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Regarding this script-aided edit

Regarding the creation of a user page 'this is a sock master' at User:AK at Aquila Polonica Publishing‎, have you seen the unblock request at User_talk:AK_at_Aquila_Polonica_Publishing#Blocked_for_sockpuppetry and the accompanying one at User talk:Tataqp? See also my discussion with the blocking admin linked there; they have no objection to the unblock. I think it is a likely misunderstanding that the two new editors have already explained. Per WP:AGF/WP:BITE and such, I think the friendlier course of action would be to unblock them (and see what happens, if there is more tag-teaming, CU can be revisited). On a side note, marking that account as a sock master is not only counterproductive (uglifying a new editor's user page with an erroneous claim) - also that account will get auto-unblocked in few days so what's the point of the template if they can presumably remove it themselves? And if this is indeed a misunderstanding (per AGF I see no reason to assume it is not), it would mean that the CU block, while initially justified, in the light of the explanation provided, was in fact incorrect, so that template will probably need to be deleted/oversighted... Anyway, since their unblock request is already 2d old, may I kindly ask you to consider it instead of just templating their userpage? Unless there is new evidence suggesting that we are being played for fools here? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:51, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Piotrus, Thanks for your note. To be honest, while I acknowledge that paid advocacy editing is allowed if the rules are followed, I personally find it abhorrent and antithetical to what Misplaced Pages is all about. Like GeneralNotability, I have no objection if another admin wants to take action here, but I'm not going to bend over backwards to accommodate paid editors who claim they didn't understand the rules. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:57, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

RoySmith, As the author of WP:CORPSPAM, I have little sympathy for PAID editors either. And I would hardly be spending my time trying to help those editors if I thought their purpose here was related to COI. But each of those accounts made only a single edit to a different article related to the books their company publishes: , , and the edits themselves do not strike me as overly promotional, although I'd fully support cautioning those accounts to follow best practices, such as that they should propose such changes on the talk pages of the articles where COI is involved rather than carry them out themselves In fact, I'd be happy to put actions behind my words and try my hand at coaching them and offer WP:MENTORSHIP to both accounts if they are unblocked and coach them on how to avoid COI in their edits (which is not hard, really - all that needs to happen is to convince them not to edit the articles about their company and books, and see if they stick around and edit other stuff or not - this will also show us if they want to build an encyclopedia or promote stuff). And if I am wrong and they move on to making over-the-top COI edits, I have no problem with reverting them myself, and reporting them to COIN or elsewhere if necessary. Over the years I have mentored hundreds of students, this shouldn't be that different. What do you think? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:17, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Piotrus, Personally, I think you're nuts for investing this much effort in this, but that's your choice. I do however see that I made a mistake applying the tag. I was puzzled by your "auto-unblocked" comment. I now see that you were referring to the fact that they were not indef blocked, which I missed originally. I've deleted the tag, which backs out my total involvement with this. I'll leave it to you and GeneralNotability to figure out the blocking aspects. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:39, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

RoySmith, I guess I am in the mood for helping, even if it may be a lost cause - not that I think CoI is an issue, but probably I am putting much more effort into helping new editors who, statistically, are not going to be very active. But I see potential here - association with a publisher means, for example, they have access to photos, maps, or diagrams, not to mention book covers, they could relicense under a free license and that would enhance a number of articles. I'd like to convince them to adopt CC license for such media. Alas, this requires some goodwill and we are hardly building this with them given how we are treating them (and now ignoring their appeal). We talk a lot about the need to recruit new editors, problems with retention - and when push comes to shove, what I am seeing is, well, BITE everwhere :( Let me help here. I'll also ping GeneralNotability as you did, given that next to nobody seems interested in helping out here. I hope that my offer of mentorship for those accounts would resolve any lingering concerns? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:31, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-14

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• Editors can collapse part of an article so you have to click on it to see it. When you click a link to a section inside collapsed content it will now expand to show the section. The browser will scroll down to the section. Previously such links didn't work unless you manually expanded the content first.

Changes later this week

• The citoid API will use for example 2010-12-XX instead of 2010-12 for dates with a month but no days. This is because 2010-12 could be confused with 2010-2012 instead of December 2010. This is called level 1 instead of level 0 in the Extended Date/Time Format.
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 April. It will be on non-Misplaced Pages wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 April. It will be on all wikis from 8 April (calendar).

Future changes

• PAWS can now connect to the new Wiki Replicas. Cross-database JOINS will no longer work from 28 April. There is a new way to connect to the databases. Until 28 April both ways to connect to the databases will work. If you think this affects you and you need help you can post on Phabricator or on Wikitech.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

19:39, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Sockpuppet question

At NPP I noticed a new page was created by a user. A page with a very similar title had been deleted for sockpuppetry concerns, which I discovered when I went to link it with a different language, the creator of the page is a relatively new account which has edited a number of pages the socked user edited per the User Interaction Tool. Is this enough evidence to open a sockpuppet investigation? Thanks in advance. SportingFlyer T·C 14:21, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

SportingFlyer, Sounds like it to me. I suggest when you open the SPI, you fill in a few more details, however :-) -- RoySmith (talk) 14:35, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

You should be very careful with IP bans: sometimes they're shared

You recently had me and who knows what other amount be unable to do mobile editing since you banned an IP due to an investigation on a possible sockpuppet. What seemed particularly annoying is that you should have noticed the IP itself (had minimal troubling behaviour). --181.115.61.86 (talk) 05:11, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Txbiassss

Hey Roy, I hope you're doing well. I just archived Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Txbiassss, and, immediately after archiving, realised that the case move was done as a section move as opposed to a case move, with the page history still living under a redirect at Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/KIENGIR, which is otherwise empty. Not sure whether that was intentional (and if it wasn't, whether it needs fixing), but I thought I'd bring it up because it struck me as unusual and I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. Best, Blablubbs|talk 19:39, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Blablubbs, I suppose it should have been done as a case move. To be honest, however, I'm sure there are other clerks who are more expert at such process details than I am. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:57, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Blablubbs, I didn't give you a very good answer the first time. My apologies. What I was thinking was that if this was a brand new case, I would have moved the entire case, but since it was an existing case, I just moved the one section. Of course, it was really the one and only section. So, yeah, moving the entire case would probably have been the right thing to do. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:30, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

No worries, thanks for the explanation. :) Blablubbs|talk 18:05, 16 April 2021 (UTC)