Stewards' noticeboard/Archives/2019-06

global lock page

would you unprotect the global lock request page and make the ips edit it 125.162.166.189 10:24, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately no, there was too much abuse coming from IP addresses there. – Ajraddatz (talk) 15:22, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

FYI: Active spambot Vietnamese pharmacy

To stewards, global admins, and SWMT to note that the spambots have been pretty active in the past 24 hours. Some of our normal defences have held up, though there is some leakage with regard to Vietnamese online pharmacy. There are repetitive hits for logged in accounts, with variations of messages, some get stopped in abusefilters, some do not, depending on the variations, of with or without urls. Worst wiki that I have seen from a quick look is Japanese Wikiversity. I have amended one of our global disallow filters with some of the harsher shopping terms, and I have blacklisted the blogspot subdomain. The in depth analysis and full cleanup will have to wait, though I am going to guess that there are some more spam terms we can pick up.  — billinghurst sDrewth 00:03, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

If a steward has a chance to some CU there at jaWV it may identify a common IP range, or it may not.  — billinghurst sDrewth 00:04, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

FYI: Poker spam prolific

Hi to all. There is quite a lot of poker spam appearing in the abuselog. The best way to manage this is to write it out through title blacklist. The Korean stuff I started on last week, and I have started on the English language stuff now, though doing it incrementally. If there are any negative consequences heard, then please write them here and ping me, and I will have a look. [Note that hits on title blacklist are still not logged, so we rely on anecdotal feedback to hear of negative impact.]  — billinghurst sDrewth 00:00, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Spambots on the Outreach wiki

I am noticing a recent increase in spambots on the Outreach wiki. We have no local checkusers. I mention this in case stewards would like to use Checkuser to identify offending IP ranges and block those ranges, possibly globally. See https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/block for recent blocks related to advertising. --Pine (✉) 20:29, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

@Pine: We have all been seeing a proliferation of spambots, though again their success rate is generally low, and I have been making some modifications with regard to their main ns attacks. If they are sneaking through, then please let us know what is getting through in terms of domains, or titles, and we can look to some global measures through spam blacklist, title blacklist or abuse filters. For checkuser, best that you raise it at the appropriate place SRCU as I did with the similar situation with the Japanese sister wikis.  — billinghurst sDrewth 21:47, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Additional comment: The recent spambots have been using hosting sites urls and stuff that is troublesome to blacklist as it has some semblance of relevance through other wikis. If such sites are not welcomed, or needed, or regularly used at outreach, I would suggest adding those sites to your local outreach:mediawiki:spam-blacklist. Global sysops, like myself, can assist, though we tend to prefer to be invited, rather than impose. We can also offer some advice from our broader exposure, and SWMT experience.  — billinghurst sDrewth 21:51, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Scripts

GUC is down, the two scripts that formerly worked to find small wiki deletion requests are down (linked on top of SRM), and a few other useful services are down. As such, it's quite significantly more complicated (or, in some cases with IP's, impossible) to combat xwiki vandalism and identify what pages need deleting on wikis with no administrators. Is anyone able to fix this? Vermont (talk) 21:19, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Disclosure: I did write one of the delete.php scripts, but I dropped my access to the stewardbots project on toollabs, and even if I did have access it has been 5 years since I touched PHP so I can't promise that I can fix it. But the problem seems to be here: wikitech:News/Actor storage changes on the Wiki Replicas. --Rschen7754 21:34, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Rs: Did you mean mw:Actor migration? The link you provided is wrong. Esteban16 (talk) 21:37, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, fixed it now. Reading that page I think it would be worth a try to go to [1] and change the word "logging" to "logging_compat" and see if that gets it to work (though they also warn that this is a temporary fix that might break again in the future). --Rschen7754 21:40, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Hello [2] didn't fixed it. I think it was broken before this whole lot of actor stuff but never had any idea how to bring it up again. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 18:51, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

@MarcoAurelio: Thanks for trying. If I get a chance maybe I can get my old toollabs project working again, but if anyone wants to have a go at it feel free. --Rschen7754 18:58, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

No problem. I have a couple of tracking tasks listed at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/tool-stewardbots/ about this. However given that I mostly do small fixes and restart the bots I am not sure I have the knowledge (and time, for now) to take a look at those issues right now. Best regards, —MarcoAurelio (talk) 19:14, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

@Vermont, Esteban16, MarcoAurelio, and Rschen7754: See also phab:T224930.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 02:41, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

@MarcoAurelio: I have taken a stab at this with gerrit:518187. Copying/pasting the queries into the MariaDB console seemed to work. — MusikAnimal ^talk 04:39, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

@Vermont, Esteban16, and MusikAnimal: It seems to work now, but it is very slow. --Rschen7754 00:49, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

CentralNotice dispute

Hi stewards, I've disabled CentralNotice/Request/Wiki Loves Pride 2019 as an emergency measure, since this CN seems to be opposed by the community. Since CentralNotice/Request says "the stewards team may be called upon to assess consensus", I think you should be informed about this. Feel free to revert my actions if you think it's warranted. --Martin Urbanec (talk) 15:20, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Hi thanks for your action and thanks for informing us. Stryn (talk) 15:30, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. Enigmaman (talk) 16:50, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

• On Wikipedia the use of administrator privileges to perform a site-wide action, proposed by that same administrator, in defiance of overwhelming community opposition and every relevant policy, and to then ignore all requests to self-revert over the period of multiple days, would result in the immediate removal of said privileges from that user. It appears that on Meta-Wiki, however, this kind of behaviour is simply par for the course, even though the Central Notices affect all projects and are seen by millions of readers. 144.134.10.102 07:38, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
• Pharos was asked point-blank to remove the banner and did not. Not good. --Rschen7754 08:19, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
• I think the page should say a local admin instead of stewards. Stewards don't have any thing to do with CentralNotices, but oh well. Let's see what Pharos has to say about their action. Matiia (talk) 00:17, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

• The banner was not opposed by the community, it was opposed by exactly one editor who by their own account has opposed virtually every banner for the last 1.5 years, and whose objection was not actionable. That same editor then decided to post about this to the biggest controversy page on English Wikipedia in years, and we saw a bunch of effectively canvassed votes, after it was already live, that were entirely unrepresentative. I don't see anything in that sequence that should call for a self-revert from me, and I think this is an important initiative with broad support from the community that should be restored.--Pharos (talk) 18:08, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

  A banner requires consensus in favor of it. It requires that the community be notified of the proposal at least seven days in advance. A banner put up without consensus or without notification should be reverted. The guidelines are not optional suggestions. --Yair rand (talk) 19:26, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Aren't guidelines by nature not policy? But also was there consensus for this or any of the others? Praxidicae (talk) 19:39, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Requiring consensus for non-fundraising banners was backed by very strong consensus in an RFC. Certain banners have unfortunately not followed procedure, notably this mess a few weeks ago. --Yair rand (talk) 19:50, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Procedural note: Re-enabled by Seddon (WMF). — regards, Revi 12:18, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 12:17, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Closing azwiki RfC

The azwiki RfC is now eligible for closure. An uninvolved steward should close the discussion. --QEDK (talk 桜 enwiki) 09:35, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Somebody do this please, it's one of the easiest closures. Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 12:43, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

This is on the stewards-l table. — regards, Revi 15:47, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

@-revi:, I am so sorry, but what is stewards-l table mean? --Drabdullayev17 (talk) 10:15, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Stewards are internally discussing it. — regards, Revi 10:17, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

It evades my mind, as to what precisely needs to be discussed but it's above my pay-scale and I will let you bother with that, as long as the job gets eventually done within a week or so. Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 16:34, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, you are not going to decide when this will be done. That is indeed outside your pay-scale including when this will be done. — regards, Revi 16:59, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Revi, are you aware that above my payscale is an idiom often used to refer to something beyond one's skills or ability without any real-life-reference to one's pay? Over en, we often say something like:- Hey, me thinks that the user was well-meaning and after all, did not misuse his socks. But it involves CU data, which's above my pay-scale. So, can't say much and you need to contact a CU ....

Your response is quite hostile, to be mild. And, my point of including a time-span was the fact that RFCs over Meta tend to be open for an eternity or so:-) Apologies, if anything above, offended you. Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 18:02, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Please remember this is not English Wikipedia and one's knowledge about English idioms might differ. That being said, IMO, you still have no right to declare a deadline when this should be done. Statement like "as long as the job gets eventually done within a week or so" is declaring a deadline, which is not something you are entitled to.

About the discussion - I don't think I can publish what is being discussed, but those who are interested in it is discussing it and will probably come up with edits on Meta. — regards, Revi 18:12, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

You need to assume good faith, something which is not limited to en-wiki. I am not a native speaker yet it's too easy to lose track of whether I am using any metaphor/idiom, because they flow into the writing, naturally. Despite that, I, as someone who is proficient in multiple languages, understand that lingustic and cultural relativism is very real and have thus, apologised for any mis-impressions that my statement caused.

I have never asked you to publish privileged discussions to me; that would be weird and insane.

As to your second issue, about deadline, it's some similar stuff. There was no declaration of any hard deadline (are you taking it in some corporate sense? weird) but rather an optimum timeframe, (atleast from my POV). My response can be literally paraphrased as :- I don't understand, what are you talking about but then, that's above my designated wiki-roles/abilities. At any case, all's good and I expect to see it closed within a week or so.

Hope this satisfies you. Feel free to have the last word. Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 18:36, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

I guess what I'm wondering is, is WMF going to be involved, or is it all going to be coming from stewards? --Rschen7754 18:20, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

T&S are aware but I doubt they'll do something in the midst of en:WP:FRAM. --QEDK (talk 桜 enwiki) 06:48, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

@HaithamS (WMF): mailed me after Rfc, suggest us discuss every sysyops situtation. I think they will involved. --Drabdullayev17 (talk) 08:09, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

You will notice the template on his user page that he is no longer working for / provide services to WMF. — regards, Revi 09:08, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

@-revi: I am so sorry, but I didn't notice the template. --Drabdullayev17 (talk) 06:52, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

• RFC closed by Mardetanha. Nothing else to do here.--Cohaf (talk) 15:06, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: --Cohaf (talk) 15:06, 26 July 2019 (UTC)