Meta:Babel/Archives/2025-05 - Meta-Wiki
Jump to content
From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki
Meta:Babel
Archives
Latest comment:
10 months ago
by MediaWiki message delivery in topic
Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees 2025 Selection & Call for Questions
Please do not post any new comments on this page.
This is a discussion archive first created in May 2025, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See
current discussion
or the
archives index
No link for
Special Pages
Latest comment:
11 months ago
5 comments
3 people in discussion
In Meta now there is no link for
Special Pages
in side bar menu. Please add:
** specialpages-url|specialpages
to
Mediawiki:Sidebar
حبيشان
talk
20:41, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
حبيشان
, it's already added through
this edit
on 16 May 2025
--
Alaa
:)..!
20:50, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
علاء
Sorry I didn't expect it to be in the middle of the list.
حبيشان
talk
06:56, 24 May 2025 (UTC)
I see it under "navigation" on the sidebar. —
Justin (
ko
vf
08:09, 24 May 2025 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by:
--
Alaa
:)..!
10:14, 24 May 2025 (UTC)
Temporary Accounts: access to IP addresses and next steps
Latest comment:
11 months ago
1 comment
1 person in discussion
Hello! This is the
Trust and Safety Product
team.
In March, we proposed
who should see IP addresses when temporary accounts have been introduced. We were talking with about 20 large communities! Thanks for the conversations, and for your patience as we framed the responses. Now, we would like to address some recurring themes, clarify aspects which we didn't present plainly in our first message, and share what the next steps will be.
Outcome of the discussions we have had
Your comments helped us better understand risks and concerns around patrolling. These included: how you see a new burden on administrators, how you deal with patrolling old edits, how many (or few) people take part in patrolling on your wikis, and more. We are very grateful for these thoughts.
You also wrote many comments with general questions about temporary accounts. You were asking how they work, how to reveal IP addresses, whether the change is needed, etc. We are working on features for users with advanced rights like the
onboarding dialog
Special:GlobalContributions
Special:IPContributions
, global account blocks, mass-global account blocks, and more. This is all to help you combat abuse efficiently.
About the requirements for access – we have decided to go ahead with the idea of admins (and where needed, stewards) manually granting the right to view IPs to those who need it. (
T390942
) The options we can consider are limited. The basic
Access to Temporary Account IP Addresses Policy
must be one for all wikis, acceptable for global functionaries and various communities, and also from the perspective of editors in different countries and the legal risks. This is why we can't strictly follow local consensus or grant access to IP addresses too broadly. Later this year, we may revisit topics like requirements or exceptions to the policy. (You may create your local policies, though! – more about it below.)
We would like to remind you that the deployment across all wikis needs to happen this year. There will be two large phases of deployments – in June/July, and about 2–3 months later.
Recurring themes, our responses, and clarifications
For your convenience, we will also document some of these replies in
the project FAQ
Access to IP addresses
Separation of the new right
(checkuser-temporary-account) out to a new group (
Temporary account IP viewers
), as opposed to technically attaching it to any
existing group
(like patroller). We have decided to do this for a few reasons:
Having access to IP addresses carries risk
. This right is similar to checkuser. IP addresses are considered personally identifiable information (a kind of
personal data
). Outside actors who want to access IP addresses will now need to interact with users who have this right. Users with this right should be aware of this, and alert to the possibility of suspicious access requests.
Good practices for privacy protection
. Giving access to users who are trusted but do not need access to carry on their work is not in line with good practices for processing personal data.
Removal of right
. Access to IPs will be
logged
example
). If any misuse of this right is detected, it can be taken away separately from any other permissions the user may hold. It would be difficult and sometimes also unreasonable to remove the rights unrelated to access to IP addresses.
You may grant the new right to all users belonging to a certain existing group individually. These users must meet the criteria for Temporary account IP viewers, though.
For clarity – all this does not affect administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, stewards, and other groups mentioned in the
global policy
Activity requirement
. With regards to users who would need to be granted access manually, the policy says that they "must edit or take a logged action to the local project at least once within a 365-day period". This requirement is not changing.
Process of granting the right
Formality of granting the right
. There is no need for long discussions or votes like Request for Adminship. It does suffice if a single admin makes a decision using their own judgement.
Additional requirements for the users applying for the right
You have autonomy over the process for granting the right. You can adopt thresholds higher than 300 edits, or disallow the "non-admin+" users to have the right. The granting process can be as basic or elaborate as you deem appropriate.
It wasn't clear which criteria admins should take when deciding whether to grant the right – how to tell whether a user needs access to IP addresses. There are no mandatory requirements beyond a minimum of 300 edits and a 6 month old account. You may introduce additional criteria related to trust to the user (such as no prior blocks or copyright violations) or experience in patrolling activities.
Additional burden on administrators
. We understand the toil of having to grant and remove an additional right. This is indeed a downside. We think that it will only have to be a one-time effort to grant this right to a larger number of people. We are curious if you can find ways to limit this burden.
How patrolling works with temporary accounts enabled
"Retro-patrolling" and 90 days
. In a few wikis, community members wrote that "retro-patrolling" (patrolling old edits) may be an issue with a 90-day limit to temporary accounts IPs. In our understanding (this is consulted with the stewards), in typical situations, 90 days after the edit, the main challenge is the cleanup work, and not necessarily the need to connect the identity of abusers. But we understand that there may be different situations on different wikis, and some vandals are creative. In any case, the 90-day limit doesn't apply to behavioral evidence or patterns of editing – these will continue to be visible. The number itself may be changed, and we will be paying attention to your thoughts and evidence of more difficult investigation. It is important to note that for instances of proven long-term abuse behaviors,
we can publicly document the IP address
for patrolling needs.
Account creation limit ("rate limit").
Only six temporary accounts can be created from one IP within 24 hours. This limit is intended to prevent a vandal from creating a lot of accounts in a short time. The limit is the same for registered account creations. It is not a perfect measure, but it is similar to an older mechanism we are all familiar with, and does define a basic level of protection.
Next steps on your side we would like to suggest
We are encouraging you to
start granting the right before temporary accounts are launched
so that you are prepared when the time comes.
We are encouraging you to consider
adopting a policy
on granting and removing the right, if you think you need to add anything to the global policy.
We would like to show you what level of wiki-bureaucracy seems sufficient from our point of view.
In the sandbox
, we have created a draft of what a page with requests for the flag could look like. Of course the final content of the page will depend on your community. We do not want to imply that we are instructing you on this matter.
Keep in touch
As always, if you'd like to learn more about the project, read the
Diff post
, visit
our project page
and the
FAQ
Subscribe to the newsletter
to stay in touch. If you are interested in the pilot deployments satisfaction survey,
take a look at the results
. Thanks!
NKohli (WMF)
and
SGrabarczuk (WMF)
talk
21:23, 5 May 2025 (UTC)
Ready for translation: Education Newsletter April 2025
Latest comment:
11 months ago
1 comment
1 person in discussion
April 2025 education newsletter released for translation. Please help our readers to read education newsletter in their native language. The latest education newsletter is ready for translation:
here
Newsletter headlines link for translation:
here
, to read individual articles check out:
Category:Education/Newsletter/April 2025
. Regards,
ZI Jony
(Talk)
02:49, 10 May 2025 (UTC)
Concerns Regarding Cross-Wiki Conduct and Tone by Administrator
Bedivere
Latest comment:
11 months ago
1 comment
1 person in discussion
Hello community, this is to notify that there is a request for comment that some users might be affected. You can join the discussion
here
Please do not reply to this message.
08:57, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
Call for Candidates for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C)
Latest comment:
11 months ago
1 comment
1 person in discussion
The results of voting on the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) Charter is
available on Meta-wiki
You may now
submit your candidacy to serve on the U4C
through 29 May 2025 at 12:00 UTC. Information about
eligibility, process, and the timeline are on Meta-wiki
. Voting on candidates will open on 1 June 2025 and run for two weeks, closing on 15 June 2025 at 12:00 UTC.
If you have any questions, you can ask on
the discussion page for the election
. -- in cooperation with the U4C,
Keegan (WMF)
talk
22:06, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
Should TM: be a alias for template namespace in Meta wiki?
Latest comment:
11 months ago
3 comments
3 people in discussion
I think that the TM alias will be useful here as well, got the inspiration from
phab:T363757
. Thoughts?
~/Bunny
pranav
:<
ping
08:37, 7 May 2025 (UTC)
No thanks. "Template" works just fine. —
xaosflux
Talk
19:20, 7 May 2025 (UTC)
Most users would likely think it meant trademark, so template seems to work better with the amount of people who use the wiki.
Bpdobo
talk
14:47, 20 May 2025 (UTC)
issue with Persian font
Latest comment:
10 months ago
1 comment
1 person in discussion
Hello,
I wanted to ask if it's possible to add
Vazir font
face to commons so we can use it in Persian writing.
fawiki is using it. and there is problem in meta for default farsi writing font.
somting like
this
css code, and
this template
can be perfect. or maybe other solutions?
WASP-Outis
talk
22:05, 24 May 2025 (UTC)
Ready for translation: Education Newsletter May 2025
Latest comment:
10 months ago
1 comment
1 person in discussion
May 2025 education newsletter released for translation. Please help our readers to read education newsletter in their native language. The latest education newsletter is ready for translation:
here
Newsletter headlines link for translation:
here
, to read individual articles check out:
Category:Education/Newsletter/May 2025
. Regards,
ZI Jony
(Talk)
02:54, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees 2025 Selection & Call for Questions
Latest comment:
10 months ago
1 comment
1 person in discussion
More languages
Please help translate to your language
Dear all,
This year, the term of 2 (two) Community- and Affiliate-selected Trustees on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees will come to an end [1]. The Board invites the whole movement to participate in this year’s selection process and vote to fill those seats.
The Elections Committee will oversee this process with support from Foundation staff [2]. The Governance Committee, composed of trustees who are not candidates in the 2025 community-and-affiliate-selected trustee selection process (Raju Narisetti, Shani Evenstein Sigalov, Lorenzo Losa, Kathy Collins, Victoria Doronina and Esra’a Al Shafei) [3], is tasked with providing Board oversight for the 2025 trustee selection process and for keeping the Board informed. More details on the roles of the Elections Committee, Board, and staff are here [4].
Here are the key planned dates:
May 22 – June 5: Announcement (this communication) and call for questions period [6]
June 17 – July 1, 2025: Call for candidates
July 2025: If needed, affiliates vote to shortlist candidates if more than 10 apply [5]
August 2025: Campaign period
August – September 2025: Two-week community voting period
October – November 2025: Background check of selected candidates
Board’s Meeting in December 2025: New trustees seated
Learn more about the 2025 selection process - including the detailed timeline, the candidacy process, the campaign rules, and the voter eligibility criteria - on this Meta-wiki page
[link]
Call for Questions
In each selection process, the community has the opportunity to submit questions for the Board of Trustees candidates to answer. The Election Committee selects questions from the list developed by the community for the candidates to answer. Candidates must answer all the required questions in the application in order to be eligible; otherwise their application will be disqualified. This year, the Election Committee will select 5 questions for the candidates to answer. The selected questions may be a combination of what’s been submitted from the community, if they’re alike or related.
[link]
Election Volunteers
Another way to be involved with the 2025 selection process is to be an Election Volunteer. Election Volunteers are a bridge between the Elections Committee and their respective community. They help ensure their community is represented and mobilize them to vote. Learn more about the program and how to join on this Meta-wiki page
[link].
Thank you!
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
Best regards,
Victoria Doronina
Board Liaison to the Elections Committee
Governance Committee
MediaWiki message delivery
talk
03:07, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
Retrieved from "
Category
Talk archives
Meta
Babel/Archives/2025-05
Add topic
US