User talk:Risker

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On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog


Stats for pending changes trial
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Cases
Category:Wikipedia semi-protected pages
User:Writ_Keeper/Scripts/orangeBar.js in case I need it
User:Risker/Mauricie
{{OversightBlock|sig = ~~~~}} signs the template.

Useful things for me to remember or I will never find them again, plus archive links

Notes

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[2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
WP:ARBAP2
{{subst:W-screen}} {{subst:User:Alison/c}} Wikipedia:SPI/CLERK and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Indicators


Note to self: Consider writing an article about the Forster Family Dollhouse in the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Some day.

Listeria Bot Wikipedia:New_page_patrol_source_guide#Africa

Emergency desysops
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Other note to self re "emergency" desysops:

  • Spencer195, Marskell, Cool3 - Level 1
  • Hemanshu - committee motion, mischaracterized as "emergency desysop" on noticeboard, desysop occurred minutes before the motion passed.
  • Sade - to check "involuntary per arbcom", Feb 09
  • RickK/Zoe - July 08. Long dormant admin accounts, shared compromised password.
  • Eye of the Mind - Dec 07. Main page deletion.
  • Shreshth91 - done at request of single arbitrator, Aug 07.
  • Vancouverguy - Jun 07. Long dorman admin account, apparent compromise.
  • Yanksox - Mar 07 - Jimbo desysop, confirmed by Arbcom in full case (DB deletion wheel war)
  • Robdurbar - Apr 07 - mass blocking, self unblocking, deletion. Wonderfool.
  • Husnock - Dec 06. Admitted shared password, desysop confirmed by Arbcom in full case.

Please post below

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Toronto Wikipedia Day 2025 Reminder

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Sun Jan 19: Toronto Wikipedia Day 2025 Reminder

Hello! Thanks for signing up for Toronto Wikipedia Day 2025. This is a gentle reminder that the meetup is scheduled for this Sunday. Full details are on the sign-up page if you wish to refer to it again.

The meetup will be casual, drop-in format and you are welcome to come & leave at any time to suit your schedule. We have planned different activities and discussion topics for the event. You are encouraged to bring a laptop or tablet if you wish to participate in editing activities or follow along. Please note that the room capacity is 50 individuals and we may arrange other alternative activities for individuals who are unable to enter the room while the room is full.

If you can no longer attend this meeting, please locate your username and remove it from the list so that the organizers can better estimate Sunday's turnout.

Thanks and I hope to see you on Sunday!

OhanaUnitedTalk page 06:06, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

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The Real Life Barnstar
You did a good job with your wiki rabbit holes presentation. I learned a few things! Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 16:13, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks so much, Clovermoss. It was great to see you and also so many other cool people there! Risker (talk) 05:34, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

January 2025 NPP backlog drive – Points award

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The Invisible Barnstar
This award is given in recognition to Risker for accumulating at least 5 points during the January 2025 NPP backlog drive. Your contributions helped play a part in the 16,000+ articles and 14,000+ redirects reviewed (for a total of 19,791.2 points) completed during the drive. Thank you so much for taking part and contributing to help reduce the backlog! Hey man im josh (talk) 19:39, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

New pages patrol May 2025 Backlog drive

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May 2025 Backlog Drive | New pages patrol
  • On 1 May 2025, a one-month backlog drive for New Pages 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) 15:26, 24 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

BoT election 2025

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Hi Risker. Very, very few users have the in-depth, all round experience and institutional memory that you do. Very few have been so engaged on various committees. I once thought I did, but the interest waned somewhat in 2020. I still follow a few things though and write the occasional article, but I've been pretty much put out to pasture by the new generations. I've often wondered how you maintain the enthusiasm I so much admire. The one place you never went was the BoT - I guess you have your reasons although I would have thought you would be a shoe-in for it. Anyways, looking at the lineup for this year's scramble for the two community seats, while the contenders all mean well, it's more like a modern quest for takers for Arbcom (where you are still dearly missed). I'm sure though that you will turn out to vote, so if you do, here's my take on it, and I make no apology for canvassing. Warm regards, Chris. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:47, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Kudpung, thanks for your very kind words, and for stopping by on my talk page. I think probably my "longevity" can be attributed to the fact that I don't stay in one task too long, and after I've been off in "global Wikimedia" land for a bit, I make sure to reground myself in my home project. The one thing I have always really liked about Wikipedia (and the global roles I've taken on) has been that there's always something different to try or do. At the same time, I still fix typos and grammar errors when I see them, just as I did with my very first contributions. Yes, there have been many who have approached me over the course of several years to put my name forward for the Board of Trustees. Little known fact: I was in fact a candidate for an "expertise" seat back in 2015, but I am the first to admit I wasn't qualified for the proposed seat, and the candidate ultimately selected didn't really work out. It was a very strange time in Wikimedia-land, let's just leave it at that. My decision not to run this year has to do with things outside of the Wikimedia world, and until some of those things stabilize I am not in a position to make that commitment, although I don't rule out something down the road if I'm still around.

My preference is to work on time-limited projects with specific goals (as nebulous as some of those goals may seem), and I think the teams I have worked on have had made some significant contributions to the Wikimedia family. Working on those global committees and task forces and working groups has reinforced to me how critical collaboration is for our success. I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of really fine Wikimedians from many projects (as well as affiliates and the WMF), and have learned a lot about how the Wikimedia world works outside of English Wikipedia. I try to bring those lessons home to this project and share that knowledge. I sometimes fantasize about taking a chainsaw to our extremely overwrought policies, because I believe our overkill in this area has a chilling effect on policy development on other projects.

Thanks for sharing your views on the current WMF Board of Trustees candidates. Myself, I am hoping to see a successful candidate coming out of Africa or Asia in particular; I think the challenge in the past has been getting enough voters to coalesce around one or two of those candidates to result in their success. While I'm pretty sure that, no matter what, there is likely to be a successful candidate from English projects (which I'll note have the most diverse and globalized editorial base of any project), it would sure be nice to see someone from a region that hasn't had their feet under the table before. Risker (talk) 04:04, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much for a long and lovely reply! I've not got around all the nooks and crannies of the movement as much as you have, living where I do makes it a bit awkward (and unable to sit in a plane for more than a couple of hours these days and that's why I didn't even fly down to Singapore although I could have driven there - I haven't been out of Asia now since Esino Lario), but I've been around long enough to know what works and what doesn't, and to realise how much I, and I'm sure many others appreciate your work. Your quip with the chainsaw echoes my thoughts entirely, and some of it is exactly at the root of the problems at NPP which has been my hobby horse here for nearly 20 years. Our MoS itself would make any E-in-C of a newspaper of record blanche in horror. There's a PhD thesis out there just waiting to be written on Wikipedia's Policies and Guidelines. Our notability rules alone are over 5 hours of reading for a well educated native English reader! (I know because I did it in a bored moment not so long ago, just to prove a point).
The WMF ignores, perhaps not deliberately, that we volunteers also have the skill sets - and better ones too - than the salaried devs who can can write good code, agreed, but they don't know enough about addressing the various audiences desire for compelling UX and UI design. Instead, they imagine what's needed and spend fortunes on it without it having any measurable impact at all. And that's one of the reasons why a robust BoT is needed and someone who can stimulate some positive action there. Above all, many of us would like to see a board that is more accessible and mostly populated by our peers.
I do share your thoughts about Africa and Asia but IMO the current line up falls short of the really required quals and global knowledge. IMO there are almost certainly other opportunities for them to acquire important roles without needing to be on the Board right now. Do enjoy your trip to Nairobi, (it's been decades since I was last in Africa). Take care. Chris. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:08, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See now, here's where we differ in candidate assessment. There are at least two candidates, one from Africa and one from Asia, who I personally am aware have solid experience on global Wikimedia task forces and/or committees; it's just that you probably haven't heard their names as often as the candidates you prefer, as both of them make most of their contributions on projects or in areas other than English Wikipedia. I'm still looking at other candidates; I agree that there are several with insufficient experience - but there always are. Risker (talk) 06:54, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't disagree with you at all. I saw those candidates and one from Europe. I am biased however, because the en.Wiki realises most of the money and probably has the most urgent software needs (both editors and other audiences) before processes such as NPP (arguably the most essential of all the backroom operations) get out of control. Therefore we need partners who have not just a bunch of PhDs amongst them but who understand our systems and priorities rather than rubber-stamping the Foundation's high speed expansionism and spending. Also, previous compositions from the non-community contingent have not always been particularly friendly towards the volunteers. Somehow this decades old gaping chasm between the WMF and the volunteer communities has to be bridged, and the BoT is the only organism that could do it officially and effectively if they wanted to. I'll be happy if both of my candidates make the shortlist. People who can "give real thoughtful guidance and oversight" — Jimbo Wales. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:43, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]