27 February 2025
News and notes: Administrator elections up for reapproval and 1bil GET snagged on Commons Serendipity: Guinea-Bissau Heritage from Commons to the World Technology report: Hear that? The wikis go silent twice a year In the media: The end of the world Recent research: What's known about how readers navigate Wikipedia; Italian Wikipedia hardest to read Opinion: Sennecaster's RfA debriefing Tips and tricks: One year after this article is posted, will every single article on Wikipedia have a short description? Community view: Open letter from French Wikipedians says "no" to intimidation of volunteer contributors Traffic report: Temporary scars, February stars Essay: The source, the whole source, and nothing but the source Obituary: Ümüt Çınar (Kmoksy) and Vinícius Medina Kern (Vmkern)
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		This barnstar is awarded to everyone who - whatever their opinion - contributed to the discussion about Wikipedia and SOPA. Thank you for being a part of the discussion. Presented by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Administrators' newsletter – December 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2023).

Administrator changes

• Ganesha811
• JPxG

• Ajpolino
• Lourdes
• Mairi
• RockMFR
• Somno
• WilyD

Beeblebrox → Just Step Sideways

CheckUser changes

• Beeblebrox
• Opabinia regalis

Oversight changes

• Beeblebrox
• Opabinia regalis

Guideline and policy news

• Following a talk page discussion, the Administrators' accountability policy has been updated to note that while it is considered best practice for administrators to have notifications (pings) enabled, this is not mandatory. Administrators who do not use notifications are now strongly encouraged to indicate this on their user page.

Arbitration

• Following a motion, the Extended Confirmed Restriction has been amended, removing the allowance for non-extended-confirmed editors to post constructive comments on the "Talk:" namespace. Now, non-extended-confirmed editors may use the "Talk:" namespace solely to make edit requests related to articles within the topic area, provided that their actions are not disruptive.
• The Arbitration Committee has announced a call for Checkusers and Oversighters, stating that it will currently be accepting applications for CheckUser and/or Oversight permissions at any point in the year.
• Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 11, 2023 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:54, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – January 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2023).

Administrator changes

Clovermoss

Dennis Brown

• Julia W
• Marasmusine
• PBS

CheckUser changes

• Aoidh
• HJ Mitchell
• Sdrqaz
• Spicy
• ToBeFree
• Vanamonde93
• Z1720

Maxim

• Enterprisey
• Izno
• SilkTork

Oversighter changes

• Aoidh
• Firefly
• Sdrqaz
• ToBeFree
• Z1720

Maxim

• Enterprisey
• Izno
• SilkTork

Arbitration

• Following the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Aoidh, Cabayi, Firefly, HJ Mitchell, Maxim, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720.
• Following a motion, the Arbitration Committee rescinded the restrictions on the page name move discussions for the two Ireland pages that were enacted in June 2009.
• The arbitration case Industrial agriculture has been closed.

Miscellaneous

• The New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in January 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 13,000 unreviewed articles awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:54, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2025).

Administrator changes

• Arcticocean
• Wugapodes

Euryalus

CheckUser changes

• Firefly
• L235

Oversighter changes

• Firefly
• Guerillero
• L235
• Moneytrees

Technical news

• Administrators can now nuke pages created by a user or IP address from the last 90 days, up from the initial 30 days. T380846
• A 'Recreated' tag will now be added to pages that were created with the same title as a page which was previously deleted and it can be used as a filter in Special:RecentChanges and Special:NewPages. T56145

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Palestine-Israel articles 5 has been closed.

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2025).

Administrator changes

• Jarry1250
• Lethe

CheckUser changes

• AmandaNP
• Drmies

Oversighter changes

AmandaNP

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is open to discuss whether AI-generated images (meaning those wholly created by generative AI, not human-created images modified with AI tools) should be banned from use in articles.
• A series of 22 mini-RFCs that double-checked consensus on some aspects and improved certain parts of the administrator elections process has been closed (see the summary of the changes).
• A request for comment is open to gain consensus on whether future administrator elections should be held.

Technical news

• A new filter has been added to the Special:Nuke tool, which allows administrators to filter for pages in a range of page sizes (in bytes). This allows, for example, deleting pages only of a certain size or below. T378488
• Non-administrators can now check which pages are able to be deleted using the Special:Nuke tool. T376378

Miscellaneous

• The 2025 appointees for the Ombuds commission are だ＊ぜ, Arcticocean, Ameisenigel, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, Galahad, Nehaoua, Renvoy, Revi C., RoySmith, Teles and Zafer as members, with Vermont serving as steward-observer.
• Following the 2025 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: 1234qwer1234qwer4, AramilFeraxa, Daniuu, KonstantinaG07, MdsShakil and XXBlackburnXx.