Jalexander-WMF

Welcome to Meta!

Hello Jalexander, and welcome to the Wikimedia Meta-Wiki! This website is for coordinating and discussing all Wikimedia projects. You may find it useful to read our policy page. If you are interested in doing translations, visit Meta:Babylon. You can also leave a note on Meta:Babel or Wikimedia Forum (please read the instructions at the top of the page before posting there). If you would like, feel free to ask me questions on my talk page. Happy editing! fr33kman ^{t - c} 05:21, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

fr33kman ^{t - c} 05:21, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Congrats on the job.  fetchcomms☛ 01:18, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Archives

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About the "Notification of Wikimedia Foundation actions regarding local CheckUser" in Chinese Wikipedia

I am sorry to interrupt you with poor English to talk with you here. I hope WMF and you know that that is Chinese Wikipedia, that we may not have good English to request for User Check. I just want to ask if we may use Chinese to request for it? Actually I knew English, but not much. ŚÆŊMØŠĀ 07:37, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

@Sanmosa: While I imagine that it will go a bit faster if requested in English (or another language the Stewards already understand) I am sure they will be ok with you asking in any language and I will certainly try to help them however possible with translation etc. Jalexander--WMF 05:24, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. Anyway, I have a great news to you, that the Chinese Wikipedia Community had set up a translation page of CheckUser request from Chinese to English, to reduce misunderstanding, so that Stewards may read the requests directly. However, actually, I would use English to request for CU directly, with my hopefully average English. ŚÆŊMØŠĀ 05:30, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@Sanmosa: That's great to hear and a good idea! I do think you should be ok asking directly in English if desired, many (most) of the Stewards are also native to different languages and are used to working with those who speak less English. Jalexander--WMF 06:02, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

OK, I just try to use more English, to broaden my horizons. ŚÆŊMØŠĀ 06:08, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Wikinews on Google news

Hi! I saw the English Wikinews is shown on Google News. Is something like that possible for other Wikinews-versions too? User:Bawolff said you and User:Brian McNeil know maybe something more about it. Is this something the Foundation-staff can do? Greetings, Livenws (talk) 00:13, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

@LIVE NIEUWS: I believe this has something to do with enabling the mw:Extension:GoogleNewsSitemap but I have to read up on it again. I'll get back to you as soon as I can :). Assuming it's still seen as secure and fairly simple on the servers it shouldn't be a major problem to enable it for other versions if desired. Jalexander--WMF 05:28, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! I will follow it here Livenws (talk) 12:33, 28 April 2018 (UTC) ;)

New Email

WQL 17:04, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Concerns regarding the Notification of Wikimedia Foundation actions regarding local CheckUser

The removal of the independent authority to check users from the local community is very shocking to us, the Chinese Wikipedia project community. As one of the volunteers in the project, I have a decent amount of understanding towards the importance of CheckUser. It will be so much harder to prevent or stop the vandalism. Since Chinese Wikipedia has almost 1 million articles and tens of thousands of active logged in users along with many anonymous editors, the process of having local users checked by meta wiki group is a very dangerous act.

Handled by someone who does not have a profound understanding of the current issue is a pivotal change, I hereby sincerely request of some more transparency on this move, and more explanation to the community rather than an empty sentence saying "Due to security concerns" -宋世怡 (talk) 16:15, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

James, I understand that you can't give full details publicly, but two clarifications would be helpful: 1) Is this intended to be a negative reflection on the CheckUsers who were in the role at the time of the removal? 2) Is this intended to be permanent, i.e. will WMF notify the community if/when they can elect CheckUsers again? --Rschen7754 00:18, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@宋世怡: I am sorry that it comes across so shockingly, I can completely understand why it would be so. I promise you that we understood the gravity of the situation and discussed and debated our options at length. Unfortunately I can't say more at this point however :(. @Rschen7754: I'm happy to answer those. Regarding 1) This should not be taken as a negative reflection on any of the checkusers in the role at the time of removal. I made that clear to them in an email sent to each when we did the removal and I tried to in my message to the community but if it was not I apologize. We will always try and make clear if we have to take any actions on specific people. For 2) While we do not hope or expect this to be permanent but unfortunately I can't speculate on exactly how long it will be. We will certainly tell the community when they can elect CheckUsers again however. Jalexander--WMF 06:46, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

The main concerns, frankly speaking, involved several conspiracy theories by some individual users. Due to my own oberservation, there's not enough communication between the foundation and local community, which raised too much questions among large portion of active users regards of recent chaos happened in the project. So I do appreciate the commitment of there's no negative reflection upon the case. I hope that will ease some misunderstandings.

Thanks for your time.-宋世怡 (talk) 15:23, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

You note that the community will be notified when it can elect new checkusers... does it follow that the previous checkusers will not be reinstated? If so, how does it folllow that this should not reflect negatively on the recently removed checkusers? Mnemonyx (talk) 08:53, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Just keeping these questions in view. Mnemonyx (talk) 05:24, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Regarding compromised accounts in Global and eswikivoyage, dangerous high risk permission handling and so on

Hello JAlexander. Viewing the logs in eswikivoyage due to daily maintenance work as sysop there, I've found some strange logs hidden, which turned out to be from Tegel, a steward, and a while ago from a trusted user, Galahad, accounts I think were compromised by recent massive hacking attack to WMF projects. I thank you for your work there and also to MarcoAurelio, and I want to express my worry to this situation, since it forced to lock the account of a long time trusted sysop of eswikivoyage and member of Wikimedia Venezuela. I hope this would have a better end, and I've talked with Galahad in Telegram, who told me he didn't do what was done there very recently, and he's in a trip so he cannot access to the account currently. I would like to have more information about this incident and if it is or not linked to the recent massive attack to WMF projects. Please leave me a message if you can. Greetings. --Zerabat (discusión) 19:42, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

@Zerabat: Thanks for the ping, we're still evaluating and while right now we don't know for sure if it's related to the other issues last week (in fact we suspect it may not be because of different patterns). I'll let you know as we know more. Jalexander--WMF 19:58, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

would this include the fact that a steward was locked? 70.21.184.216 20:03, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Block of Sysop of ptwiki

Hi, you blocked globally a sysop of ptwiki (Hume42) with a justification that his account has compromised. Can you explain me better it to pass along this info on my wiki? Mr. Fulano! ^Talk 17:20, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi Mr. Fulano, sorry for the suddenness of this action. James is now on vacation. We are working hard on this situation; it is very complicated. (I have emailed Hume42 privately for now.) Joe Sutherland (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 23:49, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

@JSutherland (WMF): Ok, but is any that can compromise the ptwiki and is needed that his editions be checked? Would be any to be discuss on village pump? Mr. Fulano! ^Talk 00:20, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Request for add feature in Wikipedia

Hi @Jalexander-WMF:, There is no delete option in Wikipedia for user to delete their accounts. There are thousand of users which want to delete their account but they can not do this due to there is no delete option. Please add delete feature in wikipedia so user's can delete there account. Thanks

Regards, William Russell

202.69.15.229 12:02, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

There are some security issues with the "delete account" feature - What if someone's account was compromised? I can't speak for others, but I think it won't be done anytime soon. XenrøsE 07:36, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

SecurePoll

I am trying to find more information about the use of SecurePoll at the Dutch Wikipedia but I have difficulty finding the right person/page for that info. Maybe you can tell me more or redirect my to the right person. (I was pointed to you here) The Banner (talk) 10:43, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Help_Forum#Somebody_has_created_an_account_using_info@wikimedia.org_email

Hi,

this you may want to take a look at. 100.8.5.98 13:07, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

HELP

@Jamesofur:

I am a blocked user being stalked, and abused by multiple administrators who have

abused there powers, and think they own wikipedia, also somebody has blocked my e-mail

addresses, or my IP to wikipedia.org so i find it impossible to communicate with anybody

and even if i do get through or someone at wikipedia.org sends me an e-mail as Edward Galvez

did and i reply he will not get it, as he did not because i do not think he would ask

me a question not like the answer and not reply ???.

i do not think this is what wikipedia is all about, why would you publish your e-mail addresses

if you did not want to here from any body, the fondation board too. i need real HELP! here without

stalkers coming in on my conversions, i have been blocked on OTRS, and my talk page what

makes it impossible to appeal since every thing is based on notice boards.

• https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2018-September/090823.html
• https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wiki-research-l/2018-September/006407.html

In Wikipedia there in no "due process" or a right to "free speech" just abuse. 50.254.21.213 19:06, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Your tvars are showing :-)

Your tvars are showing over at Trust_and_Safety.  :-) --Philippe (talk) 01:21, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

@Philippe: Fixed :) Jalexander--WMF 02:39, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Secret voting

Hi James, We never met before I think.. I am a longtime user on NL Wikipedia. I received your name from User:Effeietsanders. Currently I am preparing a possibility for secret voting on NL Wikipedia, to be used whenever we vote about people. Based on previous discussions I think there might be a majority for the introduction of secret voting. I noted there exists a software tool, SecurePoll, which is used by the Wikimedia Foundation. Several people wondered whether this would be applicable on NL Wikipedia too. Otherwise, we have to design another method. A method based on e-mail is currently under discussion, but it appears complicated and tedious. Could you please give some clarification about SecurePoll. Is it avaible to NL - Wikipedia's. What should we do to enable SecurePoll? Who might we contact to help us with the practicalities? I sincerely hope you will find some time for an answer, thanks! With kind regards, Ellywa (talk) 09:46, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

@Jalexander-WMF: I believe this is still an open question. Effeietsanders (talk) 20:51, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

@Effeietsanders: FYI, SecurePoll can be used by any project, but it is far from 'easy' to spin up. It works if you have some sort of major annual election, but if you wanted it for something like ad-hoc sysop elections it won't scale to the frequency. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:57, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

That is why a little more comprehensive answer would be welcomed. For who would it involve work? How could it be made easier? Which factors make it complicated? Currently some are considering a different complicated method, which may actually involve other issues and complications. Effeietsanders (talk) 21:42, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

@Effeietsanders: check with people active on: phab:T207560 who are working on it for a different project right now. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:58, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

English Wikipedia Arbitration request on unsolicited phone call

Hey. Just thought that the WMF Trust and Safety should probably know about an arbitration request in the English Wikipedia where an experienced editor tracked down the phone number of new user and called him after they had a dispute. They are debating whether this constitutes harassment or not. en:Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Jytdog --Pudeo (talk) 08:00, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Scope of rules question

Hello Jalexander, please see a question left for you at Meta talk:Interface administrators. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 02:28, 4 December 2018 (UTC)