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User talk:Mike Peel/Archive 66

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December 2020 unblock of Clemrutter

Latest comment: 3 years ago19 comments4 people in discussion

Hello. My name is Moneytrees and I am a Wikipedia administrator specializing in copyright. In December 2020 (Link to whole conversation), ClemRutter was indefinitely blocked by Diannaa for copyright violations per established practice, after having previously received five copyright warnings. You objected to this at the time, calling it excessive and claimed it happened "without even a warning", despite indefinite blocks of those with several copyright warnings over a long period of time being longstanding practice. Two hours later, you accepted Clemrutter's unblock request and unblocked them with the rationale "Unblocking based on the past trend of amicably resolving the issues, which I trust will also happen here, and than an indef block seems really excessive in this situation. Let's see what happens at CCI for the longer term issue." In the unblock summary you say "per talk page discussion" despite a discussion not really having taken place. I believe that this was an WP:INVOLVED unblock that you should not have done, given your previous comment and interactions with Clemrutter. A Contributor copyright investigation was filed at the time and you commented "Just to note that I have unblocked ClemRutter. The specific issue here seems to be with Thinking School, but I haven't checked past edits by the user. Thanks.", which worried me given the specific issue was not with Thinking School, and that you had not checked the user's past edits when unblocking. I opened the investigation (now at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20210111) and have found several more violations during my brief time working on it. Given the several book sources cited, many of which are offline and cannot be easily accessed for text comparison, the CCI will be very difficult to complete.

In July 2021 Clemrutter received another warning for copyright violations, this time on Integrated education. This was labeled as a final warning, and Clemrutter was again indefinitely blocked by Diannaa on 4 August 2021 for copyright violations on Northern Ireland Curriculum. The ~2000 edits since the December 2020 unblock will now need to be added to the CCI and reviewed for issues.

The entire incident worries me greatly given what I see as misuse of administrative tools and your board candidacy. The way you seemingly ignored Diannaa's concerns is also very concerning. I would like to hear a detailed explanation behind your actions and why I should not be worried at the prospect of you being elected to the board. Moneytrees🏝️Talk/CCI guide 19:39, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

@Moneytrees: I stand by my unblocking. I don't meet WP:INVOLVED in this case, since I haven't been involved in any of the issues raised here, nor am I in a conflict with any of the editors. I'm very disappointed to see @Diannaa: has blocked them again, after failing to discuss the issue properly with Clem again - which goes against Wikipedia:Don't template the regulars - although it's good to see that the discussion seems to have happened after the blocking. In general, I think blocking should really be the last resort (hence why I'm not active in blocking), and I think it's being repeatedly misused by Diannaa in this case. If it is an ongoing issue, then taking it to CCI or arbcom is the much better way to proceed, not jumping to a block of an editor who's been here for over 17 years - although I can't actually find the conclusion at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20210111. I note the issue was said to be about Thinking School per the last comments at [1]. Again, I don't think that I've misused admin tools at all here, and I can't see why you would link this to the board elections. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:06, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Hello Mike. Regarding my second block, I did discuss copyright issues with Clem on July 29, after having discovered a copyright violation on Integrated education on July 24. The discussion was not extensive, because one would assume that an editor that has been here since 2003 would be well versed in copyright matters, especially after having received six warnings and a block for copyright, in addition to having a CCI case opened. Less than two weeks later, I discovered another violation of the copyright policy, and blocked again. Some of his remarks since then show that he does not have a very good grasp of copyright and how it applies to Wikipedia editing. I have recently posted some basic rules on his talk page to try to help in that regard.
Regarding my first block, I did post a personalized message the first warning (April 2017), and I see some discussion at that time, and again in November 2018 when he violated copyright on Unique reference number. One month later he violated copyright again on Multi-academy trust and I used a templated warning. In March 2020 I advised him that when copying from copying from compatibly licensed material, attribution is required. In September 2020, another template for another copyvio. Still no improvement - the next violation of the copyright policy, in December 2020, I issued a block. This is the block you undid two hours later, stating that I had been too hasty! I have to admit I was surprised, because by this time Clem had been breaking our copyright rules for at least three years and had received five warnings. Shortly after that, I filed a request for a CCI, and this was opened a short time later. Little has been done on it so far, but I am trying to make time to get it started. Moneytrees found violations on four of the seven articles he checked, and I have found ten more so far with issues in the tiny articles at the bottom of Page 2. The CCI now has a third page, with edits from the time of your unblock to the present day, with an additional 170 articles/ 456 diffs that will have to be checked, in addition to the ~1200 articles initially posted at the CCI. The awful truth is, according to Amalthea's bot as of August 4, there's 202 open cases at CCI with 164456+ articles awaiting checking. We are spread pretty thin at copyright cleanup, so that's why Clem's CCI is not yet resolved. I typically spend most of my time at CopyPatrol where we have currently got two people doing daily work (75-100 new cases are added to the queue every day). At CCI, several people are currently working on Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Ardfern, which dates back to 2010 and is the oldest one on the board. We also have Wikipedia:Copyright problems, which is manned primarily by only two people.
TLDR: So I guess to wrap up I would like to say Clem was already receiving special treatment. He did receive multiple handwritten explanations of what he was doing wrong, and was prompted multiple times to read the copyright policy, a Wikipedia policy with legal considerations. And most people will not receive five/six warnings before being blocked. I definitely disagreed with you unblocking after two hours, but decided to walk away from it without arguing with you about it. I can understand why Moneytrees would want to bring this up when he saw you running for a board position. I felt a little sick myself when I saw your nomination and knew I would never vote for you, so sorry. — Diannaa (talk) 00:01, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Diannaa:. Thanks for your detailed explanation. I was reminded today in another (non-wiki) issue that I don't always fully explain myself, so I'll try to go into more detail now (and I'll try to do better in general in the future). Also pinging @Moneytrees: since this might address the issues they raised as well.

For full disclosure, I met Clem at the London Wikimeets - in-person originally, later online. I would count him as a colleague and fellow Wikimedian. I became aware of this issue through one of those meetups (online in this case), and I reacted in the only way I thought ethical. From my interactions with him, I generally think that he is a good editor, who means well - and that they needed support to work through this issue, rather than being blocked for it. I'm normally not involved with unblocking/blocking users, but for me, this seemed like a clear case of an editor needing another chance, which I could provide by unblocking them. I'm worried that the second chance didn't lead to change, though. I won't be unblocking them again for this new block, I'll leave that for another admin to decide on.

However, I'm also worried that you are the only admin who has been posting the warnings and issuing the blocks. In general, this is bad practice - multiple admins should be involved with warnings and blocks before indeffing a long-term editor, regardless of who they are or what they have done. I'm worried that there's no AN/I discussion here, or an ArbCom request, or any attempt to get other admins engaged with the issue (at least, not that I'm aware of). Instead, you've been posting the warnings and doing the blocking directly, on your own - which isn't healthy. I really think you need to get other admins involved before you indeff.

Related to this, I am very worried about the backlog at CCI, which I wasn't previously aware of. Looking at Ardfern's talk page, they had forgotten that they were involved in a case - which seems understandable given that it had been running for more that a decade! This clearly isn't sustainable, and it's clearly burning out the editors that are working on this issue. Are there any tasks that could be automated here? I see that the list of edits on the CCI page is automated, but I know we have [2] from the DYK process - couldn't this check also be automated, which would mean that only the flagged edits with high % of likelihood that the edits had copyvios would have to be manually reviewed (plus a random selection of other edits to make sure that the script hasn't missed anything). I could try to code this up if such a check would be of interest (I operate Pi bot and code bot scripts using pywikibot) - but I would need more info about the CCI workflow first.

With the board election - I'm sorry this made you feel nauseous! You can find my reasons for standing in my candidate statement. With the specific issue of CCI, I think it's something that should be raised with the meta:Community Wishlist Survey - ideally I would love to be in a position to advocate a significantly expansion of this processs to cover many more than the top-10 issues!). However, if I'm not elected, then let's talk through how I could directly help with this issue via Pi bot. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:45, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Potential copyright violations have to be checked manually by a human being. There's no way to automate the process. Listings at CCI have already been culled by a script. The remainder of the edits have to be checked by hand. You will see me doing the bulk of the warnings and blocks because since the initiation of the CopyPatrol system five years ago, I have done the bulk of the work, checking an average of 50 reports per day and far more some days. I don't take this lightly and realize that it's a big responsibility so I do the work as carefully and as accurately as possible, because people trust me to do it properly, from checking the edits, to the type and number of warnings issued, and blocking and unblocking. It's what we elect our administrators to do, and we expect them to do it to the very best of their ability all of the time. If you have some ideas as to how to get more people (both admins and non-admins) involved in copyright cleanup, I would be interested to hear them.
Regarding indef blocks, we have found that short-term blocks are ineffective and the editor typically resumes the same behaviour when the block expires, and we end up with still more cleanup to do, as is the case with Clem Rutter's CCI. The current system has been very effective in locating and stopping long-term copyright violating editors, and detecting and stopping new editors from getting too far, thereby reducing the number of new gigantic problems of epic scale like we have had in the past (Epeefleche, Racepacket, Trident13, etc).
Regarding warnings to Clem, he was warned by me, Zero0000, Sphilbrick, me, me. Not just me. I don't know why you thought that.— Diannaa (talk) 20:31, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
@Diannaa: I'm surprised that there's no way to automate at least part of the process - identifying diffs with a high % of potential copyvio according to something like the DYK copyvio check would seem obvious? But yes, they would then have to be checked by hand. It does sound like you are mostly trying to do this yourself - try asking for others to help at the village pump and other places? Also, I would very much recommend taking cases to AN/I *rather* than just doing the warnings and indef block yourself - that way you get input from others, and can build up more of a group of people working on the problem. In general, I think indef blocking is using a demolition ball to tidy up someone's house - sure, it will mean it's no longer a problem, but the cost is way too high. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 11:13, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
Sorry to drag out this thread. But I still have some unanswered questions. Why did you unblock Clem Rutter after only two hours, when he had received a final warning for copyright violations only 10 days prior, many previous warnings, and an open CCI? Why should Clem Rutter be treated any differently that any other person who repeatedly violates our copyright policy? Why do I have to get a consensus to block a person like Clem when nobody notices or cares if I block an editor with a shorter tenure or fewer edits or fewer friends? Surely I don't have to get Arbcom's approval or some kind of support at ANI to enforce our copyright policy, an official Wikipedia policy with legal considerations. Why would I have to do that in this case, when other editors don't get any such treatment? Please see the essay Wikipedia:Unblockables for more information that might apply to this case. Thank you.— Diannaa (talk) 19:31, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
@Diannaa: No problem, although I think we're reaching the point of diminishing returns (since we have different viewpoints that aren't converging), I'm still happy to talk. My point is that Clem *shouldn't* be a special case - indef blocking is a big thing that should get ANI or arbcom support, unless it's clearly WP:SNOW and/or an intractable user problem. That an editor has more friends/edits/tenure increases the chances of others spotting it in time to avoid losing the editor, nothing more. Remember that we're the encyclopaedia that anyone can edit - at least, unless you're blocked. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:44, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
Pretty much all our copyright blocks are indef blocks the last couple years. We've found that shorter blocks don't work; escalating blocks don't work either. The user simply resumes the previous behaviour when the block expires. An "intractable user problem" is exactly what it is.— Diannaa (talk) 22:12, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
Well, I think you still need to try shorter blocks - or better, talking to the users more - before you decided it's an "intractable user problem". You can't just jump straight to indef. And remember that every user is different. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 12:41, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm mostly disappointed with your responses; it seems like you are ignoring what Diannaa is saying. Time limited copyright blocks don't work; see examples like Dutchy85 and Ljwljw.001, who still did not understand not to copy after 4 blocks. ClemRutter had been warned and engaged with several times, Diannaa clearly did not and does not "jump straight to indef". I'm honestly a bit offended by the lack of respect for one of the hardest working users in the sites entire history. If ClemRutter had not been unblocked at the time and instead engaged with the copyright issues presented through a more thorough discussion, then they could've been unblocked then and everything would be fine. But your unblock prevented a discussion like that from happening, and prevented ClemRutter from learning from their mistakes and addressing the issue. Your unblock put more burden on ClemRutter going forwards, and set them up to be blocked again. You may not have violated INVOLVED's wording to the T, but I believe you violated the spirit of it; you made a biased decision that ultimately hurt all involved. Moneytrees🏝️Talk/CCI guide 03:42, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

@Moneytrees: So, you have examples where an indef block has changed user behaviour and led to one of you unblocking them, right? Or only cases where the user has just been forced to leave? Mike Peel (talk) 06:55, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Examples of cases where indef blocked people later successfully resumed editing include:
Cases where the person stopped editing shortly after being unblocked:
Here's a couple examples where the user resumed violations after coming off a short block levied by other admins:
I'm not sure what you mean by a user being "forced to leave". Nobody is forced to leave unless they are blocked multiple times and refuse to reform. There's people like Mushroom9, repeated copyright violations, as well as socking to continue to add copyright violations. He is no longer welcome here. Epeefleche, one of the long-term copyvio editors, over the course of 9 years performed 150,000 edits. Over 5,000 different articles were listed at his CCI, with tens of thousands of individual edits to be checked. Almost all of his major edits were copy vio, and right up until the end of his editing career he stated that he believed that such a valuable contributor as himself should be permitted a certain percentage of copy vio. I am pretty sure Moonriddengirl told him privately that he was no longer welcome here. I had to give up on working on his CCI as it was sucking up too much of my time, with each remaining article expected to take several days to clean.— Diannaa (talk) 14:36, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
OK, it's really good to see communication with editors after blocking rather than just blocking and leaving things there - perhaps it's paranoia, but that's always seemed to be the intention of an indef block rather than a shorter term block, and was what I was expecting in this case. A shorter block means that they aren't being 'forced to leave' like an indef block seems to. Although, I guess an indef block forces the user to change behaviour whether they want to or not so that they can continue editing, rather than just waiting out a shorter block - although I'm not sure that's a good thing.
BTW, I completely agree that copyvio checking is important, and that copyvios have no place here. And thank you for working on this tricky topic! But I really do see indef blocks as heavy-handed, and I do think more of the work here could be automated.
Anyhow, let's see what happens here when Clem's recovered and back online. As I said above, I'll be watching, but won't unblock again. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:10, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Reading through this thread gives me the strong impression that you unblocked Clem because Diannaa didn't handle the blocking as you personally would have, not because there was anything procedurally incorrect with her block according to policy. There are many statements that you've made above that also lead me to believe that you are out of touch with how and when many active administrators on this project choose to use an indefinite block. Your statement that "indef blocking is a big thing that should get ANI or arbcom support, unless it's clearly WP:SNOW and/or an intractable user problem" is an opinion. While you can use that opinion as guidance when deciding whether you, as an administrator, would indefinitely block an account, you shouldn't be holding other admins to your personal standard. I echo Moneytrees' concerns above and support Diaanna's actions in this case. -- Jezebel's Ponyobons mots 19:38, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
@Ponyo: Look at it another way: I believe my unblock following the unblock request was per policy. We're talking about the general issue in more detail in this discussion, and I'll happily admit that I'm expressing my opinions here rather than quoting policy. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:43, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Mike, I noticed that you have very little experience in blocking or unblocking and I don't recall ever seeing you working in copyright cleanup. So I think you were the wrong person to perform this unblock, especially without prior discussion with the blocking administrator, especially after only two hours had passed. I wonder what led you to even notice the block or why you decided to get involved in this administrative area where you have so little experience.— Diannaa (talk) 22:12, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
"For full disclosure, I met Clem at the London Wikimeets - in-person originally, later online. I would count him as a colleague and fellow Wikimedian. I became aware of this issue through one of those meetups (online in this case), and I reacted in the only way I thought ethical" provides some insight.-- Jezebel's Ponyobons mots 22:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Just to note (since Moneytrees mentioned it on AN/I) that I didn't respond to this as I've already answered it above. I think this conversation was exhausted here: I've seen the continuation of discussion on Clem's talk page, which I'm watching, but haven't felt the need to comment on so far. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:06, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Adding Wikidata functionality to Template:Infobox university

Latest comment: 3 years ago13 comments2 people in discussion

Hi Mike! I noticed the work you've done converting templates like {{Infobox observatory}} to be able to draw Wikidata. I'm an active participant at WikiProject Higher education and am interested in doing the same for {{Infobox university}}, but I see that the code is fairly complex, so I was wondering if you might be interested in helping out. The particular impetus is that university boxes have a lot of data that changes every year (staff counts, financial info, etc.), and although we haven't gotten to the point of batch importing it to Wikidata every year yet, that'd be a lot easier than manually updating thousands of pages. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:53, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

@Sdkb: I'd be happy to help. Are you working on it in a sandbox somewhere? Normally it's mostly straightforward to add Wikidata support to an infobox, it's mostly matching up infobox parameters with Wikidata properties, and then figuring out the code details. The bigger challenges are normally getting support from other editors (it can be quite a controversial change, sadly), migrating data over to Wikidata (you'll find info missing on Wikidata that needs to be added - also people often object to removing local contents, particularly if they're attached to specific formatting of some fields), and the occasional parameter that is more tricky to migrate (no matching Wikidata property, or tricky to fetch the information in the appropriate format). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 11:17, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
I've got a prototype at User:Sdkb/sandbox/testpage. Most of the parameters appear to have a Wikidata property, but a few (type, campus type, affiliations) are subjective or require editorial judgement and therefore probably wouldn't work with Wikidata. A few others have some technical obstacles: |state= is tricky because there's no "state" property on Wikidata, just located in the administrative territorial entity (P131), which itself might have a county and only then the state. Some of the athletics stuff needs wikidata:Wikidata:Property proposal/athletics program to go through first. And former names and mottos in other languages will require some trickier coding. But overall, the vast majority of parameters seem to be transferable, and indeed it appears Pintoch began work on it in 2017.
Regarding getting support from other editors, WikiProject Higher education tends to consist of editors who care mainly about one specific institution; so long as there's a way to opt out, I don't anticipate they'd get annoyed, and the few of us who work across multiple pages are very eager for anything that can better help us update them in bulk. Data import does have some ways to go, but it's generally available in systematic format from government agencies (IPEDS in the U.S.).
Let me know what you think, and feel free to edit my testpage if you'd like to try anything. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 03:54, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
@Sdkb: It looks like a good start - particularly with matching property IDs to parameters! I'd suggest coding it differently, though. I've demo'd this at [3]. The two main differences are that it's directly in the template code, rather than being a wrapper for the template - that means that you can just call the template directly in the article, without any parameters, or if you use it outside of the article then you can specify the QID, like I've demo'd at [4]. The second thing is that I'd recommend using Module:WikidataIB, since that has more control over the content - like only requiring referenced material from Wikidata, which is why I also did this edit on Wikidata. This tends to be important here on enwiki, since other editors insist on it (and it's good practice in general) - although the references aren't actually shown in infoboxes anyway. I did experiment with showing references using Template:Wikidata, but didn't get too much support for it. WikidataIB also lets you override parameters individually, or by specifying 'fetchwikidata' or 'suppressfields'.
How does that look? Module:WikidataIB has a reasonable-ish manual, so perhaps you could try changing some more parameters using this format? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:39, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Going with the module sounds fine; I'll see if the doc/your example is enough to teach me to use it. A few more thoughts/questions:
Will it be possible to set an option to display the refs in some cases? Sometimes e.g. a college's colors won't be mentioned in the body, so those need to be sources in the infobox.
With the sandbox you set up, will local values for the parameter override anything on Wikidata? I'd think we'd want that (at least for the near future).
With presidents, that might be another area that's tricky, as some institutions use "chancellor" instead, but they're all generally coded as chairperson (P488) on Wikidata. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:02, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
@Sdkb: 1) WikidataIB doesn't display references, if you look at the code of Template:Infobox telescope though you can see I've used both WikidataIB for the main value, and then Template:Wikidata to pull in references - but I never got positive feedback on that. 2) Yes, local values always override wikidata (try it). 3) I was unsure about this when I was setting up the example - I'm not sure why Wikidata doesn't have specific properties for 'president', 'chancellor', etc. That may need new properties on Wikidata. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:10, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
1) I think there needs to be a way for users of the template to specify which values have a reference attached to them, since it's not possible to just have it always display or always not—some colleges might discuss the colors in the body (and therefore not need them references in the infobox) whereas others might not. I envision it working something like this:
{{Infobox university
|display_refs=colors,endowment
}}
The template would take the comma-separated list of parameters (in this case |colors= and |endowment=) and display the references for only those parameters. Any ideas on how to code that? It might require modifying the module.
2) Sounds good!
3) It looks like Wikidata decided to only have one property for an organization leader, which kinda makes sense, since it's the same concept, just different names for it. At Wikidata, I tried doing this, but it caused a constraint violation, since it wanted me to also add organization directed by the office or position (P2389)=Scripps College at university president (Q4376769). There might be some way to modify the constraint to allow for broader uses, or maybe confining it to offices specific to one institution was the point. Any thoughts? I'll work meanwhile on building the sandbox with the module. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:49, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
I'm giving up on the module. I've managed to get (somewhat) used to {{Wikidata}}, having employed it a bunch, but I haven't the foggiest clue how to do things like the |P518=Q18245166 part with the module.
One other design thought: there definitely will need to be a link to Wikidata in the infobox for any article where parameters are drawn from Wikidata. The "[edit on Wikidata]" at infobox observatory seems a bit much, but maybe having a {{Edit at Wikidata}} icon in the bottom right corner might be perfect, as it's just about as big as {{VTE}}. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:18, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
@Sdkb: That's done separately in the module, you pass "P518" as an unnamed parameter, and later do "qid=Q18245166" - or better, "qid=" like in the example, so you only set the QID when you do the template call (or it uses the sitelink if you don't set the qid). I'm sure you could do the 'display_refs' thing with checkBlacklist from WikidataIB, although personally I prefer to have the infobox completely automatic (no parameters defined). Up to you if you want to use {{Edit at Wikidata}} or {{Edit on Wikidata}} or neither (WikidataIB automatically shows the pen icon unless you disable it). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 07:34, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

I went through the sandbox and converted everything I could, but I ran into quite a few snags, which I noted with the label NOCLUE in hidden comments (but still noting the matched Wikidata properties for each case). I appreciate the instruction on the qualifiers, but it's still too confusing for me; I don't think I'll be able to move forward on this unless I have help on the technical end. I would love to see it, though—having a more complex template like Infobox university be able to operate off of Wikidata would be a major rebuttal against those who say that Wikidata is too incapable of handling nuance to ever be integrated with Wikipedia. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 23:15, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

The latest stumbling block is trying to get linking to work; this doesn't do it as I would suspect. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 20:57, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Sorry, I owe you a reply here, but haven't had chance over the last few days. Will try to get back to this soon. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:07, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
No worries; I realize you have a bunch else going on, and there's no rush on this, so take your time. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 00:03, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

DYK for Chestnut Centre

Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
 

On 24 August 2021, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Chestnut Centre, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the Chestnut Centre was the first place in the UK where giant otters were successfully bred in captivity? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Chestnut Centre. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Chestnut Centre), and if they received a combined total of at least 416.7 views per hour (i.e., 5,000 views in 12 hours or 10,000 in 24), the hook may be added to the statistics page. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

— Maile (talk) 12:02, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious
 
Eight years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:00, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 August 2021

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:43, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #483

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
 
Wikidata2Ical
  • Development
    • Wikidata:Mismatch Finder development continues. We are now working on the frontend. First pieces are starting to be visible at https://mismatch-finder.toolforge.org (but nothing usable yet)
    • Fixed an issue with unicode characters in constraints checks (phab:T289805)
    • Worked on support for "separators" parameter for distinct value constraints (phab:T277855)
    • Continued work on allowing to restrict constraints to certain entity types (phab:T269724)
    • Continued work on new constraint type to ensure that the Item has a label in a particular language (phab:T195178)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.

Category:Dhunge dharas

Latest comment: 3 years ago6 comments2 people in discussion

Hello Mike, all the Hiti cats are now moved to Category:Dhunge dharas and the link in the Wiki article is updated. Unfortunately, I lost the link to the Wikidata item, because this has a capital D in 'dharas'. Any idea how to correct the wikidata item? --Judithcomm (talk) 11:15, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I think I managed to rename the wikidata item, but that doesn't seem to help. Or is there a delay of some kind? --Judithcomm (talk) 13:41, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
Found it! --Judithcomm (talk) 13:42, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
@Judithcomm: Sorry, I'm on vacation at the moment so am only online intermittently. I see things are now at commons:Category:Dhunge dharas and commons:Category:Hiti is now a redirect. Does that mean that Lho Hiti (Dhunge Dhara) (Q21518203) and Lho Hiti (Dhunge Dhara) (Q5269891) can be merged? Or the enwiki sitelink should be moved back again, I guess. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 15:40, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
Hiti and Dhunge dhara can be merged as far as I'm concerned; they mean the same thing. But they are in two different languages; how does that work on Wikidata? I don't understand "the enwiki sitelink should be moved back again". What do you mean?
Have a nice vacation.--Judithcomm (talk) 16:52, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
OK, merged. With the latter, I meant moving the link to the article here from one item to the other - but no longer relevant now they're merged. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:13, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

unblocking

Latest comment: 3 years ago9 comments3 people in discussion

Mike, you'd said at AN that you'd appreciate suggestions re:unblocking. The unblock in December was problematic in several ways.

  • You responded to an unblock request from someone you consider a friend.
  • You called in the blocking admin -- which is the right thing to do -- but when she objected to the unblock, you didn't continue discussion to see if, for instance, she would maybe be willing to accept conditions for the unblock. When the blocking admin doesn't agree with an unblock, you should either drop it right there, wait for others to chime in, or take it to AN for community review.
  • You accepted a bad unblock request: CR focussed on the behavior of others, claimed they hadn't received sufficient warning, basically blamed their misunderstandings of copyvio policy on the blocking admin ("as always her advice was accepted it is a mystery to me what this new incident is"). That is a terrible unblock request, and a common enough one that it could have been declined with a template. A good unblock request 1. exhibits understanding of why they were blocked and 2. demonstrates why the problem won't recur and 3. nothing else. No defensive explanations, no blaming of others, no argument that most of their edits are good or that the problems aren't really that serious.
  • Your unblock acceptance itself showed a misunderstanding of blocking policy ("an indef block seems really excessive"). Indef blocks aren't meant to be infinite. They are meant to last as long as it takes to get the editor in question to 1. understand why they were blocked and 2. demonstrate why the problems won't happen again. That can take ten minutes, or it can last forever in the case of intractible problematic editing by an editor who can't or won't understand policy. We don't give short blocks for long term behavior issues; editors can just wait them out and then pick up right where they left off without ever trying to understand why they were blocked.

Anyway, I hope that helps, and I hope it doesn't sound harsh. I sincerely mean it to be helpful. —valereee (talk) 15:02, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@Valereee: Thanks for the comments, I'm generally in listening mode here. :-) A few points of correction (not disagreeing, just course-correcting). I met Clem through the Wikimedia projects - he's a colleague here, and generally a well-respected and active one. That's a bit different from an in-person friend, particularly when it comes to on-wiki activity. On the second point, I was waiting for others to chime in - but no-one did so until now (and I'm sure there are other admins watching the talk page as well, given how many people have commented there in general!). And on the last, it's too easy for indefinite to be come infinite by neglect, which is why I prefer to see time-limited blocks by default. But as I said, I'm listening to what you, and everyone else is saying, and will take that into account with future admin work. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 09:01, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
Listening mode is always good. I try to spend a lot of time there. :) There's room for discussion on the value of indefinite vs. time limited, but the chances the indef of a well-regarded 17-year editor with 40K+ edits and 94 page watchers would become infinite by neglect are pretty much nil. The only thing that would prevent an unblock would be the editor continuing to refuse to understand the reason for the block and to indicate they'd stop the problematic behavior. But, yes, in the case of someone you know to be well-intentioned, you might give a short block first, hoping to shock them into realizing this was very important indeed and that they needed to straighten up and fly right. Or if it's to stop a short-term problem, like edit warring. But with copyvio...it's sooooo destructive, and it's generally habitual, and it causes so much work for other editors. So much more than straight-up vandalism, because it's not easy to detect. It causes entire articles to be deleted because there's no way to fix them. Intractable copyvio issues is a completely valid reason to indef a well-intentioned editor who isn't showing any signs of understanding they have to stop. —valereee (talk) 11:48, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
Valereee, but the chances the indef of a well-regarded 17-year editor with 40K+ edits and 94 page watchers would become infinite by neglect are pretty much nil. Am I allowed to seriously disagree here? Self-reflection is not actually a concept for all Wikimedia admins. (this isn't a comment on Clem's block but more generally) — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 12:12, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz, totally, feel free! You've seen such an indef become infinite by neglect rather than because the editor simply refused to learn and comply with policy? —valereee (talk) 13:51, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
Valereee, try getting blocked (excuse me: banned) on Commons due to some poor decisions but remaining blocked because of fabricated death threats against which any defense is impossible because you can't prove a negative. Technically the block was recently lifted, but don't ask the details. The entire story is very unpleasant, very long and without any happy or satisfying ending. There's also been a user (can't remember the username right now, I think either 4nn1l2 or Vermont told me about it so one of them should know) who fought for a year or so to prove he wasn't a sockpuppet. He got unblocked in the end by sheer perseverance and insane patience, but most users in that situation likely give up very quickly and you'd never hear of them again. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 19:25, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz, maybe I should have said a well-regarded 17-year user with 40K+ edits and 94 page watchers who's been indeffed for copyvio on enwiki? Sockpuppetry and threats of violence are a whole different animal. There's as you say no way to prove a negative. But there's no negative to prove here. There's only an editor who needs to show they understand and will stop. We should probably take further discussion to your talk or mine. —valereee (talk) 20:13, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
Valereee, no, the main problem were the fabricated death threats. An apology for using an alternative account and not being productive is of little use when people are led to believe you've made death threats. maybe I should have said a well-regarded 17-year user with 40K+ edits and 94 page watchers who's been indeffed for copyvio That's awfully specific. So with merely 92 (instead of 94) page watchers and being a 14-year (instead of 17) user and being indeffed for any reason that isn't copyvio, it doesn't apply. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 20:30, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
But I agree that when no confidentiality is claimed over any motivation for a block your statement would generally hold true. In other cases, YMMV. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 16:37, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2021

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2021).

 

  Administrator changes

  Jake Wartenberg
  Emperor • Viridian Bovary
  Ashleyyoursmile → Viridian Bovary

  Guideline and policy news

  Technical news

  • The Score extension has been re-enabled on public wikis. It has been updated, but has been placed in safe mode to address unresolved security issues. Further information on the security issues can be found on the mediawiki page.

  Arbitration

  Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:45, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #484

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
    • User:SuccuBot has made its 100.000.000th edit. It is the first user account in Wikidata to reach this milestone.
    • In the frame of a Google Summer of Code project a new tool, called WikidataComplete was created. The tool smoothly integrates in the Wikidata UI and proposes new statements extracted by machine learning algorithms. Editors are asked to either approve or reject them. To activate it check here for a short tutorial check here. Any feedback is welcome here.
  • Development
    • Continued work on the Mismatch Finder. We are now working on creating the page where mismatches will be listed for review.
    • Worked on support for "separators" parameter for distinct value constraints (phab:T277855)
    • Made it possible to restrict constraints to certain entity types (phab:T269724)
    • Added a new constraint type to ensure that the Item has a label in a particular language (phab:T195178)
    • Added a button for the Query Builder to query.wikidata.org to make the Query builder discoverable (phab:T276210) - integration in the example dialog is still in progress (phab:T280229)
    • We started work on some behind-the-scenes improvements to the way Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects are notified about a change that affects their articles. (They need this notification so the article can be purged and show the latest data from Wikidata again. It is also required for showing the edit in the watchlist and recent changes on those wikis. This should have no visible impact for editors but is needed maintenance work.

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.

Hard luck

Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Sorry you didn’t get over the bar in the election. There’s always New Page Patrol if you’re looking for thankless tasks. Mccapra (talk) 20:46, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

@Mccapra: Thanks. Will think about it - I already work on matching new articles with Wikidata items when I can, but might also be able to help in other ways. I really want to get on with some article writing, though, both new and existing articles, so I've been preparing User:Mike Peel/Worklist. ;-) Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 07:07, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: August 2021

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
 


Headlines
Read this edition in full • Single-page

To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

Wikidata weekly summary #485

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Events
    • Upcoming:
      • WikidataCon update: you can now check in the program of the first day of the online conference
      • Transbordados: WikidataCon's preconference for Latin America - September 14, 21 and 28 (21h UTC) - with simultaneous translation for Portuguese and Spanish, via YouTube - set of events to discuss Wikidata and decoloniality, knowledge organization and digital dissemination of collections in Latin America contexts. Join us!
        • 14/09 - Towards a decolonial wiki: overflowing knowledge from the Latin American horizon - speakers: Amanda Jurno (Wiki Movimento Brasil), Bianca Santana (journalist, writer and activist) and Silvia Gutiérrez (El Colégio de México) - watch it in PT-BR / ES
        • 21/09 - The universe of libraries: Wikidata and the multiplication of knowledge potencies - speakers: Lilian Viana (GLAM das Bibliotecas da USP) and Maurício Genta (Wikimedia Argentina e Biblioteca Nacional da Argentina) - watch it in PT-BR / ES
        • 28/09 - Digital collections and Wikidata: organizing a network of knowledge - speakers: Evelin Heidel (a.k.a. Scann; Wikimedistas do Uruguai) and Karen Worcman (Museu da Pessoa) - watch it in PT-BR / ES
      • Demo of the Query Builder live on Twitch and in French by Vigneron, September 14 at 18:00 CEST
    • Ongoing:
      • Data Quality Days - several sessions happened over the past days and more are coming this week. Recordings, slides and notes are linked in the program
    • Past:
      • Forex - 36C3 Wikipaka WG: Live querying: let’s explore Wikidata together! - YouTube
  • Tool of the week
    • Wwwyzzerdd for Wikidata is a browser extension that allows you to view and edit Wikidata information from Wikipedia (demo video). Install it in Firefox or Chrome
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
    • Face The Facts mobile app allows you to scan election posters and see the true facts about politicians.
    • Wikidata now has over 150,000 Senses on Lexemes!

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.

DYK nomination of Fundadores de São Paulo

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

  Hello! Your submission of Fundadores de São Paulo at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) at your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:27, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

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