User talk:The Earwig
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Administrators' newsletter – September 2026
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2026).
Administrator changes
Oversight changes
Guideline and policy news
- Speedy deletion criteria G15 has been renamed from "LLM-generated pages without human review" to "Unambiguously LLM-generated pages" and has an additional sign of detection added to it following a RfC.
Miscellaneous
- The September 2026 New Pages Patrol backlog drive is ongoing. Help tackle the 30,000+ article backlog!
- This week's article for improvement will be added to the Main Page to try converting readers into editors following a RfC.
Copyvios tool
[edit]Hi The Earwig,
I have been using your Copyvios tool for NPP for quite some time now. After a bit of a hiatus, I'm back to doing NPP. I noticed that in older versions of your Copyvios tool you had a method to access EranBot (Turnitin/Ithenticate) but that has since been removed. Was there something that I missed? Thank you so much for the work that you do! — 3PPYB6 (T / C / L) — 17:15, 15 September 2026 (UTC)
- Hi 3PPYB6. Simply put, the old method we used to interact with EranBot stopped working. I don't remember the specifics well, but I think Turnitin itself changed how we get results from them. The new method used by the current version of CopyPatrol works, but no one has integrated it with the Copyvios tool yet. Hopefully some day, but there are no specific plans currently. Thanks! — The Earwig (talk) 22:41, 20 September 2026 (UTC)
The Signpost: 16 September 2026
[edit]- News and notes: The Balance of Power
Wikimedia employees unionize, officer departs, The Signpost gains sister on Wiktionary
- In the media: Shocking photos may be changed on Wikipedia
The image gallery anyone can edit.
- Disinformation report: Have UN Secretary-General candidates manipulated Wikipedia?
Speaking diplomatically, not all of them.
- Recent research: Google's AI overviews may have reduced search engine referrals to English Wikipedia by 5%
And other research findings.
- WikiConference report: The backwater symbiosis – reflections from Wiki Conference India 2026
The fourth iteration of Wiki Conference India.
- Traffic report: Heaven let your light shine down
The recently deceased dominate while still leaving room for some entertainment.
- Serendipity: Wikipedia Family Mosh Pit
A poem by Mollystarkdean.
- Obituary: Passing of Gobonobo, community leader advocating for women and minorities
Promoter of cultural knowledge and organizer of global cooperation.
- On the bright side: Fantasy video games, hopeful science fiction, and the change of seasons
The Legend of Zelda, Star Trek, and Vivaldi's The Four Seasons.
- Comix: The Adventure of the Unknown Corpse
An elementary case for fiction's greatest detective.
Lowercase sigmabot down?
[edit]Hi, hope all's well. I think the bot is down, could you give it a poke? Thanks, ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:00, 24 September 2026 (UTC)
- Hi, thanks. I've kicked it, and it's running now. — The Earwig (talk) 23:32, 24 September 2026 (UTC)
Pywikibot will drop support for Python 3.9
[edit]Hi The Earwig,
I would like to inform you that the next major release, Pywikibot 12, will drop support for Python 3.9. Python 3.9 will remain supported in Pywikibot 11.X. Development of Pywikibot 12 is scheduled to start in late October or early November, and the stable release will be published no earlier than one month later. If there are any reasons to postpone this schedule, please bring them up at phab:T423572.
Administrators' newsletter – October 2026
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2026).
Administrator changes
Oversight changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, the good article criteria have been amended to add accessibility requirements.
- Following an RfC, late signatures added to administrator recall petitions after 720 hours from opening are reverted or struck and do not count towards the threshold, even if the petition has not yet been formally closed.
- The post-May 2026 administrator elections RfCs concluded with consensus for election monitors to curate blatantly inappropriate questions after posting, and to remove or merge true duplicates, clearly marking merged questions. Calls for candidates will include advisory guidance that users with less than one year’s experience or 5,000 edits generally lack a realistic chance of success.
Technical news
- Interface administrators no longer need to specify the
ResourceLoaderoption in the definitions for gadgets on MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition as gadgets are always loaded throughResourceLoader. (T298199) - The
list=abusefiltersAPI module now supportsformatversion=2and includes breaking changes to its responses. In particular, theactionsproperty is now a JSON array rather than a string, regardless of the format version. Maintainers of user scripts and other code using this module should check compatibility and update their code as needed. (T435828)
Arbitration
- The arbitration case Gun control 2 has been closed.
Obituaries
- Doug Weller passed away on 30 September 2026. Doug Weller began editing Wikipedia in 2006 and became an administrator in 2008, making nearly 275,000 edits over two decades. He served on the Arbitration Committee from 2015 through 2018 and was also a longtime CheckUser and Oversighter.
Miscellaneous
- The October 2026 administrator elections are scheduled to run from September 29 to October 19. The call for candidates ends October 5.
- Self-nominations for the electoral commission for the 2026 Arbitration Committee elections is opened and closes on 8 October.
- The Good Article Nominations backlog drive has begun and is scheduled to end on November 3.
The Signpost: 13 October 2026
[edit]- News and notes: AELECT returns, Jimbo gives a union update, VisualEditor is now default
Plus a survey for North Americans, proposed changes to BoT elections, and developments in the Puerto Rican editing community.
- Serendipity: From a rare portrait of a female millionaire in Nancy to a Japanese painter in Lyon
Images from Leuven Libraries popular on Wiki.
- Obituary: Doug Weller
Twenty-year editor, long-term admin, dearly missed.
- In the media: A(I)pocalypses afoot
Cannibals, freeloaders, rogue agents, scams ... the usual.
- WikiConference Report: WikiConference 2026 & the importance of in-person community
Celebrating 12 years of WikiConference North America.
- By the numbers: Does the country of birth affect the likelihood of having a Wikipedia biography?
A cross-country and cross-wikipedia comparison of the likelihood of having a biography in Wikipedia.
- News from Diff: OpenAI "rogue" agent activities found on Wikimedia projects
CPO/CTO Selena Deckelmann explains the recent detection of AI agent activities on Wikimedia projects.
- On the bright side: Good people
Nice comments and real-life rescuers.
- Op-ed: Who are our readers?
The movement makes progress when we know what our scope is.
- Traffic report: This world is big and wild and half insane
Criminals, 9/11 25 years later, artists expelled for politics... we lived in troubled times.
- Comix: Fudging the numbers
Take 'em away, officers!
New cross-language page link: Seashore earwig
[edit]A new page Anisolabis littorea on the Afrikaans Wikipedia has been linked to the page Seashore earwig, which you created, via Wikidata (Q7441821).
You will not be notified about future links to pages you created. To opt in to these notifications, follow the opt-in instructions.
EarwigBot: Update Articles for Creation templates and categories failure
[edit]EarwigBot's task "Update Articles for Creation templates and categories" failed to run per the configuration specified at Wikipedia:Bot activity monitor/Configurations. Detected only 0 edits in the last 2 days, whereas at least 1 was expected. If/when the issue is fixed, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. When that is done, this notice will be reposted if the bot task is still broken or is re-broken. If your bot is behaving as expected, then you may want to modify the task configuration instead. Or to unsubscribe from bot failure notifications, remove the |notify= parameter from the {{/task}} template. Thanks! – SDZeroBot (talk) 23:20, 22 October 2026 (UTC)
Phrases unavailable for translation
[edit]Hi, translations for the following strings from the copyvios.toolforge.org tool are not available on translatewiki.net:
- Updated background, site.
- Are you sure you want to log out?
The Signpost: 1 November 2026
[edit]- News and notes: AELECT5 concludes, a Wikimedian arrested for treason, and updates to GANs and FARs
Nine new admins, three arrests, and a lot of GAN RFCs.
- Recent research: How Wikipedians use (or don't use) LLMs; experienced editors contribute more to "underproduced" articles than newbies
And other new research findings.
- Disinformation report: Better bots or bothersome baby borgs?
Have the Borg landed on Wikipedia?
- In the media: Stop the internet, I was deleted
Can toeing the line stop the apocalypse?
- News from Diff: Why Wikimedia Is Speaking Up in a Major AI Copyright Case
When AI companies use copyrighted information, does it qualify as fair use?
- By the numbers: Wikipedian Nobel Prize 2026
Which language versions of Wikipedia had biographies of laureates before Nobel announcements?
- On the bright side: Gone fishing
Touring Thailand, exploring iridescence, and translating prairie dog.
- Traffic report: October, and the articles are stripped bare
Lots of deaths, Indian movies, and monsters. Happy Halloween!
- In focus: Two Roles, One Wikimedia Education Ecosystem
What happens when different approaches to Wikimedia education connect?
- Comix: Inactivity
Zounds!
Administrators' newsletter – November 2026
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2026).
Administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, election to ArbCom now requires at least 60% support. Successful candidates normally serve two-year terms, with one-year terms retained for filling vacancies. Proposals to change the election rules may now be added throughout the year and discussed on the talk page; formal discussion remains in September.
- Following an RfC, first-time reviewers’ reviews require an experienced reviewer’s check, and GA requirements now include alt text and accessible tables. Featured articles may receive GA status during removal discussions if they meet GA criteria. Backlog drives will run every five months, with a points leaderboard and awards for the top five participants.
Miscellaneous
- Self-nominations for the Arbitration Committee are open until 11 November 2026.
- Ongoing backlog drives: Copy editing, Unreference articles
