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It is 03:07:12 on January 6, 2025, according to the server's time and date.

Rename and lock of an impostor account

Hi Bureaucrats. I've just had the former user Homeontherange get in touch by email. It seems that some years after he took up his right to vanish, an impostor registered a new account with the same name. This was quickly noticed and blocked, but the impostor's edits remain visible as contributions for "Homeontherange". He asks if the impostor account could be renamed to something else and the name "Homeontherange" permanently locked. This seems reasonable to me. Could you make that happen?  — Scott • talk 18:49, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm fine renaming it as disruptively registered, not quite so clear on the best way to lock it from further registration without just re-registering it and leaving it dormant. Pinging some stewardy types @Ajraddatz, MBisanz, and Avraham:. –xeno^talk 19:00, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

It's locked right now, but I can understand the user's concern with his former name being a vandalism-only account. We could rename the account, and add the username to the global title blacklist (as an exact case) to prevent anyone else from taking it. Ajraddatz (talk) 19:11, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds like a plan. –xeno^talk 19:41, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

If no else objects, I'll go ahead and start the rename, but ACC and the global renamers should be informed of the locked username, so other users with abilities to override the blacklist don't inadvertently create it when asked to.—^cyberpower_{Chat:Limited Access} 19:47, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

And  Done—^cyberpower_{Chat:Limited Access} 19:54, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

It should be forcibly registered and blocked with no history. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 20:05, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

I've added the username to the title blacklist. An error message will pop up when attempting to create the name or rename a user to that, which should be sufficient. If people think that creating the account and blocking it would be good (personally I don't see much of a difference to what is there now), then a sysop can override the blacklist. Ajraddatz (talk) 20:17, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks very much all for your swift assistance.  — Scott • talk 20:57, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

It should be noted that any user such as myself can override the blacklist, so I'll drop a note on the ACC list and the global renamers list to be sure.—^cyberpower_{Chat:Limited Access} 02:08, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Just a note for anyone interested: the title blacklist apparently doesn't block renaming to a blacklisted name. Second time yesterday that I assumed extensions actually worked the way they were supposed to! Anyway, I've created and locked the username, so that will have the same effect. Ajraddatz (talk) 16:50, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Good work. -- Avi (talk) 20:57, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to ask for cases of users wishing to unvanish and the name is taken. How would proceed for accounts such as this one, simply rename the locked account and give the user their own account back? What about cases where another user registers the username after the vanish?—^cyberpower_Chat:Online 19:42, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

I've long said that, as part of vanishing, the former account name should be forcibly recreated (void of editing history), locked (not blocked), FPP'ed, and scrambled. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 20:06, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps, but depending on how active the vanished user was (some users who request to vanish have only have a handful of edits, for example), this would be denying a potentially desirable name to a future editor. –xeno^talk 21:20, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

If the user vanished, and a good faith user started using their username, then they would have to unvanish to some other username. –xeno^talk 21:21, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

As per the right to vanish, is it possible to suppress the log entry that now appears at User:Homeontherange as well as the log entries at User talk:Homeontherange? As there is no user page or user talk page the log entries appear instead and that works at cross-purposes with vanishing. If it's not possible to suppress or otherwise make invisible the log entries could someone, as a courtesy, create blank pages at User:Homeontherange and User talk:Homeontherange so at least the log entries aren't immediately visible to casual users? 76.65.207.36 (talk) 16:07, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

I've created blank pages. –xeno^talk 17:06, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

@Xeno: A better way to create blank pages is this. The page was created with the text {{subst:void}}. See, the byte count is zero. 103.6.159.76 (talk) 11:55, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Interesting. I'll remember that for next time. –xeno^talk 12:18, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Voluntary Desysop request

My time for wikipedia editing has diminished significantly in the few past months and is unlikely to increase in the short term. For these reasons I'm requesting that my access to administrative tools be removed. When and if I return I may request resysoping as per site policy--Cailil ^talk 20:59, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

 Done; thanks for your service. –xeno^talk 21:08, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

TY--Cailil ^talk 21:12, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed

FYI when admins have the bit removed they should be added to the extended confirmed group; the system will only promote once, so if somebody is automatically promoted, becomes an admin, and the is desysoped they won't get the extended confirmed right back. This won't be an issue for a while, since most admins who will be desysoped anytime soon were admins before the autopromote thing (so MediaWiki will have no problem autopromoting them). It's probably not a bad habit to get into now, though, and it causes less entries in the user rights log :) Kharkiv07 (T) 01:56, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Or may be just all admins should be added to the group.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:23, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Current admins that stop being admins will get this automatically on their next edit - this is a very edge case and is only needed if this is manually removed from someone when they become an admin - the best course of action is probally: don't do anything (i.e. when adding +sysop, leave +ec along). — xaosflux ^Talk 19:09, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

That's what I was getting at, just working under the assumption that they'd have that removed when they got the bit, though your way is probably better :) Kharkiv07 (T) 13:06, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

We can leave it in place, but there's no guarantee another admin won't remove it citing redundancy. And the fact is, there are really not that many articles with this protection in place: unless the user edits one of those areas, they may never need the userright. –xeno^talk 13:11, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Bot flag for User:JarBot

Hello 'crats, would you please add +bot for JarBot (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · ev · fm · mms · npr · pm · pc · rb · te)} per Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/JarBot. For WP:BAG, — xaosflux ^Talk 23:21, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

 Done Acalamari 23:29, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

• I was mulling this one over last night. Meant to post but sleep came first. Is there wide consensus to always have the portal link? The scope of this bot covers an awful lot of main space and after the "Research" outcry, a little re-assurance would be appreciated. –xeno^talk 08:50, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
  • I don't know of such a consensus on enwiki. I personally dislike these links, they belong on the talk page, not on the article, as they have no information related to the article except in a very loose sense (linking every school to portal:schools is way more remote than what we have otherwise in "see also" and the like). Many portals are not really maintained or checked either (though we also have good ones). Fram (talk) 09:01, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
    • Such is my concern. And the operator (good faith thru-and-thru, mind you) has English as a second language and the only guidance they've been given regarding consensus is to check with the WikiProject that oversees the portal (which will likely have a bias in favour of adding it). @Xaosflux: thoughts? Can we tighten the consensus requirements here? –xeno^talk 09:36, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
      • @The Earwig: was the BAG approver on this request, I just was clerking this one to here. Earwig, comment please? — xaosflux ^Talk 11:15, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
      • @Xeno: I'm 100% in support of adding a requirement that all mass {{portal}} addition jobs demonstrate that they have support of a project/portal maintainers - etc prior to running - does this satisfy your concern? — xaosflux ^Talk 11:59, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

        Yes, that would probably work. –xeno^talk 13:15, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

        • As for as the general {{portal}} adding task; article usage of the portal template does appear to have widespread project acceptance in general, though exactly where on the page it belongs (in see-also, included in a navbox, etc) is not very consistent. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:15, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

• From what I've read out of the request - this operators primary request was to be able to use highapi to read enwiki with the bot , this portal processing seemed to be an excuse. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:15, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

  Yes, I noticed that as well. We probably could have just given him the bot flag as "read-only" if that's all they needed. –xeno^talk 13:15, 11 April 2016 (UTC)