User talk:B

I'm semi-inactive. There are more important things in life.

If you're an admin looking to ask about a block or delete I made, feel free to reverse it. If we would grant each other the presumption that we are acting in good faith, we could dispense with some of the drama and long ANI threads. Please don't use the {{talkback}} template - if you have something to say, say it.

If you are asking me to review a situation, please provide links to articles and diffs to the edits in question — I cannot read your mind to figure out what you are talking about.

Archives

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This page has archives. Sections older than 120 days may be auto-archived by if there are more than 10.

Season Greetings

Merry Christmas B

Hi B, I wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year,
May next year be prosperous and joyful.
–Scopecreep ^{Merry Xmas / Happy New Year} 10.43, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Scouting Newsletter: May 2024

WikiProject Scouting | May 2024

Notes for May:

Looking for something to work on? Try looking at, Category:Scouting articles needing attention.

Some important articles that need help: The Scout Association, NAYLE, Philmont Training Center, BSA Leadership Training, COPE

We are working to develop a featured portal, look here if you want to help.
Looking for a new project? perhaps authoring an article on Aids to Scoutmastership

Other ways to participate:

--evrik ^(talk) May 22, 2024

2023-03-01

Suspension of autopatrolled permission due to inactivity

Hello B. Following a request for comment in May 2025, the community has decided to implement an activity requirement for the autopatrolled permission. Because your account has not edited in the last three years, the autopatrolled permission has been removed from your account. This action is purely procedural and does not affect your ability to create articles; if you return to actively creating articles, you may request that the permission be restored through the normal process. When returning, please consider taking some time to re-familiarize yourself with common practices and how they may have changed over the past few years if you wish to request the permission back. Thank you for all of your contributions to Wikipedia, and we hope to see you again soon. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:19, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Always precious

Ten years ago, you were found precious. That's what you are, always. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:29, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

B-bot tagging orphaned for blocked users

Just a suggestion that it might be a good idea to revise B-bot to not tag users who are currently blocke (or perhaps just indef block only). For example see diff and its rollback by an admin at diff. Beyond their in ability to participate, as a blocked user, it might actually encourage disruptive users to circumvent their block by inappropraite means. It is better to not poke the bear. TiggerJay (talk) 19:30, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Tiggerjay: The easiest way to block a bot from a page is to add the {{Nobots}} template to it. You can also do {{bots|deny=B-bot}} to block B-bot in particular. (I will also skip pages with {{Deceased Wikipedian}}.) --B (talk) 20:14, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just curious, from a procedural / best-practice standpoint: should adding that template be done proactively or reactively to a talk page? It seems to me that it should be automatically applied (or always check by bots) to all blocked users to avoid provoking a user to consider block-avoidance behavior. But perhaps there is a reason/perspective I'm not considering? TiggerJay (talk) 20:33, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking about the difficulty in programmatically ascertaining, "is this user banned and never coming back, no way, no how", are they "banned, but allowed to appeal after six months", or are they "blocked for right now, but if they ask really nicely to come back and promise to behave, they will be given a second chance". I think that yes, it would definitely make sense to add {{nobots}} as a matter of course for users who are "banned and never coming back, no way, no how" (or just protect their talk pages). For anyone else? If someone has a really strong opinion about denying this person notifications, they can add {{nobots}} to their talk page. And, of course, this is just my opinion - if the community decides at WP:BAG or after a discussion (maybe at WP:VPT) that bots should always skip over indefinitely blocked users, then we can certainly do that. --B (talk) 21:39, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, I can see the difficulty in a bot discerning what the nature of the block is and the risk of them receiving notifications. Just trying to be helpful, and thank you for the work and efforts of your bot! This is situation has probably only occurred a handful of times (to me) in the last 18 years for me, so I don't think it's a big problems, but enough to make me ask the question. Thanks again. TiggerJay (talk) 04:17, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

B-bot query

Hi B. Can you think of a reason why this IP is altering the dates of {{ornfud}} templates added to non-free files by B-bot? Is there an issue with B-bot? That's all the IP did for about ten minutes after editing for the first time earlier today. -- Marchjuly (talk) 11:11, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good morning @Marchjuly:, that is not my IP address. An IP lookup says it is from the Philippines. I am in the United States. The edits are all tagged as mobile edits, so I assume it's a human doing it manually for some reason. I couldn't even begin to guess why. B (talk) 13:34, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for takng a look. At first, I thought it might be a test edit, but the same edit was made to so may files over such a short period of time that a "test edit" seems unlikely. If it was a registered account, the edits could've been an attempt to reach WP:AUTOC, but that wouldn't matter to an IP. I can't think of any reason for the change from a policy standpoint, but it only adds a date to the WP:F5 countdown that started when B-bot tagged the files; so, I guess it's not a huge deal. If the IP account comes and does something similar or looks like they're trying to game dates, I'll bring it up for discussion at AN. Thanks again for taking a look. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:08, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Got a notice from B-bot

I got a notice from B-bot about an orphaned file up for deletion. However, I did not upload it. [1] Auric talk 18:06, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. There is a ton of history in that image and from eyeballing it, you have roughly the 100th oldest edit. I'm guessing/assuming that has something to do with it? I will take a look and see if I can fix it, but my guess is it's very much an edge case if there is a gigantic history to the image. B (talk) 13:58, 9 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

B-bot deletion question

Hi B – I have a question for you regarding a non-free image that B-bot has marked for deletion. I'm wondering if it would be possible to make an exception for this particular image.

Here's the situation: I have a COI for the article this image pertains to, and have submitted a COI edit request to make a number of updates – including adding the logo for the organization that is the subject of the article. I uploaded the image to ensure it was available for whomsoever ultimately makes the requested updates but, because I cannot add the image to the article myself, it will remain orphaned until those updates are implemented.

Would this situation qualify as a "reasonable exception" under Section F5 of speedy deletion?

Thanks for your help! TMM Jonathan (talk) 19:43, 9 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@TMM Jonathan I have restored the deleted image and added it to the article Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts. The COI guideline shouldn't prevent someone from making a completely non-controversial cleanup change (like adding a logo), but I completely understand wanting to make absolutely sure that you don't - even when well intentioned - run afoul of anyone's idea of what might constitute "controversial". --B (talk) 00:53, 10 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for addressing this so swiftly – I appreciate your help! TMM Jonathan (talk) 14:01, 10 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mute

Hi, for some reason the mute isn't working for your bot. Can you stop B bot from spamming my talk page with messages in future, thanks. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:48, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

{{bots|optout=all}} is not a syntax, AFAIK, that existed when I created the bot. I just looked at my code and I will obey {{bots|optout=orfud}}, {{nobots}}, {{bots|deny=BBot}}, or a few other things. I have added {{nobots}} to your user talk page, which I think is what you want, but if you prefer one of the other syntaxes, that will work too. --B (talk) 15:05, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Guide to temporary accounts

Hello, B. This message is being sent to remind you of significant upcoming changes regarding logged-out editing.

Starting 4 November, logged-out editors will no longer have their IP address publicly displayed. Instead, they will have a temporary account (TA) associated with their edits. Users with some extended rights like administrators and CheckUsers, as well as users with the temporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right will still be able to reveal temporary users' IP addresses and all contributions made by temporary accounts from a specific IP address or range.

How do temporary accounts work?

Editing from a temporary account

When a logged-out user completes an edit or a logged action for the first time, a cookie will be set in this user's browser and a temporary account tied with this cookie will be automatically created for them. This account's name will follow the pattern: ~2025-12345-67 (a tilde, year of creation, a number split into units of 5).
All subsequent actions by the temporary account user will be attributed to this username. The cookie will expire 90 days after its creation. As long as it exists, all edits made from this device will be attributed to this temporary account. It will be the same account even if the IP address changes, unless the user clears their cookies or uses a different device or web browser.
A record of the IP address used at the time of each edit will be stored for 90 days after the edit. Users with the temporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right will be able to see the underlying IP addresses.
As a measure against vandalism, there are two limitations on the creation of temporary accounts:
- There has to be a minimum of 10 minutes between subsequent temporary account creations from the same IP (or /64 range in case of IPv6).
- There can be a maximum of 6 temporary accounts created from an IP (or /64 range) within a period of 24 hours.

Temporary account IP viewer user right

How to enable IP Reveal

Administrators may grant the temporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right to non-administrators who meet the criteria for granting. Importantly, an editor must make an explicit request for the permission (e.g. at WP:PERM/TAIV)—administrators are not permitted to assign the right without a request.
Administrators will automatically be able to see temporary account IP information once they have accepted the Access to Temporary Account IP Addresses Policy via Special:Preferences or via the onboarding dialog which comes up after temporary accounts are deployed.

Impact for administrators

It will be possible to block many abusers by just blocking their temporary accounts. A blocked person won't be able to create new temporary accounts quickly if the admin selects the autoblock option.
It will still be possible to block an IP address or IP range.
Temporary accounts will not be retroactively applied to contributions made before the deployment. On Special:Contributions, you will be able to see existing IP user contributions, but not new contributions made by temporary accounts on that IP address. Instead, you should use Special:IPContributions for this (see a video about IPContributions in a gallery below).

Rules about IP information disclosure

Publicizing an IP address gained through TAIV access is generally not allowed (e.g. ~2025-12345-67 previously edited as 192.0.2.1 or ~2025-12345-67's IP address is 192.0.2.1).
Publicly linking a TA to another TA is allowed if "reasonably believed to be necessary". (e.g. ~2025-12345-67 and ~2025-12345-68 are likely the same person, so I am counting their reverts together toward 3RR, but not Hey ~2025-12345-68, you did some good editing as ~2025-12345-67)
See Wikipedia:Temporary account IP viewer § What can and can't be said for more detailed guidelines.

Useful tools for patrollers

It is possible to view if a user has opted-in to view temporary account IPs via the User Info card, available in Preferences → Appearance → Advanced options → Enable the user info card
- This feature also makes it possible for anyone to see the approximate count of temporary accounts active on the same IP address range.
Special:IPContributions allows viewing all edits and temporary accounts connected to a specific IP address or IP range.
Similarly, Special:GlobalContributions supports global search for a given temporary account's activity.
The auto-reveal feature (see video below) allows users with the right permissions to automatically reveal all IP addresses for a limited time window.

Videos

How to use Special:IPContributions
How automatic IP reveal works
How to use IP Info
How to use User Info

Further information and discussion

For more information and discussion regarding this change, please see the announcement from the Wikimedia Foundation at Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF) § Temporary accounts rollout.

Most of this message was written by Mz7 (source). Thanks, 🎃 SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 02:48, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]