User talk:MZMcBride

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• October 2007 – February 2012

About proposed update of Www.wikimedia.org

Less than a year, I decided to raise this issue on the forum. Please support if supported ;) --Kaganer (talk) 15:32, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I commented over there. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 22:12, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Monobook issues

Who broke something for Monobook? Talk:Main Page#Issues clicking the "discussion" link :( Killiondude (talk) 21:12, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Fixed. It may have been my fault. Sorry about that, if so. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:20, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

No worries. Thank you for looking into it and fixing. Killiondude (talk) 22:57, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Support

You can help me?title carliitaeliza201.220.233.214 02:48, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

What do you need help with? --MZMcBride (talk) 02:48, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

TB

{{tb|User talk:Philippe_(WMF)}} Philippe (WMF) (talk) 15:18, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

God Almighty, that fucking template is here now too? --MZMcBride (talk) 01:46, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

sbm. Killiondude (talk) 06:59, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

w: interwiki link

It struck me tonight that it would make sense for the w: prefix to lead to the language of Wikipedia that one has set in their preferences rather than currently leading everyone to the English language one. Though, perhaps this is one of those legacy things where the English one was first and therefore probably has links predating the advent of the other Wikipedias? Just one of those "hmmm" moments. Killiondude (talk) 06:59, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Talk:CentralNotice/Calendar#POTY 2011

Hello, MZMcBride. You have new messages at Talk:CentralNotice/Calendar.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

-- Rillke (talk) 11:35, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Fundraising

Fundraising could use some love. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:20, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

{{Sofixit}} Theo10011 (talk) 06:15, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

I temporarily fixed that banner, but need to find a better long-term solution (which I have a couple ideas for). To answer your question, I'm no longer officially involved in fundraising or CentralNotice stuff and haven't been for a while, but I tend to still poke around unofficially. User:Pgehres (WMF) is probably the best person to ping about these things now. Kaldari (talk) 22:14, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Wonderful. Thank you! (I need an MZlist to track who to talk to about things like this... hmmm.) --MZMcBride (talk) 01:06, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Template

Hello your highness, can you import or copy the like template to Meta? Theo10011 (talk) 18:50, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Does your machine not have a copy/paste function accessible? Killiondude (talk) 20:12, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Feature not available in the Global South™! :( Theo10011 (talk) 20:18, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Sure, done. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:25, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

 Like Thank you! Theo10011 (talk) 12:48, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Global South

I have a feeling some people don't realize that Australia is in the southern hemisphere. Also, that not every place outside of San Fransisco is filled with illiterate tribal people who need outreach. Sigh. I think some of the people around here would do better joining the Peace Corps instead of working on a project that revolves around an encyclopedia. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:36, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Heh. I wonder if Wikipedia has an article (or even mentions) San Francisco elitism. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:02, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

It's debatable if its only limited to San Francisco, or even Cali. It's some malignant form of political correctness that compels some people to think of the rest of the world as disenfranchised and underprivileged in need of social equality. tl;dr - Don't forget that kid in Africa (he actually prefers ios over android). Theo10011 (talk) 19:18, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

*whoosh* --MZMcBride (talk) 22:35, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

If only we could get rid of all copyrights and have billions of pictures of free porn (with 95% of it devoted to white penises). That will surely make the world a better place! Ottava Rima (talk) 00:56, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

It is kind of funny for you to accuse me of baiting when your original point that I referred to above was actual baiting. :P Ottava Rima (talk) 03:20, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

EdwardsBot @ ar.wiki

Hello. Thanks for contributing on Arabic Wikipedia, please request bot flag. Thanks in advance.--Avocato (talk) 16:35, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

db-query, please?

Hello. I'm checking delisting requests at Talk:Interwiki map. I was going to remove some sites but thought it would be wise to first check if those interwikilinks are used anywhere. Could you please run for me tswiki:MySQL_queries#List_of_interwiki_links_from_all_wikis for the following interwiki prefixes?

• allwiki
• BenefitsWiki
• AbbeNormal
• AIWiki
• BEMI
• CANWiki
• CanyonWiki
• Demokraatia
• EcheI

I'm interested to know if any of those interwikilinks is still in use anywhere, how much instances, etc; so I can know if it's a good idea to remove them or not. Thanks in advance for your help. Regards. -- MarcoAurelio (talk) 14:00, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Request

Hello MZMcBride, As editor of This Month in GLAM I would like to get access tot the global delivery. Can I request that here? and can I read more information about what I should do with the next delivery? Thanks! Greetings - Romaine (talk) 09:03, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Sure, I added you to Global message delivery/Access list in this edit.

The bot's instructions are here: Global message delivery/Instructions. It's mostly a matter of updating Global message delivery/Spam. If you examine the /Spam page's page history, it should be fairly clear how the bot works. Let me know if you have any questions and feel free to send test deliveries with the bot. Just know that once you tell the bot to start and it starts, it's kind of like hitting "send" on an e-mail: there's no undo. :-)

And w:User:EdwardsBot/FAQ may be of interest. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:36, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok thanks! It seems easy, in about two weeks we'll see how easy it is in practice with the next TMIG newsletter. Greetings - Romaine (talk) 07:40, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Pageinfo-footer

It seems that your tool has died, so I removed it from the list, because of recent global deliveries that refer to that page would make a lot of projects copy a dead link. Otherwise, if it's came alive again, please revert my edit. Thanks. ✒ Bennylin 14:01, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Histlegend may also need to be updated. ✒ Bennylin 15:42, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi. The tool is not dead. There have been a wide number of Toolserver issues lately, mostly involving database corruption, but the tool should generally be working. It's certainly working for me right now. Let me know if you notice brokenness and I can investigate. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:27, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

www.wikimedia.org template

Hello, MZMcBride. You have new messages at Talk:Www.wikimedia.org_template.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

–Krinkle^talk 11:08, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Asides

Re: "I doubt all of them can even edit Meta-Wiki" - this is just rude, not funny. What gives? –SJ talk  06:29, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, it wasn't really intended as rude. Some Board members are community members and have a lot of editing experience. Some Board members do not. (The same is true of Wikimedia Foundation staff members, whose editing I've studied for years.) I honestly wasn't even sure all of the Board members had accounts here, but it seems I'm mistaken. I stand by my doubt that every Board member will comment individually, as I still don't think that's likely to happen (it's difficult enough to get everyone to agree on a letter, much less respond to the mounting walls of text), but I'll strike the unfair aside now. Sorry about that. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:37, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Testing

Beep boop. --EdwardsBot (talk) 03:32, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Request for an account on the “Foundation Wiki”

Erwin Mulialim

• Reason why I need an account :

• Previously, I would like to introduce myself that I am an active “Editor” on Indonesian Wikipedia (WBI = Wikipedia Bahasa Indonesia) as a username: “Erwin Mulialim”.
  For Complete Information, Would You Please Visit Here or .
  
• The reason that I want to create an account on “wikimediafoundation.org” are :

1. I want to be actively involved in contributing for translating the pages on the website “wikimediafoundation.org” into Indonesian.
   I noticed there are a lot of pages on the website “wikimediafoundation.org” that has not been translated into Indonesian, and one of the example could be found here.
2. And I would like to actively take part for involved in publishing materials for the website “wikimediafoundation.org”.
3. I am also actively involved in several projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, especially those directly related to the Wikimedia community in Indonesia.

• Thank-You Very Much. ~~ Erwin Mulialim^(talk) 16:40, 2 March 2013 (UTC).
  
  

• E-mail address : “erwin.mulialim@outlook.com”.

This e-mail address is being prioritized for special handling all matters relating to all projects at Wikimedia Foundation.

• Thank-You Very Much for Your Kind Attention, Your Help and Your Concern to Me.

May GOD Bless You Always! ~~ Erwin Mulialim^(talk) 07:16, 4 March 2013 (UTC).

• I can only say: “Thank-You Very Much” for your kindness and sincerity of your heart that has given this account to me.
  I pray that GOD will always reward the kindness of yours by giving abundant blessings upon you and give success in any job of your works.
• Once again Thank-You Very Much for Your Kind Attention, Your Help and Your Concern to Me. ~~ Erwin Mulialim^(talk) 07:58, 4 March 2013 (UTC).
  
  

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EdwardsBot @ ar.wiki (2)

Hello. I'm sorry to tell you that I've blocked your bot at the Arabic Wikipedia, since it runs without bot flag, although I asked you before to request it. Anyway, I will be happy to unblock your bot as soon as it has bot flag. You can put your request here. If you need more help, just talk to me anytime. Best regards.--Avocato (talk) 19:16, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Sorry, I honestly have difficulty editing over there. Is there a way to make the editing textarea not be RTL? It's making it really difficult to fill out the template parameters for a bot request. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:18, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. Can you just fill this template and save the page? I'll do the rest.--Avocato (talk) 21:46, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Apparently copying and pasting the text into a text editor works. Okay, done. Let me know if you need anything further. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:54, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

P.S. Something on the edit screen is loading over HTTP instead of HTTPS. Probably some JavaScript somewhere. I'll poke at it quickly.

Found it here. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:06, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

 Done: I unblocked the bot and granted it bot flag. Regards.--Avocato (talk) 22:50, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Great, thanks!

Though as I said here, someone else is going to have to take over this bot or we'll need to find a better solution for delivery bots (or a delivery bot, I suppose). I can't be expected to seek approval on 700 wikis. That's insanity. Perhaps we could add a rule to centralized delivery lists that you must have local approval of EdwardsBot... or at least a warning. Hmm. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:58, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Www.wikipedia.org template#Sandbox

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Www.wikipedia.org template#Sandbox. This is related to a post you made about a month ago at Talk:Www.wikipedia.org template#Re: Multiple updates needed – Allen4names (talk) 00:48, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Idiocy at the English Wikipedia

Copy of my e-mail to w:en:User:Ryan Postlethwaite:

---

Hi.

You seem to have revoked my talk page access and re-blocked me for adding links that were (and are) already on my talk page in various other sections. Just search the page for "http://wikipediocracy".

You also seem to have deleted revisions that other oversighters have been unwilling to delete.

Can you explain, please?

MZ

---

Offending talk page post (still not fully redacted...):

---

The issue is essentially that the English Wikipedia doesn't control what content the wikipediocracy.com domain serves. The main page (<http://wikipediocracy.com/>) and other pages (such as <http://wikipediocracy.com/tag/wikipedia/>) are dynamic (i.e., their content is based on, for example, whatever posts were most recently made or whatever posts were tagged with a particular keyword), but any page on that domain is potentially problematic.

You could possibly envision a scenario in which certain URLs were changed (by a nefarious sysadmin) after being posted to this wiki to redirect to a nasty place (e.g., <http://wikipediocracy.com/?p=269> could be changed to redirect to a different post or to a different domain altogether). Or, even more nefariously, a sysadmin could take old links found on this site and only redirect to a nasty place based on being clicked by a user on the English Wikipedia (using an w:en:HTTP referer). It's trivial to redirect URLs; for example <http://pruebita.com/loldong.jpg> appears to be a w:en:JPEG image URL, but it redirects to a completely different site. All of this is as true of wikipediocracy.com as it is of nearly any Web domain.

As I see it, the English Wikipedia community has repeatedly decided not to ban links to this site (as opposed to, say, encyclopediadramatica.se, which is blacklisted locally), so indefinitely blocking users for linking to wikipediocracy.com seems a bit crazy. Again, I think AGK simply overreacted. That said, there's an essay somewhere around here describing a "no admin willing to unblock" scenario. I can't remember exactly where, but it may apply here. We'll see. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:22, 14 March 2013 (UTC) Hmmm, I suppose w:en:Wikipedia:Community ban is what I was thinking of. Hmmm. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:45, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

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One follow-up edit has been lost, alas. :-( --MZMcBride (talk) 02:57, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Never mind, nabbed it from browser cache. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:35, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

So shame on me now

I knew you were trouble when you walked in. Killiondude (talk) 21:43, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

I'll try to get up to speed as quickly as possible. Ched (talk) 20:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

My pleasure. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:49, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Request for an account on the Foundation wiki/template

Wouldn't this work? πr² (t • c) 04:09, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Try it and see? --MZMcBride (talk) 04:12, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

ಠ_ಠ. Killiondude (talk) 05:17, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I've watched this video four times now. I love it. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:29, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Guillom

Greetings.

Do you know why Guillom's staff permissions were removed? Is he no longer employed by the WMF? 78.108.63.44 14:23, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Guillom is still a valued staff member at WMF; as part of a routine process, the WMF is constantly evaluating who has access to that user right, in order to minimize the proliferation of those very specialized tools if others may more directly fit needs, if someone is expected to not need them for a period of time, or if there is something that triggers during a risk assessment. This is not the first such instance, not will it be the last. Its just good security practice. In this case, I fully expect that Guillom will have his rights restored soon. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 16:30, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

wmf:Staff would be just about the most up-to-date index for determining whether guillom still works for the Wikimedia Foundation, I think. According to the log, his staff rights were removed about a week ago on request from Philippe.

It's been my general impression that: guillom has too much clue to be working at the Wikimedia Foundation (or too much clue to be working for the people he's working for), who does and does not have staff rights is arbitrary, and within the staff global user group itself there seem to be few protections against abuse or misuse. Just recently, apparently, the "edituserjs" and "editusercss" user rights were given to staff; who knows why other than a "request from Philippe." Helpful.

I deeply question the virtue of having a "restricted" global group with an arbitrary membership and arbitrary user rights assigned to it, all based on the say-so of Philippe and others. It would be nice to have a chart, perhaps, listing each user right assigned to the staff group and what specific purpose each user right is providing. (Whose user CSS and JS needs to be edited by staff, exactly?) It would also be great if the stewards stopped acting like the Wikimedia Foundation's slaves and required a demonstrated consensus before adding new user rights to the global user group. Philippe hopping on IRC and asking a steward to modify the global group offers only security theater. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:00, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

As a followup, you may wish to note that Guillaume's staff rights were restored today. To the process questions upon which MZ pontificates above....

*"Who does and does not have staff rights is arbitrary..." - When I took over the rights assignments, I totally agree - it was arbitrary. I've moved to formalize the process since then, to protect against exactly the types of abuse that you seem to fear. There is now a formalized process within the WMF to speak to that. For instance, I can not just assign staff rights to anyone that I like, as I used to be able to. Instead, the process that I wrote requires second level sign-off, (meaning that for a new employee in a department, director level signoff is required. For a new manager, c-level signoff is required) a formal written use case, which is kept on file and routinely reviewed to determine whether it is still necessary, a brief training session, and an acknowledgement (in writing) of the rights and responsibilities that come with those permissions, and their appropriate and inappropriate use.

*"Within the staff global group there are few protections against abuse..." - I would also agree that this was the case several years ago, but no more. There are a number of checks and balances built into the system now. On enwiki, for instance, the AUSC reviews all logged actions and routinely refers questionable actions to me for review. In addition, where there is no comparable committee, my team audits and reviews employee actions. This has resulted in employee disciplinary action on occasion. These are not toothless protections.

*"edituserjs and editusercss..." This was done for a couple of reasons. First, we have had times when we saw a user insert some code in their own user.js and user.css files that really shouldn't be there, and then propagate that code out to the wikis by adding a transclusion from their own user files to, for instance, Mediawiki:Common.js of a smaller wiki, and thereby add google tracking code, for instance. This allows staff to easily (and in a logged fashion) remove such code. Second, in order to include a script for those users who hold staff rights which colors red the interface buttons for things that they really shouldn't touch without a REALLY good reason (ie, the execute checkuser button). You can see that script in my own userjs file. This is a reminder for new staff who didn't come from the community that these are specialized rights, and not everyone has access to them, and serves as a mental "speedbump" against using them.

*"all based on the say-so of Philippe and others..." Well, yes. Any process is going to have a decision maker. For this one, that's me, and the second-level manager of the person requesting the rights. But at least now it's not solely resident in my hands.

*"it would be nice to have a chart..." Such a chart does exist, but can not be shared in its current format publicly, because it includes employee actions (terminations, warnings, etc). I'll see if there's a way that we can, in a low-impact fashion, create a version that can be shared publicly.

Hope this sheds some light on current internal processes. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 19:45, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Update: I believe that I've found such a way to share the data from the chart I mentioned using a combination of black majik and Google-docs foo. Unfortunately, I won't have the time to tinker with it until after I've returned from the chapters' conference, most likely. I will endeavor to do so at some point in the relatively near future, however. Ask and ye shall receive. Sometimes.  :) Philippe (WMF) (talk) 21:09, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Philippe. Thank you for such a thorough and thoughtful reply. I appreciate it, particularly as my reply to 78.108.63.44 was rather brusque. I'm going to work on expanding and clarifying User groups#Staff today. --MZMcBride (talk) 15:22, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Philippe is so helpful! <3 Killiondude (talk) 05:32, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I think. :) Philippe (WMF) (talk) 22:57, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Looking for input

Hi MZ,
As promised, I spent some time on this on the plane to the chapters conference, and would like your input on the current iteration - I want to be sure that it at least attempts to answer the questions that you have. If the output were a spreadsheet that included the following information and looked sort of like the below, would that be a step in the right direction? What else would you like to see included?

Username	Use case received	Use case status	Use case	Rights approved	Rights Approval Date
Philippe (WMF)	2/2/2013	Approved	Philippe manages (and is a primary responder for) the emergency@ response team, which includes the need to checkuser and view deleted revisions to determine the credibility of various threats. He also executes DMCA takedowns and other legal actions at the direction of the legal team, and makes necessary interface changes (changes to legal notices, etc).	Staff - per Geoff Brigham	2/2/2013

While I obviously can't promise to meet every request, I'd like to try to meet any reasonable ones. Your input would be much appreciated. Thanks, Philippe (WMF) (talk) 22:57, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I personally don't need this level of detail, though others might like it. I was more concerned with the current practices being documented, which they didn't seem to be. Your edits to user groups looked fine. (Splitting that page out to staff user group might make sense if it continues to grow.) I think if you try to finish your chart, you'll have difficulty writing a use case for a few people, but don't let that stop you. :-) Even having just a list of members and a less than a tweet about why they have staff rights would be fine. (If log summaries weren't so useless, we could use those. Alas.) --MZMcBride (talk) 23:54, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

This would be nice to have if you have the time to do it, there were a few people when I glanced at the list a couple of weeks ago who I knew would have a good reason for having the right, but couldn't think of what that reason would be myself. Thehelpfulone 00:07, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

The beauty of this system is that it's data I'm already collecting. So I could just share particular columns of a google doc and result in almost no extra work.  :) Philippe (WMF) (talk) 01:21, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Philippe could you give us a status update on the progress of publishing this document? Thehelpfulone 16:27, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Testing...

Hello. --EdwardsBot (talk) 01:50, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Testing...

Hello! --EdwardsBot (talk) 02:05, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Exit Interview

Hiya. I don't know if you saw, Sue agreed to an exit interview (#old news?)User_talk:Sue_Gardner#Exit_Interview. Anyway, I have been kinda off-and-on with some stuff and not been online much. I haven't had the time to follow up yet, I will in a few days. In the mean time, if you want to get started by dropping messages(wikimedia-l?) and soliciting questions - please go ahead, this was your idea from what I remember. Or you can always wait and have me come up a day late with a dollar short. ;) Theo10011 (talk) 16:20, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi.

Yes, I saw. ;-) Wikimedia exit interview/Sue Gardner is already growing.

I actually made a request of you here to post to wikimedia-l. I can wait for you to follow up. I'm in no rush. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:04, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Links to Single User Login finalisation announcement

Hello, next time please link Special:MyLanguage/Single User Login finalisation announcement.[1] --Nemo 10:53, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Is Special:MyLanguage documented? (Bah, it's a red link!) I tried to use it yesterday on wikimediafoundation.org and was unsuccessful. --MZMcBride (talk) 13:38, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Template:Ll#Purpose has some information, but it's not really documented unfortunately. It looks for the subpage with user's language code. If it doesn't exist, it uses the main (English) version. PiRSquared17 (talk) 13:42, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Right. I guess "documented" was a little ambiguous there. There's documenting the feature itself. And then there's also documenting to use this feature with GMD at Global message delivery/Instructions. I'm not sure how anyone would know to use this Special page. The red link certainly isn't helping. --MZMcBride (talk) 13:46, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Superscripts

You've done us a favour. But there are more, littered further down. And yes, "15" should have a comma by standard practice. thx Tony (talk) 02:50, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Eep, nice catch. Fixed all that up. And I brought up the inconsistent date format issue at Talk:Wikimedia Foundation elections/Board elections/2013#Date format. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 03:04, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment on your recent blanking of MediaWiki:Edittools

See MediaWiki_talk:Edittools#Please_restore. PiRSquared17 (talk) 17:31, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Discussion concerning your bot on the English Wikinews

User talk:LauraHale#Global message delivery and Talk:Global message delivery/Targets/Tech ambassadors. PiRSquared17 (talk) 00:29, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! --MZMcBride (talk) 01:03, 26 May 2013 (UTC)