User talk:BillHPike/Archive 4

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2019).

  Administrator changes

  EvergreenFir • ToBeFree

  Akhilleus • Athaenara • John Vandenberg • Melchoir • MichaelQSchmidt • NeilN • Youngamerican • 😂

  CheckUser changes

  Beeblebrox

  Deskana

  Interface administrator changes

  Evad37

  Guideline and policy news

• An RfC on the administrator resysop criteria was closed. 18 proposals have been summarised with a variety of supported and opposed statements. The inactivity grace period within which a new request for adminship is not required has been reduced from three years to two. Additionally, Bureaucrats are permitted to use their discretion when returning administrator rights.
• Following a proposal, the edit filter mailing list has been opened up to users with the Edit Filter Helper right.

  Technical news

• Wikimedia projects can set a default block length for users via MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry. A new page, MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry-ip, allows the setting of a different default block length for IP editors. Neither is currently used. (T219126)

  Arbitration

• Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 2 December 2018 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

  Miscellaneous

• The global consultation on partial and temporary office actions that ended in October received a closing statement from staff concluding, among other things, that the WMF will no longer use partial or temporary Office Action bans... until and unless community consensus that they are of value or Board directive.

Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 16:10, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2019).

  Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment asks whether partial blocks should be enabled on the English Wikipedia. If enabled, this functionality would allow administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces, rather than the entire site.
• A proposal asks whether admins who don't use their tools for a significant period of time (e.g. five years) should have the toolset procedurally removed.
• Following a successful RfC, a whitelist is now available for users whose redirects will be autopatrolled by a bot, removing them from the new pages patrol queue. Admins can add such users to Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist after a discussion following the guidelines at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist.

  Arbitration

• The fourth case on Palestine-Israel articles was closed. The case consolidated all previous remedies under one heading, which should make them easier to understand, apply, and enforce. In particular, the distinction between "primary articles" and "related content" has been clarified, with the former being the entire set of articles whose topic relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted rather than reasonably construed.
• Following the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Bradv, Casliber, David Fuchs, DGG, KrakatoaKatie, Maxim, Newyorkbrad, SoWhy, Worm That Turned, Xeno.

  Miscellaneous

• This issue marks three full years of the Admin newsletter. Thanks for reading!

Brandon Academy Private School, founded 1970 in Brandon, Florida. I can't find information about the founding of the school, but it looks like a seg acad. to me. Can you find anything? Thanks! Jacona (talk) 16:59, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

  Done @Jacona: — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 02:09, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks! Jacona (talk) 20:03, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

On behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:10, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2020).

  Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, partial blocks are now enabled on the English Wikipedia. This functionality allows administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces rather than the entire site. A draft policy is being workshopped at Wikipedia:Partial blocks.
• The request for comment seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure closed with wide-spread support for an alternative desysoping procedure based on community input. No proposed process received consensus.

  Technical news

• Twinkle now supports partial blocking. There is a small checkbox that toggles the "partial" status for both blocks and templating. There is currently one template: {{uw-pblock}}.
• When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title. [1]

  Arbitration

• Following a recent arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee reminded administrators that checkuser and oversight blocks must not be reversed or modified without prior consultation with the checkuser or oversighter who placed the block, the respective functionary team, or the Arbitration Committee.

  Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2020 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2020, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2020, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• The English Wikipedia has reached six million articles. Thank you everyone for your contributions!

16:08, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

George Walton Academy seems like another article that might interest you, when you have time.Jacona (talk) 22:08, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

As a promotional brochure, it interests me, Jacona. Wondering if you (Bill) want me to hold off on de-adveretising it till you look it over? John from Idegon (talk) 23:12, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

I added some cited facts. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 02:56, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

I am not a sock. Feel free to have my account run through CU process. But please don't make accusations without evidence. I have made many edits including the ones you have listed. Feel free to go through the Wikipedia:Sock puppetry processMr. Awesome, PhD (talk) 17:48, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

See wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mmoates — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 18:15, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2020).

  Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops must not undo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather than should not.
• A request for comment confirmed that sandboxes of established but inactive editors may not be blanked due solely to inactivity.

  Technical news

• Following a discussion, Twinkle's default CSD behavior will soon change, most likely this week. After the change, Twinkle will default to "tagging mode" if there is no CSD tag present, and default to "deletion mode" if there is a CSD tag present. You will be able to always default to "deletion mode" (the current behavior) using your Twinkle preferences.

  Miscellaneous

• Following the 2020 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: BRPever, Krd, Martin Urbanec, MusikAnimal, Sakretsu, Sotiale, and Tks4Fish. There are a total of seven editors that have been appointed as stewards, the most since 2014.
• The 2020 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Ajraddatz and Uzoma Ozurumba; they will serve for one year.

Hi Mr. Pike, I work for Central Private School and earlier today I made some updates to the Central Private School Wikipedia page. It shows that you reversed the changes. I would like to know why you did that? I will be making the changes again. I would appreciate it and am politely asking you to please let the updates remain and do not reverse them. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Sincerely, Cpfan1 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cpfan1 (talk • contribs) 22:15, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

I've told you before how important (IMO) your work on segregation history of US schools is, so I should hope you aren't surprised by this post.

How do you think we should go about covering segregation in the North? It certainly was, and I dare say still is, defacto segregated. Segregation is worse in the Rust Belt than anywhere else in the country. I'd guess it's a combination of the economics of the Great Migration and redlining. Diversity has always been greater on the East and West coasts, simply due to location.

Also, I want to just toss out a thought: Is the locus of discrimination shifting, albeit slowly? Or instead, are we as a society finally starting to mature past it? My feelings: just like all other sins, it will be forever, but hopefully dwindle. I think in specific areas, we're seeing a loci shift. To Hispanics and Arabs. John from Idegon (talk) 23:28, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

@John from Idegon: I think our best approach would be expanding articles like Boston desegregation busing crisis. For most northeastern American cities, there are enough sources to construct a strong article School segregation in City. Sorry for the delayed reply, but the current crisis has kept me rather busy in real life. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 22:53, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

It's keeping me at home. Luckily, I work for a wonderful man, and he's giving me a stipend to get by on till I can work again. Just be safe, my friend. John from Idegon (talk) 23:07, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2020).

  Guideline and policy news

• There is an ongoing request for comment to streamline the source deprecation and blacklisting process.

  Technical news

• There is a plan for new requirements for user signatures. You can give feedback.

  Arbitration

• Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold a Arbcom RfC regarding on-wiki harassment. A draft RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC (Draft) and not open to comments from the community yet. Interested editors can comment on the RfC itself on its talk page.

  Miscellaneous

• The WMF has begun a pilot report of the pages most visited through various social media platforms to help with anti-vandalism and anti-disinformation efforts. The report is updated daily and will be available through the end of May.

On behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --15:58, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2020).

  Administrator changes

  Gnangarra • Kaisershatner • Malcolmxl5

  CheckUser changes

  Callanecc

  Oversight changes

  HJ Mitchell

  Guideline and policy news

• Discretionary sanctions have been authorized for all pages and edits related to COVID-19, to be logged at WP:GS/COVID19.
• Following a recent discussion on Meta-Wiki, the edit filter maintainer global group has been created.
• A request for comment has been proposed to create a new main page editor usergroup.
• A request for comment has been proposed to make the bureaucrat activity requirements more strict.

  Technical news

• The Editing team has been working on the talk pages project. You can review the proposed design and share your thoughts on the talk page.
• Enterprisey created a script that will show a link to the proper Special:Undelete page when viewing a since-deleted revision, see User:Enterprisey/link-deleted-revs.

  Miscellaneous

• A request for comment closed with consensus to create a Village Pump-style page for communication with the Wikimedia Foundation.

Your edits on that school are outdated and do not present the actual conditions of the school. You are pushing a racist agenda by stating information from 1986 as current status.

Why are you pursuing this in such a way?

Thank you for your time Charles Lowry (talk) 15:01, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• (talk page stalker) Hi, Charles Lowry. Encyclopedias are about more than today, they are about the entire existence of the subject. Why would you remove accurate history from the article? This is not the school website, it is not an advertisement for the school. Why would you consider placing accurate, reliably sourced information in the article to be racist? Do you want to censor the article, rewrite history? That's not what an encyclopedia is about. Jacona (talk) 15:29, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
  • (talk page stalker) The only agenda-pushing going on here is from you yourself Charles Lowry! Tell us, would you also have us remove all information on the Japanese internment too? Should we remove information from Henry Ford or Charles Lindbergh that is less than flattering? If not, why not? And how is it any different than what you are doing here? John from Idegon (talk) 15:53, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2020).

  Administrator changes

  CaptainEek • Creffett • Cwmhiraeth

  Anna Frodesiak • Buckshot06 • Ronhjones • SQL

  CheckUser changes

  SQL

  Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment asks whether the Unblock Ticket Request System (UTRS) should allowed any unblock request or just private appeals.
• The Wikimedia Foundation announced that they will develop a universal code of conduct for all WMF projects. There is an open local discussion regarding the same.

  Arbitration

• A motion was passed to enact a 500/30 restriction on articles related to the history of Jews and antisemitism in Poland during World War II (1933–45), including the Holocaust in Poland. Article talk pages where disruption occurs may also be managed with the stated restriction.

On behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:13, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Please stop posting false information about this school. My family started it and you are 100 percent incorrect as to why it was started. Your "source" was even an opinion piece. Come on. What is the point in doing so, I would love to know?

Kelhaddock (talk) 17:36, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

How do I take down my "legal threat." And why can't we at least add the history that is true to this school? Kelhaddock (talk) 18:08, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@Kelhaddock: To retract your legal threat, please post a message to that effect at WP:ANI#Legal threats at Southwest Georgia Academy. If you would like to discuss the content of the article, please post at Talk:Southwest Georgia Academy — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 18:13, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Here is a link to the 'continued on' part of the article referenced, in case it would be helpful. Jacona (talk) 18:18, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Just adding a "thanks" for your calm handling of this, including placement of the Welcome message at the user's talk page. Also: not sure if my edit summary ping got to you, so just in case: I modified your post at ANI (a technical TPO violation) because your diff links were not working. I used Special:Diff (which I find simpler) but you can switch it back to the template if you want; see the doc at {{diff}}, which requires arg1=article_name. Mathglot (talk) 19:19, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:52, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2020).

  Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is in progress to remove the T2 (template that misrepresents established policy) speedy deletion criterion.

  Technical news

• Protection templates on mainspace pages are now automatically added by User:MusikBot II (BRFA).

  Arbitration

• Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold an RfC regarding on-wiki harassment. The RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC and is open to comments from the community.
• The Medicine case was closed, with a remedy authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for all discussions about pharmaceutical drug prices and pricing and for edits adding, changing, or removing pharmaceutical drug prices or pricing from articles.

Hi, BillHPike! i do not object "Confederate general" definition for Robert Edward Lee because it is a FACT. But I still have concern about some content in the page - it looks it has undue weight content toward the school policy in the past. I think it should be balanced if there are new articles or information about the school. Let me know what you think. --2601:1C0:CB01:2660:8196:7DE9:B182:3551 (talk) 21:18, 1 July 2020 (UTC) @2601:1C0:CB01:2660:8196:7DE9:B182:3551:

• Let's continue this discussion at Talk:Robert E. Lee Academy. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 21:29, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Sure, no problem. I will write something there once I find time for that article.2601:1C0:CB01:2660:8196:7DE9:B182:3551 (talk) 21:31, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
    • I suspect that 2601:1C0:CB01:2660:8196:7DE9:B182:3551 (talk · contribs) is a paid editor. See my comment on her talk page. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 21:44, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
      • I believe that the article is WP:NPOV because it doesn't delve sufficiently into the white supremacy. The naming of the school for Lee, a man who was famous as a traitor to the U.S., a slaveholder, and a particularly violent one, and an emblem of white power needs far more attention. Some of this can be found here. More about Lee as a slaveholder, torturer, murderer, traitor, and symbol of white supremacy is easily sourced. This school has been given a pass for too long, and the arguments that mention of it's past are non-neutral are ridiculous - almost all of these articles are in fact non-neutral in the other direction, as they fail to show the impact they have had by depriving public schools of funds and their use of intimidation to further the cause of segregation. Jacona (talk) 15:26, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi Bill - I think this may be of interest to you. In my research on Charlotte independent schools, I have discovered quite a bit of information regarding Providence Day School. The page's history section makes no mention of their founding as a segregation academy (hastily thrown together in the summer of 1970 and opened with 5th and 6th grades that fall.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Providence_Day_School

I have taken a stab at a more accurate version of their history. The draft is in my sandbox page. Before I made the edit to the PDS page, I would your thoughts on my draft if you have time. Feel free to improve/change/post to the main page as you see fit. You seem to be the expert on this topic, your input would be appreciated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jiffy.morton/sandbox?action=edit

Best Regards,

Jiffy.morton (talk) 00:20, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

@Jiffy.morton: That is a nice writeup. I would support adding the content to the article. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 02:35, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

thanks! one question for you - do you think in the opening sentence calling PDS an "SA" is too harsh...should it just read "independent school" ?

Jiffy.morton (talk) 01:32, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2020).

  Administrator changes

  Red Phoenix

  Euryalus • SQL

  Jujutacular • Monty845 • Rettetast • Madchester

  Oversight changes

  GB fan

  Keegan • Opabinia regalis • Premeditated Chaos

  Guideline and policy news

• There is an open request for comment to decide whether to increase the minimum duration a sanction discussion has to remain open (currently 24 hours).
• Speedy deletion criterion T2 (template that misrepresents established policy) has been repealed following a request for comment.
• Speedy deletion criterion X2 (pages created by the content translation tool) has been repealed following a discussion.
• There is a proposal to restrict proposed deletion to confirmed users.

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2020).

  Administrator changes

  Eddie891

  Angela • Jcw69 • Just Chilling • Philg88 • Viajero

  CheckUser changes

  SQL

  Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, the minimum length for site ban discussions was increased to 72 hours, up from 24.
• A request for comment is ongoing to determine whether paid editors must or should use the articles for creation process.
• A request for comment is open to resolve inconsistencies between the draftification and alternative to deletion processes.

  Arbitration

• A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2020 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
• An open request for comment asks whether active Arbitrators may serve on the Trust and Safety Case Review Committee or Ombudsman commission.

You might be interested in this, maybe not. Jacona (talk) 21:08, 4 September 2020 (UTC) And likewise, this. Jacona (talk) 21:13, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Jacona — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 19:59, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

This is interesting.Jacona (talk) 14:07, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

@Jacona: Looks like our contributions led to real world reckoning. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 14:41, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --10:15, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --14:26, 10 September 2020 (UTC)