Wikinews:Admin action alerts

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05:40, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

IP 107.0.69.180

Disruptive edits BigKrow (talk) 15:44, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

User:Gryllida

Blocking users for false reasons! --2601:243:D01:1F20:98E6:F9F5:6608:73D9 (talk) 23:21, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

2601:IP:243:D01:1F20:98E6:F9F5:6608:73D9

Disruptive edits BigKrow (talk) 23:26, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

User:Theserbianembassy

Please block vandalism account BigKrow (talk) 14:59, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

@BigKrow Please use {{user}} template each time you are reporting a vandal It helps to save time as I don't need to copy paste their username in URL bar

Theserbianembassy (talk · contribs)

Thanks for the report, I see the user was warned, replied wit a bit of noise, and then stopped for a few hours. I will monitor their future edits and attempt to respond quickly if needed. Gryllida (talk) 21:38, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Im getting into ur head watchout THEY'RE IN THE WALLS THEY'RE IN THE WALLS THEY'RE IN THE WALLS THEY'RE IN THE WALLS THEY'RE IN THE WALLS THEY'RE IN THE WALLS THEY'RE IN THE WALLS THEY'RE IN THE WALLS THEY'RE IN THE WALLS THEY'RE IN THE WALLS THEY'RE IN THE WALLS THEY'RE IN THE WALLS THEY'RE IN THE WALLS THEY'RE IN THE WALLS Theserbianembassy (talk) 04:27, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

@Gryllida, @Theserbianembassy BigKrow (talk) 10:55, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Thank you Leaderboard for the block. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 15:09, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Retraction needed for copyvio

The published and protected article "Lion mauls, kills teenage girl in Kenya" is almost entirely copied and pasted content from another source[1] and should therefore be retracted. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 14:20, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

After reviewing the Gazeta Express article, it appears they copied content from Wikinews, not the other way around. Their links point to Wiki content, as ours do. Republishing our content under their own copyright violates our WN:Copyright policy. I will notify legal to see if they want to pursue it further. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 15:25, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

yay thanks Gryllida (talk) 23:13, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Copyvio correction needed in edit protected article

The article "Nuclear negotiations between US and Iran commence in Muscat, Oman" includes multiple instances of verbatim and near-verbatim copying from sources, including an entire sentence. As the article is edit-protected, an administrator will need to correct the issue.

These problems were identified several days before the review and were even explicitly highlighted by the publishing reviewer [2]; however, neither the article's contributors nor the reviewer addressed them, and the copied content the reviewer highlighted was published.

This is not an isolated case. I previously removed copied content from the published article "Explosion in Iran's largest port, Shahid Rajaee, heard 50 km away, leaves dozens killed, thousands injured" [3] before it too was edit-protected. This follows the explicit publication of plagiarized content in "Competitive local elections held in England."

As noted at Water cooler: Reaffirming Core Policies, these actions violate core policies and undermine our credibility.

All three articles were published by the same reviewer, who has stated they "do not verify everything in all instances" and that this "may or may not be problematic." [4] It is now safe to say it is demonstrably problematic.

The same reviewer has also recently posted to Wikinews:Water cooler/assistance asking, "What is acceptable copyvio % for article to be legally accepted as CC licence which is used at Wikinews?" [5], which reflects either a concerning lack of understanding of, or a disregard for core reviewer responsibilities and long-standing Wikinews policies, guidelines, and norms.

Plagiarism is an existential threat to our legitimacy as a news project. If we do not address this clearly and decisively, we risk further erosion of trust from contributors, readers, and the Wikimedia movement at large. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 21:39, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Michael.C.Wright

1. I am looking at the copyvio report with a confused face. Several quotes, and the "Araghchi had said ahead of the discussions that his country wanted a "fair agreement". said his country is not seeking war, nor a nuclear bomb. Representatives of both countries described the meeting as "constructive" and confirmed a second round of discussions will take place next week" part, are flagged as plagiarism. I can either remove these two sentences completely, or reword them, and add a correction. I chose the "reword and add a correction". You're now welcome to sight the edit.

2. I identified these issues and asked another contributor to fix them. I would appreciate if you figured out who that contributor was, and left them a message at their talk page. (This does not diminish responsibility of reviewer to be vigilant, but it is an important additional action I am suggesting.) I think it would be appropriate given that you are highly concerned about the outcome, that not only the reviewer, but also the user also knows.

3. No further action required.

4. No further action required.

5. No further action required (short of aiming to avoid it in future). I'm noting that the review was done two days before I added earwig copyvio checker to the 'review' and 'developing' templates. While in 'developing' template this works consistently and the link shows, I find that in the 'review' template the link is missing half of the time. This means that, to review, I click 'edit', change 'review' to 'develop', click 'Publish changes', click 'Show Preview' (please, find that person who made it two clicks to Preview instead of one, and ask them to be sentences to clicking two clicks instead of one click for every click remaining in their life - this is a disastrous UI decision), click the earwig link, close the 'save edit' dialog, press Esc, confirm i wanna discard the edit, and then proceed to read the copyvio report in new tab. At least the link should show in the 'review' template every time consistently, not half of the time. It would be nice to get that fixed. The link helps me a lot and would help even more if it worked. [Not that I am avoiding using it if it's missing, now, but reducing this pain would be nice.]

6. Discussion caused result 'reword and quote brightest part of the quote, not whole thing'. I have put it in my notes for what to request for requested revisions. No further action required from there currently, other than fixing the technical issue from item 5, as it makes it harder to provide such feedback. Still it is much better than on April 21 and earlier, when the copyvio checker link wasn't there!

7. That's not an actionable sentence, no action required.

Please let me know if there is anything else remaining in the to-do. Gryllida (talk) 11:19, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

The full list of articles I have added edit requests to for copyvio is below. I only checked the articles published in April. There may be more. One suggested action by the reviewer would be to check the articles they have published so far this month as well.

• Nuclear negotiations between US and Iran commence in Muscat, Oman
• Explosion in Iran's largest port, Shahid Rajaee, heard 50 km away, leaves dozens killed, thousands injured
• Competitive local elections held in England
• Sandstorm in Iraq leaves thousands hospitalised
• South African Civil Aviation Authority attributes helicopter crash to 'unsecured' penguin in the cabin
• Researchers film colossal squid in its natural habitat for the first time

Please also note that since they are edit-protected, only an admin can sight changes. Whoever corrects the copyvio, re-checks with Earwig, and issues the correction should self-sight their changes to immediately remove the copyvio/plagiarism from the published article. Otherwise it remains intact. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 15:29, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

@Michael.C.Wright which of articles are still in need of action? some are already tagged Gryllida (talk) 19:41, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Found 3 that still don't have a correction on them. Took the oldest and revised it. Despite the software limitation not allowing you to sight the edits, I propose that you read them anyway and leave a note here to the effect of 'Yay' or 'Nay', then I will sight them. I hope it is OK. I will proceed to edit the other articles when I have a next moment at the computer as I am currently busy. I will keep you updated. Thank you for your time and attention to this. Regards, -- Gryllida (talk) 21:09, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

[W]hich of articles are still in need of action? I recommend that you begin by reviewing all the articles you published in April for possible copyright violations and unsupported content. I’ve already identified six above. You can use tools like Earwig’s Copyvio Detector, as I did, and also perform a second full review to ensure the articles meet our sourcing and attribution standards.

Given that these issues arose from a decision to perform partial reviews—despite encouraging others to conduct full ones—I believe it's appropriate that you take the lead in addressing them. This is also a valuable opportunity to align practice with policy and help restore confidence in our review process. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 14:25, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

There was a context why it happened and measures taken to avoid copyvios so it is not a current issue. I can elaborate at my talk page if needed.

All, please check for copyvio at time of archival, esp. content prior to April 22 when copyvio checker link was added to templates.

Meanwhile I will tag with Category:Archived by Gryllida at time of archival and aim to clear this tracking category of unchecked edits and copyvios.

Hope it helps. Gryllida (talk) 15:41, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Removing templates on India article

Template:IP:103.179.196.225 BigKrow (talk) 20:56, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

75.166.72.242

Reverting edits to bad language BigKrow (talk) 16:53, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

71.33.178.70

71.33.178.70, vandal. BigKrow (talk) 23:05, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Requested edit to SiteNotice

I would like to make the following changes to the SiteNotice:

• Update message 1: Congrats to Lofi Gurl, BigKrow, Dsuke1998AEOS, and ForTheGrammar for writing the top article of April!
• Add the message: WN:Plagiarism is a proposed guideline. We'd love your opinion on it here: Wikinews talk:Plagiarism

Both changes have been implemented in the code below:

<div class="center">
{{#switch:{{sitenotice/select|13}}
|0=Help revitalize Wikinews. Join the discussion at [[Wikinews:Water_cooler/proposals#Project_proposal_for_2025|Project proposal for 2025]] and/or [[User:Gryllida/Contribute|contribute today]] (no prior skills required!).
|1=Congrats to [[User:Lofi Gurl|Lofi Gurl]], [[User:BigKrow|BigKrow]], [[User:Dsuke1998AEOS|Dsuke1998AEOS]], and [[User:ForTheGrammar|ForTheGrammar]] for writing the top article of April!<br/>Read more [[Wikinews:2025 Boost publication rate/Monthly top article|here]]
|2=Want to know how Wikinews works?<br/>Walk into our '''{{plainlinks|{{fullurl:Wikinews:Newsroom|action=purge}}|Newsroom}}'''!
|3=Have you read about [[Wikinews:Article layout in a nutshell|'''how you write a ''Wikinews'' article''']]?
|4=Would you like to help with audio news? Get started [[Wikinews:Water_cooler/proposals#Audio_news|here]].
|5=Have you read about the [[Wikinews:Pillars of writing|'''basic principles we follow in writing our articles''']]?
|6=Found an interesting event today, but no time to write a full story? Share it on [[WN:IRC|live chat]] or [[WN:Requested articles|write a news tip]] now!
|7=Fancy editing a draft of a news story? Check out our drafts in the [[Newsroom]]!
|8=Are you an avid forum user? Visit [[Wikinews:Water cooler]], pick your favorite forum, and 'subscribe' today.
|9=Fancy a chat? Join our [[WN:IRC|live chat]] and meet a citizen journalist or two.
|10=There is a proposal to change how we archive published articles. Comment and vote [[Wikinews:Water_cooler/proposals#Update_to_archival_process|here]].
|11=There is a request from [[User:Darkfrog24|Darkfrog24]] for reviewer permissions. Please comment and vote [[Wikinews:Flagged revisions/Requests for permissions/Darkfrog24|here]]
|12=[[WN:Plagiarism]] is a proposed guideline. We'd love your opinion on it here: [[Wikinews talk:Plagiarism]]
}}
</div>

Thank you in advance! —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 17:13, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Done Leaderboard (talk) 06:46, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Archived page not protected

"International Asteroid Warning Network issues alert on asteroid 2024 YR4 impact risk in 2032" is published and marked as archived but not edit-protected. It was recently vandalized.[6]

Can an admin protect it please? Thank you in advance. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 01:15, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Done Leaderboard (talk) 06:45, 21 May 2025 (UTC)