allowed. It is so frustrating to discuss anything with him, that people do not dare to speak against him, nor he allows to talk. I am currently blocked it seems from editing without giving any reason to me. While I respect his intentions to promote Marathi, and wish to thank him for his huge contributions (up-till now!) for Marathi WP, his behavior is creating lot of trouble for many. I hope that necessary action will be taken and he will direct his energies for better purposes. Genuine good wishes for him. Thank you. --Abhijeet Safai (talk) 15:37, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
• I confirm having deleted this image for this reason. Seeing the contributions made by Tiven2240 on Wikimedia Commons, the rationale of his block in mr.wikipedia "कॉपीराईट कायद्याच्या उल्लंघनाच्या समर्थनार्थ प्रचालकांवर ऐरवाजवी दबाव व संघर्ष भूमिका; मराठ.." seems to me quite strange... as usually Tiven224 is helpful for tracking copyright violations and other inappropriate content in Wikimedia Commons. The situation as explained by him above seems rather worrying, and for what I can understand the block is not justified, and the actions of the blocking administrator quite worrying too. --Christian Ferrer (talk) 18:27, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
• Comment in short, Mahitgar is doing everything to prevent some grant requests from being promoted at mr.wiki. He says these proposals are actually alien to Marathi culture. While the way he's acting is definitely wrong I'd like to read some comment about those requests. --Vituzzu (talk) 18:45, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

@Vituzzu:For the record, User:Mahitgar's issues with User:Abhijeet Safai and User:Tiven2240 are unrelated to his issues with User:Chinmayisk and me. In the case of the former, he objects to their repeated requests to allow the use of the Roman script/ English language on Marathi Wikipedia Talk pages. His insinuation against Chinmayi and me is that our Project Grant proposal, which is still under review, is an attempt to misappropriate the WMF's funds. All four were blocked summarily. Relics of Mahitgar's blantant abuse of power are aplenty. -- Rohini (talk) 01:58, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

• The blocks on mr.wikisource and mr.wiktionary are quite worrying. --Rschen7754 18:48, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
• +1. --Steinsplitter (talk) 19:39, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
• Update to the list of blocked users: User:Chinmayisk was unblocked on Marathi Wikipedia following a joint complaint made to the stewards by her and me. I am still blocked there. -- Rohini (talk) 02:03, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
• Comment It is disturbing to see a bureaucrat use an avenue such as the site notice for responding to protests by an editor who was blocked in violation of the Wikipedia's blocking policies. Moreover, User: Mahitgar has repeatedly abused his administrative powers by summarily blocking editors and violating other, basic Wikimedia principles as can be observed here. The phrasing of the site notice in Marathi is crude, offensive and contains personal attacks. While Tiven2240 has provided a translation, I am attempting my own:

user:Rohini's translation (hidden as it contains speech that is disturbing)

[To] Native speakers of Marathi who demand to be allowed to write in the bootlicker English [language] on the Discussion pages of Marathi Wikipedia, and to those who support them: Are you ashamed of [the] Marathi [language]? Or is it that your fingers will drop off if you write in Marathi? And those [of you] who allow the domination of English on Marathi Wikipedia, why are you doggedly silent as if you have no pride in Marathi? Or is it that, in these times, Marathi is on sale on Marathi Wikipedia?"

I have been working on diversity and inclusion issues on Wikimedia projects for the past few years and I cannot say how disappointed and disgusted I am. -- Rohini (talk) 02:53, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Mahitgar unilaterally updated the IP blocking policy on Marathi Wikipedia, without initiating any discussion with the community. [1]and later reverted it. Translation:

"Common reasons for IP blocks: Shameless insistence on conversing on Marathi Wikipedia Discussion pages in a language other than Marathi, despite the native language being Marathi and despite knowing how to type in Marathi."

-- Rohini (talk) 03:45, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

For the record, I reverted it when I saw it was done unilaterally. अभय नातू (talk) 05:01, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

@अभय नातू: Thanks for the heads up. I stand corrected. -- Rohini (talk) 11:35, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Comment - After waiting in GF for mahitgar to respond for about 24 hours, I have removed w:mr blocks on Tiven and Rohini. Mahitgar has been active on w:mr and elsewhere during this period and has had an opportunity to respond to various ping's to him. Given that, I have inferred that mahitgar may not be interested in responding to good-faith queries, hence the unblock.I hope and sincerely request that the unblocked users will display restraint and not start any incendiary edits on w:mr.Thank you! अभय नातू (talk) 04:14, 1 November 2017 (UTC)--( admin, crat: w:mr)

Thank you. --Rschen7754 05:05, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

@अभय नातू: Much appreciated. Thank you. I assure you that I won't add to your woes (and mine) on Marathi Wikipedia. -- Rohini (talk) 11:49, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

• Comment @अभय नातू: has removed the block on me and user:Rohini but yet I am facing the abuse Filter game that Mahitgar has played [2] thus an another example of misuse of administrative powers. Mahitgar has been notified by Vituzzu on his MrWp talkpage to give his views on all this but till time there is no traces found. I am still blocked on mr.wikisource and the site notice on both mr.wikisource.org and mr.wikitionary.org are still not unchanged. Currently Mahitgar is found guilty of misuse of adminstrative powers on 3/4 [3] projects where he is a admin. About Hindi Wikitionary he has only 260 edits and I don't know how granted admin and ip-block-exempt rights? Mahitgar on Marathi Wikipedia is found guilty against the principles mentioned on विकिपीडिया:प्रचालक.

Mahitgar has not only effected the editing of mine but also the users I have mentioned above. Mahitgar has played Edit filter games on other users too. This can be found noted at Talk:Marathi Wikipedia on enwp. On meta Mahitgar has been found exposed here as well as on Grants talk:Project/Chinmayisk/Community toolkit for Greater Diversity/Complaint to the stewards and Meta:Babel/Archives/2017-03#Help on Marathi Wikipedia against admins there whereas on local Wikipedia also there were debates regarding Mahitgar's behavior.

On local Wikipedia I would like to share a statement from another admin

माझे महितगारांसोबत अनेक जुने मतभेद आहेत व त्यांनी माझ्यासोबत संवाद देखील बंद केल्याचे स्मरते.तरी देखील त्यांच्या चर्चापानावर संदेश टाकायचे धाडस मी करीत आहे. तथाकथित संचिका परवाना नीती संपूर्णपणे माहितगारांनी बनवली असून त्यावर कोणताही कौल घेतला गेला नाही असे मला वाटते. वर नमूद केल्याप्रमाणे इतर विकीपीडियांवर copyright संचिकांसाठी fair use policy अस्तित्वात असताना फक्त मराठी विकीपीडियावरच ती का नसावी ह्याचे समाधानकारक उत्तर वर कोठेही सापडत नाही. ह्यावर व इतर अनेक बाबींवर वाद झाले असताना असे आढळून आले आहे की माहितगार समोरच्या मुद्द्याला बगल देऊन मोठे मोठे निबंध लिहितात व आपलाच हेका चालू ठेवतात ज्याने प्रशनकर्ता कंटाळून आपला मुद्दा मागे घेतो. सद्य चर्चेत हेच होताना दिसत आहे हे माझे ह्या चर्चेत पडण्याचे प्रयोजन. - अभिजीत साठे (चर्चा) ०१:३३, २१ जानेवारी २०१७ (IST)^[4]

Translation

I have many old differences with Mahitgar and he also stopped communicating with me. Then too I still have the courage to write a message on his talk page. The so-called file licensing policy has been made entirely by the knowledge of mahitgar and no votes has been taken on it. As far as mentioned above, fair use policy for copyrighted files is found on other wikipedias but y isn't it allowed on Marathi Wikipedia couldn't be found on Marathi Wikipedia. While there have been debates on this and many other matters, it has been found that Mahitgar writes a big essay by putting an issue in front of them, and continues his hectic situation, which discourage the person and makes it turn their back their proposal. The purpose of me in this discussion is to show that this is happening in the current discussion. - Abhijit Sathe (talk) 01:33, 21 January 2017 (IST)

I think that meta Stewards must take all this into consideration and have a stricter actions on this admin. Because I don't know if in the future he may again misuse his administrative powers to block again. --Tiven2240 (talk) 06:40, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

• Comment 146 automated filters on Marathi Wikipedia, all set as default, and 111 set to private. [5] Going by the first page of the log, almost half of Tiven's edits are being obstructed by a filter that is prima facie meant to remove offensive words in Marathi ("अपशब्द गाळणी"). This filter is set to private, so I cannot view the keywords it blocks. If more translation and context are needed, I will be happy to help. -- Rohini (talk) 12:47, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
• Unfortunately, per Stewards, they can only implement community consensus and act in emergencies. It would be up to the mr.wikipedia community and admins to determine if they wish to remove Mahitgar as admin/crat, or change any policies (and while writing only in Marathi on that site is not a good rule IMHO, they can make it if they want).

But, the extension of this to other Marathi wikis, some of which have a lot smaller communities, in my opinion takes this into uncharted territory and it's not clear if this is enough to make it a crosswiki issue that is in steward remit.

(Disclosure: I'm no longer a steward, but have interacted with Mahitgar in the past). --Rschen7754 18:32, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

• Comment Oops! So apart from supporting copyvios on mrwp's main page, about which I quibbled previously on meta over here, he blatantly also imposes restrictions on free speech of editors!!! It is non of the f@^#$%* concern of his which language people use to communicate with each others on any wiki. He may restrict the abusive nature or non-project related chats, if there are any. He has been using blocks for punitive purposes and not intending them to be corrective by even blocking talk page accesses of editors. High time local admins on mrwp; who are active and conveniently ignore pings, take some action. @Rahuldeshmukh101, V.narsikar, and अभय नातू: - Dharmadhyaksha (talk) 05:46, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

• This language restriction is what I thought understood, and is very very very worrying. Not only I do not think he should have any advanced tools but the question of his participation in the projects may be also questionable if he harms others. --Christian Ferrer (talk) 12:37, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

• Comment In my opinion, there is enough evidence in this thread of Mahitgar's excesses and abuse of power in the past decade to start drafting a call for a vote of no confidence. -- Rohini (talk) 14:20, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Agree. Really concerning, especially because he is blocking users & creating abuse filters to prevent users from editing which he don't like. I also think such a vote should be held here on meta, because on the wiki in question the user is blocking (via AbuseFilter[sic.] or indef. block) potential uncomfortable users. The fact that the user in question ignored this complain completely speaks for itself. Needless to say that the abuse of power is not only limited to blocks & abusefilter but also to a misuse of sitenotice. Please note that Tiven2240 is still blocked on mr.wikisource. And there is still a anti en-wp banner on mr.wikisource. Really concerning. --Steinsplitter (talk) 16:14, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
    • I too agree with Rohini's comment of call for a vote of no confidence. Whereas @Vituzzu: had already notified about it on Mahitgar's MrWp talkpage[6]. Yet mahitgar is silent in all this. --Tiven2240 (talk) 18:13, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
    • If an admin interferes with their own vote for desysop, then I believe that it would be grounds for emergency steward action. --Rschen7754 00:32, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
• Comment--Hmm...I arrived here in light of this, this, this and my denial of Mahitgar's EFM request at en.wiki.Sorry, but IMO, there should be an immediate de-sysop motion.Probable abusive use of edit filters, hate-speech-filled site-notices, ludicrous blocks----->>Give up your bits! And somebody nuke that mr.source site-notice from outer space! Godric on Leave (talk) 12:53, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
• Comment I agree with Steinsplitter's reasons for holding the no-confidence motion on Meta. Additionally, this has ceased to be the local and regional matter of Marathi Wikipedia after what Mahitgar did in the context of our Project Grant proposal (here is a statement on it from the WMF) and his actions on Marathi WikiSource and Wiktionary. (And for heaven's sake, someone remove the offensive site-notice from Marathi Wiktionary and WikiSource. It is also here in this WP file, protected, and categorised as a copyright template!) -- Rohini (talk) 14:22, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

I've just removed Mahitgar's administrative privileges. Mr.wiki community can vote to reelect Mahitgar at any time, with a local vote which should be as free as possible, I'll investigate for valid complains about vote coercion, canvassing and sockpuppeting for both supporters and opposals. --Vituzzu (talk) 14:36, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

I am also unblocking the account Dharmadhyaksha. I am not going into these issues regarding the possible promotion of some grant requests but those blocks were abusive on a number of grounds. RadiX∞ 18:07, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

@Vituzzu: What happens to Mahitgar's admin rights elsewhere? He has issued similar blocks/sitenotices on other Marathi wikis. --Rschen7754 18:17, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

@Vituzzu: --Rschen7754 18:31, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Extremely thankful to stewards' for taking necessary steps.@Rschen7754: Whereas currently Marathi Wikipedia has 1 bureaucrat (inactive) and 9 administrators (active 1 past 3 days). Whereas marathi Wikisource and Wiktionary has no admins active. Whereas Mahitgar on mr Wiktionary deleted my contribution stating it is against marathi language. (East Indian language is a dialect of marathi language). I think some solution for the situation must come up. --Tiven2240 (talk) 12:01, 5 November 2017 (UTC)