Status update, 3/14/26

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If you're wondering where I've been, I'm still around. I still check Wikipedia regularly and occasionally do a bit of editing and admin tasks. I miss being here and hope to come back more regularly in the near future.

I was fortunate enough to become a father of twins last year, and taking care of all of my kids when I'm not working has sapped pretty much all of my available time. Still, I hope that I'll be able to commit more time to Wikipedia again very soon. There's still so many articles I want to write and so much to do.

In the meantime, I'm still reachable on my talk page or via email, and I'll continue to edit a bit when I have time until I can be back more regularly. Red Phoenix talk 18:09, 14 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Administrators' newsletter – April 2026

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2026).

Administrator changes

added
removed

Checkuser changes

removed Giraffer

Oversight changes

added Kj cheetham
removed Giraffer

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

  • Following a motion, the GSCASTE extended-confirmed restriction in the Indian military history case has been narrowed. It now applies to caste-related topics in South Asia, and the preemptive protection remedy has been amended accordingly.
  • The arbitration case Pbsouthwood has been closed.
  • The arbitration case Maghreb has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case will close on 7 April.

Wikipedia:Destubathon of the Americas

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You are invited to participate in the Destubathon of the Americas, a contest/editathon which will run from May 1 to May 31. The goal is to destub as many of our 475,000+ stubs for the Americas (from Alaska down to Chile) as possible. A good chance to have fun in expanding many of our old stale stubs and win up to £2000 ($2680) in Amazon vouchers for expanding stub articles. Sign up in the Contestants/participants section on the contest page if interested. Even if not interested in prizes you are still warmly welcome to participate in it as an editathon! Hopefully we can achieve something significant in the month of May together! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:28, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

New pages patrol May 2026 Backlog drive

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May 2026 Backlog Drive | New pages patrol
  • On 1 May 2026, a one-month backlog drive for New Page Patrol will begin.
  • Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles patrolled.
  • Barnstars will also be granted for re-reviewing articles previously reviewed by other patrollers during the drive.
  • Each review will earn 1 point.
  • Interested in taking part? Sign up here.
You're receiving this message because you are a new page patroller. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:24, 29 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

WikiCup 2026 May newsletter

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The second round of the 2026 WikiCup ended on 28 April. As a reminder for contestants who just joined or are unaware of recent changes to our round-points system, good article nomination reviews now receive 10 points, an increase from 5 points in the previous year, as per a consensus at WT:CUP. Peer reviews, which continue to be worth 5 points, are now listed in the same section as featured article candidate reviews, rather than with good article reviews. Everyone who competed in round 2 will advance to round 3 unless they have withdrawn or been banned. No other changes to the round-point system have been made for this year.

Round 2 was competitive. Three contestants scored more than 1,000 round points; nine scored over 500; and fourteen scored over 300. The top seven contestants had at least one featured article (two of them with two apiece). The following competitors scored more than 800 round points:

The full scores for round 2 can be seen here. During this round, contestants have claimed 12 featured articles, 13 featured lists, 2 featured-topic articles, 106 good articles, 22 good-topic articles and more than 40 Did You Know articles. In addition, competitors have worked on 3 In the News articles, and they have conducted over 200 reviews. The tournament points table has been updated.

Remember that any content promoted after 28 April but before the start of Round 3 can be claimed in Round 3. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, feel free to review one of the nominations listed on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:49, 29 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Administrators' newsletter – May 2026

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2026).

Administrator changes

readded
removed

Interface administrator changes

removed L235
added Chaotic Enby

CheckUser changes

removed

Oversight changes

removed Moneytrees

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • Changes to user permissions made from Meta are now included in the local user permissions log (T6055).
  • The autoconfirmed user group will soon be modified such that the four-day account age requirement begins when an account makes its first edit (T418484).

Arbitration

  • The arbitration case SchroCat has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case closed on 15 April.
  • Per a recent motion, appeals of blocks from the conflict-of-interest VRT queue are, by default, appealed on-wiki through the normal unblock process. However, they may be heard by the Committee if COIVRTers disagree on the interpretation of the evidence or believe ArbCom would be better suited to hear the appeal. Administrators are also advised that loosening or lifting such blocks without the consent of someone with access to the queue or ArbCom can be grounds for desysopping.
  • Per a recent motion, restrictions issued directly by the Committee may now be enforced with blocks which work exactly like contentious topic blocks.
  • The arbitration case Maghreb has been closed.

Miscellaneous


New Page Patrol Newsletter - May 2026

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Hello Red Phoenix,

New Page Review queue November 2025 - May 2026

Backlog update

At the time of this message, there are 15,282 articles and 32,951 redirects awaiting review.

After the January–February drive the article backlog was reduced to 15,179 articles and the redirect backlog to 19,053 respectively. Great job! However, both queues are growing rapidly and any additional reviews are highly appreciated.

2024 and 2025 NPP Awards

JTtheOG was selected as the NPP reviewer of the year for both 2024 and 2025, for reviewing the most articles amongst all reviewers.

Hey man im josh and MPGuy2824 won the Redirect Ninja Master Award for 2024 and 2025 respectively, for reviewing the most redirects.

Overall in 2024, one Platinum, two Gold, eight Silver, 12 Bronze and 45 Iron Barnstars were awarded. Additionally, 66 reviewers got the NPP barnstar for doing more than 100 reviews through the year. In 2025, one Platinum, ten Silver, 13 Bronze and 38 Iron Barnstars were awarded. Additionally, 38 reviewers got the NPP barnstar for doing more than 100 reviews through the year.

BoyTheKingCanDance, Rosiestep, SunDawn, and Vanderwaalforces were inducted into the NPP Hall of Fame for having two separate years of 2,000+ article reviews.

January–February backlog drive

The experimental two-month long backlog drive concluded with 183 reviewers patrolling over 27,761 articles and 35,309 redirects, earning over 36,836 points. Congratulations to JTtheOG, who achieved first place with 6,484.6 points in this drive.

May backlog drive

An article-only backlog drive is currently underway. We are hoping to make a big dent in the backlog. You can read more about it or join at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog drives/May 2026.

PageTriage

An attempt was made to get the New Pages Feed to sort by date marked as reviewed instead of date created. However we had to revert it due to bugs. We may try again in the future. You can subscribe to the Phabricator ticket if you're interested in following along.

Reminders:

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:38, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Administrators' newsletter – June 2026

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2026).

Administrator changes

added
readded
removed

Bureaucrat changes

removed

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • Mandatory 2FA for bureaucrats: Bureaucrats without two-factor authentication (2FA) enabled have already lost access to their advanced rights on 26 May. Those who do not enable 2FA may be automatically removed from the groups in mid-June 2026, and from that point onward, new members must have 2FA enabled before they can be added. (T423119, T423120)

Arbitration

  • The arbitration case SchroCat has been closed.
  • The arbitration case Michael Jackson has opened. Evidence submissions in this case closes on 1 June.

Miscellaneous


WikiCup 2026 July newsletter

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The third round of the 2026 WikiCup ended on 28 June at 23:59 (UTC). As a reminder, good article nomination reviews now receive 10 points, while peer reviews, which continue to be worth 5 points, are now listed in the same section as featured article candidate reviews, rather than with good article reviews. Everyone who competed in round 3 will advance to round 4 unless they have withdrawn or been banned. No other changes to the round-point system have been made for this year.

Round 3 was competitive. Three contestants scored more than 1,000 round points; eight scored over 500; and thirteen scored over 300. The top three contestants had at least one featured article (two of them with two apiece). The following competitors scored more than 800 round points:

  • MCE89 (submissions) with 1567 points, mainly from good and featured articles about Australian people and geography, as well as some article reviews
  • Ohio Bgsu98 (submissions) with 1547 points, mainly from good articles, featured articles, featured lists, and a good topic about figure skating, along with 20 article reviews
  • Reconrabbit (submissions) with 1004 points, mainly from a high-multiplier featured article on European rabbit and several good articles, DYKs, and reviews
  • A.Cython (submissions) with 1004 points, mainly from good articles about warfare, along with 22 article reviews
  • Generalissima (submissions) with 859 points, mainly from good and featured articles about rivers and East Asian topics

The full scores for round 3 can be seen here. During this round, contestants have claimed 12 featured articles, 12 featured lists, 7 featured-topic articles, 117 good articles, 74 good-topic articles and more than 30 Did You Know articles. In addition, competitors have worked on 13 In the News articles, and they have conducted nearly 180 reviews. The tournament points table has been updated.

Remember that any content promoted after 28 June but before the start of Round 4 can be claimed in Round 4. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, feel free to review one of the nominations listed on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:49, 29 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Administrators' newsletter – July 2026

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2026).

Administrator changes

added
removed

CheckUser changes

readded
removed

Oversight changes

readded
removed L235

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous


Articles for Creation backlog drive

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Hello Red Phoenix:

WikiProject Articles for creation is holding a month long Backlog Drive in August!
The goal of this drive is to reduce the backlog of unreviewed drafts to less than a month of outstanding reviews from the current 3+ months. Bonus points will be given for reviewing drafts that have been waiting more than 30 days. The drive is running from 1 August 2026 through 31 August 2026.

You may find Category:AfC pending submissions by age or other categories and sorting helpful.

Barnstars will be given out as awards at the end of the drive.
There is a backlog of over 5000 pages, so start reviewing drafts. We're looking forward to your help! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:38, 19 July 2026 (UTC)Reply