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Planned addition of a global user group: 'local-bot'
[edit]Hi. We're working on some MediaWiki changes to allow local bots that have been approved on any wiki to have higher rate limits when accessing shared content (e.g. Commons images). As part of this, we would like to create a global user group, tentatively named "Local bots" (or 'local-bot' internally), which would be automatically synchronised with user group changes on each Wikimedia SUL wiki – any user added to a local 'bot' group would also be added to the global 'local-bot' group. This would use the same mechanism as the Global temporary account IP viewers group (global-temporary-account-viewer), which is synced with the local 'checkuser' and 'suppress' groups.
I'm going to document this new group in a section at the "Bot" page (with a redirect from Local bots), unless you can suggest a better place.
Please let me know if you see any issues with this plan, here or on the Phabricator task: T415588. I am hoping that this will go live this week or next. Matma Rex / Bartosz Dziewoński (WMF) (talk) 21:41, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
- @Matma Rex can we exempt testwikis, etc from triggering it? — xaosflux Talk 22:06, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
- We could, but then bot authors testing on testwiki would be subject to different rate limits. Do you expect much noise from such rights changes? I took a look at https://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/rights and I only see 4 changes granting or removing bot rights in all of 2025. Matma Rex (talk) 23:03, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
- Likely not much noise. — xaosflux Talk 02:02, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
- We could, but then bot authors testing on testwiki would be subject to different rate limits. Do you expect much noise from such rights changes? I took a look at https://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/rights and I only see 4 changes granting or removing bot rights in all of 2025. Matma Rex (talk) 23:03, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
- Will be removed from all local bots trigger automatic removal? — xaosflux Talk 22:08, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
- Yes. Expiring local group membership will also expire the global group membership. Matma Rex (talk) 23:05, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
- This is done. Some links for reference:
- Matma Rex (talk) 18:48, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. — xaosflux Talk 14:08, 5 March 2026 (UTC) Request: BLP review guidance for zh-yuewiki article about a living person
[edit]I am the subject of the zh-yuewiki biography:
I request cross-wiki guidance on possible BLP concerns. The article contains contentious allegations / non-neutral headings (e.g. 「網上集資被指欺騙網友」「香港區議會選舉涉嫌賄選」「催眠服務涉嫌性騷擾等爭議」) and political labeling.
Evidence (baseline versions):
- 2021-04-20 version: https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E9%8D%BE%E8%A9%A0%E6%B7%B5&oldid=1604000 - Current version: https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E9%8D%BE%E8%A9%A0%E6%B7%B5&oldid=2210128
Evidence (recent diffs showing contentious content being re-introduced / restored):
- 2024-11-24: restore/revert to the current contentious version
https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E9%8D%BE%E8%A9%A0%E6%B7%B5&diff=prev&oldid=2210128
- 2024-11-13: adds/restores political labeling in the lead (e.g. 「香港親中派政治人」)
https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E9%8D%BE%E8%A9%A0%E6%B7%B5&diff=next&oldid=2198825
- 2024-08-05: restoration that includes the contentious/non-neutral section headings mentioned above
https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E9%8D%BE%E8%A9%A0%E6%B7%B5&diff=next&oldid=2163351
I understand content disputes are normally handled locally. I have tried to seek local handling, but the contentious content has been repeatedly re-introduced. I am therefore requesting cross-wiki guidance on the appropriate venue/process for BLP triage and whether Oversight/VRT may apply.
Request:
1) Where is the proper global venue to review/triage BLP issues on zh-yuewiki?
2) If suppression/removal from history may be needed, what is the correct process (Oversight/VRT)?
Catmanchung (talk) 12:31, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
- @Catmanchung You may raise the discussion on your talk page or email the blocking sysop. I believe nothing can help you here. Thank you for your understanding. SCP-2000 02:37, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
- It's up to the local community / local admins to decide about this, there's nothing stewards can do. If they don't react and you believe it's a BLP violation you might want to contact WMF Legal. But I don't believe there are (major) BLP issues or NPOV violations. I'm using Google Translate so I might be missing something but the article appears to be based on news sources and it seems to me that the problematic edits are the ones which have been reverted – all of them apparently trying to whitewash the article subject. Johannnes89 (talk) 19:45, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
- @Catmanchung: I have posted a message on your talk page, as a reply to this thread and your email. h78c67c (talk) 20:28, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
- zh-yuewiki has many active admins, and is not a GS wiki; nothing for the stewards team to do here. — xaosflux Talk 14:10, 5 March 2026 (UTC)
This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. — xaosflux Talk 14:10, 5 March 2026 (UTC) New local inactivity policy for English Wikiquote
[edit](notification only) Hello. As of today, the English Wikiquote has developed a local inactivity policy per q:en:Wikiquote:Village pump#Create a local inactivity policy?. The policy states that administrators who are inactive for one year (i.e. no edits and no logged actions) will be listed under the removal section of q:en:Wikiquote:Requests for adminship, where inactive admins are given one week to respond if they wish to retain their rights, unless they specify otherwise. After one week passes and no response is received, a user will add a request for removal under SRP for the inactive administrator.
However, for the last sentence above, this could change eventually as I might start an English Wikiquote proposal to allow bureaucrats to remove administrator permissions locally.
On behalf of the English Wikiquote, Codename Noreste (talk • contribs) 16:08, 17 February 2026 (UTC)
- I updated the AAR set accordingly, see Special:Permalink/30093043. As for the latter point, even though it's not within the stewards' remit, allowing local bureaucrats to remove sysop flags is generally only granted to large communities and I don't think enwikiquote would be considered large enough per Limits to configuration changes. EPIC (talk) 16:27, 17 February 2026 (UTC)
- I did not realize that the English Wikiquote is considered a small wiki (despite having 15 local administrators). Thank you for explaining; I have crossed out (reconsidered) the last point accordingly. Codename Noreste (talk • contribs) 17:12, 17 February 2026 (UTC)
User:செல்வா would like to retain his permissions (re EPIC's message about inactivity)
[edit]--செல்வா (talk) 16:19, 3 March 2026 (UTC)
- @EPIC: FYI see above - and the request below, though I don't think we were asking people to post here? — xaosflux Talk 14:07, 5 March 2026 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux: The AAR notice does mention reaching out to us here at SN, so I suppose that's why these two users came here. Noting that I have acknowledged this for the record. EPIC (talk) 14:09, 5 March 2026 (UTC)
This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. — xaosflux Talk 14:07, 5 March 2026 (UTC) User:Joystick would like to retain his permissions (re EPIC's message about inactivity)
[edit]--Joystick (talk) 06:08, 5 March 2026 (UTC)
- EPIC, see above. (already pinged on other section). — xaosflux Talk 14:07, 5 March 2026 (UTC)
This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. — xaosflux Talk 14:07, 5 March 2026 (UTC) Statement on Meta about today's user script security incident
[edit]Earlier today (March 5, 2026), Wikimedia Foundation staff were conducting a security review of user-authored code across Wikimedia projects. During that review, we inadvertently activated dormant code that was then quickly identified to be malicious.
The code was active for a 23-minute period. This caused page deletions on Meta-Wiki that have since been restored. To prevent the script from spreading further while we investigated, Wikimedia projects were set to read-only for about 2 hours, and all user JavaScript was temporarily disabled for most of the day.
Affected pages have since been restored, and we believe no permanent damage has occurred as a result of this code. We have no reason to believe that Wikipedia was actively under attack or that personal information was breached as part of this incident.
At this point, the impact of the malicious code has been cleaned up, and user JavaScript has been re-enabled. We are actively developing further security mitigations for user JavaScript in consultation with the community, to make incidents of this kind much more difficult to happen in the future. EMill-WMF (talk) 00:38, 6 March 2026 (UTC)